80 réponses à ce sujet

[SleeplessInSigil]

I'm not mocking anyone. Sorry. This was an on-the-spot rant, after all. 

[Alexine]

I actually liked the Last Remnant combat system (but I played on PC, not console, so the experience would probably have been different since PC patched up a lot of the problems from the console version).

But I like turn-based combat. You don't rely on reflexes, but rather on tactical planning. But I could see how most people would be turned off by turn-based combat. All of us have short attention spans in certain degrees, so something has to hook us to play the game. Quick, real-time gameplay is the easiest, storyline is another and so forth.

Modifié par Alexine, 01 février 2011 - 06:18 .

[BomimoDK]

vometia wrote...

Eurypterid wrote...

SleeplessInSigil wrote...

I see. So far, most of the responses have been in the range of,

"I dislike JRPGs!"
"You're no better! Turn-based is bad too!"
"If I wanted Turn-based I'd play chess. Chess is not cool! This is compooter gamezzz!"
"Trull!"

instead of coming up with an objective argument as to WHY real-time combat would work better. WHY does an "RPG" need to cater to the GTA-playing jock types by pretending to be an action game with slightly more dialog, when we have actual action games to fill that role?

Your argument is not bolstered by belittling the tastes and playstyles of others.

Quite.  I'm afraid it was at that point that I figured it was unlikely to be a productive debate: mocking those who disagree over what is a subjective opinion seldom ends well.

Faking supperior intellect with the use of fancy grammar and grand wording of otherwise retarded points makes me puke. I loathe (to use your own language) and hate the need for this community to collectively out-snob eachother on the intellectual level while circlejerking about how barbaric anything but hardcore RPGs are.

I just had to get this out. I can't stand this place when people try to turn it into MenZa (wannabe MenSa). It's sickening. Please get the hint and get back to normal discussions without belittling points that are not snobbish enough. thank you.

[SuperFly_2000]

What does the J in JRPG stand for and what does the W in WRPG stand for?

Modifié par SuperFly_2000, 01 février 2011 - 02:00 .

[vometia]

BomimoDK wrote...

Faking supperior intellect with the use of fancy grammar and grand wording of otherwise retarded points makes me puke. I loathe (to use your own language) and hate the need for this community to collectively out-snob eachother on the intellectual level while circlejerking about how barbaric anything but hardcore RPGs are.

I just had to get this out. I can't stand this place when people try to turn it into MenZa (wannabe MenSa). It's sickening. Please get the hint and get back to normal discussions without belittling points that are not snobbish enough. thank you.

Er, was that aimed at me?   It's just how I write.  That said, my writing's not especially fancy nor was I making an assertion about hardcore RPGs' superiority, so I guess not.

[DukeOfNukes]

WRPG's have bad combat? Somebody should have told Mass Effect 2. Aside from that, I enjoy Dragon Age quite a bit...and Fallout 3 was pretty good when you don't use VATS. Frankly, I don't play too many RPG's...western or eastern. There aren't too many western companies that even make them anymore, and most of those that do are fairly incompetent (Obsidian, Bethesda). As for Eastern...I generally feel that if I've played one, I've played them all.

[BomimoDK]

vometia wrote...

BomimoDK wrote...

Faking supperior intellect with the use of fancy grammar and grand wording of otherwise retarded points makes me puke. I loathe (to use your own language) and hate the need for this community to collectively out-snob eachother on the intellectual level while circlejerking about how barbaric anything but hardcore RPGs are.

I just had to get this out. I can't stand this place when people try to turn it into MenZa (wannabe MenSa). It's sickening. Please get the hint and get back to normal discussions without belittling points that are not snobbish enough. thank you.

Er, was that aimed at me?   It's just how I write.  That said, my writing's not especially fancy nor was I making an assertion about hardcore RPGs' superiority, so I guess not.

Mostly the first quoted poster. then the general way people use outdated 1800s gentlemans grammar and such to look more intellectual on this forum in general. It was more of an explosion of rage build up over several months of membership than aimed at you. Don't take offence if you don't act like that mate.

