A similar argument went on over on the PoE boards: one person's definition of what constitutes a 'spiritual successor' is very different from another's. There's no objective way to measure that. I never expected it to be TB either. Conversely, I can't say I expected it to be RTwP either though. I really didn't have any expectation in mind as far s the combat system goes.

We obviously aren't going to come to accord on our view of 'lying' then. At least, not with regard to this.

Pretty much the same here. I really never gave any thought to the combat system. Granted, as I noted before, if I'd have been asked, I'd have voted for RTwP (and I did when they put it up for a vote), but I certainly don't feel lied to.

of course there are variations in expectations, but there are large numbers of absolutely predictable expectations and when you take money with certain knowledge that you have no intention to meet those expectations that is a con

Just saw and instawatched it. Awesome trailer, catches up a lot of what Torment was about! (well, my first playthrough was last year, so "was" seems a bit exaggerated!)

The KS pitch from the beginning was clear about the "espiritual sucessor" part being about ambient and characters, and they were deciding about the combat system, then is unfair calling a lie.

Edit: and I'm saying this as a RTwP fan.

cant wait for this one and pillars of eternity

This is kind of going in circles now, but the expectation of real time is predictable - they can say the combat system is going to be different, well that was obvious since the DnD IP is not available. It's still normal and reasonable to expect a different real time system, it's not a trivial number of users that had this expectation. If it were insignificant the devs would've been completely open from the start. They could've been completely open from the start and it's a great shame that they weren't since they would've got all their funding anyway if they'd said it would be TB.

People in development and game retail know very well that turn based is not well accepted amongst users that aren't expecting it. It's a culture shock, it's viewed as backward and 'not videogame.' Remember that 80% of backers did not take part in the poll. Quite a few of them are likely to get a rude shock when they play the game as it will be their first encounter with TB, and a lot of them aren't going to like it in the slightest. If returns were possible with digital I think the return rate would be higher than it was for the FF games.

I will try to find the post vote dev comment on this that contains the admissions and explanations that I referred to (I didn't copy it at the time since I didn't back and didn't need a refund) but I found it shocking that they would be so brazen about their scheme. I wanted the game, I do still want the game, and I was hoping for some kind it mitigation but all they did was confirm suspicions that the presentation was misleading for the most cynical reasons - it's easier for them to do TB and they wanted the pledges no matter what.

Anyone know if they have given refunds to backers that were particularly angry?

Reading the latest upadtes, I am confident in the turn based system.

They made a design decission based on some reasons.

This game is about reactivity, and they points they've made show that implementing this system augments it.

Also, combat is not suppoused to be a major part of the game anyway - it is a story / reactivity based game, so being upset about a part of the game that isn't even it's selling point imo is kinda pointless.

Yes, apparently it will only have about a dozen "major" battles, in the whole game, because the design focus is not on making a "long" game but in allowing every situation to multiple, branching ways to solve it with different choices.

I can find nothing like that. I did find where they stated that as time went on, they were starting to lean more and more towards a TB system due to the way the Crisis mechanics work. But that wasn't their plan from the start, and only developed after the game was funded and they started designing the encounters.

There's a reference in their blog (Update 20) and another, more detailed one, [url=http://tormentrpg.tumblr.com/post/66194576273/updated-our-journal-24-roll-for-initiative]Here (Update 24). In the latter one they state they had no preference going into the project. But those are both pre-vote.

There's a post-vote comment in an article Here where they say:

We were leaning toward turn-based combat because we believe it’s better suited for the kind of tactical complexity we’re looking for through our Crisis system. We believe it’s a stronger fit for bringing narrative elements, including dialogue with NPCs, into hand-crafted combat situations

Note this is not saying they were thinking TB all along. This is referencing the above, where they were starting to lean that way after getting into their Crisis system. The comment was basically pulled from their Kickstarter Update 26, which was posted after the vote was tallied.


Can't say for certain, but I can't imagine they wouldn't have.

Well honestly, I prefer that to the trash mobs in Torment. Also played it last year for the first time, was amazing, but I hated those guys in The Hive. And the original P:T wasn't thaaaaat long either, IIRC.

Also there's news about those inExile points: So let's wait and see.

I agree I don't like the way they went about the whole thing, I'm pretty sure they were pretty sure they were going to do TB from the beginning and dicked around their followers knowing it wouldn't be received fully openly. I was quite upset (and still am a little) that it is going to be TB and not RT. To me a big part of the game is going to be the immersion and when real-time pauses, for me, immersion breaks. With so few combat encounters I feel like they could have implemented a slow real-time combat system that would have served the game greatly, not even RT with Pause, simply real-time. The action wouldn't have to be fast-paced, I think of an MMO where you're voluntarily attacking a mob. You're aware you're about to start combat, you prepare yourself, and then you engage, no turns, no pausing, you just fight and use your skills and you either are skilled enough and win or you need to reload (in SP, respawn in multiplayer) and try again; it's not overwhelming or fast, it just takes learning and skill.

Yes, I would have still funded the game at the tier I did, which was DAMN high, if they'd said from the beginning, early on, or at any point that it was going to be TB had they handled it differently than they did. They made some show out of it, saying backers could vote but then that they might not listen to the vote depending. All a big game and joke and handled very poorly and I really lost a lot of respect for Brian Fargo because of it. My only worry is that they did the TB because it was easier programming, not because it was what is the best decision for the game. I have high hopes that they made the best decision for the game, but confidence that it will still be an awesome game if that isn't what happened.

I had never played TB before Fallout. I got Fallout soon after its release after reading the PCGamer review and thinking it was going to be the most awesome game I ever played (and it was.) I start playing it and combat is turn-based and I'm very confused and it took me a while to understand the concept (because I didn't read anything about it or try to learn about it beforehand, I just went head-first into the game without knowing.) I read about turn-based and got PISSED that that was how the game was going to play. So jarring, so clunky, so non-strategic (were my thoughts.) So, a rough few hours of playing with it and I had it all figured out and moved on along and was able to enjoy the game fully and no longer cared. What made me care was that it initially took away from my enjoyment, but I was able to solve that. The problem was this - and I suspect it is much the same problem all the people super-upset about it being TB have: I wasn't used to it, it was new and took learning and time and was frustrating and I simply had to get used to something different. The world today wants everything to be easy and quick and if they have to put in more effort than their lazy-asses want to, then they will bitch about it. People would rather be contentious over something that doesn't hit their palette with 100% consumability rather than try and figure out how it could be very palettable if they'd just get out of their closed minds and put a little effort into trying something different.

I'd be a huge asshole if I had let my close-mindedness keep me from enjoying Fallout to its fullest.

Interesting post. My main hope is that InXile knows what they are doing and know exactly why the combat proberbly was the only part that didn´t fit well in PSTorment!

Three comments on the battle system:
1. I want to have multiple solutions to every encounter.
2. I want to have a variety of strats in those encounters.
3. Combat shouldn´t look slow, doesn´t enforce turns with no important actions in between and such things.

Right now the interviews for TTON looked like they are going to reach those three goals!

I'll do my best to find. I don't think it was an official update statement, it was a dev post within a comments section relating to a statement following the vote outcome

Cool. If you find it, I'd definitely be interested in having a look. :)