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Brother None posted:Note Torment tiers are digital OR hardcopy, not both. Digital backers get digital books, physical backers get physical books. Digital copies have been distributed, physical copies hit an unfortunate delay but should start arriving soon (see update here) I was on a physical tier (and had a couple of add-ons that I cannot for the life of me remember) but hadn't heard about the delay with the physical books since I only backed Torment. Thanks for posting that, I shall continue to wait patiently.
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Aug 28, 2013 14:00
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 16:21 |
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New, rather huge update TL;DR: Info about Numenera books and the Wasteland 2 Beta; area design process; crafting system design; a design concept we’re calling Crises.
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Sep 27, 2013 14:50
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Brother None posted:New, rather huge update That's a lot of great info. I want to read those novellas right now. 
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Sep 27, 2013 16:17
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The clear answer to your web developer/level designer balancing issue is to have a lengthy portion WL2 involve your character sitting at a computer, trying to crowdsource some better gear for your party.
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Sep 27, 2013 19:41
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There's a pretty interesting discussion of Torment's Crisis concept going on at the RPG Codex, with input from T:ToN project director Kevin Saunders (user ksaun): http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/torment-tides-of-numenera-crisis-concept.87059/ Just thought some of you may be interested in that.
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Oct 28, 2013 18:54
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CrookedB posted:There's a pretty interesting discussion of Torment's Crisis concept going on at the RPG Codex, with input from T:ToN project director Kevin Saunders (user ksaun): http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/torment-tides-of-numenera-crisis-concept.87059/ Yeah, that's really interesting. Cheers for letting us know. EDIT: And as I don't have an RPG Codex account, just a quick thought on what was said. I think it definitely makes sense to limit powers to Crises. I'd rather have a couple of places that go crazy with C&C than a lower continuous level throughout. Huge amounts of choice in Crises, with lesser discursive and violent options available the rest of the time seems like a good compromise. Besides, I'm sure the devs would enjoy going a bit crazy on a few major bits, and peoples best work is when they're having fun making it. I can see how it might look like it was breaking character though, as ksaun says, 'Why am I not doing this all the time?'. CottonWolf fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 22:24
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If this was posted already, I missed it when I looked back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMVmPMGsjrI It's pretty  but I felt it was really cool of the Torment team to do this.
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Oct 29, 2013 09:41
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Regarding the last update, what's winning your heart? TB or RTWP?
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Nov 6, 2013 18:51
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Schurik posted:Regarding the last update, what's winning your heart? TB or RTWP? Someone put up a phase-based suggestion on their website, and I still think that that would be a good/the best compromise. But in the choice between RTWP and TB, I would go with TB because they're favouring it, and they obviously have a much better idea about where they're intending to take the game than I do.
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Nov 6, 2013 18:58
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I would go with turn based because I like it better. 
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Nov 6, 2013 19:20
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I am pretty sure i will love the game either way, but i must admit i will be a little disappointed of it is turn based, i just don't find the sort of gameplay very fun.
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Nov 6, 2013 19:20
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Schurik posted:Regarding the last update, what's winning your heart? TB or RTWP? I'm personally just going to vote for what the development team likes the best, and atm that seems to be TB. Only thing I don't really like about TB combat compared to RTwP is how long even relatively simple fights usually take with it. On un-related note I really love how much thought they seem to be putting into designing the tide system.
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Nov 6, 2013 19:36
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I usually didn't like TB combat in games, but that's mostly because fights were often tedious. Torment team seems to be focused on meaningful encounters so that shouldn't be a problem. We'll see I guess.
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Nov 6, 2013 20:04
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If they think turn-based works best for them, then they should go with that.
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Nov 6, 2013 22:08
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TB is best for involved fights but can get tedious when there's not a lot of choices going on. RTWP is a good compromise, though if some genius comes up with something better I'll be all over it. I did love ToEE, though.
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Nov 6, 2013 23:04
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TBC is frankly boring when characters have few abilities or there are few significant enemies. RTwP can essentially be configured to play exactly like TBC (at least in the IE implementation with extensive configuration for autopause), but has the advantage of allowing players to let combat run without extensive interaction when encounters don't demand it.
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Nov 6, 2013 23:15
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The design space between the two is a lot more complicated than that. A RTwP system with dozens of abilities on each character that requires deep thought about what ability to use, when and where in order to be successful has to be played as though it were turn based and at that point all RTwP is doing is speeding up combat resolution at the end which can be handled in other ways that involve less development complexity (like say a morale meter). In practical terms, going with RTwP means that you are foreclosing certain types and amounts of complexity in combat. That can be good or bad, but it's not as simple as "RTwP all the time".
