Interview Age of Decadence - Big in France

[Vault Dweller]

a) strong and dangerous are two different things. For example, an generic enemy with 200 HP and kill-in-a-single-attack ability is strong. A fucking aquatoid who could be killed in a single shot and yet is capable of killing several marines who aren't careful enough is dangerous.

b) I didn't say anything "every RT game with generic enemies". People used Infinity Engine games examples to show how tactical and challenging these games were, which is why I said that the obvious conclusion is that these games were as tactical as JA2, RoA, XCOM.

Is there anything else I can clarify for you while I'm at it?

 

[Armacalypse]

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?

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.

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.

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. To make this autopause function similar but superior to interrupt systems in TB games the game would only require that the time it takes for the character to notice the enemy - and thus put him on your screen - would be based on the character's stats. When the game has autopaused after the new enemy shows up on your screen you only have to give the order to attack, and the actions of both characters would be played out simultaneously. The one who gets the first hit would be at almost as great an advantage as anyone who wins the interrupt roll in a TB game, but he wouldn't be at that advantage if he used the time for anything but shooting.

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.

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.

I always react when the enemy changes direction in Total War for example. I make my troops move with them like a basketball player or something, otherwise they could easily flank me.

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.

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. 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.

The TB situation makes it seem as if your 2 characters enter the doorway at the same time, and the enemy only has time to kill one of your characters before your other character kills him. But that situation also has all the advantages of sending in only one character first. Sending in all your character at the same time wouldn't be such a good idea if there were booby-traps and heavy machine gunners at the other side.

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.

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.

Besides that, 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).

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. If the game for example auto-pauses each time a character starts a new action or changes his running direction most of the problems would be gone (though I agree that depending on the number of units the game could be really slow, but that could probably be overcome by smart design decisions like being able to order/configure your characters to automatically react to situations and calculate the best route to intercept enemies). Though there would still be the situation with the machine gunner where you have to manually pause. Not when the machine gunner starts running towards you, but when you decide when the range between you and the enemy is optimal for you to take the shot. But this situation could also be fixed. If, when the autopause activates because the enemy changes direction, you could give your unit an order to take a shot when/if that enemy comes into a certain range that you yourself decide.

And I also understand where you are going with the reflex involved in manually pausing. If a person is an adept Starcraft player maybe he could "cheat" by reacting to situations not covered by autopause, but why then not just disable manual pausing? With only autopause I doubt the tactical options would be any less or make less sense than in a TB game. There would maybe be situations where it would make more sense for your character to for example change targets, but that would still probably not make less than the numerous similar situations in TB games, like when your character can't do anything to the enemy that runs straight trough the whole room unharmed because you characters are out of action points to interrupt him.

 

[Naked Ninja]

strong and dangerous are two different things. For example, an generic enemy with 200 HP and kill-in-a-single-attack ability is strong. A fucking aquatoid who could be killed in a single shot and yet is capable of killing several marines who aren't careful enough is dangerous.

Go ahead and explain how you can't have the second example, aquatoid, in RT please.

Fragile enemies with strong attacks : The sole domain of TB games!!!

 

[MetalCraze]

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?

Except we weren't slaughtered. Quite the contrary.
Myth is very linear and usually has you finding the only proper solution for the current encounter - it never gives you any freedom - even the pseudo-open maps are in fact like corridors - and because the game is so predictable - it is easy to complete the same level even after you got raped on it first - because everything will go exactly the same way the second time.
We were playing on the hardest difficulty btw.
I btw remembered what else plays like Myth - missions with the limited amount of units from C&C1 and RA1 - exactly the same gameplay.

 

[almondblight]

a) strong and dangerous are two different things. For example, an generic enemy with 200 HP and kill-in-a-single-attack ability is strong. A fucking aquatoid who could be killed in a single shot and yet is capable of killing several marines who aren't careful enough is dangerous.

I'll change it to dangerous.

b) I didn't say anything "every RT game with generic enemies". People used Infinity Engine games examples to show how tactical and challenging these games were, which is why I said that the obvious conclusion is that these games were as tactical as JA2, RoA, XCOM.

Ah, meant to put "strong generic enemies" in there but screwed up. I'll change it to dangerous generic enemies.

How about this:

"Let me get this straight.

