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TOEE: Can you flee?

JanC

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
156
My first Ironman party just got wiped out, *sigh*.
The annoying thing is that I saw I was outclassed, and fled to the stairs (this was in the moathouse). But I couldn't use the stairs. The gnolls (for it was they) were not pursuing. They were still in their room, about 5 rounds away. But I couldn't figure out how to end combat. I know it is possible, since it happened once when I was fleeing a giant. But this time nothing happened. I just kept pressing 'skip turn' for ages, and eventually went on a kamikaze spree and got everyone wiped out.
Is this one of those famous bugs I keep hearing about, or did I just miss the 'end combat' command hidden in a menu somewhere?
I play a lot of roguelikes, and in them the most important tactic is knowing when to flee. It would be disappointing if this tactic is not possible.
Other than that, I'm loving the game! The tension in combat is nail-biting, and the tactical depth is superb.
 

JanC

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
156
What a daft decision. I don't know how Troika could have made so many brilliant design decisions, so faithful to the source material and then not let you flee from combat. I play a lot of P&P D&D and you spend a lot of time fleeing. (or at least I do!) "Living to fight another day" is an important part of the tactics.
Do you know their thinking behind this design decision?
I've been recommending TOEE to all my roleplaying friends, but I think I'll stop now! What a game-killer.
 

HanoverF

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Testers would leave one character by the stairs, and if a fight was going bad, poof, they'd use the stairs, so the option to flee was disallowed.
 

JanC

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
156
HanoverF said:
Testers would leave one character by the stairs, and if a fight was going bad, poof, they'd use the stairs, so the option to flee was disallowed.

That is really throwing out the baby with the bath-water! I am almost speechless with the short-sightedness of that design decision. There is a glaringly obvious solution to that problem.

Baldur's Gate: "You must gather your party before venturing forth" was annoying, but it would be OK if it only happened in combat mode. And annyway, annoyance is better than the anger I am feeling now at my party being wiped out for no good reason.

And if they couldn't manage to program that, it would surely have been better to leave that exploit with the stairs in, than do what they did. After all, a party-member by the stairs is a party-member out of the fight. So you do lose something by that tactic.

Janet
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
ToEE is not that difficult, throw in a little tactics and there would be no reasons to flee :wink:
 

GreenNight

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 22, 2002
Messages
135
Location
Barcelona, Spain
It would be better to let escape the characters one by one. One goes up the stairs, he is out. No characters on the level, go up to where all are. It may have some other problems (leaving one character down, stuck in a permanent web, now what?) but could be a solution in some cases.

I'm expecting the game to arrive soon. Wohoo!
If it weren't for the kazaa version I would not have bought it (no demo = not being able to test if it works in my computer = no sale).
 

JanC

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
156
GreenNight said:
It would be better to let escape the characters one by one. One goes up the stairs, he is out. No characters on the level, go up to where all are. It may have some other problems (leaving one character down, stuck in a permanent web, now what?) but could be a solution in some cases.
.
That's a really good solution! If only the TOEE designers had had someone like you on the team. The lone character, stuck in a web, could be removed from the party (abandoned to his fate)
 

JanC

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
156
Vault Dweller said:
ToEE is not that difficult, throw in a little tactics and there would be no reasons to flee :wink:
Hey, are you questioning my l33t skills? :)
What happened was that I found some bugbears by scouting with my dire rat animal companion, and buffed everyone for the fight, but when it came to move into the room, my dire rat would not move, and he was completely blocking the entrance to the bugbear room! Because it was combat, I did not have control of him, and because he could not see the enemy, he would not move.
So what happened was that I got mad and blundered off down the other passage (in combat mode), in the hope the rat would follow. I encountered the gnolls out of formation and had no hope.
I see *now* that I should have just slaughtered the rat to get past, but I have a pychological block against killing party members, and it was late.
Janet
 

Elwro

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Dec 29, 2002
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Vault Dweller said:
ToEE is not that difficult, throw in a little tactics and there would be no reasons to flee :wink:
Come on, he was playing in the Ironman mode. Fleeing should definitely be an option. You shouldn't change your game because you have dumb testers.
 

chiefnewo

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 18, 2003
Messages
118
Elwro said:
Vault Dweller said:
ToEE is not that difficult, throw in a little tactics and there would be no reasons to flee :wink:
Come on, he was playing in the Ironman mode. Fleeing should definitely be an option. You shouldn't change your game because you have dumb testers.