I'm just pissed at the supperiority complex that many here suffer under when they snob out completely and start bashing anything that isn't written in 1800's british dialect and wording and isn't purely hardcore RPG. It's aggrevating that this forum ended up like that. It's impossible to discuss anything with anyone since any taste in games, music, books, films that isn't bioware focused or intellectually awesome gets bashed to hell by kids who fake a PH.D to feel cool. This place used to be a great place to hang out and talk about stuff. Now it's drowning in fake intellect and the perr pressure to scoff and sneer at anything that doesn't contain tons and tons of lore and dialogue. Not to mention everyones sexual brainlapse that demands that these RPGs contain sexual partners to the level that they expect every new caracter to be ****able.

Sorry. As i said, this has been building over months and i'm seriously disgusted by these things. mostly directed at the poster who demonstrated that arrogance by bashing GTA  and most other people who claim supperiority by hating on things.

Forgive me for venting this violently on you guys shoulders. Fury is an emotion that should not be contained or it gets all the worse.

Modifié par BomimoDK, 01 février 2011 - 12:37 .

[vometia]

BomimoDK wrote...

Mostly the first quoted poster. then the general way people use outdated 1800s gentlemans grammar and such to look more intellectual on this forum in general. It was more of an explosion of rage build up over several months of membership than aimed at you. Don't take offence if you don't act like that mate.

I suppose I can understand that sort of ire since any whiff of elitism can also tend to irritate me quite severely too, although I guess I can't claim hand-on-heart to be immune from the occasional indulgence myself; I suspect we all do it in one manner or another, if not often.  But in this case I think the OP has clarified that he wasn't being entirely serious, at least if I understand correctly, and his writing was more a stream-of-consciousness rant, something I also sympathise with (though hopefully he'll forgive me if I've got that wrong; unless he was being elitist, in which case I don't care. )

As regards "outdated 19th century gentlemens' grammar", if any of my writing seems to be of that persuasion, I'm afraid it's just the way I write: much of it being the way I was taught, though it did take rather longer for the lessons to finally sink in than the time my exasperated teacher actually spent trying to convey the finer points of grammar to his unruly audience.  Though from my own point of view, my grammar is atrocious and my sentences rambling, so I doubt anybody is convinced, but I'd like to write well were I able.

That said, I have seen examples of people who are clearly trying too hard, which actually tends to backfire and simply draws attention to often paper-thin arguments.  This is not a Good Thing™.

[BomimoDK]

vometia wrote...


That said, I have seen examples of people who are clearly trying too hard, which actually tends to backfire and simply draws attention to often paper-thin arguments.  This is not a Good Thing™.

I love it when that happens. Unbased arrogance and feeling of being better than others should always backfire and when it does i feel warm and fuzzy.

What i hate is when a good argument is dismissed because the MenSa level (intellect rating) wasn't high enough to meet the standards of pompous bastards who chose this place to show off. I can honestly say that i observe that behavior more widespread on this board than anywhere else. ESPECIALLY when concerning theories about lore relevant to Dragon Age. Just because they roll dices and are proud of it, it doesn't make them better than avid Grand Theft Auto fans or whatever else. If this is a way to compensate for lacking social skills or bad selfconfidence it's even more sickening.

I'm sorry if you feel i attacked you though. It was mainly aimed at the OP and the GTA basher. Some people just need to open their horizons or stop attempting to close everyone elses. Openmindedness is the most valuable thing in people. It is what gives them imagination and the drive to achieve fantastic things and they're often underapreciated by those who surround them in life.

I'm sorry again for this but i'm seriously pissed at these people. Elitism seriously sucks (no ****!).

I think i'm over it now. When it comes to WRPGs. Both Non-turnbased and turnbased are fine with me. I really enjoy Infinity engine games and Dragon Age for having a pseudo-turnbased aproach with the number crunching in the back. It gives tactics more depth by making kiting, interception, interruption and so on possible. That is something Turnbased games do not have though Silence,Cripple and such get around that.

Op is a plain idiot for saying (and especially if believing) that Baldur's Gate is an auto attack snore-fest. How about he gets his sorry ass off the very easy Difficulty and take a run on core rules and above? Most of the tactics in Baldur's Gate lies not in the combat itself but in proper buffing and debuffing on a level that is far wider than just slapping on the same spell each time. Look up Aec'Letec for an example of obligatory tactical buffing or Dragons for a class example of "debuff or die".

Op=closeminded nostalgiabomb of death.