You say TB is better, because generic enemies are dangerous, 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 dangerous 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."

We good?

 

[Vault Dweller]

strong and dangerous are two different things. For example, an generic enemy with 200 HP and kill-in-a-single-attack ability is strong. A fucking aquatoid who could be killed in a single shot and yet is capable of killing several marines who aren't careful enough is dangerous.

Go ahead and explain how you can't have the second example, aquatoid, in RT please.

You are literate, aren't you? Read DU's post.

Fragile enemies with strong attacks : The sole domain of TB games!!!

Of course not. Fragile enemies with strong attacks is RT equivalent of TB tactics.

 

[almondblight]

Myth is very linear and usually has you finding the only proper solution for the current encounter -

And as you wrote, that solution you have to find is always "Chaaaaaaaaarge!" You convinced me.

I btw remembered what else plays like Myth - missions with the limited amount of units from C&C1 and RA1 - exactly the same gameplay.

 

[Vault Dweller]

How about this:

"Let me get this straight.

You say TB is better, because generic enemies are dangerous, 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 dangerous 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."

We good?

Almost.

How about this:

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

People say, RT games are very tactical and they do have dangerous generic enemies; here are some examples from the Infinity Engines games

I say, if you believe that than you think that the Infinity Engine games are as tactical as TB games.

Then Gareth the comedian (not people) says, you can't compare TB games to the Infinity Engine games, it totally doesn't work.

I say, I agree. "

We good?

 

[MetalCraze]

And as you wrote, that solution you have to find is always "Chaaaaaaaaarge!" You convinced me.

You obviously have problems with reading then.

Let me help

Simply because Myth is as much tactical game as Diablo, only slooooooooooow.

The problem with real party-based RPG/tactics

See - here I started to talk not about Myth. And called it anything but party-based tactics. Amazing, isn't it?

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.

Which means - either it is easier to just rush the enemies -or- if that doesn't work - twitch spacebar because micromanaging (and Myth units can't do anything usually besides move and attack - just like in any typical RTS) every unit during a battle where they are being raped in real-time is not comfortable - thus basically turning the game into an incest version of TB.
See - everything is quite simple when you actually try to see something besides what fanboi-selective-reading(tm) lets you to see.

I'm interested btw where did you find real tactics in a very linear and heavy-scripted game that is Myth.

 

[Eldritch]

Skyway you're one of the most bullshit generating people I've ever seen on these boards. You either play games in a really sloppy like way, quickly finishing them or not even doing that and come up with this most retarded final verdict that is set on stone and never changes, which you later promptly spew every time that particular game comes up in a discussion. Most games aren't actually shit as you always claim, most of the time, you are shit.

-Myth requires only one linear solution to pass every level.

See, when someone spews something like this, I will either assume he's retarded or haven't played the game thoroughly.

Myth has, terrain, physics and different units that are useful with their general fighting style or special abilities that can be useful in certain situations, but never in a rock-paper-scissors way. The parameters from these gameplay mechanics provide the necessity for tactics in a more general, micro level.

See, I'm a guy with a slower reaction time. I like to plan my shit earlier to eliminate the element of surprise I can hardly deal with. Most of the Myth missions usually provide multiple approaches that cater to either the fast reflexed micro guy or the planning, intelligent macro guy.

To give one good example, in the mission "Flight from Covenant(?)" where you escape from the ruins of a besieged city in Myth:TFL, you have two paths to follow to reach your destinated escape tunnels outside the city. One is through a dark swamp with deep, murky waters having exploding wights randomly coming out and devastating your army IF- you aren't very fast and very good with the micro. The other path is the main road that has a huge army of fast Myrmidon shock troops camped on the way. I usually take on the huge army because I can't trust my micro and I'm really good with planning how to deal with huge battles with miniimal losses. I set satchel charges with my dwarves at a narrow position of my choice and then set my warriors in a reversed V-shaped formation with archers positioned at the sides. I sent some bait troops to lure the huge army to where the hidden satchel charges are and then have my well-positioned dwarves explode more than half of their ranks, sacrificing a couple of inexperienced noob warrior bait I don' give a fuck about along with the explosion. There were many missions that provided different approaches for you to choose according to how well you think you'll execute them.

