Pillars of Eternity II - Going Turn Based January 24th
 

PCGamesN reports that Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire will be going turn-based from the 24th of January.

Thanks wolfing!

More information.

Wow, first I've heard of that. And I love the idea - can't wait to try it. Not to say I'll love it over the current system, but choice is never a bad thing.

Edit: After thinking about it, I love the idea even more. The AI scripts are great but I'm guessing they won't play a part in TB?

My only (other) question (and I guess I'll find out in 2 days) is what exactly happens with spells that have a cast time, particularly longer cast times; will the "long" ones stretch into the next round? I suppose the answer lies in how much time each round lasts.

That's…freaking…weird??? The game is already "old", and as far as I'm aware of it didn't sell very well although it's highly rated and critically acclaimed? And now they put resources into adding a turn based mode? Seems like a less than logical thing to do, although I guess Josh makes some good arguments in the linked article.

Either way, does this mean I can vote PoE2 as my Goty 2019 as well? Because there's a pretty damn good chance it will be…

Also, the ending quote:
“I’ve always preferred turn-based,” he says. “Because of my tabletop background, and because I prefer closer examination. When I play real-time with pause, I micromanage so much that it might as well be turn-based.”

Josh Sawyer is back on my approved list.

It's awesome to have the option. I'll probably stick with RTwP for now, but maybe on another replay I'll switch.

Wow, that's great news. Skipped the game due to being RTwP and having other games I prefered to play. But with introducing turn based, I kinda have to play it.

There's so much combat in PoE / PoE 2 that this would stretch out an already laborious game even further. In my opinion the combat, albeit chaotic at times, is fine in Deadfire.

What drags down the game is moreso the simplistic encounter and map design (and life-sucking overbalancing). Go to one island, kill this guy, go to another island, kill some other guy. I'm currently level 15/16 in my first and only playthrough and I just feel very little intrigue for the story and setting; at this stage of an RPG (50-66% through), it should be enrapturing me.

Well, they are mentioning that you have to chose the mode at the start of the game (cannot switch later), and for now they just implement a beta version.

So there is a good chance they will also just reduce the amount of combat to make it more interesting.

Fantastic, can't wait to try it out.

I'll be keen to hear if it works well.

Has anyone heard any more about improvements to the ship combat, which I think they mentioned at one stage? Perhaps they could harness the turn-based system to display ship battles as customised combat encounters, with a few new graphics.

I started the game a couple of months ago, but I didn't find it fun, combat was too cumbersome the way I was playing it (no AI script and pause after action ends), and didn't care for playing it real time, so this news is great for me.

This is exciting. I have never been a fan of real time with pause combat. I hated it the first time I saw it in Baldur's Gate, and it is a big reason why I am one of the few people in the universe who never fell in love with any of the Baldur's Gate games.

Giving people an option as to how they want to play a game is an incredible gift. I'm sure the work that goes in to making both styles playable through an entire game must be enormous.

I really liked the first game and supported it on kick starter back a few years ago. What I don't like is how they stagger the extra content after the initial release, so this time I just waited until it was all available. Now I'll also wait until the turn based system is fully in place before I pick this one up.

Yes, for me the spread out nature of the islands can drag the mid-game down a bit. Some of the locations are particularly enjoyable though, like Splintered Reef, Fort Deadlight, and Crookspur.

Those who like turn-based systems should be very happy, because late-in-the-cycle patches from Obsidian often represent ideas they're testing for the next game. (Those who don't like turn-based systems should be unhappy for the same reason.)

I'm a fan of both RTwP and turn-based so no preference really. Still to decide to add this almost a year after it's release makes no sense. Still it's free so I can't complain to much.

Also not really new as a beta of the turn-based combat was was accidentally released a few months back in one of the patches. It was quickly patched so I had no time to try it.

I thought TB mode was being implemented because of the console release?

Could be but why? As the original Pillars was also released on consoles with RTwP.

They did it to appease the rpgcodex glut :)

I ll certainly try it out and curious if they have reduced the battle encounters sticking to more meaningfull ones.

I also suspect this is connected to consoles release. Perhaps they realized RTwP doesnt work well with controller after they released PoE? So this might be attempt to get bigger audience on consoles for Deadfire? Dunno, but I personally wouldnt even try RtWP with consoles controller.

Anyway, Im gonna definitely try this. If they somehow re-designed encounters it might be greatest thing since ToEE (combat wise). Somewhat thrilled about it actually.

Obsidian going above and beyond. This would have to be some of the best post go-live support i have ever seen. Not sure if anyone can recall anything better? (excluding paid dlc/expansions).

