Editorial Bethesda developer explains why TB is obsolete

[Mr. Van_Buren]

My logic is that a roleplaying game not resolving combat via a turnbased strategic system does not eliminate either the role nor the play.

It is my logic that it is not the combat system that defines a roleplaying game, but the dramatic elements and the way in which THEY are resolved.

You logic is flawed because you have not taken into account the name of the genre which defines it:

Role Playing Game

In a role playing game a player can choose to play the *role* of any type of character (strong, smart, fast, slow, dumb, weak, magical, etc). If your hand eye coordination is taken into account in the game, you are no longer playing the role of the character, because your real world skills are affecting the outcomes.

Imagine two fighters equal in skill and equipment were able to fight each other many times. If it was a turn based game, the combat results would be very close. If it was a real time game, the results would be heavily skewed towards the player with the best hand eye coordination. Where is the *role* playing there?

The type of game you want to play is an FPS with dramatic elements. That is not an RPG.

The same acting role, played by two different actors runs the risk of one performence being inferior to another. Does this mean that the character is any more or less valid? However, acting and pretending are often referred to as "roleplaying."

A skilled actor stepping into a role may enhance a character beyond the words on the page, just as a skilled player may enhance a role beyond the numbers in the stats.

To say that a player must be completely divorced from a character or the role is invalidated, is dramaticly unsound.

btw, actors were once called players. Just a little something to think about.

The player's savy is always going to affect and effect the character. One could argue that because players know precise stats for given combat conditions that they are indeed skewing the events in favor of their characters in ways that a character of a given skill level would not accurately anticipate or be able to.

Take for instance "range to hit modifiers" or "knowing" the exact weapon capabilities reguardless of skill level. Hell, seeing an enemy's position from behind several walls with 100% location accuracy is the player skewing a characters combat effectiveness.

Now I've already conceded that character reaction may not be accurately modeled in real time. But to say that roleplaying has to be done in turnbased, because only in turnbased is a player's savy not going to effect the character is a bunch of people lying to themselves.

And I never once said I want it to be real time and first person. You guys just assumed it. Realtime isometric is just fine by me.

 

[Koby]

... Sure, some games require a little thinking in making tactical decisions, but nothing makes you agonize over every decision.

Not a good example but for the record JA2 (not a RPG, granted) made me agonized, but it did so mostly retrospectively (for my bad decisions).

Additionally I don’t want to agonize over every decision, just some of them will be good, and while we are at this topic – if you would *have* to decide between A. offering throughout the entire game only few (lets say for the sake of discussion five or less) good, agonizing multiple ambiguous resolutions (with or without the non ambiguous resolution) and B. a game with scores of decisions moments *but* with only two possible resolutions, and not only that only one of the resolution is of an ambiguous nature (or multiple 'standard' [in the brain-dead kind of way] resolutions with only one of them being ambiguous; option C?).

I'm pretty sure option A is more 'RPG correct' (offer more role-playing hooks), yet I would probably choose option B (and I'm the quality over quantity type). I don’t think making decisions agonizing is the right approach, a better approach would be offering multiple non-ambiguous resolutions, it will be easier to make and implement, and it maintain teh 'RPG correct' element.

 

[sheek]

An RPG doesn't have to be TB... but if combat plays any significant role in the game then it definitely should. The survival of my 'avatar' should not depend on my twitch-skills. Losing the character I built-up with a lot of effort in a stupid fight with a rat (forcing saves/reloads) - because of a misclick - that's just dumb.

Back to game design school, Ricky!

 

[merry andrew]

Realtime isometric is just fine by me.

Yeah, like Lionheart.

 

[Mr. Van_Buren]

Realtime isometric is just fine by me.

Yeah, like Lionheart.

... or van buren

 

[Koby]

Realtime isometric is just fine by me.

Yeah, like Lionheart.

... or van buren

!?

 

[Mr. Van_Buren]

Realtime isometric is just fine by me.

Yeah, like Lionheart.

... or van buren

!?

