Transistor (by the creators of Bastion)

[Jeff Kelly]

[hit reply by accident]

[Jeff Kelly]

You are overthinking it. The game never punishes you at all. As you said it is incredibly easy

Yes it's very easy. I wasn't saying that the game punishes you because it's hard, I meant that the game's mechanics don't work that well together and make it so you actually 'feel' punished for using them. A game being easy at least in my opinion is no excuse for it's mechanics not being tight. "It's broken but at least it's easy (not Transistor but the argument leads to that) shouldn't be an excuse.

In Transistor you take your turn in planning mode, while the AI plays its in real time to make things quicker and give you chances to dodge. They act, but instead of doing that in a slower turn based fashion, you are still free to move around and observe THEIR turn in real time, while dodging. The game is only unfair to the AI. Would you have preferred a traditional turn-based game where every turn gets played in planning mode, indluing the AI ones? Good for you. I love those games and played tons of them. Here they thought to speed up the AI part and it clearly worked out great.

The problem I have is that once you leave turn() time restarts. And the world starts moving again. Unless they really patched that or I completely misremember things that means that the AI will be moving again as well once you exit turn(). This has lead to two very annoying problems for me during my playthrough (on PS4). For one it meant that the AI moves during the execution of my plan. This meant that by the time my character was finished she was no longer where she was suposed to be, no longer hitting things and slightly more exposed because due to enemy AI movement she ended up someplace else than she should have been given enemy movement.

Secondly because turn() is now on cooldown you are hamstrung and can't fix or adapt your plan to account for the changes that happened. Combat in real time mode is just not flexible or immediate enough. Also the more action points you spend in plan() the longer it takes for you to wait. So plans where you spend more action points tend to fail more often and then you'll have to wait longer until you can really act again. That's what I meant by the game punishing you. So my fights against the AI usually went like this:

- spend time in plan() to devise a certain set of moves.
- restart real time and realize that your plan was slightly off or that reality changes in a way that seriously fucks with your plan
- run around like a headless chicken dodging attacks until it's my time to plan again.

I wouldn't even be writing that much stuff if I wouldn't agree with you in that I think the mechanic is a great idea. The whole point of real time combat though is that it is supposed to be 'twitchy' but that can be very satisfying when the move set is tight and direct and you can actually react on the spot to what the game throws at you, while turn based gives you time to think about your general strategy and satisfaction comes from your plan coming together and everything executing like clockwork.

So the general idea of Transistor is really appealing. Choose your approach, real time or turn based. Plan and then adapt in real time to changing circumstances. Unfortunately the two parts never really mesh that well and for me at least really working against each other.

If the game weren't as easy as it is it would have been a really frustrating experience. So it was just very anticlimactic because in my opinion the core mechanic didn't work that well but it not working that well didn't matter anyway.

[Falconeer]

Look, Jeff, I am serious, I don't know what you are talking about.

For one it meant that the AI moves during the execution of my plan.

What? When? How?

During YOUR turn, the AI doesn't move at all. Did we really played two different games?! Like in any other turn based game. They react to your hits as in some of your hits can push them so your next hit in the same turn might miss, but that's to blame on the planning. If you have a skill that pushes the enemy and then the next one is planned to hit where the enemy WAS before you pushed it, of course that's gonna be a miss. It's the same in every other turn based game I've ever played. So either you use the push functions at the end of your turn, or you move to where they'll be pushed. Unless you are talking about "Youngladies", the only mob that teleports when you hit it.

Unless they really patched that or I completely misremember things that means that the AI will be moving again as well once you exit turn().

Again? That's the only time they move since they certainly do NOT move during your turn.
After you took your turn, the AI takes its turn and as in any other turn based game ever you are not supposed to do anything. Except here, since they sped it up by letting the AI play its "turn" in real time, you can still dodge.

I am really starting to wonder if we played different games here.

In the game I played:

- You hit turn, and take your traditional turn-based game planning turn. Enemies can't move or react.
- After you executed your turn, the AI takes its turn, during which you can't attack. But since it's in real time, you can still move. And you actually can still use certain movement fucntions.
- You take another turn after the AI took its (which is the time it takes for your "cooldown" bar to recharge), and again they can't move.
- The AI takes another turn after you, in which you can move but not attack.
- Rinse repeat.
- Makes perfect sense to me and plays really well.

If the AI acts, attacks, moves around more than a millimeter during your turns, then we did play a different game.

[Jeff Kelly]

That's how I remember it. I've played it directly after release and I even played through the game twice back to back to unlock all of the functions. I remember it well enough because it annoyed me so much during my  playthrough.

It also cancelled part of my turn when I pushed a button on the controller or moved a control stick.

I'll start it up again this evening and check what - if anything - has changed.

