Torment: Tides of Numenera Released

[Keyrock]

I'm some 8 hours in and I've barely scratched the surface of the game, I haven't even been to all the districts in Sagus Cliffs yet.  I can definitely see where the "unresponsiveness" an UI criticisms are coming from.  I'm a super slow gamer, I take my sweet ass time, so the game taking its sweet ass time to have my character shuffle into place then slide the UI out doesn't bother me.  Plus, I'm kind of a sucker for the sliding out stylized UI gimmick, even though I usually prefer minimalist UIs.  Anyway, still having a grand ol time with the game, talking for what seems hours on end to everyone I see and I still haven't had to do any combat, save for the battle with the Sorrow in the tutorial at the very beginning.

[SadExchange]

 

Reading the feedback here makes me glad that, despite a few minor issues, Pillars of Eternity feels like a finished game. It's easy after such a big kickstarter success with high expectations to have a very unfocused development, and ambitions that go way beyond what the budget allows you to accomplish.

Yeah, it's obvious Pillars of Eternity had been developed by a highly experienced team that already works well together. You can say what you want about the game, but even on release it was already a highly polished title, if not technically competent. Numenera in comparison feels a lot more amateurish.

 

I've heard a lot of complaints about the sound and music. That's interesting and suprising, considering it's where Torment excelled at the most, writing and voice acting aside.

The music feels... Unremarkable. Which is a huge shame, especially seeing what Justin Bell achieved with extremely limited budget of Pillars of Eternity.

I have not played TTON but have been following along with this thread and your words about amateurish have been resonating and when comparing to Pillars, I definitely had that feeling when playing Wasteland 2. While I really enjoyed a lot about WS2, I always felt like I was playing a very good indie companies' game as compared to when I played Pillars.

 

Again. Not saying InXile is bad but when all the talk came out about cutting kickstarter goals and dropping Foci from the game, I kind of half expected it. To me Obsidian and devs like Larian studios are just on a higher tier.

[EUIX]

I actually think the music in TTON is kick ass. I remember spinning up the beta the first time and hearing the title track with headphones on, really brought back the Planescape nostalgia. Like Planescape it also has a great credit's track. It's more a shame that there isn't more the music.

 

That being said, starting to explore the Bloom now and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I have heard that the end game gets rushed so I will make a final judgement when I finish the game.

 

In addition to my comments before I do feel the game is too easy. I am playing a high intelligence Nano and its just way to easy to succeed in all effort tasks and there are way too many shins in the game, you can pretty much buy whatever you want, and especially since there is not much combat, you are not really challenged to upgrade your equipment or expend your cyphers. The game economy really needs a overhaul, in my opinion it should be much harder and more expensive to rest and the amount of shins that oddities sell for far less. And EXP gains need to be gimped, just like Pillars, you gain EXP way too fast. I am a hour into the Bloom and I am already Tier 4.

 

One the key highlights of the effort system is that failing at tasks just leads to different but also interesting solutions to problems and questlines but it's hard to expect players to deliberately fail at tasks when they came easily apply effort to everything.

 

So far at least the only cut of which I am absolutely steamed about is the in game codex. I l loved the in game encyclopedia of characters and locations in Planescape and Pillars of Eternity and Dragon Age and the Witcher games. Being able to just sit and read awesome lore is great.

 

The journal layout is also atrocious, the text boxes are so small, cramped.

Edited March 6, 2017 by EUIX

[Ganrich]

Just finished the game. 

Rhin and Erritis were worth it.  Get them in your party and don't look back.  Rhin has such a good story.  She can be dead weight in combat early on, but when you get her to Tier 3 she can go ham and it's glorious.  I'll probably do another play through.  Which surprises me.  I am leaning Jack.  I will likely save Glaive for last. 

 

All the issues people leveled at the game are valid, but I did end up enjoying it regardless.  It could have been much better, but it wasn't as bad as I was anticipating.  Still irked by only having 3 Foci.  I feel that the ability to select damage types on certain abilities is pretty useless.  With how stacked dialogues are in favor of Int/Speed stats it makes Nanos and Jacks the better choice.  Although, a ranged Glaive could work.  Read Thoughts ability is stupid good, and funny at times (see Erritis). 

 

The game does feel a bit rushed on the back end, but not as much as I felt Tyranny was.  It could stand some more varied areas in the endgame.  Which makes you sad some of that was cut.  Also, I think the Goo companion would have given some variety to the companions. 

 

Combat still blows.  If you aren't going to really make your combat a focus then go RTwP.  RTwP is easier to suffer when it's mediocre because you can plow through the encounters.  When TB is mediocre it is a pain.  When TB is great it is the best, though.  Basically, if you want the combat to be the best of the best go TB, but if combat isn't the primary focus (which it isn't in this case) and you aren't going to dedicate the resources to make it great... then don't bother.  As much as people complain about PST's combat it is at least easy to plow through when it shows up.

