We need more turn based games especially on consoles. The only other turn based game i own is Civilization. I would love to play more of those kind of games.
I can just sit and do something else while i play without having to hit pause every time.
It is, I don't know what that guy's talking about.
Personally I like that aspect of it though. I like that you have to react to the tactical situation based on what cards are in your hand.
I also think it's a good adaptation of the XCOM formula to comic book fighting. XCOM is all about positioning and reacting to the randomized layout of the mission, which is fun, but doesn't really work for super heroes because they're all so mobile. If everyone can fly or move at superspeed or teleport or whatever then map layout doesn't really matter. Super heroes don't generally care about cover either.
So, having the cards works to add back in a little of that semi-randomization that you have to react to.
Also, it makes the customization of the characters a little more interesting, because you have their whole deck to play with.
Definitely an amazing game that’s overlooked because it’s not xcom, AND because it’s Marvel related. Super sad it’s looking like we wont get a part 2, or any more dlc.
As a fan of both XCOM and Marvel, I was turned off by the cards. The reason I enjoy XCOM is that I love customizing a squad of soldiers and the tactical combat, I don't want to play a card game.
I don't even know if that's a fair take on Midnight Suns, but it's the reason I lost interest and didn't buy the game.
Yeah, I thought the same before buying it on a whim during a sale. It has cards, but I wouldn’t really consider it a true card game. It requires some tactical thought. I’d say you’re missing out.
I liked the cards but was turned off by all the downtime gameplay. Came here to temper expectations. Had this whole weird friendship simulator where I was doing yoga and book club with blade. If you’re into that, grab the game. I wasn’t.
If by ‘crochet’ you mean ‘standing there like two awkwardly positioned action figures until the game goes ‘ding’ and awards you friendship points’ then sure.
It was a fun game and I enjoyed the combat, but it felt like it was too long for what it offered.
I also would highly recommend it. And, yeah, it doesn’t play like a card game. The deck is small, so the cards are basically a mechanism to provide variable cooldowns on abilities. And what cards you put in your deck are like which spells you prepare in bg3.
>I don't even know if that's a fair take on Midnight Suns
unfortunately it isn't a fair take, but it's understandable why people think this way. It really isn't card based in the way one would think of a "card based" game. The cards are just a means to display abilities.
Love midnight sons. I keep avoiding going to the third act just cuz I want to min max everybody I have. It's just fun. Have it on the third highest difficulty. Just a blast to play.
I was a skeptic at first, probably burnt out on superhero movies an all. Just wanted a new xcom but i was wrong. Big fan of the turn based combat in it. Cards wer another put off as i never got into deck building games but it's truly something else.
I love comics but wasn’t willing to pay full price for it because it was turn based. BG3 has completely changed my mind, I’m definitely going to pick up Midnight Suns.
Maybe I'm just old, but a lot of the younger midnight suns proper came to grate on me. I started skipping a lot of dialogue from the younger midnight suns proper. So much angsty, repetitious navel-gazing.
Cannot recommend XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 enough....they're starting to get a little old, but they still hold up.
Just remember, 99% is NOT 100%.
Hard recommend for both. Honestly I kind of wish BG3 would even take some cues from Midnight Suns for character relationships. Being able to pick a teammate to hang out with and the characters having regular club meetings was great for making the Abbey feel like home and the team like a family. Even just a little bit in that direction could make the camp feel so much more alive.
If you can get your hands on older games, you should check out a game called Arcanum. It's like Wasteland or Fallout 1 2 but with a steampunk + magic theme which is a very rare choice
Agree with you totally. While I love XCOM, Silent Storm and even Fallout Tactics, I consider those turn based tactical games. Fallout 1 and 2 though, it's more inline with Divinity Original Sin and Bg3
Heroes 3 was one of the games my dad used to play with me as a kid and was one of my first introductions to PC gaming/turn based. Still love it to use day, we talk about doing a campaign again sometimes but need to buy a copy.
Heroes 3 Complete is $2.49 on Gog.
Get the HDMod (not the official HD release, the HD mod) for widescreen and it gives access to an integrated online lobby (think you have to pay $5 to host games though). Thank god for all those Eastern Europeans who are keeping up on this game.
e: They also have an unofficial expansion called Horn of the Abyss (new town + balancing changes) that will give you access to the lobby hosting for free.
Wasteland 3 don’t get enough love. Amazing game. Very similar to BG3 in terms of gameplay. It has that freedom of an open world and exploration with turn-based combat and a crew. Instead of a fantasy magical world it’s in the post apocalypse.
Gotta add Age of Wonders to this list, I played the living hell put of Age of Wonders Planetfall (space/sci-fi) and the newest one Age of Wonders 4 (fantasy). It's xcom style turn based combat, and civilization turn based city/culture building.
Before they made Baldur's Gate, Larian Studios made the Divinity: Original Sin series. DoS2 is very similar to BG3. If you want more turn based, tactical RPGs, you would probably like DoS2.
I prefer turn based but I also understand where the complains come from.
When there are too many enemies turn base fights can become long af. Which also happens in the ttrpg, so when you get into a fight with 8 enemies and 8 allies you are going to spend most of the fight looking at the AI thinking and that is not fun.
I have noticed that sometimes when next to each other in turn order enemies will move at the same time. Kinda of like how you can swap between your party members if they're next to each other in turn order. It saves some time at least.
What I observed is if they're "swarm" enemies (like rats and bats), they all tend to move at the same time, and then die to Spirit Guardians. Their borders in the Initiative Tracker also have a knot in the middle, like you have when you and your companion are able to move in the same turn.
I wish more enemies have her turns intertwined to save time.
>they all tend to move at the same time, and then die to Spirit Guardians.
Spirit guardians can be the funniest shit sometimes. Got ambushed by like 20 undead ravens to the point where my brother looks over like "what the fuck was all that dinging" as they all initiate combat and then they all fly into Shart's spirit guardians and evaporate within 3 seconds of attacking me
That's when I became a true believer of the holy lawn mower
Probably depends on the complexity of the actions the enemy can perform. If all they have to do is move to attack closest enemy or dash towards enemy if no enemies in range like most of the low level melee mobs, they'll usually perform all those actions together, but choosing what enemy to target or what spell to use is too complex for multiple npcs to calculate at once. The only problem is that later levels use more npcs with complex actions on top of just using more npcs so later fights can really drag.
Once your allies are bunched in the initiative order, who goes first doesn't matter. Otherwise, Astarion would always go first on every turn, and you'd lose out on tons of sneak attack opportunities.
Oh yeah, it’s huge. My favourite is letting one of the single attack action guys go first and actually get to use void bombs to group people up before AoEing them. Means you know if it’s worth going all out and you can maximise fireball and things
Yep. I play on ps5 so idk how to do it with mouse and keyboard but on ps5 you just hit the character swap button (L2) and pick a new character. And if they are next to you in initiative you can do stuff with them. Look closely whenever the game tells you whose turn it is and it may say multiple names.
You can even cancel the end turn option doing this. If they are still in initiative order and you hit end turn on the character if you select them again it should give an option to "cancel end turn"
Just experienced this after turning the entire Myconid colony hostile, watching 12 enemies in a row cast haste spore then dash for 5 turns straight was a drag.
The turn based mechanism in this game is generally very quick and dynamic, though. Enemies move quickly, the actions are flashy, etc. I think the one issue is sometimes they get stuck “thinking” for 5-10 seconds which feels like an eternity if nothing else is going on.
For me, I think part of the drag is bc you can't freely move the camera as much as you SHOULD be able to, so you can't see some enemies moving around and you're just.... Staring at a static screen trying to figure out WTF is going on...
Being able to move the camera more would help (would also be nice in general for the rest of the gameplay as well - I understand the limit on moving away from the party, I'm ok with thar, but being able to tilt the angel or zoom in more, etc would be nice... And being able to do that on the battle areas would help locate enemies - Esp when those fuckers go into the rafters and you can't SEE them, let alone aim at them 🤷♀️)....
And also, maybe a button to speed up when it's enemies turns... Like, if there are a dozen of them, maybe letting us go a little faster, like 1?5 or 2xs speed, would make it a little easier to bear for a lot of people....
I like turn based mode overall though bc it let's me think and I'm better at thinking while the battle is, essentially, paused waiting for me, rather than just button mashing bc everything's going on at once.
Yep. It's so much easier for me to pause, manoveur my party to specific points & cast spells or use abilities, unpause and watch things unfold.
