Is Turn Based RPG's Dead?

[GothicGothicness]

I'd like to see a new take on turn-based, something that combines the tactical depth and deliberate pace with the power of todays graphics, physics and animation. What I am imagining is something where combat is more like "combat design" with the goal of creatin over the top combat like in the old Pirate or Zorro movies or in Kung-Fu flicks. You get to choose from a large variety of moves. You can move freely. Surroundings are fully interactive (Swing on chandeliers, hop on tables, tip over chairs, slide down the railing, smash it with a sledgehammer) and movement is governed by physics. Since it's all turn or phase-based, you can have much more calculation intensive effects. In the end you can playback the whole thing in real-time. Output as .avi is included, and an online video platform where you can upload your coolest fights is part of the advertising strategy.

It is simply not possible for turn-based combats, there is one thing about turn-based that is a KEY requirement each turn has to be fast! No matter how cool the effects are you'll get tired of them, if each units turn takes 10 seconds of cool effects, and you have 5 units, and 20 enemy units. that would be 250 seconds per turn and a serious combat could be 20 turns. That's 5000 seconds for one combat.

 

[Corwin]

That reminds me SO much of PoR2 where one combat could take over an hour!!

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

It is simply not possible for turn-based combats, there is one thing about turn-based that is a KEY requirement each turn has to be fast! No matter how cool the effects are you'll get tired of them, if each units turn takes 10 seconds of cool effects, and you have 5 units, and 20 enemy units. that would be 250 seconds per turn and a serious combat could be 20 turns. That's 5000 seconds for one combat.

I am thinking of a single player game here, and imagine mostly one-on-one combat scenes, and certainly not something where combat is a dime a dozen - more like a game with maybe 25-40 carefully prepared combat scenes. The rest comes down to creating a slick, contextual user interface. Not saying its easy, just an idea I have been kicking around. Also I think you understimate the pull that fiddling with such a system could have - It would be half toy, half game, actually, especially if you take the online bragging mechanic into account...

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Well, King's bounty does have nice effects of characters within a battle ... and they don't bore me ...

On the other hand, TOEE was just demanding, imho ...
Often very long battles, with the need to do everything right ...

 

[Squeek]

Here's an example of the kind of turn and the kind of game I'm imagining.

Let's say you've just entered a town for the first time. It's small and in the middle of nowhere. You decide to impress and intimidate the locals by proceeding to strut down main street like you own the place. And you get no reaction.

So you decide to pause and take a turn. First you cash in some of your precious-few DM points and ask him to comment. "Hmmmmmm...let's see...oh, here's a townie who's thinking, '... a little further... just a little bit further....' Does that help?"

Adjusting your style/attitude indicator away from ostentatious, you focus it toward receptiveness with an emphasis on perception and then proceed. As you take the next few steps the game interface starts to change. Your mage's high intellect, your thief's danger sense and your fighter's heroic fate reveal indications of something threatening up ahead.

Now it's a matter of style and personality, and there could be unforseeable benefits or drawbacks to your choices of each. Do you go into a kind of SWAT team mode? Or do you crank up the intimidation? Maybe you switch to impassive and just play it by ear?

Today's games tend to handle all indications of style and personality in dialogue screens. It's exactly the way bad writers handle it in their badly-written stories. It's straightforward, unimaginative and boring.

Real time in the first-person perspective allows you to steer yourself around very realistically. But it isn't engineered for the kind of calculating and decision-making that's often discribed in elaborate detail in well-written stories.

 

[Dasale]

When looking for some DS titles I saw there was a football RPG! Fights are replaced by football, Ha well Alrik I bet that will bore you as much than fights.
Anyway it's only released in Japan at this time.

 

[Yeesh]

I'd like to see a new take on turn-based, something that combines the tactical depth and deliberate pace with the power of todays graphics, physics and animation. What I am imagining is something where combat is more like "combat design" with the goal of creatin over the top combat like in the old Pirate or Zorro movies or in Kung-Fu flicks. You get to choose from a large variety of moves. You can move freely. Surroundings are fully interactive (Swing on chandeliers, hop on tables, tip over chairs, slide down the railing, smash it with a sledgehammer) and movement is governed by physics. Since it's all turn or phase-based, you can have much more calculation intensive effects. In the end you can playback the whole thing in real-time. Output as .avi is included, and an online video platform where you can upload your coolest fights is part of the advertising strategy.

That's a fine vision, but it would make more sense in real-time with pause than it would with a turn-based system. Especially when you consider watching the video playback... The biggest knock against turn-based is that it leads to unrealistic results, i.e. a boss orc standing immobile while three separate party members walk up to him and take a swing one after the other. My position on that is IT'S OK! because this is a frigging game we're playing, but that position does not win here in the world of the western RPG.

