Game News Torment: Tides of Numenera Released

[Darkzone]

Yes initiative has been badly translated, from TB to RTwP. But i can name you the solution: different timing for parts of animation. Example: A halbard with an intiative of 10 requires a slower attack animation than a broadswod with an intiative of 5. This problem is a result of the limitations that were in place nearly up to the 2010s. Currently i can very easy solve this problem in Unreal Engine 4.

I've said that myself. But you forgot the context of this discussion. It was about the idea that the translation of D&D in real-time was "solid D&D". Of course, if you go RT, you go for RT animations, to use RT's strengths. But the Infinity engine games didn't, they purposefully tried to emulate the PnP 6 second combat round by making all actions take a single fixed amount of time without regards for animation. It was not the result of engine limitations.

I wouldn't call BG1 and etc. "solid D&D", an i omit therfore the thing and just point out that it can be easy solved. RT animation is wrong word, because you can use an 3d animation for RT, like for TB. And you can make out of RT game easy an TB game, counterwise is a bit more difficult.
Infinity engines seem to have keept the animation as one animated gif, they had no ability at this point to keep the animations in other form and therefore they had only few different animations for attack and etc.
With 3d (2d goes but can get a bit tricky) and modern engines this chages where an animation is saved just as an angular changes over time. So yes what i think i can pull of with Unreal Engine 4 i cannot pull of with an early infinty engine.
The fixed amount of time for the actions is a problem for initiative, but that is the problem of the how developed and not of the principle.
If you want to know how i would solve this in Unreal Engine 4, i can write it here down.

RTwP is a clusterfuck

Yes and No. There is the problem to command a party in RT. In RTwP you can naturally have a stack of actions for each member and store the actions there. So in other words more a problem of 'how' design, then of the principle.

You know there is something we call scripts.

So your solution, in addition to pause as a game mechanic and AI, is action queueing and scripts?
But that is exactly my point. The combat with its complexity is so unmanageable that you need all four to make it playable. Queueing to compensate for pause being inefficient and annoying since you'd have to pause every milisecond to command properly; Scripts to compensate for shitty AI. Remember pause and AI were already a patch for RT's problems with such a complex combat design with many activable abilities over multiple characters; so what you envision is a patch to the patch, and it has to be done just right (in your words it's a "problem of 'how' design), or it'll fail. All this is a consequence of trying to force a TB-designed system in RT. If you want simultaneous resolution, it would be better as phase based, which is more appropriate for such fights with many commands to give from an ever bigger pool of options. Much better than automatisation.

Queuing is only to make it more fluid and it could result in less necessary interrupts. Scripts solve the problem of adaptation of AI to different combat behavior of players. So yes you can call it a compensation for a shitty AI that cannot adapt towards the behavior of the player. With a script the player can modulate towards a desired behavior.
Phase based can as a subset of TB is a nice alternative towards RTwP. And i have many good thoughts about it, and how i would try to pull it off (Planning phase and simultan execution phase for player and enemies.)

Plus, because RTwP is a clusterfuck, and you can't have tactical positioning, you get shit like no friendly fire for attacks/AoEs. This is why they went with it for Tyranny for example. RTwP brings by its own nature a dumbing down of turn based mechanics, and therefore a dumbing down of available tactics, instead of creating ones adapted to RT.

NO. You can have tactical postioning.

I will grant that. But at a cost of making the gameplay about micromanaging (fast clicking or fast pausing). See Starcraft; but Starcraft does not have nearly as much activable abilities / tactical options to manage, which is why it works. It's about squeezing the maximum tactics with what little options/abilities you have.

In WL2 i have also use one or two at best different attack actions, like in PoE. Only in D:OS i had to relay upon larger amount of tactics, mostly Teleport, Rain, Lightning, Fireball, Phyoenix attack and something to get away. But there comes queueing quite handy, to solve this problem of the handle of larger amount of different actions.
I don't like that much PoE, but i had to use good positioning in the attack on the fortress. (Perhaps my build was bad, but i didn't care that much, because i played what i wanted: DD thief.)

