What Combat System Works Best in Isometric RPGs?

Real time with pause. People often use the argument that's it's a shitty compromise, well I believe it's a good compromise.

Turn based is limited in the way it approaches a combat encounter, unless the whole game is completely turn based, inside combat and outside.

People complaint real time is clusterfucky. It's true and there's nothing wrong with combat being chaotic. Making sense of the mess is part of the challenge and I say more believable than a cookie cutter chess fight.
The pause button ensures that it's never a fight with the interface in itself.

Speaking of chess fight, you hear that apparently turn based is more ''strategic''. It's rubbish. RPGs will always have nothing more than a superficial layer of strategical value, unless you cut the stats/spells/abilities parameters to a big extent like banner saga. You can't design deeply challenging encounters when you have so much parameters to take into consideration. Not to mention the AI suffers significantly the more complex it gets. At a fundamental level a game has to be simple to be challenging. Try winning a chess game in moderate difficulty, then compare to even something like X-com (the old) and tell me which one was harder. I did fuck up several times a combat encounter in the infinity engine games, I rarely if ever die in turn based rpgs. And looking at let's plays on the internet it's something quite blatant.

I don't see the point of having every single individual dully standing immobile waiting for their particular turn to make a move. Kills believability for me where it looks like the enemy decided to throw a pokemon match instead of a fight.

Real time also parameters the dynamic dimension of simultaneous actions, which is sorely missed in TB and a waste of technological potential.

No one who understands that concept of strategy would call turn-based combat more strategic.

The strategy in an RPG is about planning your characters - not how you fight once combat begins. The latter would be the tactical part.

Turn-based combat tends to have a MUCH more satisfying tactical layer, if it's done right. That's because you have more options and they tend to matter a lot more, as the game is designed with choices mattering in mind.

Keep in mind that "satisfying" doesn't equate to challenging. It's true that Chess and Minesweeper can be EXTREMELY challenging, but are they necessarily more entertaining and satisfying than X-Com or D:OS? Hardly. Challenge is just a part of a satisfying game - and though I agree that AI can be hard to do for a system with a lot of choice, the actual amount of choice can be a challenge layer in itself - even if the AI doesn't respond ideally.

So, as for turn-based combat not being challenging, that's complete bullshit. Anyone playing ToEE or X-Com on, say, Veteran - for the very first time - will get their asses kicked. Those games are quite hard and your choices MATTER, and AI does a fine job.

Real-time combat games, with or without pause, are rarely designed in such a way, as they can't maintain the flow they're going for, if people have to keep the game paused. As such, they tend to rely on scripts or some kind of AI behavior that automates much of the combat. If you want to experience aggrevating AI, try playing a rogue in BG or relying on the AI for spell casting. Then come back and claim turn-based is worse in that way with a straight face. Another way is to optimise your characters for ranged combat, and you'll win 9 out of 10 encounters by pointing at enemies and clicking - and nothing else - because the AI can't respond properly to 3-4 characters shooting at them with arrows. In a turn-based alternative, the enemies would get their turn at some point, and they'd get close to your characters and force them into melee. In real-time, you just stay out of range and kite them.

Stuff like that is why you'll get a less satisfying tactical layer in most RT combat systems.

That said, there's nothing inherently non-tactical about real-time combat. It's just that it's extremely hard to design a meaty tactical combat system and retain the flow or "the point" of a real-time combat system. Beyond that, getting the AI to follow your precise commands in a script is even harder.

Play Dragon Age and you'll see how similar every single encounter feels. That's largely because the scripts were limited to a prioritised list of actions. That's super simplistic AI, and yet it's still one of the most sophisticated examples we've seen in an RPG.

That should be a lesson in why real-time is NOT as "tactical" as turn-based usually is.

DorkUnderimbecile said:

Lots of opinions about why I think real-time with pause is universally superior to turn-based.

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That's rubbish!

See, I can do that too, but it's not a very cogent rebuttal. Of course, it's much easier to win an argument with a straw man. DArtagnan hit the nail on the head regarding the advantages of turn-based combat so I'll just focus on the problems I have with RTwP.

