Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat, all but demanding replays

A surprising addition in patch notes for a 10-year-old CRPG classic.

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[llorton]

Perfect!
I bought the game a while back, around the time it was released, and never finished it.
This is the perfect opportunity to get back in the story and this new mode will make it easier to play on Steam Deck.

 

[wdmartin]

I never finished Pillars despite kick-starting it, largely because of the real time pause combat system. Looks like I'll be taking another crack at it!

 

[TekaroBB]

I beat the first combat for this and then never touched it again. This may actually get me to play it once I am done with Rogue Trader.

 

[graylshaped]

Perfect!
I bought the game a while back, around the time it was released, and never finished it.
This is the perfect opportunity to get back in the story and this new mode will make it easier to play on Steam Deck.

That is exactly my reaction to this. My twitch skills, such as they were, are a fond memory, and while I have found through a patient run-through on BGII that real time with pause is manageable if I am really aggressive with the pause, "manageable" is different from "fun."

 

[HiroTheProtagonist]

"the game wasn't designed for it"

Neither was the original Baldur's Gate, but the runaway success of Diablo meant Bioware had to change the whole game at the last minute to attract those players.

 

[markod]

I tried playing PoE2 turn based, when the patch for it first arrived. The main problem is that even a small monster encounter takes a long time and the game's tempo drops significantly. That was a long time ago, so I really dont know if any later patches changed anything.

 

[yumegaze]

couldn't be more happy! to me, the best thing about CRPGs is wasting a whole afternoon in turn-based combat on the hardest setting and dying repeatedly, because i suck. now i'm super motivated to go back to PoE and suffer all day long, god bless

 

[Distraction]

There are a ton of auto-pause options in the PoE games. I played them with ‘pause after a party member completes an action’ and ‘pause at low health’ turned on. No twitch skills required.

I prefer RTwP because it’s way more exciting and unpredictable when everyone can act simultaneously.

Still, I’m glad that more people are going to try the PoE games. I think Deadfire is a masterpiece.

 

[TekaroBB]

I prefer RTwP because it’s way more exciting and unpredictable when everyone can act simultaneously.

This is exactly why I do not like RTwP. If, for example, I aim an area effect spell and by the time it goes off half the enemies I was targeting have moved out of the zone I am more annoyed than anything else.

 

[gothmog1114]

This is exactly why I do not like RTwP. If, for example, I aim an area effect spell and by the time it goes off half the enemies I was targeting have moved out of the zone I am more annoyed than anything else.

This happens just as much in turn based PoE2 though. Spell effects go off turns later and all the mooks have a chance to run out of your aoe. I think I prefer the Owlcat pathfinder games or BG3 turn based modes where all actions are resolved on the individual turn but vary on the amount of action resources they can take up.

 

[Dr. Fancypants]

As an old who cut his teeth on the D&D Gold Box games, this is a welcome addition that may finally get me to give this one a playthrough. I've never had the multitasking/divided attention skills to do RTWP well.

 

[AER]

I just re-played POE 1 last month, and I'm in the middle of a POE2: Deadfire playthrough now.

My impression of POE 1 is that the world building and plot are spectacular. It's really unique and cool. The dialogue is also excellent and very well written. But the combat gameplay feels like a slog, particularly late-game. It took me 4 or so attempts to get through it over the course of 10 years.

But POE2 Deadfire is an excellent game and has no such problems. The combat is smooth and tons of fun. It's a shame that the game didn't take off more, it's really great. My theory is that, like me, many people just never made it through POE1 so they didn't give Deadfire a chance. Hopefully they bring some of the great stuff from Deadfire over to POE1 with the new edition.

Really what I'd like to see is a version of POE1 that just runs on the POE2 engine, like how you can download a mod that puts Baldur's Gate 1 into the BG2 engine. That way you could get the great combat and balance of POE 2 with the plot, lore, and world building of POE 1.

 

[TekaroBB]

Thanks for the warning, guess this one is still a skip for me.

This happens just as much in turn based PoE2 though. Spell effects go off turns later and all the mooks have a chance to run out of your aoe. I think I prefer the Owlcat pathfinder games or BG3 turn based modes where all actions are resolved on the individual turn but vary on the amount of action resources they can take up.

 

[jbblanchet]

I played it, finished it, loved it. And yet, if you had asked me if it was turn-based yesterday, I would have said yes. Memory is a funny thing after 10 years...

