Fucking RTwP in Project Eternity? HOW DOES IT WORK? TB vs RTwP

[Captain Shrek]

I never found it particularly twitchy either. Never understood those complaints. Believe it or not, something can be both real-time and slow-paced and methodical.

For example, hordes of real twitch gamers complained about DA:O's "slow" combat.

This is correct. At least in my experience games that slow down action time (Drakensang as mentioned earlier or DA as you said) do in fact make RTwP much more interesting. But then you have essentially made is quasi turn based. Turn based is nothing but the round turn of the player lasting infinitely long until action is taken. A quasi turn based RTwP is ROUND (opposed to Turn) lasting VERY long. The advantage is of both worlds: Fast paced gameplay of RTwP and tactical combat of TB.

 

[Infinitron]

xvart village wasn't a trash mob last time i played ... but that was because all of my party were lv 1-2 F/M/C.
Misc charm animal was really useful instead of a side diversion.

Well, I call them trash mobs because they're weak (one hit kill even for low level PCs) and there are hordes of them.

Having a fight like that would be a major PITA in a turn-based system.

 

[octavius]

xvart village wasn't a trash mob last time i played ... but that was because all of my party were lv 1-2 F/M/C.
Misc charm animal was really useful instead of a side diversion.

Well, I call them trash mobs because they're weak (one hit kill even for low level PCs) and there are hordes of them.

Having a fight like that would be a major PITA in a turn-based system.

It's funny, but I actually felt kind of sorry for the Xvarts, something I never did for the Kobolds and Orcs in Pool of Radiance. I guess the pre-combat dialague and Ursa the bear turning on the Xvarts makes the whole ordeal more personal.
Again, I think this is a good example of the good encounter design in the Baldur's Gate game; little touches that makes it more engaging.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Surely, you see the difference between a gameplay pause and sequential combat?

RTwP is real time that sucks. The pause is an honest admission that fast-paced, party vs party, real-time combat is too chaotic to be controlled on the fly and that AI is too retarded to be relied on, and thus you have to pause this interactive movie to issue some basic orders and show AI how it's done.

Sequential combat is a lot more complex and a turn, yours or the enemy's, isn't a pause - it's a window to plan, respond to what the enemy's up to, execute strategies, and most importantly, ensure that your party members will survive the enemy's turn. In fact, planning for the enemy's turn is what makes TB so interesting. Any idiot can pick some targets to attack during his turn, but making sure that all your men survive the enemy's turns turn and the battle (like in XCOM, for example) is the real challenge.

Excellent points. I had similar observations when playing X-Com: Apocalypse. I have found the level of control over units given by RTwP to be way too fine, almost like cheating, because it allowed me to make split-second decisions without any effort.
I think that besides allowing thinking, TB also represents lack of continuity of command. Normally you can't just click stuff and make people go there.
Assessing situation and giving orders takes time.
That's why RTwP is much less realistic than TB.

I'd love to play a RT squad command game, but it would need to have really advanced soldier AI, SOPs and stuff like that.

If some company ever decides to put a fully competent party AI into a game, their game will immediately stop being a game, since the game will no longer require any input from the gamer. Since the AI would be making competent decisions, the gamer could turn it on and let the computer competently fight all the battles for him, without his ever lifting a finger.

No. Because your soldiers are under your command, not AI command. Your soldiers should be competent soldiers, you should be a competent leader.

 

[l3loodAngel]

RTwP is real time that sucks. The pause is an honest admission that fast-paced, party vs party, real-time combat is too chaotic to be controlled on the fly and that AI is too retarded to be relied on, and thus you have to pause this interactive movie to issue some basic orders and show AI how it's done.

I don't know what you are talking about. RTwP usually gives more options and it depends on the difficulty setting if you are going to use them. If you are talking about KOTOR, KOTOR2, then RTwP course sucks, because you can kill a boss in a single game round. But if there is a complex encounter with high difficulty it can both strategic and tactical.

Arcanum and Underrail have TB, but it's not terribly complex. It's just mathematical comparison of stats. Do you have higher much higher dmg or more hp to overcome your enemy?

That being said TB is useless if it doesn't give the player enough options and the overall difficulty is low. While in BG2 I had to plan some battles ahead, use appropriate spells positioning and etc. So the real issue is abilities given to the player, encounter design and difficulty setting that forces you to use or not to use the given abilities.

 

[Black]

Arcanum also has real-time, why won't you use games that do tb well, like JA2, Wiz 8 or ToEE?

 

[l3loodAngel]

Arcanum also has real-time, why won't you use games that do tb well, like JA2, Wiz 8 or ToEE?

Because my point is that neither RTwP, nor TB guarantees anything, it all boils down to the game, ability and encounter design?

 

[visions]

For example, hordes of real twitch gamers complained about DA:O's "slow" combat.