 

[thesheeep]

I am trying to imagine what your daily routine looks like

Daily routine? What is that?

I don't know about you, but I usually sleep 12 hours, have a shower, eat for 8 hours, have another shower and then go to bed.

 

[Darkzone]

"due to the limited AI." you have found for yourself an explanation for the failure of RTwP. I would keep it more general and say in other words: Blame the developers.

Limited AI for party members is part of RTwP design. If the AI was too good, then the game would play itself, and combat would be a screensaver.

Could happen if you have all agents on AI. But this could also happen in an TB game if you have everything on AI. In FO 1 and 2 as i belive the party members were AI. And i had as much problems with them as i had it RtwP, and so i ended walking alone though the desert especiall in FO1. AAnd in WL2 there were also additional following party members like the Provost (however he is called) that screw the combat for me up.

So you need shitty AI as a patch for the micromanaging, and you need scripts as a patch for shitty AI. By design. But then if the scripting is too powerful, you're back with the problem of having a too good AI.

No. The shitty AI is for makeing it more fluid, like with queueing. Queue alone would solve enirely the problem, with no need for an AI, but an AI would make it more fluid, concerning repeated attack, and then i don't need to pause a game to tell an agent: attack the facing enemy. Scripting allows you to customise the agent, so that as an example it doesn't rans off out of an position to chease an enemy (Hold Position). Or that it usees certain attack at the begining of the fight. Or that it heals a wounded character if his HP fall below a certain number and etc. Scripting is a tool / feature and not a bug. Scripting is a tool / feature and not a bug. And then you have no problem of having a too good AI, but you have the time to concentrate on your beloved characters.

So now i have made an contradiction if you read carefully my text, but this is only because i have not explaind it good. So let me put this out:
In an RTwP (the pause is an interrupt that is fired by player OR agent) you can play a party without AI or Queue, but then an interupt can be fired on end of action or by player. A queue reduced the amount of necessary interrupts by agents, by firing after an queue has been executed and not if one action has ended or the premises for an action (mostly the one in the front) are invalid.
The shitty AI could limit further the amount of necessary interrupts, buy introducing standard attacks if the Queue has worked all the actions thought or the player omites the input. I hope that you see now the workflow net more clearly and the perhaps percived contradiction dissipates.

 

[thesheeep]

Darkzone, I admire your efforts, but really...

There is a solution here: you make your combat turn based and can have a lot of options more at the same time without overwhelming the player. Resulting in a more robust system, without forcing players to fiddle around with (always sub-par) scripting menus, and without needing any kind of interruption of the flow.
Solves all problems except those of ADHS kiddos.
Well, and the problem that you might want the combat to be over sooner, but that only is a problem when the combat just sucks, not one of TB vs RT. And that one seems to be the actual problem for this game (just as it was for the original PS:T, where TB or RT also wouldn't have changed much).

Or, of course, you go all the way in with action combat. Which is fine, too, really. But RTwP has been and always will be a pretty damn horrible compromise.
And compromises in design almost always result in a worse product.

 

[Darkzone]

Let me make it clearer. Turn based systems are not just a cosmetic layer on rolls and rules. They are the core combat mechanic on which character features and actions are designed. They are the rules upon which the other rules are built to interact with. In turn based systems, you have an alloted amount of actions you can take before others have to act. In D&D, you usually have a main action, a move action, and a minor action and/or a reaction (depending on editions). You have to plan ahead, because when your turn is over, then everybody acts before you act again. That means if you left yourself in an exposed position, you most likely will get fucked by all your adversaries. So positioning is extremely important, as is the ability to disable others, use cover/conceal yourself, and plan ahead with the rest of your party (who does what and when). You've got all those combat actions/mechanics built around that, such as delaying, readying actions/overwatch, replacing a main action with a move, reactions, etc.

