i much prefer real time. It feels more real. however i also have big problems with the combat in Fallout 3. If they could really tighten the real time system i would be a happy camper.

i just find turn based is waaaay less immersive.

Sorry about that, I was writing bits all over the place, forgot to mention that area. I'm disagreeing about FPS games being just button mashers, if built on a team model (either AI or player) FPS games can be very rewarding at a strategic level and I feel this is what is wrong with Fallout.

TB combat in Fallout 1 and 2 is solo, making the player master of his own fate rather than that of the entire party, severely limiting the strategy and creating some very boring combat.

FPS is also done solo, but in Fallout 3, and companions work how they want to, making Fallout also just about mashing buttons.

Actually, I don't feel that real-time shooter games are just button mashers. (For the sake of this argument, "FPS" might be a convenient title, but to be clear - for these purposes, a third-person shooter is about the same as an FPS.) Sure, adding more units into the mix (like you said - either with AI or multiplayer) adds some extra gameplay wrinkles. But a shooter can be about more than just "mashing buttons" with just solo play as well. I found plenty of strategy in, say, Red Dead Redemption, Uncharted, or Bioshock - and those are largely solo-based (or at least have relatively comprehensive single-player components.)

My point was more that any game can exhibit the weakness of standing still and mindlessly mashing buttons being a viable alternative to actual strategy. Turn-based or real-time don't really come into it in that regard - both modes of play have plenty of games where that's the case. And both are equally capable of involving more than one unit. They're not really any different in those two regards.

Turn based combat has had its day but any future FO game cud possibly have a button on the Pipboy 3000 Mk.2 so that before combat ensues the RPGer can flip a switch on the Pipboy to initiate the Vault Assisted Turn System (or VATS 2) to begin turn based combat. This keeps the shooter community happy with VATS and the RPG community with the VATS 2 switch for Turn Based Combat. Cud they actually program this into a game though, I'm not an expert. I would probably buy a modern turn based FO game but it would be better if both communities cud use the same game but in different ways. But still keep the 1st and 3rd person perspectives of course.

Recent games like Fallout 3 and Dragon Age: Origins, for example, don't actually have any turn based combat at all. In fact what they have is real time with pause that when done properly can work as a nice compromise between the more immersive gameplay of real time and the more tactical system of turn based.

The Age of Decadence has turn based combat, so I guess we'll see how that works out when the game is released. The demo was pretty fun.

Of course it's not going to be a big mainstream hit but whatever.

Cool, I'm going to have to check out that demo. Thanks! I actually hope that this does well enough to encourage larger studios to take the chance and create this type of hex-based map style of turn based combat. If not then maybe some more indie studios will take this idea and expand on it. If not then I guess I'll have to brush up on my Python and make my own game.

I think a large part of these Turn-Based vs Real-Time points would be helped by a brief description of the specific mechanic of a certain types of combat games. An action title like Marvel Ultimate Alliance could easily be played as a button masher, so could a lot of the combat in a Final Fantasy game. (Did anyone else tape down the button on the one released in the US as Final Fantsy 3 during the river rafting level?) Also a game like Gears of War is completley different in gameplay than a Splinter Cell title despite them both being seen as third person combat.

probably

Realtime games came before turn based ones. :shrug:

I've never seen it properly done. The closet I've seen is BG2 and IWD2 ~yet neither one came close. A bad turnbased game is one where you have one option on your turn (almost as bad is two options) ~worst is when these options don't have any significant effects or much difference.

Baldur's Gate & IWD series (and Kotor2) merely allowed the player to change their mind a lot. In a real TB game, that is something that costs you, or in many instance can't actually be done. You use the common rules (that ideally apply to PC and NPC alike) to leverage a win, or manage escape; in some instances to predict your opponents actions. In BG and the rest is just frenetic bedlam.

Just because something has had its day doesn't mean that it had to come first, just that its had its day. In other words Turn Based Combat is annoyingly limited, how far you can run to find good cover, your limited in the actions you can do, it may be harder than real time combat which can be pretty annoying as well if your out gunned or vastly out-numbered but Turn Based is well, worse and should be left in the past where it belongs. Weren't all those adventure games on the Commodore 64 Turned Based? There wasn't a decent adventure game until Dungeon Master on the Atari ST, now that was a game that Smacked it Hard!

