If you're not pausing in battle then you're making it really hard for yourself, for no reason.
Well isn't that the point of challenging yourself? :P I'm also a big fan of twitch-based gameplay like Super Mario, so making BG 100% real-time is kind of exciting for me.
If it suits you, I guess. Though you must not play with a full party. Getting through SoA would be almost impossible.
I use a full party. And like I said I do still pause occasionally, but I find it very fun to keep it to a minimum, even if it does involve a lot more reloads. One of my most fun memories was winning the last guardian battle in watcher's keep for the first time, without pausing, after a couple of tries and staring at the screen in disbelief thinking there must still be an enemy there. I'd recommend trying it for people who are into the whole no-reload thing. Different strokes I guess.
Not necessarily. To me, BG without pause and autopause feels a lot more like a Hack and Slash than it does an RTS. I say this as an enthusiastic RTS gamer.
Well, what sort of question this might be? If you do not pause during battle, you are not playing baldur's gate, me thinks. This game is all about strategy, tactics, turn based combat, and in one word, PAUSE. In 1, pausing MIGHT result in a mage loosing concentration and getting his/her spell wasted. But the chance is actually low. It does not occur always.
The worst screwing of enemy spellcasting, though, is if you can somehow enter/exit the area he is in (like firebead elvenhair, the starting inn, and climbing the ladder up or down). This way, with a few clicks, you have put his entire spell list out of play, without even the chance to land a single one of them on your fleeting ass.
Spellcasters are pain in the ass anyway. I don't mind them loosing one or two spells, just because i pause to think what to do next anyway... Also, this might be an exploit, actually, but it certainly adds a dose of roleplaying "realism", don't you think? Magic is unstable, who says it should always succeed?
Pausing is not only invaluable, but a core feature of the entire game itself. If you are bugged by how it destroys your challenge and your game, you can always avoid pausing manually, and calibrate the auto-pause conditions from the settings pannel; this way, the game pauses for you, when the criteria you choose are met (encountering an enemy, being attacked, etc), and most importantly, you do not even bother to do it manually (which means more concentration for your battle).
I think hack-and-slash games are much more twitch-based. Without pausing, the game requires strategy in real-time. Hence, real-time strategy game. Having to think of what to do in real-time is a lot more exciting than getting to pause and take all the time in the world to plan your next move.
Playing with scs one need to use pause and auto pauses a lot, because right tactic and timing are everything in scs. One second delay of a spell/ability or potion quaff can be disastrous. Keeping a clearaura to quaff an emergency potion of invisibility or magic shielding is what kept my characters alive most of the time. And I tend to play no reload or minimal reload so pausing is mandatory in my games.
I can sort of understand the logic of people going no-reload, but whoever plays BG without pausing is just masochistic, plain and simple. The Infinity Engine was not designed to handle the twitchiness of RTS action. Misclicking or orders not registering is already an infuriatingly common phenomenon, at least for me, as is the screen or mouse scrolling too much/ not scrolling enough. I mean, just imagine trying to target hasted creatures in real time. Furthermore, unless you're running some seriously kickass scripts, your party members are going to be acting like feebleminded zombies most of the time, standing around dumb and idle, as if they only had one brain which they needed to pass around.
Pausing is the way the game is meant to be played.
Autopausing however is a different story : - it allows to pick groups one by one (quite cheesy) - it makes improved alacrity even more OP than it supposed to be. - for traps it's the only way (i already hate the way find traps is implemented...)
I think the reason so many people don't use quicksaves is the pervasiveness of restartitis. People have many separate games going on at once and you can only have one quicksave slot.
I get around this by swapping out saves. I throw all my runs in separate folders I've created in a backup partition. Just put a shortcut to your saves and backup folder on your desktop, then you can quickly copy/paste your runs back and forth.
@mumumomo but you play on the ipad, right? My app freezes 70% of the time if i have to switch it off due to RL things. Which happens often. Quicksave makes it faster to save and switch off
Of course, saying "Must I be interrupted at every turn? Enough of this" is usually met with a frown at best
Oh my God, Yes I do!!! How could I play without pausing? I always have autopause set on: detect traps See enemy target destroyed spell cast weapon unusable character injuried sometimes I also enable pause on "end of round"!!! And I manually pause the game many times during each fight!!!!
the original Baldurs Gate, pausing breaks up spellcasting every time. havent seen it much in BGEE though or BG2EE
Not a huge fan of pausing but its needed for MP, especially if u are typing and someone runs (literally) into trouble away from you while you are trying to type to them. Difficult to type and fight without the pausing.
I've always found IE games to be incredibly bad to play without pausing. While I can play RTS games competently and they feel smooth to play, IE games without pausing is like driving a gigantic slow ass truck in traffic. The lack of custom hotgroups and stupid AI is probably the cause of that.
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I'd recommend trying it for people who are into the whole no-reload thing. Different strokes I guess.
All. The. Time.
You could probably make a stop-motion video with all the pausing I do!
The worst screwing of enemy spellcasting, though, is if you can somehow enter/exit the area he is in (like firebead elvenhair, the starting inn, and climbing the ladder up or down). This way, with a few clicks, you have put his entire spell list out of play, without even the chance to land a single one of them on your fleeting ass.
Spellcasters are pain in the ass anyway. I don't mind them loosing one or two spells, just because i pause to think what to do next anyway... Also, this might be an exploit, actually, but it certainly adds a dose of roleplaying "realism", don't you think? Magic is unstable, who says it should always succeed?
Pausing is not only invaluable, but a core feature of the entire game itself. If you are bugged by how it destroys your challenge and your game, you can always avoid pausing manually, and calibrate the auto-pause conditions from the settings pannel; this way, the game pauses for you, when the criteria you choose are met (encountering an enemy, being attacked, etc), and most importantly, you do not even bother to do it manually (which means more concentration for your battle).
Eugh... just no.
Pausing is the way the game is meant to be played.
Autopausing however is a different story :
- it allows to pick groups one by one (quite cheesy)
- it makes improved alacrity even more OP than it supposed to be.
- for traps it's the only way (i already hate the way find traps is implemented...)
But I use it a lot, mostly as second saveslot (I use one slot per PC) and quick-loading when using
And well, if I wanted a game that you cannot pause, I'd play an MMO.
"They are deviants. Let them rot in Spellhold"
Of course, saying "Must I be interrupted at every turn? Enough of this" is usually met with a frown at best
In these occasion, i DO use quicksave.
How could I play without pausing?
I always have autopause set on:
detect traps
See enemy
target destroyed
spell cast
weapon unusable
character injuried
sometimes I also enable pause on "end of round"!!!
And I manually pause the game many times during each fight!!!!
Not a huge fan of pausing but its needed for MP, especially if u are typing and someone runs (literally) into trouble away from you while you are trying to type to them. Difficult to type and fight without the pausing.