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

[cutterjohn]

Only problem with TB is that when you add animations every battle becomes very time-consuming as you wait for NPC #12 to run up to his target, swing his sword and miss.

Makes me wonder if an RPG with very slow paced TB combat wouldn't work if combat was uncommon. Obviously it wouldn't appeal to people who need the combat to be super fast, but if you have 1 combat encounter that takes 30 minutes, or 10 encounters that take 3 minutes each the total amount of time is still the same. Space would need to be filled with other stuff, though, or it could be too much walking.

Doesn't actually take long for them to run up and miss, but I guess that you've never played a TB tactical(or RPG) game then eh?

RT is just mindless, and the AI suffers ENORMOUSLY, as in I've yet to really play a RT(even wit teh pause) that's nearly as fun or REALISTICALLY challenging as TB, and this includes teh UFO series, along with all of teh shit fuckupware games... I still find gold box to be FAR FAR BETTER overall excepting for balance(enemies ALWAYS got LEVELS above your party's cap which in some games REALLY sucked... in later games I figured out how to cheat and move my chars up to what their levels should be beyond the caps, didn't help much but it made it less of an absolute mindless grind at the end...)

[EDIT]
Early and mid-game were perfectly balanced, end game level restrictions were probably just their way of working around processing time restrictions of those days... 16b/early 32b x86...)

Still was challenging even when I "cheated" my party members to their true xp levels in replays.... once I figured out how to do it....
[/EDIT]

 

[Black]

"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."

Well said.

 

[tuluse]

RTS are about thinking fast, making decisions on the fly and under pressure, reacting to things not going as planned, etc. The chaos of war, basically. The pause throws all that out of the window and lets you micromanage and role-play mother hen dotting all over her children.

TB and RT are diametrically opposed systems, each doing a certain combat aspect extremely well. Masters of their respective trades, you might say, whereas any attempt to bridge the gap becomes a jack of all trades by default, be it fast TB aimed to emulate RT or RT with pause aimed to emulate TB.

What if a designer chose RT because he wanted things to happen simultaneously, rather than just "fast"?

 

[Arkadin]

In a war a general doesn't control each cannon individually and doesn't sit behind every gunner, horseman, and pilot. Instead he coordinates everything, deciding when to use what and where. Something like that might work well with large parties in RPG but such RPG would have to be designed for RT from the ground up.

This sounds interesting. I can't remember playing a Real-time RPG with a controllable party (apart from Fallout Tactics ). Maybe it could be similar to a sports game where you can take full control of one character, and send out orders (similar to calling plays) for the others. Could make for some unique design.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

RTS are about thinking fast, making decisions on the fly and under pressure, reacting to things not going as planned, etc. The chaos of war, basically. The pause throws all that out of the window and lets you micromanage and role-play mother hen dotting all over her children.

TB and RT are diametrically opposed systems, each doing a certain combat aspect extremely well. Masters of their respective trades, you might say, whereas any attempt to bridge the gap becomes a jack of all trades by default, be it fast TB aimed to emulate RT or RT with pause aimed to emulate TB.

What if a designer chose RT because he wanted things to happen simultaneously, rather than just "fast"?

You could always use the roguelike approach to turns - all movements/actions for all entities tracked by the game in each turn are taken substantially simultaneously (Still a determination of initiative, but it essentially determines whose attacks are calculated first). Which is actually my favorite system, but I just don't think I've seen it too many proper RPGs.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

In a war a general doesn't control each cannon individually and doesn't sit behind every gunner, horseman, and pilot. Instead he coordinates everything, deciding when to use what and where. Something like that might work well with large parties in RPG but such RPG would have to be designed for RT from the ground up.

This sounds interesting. I can't remember playing a Real-time RPG with a controllable party (apart from Fallout Tactics ). Maybe it could be similar to a sports game where you can take full control of one character, and send out orders (similar to calling plays) for the others. Could make for some unique design.

I believe Final fantasy XIII, noted codex favorite, implemented something along these lines. Essentially you created crude formations in which different characters took on different roles and shifted formations as the situation warranted. Not incredibly tactically deep, though.

 

[Infinitron]

RT with pause aimed to emulate TB.

See, what I've been saying in this thread is that this is a wrong way of looking at things. People who insist on looking at RTwP through the prism of TB, who insist on playing it like it was a gimped TB, are DOING IT RONG. They're just ruining the fun for themselves.

RTwP is its own discipline.

 

[octavius]

So, are there any who have gone from liking RTwP to disliking it?
I get the impression that it's not very well implemented in NWN 2 compared to the IE games.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I understand your point, even if I don't agree with it. DnD has serious problems with a lot of this.

We wanted to have different creatures, and like I said, there even without making BAD character decisions, a lot of characters are completely useless in certain fights. Without a DM there to role-play it all away, it becomes a measurable amount of NON-FUN.

but we are digressing. If we want to talk about how DnD is both awesome and a horrible at the same time, we can have another thread for that.