 

Music is great.  Some really good quests.  Main story is solid, but no PST.  I'd give the game a 6 to 7 out of 10.  If it was more finished, fleshed out, polished, and combat made a little less muddled... I'd probably give it an 8 or a 9.  I hope they do some major updates, but I don't think the game is selling well so I am not getting my hopes up.  I could be wrong, and it may be selling pretty well though. 

[Heijoushin]

Agree 100% with your points Ganrich.

 

I hope they release a little more content (maybe the droped companions) later. I realize now how much I missed in my playthrough, so with the right excuse (more content), I'd be ready to do it all again.  

Edited March 6, 2017 by Heijoushin

[trulez]

Hello, my name is trulez, and I have a problem...

 

Let me start by saying the game is very enjoyable. It manages to tickle my curiosity by introducing mysterious new worlds full of fresh citizens with variety of different background stories and problems you can dive into. I have no problems with reading huge swaths of text the game represents me throughout.

 

BUT

 

After the 10th time you read almost the same exact description of a new numenera you've just found, it kinda starts getting jarring, and I start to skip some of the lines because they're almost word for word identical to the one you've just read in the previous area. You know the one, where it goes something like this: "In front of you is <insert shape here> made of <insert material here>. The surface seems smooth but you see <insert control scheme here> and object seems to <insert audio/visual/telepathic cue here>. With some effort you might learn how to access it."

[Gfted1]

Holy crap, EUIX is back. Welcome!

[Ganrich]

I don't understand the combat complains. It's not God of War. The game is about options and choices and the game delivers this in combat. It has plenty of options and tactical decisions to make.

I'm playing Glaive and I see no problem with combat.

No one is expecting God of War, but maybe something at least as competent as other crowdfunded TB games. WL2 for example. Which isn't the best, but good enough. No one expected D: OS either. I just wanted a TB system that was more enmjoyable than PST's RTwP. They didn't deliver IMHO.

 

Combat starts when you get close enough to enemies in some cases, and after a conversation in others. Since you can't control the party individually prior to combat you end up with bad starting positions a lot.

 

No grid on the ground during combat, and it makes it feel chaotic. Enemies tend to dog pile, and it is hard to select them or friendlies at times.

 

A fair many Crisis are your 4 party members vs 10ish or more enemies. With the game's sluggishness, and the fact that initiative tends to front load or backload your party's turn, this becomes obnoxious because you could go make a sandwich while the enemy takes their turns. Not to mention I had two crisis that froze up during the enemies turn. I had to exit to desktop and reload, go through a conversation, and get back to that crisis. So, there are some bugs that need working out.

 

Some abilities are hard to gauge their value. Infuse Weapon lets you choose your damage type, but there doesn't seem to be much reason for it. The ability seems to be a way to allow a Jack to focus intellect without stepping on a Nano's toes. But selecting the damage type seemed to not matter much. So, what's the point?

 

The UI makes it difficult to discern fettles on you or your enemies.

 

The AI is not good at all.

 

I'm sure there are more issues, but these are just what I noticed and could think of off the top of my head.

[EUIX]

h

 

Holy crap, EUIX is back. Welcome!

 

haha yea, been lurking on and off since Pillars. Moderator now! Old timers are going up.

[Ganrich]

When the developers leaned toward TB because they wanted to avoid bad combat like PST had... I can easily complain about the story focused game having bad combat.  It was their statements that lead me to feel the combat would be better.  The design philosophy of the rest of the game is irrelevant. 

 

Positioning not being important is one reason why the combat is stale.  I didn't expect JA or Xcom, but once again better than the clusterfest that is PST.  Once again they didn't succeed. 

 

Grid would cut down on the number of enemies that could surround one of your party members, or at least give you an indication as to the number capable of doing so.  As it stands now it is obtuse at best.  Obtuse is bad in a TB game.

 

TB is slow, and that is fine when the combat is good.  I only expect speedier combat when the combat isn't great.  Just like we see here.  If the combat allowed me some tactics to stop enemy movements more easily, position as to not be surrounded (grid would help here), have less enemies that are more difficult on the field, etc etc etc... I wouldn't care.   As it stands it's you vs an army in many cases and the army's turns are clumped together in most cases.  Combat ends up being one or two of your party go, and then 10 enemies, and then the last of your party members in most cases.  If initiative was diverse enough to allow your party to be spread out in the turn sequence then it wouldn't be as bad, but here we are.  The game seems to devolve into an AoE spam at high levels because of how clustered things become. 

