RTwP is an abomination and harbinger of decline

[vitellus]

I never understood RTwP as a battle system, even when it works well. The party AI in most RTwP games is almost never adequate, so what usually happen is that you either slap the pause button every .5 seconds so you can get the most efficiency out of your party, or just watch them basic attack through the entire game.

this right fucking here has always been my issue. if i have to issue individual fucking orders, just let me turn base that shit, preferably ordered by an initiative roll, but will take the wizardry mass action if need be.

 

[xuerebx]

RTwP can be good for systems where you don't have much direct control on the characters and to create chaotic situations. These two characteristics are probably reason why most of you don't like RTwP, but I have two specific examples that make me think it can work.

The first is Kenshi, where for the most part you just move your characters and tell them who to attack, but they will also move on their own and engage combat if an enemy threatens them. The combat can become really chaotic when a lot of people are involved, some get crippled and keep on fighting, other fall and start bleeding to death. It would not be the same in TB.

The other example is FTL. I know, not an RPG, but a damn good game. Similarly to Kenshi, you just give basics orders to your crew, tell them in which room of the spaceship to go, you allocate power to the subsystems and that's about it. But the fun part is when the combat become really chaotic in the mid- to late-game. You thought your ship was prepared for the upcoming challenge and suddenly you realize things are going really bad, the hull is pierced, oxygen is getting low, some critical subsystems are damaged, etc. Given how good the gameplay is in FTL, I really don't think it would work as well in TB. Sometimes it can get frustrating that you have to spam the pause key to try to manage everything, but it is actually what is intended. You are the captain of the ship and suddenly you are in a dire situation where everything goes to shit on your vessel, you feel that you are loosing control of the situation.

In both games, big parts of combat are the preparation before it and whether you feel like fighting or fleeing. Once combat is engaged, you still have some control, but it is mostly about preparation and how well you assessed the risk. Another important aspect of both games is the damaged accumulated over multiple combats.

But I share the sentiment that most RTwP games would be better in TB. Icewind Dale has been cited already, and I wish it was TB.

This is a great post! You made some very good points on where RTwP can be useful.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

An RPG where RTwP works relatively well is "Tower of Time". But there the combat is a blend of classic combat with a tower defence gameplay, that requires RT.

 

[luj1]

You have shit TB games and excellent RTwP games. Poor argument because RTwP doesn't autotranslate to decline.

 

[gurugeorge]

you either slap the pause button every .5 seconds so you can get the most efficiency out of your party,

Bah, another thread where RTWP detractors don't seem to know that Autopause exists with like a dozen triggers

I'm aware of autopause, but it doesn't change the fundamentals of the system. RTwP introduces an unpleasant staccato effect in battle: it breaks up the action in a jarring way.

With turn-based, combat is mostly in the headspace. You are planning your moves and anticipating that of the opponent's. This preserves a consistent sense of time, despite the turn-based nature.

With RTwP, you can attempt to do the same but the fact that it's realtime makes each pause seem more artificial. You feel less like a participant in a battle and more like some kind of time god, subtly pushing someone's shield up or screaming "toss a fireball here, asshole!"

Hmm, now that you put it that way, yes, I do feel something like that with RTwP, and it is a downside.

That's why I think the best RTwP is where you have extensive control over AI conditionals, and you play the pauses pre-emptively, and play mostly as your main character, so you do in fact feel more like a captain giving orders in the field.

IOW, if you have good AI, you can rely on your guys to do good work most of the time, and you're only "shouting orders" (i.e. pausing) when things get hairy, and in that case more in a pre-emptive sense (as a captain you can spot potential trouble).

Pillars 2 is exceptional when played this way. You can make your guys behave more or less according to how you think of them in rp terms, down to quite a fine grain, and you can mostly directly control your own character - but you have the elbow room of being able to give direct orders when necessary. It works perfectly in Pillars 2 up to second highest difficulty, and even on highest difficulty it works most of the time.

Maybe the problem with RTwP is when people think of it too much in its original sense of being a compromise between real time and turn-based. It was a clever idea, a clever attempt at a compromise, but really what it leads to is a different form of gameplay, where you have better AI and where the player has direct control over that AI. So basically you're ditching most of the link to turn-based, except that you can have somewhat richer tactical combat than you would do if it was strictly realtime, because you can pause and give orders when you need to.

(Someone mentioned Tower of Time above. I gave that a try, and it's an interesting idea, but I find the slow-down too "flabby" to work with, as opposed to strict pausing - more a cause of anxiety than anything else. What I want to retain from turn-based in RTwP is just that precision-at-need, otherwise let it be in real time and let it be heavily reliant on AI that you can control. But that might just be me.)

 

[Blutwurstritter]

RPGcodex was kind of born on the idea that there were alternatives to Baldur's Gate that were better (Fallout).

Yes, this is why the Codex should filter prospective members with one simple question: Do you reject Bioware and all its works?

MDK 2 is a fine game.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

RTWP is a sure sign of a sea of trash mobs. However, there's a limit to what a turn-based game can get away with.

IE games + NWN derivatives aren't rtwp because they aren't real time. Having a discrete time step is the opposite of real time.

Planck time (plural Planck times) (Abbreviated as: tP) (physics) A natural unit of time, equivalent to the time it takes light to traverse one Planck length; it is the smallest duration of time that has physical meaning.

