Of course you can get killed in TB, would be very boring otherwise ;) but it's never e.g because the caster is getting killed at the same time as casting to heal..

TB is obviously FAR less messy, than if e.g 10 people go at it at the same time doing their thing. When you get killed in TB it feels more fair, it's easy to figure out what happened and why, how to improve or redo it. In RTwP things can be over for all characters in your group in 0.1 seconds, that can't happen in TB (you can still lose though, obviously)

I think that depends on implementation. In Deadfire, for example, casting spells in TB mode still takes time - after you start casting a spell your enemies get to take their turns before the spell is finished. I quite often found my casters see killed before they'd finished casting their spells.

but at least you can figure out how long it will take (e.g 1 turn) etc. again, far less messy.

Yeah it's generally less messy and normally my preference, although for some reason I really enjoy RTwP in the Infinity Engine games. Habit I guess :) I've played them so often I'm very used to spell timings etc and I love the high level battles.

But RTwP is more fun than chess TB ;)

It all depends on what you prefer I guess.

RTwP is a total hack imo.. Someone decided TB wasn't really commercial enough (in days of successful action RPG's).. so they ended up with a poor mans version of "action RPG combat" mixed with something that wasn't TB but at least you could pause to do very basic tactics.

My preferences seem to be inconsistent. :) I generally prefer TB, but I really enoy the chaos of BG and the RTwP reactivity that comes with that, especially the magic heavy later fights. I don't think I'd enjoy BG in TB mode so much. I really didn't enjoy RTwP in PoE, although possibly because I was unfamiliar with the ruleset I guess.

As you said, it depends on the implementation - I like RTwP but didn't enjoy Deadfire/PoE RTwP combat!

I pretty much always prefer RT or RTwP over TB in RPGs. I'm one of few people that play M&M 6-8 exclusively real time, and Arcanum mostly real time. Usually when I truly enjoy TB combat, it has a HoMM3 style "auto resolve" for trash fights. Otherwise, they tend to bore me out of my mind.

D: OS1 and 2 are among the few TB games that have actually managed to keep me interested throughout, but it's hard to pinpoint why. I guess it could be down to the fact that a lot of abilities and combinations are flat out fun to use, even when you're just blowing up some trash mobs.

I think that's exactly the mindset of RTwP vs TB. If you want to control and maximize everything, RTwP is a mess and you hit pause multiple times per gametime-second and it becomes slower than real turn based.
And unless I have some kind of auto-heal after each combat I would always want to try to maximize it. That's also why I'd never use any auto-resolve as the result is never as good as someone a player could do by himself. I'd also never use any auto-gouvernor in my Civilization Cities, or AI to handle my RTwP characters.
That's accepting a subpar result.

That's not always the case though.

In Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 I can optimize the characters to a point where my parties will hardly ever lose a hitpoint in trash fights, meaning I only have to pause during boss fights to achieve optimal results. In Might & Magic, it's actually easier to avoid taking damage in RT than TB because you can strafe/kite constantly, and thus the enemy will simply never reach you. This is impossible in TB mode, meaning the only way to achieve optimal results is to use RT mode exclusively. Something similar goes for Arcanum, unless you use very specific skills like haste to increase your action points. In HoMM, it's entirely possible to use auto resolve without casualties, you just need to know roughly what units to use and what types of fight you can auto resolve. In Age of Wonders, the hero often fights better in auto resolve than TB mode because of how the auto resolve works.

The list goes on and on. Using auto resolve, RT or RTwP doesn't automatically yield worse results. It entirely depends on the implementation. I agree that it probably should give worse results than manually playing/pausing a lot/etc, but most combat systems are hardly ideal.

It is about generalizing, not personal preferences. It is about determining whether there is a market to support a RTwP party based combat game. It is pointless to developp a game without a market to support it.

Rimworld is one of the now numerous examples showing there is no market for it.

It is light requirements and yet players can not play it RTwP. It exhibited the early access period as conflictual: the dev knew he had a well functioning design and tried to cajole players into playing it as a RTwP game.

