I'd prefer TB for this game since we're getting RTwP with Eternity.
They can remove the chore-like aspect of TB by not overwhelming the game with combat encounters. And fewer fights would make sense in a spiritual sequel to PS:Torment.
They should have thrown in an option to handle all combat through QTEs, just for kicks. I might actually have voted that way, since combat in games like this is mostly filler for me.
Well, because I need to know more about their combat and ability design.
Like, for me, the basic breakdown is in "interesting decisions by the player per unit time," and there's a pretty hard maximum there before things become overwhelming.
For RTwP, that maximum applies to "interesting decisions by the player across the whole party," because micromanaging each character in real-time is not something I have a lot of fun doing (and it's why I'll never be awesome at Star Craft). So, characters need to be smart about auto-targeting, keeping position, using their abilities, etc., and there can't be huge numbers of potential actions with tight timing constraints because that just doesn't work with RTwP gameplay.
For TB, the maximum really applies to "interesting decisions by the player across each character," and you can get a lot more individually-focused decisions going. But, you have the issue where each combat, no matter how meaninglessish (which is a word, I swear), takes a certain amount of time to resolve, and that can be a pretty large number.
So I see trade-offs for either direction, and I don't know which one I want, yet.
Turn based, you get more discrete actions, and more discrete decisions. The only RTwP I've played that can compete with something like the new XCOM is Freedom Force, and even that's kind of fiddley. RTwP might fit better into the overall game structure, but I tend to find that good turn based systems are more common than good real time systems.
Unless a turn length is smaller than the smallest time period in real time which seems unlikely then the idea that there are more discrete actions and decisions in TB is incorrect. That said I probably agree that there are more good TB systems than RTwP systems around but I don't feel that's a good argument against RTwP especially as it's relatively under-used compared to TB systems anyway.
Discrete was maybe not the best word to use. What I mean is, in TB systems, you can do this or that. You're making very concrete decisions that you have to live with. RTwP, because you can make micro adjustments constantly, sometimes takes the edge off of decisons. Also, because it's phases are less broken up, I think it can be harder to balance it.
Turn based, you get more discrete actions, and more discrete decisions. The only RTwP I've played that can compete with something like the new XCOM is Freedom Force, and even that's kind of fiddley. RTwP might fit better into the overall game structure, but I tend to find that good turn based systems are more common than good real time systems.
Unless a turn length is smaller than the smallest time period in real time which seems unlikely then the idea that there are more discrete actions and decisions in TB is incorrect. That said I probably agree that there are more good TB systems than RTwP systems around but I don't feel that's a good argument against RTwP especially as it's relatively under-used compared to TB systems anyway.
Discrete was maybe not the best word to use. What I mean is, in TB systems, you can do this or that. You're making very concrete decisions that you have to live with. RTwP, because you can make micro adjustments constantly, sometimes takes the edge off of decisons. Also, because it's phases are less broken up, I think it can be harder to balance it.
Honestly, my only real problem with TB systems is that it can sometimes take forever to get through a combat. When it really shouldn't. When tension turns to tedium, something's wrong. Of course, if the fights are few and small in scale, and tailored individually, such tedium can be avoided with good design.
Honestly, my only real problem with TB systems is that it can sometimes take forever to get through a combat. When it really shouldn't. When tension turns to tedium, something's wrong. Of course, if the fights are few and small in scale, and tailored individually, such tedium can be avoided with good design.
Generally I would agree. A good example would be temple of elemental evil. It had a good turn based combat system but the filler fights were tedious.
That said, the devs for torment have stated there will not be any filler combat, so it may not be a very big issue for this particular project.
The more I think about it, the more that I come to the conclusion that the only reason not to do everything through QTEs and cutscenes would be the development cost. It would fit in so well with the social aspects of the game.
That and QTE's are the bane of interesting/fun gameplay. You want to play the game, not watch it.
Yeah, I couldn't imagine a quicker way to completely kill my interest in a game than making it with an excessive amount of QTE. (which is basically any more than 'occasional')
That and QTE's are the bane of interesting/fun gameplay. You want to play the game, not watch it.
Shemnue was alright at them, mostly because if you failed the QTE, the story would usually change instead of the cutscene starting over from the beginning like most games. Failing the QTE had story consequences, which is how it should be.
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RTwP is the bane of interesting/fun gameplay too, so that's not really a valid objection.
