Vault Dweller said:
BethesdaLove said:
The speed advantage, when you up against some enemies who are easy and you dont need to think to beat them, we keep.
That we keep? Why? Because it's fun watching your characters hack easy targets to pieces?
I actually think this is the difference between real-time and a good turn-based system. In a good turn-based system, there are no easy enemies that take ages to hack to pieces with no thinking required. A good TB system should have you thinking about every action you take, every move you make and then punish you severely when you get careless.
Like X-Com did once again last night. "Nah, this is just some Gillmen, fuck 'em - they're easy". Less than three turns later I was reloading after three of them took out half the squad from an area I neglected to search properly because I made a b-line for the ship.
On the other hand, Fallout with its rats and ants is not a particularly good example.
Armacalypse said:
DarkUnderlord said:
Armacalypse said:
Why can that enemy with the machine gun run up to my character, and shoot 30 bullets point blank in his face, just because my character took 3 burst shots that missed because he was too far away?
As opposed to real-time where the suicide commando machine-gunner deftly dodges your three shots as he's running up to you.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to get at. Do you mean "RT is a dumbed-down next-gen console system and everyone therefore dodges bullets like in the matrix", or were you sarcastic, meaning that my character missing his 3 burst shots because he was too far away was a bad example?
In this case, I'm saying just because it's real-time doesn't mean your guy would hit with any of his three shots either. Your statement is that because this guy is running towards you, you would be able to get some shots off and kill him in RT and this is not the case in TB, therefore TB is not a good reflection of reality (ultimately what we're trying to simulate). I'm saying that even in RT, guys miss at point blank range and yes, someone could run up to you faster than you can re-act and blow you away with a machine-gun.
So in both cases, both systems reflect events that might actually happen. Either not firing at all or firing and completely missing regardless of range. It's just that TB's time-frame is staggered into your actions vs his actions.
I also later showed real-world examples where "total fucking suicidal retards" actually did similar actions and won.
Armacalypse said:
DarkUnderlord said:
Armacalypse said:
Shouldn't the third burst logically be fired when the enemy who in reality would be called a total fucking suicidal retard is two meters in front of him in and who hasn't even stopped much less raised his weapon yet?
That's why they have reaction and interrupts. If your character is skilled enough to see the running machine-gunner, figure out what's going on and has enough time saved to make an action, he takes the shot. He may not hit anyway but he'd take the shot if he won the roll.
Otherwise, if he lost the roll, it's because he didn't notice this crazy psycho until it was too late at which point he couldn't react fast enough to fire - or even if you did, your unit wasn't able to get his own shot off before it was too late.
If I had ordered him to shoot 3 burst shots at that enemy that he just spotted, and if he then did so, I would find it odd if he suddenly was unaware of that enemy and had to do an interrupt roll. In order to make any kind of reaction roll the character would have had to have a preset range where he makes interrupt rolls on approaching enemies, or an AI that figures out when it's time to react to the charging enemy.
Not unaware but maybe not ready. There's a difference between firing at someone far away and then HOLY SHIT HE'S RUNNING RIGHT TOWARDS US.
I'm trying to find a stor about the Australian Light Horse division in World War I where they actually fucked the Germans right up by doing the unexpected. Light Horsemen typically rode their horses up to a certain point, dismounted and then charged ahead on foot.
Wikipedia has saved me:
- Light horse were like mounted infantry in that they usually fought dismounted, using their horses as transport to the battlefield and as a means of swift disengagement when retreating or retiring. A famous exception to this rule though was the charge of the 4th and 12th Light Horse Regiments at Beersheba on 31 October 1917.
I'm pretty sure this is the battle. The Turks were basically expecting the horsemen to dismount at a certain point and then move ahead on foot, at which point the Turks would open fire with Artillery and pick them off easily. Instead, the fuckers charged right at them still on horseback, jumped over the enemy lines and then turned around and came at them from behind:
- The light horsemen jumped the front trenches and dismounted behind the line where they turned and engaged the Turks with bayonets. The Turks were in many cases so demoralised that they quickly surrendered. One Australian who was dazed after having his horse shot from under him, recovered to find his five attackers with their hands up, waiting to be taken prisoner.
