Real Time Combat and CRPGs

Haven't you beaten it? I think that's proof enough stupid people can do it.

You want to flame, I can flame right back.

Which is precisely why it's a FPS and not an RPG.

Daikatana, Warlords: Battlecry, Diablo and Diablo 2, Black and White, and many other nonRPGs fit both these definitions.

 

Well, Personaly, I do consider Diablo an RPG.

Black and White does not focus on the character.

I am not familar with Diakatana or Warlords.

 

You didnt answer the Fallout part of the question so I will repeat it.

In FO lack of any sort of tactical skills will get you killed in short order. It dosnt matter how good your character is.

Well will it or wont it? The crux of your anti real time argument seems to be that player skill is more important but if it is also more important in TB games then the whole argument is irrelvent isnt it ?

By all means your entitled to your OPINION but dont try to present it as fact unles you can back it up.

Diablo,Dues Ex, Dungeon Siege et al are all roleplaying games they are just roleplaying games that are only now becoming possible because of advances in technology.
Arcanum isnt a better roleplaying game than Dues Ex its just different. In my OPINION Dues Ex is a better game than Arcanum because it dosnt obstruct immersion with overcomplication and huge interface. But again that is my opinion :smile:

Here are facts.

Regardless of what engine an RPG used player skill will always count for more than character skill until the character is totally AI controlled or has the ability to refuse player commands.
Just because something dosnt meet yours or anyone elses narrow definition of what a roleplaying game is dosnt mean it isnt one.
Being 2d and turnbased are not requirements.

 

Realtime limits your ability to control the player, your ability to fully utilize the strong points of the character and the tactical advantages. Think about this - a "munchkin" who plays only in realtime has to rely on his reflexes, and his ability to successfully control his avatar depends on his ability to notice things and react appropriately. Does this sound familiar?..
Yet a roleplayer has an advantage of thinking about his actions and planning the outcome of the battle. Plus, it's much less chaotic. Where "munchkin" needs a pumped-up fighter with best weapons, a roleplayer can pass with a character 2/3 that powerful, because he can utilize the potential his character has. Now I want you to think who is the best roleplayer - a man who relies on his reaction or a man who relies on reaction of his character?

I think the sacrifice of precise control over character in RPG is a penalty enough for doing stuff in realtime, but that's just me. The problem is that realtime is all rage these days. The roleplaying is going in the wrong direction, and I have some ideas about why this is happening. The comfort of control over your character is given away for the SIMPLICITY of combat. And simplicity sells best to those who approach RPG as a game they do not want to get into, do not want to figure out. And if you do not want to get into a roleplaying game, you are not a roleplayer.
So what happened? I got a hint for y'all - it begins on a letter 'D'... You can say all you want how much you hate Diablo, but it really shaped late 1990's CRPGs. The simplicity and pure action appealed to many gamers, and this is just want developers want - more people to buy their game.

Realtime is an evil of roleplaying games, but sometimes it is a necessary evil because it saves a lot of time when fighting becomes boring and easy and you do not want to waste time on it. Fallout Tactics' TB-CTB model is a good place to start, despite its minuses I believe realtime and turnbased can coexist without realtime devouring turnbased or vice versa. In the meantime, I'm mourning the lost possibilities of realtime-only CRPGs...

 

I did answer it, my answer to it was that you'd have to be an utter idiot not to grasp Fallout's TB combat system. It's really straight forward.

However, let's assume you're so utterly inept(i.e. you work for Interplay Quality Assurance) you can't possibly handle Fallout's combat system.. Guess what, you can beat both games without using that combat system. You can make a DIPLOMATIC CHARACTER and talk your way through both games and win.

Ahhh.. Role-playing. God forbid we see that kind of option system in an Infinity Engine game.

And, opinions can be wrong. The above is proof of this.

Sorry, they are. Maybe you like First Person Shooters that claim to be RPGs, but for the rest of us people, who have common sense, they are not.

Funny, Deus Ex is very similar to Bullfrog's Syndicate. Syndicate was never called an RPG, yet Deus Ex is.

BTW, I find it funny you claim this game is SO wonderful, and you can't even spell the name of it correctly. I mean, if you cherish it SO much, you'd think you could get those four little letters in proper order.