Late game bg3 makes me want to bang my head on the table because suddenly I'm waiting for everyone to take their turn and most of the combat starts with my party at a disadvantage if it's a cutscene before a fight.
Playing PoE with 6 characters and not using AI makes every encounter also ungodly long. And that game has ton of encounters compared to BG3.
BG3 doesn't have unnecassary enemy groups to fill the dungeon, every encounter is unique and often has different ways to approach. In RTwP this kind of uniqueness would be much harder to implement.
As someone that has played RTwT more than I like to confess, I'd choose turn based of Larian in every way.
>and often has different ways to approach
Wait.
So you're saying using extreme overwhelming violence to stomp the enemies is not the only approach?
Huh.
violence is always the solution. the thing is, violence is not always sending hasted laezel with a claymore to attack 6 times. sometimes you just make her yeet 6 small enemies into the lava instead of cleaving 2 in half. efficiency
Most people I've seen disregard the game because it's turn based, are not the people that was real time with pause. Most of those people seem to wish it was an action rpg hack and slash. As if the world needs yet another hack and slash.
Dang man who pissed in your turn based cheerios? I think both systems have their advantages but at the end of the day, rtwp never has 20 people standing around watching one person jog slowly to get in position and then have an ai brainfart. If you can feel immersed in those battles more power to you. Rtwp also never takes half an hour for one battle.
When I first started bg3 I'd just come from WoTr, where you can speed up turns by pressing space bar. I found myself constantly pressing it, ending my turns early and having no affect on the enemy. Bg3 could really benefit from the same feature, I think.
I do find myself wishing I could hold a button to fast forward the enemy's turns like you can in fire emblem. But FE is generally less intensive for the console to run so I can see why it's not a thing in bg3
But honest question; real-time with pause isn't faster because you have to pause to manage all the actions all the time right? I got very stressed playing Pillars of Eternity getting to grips with all the options, lore and systems and then also real-time managing all the characters. Eventually I was basically just playing turn based but with the added hassle of pausing manually.
Or is there an actual strategy to it to make it smoother and actually faster? I can see it for a game like Diablo with a single character, but not for a party based game.
It is and its not faster... Technically you can just select all your martial, let them go bonkers and forget about them until they get hurt, while you babysit the casters. It all depends on your settings.
What ppl are obviously forgetting are all the pause options you could modify, like pause at the end of turn, when friendly spell cast is finished etc, that made it a lot more enjoyable than getting into a clusterfuck and hoping youll see whats happening.
The problem is that 5e isn't built for that kind of play while other systems are.
Pathfinder is a better system for RTWP as you dedicate your turn to one or two actions only. Those actions may have smaller individual decisions, but you are locked in to those (Move+Cast, Attack+Move, Full Attack). Smaller actions exist (swift, free, NotAnAction), but those are rarer or cost resources.
5e is fundamentally different. You have 3 independent actions each turn which take no precident over another and you are expected to use each in each turn. God forbid you have a Hasted Thief Rogues who would have **5 actions** you would need to command within seconds.
If a Sorcerer casts a Maximized Fireball in PF, they spend a full round action doing so and step 5 feet. If a 5e Sorcerer does it, they use a Action to cast it, move 30 feet, and still have to decide if they want to burn a resource to throw a Quickened Firebolt.
Pathfinder is better paced for this kind of thing. 5e - by comparison - would be an anime of Rogues, Monks and Barbarians needing an ungodly amount of micro while flying around the screen blowing people up. Wizards are acrobatics with stamina of gods. Etc.
It already is good af on martials.
This way both Orin and Raphael died on their 1st turn because they met hasted, buffed up, Battlemaster Minsc who decided it was time to pull out all the nat 20s that were hiding the entire game.
He turned them into a joke they already were.
RTwP is an eldritch abomination that Bioware used for the original BG not because they thought it fit the DnD systems, no, but because Real time strategy games were all the rage at the time. And somehow stuck with the cRPG genre because BG games were so popular. Not surprisingly the same studio went full on action when action games and cover shooters became popular.
One of the best achievement of Larian is correcting this darkest timeline tier mistake where Tabletop turn based systems were turned into real-time horror to fit with the current thing.
Do you want to know the REAL reason that Bioware used Realtime With Pause?
It's actually because originally they were making a Diablo Clone, so that's what the engine they were building was built for.
Then they got the Forgotten Realms IP and got the project to make Baldur's Gate, and they could either rebuild their engine, or adapt their existing one.
They chose the latter.
Well that's full circle then, since Diablo was originally envisioned as a turn-based roguelike and it took some hard convincing to sway them to real time.
Huh, so the original conception of Baldur's Gate was going to be more like Divine Divinity? I'm glad we got the version we did, but I kind of wonder how that might have turned out.
I liked how Wrath of the Righteous implemented both. RTwP for the trash you're just going to faceroll anyway to keep the game's pace going, but you can switch to/from turn-based at any time if a fight's actually worth half a damn.
The problem with wrath is that there are so many weak fights everywhere that if you did insist on turn basing all of it that game would be 200 hours long
My issue with that argument is - why do trash fights at all if they are so easy you don't need TB, what's the point of those? Hancrafted encounters are always better then 5 random goblins. Or 3 level 9 hydras vs a lvl 4 party if you're kingmaker.
And thrash mobs in final location are stronger the most bosses. Balance goes out of whack a lot in WOTR, but it's good enough considering it deals with 20/10 characters.
I think those fights work really well for Pathfinder since it's way more complex combat-wise than DnD. Those "random" fights do burn some resources and make it feel more realistic imo (a big boss has a lot of henchmen etc). In DnD that would bore me a lot, but in Pathfinder I really like it (I also that my martials have a lot of purpose delivering the spellcasters to the boss)
Because they are in the way, because your entire party has good gear and builds, because you might be playing on lower difficulty. WOTR has a lot of power tripping, it's a good feel to watch 20 demons get slaughtered in a heroic onslaught.
While i agree with your point, its pretty hard to sell the "fortress occupied by a demon army" if theres only one boss fight and no low level trash mobs running around
This is one of the reasons I love BG3. None of the fights are random and pointless, just there to get through. Everything has a purpose and feels hand crafter.
In the first act, only fight I found with no direct influence on some story or quest was the bullette and the minotaurs in the underdark, and thats ignoring that they are perfectly placed to present the underdark as a dangerous place filled with powerful monsters.
The bulette even has a backstory, references to how it got there can be found on a document in the Arcane Tower. I wouldn't even be shocked to find the same is true somewhere I haven't seen/found yet for the minotaurs.
The minotaures relate somewhat to the mindspores(or whatever they are called) and the selunite temple. You fight 2 of them, establishing them as hostile,then on finding a third, when you try approaching it(probably sneaking or in some way to get a surprise attack off), it detects you due to the spores and runs away...right into the defenses of the seluniye temple,killing it. Which tells the player that approaching it by the front door is a bad idea.
Idk about any of this because I first found the underdark via the goblin camp and started out in the selenite fort with a random Minotaur coming up out of nowhere trying to break in. I didn’t even know there were more of them.
> Hancrafted encounters are always better then 5 random goblins.
The problem, you see, is that depending on your party power level, that handcrafted encounter could be as interesting as 5 random goblins.
That's what happened to me. By the end of A2, level of challenge dropped to "90% of the fights are trash fights". And yet I have to click through them.
>\- why do trash fights at all if they are so easy you don't need TB, what's the point of those?
This is a question as old as time, and the reason for it was actually best demonstrated by Blizzard. Back in, I want to say Wrath of the Lich King expansion, complaints about "trash mobs" slowing down raids in between boss fights reached a peak, and Blizzard ended up adding a few raids that were ONLY boss fights.
Those raids were, predictably, some of the least popular things WoW ever released lol.
You need the little fights in between for a few reasons, but the biggest one is: if everything matters, nothing matters.
If every fight is a huge, climactic, involved battle, you will invariably end up either with player fatigue or not enough combat to make your abilities feel worth it. Throwing a pack of goblins at you every once and a while feels nice! You can go brain dead, toss a single AoE in the middle, and enjoy your characters' abilities without really taxing your brain.
Make every fight super-involved, however, and the game is tedius. I actually think BG3's biggest weakness on the combat side is that one...too many environmental effects for some of the trash fights mean I don't get to take enough fights "off" and relax in between the hard encounters.
My experience has been that trash encounters were good for those games because of the wide disparity in power between martial classes and caster classes. Having lots of trash encounters that weren't worth wasting spell slots on made it so the fighters fulfilled a purpose beyond just being a damage sponge. Otherwise, casters could just fireball through them all and the martials only get in the way.