 

[Fatesrider]

I just think it’s easier to design more intricate combats. I like games with a lot of stats, obviously. (He laughs). But the problem with real time with pause is that it’s honestly very difficult for people to actually parse all of that information, and one of the things I’ve heard a lot from people who’ve played Deadfire in turn based, is that there were things about the game like the affliction and inspiration system that they didn’t really understand very clearly until they played it in turn based.

The issue is that if you want real-time play, with decision making, you need characters that can make decisions. Then you get something much closer to real combat.

Once a battle begins, a campaign commander largely only receives updates, and if they intervene, it's on a huge scale. This is micromanaging which is nonsense even in a small group. A commander says, "take that hill". The sergeant and corporals come up with a strategy, position their squads, and executes the strategy until success or failure. If it's failure, and anyone survives, they regroup and try a different strategy.

The commander does nothing until the squad reports that it can't take the hill without (insert what they need to do it). And that's when the commander decides to retreat, go around or try again when resupplied or with a new general strategy.

So, as the area commander you don't micromanage your troops in combat. They are trained, they know the mission, the non-coms know the objectives and their squads and they're the ones who get the job done, or die trying.

That may not translate to success, but it doesn't usually lead to failure, either.

So one person micromanaging all of that would be fraught, especially since NPC's are typically pretty stupid and some development moron always throws in some random "turn around and run away" possibility in the face of imminent victory. (Yes, that happened in real life - read about the Battle of Leyte Gulf - but it's the rare exception.)

So, putting in pausing and turn-based battles, allowing you to assess the progress at leisure and make changes, then seeing the results is making the player wear a lot of hats, but seems to be the most realistic way of doing the same thing without a general staff and an army to lead. As long as your virtual army carries out its orders (which is NOT what happened at Leyte Gulf, because they were kicking ass and the commander didn't really notice that and knew his side couldn't win the war anyhow by then), it falls to the success or failure of the commander's tactics to achieve victory.

That sounds like a much more playable game, as long as the length of battle between pauses is useful and not an issue in and of itself.

 

[Distraction]

This is exactly why I do not like RTwP. If, for example, I aim an area effect spell and by the time it goes off half the enemies I was targeting have moved out of the zone I am more annoyed than anything else.

You place the AoE where you predict them to go. Or use crowd control to lock them in place first. Or knock them back into the AoE afterwards.

It also works well to drop the AoE right in front of your tanks.

 

[AlStar]

Worth noting that one of the current Humble Bundles has both PoE and PoE II (along with a bunch of other excellent CRPGs) available for $13 - it's their "Dice-and-Destiny" bundle.

 

[Ajar]

Turn-based just takes. So. Much. Longer. I'm glad people who love it are getting what they want, and I hope it helps the PoE games find new fans, but I'm sticking with RTWP for games that have it. Yes, I pause a lot in challenging fights, but it's still way less time than turn-based. And for easy fights I often don't bother pausing.

 

[*Legion*]

I like turn-based, but without re-design of the scope/frequency/etc of combat, I imagine taking a real-time-with-pause game and turning it into a turn-based game is simply going to balloon its length and make things more of a slog.

 

[toddtech]

I got into the series with Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. I've played through it 3 times. Amazing game. Love the voice acting, story, art, music, and game play.

I enjoyed Pillars of Eternity, but I have yet to finish it. Maybe with the upcoming patch I'll do so. It is still quality, but slower pacing and... well, POE2 did everything better. I want to finish POE at least for the lore.

 

[niftykev]

I'm down for it. I know you can't really please everyone as RTWP and TB are just different animals and it's super hard to design a game to have both work very well.

I prefer TB. If I play RTWP games, I tend to dumb down my party so far that they won't use resource based skills on their own and I'll pause to do it myself. Except in NWN2 sometimes... I would let Qara go nuts with her spells whenever because it was canonical with her character. So what if she dropped a fireball on the rest of the party. She didn't like Elanee or Khelgar anyway!

 

[A_Very_Tired_Geek]

I look forward to finally finishing Pillars. I prefer turn based combat, too. While I can manage real time combat, and I understand why some might prefer it to keep things moving, I rather prefer having the step by step actions.

Combat is probably the main reason I never finished the game despite enjoying the story.

 

[10Nov1775]

I'm with Kevin on RTwP, I absolutely hate it.

I recently finally got around to starting Tyrant. Love the story and atmosphere and choose your own adventure start. Absolutely loathe the combat. (It also, despite being supported, clearly was not intended to be played above 1080p resolution.)

