J.E. SAWYER (DESIGNER: FALLOUT, ICEWIND DALE, PILLARS OF ETERNITY) ON TURN BASED COMBAT

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I'm really a big fan of Obsidian's Josh Sawyer, a big creative chunk of games like Fallout, Icewind Dale, and Pillars of Eternity. He has a sober, yet in-depth view of role playing in terms of plot and mechanics that I've always admired. Recently, I stumbled upon his thoughts on turn based combat and I wanted to share them here so we can discuss. Check this out.

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/page/6

enverxis asked: Recently you said that you think turn-based combat is more tactical (and cooler) than real-time combat when done properly. I really enjoy turn-based combat, but the game with the most tactical depth that I have ever played is DotA, hands down. I find that most RTWP combat in RPGs is mucked up by devs not looking at RTS combat, but instead looking to action or turn-based for their influences. What makes you think that turn-based is inherently more tactical than real-time combat ?Sawyer: I was actually emptyquoting someone else, but in the context of party-based RPGs I agree with the general sentiment and I’ll make a clarification at the end.

RTS and MOBA games can be extraordinarily tactical, but they also require a certain amount of physical speed and coordination for success. Not everyone needs to have high APMs to play them, but to excel at them, you have to be relatively fast. A great plan executed slowly in an RTS or MOBA will be dead in the water.

In the context of multi-character RPGs that feature RtwP, the resolution of concurrent action can make planning and coordinating things difficult. With multiple characters attempting to move through the same space, even the best pathing and AI will have a bit of slop/unexpected resolutions. A dedicated RTS game like Age of Empires II is built entirely around formation movement and combat so it has reasonably reliable pathing – but it also required ~20,000 lines of assembly code from Ensemble.

Turn-based combat allows players to isolate individual obstacles and options for consideration. The isolated actions also allow for cleaner separation of discrete tasks, so a variety of actions become less muddled than they would be in real-time. That separation can allow deep systems to thrive, e.g. the Link mechanics in the Front Mission series allow the player and AI to construct elaborately-sequenced chain reactions that are highly dependent on positioning at the precise moment that the Linking action is executed.

To clarify my opinion, while I don’t think that turn-based is inherently more tactical than real-time, real-time combat does allow other elements (e.g. player dexterity, the chaos of concurrent actions being resolved) to influence how they play out. A RtwP system can significantly reduce the importance of player dexterity, but concurrent action between multiple characters can still make things muddy. In a MOBA, being able to focus on/directly drive a single character mitigates a lot of these problems. In most turn-based games, there’s very little (if anything, it’s usually the RNG in RPGs) that’s muddy about how individual characters will execute/resolve their actions.

What do you guys think of this, and how can we incorporate some of those thoughts in the games we make, and how are those thoughts already implemented in the games we play and enjoy? (also, for extra credit, check out his entire page. He has some interesting thoughts!)
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
The MOBA comparison is a bit beyond me since I don't play those, but the gist of what I'm getting from this post is that neither RTS nor RTwP systems is the "superior" system in terms of tactical depth, but rather rely on different skill sets. I can agree with that. The phrase, "when done properly," turns it into a bit of a loaded statement though; Almost anything can be considered a good system "when done properly."

Assuming your game has them, there's a certain catharsis in seeing the characters you play as grow stronger by leveling up, so even if the battle system isn't exactly complex, there's value to be had in seeing the characters deal out more damage than they had at the beginning of the game. I feel like this catharsis is becoming more and more of a crutch nowadays for RPGs. But that just isn't enough; Like Sawyer said, it's the sequence of elaborate actions that you can plan out due to the stop in the game's forward momentum that makes the big difference.

So, essentially, turn based combat allows for more planning and elaborate execution of different tasks than real time combat does, and so more effort should be put towards being able to do a more variety of actions, rather than rely on supermoves to blow away opponents.