 

Yeah, a bug that caused me to go through a few dialogues again, and not just once.   Sorry, an ability not working correctly is one thing, but the game freezing is quite another.  If the game hadn't been in EA for over a year then you might have an argument, but they have had time to deal with these issues (on PC at least).

 

I read the manual, and unfortunately those effects seem to be hit and miss as to when they take effect.  I've had the abilities hit, and those effects not take place.  So, we could chalk it up to a bug(s) perhaps.  I'm unsure.  We could also use the extensive tutorial to explain it regardless.  How many people read manuals in this day and age?  Most developers these days tend to not rely on manuals for that info, and that means few read it.  A pop-up would go a long way, and some insight into how the math works would go further still.  It is all hidden unless you go digging in the game files.  Obtuse or obfuscated systems are bad.

 

Fettles you've placed being able to be seen in a coherent way is a QoL thing.  You being fine with the lack of it doesn't make it a well designed system from an objective stand point. 

 

Once again, my issue with combat is because the developers themselves said they wanted better combat than PST.  They went with TB for this reason.  Sure they allowed a vote with backers, but it was so close they could have gone either way.  They chose TB and said it was because they felt they could do more justice to combat in TB.  Yet combat is still flimsy.  If they hadn't made these claims (and not had a decent TB game under their belt with WL2) I wouldn't be raising the point nearly as much.  However, TB in WL2 is good enough, and in TTON it is a chore. 

[algroth]

I don't understand the combat complains. It's not God of War.

Bad combat is still bad combat. It'll be annoying whether it plays a major role in the game or not.

[mph]

So, I've finished the game today, and would like to run a hypothesis through you guys. Massive PT and TToN spoilers ahead!

 

 

 

The hypothesis is that TToN is a direct prequel to PT, and the Last Castoff is the First Incarnation of the Nameless One. Here's why I think so:

• One of TToN's endings is to commit a huge multiverse-scale atrocity (one that'll make everything worse), and then you get a follow-up choice to go on a journey to try to atone for it. You also just so happen to lose your immortality in this ending.
• The First Incarnation committed a multiverse-scale atrocity, and went on a journey to atone for it. It made everything worse.
• The Bronze Sphere is strongly tied to the Last Castoff - so much so that it retained his identity in PT.
• Adahn is the name used by Changing God while in LC's body - no wonder it keeps coming back to the surface of his mind.
• In the same ending, the First Castoff mentions before leaving that she'll look into restoring her own immortality, possibly giving the idea to the LC.
• And, of couse, it'd explain why O showed up, too.

That'd be so damn clever, wouldn't it?

 

 

 

Edited March 6, 2017 by mph

[Eumaios]

Surprisingly, I'm finding the game better written than Pillars, which I also enjoyed. The things that seem to be an issue for some people, such as fettles or the interface, don't bug me. I might have an issue with combat if it gets to be too tedious, but I just started the game and I've only had two crises, one of which is in the 'tutorial' area in which they introduce The Sorrow and the other was with some thugs, two of whom died before one of my companions convinced the other two thugs to beat feet. The fact that the characters don't act like the beginning of combat is a kill switch for negotiation is good. I probably won't try to talk my way out of everything, but keeping the door open is welcome change. I've always hated the idea in RPGs that every time a fight started, it was necessarily to the death. I'm neither talented nor insightful enough critique most of what I've seen, but there is one specific thing about the interface that *does* bother me. In dialogue with an NPC, the character's portrait is on the left, but I'd also like to see a portrait for the person with whom I'm speaking. I'm sure it would be a lot of extra work to make the portraits for all the NPCs, so I can understand not making them. I didn't think I'd like the game this much, although I was willing to pledge for the silver tier or whatever it's called. With Wasteland 2 and Tides, I've become an inxile fan.

[Starwars]

There aren't too many combat situations (and it seems like one can avoid quite a few of them which is nice) but some of them are tedious. I just finished a crisis where there were twelve enemies awkwardly moving around the battlefield. Now, that is bad enough on its own but add to that some... buggyness where they seemed to have problems reaching their waypoint so they would just sorta stumble into the wall and keep running for a while until they found the right "path" to take.

 

The enemy turns just took way, WAY too long.

[Fenixp]

I just arrived into an area filled with red floating enemies. I ended up losing combat with them. I think I know how could I win, but I just can't be assed to keep waiting for their turns for half a century again. I complained about animation speed in Mordheim, but Mordheim's animation speed is a gaming Valhalla when compared to this.

[Lexx]

If it's the scene close to the starting area, then rush to these big pillar thingies and interact with them. You can disable all robots in the area without having to fight them much.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Lexx

[WDeranged]

If it's the scene close to the starting area, then rush to these big pillar thingies and interact with them. You can disable all robots in the area without having to fight them much.

 

Yeah, wish I'd have figured that out before slogging through every single droid...

