RMNCAST 6 DESIGN TOPIC: TURN-BASED AND ACTIVE GAMEPLAY

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1. Which do you prefer? Do you like to strategize and take your time, or do you like to shoot terrorists in the crotch while things blow up around you? Or do you prefer hybrid systems such as most Final Fantasy games?

I like to take my time and think about what I'm going to do for the most part, but I do enjoy excitement as long as I have a plan or a system before hand. Its all about manageability. A game like Civilization 3 has hour-long turns because there are so many separate elements to focus on. The simpler the game, the faster it can be. A good example of this is something like Collapse! or Tetris, fairly simple puzzlish games that start slow to let you get the hang of it and then slowly crank themselves up a notch.

2. Which game has your very favorite implementation of turn-based or action gameplay?

Turn-based gameplay? Civilization 3. Action-based gameplay? I might say Starcraft.

Again I think its about balancing the system with the amounts of things the player has to do to be successful at the game. Psychologically, most people can't handle remembering more than seven things at once. If I was playing a FPS or something, I might need to remember 1) where I am in the level 2) where I think you are 3) my health 4) my ammo 5) my choice of weapon, and that's pretty much it, so its easy to collapse the temporality of the game and speed it up into something like Quake or TF2. In FPSs where they expect you to do some problem solving, you usually get the opportunity to pace yourself. If the game is intersting enough, even if it has a "Click here to proceed* option, it can survive in the sewers of slow pacing.

1. Which do you prefer? Do you like to strategize and take your time, or do you like to shoot terrorists in the crotch while things blow up around you? Or do you prefer hybrid systems such as most Final Fantasy games?
Either or. I love turn-based strategic games that take a lot of thinking such as Fire Emblem or Advance Wars, but I also like fast-paced in-your-face types of games. This is probably why I love Team Fortress 2 so much; it requires a lot of thinking, but it's incredibly fast-paced. If you opt to play Scout, everything whizzes by in ultra high speed. Things can even get crazy if you play Heavy, which is supposed to be the slow strategic class.

2. Which game has your very favorite implementation of turn-based or action gameplay?
TF2 for reasons already stated.

3. Is there a style you hate? Some people get anxious and bored in turn-based games. On the flip side, some people get bored if they don't have time to make strategies.
Not really. If it's done well, chances are that I'll like it.

4. Which game's implementation of turn-based or action gameplay do you hate?
To use an RPG Maker example, Dark Eternal. Lightning-speed menu scrolling should not be a required skill.

5. Even in styles you prefer, do you have boundaries? Many people like turn-based games, but don't have the patience for two-hour-long turns in the late stages of Civilization 4. Or, some people like action games but can't keep up with the frantic pace of Wipeout.
Like I said, if it's executed well, I don't care. I haven't played Civ IV or Wipeout, so I don't know exactly how fast or how slow we're talking here, but I've got a pretty high tolerance for both.

1. Which do you prefer? Do you like to strategize and take your time, or do you like to shoot terrorists in the crotch while things blow up around you? Or do you prefer hybrid systems such as most Final Fantasy games?
>I am an all or nothing person, so if it has action it must be PURE action, like a fighting game or something like Virtual ON, Gundam Omni vs Zaft or something like that. Otherwise just give me mu turns, iof I have to think, I need the eternity to think of ways to come tottally undamaged from battles with style ;)

2. Which game has your very favorite implementation of turn-based or action gameplay?
>Saga Frontier was quite interesting in the fact that it used the turn system to auto unleash team attacks or even learn new skills.
>Super Robot wars has an interestiong point to TBS, where you can use skills as much as you want in the same turn, as long as your mp lets you, but you can only attack once and when defending, you chose your reaction.

3. Is there a style you hate? Some people get anxious and bored in turn-based games. On the flip side, some people get bored if they don't have time to make strategies.
>ATB is total shit and should burn in hell with all i´s variations. Seriously, it should be either full static turnbased or total action, screw middle terms. Specially active ATB where enemies can hit you whiole you are chosing actions. Lastly, waiting for turns while you are not even being attacked... just wauting for the bar to fill... WHY IN HELL

4. Which game's implementation of turn-based or action gameplay do you hate?
>Anything that uses ATB, so Final Fantasies (yes it is flaw on FF6 too) and Chrono Trigger included.

5. Even in styles you prefer, do you have boundaries? Many people like turn-based games, but don't have the patience for two-hour-long turns in the late stages of Civilization 4. Or, some people like action games but can't keep up with the frantic pace of Wipeout.
>Just don´t limit my turn´s time.Give me the terenity and I can go turn based forever.

I enjoy ATB, in WAIT mode (that is, paused when I select a spell or item from my inventory).

