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Guys, I've been enlightened! RTwP is not that good.

J_C

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So, my history with RPGs is that IMO the IE games are among the greatest RPGs ever made. All of them. I just love them. They are not perfect, but I immensely enjoy even IWD 2, or BG1, although they are considered the worse among the IE games. I even enjoyed NWN 1 and 2 more or less.

I always thought, that I like the RTwP mechanic in them, I had fun with the games afterall. Regarding TB games, I never was a huge TB fan. I liked them, but a game being TB didn't do anything for me. There are a few big exceptions: JA2 is one of the greatest game ever, just like Heroes 2-3 (and Disciples 2). Before the kickstarter boom, I haven't played a proper TB game for years (Eador is the exception, it is great). So when Pillars of Eternity was announced, I was happy that it will be a RTwP game.

Now, recently some high profile KS games were released, and I obviously had to play them. Expeditions: Conquistador, Shadowrun, Blackguards, Divinity OS and now Wasteland 2. And I realised, that i love the TB system, where I don't have to pause constantly, and I can take my time. And now as I think back, it striked me, I didn't like the IE games because of RTwP, but because of everything else. The artstyle, the music, the story, the characters, the D&D ruleset, I loved those, the RTwP mechanic was just something I beared with. And it was not that bad, I don't hate it now, but I understand that everything would have been better with Turn based.

I also understand now, that in the IE games, thanks to the D&D ruleset, there wasn't as much need for micromanaging your party, as in PoE. There were a few abilities, some spells which you could only cast once, and that's it. So I didn't need to pause that much, maybe that's why I didn't cared about being RTwP.

But as Dragon Age showed me, and the route PoE is going, if you have MMO like mechanics with cooldowns and lots of abilities which are constantly used, pausing all the time is not that fun. And it provides a lot of problems for the developers themselves (helloooo, Josh). I can deal with it, if other parts of the game are good, but I won't love it ever again.

So, I just like to take back everything, what I said the RTwP being better than TB. And I'm happy that Torment Numenera will be TB.
 

Cazzeris

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You've just discovered a thing that lots of people already knew. Just like Christopher Columbus.

Congrats.
 

RandomAccount

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Bless you my child. Three hail mary's and two self-whippings a night for three weeks.
 

Knut

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You act like you realized some great truth, when you simply discovered you like turn based more.
 

The Bishop

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Yeah, I used to like apples, but tried some oranges recently and man are oranges much better than apples.
 

Mangoose

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Half agree, half disagree. The issue is that good RTwP is hard to implement in RPGs. But I think it can work. Theoretically. Someday.

To me, games like the Total War series are RTwP. I have yet to try 7.62. And yes they are different from RPGs in that units are expendable, but I really think many elements can be translated. Emphasis on formations, interface that allows you to view the status/formation/fatigue/etc of all your units. Less fucking active clicky clicky abilities that cause you to pause all the fucking time, instead prioritizing macro level decisions like target selection, correct formation (or stance, in terms of a small RPG squad), positioning, terrain advantages/disadvantages. Etc. Etc.

In terms of "Real-Time" RPGs, stop with the micro and emphasize the macro.
 

Kane

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PhantasmaNL

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Agreed J_C.

RTWP is an abomination. A contradictio in terminis.

I liked BG(2) but as others have said this was not because of - but despite RTWP.

If you are forced to pause by the game system because of micromanagement needs why tf make it real time at all?
 
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If you are forced to pause by the game system because of micromanagement needs why tf make it real time at all?

Because it has certain advantages over turn based, just like turn based has certain advantages over RTwP. The biggest one is the way RTwP lets the player focus on important decisions and not waste tons of time on unimportant stuff. In RTwP, you pause only when you need to do something important, like heal a party member, cast some important spell/ability, reposition someone. If you don't need to do those things, you just let the combat run with a nice flow. Turn based systems struggle with this, because no matter the situation, everyone on your and the enemy team gets their own turn, even if nothing important is going on. So yes, you will have to watch each rat move, and then wait while each party member inidividually skewers each rat. This is only exacerbated by the thousands of fights in a typical RPG.

