Torment: Tides of Numenera Released

[Ganrich]

BTW, how do you check your tide affinity?

Character sheet page and it's a glowing thing (for lack of a better word) up toward the top left corner.

[Luridis]

I backed the game and was enjoying it right up until the UI bit me in the face. Clicking on loot is hard and you can't seem to select a single character for an out-of-combat action. So, if you're in a dungeon and you click on loot that is not accessible to every member of your party... You end up with a party doing its best Benny Hill impersonation and creating a suicidal aggro chain.

 

How such a blatantly obvious hole in game-mechanics makes its way past play-testing is probably the biggest mystery in game development to me. How the party running around aggroing willy-nilly in the first dungeon a play-tester tried didn't end up on tomorrow's "top issues" for the dev team is utterly mind boggling. Such to me is akin to an application bug that would, should you open an input form, decide not to input and click "cancel"...  find yourself unceremoniously dumped to the desktop instead of back at the app's main window! "Wait, I didn't click X, I said cancel... Why did the whole thing shut down?" This sort of game logic behavior leaves me with a likewise feeling.

 

If there's no solution I missed then I'm going to shelve TTON and perhaps try Horizon ZD while inxile sorts out the post-launch fixes. HZD actually looks decent in the action-rpg mechanics and excellent in the story area... from what I am hearing anyway.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Luridis

[algroth]

If there's no solution I missed then I'm going to shelve TTON and perhaps try Horizon ZD while inxile sorts out the post-launch fixes. HZD actually looks decent in the action-rpg mechanics and excellent in the story area... from what I am hearing anyway.

From what I've seen (don't own a PS4 but I've been watching a friend stream it), the game's pretty poor in terms of story. The world is interesting to a degree but what I've seen of the actual plot has so far played as a collection of the most tired clichés you can imagine, including cultists, snarky Gary Oak rivals, wise elders appointing you as the Ringbe- I mean, the Seeker, and other more spoilery stuff. The writing and performances are melodramatic and then some, and the pacing on some quests and the likes seems off as well.

 

That said, it does look like fun. I just wouldn't play it for the sake of story from what I've so far seen.

Edited March 8, 2017 by algroth

[Eumaios]

I just wouldn't play it for the sake of story from what I've so far seen.

I once volunteered at a library event about ten or so years ago that showed the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. In the forum part afterwards, in which the viewers had a chance to discuss the film, this one ol' feller got on about how the films could be explained in fifteen minutes. To paraphrase: Bad guy does something, good guys do something, bad guy fails, good guy wins. As I recall it, and it was a long time ago at an event in which I was a volunteer setting up the equipment, catering, and other things (clearly *not* there to participate in the forum), but this guy's critique was all of five minutes for an event that was several hours in the making if I'm remembering it right. I remember thinking, as I attended other matters at the event, 'this guy came here just to dump on the trilogy.' I wasn't angry with the old dude. Didn't say much at the time and haven't dwelt much on it over the years, but I've always remembered it. Nowadays, we'd just say something like "haters gonna hate" and be done. I'm not saying you (or your friend) are haters. I'm just saying that I spent a lot of money on this game and I don't regret expense at all. Sure, if we distilled every game down to the clichés, then I haven't played one that isn't. This game, though? The clichés work pretty well. That's about as much as I could ever expect out of a game after over forty years of playing them, from Pong to Tides.

 

I guess I'll bother with this discussion because I think this is a fine game so far.

 

By the way, have you simply seen so far, or played a bit also? No weight on the answer. Just figuring out where your experience lies.

[Starwars]

I think I'm basically in the end-game now and generally speaking, I really like the writing. But I agree that the overarching story isn't that good. Especially the closer the game gets to the end, the more I think it gets a bit lost in trying to deliver twists and the whole "weirdness" of the setting creeps in in a way where it feels more like... ok, they just threw all te weird stuff in a blender and saw what came out.

 

There are things that this game does much better than the first Torment. Reactivity and more ways to solve quests is the biggest improvement I think. It also doesn't have big areas where the quality of the game suddenly dips a lot (like Curst in PS:T). But I don't think the mystery and the story evolves nearly as well as it does in PS:T. I feel like it's gotten pretty damn clumsy now that I'm close to the end of the game actually, which is a shame.

 

That said, I have thoroughly enjoyed the game (more than I thought) and will definitely replay it later on at some point.

