Do you prefer TB or RT combat?

[Kaanyrvhok]

In RPGs I prefer turn based. Have yet to play a real time RPG with truly good combat - would love to hear some examples/suggestions though.

Shenmue if you want to call it an RPG

Way of the Samurai

Deus Ex

ME 2 if you want to call it an RPG

Jade Empire was ok but not truly good

 

[SpaceKungFuMan]

TB for party or indirect control, RT otherwise.

Theoretically good RTWP with good autopause should be able to emulate all the advantages of TB, but I have never seen such a thing as good RTWP. At least not in an RPG and not good for RPG purposes.

I think you forgot to label the first and third answers as faggot answers too. Turn Based is clearly the best way to have combat play out in a numbers based system, since its the only way to make sure that all characters have the same number of opportunities to act regardless of who is controlling them.

No characters have the same number of opportunities if there is someone controlling them.

I think you forgot to label the first and third answers as faggot answers too. Turn Based is clearly the best way to have combat play out in a numbers based system, since its the only way to make sure that all characters have the same number of opportunities to act regardless of who is controlling them. I don't even think there is room to debate this. You want something other than stats to resolve combat, go play an action game, with twitch combat that's actually fun.

Gothic combat is actually fun. The correlation between stats, and combat also seem good to me, you can see/feel big improvement as you get stronger.

But you can also have excellent stats and suck at aiming, or have great twitch skills and win fight with low stats, no? That is exactly what trivializing stats means. Your stats represent who your character is as a person in the game world, and anytime you throw in the external factor of player skill, you are effectively destroying or at least unbalancing the cohesion of the game world.

Before we proceed, I will ask you to produce a truth table of the boolean AND function. It's an unbelievably basic concept and I'm aware than any non retarded person may find my demand insulting, but it's absolutely vital that I make sure that you know of it before I can use it to demolish this malignantly retarded misconception regarding mutual exclusiveness of player and character driven character performance. Hopefully once and for all.
Without needing to rely on any particular examples.

I can also show far more 'shady' aspects to the TB than simple and legitimate justification based on 1 guy 6 chars.

I think I know where you are going with this, so let me save you the trouble. It is true that in any action system which uses stats and player skill to determine combat outcomes, there is a threshold level of both which you must have to succeed, and you could design that system so that both are important. An example of this would be Morrowind (which has lots of flaws, but imo actually got action combat somewhat right) where "to hit" is a two part concept, requiring (1) the player to aim the attack correctly and then (2) the character to have a successful roll. The problem is that even here, you have effectively changed what the character's stats mean. Instead of the character's dexterity meaning his chance to hit, it means his chance to hit when he happens to be facing the right direction, and its fine if you want to represent it that way, but the concept seems somewhat artificial and alien to me. More importantly, it decreases the ability of stats to represent who the character is in the game world, relative to the NPCs who have their entire chance to hit resolved by stats, without this amorphous "ability to look." Also, in my experience, people seem to react negatively to lining up attacks properly and then seeing them miss in a way that they don't when they just click to target and the character misses.

I think there are two counter arguments to this. First, all games require at least a modicum of player skill, since even in a turn based game you need to be able to manipulate the mouse. I think this is a straw man, since given enough time, even someone with poor motor skills should be able to make the right selection, but once time is a factor (even a modest factor) the player's manual dexterity becomes an issue.

Second, you could argue (as you have) that turn based games require player skill too, its just a different kind of skill. I can't deny that, and won't even try, but please observe that twitch games require manual dexterity + mental skill, vs turn based games which only require mental skill. If the goal is to have the stats represent who the character is, then I think decreasing the amount of player skill involved by eliminating an entire category is superior. The other counter argument is that games don't have to represent the character's mental abilities as a stat, in which case the player skill is the only thing involved, which gets rid of the "double to hit" problem in games like Morrowind. Of course, you can apply the argument to twitch games too, by getting rid of the to hit roll (which is exactly what they did in Oblivion) and then you can say "I hit based on player skill, and do damage based on character skill, so there is no harm to the usefulness of stats." I think that argument can make sense if the system is designed so that damage per attack is just as important as hitting, otherwise you can hit tons of times for little damage, thereby bypassing character skill. Personally, I think this entire point is a stretch on both sides, and its better to be honest and concede that mental skill is always a part of any game other than progress quest, and endeavor to cut down as many other aspects of player skill as you can to get as close to the stat resolved ideal as possible.