I'm trying to address that RNG comment in my current project, but I'm finding that more and more difficult to do with each passing day. Having attacks hit foes with 100% accuracy all the time is pretty boring, but dropping even one point lower for any reason, and you become at the mercy of RNG. Getting screwed over by RNG has absolutely nothing to do with player skill, unless players have at least a general idea of what percentages you're working with.
author=Red Nova
Getting screwed over by RNG has absolutely nothing to do with player skill, unless players have at least a general idea of what percentages you're working with.


I approach the RNG as simply the computer application of rolling the die from tabletop gaming; which is the ancestor of Role Playing games, and is still very awesome to play today. Just like tabletop gaming, rolling the die isn't something to overapply, but it definitely has its uses as variation. Sometimes 'choice' is blown out the window due to random shit (in real life as well lol), and part of tactical thinking is being able to adapt and overcome despite being struck by lightning.

author=Nova
So, essentially, turn based combat allows for more planning and elaborate execution of different tasks than real time combat does, and so more effort should be put towards being able to do a more variety of actions, rather than rely on supermoves to blow away opponents.


I agree on this, turn based should be more of a culmination of player planning rather than being able to swiftly end things one way or the other!
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
author=Feldschlacht IV
[
author=Nova
So, essentially, turn based combat allows for more planning and elaborate execution of different tasks than real time combat does, and so more effort should be put towards being able to do a more variety of actions, rather than rely on supermoves to blow away opponents.


I agree on this, turn based should be more of a culmination of player planning rather than being able to swiftly end things one way or the other!

This is kind of a mischaracterization of real-time combat. Yes, it's possible that real-time combat suffers from those problems, but only when it's poorly-implemented. Turn-based games often succumb to problems of their own when they're poorly-implemented. It's not really productive to talk about design paradigms in the context of assuming they're not done well.

For instance, the article gives the example of MOBAs for why real-time games require physical dexterity instead of tactical thinking, but that's a failure of those specific games to focus on a pace of gameplay in which action doesn't unfold faster than you can think and react (for that reason, I'm a strong advocate of real-time games always having a battle speed setting that players can adjust).

I don't really think there are more tactical options afforded to you in turn-based combat so much as there are different ones. The games I've played with the deepest gameplay have all been realtime. Rather than asserting that one is better than the other, it's probably a more productive (and interesting) conversation to compare and contrast what you can do in one versus the other and what design affordances to consider when choosing between turn-based vs continuous gameplay.

The notion of randomness is a good one, because it's intended to be a turn-based simulation of the chaos that's inherent in real-time gameplay. You shouldn't need randomness in a real-time game because that degree of success can be modeled in a physically intuitive sense through the fact that your attacks need to connect with the enemy's sprite/model.
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
@Red Nova: I think he uses that statement "when done properly" because of how many games really don't use the turn-based combat system to its full potential. When you look at this with the context that RPGs and strategy games are somewhat declining this day in age, it actually sounds justified.

author=Red_Nova
I'm trying to address that RNG comment in my current project, but I'm finding that more and more difficult to do with each passing day. Having attacks hit foes with 100% accuracy all the time is pretty boring, but dropping even one point lower for any reason, and you become at the mercy of RNG. Getting screwed over by RNG has absolutely nothing to do with player skill, unless players have at least a general idea of what percentages you're working with.
I've personally never found a system where your attacks miss out of pure chance to be something I enjoyed, so I often default to purging accuracy.

But... Maybe if accuracy, like any other stat, could be manipulated in a way that allows either the player or the enemy can have direct control over whether they are able to dodge attacks or not would alleviate the problems it brings.

Pokemon is a fine example of a game that does this (to a certain extent). You do have a chance of some moves missing, but instead of just leaving it like that, you could give your team moves that increase your hit accuracy, or increase your evasiveness, or moves that never miss at all. You can control your accuracy.

