Interview Torment 2 Interview with Brian Fargo at NowGamer + First Concept Art

[RK47]

I didn't realize anyone complained about the lack of xp for combat in bloodlines. Was I just oblivious?

Me neither. I really liked Bloodlines' lack of combat XP, in fact, I thought it worked really well with the game's design and goals. Wouldn't work for every game, it was fine for that one.

Is the an Official Codex Hivemind opinion on combat XP?

I think Roguey's point boils down to:
Making a shitty part of the game so unrewarding that there's no point in doing it... then wtf are they wasting dev time on it for ?

 

[Roguey]

People generally complain for the wrong reasons. See: Roguey. Arkham Asylum is challenging

Playing on hard, it is. Not playing on hard still requires better reaction times than Bloodlines.

I think Roguey's point boils down to:
Making a shitty part of the game so unrewarding that there's no point in doing it... then wtf are they wasting dev time on it for ?

Whoa, I'm just saying that Bloodlines's combat is inherently terrible and adding xp rewards won't make it better. However removing the xp rewards for stealthing through areas would encourage people to not-avoid combat so much if that's their preferred playstyle. They definitely should not remove combat as an option but it shouldn't be so bad either.

 

[Irenaeus]

Whoa, I'm just saying that Bloodlines's combat is inherently terrible and adding xp rewards won't make it better. However removing the xp rewards for stealthing through areas would encourage people to not-avoid combat so much if that's their preferred playstyle. They definitely should not remove combat as an option but it shouldn't be so bad either.

Combat is not terrible, just subpar.

And I had fun in 2004 watching those ragdolls fly when you hit them, it was novely. I played the game before HL2, even. Graphix were awesome.


Other than that, I agree with your points.

 

[DraQ]

No, a real RPG fan, a rarity around here.

If real RPG fan means a person with no manual or intellectual skill who's only desire is to masturbate to numbers going up while deluding themselves that it's meaningful or that they've earned it somehow then I'm glad I'm not one those.

 

[imweasel]

Me neither. I really liked Bloodlines' lack of combat XP, in fact, I thought it worked really well with the game's design and goals. Wouldn't work for every game, it was fine for that one.

Is the an Official Codex Hivemind opinion on combat XP?

For some games combat xp is great and should be included, for other games combat xp does not fit at all and should not be implemented. That is my opinion.

But this is a subject that needs a thread of it's own.

 

[DraQ]

For some games combat xp is great and should be included, for other games combat xp does not fit at all and should not be implemented. That is my opinion.

Expound or GTFO.

But this is a subject that needs a thread of it's own.

Start or find one.

 

[Kirtai]

Whoa, I'm just saying that Bloodlines's combat is inherently terrible and adding xp rewards won't make it better. However removing the xp rewards for stealthing through areas would encourage people to not-avoid combat so much if that's their preferred playstyle. They definitely should not remove combat as an option but it shouldn't be so bad either.

Maybe giving xp rewards for completing objectives regardless of how you accomplish them would be a good approach.

 

[imweasel]

For some games combat xp is great and should be included, for other games combat xp does not fit at all and should not be implemented. That is my opinion.

Expound or GTFO.

But this is a subject that needs a thread of it's own.

Start or find one.

Jesus fucking christ, not this fucking bullshit again.

Brother None brought this up and has the same opinion as I do. Go and flame him instead.

Now fuck off to your cave you moron.

 

[Jaesun]

Brother None isn't a shitposter though.

 

[imweasel]

Jaesun, please, feel free to ban me or what because just because I criticize that moron named Josh Sawyer. Then it is over and done with and you will never see me again.

 

[SCO]

Whoa, I'm just saying that Bloodlines's combat is inherently terrible and adding xp rewards won't make it better. However removing the xp rewards for stealthing through areas would encourage people to not-avoid combat so much if that's their preferred playstyle. They definitely should not remove combat as an option but it shouldn't be so bad either.

Maybe giving xp rewards for completing objectives regardless of how you accomplish them would be a good approach.

Did anyone get excited by 'combat xp rewards' as a prime cause of the excitement? If they are mechanically or balancing problematic it's then that they get noticed - and indeed, i only felt 'excited' about D&D-leveling in BG1 when i realized that the devs planted a xp inflated (as in, purposefully) Sirene groups for me to kill at level 1 to gain 2 levels, a obvious set-piece that could as well have had a quest/situation and a xp reward for the deaths around it (mods fixed it, where it wasn't already with that ogre mage Sirene-loveslave).

Combat Xp is just lazy designing that inevitably leaks like a sieve on the form of xp farming and is one of the reasons why we don't have good things (alternate solutions)

 

[Moribund]

Don't worry about them, imweasel. They don't really think so much as engage in girly emotional nonsense, that's the way of the story fag. Just look at the comments about music

Many of these guys wholly, 100% only like these gams because they have stuff that's "cool" in them. It has nothing to do with the genre it could as easily be a movie or film.

Hell Jaesun's favorite movie is Donni Darko, how much more jvenile and emotionally disturbed could someone be?

