Why the FUCK do Glaives get Speed abilities, while Jacks get Might abilities? And why is none of this shit documented for character building purposes?!
The actual answer is that so many of the checks in the game are int based, Nano > all.
Game ain't balanced great for class utility.
It's a Monte Cook game.
Intelligence is always better than all, and there are purposefully laid character traps
To be completely fair, Wis > Int > Cha > Everything else in Planescape: Torment, and if you weren't playing most of the game as a Wizard or hybrid Wizard / Thief, you were basically boned, and Monte Cook had nothing to do with that game. So, it's not exactly without precedent.
Not to say it's a good thing, but just to say that this rests well within the lineage of the series. Eg, play either a Nano or a very, very heavily INT / Skillz based Jack.
The Escape Goat: If there's anywhere that Occam's Razor fails to apply it's Elder Scrolls lore.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
+1
3clipseI will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Why the FUCK do Glaives get Speed abilities, while Jacks get Might abilities? And why is none of this shit documented for character building purposes?!
The actual answer is that so many of the checks in the game are int based, Nano > all.
Game ain't balanced great for class utility.
It's a Monte Cook game.
Intelligence is always better than all, and there are purposefully laid character traps
We need to move the fuck on from this stuff in games. It's inexcusably bad design, especially now that we have decades of RPGs to look at.
+3
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Why the FUCK do Glaives get Speed abilities, while Jacks get Might abilities? And why is none of this shit documented for character building purposes?!
The actual answer is that so many of the checks in the game are int based, Nano > all.
Game ain't balanced great for class utility.
It's a Monte Cook game.
Intelligence is always better than all, and there are purposefully laid character traps
We need to move the fuck on from this stuff in games. It's inexcusably bad design, especially now that we have decades of RPGs to look at.
Which is funny since the system is relatively tight to the PnP Numenara system.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Oh, hey. I managed to get an answer re: Callistge's and Tybir's endings from the official forums. I... hope that taking that game off my computer didn't delete my saves because otherwise I'll have to start a new game X_X
You HAVE to take party members into the Labyrinth at the end of the game in order to get their "true" endings. You'll fight off their inner demons and that's the catalyst to let them finally finish things. I'm not sure if you can do this via the Bronze Sphere yet -- if my saves WERE backed up, I'll let you know soon. If not, uh, I guess I'll just try to manage my gameplay addiction a little better and start a new game. And get Rhin early I guess.
The Escape Goat: If there's anywhere that Occam's Razor fails to apply it's Elder Scrolls lore.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
Had my first real (non-tutorial) combat crisis yesterday. Eh, was not impressed, and will continue to try to talk or otherwise weasel my way out of such events.
On the other hand, I'm still very, very much digging the world, wandering around and talking to everyone and poking my hand in holes in random ancient devices (because that's just how I role). And I really, really, really like the way that in the dialogue system, after I've gone through a particular topic, the conversation prompt will change to something like "Tell me about the waters of your homeworld, Usul, again," so that I can a) continue to have access to those dialogue trees and b) be reminded which ones we've actually discussed at least once. Everybody making dialogue-heavy games: Please steal this system.
+5
3clipseI will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Why the FUCK do Glaives get Speed abilities, while Jacks get Might abilities? And why is none of this shit documented for character building purposes?!
The actual answer is that so many of the checks in the game are int based, Nano > all.
Game ain't balanced great for class utility.
It's a Monte Cook game.
Intelligence is always better than all, and there are purposefully laid character traps
We need to move the fuck on from this stuff in games. It's inexcusably bad design, especially now that we have decades of RPGs to look at.
Which is funny since the system is relatively tight to the PnP Numenara system.
1:1 translations of PnP systems into video games are rarely very enjoyable these days. I'd much prefer devs do something like Harebrained Schemes did with their Shadowrun games, preserving the spirit of the system without making a literal translation.
+2
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I think the best translation you could do these days would be D&D 4th Edition. It's mechanics were pretty straightforward.
Why the FUCK do Glaives get Speed abilities, while Jacks get Might abilities? And why is none of this shit documented for character building purposes?!
The actual answer is that so many of the checks in the game are int based, Nano > all.
Game ain't balanced great for class utility.
It's a Monte Cook game.
Intelligence is always better than all, and there are purposefully laid character traps
We need to move the fuck on from this stuff in games. It's inexcusably bad design, especially now that we have decades of RPGs to look at.
Which is funny since the system is relatively tight to the PnP Numenara system.
1:1 translations of PnP systems into video games are rarely very enjoyable these days. I'd much prefer devs do something like Harebrained Schemes did with their Shadowrun games, preserving the spirit of the system without making a literal translation.
I think the actual mechanics are pretty good, honestly. The stat pools and edge stuff is nice, and the character generation system is interesting, although shallower than what PnP lets you get up to. I think that being an isometric and just the type of game it is (lots of dialogue and an interesting setting) mean that there's going to be a focus on all the INT related talky skills. There's plenty of games where you murder your way to success, there's a lot fewer where talking is just as important, plus combat is going to be relatively samey, but each conversation is going to be fundamentally different.
Basically I don't think the relative importance of stats is necessarily because the game's mechanics are very close to the PnP's.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
If y'all haven't played it yet OR you did an initial playthrough and want to go back to find All the Things, you may want to hold off. They're doing A LOT of bugfixes soon, AND once the bugfixes are implemented, they're going to be restoring some of the cut content. First on the plate:
Oom ("The Toy" companion).
Voluminous Codex.
Crisis system improvements.
My hope is that in implementing Oom, they open up a few more areas of Sagus Cliffs; there's at least two areas that are very clearly cut content (upper left of the Cliffside neighborhood; the government center building).
It's possible that with Crisis System improvements, Glaives will start to suck less. Also, regarding stuff being weighted to Intelligence... I actually think this game is MORE forgiving than the original PS:T in that regard, because you can use your other party members for that. Bring Callistege for social tasks and dump her stuff into Int and social skills and just use her for 90% of that stuff. In PS:T, you were stuck having to dump all your stats into Wisdom on TNO if you wanted to get the most out of the game.
It's not perfect, but it's an area where they improved on the original for sure.
Regarding cut content: I am super glad I kind of forgot I'd backed this Kickstarter and didn't pay attention, because MY GOD the official forums are salty about that. Personally, I didn't even notice anything cut until I was *told* (I did think it was weird that you couldn't get to that one building, but I shrugged and figured that, well, maybe I'd missed something). I mean, I guess my first mistake was going to the official forums... only reason I DID is because I wanted to know why I hadn't gotten Callistege and Tybir's endings.
ANYWAY, the real thing is holding off till bugfixes are in place, especially with regards to AI, and ESPECIALLY in regard to the Sorrow whenever it appears in a Crisis.
The Escape Goat: If there's anywhere that Occam's Razor fails to apply it's Elder Scrolls lore.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
Oh, hey. I managed to get an answer re: Callistge's and Tybir's endings from the official forums. I... hope that taking that game off my computer didn't delete my saves because otherwise I'll have to start a new game X_X
You HAVE to take party members into the Labyrinth at the end of the game in order to get their "true" endings. You'll fight off their inner demons and that's the catalyst to let them finally finish things. I'm not sure if you can do this via the Bronze Sphere yet -- if my saves WERE backed up, I'll let you know soon. If not, uh, I guess I'll just try to manage my gameplay addiction a little better and start a new game. And get Rhin early I guess.
I did that and.. well, I got a Callestige ending. Not sure if that's the "true" ending or not.
I'm actually fairly fascinated with the usage of the Numenera setting in this game. Never played the PnP but the damage/hp numbers don't seem to have translated well - whoo dying in one round before getting to move - though I hear that's NOT directly from the Numenera PnP, in which Might is HP (???!). Some of that's probably attributable to terrible encounter balancing though/the problems of low-level adventuring.
I'm actually fairly fascinated with the usage of the Numenera setting in this game. Never played the PnP but the damage/hp numbers don't seem to have translated well - whoo dying in one round before getting to move - though I hear that's NOT directly from the Numenera PnP, in which Might is HP (???!). Some of that's probably attributable to terrible encounter balancing though/the problems of low-level adventuring.
I am pretty sure that the 1 hit kills are a combination of bad encounter balance, bugs with the crisis system (I'm sorry but you shouldn't be able to 1h my Erritis, who is T3 and has two dots of Endurance, unless you are the Sorrow, which you weren't), and problems with low-level adventuring. Oh, and, problems with being a Nano.
Another thing -- why is Matkina's Initiative soooo bad? She ALWAYS goes last. Fucking Aligern, aka Old Man McSlowpoke, goes before her. What?
The combat encounters really are just fucking terrible. I really hope that the bugfixes and Crisis fixes adjust some of this stuff, because even in a game which encourages you to solve things peacefully, things shouldn't suck egg if you decide to just punch things in the face. *edit* YES, even in a Monte Cook game and a Torment game! In the original PS:T, if you decided to fight something, you could reasonably fight it without dying or the game crashing if you knew what you were doing!
Lucid_Seraph on
The Escape Goat: If there's anywhere that Occam's Razor fails to apply it's Elder Scrolls lore.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
I'm actually fairly fascinated with the usage of the Numenera setting in this game. Never played the PnP but the damage/hp numbers don't seem to have translated well - whoo dying in one round before getting to move - though I hear that's NOT directly from the Numenera PnP, in which Might is HP (???!). Some of that's probably attributable to terrible encounter balancing though/the problems of low-level adventuring.
I am pretty sure that the 1 hit kills are a combination of bad encounter balance, bugs with the crisis system (I'm sorry but you shouldn't be able to 1h my Erritis, who is T3 and has two dots of Endurance, unless you are the Sorrow, which you weren't), and problems with low-level adventuring. Oh, and, problems with being a Nano.
Another thing -- why is Matkina's Initiative soooo bad? She ALWAYS goes last. Fucking Aligern, aka Old Man McSlowpoke, goes before her. What?
The combat encounters really are just fucking terrible. I really hope that the bugfixes and Crisis fixes adjust some of this stuff, because even in a game which encourages you to solve things peacefully, things shouldn't suck egg if you decide to just punch things in the face. *edit* YES, even in a Monte Cook game and a Torment game! In the original PS:T, if you decided to fight something, you could reasonably fight it without dying or the game crashing if you knew what you were doing!
Yeah, but for me, that was more about the infinite, instant use of healing items. Because it sure wasn't about my expert control! (No no, guys, by all means, just all swarm the target in melee and get stuck on each other. Sure.)
If y'all haven't played it yet OR you did an initial playthrough and want to go back to find All the Things, you may want to hold off. They're doing A LOT of bugfixes soon, AND once the bugfixes are implemented, they're going to be restoring some of the cut content. First on the plate:
Oom ("The Toy" companion).
Voluminous Codex.
Crisis system improvements.
My hope is that in implementing Oom, they open up a few more areas of Sagus Cliffs; there's at least two areas that are very clearly cut content (upper left of the Cliffside neighborhood; the government center building).
It's possible that with Crisis System improvements, Glaives will start to suck less. Also, regarding stuff being weighted to Intelligence... I actually think this game is MORE forgiving than the original PS:T in that regard, because you can use your other party members for that. Bring Callistege for social tasks and dump her stuff into Int and social skills and just use her for 90% of that stuff. In PS:T, you were stuck having to dump all your stats into Wisdom on TNO if you wanted to get the most out of the game.
It's not perfect, but it's an area where they improved on the original for sure.
Regarding cut content: I am super glad I kind of forgot I'd backed this Kickstarter and didn't pay attention, because MY GOD the official forums are salty about that. Personally, I didn't even notice anything cut until I was *told* (I did think it was weird that you couldn't get to that one building, but I shrugged and figured that, well, maybe I'd missed something). I mean, I guess my first mistake was going to the official forums... only reason I DID is because I wanted to know why I hadn't gotten Callistege and Tybir's endings.
ANYWAY, the real thing is holding off till bugfixes are in place, especially with regards to AI, and ESPECIALLY in regard to the Sorrow whenever it appears in a Crisis.
Hmm, interesting. I got to a part where I really wanted to fight for RP reasons, but the combat was so bad it turned me off of the game. I may try it again later when it gets that patch.
I started doing better on combats when I spent the Effort to make my hit chance 100%, because that also maxes out the bonus damage. The difference between a 95% and 100% can be large.
Combat has a lot of problems, not the least of which is that Nanos are ALSO better at combat than any other class. Maelstrom is bullshit powerful.
It got to the point where I would casually nuke my other companions with Maelstrom because it was good enough that I didn't care that I accidentally killed my melee characters with it.
Nanos are broken :\
Actually, related to that -- Calliste was really useless later on DESPITE being a nano. Is it because I just didn't level her enough, or because Transdimensional damage just doesn't seem to hit anything? Tbh, a lot of the combat seemed... weird. There were times I'd get my Edge, times when I wouldn't, times when my abilities would do damage, times when they wouldn't, it was all veryyyy random-feeling. More random than Planescape: Torment, and that's saying something because D&D 2e was pretty damn random.
*edit* Also, Malestrom actually DOES DAMAGE to the Sorrow. ... It's like, 2 points of damage, but nonetheless. And, alas, she heals 50hp/turn. I still wonder if there's an actual, legal way you can do enough damage to kill her in combat. I hope that if there is, you can get a non-standard game over :\a Maybe if you very precisely kitted out a Nano LC with max INT, a Callistege calibrated to do maximum damage, and a T4 Rhin? Hmmm. Matkina may be better than Castillege, but that'd require being in melee range of the Sorrow and as I recall that's a Bad Idea.
*edit* Which just makes me wish there was a way to access the damn console in this game :| I would REALLY like a way now that I've beaten the story to tweak my character abilities, even if it's just within normal limits, just to SEE stuff.
Additionally, I doubt there's enough EXP in the game to get all your character to T4, let alone to T4 before the first time you face the Sorrow :\ But now I want to play with it, just as an academic exercise...
Lucid_Seraph on
The Escape Goat: If there's anywhere that Occam's Razor fails to apply it's Elder Scrolls lore.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
+1
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
PLANESCAPE: Torment suffered from its writers confusing volume of content with quality of content. Having 12 Billion pages of dialogue where every decision is buried five layers deep in a dialogue tree does not make it a good game, it makes it a badly written, badly paced game that really needed an Oh My God, Move The Bloody Story Along ! button. I fear that TORMENT is the same. Monte Cook always struck me as being a pudgy little near-sighted kid who was always talking himself into a whuppin' on the playground while being unable to understand why he couldn't talk his way back out of it, now grown up.
However, being the chump that I am, I bought TORMENT anyway. Oy.
PLANESCAPE: Torment suffered from its writers confusing volume of content with quality of content. Having 12 Billion pages of dialogue where every decision is buried five layers deep in a dialogue tree does not make it a good game, it makes it a badly written, badly paced game that really needed an Oh My God, Move The Bloody Story Along ! button. I fear that TORMENT is the same. Monte Cook always struck me as being a pudgy little near-sighted kid who was always talking himself into a whuppin' on the playground while being unable to understand why he couldn't talk his way back out of it, now grown up.
However, being the chump that I am, I bought TORMENT anyway. Oy.
So long as you didn't buy it just to complain about it, cool. I hope you like it.
I think combat in the game would be more tolerable if it didn't have the bizarrely short movement restrictions/attack ranges, enemies weren't so goddamned durable, there wasn't friendly fire, and there weren't several setpiece fights that boiled down to "we're doing things in the Crisis system but this is basically a cutscene, none of your allies or enemies matter." And if the animations weren't so slow.
You can't write me off like that! You're just a voice, pal! You don't know a DAMN THING ABOUT RACING!!
I think combat in the game would be more tolerable if it didn't have the bizarrely short movement restrictions/attack ranges, enemies weren't so goddamned durable, there wasn't friendly fire, and there weren't several setpiece fights that boiled down to "we're doing things in the Crisis system but this is basically a cutscene, none of your allies or enemies matter." And if the animations weren't so slow.
tl;dr -- "combat would be better if you could, in fact, escape it entirely, instead of merely escaping 99% of it."
PLANESCAPE: Torment suffered from its writers confusing volume of content with quality of content.
I think you are, literally, the only person I have ever heard make that complaint.
Nah, as a Professional Editor with an MFA in Writing who actually works in the RPG industry, I agree with @Fairchild . And it's a huge complaint I have with some of the people whining that T:TN doesn't live up to PS:T -- they go on and on as if PS:T were some sort of godly monolith of perfect literature when... it's not. It's merely the best of a pack of rather mediocre bullshit (eg, Most Videogames) if only by virtue of having More Words, eg, the Infinite Monkeys at Typewriters problem
Which is to say -- I fucking LOVE both these games, they are in my Top 10 of ALL TIME EVAR category, but I think neither is as "well written" as Obduction or Riven, and those two games have perhaps 1% of the text of T:TN, COMBINED.
The thing many game writers AND game reviewers forget is that "writing" is not merely the text, but the subtext and ab-text; the structure of the machine and the mechanism by which it is presented. Admittedly, most of the audience has the intellectual capacity of a brick and the ability to infer subtleties from said text of a brick, but, nonetheless...
(Note: I am, myself, probably a brick)
So, yes, I agree with @Fairchild , and I am A Goddamned Professional.
*edit* to put another way, videogame writing has far more in common with the writing of plays or films than of novels, which is to say that the writing encompasses not merely the text or dialogue, but the scene, setting, color, costuming, etc, AND, on a further dimension, the methods by which the player interacts with the environment. in much the same way (and in a way that Monte Cook is TERRIBLE AT and FORGETS, ALWAYS), a tabletop RPG has more in common with a technical manual than of a novel, eg, you are providing an INSTRUCTION MANUAL for a DIRECTOR (the DM) to interact with A WORLD (in effect, you enumerate the stage, setting, props, costumes, etc, and toss them at the director like HERE, DEAL WITH THIS SHIT).
and the fools who try to elevate either genre to the level of ~great literature~ are just that, fools. It's not the same bloody medium. Learn how the medium lives, breathes, works. Then make the bastard bleed. That's how you get something good. Art? Fuck ~art~. Just make it bleed, and someone later will decide if it's art, once you're a corpse.
*edit* To be honest though, IGNORE ME. I am a potato. I know nothing. I am but a homeless moron spouting lies. All that I say are untruths, and, I am, more than this, a pretentious fool.
Lucid_Seraph on
The Escape Goat: If there's anywhere that Occam's Razor fails to apply it's Elder Scrolls lore.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
That snobbity snob reason is held by minority.
Most hate it for being weird, having too much text to click through between fighting or not having enough boiler plate fantasy tropes.
That said, I loved to read the game. The gameplay was the part that sucked.
tl;dr -- "combat would be better if you could, in fact, escape it entirely, instead of merely escaping 99% of it
That's not really my point, tbh. The combat could be decent for what they designed it for (a kind of resource intensive, painful affair), but they made so many things about it frustrating and set up multiple setpiece fights that just don't mesh with it at all.
You can't write me off like that! You're just a voice, pal! You don't know a DAMN THING ABOUT RACING!!
*edit* Which just makes me wish there was a way to access the damn console in this game :| I would REALLY like a way now that I've beaten the story to tweak my character abilities, even if it's just within normal limits, just to SEE stuff.
... and NOTHING HAPPENS if you succeed :| It just stays on screen and keeps going.
that's stupid lame. T:TN devs, you gotta put a non-standard Game Over in there for that kind of thing at LEAST! PS:T had SEVERAL instances where if you killed a thing wot was supposed to be unkillable you got non-standard game overs!
The Escape Goat: If there's anywhere that Occam's Razor fails to apply it's Elder Scrolls lore.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
+1
firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
Sagus Cliffs encounter questions:
Is there any way to solve either the Peerless or Malaise encounters without combat?
Peerless wasn't too bad, but that Malaise fight sucked.
Is there any way to solve either the Peerless or Malaise encounters without combat?
Peerless wasn't too bad, but that Malaise fight sucked.
Yes.
#1:
Stealth. Sneak around and disable the drones using interactables.
#2:
Can avoid crisis altogether, using the right dialogue options.
Thanks!
I figured I could probably sneak around the Peerless drones and just hit the terminals, but I was wondering if I missed some other option that didn't turn them hostile after the initial encounter.
Will definitely have to replay the Malaise encounter at some point to see if I can find that option. That's the only bit I've had to look up so far - I never would have figured out that those special drinks were the key, especially after the first one I tried killed outright.
I also still haven't solved that pyramid and ball puzzle, but I don't want to look that one up just yet.
Cute combat trick I randomly stumbled into: Use Erritis' Opporuntist ability to immediate end his turn and trigger on any "enemy" entering his range. Then Quantum Step Erritis next to an enemy. This immediately causes Opportunist to activate, since, I guess, technically the "enemy" moved into range of you.
Useful when Erritis is in bumfuck nowhere and you'd like to move him halfway across the map and still get an attack in.
Is there any way to solve either the Peerless or Malaise encounters without combat?
Peerless wasn't too bad, but that Malaise fight sucked.
Yes.
#1:
Stealth. Sneak around and disable the drones using interactables.
#2:
Can avoid crisis altogether, using the right dialogue options.
Thanks!
I figured I could probably sneak around the Peerless drones and just hit the terminals, but I was wondering if I missed some other option that didn't turn them hostile after the initial encounter.
Will definitely have to replay the Malaise encounter at some point to see if I can find that option. That's the only bit I've had to look up so far - I never would have figured out that those special drinks were the key, especially after the first one I tried killed outright.
I also still haven't solved that pyramid and ball puzzle, but I don't want to look that one up just yet.
I'll give you a small hint for that one, because the clue is kind of bad, and it took me a bit to figure out just what that puzzle wanted me to DO.
Crimson Dawn = Red.
Violet Dusk = Violet.
What starts with RED and ends with VIOLET?
If you still need another nudge I can give you one that still doesn't spoil the actual solution.
A Rainbow starts with Red and ends with Violet: ROYGBIV.
wait, the special drinks are the key to some encounter? You can FIGHT Malaise? I had no idea, because my reaction to "you can drink a think in a bar" in a video game is "IMMEDIATELY DRINK ALL THE THINGS, DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES."
Usually I die horribly, but that's OK and I learn something in the process. Usually. Sometimes I just die.
The Escape Goat: If there's anywhere that Occam's Razor fails to apply it's Elder Scrolls lore.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
0
firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
Oh lord I never would have figured that out. Thanks, those hints help.
I think I lucked out on a strategy during the Malaise crisis:
I saw all the copies and thought "this'll be interesting", even though I had backup in the fight. So I figured I'd just focus the shit out of the primary Malaise (the one with the most HP and likely acted first).
Turns out, that's I guess the correct way to handle that crisis? Because if you reduce the primary Malaise to 0, he destroys all of the copies, heals and buffs himself. The buffs are kind of scary (damage reduction, +5 damage, random other shit), but then it's 4 + allies versus 1, which is pretty trivial.
I don't know if the same thing happens if you kill a copy first, but I didn't think it would since all of the copies seemed to share the same amount of HP while only one was different.
And I had my first real encounter with the Sorrow, which started stomping around the map, doing amounts of damage that looked like some kind of weird system glitch.
Posts
To be completely fair, Wis > Int > Cha > Everything else in Planescape: Torment, and if you weren't playing most of the game as a Wizard or hybrid Wizard / Thief, you were basically boned, and Monte Cook had nothing to do with that game. So, it's not exactly without precedent.
Not to say it's a good thing, but just to say that this rests well within the lineage of the series. Eg, play either a Nano or a very, very heavily INT / Skillz based Jack.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
We need to move the fuck on from this stuff in games. It's inexcusably bad design, especially now that we have decades of RPGs to look at.
Which is funny since the system is relatively tight to the PnP Numenara system.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
On the other hand, I'm still very, very much digging the world, wandering around and talking to everyone and poking my hand in holes in random ancient devices (because that's just how I role). And I really, really, really like the way that in the dialogue system, after I've gone through a particular topic, the conversation prompt will change to something like "Tell me about the waters of your homeworld, Usul, again," so that I can a) continue to have access to those dialogue trees and b) be reminded which ones we've actually discussed at least once. Everybody making dialogue-heavy games: Please steal this system.
1:1 translations of PnP systems into video games are rarely very enjoyable these days. I'd much prefer devs do something like Harebrained Schemes did with their Shadowrun games, preserving the spirit of the system without making a literal translation.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
4E was basically "what if we put a video game into a tabletop system."
I think the actual mechanics are pretty good, honestly. The stat pools and edge stuff is nice, and the character generation system is interesting, although shallower than what PnP lets you get up to. I think that being an isometric and just the type of game it is (lots of dialogue and an interesting setting) mean that there's going to be a focus on all the INT related talky skills. There's plenty of games where you murder your way to success, there's a lot fewer where talking is just as important, plus combat is going to be relatively samey, but each conversation is going to be fundamentally different.
Basically I don't think the relative importance of stats is necessarily because the game's mechanics are very close to the PnP's.
If y'all haven't played it yet OR you did an initial playthrough and want to go back to find All the Things, you may want to hold off. They're doing A LOT of bugfixes soon, AND once the bugfixes are implemented, they're going to be restoring some of the cut content. First on the plate:
My hope is that in implementing Oom, they open up a few more areas of Sagus Cliffs; there's at least two areas that are very clearly cut content (upper left of the Cliffside neighborhood; the government center building).
It's possible that with Crisis System improvements, Glaives will start to suck less. Also, regarding stuff being weighted to Intelligence... I actually think this game is MORE forgiving than the original PS:T in that regard, because you can use your other party members for that. Bring Callistege for social tasks and dump her stuff into Int and social skills and just use her for 90% of that stuff. In PS:T, you were stuck having to dump all your stats into Wisdom on TNO if you wanted to get the most out of the game.
It's not perfect, but it's an area where they improved on the original for sure.
Regarding cut content: I am super glad I kind of forgot I'd backed this Kickstarter and didn't pay attention, because MY GOD the official forums are salty about that. Personally, I didn't even notice anything cut until I was *told* (I did think it was weird that you couldn't get to that one building, but I shrugged and figured that, well, maybe I'd missed something). I mean, I guess my first mistake was going to the official forums... only reason I DID is because I wanted to know why I hadn't gotten Callistege and Tybir's endings.