This won't be really turn-based as designed from the ground-up, but just a Turny-Basy jackSHT Donut-flavor added later. This free feature won't make this trainwreck a better game. More confusing for sure. Also The GUI LOOKS LIKE SHT!!!!!!!!

I think they did this to increase sales a bit. I will buy the game now if the turn-based combat is done fairly well. I think there is about 100,000 turn-based fans that will buy the game.

I have many reservations on multiple levels towards Deadfire. Including basic things like game mechanics, overall story, writing, characters or voice-over. But I wouldnt call it bad game at all. And Im looking forward to give it try in turn-based mode with all DLCs. And I hope I will enjoy it, as I believe this is last isometric, party based RPG from Obsidian we have seen.

Didn't they accidentally patch this in already in an earlier patch, only to remove it rather quickly?

Anyway, I haven't played PoE 2 yet, but compared to PoE 1 the combat in that gameplay video looks a lot more enjoyable and less like complete chaos.

Oh, for sure. I don't think it was all out of the goodness of their hearts…:biggrin:

I do agree that there is a hardcore rpg codex style audience out there who will be much more likely to buy the game now that it has turn-based. And maybe even gamers who loved the Divinity Original Sin games (which were a monster hit, sales wise, for an old school rpg!) on various platforms will warm to this game now as well.

They may also be adding it in as an experiment to see how it works. If it doesn't work it's better that they find out now then when they try to make a turn based version of whatever new game they do.

My main concern about TB POE is that fights in POE last for a very high number of rounds. It might get very boring to hit attack over and over 200 times for every fight.

I am suddenly interested in playing PoE 2 :D
But I am going to wait a few more months until they patch and balance this new mode.

It's a smart way to double dip, and likely won't be too difficult for them to implement. Then you'll have the best of both worlds, the real time with pause and the turn based crowds will both be pleased and put forth their monies. I wonder if this is a trend that we'll see them continue in the future with new products.

Outside of a few optional bosses fight, I never had encounters last for very long in either POE or POE2 on normal…and turn-based boss fights tend to be much longer than RTwP ones from my jrpg experience.

But again, the turn-based version is getting its own encounter balance, so if it is too long it's because the dev decided to make it too long.

I can think of a number of older games that tried having turn based or real time combat options. In general it was a always bit of a train wreck and resulted in both modes not working well. I'm not sure that I can think of a single time that it was done well. I think the problem is that each mode requires very different game mechanics and scenario design to support.

But it's been awhile since anyone tried so who knows, maybe PoE will make it work. It's going to need some dramatic changes to the way combat works though in TB mode, just using the exact same system they have in real time doesn't seem like it would work.

The real time fights aren't all that long. But if you actually look at the round by round summary, there are usually dozens of combat rounds going by in even a short fight. That could be ridiculously tedious if you had to give orders to all of your characters for each individual round. They'd have to find a way to rebalance the system to avoid that.

Bleh. PR statement to the max.

I'm not sure you really can have the best of both worlds. Since both need to be balanced and fast enough, you will have to compromise now and then. So, I'm very interested to see how well they make this work.

Yes, but how enjoyable is RTwP on consoles? Especially, with console controllers. I really have no clue. They may expect this to work better with TB?

I could see them tweaking the penetration algorithm just to ramp up the damage rate in turn-based.

I would think that re-balancing the whole game to work with TB is quite a big chunk of work. I do find it a surprising thing to do at this stage. Also surprised to see the game getting significant love after the acquisition.

I do agree that TB is probably a better fit for consoles - I can't imagine the micromanagement of RTwP is lots of fun with the dreaded mushrooms.

Maybe. However I micromanage exactly like that in RTWP-games, so it sounds plausible to me that he actually plays that way. Of course it could be both good PR and true at the same time.

Fallout Tactics? At least I found the real time option really good in that one, while my friends mostly played turn based…

Probably true, but he had already gained enough cred back from me with PoE2 which I found excellent, so a PR statement was enough to win me over.

I don't think it is THAT difficult to change the game from real time to turn-based. I mean, come on, this isn't exactly brain surgery, lol. For example, if you had a low level fight with about 10-15 monsters in the real time original game, then in the turn based mode, cut back to around 5-10 monsters (or 6, or 7, whatever the best number is in practice) and see how it goes. The fight won't involve as many monsters, but should be far more interesting and rich in turn-based (tactically)

Or, instead of two separate low level monster encounters on a particular map, remove one encounter, and replace the other one with slightly tougher monsters, but less of them. I just think it's funny how there is a sentiment of this being so incredibly difficult to do or something. We landed a man on the moon once, I doubt this is much more complicated. (sarcasm tag for the sarcastic impaired)