Van Buren was Fallout 3 before interplay went bust and sold the property. It was going to be both real time combat and 3d. Isometric was at least a likely option as the camera appeared to be positionable. But the project went into the rubish bin during the prealpha stage so who really knows what it would have ended up being.

 

[Koby]

Van Buren was Fallout 3 before interplay went bust and sold the property. It was going to be both real time combat and 3d. Isometric was at least a likely option as the camera appeared to be positionable. But the project went into rubish bin during the prealpha stage so how really knows what it would have ended up being.

I know what Van Buren is, and I think you need to take a better look at the tech demo (and read the developer comments while you are at it).

 

[hakuroshi]

Turnbased in and of itself is an arificial restriction. In no place in nature does one find a natural chronology based on externally imposed pauses. Turnbased has to be one of the most artificial gaming dynamics in existence.

Yes, there is no turn-base in a real life. But we are talking games, and very special games - RPG. It is happened, that such games are games of the mind. In them we are allowed to expirience an imaginary life of an imaginary person who may not resemble real player in any way. The only catch here, is that player must be intelligent enough to enjoy the game. But that is the only restriction. In such conditions turn-based as approximation of real life person actions and tactics in combat, however artifical it may be, works best.
The games you seem to propose, as have been said earlier, are action games with dramatic elements (however deep). Such games may be good and fun to play. But they are very unlikely to provide same true RPG experience as games with turn-based. It may be an opinion of a retard who always sucked at RTS and FPS, admittedly. You probably CAN do full real-time RPG, but it is very hard, much harder then FPS with RPG elements.

A character with intelligence 10 could still make extremely stupid decisions. A player with Science 136 may never try to apply it correctly .. though the character "would."

What can I say? RPGs are not for retards. Same that FPSs are not for reflex damaged.

How a character role is realized is predominantly defined by how faithfully an actor/player can bond with and ultimately portray the character. All stats really do is modify or define the way in which a character can interact with it's enviroment and to what degree.

With that I agree.

But the player must always, to varying degrees, make up for the character's lack of substance just as a character's stats handicap or help in ways the player is lacking.

But not with that. It is player who gives depth to character, it is true. But if skill/stats system is implemented, player should not overcome character handicaps which he himself have chosen when creating, with his superior real life skills. Admittedly, it does not work that simple with intelligence, but at least in crpgs it is possible to adjust options available to stupid/intelligent character.

Characters in Fallout 1 didn't play themselves. Their skills and turnbased combat didn't magicly work themselves out without any player input. To say that it's the character that's doing everything and player skill doesn't actually even matter, is at least partially a fallacy.


Player tactical input was always required, in real time you just don't have the luxury of time stopping while you consider your every move.

acting is reacting.

And I still play chess. But I also love starcraft, which is nothing if not a real time chess game.

The player is a will which make character move. How it moves is totally depends on the character. And players skills and knowledge indeed come to play when no such skills and knowledges are coded in the game. The fallout system does not have skill for tactical combat and tactical decisions are completely in players hands. In fact, what any game must have is a players input. What type of input is depended on the type of the game.

 

[Texas Red]

Yeah, turn based is so 90s. I hope they implent much better systems such as seen in Bloodlines or Jade Empire. Or perhaps the IE games where RT served well. Much better .

 

[Mr. Van_Buren]

Van Buren was Fallout 3 before interplay went bust and sold the property. It was going to be both real time combat and 3d. Isometric was at least a likely option as the camera appeared to be positionable. But the project went into rubish bin during the prealpha stage so how really knows what it would have ended up being.

I know what Van Buren is, and I think you need to take a better look at the tech demo (and read the developer comments while you are at it).

The techdemo plays out in realtime with actions decreasing the little segmented bar in the center of the display. The bar refreshes according to time passed and not player turns terminated.

If it is indeed just continuous turnbased with turns being resolved invisibly, fine. It's the happy medium. Go us.

 

[Mr. Van_Buren]

Yeah, turn based is so 90s. I hope they implent much better systems such as seen in Bloodlines or Jade Empire. Or perhaps the IE games where RT served well. Much better .

Everybody's a comedian.

Bloodlines' own drama is independant of this discussion. Even if they decided to make bloodlines turnbased, it still would have been hamstrung by bad developement.