 

[mondblut]

The most popular RTwP games were the Infinity Engine games and at least early on they were all about kiting and shooting.

Not to mention the best TB combat RPGs are almost universally about melee (with an occasional fireball). Meanwhile, the best RTWP implementations are all about shooting and gunporn

 

[DraQ]

I think I know where you are going with this, so let me save you the trouble. It is true that in any action system which uses stats and player skill to determine combat outcomes, there is a threshold level of both which you must have to succeed, and you could design that system so that both are important.

More than important - indispensable.

An example of this would be Morrowind (which has lots of flaws, but imo actually got action combat somewhat right) where "to hit" is a two part concept, requiring (1) the player to aim the attack correctly and then (2) the character to have a successful roll.

Well, yeah, the implementation was crude and clunky, but the base idea behind it was spot on.

The problem is that even here, you have effectively changed what the character's stats mean. Instead of the character's dexterity meaning his chance to hit, it means his chance to hit when he happens to be facing the right direction, and its fine if you want to represent it that way, but the concept seems somewhat artificial and alien to me.

You can always use statistics to modify other stuff - for example agility can influence movement ability in general. It can also influence turning rate (but it requires some dissociation between turning and looking - it would pretty much feel like moving with different weapons in STALKER).

More importantly, it decreases the ability of stats to represent who the character is in the game world, relative to the NPCs who have their entire chance to hit resolved by stats, without this amorphous "ability to look."

But looking in proper direction doesn't require more skill than moving cursor over an object, especially when we're talking about melee - your opponent occupies most of the screen in such case so aiming and attacking is much less twitchy than, say, issuing attack commands in IE games without using active pause. In case of ranged weapon you can always implement optional autoaim or lock-on and *then* apply character skill - preferably as aiming error/fire cone mechanism rather than explicit to-hit roll.


Also, this ability to look is generally the same for both player and NPCs, there is no disparity here. In most isometric/overhead games there are also no stat-based differences in turning speed (though there might be size-based ones). If this lack of stat influence offends you, it can always be changed and stat based turning can be introduced as easily in a directly controlled FPP RPG as it can be in point and click isometric one.

There is also one definite advantage of this "turning ability" - it implicitly handles line of sight. In an overhead RPG line of sight is usually implemented using additional artificial mechanics like fog of war and facing tends to not be factored in (so all characters are essentially houseflies). Even in FPP TB rpgs using true gamespace rather than room-sized tiles (Wizardry 8) you can generally look around in any direction in between turns, even if you have no characters facing that way. That's not necessarily something that can be bypassed in any sensible manner, but if we criticize popamole camera cheat, why are we so lenient towards our RPGs that we expect to take actual character abilities much more seriously?

Also, in my experience, people seem to react negatively to lining up attacks properly and then seeing them miss in a way that they don't when they just click to target and the character misses.

That's not the problem with missing. That's problem with feedback. Swishing right through the guy as if he was thin air can be disconcerting even if you know and accept the to-hit mechanics. If you made Morrowind play Wiz8 style miss/dodge animations on miss, the problem would not exist (maybe make the actual anim depends on the part of the hitbox targetted) - notice how so many people complained about stat-dependent airsword but I don't recall anyone who would complain about their enemy blocking in the same, completely stat dependent way. That's because the game clearly relayed what was happening - the guy raised his shield and there was *CLANG* - no damage.

I think there are two counter arguments to this. First, all games require at least a modicum of player skill, since even in a turn based game you need to be able to manipulate the mouse. I think this is a straw man, since given enough time, even someone with poor motor skills should be able to make the right selection, but once time is a factor (even a modest factor) the player's manual dexterity becomes an issue.

How much of an issue? Because most arpg dexterity requirements are rather modest. If you don't suffer from Parkinson's or some other neurodegenerative disorder, chances are that you have all the dexterity you'll ever need for that and then some.

