Interview Age of Decadence - Big in France

[The_Pope]

Laser Squad Nemesis had a pretty cool system. Every five seconds or so, it pauses and you get to give orders. Then you watch and can't boss your units around until it pauses again.

 

[Armacalypse]

I enjoy TB, but I also find it kind of disturbing. As soon as it's placed in a game or situation that I think looks realistic, and where it tries to make up for the fact that it's not RT with stuff like interrupts, it bothers me.

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? 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? 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?

And what about intercepting? The enemy can for example put his whole army in your castle just because you weren't standing right at the back door, and because an infinite number of people can go through a tiny doorway at the same time because their turns are separate and the collision that would happen is non-existant. And what about moving one unit to see if there are any enemies, and then move the rest if there aren't any? How can you move all your units at the same time, based on information gathered by moving only one unit?

It feels like people who try to make "realistic" turn based games should really just cut the pretense and make the game completely abstract. Achron actually makes alot more sense to me and is less confusing than TB that's in any setting unlike the one in chess, checkers etc.

I admit that making RTwP or even RT with autopause work without making situations like the charging machine gunner require you to manually pause when he is in optimal range for your shotgun is probably as hard as doing away with retarded chance based interrupt systems in turn based games, but turn based games can only come so far, and can never truly utilize all the logical tactics that would work in a world with remotely realistic laws of time and space.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

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.

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.

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.

And what about intercepting? The enemy can for example put his whole army in your castle just because you weren't standing right at the back door,

It's a surprise attack. It happens. Commando's bursting through the door instantly, all units running through simultaneously in a well-trained action before your guys can even figure out what's going on or have time to shit themselves.

• When he reached the top, one of the target bunkers opened fire on him with machine guns. Yadav ran toward the hail of bullets, pitched a grenade in the window and killed everyone inside. By this point the second bunker had a clear shot and opened fire, so he ran at them, taking bullets while he did, and killed the four heavily-armed men inside with his bare hands.
  [...]
  No, Jack carried a fucking claymore. And he used it, too. He is credited with capturing a total of 42 Germans and a mortar squad in the middle of the night, using only his sword.

and because an infinite number of people can go through a tiny doorway at the same time because their turns are separate and the collision that would happen is non-existant. And what about moving one unit to see if there are any enemies, and then move the rest if there aren't any? How can you move all your units at the same time, based on information gathered by moving only one unit?

Again, turn-based is showing you how one unit can move quickly and signal to his comrades that there are enemies here with a quick hand signal - allowing them to move in Commando style as above - before he's fired upon by the lazy, probably resting, army behind the door.

"What the fuck, some guy is her... HOLY SHIT WE'RE UNDER ATTA..."

Realisation dies under a hail of gunfire.

I admit that making RTwP or even RT with autopause work without making situations like the charging machine gunner require you to manually pause when he is in optimal range for your shotgun is probably as hard as doing away with retarded chance based interrupt systems in turn based games, but turn based games can only come so far, and can never truly utilize all the logical tactics that would work in a world with remotely realistic laws of time and space.

Said the man who thinks gunners would always react quickly if they saw someone charging towards them, failing to take into account that maybe they didn't see the guy coming for them until it was too late, maybe they thought he was one of their own for a second (why would a bad guy try and get that close) and assuming their guys could open fire and hit simply because the guy is closer. Besides taht, what happens in real-time when you're looking at another part of the battlefield and aren't around to even notice some guy running towards another area? Then look back only to go "Oh shi..." like I have done in Starcraft on many occassion. Gosh that almost sounds like a worse outcome than the opportunity turn-based would've provided to keep the entire battlefield in mind.

I'm basically saying every scenerio you've used for saying "TB sucks OMG its not realistic" could occur in real-time anyway. TB simply gives you the time to make those moves without hitting spacebar like a spaz in real-time (and therefore making the game rely much more heavily on your OWN reflexes and ability to notice things, rather than your characters).