Seriously, if it's challenge you want try playing a TB RPG on the highest difficulty setting. Even if you happen to find the combat of a particular TB game too easy, that isn't evidence that turn-based systems inherently lack challenge (it's just evidence of less than optimal game balance). You could effectively make any RPG's combat more challenging by simply increasing the enemy's HP / the amount of damage they deal / raising their defense / dodge skill, increasing the number of enemies in an encounter, etc. AI is only a small part of it. Enemy AI is generally very simple in all RPGs if you think about it: (e.g., Healing when a unit is hurt, using AoE attacks when there's a group, gang up on a squishy character to eliminate quickly, etc.) These tactics don't really differ much between combat systems; only to the extent that certain mechanics come into play. In games with things like attacks of opportunity or overwatch, the risk / penalty of invoking them has to be factored in.

In fairness, it's pretty difficult to compare RTwP to TB because the systems have never been used with the same frequency. Back in the Gold Box (SSI) days, there were no RTwP games to compare those TB systems to. By the time NWN2, Dragon Age, and Drakensang came out, TB tactical RPGs weren't really being made any more (other than a few Japanese SRPGs like Fire Emblem). And that's been the case until the resurgence of TB RPGs in the past couple years (Shadowrun, TBS, Expeditions, Blackguards, D:OS, W2, etc.) The only time TB and RTwP CRPGs have really been released around the same time was the late 90's when Fallout 1 & 2 and Baldur's Gate & Planescape: Torment came out. All of those games had shortcomings largely due to limitations of technology at the time. Combat in Arcanum is (unfortunately) pretty terrible whether you play it in TB or real-time mode.

From my experience with the limited pool of RTwP RPGs, there are some problems unique to that system. One of the big ones is path-finding, which was absolutely atrocious in Infinity Engine games and far from perfect in Dragon Age. In TB RPGs you simply don't have to worry about characters taking a detour halfway across the map because they ran into obstacle (often one of their own party members), because you decide exactly where each character goes as long as the way is cleared and the space is unoccupied. Path-finding a big contributor to the "chaos" you mentioned and I don't find it fun. In a way, the Drakensang games dealt with this issue by letting characters run right through each other, but aside from being silly that makes combat more frustrating and even less tactical (it may as well be a blobber at that point).

Another big problem with RTwP is the issue of actions sometimes being "canceled".. In RTwP if you set two characters to attack an enemy and the enemy is killed with a blow, then the other character set to attack said enemy has effectively wasted his "turn" running up to an already defeated enmey. Now he'll either stand there like an idiot until you give him a new command (or go to auto attack the next enemy if the game's set up like that). Similar problems crop up when you have a character trying to knock down (shield bash) or stun an enemy, only to discover he's already been knocked down / stunned by the time you get to him. You could even make the case that this is more "realistic" than TB where you'll never waste a turn attacking an enemy who has already been killed. But the question is does this "realism" make the game more satisfying / fun? I'd argue no, but it really all comes down to opinion.

A third problem unique to RTwP is the way it makes having your well armored / robust "tanks" in the front lines to protect the squishy characters much harder. In RTwP enemies will frequently run past your tanks and head straight for the weaker mages / healers / support characters. Attacks of Opportunity help prevent this a little bit in NWN (albeit not nearly as reliably as in ToEE), but it still often results in you needing to send your weak characters running all over the map to keep them alive until your melee classes can catch up to the enemy and deal with him. And of course in some RTwP games like Dragon Age there are aggro-increasing abilities like "Threaten" that can somewhat alleviate (but not eliminate this problem) and having to expend Stamina taunting your enemies to avoid problems with the combat system is a less than optimal solution to the problem.

I've even managed to enjoy some RTwP games in spite of my problems with the combat. I hope that Pillars of Eternity and Serpent in the Staglands are enjoyable (I backed both of them), but I expect most, if not all of the 3 big issues will rear their ugly heads.

As for "believability"… How exactly is suddenly stopping time at will so you can execute commands more believable than set turns? I suppose real-time w/ pause combat generally looks more believable when the game is un-paused; as the characters can move simultaneously as they as combatants would in real life (although in the IE games, characters still effectively have "turns"; it's almost like several mini turn-based encounters occurring at once). But again, believability / realism does not necessarily mean more satisfying / fun. I could think of a lot of ways we could make RPG mechanics more realistic, but probably less fun in the opinions of most RPG fans.