Second, you could argue (as you have) that turn based games require player skill too, its just a different kind of skill. I can't deny that, and won't even try, but please observe that twitch games require manual dexterity + mental skill, vs turn based games which only require mental skill. If the goal is to have the stats represent who the character is, then I think decreasing the amount of player skill involved by eliminating an entire category is superior.

And I think that's the crux of the fallacy here. As we have already established we can make both kinds of ability indispensable without any tradeoff. And we have also established that we won't succeed at removing player skill from the equation so why should we pursue this goal?

The old Codex motto was putting the "Role" back in RPG, not taking the "Game" out of it.

Sure, sometimes we may not want certain kinds of player skill to matter but it's usually a more case by case issue, often determined by the interface, not because they interfere with the character skill - for example having to manually click everyone to death with each character in Wizardry would be fucking hell.

The other counter argument is that games don't have to represent the character's mental abilities as a stat, in which case the player skill is the only thing involved, which gets rid of the "double to hit" problem in games like Morrowind. Of course, you can apply the argument to twitch games too, by getting rid of the to hit roll (which is exactly what they did in Oblivion) and then you can say "I hit based on player skill, and do damage based on character skill, so there is no harm to the usefulness of stats." I think that argument can make sense if the system is designed so that damage per attack is just as important as hitting, otherwise you can hit tons of times for little damage, thereby bypassing character skill.

I think I have explained why exactly oblivion's approach is beyond moronic in sufficient detail and enough times to not repeat it here.

Also, it's actually interesting that mental skill has always been the biggest offender to the RPGness of the game, as it cannot be effectively controlled. You can make character behave in a clumsy manner or weakly manner or any other manner if respective stats are low regardless of player's input, so potential cases of player skill overriding charcter skill can be easily eliminated here. Intelligence, however, cannot be easily bounded by character skill, because we have no formal way of determining if behaviour is intelligent - it's too context dependent.
In short, you can always prevent clumsy character from demonstrating feats of agility when controlled by a twitchmaster, but trying to prevent intelligent players from making their retarded characters behave like geniuses is a losing battle.

On the other hand, while you cannot prevent intelligent behaviour patterns, you can (and should) block certain inherently intelligent behaviour components (specific activities), and generally having a framework for determining how intelligent a character is is pretty damn useful and removing it would be a big loss.

 

[JarlFrank]

I don't give a shit either way as long as the combat is good. If it's good turn based, I enjoy it, if it's good real time, I enjoy it. Both can be fun if done right. But both can also be horrible if done wrong.

 

[MMXI]

Also, it's actually interesting that mental skill has always been the biggest offender to the RPGness of the game, as it cannot be effectively controlled. You can make character behave in a clumsy manner or weakly manner or any other manner if respective stats are low regardless of player's input, so potential cases of player skill overriding charcter skill can be easily eliminated here. Intelligence, however, cannot be easily bounded by character skill, because we have no formal way of determining if behaviour is intelligent - it's too context dependent.
In short, you can always prevent clumsy character from demonstrating feats of agility when controlled by a twitchmaster, but trying to prevent intelligent players from making their retarded characters behave like geniuses is a losing battle.

On the other hand, while you cannot prevent intelligent behaviour patterns, you can (and should) block certain inherently intelligent behaviour components (specific activities), and generally having a framework for determining how intelligent a character is is pretty damn useful and removing it would be a big loss.

This is something that has been on my mind for a number of years now and I think it comes down to where the character starts and where the player's definition of the character (not necessarily player skill) ends. If you remove all player input from an RPG then it becomes a movie that changes depending on the statistics that you've defined for your character upon character creation. Would this still be an RPG? If not then you need the player to interact with the game in some way. This interaction will always be based on player skill to some degree, whether it's thinking up battle tactics during a battle in a tactical RPG or "twitching" during combat in an action RPG. In other words it will always eat in to the purity of the "character statistics define everything" statement.

