Although there is a 10fps limit, and it seems that the real time games are limited to being pointless clickfests, or rather button mashing an 'attack' verb/macro over and over. The programmer can easily get around this.

I prefer a game to be semi-turn based where the battles are in real time, however they play out similar to the way World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XI play. You engage an enemy, and your character begins an auto-attack function where he or she will continue to attack said enemy with their basic attack. You then have the option of using your skill in queue in order to defeat the enemy at your own pace.

This allows the game to have parties where you can strategically coordinate your peoples locations to keep a healer in the back, safe from harm, and to have more physical characters up close to engage in the enemies.

I find when it comes to turn base games(now I'm thinking the style of Final Fantasy 1 when I answer this), your players are all on equal standing. Meaning that there's a [100/#characters]% chance that you're going to get hit. This means that there is absolutely no safety for mages. Unless of course you introduce a front-row / back-row system. Which really doesn't stop the mages from being out of harms way, but makes them take less damage.

For an idea of what I'm talking about, compare Stolen Lands to Final Fantasy: The Hunting Grounds.

Any discussion is welcome, whether you agree or disagree.

I think either of them would work pretty well, if they were done right. They both allow for certain elements of strategy to be used (real-time, you can allow someone to have to actually try to run away, as opposed to giving them a chance to try to run-away by choosing a simple option and not doing anything further). Network lag could be an issue, as pointed out by Masterdan, but that's simply one of the risks. Turn-based has similar issues. What if a player is behind a router and his LAN goes to crap, but the server isn't notified of this? They could be sitting in a battle for a while with nothing happening because the server doesn't realize that the guy's not there.

Mikau wrote:

Although there is a 10fps limit, and it seems that the real time games are limited to being pointless clickfests, or rather button mashing an 'attack' verb/macro over and over. The programmer can easily get around this. I prefer a game to be semi-turn based where the battles are in real time, however they play out similar to the way World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XI play. You engage an enemy, and your character begins an auto-attack function where he or she will continue to attack said enemy with their basic attack. You then have the option of using your skill in queue in order to defeat the enemy at your own pace. This allows the game to have parties where you can strategically coordinate your peoples locations to keep a healer in the back, safe from harm, and to have more physical characters up close to engage in the enemies. I find when it comes to turn base games(now I'm thinking the style of Final Fantasy 1 when I answer this), your players are all on equal standing. Meaning that there's a [100/#characters]% chance that you're going to get hit. This means that there is absolutely no safety for mages. Unless of course you introduce a front-row / back-row system. Which really doesn't stop the mages from being out of harms way, but makes them take less damage. For an idea of what I'm talking about, compare Stolen Lands to Final Fantasy: The Hunting Grounds. Any discussion is welcome, whether you agree or disagree.

See, I liked the Starwars: Galaxies combat model. It was pretty much the WoW-style. You attacked and were put in an auto-attack mode. Then you could add skills to the queue. You could even macro the skills so as to create a uniform experience. The Suikoden model was also cool, with the front/back rows, and each character was rated Short/Medium/Long ranged based on their weapons. Short ranges couldn't attack from the back, mediums could only attack front row from back. The Suikoden approach is the one I'd probably go with if I was looking for a turn-based approach, but I find the Starwars: Galaxies approach superior. Battles are real-time and minimally turn-based. IIRC, they were given that effect by taking into account reaction time for being attacked with certain weapons.

Tiberath wrote:

I'd imagine with any decent turn based system, the player has a time limit to make a choice. So much like real time and turn based, if the user is idle for any lengthy period of time, their character will sustain massive damage.

The time limit idea is great for balancing things out, such as if a player disconnects in order to try to escape the battle. The problem is that occasionally you'll end up with a player that was legitimately disconnected, but he ended up paying severely for it. Maybe it's just a flaw that can't be solved except by better awareness of client connections/disconnections. I don't know.

Audeuro wrote:

I think either of them would work pretty well, if they were done right. They both allow for certain elements of strategy to be used (real-time, you can allow someone to have to actually try to run away, as opposed to giving them a chance to try to run-away by choosing a simple option and not doing anything further). Network lag could be an issue, as pointed out by Masterdan, but that's simply one of the risks. Turn-based has similar issues. What if a player is behind a router and his LAN goes to crap, but the server isn't notified of this? They could be sitting in a battle for a while with nothing happening because the server doesn't realize that the guy's not there.

I agree wholeheartedly. Obviously as a guy who makes games that are very lag sensative i simply see lots of advantageous features in turn based systems. However your right, any hybrid of turn based and realtime combat is good and there are flaws to all systems.
Personally I feel that one of the things BYOND has to offer that hasnt been saturated on other sites is the idea of the turn based online rpg. Something that has been done but that I still feel represents a really unique selling point byond has to offer as a genre of games.