I didn't play it since I didn't like the first, but don't you play a full party in NW2 ? Because this sounds more like a problem coming of wanting to make a single character orientated D&D game rather than a problem with D&D itself, since having one virtually useless character in a fight happens constantly and doesn't matter much with a full party. And D&D is a template of "party based".

Yeah the example Antony gave is a bit weird. One, you start the game with a lvl17 character. Every level 17 character, even a rogue, should have little problems at the beginning of MotB, if properly equipped. So the solution is to properly equip a newly generated character, as it's a appropriate for a lvl17 char. Second, by that time you have a level 17 wizard in the party. There's nothing in the barrows that a high level mage couldn't handle with little problems. At least, it would be so if her fucking spellbook wouldn't be empty save for a bunch of transmutation spells. I know the thought that a level 17 wizard has a properly filled spell book sounds crazy, but it might just have solved the problem as well.

 

[Johannes]

Don't really mind and good feature that fits the core design well are two different things.

But in the end it's not about the pause. It's about whether you want your simulation to have sequential turns or things to happen simultenously. Then if you want real-time you must further decide how will the player be able to input orders - limited by his speed (manual and mental) with pure RT, or remove that limitation altogether with RTwP. Or go for a phase-based method where you're only able to queue new orders when the game is automatically paused every X seconds, or similar.

Now if you'd actually give some reason why RTwP is bad besides the need to pause constantly? The reasoning in the OP is laughable, sure, preparing for the enemy turn is the most crucial thing in a TB game. As if somehow reacting to the enemys actions would be any less critical when they move simultaneously to you.
You've made it perfectly clear you prefer TB and that's fine, but claiming it is somehow inherently more tactical is just delusional bullshit.

 

[Vault Dweller]

See, what I've been saying in this thread is that this is a wrong way of looking at things. People who insist on looking at RTwP through the prism of TB, who insist on playing it like it was a gimped TB, are DOING IT RONG. They're just ruining the fun for themselves.

I'm not sure what the right way of looking at it is, but I do know that freezing time to react to threats and new developments in the, um, heat of the battle isn't very real-time-y.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm not sure what the right way of looking at it is, but I do know that freezing time to react to threats and new developments in the, um, heat of the battle isn't very real-time-y.

No shit.

RTwP isn't about fighting a real-time battle. In a sense, the real-timiness isn't the point. It's about managing a real-time battle. Pausing, or slowing down/speeding up like in Total War or Myth, are some of your battle management tools.

(this is one reason why NWN2's combat kinda sucks btw, because interface-wise it feels like you get "thrown into" a character and BECOME him, instead of managing him "from above")

 

[Vault Dweller]

The reasoning in the OP is laughable... is just delusional bullshit.

But in the end it's not about the pause. It's about whether you want your simulation to have sequential turns or things to happen simultenously.

The simultaneous thing works best in RTS where you can be attacked by 2 or more groups/armies in different spots at once. In RPGs you often fight 2-3 enemies at a time. How important is it to the design and overall experience that they attack simultaneously rather than sequentially?

Now if you'd actually give some reason why RTwP is bad besides the need to pause constantly?

Like I said several times in this thread, it's bad because if I wanted to pause my game all the time, I would have played a TB game. It's bad because while I can think of good TB games and good RT games, I can't really think of good RTwP games where combat was as enjoyable, and the Infinity Engine game and NWN/KOTOR games are certainly not helping there.

The reasoning in the OP is laughable, sure, preparing for the enemy turn is the most crucial thing in a TB game. As if somehow reacting to the enemys actions would be any less critical when they move simultaneously to you.

You're confusing reacting with preparing. Let's say my troops run toward a building, the enemy opens the door, I hit pause, target the enemy, unpause, my troops start firing (or hacking and slashing), the enemy dies, I pat myself on the back and open another beer. Same scenario in TB. My troops run toward a building, my turn ends, the enemy opens the door and start firing.

I played TB XCOM games and I played RTwP XCOM knock-offs. While you can say that the knock-off sucked on account of being, well, knock-offs, the RTwP made combat feel significantly less tactical and challenging.

My point is in RT, especially with pause, you can react instantly - dodge a fireball, flying towards you, drink a potion, cast a spell, aid a comrade, etc. In TB, once your turn ends, you are a sitting duck and if you didn't prepare, if you didn't ensure that you take less damage, you will lose one turn at a time (unless a game is too easy).

 

[Vault Dweller]

RTwP isn't about fighting a real-time battle. In a sense, the real-timiness isn't the point. It's about managing a real-time battle. Pausing, or slowing down/speeding up like in Total War or Myth, are some of your battle management tools.

Well, if in real-time combat real-timiness isn't the point, I think I see where the problem is.

 

[Infinitron]

RTwP isn't about fighting a real-time battle. In a sense, the real-timiness isn't the point. It's about managing a real-time battle. Pausing, or slowing down/speeding up like in Total War or Myth, are some of your battle management tools.

Well, if in real-time combat real-timiness isn't the point, I think I see where the problem is.

Learn to think outside the box. RTwP is not "Real Time Plus" or "Turn Based Minus". It is its own category. RTwP games play fundamentally differently from both real-time and turn-based.