Ultimately, I've no expectation of convincing you that TB tactical combat is better than RTwP. If it breaks your immersion or you just plain don't like it there's nothing anyone could say to change your mind. But when posting your opinion that one is better than other as if it was a self-evident fact, you aren't convincing anyone either… It almost comes off like you're bitter that RTwP hasn't been used nearly as much as TB. I don't usually get incredulous when people like something different from me, nor do I generally call games I don't like stupid. I just chalk it up to people having different preferences.

DorkUnderimbecile said:

Speaking of chess fight, you hear that apparently turn based is more ''strategic''.

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Chess and the system commonly used in so called turn based rpgs have very little in common.

Dragon Age is not a RtwP RPG. It's hard to argue with you when this is one of the premise of your argument.

Infinity engines games, other obscure games aside, are the only proper RtwP rpgs we ever got.

As for "believability"… How exactly is suddenly stopping time at will so you can execute commands more believable than set turns? I suppose real-time w/ pause combat generally looks more believable when the game is un-paused; as the characters can move simultaneously as they as combatants would in real life (although in the IE games, characters still effectively have "turns"; it's almost like several mini turn-based encounters occurring at once).

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You never supposed you knew all along. Yes indeed the 4th dimension is a big deal for me. Being able to pause it is an miniscule offense compared to completely disregarding it.
Turns in Baldur's gate share the name with turns in turn based and that's about as far as it go. It's a cadence and it makes sense that things follow a cadence. Even if obviously in real life (with magic) it would get immensely more complicated.


Also notice your ''believability/realism'' don't mix those too and don't complaint about stawmen.

I've even managed to enjoy some RTwP games in spite of my problems with the combat. I hope that Pillars of Eternity and Serpent in the Staglands are enjoyable (I backed both of them), but I expect most, if not all of the 3 big issues will rear their ugly heads.

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Disregard our current argument for now. Real Time (with or without pause) will always be more appropriate where tactical combat clearly isn't a focus or even present at all. Simply because it's faster and makes things more fluid. If Staglands turns out to be like Darklands it makes sense in that way.

A third problem unique to RTwP is the way it makes having your well armored / robust "tanks" in the front lines to protect the squishy characters much harder. In RTwP enemies will frequently run past your tanks and head straight for the weaker mages / healers / support characters. Attacks of Opportunity help prevent this a little bit in NWN (albeit not nearly as reliably as in ToEE)

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Not really. Can also happen in turn based. That one is just about designs and Pillars of Eternity has your fighter even being able to deadlock opponents.

From my experience with the limited pool of RTwP RPGs, there are some problems unique to that system. One of the big ones is path-finding

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That's the infinity engine games and that's because the infinity engine was a canned RTS engine and bioware was a small inexperienced studio.

Path finding is less of an issue today than it was before, when handled by proper programmers, not unpaid inters junior programmers hacks like at the creative assembly.
Speaking of which I never a had problems with that in the Infinity engine, mainly because I was attentive and paused a lot. Rarely was a trajectory dumbly persistent.

Seriously, if it's challenge you want try playing a TB RPG on the highest difficulty setting. Even if you happen to find the combat of a particular TB game too easy, that isn't evidence that turn-based systems inherently lack challenge (it's just evidence of less than optimal game balance).

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I've done this. The thing is RPGs are simply not challenging. fighting HP bloated DPS canons is not a challenge, it's just tedious, but you'll always follow the same pattern suited to your build, you make some adjustment to the situation and you succeed. If you get beaten once you try again being even more meticulous.
Unless the game was so poorly designed that even with the most optimal build you need downright cheese to beat it.

Real Time, even with pause, makes things a bit more of a clusterfuck, which is perfectly fine by me and I understand why it's not suited for everyone. Actions will happen much faster, the enemy charges and attack at you all at once, and you have the whole dynamic dimensions to take into account. Hence why it's more challenging. Note, even there I never found it actually challenging.

Coming up with a good build is often called a challenge. But really it's just about proper knowledge of a system, coming up with a rough optimization and start playing. Spells, items are plug and play and it's easy to see which goes in tandem and which are suited for what situations.