[algroth]

 

I just wouldn't play it for the sake of story from what I've so far seen.

I once volunteered at a library event about ten or so years ago that showed the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. In the forum part afterwards, in which the viewers had a chance to discuss the film, this one ol' feller got on about how the films could be explained in fifteen minutes. To paraphrase: Bad guy does something, good guys do something, bad guy fails, good guy wins. As I recall it, and it was a long time ago at an event in which I was a volunteer setting up the equipment, catering, and other things (clearly *not* there to participate in the forum), but this guy's critique was all of five minutes for an event that was several hours in the making if I'm remembering it right. I remember thinking, as I attended other matters at the event, 'this guy came here just to dump on the trilogy.' I wasn't angry with the old dude. Didn't say much at the time and haven't dwelt much on it over the years, but I've always remembered it. Nowadays, we'd just say something like "haters gonna hate" and be done. I'm not saying you (or your friend) are haters. I'm just saying that I spent a lot of money on this game and I don't regret expense at all. Sure, if we distilled every game down to the clichés, then I haven't played one that isn't. This game, though? The clichés work pretty well. That's about as much as I could ever expect out of a game after over forty years of playing them, from Pong to Tides.

 

I guess I'll bother with this discussion because I think this is a fine game so far.

 

By the way, have you simply seen so far, or played a bit also? No weight on the answer. Just figuring out where your experience lies.

 

I've only seen, not played since, as I mentioned above, I don't own a PS4. I also am not the kind of person who views clichés as anathema and believes a good story *has* to veer away from them by definition - to this effect I will always cite boxing films as some of the finest examples of how powerful a familiar story can be when one simply gets the beats right. However, in the case of Horizon I do take issue because the story presented through the first eight or so hours of gameplay is just a string of very poorly handled clichés in place of actual characters, relationships, conflict and backstory, which is not just failing to engage me but actually making me worried of what's to come. The game isn't getting the beats right more so than chaining a number of fills together with no sense of purpose or rhythm to them, but just because they create a haphazard resemblance to what a story is like. Again, this isn't final judgement on the game on my behalf and I know that my friend, who agrees with me regarding the story, is nevertheless loving it so far - chances are the game may go somewhere interesting as it moves on, and it does look fun from a gameplay/exploration perspective. We'll have to see, but this so far doesn't paint a positive picture for me, narratively at least.

Edited March 8, 2017 by algroth

[Nonek]

Finished, unimpressed to say the least, the game fails as a Torment successor pretty spectacularly. I seem to have missed a lot of the content promised in the Kickstarter as well, the Aquatic City, extra companions, extra Tides etcetera.

[Chilloutman]

Can someone explain to me why:

 

 

 

 

why/how is my body immortal? Somehow missed it

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 2017 by Chilloutman

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So I haven't touched this due to a busy schedule, should I jump in or wait until major bugs are patched or a mod that fixes everything is released?

Finished, unimpressed to say the least, the game fails as a Torment successor pretty spectacularly. I seem to have missed a lot of the content promised in the Kickstarter as well, the Aquatic City, extra companions, extra Tides etcetera.

Apparently they didn't do half that stuff.

Edited March 8, 2017 by KaineParker

[Eumaios]

I came into the game without any pre-conceived notions. I paid into the kickstarter and then waited for them to release. I did do the alpha, but I didn't even load up the beta if I recall because I didn't want to know what was coming. One thing about the writing that I will say is that I can see how it could go overboard on the 'weirdness' theme. The idea of weirdness is that it contrasts with sameness from time to time. In fact, even if you took out the magical or metaphysical aspect, you could still drive home unsettling or strange ideas. I like the in your face approach right now, but PS:T had plenty of mundane things in it that were interspersed with absolute oddities. I also like that PS:T left some questions unanswered or at least open to interpretation. I'm early in the game still, I think. I just managed to

find the cast-off's hidey hole, which is reminiscent of TNO's redoubt in PS:T, and look through the mirrors. I've completed a few quests and met many of the key players in the beginning areas.

So I'll get a first hand look soon to see if the writing stays even. ...But I agree with Starwars about the writing itself being in some ways better than PS:T while the setting sometimes seems to veer off more towards erratic than 'weird' per se. On the other hand, PS:T had the Planescape setting which at least set some limits. This one seems to be hashed out in a way where I can see it starting to ape PS:T rather than model after it.