 

[Johannes]

Let's take an arguably good tactical game that's real-time, Myth games for example. If you'd add active pause there, I don't see how the game would suddenly be much worse for it, at least for someone who doesn't play it for the twitchiness of it.
Actually I don't know, maybe giving actions while paused is already possible in them in single-player.

 

[Johannes]

The reasoning in the OP is laughable, sure, preparing for the enemy turn is the most crucial thing in a TB game. As if somehow reacting to the enemys actions would be any less critical when they move simultaneously to you.

You're confusing reacting with preparing. Let's say my troops run toward a building, the enemy opens the door, I hit pause, target the enemy, unpause, my troops start firing (or hacking and slashing), the enemy dies, I pat myself on the back and open another beer. Same scenario in TB. My troops run toward a building, my turn ends, the enemy opens the door and start firing.

That's more about the mechanics of the individual games than anything. In a RT(wP) game if it works like that, maybe the enemy just shouldn't go and open doors with abandon like that. Now if firing after opening a door has a shorter delay than firing after running at full speed (in RT), then that changes the situation that the enemy has an edge again.

I don't see how being able to react instantly is such an awful thing, not like it's somehow polar opposite to longer term planning (or planning 1 turn ahead at a time). You're reacting to what happened last turn, in a TB game anyway - and you're always anticipating their next action in RT.

RTS are about thinking fast, making decisions on the fly and under pressure, reacting to things not going as planned, etc. The chaos of war, basically. The pause throws all that out of the window and lets you micromanage and role-play mother hen dotting all over her children.

TB and RT are diametrically opposed systems, each doing a certain combat aspect extremely well. Masters of their respective trades, you might say, whereas any attempt to bridge the gap becomes a jack of all trades by default, be it fast TB aimed to emulate RT or RT with pause aimed to emulate TB.

What if a designer chose RT because he wanted things to happen simultaneously, rather than just "fast"?

You could always use the roguelike approach to turns - all movements/actions for all entities tracked by the game in each turn are taken substantially simultaneously (Still a determination of initiative, but it essentially determines whose attacks are calculated first). Which is actually my favorite system, but I just don't think I've seen it too many proper RPGs.

While I like that system a lot it's not quite the same as RT simulation. The roguelike model is based around discrete tiles, and discrete moves that happen instantaneously when it's your turn, just the cooldown for when your next turn will come up is determined by how long an action you just did. It's still turn-based but with a more freeform turn order.
It simply can't do things like physics simulation for game mechanics that RT(wP) can.

 

[Gozma]

It does make the game much worse, because balance is now completely impossible (I haven't played Myth but some other RTS type game should work just as well). With perfect pause-every-100th-of-a-second micro you could win at ridiculous odds in any RTS I've ever played. So now they have to balance every encounter/design the AI to significantly oppose the player at that level of control or the game is now terrible... except no one has the patience to do that, so the whole design becomes a cargo cult trash fight smear you handle how you want.

 

[Infinitron]

It does make the game much worse, because balance is now completely impossible (I haven't played Myth but some other RTS type game should work just as well). With perfect pause-every-100th-of-a-second micro you could win at ridiculous odds in any RTS I've ever played. So now they have to balance every encounter/design the AI to significantly oppose the player at that level of control or the game is now terrible... except no one has the patience to do that, so the whole design becomes a cargo cult trash fight smear you handle how you want.

First of all: Myth isn't an RTS. It's a real-time tactics game. RTS is a different genre which probably shouldn't have pausing.

Second:
This is my argument with Average Manatee all over again.

You don't have to pause all the time. That's doing it wrong. Why ruin the fun for yourself to play like a perfect immortal machine, when you can just play well enough?

 

[Gozma]

Victory is telos!!! LUDIC

Incentivizing boring bullshit is bad design

 

[Gragt]

Then why put a pause in if one shouldn't use it?

 

[Infinitron]

Pausing every micro-second in a RTwP game, in a vain attempt to simulate turn-based gameplay, is OCD craziness. It's in the same category as save-scumming and resting after every battle.

I do agree that games should try to do more to disincentivize such compulsive behaviors, as I've said earlier in this thread.

 

[Gozma]

I guess you want combat to be like minecraft or something, just a sandbox to screw around in, not a thing to solve. But that is really all RPG Rtw/P has been able to do, historically speaking.

 

[Infinitron]

I guess you want combat to be like minecraft or something, just a sandbox to screw around in, not a thing to solve. But that is really all RPG Rtw/P has been able to do, historically speaking.

Utter nonsense, some of the boss battles in the IE games were just a challenging and puzzle-like as anything in any TB game. Probably moreso.

For the nth time: The people who insist on playing RTwP games as if they were a turn-based game, and then complain that it doesn't work, don't have a leg to stand on.
It's like trying to play ARMA the same way you play Doom. These things may look a bit the same, but they are not the same.

 

[Gozma]

If so it was because of the underlying turnbased mechanics like spell-per-round that can't be circumvented by pausing, but I have to take your word for it because I can't remember.

It's in the same category as save-scumming and resting after every battle.

More correct than you meant it to be I think