Long story short, you are bullshit incarnate, Skyway. Go play the series again.

 

[Eldritch]

in a very linear and heavy-scripted game that is Myth.

Kill yourself. I still remember how differently I've won certain missions with hilariously unorthodox tactics that net me even fewer casualties than the ones appearing to be the obvious ones.

Kill yourself.

 

[kingcomrade]

I've suggested he do this before, he didn't listen.

I don't really follow this argument that well. Real time is about clicking real fast, clicking real fast can make up for deficiencies in most areas to at least some extent. Starcraft was really fun up until the point I realized I was getting better because I was learning to click faster.

Is the argument about difficulty? Usually difficulty in real time games is more obnoxious because it's about multiplying the number of clicks you have to make in the same space of time to win.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Not only is there no viable autopause setting for the situation you describe

Well damn....consider my premises checked. Maybe I mistook it for something a mod added in? Whoops.

(apart from maybe "every turn" which makes RTwP games suck even more, IMHO)

Eh, I can buy that. It does seriously interrupt the flow of combat, one of the things real time with pause is "supposed to" do well.

Because it only covers the "you didn't pause fast enough" problem. It doesn't get your meleers near enough to intervene before the spell is cast. It doesn't make your casters able to cast that round (might have already cast a quick spell, attacked with a weapon or be in casting a spell with a different target). It doesn't make your attacks hit even if they are in time.

No, not always. But it does give you time to at least do something, whether it be chugging a potion or two, moving your forces out of harm's way to minimize losses, or retreating. Usually there's always some near-instant spells or options available as well. Your fighters can swap to their ranged weapon, mages can bust out a magic missile (or mirror image/stoneskin for instant defense), or players can have their characters use some sort of item, like a wand or such.

I don't remember if there was a certain interrupt in BG if a caster took dmg but I don't think there was.

Besides cheesy assholes like Demogorgon and Melissan, any hit during a spell's casting time would be enough to fizzle it in BG1, BG2, and IWD1. IWD2 added the 3rd edition goofiness of an extra check.

All of that in the (half-a-)second it takes the enemy to cast his spell.

Errr....that's a bit of an exaggeration, no? Most dangerous spells are around a full-round casting time, giving a party ample time to deal with something. Not so much at extreme low levels like in early BG1 and IWD games, but I guess that could be compared to rookie troops fighting Mutons and Ethereals in Xcom and their reactions and accuracy failing them.

RTwP systems can be unresponsive and chaotic. When you are having a fight with dozens of enemies, unless you have a dozen eyes to see what everyone is doing at the same time it becomes annoying to use RTwP and a quick eye becomes more important than strategy.

Strawman perhaps? Dozens of enemies in almost any game can be unresponsive and chaotic; it's not a problem only with RTWP. Imagine 60 versus 60 fights in Xcom or JA2. It would be freaking crazy, just because of the sheer volume of combatants on the field. Even with turn-based, it would be difficult to keep track of everything, who has what line of sight, which enemies are poised to strike which troops, where your specialists are, how to best use your action points, and so on. I'm not saying it would be any easier in RTWP (in fact, it could go either way), but to slam RTWP games for this is a little silly.

Also, your situation is false. You never fight dozens of enemies on multiple fronts in the Infinity Engine games, or any RTWP games I've played for that matter unless you really mess with things.

God of War and Heavenly Sword are loads of fun.

You need some Ninja Gaiden (Black or 2) stat. Don't settle for the Oblivion of action gaming.

Anyway, just out of curiosity, did my response to you get lost in the April 1st tomfoolery, or are 4 or so other brick walls more than enough "fun"? I wouldn't blame you, you got better things to do and all.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Your response?

 

[MetalCraze]

Eldricht, why so dramatic?

Myth has, terrain, physics and different units that are useful with their general fighting style or special abilities that can be useful in certain situations

My god - just like in any other typical RTS out there.

but never in a rock-paper-scissors way.

I never said anything about rock-paper-scissors. However you just did.

The parameters from these gameplay mechanics provide the necessity for tactics in a more general, micro level.

Oh lawdy - move/attack is now considered "micro". What's next - Drakensang is too complicated?

See, I'm a guy with a slower reaction time. I like to plan my shit earlier to eliminate the element of surprise I can hardly deal with.