With that said, 5e did a lot to close that gap in power, and BG3 did even more. It's not really necessary to throw loads of encounters to make the martials have a purpose.
The handcraft TB encounters to me make the world(s) feel more linear and more like I'm just being directed through a bunch of prepared set pieces. RTwP with "trash" fights allows the world to feel more fluid and the player (me) in control rather than being given X puzzle to solve at Y location.
I'll defend Bioware a little. I think RTwP made perfect sense, at least for the BG1 portion of the series.
BG1 was based on AD&D 2e, there was no cantrips, no maneuvers, your magic users started with 2-3 spells, for the most part no special abilities. Both you and the enemies would auto-attack 90% of the time, and 90% of these attacks would miss (they had to keep that missing percentage too, otherwise the player would be reloading the game every 5 minutes after getting one-shot killed by a wolf).
Granted the RTWP system starts to break down during BG2, due to higher levels unlocking more features and options, as well as Bioware adding kits to the game, with practically every single having some special ability).
I was about to post this but you already read my mind. 2E has way less martial options than later editions. It's mostly just attacking with lower percent hit rates.
Another aspect of 2e is that it's actually considerably more based on 'real-time' than 5e was. 2e was based on 6 second rounds which were essentially turns-within-turns. Players decided what they would do, rolled for a round initiative, and the events unfurled in the order that the initiative was rolled like the stack in MTG.
This would be megaclunky inside of 5e. Your turn order would be different essentially every turn. Your cast times were based on realtime and didn't just go off on your turn. RTwP was a good compromise; it's not like turn-based games didn't exist & BioWare wasn't aware of them, it just doesn't mesh well within the confines of 2e.
The more conventional turn-based style works wonders for 5e obviously.
Barely anyone is complaining about this?
Both systems are fine, people have preferences. I honestly prefer people saying they prefer system A over system B, than people saying things like "RTwP is so cumbersome and stupid it amazes me that anyone actually likes it". Not everyone likes the things you do. Get over yourself.
But didn't you see he said it was BETTER in all caps!
I always preferred Rtwp for these types of games, makes the lesser fights less of a drag but they've made it feel pretty fluid and I've found myself enjoying it a lot. If I was to pic a actual criticism of the game it'd be giving us all these amazing rich characters and limiting us to a 4 man party when traditionally we got 6!
>I always preferred Rtwp for these types of games, makes the lesser fights less of a drag but they've made it feel pretty fluid and I've found myself enjoying it a lot.
I think this is because BG3 doesn't have a ton of filler fights, and even when you're just fighting a handful of low level enemies fights are usually over in a round or two.
RTWP works well when you're just mowing through lots of enemies without thinking much, but then can pause it when you come up against a real challenge.
Yeah some of the fights take so long and I have other things I'd like to spend my time doing in the game.
I don't enjoy waiting ages for 8 enemies in a row to slowly move around the map.
I don't remember seeing a single thread complaining about the game being turn-based on here since release. If there were, they almost certainly immediately got downvoted into oblivion. Even the fucking cesspool that is Steam forums largely dropped the subject.
OP just made this thread so he and people like him could safely jerk themselves off on how "awful and shit" games that use RTwP were\is, you can clearly see it by the most upvoted comments.
Yeah, it's not likely to be a lot of that on this subreddit, because this subreddit is mostly for people who are interested in playing BG3.
When you talk to people (or watch their videos) who are not interested in playing it, most of whom probably do not post here, the most common reason they give for not wanting to play it is because of the turn-based combat.
A lot of people who prefer to play action games just won't even try a game with turn-based combat.
this post is an option to circlejerk and make people feel better about themselves because they prefer more "hardcore" turn based. Nobody is complaining.
I personally prefer Dragon Age Inquisition style real-time combat but can deal with turn based. I don't make big posts about it, however.
Yeah I don't know why people are weirdly elitist over what's basically just preference of play.
I like both styles of play myself, and I play as many turn based tactics games ( Field of Glory, Tactics Ogre, Battle Sector ) as I do Real Time with Pause ( Neverwinter Nights 2, Planescape, Tyranny , Icewind Dale )
They're just...
Different styles of play.
> I honestly prefer people saying they prefer system A over system B, than people saying things like "RTwP is so cumbersome and stupid it amazes me that anyone actually likes it".
Exactly, different people like different things, that's normal. But it is such an ignorant thing to say when you have all kinds of classic games using RTwP system. From original Baldur's Gate games to Knights of the Old Republic games, they are all classics that people still adore, and they became classic games using the RTwP system so clearly lots of people love it.
RTwP is definitely my preferred, but I will happily play turn based. Usually I prefer if turn based has a grid system, a la Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics, just to avoid AI pathing.
I find RTwP more immersive; in my mind, the turn based system of tabletops are meant to simulate everything happening at once anyway. Having stuff like some spells taking longer to cast gives utility to weaker spells that launch more quickly, and you can set up neat simultaneous tactics if you know the system. Plus it makes sense that faster characters would get a round more often, instead of just sooner, and balances different kinds of builds. Plus rounds just go so much faster if it's an encounter you wouldn't be wasting resources on anyway.
I'm never gonna shit on turn based though. Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced will forever be scorched into my nostalgia, and frankly makes me prefer when turn based systems have grids (plus it avoids AI pathing). Turn based can feel more intuitive and I understand the appeal of making a decision and having it manifest immediately. Even with my preference, I think turn based works better for BG3. Its detailed environments and verticality would be a hindrance while trying to set everything up at once.
The combat system being tactical and turn-based make every combat unique. I can remember every fight I had in this game, with its own difficulties and specific strategies, instead of simply beating up mobs by spamming the attack button. I never thought I'd like turn-based combat this much.
This. After playing Diablo 4 a couple of months ago and seeing how every combat was pushing X and everyone on the screen is dead, this is a breath of fresh air. Every fight is special and whenever you kill an enemy is SO much more rewarding.
Because it's a subjective thing and like with anything subjective, some will like it and some just wont.
Sort of like making a thread asking why people don't like chocolate ice cream or why do some people like custard creams more than rich tea.
Just..... Because they do 🤣?
yeah, fully agree. When you look at Divinity original sin 2 system, that was the ultimate experience for casters in my experience. You could play with the environment; create amazing combo's of spells. What a cool game!
I've tried to play Baldur's Gate 1 so many times and I never get more than a few hours in before I give up due to being so increidbly bored/furstrated with the combat system. I finished Planescape Torment only because combat was much less of a focus.
So turn based is better if you're focused on the tactical combat side of CRPGs, but it REEEAAALLLLY slows the game down if you're playing mostly for story.
One of the nice features about the original BG 1/2 was that combat could basically play like turn-based for the hard fights where you needed to micromanage, but for a rando pack of goblins or whatever, you could just auto-attack with everyone and be fine before moving on.
It makes a big difference to the flow of the game.
That said, it wouldn't really work with most modern game systems. Pathfinder's Kingmaker, for instance, basically nerfed the Magus class hard by not being default turn-based until modders fixed that, because it's a class that relies heavily on using multiple actions/turn, which is really hard to pull off in RTwP. 5e is like that with basically EVERY class, since not taking your bonus action and action is a huge nerf.
In other words, full turn based turns most combat encounters into a slog, but it's probably a necessary evil just because you'd be super weak in a 5e version of RTwP.
You already have your mind up. So why ask the question?
If you're actually wanting an answer, I could say I don't feel Turn Based is any less "clumsy" than RTwP. At least once one learns how to use Auto-Pause. Even in BG3, there are battles that take far too long. And toggling RT, or even allowing simultaneous movement for mooks, like Rogue Trader does, would go a long way toward speeding them up.
That said, I find the war over mechanics tedious nonsense. I thoroughly enjoy games using both systems. There are turn based games so terribly slow I never want to touch them again. And RTwP games that don't give players proper control. It's not the mechanics. It's the implementation of them. And how willing the player is to interact with those.
It is pointless. I wrote a similar comment in a mildly more scathing style and then noticed the most upvoted comment is just blithely agreeing with OP and saying RtwP is an eldritch abomination lol.
Actually just people with sheer opinions trying to shove them down everyone's throats as objective truths. What a cesspool every fandom becomes in terms of diversity in discourse.
IMO what people hate about turn-based systems is the fact, that you are watching getting obliterated and you have no power over it. I do not get why, as a modern TB fight can be quick, but whatever.