 

[Mr. Van_Buren]

What can I say? RPGs are not for retards. Same that FPSs are not for reflex damaged.

Ah, but the character isn't a retard so given the nature of RPGs ( as defined in an earlier post ) the character should preform according to his abilities and not that of the hypothetical "retard."

That the character performs according to his abilities and not the players' seems to be the "point" all of you are trying to drive home. And I get it. But everytime you strategicly move and position your character it's your tactical and reasoning skills that are being tested not "john doe's."

The point of view and the combat resolution dynamic just changes your point of reference and the frequency and fluidity by which you have to make those same choices. You're still telling your character where to move to, and you're still telling him where to shoot.

You're worried about reflexes betraying a character, well your spatial reasoning can fail your character in isometric turnbased. You can still screw it up, dispite the fact that a real version of your character might not.

Swords that cut both ways must be a dime a dozen around here.

 

[hakuroshi]

What can I say? RPGs are not for retards. Same that FPSs are not for reflex damaged.

Ah, but the character isn't a retard so given the nature of RPGs ( as defined in an earlier post ) the character should preform according to his abilities and not that of the hypothetical "retard."

That the character performs according to his abilities and not the players' seems to be the "point" all of you are trying to drive home. And I get it. But everytime you strategicly move and position your character it's your tactical and reasoning skills that are being tested not "john doe's."

The point of view and the combat resolution dynamic just changes your point of reference and the frequency and fluidity by which you have to make those same choices. You're still telling your character where to move to, and you're still telling him where to shoot.

You're worried about reflexes betraying a character, well your spatial reasoning can fail your character in isometric turnbased. You can still screw it up, dispite the fact that a real version of your character might not.

Swords that cut both ways must be a dime a dozen around here.

By retards I meant hypothetical wanna-be rpg-players, not in-game characters, who actually may be dumb as bricks Anyway it was a joke, though a lame one
Seriously:
I am not worrying about lack of reflexes, I am worrying that real reflex dependant real time combat heavy rpg will stop beign an rpg at all, or, at least rpg I prefer. RPG is a game for the mind, not body. It is OK to use you intelligence to enhance roleplay and compensate for the skills which are not coded. You perception and spatial imagination are the skills required by rpg, and crpg; not you reflex reaction time. It is OK to fail using them, and mistakes are part of any game, but I want that mistakes to be relevant to the genre.
But it seems that its more the questions of tastes. If you seem to prefere the games you describe, fine with you. But don't be surprised that some will not count them rpgs.

 

[ricolikesrice]

well one can hardly argue with Mr. van buren having a point.

.... a player with good reflexes in a RPG with shooter-like controls will obviously have an advantage that his character may not have (if he plays one that is not good at shooting)

....but also a player with good "tactics knowledge" (for a lack of a better word) will obviously have an advantage that his character may not have (if he plays a dumbfuck brute not good at planning ahead) in a turn-based game.


but i dont get what this has to do with fallout 3.
its not like bethesda games even require twitch skills. they require absolutely nothing and thus they are probably so succesfull.

i wouldnt mind a shooter-like combat if it was about seeking cover and intelligent enemies . i d even less mind a turn-based game, but even TB games can be fucked up.
there s no fun for me in games where your own character has a bazillion of hitpoints and so do the enemies and you basically just stand there waiting for either HP bar going to zero.

i just hope there s some challenge in the game for the combat part (and in the first place i hope the game s focus is NOT on combat alone ). i dont want to stand around in my power armor having 10 raiders empty their clips on me while i chuck stim pack after stim pack and take down one after another... neither in FP nor in ISO TB or RTWP.
but i d bet thats exactly whats gonna happen.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I love some black and white and silient movies, but I'd never consider demanding that the industry should stagnate at my preference.

Sin City and Schindler's List were "stagnation"?

The mind boggles.

 

[DarkSign]

Van Buren was Fallout 3 before interplay went bust and sold the property. It was going to be both real time combat and 3d. Isometric was at least a likely option as the camera appeared to be positionable. But the project went into the rubish bin during the prealpha stage so who really knows what it would have ended up being.