For me, Dragon Age combat was annoyingly slow because the animations took so long. For a while I was alternating between playing DA:O and KOTC and I couldn't help but notice how frustratingly slow DA combat was in comparison due to the animations, even though it is turn based combat that is commonly regarded as slower.

Come to think of it, I'm certain that individual "trash combats" were way faster in KOTC. I guess rtwp could mean slower trash combat but only when the animations are sparing enough to not make everything take longer than they would in turn-based with minimal animations. I don't remember too well how the IE games were in this regard. They were certainly faster than DA due to the less detailed animations but I'm not certain they'd compare favorably to tb with minimal animations, like KOTC.

Telengard said:

If some company ever decides to put a fully competent party AI into a game, their game will immediately stop being a game, since the game will no longer require any input from the gamer. Since the AI would be making competent decisions, the gamer could turn it on and let the computer competently fight all the battles for him, without his ever lifting a finger.​

No. Because your soldiers are under your command, not AI command. Your soldiers should be competent soldiers, you should be a competent leader.

In the context of rpgs they should be my party, as in ideally an extension of me and as such, passive non-entities without my input. They don't need to be intelligent when there's 4-8 of them (as in, few enough that I can manage them all myself), since I want to have full control over them, I don't need the fucking game to play itself. Basically, what Octavius said.

 

[Average Manatee]

My problem with RTwP is this:

What do the various styles of combat test?

TB tests a player's pure tactical ability.
RT tests a player's speed at performing tactics.
What does RTwP test? For the most part, it tests a player's ability to hit the space bar often and pause the game. This is not an intelligent test of a player's ability to plan or execute tactics, it is merely a way to test a player's patience. You could probably win 90% of baldur's gate fights with a level 1 party if you simply paused often enough to kite enemies and spam potions correctly, which is just silly.

TB/RT combination all the way.

 

[Infinitron]

What does RTwP test? For the most part, it tests a player's ability to hit the space bar often and pause the game. This is not an intelligent test of a player's ability to plan or execute tactics, it is merely a way to test a player's patience.

Except that it is. Analyzing the dynamics of the battlefield and knowing when to step in with new orders requires intelligence.

You're acting like pausing in RTwP battles is some kind of tedious exercise in lightning reflexes, like playing a Total War battle at 16x speed or something.

 

[SCO]

xvart village wasn't a trash mob last time i played ... but that was because all of my party were lv 1-2 F/M/C.
Misc charm animal was really useful instead of a side diversion.

Well, I call them trash mobs because they're weak (one hit kill even for low level PCs) and there are hordes of them.

Having a fight like that would be a major PITA in a turn-based system.

I hope that any modern TB combines actions of adjacent initiative enemies

If W2 does not have this, i will rage... hard (though not for mobile bombardment platforms, that should go first in the initiative order, unless the AI is smart enough to retreat the fighters if it can't find a solution or something).

 

[Roguey]

TB vs RTwP? Meh. Try Phase-based versus RTwP. I don't see how anyone could claim the latter is better than the former in any way. The IE games would be better with phase-based combat particularly since 2e D&D is phase-based so they'd have to bend and break fewer rules and no more kiting/interrupting-an-action-with-a-move exploits.

 

[Gozma]

It's funny, but I actually felt kind of sorry for the Xvarts, something I never did for the Kobolds and Orcs in Pool of Radiance. I guess the pre-combat dialague and Ursa the bear turning on the Xvarts makes the whole ordeal more personal.
Again, I think this is a good example of the good encounter design in the Baldur's Gate game; little touches that makes it more engaging.

That's not encounter design - that's writing

 

[Infinitron]

TB vs RTwP? Meh. Try Phase-based versus RTwP. I don't see how anyone could claim the latter is better than the former in any way. The IE games would be better with phase-based combat particularly since 2e D&D is phase-based so they'd have to bend and break fewer rules and no more kiting/interrupting-an-action-with-a-move exploits.

What sort of phase-based? Frozen Synapse-style, which is essentially RTwP with restricted pausing (only once every n seconds)? Or something more akin to a turn-based system where you give everybody orders simultaneously, like in certain blobbers?

 

[Roguey]

TB vs RTwP? Meh. Try Phase-based versus RTwP. I don't see how anyone could claim the latter is better than the former in any way. The IE games would be better with phase-based combat particularly since 2e D&D is phase-based so they'd have to bend and break fewer rules and no more kiting/interrupting-an-action-with-a-move exploits.

What sort of phase-based? Frozen Synapse-style, which is essentially RTwP with restricted pausing (only once every n seconds)? Or something more akin to a turn-based system where you give everybody orders simultaneously, like in certain blobbers?

The latter since that's how 2e worked. Everyone chooses their actions beforehand then everyone rolls for initiative and everything happens in order of initiative (near-simultaneously in the case of a computer game).

 

[Average Manatee]

What does RTwP test? For the most part, it tests a player's ability to hit the space bar often and pause the game. This is not an intelligent test of a player's ability to plan or execute tactics, it is merely a way to test a player's patience.