And yes, I know, RPGs shouldn't have trash fights, etc, etc, but they generally do, lots of them, and even non-trash fights have plenty of moments when you dont need to be actively involved.
 
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Davaris

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I wonder if it would be better if you only have the option to pause the game once, every fixed number of seconds. Eh, thats just phase based.
 

felipepepe

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I wonder if it would be better if you only have the option to pause the game once, every fixed number of seconds. Eh, thats just phase based.
Would be better if the game assigned a different duration for each action and then paused after characters finish their designed actions or a unexpected event occurs. Which is what 7.62 High Caliber does.
 

Raghar

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So you said you hate cooldowns... Does it mean pausing without cooldowns would work?
 

Tigranes

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I wonder if it would be better if you only have the option to pause the game once, every fixed number of seconds. Eh, thats just phase based.
Would be better if the game assigned a different duration for each action and then paused after characters finish their designed actions or a unexpected event occurs. Which is what 7.62 High Caliber does.

Terrible idea. You might as well play turn based. This is just typically silly thinking by people who enjoy turn based combat and can't understand why RTwP is fun. Which is fine - but then why not just play TB or call for TB? What's the point of RTwP which is rigidly phased and restricts pausing?
 

octavius

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You are missing the most obvious difference between RTwP and TB. In Turn Based only one unit moves at a time, while in Real Time with Pause you have simultaneity, which make things more chaotic and less predictable than a true chess like TB system.
Some people are terrified at losing the control you have in a TB system. Others think RTwP makes for a interesting diversion from turn based, especially if the turn based system is so simple that it could have just as well been pure real time.
 

Ebonsword

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Because it has certain advantages over turn based, just like turn based has certain advantages over RTwP. The biggest one is the way RTwP lets the player focus on important decisions and not waste tons of time on unimportant stuff.

So, an advantage of RTWP is that it lets you skip the boring stuff easier? That's treating the symptom and not the disease.

How about we expect game developers to actually make games that don't having boring stuff instead?
 

felipepepe

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Terrible idea. You might as well play turn based. This is just typically silly thinking by people who enjoy turn based combat and can't understand why RTwP is fun. Which is fine - but then why not just play TB or call for TB? What's the point of RTwP which is rigidly phased and restricts pausing?
You get a lot more flexibility and even complexity than TB games this way. Suddenly the combat isn't restrained by turns or action points, but still retains the control level of TB. If you want to reload your sniper rifle, it takes you 10s, during which everyone else can act, shoot you, run for cover, etc. It also solves the usual TB issue of giving unfair advantage of turn-orders.

PoE fucks this up by making it a clusterfuck where you can't understand what is going on, but it's a good idea. Shoot the mage while he's casting to disrupt his spell, etc...
 
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The problem I have with RTwP is that the system is geared towards babysitting characters, but at the same time it rewards you for giving an order then immediately focusing on something else. So combat consists of you turning your head to each party member to ensure they aren't putting their fingers into electrical sockets, licking frogs and other things unsupervised babies do, but you aren't getting paid by the hour so there's a lot of babies to look after.
 

Tigranes

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Terrible idea. You might as well play turn based. This is just typically silly thinking by people who enjoy turn based combat and can't understand why RTwP is fun. Which is fine - but then why not just play TB or call for TB? What's the point of RTwP which is rigidly phased and restricts pausing?
You get a lot more flexibility and even complexity than TB games this way. Suddenly the combat isn't restrained by turns or action points, but still retains the control level of TB. If you want to reload your sniper rifle, it takes you 10s, during which everyone else can act, shoot you, run for cover, etc. It also solves the usual TB issue of giving unfair advantage of turn-orders.

PoE fucks this up by making it a clusterfuck where you can't understand what is going on, but it's a good idea. Shoot the mage while he's casting to disrupt his spell, etc...

That's exactly what happens in a standard RTwP game.

It's like people played 20 hours of a beta where the animations & feedback are fucked, and they forget how RTwP works.
 

felipepepe

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Not really. IIRC, all BioWare and Black Isle RTwP games use a round system underneath everything. Making it time-based is much richer.
 

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