It's the smallest duration that has physical meaning to us because it's the smallest we can observe, that does not mean time is not continuous.

There is no way to determine things that cannot be observed.

 

[Vic]

on today's codex agenda:

what is time?

 

[Tyranicon]

on today's codex agenda:

what is time?

Can Disco Elysium be considered time? I think it should be quarantined to the time subforum.

 

[Arbiter]

on today's codex agenda:

what is time?

 

[luj1]

SCS and IWD2 are superior to all tb games, including kotc2 and toee.

You are one of the greatest retards this forum has ever seen.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

People claiming bg series is for casuals when there's been tons of whining on how people can't handle

I don't find TB games to be inherently harder than RTwP. If anything, my slow brain probably prefers TB because I can leave the game on in the background while I do other things. Like chess or something.

I would say that RTwP was made in mind to appeal to a more casual audience because:

RTwP feels more like a real combat, while TB is heavily abstracted.

TB is inherently more niche, as it is preferred by people who play TTRPGs. Since RTwP was a marked departure from RPG convention at the time, and probably in some way led to a drop to the amount of TB games, some people really don't like it.

Turn-based isn’t. Maybe turn-based tactical combat is, but not turn-based. Because of Final Fantasy, (and yeah, I know, this is the Codex and that’s a Japanese game...but the point still stands) and Square/Square Enix’s output from the PSX to Xbox 360 era in general, the point could actually be made that some version of turn-based combat inspired by classic Wizardry is one of the most mainstream combat systems in games that get called RPGs. That western developers and publishers didn’t capitalize on this, let’s say 15 year window, where JRPGs with turn-based combat regularly outsold western RPGs will never not be fucking odd. And you’ve got to remember, the general idea in the West by like the time Mass Effect was out was that turn-based just wouldn’t sell, you couldn’t do turn-based, this is despite none of the western RPGs even kind of hitting the numbers Final Fantasy 10 got; I’m not even sure BioWare or Obsidian have ever sold as much as Final Fantasy 13 either. Western RPGs (discounting the MMORPG World of Warcraft, although they get destroyed by the Koreans) don’t even start outselling the biggest JRPGs (which have turn-based combat) until like Skyrim...which isn’t even an RPG, it’s just an action game.

It’s actually kind of funny because Final Fantasy 12 did go to a very KotOR style real-time with pause action system, the audience was divided on this, (the majority seemed to not like it) and they went back to turn-based combat with 13.

 

[mondblut]

SCS and IWD2 are superior to all tb games, including kotc2 and toee. They have most of the depth and what they lack in mechanics, they more than make up in not relying on initiative and aoe bullshit.

My god
mondblut you failed so much as a prophet of combatfagottry on this forum that it is not even funny

I have no power to cure stupid, sorry.

 

[Old Hans]

Final Fantasy 12 did go to a very KotOR style real-time with pause action system

that was one of my favorite systems

 

[mondblut]

The pause function in most rtwp games is similar to the pause function in total war games. You're not really supposed to use it.

They fucking advertise themselves as "realtime WITH PAUSE". The pause function is "here, we know our battles are a stupid clusterfuck, take this to make at least some sense out of them".

 

[gurugeorge]

You are one of the greatest retards this forum has ever seen

mondblutian disciples

Sounds like a weird faction in an RPG

 

[Tyranicon]

You are one of the greatest retards this forum has ever seen

mondblutian disciples

Sounds like a weird faction in an RPG

RPGcodex is the best rpg I've played in years.

 

[Mortmal]

You are one of the greatest retards this forum has ever seen

mondblutian disciples

Sounds like a weird faction in an RPG

RPGcodex is the best rpg I've played in years.

Well go there https://novelai.net and consider using their image generator for battle hooker 2, all hope are not lost.

 

[Arbiter]

You are one of the greatest retards this forum has ever seen

mondblutian disciples

Sounds like a weird faction in an RPG

Clearly inspired by Followers of Apocalypse.

 

[Arbiter]

RPGcodex is the best rpg I've played in years.

Infinite replayability.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

RPGcodex is the best rpg I've played in years.

Can't be. There's no combat, just dialog. If I'm understanding the Disco Elysium thread correctly that means the Codex is a CYOA or perhaps a visual novel.

 

[†††]

RPGcodex is the best rpg I've played in years.

Can't be. There's no combat, just dialog. If I'm understanding the Disco Elysium thread correctly that means the Codex is a CYOA or perhaps a visual novel.

The codex has actual builds: shitposter, tranny, vatnik, weeb, simp, decline enabler and so many more!

 

[Tyranicon]

RPGcodex is the best rpg I've played in years.

Can't be. There's no combat, just dialog. If I'm understanding the Disco Elysium thread correctly that means the Codex is a CYOA or perhaps a visual novel.

Anybody who reads the threads here take psychic damage. It's also unavoidable true damage.

 

[WhiteShark]

Can't be. There's no combat, just dialog. If I'm understanding the Disco Elysium thread correctly that means the Codex is a CYOA or perhaps a visual novel.

I'm sure there would be combat if certain Codexers met in person.

 

[Dadd]

We battle using words
When you gain a level you unlock a secret ability to access the nether regions and curse or buff other players