Anywho, obviously with a traditional turn-based system, your vision of watching the fight afterwards in real-time would look a little funny, with one of the two guys (for ex) standing still at any given moment while the other one takes his turn. I assume you've thought about that, but what's the solution without leaving turn-based mode? The very name of the system, "turn", enshrines the idea that one side goes and then the other. If you want simultaneous movement, which is the only kind I can imagine it making much sense to watch in an .avi afterwards, you need real-time. If you posit a turn-based system where both sides move simultaneously, then I'm just confused. The only way to actually synchronize movement is to use real-time. Any other solution in turn-based games is a work-around (see Jagged Alliance's very serviceable* interrupt system).

*By serviceable, I mean awesome. But still.

 

[Phonix]

Going back to sequentially executed turns like in Arcanum or Fallout 1 would be a downgrade with no gain in functionality compared to pausable realtime where you can issue order in the paused state. The only thing lost is the special tactical elements related to the execution order between characters, but THAT is something unrealistic in extreme that always annoyed me.

Its games, it dont have to be realistic? But I guess it all come down to if one like real time action RPG's, or like a more stategy/tactical aproce. I like both, but has not seen the later for awhile.

 

[Dasale]

If you posit a turn-based system where both sides move simultaneously, then I'm just confused. The only way to actually synchronize movement is to use real-time.

Many wargame turn based was using simultaneous moving. That is working well in strategy games. Fights based on cards are probably also turn based and simultaneous moving.

Not sure how use such system in a RPG that isn't tactical or card based. Systems like Golden Box fights could have used a similar system but this probably requires to design differently all the stuff.

The problem has already been quoted it's time length, for a game dedicated to fight like is a wargame that's ok, for a RPG that's more difficult as it will unbalance time in favor of fights. Myself I'd like see such a game for a change.

 

[azraelck]

IIRC, there was a PS1 RPG which used a turn based tactical combat screen. Turns were simultaneous. It was pretty good IMO, but that's been years and years; I no longer have any PS1 games except Gran Turismo 2. I can't recall what the name was though, sadly.

One problem was the AI wasn't quite up to par with the combat system; You could spend an hour having your units swing at empty space until you got lucky. Instead of tracking the target, it instead targets the tile your target was in.

 

[Yeesh]

Look, there's just no way to do actually simultaneous turn-based. If you have both sides move at once in a turn-based system, they're not really moving at once. You know how I know they're not both moving at the same time in a turn-based game? Because it's not in real-time. If you ARE both moving at the same time, then you're in real-time. This is all by definitinon.

Turn-based systems have recognizable traits, like a movement allowance for example. This unit or character can only move X (distance or squares/hexes) per turn. If both sides go "at once", and the AI moves his character the full allowance before you've moved yours, then you're not moving simultaneously. By definition. If, on the other hand, you don't have a set movement allowance and you have to move your character in real-time simultaneously with the AI in order to keep up, then you're not playing turn-based, but rather real-time.

What I'm saying is that while you can have some sort of both-go-at-once turn-based system, you CANNOT havce true simultaneous action in a turn-based system. By definition, that can only happen in real time. A true simultaneous system that looked turn-based might be one where you have (for ex) ten seconds of real-time movement and/or action, punctuated by a break for however long, followed by ten more seconds of action, etc. Each of those ten seconds of action might look like (and be labeled as) a turn, but that would really be our old friend real-time with pause.

You just can't have true simultaneous movement without real-time. It's just a function of how time works. Either you're taking turns, or you're both going at once. And if you're both going at once, then you're in some form of real-time.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

You are right a phase based system (we go) with interrupts is probably what I am talking about. in addition the actual duration of a turn might have to be continuously adjusted to maintain a sufficiently "realistic" flow, where a real time playback makes sense. Still I am imagining something that requires more planning, especially also positional movement then the RTwP systems I know (KotoR, BG). I am aware that what I am talking about is a pretty strong departure from a classic turn based system, but it would maintain some of its qualities (tactical planning) while adding some modern thrills.

 

[Zaleukos]

Its games, it dont have to be realistic? But I guess it all come down to if one like real time action RPG's, or like a more stategy/tactical aproce. I like both, but has not seen the later for awhile.

I'd say I much prefer more tactical combat and turn based strategy games, and that realism IS very much secondary to gameplay. That character A perform all his actions before character B just because A had one extra point of agility/speed whatever doesnt really cater to either, and I think the unbalancing tactical options it adds make very little sense even knowing that it is a necessary abstraction and there is no good way around it in a turn based environment.

Getting around that with RTwP/phased/whatever was IMHO a big improvement without necessarily losing the tactical element. I dont think Arcanum, Fallout or the Goldbox games (which IMHO have rather better combat than the first two) have more tactical fighting than say Baldurs Gate. Not that the more modern approach gives more tactical combat by itself, but I do think it gives a better platform for it, and that this platform is different from the realtime games where you cant give orders while the game is paused.

