How do you feel about turn-based combat? Should more modern games adopt it, or is it best left as a thing of the past?

Persona 5 and more recently Clair Obscur proved people like TRPGs. Last month Square Enix said they'll also focus more on turn-based games. I think they're here to stay.

I think the reason turn-based combat gets a bad rap is because a lot of older JRPGs didn't do a great job of making you explore all your tools. If you can get by with clicking basic Attack most turns, if you feel the need to do so in order to hoard your precious MP, that gets stale. But modern titles have done a fantastic job avoiding that pitfall, and it saddens me when people write off an entire genre as 'antiquated' because they seem to be stuck on that bad first impression. Why would any entire genre be a thing of the past?

I enjoy both and think both should be used when appropriate.

Baldur's Gate 3 massively benefits from turn based combat. It allows for planning synergy between characters.

Skyrim works better in real time because you are only controlling one character.

There are games where you control multiple units in real time that I enjoy, like Starcraft, but I can't think of any games where you control a single thing in a turn based environment for the whole game that is fun for me.

It all depends on the tactical depth IMO. If it's just "classic RPG hit hit hit heal hit hit hit", then go for live or at least something in between like Grandia II.

Thing of the past? It's still very much a thing of the present lol.

As a roguelike fan, I LOVE turn-based combat - when it's done right. Sure, if you give millions of healing potions and let us to save at any point then it will turn into a mindless "hit hit hit" slog but it's not intrinsic to tb games.

For modal combat, NO-SKIN is really, really good, and I enjoyed my time with Osteoblasts and Darkest Dungeon too. There are plenty of ways of making tb combat fun and engaging, I wish there were more good examples though...

I like the idea of action/skill based combat but I'm never good enough to have that much fun with it. Singleplayer FPS and games like Torchlight is about it for me. As I get older and time more limited I can't just "get good".

Turn based games let me play at my own pace and I enjoy the strategy/puzzle aspect of it. I played a lot of XCOM Enemy Unknown, and I've had a great time playing Tactical Breach Wizards nowadays, if that counts as turn based. I dunno, I played a lot of Pokemon as a kid so I don't find the concept that weird.

If you want a great turn based rpg with a long running story check out the ‘trails’ series.

The series started in the early 2000s and are still releasing games today that are part of the same universe, within roughly the same time frame (about a 10 year spread), and have reoccurring characters. The turn based combat also has a bit of positional/range aspects reminiscent of tactical RPGs but does not cross the line. Older games are sprite based and newer games look like more like anime.

Do note that the starting trilogy, trails in the sky, is currently being remade with a release this year. The story is told in order so do not skip around or jump to a later series.

I love turn based combat,it allows you time to think and be effective without having young twitchy control

Gotta try Phantasy Star 4, bloody great game. I would recommend playing it with an emulator, can increase the game speed

As a kid I played the turn based Might & Magic 4&5 like it was real time. So I spammed the attack button as soon as an enemy appeared. For some strange reason that game was really hard for me. Still loved it. I still play it every few years.

Long Covid has left me mentally and physically disabled. So turn based games are much easier for me to play.

I like augmented interactive turn based systems. Action point systems like Chrono Cross or Xenogears. Trigger systems like Super Mario RPG or Legend of the Dragoon are fun too.

I generally prefer turn-based, for several reasons

1. Sobriety, or lack thereof. Sometimes I want to have some THC and/or alcohol while I'm gaming. It's not for everyone of course, but for me this is probably my favorite way to adjust difficulty in games. I love pokemon, but I find all hardcore romhacks and nuzzlocke variants very arbitrary and usually not fun. I find it way more fun to play just good old vanilla pokemon while stoned.

Civilization is another example - just going up to Deity difficulty can arguably make the game easier because it just gives the CPU's more resources without making the CPU's any better at using those resources. For an experienced player, that just means more stuff for you to steal and take advantage of.

Some games I prefer to be sober for., and those tend to be real-time. Like a high-heat Hades run for example, or when I used to do Monster Hunter World multiplayer.

1. Lag. For the most part, technological advancement has been a strict improvement for videogames, but the one area you could argue the opposite is responsiveness. I'm not a proponent of CRT's and I do not own any, but I cannot deny that CRT's are faster than most digital displays unless you specifically buy some fancy "gaming" display. Wireless controllers add more lag, especially depending on the controller. I really enjoy streaming with Steam Link and Playetation Remote Play, which is generally great but does add a bit of latency. Emulation can add more lag too. For the most part these are typically negligible as long as I have a decent controller, but there are some exceptions. I can tolerate much moreag in turn-based games than real-time games.

2. Complexity. Turn-based games tend to have more stuff to chew on than real-time ones. This is pretty intuitive, because turn-based games give you more time to think about things while real-time games need to be careful not to overwhelm the player. I really like being able to think about games when I'm not playing them. When I'm in the shower or working out or mowing the lawn or in a waiting room. It's not that real-time games have nothing to think about at all, but usually orders of magnitude less. I've put dozens of hours into thinking about and researching games like Bloodborne, Hades, and Monster Hunter ,but I've put THOUSANDS of hours into thinking about Pokemon and Civ.

3. Character vs player performance. Kind of related to my last point, is that in real time games when the character dies it tends to feel more frustrating. If I die because I didn't react fast enough, I didn't recognize an animation, I missed seeing a particle effect, or my thumb slipped... Those are all just boring to me. If I die because I was too greedy trying to build builders instead of military in Civ, to me that's an interesting decision that I can work with.