[vometia]

BomimoDK wrote...

I'm sorry if you feel i attacked you though.

Don't worry about it, I do good oversensitive.

To address your main point, I do agree about the elitism being a problem; and whilst I'll assume good faith with the OP to use the Wikipedia parlance, there is a major problem with elitism amongst the RPG community that seems to be endemic almost everywhere.  That's not to say all players are like that: far from it, I actually find most to be an intelligent and largely unbiased bunch, but it's unfortunate that RPGs have a "certain reputation" thanks to the unhelpful opinions of a small but extremely vocal minority who seem to consider their way or no way, and any dissent is indicative of a crippled intellect possessed by a lesser being.

My own "baptism in RPGs" was the Elder Scrolls series, and being a latecomer my first experience of it was Oblivion.  My second experience was the "hardcore Morrowind fans" who even five years on seem to love nothing more than flaming the much lesser though virtually identical Oblivion and making disparaging remarks about its "casual" players.  Any valid points they may have (and there are some) tend to be lost in the mire of generally insulting and unhelpfully negative remarks.  Take away the window-dressing of pseudo-intellectualism and all you're left with is "u suck lol", the very attitude they like to think they're rising above.  Meanwhile, those actually possessed of genuine creativity get on and fix the things they're unhappy with and quietly show others how it's done.  An interesting distinction, I think.

That's just one example, though: the same seems to be true everywhere, with specious accusations of dumbing down for the casuals and what-not, often for no better reason than the graphics have been improved.  That sort of attitude just tends to alienate new players, and as the older audience grows smaller by attrition they run the very real risk of becoming a market that's too small for the games studios to bother with: in doing so, they're the architects of their own downfall, not the "lesser beings" who occasionally like an outing in GTA or heaven forbid real-time combat.

[Noilly Prat]

I'd just like to point out that grammar isn't "normal" or "fancy" or "snobby."  It's just correct or incorrect.

I don't say this because I'm one of those people who feels an uncontrollable urge to correct the grammar in other people's posts on the internet.  I'm just mentioning this because I can't see why anybody's post should be discounted because they happen to take the time and consideration to use correct grammar when they write, and I can't for the life of me see why this should anger anybody.

Edit: If you're only talking about the tendency of certain forum people to dismiss a perfectly logical argument because of some minor errors in spelling or grammar, then that's a fair point and I agree with it.  Although, even very solid arguments can become difficult to follow if they're very poorly written.

Modifié par Noilly Prat, 01 février 2011 - 04:37 .

[Rockworm503]

SleeplessInSigil wrote...

I just started playing The Last Remnant recently, and boy, it had been a long time since I played a JRPG (or any PC RPG for that matter with a gamepad, but that's not the point) and it just reminded me, just how much better, and fun, combat is in JRPGs, compared to WRPGs.

TL;DR version: Combat in an RPG should remain turn-based. That's not just an opinion.

I stopped reading after this.
Sorry I don't take anyone who treats opinion as fact.  I hate turn based combat I find it terribly boring.

[Rockworm503]

SleeplessInSigil wrote...

I see. So far, most of the responses have been in the range of,

"I dislike JRPGs!"
"You're no better! Turn-based is bad too!"
"If I wanted Turn-based I'd play chess. Chess is not cool! This is compooter gamezzz!"
"Trull!"

instead of coming up with an objective argument as to WHY real-time combat would work better. WHY does an "RPG" need to cater to the GTA-playing jock types by pretending to be an action game with slightly more dialog, when we have actual action games to fill that role?


Come now. Can any of you HONESTLY claim that you actually enjoyed the combat in Dragon Age, or Mass Effect 1, or even the Infinity Engine games like Baldur's Gate? Would you still have said you had FUN playing those combat sequences if they were in some other game that you didn't feel you had to be loyal to and blindly defend every aspect of?

I mean seriously.

Yes I can HONESTLY say I enjoy the combat in Dragon Age.... much more than I can the press X to click on target then press X again to chose attack..... SO DEEP!!

[scottelite]

SuperFly_2000 wrote...

What does the J in JRPG stand for and what does the W in WRPG stand for?

Japanese and Western.

[vometia]

Noilly Prat wrote...

