How's the combat?

[iemander]

I was really very very dissapointed they shifted the combat from Planescape Torment's pauze battle system into turn based. PT was never really about strategic combat, but about how gritty it was with it's semi real-time feeling and also it's refreshing simplicity. That combined with great storytelling meant a step away from a combat heavy game.

Now that they made it turn based it feels to me like they're trying to make the combat strategic, which I really dislike for this type of game.

For the people who played it, were they able to capture some of PST's simple combat? I seriously hope I'm not going to be stuck playing turn based for hours.

I don't mind turn based btw, for games like XCom or a 4x game. But PST had very very little focus on combat so I don't want it.

[Arbiter Libera]

Well, it's turn-based but it's also very clunky and works only when it feels like in beta. Cyphers don't really work consistently, characters tend to get stuck on geometry or their controls freeze and you can just skip turn, etc. I don't even know what to say about balancing because it's obviously their first pass on this. Good news is you can avoid a LOT of combat if you want to and I don't mean "awkwardly running away to the edge of zone" - game offers different options.

[Kozzy]

You can avoid a good amount of combat

[hightechzombie]

I played for 8 hours and experienced two crises, and one of them was completely avoidable. Basically, I wouldn't worry about too much combat! If anything, the crisis system eliminates annoying trash mobs and lets me do what I love the most - talk to people and explore places.

[tomimt]

PST has a terrible combat system. Always had. It's the only aspect of that game I'd chnage if I could.

[thenamelessninja]

Well, from a video I seen on youtube of them showing off some of a crisis battle in action I think the turned based combat was a good choice for you can actually talk to enemies mid combat and try to end the fight or scare them or whatever that would've been much more tricky to do with a real time turned based I think.

Like, it seems like there is also other things you can do in the fights like turning off a bridge or putting on a trap, etc. All these different things you can do, are probably easier to make sense of in a turned based situation than a real time one.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by thenamelessninja:

Like, it seems like there is also other things you can do in the fights like turning off a bridge or putting on a trap, etc. All these different things you can do, are probably easier to make sense of in a turned based situation than a real time one.

Turn-based also feels like the best environment for that sort of stuff - even for things that have been done in real-time environments (using environmental hazards to your advantage) turn-based actually gives you the time to assess those options.

[Firehex]

Well, it's only game which i know where you can try make enemy surrender with your words when you're already in combat.
And as someone said - combat in original Planescape was awful. I liked only spell animations.

[thenamelessninja]

Originally posted by Firehex:

Well, it's only game which i know where you can try make enemy surrender with your words when you're already in combat.
And as someone said - combat in original Planescape was awful. I liked only spell animations.

Undertale did as well actually with the enemies. Can't think of any others though.

[Giomanach]

this may seem strange to some people but torment allways look quite diffrent then say..BG or IWD etc the models seems larger and with better animation in torment ..and when pillers came out it tried recrating the feel of games like BG IWD etc and now this torment uses the same engine as Pillers it now looks very much like BG instead of torment ...or is this just me

[Moon Rabbit]

It needs a lot of work. It's slow and clunky. Options aren't very well defined or explained. animations are pretty boring. At least early on. I made a mystic jack, and I can't hit the braod side of a barn in melee. My neat little infused crystal shard knife is worthless as I miss every atack.

[Planeforger]

Originally posted by Firehex:

Well, it's only game which i know where you can try make enemy surrender with your words when you're already in combat.

I can think of a few others.

Renowned Explorers, for example, allows you to win turn-based encounters through fighting, diplomacy, or breaking their spirit with taunts.

Winter Voices also has a really abstract combat system where your enemies represent your internal struggles, and you're less focused on destroying them as you are on learning to cope with them.

Oh, and then there's Undertale and whatnot.

Anyway, TTON's combat seems a little lacklustre at the moment - although I haven't actually tried to play a serious warrior yet. Maybe that would be more satisfying?