In real-time games, all I can do is just practice. Just do the same thing over and over again to try to shave ms's of my reaction time. I have no problem doing that for things in real life, but I don't like having to do tedious repetitive work for my leisure activity.

Still awesome.

Both Mario + Rabbids titles came out in the last five years, and they’re turn based. Also really fun to play, due to the dynamic upgrades and animations compared to older games.

Pokémon is also still massively popular, and indie games often utilize it too - Moonstone Island is technically a deck builder but the turn based combat remains.

Someone else mentioned it as well, but I think you should really look into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Eh… they're weird, and I don't care for them. They feel so limited every time… and ugh, the RNG… I just can't.

Is there any game people play because the turn-based combat is awesome even though the story sucks? I get the feeling turn-based combat is never good enough to be the only selling point; whereas, there's an entire action subgenre built on games with awesome real-time combat and shitty/nonexistent stories.

I honestly hate it. It’s the reason I won’t play BG3 It’s why I stopped playing final fantasy. I think it’s an antiquated system, just like invisible enemies and old resident evil style games where you can only walk in a straight line. Now I liked the Tales of visperia style where it’s a mix of turn based with free movement. But full on turn based makes me feel like I’m playing a board game

I’ve always enjoyed turn based combat, but I remember when I fell in love with it. Playing Divinity: Original Sin 2 on the absolute most brutal difficulty level. Some battles I had to fight several times because literally every single player and every single action had to be min/maxed to the extreme or I’d lose party members and/or the game. Sooo much fun! Some battles took hours. My partner thinks I’m crazy, but I love that shit.

Turn based games like XCOM, Tactics Ogre, and Final Fantasy Tactics are all excellent for this IMO because they don't necessarily require complex strategies unless you're doing completionist or challenge type playthroughs.

I prefer tactical turn based like the old X-Com series. If you're going to have turns, there should be actual reasons to adjust what you're doing each turn.

The most important factors in the real-time/turn-based split are thinking time and immersion. One of the common goals in gaming is to create flow state, the sensation of being presented with challenges that occupy your mind with some effort but don't overwhelm it. If you want to have a more complex level of strategy in combat, it has to move toward turn-based. The player needs the chance to turn their attention toward various elements and manipulate them through the abstraction layer of the controls to achieve their desired result. However, the further you move toward turn-based, the further you move away from immersion, not that their attention is elsewhere, simply that there is no feeling of immediacy, which leads to a sense of the combat as its own puzzle/game, separate from the in-character motion. Toward the real-time end of the scale, there is little to no thinking time, which narrows the possible depth of strategy to what can be crammed into a few key/button presses, but gives the emotional impact of immersion.

Different people land at different places on the scale because of their ability to process complex situations and at what speed. It's a 2D space with speed and depth orthogonal to one another. High speed + low depth = basic FPS.
high depth + high speed = RTS.
low speed + high depth = turn-based.
low speed + low depth = auto-battler

You can't target everyone with a single game, but there are players for any one you choose.

For myself, turn-based is not the problem with old RPGs, it has always been random encounters.

I’ve got Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, so I am limited to turn based games or I can only play for about 20-30 minutes before I’m done for the day and can’t do anything else.

As someone with a disability that limits my response times and alertness. Turn based is the only way I can play.

I personally think turn based combat is fine enough on its own. Not something that'll sway my opinion of a game that much.

I know of maybe 3 titles that I've played, all of which are part of the same MMO universe, that do it, but I love the turn based combat where you have a certain number of movements you can do, followed by a certain number of actions. Makes the strategy side of things much more enjoyable rather than just having to hope the enemy doesn't use a specific action.

Though, I mostly grew up with more free action based RPGs and such, so I really don't mind them as well. Makes certain titles, like New Vegas or Borderlands, much more enjoyable.

As for leaving it behind or not, totally up to the devs, for the most part.

I personally would love to, if I ever had the coding skill and drive, make a game featuring the aforementioned turn based combat system I love.

I don’t like turn based. ME3 or Andromeda gameplay was peak for me. ME3coop was sooo good.

BG3 was as perfect as turn based could be, and I’d still much prefer action.

But I don’t think it should be too hybrid either. Warmup based powers and such are fine, simultaneous turns can be fine, but WoW/SWTOR style button mashing (a middle-of-the-road hybrid) is the absolute worst.

Literally one of the most popular games in the world, Honkai Star Rail, is a turned based rpg. But people ignore it because it is a gacha. Sure, the gameplay is somewhat shallow, but despite having 3 buttons, there is definitely some depth and skill expression.

The story is pretty decent, has some weaknesses, pacing can be weird sometimes but it also has some very highs. It is basically an anime that releases a new episode/season every 40 days. The music and the visuals are amazing, best in the world. And they are combined expertly with the gameplay. Here is the trailer for the current story arc, it introduces characters/world vibe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqKwoSk6708

This latest story is the best so far. The music? And the cutscenes/trailers? Insane. I wish i could link them but they are insanely spoilery. I think the most impressive part of HSR is its variety. They arent afraid of branching out in terms of visuals, music, etc. Here are 3 character trailers

1. I am surprised nintendo hasnt sued them, team rocket+rainbow road references, extremely cute

2. A very manly man, metal video, a sea of skulls and character ripping someone's head

3. A music video for a Reol song? That references 90s mtv, spiderverse, splatoon and valorant?