Is that to say it can't be done better than how it's been done before and thus shouldn't be even attempted?

Yes, that seems to me to be a rather limited viewpoint, I find. Look what would have happened if everyone had said the same thing about First-Person Shooters back in the day of Wolfenstein. ("FPS games had their chance, but they're so limited - you can't even look up or down, it's only about moving around same-sized corridors that all look the same, and there's really only like two enemies with different sprites through the whole game.")

There's also a couple of points I'd like to nit-pick, while I'm here:

I think that's not really grasping the underlying logic behind turn-based games, and their parallels in real life (and real-time action games.) In turn-based, we're dealing with what you're able to accomplish in a set amount of time. This holds true regardless of whether you're playing in turns, or in real-time. If you can't make it into cover before the end of your turn (giving your enemies a chance to shoot you during their turn,) then the same would have applied in a real-time context, as well. If, say, a round of turns is supposed to equal 3 seconds, and you can't find cover during your turn - then that means that in real-time you wouldn't have made it there in those three seconds, either. There's no more limitation in that regard than you would in real-time. The "rules" are actually rather the same, it's more of a difference in how those are all implemented.

Ditto with "your (sp) limited in the actions you can do." There are no inherent limits to the variety, or quantity, of actions you accomplish in a turn-based game - any more than you would have in a real-time game. Sure, there's only so much you can do in one turn - but once again, don't overlook the primary conceit or a turn-based game. If you wouldn't have had enough... say, "Action Points" during your turn to do everything you wanted, then you wouldn't have had actual time to do that much in the same amount of time in a real-time game. (For example - sure, you can shoot one supermutant three times, run into cover, reload, shoot another supermutant, and then move to another cover location in real-time. But things are also happening concurrently with all of those actions. They all take time to accomplish. All turn-based is doing is separating those actions into quantifiable segments of time.)

And I would argue that turn-based has the potential to open up an even greater variety of possible actions and animations than what you would see in real-time. In any action game, you're limited by the controls. For any action you want the character to be able to accomplish, there's only so many buttons on the controller (or keyboard) available for use. Even lumping a number of them into context-sensitive button presses only goes so far. With turn-based, you are not limited to only what the player can reasonably be expected to utilize with a controller.

Let's look at a simple sword swing in a real-time game. You probably only have one button that swings that sword. You can aim at what body part you want to hit, and it might play different animations on some sort of repeating cycle, but basically you're limited to "swing my sword at this area." That's not the case with turn-based games. Rather, there's the potential for all manner of options. Do you want to slice, stab, feint, block? Which direction do you wish to attack from? Can it be chained into a further combination? Do you want to pull your blow to do less damage, add more power for greater damage at the cost of accuracy? And that's just off the top of my head. And it's only taking one action out of any variety of possible ones - all of which could lead into modifying further actions.

So, no. I don't agree with the argument that turn-based is somehow inherently limiting.

That, again, is sort of missing the point. There's nothing inherently more challenging about one form over the other. If many turn-based games are a bit more unforgiving, or more difficult to master, than a real-time game - I think that's more to do with the target audience than anything. What draws me to turn-based games isn't "ha! I'm so much more "hard-core" than those real-time players - give me a real challenge!" I simply prefer the methodology of the game mechanics, and the variety of options it opens up to the me, as a player.

Sure, whatever floats your boat. I'm certainly not going to argue that everyone should enjoy turn-based games on the same level that I do. I absolutely have no problem with someone disliking something. But trying to argue those opinions as solid objective facts is where I'm going to step in and find issue.

