Turn based combat is always either boring or ridiculous. I've seen both.

The 'ridiculous' comes in when the bars advance very fast, there is no pause when it's your turn and you need to move through several menus to get at things like healing - which means you have no time to use any abilities except hit fast and hope like heck they die before you do.

The 'at least slightly boring' comes in everything else. With the traditional 'everyone stands in a line' JRPG approach, there is no tactical element whatsoever and no real strategy, either. Your group is either powerful enough, or they are not.

You can also waste an appalling amount of time on encounters that your group can swat in one hit while the game changes to 'battlefield' then you wait your turn, etc. You could have looted the body and been a hundred yards away in real time with pausing (By far the best system).

The simple fact is that most encounters in any RPG are just not going to be a challenge and turn based combat spins them out totally pointlessly.

Real time with pausing lets you stop to think when you hit one of the rare encounters that actually are challenging (Or not, if you think you can take it anyway). It is simply the best system hands down.

I can't even comprehend why any maker of a Western RPG would choose turn based combat now that modern systems can handle just about anything in the way of live action systems. It may be traditional in JRPGs, but combat has always been their worst feature by a very long way.

By far the best system I've seen in a JRPG is in Final Fantasy 12, and that's real time with pausing. If Western companies copy anything, it should be that, as the system itself is actually excellent (Better than the original Dragon Age, in fact, though not the mod that improves the tactics system).

***

I'm with Alrik on Steam, BTW. If the game DEMANDS Steam in order for me to play offline single player, it is a no-buy from me. It is a particularly pernicious form of DRM that I will have no truck with.

If Steam is OPTIONAL and only required for multi-player, I have no problem with it.

In my case it is always so that "real time with pause" always creates the impression to me - and I' putting it as an extreme here - "real time with some sort of something that remotely looks like turn-based tacked on".

My biggest problem I have with "real time with pause" is tht it *always* defaults in an real-time combat for me. And I assume that for approx. 70% of all players it is so as well. That's why I dislike it. It always goves me the feeling of "something looking like TB being tacked on" - simply because it always *defaults* for action-combat to me.

Personally, I would really like to see see a poll or other play data on how many people in such a game actually use the "pause" feature.

And I have the impression of "real time with pause" not feeling like turb-based. It's just an impression, a feeling I always get. Because the game is designed differently, then.

It begins with the start o any combat. Everything is usually fast-paced within the combat - only to be "hindered" by a pause. The animations are faster than in the TB games I remember.

The pause feels rather like an interruption, and not as being imprelented by design, to me.

There we go:
http://www.lar.net/2012/05/29/divinity-–-original-sin-revealed/

Beaten by Kein ! Never thought I'd live to see the day

Just noticed this on the official website, a Kirill picture, with the following caption:

"ENJOY THE DIVINE MUSIC OF KIRILL POKROVSKY: the award‐winning composer of all previous Divinity games."

aaawwww yeeeess, maybe not the biggest surprise, but I'm still happy for that.

edit: And I do like that the dialogue takes place on the entire screen, without being too intrusive and screen-filling.

Alrik,

The point of 'real time with pause' is to allow most of the action to happen in real time with pausing only when you need it. For most of the games that use it, this amounts to a healing or 'out of ammunition' pause, or for allowing you to give orders to multiple characters in extremis.

For most fights you won't need it and most likely won't bother with it. It's not supposed to be any kind of surrogate for turn based combat.

Oh my goodness, I just saw the screenshots and read the previews online. Larian, this looks so amazing.

I do hope to see a game in the vein of Div 2: DKS again, but I'm more excited about a new isometric one right now.

Thanks, Raze I hope one can be a mage or archer without wearing pieces of platemail armour.



Again, great news! A few challenging fights are much better than lots of effortlessly won fights.



I agree that turn-based combat should not be used when you are able to defeat opponents with just one hit. A hack 'n' slash game with turn-based combat would not be a great idea. But it looks like Larian will focus on fewer, more challenging fights, which I appreciate. And that's where turn-based combat can really shine.



Same here. If a Steam account is required for playing the game, I will probably not buy it, despite its promising features.

