I think the pc version of Dragon Age: Origins was my favorite version of the system since BG2
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Pillars of Eternity 2 is going turn-based, eight months after launch
- Thread starter BrokenFiction
- Start date
I think the pc version of Dragon Age: Origins was my favorite version of the system since BG2
Origins combat is a solid middle ground for both newcomers and most veterans. It's not totally brain dead simple mechanics and offers up a lot of interesting options for builds, but it's not super complex either that newcomers will easy get overwhelmed or feel lost when making decisions. Pausing helps a lot still, but really is only super necessary for aiming AoEs and the like and during really hard intense fights, otherwise you can get away with not having pause a whole lot if you don't want to. Plus it came with an outstanding custom AI system that really let you automate things if you wanted.
PoE is still my favorite because it does offer such a wider range of build options and finer aspects to combat, but I really love the combo system they have in DA and was really really annoyed they didn't go all in on that for DAI's combat which suffered as a result among other issues.
The "action" area only allowed a single individual attack/spell/etc per round, not sure if that changes with level/talents.
Nope, it was just me being confused. I didn't notice at first that some skills were "free" and didn't consume your action.
Oh man, first bug with turn-based combat: You can see the Combat Start UI off to the left and right of the screen on an ultra wide monitor. :(
Yep I agree completely. Was probably my biggest issue with the game.
So beta is beta, and this is definitely beta. The bug with the "Combat Starts" UI visible on the sides of the monitor cleared up after the first combat. So that's good, but I'm in the first cave at the start and already I see a couple of issues/bugs.
- You can get "free" outside of turn-based combat attacks in if you click on enemies before they see you.
- Enemy/AI movement acts differently than in the real-time version of the game. I've noticed for example, the AI in the first ship combat moving without much regard to other units on the map, sometimes pushing them out of the way and messing with positioning.
- In the cave, I stealthed my pet and had it attack an enemy. It then got stuck in an attack animation loop, while the AI did nothing and turned-based combat would not start.
And that last one worries me because it's a hallmark bug of some turn-based combat games: the game sometimes just doesn't know when to start or end turned based combat.
- You can get "free" outside of turn-based combat attacks in if you click on enemies before they see you.
- Enemy/AI movement acts differently than in the real-time version of the game. I've noticed for example, the AI in the first ship combat moving without much regard to other units on the map, sometimes pushing them out of the way and messing with positioning.
- In the cave, I stealthed my pet and had it attack an enemy. It then got stuck in an attack animation loop, while the AI did nothing and turned-based combat would not start.
And that last one worries me because it's a hallmark bug of some turn-based combat games: the game sometimes just doesn't know when to start or end turned based combat.
Can you explain a little more what you mean by "free" attacks in your first point? How is it different from your opening salvo in RTwP mode when an enemy hasn't seen you?
Thinking about it I think this is working as intended, indeed it's like the opening salvo in rtwp, though I guess maybe a bit less fair/more advantageous.
Man I really wanted my next play though to be this, but with the few bugs I'm already seeing in the first area and the fact that combat now takes 10 times as long, there's no way I can do it. At least not now. Maybe after a few patches.
I think this shows that you can't just throw turn based into a game and have it work. You have to tune combat in a fundamental way. I'm just not finding the prospect of that much time spent in combat fun.
Unless the game was designed around RTwP. I prefer turn-based normally, but sometimes you just want trash fights to end, especially when they are mostly trivial after a certain point. This will also radically change the pacing of the fights in terms of when and how to use AoE abilities. It's much easier to get enemies grouped up in RTwP, and to a similar extent healing allies.
Anyway, I am still looking forward to trying this out.
This will involve even more clicking.
Yeah, it seems like the kind of project where, however much work you think it's gonna be, it's at least twice as bad. There are so many problems, from UI redesign to ability rebalancing to god-only-knows what coding issues, that you're bound to overlook some big ones.
But I figure that's why Obsidian is launching this beta well in advance of the console release.
I also miss the excitement of RTwP. Man, with my last character, a rogue/fighter black-jacket with three sets of dual wielded pistols it was so damn fun to open up combat.
Take aim at the enemy. Unpause. BAM BAM. pause, switch, unpause BAM BAM, pause, switch unpause BAM BAM!!