And how does this contradict the principle of RTwP? In my humble opinion as someone who has developed and worked upon simulations (continuous and event driven) this can be made also in RTwP.

You can have a system that incorporates this, with the result: If the healer is executing his action or he is in an debuff / delay, then you cannot simply interrupt him to change action.

Let me give you an example. You have a party of 4, facing 10 enemies. In TB, you act with one character, and then you have to wait for the 13 others to act before you can act with him again. All 10 enemies will act beforehand. So you need to plan for that, for imprevisiblity, for your character (let's call him Bob) possibly being ganged up on. You need to do that during Bob's turn, afterwards he's just gonna have to suffer through it. Maybe your healer's turn comes after 6 enemies have attacked Bob, and then you have a choice: do I heal Bob or can he take more punishment, do I attack instead or move the healer in a defensive position so he does not get ganged up too? Can't do it all. This tension and planning isn't the same for RTwP, because, since all actions are simultaneous, the most you have to wait for to gain back control of all characters is the end of their animation / the end of one turn, no matter how many adversaries. The difference is huge, and therefore the mechanics and abilities of characters must be adapted to it if they're well designed. This is why there's things such as delaying, readying actions, reactions, etc. in TB.

I love TB games (as long as i haven't figured it all out) so i understand your passion for the forced relaxed process of careful planning. Yes it has to be well desined OR adapted. Delaying a turn can be helpfull, but it is not necessary a feature for all TBs, and it is even brought over to RTwP by omiting input. And can be brought over into an every 6s action RTwP, but with limits.
I don't know what you mean by readying actions and reactions. Can you give me an example?

Now real time has strengths that can't be had by TB. It's perfect for systems that require you to react moment to moment to what your opponents are doing. Manually blocking and dodging are things that are possible, but make no sense in a TB system.

Have you heard of parry in NWN2?

Have you heard of reading? I said manually blocking and parrying are possible strengths of RT systems, strengths that TB cannot have.

Ok my bad.

 

[Darkzone]

Darkzone, I admire your efforts, but really...

There is a solution here: you make your combat turn based and can have a lot of options more at the same time without overwhelming the player. Resulting in a more robust system, without forcing players to fiddle around with (always sub-par) scripting menus, and without needing any kind of interruption of the flow.
Solves all problems except those of ADHS kiddos.
Well, and the problem that you might want the combat to be over sooner, but that only is a problem when the combat just sucks, not one of TB vs RT. And that one seems to be the actual problem for this game (just as it was for the original PS:T, where TB or RT also wouldn't have changed much).

Or, of course, you go all the way in with action combat. Which is fine, too, really. But RTwP has been and always will be a pretty damn horrible compromise.
And compromises in design almost always result in a worse product.

Starcraft and other RT strategies computer games are very popular, and i think that the most popular strategy cRPG is also RT. So there are a lot of ADHS kiddos. RTwP can be also not that arduous, if you can manage the behavior of the PC right. I prefer TB, but i look at the concept as a whole.

 

[Kev Inkline]

I admit being one of those delusional guys that expected Torment:ToN would sell at least as well as Wasteland 2, in my misguided imagination I assumed it being a stronger franchise than Wasteland, and in particular, Tworment having a much better Kickstarter success. I would have expected the numbers being something between WL2 and PoE.

It turns out the number of owners according to steamspy is slightly under 90K. Now, from fig documentation you can read that breakeven number for WL3 is 400K copies sold. I can only guess what the respective number for ToN is, but right now the sales are not looking too good, I suspect.