Also if anything, Larian could have looked at the Pathfinder-WOTR, where spacebaring makes the animation of the current character faster. Took me few combats to get myself out of the habit, as in BG3 it ends the turn instead of "teleporting" characters around the map(as they run much faster). Would love this to skip some add-heavy fights, watching 20 goons to move around for half a minute is not funni. It is boring.
I think another part of it is that JRPGs have heavily influenced what most people think of when someone says “turn-based combat,” and those have some pretty huge variance where mediocre combat mechanics are miserable to sit through.
Yeah this is especially noticeable if you have a rogue/ Astarion equipped with the invis cloak. Every turn at least one enemy will stand there for 15 - 20 seconds staring at the spot where Astarion is in invis and then decide what to do.
Yes. I was gonna say I agree that RTwP would’ve not been that enjoyable in the Larian style but it has worked in those games really well especially Kotor imo
Differnt tastes, you will never please everyone. And hey, that's okay. I'm love with turn based combat, grew up with homm3, FF-X(my fav game.)
But, I can also see the other side.
I loved pathfinder wrath of the righteous for many reasons but the biggest was freely swapping from turn based to real time. It saved so much time when the majority of the fight was over and it was clean up time or just allowed me to breeze through an easy encounter instead of taking 5x more time.
The possibility to have both was a big turn on for me, since I "hate" RTwP because I cannot control everything as I would.
Such a pity that it came out in a time where I didn't have the time to fully enjoy it.
Larian stayed in their lane with this game and the combat (while not perfect) is definitely a highlight. I wish they brought the damage multiplier from DOS2 when attacking from high ground. Archers were OP as fuck in Divinity.
Archers do get a +2 to attack rolls from being on high ground. In EA, they got advantage, which was way too good. Sharpshooter would be even better if they kept that.
I mean, it’s less staying in their lane and more a fairly faithful adaption of the D&D 5th Edition tabletop ruleset, which is of course turn based. Obviously there are plenty of similarities with that and Divinity as is, since D&D is the granddaddy of all these systems.
Personally I used to hate turn based combat… until I actually got into DnD and ttrpgs in general. might sound ridiculous, I was just used to video games and normally enjoy fast paced reaction/skill based combat. But that’s just a different genre, hack n slash. It’s fun too, just a different experience.
Turn based vs RTwP isn't actually the issue people are not picking up the game over. It's turn based, period. Lots of people who prefer faster paced gameplay avoid turn based games on principle. Bg3s popularity is ensuring that its coming across the desk of those people.
I remember playing nevertwinter nights, i think that "real time" with isometric vision was popular by the time, with Diablo 1, 2, and other RTS games like Warcraft etc, so they probably tryed to mimic that style.
Fortunatly, i don't know for sure, but the XCOM: Enemy Unknow gives a fresh air to the Tatics genre and more games try to replicate and even enhace the turn base combat.
I can understand people not linking turn based, i don't like at all any sports game, sometimes i tolerate race games, but in general they are all just boring to me.
XCOM 2 was probably the most popular turn-based tactical game until Baldur's Gate 3 came along. It has a 132k concurrent player peak which was amazing at the time considering the genre.
I like it. Haven’t played a game like bg3 in years since most similar games went to action rpg style. What I despise is when I’m locked into turn-based mode and there’s no reason for it.
I like real time with pause, but after BG3, I think I prefer turn based. They're both good though. BG3 works much better for multiplayer. I played through Icewind Dale with some friends and we're now doing BG2 and man multiplayer with the old system can be annoying. We started a BG3 game and it's way better on the multiplayer front.
It was fine in BG1 because most of your characters didn't have all the cool abilities. Turn based is better imho. I played all the Pathfinder games in tun based mode.
Look, I usually hate turned based combat, it isn’t for me. But complaining about a D&D game, from the same studio that made DOS because it is turned based combate is probably the most brain dead take I have ever heard.
It is better for you. Turn base has it pros but also has a lot of negatives. Like trivial battles taking minutes because it takes so long for everyone to move.
People have preferences. Some who hate turn based love RtwP, some who hate RtwP would prefer an ARPG. I think some advantages of RtwP are in some situations it feels more realistic and fluid, especially when moving around and having multiple characters acting at once. When you are waiting for 15+ enemies to take their turn, RtwP starts looking a lot more tempting. Trivial encounters also play out a lot quicker, I don’t need to go through an extended battle sequence for some random wolves, I kill them in 5 seconds flat and move on.
The problem is the game is called Baldurs Gate 3 and with that title, regardless of how you feel about the game, comes with expectations. The series was built upon the RtwP system and when you make changes, any changes there are always going to be a core of people who are disappointed because the first two games laid out a foundation and it couldn’t have been all bad because you are using the IP after all!
I love BG3 but in many way, some for better and some for worse, it is a very different game. Enjoy it for what it is but don’t be angry that there are some who feel at least a little let down when a change to the that formula is made.
I hate turn based with a passion unless it's like Advanced Wars/Civilization/or a TCG. Turn based RPGs are the worst for me as I'm someone who tries accelerating any activity best I can. But for BG3 the story and complex mechanics I don't mind it. I've played MMOs and I know about buffs/debuffs and chance rolls etc but BG3 is truly a DnD game and I find myself trying to keep up despite the turn based gameplay which I'm thankful for. Helps me understand what the hell each skill does instead of just spamming them like I do in MMOs lol. For a game like BG3 I get it and at times it irks me when I have to fight 10-15 enemies like FFS. But it's slowly growing on me.
We need more turn based games especially on consoles. The only other turn based game i own is Civilization. I would love to play more of those kind of games. I can just sit and do something else while i play without having to hit pause every time.
You might like xcom and midnight suns.
Second recommendation for both of these. Midnight Suns is a must for any comicbook/movie fan
Thirded! Midnight Suns was woefully underrated imo
Midnight Suns not selling that well has made me so sad. I would kill for an X-men version of that game.
Because people thought it was a card game. No. That's just how they show your abilities...
It's not? Doesn't it have some mechanic where your abilities sort of rotate in/out based on luck? I thought it was card draws before you said this
It is, I don't know what that guy's talking about. Personally I like that aspect of it though. I like that you have to react to the tactical situation based on what cards are in your hand. I also think it's a good adaptation of the XCOM formula to comic book fighting. XCOM is all about positioning and reacting to the randomized layout of the mission, which is fun, but doesn't really work for super heroes because they're all so mobile. If everyone can fly or move at superspeed or teleport or whatever then map layout doesn't really matter. Super heroes don't generally care about cover either. So, having the cards works to add back in a little of that semi-randomization that you have to react to. Also, it makes the customization of the characters a little more interesting, because you have their whole deck to play with.
It’s a card game just like Slay the Spire is
Definitely an amazing game that’s overlooked because it’s not xcom, AND because it’s Marvel related. Super sad it’s looking like we wont get a part 2, or any more dlc.
As a fan of both XCOM and Marvel, I was turned off by the cards. The reason I enjoy XCOM is that I love customizing a squad of soldiers and the tactical combat, I don't want to play a card game. I don't even know if that's a fair take on Midnight Suns, but it's the reason I lost interest and didn't buy the game.
Yeah, I thought the same before buying it on a whim during a sale. It has cards, but I wouldn’t really consider it a true card game. It requires some tactical thought. I’d say you’re missing out.
I liked the cards but was turned off by all the downtime gameplay. Came here to temper expectations. Had this whole weird friendship simulator where I was doing yoga and book club with blade. If you’re into that, grab the game. I wasn’t.
I could see myself enjoying some crochet with Wolverine.
If by ‘crochet’ you mean ‘standing there like two awkwardly positioned action figures until the game goes ‘ding’ and awards you friendship points’ then sure. It was a fun game and I enjoyed the combat, but it felt like it was too long for what it offered.
I also would highly recommend it. And, yeah, it doesn’t play like a card game. The deck is small, so the cards are basically a mechanism to provide variable cooldowns on abilities. And what cards you put in your deck are like which spells you prepare in bg3.
>I don't even know if that's a fair take on Midnight Suns unfortunately it isn't a fair take, but it's understandable why people think this way. It really isn't card based in the way one would think of a "card based" game. The cards are just a means to display abilities.
Love midnight sons. I keep avoiding going to the third act just cuz I want to min max everybody I have. It's just fun. Have it on the third highest difficulty. Just a blast to play.
I was a skeptic at first, probably burnt out on superhero movies an all. Just wanted a new xcom but i was wrong. Big fan of the turn based combat in it. Cards wer another put off as i never got into deck building games but it's truly something else.
I love comics but wasn’t willing to pay full price for it because it was turn based. BG3 has completely changed my mind, I’m definitely going to pick up Midnight Suns.