I obliterated whatever I was targeting those first few seconds. Enemies would be like, what just happened?! It was glorious.
You just don't get that tense feeling in turn-based combat. Things just happen in a more staggered way, there's no sense of momentum. That depiction above wouldn't really be a description of flowing events. Instead it's I used my gun, then after 6 guys had their turn I was able to use my other pistol, and then... etc etc
Take aim at the enemy. Unpause. BAM BAM. pause, switch, unpause BAM BAM, pause, switch unpause BAM BAM!!
I obliterated whatever I was targeting those first few seconds. Enemies would be like, what just happened?! It was glorious.
You just don't get that tense feeling in turn-based combat. Things just happen in a more staggered way, there's no sense of momentum. That depiction above wouldn't really be a description of flowing events. Instead it's I used my gun, then after 6 guys had their turn I was able to use my other pistol, and then... etc etc
It sounds really good that stuff like Pillars of Eternity has a better take on RTwP, makes me look forward to it that much more.
It's a beta, they announced in advance that it would have a lot of bugs so I would hold off. I really think if you are experiencing the game for the first time you owe it to yourself not to suffer through the transition, let the veteran's handle it and just jump in after it's ready.
I'll probably start a new character tonight, interrupting my PoE 1 run. Maybe I'll do an "everything is bad" run just to really get a taste of the combat, kill everything in sight.
Edit: I just noticed that when you fire up the game and click on Magran's Fires there is a challenge that limits turns to 10 seconds, in case you want to do a fast-paced run.
I'll probably start a new character tonight, interrupting my PoE 1 run. Maybe I'll do an "everything is bad" run just to really get a taste of the combat, kill everything in sight.
Edit: I just noticed that when you fire up the game and click on Magran's Fires there is a challenge that limits turns to 10 seconds, in case you want to do a fast-paced run.
I would definitely hold off for at least another patch. Just encountered another minor bug. The metal construct in the first cave disappeared, then re-appeared moments later. I think overall stealth attacks seemed bugged. The AI sometimes just doesn't react to attacks coming from stealth characters.
I will say this though: despite the issues, despite my misgiving on how much time this would likely add to a playthrough, It definitely feels good. It doesn't feel tacked on, aside from the bugs and possible pacing issues that they will hopefully iron out, at least not this early on in the game.
It's absolutely fun, I can definitely see people enjoying the hell out of this mode, especially on consoles.
I don't know that I will personally play an entire playthrough like this, but I think I'll at least play it for a while.
I will say this though: despite the issues, despite my misgiving on how much time this would likely add to a playthrough, It definitely feels good. It doesn't feel tacked on, aside from the bugs and possible pacing issues that they will hopefully iron out, at least not this early on in the game.
It's absolutely fun, I can definitely see people enjoying the hell out of this mode, especially on consoles.
I don't know that I will personally play an entire playthrough like this, but I think I'll at least play it for a while.
The correct solution to that is to not have trash fights at all. D:OS2 did a great job of that and each fight felt meaningful.
I mean this is an after the fact transition though, so you can't really expect the same level of polish that DOS:2 had in terms of encounter balance.
Some impressions so far:
1) Each person seems to take turns based on initiative. It's calculated based on your dexterity, armor that you are wearing, and actions that you might take and bonuses that help that action. For example, two weapon fighting, which used to help recovery, helps your initiative instead, making you go earlier next turn.
2) Each action you can take aside from movement falls into one of two categories -- free actions and regular actions. Free actions are instant and you can do them in conjunction with any other action you might want to take, including other free actions. Good examples of free action are second wind, watcher abilities, turning on weapon modals. On the other spectrum are regular? actions, which you can do once a turn. Depending on the action they might cast instantaneously or take up the rest of your turn and fire off at the start of the next turn (maybe even more later on, IDK). For example, I created a monk/wizard hybrid, and his magic missle spell fired instantaneously, but the staff summoning spell started casting on the turn but didn't finish until the start of the next turn.
3) Movement seems to be on a separate system than actions. Both my characters seemed to get 10 meters of movement per round, independent of anything they did in the previous round except for things that increased stride (movement, essentially), or decreased it (hobble). Moving a lot did lower your initiative for next round though. Engagement is coded to make something stop moving when it encounters the engager, and it also triggers attack of opportunity when disengaging, so that's another way to stop movement.