 

[DeepOcean]

How to make NumaNuma Great Again, some suggestions tought by a probably very lazy codexian in 10 mins:

Spoiler

- Instead of falling from the sky and having the resonance chamber broken by the fall (what is pretty stupid), you wake up on the middle of the Reefs of the Fallen worlds on some strange place, that seems like a huge abandoned lab. You are met with poor people from Sagus Cliffs, they are salvaging on that area trying to make a living and they tell you their "leader" is Alligern the Aeon Priest. Knowing fuck all why you can't remember shit and waking up on such strange place, if someone might understand this technology is an Aeon Priest.
- After meeting Alligern, he goes with you to this lab, he never seen this before, he probably suspects you are a new castoff as him but he doesn't tell you anything, he is just interested on this place and you explore it with him. It seems this abandoned place belonged to the first Aeon Priest that founded the Order of Truth on Sagus Cliffs. There were legends he had a hidden laboratory and that exploring it might have some clues of what happened to you.
- After exploring, you still have no idea of how you wake up on this place that from all indications was sealed for centuries.The only lead you has is that the leader of the Order of Truth was the one that built it, so the Order of Truth might know something.
- Have at least one major quest for each zone of Sagus Cliffs based on the lore of the place where you are visiting, one for the goverment district, one for the Underbelly, another for Circus Minor and another one for Sagus Edge. I'm not talking of fedex quests here, but honest to good quests. On the goverment district you get a taste of the politics and how are the rules of the city. On the Underbelly you uncover the secret of the civilization that first built the machines that run the city and the criminal element on it. On Cliff's Edge, you get to explore some Memovira conspiracy to dominate Sagus Cliff's criminal underworld.
- Try to meld the main quest with those major quests, I dunno, the Changing God has spies on Sagus Cliffs and gave orders for some castoff of his faction, lead by Calcedon, that in case anything going to shit, he should seek you and capture both you and the resonance chamber. I dunno, the resonance chamber only reacts to you for some reason.
- You are helped by some castoff of the First castoff faction, lead by Paj Rekken, on Sagus Cliffs that want you and the resonance but they aren't exactly 100% honest of why they want to help you. Matkina however comes you and offer help saying you shouldn't trust any of those self serving fools and that she could help you. She knows how to use the tides but needs your help to recover her memory.
- Valley of the dead heroes should be cut, the necropolis be an optional side location that backers can go to but there aren't any content beyond the backer stuff, it shouldn't be on the main plot way.
- Inefere quest should happen on Sagus Cliffs as a follow up of the Red Circles quest where the Dendra Ur are fighting a secret war with the Children of the Endless Gate, investigating the murders on Underbelly will lead you into this conflict.
- The Sorrow should hunt you, some quests you can only solve favorably by using the power of the Tides, however, every time you used the tides, it would get closer and closer to locating you.
- Each Tide alligment should have a different result. If you are red tide, evey time you use the tides, you can make the target do passionate, almost irrational impulsive action. Gold tide allow you to force compassion and etc.
- The castoff refuge should be cut.
- Things should escalate and there is a climax at the end of Sagus Cliffs where you are wanted by both the First castoff as the Changing God side and because of their extensive use of the tides, it should attract the Sorrow, with your only option being to flee to the Bloom where you can flee to diffferent worlds if the situation gets worse as staying on Sagus Cliffs is suicide as the Sorrow will locate you. Sagus Cliffs is almost completely destroyed on a fire.
- On the Bloom, you managed to flee with Matkina or surrendered to Calcedon or chosen to go with the First castoff. Fleeing to the Bloom will only delay the Sorrow but if you use the Tides enough you will discover it can get you there as well. In there you hear an strange voice on your head, an specter, he says he wants to help you and he knows how, he will protect you from the Sorrow, he will say to you you shouldn't trust anyone as they want to sacrifice you to save their asses and that only him has your best interests on mind.
- You will be on a serious problem as you can't trust anyone and that they all seem to want to only use you to their ends.
- The specter on your mind says you must find Mazzof on the Oasis of Mara J'Olios, he says the resonance chamber is incomplete however and that you must find a way for the Bloom to teleport you to the place where it was created, a cristaline dimention.
- This specter, is very helpful and you can talk with him on your mind, you can get some Dakkon moments where he teaches you things depending on your intellect and make you stronger. He seems to know alot of stuff and is a compasionate guy, even telling you things your companions don't want to tell you so you can help them using the tides.
- All companions should have two quests, the ones where you meet them and another one on the Bloom probably involving your new Tides powers.
-The bloom should be the place where most of the Tides interactions happen, using the power the specter teached you, you can learn how to bend other people will to your advantage, to manipulate them and even to change them for "their own good". After a certain point you start questioning if people are rally independent being or if everyone are slaves to the Tides and free will doesn't really exist. If you can change someone to be anyone you like with this sort of power, then you discover you are very alone as people are just automatons that can be rewritten. You start understanding why the Changing God seemed so ruthless. How can you feel empathy for things that you can unmake and remake at your will?
- However, on the cristaline dimension, the Sorrow finds you again. The Sorrow for some reason seems to ignore the other castoffs and is focused only on you, the specter saves you and your party members teaching you how to open a portal for the Oasis.
- You go to the Oasis and have the ending in there.