1. Which do you prefer? Do you like to strategize and take your time, or do you like to shoot terrorists in the crotch while things blow up around you? Or do you prefer hybrid systems such as most Final Fantasy games?
I'm a strategy guy. And I like my strategy turn based. But apart from strategy and tactical games... Oh and some puzzlers. I'm much in favour of real-time.
Although I, for one, CAN see an FPS being turn-based. It's an interesting concept. (I'd assume the first step towards it would be Fallout 3's VATS). But turn-based automatically mean a bit more strategy. Of course occasionally the turn-based is completely wasted and doesn't add anything to a previously lackluster system. (RM2k games line up on this side)

Turnbased is great when you have loads of options to consider. And you want that time to consider all these options. If I am to shoot terrorists in the crotch and watch things blow up around me two ways a perfectly acceptable to me. One is taking a turn doing an aimed shot and perhaps let my comrades do some blowing up. Or if I have enough action points left after shooting some terrorist crotch blow up shit myself.
The other is shooting the terrorist in the crotch by aiming my mouse at it after which I change weapons and shoot some rockets into the conveniently placed exploding barrels.


2. Which game has your very favorite implementation of turn-based or action gameplay?
When it comes to turn-based I think the squad based tactical game Silent Storm had most of the things I love about small-scale turn based action. In fact the turn based squad based tactical game is probably one of my favorite genres despite the fact that they just don't show up a whole lot.

For action gameplay I don't really know. I'm a fan of slower action that doesn't have me being overly frantic but still keeping a pace up. On the whole I think that few things can beat a perfectly balanced FPS in terms of action. (Half-Life 2 comes to mind as one of those perfected FPSes that has everything just right. It's insane really.)

But you know. I'm listening to some music here and to be honest. The Guitar Hero gameplay is pretty genious too. Music games overall are pretty genious as long as they pump up the difficulty in small easy steps. In games like Guitar Hero and Elite Beat Agents I've actually felt myself getting better at them... But they're also sort of fun I suppose.

3. Is there a style you hate? Some people get anxious and bored in turn-based games. On the flip side, some people get bored if they don't have time to make strategies.
RTS. I don't like RTS. I played some backinthedays. And the most recent I've played has been Dawn of War/Company of Heroes (same engine so I lump them together). They seem to suffer from... just too much going on. I can't possibly keep up in RTSes. There's no way for me to strategize properly. I send in a unit and have another ready to flank. But the battle is over before I even have time to select the second unit.

I'm not a quick guy. I recently (re)played some Age of Empires (the old ones) and I really love the building aspects of it, just peacefully building it all up. But the second war starts it becomes a dreadfully boring slugfest. It's just sending meat to the grinder. The worst thing is that oftentimes the tutorial or something shows options that would be cool to use, like coversystems and formations and supporting troopers but in the games themselves it just doesn't work. You just use your special power every now and then and run back and forth with your battlelines until you exhaust your enemy.

With all that said. I love Total War. It's because of a couple of things. First: It's slow enough for me. Marching troops around takes a while and you can position your soldiers in the formations you like. The fights too don't end immediately and two units can battle it out for a while while you run your cavalry around the units to take them in the rear. Stuff like that I just love to do. Second: You can pause it. And the game supports it well (There's a hidden pause key in DoW and CoH, but the game doesn't really want to tell you it exists).

So if an RTS is slower I might like it (I also liked Hearts of Iron). If it doesn't have actual battling I won't mind either (Sim City/Sim Anything or Theme Anything or Tycoon Antyhing... Though occasionally if there's AI opponents they are JUST TOO GODDAMN FAST and I suffer the same thing as before.)

4. Which game's implementation of turn-based or action gameplay do you hate?
I don't know. Some RPGs mess it up. It seems they just aren't very good at the stuff. Arcanum had a subpar system when it tried to mix real time and turn based which ended up with both sucking. You could say the same thing about games like Baldur's Gate which had Real Time With Pause that didn't work optimally. RM2k-like systems I don't tend to like much either (Or should I call it Dragon Quest-like. I don't think I've ever played a Dragon Quest but aren't they similar?). Taking turns to do something that is repetitive and samey without much options isn't generally a good idea. The later (Later meaning those I've played. SNES and PS1-era) Final Fantasies did a good job in having a semi-real time system where you did the same thing over and over but had to try to be fairly quick about it. Which took away the boredom a bit by keeping you on your toes.