 

[GothicGothicness]

I think Eschalon has an intressing approach to turn-based, everything you do is turn based, but you can only walk one step / turn, and if you attack it could be parried for example. Making it feel more realistic even if it is turn based.

If one turn is just one step or one action, and the other do their one step / one action it could become more realistic. There is also some games which has a system, like if one person has agility 10 and the other has agility 9, the person with agility 10 could take one, step, than it is agility 9 persons turn, and he take one step and agility 10 persons turn again....

Also acctually everything is still "turn-based" just the speed the turns play out is much faster in games like BG and Kotor. Even real-life is turn based, as the electrons moves in the steps between their different bands and not continiously.

 

[Zaleukos]

I think Eschalon has an intressing approach to turn-based, everything you do is turn based, but you can only walk one step / turn, and if you attack it could be parried for example. Making it feel more realistic even if it is turn based.

If one turn is just one step or one action, and the other do their one step / one action it could become more realistic. There is also some games which has a system, like if one person has agility 10 and the other has agility 9, the person with agility 10 could take one, step, than it is agility 9 persons turn, and he take one step and agility 10 persons turn again....

Also acctually everything is still "turn-based" just the speed the turns play out is much faster in games like BG and Kotor. Even real-life is turn based, as the electrons moves in the steps between their different bands and not continiously.

Yes, making each turn shorter is one way of tackling the issue. You get the same effect by having a lot hitpoints compared to the amount of damage one can do in a turn (imagine how unbalanced a turn-based game becomes once you are capable of one-shot kills). These approaches tend to make the game a bit slower though. You can also have some sort of passive "opportunity fire" for characters/units who didnt use up all their action points in the previous round, X-com and to some extent the gold box games had that.

 

[Squeek]

Speaking purely as a fan, I wouldn't mind if the "turn" concept were expanded over entire games in order to make their worlds seem more alive. Instead of only keeping track of quests, narrative across entire game worlds could unfold in accordance with the game's turn.

Taking that idea even further, if games updated themselves over the Internet, then everything about them could change in accordance with the "game turn" and the player's decisions within it, making the game world dynamic (instead of static).

If they were designed modularly and redundantly, then varieties of stories (game turns) could overlap. Towns could grow. Businesses could flourish. Or those towns might be burned down. Those businesses might be bought out or ruined. Beggars could become Mayors. Assassins could get religion. Graphics and even special effects could be substituted. Absolutely everything would be subject to change.

That's a lot to ask for $60. Which is why I think game makers should consider switching to subscription pricing.

 

[Dasale]

You just can't have true simultaneous movement without real-time. It's just a function of how time works. Either you're taking turns, or you're both going at once. And if you're both going at once, then you're in some form of real-time.

What are you talking about?

Take Baldur's gate and setup pause at each round. Turn based? Non Simultaneous? It's turn based and simultaneous action.

In all those system you don't control the exact movements but you give an order and the unit, or the character follows it and if it's contradictory with another enemy unit then the system manage the conflict. Turn based and fully simultaneous, Baldur's Gate but also some old war games.

For most JRPG I have seen it's not simultaneous to let the change to the player to see what happen at each action without to manage a log.

 

[Zloth]

We're talking symantics here but I think Yeesh is right. Turn based means you do your stuff on your turn, then I do my stuff on my turn. Most board games are like that. Things can get a little blurry when you can do things while another side's turn is going on, but I don't think that happens much.

Baulder's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, and even Fallout 3's VATS were something else - pausable battle. You could pause the game and think just like you can in a turn based game but you aren't taking turns.

A lot of JRPGs are... kinda between those two. You figure out what you are going to do in the next round of battle and input that. Then each side plays their part of the fight out, character by character. I don't know what to call it if you say what you are going to do then have the results play out in real time. Turns with simultaneous results? Forced-pause battles? Bah. How about JRPG-turn-based?

P.S. Looks like no coverage of The Last Remnant (Gametrailers review) around here?

 

[Dhruin]

Nope. We don't do jRPGs.

On the current topic, BG with pauses isn't the same as turnbased.

 

[azraelck]

In most jRPGs, the combat is like Bard's Tale or Wizardry; you have the order phase, then each character and monster acts on their orders in the combat phase, each taking a turn based on initiative, speed/dexterity scores or whatever. That is how the 4 classic Phantasy Star games are, how early Dragon Warrior is, the Final Fantasy games, etc...

This is identical to the style used by Wizardry and Bard's Tale. Later Ultima, Might and Magic, and the Gold Box games had each character act in their turn, then moving to the next; the order phase and turns were one and the same.

As for BG, I was 3/4 of the way through before I set it to pause on combat. Prior, it was full real time battle for me.