It just seems like the worst of every world. It's low info, because there is no time to read everything, and it's like trying to control five MOBA characters at once without being able to see all of their cooldowns, and yet combat is ALSO still extremely janky and slow, because everything passes at a slowish and measured rate precisely BECAUSE it is realtime. Actions resolve before I have a chance to do anything about them, unless I'm staring at a particular character trying to anticipate an issue.

And the auto-pause options just ruin the experience, in addition to rather often being useless. Auto-pause when they hit 25% (or whatever) health? Well, potions take time, and running away provokes opportunity attacks, and...and...what is usually going to happen is the character just eats it anyway, because the fix wasn't suddenly getting a jarring pause to pay attention to them now, it was planning out the encounter to avoid it occurring in the first place.

If you're gonna give me stuff to manage on multiple characters, and relatively complex tactical situations, give me turn-based so I can plan and consider (or hammer through each turn in initiative promptly where I know I don't need to plan and consider).

If you are going to do real time, give me twitch reflex puzzles or learn-the-pattern challenges, and a "whack the bad guy" button, and maybe a few "now you have an extra bad day" buttons...and controlling ONE character. Action gameplay is antithetical to being babysitter-in-chief!

RTwP just seems to be the worst of every world. Bad tactical gameplay, bad action gameplay, hard to read, hard to engage with...not fast enough, but also not slow enough...it's obvious not everyone agrees with this, but sheesh. I personally sure hate it.

(Admittedly, you can do RTwP better than Tyrant, god knows.)

 

[PursuingBeast]

The original pathfinder: kingmaker by Owlcat games also initially shipped with realtime combat. They introduced turn based mode later, in the game of the year patch, iirc. You can switch between realtime and turn based at any time with a toggle.
Pathfinder: wrath of the righteous has the same mechanics.

The rogue trader game, also by owl cat, uses turn based exclusively, but it is a different engine.

 

[slogger]

I can not stand turn-based anything involving more than ~4 active agents. It makes no sense and is an utter waste of time. I also don't get what's so tricky or annoying about RTWP. You usually have the option to toggle paused on particular events if needed, and if not, it's not like you need a trigger finger for the space bar. It's super unrealistic and gets worse the larger the scenario - go into a hive of rats and you get to wait for dozen rats to move before your party easily squashes them. And basic tactical concepts like flanking make so much less sense when one group gets to stand completely still while the other moves first.

To me it's like suggesting that basketball be turn-based: it just doesn't make any sense.

But hey, if it brings more people to the game - enjoy! Pillars is a fun series.

 

[sonicmerlin]

This game made me yawn a lot throughout. There was immense exposition and it never felt deserved. It started out pretty good, and was a welcome change for a gaming community starved of CRPGs at the time of its release, but it honestly fell flat.

(Unrelated but why can’t apple push for a port of all turn based games to iOS? I’ve been playing xcom and it’s so so fun, the tablet medium with touch screen controls is so perfect for turn based).

 

[parandandrd]

I've always had a fondness for the RTwP style, dating back to my time with the Infinity Engine games, but there are three things that PoE basically assumed players understood the importance of in this kind of game:

1) Autopause. Without the game stopping to let you do what you want to do when you need to do it, it's just a mess.

2) Tweaking the AI for your party members. The default choices are usually not what you want your party doing, in fact the opposite. Setting the AI properly means you have to issue a lot fewer orders in general.

3). Autopause.

 

[Slightlylyons]

I felt that way when the original Baulders Gate came out. I basically wanted isometric turn based like Fallout 1/2 but then I realized pausing gives you a tremendous amount of control. Turn off the AI. Mash that space bar constantly and micromanage every action.

 

[makimaki]

Turn-based just takes. So. Much. Longer. I'm glad people who love it are getting what they want, and I hope it helps the PoE games find new fans, but I'm sticking with RTWP for games that have it. Yes, I pause a lot in challenging fights, but it's still way less time than turn-based. And for easy fights I often don't bother pausing.

Same. I'm happy they've added it in for those that prefer that, but I much prefer RTWP. Like you, if a fight is particularly challenging then pausing becomes viable, otherwise in normal encounters I don't have to waste time going through turns to wipe the enemy out.

It's why I'll never look at BG3. Regardless of how good that game might be, I've so little free time, that I'm not going to waste it playing a combat system that I actively dislike.