At the very least it'd be nice to be able to flee after the rest of your part has been slaughtered and your last character is one hit away from death himself.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Elwro said:
Vault Dweller said:
ToEE is not that difficult, throw in a little tactics and there would be no reasons to flee :wink:
Come on, he was playing in the Ironman mode. Fleeing should definitely be an option. You shouldn't change your game because you have dumb testers.
I believe it's she as in Janet, not he. Anyway, they don't call it the ironmode for nothing, heavy casualties are to be expected :lol:

JanC said:
I encountered the gnolls out of formation and had no hope
Out of curiosity, who was in your party?
[flirting] Janet is a very beautiful name [/flirting] :)
 

Elwro

Arcane
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Dec 29, 2002
Messages
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Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
Vault Dweller said:
Elwro said:
Vault Dweller said:
ToEE is not that difficult, throw in a little tactics and there would be no reasons to flee :wink:
Come on, he was playing in the Ironman mode. Fleeing should definitely be an option. You shouldn't change your game because you have dumb testers.
I believe it's she as in Janet, not he.
Oops... I'm so embarrassed. I didn't notice the signature, and "Jan" is a Polish male name.
I'm awfully sorry!

Of course that heavy casualties are to be expected in this mode. But hey, soccer games on the 'hard' difficulty setting do not force your team to play with only left leg or to shoot only between 15 and 20 mins of the match. It's obvious that fleeing should be allowed - in Ironman mode it's natural to check if you are a match for the antagonists, and if you aren't - to get the hell out of there.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Elwro said:
in Ironman mode it's natural to check if you are a match for the antagonists
Overall I agree, it would have been nice to have this option. Well, according to Trash and Huy Nguyen of Troika it will be fixed, so everyone including tactically challenged people (sorry, could not resist :lol: ) should be happy
 

GreenNight

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 22, 2002
Messages
135
Location
Barcelona, Spain
JanC said:
That's a really good solution! If only the TOEE designers had had someone like you on the team.
Ideas are plentiful, implementation is where the genius lives. And this is nothing else than a cheap way to try to implement what was estandard in a quite old isometric CRPG, shadowlands I think it was called. Where you had 4 people and you could control them independently. And even, sometimes, you had to have them in diferent levels trigering levelers at the same time.

(back to ToEE) When I could still play I loved the tension that was generated in an Ironman game, placing your party in a nice formation and sending the rogue ahead sneaking. In normal game is more like "I go forward, I die, I reload, I go forward, I win".
 

JanC

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
156
Vault Dweller said:
JanC said:
I encountered the gnolls out of formation and had no hope
Out of curiosity, who was in your party?
Ooh, it's dangerous to ask a roleplayer about their characters; they might tell you for the next hour or two!

Lev 3 Barbarian
Lev 2 Rogue/ 1 Fighter
Lev 2 Cleric/ 1 Wizard
Lev 3 Sorcerer
Lev 2 Druid (Lost 1st Druid attempting to charm a bear in Emridy meadows!)

The party worked very well together; they would have been able to defeat the gnolls normally, I think, but my party was too spread out. Charm person worked a treat on them (my sorcerer had Spell Focus and Greater Spell focus Enchantment) but there was no-one left to defend her. Squish.
For my next game I've gone with a similar make-up. At the moment (just before the Gnolls - it's nailbiting!) I've got

Lev 3 Barbarian
Lev 1 Rogue/ Lev 1 Druid (I lost my first rogue in the Emridy fields at 1st level to a lucky crit for a skeleton; 17 hp in one go instakill!)
Lev 3 Cleric (with scribe scroll and brew potion, great fun)
Lev 3 Sorcerer (again with the Enchantment)
Lev 3 Monk (this guy has amazing stats; I'm terrified of losing him!)

These guys are even better than the last lot, especially in terms of stats. My Sorceress has a 4 Int, though! I gave her blonde hair and called her Tracy :) I love the 'Stupid' dialog options! (even though they are more dumb barbarian than bimbo)

[flirting] Janet is a very beautiful name [/flirting] :)
Cheeky! :P

I've noticed an axploit with Ironman character generation. Even though you can only roll once, you can hit cancel and roll again as many times as you like. I am ashamed to say I gave into temptation with one character; I don't like to see that many 7s on a character sheet! Am I bad?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
28,024
JanC said:
Ooh, it's dangerous to ask a roleplayer about their characters; they might tell you for the next hour or two!
lol, how true, I have friends who tend to avoid me after every major rpg release to skip a detailed analysis of my party, a brief overview of the character system and its flaws, and a complimentary war story of a major battle won purely by my tactical genius (and a lucky roll :lol: ).

