Baldur's Gate - Looking back

I agree - I can't quite put my finger on it either but I definitely found RTwP combat enjoyable in BGs, IWDs, and Kingmaker while I disliked it a lot in PoE games.

I think it is down to BGs and the like being round based rather than true real time. This enables the player to react to what is going on rather than being overwhelmed with the chaos of different timings for spells and abilities. That and PoE made the combat too fast to work well.

Players need to be able to anticipate when a good time to 'act' is.
 
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Turn-based is very useful as a computer game mechanic when the number of units needing control by a single player grows large. It would be nearly impossible to constantly control, say, fifty different units using RTwP. BG lies near the borderline between the decreasing usefulness of RTwP and increasing usefulness of turn-based with unit count. Look at what happened with PoE2 when they had to reduce the number of party members from six to five because players were having difficulty managing the battle.

BG is turn based. It is not UgoIgo though.

Already stated, RTwP or RT battle games force players into a holistic view. Performing comes when players are able to think a battle in its entirety before it is played.

UgoIgo in so called RPGs allows a step by step approach.

I recently replayed IWD and one thing I noticed is that for some reason the RTWP seemed to work better in that game than in games like pillars - like wise in pathfinder kingmaker the RTWP seems to work better but in DAO (like Pillars) I always found RTWP a bloody mess - with the total war games it seems that you frequently select groups to fight groups and only rarely want to micro manage down to individuals - as for DAO/Pillars vs IWD/BG/Pathfinder - perhaps it is my imagination or perhaps it is how the enemy behaves but i haven't quite put my finger on why rtwp seems to be more manageable.

It is. One reason is that it was not crowdfunded without players' input messing the design.
PoE, from the very start, was wished to be UgoIgo and hence feedback was made not to improve RTwP combat but to move it away to UgoIgo style.

BG was meant to be played RTwP.

Usually, the mess thing comes from players who fail to shape a battlefield to their own advantage, they have no idea about what manoeuvering means.

Warhammer TW demands management of heroes unit as well as troop units.

The big difference is that spatial organization is culturally more codified: a center, wings, a reserve etc Players do not have think them.

In party based products, especially fantasy, very little cultural ground, players must figure things out by themselves.
 
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None of this explains why DA:O had the same mess pillars had even though it was not crowd funded.

BG is turn based. It is not UgoIgo though.

Already stated, RTwP or RT battle games force players into a holistic view. Performing comes when players are able to think a battle in its entirety before it is played.

UgoIgo in so called RPGs allows a step by step approach.



It is. One reason is that it was not crowdfunded without players' input messing the design.
PoE, from the very start, was wished to be UgoIgo and hence feedback was made not to improve RTwP combat but to move it away to UgoIgo style.

BG was meant to be played RTwP.

Usually, the mess thing comes from players who fail to shape a battlefield to their own advantage, they have no idea about what manoeuvering means.

Warhammer TW demands management of heroes unit as well as troop units.

The big difference is that spatial organization is culturally more codified: a center, wings, a reserve etc Players do not have think them.

In party based products, especially fantasy, very little cultural ground, players must figure things out by themselves.
 
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I can think of one reason why PoE was more of a mess: Josh Sawyer's custom system, as compared to the time-tested system of D&D, namely the overuse of AoE spells and abilities. He seemed to realize it himself and "nerfed" them. He added a new concenfric circle that wouldn't affect friendlies. This definitely worked better, but, really, it was a band-aid solution for a central mechanic that simply didn't work well, helping to turn combat into a chaotic mess. This was compounded by nearly every damn character's abilities, including those of tanks, being AoE.
 
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It only affects a few conversations and shop prices. That's it. No classes use it for any abilities either, even Sorcerer casting is unaffected, but Paladin and Bard have a very high minimum charisma requirement, and will therefore always have a high charisma.

IIRC you also need a somewhat high charisma score to dual class into a druid (which only true neutral human fighters can do). But again it doesn't affect Druid abilities in any way.
 
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None of this explains why DA:O had the same mess pillars had even though it was not crowd funded.

None of this even read that DAO was a mess when played RTwP, even though the gameplay is closer to beat'em ups.
 
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I can think of one reason why PoE was more of a mess: Josh Sawyer's custom system, as compared to the time-tested system of D&D, namely the overuse of AoE spells and abilities. He seemed to realize it himself and "nerfed" them. He added a new concenfric circle that wouldn't affect friendlies.

