question for Torment:Numenera beta players: is combat any good?
 

The only thing I see about combat in the many Steam reviews is: Specifically, I want to know if it's an improvement on Wasteland 2. Details welcome!

You would have to define 'improvement'… what didn't you like?

You can talk to your enemies mid fight. Interact with the environment to gain an advantage. You can use a range of abilities and numenera (artifacts) with interesting properties to turn the tide. I'm too low level and have only fought two battles so far so can't say how deep the system is but so far its satisfactory. You get a movement phase and an action phase with one class getting more than one action (can't remember which.) Once I gain a few levels and begin to understand the combat system more I expect it will get more interesting as I develop some tactics.

Similarity of one combat encounter to every other one, regardless what weapons or tactics you used, "soft" animations as if units looking like they were floating from one area to another while doing a slapstick running animation, and lack of impact, the sense that there was a physical reaction to a physical act, for instance hitting someone with a club.

Really didn't like the interface, skill progression, or much of anything else either.

Hmm… that's all very subjective, so I guess you'll have to try it yourself to see if it's better for you.

I loved Wasteland 2 and I hope the combat system is similar.

:D

Uhh, I'm not going to spend $45 for a game in order to "try it". That's why I asked for an opinion about combat. If there were a demo of course I would try it.

I'm sure youtube will have Let's Play vids. Till then I'll just wait. I'm not paying $45 for anything that's not made by Bethesda :)

It's a sad day when people believe in youtube/twitch/whatever videos from likes of Angry joe who's clueless and incompetent when it comes to gameplay/strategy instead of sharing written experiences here on the forum.

I was thinking last night how I could buy three really exciting indie titles for $45. It's hard to pick three winners in a row of course, but combined I'd get more playtime and more enjoyment out of them than one Numenera I'm sure.

Well I disagree with your opinion; I could call it a sad day when people make such blanket comments; but to be honest a sad day was a day when Trump was elected.
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Watching an angry joe video does provide some insight though as with all video it is hardly complete. If you enjoy watching the video then i don't think it is such a sad day and if you gain insight from the video than you are brighter than Joker who seems unable to gain insight from such videos.

I'm talking about let's play videos. Those videos that should be called "lemme show the world how clueless and unskilled I am - and I even get paid for it".

I'm not talking about AJ's reviews which I adore (often disagree with him, but he makes one hell of a show worth watching and never forgets to spit on DLC, microtransactions, other scams and bugs if in a game).

Funny guy - are you a comedian ?

There are many youtubers/streamers (hell I was one for about 2 years). Some are very informative and fair, others scream (unfortunately these are usually the most popular). I prefer watching a game in action than reading someone's opinion.

TBH I couldn't get myself to enjoy Planetscape because of the combat system.

I will opt out for a youtube recodring of an encounter or two as well before buying this.

What in particular didn't you like about Planescape combat? For me the encounter design was the big bugbear in that there was never enough enemy variety in the encounters. It was like someone just copy and pasted one monster type.

My gripe with Torment was that you had to read 5000 lines of dialog between each fight and it wasn't that well written. I would have rather read a book, since that's what Planescape really was; an interactive novel.