It failed, players depend on kill zones. As a result, they are weak as weak when it comes to offensive situations, they do not know how to fight in an open space or establish a pocket to emulate a kill zone.

One incentive is to attack insane rewards to assault situations. Today, Rimworld, hardest difficulty, it is possible to assault a 13 people garrison with 3 pawns and one bear. Half decent proficiency.

On the other side, watching streamers, it is also possible to lose a 4 vs one (three riflemen, one melee unit vs a sub machine gunner), knowing that the duel between a rifleman and SMGer is biased toward the rifleman.

It has nothing to do with speed, the situation took like one minute and half to two minutes to complete. Guy sat on his hands. To conclude it is unfair the enemy has automatic weapons.
UgoIgo, that player wins the encounter every time, RTwP, he ate his teeth.
No clue about using each of his pawns to their strengths.

Not possible to developp a game without gamers to play them.

I do the same in those games, I don't think I ever switched to turn based. I'll add Fallout Tactics to the list as well.

I think giving the choice between the systems will always be messy because of encounter balance, unless developers go the PoE2 route and make players choose at the beginning of the game.

It makes no sense. Optimization happens against parameters.

It took years to understand what players mean when they write that RTwP is a mess.

RTwP is as messy as a player allows it to be.

One fundamental difference between UgoIgo and RTwP: UgoIgo does not demand foresightness, things are planned as stuff unfolds.

RTwP demands to take information and plans accordingly. Going into a fight means having a clear vision about the ways of bringing decision.

RTwP is the opposite of a mess, it is about bringing order. The battlefield must be shaped so that situational advantages are provided. That is tactics, that is manoeuvering.
When it is done, points of interest are located and players know where to look.
Players ignore the stage, go in expecting things to fall together by miracle.

Optimization is nothing near on the horizon. In Rimworld, the spread is huge between a player who can assault a bandit nest garrisoned with 13 men using three pawns and a bear and a player who gets his ass handed to himself by a SMGer while having three riflemen and a melee units.

Optimization about what, what optimization.

Rimworld never was a project for optimization. Battles can be won largely without any hint of optimization. There is no competition in Rimworld.

As much as i hate the spam from this bot, it's sometimes at least bordering to funny. I think someone needs to play chess with it, maybe that'll teach him that TB actually does require at least a bit of foresight / processing lol

The metagames associated to chess are fundamentally different from metagames associated to probability based rpgs.

In chess, the resolution of relation between chess is hard. That is not the case in most RPGs.

Or maybe it is about time to discover that there are players who play their RPG the same they would chess.

There are a few UgoIgo games that close chess in terms of metagames. And so far the UgoIgo crowd does not seem very eager of promoting their system over their beloved probability based RPGs.

Well, tabletop it is a turn-based game, so it would be my preference; but i do not mind if it is Rtwp. It´s tradition and there are good games like that (POE, Tyranny, Pathfinder,etc)

…not to mention the Divinity: Original Sin games.

I'm still on my slow-time-on-space kick. Let me hit space (or maybe hold down the right mouse button) then spin my scroll wheel to speed time up or slow it to a stop.

Have to agree on this. I had hard time getting into the combat system in PoE. At the end I managed somehow and finished the game (although unsatisfactory combat was only one of many reasons why game left bad aftertaste to me).

Deadfire felt somehow better. Partially surely becasue I already had experiance from first one, but overall, the second game held together much better then first one. I sunk about 70 hrs into it and left it unfinished for time being.

Few days ago I started new gameplay in TB mode and after few hours I have to say it works very well for me and Im enjoying it a lot. So if you have similar experience and found combat system unpleasantly messy, I suggest to try it in TB mode once again.

@Andrew23 I think you were directing the post to everyone re: Deadfire TB combat but I will just let you know anyway I finished Deadfire in TB mode. It was definitely better than RTwP but it made the ship combat too dragged on.

My impression here: https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/show…postcount=3049