It is limited, I can only run so far, so I'm limited to how far I can run or how many actions I can accomplish that is actually limiting my character, like last night I'm on Level 6 or 5 (can't remember which right now) of the Glow, and I was assaulted by 6 Droids all I wanted to do was run back break out the rocket launcher but because my movements and actions are limited the Droids where right beside me again and thus I couldn't fire the Launcher, where in real time I can run well outta their traveling range and speed, whip out the Rocket Launcher blast away fall back outta their movement range take another blast etc etc wherein with Turn Based I can't really out-run them to employ the heavy weapons without killing myself or taking substantial damage plus having limited actions I waste action points going into my inventory and then taking the Stimpack leaves me with a turn I've wasted when I could been blasting away. Is the Guns & Bullets Mag in the Glow Bugged? Everytime I use the G & B book I instantly die, I thought it was the radiation so I took my pills and Radaway and again as soon as I used the G & B mag I died again, and again. Bugged?

That's still a bit beside the point. Think about it, how much are you able to do in, say, 3-5 seconds when you have fast enemies coming at you, inventory doesn't pause the game and stimuse is not instant? Even if it was real time, the droids would still be after you with the possible effect of you not being able to outrun them as fast as you might want to. The assumption that enemies would be slower - as in you being able to outrun them - does not hold, why would they be slower in RT than in TB, and in addition, your characters speed is representative of the build you have chosen. If, even when taking your time and with a build that offers good amount of APs you can not outrun them, you wouldn't be able to do that in real time either. And by those mechanics accessing inventory does not pause the game and the abstract of using stims is not instant as it, too, uses APs. In this case the problem, for you, would be solved by giving the enemy less APs (or by giving you more APs) and removing the AP cost of inventory and stim use - and that, up to a certain point, you can achieve by building your character appropriately - or, it could be offered by default, which could well be adjustable in the difficultysettings. (talking in general here and not specifically about Fallout)

The fact that the combat wasn't the strongest part of the first games (or the strongest representation of TB combat there can be) does not lead to TB in its essence being inferior or any more limiting than real time. It's just a question of design.

I just seem to be able to do more in real time, I can get quite a lot done if necesssary, maybe its the freedom of movement as opposed to turn based, now the pipboy does pause the game in FO3 so I can actually do more, but if the inventory doesn't pause the game I can still get plenty done RE5 would be an example of that and I got plenty done in real time, I just can do more with the freedom of movement and the actions that I need to do for some reason. Is there a RAD counter on the pip-boy in FO1?

Now turn based combat has been around since the 1970s (I think) and that suited table-top gaming, but with the computataions computers can now do it just seems a bit redundant to keep using it but I did suggest an option in the pipboy so turn-based fans can still use it if they so desired. I thought that was a good idea.
But turn based combat does make you change your combat tactics just the way upping the the difficultly from Normal to Very Hard in FO3 does as well. At heart I don't really mind Turn Based C. I just feel I can accomplish more in real-time.

There is a http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Geiger_Counter in Fallout 1, but (iirc) nothing in the pipboy.

I guess it all comes down to how you approach the game. It requires a different mentality for both. Where in RT you rely on your twitch abilities and go with the flow, in TB you need to stop and think what would be the best next move. I don't see holding to it as redundant because it offers so different gameplay, and what computers are capable of has (imo) nothing more to do with it but giving more possibilities to enhance it. I like if a game makes me think my every move and gives me time to do so, in fast paced shooters (I'm not all that great in FPS games) there are times I'm not always even aware of what's happening if the situation is chaotic enough. I don't "svck" at FPS's and I don't hate them as some of them do offer things I like, but for certain types of games (mostly RPGs and strategy titles... It's a shame they don't make games like Steel Panthers anymore) I would prefer a tactical aspect without having to rely on my own skill other than the thinking part.

The idea of toggleable TB combat is a good one. I'd like it. But (and this is just my unprofessional view) I think it would require a lot - maybe too much - of work and recources, as both RT and TB would require separate features and balancing - that is, if by RT we mean FPS twitching, and by TB purely character skill based tactical view combat. Still, if someone pulled it off (preferably in a Fallout game), I'd love it.

The change in tactics in Fallout 3 when switching difficulties, isn't all that great (at least I didn't find it all that different). I dunno, I found the change in difficulty to be much more visible in the first 2 games because it affected more than just done/recieved damage.