Really, the problem with the DQ-styled RNG accuracy is that there is no interaction going on. It's just "Oh? You used an attack? Welp! It missed! Too bad for you, you have to wait another turn to land a hit while you take damage instead :(" -- That isn't fun, it's frustrating. Especially when an enemy is inflicted with a status condition that renders it immobile, and your attacks still miss just 'cause. It's not enough to make me turn off a game, but it still feels like a fight is artificially dragging itself and fails to be engaging.
I think a big problem with how we perceive RNG is that we only think of it in terms of missing attacks, which isn't quite true; random variation plays into a lot of factors in all sorts of calculations, and not just turn based games. I agree with Sal that it has its place in turn based games via simulating chaos and variance.

While whiffing attacks is frustrating, I think a lot of that in games is usually mitigated by having accuracy in most cases being 100% unless an enemy or situation specifically calls for something otherwise (i.e., a fast or evasive enemy that calls for alternate tactics)

Also I'm not one to usually say this, but at least for now try to keep this on topic relative to my original post, at least until the topic gets some steam. If this topic streamlines into just talking about RNG (and I've seen it happen) I'm going to swan dive into a bag of bricks.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
You mean you DON'T want it to descend into nerds bitching about things they don't like, whether or not it's germane to the discussion?!

I can't speak to the games referenced but I def. agree with the general ideas. It really feels like RT games are about reflex and speed, while TB are based on planning.

Thinking on it, I think the speed focus is why there's such a huge obsession with TB as "outdated." You don't need a fast processor to keep up when things aren't all NON STOP EXPLOSIVE ACTION!!!! and the main competitive vidya tourneys are almost all based on RT stuff. (The one exception I can think of is Pokemon, though there may be more; competition isn't my bag unless it's like puzzle games.) It's probably pretty difficult to make a turn-based game particularly exciting for spectators. (Although given that people seriously watch poker games on the telly, maybe I'm wrong there :V )

But yeah I'm personally a bigger fan of turn-based stuff in general, just because I like games where I don't need to constantly focus and have the opportunity to just take it all at my own speed.

Overall, a game's action style should fit with the game itself, whether that's HIGH OCTANE REALTIME EXCITEMENT!!! or more contemplative and micromanaging turn-based fun.
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
author=Feldschlacht IV
I think a big problem with how we perceive RNG is that we only think of it in terms of missing attacks, which isn't quite true; random variation plays into a lot of factors in all sorts of calculations, and not just turn based games. I agree with Sal that it has its place in turn based games via simulating chaos and variance.

While whiffing attacks is frustrating, I think a lot of that in games is usually mitigated by having accuracy in most cases being 100% unless an enemy or situation specifically calls for something otherwise (i.e., a fast or evasive enemy that calls for alternate tactics)

Also I'm not one to usually say this, but at least for now try to keep this on topic relative to my original post, at least until the topic gets some steam. If this topic streamlines into just talking about RNG (and I've seen it happen) I'm going to swan dive into a bag of bricks.

I'm sorry about that. I think it was just kind of a symptom of me not having any objections to what J.E. states. I agree that the level of planning that's involved with turn-based combat will pretty much always be superior to Real-time due to the fact that you can wait before taking any action. Granted, I do agree with Sailerius that it's better to assess the pros and cons of both styles of gameplay rather than tout whether one is better than the other.

author=Sooz
Thinking on it, I think the speed focus is why there's such a huge obsession with TB as "outdated." You don't need a fast processor to keep up when things aren't all NON STOP EXPLOSIVE ACTION!!!! and the main competitive vidya tourneys are almost all based on RT stuff. (The one exception I can think of is Pokemon, though there may be more; competition isn't my bag unless it's like puzzle games.) It's probably pretty difficult to make a turn-based game particularly exciting for spectators. (Although given that people seriously watch poker games on the telly, maybe I'm wrong there :V )
While part of me thinks a lot of the "X is outdated!" comes from kids who aren't used to anything other than fast-paced junk, another part I think is worth considering is that fast-paced action games are easier to market. You can have all the ads showing explosions and guns and the player gliding through giant robots and all that visual junkfood a lot of people seem to eat up nowadays and it'll describe the game perfectly. With turn-based systems, especially in the retro FF style, they tend to look a bit static when shown to anyone who isn't actually playing the game.

