Baldur's Gate RTwP vs TB in Baldur's Gate 3 - Discuss!

[Ismaul]

It isn't simulataneous, though.

Right. I meant by that that characters didn't play their full turn in sequential order, but rather that resolution happens for everyone at the same time, in order of action speed. If you attack multiple times each attack happens at a different moment. Though if I remember correctly, actions of the same speed/initiative would occur simultaneously.

 

[Riddler]

Saying either system is inherently superior is stupid imo. Both can have tactical depth or be piss easy, and they have different advantages/disadvantages.

Personally I prefer RtwP because it has a faster combat and because of the simultaneous resolution.

I would still like to see an evolution of formula however. It is true that RtwP can devolve to to Pause with Real time, which is a prominent issue in both PoEs. One part of this is of course designing the classes for party play and not solo play. There should a good mix of active and passive classes so that you don't have to pause every millisecond.

There are other things you could adjust however. One thing I've been considering is to make pausing a limited resource you consume. Let's say you get 1 pause at the start of combat and then 1 more during combat. This would mean that you would have time to take in the encounter and then possibly pause to make some adjustments/set up an important spell midway through.

Perhaps 2 pauses per combat is too limiting, I don't know, but I feel like this is something worth exploring. The point of RtwP isn't to spend half your time in pause after all. Limiting pausing would set clear design imperatives for the developer and hopefully lead to tighter design.

 

[Xeon]

Yeah, I kinda liked how melee and ranged units in BGs and IWD1 didn't really have any active abilities or anything, they just acted as buffer between enemies and the casters or just sniped enemies. In PoE everyone has active abilities.

I don't agree about the limited pauses tho, I don't do well in real time anything so having to pause and assess the situation is just a must for me, other wise things will turn too hectic for me.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Kaivokz

Edit: One could say that phase-based systems have a potentially important flaw when used in computer games rather than PnP: you're basically relegated to an observer role during the resolution phase, watching things unfold, animations and shit. It would also have the visual clusterfuck flaw of RTwP. There haven't been much phase-based games so it's hard to say how much the observer role would be problematic, or if you'd be engaged enough looking at the outcome unfold and thinking of your next moves for a couple of seconds.

That's why phase-based is used mostly in Wizardry and Wizardry-like games, where fast combat resolution and few visuals are needed

I've played wizardry 8, you can't fool me

 

[Grauken]

Kaivokz

Edit: One could say that phase-based systems have a potentially important flaw when used in computer games rather than PnP: you're basically relegated to an observer role during the resolution phase, watching things unfold, animations and shit. It would also have the visual clusterfuck flaw of RTwP. There haven't been much phase-based games so it's hard to say how much the observer role would be problematic, or if you'd be engaged enough looking at the outcome unfold and thinking of your next moves for a couple of seconds.

That's why phase-based is used mostly in Wizardry and Wizardry-like games, where fast combat resolution and few visuals are needed

I've played wizardry 8, you can't fool me

Well, you got me there

 

[Glop_dweller]

1)... And BG3 is a D&D game first, a BG game second, especially since it's a new dev,

... But it is not a new series.

...decades later

Irrelevant. Chess is turn based also—should computer chess be made RT/wP because it's decades later? Of course not; then why so for the reverse? Baldur's Gate's core game mechanics were RT/wP... that alone is reason enough that any Baldur's Gate sequel expand upon the same core mechanics; just as how no Diablo sequel should ever use anything but Real Time, and no ToEE sequel should use anything other than D&D turn based... just as no Bard's Tale numbered sequel should have ever used anything but the Phased Based foundation of the [entire previous three installments of the game] series; that goes for Wasteland as well IMO.

Make the argument, let's see you try to defend RTwP...

(Not directed at me, but hey... )
If they want to do turn based (phased based, RTS, TPP hack-n-slash, or even Interactive fiction), they should pick a different series IP. That's not what Baldur's Gate IS. The BG series is founded on D&D shoehorned into RT/wP combat mechanics. There is no argument or debate of that—it's an historical fact.

and "Baldur's Gate" is re-used mostly for name recognition.

Possibly—even probably.

Also Larian never did RTwP, but did some enjoyable TB games.

Would you defend Bethesda with that same argument reversed, in favor of their [abominable] Fallout sequel(s)?

And it's about time the D&D flagship cRPG was more faithful to the rules.

I would certainly welcome development of more faithful D&D titles—but not in a Baldur's Gate title (of course).