There have been plenty of turn-based games around, but not with the VATS style of play though. Fallout3 is pretty close to being fully TB ... provided you make no shots outside of being in VATS, just making movements (as the enemy does during your sequence of VATS shots), and going back into VATS when prudent. That's almost the continuous turn base play ( CTB ) of Fallout Tactics, which also had the option of turn based play ( TB ), switching from one style of play to the other at will.

So yes it is viable to have two options of play in the same game, we almost have it in Fallout3 with self discipline and choice, but without the move-three-steps kind of number crunched limited movements that does detracts somewhat from a more realism role play.

But yes it would be good to have another turn based type of Fallout game, undated and along the lines of Fallout Tactics ... where you could also switch it on-and-off.

I've played all three major Fallout games,

I won't be buying another one if it's turn based. Even if it's got Crysis level graphics and somehow runs like butter on my rig I still wouldn't buy it. The reason is that I feel turn based combat breaks immersion. In a real battle, you don't take turns shooting at each other. Doing so in a video game when technology has advanced to the point real time combat is possible just breaks immersion. Might as well put a neon sign in the wasteland that says "YOU ARE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME! PLEASE BUY THE SEQUEL!" or something of that nature.

That's not limited, though. That's called trying to run away from an enemy that's just as fast, or faster, than you are. There are similar parallels in real-time. Just yesterday I was playing a bit or Borderlands, a real-time game. They have these creatures called Skags, which are kind of like monster dogs. They run much faster than my character, and can leap extraordinary distances. I was getting swarmed and trying to backpedal as fast as I could, threw a sticky grenade, which stuck to one of them just as he leaped at me, blowing both of us up.

You're not being able to run in one turn, switch weapons, turn around, and fire a heavy weapon at a distance; is the same as in Fallout 3 trying to outdistance a Feral Ghoul, go through the animation to switch weapons, and fire a missile at a safe distance before he can sprint up to you. You can't do all of that in just one turn, sure (unless you have the AP for it.) But you can't do all of that in 3 seconds in Fallout 3, either.

So that dog don't hunt. That's not being any more limited in turn-based. That's being exactly as restricted in what you can do in a short amount of time as you would have been were you playing Fallout 3.

The bolded section represents perhaps one of the most common misconceptions about turn-based games. I no longer have the energy to keep explaining how "taking turns" is not what the fundamental paradigm represents, ad nauseum.

Immersion is a highly subjective matter that differs greatly from person to person (as it represents nothing more than that moment where you cease being aware of the confines of the media you're experiencing - when you are no longer conscious of the words you're reading in a good book, or your field of vision narrows so that you're no longer aware of the borders of your TV screen, that's immersion.) As such, there's really nothing for me to contradict, there. Just know that for some of us, the greater emphasis on strategy, thoughtfulness, and character skill actually increases our sense of immersion during a turn-based game. We're all entitled to our opinions, of course, and if turn-based isn't your cup of tea then I don't think there's any real problem with that. (I don't like Eggs Benedict, but I understand that it's still a popular breakfast choice that other people have valid reasons for enjoying.)

The point is more that the preference between the two modes of play is simply that - preference. That there are many of us who still prefer a turn-based mode of play, and consider it a viable alternative to real-time. Everyone's going to have their own preferences, but I don't see any inherent, objective reason why real-time would be "better" than any other approach.

Yeah I've completed Borderlands, I was talking about robots in my example but I see your point but below is what I do in that situation (in bold). I still have to disagree with you about Limited, sorry Its my personal feeling, opinion and experience that I have more freedom to accomplish the execution of tactics in real time, while I can be more thoughtful in turn based combat but even in real time I still require thought into how to approach and suceed in combat when I come across tougher faster or more heavily armed or numerically superior forces, I know you don't agree but we'll just have to disagree on that point. When enemies are quick I circle round them while firing, that usually does the trick, Turn Based just isn't up to that level of avoidance of enemy fire. Sorry again

Like I said above, I think we all know turn-based isn't everyone's cup of tea. I realize that not everyone likes the same things that I do. I've developed a taste for escargo, for example - my wife can't stand it. She understands that I have valid reasons for liking it, however - just as I understand she has valid reasons for finding it gross.