It's kind of like golf, really. People who've never played it always tout on how "boring" that sport is, because nobody is ramming into each other, and I just sit back and chuckle.
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
author=Ratty524
While part of me thinks a lot of the "X is outdated!" comes from kids who aren't used to anything other than fast-paced junk, another part I think is worth considering is that fast-paced action games are easier to market. You can have all the ads showing explosions and guns and the player gliding through giant robots and all that visual junkfood a lot of people seem to eat up nowadays and it'll describe the game perfectly. With turn-based systems, especially in the retro FF style, they tend to look a bit static when shown to anyone who isn't actually playing the game.

While I think that certainly makes it easier to market games with continuous gameplay, I think it's a bit reductionist to say that people prefer it nowadays only because they haven't been exposed to enough turn-based games. The primary advantage from a design standpoint that continuous gameplay holds over turn-based is the seamless harmonization of various kinds of gameplay into a unified experience. In most turn-based games, you enter a separate screen with often different graphics, controls, and UI when you go into battle, and the in-battle mechanics and modes of interaction are completely different from the out-of-battle mechanics (this isn't strictly true; lots of roguelikes have a fully turn-based world).

There's a certain beauty to a game that doesn't have distinct "phases" of gameplay, and this is the mechanical aesthetic that games have been trending toward for many years. I was reading some behind the scenes on some of the older FFs (most recently, FFX) and found it interesting to read about what they originally envisioned for the game. FFX was originally intended to have on-map encounters and a seamless transition in and out of battle, but because of hardware limitations they ended up having to scrap it. FFXII plays much closer to the original vision of FFX, but even it still has different battle versus nonbattle modes (your in-battle skills are almost never used out of battle). FFXV is an attempt to finally achieve what they've been trying to do for decades in minimizing the divide between "in battle" and "out of battle," with Noctis's abilities being useful both for combat and map exploration.

I think this ideal of games as presented by a single phase-interface is what the new generation is accustomed to. If you think about it, the whole concept of randomly walking around and suddenly being ripped away to a completely different screen for a completely different kind of gameplay is actually pretty strange, but we as RPG enthusiasts are used to it and accept it as convention. I don't think there's anything wrong with it so much as it not being in sync with the mechanical aesthetic that most games people play nowadays are embracing.

I think it would be interesting to see a turn-based imagining of that aesthetic. I guess it would be something like an open world SRPG where interacting with NPCs was treated the same way as fighting enemies.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Yeah I feel like the outdated idea is just a side effect of how games are sold.

But then I think I've already made it clear how ridic I think the idea of any mechanic being "outdated" is so yeah.

Maybe when I'm in a less sleepy frame of mind I should try to do some compare/contrast of the two battle styles and mentally explore what sort of narratives they'd do well with. That might be fun and/or a better contribution than what I usually post. :Ia
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
author=Sailerius
While I think that certainly makes it easier to market games with continuous gameplay, I think it's a bit reductionist to say that people prefer it nowadays only because they haven't been exposed to enough turn-based games. The primary advantage from a design standpoint that continuous gameplay holds over turn-based is the seamless harmonization of various kinds of gameplay into a unified experience. In most turn-based games, you enter a separate screen with often different graphics, controls, and UI when you go into battle, and the in-battle mechanics and modes of interaction are completely different from the out-of-battle mechanics (this isn't strictly true; lots of roguelikes have a fully turn-based world).