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by Tea in the Sahara:

It needs a lot of work. It's slow and clunky. Options aren't very well defined or explained. animations are pretty boring. At least early on. I made a mystic jack, and I can't hit the braod side of a barn in melee. My neat little infused crystal shard knife is worthless as I miss every atack.

Assuming it works the same as the tabletop; your stats, class and descriptor have zero influence on your chances to hit. I think some Foci might influence it (such as "Masters Weapons") but I don't think any of them are implemented yet.

The biggest thing you can do to influence attack accuracy is by spending Effort on an attack - that's why Glaives get the biggest Might Pool; it gives them more Might to spend enhancing their attacks with Effort.

[Moon Rabbit]

Originally posted by B'oh ShadowFighter88:

Originally posted by Tea in the Sahara:

It needs a lot of work. It's slow and clunky. Options aren't very well defined or explained. animations are pretty boring. At least early on. I made a mystic jack, and I can't hit the braod side of a barn in melee. My neat little infused crystal shard knife is worthless as I miss every atack.

Assuming it works the same as the tabletop; your stats, class and descriptor have zero influence on your chances to hit. I think some Foci might influence it (such as "Masters Weapons") but I don't think any of them are implemented yet.

The biggest thing you can do to influence attack accuracy is by spending Effort on an attack - that's why Glaives get the biggest Might Pool; it gives them more Might to spend enhancing their attacks with Effort.

I see, thanks for the input. I've only fought the first group of people at the very beginning, the ambush. (though I reloaded my save and talked my way through as I felt bad about killing them). I know abou tthe effort thing, but it it just made my attacks go from very hard, to slightly less very hard.

Who knows, I haven't gotten far enough and fought enough to really make any kind of reliable judgment. To be fair the enemies seemed to miss quite a bit as well.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by Tea in the Sahara:

Originally posted by B'oh ShadowFighter88:

Assuming it works the same as the tabletop; your stats, class and descriptor have zero influence on your chances to hit. I think some Foci might influence it (such as "Masters Weapons") but I don't think any of them are implemented yet.

The biggest thing you can do to influence attack accuracy is by spending Effort on an attack - that's why Glaives get the biggest Might Pool; it gives them more Might to spend enhancing their attacks with Effort.

I see, thanks for the input. I've only fought the first group of people at the very beginning, the ambush. (though I reloaded my save and talked my way through as I felt bad about killing them). I know abou tthe effort thing, but it it just made my attacks go from very hard, to slightly less very hard.

Who knows, I haven't gotten far enough and fought enough to really make any kind of reliable judgment. To be fair the enemies seemed to miss quite a bit as well.

Well how hard an enemy is to hit is based entirely on their level. It's part of how they tried to keep the core mechanics simple - everything has a task difficulty from 0 to 10 (for enemies and certain objects, this is their level - it's why cyphers, doors and whatnot might have a level) which gets modified by any skills, equipment or whatnot you have. The difficulty determines what you have to roll on a d20 - it's basically three times the resultant level.

So a Challenging task is difficulty 5, meaning you have to roll at least a 15 to succeed on it. But if you have an item that helps on it (like if it's a roll to climb something and you have a grappling hook and rope on you) then it reduces the difficulty one step down to Difficulty 4 (so you now need a 12 to succeed). Can't think of any common modifiers for combat, save that light weapons (ie; daggers) reduce the attack difficulty by 1 step. Drawback being that they do less damage when they do connect.

Enemy health is also based on their Level - so a Murden (a level 3 creature) has Nine Health and you need to roll 9s to hit it.

EDIT: Oh, and while I think of it - enemies trying to hit you aren't rolling against your Tier (the player-character equivalent of a level) but you're rolling against their level to avoid the attack. One of the big things Numenera tried to do differently; the GM doesn't make any rolls (well... okay; from a practical standpoint he's probably going to be rolling for random cyphers and the like, but in general gameplay he doesn't need any dice) - the player rolls to make attack and to avoid enemy attacks. So to avoid attacks from the Murden I mentioned before, you'd have to roll 9s.