 

[Schizophrenic monolog]

I admit being one of those delusional guys that expected Torment:ToN would sell at least as well as Wasteland 2, in my misguided imagination I assumed it being a stronger franchise than Wasteland, and in particular, Tworment having a much better Kickstarter success. I would have expected the numbers being something between WL2 and PoE.

It turns out the number of owners according to steamspy is slightly under 90K. Now, from fig documentation you can read that breakeven number for WL3 is 400K copies sold. I can only guess what the respective number for ToN is, but right now the sales are not looking too good, I suspect.

The game still number 1 on GOG.
I wonder what are the sales number there.

 

[thesheeep]

There is a solution here: you make your combat turn based and can have a lot of options more at the same time without overwhelming the player. Resulting in a more robust system, without forcing players to fiddle around with (always sub-par) scripting menus, and without needing any kind of interruption of the flow.
Solves all problems except those of ADHS kiddos.

Starcraft and other RT strategies computer games are very popular, and i think that the most popular strategy cRPG is also RT. So there are a lot of ADHS kiddos.

I was talking about RTwP combat in RPGs, not RT vs TB in larger scale strategy games. Of course at a certain scale, you need real time or most people would be just too bored by the long turn times. I mean, who wasn't infuriated when stumbling upon some rat nest in Fallout (or locations where lots of neutral NPCs would do their "run away" in turns)?
But in games like Starcraft, you also simply do not have the need for such careful positioning of every single unit and choice of many abilities as you would have in most RPGs.

Either way, I don't give a rats ass about sales numbers or size of audience when judging a system.

 

[Ismaul]

Delaying ... is even brought over to RTwP by omiting input.

How can I explain sequential turns vs simultaneous turns better that I did? I can't even.
Sequential turns (used in TB) means, if there's 14 combatants, that there will be 14 turns, each character having one, acting one after the other, in an order determined by initiative. Delaying means that you can move your position in the sequential order up from for example 3rd to 13th. That allows tactics such as letting your buddy debuff enemies before you attack. That concept makes no sense in RT, because there is no sequential order, all 14 turns are simultaneous. Omiting inupt is... not equivalent at all; not doing anything is acting suboptimally, while the TB delay tactic is about acting optimally.

I don't know what you mean by readying actions and reactions. Can you give me an example?

Readying actions means that during your turn, you can skip doing your main action to prepare an action that you will take out of your turn when a specific trigger is met. For example, you can ready the action that you will shoot when an enemy comes through the door. You will make this action during the turn of the enemy that triggers it. Reactions is just a general term for actions you take when it is not your turn, such as attacks of opportunity. Both concepts were made for TB, because readying is made for a system of sequential turns, and because reactions are things you can do just right away when playing RT. (Though that doesn't preclude RT games implementing automatic reactions.)