Real time with pause for me fits this reality where it never was about scratching my head for half an hour thinking what piece the opponent is going to move next. Because this is never going to happen unless I'm playing the chess master RPG adventure game.
And where combat is more of a part of the ride that is the story and the potential interactions. That doesn't mean it can't be ''hard'' at times, meaning victory isn't assured if I don't pay attention or try to measure up myself against level 34 opponents. As it makes sense story wise that your party had difficulty at times, or that what you're about to do is suicide.

Of course, grinding, gaining level, finding cool items, and getting stronger is a game in itself for many people, me included.

DArtagnan said:

Turn-based combat tends to have a MUCH more satisfying tactical layer, if it's done right. That's because you have more options and they tend to matter a lot more, as the game is designed with choices mattering in mind.

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That has nothing to do with turn based.

So, as for turn-based combat not being challenging, that's complete bullshit. Anyone playing ToEE or X-Com on, say, Veteran - for the very first time - will get their asses kicked. Those games are quite hard and your choices MATTER, and AI does a fine job.

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Not for me. Anyone is advantaged in any game where the AI doesn't completely mirrors him (as in has the same mental capabilities and equal or superior set up). Even when it's a big horde of boosted aliens.
Anyone that has a decent build and is capable of taking small adaptive measures will not die in a reasonably challenged encounter. Because it's too much of a guess game, there's too much parameters and unknown variables to expect realistically anything but the rough edges of challenge having been designed.

Or else it's die and repeat until you figure out what the enemy is actually doing and what empirically worked best (or just luck).
If it isn't almost purely a game of wits, there cannot be a real challenge.

If you want to experience aggrevating AI, try playing a rogue in BG or relying on the AI for spell casting. Then come back and claim turn-based is worse in that way with a straight face. Another way is to optimise your characters for ranged combat, and you'll win 9 out of 10 encounters by pointing at enemies and clicking - and nothing else - because the AI can't respond properly to 3-4 characters shooting at them with arrows. In a turn-based alternative, the enemies would get their turn at some point, and they'd get close to your characters and force them into melee. In real-time, you just stay out of range and kite them.

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That's a strange argument you're making there. Turns out you were frustrated by a bad design in RtwP and pledged to TB instead?
How about the AI was dumb and should indeed react to you if you shoot at it?
It doesn't happen in most turn based games because attacking an AI usually triggers combat mode in which the AI suddenly knows about you and your party member who's standing on the other side of the map.
It can happen some turn based games too. You can snipe your enemy from a range without triggering any fight.

Hit and run works better in real time. True mostly because in Turn based you are either :
-Stuck in a small combat mode arena. Not all TB games are like that.
-Firing with the Bow takes so much action points you cant run away.
This can also happen in real time games where firing with the bow takes time.

I voted Turn based, but it was a tough call. I can agree with arguments from both sides of the "conflict". The reason I chose Turn based is because while several games with Turn based combat has given me great enjoyment the last couple of years, not a a single one with RTwP has.

I do love the Infinity games, but to me the best implementation of RTwP is Fallout Tactics. Which of course isn't an RPG but a Tactical Party Planner with RPG elements, but the combat system is great. I remeber when I started playing it I was determined to play in turn based mode, but three playthroughs later and I still keep in Real time. It just feels more satisfying when a plan comes together in real time.

Do the poll again after POE has arrived and maybe done it right (unlike DA:O), and I might answer RTwP instead.

DorkUnderimbecile said:

That has nothing to do with turn based.

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Yes, games with turn-based combat systems have a lot to do with turn-based combat.

Not for me. Anyone is advantaged in any game where the AI doesn't completely mirrors him (as in has the same mental capabilities and equal or superior set up). Even when it's a big horde of boosted aliens.
Anyone that has a decent build and is capable of taking small adaptive measures will not die in a reasonably challenged encounter. Because it's too much of a guess game, there's too much parameters and unknown variables to expect realistically anything but the rough edges of challenge having been designed.

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Are you saying that the human mind is, generally, more sophisticated than AI?

That's quite a revelation!

However, that's the case whether the game is turn-based or not.