I'd just like to point out that grammar isn't "normal" or "fancy" or "snobby."  It's just correct or incorrect.

I don't say this because I'm one of those people who feels an uncontrollable urge to correct the grammar in other people's posts on the internet.  I'm just mentioning this because I can't see why anybody's post should be discounted because they happen to take the time and consideration to use correct grammar when they write, and I can't for the life of me see why this should anger anybody.

Edit: If you're only talking about the tendency of certain forum people to dismiss a perfectly logical argument because of some minor errors in spelling or grammar, then that's a fair point and I agree with it.  Although, even very solid arguments can become difficult to follow if they're very poorly written.

I agree with you on pretty much all counts.  That said, I do know of the sort of thing he was getting at and have seen examples of certain people attempting to bamboozle others with unnecessarily long words to obfuscate the fact that they actually have no argument.  It's broadly similar to people who use jargon, soundbites and "management speak" in an attempt to gloss over the fact that actually they really have nothing useful to say.  It's a bit of a grey area sometimes when people attempt to assert a more convincing argument than is otherwise the case, but its corollary that a poorly-written argument looks less convincing than it is--in which case correct grammar is a positive benefit rather than being simply pretentious.  Sometimes the difference is not immediately obvious, however; especially after an encounter with such an obfuscator where such subtleties may be lost.  Or with somebody like me whose concentration tends to drift off mid-sentence, but that's another matter altogether.

I think most of us can agree that the infamous spelling flame or conspicuous grammar nitpick is tantamount to an admission that said nitpicker has lost the argument, but who doesn't want to say it in as many words.

[Noilly Prat]

Veering back to the topic: I've been playing a lot of Puzzle Quest 2 lately, and I have to say, it probably has my favorite turn-based battle system of all those I've seen for a while.  Seriously!  I like it because the basic mechanics are very simple and transparent, making it easy to get into the battle system and start playing around with different tactics.  The system is quite well-balanced and surprisingly adaptable to different playing styles, with four different playable classes, each having quite a few unique spells and weapons.

For those who aren't familiar with it, it's basically a package of several different variations of a Bejeweled-like puzzle game, all tied together by a simple RPG framework.  The battles consist of taking turns with the CPU enemy making moves on the board, matching up different colored gems to save up reserves of mana, or making weapon attacks or expending mana to use spells that have various effects, from doing damage to manipulating the board.

I was also just thinking that anyone who thinks that real-time battle systems are all just samey hack-and-slash fare should check out games like The World Ends With You (for DS) and Knights in the Nightmare (DS and PSP).  Both of these are Japanese games, but they both have real-time battle systems unlike anything else I've ever experienced.

Personally, I think these games are good but not great, but they are definitely good examples of unique real-time battle systems.

Edit: to vometia-- yes, I definitely agree with your point about some people trying to mask their lack of knowledge or a logical base by trying really hard to sound authoritative.  After posting my last comment, I thought it would be best if added a little caveat, so that it wouldn't sound so much like I was possibly misinterpreting BomimoDK's meaning.

I know that, speaking for myself, I have some strong opinions, and I'm quite open with them, but when I don't think that I have a strong factual base for them, or think that I can't present a reasonable argument, I tend to moderate my opinions or just keep quiet.  I do this in order to avoid situations where I may make a fool of myself.  (I don't usually proofread my forum postings, though, so sometimes something slips through the cracks, so to speak.)

Modifié par Noilly Prat, 01 février 2011 - 06:04 .

[vometia]

Noilly Prat wrote...

I know that, speaking for myself, I have some strong opinions, and I'm quite open with them, but when I don't think that I have a strong factual base for them, or think that I can't present a reasonable argument, I tend to moderate my opinions or just keep quiet.  I do this in order to avoid situations where I may make a fool of myself.

A talent I've yet to master. Disagreement, particularly subjective disagreement, doesn't have to be asserted... but often my feelings get the better of me.  Kudos to those who are better at simply walking away.

Back to the topic, I rather feel I should add something new rather than solely continuing with debating the finer points of debating, but I rather feel that the points I would make (i.e. turn-based combat isn't automatically superior) have already been made rather more effectively than I would manage myself.  So I won't.

[SleeplessInSigil]

Rockworm503 wrote...