 

[almondblight]

Uh... yeah, that's exactly what I meant. It's clear that playing deep tactical TB games like Jagged Alliance 2, which something tells me you haven't played, and arcade fighting games and shooters, no matter how "tactical", is exactly the same thing. Thank you for proving my point, btw. If these games are the best tactical examples (that don't rely on one's manual dexterity at all)...

Myth. Close Combat.

 

[RK47]

Well, the pace of close combat allows combat to flow somewhat 'slow enough' for people not to rely solely on reflexes to gain the upper hand. I've yet to see RPG that handle combat as slow as that when the combat revolve around 'swinging and missing'.

I kept seeing people throwing Real-world examples to justify why Turn Based isn't perfect. Well, nobody is claiming it's perfect, but it is a much more attractive alternative than having to be 'alert enough to hit SPACE BAR' to re-target the casting wizard or avoiding a spotted trap while in mid run. DarkUnderlord perfectly explained why it's not 'a stat-based skill'.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Close Combats were not "quick" at all. Not like our beloved rpg's with RTwP.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Well done RT can be just as engaging and entertaining as well done TB. Can't we just agree on that?

Entertaining? Sure. God of War and Heavenly Sword are loads of fun.

I mean, its not like there aren't any examples of shitty TB out there, so saying that it's simply better is stupid.

The concept is better. Execution, of course, varies.

BG2 had a lot of what was essentially cheating by the npcs, where they would have several contingency spells fire when they detected your party

Same can always be done by the party, in fact. Chain contingency, a normal one, Spell trigger - voila, seven spells in the instant.

Point is, RT(wP) can require as much of tactical planning as TB. It's only a matter of effort and creativity, not a game system.

It's not an agitation to convert AoD into RT, sure, keep it the way it is. Just providing a proof that 'RT sucks by default and can't be cured' notion is a joke.

Very convincing.

I've been playing a mod fight in BG2 about two months ago. The picture - six guys stand against six mine. Every active effect I have on gets dispelled before the fight. Among them there is an assassin 'one hit - one kill'; a sorceress who throws off a Chaos spell at the first round and then stuns characters low on hp; FMT who goes invisible and backstabs everyone, dispelling some of protection if he sees them on; archer with poison and dispelling arrows coming in two packs; a killing barbarian machine; nasty priest.

One mistake, protections (hastily raised up in the first few seconds) go off or a char gets confused - dead char. Design is determined by author, all is strictly by the game's rules, no cheesing at all. The game is RTwP.

Since people don't seem to get it:

Is BG2 on tactical par with Jagged Alliance 2, Realms of Arkania, and XCOM? Yes or No, please.

Well, my original point, later reinforced by Dark Underlord, was that generic enemies in TB games such as XCOM, Jagged Alliance 2, and Realms of Arkania are very dangerous due to complexities of TB combat. In fact, DU specifically mentioned that 4 weak Aquaturds killed 12 of his marines. He wasn't talking about a "shitloads of greenskins and shamen", as you so eloquently said.

Have you even played any of the stuff I posted? Or maybe you're suffering from amnesia? During that fight in BG2, you're fighting against a party of what, 6 people? I remember a dwarf fighter, a human barbarian, a thief, a mage, the mage's familiar, and... either I forgot someone or that's it. And hey, that's a location in the very first city you visit when you leave Irenicus' dungeon.

IWD1? At the start you rarely face more than 5-6 goblins/orcs and they're still enough to beat you up.

By 'shitloads' in IWD2, I meant that you face a mob around every corner, not 4758678945 mobs at the same time.

Darthie, dear, you are trying to sit on two chairs here. You are arguing that generic monsters are as deadly in the above mentioned games as they are in RoA, JA, and XCOM. Well, the next question (hopefully for the last time) is - Is BG2 on tactical par with Jagged Alliance 2, Realms of Arkania, and XCOM? Because if everything else is pretty much equal...

 

[Naked Ninja]

Darthie, dear, you are trying to sit on two chairs here. You are arguing that generic monsters are as deadly in the above mentioned games as they are in RoA, JA, and XCOM. Well, the next question (hopefully for the last time) is - Is BG2 on tactical par with Jagged Alliance 2, Realms of Arkania, and XCOM? Because if everything else is pretty much equal...

