Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

Lord Andre

Arcane
Joined
Apr 11, 2011
Messages
3,716
Location
Gypsystan
I don't think you have to fight the cultists at all except maybe Motley's group. I mean I went out of my way to kill them because I want more combat in the game but I'm pretty sure you can avoid them easily...

Anyone else told that Don Quijote faggot to go after the children and was surprised that the negro made it all the way to Inifere ? I see him standing there at the end of the labyrinth next to the big bad thinking to myself... "this nigga's crazy for real".

Shit, I might be starting to enjoy the last part of the game. Is Inxile like reverse Pyranha Bytes now ? I have to slog through 15-18 hours of bland shit to get to the better parts...Sigh.
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
I made a promise to Fulsome that I would bring justice to the killer of all those innocents in the Underbelly,

Like that mattered. You never go back there anyway. Promise lol. An inXile-style promise if anything.

And yeah, I don't know what was the point behind Inifere... just another forced and uninteresting plot gate, of which the game is chock-full.
 

Chris Avelltwo

Scholar
Joined
Mar 3, 2017
Messages
678
I made a promise to Fulsome that I would bring justice to the killer of all those innocents in the Underbelly,

Like that mattered. You never go back there anyway. Promise lol. An inXile-style promise if anything.

And yeah, I don't know what was the point behind Inifere... just another forced and uninteresting plot gate, of which the game is chock-full.

I like to roleplay as honorable characters that keep their promises. I know its just a game and doesn't really matter, but it kinda makes me feel good to do right by people.
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
It's not even that it's just a game... it's that the game doesn't let you enjoy the result of that promise even if you fulfil it.
It's pretty much the equivalent of cutting out the part of a quest where you actually go back to the quest giver with the solution.
 

hexer

Guest
Does this count as corporative espionage or R&D?

Corporate espionage would be them getting info on the game before its release.
This is just a R&D since we know Beamdong's working on a DnD RPG.
 

Chris Avelltwo

Scholar
Joined
Mar 3, 2017
Messages
678
It's not even that it's just a game... it's that the game doesn't let you enjoy the result of that promise even if you fulfil it.
It's pretty much the equivalent of cutting out the part of a quest where you actually go back to the quest giver with the solution.

Its like that in a lot of games. Like in POE, you meet the spirits of dead people starting with Perly in the cave with the bear, where his "friend" Nonton betrayed him and let him be mauled to death so he could run off with his wife. You can promise Perly's spirit to avenge his death, and then if you do there's no way to talk to him again to tell him the deed is done. Same goes for the boy that was murdered outside the brothel in Defiance Bay, when you talk to his spirit to find out what happened, and then you can avenge him, but there's no way to contact the spirit again to let them know. But you could just assume these characters know or find out anyway, and even if they don't, at least YOU know that you kept your word.

To some people doing the right thing is viewed as a means to an end (that end being a reward of money or items); but to other people just doing the right thing in itself is the reward, and to those people it doesn't really matter so much that you can't turn it in because they aren't doing it for money anyway. Although, 9 times out of 10, when you kill bad hombres they have a good bit of loot you can take off their corpse anyway. I'll gladly kill them for free, but that doesn't mean I would turn down that free loot, you know?
 

Luckmann

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 20, 2009
Messages
3,759
Location
Scandinavia
By complete chance, I came across this today, and I just..

:negative:





How can a single game be this great? Will there ever be another? I've listened to "All voicelines of NPC X in game Y" before, but I don't think I've ever appreciated it this much. This is just.. amazing and depressing.

Poor Vhailor.

Poor Ignus.
 

ga♥

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 3, 2017
Messages
7,593
By complete chance, I came across this today, and I just..

:negative:

How can a single game be this great? Will there ever be another? I've listened to "All voicelines of NPC X in game Y" before, but I don't think I've ever appreciated it this much. This is just.. amazing and depressing.

Poor Vhailor.

Poor Ignus.


It was just the perfect mix... voices, music, setting, writing, etc etc.

And since it was a product of chance (or Avellone passion that now is gone) all you will get today are trannies in PST:EE.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Okay, which of you tricksters is stirring up mischief?

(This does seem like a grievously misplaced ad, just from a business standpoint, though I don't think that's the sense of the Tweet.)