If you don't like turn-based methodology, that's one thing. There's no arguing an opinion, after all. (That would be like me starting a thread saying everyone should like eating snails sauteed in garlic butter.) If there's things that turn you off, there's nothing I can do about that - nor should I.

But likewise, I'm going to find fault in any attempt to say that one mode of play is inherently "lesser" than the other, or less "capable" in a videogame. Whatever floats your boat, after all - just don't try and tell me your boat is better than mine.

(And about the circling around an enemy thing - that's one example I would argue can make real-time shooters a bit "gamey" for my tastes. I mean, go play a round of Laser Tag and see how well you're able to run circles around one of your friends - it doesn't actually work like that in real life, even if you are able to do so in a videogame.)

Thats a very good point but we are playing video games are we not? I'd be happy with turn based combat if I could move and shoot at the same time, it doesn't necessarily have to be in a circle, if I could move and shoot at the same time in one turn plus get my stationary shot in, I'd be happy to play more turn based games. The topic is the viablility of Turn based combat, I don't think it is viable until I can move and shoot at the same time. I'm with your wife about those snails, YUK! lol A bit Gamey, we are playing games! Can you please explain with you mean by that? A game is a game, its that simple, I like many different games from Fallout to Halo to Silent Hill to Resident Evil, To Gears to Dead Space to Mass Effect so would you enlighten me as to that Gamey reference because hardcoe shooters most certainly don't fall into a category of Gamey, we're playing games so they are all gamey? Whats a gamey game? I'll tell you what a gamey game is...MarioKart And my boats an Aircraft Carrier, yours must be a Dingy. lol

One of the well known secrets of Real-Time combat games is that the fastest moving actor is almost always the player. Since you play as a One-Man-Army carrying your whole arsenal in your back pocket and facing down hordes of enemies one of the mechanics has always been that when the going gets tough you can retreat and resupply. This is why techniques like kiting and circle strafing work so well in shooters, in the rare occasion that an actor is faster that the player they are usually either pretty weak or they are a “boss” character and probably have some other movement restriction. (Can’t jump/climb/fit through the convenient tunnel that leads from one side of the room to the other) One technique to make a fight more difficult is to close off the avenue of retreat right when the fight starts, I’m sure you’ve all seen this. In Turn-Based combat games, specifically Fallouts 1&2, most enemies have speeds/action points on par with the player. You can out run rats, they are small and have short legs, but not deathclaws. This makes targeting attacks and crippling legs a very useful tactic.

The Glow was a military vault that took a direct hit from a nuclear tipped ICBM. The robots are there as security, what type of security force would they be if any random person can outrun them. If you want to hit them with heavy fire power from a distance you need to start shooting before you get too close. You can also use sneak to help close the gap and ensure that you get the first shot, you can also use sneak to get away and end combat. Also remember that accessing your inventory costs the same number of action points regardless of how much or how little you do. So when you do have to go into your inventory, make the most out of it, take 5 stimpacks, a rad-away, a buffout, and a psycho then swap out and reload all your guns, then set a short timer on your dynamite and drop it.

Also the Glow is highly radioactive, you need to get in and get out. Don’t stop to rest or read a book, time still passes and you still accumulate radiation, then your Rad-X wears off.

So would you Real-Timers be more willing to play Turn-Based if it had some of the additional features mentioned earlier? Like my thoughts on allowing attacks while moving, there would have to be penalties to accuracy of course; or having the player plan out their “turn” and then have all the action for that round happen at once, or if you have thoughts on making Turn-Based more exciting to a Real-Timer please share.

It's easier to immerse into role-play realism if the action is more realistic. Immersing into a role-play state is where you approach, to some degree, a semi-dream like state, less aware of the current surroundings. And indeed, when dreaming, actions are totally realistic, and the realism, total. Pauses in action is a sacrifice to deeper immersion of role-play realism, to an extent, that we all accept if wanting to do the action by numbers.