Idle speculations on Wasteland 2

[Unaco]

Really not seeing it though. You still have to cycle through each member, you still have to click to tell them where to go. Having a pause button to stop action to do all this isn't going to make the process that much, if at all, shorter.

No... it's not going to make the process shorter FOR YOU. Whether it's paused or not, you'll still have to do all that clicking and moving the mouse etc.

But, and call me crazy here, I don't think the pause function is to make the process shorter FOR YOU, but instead to make the process more synchronised (and shorter) for your team/squad. If the game is NOT paused and you start giving out the orders, by the time you get to the 4th guy, the 1st guy is already in position (and might possibly be in the fight etc). If you CAN pause the game to give out orders, because it's paused when you give the order to the 4th guy, the 1st guy is still standing, waiting for the game to be unpaused, so they can go and do what's been asked. You want that pause ability, if you want to try and synchronise people... otherwise you give an order to 1 and they start doing it immediately (because the game isn't paused).

You should read Drake's example again, if you don't see the difference between the two.

[Internet]

While the pause and give orders might have greater verisimilitude, it seems to me that without it the game has introduced a system of tactical tradeoffs. Under a pause and issue orders command you could play a lot of edge games with line of sight, which lets the player have a pretty unfair advantage. It also drastically reduces the importance of initiative/ the order in which characters go. On an simpler note, it makes it harder to surprise the player and introduce them to bad fights they have to run away from / react to. If every encounter is set up as an ambush, they are far less special.

[Drake Sigar]

While the pause and give orders might have greater verisimilitude, it seems to me that without it the game has introduced a system of tactical tradeoffs. Under a pause and issue orders command you could play a lot of edge games with line of sight, which lets the player have a pretty unfair advantage. It also drastically reduces the importance of initiative/ the order in which characters go. On an simpler note, it makes it harder to surprise the player and introduce them to bad fights they have to run away from / react to. If every encounter is set up as an ambush, they are far less special.

You could make a similar argument against the birdseye camera, the ability that lets you see an opponent's field of vision in the first place, or a number of other mechanics. When you're playing a squad-based party, you want your squad to feel like... a squad (Enemy Unknown did this quite well). And it's much harder to do that when you're ordering single units to move one by one in real-time. A squad should be faster than that, synchronised, precise, trained. There are ways to curb player advantage and bring balance without removing proven elements. The fog of war being one of many examples.

[Jesus_Phish]

No... it's not going to make the process shorter FOR YOU. Whether it's paused or not, you'll still have to do all that clicking and moving the mouse etc.

But, and call me crazy here, I don't think the pause function is to make the process shorter FOR YOU, but instead to make the process more synchronised (and shorter) for your team/squad. If the game is NOT paused and you start giving out the orders, by the time you get to the 4th guy, the 1st guy is already in position (and might possibly be in the fight etc). If you CAN pause the game to give out orders, because it's paused when you give the order to the 4th guy, the 1st guy is still standing, waiting for the game to be unpaused, so they can go and do what's been asked. You want that pause ability, if you want to try and synchronise people... otherwise you give an order to 1 and they start doing it immediately (because the game isn't paused).

You should read Drake's example again, if you don't see the difference between the two.

I read his example and I've read your example and I still don't think I'll use a pause function.

I'll move people where I want to, carefully in hope that they don't get into combat. Then once everyone is in position, I'll strike. If someone gets jumped, I deal with it. As I said, I don't care if there's a pause feature and if there is one, great, the people that want to use it can use it.

I managed to get through all of Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics using a large enough squad of people most of the time and I never had an issue. Also if guy A has to to further than guy B, then using pause means guy B has to wait on guy A to get there before he can kick off, where as without pause guy B sets off, I go back and start moving guy A and they arrive at their points around the same time. Both pause and no pause have their advantage but I say again, if people want it I hope they put it in for them.

[Unaco]

I read his example and I've read your example and I still don't think I'll use a pause function.

That's cool and all, but do you understand why some people might want to use it? You didn't seem to understand why Drake (and others) was asking for it.

[Fumarole]

JA:BiA had the best of both worlds as far as real-time and pause combat is concerned.

[b0rsuk]

Apparently the WL2 First Look video has violated Vimeo's Terms of Service, and has been deleted. They've re-uploaded it to youtube (Ha, I have an excuse to flush a few lurkers out of the bushes!).