[Falconeer]

This is how it works now:

- Right trigger: activate "turn()". NOTHING moves except you.
- Left trigger: during your turn(), undo last planned action. The only way to end your turn is to hit Right Trigger again. Until you do you can experiment, plan and undo everything as much as you want.
- Right trigger again: executes planned actions and then ends your turn.
- AI turn: in real time, you can't attack but you can move and dodge freely with "Jaunt".
- After about 5 seconds it's your turn again IF you want to take it, by pressing Right Trigger. Otherwise you can keep acting in real time with no cooldowns, and with the privilege of freezing time and taking your postponed turn whenever you want. If you do, go back to top.

Maybe it really was different when it came out.

[Jeff Kelly]

I'll try it today.

[Sophismata]

Sophismata, did you use a controller or mouse and keyboard?

Keyboard and mouse. I switched back to KB/M for the increased precision after using a controller for a while.

[Samwise]

Look, Jeff, I am serious, I don't know what you are talking about.

For one it meant that the AI moves during the execution of my plan.

What? When? How?

During YOUR turn, the AI doesn't move at all. Did we really played two different games?!

I'm gonna let Jeff try it and report back, because my recollection is that yes, the enemies definitely move around during your turn() execution.  Very slowly compared to you, mind you, because when you're doing your "turn" you're in super speed, but the world isn't actually frozen during that time, and it's enough that sometimes you'll target an enemy during planning and they'll have moved in the meantime (often just because they got knocked aside by one of your attacks) so the attack doesn't work.  

What makes it feel poorly thought out is that even if you KNOW that's going to happen you can't correct for it, because there's no UI to say "okay, I think this guy is going to be over here by this point, so go over here and then melee him to finish him off", because in planning mode he's not a valid target while you're standing in that other spot, and it's not like Frozen Synapse where you can have complex plans like "go over here and then face this way and shoot the nearest thing, prioritizing this guy if he's in sight".  Not that I want this game to be Frozen Synapse, but if you're going to have turn-based planning mixed with real-time events occurring during the execution of your plan, they did that really well.

Given that the enemies are supposed to be software and therefore deterministic, it would've been really cool if during planning mode they reacted to your actions like they would in real-time, and you could rewind and resimulate your planned turn until you made the perfect thing happen, and then watch it play out.  It would make the combat "easier" but it would've FELT much cooler, especially if you were doing it against impossible-looking odds.

[Ingmar]

They do move during the execution phase, but IIRC it is not at full speed. Only on turn()s where I was moving particularly long distances or against enemies who sometimes have unpredictable defenses did I sometimes run into issues with my planned moves not working like I wanted them to, and I think trying to plan for that happening is an intentional part of the game.

(And Jeff I was just teasing you.)

[Jeff Kelly]

Checked back and yes it's like I remembered.

[Falconeer]

In my game, they move at such a ridiculous low pace ruring my turn, like a few millimeters, that is unconceivable not to be able to plan on that. It's literally like they don't move, unless you push them which is the same mechanic in any tactical rpg ever Disgaea included. Anyway, clearly we approached and perceived this game differently. Happens a lot.

[Jeff Kelly]

As I said, it would weigh less heavy on my enjoyment of the game if I felt like I had any way to 'fix' that after my turn.

As it stands it's neither a pure turn-based system (you move, AI moves) or a pure real time system. I really like the idea of a more 'matrix-style' game, where you have essentially super powers yet that time never completely stops like it does in a turn based game. It could create an interesting mix of the advantages of turn based systems (the ability to take your time, to plan ahead, to devise a strategy) without making the outcome truly deterministic and the mechanic devolving into the familiar yet boring 'tick tock' pattern or min/maxing action points or your sequence, or each combat taking too long to resolve.

Devise a plan, don't fuss to long about it, execute it and 'fix everything wrong in post'. AI reacts in 'real time' so you won't have to wait until it finishes its turn.

In my case I never felt truly comfortable with the system because I felt like I wasn't really supposed to or limited in the ways I could act in real time and so it made every even only slightly 'failed' plan that much more aggravating. Because it feels like you are in control again (real time mode) yet you essentially still wait for the AI to finish its turn like you would in a traditional turn based game. I guess I would be more OK with it if it was a bit more like the systems employed in traditional CRPGs like Baldurs Gate. Alternatively if it was more turn based or at least better at communicating how its mechanics are supposed to work.

I'm glad you enjoyed it but for me the core mechanic was one of the major things I disliked about the game.

[Samwise]

Focusing on what I liked about the game: I think the soundtrack was even better than Bastion's, and I really liked the Bastion soundtrack.

[Fabricated]

Transistor's combat was a cool experiment that didn't work out but is good enough for what it is.

Plot is complete fucking gibberish but still cool. At least cloudbank looks like a place where Bastion I was kinda confused as to why they couldn't land their dumb balloon at the end because there's clearly a land under the floaty destroyed places.