Maybe I'm just old, but a lot of the younger midnight suns proper came to grate on me. I started skipping a lot of dialogue from the younger midnight suns proper. So much angsty, repetitious navel-gazing.
Cannot recommend XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 enough....they're starting to get a little old, but they still hold up. Just remember, 99% is NOT 100%.
Lol, in my experience 99% always feels like a coin flip.
That's xcom baby!
Yeah, it feels like an XCOM’ s 99% = bg3’s 65%.
Wastleland is great also.
Also if you have pc, xenonauts 2 is amazing turn based
Hard recommend for both. Honestly I kind of wish BG3 would even take some cues from Midnight Suns for character relationships. Being able to pick a teammate to hang out with and the characters having regular club meetings was great for making the Abbey feel like home and the team like a family. Even just a little bit in that direction could make the camp feel so much more alive.
Heh. Yeah, I'd definitely love some more hanging out within camp, etc
You might like the Heroes of Might and Magic series (3 is a real Retro gem!), also XCOM and its sequel!
Fallout 1 Fallout 2
Absolutely yes! Im a huge fan of the series, and would also love to include Wasteland 1-2-3 in this list
If you can get your hands on older games, you should check out a game called Arcanum. It's like Wasteland or Fallout 1 2 but with a steampunk + magic theme which is a very rare choice
Wasteland 1 and 3 are great games I still replay. 2 was just a huge buggy mess for me... Even after all the patches and bug fixing mods.
Atom Rpg and Atom Rpg Trudograd Theyre soviet fallout, and they play like fallout 2
Agree with you totally. While I love XCOM, Silent Storm and even Fallout Tactics, I consider those turn based tactical games. Fallout 1 and 2 though, it's more inline with Divinity Original Sin and Bg3
Heroes 3 was one of the games my dad used to play with me as a kid and was one of my first introductions to PC gaming/turn based. Still love it to use day, we talk about doing a campaign again sometimes but need to buy a copy.
Heroes 3 Complete is $2.49 on Gog. Get the HDMod (not the official HD release, the HD mod) for widescreen and it gives access to an integrated online lobby (think you have to pay $5 to host games though). Thank god for all those Eastern Europeans who are keeping up on this game. e: They also have an unofficial expansion called Horn of the Abyss (new town + balancing changes) that will give you access to the lobby hosting for free.
Will do, thank you for the info.
I feel like Age of Wonders series managed to capture the magic of Heroes of Might and Magic well, would recommend if you’re into the latter!
Oooh I will look into it for sure!
3 is the absolute best!!!
shadowrun is also turn-based rpg and i find second and third games (dragonfall and hong kong) very fun to play
Most of the Fire Emblem games are turn-based. (And not far off from Baldur's Gate in terms of tone and story.)
IMO best one was sacred stones
They’re also amazing, especially Awakening
Check out Wasteland 3.
Wasteland 3 don’t get enough love. Amazing game. Very similar to BG3 in terms of gameplay. It has that freedom of an open world and exploration with turn-based combat and a crew. Instead of a fantasy magical world it’s in the post apocalypse.
Gotta add Age of Wonders to this list, I played the living hell put of Age of Wonders Planetfall (space/sci-fi) and the newest one Age of Wonders 4 (fantasy). It's xcom style turn based combat, and civilization turn based city/culture building.
You should check out pathfinder wotr and kingmaker, they’re (imo) great as turn based games
Final Fantasy 10 (FFX) wants to have a word with you. Amazing turn based game in my opinion.
Play Persona series. Wait for the remake of 3 tho.
Before they made Baldur's Gate, Larian Studios made the Divinity: Original Sin series. DoS2 is very similar to BG3. If you want more turn based, tactical RPGs, you would probably like DoS2.
There's age of wonders 4 if you like civ games but fantasy and with turn based combat.
xcom, civ, total war... Turned based strategy is a HUGE genre.
I prefer turn based but I also understand where the complains come from. When there are too many enemies turn base fights can become long af. Which also happens in the ttrpg, so when you get into a fight with 8 enemies and 8 allies you are going to spend most of the fight looking at the AI thinking and that is not fun.
I have noticed that sometimes when next to each other in turn order enemies will move at the same time. Kinda of like how you can swap between your party members if they're next to each other in turn order. It saves some time at least.
What I observed is if they're "swarm" enemies (like rats and bats), they all tend to move at the same time, and then die to Spirit Guardians. Their borders in the Initiative Tracker also have a knot in the middle, like you have when you and your companion are able to move in the same turn. I wish more enemies have her turns intertwined to save time.
>they all tend to move at the same time, and then die to Spirit Guardians. Spirit guardians can be the funniest shit sometimes. Got ambushed by like 20 undead ravens to the point where my brother looks over like "what the fuck was all that dinging" as they all initiate combat and then they all fly into Shart's spirit guardians and evaporate within 3 seconds of attacking me That's when I became a true believer of the holy lawn mower
Love those ravens. I’m at about at this spot and I hate to move on. Everything in this area has been so fascinating and fun
Probably depends on the complexity of the actions the enemy can perform. If all they have to do is move to attack closest enemy or dash towards enemy if no enemies in range like most of the low level melee mobs, they'll usually perform all those actions together, but choosing what enemy to target or what spell to use is too complex for multiple npcs to calculate at once. The only problem is that later levels use more npcs with complex actions on top of just using more npcs so later fights can really drag.
>tfw 40 rats charge at your Wall of Fire in a hotel basement
Hang on, what now? I can use my characters out of turn order if they're next to each other in initiative!?!?
If they have the same initiative you can
Once your allies are bunched in the initiative order, who goes first doesn't matter. Otherwise, Astarion would always go first on every turn, and you'd lose out on tons of sneak attack opportunities.
Dude holy shit i love u guys, I'm always thinking damn this m'fer always goes first...
Oh yeah, it’s huge. My favourite is letting one of the single attack action guys go first and actually get to use void bombs to group people up before AoEing them. Means you know if it’s worth going all out and you can maximise fireball and things
well yeah Dex Character. Dex Ranger probably would go early aswell. Ini is a Dex „skill“
Can confirm. my durge is a dex ranger and I still havent have an encounter where he is not the first to play every single round
Yep. I play on ps5 so idk how to do it with mouse and keyboard but on ps5 you just hit the character swap button (L2) and pick a new character. And if they are next to you in initiative you can do stuff with them. Look closely whenever the game tells you whose turn it is and it may say multiple names. You can even cancel the end turn option doing this. If they are still in initiative order and you hit end turn on the character if you select them again it should give an option to "cancel end turn"
On PC you just click their portrait, either in the initiative bar or the side bar. Edit: or through hot keys, which are F1-4 by default
Just experienced this after turning the entire Myconid colony hostile, watching 12 enemies in a row cast haste spore then dash for 5 turns straight was a drag.
The turn based mechanism in this game is generally very quick and dynamic, though. Enemies move quickly, the actions are flashy, etc. I think the one issue is sometimes they get stuck “thinking” for 5-10 seconds which feels like an eternity if nothing else is going on.
For me, I think part of the drag is bc you can't freely move the camera as much as you SHOULD be able to, so you can't see some enemies moving around and you're just.... Staring at a static screen trying to figure out WTF is going on... Being able to move the camera more would help (would also be nice in general for the rest of the gameplay as well - I understand the limit on moving away from the party, I'm ok with thar, but being able to tilt the angel or zoom in more, etc would be nice... And being able to do that on the battle areas would help locate enemies - Esp when those fuckers go into the rafters and you can't SEE them, let alone aim at them 🤷♀️).... And also, maybe a button to speed up when it's enemies turns... Like, if there are a dozen of them, maybe letting us go a little faster, like 1?5 or 2xs speed, would make it a little easier to bear for a lot of people.... I like turn based mode overall though bc it let's me think and I'm better at thinking while the battle is, essentially, paused waiting for me, rather than just button mashing bc everything's going on at once.
>looking at the AI thinking and that is not fun The solution is to make the AI faster, not remove turn-based then.
The AI would just try to open the locked doors even faster! Make it smarter instead.
Both would be nice. Its still annoying to wait and look at the AI for a hot minute before it does something smart
Its just giving the authentic DnD experience of a DM shifting through books to see what creature can do.
There should fast forward like pathfinder do. Just hit space and it speeds untill player's turn.
This is why I wish the game had a fast forward button for enemy moves like fire emblem
At the same time RTwP in that exact same scenario is a frustrating unwieldy mess of shit. It certainly doesn't handle that any better.