Can you give some examples? Most games I can think of with the mechanic I've enjoyed. I can't say I've enjoyed QTE's.... ever.
TVTropes list of games with RTwP has a hellova lot of good games on it.
I kinda want to see what obsidian could do in a pure VN type of game, with no extraneous 'gameplay' to pad it out
I'm actually pretty sure that would be boring to design for most of them. Atleast not with additional actual gameplay/conflict resolution elements, even if that may not be combat.
Obsidian has more of a generalist approach after all, theres not many in there that prefer just doing one thing, however good they may be.
I kinda want to see what obsidian could do in a pure VN type of game, with no extraneous 'gameplay' to pad it out
I'm actually pretty sure that would be boring to design for most of them. Atleast not with additional actual gameplay/conflict resolution elements, even if that may not be combat.
Obsidian has more of a generalist approach after all, theres not many in there that prefer just doing one thing, however good they may be.
There's a reason they make rpgs.
So, imo nope.
I guess Spoit was just commenting on how much more likely the visual novel would have good quality writing, if one was made by Obsidian, as opposed to many other developers. It probably wouldn't be terribly interesting for them to develop, but I'd wager that the product would still be very good.
I guess Spoit was just commenting on how much more likely the visual novel would have good quality writing, if one was made by Obsidian, as opposed to many other developers. It probably wouldn't be terribly interesting for them to develop, but I'd wager that the product would still be very good.
As far as writing goes, there are some pretty decent developers around though in the gerne. I don't see how Obsidian as a whole would be needed. At that point you might just loan an individual who'd be interested in working on a straight up VN.
As far as the individuals I could see Avellone being interested in helping. Considering how he's kickstartering that might happen sooner or later. Ziets might too, though I doubt. Fenstermaker and Sawyer less so.
That comment mostly came about from playing the Age of Decadence demo. The conversation stuff is great, but the combat is miserable, and the dev seems to want to make the later even worse
That comment mostly came about from playing the Age of Decadence demo. The conversation stuff is great, but the combat is miserable, and the dev seems to want to make the later even worse
Eh, I like AOD's combat. It definitly still needs tuning, but it works well and has some good scenarios.
I think the main problem with AOD is, that Vince wants the Speech charachter to be easy and a combat charachter to be hard mode.
As a result its easy to create a speech charachter and go through the game with it. And also boring (IMO). There's ways to add challenge in an crpg even on a speech charachte aside from skill checks..
Then you have the combat charachters which are the opposite. Hard to create with a high entry barrier, but satisfying to play once you figure it out.
Hybrids are (mostly) useless.
That said I haven't played the new demo, so maybe that changed?
We have decided to go with turn-based combat. Ultimately, there are no losers here. This is all part of the process of making an RPG we are all passionate about and we think you’ll like Torment’s combat even if you voted for RTwP. While we have not been looking forward to disappointing half of our backers, we were happy to find that many of the reasons people gave for disliking TB and preferring RTwP can be addressed through the details of our combat system and encounter design. I’d like to go over some of the more common comments we saw either for RTwP or against TB and explain how we will address them.
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"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
They must deeply regret putting this to a vote. Oh well, at least they made a decision rather than some kind of awkward compromise. And they made the correct decision
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
With the poll being so close means they were going to piss off the same number of people either way.
I honestly think that if the combat system was a persons main reason for backing this game... they were probably backing the wrong game. The original PS:T was mocked for it's mediocre-poor combat, but it never stopped it from being lauded as one of the best RPG's made due to the amazing story. As long as they make a good story, I'll be a heluva happy backer.
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Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
With the poll being so close means they were going to piss off the same number of people either way.
I honestly think that if the combat system was a persons main reason for backing this game... they were probably backing the wrong game. The original PS:T was mocked for it's mediocre-poor combat, but it never stopped it from being lauded as one of the best RPG's made due to the amazing story. As long as they make a good story, I'll be a heluva happy backer.
I kind of enjoyed it.
That holy hammer I was packing was pretty damn fun to use.
With the poll being so close means they were going to piss off the same number of people either way.
I honestly think that if the combat system was a persons main reason for backing this game... they were probably backing the wrong game. The original PS:T was mocked for it's mediocre-poor combat, but it never stopped it from being lauded as one of the best RPG's made due to the amazing story. As long as they make a good story, I'll be a heluva happy backer.