Lev 3 Barbarian, Lev 2 Rogue/ 1 Fighter, Lev 2 Cleric/ 1 Wizard, Lev 3 Sorcerer
Lev 2 Druid (Lost 1st Druid attempting to charm a bear in Emridy meadows!)
Lev 3 Barbarian, Lev 1 Rogue/ Lev 1 Druid (I lost my first rogue in the Emridy fields at 1st level to a lucky crit for a skeleton; 17 hp in one go instakill!), Lev 3 Cleric (with scribe scroll and brew potion, great fun), Lev 3 Sorcerer (again with the Enchantment), Lev 3 Monk (this guy has amazing stats; I'm terrified of losing him!)
I see you have a thing for spellcasters. That certainly explains why you had troubles with the gnolls, not that there is anything wrong with you party, but it's more challenging on early levels.

I'm playing now with fighter, barbarian, figher/cleric, fighter/rogue, and sorc. The gnolls never had a chance :) ToEE focused mainly on melee combat, so I figured that a one full sorc and a half of a cleric will do to provide some support

I am ashamed to say I gave into temptation with one character; I don't like to see that many 7s on a character sheet! Am I bad?
Very. :) I did the same. I wish they added point-buy system as an option though. Point-buy results are usually much tougher then a roll that a player would agree to accept without dm's supervision.

I rolled a new party few days ago, and on my second roll I got 18, 18, 16, 14, 13, 12. First I spent 2 hours figuring out what character type would benefit the most from such a roll, then I forced myself to discard the roll because it would be too easy, throw in some gloves, a necklace, and a matching stone and you're unstoppable. I eventually settled for a more modest 17, 14, 12, 10, 8, 7. True story. :)
 

JanC

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
156
Vault Dweller said:
JanC said:
Lev 3 Barbarian, Lev 1 Rogue/ Lev 1 Druid (I lost my first rogue in the Emridy fields at 1st level to a lucky crit for a skeleton; 17 hp in one go instakill!), Lev 3 Cleric (with scribe scroll and brew potion, great fun), Lev 3 Sorcerer (again with the Enchantment), Lev 3 Monk (this guy has amazing stats; I'm terrified of losing him!)
I see you have a thing for spellcasters. That certainly explains why you had troubles with the gnolls, not that there is anything wrong with you party, but it's more challenging on early levels.

I'm playing now with fighter, barbarian, figher/cleric, fighter/rogue, and sorc. The gnolls never had a chance :) ToEE focused mainly on melee combat, so I figured that a one full sorc and a half of a cleric will do to provide some support
I don't think that you necessarily need a melee heavy party. My party at the moment consists of Barbarian, Rogue/Druid, Wizard, Cleric and Sorcerer. Very magic heavy, but at this stage in the game (running errands for the elemental priests in the temple) it is very effective. The only original character left from party creation is the Int4 Sorcerer Tracy, but at least I haven't had another total party wipe-out. I lost quite a few to the bugbears in the Moathouse again, but since I now knew how to flee, I lived to fight another day. It taught me a lot about tactics. It taught me that Charm Person and Tasha's Hideous Laughter are unstoppable vs humanoids. A magic heavy party just means you have to rest a lot, which coincidentally means you go up levels quickly if you happen to need to rest in unsafe spots (like the Temple).
In case anyone wonders, to flee you must do the following: Dismiss any dead party members (click on the red question mark on their portrait). Move your characters as far away from the enemy as possible. Press the 'C' key. Thanks to everyone who helped me work this out.

I rolled a new party few days ago, and on my second roll I got 18, 18, 16, 14, 13, 12. First I spent 2 hours figuring out what character type would benefit the most from such a roll, then I forced myself to discard the roll because it would be too easy, throw in some gloves, a necklace, and a matching stone and you're unstoppable. I eventually settled for a more modest 17, 14, 12, 10, 8, 7. True story. :)
I wouldn't have the patience for that. I don't think I've ever spent more than 10 minurtes creating a character. I usually have a character type in mind (such as a fighter capable of Whirlwind Attack), and I just get disappointed if the stats are too low for what I want.
I don't think a character is ever unstoppable in Ironman mode; criticals see to that. I don't worry about non-primary stats at all; that's why I have a Sorcerer with an Int of 4. It doesn't make much difference.
 

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