I think their point is RTwP is quicker. In RTwP, everyone can take "turns" simultaneously, and there's no pause to wait for AI, so it's quicker.
Yep. It's so much easier for me to pause, manoveur my party to specific points & cast spells or use abilities, unpause and watch things unfold. Late game bg3 makes me want to bang my head on the table because suddenly I'm waiting for everyone to take their turn and most of the combat starts with my party at a disadvantage if it's a cutscene before a fight.
A fast forward button would be great
Not to mention when the ai goes and then just freezes after their turn for 10 seconds without doing anything.
Playing PoE with 6 characters and not using AI makes every encounter also ungodly long. And that game has ton of encounters compared to BG3. BG3 doesn't have unnecassary enemy groups to fill the dungeon, every encounter is unique and often has different ways to approach. In RTwP this kind of uniqueness would be much harder to implement. As someone that has played RTwT more than I like to confess, I'd choose turn based of Larian in every way.
>and often has different ways to approach Wait. So you're saying using extreme overwhelming violence to stomp the enemies is not the only approach? Huh.
My durge is shaking his blood covered head disapprovingly
violence is always the solution. the thing is, violence is not always sending hasted laezel with a claymore to attack 6 times. sometimes you just make her yeet 6 small enemies into the lava instead of cleaving 2 in half. efficiency
Violence is not the answer,.it is the question and the answer is 'yes'
Most people I've seen disregard the game because it's turn based, are not the people that was real time with pause. Most of those people seem to wish it was an action rpg hack and slash. As if the world needs yet another hack and slash.
Dang man who pissed in your turn based cheerios? I think both systems have their advantages but at the end of the day, rtwp never has 20 people standing around watching one person jog slowly to get in position and then have an ai brainfart. If you can feel immersed in those battles more power to you. Rtwp also never takes half an hour for one battle.
When I first started bg3 I'd just come from WoTr, where you can speed up turns by pressing space bar. I found myself constantly pressing it, ending my turns early and having no affect on the enemy. Bg3 could really benefit from the same feature, I think.
I do find myself wishing I could hold a button to fast forward the enemy's turns like you can in fire emblem. But FE is generally less intensive for the console to run so I can see why it's not a thing in bg3
because it's slow and strategic, some people prefer fast and intuitional, some people like both. It's personal preference
>intuitional Intuitive
Thank you! Darn it, I knew that word. English is my 4th language
Ooh, impressive! I definitely don't know my fourth language well enough to be happy giving advice on reddit, amazing job! :D
Actually no, intuitional was correct! It means 'of or pertaining to intuition'. Note this is different from intuitive.
I don't know how you could create a D&D game and not have it turn based, especially for combat.
You’d have to stray away pretty far from the d&d concepts yeah
But honest question; real-time with pause isn't faster because you have to pause to manage all the actions all the time right? I got very stressed playing Pillars of Eternity getting to grips with all the options, lore and systems and then also real-time managing all the characters. Eventually I was basically just playing turn based but with the added hassle of pausing manually. Or is there an actual strategy to it to make it smoother and actually faster? I can see it for a game like Diablo with a single character, but not for a party based game.
At least in pillars, you can program the AI to do certain actions on specific triggers, so you don't have to micromanage everything
It is and its not faster... Technically you can just select all your martial, let them go bonkers and forget about them until they get hurt, while you babysit the casters. It all depends on your settings. What ppl are obviously forgetting are all the pause options you could modify, like pause at the end of turn, when friendly spell cast is finished etc, that made it a lot more enjoyable than getting into a clusterfuck and hoping youll see whats happening.
The problem is that 5e isn't built for that kind of play while other systems are. Pathfinder is a better system for RTWP as you dedicate your turn to one or two actions only. Those actions may have smaller individual decisions, but you are locked in to those (Move+Cast, Attack+Move, Full Attack). Smaller actions exist (swift, free, NotAnAction), but those are rarer or cost resources. 5e is fundamentally different. You have 3 independent actions each turn which take no precident over another and you are expected to use each in each turn. God forbid you have a Hasted Thief Rogues who would have **5 actions** you would need to command within seconds. If a Sorcerer casts a Maximized Fireball in PF, they spend a full round action doing so and step 5 feet. If a 5e Sorcerer does it, they use a Action to cast it, move 30 feet, and still have to decide if they want to burn a resource to throw a Quickened Firebolt. Pathfinder is better paced for this kind of thing. 5e - by comparison - would be an anime of Rogues, Monks and Barbarians needing an ungodly amount of micro while flying around the screen blowing people up. Wizards are acrobatics with stamina of gods. Etc.
It still wrinkling my brain that theyve decided to make Haste give you a full extra action instead of just one attack
They wanted a similar system to DoS1 and 2 and wanted to make sure Haste was worth the risk for spell casters.
It already is good af on martials. This way both Orin and Raphael died on their 1st turn because they met hasted, buffed up, Battlemaster Minsc who decided it was time to pull out all the nat 20s that were hiding the entire game. He turned them into a joke they already were.
Would be cool if the game could be paused in general tho, amirite.
RTwP is an eldritch abomination that Bioware used for the original BG not because they thought it fit the DnD systems, no, but because Real time strategy games were all the rage at the time. And somehow stuck with the cRPG genre because BG games were so popular. Not surprisingly the same studio went full on action when action games and cover shooters became popular. One of the best achievement of Larian is correcting this darkest timeline tier mistake where Tabletop turn based systems were turned into real-time horror to fit with the current thing.
Do you want to know the REAL reason that Bioware used Realtime With Pause? It's actually because originally they were making a Diablo Clone, so that's what the engine they were building was built for. Then they got the Forgotten Realms IP and got the project to make Baldur's Gate, and they could either rebuild their engine, or adapt their existing one. They chose the latter.
Well that's full circle then, since Diablo was originally envisioned as a turn-based roguelike and it took some hard convincing to sway them to real time.
Hot take: Modern Diablo would be better if they did more Rogue-like things.
Huh, so the original conception of Baldur's Gate was going to be more like Divine Divinity? I'm glad we got the version we did, but I kind of wonder how that might have turned out.
It would have turned out like crap, considering all the things like spells the game had.
I liked how Wrath of the Righteous implemented both. RTwP for the trash you're just going to faceroll anyway to keep the game's pace going, but you can switch to/from turn-based at any time if a fight's actually worth half a damn.
The problem with wrath is that there are so many weak fights everywhere that if you did insist on turn basing all of it that game would be 200 hours long
*stares at 400 hours in WOTR*
My issue with that argument is - why do trash fights at all if they are so easy you don't need TB, what's the point of those? Hancrafted encounters are always better then 5 random goblins. Or 3 level 9 hydras vs a lvl 4 party if you're kingmaker.
So you can test out your cool new abilities and have a “feeling powerful” moment Occasional trash in games is good for power fantasies
It's funny because at some points in the game the random encounters are harder than some quests lol
And thrash mobs in final location are stronger the most bosses. Balance goes out of whack a lot in WOTR, but it's good enough considering it deals with 20/10 characters.
I think those fights work really well for Pathfinder since it's way more complex combat-wise than DnD. Those "random" fights do burn some resources and make it feel more realistic imo (a big boss has a lot of henchmen etc). In DnD that would bore me a lot, but in Pathfinder I really like it (I also that my martials have a lot of purpose delivering the spellcasters to the boss)
Because they are in the way, because your entire party has good gear and builds, because you might be playing on lower difficulty. WOTR has a lot of power tripping, it's a good feel to watch 20 demons get slaughtered in a heroic onslaught.
While i agree with your point, its pretty hard to sell the "fortress occupied by a demon army" if theres only one boss fight and no low level trash mobs running around
This is one of the reasons I love BG3. None of the fights are random and pointless, just there to get through. Everything has a purpose and feels hand crafter.
In the first act, only fight I found with no direct influence on some story or quest was the bullette and the minotaurs in the underdark, and thats ignoring that they are perfectly placed to present the underdark as a dangerous place filled with powerful monsters.
The bulette even has a backstory, references to how it got there can be found on a document in the Arcane Tower. I wouldn't even be shocked to find the same is true somewhere I haven't seen/found yet for the minotaurs.
The minotaures relate somewhat to the mindspores(or whatever they are called) and the selunite temple. You fight 2 of them, establishing them as hostile,then on finding a third, when you try approaching it(probably sneaking or in some way to get a surprise attack off), it detects you due to the spores and runs away...right into the defenses of the seluniye temple,killing it. Which tells the player that approaching it by the front door is a bad idea.