Yes I can HONESTLY say I enjoy the combat in Dragon Age.... much more than I can the press X to click on target then press X again to chose attack..... SO DEEP!!

I like how you failed to read the rest of my post that you quoted. Here it is again, in case you still fail to see my comparison regarding "DEEP:"

SleeplessInSigil wrote...

Let's take: Healing.

In Baldur's Gate and its descendants like Dragon Age, once you've mindlessly clicked on all the buffs from Hotkey #1 to 10, you simply have to press a button as soon as you see that red bar at 25% length. That's it. The action is uninterrupted and the pre-provided scripts carry on beating at the enemy.


Now, in The Last Remnant, say one of your groups is about to die.

There, you have to make a CHOICE. Heal, OR keep attacking. Yes: one turn, one move. That's it. A decision that you will NOT get to take back. That unit might die on the next turn even with a healing anyway so you have to consider whether it'd be worthwhile to let that unit get a last blow in on the enemy before it falls.

Suppose you noticed that one of the key enemy groups is about to die too. It gets even more tense there; You may or may not end up killing the enemy or one of your own key groups may die on the next turn if it doesn't heal itself instead of charging.

Then you also have to take into consideration factors like Deadlocks your other groups are in and any Interference you may get from the other enemy groups, should you decide to help out your dying units with some other friendly group.

Also, once you enter in your orders and start to execute them, it's not like you'll have to sit back with nothing to do but watch the animation until the next turn starts, because you still get to enter manual input to pull off critical hits and counterattacks.


All of that comes together to keep me glued to the screen and interested in the game throughout the combat sequences, instead of being some tedious chore to get over with as in games like Dragon Age where you can't honestly feel any pressing need to take manual control in order to succeed.



Increase the Difficulty, you say huh? PFFFT In a well-designed system Difficulty Sliders should not even exist in the first place!!

You can still have optional levels of challenge without explicitly implementing a handicap system which is what Dragon Age does.

Again, to take The Last Remnant as an example, it requires manual input during the combat animations to successfully execute critical hits and counterattacks. However, there is an option to have those crits occur automatically. Something like this actually caters to different playstyles and preferences better than implementing an artificial stopgap like Difficulty Sliders which simply inflate the enemy's HP and damage power to create the illusion of a harder challenge.

I keep giving actual, objective examples of how Turn-Based Combat allows for more strategy and challenge, and fits the genre better, whereas the proponents of Real-Time here have failed to do so even once in the favor of standard WRPG combat, as far as this thread is concerned.

Nothing but attempts at personal attacks and the weak "You hurt my feelings! I can't take you seriously now!" or "I dislike JRPGs therefore they cannot get anything right" which doesn't even address the topic here: Comparison between different combat styles, not RPG styles.


Can someone please come up with ONE scenario where RT combat can provide more depth than TB?

[Gecon]

SuperFly_2000 wrote...

What does the J in JRPG stand for and what does the W in WRPG stand for?

J means Japanese

W means Western

As I never bothered playing any japanese roleplaying games, I cant say much about them.

But a roleplaying game, to me, is a game that keeps offering me multiple choices and make me think which one to take.

It doesnt need to be actually turnbased, its enough if actions take a certain time, like in Dragon Age. And if its fully realtime, actions should have cooldowns.

And there should be a lot of different abilities, each coming with advantages and disadvantages, special actions only possible under certain circumstances, etc.

[Rockworm503]

SleeplessInSigil wrote...

Rockworm503 wrote...

Yes I can HONESTLY say I enjoy the combat in Dragon Age.... much more than I can the press X to click on target then press X again to chose attack..... SO DEEP!!

I like how you failed to read the rest of my post that you quoted. Here it is again, in case you still fail to see my comparison regarding "DEEP:"

SleeplessInSigil wrote...

Let's take: Healing.

In Baldur's Gate and its descendants like Dragon Age, once you've mindlessly clicked on all the buffs from Hotkey #1 to 10, you simply have to press a button as soon as you see that red bar at 25% length. That's it. The action is uninterrupted and the pre-provided scripts carry on beating at the enemy.


Now, in The Last Remnant, say one of your groups is about to die.

There, you have to make a CHOICE. Heal, OR keep attacking. Yes: one turn, one move. That's it. A decision that you will NOT get to take back. That unit might die on the next turn even with a healing anyway so you have to consider whether it'd be worthwhile to let that unit get a last blow in on the enemy before it falls.