There's a certain beauty to a game that doesn't have distinct "phases" of gameplay, and this is the mechanical aesthetic that games have been trending toward for many years. I was reading some behind the scenes on some of the older FFs (most recently, FFX) and found it interesting to read about what they originally envisioned for the game. FFX was originally intended to have on-map encounters and a seamless transition in and out of battle, but because of hardware limitations they ended up having to scrap it. FFXII plays much closer to the original vision of FFX, but even it still has different battle versus nonbattle modes (your in-battle skills are almost never used out of battle). FFXV is an attempt to finally achieve what they've been trying to do for decades in minimizing the divide between "in battle" and "out of battle," with Noctis's abilities being useful both for combat and map exploration.

I think this ideal of games as presented by a single phase-interface is what the new generation is accustomed to. If you think about it, the whole concept of randomly walking around and suddenly being ripped away to a completely different screen for a completely different kind of gameplay is actually pretty strange, but we as RPG enthusiasts are used to it and accept it as convention. I don't think there's anything wrong with it so much as it not being in sync with the mechanical aesthetic that most games people play nowadays are embracing.

When you put it that way, you're pretty spot-on. Thinking back, a lot of the conventions that RPGs were founded upon, including things like random encounters, screen transitions, and damage variations were done to create the illusion of a real-time battle experience. Nowadays, there is nothing really stopping anyone from creating an actual seamless battle experience, so I can see why some wouldn't want to go back.

I guess my vocalization on the matter is because I honestly have trouble understanding these attitudes towards certain kinds of games. What matters the most to me in games is the worthwhile experience they provide and whether they are simply fun to play or not, and that's it. I could care less if the gameplay style transitions dramatically (provided it's in a non-frustrating way), or whether a barrel has a low polygon count on my screen. It matters more to me whether a game's mechanics work harmoniously and manages to keep me entertained, so I guess that's why a lot of complaints on older RPGs come off as petty to me.

I think it would be interesting to see a turn-based imagining of that aesthetic. I guess it would be something like an open world SRPG where interacting with NPCs was treated the same way as fighting enemies.
I have personally dreamed of a game like this. This would be awesome, and it holds potential to utilizing the turn-based system into new and interesting ways.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
Thinking = good. Complex = okay. Referencing manuals = bad.

It's all in where you draw the line. If the player understands what your world is telling them with the actions they have open to them, you can require them to think a couple of steps ahead. If there's significant RNG and weakness vs. resistance, it makes it more difficult for your system to teach the player what does and doesn't work. Unfortunately, RPGs are full of RNG and weakness vs. resistance to make up for the ability to sit and think every action through meticulously, so what you're left with is the reliance on color-coding and cliches to teach the player how to play your game. If they see a slime, they'll most likely use magic against it because physical attacks don't work on slimes. If they see an imp early on followed by a color swapped one later, they'll know that this is a new and stronger variation of said monster. Typically, the size of the monster also dictates how much strength and HP it has, hence why the boss is always at least double the size of the regular monsters or are a group that act as one.

You can get away with having the same monster graphic and color scheme if the monster's strength scales with the hero's level, but people that are new to the game might already have it in their heads that this particular monster only does so much damage and only has so much health and will be taken aback when suddenly this monster doesn't go down in one hit anymore.

To use my own game for example:


I'm sorry, I was looking for a fun game to play, not algebra.

Do you know what this is trying to tell you?


¯\_(ツ)_/¯ /quit

How about this? No? Well, the game never tells you. Just watch Fidchell's LP of chapter 1 to pick up on a vanilla viewer's take on the system.

This game makes use of the DBS in just about every way but evented skills, and already it's too much. What does Faint do? Why would you want protection against it? Well, if I had called it "Confuse", you'd know immediately. Swept (another status protected against with heavy armor) might as well be "Blind". That's all the difference it would take to help you identify certain statuses, but if I did that, it'd just be another Final Fantasy clone. Other games I've played had elements like Lunar and who the hell knows what that's strong against? The little "x2" by the big sword icon? That means you attack twice with the weapon, while the percentage is what percentage of your character's base strength plus the weapon's strength it will inflict upon hitting, such as 200% for "heavy" weapons. These also go up by double if it's a critical hit, making the max you'll be able to do 400% in one hit, but you'd have to know the enemies weaknesses (which I'm handling by details such as whether or not the monster is armored and the sort) which requires you to do the busy work of fighting all the monsters with all the weapon types to find out what works best. The thing that should be the most obvious is probably the glove representing how many hands it requires to hold this weapon, but even that's not entirely clear.