Action-systems are also usually bad for party-based games. If you are controlling more than one character at once it's a good idea to at least think about turnbasing it. Or make sure you only use one character at a time (see the Final Fantasy example above). It's sort of the same issue I have with RTS. If I'm controlling loads of characters I want to be able to coordinate efforts properly. Occasionally it works with enough presents (Commandos 2 would be my example, but it isn't perfect. Usually I ended up only using one character for everything in the end) like auto-do something (usually killing someone if they get too close)


5. Even in styles you prefer, do you have boundaries? Many people like turn-based games, but don't have the patience for two-hour-long turns in the late stages of Civilization 4. Or, some people like action games but can't keep up with the frantic pace of Wipeout.
Oh yeah. Like I've said. Too frantic just isn't for me. Most of the space shoot 'em up thingies with insane difficulty. I can't do that. I just can't. I know the game expects me to do it over and over with trial and error learning everything by heart to be able to make it. But I don't want to play a game where, if I pressed the wrong button at ONE place I'm forced to redo the whole thing)
My turn-based boundary is... uh... Well it's definitely not long turns. Sometimes long enemy turns can be annoying but it's always because they're doing a lot and I need to be alert... I guess my boundary comes if there's too much micromanagements and not enough turn time. If the turns are timed or similar. You could say the other way around too: If there's not enough options and too much turn time. Then perhaps that sucks.

But my tolerance is high. I play sports management games.

1. Which do you prefer? Do you like to strategize and take your time, or do you like to shoot terrorists in the crotch while things blow up around you? Or do you prefer hybrid systems such as most Final Fantasy games?

I like both! When games try to combine them and fail miserably things start to become a pain. If I had to choose, I'd say turn based since there isn't pressure to do things quickly and try to make difficulty out of fighting with the interface or trying to decide what ability to use. Plus with turn based I can just drop the controller and take a break instead of having to push Start to pause the game ().

2. Which game has your very favorite implementation of turn-based or action gameplay?

Turn based RPG? Wild ARMs 3 and 4. Wild ARMs 3 is classic turn based but one bonus is that with the right ability you can cancel a character's action before they do it and give them a new action. Also you can change the build and function of each character between turns which is absolutely awesome and handy when fighting bosses for the first time or the endurance battles.

Wild ARMs 4 added a mini-SRPG to the mix, each battle took place on a mini battlefield where you could move and attack similar to a SRPG. It really added to the fights since character position (including when characters were on the same spot) was incredibly important. WA5 continues this too.

I also like how FFT handled turns (there's an ATB but nobody cares about what happens when its filling up so that's instantaneous and when a turn comes up they have all the time in the world) and its evolution: FF10.

Action-RPGs-wise, there isn't one that really stands out as being great. Secret of Mana was decent but there were a load of problems fighting and dodging and magic spam just made everything better/worse since it was an alternative to the clunky weapon combat but it murdered everything with no effort. I think its better/equal to the alternatives though, which is kind of depressing.

Well, there's the remake of Ys Oath in Felghana which is pretty good but there's only one weapon (besides magic) and you don't get any allies (note: I only beat three dungeons) but its combat is handled much better than other Action RPGs.

For pure action stuff, God Hand. Its all about punching people in the face in different and awesome ways while reading enemy moves and pulling the appropriate counter/evade to avoid getting hit.

3. Is there a style you hate? Some people get anxious and bored in turn-based games. On the flip side, some people get bored if they don't have time to make strategies.

There isn't a particular style I hate as much as just how its implemented. I'm good with both as long as its done well and it isn't mind numbingly slow.

4. Which game's implementation of turn-based or action gameplay do you hate?

Kingdom Hearts 2

Playing on the hardest difficulty requires using a healing item once or twice every couple worlds.

FF9 also has a sour taste. From what I remember, the ATB fills up while characters are doing their attack animations which takes too long and someone's ATB is always filled. Now doing anything with these available characters can be a problem since the game can be very counter-centric and you don't want three characters queued up while your party needs healing. It just feel counter intuitive that characters with ATB should sit around since it takes so damn long for the queued attacks to get anywhere. (I have no idea if I was playing on Active or Wait though, this could be my fault)

SRPGS/Strategy Games with PLAYER/ENEMY PHASE also get on my nerves. There's no way to react to enemy moves before the computer is done moving everything. Combine this with immediately resolved combat and the player can find themselves in a bad spot because of an oversight (like I often do). I like being able to do "Oh hey Super France came through the Papal States and I have no troops there. Good thing I have my reserves nearby so I can send them to intercept those troops before they get out of control". Its tolerable but far from ideal.

5. Even in styles you prefer, do you have boundaries? Many people like turn-based games, but don't have the patience for two-hour-long turns in the late stages of Civilization 4. Or, some people like action games but can't keep up with the frantic pace of Wipeout.

If its as slow as molasses, I'll pass. Just because its turn based doesn't mean it should take forever for stuff to happen. I turn off half the combat options in Civ4 because of this (No I don't want to see the game zoom in on a fight. No I don't want to see a bunch of guys hit each other and kill some of them. No I don't want it to take ten seconds I still have armies to deal with. No I don't care just hurry up and get the fight over with!)

Also the Mad Midget Five. Fuck those guys.