The RPGWatch preview only mentioned Steamworks, though, and that's not quite same.

Concerning the co-op dialogue system:



I guess this hasn't been done yet because it looks like a lot of additional work. If there's an additional line for everything one of the lead characters can be saying, that's at least twice as much PC dialogue, and possibly even more dialogue if you allow NPCs to react on disagreements between the lead characters. It does sound like it could have a lot of potential, though if it basically comes down to the lead characters having to agree on one option, I wouldn't need an in-game system for that. When playing co-op, I will use voice chat anyway, and it's easy enough to agree on which dialogue option we will choose via chat. So I hope at least some NPCs will react in a specific way when the lead characters disagree. This would require even more dialogue and could quickly become very costly if all of the dialogue is done by voice-actors.

While we're at it: On the website, you can switch to different languages. Does this mean the game will be fully localized?

Just to add;
PC Only.
Not coming to consoles.

Have you tried Dofus, Heroes of Might and Magic, King's Bounty or Fallout ? They are turn based, and neither of those things you describe. With what you describe, it seems to me you've only played J-RPG (as turn based games).

Gotta go fast!



Oh damn, how did I miss that? It seems like we can expect another awesome soundtrack from Kirill! "Awww yeah" indeed.

Like the website (and the new Dragon Commander one) - at least now we know what the "Original Sin" refers to; if I read it correctly it's the original sins of the two characters. Also it looks like it's set between Dragon Commander and Divine Divinity.

Looks like it will be a lot of fun. As for the turn based thing, well I'm still a bit stand-off ish about that but if combat is going to be reduced then it might not be so bad. Ill definitley be giving a demo a try.

If the game is going to be Steam exclusive personally it would not bother me but I know a lot of people dislike steam. I would have thought it will be purchaseable from Larian's web shop as well.

What is the difference, actually ? I never saw any, I must admit.

Just watched the video at http://www.divinityoriginalsin.com/movies.php

So nostalgic, t'was nice seeing Lar again, talking about Divinity. Feels like 2001 all over again (in a good way). And hello to David.

Steamworks is the programming interface to steam, it offers everything for multiplayer support like making connections and voice communication. It also offers functionality for player identification and anti cheating. And it offers a range of other things, one of them being DRM. I do not think there is a requirement to use DRM though.
It offers almost everything that is needed for allowing players on the Internet to play with eachother. Something that has been tested thoroughly and does not need to be developed anymore.

Well, let me see... I have played HoMM 2, 3, 4 & 5, though not the latest because of the DRM. I have also played a number of the Tarnum campaigns released for 3 (Though not all, as I did not know some of them existed, sadly) and have both expansions for 5.

I have played Armoured Princess (Though not the original King's Bounty), and think it should probably be called 'Bikini Princess' instead! It's a very good game, and I would recommend it.

I have also played more RPGMaker JRPGs than I could even begin to name and could recommend more than a few if you want to know what the good ones are.

In fact, I have done just that already

So yes, I am well aware of what can and cannot be done with turn based combat. And I still maintain that it is always and inevitably a bad choice for RPGs.

Without exception, I have played turn based RPGs in spite of not because of the combat system.

Relax, it's still couple of months before they will end developing Orginal Sin. While i like turn based combat there is possibility that they will add real time with pause option if they decide so.

Excellent news, I have been waiting for a new game from Larian for a while, ever since finishing DKS for the 2nd time.

Plus I LOVE top down RPG's!

Amazing - I simply love the direction you're taking with this one.

Turn-based combat, party interaction and dialogue focus, coop style, explorable world with many secrets, top down perspective... and editor release for the modding community! That sounds almost too good to be true ;-). I will eagerly foolow this one and am really happy you're going against main stream of nowadays with this. All the best for your project!

Edit: Ah, plaese no real-time-stop-motion combat - true turn based combat allows for much deeper tactic systems. At least normal battles should require to take it slowly and think to win. If you must, have real time as an option placing the player severably at disadvantage (because he lacks the time to use the required complex stratgies), so it's only useful against oppopnents much weaker than your party already. The balance of diffculty should be centered around making the right choices in combat by thinking hard (at least on higher difficulty levels).