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Nov 6, 2013 23:28
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After a while, realtime combat in the infinity games becomes largely an exploitation of bad AI.
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Nov 7, 2013 00:39
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I know I'm be biased, but when a major selling point of the game is "we're investing a ton of effort into abolishing the gamey separation between combat and non-combat crisis resolution", that's a giant flashing arrow pointing towards Rt(wP) IMO. When you're exploring a mysterious and beautiful location, few things are more immersion-breaking than having a big combat grid/UI pop up all over your nice open environment and everybody suddenly move like chess pieces because a hostile was spotted in a corner.
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Nov 7, 2013 07:58
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NihilCredo posted:I know I'm be biased, but when a major selling point of the game is "we're investing a ton of effort into abolishing the gamey separation between combat and non-combat crisis resolution", that's a giant flashing arrow pointing towards Rt(wP) IMO. You're right in that the devs are making immersion their selling point and having the game stop and switch into battle-mode all the time would be jarring, but you're wrong (hopefully) because they seem to be explicitly avoiding Baldur's Gate-style "this is encounter #561 with bandits type A, B, C and J, collect your XP and +1 longswords." If you are wandering through the environment it shouldn't go to battle-mode without some information or prompt (a "Pay the toll!" type encounter or the Crisis example they already went over) or you are expecting it (you are invading a bandit haven or approaching the alien vampire's Star Tomb). There wouldn't be a random bear aggroed at you, stuck behind a tree on the other side of the map, preventing you from leaving combat, theoretically, I hope. The devs seem more pleased with measured approach to drama turns allow, as opposed to the more mushy real-time. And it seems easier to balance and thoughtfully create situations like "A bomb will go off in five turns!" rather than "A bomb will go off in thirty seconds!" It sounds like the same thing but I believe that turn-based scenarios allow for far fewer permutations and thus tighter dev control and easier implementation of vision. And those are the reasons I backed this game in the first place. Vision. Implementation. Turn-based. Vote for it. (Colin McComb better be loving learning to be a creative despot and not a consensus-based sponge.)
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Nov 7, 2013 08:42
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I hope they don't go with turn based (although it sounds like they will because they want to and most people want them to) because of the whole 'immersion' thing partly in that having my characters wait their turn in combat doesn't really make sense. I'd take the simultaneous turnbased that someone once mentioned with the caveat of having autopauses at certain contingencies to be able to reissue orders, or being able to pause whenever I want, or being able to set it to not pause at the end of turns if I didn't feel it was necessary. (So basically, it would be real time with pause with a whole bunch of autopauses in play to make it every bit as measured as turn based, with the added bonus of not being all temporally messed up and having exploits available like popping out from behind walls, taking shots and popping back, and never being available as a target.)
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Nov 7, 2013 14:16
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Chiming in as another person for whom RTwP with autopauses like in BG/2 and IWD/2 would be ideal.
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Nov 7, 2013 14:21
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This has to be one of the dumber immersion related arguments out there. In my humble opinion, of course.
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Nov 7, 2013 14:23
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Turn-based combat limits yourself to small fights (say 10 vs 10 at the very very most) or it gets loooooong and terrible. RtwP is more scalable.
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Nov 7, 2013 21:18
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I was interested enough in the concept to back the game despite not knowing if it would be turn-based or RTwP, but I really, really, really hope it is RTwP. 
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Nov 7, 2013 23:03
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I'm thinking RTwP. I've got Divinity and Wasteland 2 coming up for pure turn based. Having Project: Eternity and Torment be RTwP would create a nice symmetry in my mind. Of course who knows. By the time it comes out maybe there'll be some more RTwP games out.
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Nov 7, 2013 23:09
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As Torment is going for being a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, it just really feels like it should have RTwP. But I'd be okay with whatever they ultimately do, though.
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Nov 7, 2013 23:30
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I'm hopign they go for turn based. RTwP gets really boring really quickly. I just sit there and watch them smack each other with very little input needed from me.
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Nov 7, 2013 23:38
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Line Feed posted:I'm hopign they go for turn based. RTwP gets really boring really quickly. I just sit there and watch them smack each other with very little input needed from me. I feel the same way about turn-based, especially when having to face down a bunch of trash mobs where you have to wait for each monster to take its turn then input the same attach and wait minutes to cycle through all the monster's turns again.
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Nov 8, 2013 04:14
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hangedman1984 posted:I feel the same way about turn-based, especially when having to face down a bunch of trash mobs where you have to wait for each monster to take its turn then input the same attach and wait minutes to cycle through all the monster's turns again. From what I gather, Torment's encounters are going to be significantly less frequent than the original game. Encounters are hand-crafted and all that. epmode fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Nov 8, 2013 |
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Nov 8, 2013 04:17
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If all combat is going to be during a crisis, the standard arguments regarding the repetitiveness of one system versus another are pretty much out. There aren't going to be a whole lot of these, and nothing should be a trash mob.