That's a strange argument you're making there. Turns out you were frustrated by a bad design in RtwP and pledged to TB instead?
How about the AI was dumb and should indeed react to you if you shoot at it?
It doesn't happen in most turn based games because attacking an AI usually triggers combat mode in which the AI suddenly knows about you and your party member who's standing on the other side of the map.
It can happen some turn based games too. You can snipe your enemy from a range without triggering any fight.

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I live in reality. I don't live in a fantasy world where RTwP has been ideally implemented. I have to go by what's there. I'm not talking about the perfect implementation of RTwP versus the perfect implementation of TB combat. I'm talking about what's actually there - and what we've seen so far.

As I said, turn-based combat systems TEND to have a MUCH more satisfying tactical layer for the reasons given.

It doesn't mean that RTwP can't be fantastic as well, I just haven't seen it yet.

I think the best example of RTwP is still X-Com Apocalypse. But it's been so long, I might just be remembering it that way, as I had a much smaller arsenal of examples to compare with.

Hit and run works better in real time. True mostly because in Turn based you are either :
-Stuck in a small combat mode arena. Not all TB games are like that.
-Firing with the Bow takes so much action points you cant run away.
This can also happen in real time games where firing with the bow takes time.

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I don't really know what you're talking about. I don't remember a TB RPG where firing a bow takes too many actions points - or where I'm locked into a combat mode arena. I wouldn't enjoy an arena game like that anyway.

But it makes sense that firing a bow would take time, and that you can't outrun an enemy while aiming and firing a bow. This is why games like BG seem a bit ridiculous sometimes.

daveyd said:

From my experience with the limited pool of RTwP RPGs, there are some problems unique to that system. One of the big ones is path-finding, which was absolutely atrocious in Infinity Engine games and far from perfect in Dragon Age. In TB RPGs you simply don't have to worry about characters taking a detour halfway across the map because they ran into obstacle (often one of their own party members), because you decide exactly where each character goes as long as the way is cleared and the space is unoccupied. Path-finding a big contributor to the "chaos" you mentioned and I don't find it fun. In a way, the Drakensang games dealt with this issue by letting characters run right through each other, but aside from being silly that makes combat more frustrating and even less tactical (it may as well be a blobber at that point).

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In the hundreds of hours I've spent playing the Infinity Engine games, I never found the pathfinding as "atrocious" as you describe. The only time I had issues with pathfinding was when I tried to send my party to a distant point on the map without clicking on shorter waypoints in-between.

daveyd said:

Another big problem with RTwP is the issue of actions sometimes being "canceled".. In RTwP if you set two characters to attack an enemy and the enemy is killed with a blow, then the other character set to attack said enemy has effectively wasted his "turn" running up to an already defeated enmey. Now he'll either stand there like an idiot until you give him a new command (or go to auto attack the next enemy if the game's set up like that). Similar problems crop up when you have a character trying to knock down (shield bash) or stun an enemy, only to discover he's already been knocked down / stunned by the time you get to him. You could even make the case that this is more "realistic" than TB where you'll never waste a turn attacking an enemy who has already been killed. But the question is does this "realism" make the game more satisfying / fun? I'd argue no, but it really all comes down to opinion.

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I think it's safe to say that your idea of a "big problem" is subjective to say the least.

Anyone who's played IE games in a labyrinth or small enclosed spaces should know what he means by atrocious pathfinding - even when you tweak the .ini files for maximum nodes. It was but a few months ago that I tried the EE version, and every maze was a pain because of that crap.

That said, that's an IE thing, not a RTwP thing. Dragon Age, for instance, had much better pathfining.

Subjective? Sure. That's what opinions are like. No reason to point it out in every single debate. That's silly, frankly.

That said, claiming pathfinding is anything but bad in IE games borders on denial, from where I'm sitting. But to each his own

DArtagnan said:

Subjective? Sure. That's what opinions are like. No reason to point it out in every single debate. That's silly, frankly.

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Then why are you so big on doing exactly that?

DArtagnan said:

That said, claiming pathfinding is anything but bad in IE games borders on denial, from where I'm sitting. But to each his own

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Sure thing DArt

JDR13 said:

Then why are you so big on doing exactly that?

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If you're saying I'm a mirror, does that mean I'm good looking?

DArtagnan said:

If you're saying I'm a mirror, does that mean I'm good looking?