I think the boundary should be placed after deciding what should define a character in a given game. If you look at the countless RPGs that define low level traits such as strength, dexterity and intelligence then it makes sense for higher level actions such as telling a character to switch weapons in combat to be based on the decision of the player. If a character switches weapons in combat based on their intelligence then combat would be painful to play because a game cannot fully interpret the tactics you are trying to pull off before you've finished performing them. If you are setting up a complex tactic requiring a character to use a certain weapon then it is no good for the character's intelligence to somehow cause him/her to switch weapons to something undesirable for you. But if you had automatically resolved combat based on a complex simulation of AI vs AI referencing the statistics of the combatants then that could work quite well for an RPG not focusing on direct combat interaction. Think of something like Football Manager.

So how does this relate to intelligence? Well, take something like alchemy. If alchemy is purely based on the player's skill at mixing up the correct ratio of ingredients then there are no underlying RPG mechanics governing alchemy. If alchemy is based purely on the intelligence (or alchemy skill) of the player's character by connecting the potency of the potions created to the level of skill possessed during its creation then you have a solid system which conforms the "character skill over player skill" philosophy. These two examples are at opposite ends of the spectrum. In order to create a system that gives the player more say in how their character creates a potion while deepening the character's statistical involvement then you need to pad out alchemy to make it more multi-dimensional. Create multiple statistics that affect alchemy such as one that affects the success percentage, one that affects the potency, one that improves your ability to mix conflicting reagents together, one that makes resultant potions last longer and one that affects your ability to dilute the alchemical mixture to stretch into greater numbers of potions. Make the order of added reagents matter and add plenty of controlled randomisation to prevent optimal solutions.

What you'd end up with is an increased importance of player skill as well as an expanded character sheet. It's like making a jump from auto-resolved combat using a single statistic called "combat skill" to a full blown combat system. You increase the player skill and their level of engagement with the game while letting them create more detailed characters (ranged attackers, melee specialists, combat spell casters).

This increase in player skill brings with it an increased requirement on player intelligence. You can't get rid of this requirement else you aren't playing an RPG. However, this doesn't mean that you can't model intelligent and unintelligent characters. A character purely focused on physical, brute force combat with a high strength attribute would inherently be less intelligent than one focused on intelligent skills such as alchemy and with a high intelligence attribute. Showcasing that intelligence focus through dialogue can be done the standard way of including skill checked dialogue options.

In other words, an RPG has to trust that the player will match their actions to the statistics of their character as they have developed them. This isn't the same as LARPing because a good, well balanced RPG will punish the player the further their actions deviate from their character. Telling an intelligent character to say an unintelligent thing to an assassin may lead to combat, something that an intelligent character may be disadvantaged in. However, saying something seemingly unintelligent in order to persuade a court that you are a retard in order to avoid execution could save the life of your character, making it an intelligent option.

Trust and reward. That's the name of the game.

 

[commie]

First option. Depends mostly on whether the game is SOLO or PARTY based though and it's implementation(TPP,FPS, Iso). A game where you only control one character is usually dull and lifeless in TB form, rather it suits RT combat best. Exceptions are Fallout isometric style solo RPG's(mostly solo anyway). The only party RPG type that works ok in RT is the 'blob' type as the party is essentially a single entity anyway.

A party RPG with individual characters invariably works best as a TB game as you have time to work out proper layered strategies and tactics. RT is virtually impossible for a true party RPG and even RTwP ends up a tedious clusterfuck more often than not, with the player constant spamming pause to try and control their characters who constantly move out of position, attack wrong targets etc.

 

[CappenVarra]

Ugh. One of those nights when beer makes me rant. Consider yourselves warned.

I can't remember, when did polls with non-mutually-exclusive options become a running codex gag? I mean, what's the point of asking "do you prefer A or B" and then having "A and B and blowjobs and free booze forever" as the first option?

Btw, I'm not choosing the "OP is a faggot" option here, but this seems like a trend in a few of the recent polls, and it's a bit annoying to see the fine science of poll making decline like that

As a bunch of people said, both options can work (in different types of games, not all of which are RPGs). But unless you make people choose only one, only those guys that hate one of the options with a passion won't go with the combined option.

So you're basically collecting information about which combat mode people hate the most (so they will choose only the opposite instead of both), and could've phrased the question "does RT or TB suck more?". Big surprise that more people here think RT sucks donkey balls, it's almost like reading the domain name in the browser couldn't have answered that as well.