Sure it was 3d...but it was still done from a far (not FPS) and in what looks like isometric.

NMA has links.

 

[aries202]

I'm a bit confused right now as it seems the post about this was made by a person called 'junction'.
It could well be that it is quote from Socratex200X, but then it fails to be in quote tags.

Regardless of whom wrote this, originally, I'm somewhat pleased that Socrates200X openly admits that Halo's combat isn't a true representation of tactical (realtime) combat.

As Brother None (kharn) pointed out in the relevant thread at bethsoft's forums, 'fallout was meant to be like/similar/emulate the PnP RPG experience, in combat as well as in other aspects of the Fallout game'.

However, socrates do have a point about TB combat being a work-around the combat in PnP games, but so is realtime w/ pause, Halo's or Mass Effect's tactical combat.

In a surprising turn of events, card games have now been discovered to ne Turnbased just like Chess or Checkers or Kalaha

As for locational damage, I think there are some FPS games out there that are capable of making the character do locational damage. They are in RT, though, which means that the locationel damage probably are related to some sniperscopething or somehing like that.

As for me, TB isn't a breaking or selling point for me, neither is RT combat. I'm much more interested in if Bethsoft manage to do the setting properly. The release of the trailer seems to make me cautiously optimistic.

 

[Fez]

You could download the code that was released a while ago and have a look at that too.

 

[Kotario]

The techdemo plays out in realtime with actions decreasing the little segmented bar in the center of the display. The bar refreshes according to time passed and not player turns terminated.

If it is indeed just continuous turnbased with turns being resolved invisibly, fine. It's the happy medium. Go us.

There is information out there on this, if you care to look.

The game was intended to be played either as turn-based or real-time. Because Jefferson was real-time, that was the first combat mode implemented for Van Buren. Even what's there is only partially working. There's no pause (super sucky) or called shots, but weapons did their proper damage types and values, armor resisted properly, and it actually did calculate hit location. In the combat log, it will say where the shots hit and the characters will float comments like, "GOD DAMMIT MY EYES!"

 

[Jasede]

A real RPG, I mean a really really real RPG, should not have RT or TB combat because both depend on player skill. Ideally, all combat is automatically resolved with the result depending on your character. Eventual moral choices in the combat should be presented through text-boxes. (Kill the unconscious villain? Shackle him?).

 

[denizsi]

Dumbfuck Mr. Van_Buren already.

Well I can get a fireball spell and twitch like mad with it, while bunnyhopping, circle-strafing, and such. Seems pretty close to a first-person shooter.

You couldn't do these in Daggerfall.

Van Buren was Fallout 3 before interplay went bust and sold the property. It was going to be both real time combat and 3d. Isometric was at least a likely option as the camera appeared to be positionable

Now this is addressed at all the fuckers who thought isometric vs. orthographic / paralllel projection debate was retarded: he writes as if Isometric = 2D and 3D is a whole different beast, and the replies to that are no less. Saying "It was going to be 3D but iso was a likely option" is ridiculous. What does he mean anyway? The tech demo was 3D with dynamic orthographic projection already, so it is already both isometric and more than isometric. This specific debate doesn't even amount to anything coherent. You are so clueless you can't even fucking communicate! Why? Just because you are perfectly happy being arrogant illiterates, not learning some technical but simple details. If only you cut the dickheadness and took the time to learn and spread the correct terminology.

 

[Oarfish]

FPS games out there that are capable of making the character do locational damage

Soldier of fortune did a pretty good job of that.

 

[Calis]

Dumbfuck Mr. Van_Buren

Fuck that.

 

[denizsi]

And I never once said I want it to be real time and first person. You guys just assumed it. Realtime isometric is just fine by me.

Given the nature of the setting, the frequency of conflict expected, and the time all that would absorb, I'd prefer that it wasn't turnbased.

He prefers it not be TB but he doesn't specifically want it to be RT either.

FPS games out there that are capable of making the character do locational damage

Soldier of fortune did a pretty good job of that.

No, it didn't. It made the player do locational damage. I did all the aiming myself.