Wait, did you just say "all else being equal"? I think you need to revise your understanding of that phrase my friend. You're comparing two completely different game systems and saying "all else being equal"? All else isn't equal. Mod the JA ruleset into a RTwP engine and we can compare. Quite frankly, you can add in as many calculations into the system as you want, when you're paused in RTwP it is as easy to analyze them as it is in TB.

 

[MetalCraze]

Whoever came up with the idea of doing party-based RPGs and tactical games in real time should be shot.

 

[almondblight]

Well, the pace of close combat allows combat to flow somewhat 'slow enough' for people not to rely solely on reflexes to gain the upper hand. I've yet to see RPG that handle combat as slow as that when the combat revolve around 'swinging and missing'.

Close Combats were not "quick" at all. Not like our beloved rpg's with RTwP.

Ok, so we all agree that a RT system can focus on tactics and not reflexes? I don't think anyone is arguing that the current crop of RT RPG's have good combat. Just that they can have good combat. (Well, I thought Freedom Force had good combat, and I had to use more tactics in IWD than in Fallout, but I digress...)

 

[almondblight]

Whoever came up with the idea of doing party-based RPGs and tactical games in real time should be shot.

Close Combat and Myth SUCKED!

 

[Vault Dweller]

Darthie, dear, you are trying to sit on two chairs here. You are arguing that generic monsters are as deadly in the above mentioned games as they are in RoA, JA, and XCOM. Well, the next question (hopefully for the last time) is - Is BG2 on tactical par with Jagged Alliance 2, Realms of Arkania, and XCOM? Because if everything else is pretty much equal...

Wait, did you just say "all else being equal"? I think you need to revise your understanding of that phrase my friend. You're comparing two completely different game systems and saying "all else being equal"? All else isn't equal. Mod the JA ruleset into a RTwP engine and we can compare. Quite frankly, you can add in as many calculations into the system as you want, when you're paused in RTwP it is as easy to analyze them as it is in TB.

Let's review:

- I make a claim that RT can't beat TB tactics and complexity.
- The RT crowd starts teh riots, eventually challenging my claim that generic enemies are much more dangerous in TB due to the tactics required to beat them.
- If that's indeed the case and both TB and RT are equal in this aspect, then the inevitable conclusion is that the Infinity Engine games (which is where the majority of the examples came from) are as tactical as Jagged Alliance 2, XCOM, and Realms of Arkania.

So, are they or are they not? If they are, please provide official statements for new signature material. If they are not, do elaborate. Let's not dance around it. Everyone's posting examples of the tactical awesomeness of BG2, but nobody's willing to actually say that it's as tactical as the best TB RPGs.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Let's review:

- I make a claim that RT can't beat TB tactics and complexity.
- The RT crowd starts teh riots, eventually challenging my claim that generic enemies are much more dangerous in TB due to the tactics required to beat them.
- If that's indeed the case and both TB and RT are equal in this aspect, then the inevitable conclusion is that the Infinity Engine games (which is where the majority of the examples came from) are as tactical as Jagged Alliance 2, XCOM, and Realms of Arkania.

So, are they or are they not? If they are, please provide official statements for new signature material. If they are not, do elaborate. Let's not dance around it. Everyone's posting examples of the tactical awesomeness of BG2, but nobody's willing to actually say that it's as tactical as the best TB RPGs.

No.

To be clear, the phrase "all else being equal" refers to the basic concept of taking two samples where all variables are kept identical between the two samples except for one, the variable you are testing. This allows you to draw conclusions about the effect of that single variable changing without the results being tainted by other factors.

So your "compare XCOM to Infinity Engine games" thing doesn't work. Not even close. Too many variables change between the two samples to draw conclusions as to what real effect on tactical depth the change from RTwP to TB makes. How much of that is just the way the D&D rules work or were implemented for IE games? You can't tell, and you cannot eliminate such variables from your equations.

You compare wildly different games which include the variable you're testing if you want to mate, but drawing solid conclusions from that is both impossible and foolish.

Feel free to use that as a sig.