That's why a lot of polls use the "if you were going to a secluded tropical island and could bring only one thing with you..." nonsense.

I mean, if the poll was "do you prefer blondes or brunettes", and the options were:
- Blondes if they are hot, otherwise brunettes if they are hot, or possibly redheads even (if they are hot). If they have no hair at all but are hot, that's also fine with me.
- Blondes
- Brunettes
- Other
- OP is a fag for assuming I like women
- Sex is unnecessary when you have perpetually increasing numbers

would the fact that most people choose the first option really tell you anything? If an option really tells you nothing, why include it at all? So people who can't make up their mind and have no strong opinion (or are just lazy) don't feel unwelcome? What is this, the Bioware school of poll making? A poll should at least have choices (if there's no budget for consequences).

All right, all right - I rant too much, and this probably reads harsher than intended... So I'll skip the second part where I reduce the poll to "do you wish TB games were still being made?" etc. /rant

 

[Melcar]

So we got 50 faggots who ride the fence?

 

[Excidium]

Well, I voted that option because I can't imagine a 'turn-based' 'action' RPG.

 

[Mangoose]

i like tb action rpgs.

 

[Shannow]

As a bunch of people said, both options can work (in different types of games, not all of which are RPGs). But unless you make people choose only one, only those guys that hate one of the options with a passion won't go with the combined option.

Which is the whole point. Liking one does exclude you from liking the other. The poll was created because some moron claimed 99% of the codex only likes RT simply because many seem to like TW2 right now.

I mean, if the poll was "do you prefer blondes or brunettes", and the options were:
- Blondes if they are hot, otherwise brunettes if they are hot, or possibly redheads even (if they are hot). If they have no hair at all but are hot, that's also fine with me.
- Blondes
- Brunettes
- Other
- OP is a fag for assuming I like women
- Sex is unnecessary when you have perpetually increasing numbers

And I like all hair colours as long as the rest is fine. And wanting to fuck Sasha Grey doesn't prevent me from wanting to fuck Lacey Heart. There is no dichtonomy.

would the fact that most people choose the first option really tell you anything?

Yes, it tells me what anybody with half a brain would have assumed from the start. That the claim that 99% of the codex only likes RT is utter bullshit

All right, all right - I rant too much, and this probably reads harsher than intended... So I'll skip the second part where I reduce the poll to "do you wish TB games were still being made?" etc. /rant

Your problem is that you think this is a serious poll about stuff we've discussed far more often in the last 5 years (and before) than I'd care to. Stuff none of us oldfags really care discussing anymore. This poll was purely to show a newfag how stupid he is. And it worked just as intended
If you're truly interested in the topic make a poll with poll options you like^^ It's not hard. Even I could do it

 

[Captain Shrek]

So what's wrong with RPGs with real time combat again? No seriously! Can someone give me a well explained answer?

I don't give a shit either way as long as the combat is good. If it's good turn based, I enjoy it, if it's good real time, I enjoy it. Both can be fun if done right. But both can also be horrible if done wrong.

Of course unless this is wrong (which I think it is't).

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

First option. Depends mostly on whether the game is SOLO or PARTY based though and it's implementation(TPP,FPS, Iso). A game where you only control one character is usually dull and lifeless in TB form, rather it suits RT combat best.

To hide the lack of combat options?

 

[Qwertilot]

Nothing, a priori. However there are unarguably some types of gameplay which can be expressed in turn based and not real time. So if you like them....

For a (silly!) extreme example consider Chess! In fact though many RPGs/strategy RPGs really aren't that far from (over?) elaborate abstract games and something like real time Kings bounty would be equally absurd Ditto I suspect the puzzle like turn based multi party combat as in multiple JRPGs. Or things where not dying is really crucial (Roguelikes etc.).

The timing issues in real time, with parties, tend to mean relying on AI control, and so a fair bit of randomness. I can cope with this myself, but can see how people could get annoyed. Now with one person controlling each character you can make the timing a legitimate game play element, thus MMOs, action games etc. A very different type of game then of course.

Not that the everyone standing around and clapping while each person uses all their move that you get in turn based systems isn't very odd in some sense....