That's just an observation that goes back to you saying stupid people can't finish the game and asking me if I'd volunteer. I figured a "Not Stupid" person, like yourself, who's seen the name countless times, and tried spelling it many times, would have figured it out by now.

Enjoy. :smile:

 

Okay, I'll respond to the FO question.
NO, lack of tactical skills in FO will not necessarily get you killed in short order. I have beaten the game without swinging a fist or firing a shot. It's not easy, but even with extremely limited tactical skill (point gun, shoot) FO isn't impossible. But I don't think it's relevant either.

Let's just say that I don't think Deus Ex (and since it's supposedly a game you like, how about spelling it properly) should be turn-based. I also don't have a problem with those who enjoy the way a dash of role playing livened up a FPS. I hope Diablo players get more games like Diablo to satisfy their desire for Hack-n-Slash.

BUT

I DON'T WANT MY TURN BASED RPGs SACRIFICED ON THE ALTAR OF 16 YEAR-OLDs REFLEXES.

Make as many real time games as you want, I can't play them. I don't enjoy them. I won't buy them. There are a lot of people like me. Therefore, whether or not game companies want to explore non turn based games, they should make TB games for those of us who enjoy them.

Maybe the right question is whether anyone thinks FO should have been real time? Arcanum without the ability to switch to turn based? Why? How would that have made these games better?

RPGs are made for people who's personal skill sets are cognitive. They play RPGs to think and imagine. To build characters and explore. To quest and do heroic things. If you enjoy Deus Ex or Diablo, play Deus Ex or Diablo. I promise I won't try to turn then into turn based games. Let me have my turn based games. I'm not playing to see how fast I can click a pixel.

 

I must say i agree with SP on most of the things he has said (altho maybe not all the flamin he has done :smile: ) as i too see RPG's the way he does and maybe that is just because of a harcore RPG attitude coming from years of PnP, i dont know.
However i will say that i have deus ex and have completed it many times, i think it is an excellent game with a lot more options and depth than a lot of other games of its type. I would personally class it as a FPS tho. :wink:

Looking at the post below i think the rolling eyes was a good use of an emote but i think the roll emote is poor :smile: jus a comment on the board...... maybe the new version of this board has a better emote. heheh
_________________
If ya can't be good, BE BAD

Oh, BTW http://www.arcanumworld.co.uk

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bad Buck on 2001-05-18 08:06 ]</font>

 

Personaly I would be dileriously happy if all RPG game designers could just add the option of TB. Then they could do the battle in other modes as they wish, since I would never ever would have to use it. :grin:

On a serious note though, I don´t understand why they don´t do this. It would after all give them a wider audience and thereby higher sales numbers. I guess they just can´t undersatnd that people can think and like different things then themself. :roll:

 

Wow. Y'all are never going to reach agreement on what is or is not an RPG, because even the "professionals", magazine and site reviewers, game designers, etc., can't seem to agree. My definition is a game that allows the player to create a unique character, period. That leaves out magnificent games like Deus Ex (which I adored, but which was without doubt a FPS), and even the Final Fantasy series (which I also adored beyond measure, but which required you to play the developers' characters, not your own) as well as Planescape Torment (which we all know insisted that each of us MUST be a gray-skinned zombie-type male, regardless of which talents we choose to stress during our romp through the planes). These wonderful games didn't allow role-playing as I define it, i.e. creating a role and a character unique to the gamer, any more than Duke Nukem did.

Diablo an RPG? Well, no. It was a third-person-whacker, pure and simple.

So why on earth is there such hew and cry about what various games are actually "called"? We all have our own definitions, our own preferences. *shrug* Trying to foist them on others is a fruitless excercise in futility.

As for the turn-based versus real-time saga, it is a dramatic serial that will never end. I've used both, and find TB to be a long, drawn-out affair. Doesn't mean that the Fallout games bored me. FO2 is tied for my favorite game of all time. But it wasn't utterly perfect, no game is, and the TB system (not to mention the faulty companion AI that required uncountable reloads after they blew each other's heads off) was something I dealt with to get to the good stuff.

I don't like pure real-time combat either, though. No time to think, plan, choose the correct spells or just the right weapon for the job. To me real-time with a pause feature fills the bill nicely. Apparently more gamers agree than don't, because nearly all games are going to pause-featured real-time, and I presume that's because marketing studies prove that it's preferred among most, I say MOST, gamers.

