Turn-based or RtwP or something new?
 

So what would you prefer as a combat system in BG III?

Gotta vote something new. It's what I kind of suspect, and I actually wouldn't mind seeing some innovation in the ways RPGs can play.

I wouldn't mind if it was sort of like DKS ;)

Wonder if they could do it like POE2? Have both. My favorite would be turn-based for hard battles and RtwP for trash mobs and easier battles. Would most likely take too much time to program both from the start.

RTwP for me. I really enjoy Larian's TB approach, but there needs to be more in the name than just the city and a few references. If they're going for a completely different style of gameplay, protagonist and era, they should have just called it D&D: Insert Fancy Title.

Edit: Which is one of the reasons I was so disappointed with Torment. It really has nothing to do with PS: T beyond a wall of text here and there.

I'd be very interested in hearing some speculated models on what the "something new" could look like! Interchangeable TB and RtwP as Hastar mentioned? An Arcanum like hybrid?

As it stands, I have no real preference but the idea of a D&D game going back to its turn-based pen and paper roots and connecting to the heritage of the Goldbox games is an attractive proposal to me. Maintaining the RtwP tradition is also a perfectly acceptable system that I'd be more than happy with that as well.

I'd prefer turn based, but I wouldn't take a pass on the game if they go the pause route.

I'm just happy a 5e D&D game is being made. Either combat system is fine. When I think about it, I have played ToEE more than BG1&2. So I would go with turn based as first choice.

Of course it's the modded version of ToEE with the Circle of 8 modpacks. Also, their Keep on the Borderlands mod.

I'd prefer Turnbased.

Something new could be interesting (pulse based RTwP for example).

If it's normal RTwP I am not going to play it. Already skipped BG2.

Turn based most definitely! Just like regular P&P and hopefully without a gazillion of trash mobs…

Turn-based all the way. Please, please, please, Larian! :biggrin:

I think Swen has been inspired by Copper Dreams. I expect an action phase and a tick phase.

There is an option missing.

REAL TIME (no pause). ;)

Those last two would be an instant fail for me and a definite NO BUY!!!!

Yep that's how I play my RPGs. Barley use the pause function.:gorath:
Sad to see turn-based is somehow the preferred choice for modern RPGs.

Well, there is still the games like Elex and Outer World. They are doing fine in real time (without pause) :D

That’s the preferred choice on the watch where most don’t play modern games.

The rest of the internet wants dark souls combat.:p

I didn’t vote. I’m fine with RTWP or TB but i wouldn’t buy if it was like DKS or diablo.

Yeah I'm just being a tad nit-picky that's all. As I also love either type of combat but usually find myself preferring action based RPGs more then turn-based nowadays.

The result so far is quite surprising to me. I thought that we get something like a 60/40 split in favor of turn-based.

Voted RTwP, since that's what the originals were in and where my preference would go, but wouldn't mind TB either.

No-buy if it's anything like a Diablo clickfest (though I don't think they'll go that route).

UgoIgo. Anything else would meet a wall, UgoIgo players would rage over until they are given.

UgoIgo from the start and necessarily, a good one. Because UgoIgo does not mean good.

I'd prefer if BG3 had both. Not something new but both.

A BG game should be RTWP but a Larian RPG should be turn-based.

What made thje RtwP in BG combat more complex and interesting compared to today's games with RtwP is that not all classes had a serious "auto attack". In BG it is much more complex to spellcaster than a non-spellcaster (or a character without spell-like abilities).
If you have a fighter, ranger or similar class you can just gear him up and let him hit with his regular, but powerful attacks. Not much to decide in combat besides which enemy to attack.
With a wizard or sorcerer it is much more complex. The regular attacks (sling, shortbow) didn't have an actual impact. You needed to cast spells every round if you had a serious fight.

In today's games the classes are more streamlined (even in TB games like D:OS). Every class has a lot of spell-like abilities, e.g. special attacks.

I hope in BGIII we'll go back a step and classes actually play differently again in combat.

Yeah, that would be cool. I don't really care about every class and build being perfectly balanced. I want variety, and clever ways to build characters that actually results in a different style of gameplay.

Yeah, I'm always skeptical about this push towards the idea of no weak builds.

Indeed. Makes it less rewarding to experiment with builds in my opinion.

To me, the build is part of the tactical gameplay. One of the things I like in an RPG is to encounter a tough situation, and start thinking about the need to recruit and develop a certain type of character, or change the party balance. And if it is part of the tactics, it should be possible to make mistakes.

Yep, but it's always a path of limited size between being a puzzle game, where everything must be perfectly as the developer intended it and being a game where the margin of error can be so high that it doesn't really matter what your tactic is as long as you're not completely stupid.

In the age of internet where the one extreme is people who exchange with each other about best builds in forums and the other extreme is people who never played any game of this kind, it becomes even harder. Sure, you can catch some of that by various difficulty levels, but that's also kind of limited.

On the one hand you have games like Grimshade which retroactively added a difficulty called very easy (which was then renamed to easy, while easy was renamed to normal and normal was renamed to hard) and on the other hand you have games like Divinity Original Sin 1 (not 2) which was so extremely easy (once you know you should recruit your companions first) that it wasn't even a challenge on hard with restricting yourself to not use any consumable items.

The AI is not the most important part in RTwP, the player is.
An AI to prop up a player's deficiencies does not exist. It is not possible for an AI to second guess a player.

Whatsoever, an AI in a RTwP party based game must be light, limited to auto targeting and auto attack. Even stances are unnecessary since stances are useful to buy time with off screen situations and in RTwP party based stuff, off screen action is rare.