Mobius Evalon wrote:

The turn-based system is -always- more complicated and detailed and requires more work and thought on both the developer's and the player's end, and is the primary (if not only) reason that there's so few of them -- lack of patience. We already know this is the reason why most BYOND games are lackluster to begin with; the developer lacks the patience to learn the language, test the game, or plan out any gameplay specifics. "Real time" button-mashers are easy to make because you simply src.attack(locate(/mob/npc/enemy) in oview(1,src)), but a turn-based game requires a ton of work that few developers are willing to undertake.

That's not to say the playerbase has no hand in this either. We all know who the average BYOND player is, and they're not willing to learn the intricacies of a beautiful, complex turn-based system to crush their enemies -- they expect to keep selecting "Punch" and emerge victorius 100% of the time, a byproduct of pbags and training logs.

All that said, I prefer the turn-based system. "Real time" systems on any game are simplistic to a fault, and keep me interested for maybe twenty or thirty minutes.

I feel the same about turn based systems to be honest :[ I have yet to play a turn based RPG (commercial or not) that actually required me to think about what I was doing. Most of them totally lack any element of stratergy outside of a poorly implamented element system (even stratergy RPGs don't offer a lot more in terms of stratergy than this).

I can't say real time RPGs are any better mind you.

Personally, I don't care what system is used for a RPG, as long as actual player skill is involved. In a turn based RPG that would be heavy use of stratergy, in a real time RPG that would be a similar sort of skill that is required in a fighting game.
Admittedly, systems like this are not easy to make, but I'd much rather see any sort of battle system that relies more on the player than on the stats of their character.

I have always preferred real time to turn-based for more realism. Simply because I feel turn based is more repetitive than real time could ever be.

Here's what.
I believe that Real Time is wonderful, as long as it is executed properly. In BYOND, it's always executed poorly.

Turn Based, I don't really like. It usually boils down to either some noninteractive automated thing, or something that bears great resemblance to Final Fantasy.

I've been interested in developing a hybrid system, and I have a few of them designed... but I would need at least another individual to work with me in this endeavor.

Every (previously) good battle system's been done somewhere in some capacity and almost always comes down to "Copied from [game] -but-..." The gaming industry is built upon copies of copies (E.G., every FPS) and rehashes of dead or uninteresting storylines or franchises solely in an attempt to grab money (E.G., Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Legend of Zelda, Grand Theft Auto, Mario, Halo, Ace Combat -- it's especially obvious whenever you get games titled "[Franchise] [incremental number]") and people just aren't expecting novel gameplay anymore.

All real-time systems come down to who can hit buttons the fastest. I played a Korean MMO called Fiesta for a while and that uses a real-time battle system; click the enemy to automatically keep swinging your weapon at it, click appropriate boxes on the hotbar to cast heal or whatnot, and I got supremely bored with it after a year of play (about two days a week for 3-6 hours a day for a year), and I suspect other MMOs like Warcraft utilize similar systems. A similar method are those button sequences you have to perform like on the Prince of Persia -- a feeble attempt to being variety to mashing the attack button on the controller.

Turn-based systems haven't seen much variety since they were introduced god knows how long ago. You select an attack, spell, or item, then select a target, then stand idly by while the enemy does the same. They were intended to be more intricate but that's rarely the case anymore, since most gamers suffer from ADHD and are easily distracted from the ultimately short gameplay experiences we get lately by the increased amount of polygons in Lara Croft's breasts, or Cloud's sword that's the size of a small car.

At any rate, we won't be seeing innovation any time soon in the entire gaming world, much less in little old BYOND.

I Vote "Other", Yeah sure Final Fantasy is great and fun. And Yeah sure The Elder Scrolls is Cool. But I think it all depends on what Kind of Game it is. I mean like "Oh no this tiny little thing is in real time and i cant face down how can i hit it!." As in Turn-Based Games you can usually hit anything which i prefer.

So all in all I just say... Yes... I prefer both types of game play. But sometimes both are annoying.

(Bad) Example Real-Time: A billion monster just flood into this tiny room where you are so you die because you can escape.

(Bad) Example Turn-Based: You get into a battle with just about 4 monsters... Them KABOOM! You die because the monsters speed is like only 10 points higher then yours so you barely get a hit in.

(Good) Example Real-Time: You can usually only kill most enemies in just a few hits.

(Good) Example Turn-Based: It gives you more choice and actually gives you time to think when a monster just suddenly pops out of no where.