Still, great for those that like turn based, they got a great game!

 

[taxythingy]

I could never get the hang of RTwP in Baldur's Gate 2. My opinion at the time was "worst of both worlds."

Real time gives near instant feedback on your actions and systems are generally simplified to facilitate this. See Diablo 2 as a good example. Turn-based gives as much time as required for learning about abilities, checking out if a character has a likely counter to something, taking all of the info in and finally making a set of decisions.

Baldur's Gate 2 felt like I was being asked to learn a complex system without any time to check out the likely effect of abilities & spells, while managing multiple characters acting like idiots, while being attacked by seemingly overpowered enemies with near-perfect computer control, with not enough practice combat to test stuff out or learn about enemies, all while having no idea if any given combat scenario was even appropriate for my character levels. It left me feeling incredibly frustrated with the combat experience and struggling to enjoy what was otherwise looking like a brilliant game.

 

[thawking]

oh, cool. i like PoE2 much better w turn-based combat, so this is excellent news.

 

[thawking]

I'm with Kevin on RTwP, I absolutely hate it.

I recently finally got around to starting Tyrant. Love the story and atmosphere and choose your own adventure start. Absolutely loathe the combat.

do you mean Tyranny? the game that runs on the same engine as PoE?

(not being all fixed-that-for-you snarky here--just wondering if that's the game to which you're referring, or if it's something else completely)

 

[Asecondname]

I'm honestly kinda sad to real time crpgs fading away. Simultaneous execution felt more real, and sometimes turn-based just takes too long.

 

[mathguru]

You should note that PoE is an overloaded acronym that could also mean “Path of Exile” in addition to “Pillars of Eternity”

 

[Murry Wilson]

I don't think I can cope with Avellone's edgy bullshit NPC writing again. Pass.

 

[Distraction]

I could never get the hang of RTwP in Baldur's Gate 2. My opinion at the time was "worst of both worlds."

Real time gives near instant feedback on your actions and systems are generally simplified to facilitate this. See Diablo 2 as a good example. Turn-based gives as much time as required for learning about abilities, checking out if a character has a likely counter to something, taking all of the info in and finally making a set of decisions.

Baldur's Gate 2 felt like I was being asked to learn a complex system without any time to check out the likely effect of abilities & spells, while managing multiple characters acting like idiots, while being attacked by seemingly overpowered enemies with near-perfect computer control, with not enough practice combat to test stuff out or learn about enemies, all while having no idea if any given combat scenario was even appropriate for my character levels. It left me feeling incredibly frustrated with the combat experience and struggling to enjoy what was otherwise looking like a brilliant game.

I think it’s the best of both worlds. Pause and you have unlimited time to study the field and issue commands. Unpause and instant action. Pause and reassess. Read the combat log. Issue another round of orders. The more you pause, the more turn based it becomes.

I play these with party AI turned off so that if they act like idiots, it’s my fault

I feel like a zealot trying to spread the word. Why can’t everyone see that turn-based real-time-with-pause isometric tactical party CRPGs are the pinnacle of gaming?

I get it though. I rarely play RTS’s anymore because micromanaging that many things gets overwhelming. But what if they added a pause button? Holy sh-

 

[somechar]

You should note that PoE is an overloaded acronym that could also mean “Path of Exile” in addition to “Pillars of Eternity”

<sticks Elon Musk joke back in pocket>

 

[shayne.oneill]

This game made me yawn a lot throughout. There was immense exposition and it never felt deserved. It started out pretty good, and was a welcome change for a gaming community starved of CRPGs at the time of its release, but it honestly fell flat.

(Unrelated but why can’t apple push for a port of all turn based games to iOS? I’ve been playing xcom and it’s so so fun, the tablet medium with touch screen controls is so perfect for turn based).

I really want apple to ask Tarn Adams what resources he needs to make a Mac port of Dwarf Fortress happen. I played it using crossover wine and it worked great until the adventure mode update introduced some threading call not supported by wine that lead to crashes. I filed a ticket, but it hadnt been attended to last time I checked, and apparently they wont do a mac port becuase.... I guess theres only two coders?

But the wine port did prove its a great fit to the system. CPU rather than GPU constrained, and those little apple silicon CPUs just charge along (I was getting better frames than on my AMD Ryzen 9 + 3080 gaming behemoth)

 

[Lone-Lizard-9144]

Touch arcade link is broken.