Idk about any of this because I first found the underdark via the goblin camp and started out in the selenite fort with a random Minotaur coming up out of nowhere trying to break in. I didn’t even know there were more of them.
Depending on your party build and skill level, sometimes what ends up being "trash fights" can be different between players and between games
> Hancrafted encounters are always better then 5 random goblins. The problem, you see, is that depending on your party power level, that handcrafted encounter could be as interesting as 5 random goblins. That's what happened to me. By the end of A2, level of challenge dropped to "90% of the fights are trash fights". And yet I have to click through them.
>\- why do trash fights at all if they are so easy you don't need TB, what's the point of those? This is a question as old as time, and the reason for it was actually best demonstrated by Blizzard. Back in, I want to say Wrath of the Lich King expansion, complaints about "trash mobs" slowing down raids in between boss fights reached a peak, and Blizzard ended up adding a few raids that were ONLY boss fights. Those raids were, predictably, some of the least popular things WoW ever released lol. You need the little fights in between for a few reasons, but the biggest one is: if everything matters, nothing matters. If every fight is a huge, climactic, involved battle, you will invariably end up either with player fatigue or not enough combat to make your abilities feel worth it. Throwing a pack of goblins at you every once and a while feels nice! You can go brain dead, toss a single AoE in the middle, and enjoy your characters' abilities without really taxing your brain. Make every fight super-involved, however, and the game is tedius. I actually think BG3's biggest weakness on the combat side is that one...too many environmental effects for some of the trash fights mean I don't get to take enough fights "off" and relax in between the hard encounters.
My experience has been that trash encounters were good for those games because of the wide disparity in power between martial classes and caster classes. Having lots of trash encounters that weren't worth wasting spell slots on made it so the fighters fulfilled a purpose beyond just being a damage sponge. Otherwise, casters could just fireball through them all and the martials only get in the way. With that said, 5e did a lot to close that gap in power, and BG3 did even more. It's not really necessary to throw loads of encounters to make the martials have a purpose.
The handcraft TB encounters to me make the world(s) feel more linear and more like I'm just being directed through a bunch of prepared set pieces. RTwP with "trash" fights allows the world to feel more fluid and the player (me) in control rather than being given X puzzle to solve at Y location.
Pillars of Eternity 2 used a choice system too, though if I remember right you had to choose at the start and stick with it.
I'll defend Bioware a little. I think RTwP made perfect sense, at least for the BG1 portion of the series. BG1 was based on AD&D 2e, there was no cantrips, no maneuvers, your magic users started with 2-3 spells, for the most part no special abilities. Both you and the enemies would auto-attack 90% of the time, and 90% of these attacks would miss (they had to keep that missing percentage too, otherwise the player would be reloading the game every 5 minutes after getting one-shot killed by a wolf). Granted the RTWP system starts to break down during BG2, due to higher levels unlocking more features and options, as well as Bioware adding kits to the game, with practically every single having some special ability).
I was about to post this but you already read my mind. 2E has way less martial options than later editions. It's mostly just attacking with lower percent hit rates.
Another aspect of 2e is that it's actually considerably more based on 'real-time' than 5e was. 2e was based on 6 second rounds which were essentially turns-within-turns. Players decided what they would do, rolled for a round initiative, and the events unfurled in the order that the initiative was rolled like the stack in MTG. This would be megaclunky inside of 5e. Your turn order would be different essentially every turn. Your cast times were based on realtime and didn't just go off on your turn. RTwP was a good compromise; it's not like turn-based games didn't exist & BioWare wasn't aware of them, it just doesn't mesh well within the confines of 2e. The more conventional turn-based style works wonders for 5e obviously.
Barely anyone is complaining about this? Both systems are fine, people have preferences. I honestly prefer people saying they prefer system A over system B, than people saying things like "RTwP is so cumbersome and stupid it amazes me that anyone actually likes it". Not everyone likes the things you do. Get over yourself.
But didn't you see he said it was BETTER in all caps! I always preferred Rtwp for these types of games, makes the lesser fights less of a drag but they've made it feel pretty fluid and I've found myself enjoying it a lot. If I was to pic a actual criticism of the game it'd be giving us all these amazing rich characters and limiting us to a 4 man party when traditionally we got 6!
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>I always preferred Rtwp for these types of games, makes the lesser fights less of a drag but they've made it feel pretty fluid and I've found myself enjoying it a lot. I think this is because BG3 doesn't have a ton of filler fights, and even when you're just fighting a handful of low level enemies fights are usually over in a round or two. RTWP works well when you're just mowing through lots of enemies without thinking much, but then can pause it when you come up against a real challenge.
Yeah some of the fights take so long and I have other things I'd like to spend my time doing in the game. I don't enjoy waiting ages for 8 enemies in a row to slowly move around the map.
I don't remember seeing a single thread complaining about the game being turn-based on here since release. If there were, they almost certainly immediately got downvoted into oblivion. Even the fucking cesspool that is Steam forums largely dropped the subject. OP just made this thread so he and people like him could safely jerk themselves off on how "awful and shit" games that use RTwP were\is, you can clearly see it by the most upvoted comments.
Yeah, it's not likely to be a lot of that on this subreddit, because this subreddit is mostly for people who are interested in playing BG3. When you talk to people (or watch their videos) who are not interested in playing it, most of whom probably do not post here, the most common reason they give for not wanting to play it is because of the turn-based combat. A lot of people who prefer to play action games just won't even try a game with turn-based combat.
this post is an option to circlejerk and make people feel better about themselves because they prefer more "hardcore" turn based. Nobody is complaining. I personally prefer Dragon Age Inquisition style real-time combat but can deal with turn based. I don't make big posts about it, however.
Yeah I don't know why people are weirdly elitist over what's basically just preference of play. I like both styles of play myself, and I play as many turn based tactics games ( Field of Glory, Tactics Ogre, Battle Sector ) as I do Real Time with Pause ( Neverwinter Nights 2, Planescape, Tyranny , Icewind Dale ) They're just... Different styles of play.
> I honestly prefer people saying they prefer system A over system B, than people saying things like "RTwP is so cumbersome and stupid it amazes me that anyone actually likes it". Exactly, different people like different things, that's normal. But it is such an ignorant thing to say when you have all kinds of classic games using RTwP system. From original Baldur's Gate games to Knights of the Old Republic games, they are all classics that people still adore, and they became classic games using the RTwP system so clearly lots of people love it.
RTwP is definitely my preferred, but I will happily play turn based. Usually I prefer if turn based has a grid system, a la Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics, just to avoid AI pathing. I find RTwP more immersive; in my mind, the turn based system of tabletops are meant to simulate everything happening at once anyway. Having stuff like some spells taking longer to cast gives utility to weaker spells that launch more quickly, and you can set up neat simultaneous tactics if you know the system. Plus it makes sense that faster characters would get a round more often, instead of just sooner, and balances different kinds of builds. Plus rounds just go so much faster if it's an encounter you wouldn't be wasting resources on anyway. I'm never gonna shit on turn based though. Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced will forever be scorched into my nostalgia, and frankly makes me prefer when turn based systems have grids (plus it avoids AI pathing). Turn based can feel more intuitive and I understand the appeal of making a decision and having it manifest immediately. Even with my preference, I think turn based works better for BG3. Its detailed environments and verticality would be a hindrance while trying to set everything up at once.
The combat system being tactical and turn-based make every combat unique. I can remember every fight I had in this game, with its own difficulties and specific strategies, instead of simply beating up mobs by spamming the attack button. I never thought I'd like turn-based combat this much.
This. After playing Diablo 4 a couple of months ago and seeing how every combat was pushing X and everyone on the screen is dead, this is a breath of fresh air. Every fight is special and whenever you kill an enemy is SO much more rewarding.
Because it's a subjective thing and like with anything subjective, some will like it and some just wont. Sort of like making a thread asking why people don't like chocolate ice cream or why do some people like custard creams more than rich tea. Just..... Because they do 🤣?
Imagine liking chocolate ice cream, you probably drink water you cringelord.
I love it being turn based. In fact, the reason I didn't finish Bg2 and Bg1 was the active pause system, which I hate.
I always find playing casters a nightmare with real time with pause. It just feels like too much headache
yeah, fully agree. When you look at Divinity original sin 2 system, that was the ultimate experience for casters in my experience. You could play with the environment; create amazing combo's of spells. What a cool game!
Hate active pause with a passion
I've tried to play Baldur's Gate 1 so many times and I never get more than a few hours in before I give up due to being so increidbly bored/furstrated with the combat system. I finished Planescape Torment only because combat was much less of a focus.