Players do not want RTwP, they do not want to deal with movement. They want staticness as in UgoIgo.

Rimworld showed it once again: even it is light requirements, players fall back to static fights. They want tactical play which by this site's definition means no application of tactics.
Tactics are tied to movement.

Like, JRPG combat?

Dragon Quest 11 you can select AI for each party member.

I like many different games with different systems. But since I'm pretty sure BG3 will be a party game, I honestly don't see how someone could want real time? Are there ANY real time games that actually pulls this off without the AI controlling the rest of the party or a severe limitation on character abilities? I don't see how that could be possible, even for gamers with lightning reflexes and a full list of macros and shortcuts.

And since I'm pretty sure the game will also be playable with a controller, even more NFW.

My vote goes to Turn Based, but my guess goes to RTwP, which is fine to me as well.

Yes, and I think that's also a difference between PNP games, and CRPGS. I can see the importance of better balance in a PNP system, where it's designed to run countless campaigns, over many years. IMO, a CRPG can risk erring on the side of having clearly optimal builds. If people want to spoil themselves with online guides, that's up to them. I think, if you have a rich character system in a CRPG, there's always going to be more advantageous builds, depending on the specific challenges of that game. To me, if all builds "just work", it takes away from my enjoyment of that aspect, rather like how perfectly balanced loot reduces the fun of exploration.

Players do not want RTwP party based games. It is a given.

It has nothing to do with reflexes, macros or shortcuts.

Rimworld was an excellent benchmark. Combat was degraded after players'inputs because they do not want RTwP combat.

Players do not want to cope with RTwP combat requirements which are dynamic when they want static.

Rimworld is not supposed to be a combat game, combat is to provide situations to enrich a storyline.

Despite this and the degradation, it still remains as the best RTwP party non tactical game in the way it supports use of tactics.

What it takes to play it RTwP (with no hacks because hacks were the feedback from players) 8 to 10 party members.

Mechanical skills: grab select a pawn, left and right buttons and mouse work. That is all.
For conveniency: shortcuts H, U, M and shift clicking orders. PC master race, do not even display the shift queuing basic skill. Outside of combat situations, players can not even pull a pawn out of its routine by shift clicking orders. A cook, two things to haul, they cant do it. Players must pause to place inputs.

Mental skills: players struggle a lot, they can think globally, they have a poor UgoIgo mentality, one move at a time.
RTwP and UgoIgo mentalities are different. RTwP is about taking information and planning accordingly.
UgoIgo is about discovering a situation as it unfolds. Players in Rimworld discover a raider has a rocket launcher when it is about to shoot. They cant build a harrassment tactics to despatch the guy before.

Kill zones was the hack players use to avoid playing RTwP combat as it could be.

Reflexes: Rimworld is slow, it is about 15 to 30 seconds before stuff happens.No reflexes here.

The limitations of abilities is a UgoIgo worry. A squad of five members, four bolt rifles, a machine gun and you are good to go for tactics.

The plethora of options, most of them redundant, to choose from is a PC UgoIgo concern.

In RTwP, there is no room for redundant options. As mentioned in another post, BG had limitations on abilities (spells recorded by day)

RTwP is about manoeuvering, shaping the battle field to apply strengths decisively.
Auto attacks are enough to do 80 pc of the job, special skills are to nail the decisive blow.

UgoIgo on PC, special attack on special attack, press a button, something big happens.

I haven't tried Rimworld but it's on my wishlist.

It doesn't sound like it's anything like a DnD game though, where every character might have 20-30 different abilities? That's what I was referring to with shortcuts and macros. I have no problem playing games like Starcraft, because the games are more about overall strategy and less about individual units. A proper RPG is a different beast, where it matters what individual units do at most points in the battle.

Rimworld is really great fun, although I would not compare it to D&D games.

I don't exactly get what Chien is talking about but contrary to his theory, I love RTwP combat in D&D/Pathfinder games and I know there are others out there like me.

Like me!

PC products are nothing like DnD games. In a DnD, game, players roll dices and must know the rules to play. Nothing like PC products.
Rimworld is a loadout game. It is quoted as an example because it is hard to go lower in terms of requirements. It is now common for UgoIgo players to invoke some kind of huge requirements to explain why they must be propped up by an AI or why RTwP play is not sustainable.


Proper RPG means nothing. BG might be considered a proper RPG or it might not be.

As to the last point, it is what players reject in Rimworld. They do not want to be bothered with playing each pawn as per their battlefield function. They do not want to use a sniper as a sniper, a rifleman as a rifleman, a machine gunner as a machine gunner, a grenadier as a grenadier etc

That is why they keep pushing for hacks like kill zones which allows them to treat pawns undistinctly. They station pawns behind fortications, they saturate a zone with firepower, done. They can sit on their hands.

I hear what you're saying Chien, but I still think you make the mistake of heavy generalizing. I'm pretty sure you have a valid point in your observations, but I can't say they represent my views in regards to combat system in games. I do enjoy turn based, but hardly because I can't cope with faster action. I just generally like my games to be a bit more slow paced and relaxed, while still offering a mental challenge. I'm stressed enough IRL, don't need my games to further raise my adrenaline levels.

I thought the combat was quite weak in BG, especially so for things that takes quite a long time to do, like casting. E.g you see that one of the characters are not doing great, so you cast a healing, but since it takes so long to do he's already dead before the casting is done, or the healer dies. This is never an issue in TB. Maybe it could work better if there was more of an early indication of what enemies are trying to do.

Uh.. I think that is the exact problem with TB, not RTwP - someone with low initiative can get killed in first round easy without even having to once to defend itself or fight back.