Sometimes I confuse myself and just resort to using daggers just for the extra hit.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
I don't think TB is intended to be the "illusion" of RT, based as it is on TTRPG mechanics. It's just a different representation of aspects of battle, just like TTRPG versus regular LARP versus boffer LARP: one of those three has actual real time action, but it's not like the other two are trying to imitate it; they're all trying to abstract what we understand about fighting.

I originally typed "real life fighting," but then I remembered that normal games wouldn't imitate actual fighting, because it tends to be not very fun for game purposes. It's all an abstraction of things like "adrenaline-inducing excitement" or "strategy" or "tension" or "desperation," rather than "Oh shit!" and then two seconds later someone's on the ground.
Are there any turn-based fighting games? Turn that 2 minutes of intense battle into a long series of discrete steps and decisions. "The isolated actions also allow for cleaner separation of discrete tasks, so a variety of actions become less muddled than they would be in real-time." It intrigues me to consider a less muddled fighting game, where your success is cleanly separated from your ability to input commands in a timely and accurate manner. And if you do that, then you can conceivably increase the number of potential moves and actions and combos immensely, because the burden of twitch/timing is gone and you have time to *gasp* look up things in a manual before you make the decision to do a "medium-power-high-kick-feint-to-knee-strike-to-abdomen" move. Or something like that.

Basically, I'd like to see turn-based mechanics applied to a wider variety of game genres, just to explore what they'd be like.

This sounds like an idea for a future event...


On the subject of turnbased, have you ever noticed that almost ALL boardgames are turnbased? There's probably a lot we could learn about implementing turn-based mechanics by studying how to make good boardgames.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
OK here's me babbling about mood and aesthetics and narrative in the big two fight mechanics!

Turn Based
It's based on planning, analysis, and thinking things out, rather like chess or poker. This immediately strikes me as most suitable for a game with a methodical setup; however, it could also be used to simulate someone who's brilliant at thinking quickly in battle, which most people are not.

(As an analogy, when playing the puzzles in the Professor Layton series, I tend to assume that the supergenius characters are NOT spending the long periods of time mulling and calculating and fucking up that I do, and that the "right answer" animation is close to the amount of time they're spending in-setting thinking about it, because they are geniuses and I, the player, am often not.)

As a way to generate tension, a focus on trying to out-think one's opponent seems like it'd work well, particularly with the necessity of figuring out what their deal is in the process. It becomes a situation of constantly second-guessing oneself, and having to commit to a particular decision, knowing that it might be ruinous, or at least set you back.

So a narrative themed around doubt, analysis, or careful approach would work very well with a turn-based style of battle, as would anything where you want to simulate a character that's superhumanly quick-thinking.

It's probably also better for us geezers, both because we tend to have less free time to devote constant attention to a game for several hours, and because human reflexes peak pretty early on in life.

Real Time
This style focuses on reflex, instinct, and snap judgement. It's all about speed. While strategy is certainly an element (as it would be in any game based on going against an opponent) it's less centered, and more about getting shit done before someone else does, and instantly reacting to new information. Where TB is predictive, RT is fairly reactive.

As such, the options for careful thought and planning are limited, and your character's skills are necessarily linked to your own. This can be a double-edged sword, since it allows skilled and talented players a closer feeling to the awesomeness going on in-game, but can be frustrating for people who aren't as good with the speed, leading to a PC that just plain sucks, with no real way to improve beyond "git gud."

I feel that RT gameplay probably works best in works that aren't terribly thinky or deep: when you're in the zone of gameplay, you don't really want anything else to intrude on the flow. There's no room for contemplation when you're busy trying to tell where the next guy is coming from, or dodging incoming missiles, or angling for a weak spot. You got more important shit on your mind!

