Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Pre-Release Thread [ALPHA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Yeah, get out of here, we all know PS:T should have been a Visual Novel.

 

Voted TB but my faith is lacking.

 

Oh boy, look at that, arguing against what I said with ridicule instead of an argument of your own.

Did you play PS:T because of the amazing combat and game mechanics it offers (like in many other TB games) or primarily because of its story, characters and setting?
Would you have ignored it if it was instead a party-based Adventure game in the style of Sanitarium or STASIS and would it have lost much of its appeal in such a case?

TToEE or Jagged Alliance 2 (or even Icewind Dale I/II for a combat-based RTwP game) it was not.

 

Heh, who said I was joking?

 

This "argument" is not an argument. It's exactly the wrong way of looking at it. Maybe you only played it for the story because it had nothing else going for it?
How about if it had good combat too and played it for both story and combat? Otherwise, again, why have combat in the first place? Sure, it could have been an adventure game, but it was not. And this one will have combat too. So why the fuck wouldn't it be good if it's in? It's fucking absurd.

 

Turn-based is slowly catching up!

 

Maybe when the Europeans wake up they'll take over the Kwan popamolers.

 

Well, we did have a huge advantage at the usual uservoice forums first threads about it.

We just need to wait until its our turn. And they will spend all their APs by then.

 

I'd rather they not concentrate on combat much at all and put most of their resources mainly in story, setting/environment and creative quest, world, dialogue and puzzle design for the game. Keep combat to a minimum few required encounters and maybe add a few token ones for those that can't live without.
Introducing a TB combat system and putting a heavy intricate focus on those gameplay mechanics instead of the others that might escalate into hundreds of combat encounters of varying length (if introduced, why not make use of it?) seems to be as far away from what I'm hoping this game turns out to be as I can think.

A great TB combat system and not much else in the sense of game mechanics can carry certain games, but I'm really hoping this won't be one of them.

It's a different game/different expectations kind of thing, for instance I don't expect a combat system in STASIS at all and don't think it would improve the game while I don't expect a particularly great story (or much focus on it) in games like Diablo 2 or Grim Dawn.

 

I don't think there is a danger of this game turning into JA2, no matter the combat system.

 

First, they already have a TB combat system from W2, which they said they can adapt which is one of the reasons they said they'd like to do TB. Second, if introduced why not make use of it... what? Torment had combat too, and it didn't escalate into hundreds of combat encounters. The hell.
Plus they also said that they intend to make the combat meaningful, as in no filler combat.

In short, at least their intention is to make a complete game. Not just slap combat in for the sake of having combat, which is how it pretty much was with Torment.

 

Says the guy who hasnt even played PS:T yet.

 

I played it like 7 times already, just never finished it.

 

We do have a lot of focus on story, and the assets I saw being generated this past week are pretty incredible. We will have a limited number of Crises, and we fully intend to make combat not required. One of our basic goals in this game is to avoid trash mobs - and we can get away with that, because the Numenera rules don't award XP for killing. Instead, we award XP for exploration, for discovery, for knowledge and understanding. This is not to say that we might not include optional combat sites for those who want to play with the system, but our intent is to make our Crises deep, involved, strategic, and tactical.

When I say "Crisis", keep in mind that I don't mean "combat" - these are situations where combat might occur, but if you don't want to fight, you should be able to find a way around it. We outline this in Update 24.

I hope that helps assuage your concerns.

 

It may have been neglected in favor of the creative aspects, but combat was one of the core elements of Torment. Those weapons, spells, tattoos-and-other-equippable items and non-int/wis/cha attributes weren't there just for show. The story they wanted (and want) to tell involved a person who could straight up kill people and there must be systems for that. As a wise person said, if you're going to do something, you should do it as well you can.

 

I'd assume that if you're able to iterate/build from turn-based systems you've created in Torment it would free up time to focus in other areas (as well as take general feedback from turn-based systems when the Wasteland 2 beta goes live).

While I prefer turn-based in general I think that's why I've gone in more strongly for it rather than voting that it doesn't matter.

 

Codexers again really don't know when people are just having fun and joking but I wiill give you a serious argument: Adventure games are totally focused on the stories they are trying to tell not you are trying to make, there are some odd cases like Last Express, Blade Runner and some very few others(you could say that they were more like adventure games adding RPG elements to it) ,most of them don't have a faction system, a morality system , C&C, combat, interesting uses of skills/attributes and non linearity . They are awesome in telling you a specific story, with a specific character and challenging your wits and that is about it. That is why I don't agree with the comparison with an adventure game and saying that is okay to PS:T be like Sanitarium(I loved both but for completely different reasons). In PS:T, you have no specific role, so if I wanted to pick a fork and stabbed someone in the eye, I should be able to do it, even if meant a fight. I could play as a high wisdom guy and fry people with my mind with my awesome dialog but that isn't the only style of play that is correct. If I decided to play as a murderous psycho, I should be rewarded as playing as the high wisdom dude.