 

[CappenVarra]

Your problem is that you think this is a serious poll about stuff we've discussed far more often in the last 5 years (and before) than I'd care to. Stuff none of us oldfags really care discussing anymore. This poll was purely to show a newfag how stupid he is. And it worked just as intended

Yeah, I completely missed the underlying context, and people's responses seemed serious enough (or no less serious than usual). So all right, sorry for interrupting, carry on.

 

[janjetina]

So what's wrong with RPGs with real time combat again? No seriously! Can someone give me a well explained answer?

They are hybrids, that try to combine a genre where tactical combat is a very important factor (RPG) with a genre where the whole gameplay is about quick reflexes and manual dexterity (action games, including FPS). They ususally do so by blending a RPG-like character system with action-based combat. The problem is, they dumb down the character system and/or diminish its influence in favour of player's reflexes, so the game becomes inferior RPG. If you have any examples of an action RPG with an elaborate character system of sufficient complexity, where the mentioned elaborate character system isn't overriden by player reflexes, provide them. Another problem is, in trying to combine character system with action based combat, a quality of challenge gets lost, so the end result is an inferior action game / FPS. Once again, are there examples of action RPGs where combat can rival good action game combat or good FPS combat?

Games like Bloodlines and Fallout: New Vegas, which are favored by many Codexers, are praised despite their implementation of combat, which is their worst characteristic.

Maybe in theory an action RPG where a complex character system can be combined with real time combat and result in a challenging and fun experience, but, I'd rather trust what I experience in practice, so I won't hold my breath.

 

[MMXI]

The poll was created because some moron claimed 99% of the codex only likes RT simply because many seem to like TW2 right now.

Butthurt detected.

Yes, it tells me what anybody with half a brain would have assumed from the start. That the claim that 99% of the codex only likes RT is utter bullshit

Butthurt detected.

This poll was purely to show a newfag how stupid he is. And it worked just as intended

Butthurt detected.

Awwwwwwwww. How cute. You made that poll because of me? If only you had realised that my original post in this thread was a dig at the trillions of threads about real-time games in General RPG Discussion rather than an accurate calculation of the number of real-time RPG fans on the board. But thanks anyway!

 

[el Supremo]

TB if the fight consist in shooting mostly. RT if it is all about mele.

The most popular RTwP games were the Infinity Engine games and at least early on they were all about kiting and shooting.

So?

Anyway, I was thinking in terms of UFO:EU (prefect TB fight) vs Gothic 1/2 (perfect RT fight).
On the second thought, I'd say TB if you controll entire team, RT if it is just one character.

 

[DraQ]

Also, it's actually interesting that mental skill has always been the biggest offender to the RPGness of the game, as it cannot be effectively controlled. You can make character behave in a clumsy manner or weakly manner or any other manner if respective stats are low regardless of player's input, so potential cases of player skill overriding charcter skill can be easily eliminated here. Intelligence, however, cannot be easily bounded by character skill, because we have no formal way of determining if behaviour is intelligent - it's too context dependent.
In short, you can always prevent clumsy character from demonstrating feats of agility when controlled by a twitchmaster, but trying to prevent intelligent players from making their retarded characters behave like geniuses is a losing battle.

On the other hand, while you cannot prevent intelligent behaviour patterns, you can (and should) block certain inherently intelligent behaviour components (specific activities), and generally having a framework for determining how intelligent a character is is pretty damn useful and removing it would be a big loss.

This is something that has been on my mind for a number of years now and I think it comes down to where the character starts and where the player's definition of the character (not necessarily player skill) ends. If you remove all player input from an RPG then it becomes a movie that changes depending on the statistics that you've defined for your character upon character creation. Would this still be an RPG?

Well, it wouldn't be a G, so not.

I think the boundary should be placed after deciding what should define a character in a given game.

The problem is that you can't effectively bound around intelligence because intelligence, pretty much by definition involves composite actions, while you can only mechanically restrict component actions. It may alleviate the problem but it won't solve it. Designing the game with very limited freedom in mind may eliminate the problem, but I'd expect a proper RPG to be built around maximized freedom and interactivity, so this would be an autofail, even if the resulting game was very good overall, for example due to having good plot with a lot of scripted C&C.

