When you talk about the modernized heartbeat of this game I am reminded of how much I love Magic. Magic is so much about tempo-the back and forth-the staccato beats and swings of the game. It is a push and pull dance where you have to know when you lead and when you follow. Legends of Runeterra has a more mechanical detailed tempo. It’s like the industrial beats to Magic’s Aaron Copland.
You also talk about how ToA takes in the turn based elements of jrpgs and brings them into real time. I am convinced that that is why I love souls game. Because they are secretly the fastest turn based combat games out there. There is a dance, a symphony to the combat. And perhaps nowhere it is better seen than in Sekiro. DS2s combat is poked at as slow because nowhere in the series is the “your turn, my turn” of the combat more evident and it can feel very solvable and overused.
I also want to talk about the only controlling one character at a time piece and every character being fully realized. I have really enjoyed games like Pillars of Eternity 2 and FFXII that offer clear algorithms to create for your non controlled units. I have found that this form of party/deck building is something I love. Sometimes I prefer to create the strategy and see how it performs—piloting it is less essential. This reminds me of Teamfight Tactics and other Auto Chess games—though I do not so much enjoy the slot machine of rolling units.
Lastly—this is more of a complaint of the RTS genre—particularly for PvP. I love these games. Warcraft 1 on Mac was the first computer game I ever played. However, as you climb the ladder the game becomes so much about multitasking and high APM. Which I believe is a detriment to the approachability for the pvp portion of the game. What I find interesting is that your proposed fix of changing the unit of control could address this
Jim! As for souls games doing this…great take! People often say “don’t get greedy” in a souls game, which is another way to say “take your turn, then wait for their turn.”
I agree on the intensity of higher tier RTS. I love carefully planning an assault but when I’m managing 100 entities every second I am peeled away from the “romantic” aspect of command and it becomes something else that is less fun. It removes the veneer of the fiction and just blatantly says “this is a big hyper speed spreadsheet with murder.”
Want to “yes, and” the souls greed advice. I think that these games are so excellent because they are teaching you something. And these different learnable moments feed into these broader strategies.
For example Patience - Don’t be Greedy and Wait Your Turn
And my favorite Fearlessness- Take it to them—the closer to danger the further from harm
I spend most of my time seeking to find major themes and unifying principles of things—particularly entertainment. This is what has really been so great about your blog and these kind of posts. Representing what is at the core and matters most.
This makes me think of so many other ideas.
When you talk about the modernized heartbeat of this game I am reminded of how much I love Magic. Magic is so much about tempo-the back and forth-the staccato beats and swings of the game. It is a push and pull dance where you have to know when you lead and when you follow. Legends of Runeterra has a more mechanical detailed tempo. It’s like the industrial beats to Magic’s Aaron Copland.
You also talk about how ToA takes in the turn based elements of jrpgs and brings them into real time. I am convinced that that is why I love souls game. Because they are secretly the fastest turn based combat games out there. There is a dance, a symphony to the combat. And perhaps nowhere it is better seen than in Sekiro. DS2s combat is poked at as slow because nowhere in the series is the “your turn, my turn” of the combat more evident and it can feel very solvable and overused.
I also want to talk about the only controlling one character at a time piece and every character being fully realized. I have really enjoyed games like Pillars of Eternity 2 and FFXII that offer clear algorithms to create for your non controlled units. I have found that this form of party/deck building is something I love. Sometimes I prefer to create the strategy and see how it performs—piloting it is less essential. This reminds me of Teamfight Tactics and other Auto Chess games—though I do not so much enjoy the slot machine of rolling units.
Lastly—this is more of a complaint of the RTS genre—particularly for PvP. I love these games. Warcraft 1 on Mac was the first computer game I ever played. However, as you climb the ladder the game becomes so much about multitasking and high APM. Which I believe is a detriment to the approachability for the pvp portion of the game. What I find interesting is that your proposed fix of changing the unit of control could address this
Jim! As for souls games doing this…great take! People often say “don’t get greedy” in a souls game, which is another way to say “take your turn, then wait for their turn.”
I agree on the intensity of higher tier RTS. I love carefully planning an assault but when I’m managing 100 entities every second I am peeled away from the “romantic” aspect of command and it becomes something else that is less fun. It removes the veneer of the fiction and just blatantly says “this is a big hyper speed spreadsheet with murder.”
Want to “yes, and” the souls greed advice. I think that these games are so excellent because they are teaching you something. And these different learnable moments feed into these broader strategies.
For example Patience - Don’t be Greedy and Wait Your Turn
And my favorite Fearlessness- Take it to them—the closer to danger the further from harm
I spend most of my time seeking to find major themes and unifying principles of things—particularly entertainment. This is what has really been so great about your blog and these kind of posts. Representing what is at the core and matters most.
Thank you!