On the other side of that coin, the fact that a player's probably not thinking too hard about what's going on is a great setup for a narrative with a lot of twists and reveals, since you don't need to work terribly hard to hide anything, and most of the time nobody in the moment will care about plot holes if they don't get in the way of the flow.

RT battling seems best geared for a quick, light narrative, something that lets a player get into the rhythm of events happening, rather than asking them to stop and think. While there's certainly openings for lulls in the action (any narrative needs some kind of break!) it's not really as suitable for the careful pacing of TB gamestyle, and I feel that too much plot would actually kill the momentum of a really well-paced RT game.

tl;dr- Turn Based is good for analytical thinky gamestyle, Real Time is good for faster and lighter gamestyle.
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
Hmm, you seem to be of the belief that all real-time gameplay has to be fast and reflex-based, which while that may be true in MOBAs and fighting games, I don't think it's necessarily true of the paradigm in general. On the contrary, I think that real-time gameplay inherently demands more thinking and situational analysis than turn-based.

Before I go into why, I'm going to explain why I prefer the terms continuous gameplay vs discrete gameplay instead of real-time and turn-based. The real distinction to me between the two is that in discrete gameplay, your actions are atomic and broad; you choose to cast Fire on Bandit and it hits or misses and deals a discrete amount of damage. In continuous gameplay, the play-experience is a stream of interactions. Rather than "attack," you are "attacking." Rather than "move to space XY," you are "moving to XY." At a given moment, in a continuous game, you are doing multiple things at once and are in the process of doing more things, but there's not really a binary success/failure measure for actions because the possibility space of what you can do is uncountable. For instance, your fireball could "miss" but by missing it could still do splash damage, or light the grass on fire, etc. So what continuous gameplay is about is a continuum between different outcomes versus success/failure.

The game with the deepest gameplay that I've played in a very long time is Metal Gear Solid V, which requires a hundred times more tactical, analytical thinking than any RPG I've ever played and it's also a fairly slow-paced game. It exemplifies the tactical possibilities of continuous gameplay: every inch of ground has an infinitum of tactical meaning behind it, and enemy bases often have dozens of different enemies all carrying out different behaviors constantly. This requires you to survey the base from afar before you try to infiltrate it, studying the guard positions, behaviors, etc as well as where fortifications are positioned, where weapons are, where are good entrance/escape points, where could you make a diversion, etc. And the thing is that there's no in-game concept of "fortification;" anything in the game world can completely change the situation. If someone drives a supply truck into a base, that's now a moving form of cover you could hide behind. Or something you could use as a distraction by blowing up.

Continuous gameplay is much better at modeling complex situations; when you're talking about encounters with dozens of agents all acting at the same time, turn-based gameplay necessarily becomes far too slow and boring to sit through. I don't want to each every single of those guards take their turns. Another consideration is that their actions are also a stream of behaviors rather than discrete commands, so you can interrupt them at any point in that stream and the exact moment in their stream of action that you interact will provide a meaningfully different result than any other moment.

tl;dr Not all real-time games are about fast action and reflexes, and it affords potential just as great as turn-based for analysis and tactics. Instead of continuing to talk about why it's brainless action, I think it would be more productive to just accept that they're both as effective for high-level thinking and evaluate what one can learn from the other.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
I think what people are trying to get at is the difference between:
and


Both things are coming down, but only one of these is actually coming down. One allows you to live out the entirety of your life and then some while the other gives you about 72 minutes.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
There's no room for contemplation when you're busy trying to tell where the next guy is coming from, or dodging incoming missiles, or angling for a weak spot.
This is what i'm actively thinking about when playing a game like that lol

RT battling seems best geared for a quick, light narrative, something that lets a player get into the rhythm of events happening, rather than asking them to stop and think. While there's certainly openings for lulls in the action (any narrative needs some kind of break!) it's not really as suitable for the careful pacing of TB gamestyle, and I feel that too much plot would actually kill the momentum of a really well-paced RT game.
I do fully agree with this though! If I'm going into a bloodbath bulletstorm shooter like Left 4 Dead 2 for example, which has no real story outside of the setting itself and getting you from point A to point B
Which is fine, it's awesome. It does what it do and it does it well. You don't need complex stories or puzzles here because that would just kill the momentum and has no business in the game.

