Pillars of Eternity

[Roguey]

The worst "qol" for this game. Who asked for this ? DoS Larian fans ? RtwP is great, just works. If I were Obsidian I would add a "bug" to turn based mode: once in a while turn based disables and real time takes the place so you get wiped hahaha all the turn based chill goes to drain.

Devs will do things to please themselves.

[Rand]

So I've played some with the new turn based mode.
It works well enough for a game that wasn't designed for it.
And it is pretty well designed, with a lot of the things you want, such as delaying individual turns until later in the round and such.
But it does have some issues.

First, it's a lot slower, even after taking into account all the pausing in RTWP if you want to actually control battles.
And there are a lot of trash enemies in the game.
It's not super slow, but it is definitely not for the impatient.

Second, it's not well explained. Take spellcasting. If you cast a spell that takes time, it doesn't actually use up your action.
Before I understood the initiative tracker, I accidentally uncast a spell by attacking directly, because initializing the spell doesn't lock you out of clicking to attack.
You have to notice that your spell action is added a ways down the list and then manually end your turn so it will autofire when the spellcasting action comes up.
This is used for a few other activities as well. It's fine once you understand, but it is NOT explained and you can easily make mistakes.

I have yet to fully understand how "weapon recovery" and other timing things designed for the real-time game affect turn based. It's not obvious.
The problem is, again, that the game was not designed for this mode and so the action log which usually gives you a lot of information doesn't give you initiative calculations (yet) so you can't see what differences come from fast weapons and slow attack modes, for example.
In real time, you can see that your timing is faster or slower. IF you can notice it. 10% to 20% differences probably aren't easy to spot.

As I develop a greater understanding, I'll make a more comprehensive analysis and explanation.

Ultimately, I like it. Especially because I can comprehend what is happening all the time.
I also feel a lot more tactically in control.
I'm not a fan of managing "spinning plates", and while Pillars' RTWP is about the best you can do, it's still a bad fit for me.

[rusty_shackleford]

So I've played some with the new turn based mode.
It works well enough for a game that wasn't designed for it.
And it is pretty well designed, with a lot of the things you want, such as delaying individual turns until later in the round order using spacebar and such.
But it does have some issues.

First, it's a lot slower, even after taking into account all the pausing in RTWP if you want to actually control battles.
And there are a lot of trash enemies in the game.
It's not super slow, but it is definitely not for the impatient.

Second, it's not well explained. Take spellcasting. If you cast a spell that takes time, it doesn't actually use up your action.
Before I understood the initiative tracker, I accidentally uncast a spell by attacking directly, because initializing the spell doesn't lock you out of clicking to attack.
You have to notice that your spell action is added a ways down the list and then manually end your turn so it will autofire when the spellcasting action comes up.
This is used for a few other activities as well. It's fine once you understand, but it is NOT explained and you can easily make mistakes.

I have yet to fully understand how "weapon recovery" and other timing things designed for the real-time game affect turn based. It's not obvious.
The problem is, again, that the game was not designed for this mode and so the action log which usually gives you a lot of information doesn't give you initiative calculations (yet) so you can't see what differences come from fast weapons and slow attack modes, for example.
In real time, you can see that your timing is faster or slower. IF you can notice it. 10% to 20% differences probably aren't easy to spot.

As I develop a greater understanding, I'll make a more comprehensive analysis and explanation.

Ultimately, I like it. Especially because I can comprehend what is happening all the time.
I also feel a lot more tactically in control.
I'm not a fan of managing "spinning plates", and while Pillars' RTWP is about the best you can do, it's still a bad fit for me.

My guess is they backported deadfire's turnbased mode, which is a shame. It was also quite poor.
Time-based RTwP can be converted into time-based turn-based mode elegantly, but round-based completely changes entire game mechanics.

[Rand]

My guess is they backported deadfire's turnbased mode, which is a shame. It was also quite poor.

I didn't play enough POE2 to tell, especially in turn-based to say for sure.
But I think there are significant differences, and it doesn't seem quite so clunky as I remember.

[WhiteShark]

My guess is they backported deadfire's turnbased mode, which is a shame. It was also quite poor.

I didn't play enough POE2 to tell, especially in turn-based to say for sure.
But I think there are significant differences, and it doesn't seem quite so clunky as I remember.

Is the PoE1 version round-based?

[rusty_shackleford]

The worst "qol" for this game. Who asked for this ? DoS Larian fans ? RtwP is great, just works. If I were Obsidian I would add a "bug" to turn based mode: once in a while turn based disables and real time takes the place so you get wiped hahaha all the turn based chill goes to drain.

Excluding Grounded, I think - to the surprise of quite a few, perhaps - Pillars of Eternity is Obsidian's best-selling game*. The reason to add a turn-based mode is to port it to non-PC platforms, so it's possible that Obsidian is being leaned on by Microsoft for releasing back to back flops.


* - In terms of overall profit, total copies sold is probably FNV since it's a cult game and frequently on sale for a dollar.

[Rand]

My guess is they backported deadfire's turnbased mode, which is a shame. It was also quite poor.

I didn't play enough POE2 to tell, especially in turn-based to say for sure.
But I think there are significant differences, and it doesn't seem quite so clunky as I remember.

Is the PoE1 version round-based?

Yes. Or at least the initiative tracker is divided into rounds.

► Show Spoiler

Don't ask me to explain the rabbit running icon, or why the turn next round is gold, recessed, and has a green icon-bit on the right edge. I don't understand yet.

[rusty_shackleford]

My guess is they backported deadfire's turnbased mode, which is a shame. It was also quite poor.

I didn't play enough POE2 to tell, especially in turn-based to say for sure.
But I think there are significant differences, and it doesn't seem quite so clunky as I remember.

Is the PoE1 version round-based?

Yes. Or at least the initiative tracker is divided into rounds.

► Show Spoiler

What a tasteless UI addition, I can't remember if Deadfire's looked that bad or not. Looks like someone mocked it up in Word. Looks especially bad because Pillars had a good looking UI.

[Rand]

The combat controls:

I'm not 100% what the two buttons in the lower left actually do.
One seems to be an hourglass, but is always greyed out and inactive.
The one with the parallel lines may be the button "delay action"?
Edit:
Hourglass is "delay action" and the other is "pause".
Although why you need a pause in turn-based is a bit puzzling.
It does stop the music and background sounds, so there's that.

Turn based can be toggled on or off at any time (except in combat) through the rather poor control on the upper right of the center bottom set.

It's a green dot in the upper position when on and a red dot in the lower position when off.
Rather poor UI design, in my opinion. Both very small, yet twice as large as it needs to be.
And just a re-use of the element for "toggle for auto end turn" in the combat bar.

[Acrux]

It's almost as if people who specialize in UI might be useful after all.

[Rand]

What a tasteless UI addition, I can't remember if Deadfire's looked that bad or not. Looks like someone mocked it up in Word. Looks especially bad because Pillars had a good looking UI.

Note how "End Turn" is centered horizontally, but not vertically.
And that it IS text. The rest of the UI was well designed to not need visible text.

Additionally, the "action available" icon. A half-filled diamond?
Meaningless. A poor choice.