Suppose you noticed that one of the key enemy groups is about to die too. It gets even more tense there; You may or may not end up killing the enemy or one of your own key groups may die on the next turn if it doesn't heal itself instead of charging.

Then you also have to take into consideration factors like Deadlocks your other groups are in and any Interference you may get from the other enemy groups, should you decide to help out your dying units with some other friendly group.

Also, once you enter in your orders and start to execute them, it's not like you'll have to sit back with nothing to do but watch the animation until the next turn starts, because you still get to enter manual input to pull off critical hits and counterattacks.


All of that comes together to keep me glued to the screen and interested in the game throughout the combat sequences, instead of being some tedious chore to get over with as in games like Dragon Age where you can't honestly feel any pressing need to take manual control in order to succeed.



Increase the Difficulty, you say huh? PFFFT In a well-designed system Difficulty Sliders should not even exist in the first place!!

You can still have optional levels of challenge without explicitly implementing a handicap system which is what Dragon Age does.

Again, to take The Last Remnant as an example, it requires manual input during the combat animations to successfully execute critical hits and counterattacks. However, there is an option to have those crits occur automatically. Something like this actually caters to different playstyles and preferences better than implementing an artificial stopgap like Difficulty Sliders which simply inflate the enemy's HP and damage power to create the illusion of a harder challenge.

I keep giving actual, objective examples of how Turn-Based Combat allows for more strategy and challenge, and fits the genre better, whereas the proponents of Real-Time here have failed to do so even once in the favor of standard WRPG combat, as far as this thread is concerned.

Nothing but attempts at personal attacks and the weak "You hurt my feelings! I can't take you seriously now!" or "I dislike JRPGs therefore they cannot get anything right" which doesn't even address the topic here: Comparison between different combat styles, not RPG styles.


Can someone please come up with ONE scenario where RT combat can provide more depth than TB?

I read it I'm treating JRPGs the same courtesy you're treating my beloved WRPGs which is none.
Say whatever you want you press a button and watch as something happens and that is it.  Then you watch a 20 minute cutscene that makes no sense.
However you wrap it up its still boring.

[MJRick]

SleeplessInSigil wrote...



 Combat in an RPG should remain turn-based. That's not just an opinion.

How is that not an opinion?

Modifié par MJRick, 02 février 2011 - 08:27 .

[o_CLeVeR_o]

i personally dislike the turn base system, i mean sure it worked with the old school jrpg's, but with the games today being more action based and cinematic i feel it slows the game down and throws it off pace, it was probably the only thing i hated about lost odyssey for example, it just felt outdated.

[NeroSparda]

o_CLeVeR_o wrote...

i personally dislike the turn base system, i mean sure it worked with the old school jrpg's, but with the games today being more action based and cinematic i feel it slows the game down and throws it off pace, it was probably the only thing i hated about lost odyssey for example, it just felt outdated.

True, but I also like Lost Odyssey since it is the only one so far that allows a party up to six characters. Though I prefer Turn-based games in JRPGs, like Shin Megami Tensei due to the fear for a full field attack in an automatic kill (10% of all of the attacks, but very likely to come across) attack if it was real time... Then again, I get pumped up during Tales of the Abyss and Vesperia due to its real time combat system.

[o_CLeVeR_o]

don't get me wrong lost odyssey was probably the best turn based system game i've played for this generation of consoles, but the whole you stand there and wait for me to develop a strategy and attack before you can attack thing just doesn't interest me in video games,but i did like the rest of that game

[Noilly Prat]

SleeplessInSigil wrote...


I keep giving actual, objective examples of how Turn-Based Combat allows for more strategy and challenge, and fits the genre better, whereas the proponents of Real-Time here have failed to do so even once in the favor of standard WRPG combat, as far as this thread is concerned.

Nothing but attempts at personal attacks and the weak "You hurt my feelings! I can't take you seriously now!" or "I dislike JRPGs therefore they cannot get anything right" which doesn't even address the topic here: Comparison between different combat styles, not RPG styles.


Can someone please come up with ONE scenario where RT combat can provide more depth than TB?