2) I was answering people saying TB was for casuals while RTwP was hardcore. This is demonstrably false: at its most hardcore/complex, RTwP is simply a pause-fest and a visual clusterfuck, OR an automated game.

No argument there. BG's system was flawed, such that the engine enforced determined hits—even as the targets evaded the attacks... and so you would see arrows following their targets around like homing missiles, and have party members killed by fireballs when the flames and the flames never overtook them.

Also, it's not because one likes TB over RTwP that we'd want everything to be TB. I very much like RT without pause and action gameplay.

Very much agreed.

They're just different systems with their respective strengths, and the character and combat system must designed to take advantage of those strengths and not play into their flaws. RTwP is trying to combine the tactical depth of TB with the fluidity of RT, but as it happens they're antithetical so it ends up just being the worst of both worlds, unless it's just basically an RT game with occasional pause.

I agree with this too. I would have probably preferred if the BG series combat mechanics had been a successor to SSI's Goldbox franchise; with its isometric TB encounter areas, but that didn't happen.

*There is no making Mario Bros. sequel as a D00M clone, that's not what it is; and Super Mario Bros, Mario Cart, and Donkey Kong are not Mario Bros. 2. If anything... (and excepting Mario Bros itself ) a modern Mario Bros. should be a lot more like Bubble Bobble—though not a clone of it, than Super Mario, or MK11, or Prey2, BT4, or D:OS, or whatever modern fad they want to chase instead of creating a real sequel for it... And the same applies to the BG series not becoming unrecognizable clones of some other game franchise.

 

[Ismaul]

It is true that RtwP can devolve to to Pause with Real time, which is a prominent issue in both PoEs. One part of this is of course designing the classes for party play and not solo play. There should a good mix of active and passive classes so that you don't have to pause every millisecond.

Yeah that's a serious issue.

For acceptable RTwP rather than Continuous Pause, you need to not have to pause every milisecond, it can't be the optimal strategy. The system should be designed so that you'd want to pause a couple of times a fight at most, for big decisions or to setup a coordinated course of action for the whole party, for example drawing fire with some guys while the rogue sneaks behind for the killing blow. But that doesn't work for D&D, or most RPGs for that matter, since they have too many abilities/effects to choose from and activate manually. The problem is compounded when you play a full party instead of a single character.

If one were to design a system for RTwP, it would have to have a limited amount of activable effects/abilities. Maybe a bit more than what you could handle in pure RT, but not by much, especially if positioning is important too. This makes me think to the origins of RTwP from RT strategy games. In such games, most units have a basic attack, and maybe 1-3 activable powers. Often you have to research those so they're not all available in every game/fight. Since in a cRPG you'd be controlling a party rather than an army, you could have a bit more activable skills than that. But not much.

It seems to lead more towards a RT strategy / RPG hybrid rather than a pure cRPG. Fallout Tactics in "continuous turn-based" comes to mind. It's got simple togglable abilities: stance (prone, crouch, stand, etc.), weapon swap / grenades, weapon mode, sentry mode (shoot on sight, hold fire, etc.), the rare skill (sneak, first aid). The rest is positioning, team coordination, line of sight...

Food for thought anyways.

 

[Glop_dweller]

One of the best RTS titles I have ever played, is unintentionally ruined by a mistake in the game menu design. Bungie's Myth series RTS games pause the game when the system menu is open, but they still allow commands to be set on visible units outside of the game's pop--up menu. These pauses are not recorded in the game's saved game films, so the player can actually pause the game, and issue [unique!] orders to all units at once, and then resume, and they all take immediate simultaneous action—a feat impossible in the intended gameplay, and one that leaves no evidence of it in the recordings.

 

[Ismaul]

Myth is ineed one of the best RTS ever made. Didn't know about the menu exploit, and wouldn't want to. Feels like cheating the design.

If they want to do turn based (phased based, RTS, TPP hack-n-slash, or even Interactive fiction), they should pick a different series IP.

I agree they should've picked a different IP if they were doing TB. But we both might not get our wish, you for a RTwP BG sequel, me for a new TB D&D IP.

That's not what Baldur's Gate IS. The BG series is founded on D&D shoehorned into RT/wP combat mechanics.

Decline should remain faithful to its decline origins. lul

Also Larian never did RTwP, but did some enjoyable TB games.

Would you defend Bethesda with that same argument reversed, in favor of their [abominable] Fallout sequel?

I'd argue Bethesda never did anything enjoyable. Seriously though, I'd not be against sequels moving away from previous design if it was an incline / an improvement. In this case, one could argue it would be, since switching from RTwP to TB would be more faithful to D&D's current rules.