[Raithe]

Hide is your friend with that one. It would just be nice to be able to hide to avoid ending up in those darn crisis points at times.

[Agiel]

You could go into stealth, so it'll be useful to go into it with Matkina, Rhin, or anyone with a great big speed pool. Note that you break out of it should you interact with the towers, so you may want to get everyone into position first, then throw the kill switches simultaneously. You get some additional bonus should you manage it without killing too many of the robits.

 

The Hide strategy is also viable for a certain Crisis that takes place in the Castoff's Labyrinth as well.

 

*edit* Raithe beat me to it.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Agiel

[Fenixp]

If it's the scene close to the starting area, then rush to these big pillar thingies and interact with them. You can disable all robots in the area without having to fight them much.

Yah, that's how I figured I'd do it.

[Katarack21]

"It's not this kind of game. Cannot compare story driven RPG to combat focused ones."

 

Dude. He specifically discussed PS:T combat. Think about this.

[Fenixp]

Considering what I enjoy the most about the game is running about and exploring and what I enjoy the least are Crisies (which still could be called encounters :-P), I'd not complain at all about the latter being cut entirely. I'm sure there's a better way to abstract dangerous situations that don't contain people trying to murder you.

[Sven_]

Once again, my issue with combat is because the developers themselves said they wanted better combat than PST.  They went with TB for this reason.  Sure they allowed a vote with backers, but it was so close they could have gone either way.  They chose TB and said it was because they felt they could do more justice to combat in TB.  Yet combat is still flimsy.  If they hadn't made these claims (and not had a decent TB game under their belt with WL2) I wouldn't be raising the point nearly as much.  However, TB in WL2 is good enough, and in TTON it is a chore. 

 

This was always going to prove a controversial decision, not only because the fairly even polls, but naturally because the original Torment didn't have TB combat [and TB combat isn't that popular anymore with RPGs to begin with last time I checked]. And I'm glad there seems some balanced analysis on this on here, as for me it's hard to find elsewhere currently. Some of that backlash actually upvoted on review sites seems massively spinning it. And those spins include theories how the game were turned TB because it would make it easier to market on consoles (eagerly awaiting Bethesda's surely plans to turn Fallout 5 all TB after inXile has now cracked the massively crowds). Or how the poll would have been twisted or anything like that. There is a reason why barely any RPG developer does turn-based these days too, and from a design perspective, it is sadly not the right one.

 

Shame that the combat in Torment didn't meet what they were aiming for, but as the pitch outlining advantages both for real-time and TB can still be googled, there seemed some thought by somebody put into this, which had little to do with focus, but the overall systems they were going for. Typically TB is just not an option anymore up-front. Go to Tim Cain, he'd love to do a TB game. For me it's hard to gauge currently what is down to crowdfunding backlash, and what is actually down to judging the game. As I haven't closely followed the process, naturally some of that may be down to the way stuff was or indeed wasn't communicated too. I see that part critical on both ends too. Developers rely on promises to get their pitch through, but they can easily promise a tad much, which isn't a phenomenon kick-started by crowdfunding [rumor has it Kings Quest VIII was initially pitched as the final pipe-dream to beat Doom, Ultima Online, The Elder Scrolls Daggerfall and Monkey Island 3 all at once and at each of their respective games -- until reality and management stepped in, and speaking of which, dose anybody remember King's Quest VIII?] . And on the players' ends, crowdfunded games are oft the first ever times where they may be somewhat more closely exposed to the development process of a game.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Sven_

[Eumaios]

I don't know how far I am in the game, but something both greatly depressing and wonderfully splendid is the consequences. Now, it will be cheap if I play again and have the exact thing happen. In fact, I'll probably kvetch about it quite a bit, but if I can change this on the next run, I'll be singing the praises.

 

I decided to

save Ris

which used up resources that I thought I should recoup by sleeping. When I awoke, I was informed that

Crooked Qeek was killed by the underbelly murderer. I was greatly depressed because I'd met and made friends with her while I was down in the Underbelly and I hadn't tackled the quest soon enough. Additionally, I would have gladly let Ris die, who's really almost as much of a prick as Tybir, but I thought his death sentence was unjust. I still do.

 

 

Right now, I have a bit of an increase in Silver, Gold, and Red and a fair amount of Indigo and Blue. Probably Blue more than most, but I don't know where to look to find out and I actually don't mind finding out through natural gameplay. I'm greatly pleased with this game. Granted, I haven't engaged in hardly any combat and I do sometimes become impatient. On the other hand, while I think Ganrich's point about fleshing out the positioning angle and whatnot are valid, as long as the crises serve to add some sort of piquancy to the situation, I'll put up a few tedious combat situations. Just not endless numbers of them.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Eumaios

[Orogun01]

BTW, how do you check your tide affinity?