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Real Time, or Turn Based?
lorewise
Member Posts: 17
It seems like there is a lot of discussion about the future of MMOs. The trend in most persistent world MMOs seems to be moving toward more action based combat. Games like Everquest, Warcraft, Star Wars The Old Republic, Rift, and Guild Wars all have very similar combat mechanics. Some innovations have been seen in these games but for the most part we're talking about real time combat.
My question is, would you play a game that is set in a fully realized three dimensional world, if that game utilized turn based combat? If so what would you want to see in an MMO of this kind. If not why not?
|Examples|
Most of the Final Fantasy series, and especially FF Tactics. For the most part these games were also set in an isometric world and not 3D.
Suggested by users, MMOS that mix 3D worlds with turn based combat: Wizard 101 and Atlantica.
Table top gaming is also an example of turn based combat, games like Warhammer and Warmachine would be considered tactical turn based gaming. The Heroes Of Might And Magic series is a good example of the table top style set in a video game.
|Feedback|
Yes / Maybe
- Feels more like a roleplaying game
- Action combat is fun but it's too hectic / fast paced, turn based combat would fix that
- More tactics, more thought put into decisions
- Less reliant on "twitch" gaming or reflexes
No / Doubtful
- Breaks immersion
- Not realistic or visceral enough
- Too slow, don't want to wait for other people to take actions
- Too impractical in a massive world
- PvP would be tedious or boring
Comments
What do you mean by turn-based?
Anything that involves waiting for other people to submit their turn is not going to scale very well as your number of players increases. If you are thinking of giving players one action every so many units of time, then you're essentially talking cooldowns.
Id love a really good turn based mmo. Id love to see some combat mechanics like from ShadowHearts(ps2) or Lost Odyssey(XBox 360) and Phantasy Star 3/4 combo attacks.Final Fantasy was the first RPG I can think of that utilized turn based combat. Wakfu uses this kind of mechanic, but Wakfu is isolinear not 3D.
Final Fantasy was the first RPG I can think of that utilized turn based combat. Wakfu uses this kind of mechanic, but Wakfu is isolinear not 3D.
Pirate101 is turn based grid combat in 3d.Exactly. OP, turn-based combat required a pause in time for playing one's turn. How would you go about incorporating such a mechanic in your fully realized 3D world without instancing the combat?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Pause for a moment ask yourself what happens when three people are involved in a fight, or four, or ten.
If your game can be reduced to phased-out minigames, then you can get 1-in-1 or maybe even larger groups to work. Essentially your world is just a lobby you walk aorund between joining board games (I believe WoW's pet battles work this way?). The question is whether, as the main mechanic of a game, players would recognize the result as still being an MMO.
Turns can have a timer, meaning an individual player would only have a determined amount of time to make a decision in any kind of PvP or team based combat, but that's assuming that there even has to be a wait. Every "turn" as it is could have multiple stages, and each player can determine their next move or perhaps be doing something else while other players are assigning orders.
My question isn't would you play Warcraft if it was turn based, my question is would you play in a 3D MMO if the combat was turn based. I've yet to see anything like this, but I think it could be done.
I haven't played any of those games sadly, but I love turn based games. Final Fantasy X is similar to what I'm imagining, however with a persistent and possibly changing world.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Hmm..
First of all all those Games above are half turn based.. because basicly the global cooldown is the turn, and you can just make one action per turn.
To your idea about completely turn based. Truth is, it will not really work in a massive multiplayer environment. You have to at least set a fixed time for every turn, which makes your game again to a half turn based game like the ones above.. maybe with a hight global cooldown(longer turn).
Why? Well.. can you really expect for every player on your server to wait for someone, who will require minutes for one turn? It is just not possible. Turn based is only viable in single player or very restircted multiplayer games. Even Civilization turned away from the 100% turn based combat, because of the problems in multiplayer.