This turn from FOF to FO was documented on this site as each new patch would remove one or two

It has to do with battlefield organization: uses of AoE attacks, spells or whatever happen as the consequence of organizing a battle field.

Enemies must be herded then the use of an AoE effect becomes topical.
In RTwP, this is achieved by manoeuvering.
In UgoIgo, usually, this is achieved by relying on effects like formation, commandment radius and stuff that forces units to be packed.

But computer vid products usually do not include anything related to this as it makes AI programming harder. Quite often, enemies pack because there are AoE spells to be used.

In PoE, as it was shifted toward UgoIgo, FOF became troublesome, it did not belong.

Originally, adding resistance to a party member was part of the strategy, a hero would aggregate enemy units and targeted by a spell. But it demanded manoeuvering, that is organizing the space so that the spell could be used properly.

As it moved toward UgoIgo, all this became irrelevant.
Computer UgoIgo players are mostly reactive: they are faced with a situation and expect that a solution is provided to them. Hence their emphasis on reflexes, supposedly, for them, RTwP is all about reaction and then demands reflexes.

RTwP though is about proaction, players must bring on the battlefield the conditions to take advantage of a unit capability etc

After watching players play Rimworld, which is a gear based game, it is also not so much about special abilities.
Players show the same lacks when it comes to organize a battlefield. They have a reactive mindset and expect spamming pause to compensate, to allow them to react.
 
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I agree - I can't quite put my finger on it either but I definitely found RTwP combat enjoyable in BGs, IWDs, and Kingmaker while I disliked it a lot in PoE games.

I think it is down to BGs and the like being round based rather than true real time. This enables the player to react to what is going on rather than being overwhelmed with the chaos of different timings for spells and abilities. That and PoE made the combat too fast to work well.

Players need to be able to anticipate when a good time to 'act' is.

Like @purpleblob; I didn't like RTwP in PoE since I found it very chaotic while thinking I loved RTwP in games like KOTOR, NWN and Kingmaker so thanks @Silver; for explaining the difference!
 
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Well per my earlier comment I felt DAO was in the same class as pillars; but since you obviously disagree and there is no right or wrong answer here (though one could provide at some some discussion in support or against such statements) I think I will drop this with the comment that we disagree here.

None of this even read that DAO was a mess when played RTwP, even though the gameplay is closer to beat'em ups.
 
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I find myself in the same boat as several others in this thread, while I often enjoy real time with pause combat, it simply doesn't work well for me in Pillars of Eternity. The speed in Pillars is just too frantic for me, I'm eternally grateful for the turn based mode they introduced in the second game. I hope at some point perhaps they'll do a similar job for the first.
 
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I never had any issues with the combat in PoE. I think a lot of people missed or forgot that you can adjust the speed.
 
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My main issue with POE combat was the overly bright spell effects which hid important things and bad combat pathing for AI in combat (related to units ping pongig back and forth and other irritations). Still, I enjoyed both and spent many hours on them. They reduced or fixed some of this in PoE 2.

But on topic: BG was my first CRPG, and that got me hooked on them. It helped that I played a lot of tabletop D&D, but the game just sucked me in and I loved every minute of it.
 
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Well per my earlier comment I felt DAO was in the same class as pillars; but since you obviously disagree and there is no right or wrong answer here (though one could provide at some some discussion in support or against such statements) I think I will drop this with the comment that we disagree here.

Every single RTwP battle product is in the same class when it comes to be messy: players who do not want to apply a structuring pattern like tactics to a battlefield (which tactics are made for) will find a mess.

After that, it is all about less and more bearable mess.
 
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Isn't a bearable mess less messy than an unbearable mess ?

Every single RTwP battle product is in the same class when it comes to be messy: players who do not want to apply a structuring pattern like tactics to a battlefield (which tactics are made for) will find a mess.

After that, it is all about less and more bearable mess.
 
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Isn't a bearable mess less messy than an unbearable mess ?

It does not matter.

For sure, a mess that is not structured using tactics remain a mess.

Then players pick their own.
 
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I have played blobbers, Diablo and adventures before, but BG was my gateway drug into CRPGs.
I will love BG, IWD and PST forever.
 
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