[Fenixp]

You actually nailed what bothers me a bit, Eumaios: When everything's 'out of the ordinary', nothing is. You need some sort of baseline 'normality' to compare the weirdness against, and when everything's weird and every other NPC is extraordinary, it all becomes... A bit less intriguing.

 

But yeah, I do think that while the overarching storyline is not as strong as in PS: T, dialogue writing is slightly better than it was in Planescape. But that's mostly because I'm not a huge fan of Avellone's wordiness (funny coming from a guy who loved Pillars of Eternity...)

[Starwars]

One thing I always liked about PS:T is that in some ways, it actually kinda feels... low-magic. I mean, it's obviously not but when you're walking around in the Hive, it's very down to earth in many ways. The dirty, gritty, poor bits of "humanity" but with a very fantastical twist to it. It's very relatable and I think that really works in the game's favour. Even when it does go crazier, PS:T still feels... grounded in many ways. And that's part of why I think its story works so well, it feels pretty human in many ways.

 

I think Tides of Numenera doesn't have that human element in the same way, and it really flies away in many different directions without any real coherence. Especially as it approaches the end, it really goes crazy. And I think it lacks something to really "anchor" it in a way that makes it relatable. Tides of Numenera did not manage to make me care a lot about the world and definitely not about the characters inhabiting it.

 

There are a few exceptions, Rhin probably being the best example, but yeah... it's a fun game-world to explore for sure but it didn't make me feel anything. I don't generally expect games to do that but it's hard to not compare it to Torment in that regard (where I most definitely care about the characters, even outside the main companions).

[Eumaios]

I actually like the characters I've met pretty well. No Morte, Annah, or Dak'kon, but not entirely bad. I even took a liking to

Crooked Qeek until the bastards killed her off.

I actually even liked the insects. However, the Cast-off is lackluster compared to TNO. I mean, TNO had some damned interesting incarnations. The Changing God seems like a Torment version of Sybil. He might have an infinite number of personalities, each more boring than the last. An irony that isn't lost on me.

 

However, I'm hoping that eventually the dialogue will start to offer more interesting options from the PC.

[EUIX]

I just finished the game. My total playing time was 30 in game hours, probably 35 if you count all my reloading.

 

There is definitely the outlines of a great game here and there are moments when you feel "ah that's really cool", the game surprises you with its reactivity and spontaneity, when you do something that you feel will break a certain quest train and instead it rewards you with a different solution.

 

But there is obvious signs of project mismanagement, feature creep, lack of funding or all of the above. Many mechanics, particularly combat and the XP tables are poorly implemented, the game degenerates into a story experience and the gameplay component is reduced to simply walking around and clicking on characters because there is no challenge or difficulty curve whatsoever. Every task can be succeeded at with 100% success. I had over 24 intellect by the end of the game with 3 edge, so I didn't even need to expend intellect to pass any checks. There seems to have been budget issues, cyphers for instance all have simple art and effects that look the same. Remember how cool it was that all the mage spells that were level 6 and greater in Planescape had unique and sweet FF7 like animations?

 

All this could have been swept under the carpet and forgiven if not for the the final act. You really get the sense that large amounts of content was cut from the latter part of the game. If one goes back and looks at the trailers, it is clear that there were a whole additional city and narrative path that continued on from the Bloom that in the end were reduced either to narrative text in the form of Meres or very small gameplay areas at the very end.

 

For this last reason the game really suffers, it's obvious there were significant cuts to the core narrative and plot, much less forget about the fact that the promised Fathoms and labyrinth are essentially nonexistent or heavily gimped. The Calm (the castoff's mind area) has very little depth beyond a few reactive quests in the beginning (unless I missed it). One get's the impression that Sagus Clffs and the Bloom COMBINED was originally the first hub and the second was the Oasis and Jora. The latter being totally axed and the end game rushed right after the Bloom.

 

All in all, for 4 years of development, multiple delays, which I completely accepted as the price of delivering a high quality product the end result is just sub-par. I don't measure this as a successor to Planescape: Torment but simply in isolation as a Role-playing game. Perhaps 5 million dollars really was not enough money to deliver the game we all dreamed of, and really the true cost would have been something like 20 million, but in that case, the designers and architects of the game should have had the vision and responsibility to scope the game in a leaner and more concise manner. Instead one ends up with what is essentially half or 2/3 of the game that was promised.