Overall it seems like a competent, if not super fancy, turn based mode implementation. I didn't get a chance to participate in any of the more notorious battles yet so I don't know how dangerous things can get yet. It's still the same Pillars Combat, though, with the miss/graze/hit system, so on higher difficulties you do end up missing a lot, especially at the start of the game, which makes battles last a bit longer than I like. I think they probably need to increase damage a bit or lower health a bit to make the system a bit better turned for turn based mode. But it does seem like they made an effort to reduce the number of enemies in an encounter to compensate for the longer battles. Maybe they do more damage already? It's not easy to say.
Oh shit, now I'm interested. I know there's very little chance, but I hope the first Pillars gets the same treatment. It's been in my backlog for years now, bought it because I thought I could get used to the real-time combat.
Yeah no.
I like Divinity 2 a lot, but that's just not the case.
Especially when you consider individual phases of battles.
With RtWP, you can adjust your level of engagement with the systems dynamically and fluidly depending on the current state of each encounter, not just its overall difficulty.
I probably spent at least 10 hours in Divinity 2 in fights that were no longer (or never) actually on the edge / challenging.
I assume they're adding this an an option rather than a replacement?
If so... That's quite an amazing level of support. Still haven't picked this up but I will soon enough.
If so... That's quite an amazing level of support. Still haven't picked this up but I will soon enough.
I started a new TB game as a Troubadour to see how chants work in that mode. It looks like the default for every chant is 1 turn duration/1 turn linger. However I don't really get how Brisk recitation works now. I would imagine 1 turn is the minimum duration for anything, so I'm not really seeing it cut things down to, say, half a turn. It does still remove the linger though.
You choose real time or turn based at the start of a new game, and yes they do support the game a lot which was already pretty darn awesome at launch!
Did you play D:OS2 on Tactician difficulty? I thought that offered a consistent challenge throughout the entire game. Maybe you're just better at combat than I am, though.
I've played to the end of the digsite in TB mode and generally I like it. I was already playing Deadfire with AI off and autopause at the end of every action so TB is not entirely dissimilar to that experience, but it does make it much easier to keep on top of what's going on, and give combat a more relaxed feeling. There are definitely some bugs, mostly around movement, but I haven't run into anything too egregious.
That said, they didn't go with the turn system I anticipated (where turns are in a queue, and you get reinserted into the queue after your turn in a position determined by the speed of the action you took) which would have allowed them to maintain all of the existing game mechanics pretty much unchanged. Instead, they've gone with a round system, where each character gets one action each round. This is probably simpler for players to understand, but it means that action speed and recovery no longer exist. Things that used to modify these values (e.g. the Dexterity attribute, weapon speed, armor) now affects a value called Initiative, which determines when you act in a round, but not how often you act. Initiative is just nowhere near as good as action speed or recovery reduction, so Dex is now pretty shit, as are fast weapons (until they rebalance the damage on them) and light armor, as well as any spells or abilities that made you act faster.
That said, they didn't go with the turn system I anticipated (where turns are in a queue, and you get reinserted into the queue after your turn in a position determined by the speed of the action you took) which would have allowed them to maintain all of the existing game mechanics pretty much unchanged. Instead, they've gone with a round system, where each character gets one action each round. This is probably simpler for players to understand, but it means that action speed and recovery no longer exist. Things that used to modify these values (e.g. the Dexterity attribute, weapon speed, armor) now affects a value called Initiative, which determines when you act in a round, but not how often you act. Initiative is just nowhere near as good as action speed or recovery reduction, so Dex is now pretty shit, as are fast weapons (until they rebalance the damage on them) and light armor, as well as any spells or abilities that made you act faster.
Yeah, my initial thoughts were similar -- that 2 handed weapons and other such "high damage" attacks might be worth a lot more in TB mode than previously. That being said, you always full attack wielding 2 one handers, so that might still be ok. It remains to be seen how crucial it is that you have high initiative but my instinct tells me that because HP values are relatively high in Pillars (i.e. you can't blow up people that easily) then having low initiative doesn't really hurt that much unless you are a reactive class. So, having high initiative might be important for healing classes such but not so much for damage dealers anymore.
That being said, Might is kinda shit in RTWP mode and most people say to go for dex as an alternative so it might be some sort of karmic re balance to make dex shit in TB mode and have people start pumping might a bit more.