In addition, classical TB wasn't D&D's system when BG was released, rather it was phase-based, time flow wasn't abstracted like in TB so RTwP wasn't an entirely unfaithful adaptation. But it would be now. A new PnP edition with a different combat system might very well call for the same when it comes to the computer adaptation.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If they want to do turn based (phased based, RTS, TPP hack-n-slash, or even Interactive fiction), they should pick a different series IP. That's not what Baldur's Gate IS. The BG series is founded on D&D shoehorned into RT/wP combat mechanics. There is no argument or debate of that—it's an historical fact.

Is it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur's_Gate:_Dark_Alliance

 

[d1nolore]

Are there any games that use a phase based system? It sounds pretty clunky but would have to see it in action.

BG3 should only be Rtwp. If you change the gameplay from a well loved game series you are only going to piss off the core fans and take a dump on sales.

 

[Riddler]

If one were to design a system for RTwP, it would have to have a limited amount of activable effects/abilities. Maybe a bit more than what you could handle in pure RT, but not by much, especially if positioning is important too. This makes me think to the origins of RTwP from RT strategy games. In such games, most units have a basic attack, and maybe 1-3 activable powers. Often you have to research those so they're not all available in every game/fight. Since in a cRPG you'd be controlling a party rather than an army, you could have a bit more activable skills than that. But not much.

Another alternative is that you set up your active abilities(or part of them) for a fight which then are locked in. This gives you strategic maneuverability while maintaining tactical control. This is kind of like the Vancian system with spells.

Furthermore, another variation of this solution could be to do the opposite to what Sawyer did for Deadfire and focus much more on "pre-buffing". You have tons of abilities but most of the work of using them is setting them up for the fight rather than using them in the fight, with the actual fight playing more like an RTS, albeit still more complex.

 

[Xeon]

Honestly I don't think the majority of people will complain if they go TB other than IE fans, since DOS was TB and most of Larian's fan base probably think it will be TB and have co-op.

Did they even say it will be isometric? they might go AAA and go to the action first/third person camera or something.

 

[Ismaul]

Another alternative is that you set up your active abilities(or part of them) for a fight which then are locked in. This gives you strategic maneuverability while maintaining tactical control.

Basically teching in an RTS. Makes perfect sense given the lineage.

And good idea on the pre-buffing. Have some effects activated for the whole fight so a small amount of togglable abilities are left to manage during the fight.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Decline should remain faithful to its decline origins. lul
...
I'd not be against sequels moving away from previous design if it was an incline / an improvement.

So you would have 'Sarah Lee Foods' buy and reformulate Vegemite for a mass audience? ( )
(Compete with Nutella? Use sugar and hazel nuts instead of salt and Brewer's yeast?)

Who's opinion is to decide what is an improvement?

In addition, classical TB wasn't D&D's system when BG was released, rather it was phase-based, time flow wasn't abstracted like in TB so RTwP wasn't an entirely unfaithful adaptation.

Technically (under the hood) all BG combatants had their own internal combat rounds, and would act when it was allowed for them to do so. Characters with two (or more) attacks per round did act only when they had available attacks; and cast spells when their timing allowed for their next action. It wasn't a free-for-all.

Phase based has the player announce a party's intentions, and the engine unfolds those events with applied initiative.
Turn based has the player select a PC's intention—usually with full knowledge of all prior (and some pending) events. Phased based intentions (of for instance, attack) can be nullified if the target has been destroyed before the PC can act—wasting their action that round. This never happens in a game with discrete [per unit] turns.

*The variant one sees in games like Age Of Wonder, and the like is team based turns (a terrible idea IMO), where every unit can in practice converge on a single target or objective, often in a way that should be physically impossible; all the while having the opponent's force paralyzed until it's their turn to dish out the same sort of abuse.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Is it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur's_Gate:_Dark_Alliance

That is not Baldur's Gate 3. But the assertion was made of Baldur's Gate; later followed by Baldur's Gate 2.

Are there any games that use a phase based system? It sounds pretty clunky but would have to see it in action.

It IS clunky, but it can have its charm, and it's often quite intense... in a 'Sword of Damocles' sort of fashion.
Off hand... [excluding some jRPGs I'd suppose] the most recent game (other than Bard's Tale Remastered) that comes to mind using Phased Based, is Devil Whiskey.... but it's an outright Bard's Tale clone; intentionally. So it's the same combat as the BT series.