If you look at the countless RPGs that define low level traits such as strength, dexterity and intelligence then it makes sense for higher level actions such as telling a character to switch weapons in combat to be based on the decision of the player. If a character switches weapons in combat based on their intelligence then combat would be painful to play because a game cannot fully interpret the tactics you are trying to pull off before you've finished performing them. If you are setting up a complex tactic requiring a character to use a certain weapon then it is no good for the character's intelligence to somehow cause him/her to switch weapons to something undesirable for you.

Actually that might work - want to use complex tactics? Make intelligent PC. It won't solve the problem, but it will alleviate it.

But if you had automatically resolved combat based on a complex simulation of AI vs AI referencing the statistics of the combatants then that could work quite well for an RPG not focusing on direct combat interaction.
Think of something like Football Manager.

So how does this relate to intelligence? Well, take something like alchemy. If alchemy is purely based on the player's skill at mixing up the correct ratio of ingredients then there are no underlying RPG mechanics governing alchemy. If alchemy is based purely on the intelligence (or alchemy skill) of the player's character by connecting the potency of the potions created to the level of skill possessed during its creation then you have a solid system which conforms the "character skill over player skill" philosophy. These two examples are at opposite ends of the spectrum. In order to create a system that gives the player more say in how their character creates a potion while deepening the character's statistical involvement then you need to pad out alchemy to make it more multi-dimensional. Create multiple statistics that affect alchemy such as one that affects the success percentage, one that affects the potency, one that improves your ability to mix conflicting reagents together, one that makes resultant potions last longer and one that affects your ability to dilute the alchemical mixture to stretch into greater numbers of potions. Make the order of added reagents matter and add plenty of controlled randomisation to prevent optimal solutions.

What you'd end up with is an increased importance of player skill as well as an expanded character sheet. It's like making a jump from auto-resolved combat using a single statistic called "combat skill" to a full blown combat system. You increase the player skill and their level of engagement with the game while letting them create more detailed characters (ranged attackers, melee specialists, combat spell casters).

This increase in player skill brings with it an increased requirement on player intelligence. You can't get rid of this requirement else you aren't playing an RPG. However, this doesn't mean that you can't model intelligent and unintelligent characters. A character purely focused on physical, brute force combat with a high strength attribute would inherently be less intelligent than one focused on intelligent skills such as alchemy and with a high intelligence attribute. Showcasing that intelligence focus through dialogue can be done the standard way of including skill checked dialogue options.

In other words, an RPG has to trust that the player will match their actions to the statistics of their character as they have developed them. This isn't the same as LARPing because a good, well balanced RPG will punish the player the further their actions deviate from their character. Telling an intelligent character to say an unintelligent thing to an assassin may lead to combat, something that an intelligent character may be disadvantaged in. However, saying something seemingly unintelligent in order to persuade a court that you are a retard in order to avoid execution could save the life of your character, making it an intelligent option.

Trust and reward. That's the name of the game.

Eh, the problem is that in a relatively open game you can arrange even most basic (and thus unrestricted) actions into intelligent patterns.

For example, I am playing a retard character. I posses a source of fire (mundane) and some flammables and explosive materials. There is nothing game can do to prevent me from laying out an environmental trap, possibly quite a cunning one, using those resources, since I will only use basic actions like picking up and dropping items and the game will have no way of determining if those basic and individually innocent actions together are actually part of intelligent whole.

 

[MMXI]

The problem is that you can't effectively bound around intelligence because intelligence, pretty much by definition involves composite actions, while you can only mechanically restrict component actions. It may alleviate the problem but it won't solve it. Designing the game with very limited freedom in mind may eliminate the problem, but I'd expect a proper RPG to be built around maximized freedom and interactivity, so this would be an autofail, even if the resulting game was very good overall, for example due to having good plot with a lot of scripted C&C.

I agree.

Eh, the problem is that in a relatively open game you can arrange even most basic (and thus unrestricted) actions into intelligent patterns.

For example, I am playing a retard character. I posses a source of fire (mundane) and some flammables and explosive materials. There is nothing game can do to prevent me from laying out an environmental trap, possibly quite a cunning one, using those resources, since I will only use basic actions like picking up and dropping items and the game will have no way of determining if those basic and individually innocent actions together are actually part of intelligent whole.