 

I mean don't get me wrong, I am just happy that games like this can still come out in this day and age and to have had the experience and I am happy to have had this experience of a new game in the vein of Planescape but overall I cannot feel this is a satisfactory product experience. Perhaps in the future we will learn how the development process went but I cannot help but feel it didn't not go very smoothly. What is currently the game, does not feel like 4 years of development, unless one scrapped and remade the game more than once.

Edited March 9, 2017 by EUIX

[Agiel]

Inxile just announced that the Toy companion will eventually be added to the game, which is heartening news. I, however, would love to see the Oasis implemented as a full-sized quest hub. Of all the cuts to the game I think that was the one that cut (har har) deepest for me.

[Leferd]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1823045?ref=backer_project_update

 

Looks like I'll wait a few months to start my real play through.

[Fenixp]

This would suggest that the launch was successful. Good.

[HoonDing]

Somebody make a Dune arrpeegee already.

[majestic]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1823045?ref=backer_project_update

 

Looks like I'll wait a few months to start my real play through.

 

Oh nice, hello Immortal Edition upgrade.

[Ganrich]

Glad to see these. The Toy and Crisis improvements will be a great thing.

[Keyrock]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1823045?ref=backer_project_update

 

Looks like I'll wait a few months to start my real play through.

Sweet, even more incentive for me to play through the game again once I finish my current playthrough (12 hours in right now).

[Orogun01]

This ****ing game, it's hours of dialog and no combat and then out of the ****ing blue it throws you into a dungeon you can't escape where you have fight waves of cultist and a boss. So now I have to go back to an earlier save and procure healing items just because of poor design choices. 

[Eumaios]

This ****ing game, it's hours of dialog and no combat and then out of the ****ing blue it throws you into a dungeon you can't escape where you have fight waves of cultist and a boss. So now I have to go back to an earlier save and procure healing items just because of poor design choices.

This is what worries me. Not that I don't think I can make it through the combat. I might or might not have a problem, but I generally do pretty well. The problem is that I don't like tedium. I actually would prefer less combat in a game like Tides rather than more. In Darkest Dungeon? Yeah, combat is central. Even in Pillars, combat is a natural part of the gameplay. In Tides, each crisis should mean something. If it comes to combat, that combat should have as much meaning and impact the game world as much as key dialogue choices or tide swings. Combat in Tides is not to be taken as some lighthearted thing like it is in Pillars. It should more resemble real life where combat is generally avoided and where people who see it as a first resort are forced to deal with the ramifications. I don't want my guy, whom I've built as a problem solver, to be defined by the sheer trail of bodies he left behind. This is where I think the writing for Tides could have surpassed PS:T. I don't mind being forced into combat because the story has made some combat inevitable, but I don't like the idea that there are areas where hiding, talking, or planning are rendered moot by a design that has gone out of its way to render such ideas useless.

 

I haven't had a chance to play anything all day, but I'm wondering if maybe I should do something I rarely do, which is go out of my way to wait for a patch. I've greatly enjoyed what I've played, but I don't want to run into something that turns me off so I start to resent the designers.

 

As an aside: Dune? pfeh. The setting in Tides screams for some sort of Lovecraftian sanity mechanic. At least it would highlight the weirdness to which I understand the player becomes inured through sheer volume.

[Chilloutman]

This ****ing game, it's hours of dialog and no combat and then out of the ****ing blue it throws you into a dungeon you can't escape where you have fight waves of cultist and a boss. So now I have to go back to an earlier save and procure healing items just because of poor design choices.

which one? I think I was able to talk out from most crisis I didn't want to fight it (btw I just got into Bloom but I want to return to clear out that bad canibals)

[Raithe]

 

This ****ing game, it's hours of dialog and no combat and then out of the ****ing blue it throws you into a dungeon you can't escape where you have fight waves of cultist and a boss. So now I have to go back to an earlier save and procure healing items just because of poor design choices.

which one? I think I was able to talk out from most crisis I didn't want to fight it (btw I just got into Bloom but I want to return to clear out that bad canibals)

 

Sounds like he's talking the Endless Gate tomb..

Technically you can bypass those combats, but it makes the final "boss" of that section harder if you do end up sliding into the combat again. But you can still deal with him via non-combat routes if you hit the right dialogue.

 

Also, remember to check things and pick up his merecaster before you enter the gate...

Edited March 10, 2017 by Raithe