Your best choice is to look at Bard's Tale Remastered, by Krome. I cannot tell you how much I wish they had done BT4 in the style of BT:R instead of what InXile made. (But I mean that even using InXile's BT4 UE assets; I was just ticked off that BT4 is a Frayed Knights clone instead of a modernized BT3 with a new campaign using the Unreal Engine.)

 

[DeepOcean]

TB allow for more complexity (Not that all developers will make good use of it, D:OS2 being a bad example of one) while RtWP degrades things into a RTS with 6 units. TB allow you to simulate a ton of systems, if you wanna make a combat system with formations, attack of opportunity, initiative, engagement and etc that actually works, isn't clunky as fuck and actually works more than only half the time, you need TB. If you wanna make a hack and slash game, you could very well make it like a second rate RTS, I enjoy hack and slash games but they aren't serious tactical games. Most people that like RtwP better, do it so because they like hack and slashing better.

 

[Kaivokz]

Most people that like RtwP better, do it so because they like hack and slashing better.

Even if you were right, this is a bad argument. I have some friends who play tons of hack n slash games and have hundreds (some have thousands) of hours in path of exile. When it comes to RPGs they're pretty casual, play on normal difficulty, etc, and when they played PoE2 they preferred TB because it was easier for them to follow along with.

Most people who like RTwP don't like it because they like hack and slash gameplay and I guarantee you that casuals and normies who like hack and slash are going to prefer TB to a party based RTwP game. This has no bearing on which system can capture a higher amount of complexity or what kind of complexity each can handle.

if you wanna make a combat system with formations, attack of opportunity, initiative, engagement and etc that actually works, isn't clunky as fuck and actually works more than only half the time

I wonder, sometimes, what life would be like in a brain like this, but I would rather not step out of my neat and orderly mind.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

A lot of assumptions there. Theoretically, RTwP can do everything TB can do, it's just harder to control a lot of people with a lot of in depth options in real time, but how many TB games have that kind of depth anyway? So that point is moot in 90% of cases.

Also, most examples given of "depth", I hate. Who the hell came up with attacks of opportunity? What is the point of it, other than being some annoying mechanic nobody cares about, that brings absolutely nothing of value?

TB combat murders players with its overhead in party based games. Having to wait for everyone to finish their turn (e.g. 6 party members, 6 enemies, 12 moves per turn) just sucks the fun out of things. I do love some turn based combat systems, but those are generally single character and have no animations or very fast animations. Despite having a fairly decent combat system, D:OS bored me to death with long animations and overhead. Would take RTwP over that crap anytime. ANYTIME!

 

[Lacrymas]

I like how discussions of RTwP vs TB always bring the agents of decline out of their hiding places and the emotional response they have against TB in favor of RTwP.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

RTwP is my favorite. Old people like TB because it's slow and they can't keep up with real time combat with pause. These people are known as boomers.

 

[DeepOcean]

Even if you were right, this is a bad argument. I have some friends who play tons of hack n slash games and have hundreds (some have thousands) of hours in path of exile. When it comes to RPGs they're pretty casual, play on normal difficulty, etc, and when they played PoE2 they preferred TB because it was easier for them to follow along with.

I consider most BG 1 and 2 fights pure repetitive hack and slashing of questionable quality (not only games like Path of Exile) and indeed, killing all those trash mobs on TB would be pure pain, at least RtwP allow for a quicker end to the torture. The best fights on BG 1 and 2 would be better on TB and with a complex rule system like ToEE, the only thing RtwP is better than TB is that RtwP allow for quicker trash mob cleaning but at some point you ask, why fill your game with trash mobs in the first place?

Sawyer discovered very quick how pressing space bar like a maniac to control all those active abilities on RtwP is a bad idea and how TB supported that much easier, the same is applicable to all combat rules that don't involve selecting all and send attacking. The reason Bioware gone RtWP on BG was because they had a RTS engine that they repurposed to become the Infinity Engine, it wasn't meant to be an RPG engine (and boy, that shows) but because BG 1 was big success, many developers just followed along because cargo cult is a thing on the video game industry.

 

[Atchodas]

TB allow you to simulate

Your inner CUCK

 

[luj1]

TB is a cleaner system and between the two I'll always prefer TB. Hexagonal TB for example is top tier incline.

However, RTwP has always been a non-issue for me. Not only are other things more important, but round-based RtwP is literally TB in disguise.

 

[DeepOcean]

TB allow you to simulate

Your inner CUCK

Never seen such deep defense of RtwP, "Liking TB turns you on literally a cuck." Keep the butthurt flowing guise, pretty entertaining.