I also agree with Sailerius in that not all Real Time "action" or "shooter" games are that straight foward and can do complexity well. You just have to be open to the idea that you ain't gonna be pounding ass for an hour straight but that you have to progress story and learn of secrets and plot points.
Like the new beat-up Batman games like Arkham Asylum is a good example to me. It's very slow to start and doesn't ramp up quickly, you have to do a lot of batmany detective work and solve puzzles in between beating wrongly accused inmates.
Which is fine, but it can get boring. I kinda just want Batman to fight off like a hundred dudes in a alley way in a brutal fashion.

Just like turn based, real time action can be mindless or in depth and complex. Both are great for different reasons. It depends if I'm feeling like sitting down and turning my brain off for the day or getting real into something like a stealth game or even an RPG.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Yeah, I'm speaking in really broad generalities for the sake of hypotheticals; I recognise that there will always be outliers on this stuff, because gam mak is an art and art has really fluid boundaries, but I don't feel like what I said is unuseful!

author=Sailerius
tl;dr Not all real-time games are about fast action and reflexes, and it affords potential just as great as turn-based for analysis and tactics. Instead of continuing to talk about why it's brainless action, I think it would be more productive to just accept that they're both as effective for high-level thinking and evaluate what one can learn from the other.


I thought I made it clear that I didn't think of RT as "brainless action," just that it's not as suited for many slower and contemplative narratives. I'm not dissin' your fave gameplay style, dude, I just feel like TB has its own value that people overlook.
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
author=Sooz
Yeah, I'm speaking in really broad generalities for the sake of hypotheticals; I recognise that there will always be outliers on this stuff, because gam mak is an art and art has really fluid boundaries, but I don't feel like what I said is unuseful!

author=Sailerius
tl;dr Not all real-time games are about fast action and reflexes, and it affords potential just as great as turn-based for analysis and tactics. Instead of continuing to talk about why it's brainless action, I think it would be more productive to just accept that they're both as effective for high-level thinking and evaluate what one can learn from the other.

I thought I made it clear that I didn't think of RT as "brainless action," just that it's not as suited for many slower and contemplative narratives. I'm not dissin' your fave gameplay style, dude, I just feel like TB has its own value that people overlook.
I personally prefer turn-based to action games... in theory, it's just that there hasn't been a fun turn-based game in years, whereas action games have been evolving a lot these past few years. I think the reason people overlook the value of turn-based games is because they're often so samey and get stuck on iterating on menial things like encounter rate rather than fundamental questions like, what is an encounter? Why are they necessary? What fundamental assumptions about the way they work, and their role in the game, are we not questioning?

That's why I think, regardless of your genre of choice, it's important to play wildly different things to broaden your horizons. I started playing shooters, puzzlers, and stealth games because I found I was getting too into the headspace of JRPG conventions and I've learned a lot more from these games than I have from playing more RPGs. Like kentona said earlier, why hasn't there been a turn-based fighting game? Everyone I know who's big into fighting games insists that it's not about button mashing or reflexes, so why not remove that aspect altogether and get to the core of what they're about? Square-Enix reimagined Tomb Raider and Hitman as turn-based games and they're awesome.

Seriously, if you haven't played Lara Croft GO, give it a shot. It captures the essence of the Tomb Raider games in a turn-based format.

I think an awesome idea for an event would be to take a traditionally action-based genre and implementing it in a turn-based fashion without just giving it an RPG battle system.
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