 

[Jedi_Learner]

Didn't you have a weasel tag at one time?

 

[Naked Ninja]

Didn't you freak out like 4 or 5 times?

But feel free to refute one of the core principles of scientific testing fellow

 

[Vault Dweller]

No.

Thank you.

So your "compare XCOM to Infinity Engine games" thing doesn't work.

Mine? I wasn't the one who spammed this thread with "I see your RoA example and raise you three Infinity Engine examples" posts.

I'm well aware that the Infinity Engine games don't come close to tactical TB games, but it pleases me that you agree with me.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Lol. You have nothing mate, nothing you can use to "prove" your point.

 

[MetalCraze]

Whoever came up with the idea of doing party-based RPGs and tactical games in real time should be shot.

Close Combat and Myth SUCKED!

Didn't play Close Combat, but Myth was terribly boring. I've played it in coop - and usually coop saves boring games - but even it didn't help.
Simply because Myth is as much tactical game as Diablo, only slooooooooooow.

The problem with real party-based RPG/tactics is that as with any good RPG or tactics there is much micromanagement of characters - and because it is real-time - while you try to baby-sit one of your characters - the other ones are getting raped because you need to baby-sit them all at the same time - so it either leads to "fuck tactics, chaarge" or constant twitching of pause key (if it is RTwP) - which kinda leads to a question - why it isn't TB in the first place if you have to ignore RT and twitch spacebar.

 

[Jedi_Learner]

But feel free to refute one of the core principles of scientific testing fellow

I don't think that's possible with a weasel.

 

[almondblight]

Let me get this straight.

You say TB is better, because generic enemies are stronger, and you don't get that in RT games.

People say, that does happen in RT games.

You say, if you believe that than you think that every RT game with generic enemies has combat as tactical as TB games.

People say, we never said that, no.

You say, ah, so you agree with me.

Logic check failed.

 

[almondblight]

I've played it in coop

so it either leads to "fuck tactics, chaarge" or constant twitching of pause key (if it is RTwP)

Sounds like your partner was saving your ass. You can't "fuck tactics chaaaaarge" in Myth, or you get screwed (well, you can on the level with the forest giants you can, but not the other ones). It took me several tries to get through some of the levels. It was never because of my lack of twitch.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You say TB is better, because generic enemies are stronger...

Didn't say that. Neither did DU with his several aquatoids vs 12 marines example.

You say, if you believe that than you think that every RT game with generic enemies has combat as tactical as TB games.

Didn't say that.

Logic check failed.

Nice try.

 

[MetalCraze]

I was talking about real tactics there - it had nothing to do with Myth.

Myth is not a tactical game - it is more a real-time strategy game except without base building. There is no real tactics in there. You basically have some number of units under your control and go against hordes of enemies (which btw act in a very linear way - like the level was scripted) - and then you command your units just like in any RTS using them strictly in a way that depends on their role. And there everything tactical about the game ends without even really starting.
JA, X-COM, Silent Storm - now those games are tactical and involve more thinking than moving your archers back as enemies move closer to them.

 

[almondblight]

VD vs. VD!

You say TB is better, because generic enemies are stronger...

Didn't say that. Neither did DU with his several aquatoids vs 12 marines example.

Well, my original point, later reinforced by Dark Underlord, was that generic enemies in TB games such as XCOM, Jagged Alliance 2, and Realms of Arkania are very dangerous due to complexities of TB combat.

You say, if you believe that than you think that every RT game with generic enemies has combat as tactical as TB games.

Didn't say that.

- If that's indeed the case and both TB and RT are equal in this aspect, then the inevitable conclusion is that the Infinity Engine games (which is where the majority of the examples came from) are as tactical as Jagged Alliance 2, XCOM, and Realms of Arkania.

 

[almondblight]

I was talking about real tactics there - it had nothing to do with Myth.
...
and then you command your units just like in any RTS using them strictly in a way that depends on their role. And there everything tactical about the game ends without even really starting.

That's BS. That's how I played Myth when I first started. I got slaughtered. You need to use tactics. Maybe next time you shouldn't play co-op?