 

[imweasel]

Moribund :D

 

[Infinitron]

Stop talking to yourself Drog

 

[SCO]

I suppose combat XP rewards are also intended to provide a less 'bursty' form of levelup or ability gain in games with not so many quests. Bloodlines had lots and lots of dots to place, but it had so many xp giving quests and so many possible new dots at a time, that it effectively served the same purpose, even allowing you to bumrush a ability to get maximum ability-raising book benefits, or controversially to save xp to gain juicy disciplines early with no major problems; so there was variability still (some quests 'alternate solutions' put out more XP - thou mostly 1 pt - for 'harder' solutions with often more tedious - routes though, which annoys metas (things like the gang deal infiltration). But it's mostly well behaved).

I guess it can be a problem with simpler rulesets with less knobs to turn and things to fill used on a game with less quest density, like a early BG1 (though that generally had two quests per area and many more in the city).

I don't see it as a problem in a game like fallout, much less fallout 2 though.

There is always the 'simulationist' argument too, that combat is the main parts of the ruleset, so combat competence progression should be modelled as a result of doing it.
This argument sucks though. 'I have this model, that i modelled from the real world, but not like the real world works of course, since this is a game and we can't do that; but i think it's better because the real world sometimes works like this, whenever one of the many exceptions, provisos, simplifications we apply, complexities which we do not model, absurdities which we do model; do not interfere, so this model is totally self-consistent and what comes before precedes what comes after'

 

[Jaesun]

The problem with XP in any cRPG is that there is no DM physically present.

That is the problem.

 

[SCO]

I wonder when someone will have the idea of making the 'anti-grinding' game.


The anti-grinding game would have a total max XP achievable. You might say that bloodlines already does this. But this would adapt to new content. It would round down the xp rewards of all quests (including new ones added by mods) so the total XP/total XP rate of gain remains constant.

Problem modders?

I just invented xp scaling, brb, committing suicide.

 

[Brayko]

Is it really Torment w/o Avellone tho?

 

[Jaesun]

MCA did not make the entire Torment game alone.

 

[Kalin]

Planescape: Torment has some truly stunning art, quite an excellent soundtrack, an amazing cast of voice actors, great characters and the most enjoyable dialogue I have seen to date, yet its greatest asset by far, I feel, is its utilisation of the actual Planescape setting. Similar in many ways to how King of Dragon Pass so successfully uses the Gloranthan setting, or how the flawed gem Emperor of the Fading Suns derives the majority of its great atmosphere and enjoyable content from the Fading Suns setting, most every area, character, concept and faction in Torment is largely a product of the setting itself, given life by the writers, certainly, though still not possible without it.

Rather than to ask whether Torment will be Torment without MCA, one really should ask whether it will ever be the same without Planescape. The answer, of course, is that it will not, and it is a tad disconcerting that its intended replacement is as of yet little more than a collection of loose and presumably undefined concepts. Much as one might be inclined to offer the gentleman behind it the benefit of the doubt given his past involvement with the former setting, the great step down from Planescape to mysterious kickstarted Numenera makes it rather difficult to adopt any attitude beyond that of cautious pessimism.

 

[RK47]

Quite true that, I've never really came into contact with Planescape universe until Torment comes along. I really think they tried very hard to make the player understand how their universe works - and succeeded - not an effort was spared. Unlike Bioware's most recent offerings that doesn't really give a lot of meat and preferred to divulge everything in an audio wiki format.

Not as good IMO.

 

[Lancehead]

I really think they tried very hard to make the player understand how their universe works - and succeeded - not an effort was spared.

Lots of infodump at the Smoldering Corpse bar.

It was necessary, but not really an elegant way.

 

[Brother None]

yet its greatest asset by far, I feel, is its utilisation of the actual Planescape setting.

I guess that's mostly a matter of perspective and experience (and probably love of Planescape prior to the game), but I don't really agree, especially given most of its memorable characters and even locations (brothel of slating intellectual lust, for instance) were its own creation. And in fact, Chris Avellone and Colin McComb both answered the question of "Why Planescape" with "coz Interplay happened to have it". Zeb Cook was working on a FP Planescape title, and Colin on his King's Field-esque Planescape. I don't know if I would have expected either one to be the classic Torment was simply because it had the setting.

Mark O'Green interviewed MCA when he joined TSR Division and asked him what he'd do with a Planescape game, and MCA spun his yarn of the main character starting on the death screen and having to puzzle out the story from back to front. Given both options, the Planescape setting or that particular tale, I consider the latter more important by some margin. Is the setting somewhat necessary for that (kind of) story? Yes. Is it impossible for another setting to do it? Nah. I'm personally more bummed that MCA can't be involved (he did indeed write the biggest part of PS:T, but not all) than that the Planescape setting and AD&D rules are shed.

Not in the least because licensing Planescape now would mean involving oversight from a third party which I just prefer Kickstarters not to have. Big licensed properties and Kickstarted projects don't go well together.

 

[SCO]

Settings are overrated. Plot and momentum are twin kings.

 

[Irenaeus]

Settings are overrated. Plot and momentum are twin kings.

Sometimes the plot is weak and never gains momentum and yet, the game is memorable for its setting. Not even considering gameplay and whatnot.