I'm neither here nor there when it comes to real time or turn based. If the system is good, I like it.
So far I am loving the turn based mode. It almost feels like the gold boxes, which are the best RPG combat systems ever.
I like it more than D:OS as well. Mainly for the fact that the entire map doesn't fill up with oil, fire and ice every battle.
So far I am loving the turn based mode. It almost feels like the gold boxes, which are the best RPG combat systems ever.
I like it more than D:OS as well. Mainly for the fact that the entire map doesn't fill up with oil, fire and ice every battle.
Oh, queue doesn't take into account action speed? That seems like a huge oversight.
Action speed only affects your placement in the turn order, and how soon your spells cast. Even if you have +100% action speed, you're still only going to get to attack once per turn, per round.
That's what I don't quite like. There should be ways to push up/down turn order, perform combos, maybe gain extra attack, etc... Current system is very basic.
I'm liking this mode more and more as I progress further into the game.
Another thing that TBS makes better are AOE spells. Now, when you cast one, you can see which enemies are going to move before the spell fires off. This lets you aim them much more efficiently.
In real time mode you had no idea where enemies might end up when you initially cast the spell.
And in general every ability is useful and planning when to use them matters so much more than in real time. Such as which target is best to slow down, which ones should be confused to manipulate their turn order, etc.
Another thing that TBS makes better are AOE spells. Now, when you cast one, you can see which enemies are going to move before the spell fires off. This lets you aim them much more efficiently.
In real time mode you had no idea where enemies might end up when you initially cast the spell.
And in general every ability is useful and planning when to use them matters so much more than in real time. Such as which target is best to slow down, which ones should be confused to manipulate their turn order, etc.
I don't agree. In fact it's become more difficult to target AOE spells. In real time you could always re-target your spell right before it went off. Now you can't, or at least I don't see any option to do so.
A small update for those who were planning to pick it up on console -- the backer update that dropped today confirmed that Turn Based Mode will be included with the console launch. They are also trying to solicit feedback on TBS mode and encourage people to play as they tune things up.
The "Combat Started!" logo / graphic not going away after I'm out of a fight is annoying - as well as the fact that any time I mouse over like an enemy, the character states 'no can do!' or some little tidbit similar to that, even if the enemy is within range.
This is unpolished AF but being beta, a fully functioning turn-based system for whatever next game they make would be fuckin' killer.
This is unpolished AF but being beta, a fully functioning turn-based system for whatever next game they make would be fuckin' killer.
Yeah, that was the biggest letdown for 2 was basically removing that system. Yes, it's still sort of in there but the game isn't really based around it like Origins was.
So I decided to do my next run through with real-time combat, and it pretty much hit me right away. It is SO much better than turn-based combat. Turn-based is still fun overall, I think and the comparison isn't entirely fair since it's still in beta, but man, yeah, real time just feel sooooo much better. It's how the game is meant to be played, IMHO.
If this is your first time playing, I'd definitely recommend real time over turn based. The pacing is just right and the rule set is built from the ground up for it. And you feel it.
My inquisitor is kicking but and going through that first cave was just a sublime experience vs kind of long and pretty fun experience with turnbased.
Maybe with a gamepad on the console version, it might be worth going turn based, but definitely not on PC, IMHO.
If this is your first time playing, I'd definitely recommend real time over turn based. The pacing is just right and the rule set is built from the ground up for it. And you feel it.
My inquisitor is kicking but and going through that first cave was just a sublime experience vs kind of long and pretty fun experience with turnbased.
Maybe with a gamepad on the console version, it might be worth going turn based, but definitely not on PC, IMHO.
I'm absolutely amazed that Obsidian added this to the game, free of charge, and it looks really well done too.
Having said that, I don't think I'll ever touch this mode in my life, looks so terribly slow and boring compared to the way it's meant to be played. But then, I might not be the target audience here. Hope this brings more people to experience this amazing game and world.
Having said that, I don't think I'll ever touch this mode in my life, looks so terribly slow and boring compared to the way it's meant to be played. But then, I might not be the target audience here. Hope this brings more people to experience this amazing game and world.
Can't wait to hear how this turned out with turn based added. I skipped 2 because I was sick of RTwP. D:OS2 spoiled me.