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Nov 8, 2013 05:34
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Arcanum let you switch between real-time and turn based with one keyboard command. Why couldn't a game released over a decade later let you switch between the two 
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Nov 8, 2013 05:40
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PurplieNurplie posted:Arcanum let you switch between real-time and turn based with one keyboard command. Why couldn't a game released over a decade later let you switch between the two Because that system was hilariously exploitable and lovely.
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Nov 8, 2013 05:44
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As much as I like Arcanum, it's combat should never be copied by anyone.
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Nov 8, 2013 05:44
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Arcanum combat is the reason I've never completed any significant portion of the game (which is also true of Fallout 1 & 2).
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Nov 8, 2013 05:56
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PurplieNurplie posted:Arcanum let you switch between real-time and turn based with one keyboard command. Why couldn't a game released over a decade later let you switch between the two Because that's literally impossible to balance. RtwP is basically impossible to balance as is. Everything is amazingly easier the more you pause and micro, but if you balance around that then the real time version becomes stupidly punishing and the pausers get an even easier game if you balance everything as if you're playing real time. Turn based or Real-time (no pause) are really the only ways to do anything in a sane way if you care at all about combat being challenging. Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, IWD, XCOM Apocalypse, Arcanum and Planescape: Torment all prove that. The only game I can even think of that didn't get significantly easier with a RtwP system was Jade Empire, and that's really only because you only controlled one character in combat and it was paced slowly enough that you didn't gain any real time to think or micromanage when paused. Which will absolutely not be the case here. Zore fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Nov 8, 2013 |
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Nov 8, 2013 06:44
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The 'great' thing about Arcanum combat is depending on your character type, one of the control styles was better for your character than the other. Turnbased not working? Try real time, you may find you suddenly become more powerful! (Not necessarily suggesting that it would be impossible to have a game with both where both were decently balanced, but I don't think that would be a good use of resources. I don't want turn based, but I would prefer it over a system that tried to have both.) Zore posted:Because that's literally impossible to balance. Well since everyone has access to the pause function, if you balance for RTwP rather than RT without pause, and tell people to use that pause function, you should be fine. Chairchucker fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Nov 8, 2013 |
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Nov 8, 2013 06:45
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Chairchucker posted:
Yeah, and how do you do this? Do you assume they pause and reposition every time any character's abilities come off cooldown? Only when they're in crisis mode trying to figure out what to do next? Every minute or two to make sure their plans are executing properly? Each of those vastly changes the difficulty, and that's assuming you can drill it into people's heads to pause a game with real time action in the first place.
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Nov 8, 2013 07:02
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Zore posted:Yeah, and how do you do this? Do you assume they pause and reposition every time any character's abilities come off cooldown? Only when they're in crisis mode trying to figure out what to do next? Every minute or two to make sure their plans are executing properly? They choose when they want to pause? Some people I know played Bladur's Gate fully realtime. Some paused for almost everything. Me, I was more moderate than both, only pausing when poo poo was getting messy and I needed to re-assess stuff.
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Nov 8, 2013 07:17
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Zore posted:Because that's literally impossible to balance. Aarklash: Legacy does very well with RTwP. It's very challenging when it wants to be. There's nothing inherent about RTwP or TB that makes one more or less challenging. It sounds like you are comparing RTwP to the same system suddenly becoming RT without pause or vice versa. The pause function is added to games to allow those games to have more tactical depth and options while not slowing all the action down the way TB does. Mass Effect and Dragon Age are not supposed to be difficult. IWD and Baldur's Gate are broken in the set-up phase of the battle, not mid-fight. Arcanum and PS:T do not function on any continuum that considers game balance. Zore posted:Yeah, and how do you do this? Do you assume they pause and reposition every time any character's abilities come off cooldown? Only when they're in crisis mode trying to figure out what to do next? Every minute or two to make sure their plans are executing properly? Yeah, try Aarklash: Legacy. There're probably more games that are challenging and RTwP but that's the one I know. It should answer your questions succintly. (Spoiler: it does very much retain its difficulty, and "that's assuming you can drill it into people's heads to pause a game with real time action in the first place" is you just shooting your mouth off.) "Challenge" is no argument for or against either option. Especially when it seems many combats will not necessarily have the combat as the centerpiece and will engage you with a number of objectives. Again, the simplest, clearest way to implement those types of encounters is by going turn-based. Easier to account for variables. More able to realize concise vision. Go turn-based!
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Nov 8, 2013 07:28
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