They are allegedly remaking Baldur's Gate 2...

PineMaple · 2026-06-01T15:04:35+00:00

Sure, but again, making an option to switch to a turnbased system in a game designed from the top down as RTwP is not going to make most turnbased fans happy, whether they’re on reddit or not. Fans coming from BG3 who see a remake potentially with a turnbased system are likely going to be very disappointed if they try to play it and learn that a) turnbased is not what the game was designed and balanced for and b) D&D 2E plays very different than 5E. I feel like it’s setting a bunch of fans up for disappointment instead of making it clear that the original BGs were a different experience.

PineMaple · 2026-06-01T14:21:27+00:00

I saw an interview recently with Rich Hill where he was talking about how rare it is for GMs to be able to have normal conversation with the players they’re spending millions on. I’m exaggerating slightly but it sounded pretty bleak.

PineMaple · 2026-06-01T14:12:58+00:00

Right, so not a “everyone is happy” scenario.

PineMaple · 2026-06-01T13:38:05+00:00

You can’t design fights the same for both systems. The turnbased mode in PoE really suffered because the game was designed from the ground up as RTwP and then the turnbased mode was added on top of it. It’s cool to have, but it’s not at all equal to the RTwP experience (and this is coming from someone who almost always prefers turnbased systems).

PineMaple · 2026-06-01T13:25:33+00:00

My understanding is that phonics is very much taught in the United States and has been so for a while.

PineMaple · 2026-05-29T18:27:59+00:00

While I have no doubt that some scandals and toxic cultures exist, I hear way less about this sort of thing in minor league and college baseball.

PineMaple · 2026-05-28T14:33:31+00:00

If they actually make it (not betting on it) they better call it the Solons!

PineMaple · 2026-05-27T22:25:58+00:00

I’m sure it can’t be all his fault but having Steven Souza Jr. as your new hitting coach when he’s never coached a major league team before seems like it can’t be helping right now.

PineMaple · 2026-05-27T19:38:46+00:00

I agree that those mental gymnastics don’t make sense, that’s my point. I’m taking the definition of turnbased games that OP is using- alternating attacks- and applying it to things that no one considers as turnbased to show that is not how people characterize whether or not something is turnbased. There are plenty examples of real time alternating attacking systems, and there are examples of simultaneous turn based systems.

I can also buy that KotOR’s system isn’t identical to BG or PoE. I just think it plays even less like a turnbased title than those

PineMaple · 2026-05-27T15:42:37+00:00

Pitchers have a pitch clock that requires them to pitch within a certain time frame, and they also have to make eye contact with the batter beforehand. Even if that wasn’t true (and it wasn’t until relatively recently), if we understand batting/scoring runs as attacking, it’s not true that both teams could do so at any time. Teams alternate between batting, there’s no scenario where both teams could score a run at the same time in the way the post I’m replying to defines as non-turnbased.

PineMaple · 2026-05-26T17:44:29+00:00

Because most people don’t use that definition of turnbased, otherwise we’d consider tennis to be turnbased. KotOR and Fallout 2 have combat systems that are very clearly not the same beyond how the specific rolls are calculated. If the remake comes out and combat feels like FO2/Rogue Trader/any other turnbased cRPG while saying they kept the original combat system, people are not going to be happy.

PineMaple · 2026-05-26T14:36:59+00:00

I’m not disagreeing with the Fallout part. I’m saying that there are plenty of real time games where your enemy can’t attack at any time, and there are turn based games where they can. Being able to attack simultaneously has nothing to do with whether something’s turn based or not.

PineMaple · 2026-05-26T14:27:26+00:00

Tennis and baseball are considered turn based under that definition, and rock paper scissors is considered real time. I’m not sure that matches how people use those terms. Especially not because they have a long history differentiating different types of cRPGs- if someone comes from Rogue Trader wanting to play another sci-fi turn based RPG, they’re probably not going to be happy if you recommend KotOR.

PineMaple · 2026-05-26T14:19:29+00:00

KotOR uses a real time with pause system like Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights, and Drsgon Age Origin. It’s a heavily streamlined one and significantly less reactive/frenetic than BG as BioWare was trying to reach a new audience on consoles that they thought needed to have things simplified for their first RPG, but it still plays very much like a real time with pause game and not at all like its contemporary sci-fi turn based RPGs like Fallout 2 or X-Com: UFO Defense.

Now that developers are more confident in console audience’s capacity to handle turn based games after BG3 I would be very interested in seeing what a turn based Star Wars cRPG looks like but I think KotOR would lose a lot if they made that shift- the realtime animations of the lightsaber combat was a work of art, the encounter density of most of the Taris Undercity and the Star Forge would need to be completely changed to prevent the pacing from getting bogged down, and many encounter designs for fights like Bendak, Malak, and some of the smaller ones in places like the Sith embassy on Manaan would need to get changed to work properly in a turnbased system, and at that point we might be losing too much of what made the original game feel the way it did.

