Game News Torment Kickstarter Update #24: Tides, Combat Systems and Q&A

[hiver]

I always liked Curst and Carceri part. It wasnt that bad. Especially when you play as a fighter. Had the best nastiest Demon fight, slide into another realm and kicking ass of a Deva. (i mean for what it all was)

The only thing that i really hated was that there were no more planes.
And more of the game.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

And to have chaotic heretic criticizing me for not being up to his taste in coherence and sensibility must be some sort of comedy in on itself.

I just meant that when i am drunk, trying to comprehend your flowery rants takes a bit of effort on my part. But otherwise, your posts seem solid to me.

 

[Lord Andre]

When I think turn-based, I think d&d turn-based like Knights of the chalice or maybe even might&magic. TB as in fallout or arcanum e.g. anything based on action points, is not the same. Personally, based on past experiences, I'd rather have RTwP than "action points" TB.

Any clarification on that available ? I haven't had the time to follow the project for a while.

 

[tuluse]

What's wrong with action points turn based? JA2 is great. X-Com is great.

 

[Roguey]

What's wrong with action points turn based? JA2 is great. X-Com is great.

One of the problems of AP-TB is that there is nothing better than being able to do more things in a turn. The statistic that lets you do more things in a turn becomes one of the most important stats if not the most important.

 

[Lord Andre]

What's wrong with action points turn based? JA2 is great. X-Com is great.

I think balancing is the problem. AP turn-based might be ok for tactical firearms battles where only stats are increased over time, but in a RPG where you add melee and spell like abilities gained through leveling and a lot of artifacts with strange abilities, it becomes a balancing nightmare and you end up with a lot of stuff that was supposed to be powerful but it's useless and a few items that were supposed to be weak but instead are OP do to spam cheese. Also what Roguey said.

If possible I would rather they take the one action + one move per round route. I don't know if Tim Cain is aware of this but Arcanum's combat was quite shit so no use basing gameplay on that one.

 

[hiver]

What's wrong with action points turn based? JA2 is great. X-Com is great.

One of the problems of AP-TB is that there is nothing better than being able to do more things in a turn. The statistic that lets you do more things in a turn becomes one of the most important stats if not the most important.

Thats why i would calculate that based on synergy of different attributes and stats - instead of one. Plus i would make skills themselves have effect on that. Plus separate APs for movement and actions.

 

[tuluse]

What's wrong with action points turn based? JA2 is great. X-Com is great.

One of the problems of AP-TB is that there is nothing better than being able to do more things in a turn. The statistic that lets you do more things in a turn becomes one of the most important stats if not the most important.

What about a hypothetical system where all characters have an equal number of action points?

 

[hiver]

What would be the point of that?

 

[Zeriel]

AP is no more flawed than allowing attack or movement speed upgrades. Sure, they're potent, but it's simply something for the designer to balance properly. There are plenty of examples of high AP units in X-COM that aren't super effective (Chrysallids) or low AP ones that are.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

If inXile goes with TB, as they should. It will be AP based, cause they will most probably copy WL2 system.

 

[janjetina]

What's wrong with action points turn based? JA2 is great. X-Com is great.

One of the problems of AP-TB is that there is nothing better than being able to do more things in a turn. The statistic that lets you do more things in a turn becomes one of the most important stats if not the most important.

Which can be resolved by having the variable cost of some actions depending on different stats (e.g. movement draining stamina, like in X-Com; stamina would be derived from endurance).

 

[Roguey]

What about a hypothetical system where all characters have an equal number of action points?

Shadowrun Returns did that and aside from the awful character system and largely dumbed-down combat it seemed okay to me, though haste/jazz were as extraordinarily useful as one would expect.

 

[Grunker]

What about a hypothetical system where all characters have an equal number of action points?

Shadowrun Returns did that and aside from the awful character system and largely dumbed-down combat it seemed okay to me, though haste/jazz were as extraordinarily useful as one would expect.

Easy, make a rule: set number of action points. No way to get more, ever.

And SR's shit was simplistic because it was simplistic, not because it used AP. Would have been as simplistic with any other system.

Personally I'm a fan of actions over AP, but there's no inherent reason that AP won't work.

 

[janjetina]

but there's no inherent reason that AP won't work.

Especially since it has been shown to work in the past, given that the best tactical combat implementation in the genre uses action points.

 

[Rake]

but there's no inherent reason that AP won't work.

Especially since it has been shown to work in the past, given that the best tactical combat implementation in the genre uses action points.

Not exactly in the genre though. And that's the problem. Already Brother None said that W2 combat won't be close to JA2 as it's completely outside the scope of the project. And if W2 (a game that would benefit from realy complex tactical combat way more than ToN) won't have it, there is no chance ToN will have something half as tactical, no matter the combat style.
That's why the discusion about ToN combat leaves me indiferent. The level of tactics ToN will require will be covered with either system quite well.

 

[janjetina]

Non combat options that arise in crises in addition to pure combat options, combined with the fact that crises will be handcrafted should give rise to certain level of tactical depth. That's the impression I get when I read the following quote by Kevin Saunders:

For example, suppose there were just a dozen or so Crises in a standard playthrough, averaging perhaps 20-30 minutes of gameplay each. With this limited number of these hand-crafted set pieces to design and implement, we could be much more ambitious in terms of their quality

Since a single Crisis lasts 20-30 minutes, importance of the system that implements Crises is high.

I think it would be better not to fall into the trap of defining boundaries of the genre, because no two alts, let alone two different Codexers can agree on that . Fact is there are precedents i.e. there exist games that have combat (as do RPGs and as will Torment) that rely on action points based turns that can be considered as examples of well implemented turn based combat. Hence, Roguey's statement has been proven false by example(s).

Before participating in a debate about TB vs. RT for Torment RPG, I would like to see proposed outline designs for both systems and a few concrete examples of "tracing" a Crisis through each proposed system. I'm sure that the development team has done something like that.

I am having a hard time finding a precedent of RTWP system that would enable certain level of tactical depth that would be expected out of hand crafted encounters with possible combat and non-combat actions without turning the interface and the whole presentation into chaotic manifestation.