I don't know how slow your reaction is - but in Myth enemies are so goddamn slow and always are at the same pre-scripted positions that you must try really hard to be surprised by anything there.

fast reflexed micro guy

Myth needs fast reflexes lawl

To give one good example, in the mission "Flight from Covenant(?)" where you escape from the ruins of a besieged city in Myth:TFL, you have two paths to follow to reach your destinated escape tunnels outside the city. One is through a dark swamp with deep, murky waters having exploding wights randomly coming out and devastating your army IF- you aren't very fast and very good with the micro. The other path is the main road that has a huge army of fast Myrmidon shock troops camped on the way. I usually take on the huge army because I can't trust my micro and I'm really good with planning how to deal with huge battles with miniimal losses. I set satchel charges with my dwarves at a narrow position of my choice and then set my warriors in a reversed V-shaped formation with archers positioned at the sides. I sent some bait troops to lure the huge army to where the hidden satchel charges are and then have my well-positioned dwarves explode more than half of their ranks, sacrificing a couple of inexperienced noob warrior bait I don' give a fuck about along with the explosion. There were many missions that provided different approaches for you to choose according to how well you think you'll execute them.

So basically - two linear corridors with the same enemies being in the exactly same positions every time you start a level and of course you use a predictable "tactics" to lure the enemy at your bombs because you can't rush their bigger army - which is kinda how you do this in every such moment in Myth.
So what are other, different positions I wonder?
And what you have described is very typical for any other RTS that has you complete missions with limited number of units (see Star Craft and C&C for example).
It gives you a special number of units and of special types needed for pre-scripted things in missions which will be always the same. And it isn't non-linearity, but a railroad.
Good tactical games that are really tactical give you so much more.

 

[Ardanis]

I haven't played JA2 or XCOM yet, so can't make valid statements about them. Still, as I understand the matter, the units there are mainly one-hit-one-kills, which obviously suggests to think very careful and doesn't forgive the slightest mistakes (compared to Diablo2's Paladin, who can painlessly stand surrounded by mobs for several minutes and take no scratch at all).

IE games don't have such an edge, but like I've said it doesn't mean they can't. Maybe the reason is that designers thought that players would be annoyed to hit spacebar every second, therefore the encounters are all easy and don't require any serious planning (the reason why there're so many tactical mods around to fix the problem). Myself, I do have a habit to hit it very often, even when confronting a bunch of mid grunts (during my example fight I had to hit it almost every half a second to keep the party alive).

Fights are hard and are not designed to make sure that you win (in fact, they are often designed to put you back into your place), so you’d need the turn-based system to have a fighting chance.

I probably have misinterpreted this bit at first. Fights being so hard that they're next to impossible to beat in RT can be a valid reason of course.

I however do think that it's exactly "TB is for tacticians, RT is for 10 year olds" way of thinking that keeps tactical RTwPs from being made, because RT != RTwP. Or even players' laziness, if they can't keep a hand onto the spacebar (they certainly do keep another hand onto the mouse). Some innovativeness.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Your response?

Posting responses to multiple people in one post is how I'm going green (in addition to hulking out a lot).

 

[Vault Dweller]

I haven't played JA2 or XCOM yet, so can't make valid statements about them...

Then don't waste your time making assumptions and go play them. You'll thank me later.

Still, as I understand the matter, the units there are mainly one-hit-one-kills...

No.

 

[Jasede]

I wonder if somebody soon will come out and say Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen have no tactics because they're real-time and then the ghost of Sun-Tzu will slap him.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I wonder if somebody soon will come out and say Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen have no tactics because they're real-time and then the ghost of Sun-Tzu will slap him.

I mentioned these two yesterday, but apparently it was lost in the sea of Andhaira.

 

[Jasede]

I haven't played JA2 or XCOM yet.

It is in your best interest to fix this fatal character flaw of yours.

 

[Jasede]

I wonder if somebody soon will come out and say Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen have no tactics because they're real-time and then the ghost of Sun-Tzu will slap him.

I mentioned these two yesterday, but apparently it was lost in the sea of Andhaira.

I don't know, did you say they were tactical or they weren't? I still need to fill my nerdrage quota for today.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Also, as for moar RT examples - ever played Dark Omen and Shadow of the Horned Rat? Are they also really really easy, 'autopilotable' and don't need any sort of strategy?