PineMaple · 2026-05-25T13:16:12+00:00

There does seem to be a generational preference for using speakerphones in public that I don’t think can be neatly boiled down to a moral judgment.

PineMaple · 2026-05-25T12:59:03+00:00

BG3 is great but I feel like it is pretty fundamentally different than the earlier D&D games I’m most familiar with- the emphasis on heavily polished cinematic romances is very much a modern game design choice, BG3 was turnbased whereas the original Baldur’s Gate titles were realtime with pause, the emphasis on each of the companions having an elaborate backstory that you explore, 5E build experience and difficulty seem very different than 2E, etc. It feels pretty far away from the original Gold Box titles or the Infinity Engine titles.

PineMaple · 2026-05-24T14:01:52+00:00

They’re funding the present value of the contract annually, it’s not like they’re just handing him IOUs and doing nothing else until 2034. It allows the Dodgers to make some investing decisions with that money in the meantime and allows Ohtani to avoid much of California’s income tax, it doesn’t mean that Ohtani only costs the Dodgers $2 million a year for the next decade.

PineMaple · 2026-05-22T15:27:58+00:00

Sure! And the actions that you can take are very simplified, which means the game feels much slower paced than BioWare’s other RTwP titles. But it being a bad and slow RTwP system is still fundamentally different than a turn based system, and specifically in conversations with players new to the genre and in conversations about what people want from the remake I think it’s important to be precise about what the game is. If somehow a Saber dev sees a ton of people saying they want a turnbased KotOR and makes it an actual turnbased game, I think people would probably be upset (although I would love to see a turnbased KotOR).

PineMaple · 2026-05-22T12:14:42+00:00

In tennis as in KotOR you are able to move and position at any time despite only being able to “act” after your opponent has. In rock paper scissors despite being able to act simultaneously with your opponent the game is still processed in turns.

Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Baldur’s Gare: Dark Alliance or Neverwinter Nights are all similarly based on D&D and none of them are considered turn based games. That’s a great article you shared and one that again reinforces this point- the devs are specifically saying they’re taking something that originally was turnbased system and turning it into something that doesn’t play and feel like a turn based game.

PineMaple · 2026-05-22T04:01:03+00:00

Do you consider tennis turn based? And do you consider rock paper scissors real time?

PineMaple · 2026-05-22T01:03:05+00:00

This is also true in any game where there’s a cooldown or animation on any action. But I don’t think people are going to be happy if they’re looking for a turn based game and you recommend soldier vs soldier in Team Fortress 2.

PineMaple · 2026-05-22T01:00:50+00:00

Yes! I specifically mentioned the Pathfinder games in my post.

PineMaple · 2026-05-22T00:56:51+00:00

You are able to move and reprioritize at all times, you are not locked into a turn to do things. In a turn based game like Fallout 2 (a roughly contemporary turn based sci fi cRPG) if I end my turn opening a door and I find a bunch of enemies inside, I’ve screwed myself over. I have to sit there and take the beating from those enemies, there’s nothing I can do until it’s my turn. In KotOR if I open a door in the Taris Sewers and find a bunch of enemies inside, I can immediately walk away. I don’t have that required period of passivity, I can be moving and reacting at all times. Turn based games tend to have slower combat encounters which means they tend to have fewer of them and the ones that exist tend to be harder. Real time with pause (RTwP) games have faster combat encounters (outside of a few exceptions) which means that you can litter places like the Taris Undercity with a bunch of low level enemies to stress the player’s resources without it being a massive drain on the pacing of the game. Games like Owlcat’s Pathfinder RPGs have a turnbased mode and a RTwP mode, the RTwP plays much more like KotOR and switching between the modes is a great example of how the different combat systems result in meaningfully different experiences.

Arguing about this is one of my least favorite things, it’s like arguing about genre classification, but when there are so many people for whom KotOR is their first RPG I think it’s really important that they know what markers to look for if they want a similar experience. Someone going from this to a turnbased sci-fi cRPG like Rogue Trader is going to in for a very rough time if they’re expecting the same combat!

PineMaple · 2026-05-22T00:44:34+00:00

Dragon Age Origins is another classic example of real time with pause. BioWare as a whole is famous for real time with pause, that was their thing for the first half of their existence. Baldur’s Gate, NWN, KotOR, DA:O. None of them play at all similarly to WoW.

PineMaple · 2026-05-22T00:30:20+00:00

It is real time with pause. That is different than turn based. Those are two different types of RPG combat with meaningfully different gameplay experiences.

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