The problem is that Torment only really rewarded you for being a high wisdom/charisma dude because the combat was awful. Another aspect of it is that if you make a story about a character that is ultimately defined by the player, make this character travel on supposedly dangerous and unknown land but make combat trivial or making it so easy to avoid that people start wondering why this place is so fucking dangerous in the first place? I just laugh when video games says alot that a character is dangerous or that some place is dangerous without any real threat behind empty words. Combat is a tool that you can use to define your character and for that reason it is very important or you are making a whole mode of playing completely boring and a torture as it was on PS:T. You can argue that a RTwP system isn't inherently worse than TB but not that is a trivial thing to make and just a bone to throw to the weirdos that decide to play as a fighter on a RPG game. Making a mode of playing fun isn't the same thing as changing the whole focus of the game, Torment was always focused on dialog but that don't absolve Numenera for not even trying again after 14 years.They are making a sequel to Torment not Planescape:Torment again, wanting a good combat system isn't the same thing as asking for a whole game dedicated to it like JA 2. I prefer TB combat but whatever the result of the voting, if Numenera comes with the same ass excuse of combat after almost 14 years of Torment, that would be pretty disappointing.

 

We're close to 10000 votes overall and both options are at ~4600 (+500 'whatever' votes). This is actually very interesting, I did not expect the head-to-head race to last that long. If this kept up until the end, it would probably be the best possible thing, as inXile would be justified to choose whatever option they feel is most suitable for the game (they still are, but You know what I mean).

 

Agreed.

Wasn't it already declared as popamole shit for retards because of the square grid? Dunno how that can be better than popamole RTwP for retards.

 

I have to admit I really liked PST combat visually. The simultaneous real time movement married with amazing fluid animations and exotic effects made it look like a surrealistic cartoon. I am not really interested in surreal world in hexes as in a constant, flowing animated world. PST wasn't any tactical though, it could be challenging at some points if you were new to IE, on higher difficulties when facing enemies like Trias or just being outleveled/outnumbered, but it wasn't because you were playing bad, just numbers. I am kinda torn between my graphics whore/roleplaying side and shame of being a race traitor. So didn't vote yet.
Logically, we are already getting everything good InXile can give using TB combat, if we vote RTwP we'll see what they can do with another type of combat.

 

If you have a (very big) focus on story and the combat elements are a relatively minor (and possibly skippable) part of the game, what would the advantages of designing a TB combat system be?

I find that most relatively well-made TB systems that kind of “work” very well for a game are usually a rather big part of it often overshadowing other, lesser elements of said game e.g. either with popping up “combat screens” that make up most of the gameplay like say Heroes of Might & Magic, King’s Bounty, Blackguards, Expeditions: Conquistador or most, if not all of the actions on an entire map occurring turn-based (Jagged Alliance 2, X-Com, Temple of Elemental Evil, Fallout) with a strategic angle to them whereupon you sometimes have to plan several turns ahead or develop certain “tactics” to be successful. There are games with a similar scope in using those kind of mechanics like say Desperados or Icewind Dale using RTwP, which might even have turned out better if they ended up being Turn-Based instead since they are so focused around these mechanics and have a more strategic appeal to them.

If there is an internal bias for one certain system I’m not sure why you put it up for a vote and let the two factions to battle it out among themselves in the first place though.
Would you personally prefer a TB system just because you can recycle it from Wasteland 2 or because you think it makes a lot of sense for the type of game this is going to be?

Similar to how I personally think a more "painterly" look fits "Torment" a lot more than Wasteland and am happy it went with 2.5D backgrounds to be able to draw and integrate many wondrous things directly into them I think a less combat-focused system would also fit the general game concept better.

The Crisis concept in regards to its function as a possible limited combat encounter you envisaged does sound like it would fit awfully nice to a “combat screen” in which this all might happen balanced to a certain amount of turns upon getting into an encounter similar to Blackguards which would point to favoring TB, but the overall concept and vision of the game and the way you describe combat as minor and skippable doesn’t.

TL;DR: Heavily combat, mechanics-focused games benefit a lot from TB combat and the Options it offers.
Heavily story/dialogue/exploratory-based games are mostly hindered by them imo.

Also lol:

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TB is winning again, thanks euro-bros.

 

Combat system has absolutely zero bearing on the things you mention. They are influenced by encounter design.

No, it's the opposite. When you have a large number of different tactical options (which include environment interactions, combat actions and dialogue interactions), you want to have enough time to concentrate, assess all the options and choose the appropriate one. Thiss is impossible in real time, unless the number of options is extremely limited. Pausability would add this ability to RT combat, but acting and reacting to the opponents' actions (which may be reactions to your own actions) without using discrete turns would result in an exercise in space bar mashing. Turn based combat is the best for hand crafted encounters.

Hack and slash is associated with real time gameplay.

No, YOU have PE with its RTWP combat.

I assume that crises will include possible dialogue based actions. In real life, civilised people take their turns speaking (with possible interrupts, which can be and are implemented in many turn based systems). They don't speak at the same time. What would 'real time dialogue' look like? A shouting match?

If I was in charge of the project, I would have never put the combat system to vote, for the simple facts that available funds drive development and that resource reuse and experience (in this case reusing existing resources and experience in designing the combat from Wasteland) improve efficiency by a large factor, and higher efficiency means better use of available funds. Since there are two options that provide the same functionality (Crisis implementation in this case), the one with the smaller cost should be chosen. In this case, it is turn-based combat.

 

Damn RTWP hordes are strong in this one. It will be close, even if TB wins. Hope Europeans stem the tide to TB.

Anyway, did my duty and I now hope for the best (best being TB, of course, if they implement both systems properly).