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Handsome as hell.

Damn right!

I mostly agree with DorkUnderimbecile, however I would like to point out something: We might as well remove challenge as an argument (for both sides). In most RPGs, the challenge is in the character build, not the combat, and as such its perception will depend on the character you're playing. Beyond that, it's just a matter of balancing, which in turn depends on the target audience. An RPG targeted towards a hardcore audience will be harder than one targeted towards a more casual market.

Maylander said:

I mostly agree with DorkUnderimbecile, however I would like to point out something: We might as well remove challenge as an argument (for both sides). In most RPGs, the challenge is in the character build, not the combat, and as such its perception will depend on the character you're playing. Beyond that, it's just a matter of balancing, which in turn depends on the target audience. An RPG targeted towards a hardcore audience will be harder than one targeted towards a more casual market.

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I get what you're saying, but I don't agree that in "most" RPGs the challenge is in the strategy alone.

There are games with limited character building options that have challenging combat.

Examples being X-Com and Jagged Alliance 2 - both of which are arguably RPGs, and I think ToEE has challenging combat even if you've built efficient characters.

Then we have games like Pool of Radiance (and all the other Goldbox games), where the character options are actually very limited, but your tactical choices during combat are vitally important.

Another example, yet again, is a game like Wizardry - where your combat choices matter a lot.

Recently, we have something like MMX - which definitely had some vital tactical nuances, especially in terms of what spells you cast first and what characters do what in what order, which is all about tactical decisionmaking.

So, the challenge is divided into smart strategic choices as well as smart tactical choices.

The same is true for strategy/RPG hybrids like Age of Wonders and Heroes of Might and Magic.

That said, I do agree that there is a tendency to put most of the challenge into character building - and I happen to find this particularly true for games with RT combat systems, specifically for the reasons given. It's not easy to create a meaty tactical layer when you design your game with a real-time flow, with or without pause.

With all that said, though, I still don't think a challenging combat system is the only important factor in a satisfying combat system.

It's worth mentioning that there was a turn-based game with a combat grid that implemented simultaneous actions, that was Vandal Hearts 2. The way it worked is that when you moved a unit, the CPU would move another unit in the same time, and you had to guess what would be a good move. For example, often the enemy would try to backstab you, so you could move one case nearby and hit the enemy in the back instead if you guessed on what case he would be in.

The AI wasn't very good but it actually worked well and I'd like to see another implementation of this.

DArtagnan said:

Are you saying that the human mind is, generally, more sophisticated than AI?

That's quite a revelation!

However, that's the case whether the game is turn-based or not.

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That human-like AI is indeed very human like. Have you looked into chess AIs since the 90s ?

It doesn't mean that RTwP can't be fantastic as well, I just haven't seen it yet.

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Fair enough then. I can see why not everyone liked Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale's combats.
Though, cheese aside, especially Baldur's Gate 2, combat did feel much more like a puzzle than the absurdly easy D:OS, or the complex but not-so-hard TOEE

DorkUnderimbecile said:

That human-like AI is indeed very human like. Have you looked into chess AIs since the 90s ?

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Why this obsession with Chess? The game is exceedingly simplistic when it comes to rules. It's nothing but endless permutations on a handful of possible actions.

It doesn't resemble a meaty tactical game at all.

Fair enough then. I can see why not everyone liked Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale's combats.
Though, cheese aside, especially Baldur's Gate 2, combat did feel much more like a puzzle than the absurdly easy D:OS, or the complex but not-so-hard TOEE

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Oh, I thought BG2 and IWD were "fine" - and that combat worked "ok". I just prefer turn-based in most cases.

I've yet to play D:OS enough to comment on the combat, but I found ToEE to be a very satisfying implementation of a great turn-based system. Unfortunately, combat is just about the only good part about ToEE

DArtagnan said:

Why this obsession with Chess? The game is exceedingly simplistic when it comes to rules. It's nothing but endless permutations on a handful of possible actions.

It doesn't resemble a meaty tactical game at all.

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I may be missing the joke completely, chess completely explodes any RPGs when it comes to solicitation of the tactical and cognitive capabilities.
It's a game where if not for a timer, players could spend hours thinking their next move.

Mainly because of it's simplicity.