[...]
"In commenting on the attack I consider that the success was due to the rapidity with which the movement was carried out. Owing to the volume of fire brought to bear from the enemy's position by Machine Guns and rifles, a dismounted attack would have resulted in a much greater number of casualties. It was noticed also that the morale of the enemy was greatly shaken through our troops galloping over his positions thereby causing his riflemen and machine gunners to lose all control of fire discipline. When the troops came within short range of the trenches the enemy seemed to direct almost all his fire at the horses."
The unexpected wins. Crazy tactics work. That crazy guy running right towards you with a fucking sword, without you even getting a shot off, is repeated more often than it's not.
Armacalypse said:
DarkUnderlord said:
Armacalypse said:
And why can the enemy, who runs into my character around a corner, reload his machine gun and then fire without my character even reacting just because the enemy won the interrupt roll?
... because once again your character didn't notice him running around the corner (probably too busy pondering deep and meaningful questions instead of watching the battlefield) and by the time he did, it was too late to react.
As opposed to the real-time equivalent of course where the psycho runs around the corner reoading and your character still doesn't react because you didn't hit spacebar quickly enough in order to pause the game and issue orders to open fire.
The optimal situation would be if both reacted to eachother, one reacting faster and getting the first shot of 0.2 seconds faster than the enemy and therefore winning the fight right there. However, if his gun was unloaded, holstered, or with the safety off, then he wouldn't get the first shot off as fast as the enemy who would win despite having slower reactions.
Except again, let's go back to what we expect. If a guy pops his head out around a corner, fires a few bursts and then ducks back behind. Then you fire a few bursts at the corner, then you repeat that a few times, then you prep yourself to open fire at the corner when he pops his head out again and then suddenly there he is, only he's not popped his head out, he's running out around the corner, reloading as he does so and running right towards you... You're taken aback... Hang on, what's he doing? You're prepared to fire at the corner where he was and now he's already covered half the distance to you in only a second or two (running people can cover reasonable distances in a fairly short space of time) you now have to re-position yourself because you had setup aimed at the corner only he's not there anymore and... Next thing he's on top of you by the time you've figured it out.
Of course, in both real-time and turn-based the same situation might also result in your guy reacting quickly (in TB with an interrupt), firing and taking him out as he runs around the corner. Both are possibilities. My point is it's simply not the case that in TB you will NEVER interrupt such an attack or that in RT that you will ALWAYS interrupt such an attack.
My point is that such attacks happen and can be successful. Otherwise what you're proposing would result in the man never putting his head around the corner at all as he'd simply be shot dead instantly. So you'd both sit there while
nothing happened knowing that the first person to make a move would end up dead. If that was the case in the real-world, Germany would've lost in Poland before they even started WWII.
Armacalypse said:
The manual-pause reaction problem can be easily overcome in this case (I emphasize "in this case"). Making the game autopause when an enemy is spotted could be done even in Baldur's Gate 2.
Now you're highlighting the point by saying that the real-time system doesn't work so in order to compensate for that, we have to make a hokey "unrealistic" time-paused mode in order to give the player time to re-act to what's happening. The only difference between TB and RT now is that TB pauses automatically for you every turn and that instead of giving orders and then watching passively, each order is carried out in real-time. In TB, your unit moves, the enemy has a chance to re-act if he's prepared himself for this possible move by saving time units during his own turn, your unit sees the enemy and opens fire - thus representing a running attack and firing whilst moving - the attack may hit or not and then your unit has time to adjust his plan accordingly depending on the outcome.
As opposed to RT where you pause the game, issue the order to make the unit run around the corner and fire, unpause, the unit carries out his action and misses so you now have to pause *again* and change the plan - except if you aren't quick enough on the spacebar you don't and your unit ends up dead. Likewise in TB, if you neglect to leave enough time left to retreat, he may be stuck there having run around the corner and fired with no time left to make any other action, cue the enemies turn and he's dead.