Incidentally, the second targeted ad (presumably based on the browsing history of the guy) is hilariously apropos.
 

BlackGoat

Arbiter
Joined
Sep 15, 2014
Messages
505
PST is a serious work but it simultaneously works as a parody of Baldur's Gate as a game and D&D in general. It has an almost postmodern pynchon-esque quality. TTON, on the other hand, takes itself as seriously as Baldur's Gate, thinks a serious work of fantasy is a work of fantasy that takes its fantasy seriously.

I think this is the key to understanding how this game went wrong
 

Malpercio

Arcane
Joined
Dec 8, 2011
Messages
1,534
I think TTON actually just wanted me to replay PST.

Also the MEA Andromeda thread has more pages than this. :M
 

StaticSpine

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 14, 2013
Messages
3,232
Location
Moscow
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I think TTON actually just wanted me to replay PST.
Installed it couple of days ago.

I think that presenting TToN as a spiritual successor to PS:T was InXile's biggest mistake. It was a big advantage for crowdfunding in the beginning, but risks and responsibility also got sky-high. In the end all the two games have in common is unusual setting and huge amount of dialogues/text.

If they market the game just as some weird Numenera RPG full of crazy shit they'd get less bashing from core audience.
 

Chris Avelltwo

Scholar
Joined
Mar 3, 2017
Messages
678
I think TTON actually just wanted me to replay PST.
Installed it couple of days ago.

I think that presenting TToN as a spiritual successor to PS:T was InXile's biggest mistake. It was a big advantage for crowdfunding in the beginning, but risks and responsibility also got sky-high. In the end all the two games have in common is unusual setting and huge amount of dialogues/text.

If they market the game just as some weird Numenera RPG full of crazy shit they'd get less bashing from core audience.

Presenting it as an RPG in general is a mistake. It is good as a Visual Novel, but it is definitely not an RPG. All skill checks are easy to succeed, and there is very little combat (in theory all the combat is completely avoidable, in fact), and what little combat there is can easily be won with the OP cyphers. Saying it is an RPG will give people false expectations and lead to disappointment, but calling it a Visual Novel would be more truthful and accurate to what the "game" actually is. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because some of the writing was pretty good, but most people went into this expecting more than just text to read.
 

StaticSpine

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 14, 2013
Messages
3,232
Location
Moscow
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I think TTON actually just wanted me to replay PST.
Installed it couple of days ago.

I think that presenting TToN as a spiritual successor to PS:T was InXile's biggest mistake. It was a big advantage for crowdfunding in the beginning, but risks and responsibility also got sky-high. In the end all the two games have in common is unusual setting and huge amount of dialogues/text.

If they market the game just as some weird Numenera RPG full of crazy shit they'd get less bashing from core audience.

Presenting it as an RPG in general is a mistake. It is good as a Visual Novel, but it is definitely not an RPG. All skill checks are easy to succeed, and there is very little combat (in theory all the combat is completely avoidable, in fact), and what little combat there is can easily be won with the OP cyphers. Saying it is an RPG will give people false expectations and lead to disappointment, but calling it a Visual Novel would be more truthful and accurate to what the "game" actually is. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because some of the writing was pretty good, but most people went into this expecting more than just text to read.
I mostly agree. I like VNs myself. As I wrote in my post-game impression the game would benefit if it was an adventure game (without unnecessary roleplaying and combat systems), the stat checks would be okay if they were not so easy to pass.
 

Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
I'm replaying PS:T at the moment and I'm greatly enjoying it, it definitely feels much more concise and coherent than Numenera's story. The companions are much more interesting and the setting works a lot better.

That said, it's pretty uneven. The Hive, The Lower Ward and The Clerk's Ward is where the game is really great. Stuff like the Buried Village, Alley of Dangerous Angles and especially the Weeping Catacombs are pretty terrible to play, though there is great stuff in them as well. And later, Baator and Curst are shitshows. And stuff like the respawning Hive thugs (who seemed to be unusually aggressive this replay, or maybe I'm just misremembering) are just... they're not a threat whatsoever but they become annoying very quickly. If I hear the start of that combat theme one more time...
 

Malpercio

Arcane
Joined
Dec 8, 2011
Messages
1,534
I think TTON actually just wanted me to replay PST.
Installed it couple of days ago.