ANYWAY, the real thing is holding off till bugfixes are in place, especially with regards to AI, and ESPECIALLY in regard to the Sorrow whenever it appears in a Crisis.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
I did that and.. well, I got a Callestige ending. Not sure if that's the "true" ending or not.
I'm actually fairly fascinated with the usage of the Numenera setting in this game. Never played the PnP but the damage/hp numbers don't seem to have translated well - whoo dying in one round before getting to move - though I hear that's NOT directly from the Numenera PnP, in which Might is HP (???!). Some of that's probably attributable to terrible encounter balancing though/the problems of low-level adventuring.
I am pretty sure that the 1 hit kills are a combination of bad encounter balance, bugs with the crisis system (I'm sorry but you shouldn't be able to 1h my Erritis, who is T3 and has two dots of Endurance, unless you are the Sorrow, which you weren't), and problems with low-level adventuring. Oh, and, problems with being a Nano.
Another thing -- why is Matkina's Initiative soooo bad? She ALWAYS goes last. Fucking Aligern, aka Old Man McSlowpoke, goes before her. What?
The combat encounters really are just fucking terrible. I really hope that the bugfixes and Crisis fixes adjust some of this stuff, because even in a game which encourages you to solve things peacefully, things shouldn't suck egg if you decide to just punch things in the face. *edit* YES, even in a Monte Cook game and a Torment game! In the original PS:T, if you decided to fight something, you could reasonably fight it without dying or the game crashing if you knew what you were doing!
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
Yeah, but for me, that was more about the infinite, instant use of healing items. Because it sure wasn't about my expert control! (No no, guys, by all means, just all swarm the target in melee and get stuck on each other. Sure.)
Yeah. A few of them have a Use that you can do (some give stats or bonuses), but for the most part they're just to sell.
Basically, if you click on it and there's a "Use," do that. If not, sell it.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
Hmm, interesting. I got to a part where I really wanted to fight for RP reasons, but the combat was so bad it turned me off of the game. I may try it again later when it gets that patch.
Thanks! That's kind of what I figured, but I wanted to be certain ...
Edited to add: And I'm about 7 hours in and I still haven't left Sagus Cliffs yet. God, I do love this game ...
It got to the point where I would casually nuke my other companions with Maelstrom because it was good enough that I didn't care that I accidentally killed my melee characters with it.
Nanos are broken :\
Actually, related to that -- Calliste was really useless later on DESPITE being a nano. Is it because I just didn't level her enough, or because Transdimensional damage just doesn't seem to hit anything? Tbh, a lot of the combat seemed... weird. There were times I'd get my Edge, times when I wouldn't, times when my abilities would do damage, times when they wouldn't, it was all veryyyy random-feeling. More random than Planescape: Torment, and that's saying something because D&D 2e was pretty damn random.
*edit* Also, Malestrom actually DOES DAMAGE to the Sorrow. ... It's like, 2 points of damage, but nonetheless. And, alas, she heals 50hp/turn. I still wonder if there's an actual, legal way you can do enough damage to kill her in combat. I hope that if there is, you can get a non-standard game over :\a Maybe if you very precisely kitted out a Nano LC with max INT, a Callistege calibrated to do maximum damage, and a T4 Rhin? Hmmm. Matkina may be better than Castillege, but that'd require being in melee range of the Sorrow and as I recall that's a Bad Idea.
*edit* Which just makes me wish there was a way to access the damn console in this game :| I would REALLY like a way now that I've beaten the story to tweak my character abilities, even if it's just within normal limits, just to SEE stuff.
Additionally, I doubt there's enough EXP in the game to get all your character to T4, let alone to T4 before the first time you face the Sorrow :\ But now I want to play with it, just as an academic exercise...
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
However, being the chump that I am, I bought TORMENT anyway. Oy.
So long as you didn't buy it just to complain about it, cool. I hope you like it.
I think you are, literally, the only person I have ever heard make that complaint.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
The Disappearance of Inigo Sharpe: Tomas à Dunsanin
tl;dr -- "combat would be better if you could, in fact, escape it entirely, instead of merely escaping 99% of it."
Nah, as a Professional Editor with an MFA in Writing who actually works in the RPG industry, I agree with @Fairchild . And it's a huge complaint I have with some of the people whining that T:TN doesn't live up to PS:T -- they go on and on as if PS:T were some sort of godly monolith of perfect literature when... it's not. It's merely the best of a pack of rather mediocre bullshit (eg, Most Videogames) if only by virtue of having More Words, eg, the Infinite Monkeys at Typewriters problem
Which is to say -- I fucking LOVE both these games, they are in my Top 10 of ALL TIME EVAR category, but I think neither is as "well written" as Obduction or Riven, and those two games have perhaps 1% of the text of T:TN, COMBINED.