 

[Eldritch]

:dumb:

Dissectin' yo post and responding to dozens of out of context quotes in a most retarded out of context way... How Skyway of you.

Skyway you are so goddamn dumb and obviously haven't even played the game because the way you recalled that mission in my particular example is so obvious you don't know what the fuck you're talking about it hurts my mind. You just have no idea about how that mission played and its obvious you either just haven't played the game or just bullshitting about it as usual to create yourself some illusory example to serve whatever stupid made-up point you were trying to compose in this thread.

There is not any fucking OBVIOUS narrow corridor for you to ambush that army PATROLLING that goddamn road, there were a couple of forest/hill areas you COULD use as a not so perfect choke point. And if you did not position your army well out of the 20 different formation styles there or haven't set the satchel charges right or haven't figured out to keep your bait as a multiple squad that could at least hold the lightning FAST Myrmidons for a split second on the satchel charge area you are DEAD. See, they put the FAST Myrmidons there so you can't just blow them up with your satchel charge trick as usual with a mostly Thrall army. You have to PLAN something to figure out how to pwn them without any obvious narrow choke points or scripted events to help you. If you are dumb and can't plan anything worth shit you go for the crazy micro swamp area and avoid the Myrmidon army. BOTH APPROACHES ARE VIABLE, THEY WERE TWO(2) DIFFERENT WAYS TO WIN THAT MISSION ACCORDING TO YOUR SKILL. No 1(ONE) forced approach, nothing heavily scripted, that Myrm. army is patrolling around that road, so the tactics of the former approach may even slightly vary in a replay. I usually played the game in the normal speed and those packs of Wights appearing too close to your army from their hiding positions under the murky swamp lake which makes their position INVISIBLE harder for me to deal with. See, If I were some crazy twitch-monkey I would have chosen to go through that swamp and evaded those motherfucking exploding wights coming out of nowhere. The missions are well designed in the Myth games.

And the way you summarized positioning and terrain objects&physics affecting the gameplay and allowing for a lot of tactical subtleties to "run and attack" made me paralyzed for a straight five minutes like one of those wights just exploded near me.

Goddamn you're dumb.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yeah, but on the whole, turn-based combat has come a long way from Ultima to X-Com, to Jagged Alliance 2, to Silent Storm. It's had a longer time to develop.

Longer than what? RTwP? It was around since at least 1992. 17 years not long enough? Or maybe it's because there is nothing to develop? It's real time and you can pause it. That's all there is to it.

All I'm saying is that turn-based isn't necessarily better than RTWP. Turn-based done well is (for the most part), but that doesn't imply that turn-based as a whole is superior in all aspects.

Proof?

Thing is, it's too much on the anticipation side. Yes, a mage can mess things up for your crew...but he can also be completely passive. He could just as easily cast a "harmless" stoneskin spell as a souped up death spell. You don't know until it's too late and there's no way of knowing.

Yeah, and as you are making your way toward a downed UFO, you have no way of knowing if the bastards are hiding somewhere in the area, waiting for you to open that door so that they can shoot you in your face, or somewhere inside the ship. Which is why you don't run toward the ship like a 5 year old and don't open any doors unless you have back ups and enough AP for a reaction shot.

Turn-based will bone you over incredibly hard for something like this.

Mmm.... bone me over incredibly hard....

Unforeseen events can't be responded to because of the nature of turn-based combat. It's not very fair, nor very fun.

Well, then I guess we disagree on what makes combat fun, because what you've described is my wet dream.

For a final example, look at chess. Turn-based with full disclosure. You can know and see everything your opponent knows and sees about the current game situation. There's no queen magically having a fireball that you couldn't possibly predict, or a rook coming from off the board to put your king into checkmate. Turn-based works in this kind of environment...not so much in the unpredictable world of fantasy and such.

Oh come on. You know that it's a fantasy game and that it comes with fireballs and magic spells. You don't know what that mage is going to do, but you know what he's capable of doing and being ready for whatever shit that can happen is what makes it fun. That's what wizard's versatility and value is all about. You have a bunch of spells and you have to make a guess and memorize a handful of spells that may come in handy today.