I personally would even like much more real real time combat in mmos.. although i like for some games a good turn based system, but not for massive multiplayer or even multiplayer.. turn based just works 1vs1 or with a few friends(up to 3-5 players)
Try Atlantica Online. Turn based combat works perfectly there. Each side is on a timer, you don't have to wait for players on your side.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Would MxO's interlocked combat be considered turn based?
Mob attacked -> player damage or auto-response animated
Player attacked -> mob damage or auto-response animated
... repeat ...
Turn Based doesn't always mean waiting to take your turn.
Player Turns - Players take turns one at a time
Game Turns - Each game turn all the players select their move
As others have said, Atlantica had pretty good turn-based combat. Unfortunately, everything else in the entire game was awful, leaving the game as a proof that good combat can't save a mostly combat game. No really, everything else: maintenance times, leveling rates, quest system, camera angles, grouping mechanisms, everything.
Wizard 101 also had turn-based combat. The reason the combat there was slow was not that it was turn-based, but rather, that it wanted to make you spend most of your time waiting for the same animations to play every single round.
You can also do semi turn-based combat like Bang Howdy, where each character can move once every 20 seconds, and each character has an independent timer. Or like Europa Universalis II, where it's technically turn-based, but the turns go by pretty fast.
But the real question is whether the combat is good. It's possible to make good turn-based combat in online games, and has been done before. But it's also possible to make bad turn-based combat, just like it's possible to make bad real-time combat.
When you got "in range" of a monster, a battle circle formed with 4 slots for each side. There, if another monster "touched the circle", it would be added to the combat. It usually had a limit of 2 monsters per player.
If a player wanted to join in, they just ran into the circle to be added to the combat. This would open another slot for the monsters to add another (up to 4 total for each side).
Each round, initiative was determined randomly. You would select your spell to use from your spell deck, much like Magic: The Gathering. You had 30 seconds to decide. If you did not choose before time ran out, you passed for that turn.
Once all sides were ready, it went clockwise for one side, then the other side.
There was a lot strategy involved in choosing what spell card to cast when. Could I make it through another round before casting a healing spell? Is this the time to cast a CC spell? Let's see... the wizard on my left could benefit from this buff spell, and I cast before them. Do I pass this round to save up my power pips (cost for casting spells)?
Because Wizrd101 was ONLY spell based combat, this worked well. I don't know how well it could in melee/ranged combat scenarios.
Unfortunately, many players today think this would be boring to the max because they couldn't move and click on buttons.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Just like they do in Wizard 101, you would go into combat mode and all participants would take their turn based on initiative and any other bonuses applied. It could be grid based like many of the games of old or some localized kind of arena similar to the Heroes of Might and Magic series.
I would love a fully realized persistant world MMO with turn based or any other more tactical, slower paced combat mechanic.
I came to MMOs to get away from all of the action / arcade style games, only to eventually have it corrupted by the action junkies who would rather ruin our genre than stick with the games that already cater to their play styles. It's one thing to have the genre expand to MMOFPS or MMORTS and so forth, it's quite another when they gripe so much they end up changing virtually every upcoming MMORPG to look and play more like Doom than the games many of us came here to love.
Turn based =single player gaming FFX .
I prefer when login to a MMO to have more realsitic combat,with weapon delays and outside factors.FFXI
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I guess we just have different ideas of what a "fully realized 3D world" is. I have nothing against the way KingsIsle does combat and I rather enjoy it, but it does create a distinct and unavoidable break in the world environment when one joins battle.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I like how MMO combat is today. Turn-based is great for single player RPGs. I loved turn-based when I played Chrono Trigger. But what I love about MMOs is that its a hybrid of turn based coupled with time management (essentially cooldowns). It keeps the pace at a good level while maintaining the stat based strategy of combat.
Turn-based in an MMO today would be too slow. Anything you implement to speed it up would make it similiar to how it is today, or possibly worse.
I will say I dont like the action combat in my MMORPG. I dont like moving when I fight ... but thats a throwback to how I originally played RPGs to begin with.