Anyway, it will be what it will be, designers will create the games they believe will be most popular with the combat systems they think will serve the majority of their consumers best. And we will enjoy the games for the features we adore while putting up with the foibles we don't enjoy. Why do we have to argue about it? LOL!!

~Di

 

I'm happy to have destroyed your arguement at any rate :grin:

Computers have allowed RPG's to evolve. PNP followed the pattern it did because that was the only way.You couldnt have 6 people doing things at the same time computers can allow this to happen.
Computers can blur the boundries and make new and different RPG's.

If your happy with old stuff thats upto you I'm glad your the exception rather than the the rule and other people are still testing the boundries.

I'm sure if Arcanum sells enough copies you might see a few more TB/2d games :smile:

I'm looking forward to where the future takes the genre.

 

Two things, SP, the "continuos turn based" you mentioned is really called "Simultanueous Turn Based"

And I think both FOT and Arcanum are setting a new standard, the ability for Real time OR Turn based

 

SMAC called it Continuous Turn Based.

CTB in Fallout Tactics has nothing to do with Turn Based at all.

 

I resent the implication that because one likes Turn Based means one is stuck in the "old" and "2-D" ways of life. Thinking this way only shows ones limited ability to accept change, themselves, regardless of what other kind of "forward-thinking" propaganda they may relate.

The "why" of this is simple. If one cannot look at and understand the way things were or even are, then one is either inexperienced or close-minded. If one is inexperienced, one cannot understand change. If one is close-minded, one will not accept change.

While I prefer Turn-Based for my RPGs, I'm interested in seeing the other solutions that are, and will be happening. (This rather blows PL's limited world-view out of the water.)

I'm DEEPLY interested in the fact that Arcanum's non-combat aspects are all real-time, including the conversation. I'm WILDLY interested in "Anarchy Online", though I find most MMORPGs little more than LPMuds. I'm TINGLING WITH DELIGHT about Neverwinter Nights, even in spite of all the hideously bad underground press about it.

And all of this is in spite of my opinion that nothing does cRPG better than turn-based.

Now who's close-minded? 'Tis not I.

-Thenomain (NMI)

 

SP, So what if it was badly named? I liked how they did it.

 

Jureel you are the one who corrected the name in the first place.
BTW whassup with your sig piccy?

 

Because he mentioned Age of Wonders in which its called Simultaneous turn based

And what do you mean? You mean the down time I had when the server went down?

 

Age of Wonders had CTB? I thought it was just standard Turn Based.

Oh, and the only thing I've said near that was this on page 1:

 

Oh ok SP

I'm getting confused, happens when I'm sick

 

some points
I can't say that I enjoyed FOT's CTB at all, it wasn't really CTB as some have clamied, just crappy RT imo*.

otherwise CTB might be a good way to go, if implimented right, as an option to TB, or for MP games(RT vs CTB in here, personally i'm divided on what games should have what).

as for arcanum both RT and TB is more valid then in say BG2 or other party based games. TB in arcanum is quicker with only 1 character, and a fast TB mode for all the others, and unlike FOT, you are not in direct controll over your whole party, and thus can leave it at controlling 1 charcter in RT.

For people saying that RT is more reality based then TB, i can't really agree. If implimented right TB is much more reality based then RT in team games, and better used in RPG's as your character is the important aspect, not your reactions. actually JA2 and JA2.5UB are the best tactical systems i've played on, and very real feeling to me. In JA you can't walk around an enemy if it got action points, it creates an interrupt, and kills you right there if you are spotted. JA(1-2.5) engine takes the good from TB, and the good from RT, and makes imo the best tactical combat system so far. The thing is that my biggest drawback with TB is the turns, if the turns are solid as rock, and people can't make interrupts its clearly not reality based. A option would be really really short turns, but it would make the game a slow painfull crawl. While in RT you lack the controll of all you party members at the same time(they either must be ai controlled, or stand there like dummies)having them controlled by the ai is ok, if it makes them smart enough to not be controlled by you ever, having them any other way is a set back.


*actually i hated it, FOT did everything wrong in the SP missions.

the missions was based on you playing "CTB", and thus too large for TB, so the only real option was to stick to something that sucked.

 

If yer saying that fot sucks, please restrict yourself to saying that the SP sucks cuz thats the only thing that does

MP Doesn't, mp is a blast both real time and turn based