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

And RTwP brings other things to the table than TB, not necessary the same, but it can emulate quite good TB tactics if it is done right

Sure, it is like comunism. It must have failed one hundred times because they didn't implemented it right. I have a simpler explanation: it can't emulate TB tactics because it sucks.

It doesn't suck by itself. Real-time (with of without pause) can be done and has been done well, but when it's used specifically to emulate DnD all it does is make things slower and more confusing. When Ensemble Studios tried to make Real Time civilization (a.k.a Age of Empires) they've changed everything while still retaining the empire-building feel, instead of just making everyone take turns at once, but very slowly. When a real-time RPG-like cancer (a.k.a) mobas are the hottest shit out there there is really no excuse for not being able to make a real-time RPG system that feels good to play.

 

[Fenix]

Btw.: Greed is not necessary something evil, it can be quite an incentive for development of wealth (example: inovations, investation and etc), it is bad only if you do something bad to other from the greed that you have.

Jewish point of view, literally.
Greed, and wealth is evil in its core - to get wealth you inevitably need to stole and rob people, honest work can only supply you enough to feed you.
Look what happen in the world now - it is result of fact, that a few percents of rich own 90% of the world.
And in near future they will cease to need you, and they will slaughter you.

Omiting inupt is... not equivalent at all; not doing anything is acting suboptimally, while the TB delay tactic is about acting optimally.

It would be good to have article about TB vs RT and/or vs RTwP.
Because it is a common opinio among young-and-brainless that TB is "Stone Age tech".

 

[l3loodAngel]

Delaying ... is even brought over to RTwP by omiting input.

How can I explain sequential turns vs simultaneous turns better that I did? I can't even.
Sequential turns (used in TB) means, if there's 14 combatants, that there will be 14 turns, each character having one, acting one after the other, in an order determined by initiative. Delaying means that you can move your position in the sequential order up from for example 3rd to 13th. That allows tactics such as letting your buddy debuff enemies before you attack. That concept makes no sense in RT, because there is no sequential order, all 14 turns are simultaneous. Omiting inupt is... not equivalent at all; not doing anything is acting suboptimally, while the TB delay tactic is about acting optimally.

Ha ha ha. Because you can do it simultaneously with RTwP? (Run to monsters and cast debuf) This example of yours of 14 moving pieces that should be very smart and illustrating is nothing (replying to this and previous example of 14 pieces). If you have moved your character out of position against 10 enemies you should die independently from the system. If you dont it's a shitty design. Now devs can balance this shit out by increasing or reducing PC/NPC hp and monster dmg. If for example in TB they would reduce monster damage (or increse NPC hp) to help people who get surrounded often, because the character can't change his course of action until all of enemies have moved. In RTwP devs would increase dmg. (or reduce NPC HP) from monsters to increase punishment for people who cant control their units to increase urgency, because you can change your course of action.

 

[ArchAngel]

Let me make it clearer. Turn based systems are not just a cosmetic layer on rolls and rules. They are the core combat mechanic on which character features and actions are designed. They are the rules upon which the other rules are built to interact with. In turn based systems, you have an alloted amount of actions you can take before others have to act. In D&D, you usually have a main action, a move action, and a minor action and/or a reaction (depending on editions). You have to plan ahead, because when your turn is over, then everybody acts before you act again. That means if you left yourself in an exposed position, you most likely will get fucked by all your adversaries. So positioning is extremely important, as is the ability to disable others, use cover/conceal yourself, and plan ahead with the rest of your party (who does what and when). You've got all those combat actions/mechanics built around that, such as delaying, readying actions/overwatch, replacing a main action with a move, reactions, etc.

And how does this contradict the principle of RTwP? In my humble opinion as someone who has developed and worked upon simulations (continuous and event driven) this can be made also in RTwP.

You can have a system that incorporates this, with the result: If the healer is executing his action or he is in an debuff / delay, then you cannot simply interrupt him to change action.