I already spoke my piece on this.  I said that, in my view, the examples you cited are not the exclusive domain of turn-based systems, and so do not necessarily represent an advantage of turn-based systems over real-time systems.

Even a game with real-time combat may force the player to weigh the comparative needs to deal damage and keep allies healed, in the form of things like time-consuming potion-quaffing animations or cooldown timers.  Now, I admit that BG and DA didn't handle healing in the most elegant way, but that's one particular element of a battle system which, I think, still manages to do a lot of things right.

You could say that you don't like cooldowns because they feel more like something that belongs in an action game, and that would be fine, but the fact remains that they accomplish exactly the same thing in a real-time system that limited actions in a turn-based system accomplish.

Now, as I've already said, I am not making the argument that real-time systems are inherently better than turn-based ones, but here's one example of something real-time games can do that turn-based games cannot: real-time positioning of units for tactical purposes.  Turn-based tactical RPGs allow for positional tactical advantages using board game-like rules determining where, when, and how far units may move at a time.  In a real-time game, this is done seamlessly, in real time, and without grid-based layouts-- more like something you would see in an RTS game.  Turn-based games will never be able to do this (even something like Valkyria Chronicles, which dispenses with the grid-based maps and movement so common to Japanese strategy RPGs, still makes you move units around one at a time, within a limited movement range, and breaks the action phases up into turns).

It's fine to like one of these approaches better than the other, but it's pretty meaningless to claim that one is inherently better, deeper, or more challenging than the other.  I've played a lot of turn-based RPGs with extremely simple, borderline shallow battle systems, and I've played strategy games or even action games with a lot of depth, sophistication, and variability.  For this reason, I don't think it's reasonable to make judgements in such broad swaths.  I've played some extremely challenging turn-based RPGs, but I've played fast-paced action games and even point-and-click adventure games that were also very challenging, just in different ways.  Would it be fair to say that a turn-based RPG will never be as challenging as Ninja Gaiden or Ikaruga because they're slower and give you more time to think about your next move?

Regarding the use of stat-driven mechanics in real-time games: I don't care for the Morrowind system, in which you can shoot an arrow directly into a guy's face at close range and have some invisible dice roll tell you that you've missed.  Other games, though, such as Deus Ex, take a page out of the Rainbow Six book and have accuracy stats determine the speed at which your targeting reticle narrows, or the extent to which it narrows, or the degree of view wobble when aiming with a scope.  I think this approach works well enough.  Having behind-the-scenes calculations determining damage and resistances in a real-time game is also done easily enough, and even things like movement or attack speed can be affected by stats.

Then there are games like Infinite Space and Knights in the Nightmare (which I already mentioned), that use stat mechanics in a real-time framework.  In Infinite Space, you control real-time space ship battles by pressing buttons to fly forward and backward, getting enemies within range of your guns and trying to stay out of range of enemy guns.  You have a command gauge that fills up over time, and expend portions of this gauge issuing commands to attack, use special attacks, or dodge enemy attacks, and you have access to other commands on top of these.  It's all real-time, and stats determine your damage, chance to hit, evasion rate, movement speed, command gauge refill rate, fighter speed and power, weapon range, and pretty much everything else.  You alter all these stats by switching ships in your fleet, changing crew member assignments, and changing equipped weapons and modules on your ships between battles.

Knights in the Nightmare actually does use a turn system, but not in the same sense as your typical turn-based RPG.  The turns are basically rounds of battle, and within each turn fighting is totally real-time.  Enemies shuffle around in real time and make attacks that take the form of a storm of bullet-type effects, which the player, using the DS stylus to control a wisp of light, dodges.  You make attacks by highlighting allied units or dragging equipped weapons to allied units and charging up an attack, whose range and direction depend on the character, the weapon, and the phase of battle in which you are currently playing.  As far as I know, the only thing here that's really not affected by stats is the movement of the wisp, which is determined by how fast and precisely you can scribble on your DS touchscreen.  The battles have a hectic and fast-paced feel, but also have the same tactical elements you would see in your typical grid-based strategy RPG.

I'm about to put an end to this long-winded post, but there's one more thing I have to mention first: in Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age, you cannot simply mindlessly click away all your buffs uninterrupted.  As anybody who has played either of these games should recall, spellcasting can be (and frequently is) interrupted by attacks.