The key difference is that in turn-based, we have single events on the battlefield we're controlling, one unit at a time allowing you to act as each unit, with its own time to think. In real-time, the minute you unhit pause, you have to hope the plan goes all right and if one unit has problems, you're pausing everyone again just to change those orders to then carry on. Of course that means RT runs into the problem where a game like X-Com would result in you having an awful lot of dead soldiers. To compensate for this, RT enemies usually cause little damage per attack and the "one-hit-kill" is virtually non-existant.
That's why in a game like Diablo, you stand there playing whack-a-mole hitting spacebar to chug another health potion every 2 seconds. In a good TB game, you simply don't have health-potions, thus potentially making TB much more realistic than RT (if you really want to do that argument).
Armacalypse said:
I understand what you mean. But what I meant was when the enemy is in full view by all your troops, who are on the walls and outside them, the would still be able to get in without your soldiers reacting to the enemies' change of direction and moving to the back door to block them before it's too late.
You mean like how the Australian Light Horsemen were in full view of the Turks through-out the Battle of Beersheba and yet they were able to jump over the enemy lines, forcing the Turks to surrender? Just to state again, that's lines of horsemen charging DIRECTLY at the enemy's guns, with bayonets in hand and rifles slung over shoulders, jumping OVER the enemies, dismounting and then attacking on foot. WITH FUCKING SWORDS. Why?
- When the line of horsemen got within range of the Turkish riflemen in the trenches, they started to take casualties but the defenders failed to allow for the speed of their approach so once they were within half a mile of the trenches, the defenders' bullets started passing overhead as altering sights on rifles when confronted with rapid moving horsemen became a difficulty
Armacalypse said:
Ah, so you are saying that the characters you are moving first actually move first? I don't think this is true.
Imagine there is one guy behind the doorway, fully alert with the gun pointed at it. You send your scout who moves "first" in the room, and loses the interrupt roll and gets killed by a burst. When you send in your second character, he can shoot the enemy because the enemy is out of action points.
Imagine there is one guy behind the doorway, fully alert with the gun pointed at it. You have orders that your scout is to move in quickly, with the second man right behind him. The scout moves in and is shot down
but less than half a second later, your second man comes through the door, the guy who shot the scout isn't able to move, re-position himself and re-act in time... So the second soldier guns him down.
Armacalypse said:
If this was RT the enemy would be ready to shoot another burst by the time your second character enters the door, and could kill yet another of your characters.
Nope, if this was RT, your orders would be that the scout moves in first and less than a few feet behind him is the second man. The scout moves in and is shot but still, the second man is able to move in and shoot the enemy because even in real-time, actions take time to perform. The enemy has already shot and needs at least a second game-time before he can fire again (depending on fire rate) so during that time, your guys are moving in.
And in a real-time with pause, wouldn't I simply send the two guys in one after another as ordered, the first guy gets shot down and I pause, then throw a grenade in?
Armacalypse said:
The TB situation makes it seem as if your 2 characters enter the doorway at the same time
... a few milliseconds apart actually. Given you want your guys to re-act so quickly during real-time, TB allows them that time to re-act quickly. "Scout's been shot-down... Throw in a grenade instead!".
Armacalypse said:
I refer to the second quote in this post. My character was fully aware of the enemy the whole time the previous turn, eyes and gun focused and pointed at the enemy that he had just fired 3 bursts at.
Which is why he wasn't prepared for the enemy to come charging at him. See Turks and Light Horsemen above.
Armacalypse said:
I fully agree, but the thing is it could occur in real-time, it doesn't have to. With auto-pause many of the "you have to look everywhere at once and push the spacebar fast" situations are eliminated.
So in other words, by implementing an optional turn-based mode into a real-time game, you make it manageable to play and therefore able to more accurately reflect scenarios that might occur on the battle-field in real-time, even though you've actually stopped time?
And this is as opposed to say, simply making it turn-based where the same situations are not only able to occur, but able to be managed, allowing for much tougher - and therefore realistic - enemies?