Let me give you an example. You have a party of 4, facing 10 enemies. In TB, you act with one character, and then you have to wait for the 13 others to act before you can act with him again. All 10 enemies will act beforehand. So you need to plan for that, for imprevisiblity, for your character (let's call him Bob) possibly being ganged up on. You need to do that during Bob's turn, afterwards he's just gonna have to suffer through it. Maybe your healer's turn comes after 6 enemies have attacked Bob, and then you have a choice: do I heal Bob or can he take more punishment, do I attack instead or move the healer in a defensive position so he does not get ganged up too? Can't do it all. This tension and planning isn't the same for RTwP, because, since all actions are simultaneous, the most you have to wait for to gain back control of all characters is the end of their animation / the end of one turn, no matter how many adversaries. The difference is huge, and therefore the mechanics and abilities of characters must be adapted to it if they're well designed. This is why there's things such as delaying, readying actions, reactions, etc. in TB.

And in RTwP you got party of 4 facing 10 enemies. All 10 start casting fireball at your party, what do you do?
In TB you just check turn order and interrupt those that you will act before, in RTwP this is a much complex situation that ends often with more fireballs blasting your party and you have to plan for stuff like that.
It is just that you are too blind because of your hate for RTwP.

 

[Klarion]

Steam reviews are at 73% now... Yesterday was 74, day before that 76... at launch it was - what now looks like a beautiful unreachable dream - a shining 81%. I'm noticing a trend here.

Perhaps the most awaited game of the decade, well in CRPGs at least... and they had over 2 years extra time to put it out. Such a shame. Well to be fair, it's not a complete failure I guess because the magazines didn't score it that bad. But it sure ain't a success either.

72%

 

[Astral Rag]

GOG

lol

 

[Drowed]

Steam reviews are at 73% now... Yesterday was 74, day before that 76... at launch it was - what now looks like a beautiful unreachable dream - a shining 81%. I'm noticing a trend here..

72%

 

[MasPingon]

Vault Dweller What's your thoughts on this? As sceptical as I think? Since I played beta I got a feeling they went in the wrong direction about what made P:T such a great game and it seems they actually flopped.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I didn't play enough (I've only seen the starting area) so I don't have a strong opinion yet. Combat seems a bit ... odd, but I've only fought that one tutorial fight. The intro was better than I expected (I didn't try the beta).

 

[MasPingon]

I didn't play enough (I've only seen the starting area) so I don't have a strong opinion yet. Combat seems a bit ... odd, but I've only fought that one tutorial fight. The intro was better than I expected (I didn't try the beta).

The amount of exposition didn't bother you?

 

[Lurker King]

The amount of exposition didn't bother you?

It's obvious that he hated the game. Don't drag him in this mess.

 

[Ismaul]

And in RTwP you got party of 4 facing 10 enemies. All 10 start casting fireball at your party, what do you do?
In TB you just check turn order and interrupt those that you will act before, in RTwP this is a much complex situation that ends often with more fireballs blasting your party and you have to plan for stuff like that.
It is just that you are too blind because of your hate for RTwP.

Your example is proving my point. Situations and tactics are different in TB vs RT(wP). Sequential vs simultaneous makes a huge difference. Which is why mechanics need to be different, appropriate to their combat system.

Usually in RT you have the opportunity to move out of the way of fireballs in reaction to seeing them cast. Not so with TB, you have to plan beforehand without knowing what's coming.

 

[Ismaul]

If for example in TB they would reduce monster damage (or increse NPC hp) to help people who get surrounded often, because the character can't change his course of action until all of enemies have moved. In RTwP devs would increase dmg. (or reduce NPC HP) from monsters to increase punishment for people who cant control their units to increase urgency, because you can change your course of action.

Again, thanks for seeing my point. Since TB vs RT are different, the mechanics need to be different, adapted to the system.

 

[Irenaeus]

So how is the voice acting?

lol I knew I hated Aligorn for a reason