Of course. And that's exactly what you can't really avoid. The game has to come from somewhere. The only thing you can do is to mechanically limit the component actions in order to limit composite actions. However, this won't solve the problem of being able to define and limit composite actions in a developer specified way. Setting up a trap may involve moving heavy blocks around and climbing up a tree. Moving heavy blocks can be strength restricted while climbing up a tree may be dexterity restricted, but the whole process of setting up the trap won't be based on intelligence or cunning as the game has no way of predicting what the component actions are trying to achieve once strung together.

I'm not even sure where I'd start in coding some sort of composite action predictor. Even if someone were to implement one, the players would soon suss it out and do their best to avoid the game's prediction of them. And even if you were to predict that a player is making a trap from component actions, how do you suddenly enforce statistical dependency on intelligence? Make the trap fail? That could very well break the game's simulation if everything is set up to work as intended. It would be silly to make a falling block miss the target because the player's character shouldn't have had the intelligence to attempt to set up the trap in the first place.

I think it's just a dead end. It can't really be solved. Perhaps it doesn't even have a solution. Though one way to alleviate it would be to use a derived statistic similar to stamina and fatigue but for intelligence. If a game can be programmed to detect action variety then perhaps connecting it with an intelligence based derived statistic could restrict the player's character from performing complex composite actions. Let's call this derived statistic mental fatigue for now.

If a player tells their character to push a block from A to B then it will increase their character's physical fatigue by an amount relative to the block's weight and the distance from A to B. It will also increase their character's mental fatigue by a small amount, which could end up being insignificant in comparison if the block is large and the distance is great. If a player tells their character to push a very light block a very short distance from A to B, then another light block another short distance from B to C, then another light block another short distance from C to A then the mental fatigue could become more significant than the physical fatigue. Upon maxing out on physical fatigue your character may not be able to perform any physically strenuous activities without rest. Upon telling your character to push a block the game might tell you that your character is too physically fatigued to perform the action. The same could happen for mental fatigue, though perhaps worded differently.

Setting up a complex trap by manipulating the game world in numerous subtle ways? Mental fatigue will be greater than physical fatigue. Carrying a fat, wounded companion back to town to get healed? Physical fatigue will be greater than mental fatigue.

There are plenty of flaws. Of course there are. I can think up numerous. Could they be solved, though? Perhaps. It's worth thinking about, anyway.

 

[Shannow]

So what's wrong with RPGs with real time combat again? No seriously! Can someone give me a well explained answer?

Should be probably be answered by a RT-hater. And it has been discussed quite recently again so I'll keep the answer short:
The gameplay is different. One is about weighing options, taking your time, finding synergies in your tactics, finding the right positioning and letting the characters and "chance" play out to see the results. The other is about twitching fast/correctly.
I wouldn't mind the slews of aRPGs (though the vast majority sucks as aRPGs) if there was a comparable slew of TB-RPGs to balance it out. (And if the fucking press releases for the fucking aRPGs didn't claim "finally technology is advanced enough to move away from TB".)
So quite simply: They scatch different itches.
RTwP on the other hand has neither the action component that keeps you on your toes nor does it require the tactical skills of true TB... So it has neither of the strengths and is only "quickly finished"... faggy gameplay.

I cannot admit being wrong.

You'll fit right in. Perhaps you'll be the next skyway. He's a pretty cool guy who tends to be right about a lot of stuff. But he can't admit being wrong either. He'd rather repeatedly run face first into a wall than admit he was wrong. That's why people here like him so...

 

[Melcar]

RealTurd Combat.

 

[Mastermind]

s Gothic 1/2 (perfect RT fight).

 

[quasimodo]

So what's wrong with RPGs with real time combat again? No seriously! Can someone give me a well explained answer?

I don't give a shit either way as long as the combat is good. If it's good turn based, I enjoy it, if it's good real time, I enjoy it. Both can be fun if done right. But both can also be horrible if done wrong.

Of course unless this is wrong (which I think it is't).

My fingers can't move quickly enough to let me roleplay Geralt in TW2.