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Undecided: 698
RTwP: 6448
Turn Based: 6684
They can remove the chore-like aspect of TB by not overwhelming the game with combat encounters. And fewer fights would make sense in a spiritual sequel to PS:Torment.
Well, because I need to know more about their combat and ability design.
Like, for me, the basic breakdown is in "interesting decisions by the player per unit time," and there's a pretty hard maximum there before things become overwhelming.
For RTwP, that maximum applies to "interesting decisions by the player across the whole party," because micromanaging each character in real-time is not something I have a lot of fun doing (and it's why I'll never be awesome at Star Craft). So, characters need to be smart about auto-targeting, keeping position, using their abilities, etc., and there can't be huge numbers of potential actions with tight timing constraints because that just doesn't work with RTwP gameplay.
For TB, the maximum really applies to "interesting decisions by the player across each character," and you can get a lot more individually-focused decisions going. But, you have the issue where each combat, no matter how meaninglessish (which is a word, I swear), takes a certain amount of time to resolve, and that can be a pretty large number.
So I see trade-offs for either direction, and I don't know which one I want, yet.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Discrete was maybe not the best word to use. What I mean is, in TB systems, you can do this or that. You're making very concrete decisions that you have to live with. RTwP, because you can make micro adjustments constantly, sometimes takes the edge off of decisons. Also, because it's phases are less broken up, I think it can be harder to balance it.
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Honestly, my only real problem with TB systems is that it can sometimes take forever to get through a combat. When it really shouldn't. When tension turns to tedium, something's wrong. Of course, if the fights are few and small in scale, and tailored individually, such tedium can be avoided with good design.
Generally I would agree. A good example would be temple of elemental evil. It had a good turn based combat system but the filler fights were tedious.
That said, the devs for torment have stated there will not be any filler combat, so it may not be a very big issue for this particular project.
Yeah, I couldn't imagine a quicker way to completely kill my interest in a game than making it with an excessive amount of QTE. (which is basically any more than 'occasional')
Shemnue was alright at them, mostly because if you failed the QTE, the story would usually change instead of the cutscene starting over from the beginning like most games. Failing the QTE had story consequences, which is how it should be.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Can you give some examples? Most games I can think of with the mechanic I've enjoyed. I can't say I've enjoyed QTE's.... ever.
TVTropes list of games with RTwP has a hellova lot of good games on it.
It is a mechanic that is super easy to get wrong, but it is not necessarily terrible.
Yeah, I'd love to see that too. I'd imagine they could really make something great with the writing talent in the studio.
I'm actually pretty sure that would be boring to design for most of them. Atleast not with additional actual gameplay/conflict resolution elements, even if that may not be combat.
Obsidian has more of a generalist approach after all, theres not many in there that prefer just doing one thing, however good they may be.
There's a reason they make rpgs.
So, imo nope.
I guess Spoit was just commenting on how much more likely the visual novel would have good quality writing, if one was made by Obsidian, as opposed to many other developers. It probably wouldn't be terribly interesting for them to develop, but I'd wager that the product would still be very good.
As far as writing goes, there are some pretty decent developers around though in the gerne. I don't see how Obsidian as a whole would be needed. At that point you might just loan an individual who'd be interested in working on a straight up VN.
As far as the individuals I could see Avellone being interested in helping. Considering how he's kickstartering that might happen sooner or later. Ziets might too, though I doubt. Fenstermaker and Sawyer less so.
Eh, I like AOD's combat. It definitly still needs tuning, but it works well and has some good scenarios.
I think the main problem with AOD is, that Vince wants the Speech charachter to be easy and a combat charachter to be hard mode.
As a result its easy to create a speech charachter and go through the game with it. And also boring (IMO). There's ways to add challenge in an crpg even on a speech charachte aside from skill checks..
Then you have the combat charachters which are the opposite. Hard to create with a high entry barrier, but satisfying to play once you figure it out.
Hybrids are (mostly) useless.
That said I haven't played the new demo, so maybe that changed?
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
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Two-year olds.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
I do think the poll was a mistake exactly for those reasons.
I honestly think that if the combat system was a persons main reason for backing this game... they were probably backing the wrong game. The original PS:T was mocked for it's mediocre-poor combat, but it never stopped it from being lauded as one of the best RPG's made due to the amazing story. As long as they make a good story, I'll be a heluva happy backer.
That holy hammer I was packing was pretty damn fun to use.
People are dumb.
but had the best battle music!