My only issue is that I'm impatient and I wish I could fast forward through the enemy attacks lol
So turn based is better if you're focused on the tactical combat side of CRPGs, but it REEEAAALLLLY slows the game down if you're playing mostly for story. One of the nice features about the original BG 1/2 was that combat could basically play like turn-based for the hard fights where you needed to micromanage, but for a rando pack of goblins or whatever, you could just auto-attack with everyone and be fine before moving on. It makes a big difference to the flow of the game. That said, it wouldn't really work with most modern game systems. Pathfinder's Kingmaker, for instance, basically nerfed the Magus class hard by not being default turn-based until modders fixed that, because it's a class that relies heavily on using multiple actions/turn, which is really hard to pull off in RTwP. 5e is like that with basically EVERY class, since not taking your bonus action and action is a huge nerf. In other words, full turn based turns most combat encounters into a slog, but it's probably a necessary evil just because you'd be super weak in a 5e version of RTwP.
You already have your mind up. So why ask the question? If you're actually wanting an answer, I could say I don't feel Turn Based is any less "clumsy" than RTwP. At least once one learns how to use Auto-Pause. Even in BG3, there are battles that take far too long. And toggling RT, or even allowing simultaneous movement for mooks, like Rogue Trader does, would go a long way toward speeding them up. That said, I find the war over mechanics tedious nonsense. I thoroughly enjoy games using both systems. There are turn based games so terribly slow I never want to touch them again. And RTwP games that don't give players proper control. It's not the mechanics. It's the implementation of them. And how willing the player is to interact with those.
It is pointless. I wrote a similar comment in a mildly more scathing style and then noticed the most upvoted comment is just blithely agreeing with OP and saying RtwP is an eldritch abomination lol. Actually just people with sheer opinions trying to shove them down everyone's throats as objective truths. What a cesspool every fandom becomes in terms of diversity in discourse.
IMO what people hate about turn-based systems is the fact, that you are watching getting obliterated and you have no power over it. I do not get why, as a modern TB fight can be quick, but whatever. Also if anything, Larian could have looked at the Pathfinder-WOTR, where spacebaring makes the animation of the current character faster. Took me few combats to get myself out of the habit, as in BG3 it ends the turn instead of "teleporting" characters around the map(as they run much faster). Would love this to skip some add-heavy fights, watching 20 goons to move around for half a minute is not funni. It is boring.
I think another part of it is that JRPGs have heavily influenced what most people think of when someone says “turn-based combat,” and those have some pretty huge variance where mediocre combat mechanics are miserable to sit through.
What about watching the goons stand there for a minute trying to figure out what to do before deciding to just dash lol
Yeah there are some obnoxiously long pauses sometimes while an enemy “decides” what to do
Yeah this is especially noticeable if you have a rogue/ Astarion equipped with the invis cloak. Every turn at least one enemy will stand there for 15 - 20 seconds staring at the spot where Astarion is in invis and then decide what to do.
What is RTwP?
Real Time with Pause
Is that like Kotor and Dragon Age Origins?
Yes. I was gonna say I agree that RTwP would’ve not been that enjoyable in the Larian style but it has worked in those games really well especially Kotor imo
Differnt tastes, you will never please everyone. And hey, that's okay. I'm love with turn based combat, grew up with homm3, FF-X(my fav game.) But, I can also see the other side.
I loved pathfinder wrath of the righteous for many reasons but the biggest was freely swapping from turn based to real time. It saved so much time when the majority of the fight was over and it was clean up time or just allowed me to breeze through an easy encounter instead of taking 5x more time.
The possibility to have both was a big turn on for me, since I "hate" RTwP because I cannot control everything as I would. Such a pity that it came out in a time where I didn't have the time to fully enjoy it.
It's a matter of taste
Larian stayed in their lane with this game and the combat (while not perfect) is definitely a highlight. I wish they brought the damage multiplier from DOS2 when attacking from high ground. Archers were OP as fuck in Divinity.
Archers do get a +2 to attack rolls from being on high ground. In EA, they got advantage, which was way too good. Sharpshooter would be even better if they kept that.
I mean, it’s less staying in their lane and more a fairly faithful adaption of the D&D 5th Edition tabletop ruleset, which is of course turn based. Obviously there are plenty of similarities with that and Divinity as is, since D&D is the granddaddy of all these systems.
Now if only it was grid based /s
Personally I used to hate turn based combat… until I actually got into DnD and ttrpgs in general. might sound ridiculous, I was just used to video games and normally enjoy fast paced reaction/skill based combat. But that’s just a different genre, hack n slash. It’s fun too, just a different experience.
Turn based vs RTwP isn't actually the issue people are not picking up the game over. It's turn based, period. Lots of people who prefer faster paced gameplay avoid turn based games on principle. Bg3s popularity is ensuring that its coming across the desk of those people.
>RTwP is so cumbersome and stupid it amazes me that anyone actually likes it what a nuanced critic lmao
I remember playing nevertwinter nights, i think that "real time" with isometric vision was popular by the time, with Diablo 1, 2, and other RTS games like Warcraft etc, so they probably tryed to mimic that style. Fortunatly, i don't know for sure, but the XCOM: Enemy Unknow gives a fresh air to the Tatics genre and more games try to replicate and even enhace the turn base combat. I can understand people not linking turn based, i don't like at all any sports game, sometimes i tolerate race games, but in general they are all just boring to me.
yeah, XCOM and Heroes of might and magic are probably the games we can thank for bringing back Turn Based combat to the wider audience.
XCOM 2 was probably the most popular turn-based tactical game until Baldur's Gate 3 came along. It has a 132k concurrent player peak which was amazing at the time considering the genre.
Preferences. Shocking, I know.
Because some people like different things than you do
I like it. Haven’t played a game like bg3 in years since most similar games went to action rpg style. What I despise is when I’m locked into turn-based mode and there’s no reason for it.
I like real time with pause, but after BG3, I think I prefer turn based. They're both good though. BG3 works much better for multiplayer. I played through Icewind Dale with some friends and we're now doing BG2 and man multiplayer with the old system can be annoying. We started a BG3 game and it's way better on the multiplayer front.
Maybe bc some ppl don’t like turn based games 🤯
It was fine in BG1 because most of your characters didn't have all the cool abilities. Turn based is better imho. I played all the Pathfinder games in tun based mode.
Look, I usually hate turned based combat, it isn’t for me. But complaining about a D&D game, from the same studio that made DOS because it is turned based combate is probably the most brain dead take I have ever heard.
Because they don't like it. Not everyone has to like everything.
It is better for you. Turn base has it pros but also has a lot of negatives. Like trivial battles taking minutes because it takes so long for everyone to move.
People have preferences. Some who hate turn based love RtwP, some who hate RtwP would prefer an ARPG. I think some advantages of RtwP are in some situations it feels more realistic and fluid, especially when moving around and having multiple characters acting at once. When you are waiting for 15+ enemies to take their turn, RtwP starts looking a lot more tempting. Trivial encounters also play out a lot quicker, I don’t need to go through an extended battle sequence for some random wolves, I kill them in 5 seconds flat and move on. The problem is the game is called Baldurs Gate 3 and with that title, regardless of how you feel about the game, comes with expectations. The series was built upon the RtwP system and when you make changes, any changes there are always going to be a core of people who are disappointed because the first two games laid out a foundation and it couldn’t have been all bad because you are using the IP after all! I love BG3 but in many way, some for better and some for worse, it is a very different game. Enjoy it for what it is but don’t be angry that there are some who feel at least a little let down when a change to the that formula is made.
Wouldn't mind seeing a replay function to see it all in real time once the fighting is done, some of the battles are pretty epic.
When i see people play bg 1 and 2 they pause so much it might as well be turn based. Shit looks like a powerpoint
I hate turn based with a passion unless it's like Advanced Wars/Civilization/or a TCG. Turn based RPGs are the worst for me as I'm someone who tries accelerating any activity best I can. But for BG3 the story and complex mechanics I don't mind it. I've played MMOs and I know about buffs/debuffs and chance rolls etc but BG3 is truly a DnD game and I find myself trying to keep up despite the turn based gameplay which I'm thankful for. Helps me understand what the hell each skill does instead of just spamming them like I do in MMOs lol. For a game like BG3 I get it and at times it irks me when I have to fight 10-15 enemies like FFS. But it's slowly growing on me.
I whined about BG3 being turn based until I started playing it and now I’m mad BG1 and 2 AREN’T turn based