The thing many game writers AND game reviewers forget is that "writing" is not merely the text, but the subtext and ab-text; the structure of the machine and the mechanism by which it is presented. Admittedly, most of the audience has the intellectual capacity of a brick and the ability to infer subtleties from said text of a brick, but, nonetheless...
(Note: I am, myself, probably a brick)
So, yes, I agree with @Fairchild , and I am A Goddamned Professional.
*edit* to put another way, videogame writing has far more in common with the writing of plays or films than of novels, which is to say that the writing encompasses not merely the text or dialogue, but the scene, setting, color, costuming, etc, AND, on a further dimension, the methods by which the player interacts with the environment. in much the same way (and in a way that Monte Cook is TERRIBLE AT and FORGETS, ALWAYS), a tabletop RPG has more in common with a technical manual than of a novel, eg, you are providing an INSTRUCTION MANUAL for a DIRECTOR (the DM) to interact with A WORLD (in effect, you enumerate the stage, setting, props, costumes, etc, and toss them at the director like HERE, DEAL WITH THIS SHIT).
and the fools who try to elevate either genre to the level of ~great literature~ are just that, fools. It's not the same bloody medium. Learn how the medium lives, breathes, works. Then make the bastard bleed. That's how you get something good. Art? Fuck ~art~. Just make it bleed, and someone later will decide if it's art, once you're a corpse.
*edit* To be honest though, IGNORE ME. I am a potato. I know nothing. I am but a homeless moron spouting lies. All that I say are untruths, and, I am, more than this, a pretentious fool.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
Most hate it for being weird, having too much text to click through between fighting or not having enough boiler plate fantasy tropes.
That said, I loved to read the game. The gameplay was the part that sucked.
That's not really my point, tbh. The combat could be decent for what they designed it for (a kind of resource intensive, painful affair), but they made so many things about it frustrating and set up multiple setpiece fights that just don't mesh with it at all.
Try this? https://www.reddit.com/r/Torment/comments/5yuw19/tidesloader_v101_mod_loader_and_console_example/
(Disclaimer: have not tried it myself)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Torment/comments/5yqd1v/spoilerkilling_the_sorrow_during_first_encounter/
... and NOTHING HAPPENS if you succeed :| It just stays on screen and keeps going.
that's stupid lame. T:TN devs, you gotta put a non-standard Game Over in there for that kind of thing at LEAST! PS:T had SEVERAL instances where if you killed a thing wot was supposed to be unkillable you got non-standard game overs!
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
Peerless wasn't too bad, but that Malaise fight sucked.
Yes.
#1:
#2:
I mean, seriously.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
The Disappearance of Inigo Sharpe: Tomas à Dunsanin
Thanks!
Will definitely have to replay the Malaise encounter at some point to see if I can find that option. That's the only bit I've had to look up so far - I never would have figured out that those special drinks were the key, especially after the first one I tried killed outright.
Useful when Erritis is in bumfuck nowhere and you'd like to move him halfway across the map and still get an attack in.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I'll give you a small hint for that one, because the clue is kind of bad, and it took me a bit to figure out just what that puzzle wanted me to DO.
Violet Dusk = Violet.
What starts with RED and ends with VIOLET?
If you still need another nudge I can give you one that still doesn't spoil the actual solution.
wait, the special drinks are the key to some encounter? You can FIGHT Malaise? I had no idea, because my reaction to "you can drink a think in a bar" in a video game is "IMMEDIATELY DRINK ALL THE THINGS, DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES."
Usually I die horribly, but that's OK and I learn something in the process. Usually. Sometimes I just die.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.
Turns out, that's I guess the correct way to handle that crisis? Because if you reduce the primary Malaise to 0, he destroys all of the copies, heals and buffs himself. The buffs are kind of scary (damage reduction, +5 damage, random other shit), but then it's 4 + allies versus 1, which is pretty trivial.
I don't know if the same thing happens if you kill a copy first, but I didn't think it would since all of the copies seemed to share the same amount of HP while only one was different.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
And then I died.
WHAT
*edit*
http://planescape.com/
Planescape: Torment enhanced edition literally out right now. $19 bucks. There's no better time to try it out.
Delduwath: Yeah, gotta use Mehrunes' Razor.