Except that it is. Analyzing the dynamics of the battlefield and knowing when to step in with new orders requires intelligence.

You're acting like pausing in RTwP battles is some kind of tedious exercise in lightning reflexes, like playing a Total War battle at 16x speed or something.

Except the right moment to step in is, for the most part, always. RTwP is just a test of how much you want to micromanage. Not how good you are at micromanaging, which is what RT does, but how much you can put up with it.

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey
TBH in practice there's no difference between the two, it's just a matter of presentation.

 

[Infinitron]

Except the right moment to step in is, for the most part, always. RTwP is just a test of how much you want to micromanage. Not how good you are at micromanaging, which is what RT does, but how much you can put up with it.

First of all, no, not "always".

Second, so what? That can be fun. That's part of what I was talking about with regard to trash mobs. RTwP allows players to exert different amounts of intellectual effort into different combats. Are you stocked with healing potions and just want to see your characters duke it out? You can do that. Is this a very important battle that you want to micro-manage? You can do that too. Flexibility!

I can see how someone who is very used to TB would be confused by having that amount of freedom, though. It's sort of like the gameplay analogue of 2D fans who can't deal with rotatable 3D cameras. "But...but...THIS IS SO MUCH TO PUT UP WITH!!"

 

[Roguey]

Roguey
TBH in practice there's no difference between the two, it's just a matter of presentation.

There's a big difference between having official discrete planning and execution phases and not when it comes to the level of control you have. And as I mentioned, this method puts a stop to interrupting actions with move commands so no more kiting exploits.

 

[Infinitron]

There's a big difference between having official discrete planning and execution phases and not when it comes to the level of control you have.

But Frozen Synapse's "pauses" are the discrete planning phase.

Can you explain how, in an isometric game with free movement and phase-based combat, you can prevent somebody from "kiting" you?

Phase 1: Enemy comes up to you.
Planning phase: Attack enemy with melee weapon.
Phase 2: Enemy runs away, your attack fails, you have to run after him.

 

[Roguey]

There's a big difference between having official discrete planning and execution phases and not when it comes to the level of control you have.

But Frozen Synapse's "pauses" are the discrete planning phase.

Can you explain how, in an isometric game with free movement and phase-based combat, you can prevent somebody from "kiting" you?

Phase 1: Enemy comes up to you.
Planning phase: Attack enemy with melee weapon.
Phase 2: Enemy runs away, your attack fails, you have to run after him.

Enemy AI wouldn't pull tricks like that. If they're running up to you, they're going to attack and keep attacking just like they do in every other game.

Edit: Now say if it was a ranged enemy who prefers running away, that's what crowd control's for, whether through a spell or just blocking off avenues of escape through architecture/placement.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[octavius]

It's funny, but I actually felt kind of sorry for the Xvarts, something I never did for the Kobolds and Orcs in Pool of Radiance. I guess the pre-combat dialague and Ursa the bear turning on the Xvarts makes the whole ordeal more personal.
Again, I think this is a good example of the good encounter design in the Baldur's Gate game; little touches that makes it more engaging.

That's not encounter design - that's writing

Talking is also a kind of encounter, especially if it can lead to combat.

 

[Average Manatee]

Except the right moment to step in is, for the most part, always. RTwP is just a test of how much you want to micromanage. Not how good you are at micromanaging, which is what RT does, but how much you can put up with it.

First of all, no, not "always".

Second, so what? That can be fun. That's part of what I was talking about with regard to trash mobs. RTwP allows players to exert different amounts of intellectual effort into different combats. Are you stocked with healing potions and just want to see your characters duke it out? You can do that. Is this a very important battle that you want to micro-manage? You can do that too. Flexibility!

I can see how someone who is very used to TB would be confused by having that amount of freedom, though. It's sort of like the gameplay analogue of 2D fans who can't deal with rotatable 3D cameras. "But...but...THIS IS SO MUCH TO PUT UP WITH!!"

Yes, I would say always. In theory the best way to play IE games is with about 12 pauses per 6 seconds, one for each character to move and one for them to use an action. Even more if you want to actively evade enemies.

"How much time do I want to waste to make the game easier" is not the kind of flexibility that a game should provide. It basically makes balance impossible because you can't control for how much a player wants to pause at any given time. A TB/RT combination handles this much better without asking the player how boring they want to make the game in exchange for how easy they want to make the game.

 

[Infinitron]

"How much time do I want to waste to make the game easier" is not the kind of flexibility that a game should provide. It basically makes balance impossible because you can't control for how much a player wants to pause at any given time.

Once again, in theory, but in practice...

A TB/RT combination handles this much better without asking the player how boring they want to make the game in exchange for how easy they want to make the game.

Yeah, maybe. I'd love to see that implemented well someday. Perhaps one of the upcoming turn-based Kickstarters will cave in and try to implement RT as well.