turn-based tactical: a necessary design element for next gen RPGs with depth
Ygramul
Member Posts: 1,060
Let me make one assumption here:
** We come back to BG because of its depth. **
This particularly also includes the tactical depth of its combat and magic systems.
If, furthermore, I assume that we play the game at a reasonable difficulty without "Power Word: Reload" used in every encounter. You must repeatedly pause the game. An encounter involving mage and his cohorts, you are probably pausing every six seconds for a good lengthy time.
For something like a no-reload run using SCS 'Autopause: Spell Cast' (or even at end-of-round) is a necessity.
So, why not include it into design in the first place?
Pausable-real-time is just an artifact of appealing to the old RTS/MMORPG crowds.
Honorable mention goes to ToEE for trying this. It was pretty good, but plagued by instabilities, bad AI, lackluster story. A *good* game can actually pull this off.
My hopes are with BG-next and Torment-next!
** We come back to BG because of its depth. **
This particularly also includes the tactical depth of its combat and magic systems.
If, furthermore, I assume that we play the game at a reasonable difficulty without "Power Word: Reload" used in every encounter. You must repeatedly pause the game. An encounter involving mage and his cohorts, you are probably pausing every six seconds for a good lengthy time.
For something like a no-reload run using SCS 'Autopause: Spell Cast' (or even at end-of-round) is a necessity.
So, why not include it into design in the first place?
Pausable-real-time is just an artifact of appealing to the old RTS/MMORPG crowds.
Honorable mention goes to ToEE for trying this. It was pretty good, but plagued by instabilities, bad AI, lackluster story. A *good* game can actually pull this off.
My hopes are with BG-next and Torment-next!
0
Comments
Still allows to pause the game and give orders and also lets the player just watch the flow of the battle. Also, you can set up the autopause if you wanted to.
Best of both worlds...I like the way BG's pause is done.
Arcanum had turn based and real time combat options. But real time was so hectic and fast that it was unplayable unless you were against very weak enemies you could curb-stomp fast.
BG has the best, with all the auto pause options enabled you can simulate a turn based game. But it never loses its excitement and charm like ToEE does for me.
What I like about IE games is that immediately after doing action A you can fire off a magic missile or command spell.
*swing*
*whunk*
"ARGH!"
*hrrrm foosh bsh bsh bsh bsh bsh*
"ARGH!"
And how Nahal's Reckless Dweomer works.
I think the bottom line is; real time and turn based can both be a turn off to different groups of customers. The Infinity Engine seems to be a perfect compromise and players of both sorts can find something to enjoy. Ideally, a future game should proudly announce the fact it can work either way.
I hate being forced into real time in this sort of game. I like all the autopause options in BG. You can even set it to pause at round end if you want.
On the other hand, the idea that BG's system is somehow archaic is silly. Turn-based battles existed way before the way BG1 did things. Real-time combat was one of BG's selling points back in the day. Black Isle's previous endeavor, Fallout, was turn-based.
If you guys like real time with pause, with graphics that are actually pretty good-Go with divine divinity for a solo character game. If you prefer a party based real time-beyond divinity. Seeing as I like my games with a party, beyond was more my style although Divine had a better story.
Other than that, there really aren't many real time with pause rpgs I would play. Neverwinter nights has crashed on every computer Ive had and could have been ok. The story/characters were not well done like the infinity engine games.
Then theres drift moon which was a good idea, but I'm sorry I just can't get into having a firefly and other characters like that follow me. Still a good idea though.
Thats about it as I won't play dragon age or any new bioware stuff. The last game I would like to see with a sequel probably won't happen-KOTOR 3. Oh well.
Oh almost forgot, stay away from inquisitor. Although its real time with pause and has pretty good graphics, the balance is ridiculous to the point where you can get 1 or 2 shot by regular enemies. You'd figure after making a game that took 10 years it'd be polished, guess not. Perfect reason why graphics NEVER make a rpg. The only reason I could see playing it is if your a masochist, lol.
On combat itself, I don't think that the game being turn-based or real-time is really an issue for me. As long as you implement a good system properly it's fine. However, I think that for combat to become more tactical stuff needs to be more reliable first. Having a combat system that relies near-entirely on randomness and be tactical at the same time is almost contradictory since you want to make tactical decisions based on you knowing exactly what the effect of any action might be.
EDIT: Heh. I'm glad I'm not the only one then. =P
I remember, BG2 and Tutu had some mediocre scripts (not good, but also not completely idiotic)
BGEE's scripts are quite idiotic, where mages can cast only the Sleep spell (and each round, no matter the fact that all low-level enemies are already sleeping). I think I haven't seen them cast any other spell.
Cleric's are even worse...no cleric script now ever does what the old BG2 scripts did = automatically heal injured party members.
Are there any good mods for this? As the scripts that come with BGEE are in reality unusable.
(I'm on the fence of converting from Tutu to EE; I was hoping AI to be an improvement...)
Edit: Ohh, totally missed the fantasy part. ^^
Well, then I don't know. I still recommend Fallout if you haven't played.
But I have a near perfect tuned setup in BGTutu and mods. If I am to jump to BGEE, I can wait till it is as polished.
Gaming time is a rare asset for me. I do not have the time to spend on fixing bugs.
(What I see so far of BGEE does look promising.)
Personally I think I would say "this fall" for 2013 and "next fall" for 2014.
But English is not my native language.
I loved ToEE for its turn based combat and would love another outing with that engine. I love turn based games.
I get that people want a more social game. But I personally prefer turn based.