I think that presenting TToN as a spiritual successor to PS:T was InXile's biggest mistake. It was a big advantage for crowdfunding in the beginning, but risks and responsibility also got sky-high. In the end all the two games have in common is unusual setting and huge amount of dialogues/text.

If they market the game just as some weird Numenera RPG full of crazy shit they'd get less bashing from core audience.

Presenting it as an RPG in general is a mistake. It is good as a Visual Novel, but it is definitely not an RPG.

I hate this. No, you can't call any game with a lot of text a "good visual novel". There are good and bad Visual Novels.

TToN is just a poor RPG.
 

The Great Deceiver

Trickster
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2012
Messages
249
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
My unstructured impressions, heavy spoilers (for both PT and TToN):

To start off, I really disliked the character creation sequence; falling from a moon is definitely quite the enterance, but sifting through memories of people we do not yet care about in the slightest was very tedious, particulary due to the lack of context - yes, it was meant to be confusing, but it didn't really work for me.

Shortly after most of the mysteries are reavealed - you are the Last Castoff and there's a supernatural force hounding your every step. This was handled very poorly, as this could have been an interesting mystery to slowly uncover during the course of the game - which is something that the original Torment excelled in. The game borrows heavily from its distinguished predecessor, to a point of plagiarism - several story elements are lifted from it verbatim - such as the Endless Battle (Blood War), immortal hero, revisiting memories of other incarnations, portals opened through various means (maws), even the Sorrow (shadows), not to mention several rather ill-fiting tributes such as O and Adahn. There's spiritual succesors and then there's creative bankruptcy, not to mention that all of these elements were handled much better in PT.

Which is a shame, because there are some really intruguing concepts buried underneath - the Bloom being the most obvious, Meres (some were really atmospheric; they reminded me of King of the Dragon Pass, one my favourite games), Levies, The Adversaries and Lascars, to name a few.

The biggest disappointments are the Changing God and Sorrow - both begged to be something more other than underdeveloped concepts, which they unfortunately turned out to be. The entire game you're left wondering about who/what they really are, hoping to find some hidden layers to each of them, but alas. The ending's likewise undercooked - you're presented with three choices and CC does not matter at all from what I've gathered.

As for the writing itself - it's generally good, though a lack of an editor on the team is apparent. There are frequent cases of expository or adjective overload which lead to instant feeling of tiredness and boredom; the very beginning of the game as well as the ending part suffer most heavily from this. It's obviously a cardinal sin for a storytelling game.

Companions are just "there", most of them aren't that interesting.

Aligern - grumpy, with a tragic past; there isn't much else. His story is somewhat intriguing, but it doesn't go anywhere.

Matkina - generic assassin with a past #54, that's about it. Could fit a traditional fantasy game.

Erritis - most interesting of the bunch, definitely rises above the others. The concept and story both fit the setting nicely. That does not mean he's an exceptional character, however.

About the setting itself - it leaves me rather ambivalent. I liked the sci-fi elements, but the whole affair does feel a bit tacked on (which is perhaps what they were going for, but it doesn't convince me entirely).

Character advancement and gameplay - the mechanics aren't particularly interesting and advancement feels very barebones (which, I suppose, shouldn't be a big surprise considering the fact that Numenera's a storytelling system). I like the effort system, at least in principle. In practice however, I can count the amount of failed skillchecks on one hand. Effort pool depletion is also a non-factor, particularly since you can use companions' pools (the idea in itself is fine, but some checks should be made solely by player character and the overabundance of points should've been curtailed in beta). Cyphers seemed like a very interesting concept, but they can be pretty much ignored as most of them aren't really necessary to advance.

Crises are a noble effort to try to do something new with cRPG combat, but I've only found one to be truly intresting - one aboard the Lascar ship. The idea itself, I must say, does hold potential.

The graphics are decent, but rather uneven; I've been more impressed by PoE's backgrounds and the character models are rather atrocious. The soundtrack does provide some nice ambient tracks, but isn't very memorable and probably not worth listening to outside the game.

In conclusion it's evident that the game had a troubled development - interesting ideas and concepts are dragged down by glaring issues.

Final verdict (one troll just for the Bloom):
:5/5::1/5:
 
Last edited:

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom