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Game News Torment Kickstarter Update #53: Beta Released
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
Prime Junta
Guest
It wouldn't have required any more lines of dialog. It's all a matter of when and where they are.
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I haven't played the game, so I don't know.
But for the sake of advocating, I'll say it makes a bit of a switch from Morte (who kept secrets) to full disclosure.
Prime Junta
Guest
Yes, exactly.
Here's an alternative script for the introductory part of the game.
The Last Castoff is falling. He hits the ground and makes a wet noise, and finds himself inside the Mere. There is no spectre, just silence and those pylons. He needs to muddle his way through the pylon maze and into the mirror all by himself. He then finds himself in the lab, where a severely impaired Spectre is babbling incoherently about 'tides' and 'attunement' and 'the plan to end the sorrow.' The Castoff fiddles with one of the tanks and gets the memory-sequence. Something nasty happens, and the Spectre goes "The sorrow! Release the tides!" Then you muddle your way through the Crisis and end up half-accidentally banishing them. The spectre is still too severely impaired to do more than point you to the exit.
Mere finishes, Reef starts. You wake up, still all by yourself. You get to putz around a bit to scavenge some stuff. Then you're accosted by two groups looking for a 'falling star.' There's a bit more dialog between them that reveals something about the Order of Truth and the Cult of the Changing God, perhaps other factions. You might be able to talk your way past them; if not, there's a fight where one group attacks the other and both attack you. If you have the right cypher or skills you can take advantage of that to slip away, or if you're inclined to combat you can get into that. There should be enough cyphers lying around to make the fight beatable. (If you lose, you could wake up at the winning faction's base, which would lead to another branch. I haven't played far enough to know if there's content to connect to directly there already.)
Enter Sagus Cliffs. No helpful tour guide. Instead, people on the street recognise you, or think they do: "Run, it's the Changing God! No you idiot, it's a Castoff! Nah, that tat looks totally fake etc". Once you walk up to the clock, you'll be approached by one of the Changing God cultists. That'll give more or less the dialog as it was written, plus you'll be able to ask about "the sorrow" (he won't know much, other than that something has been pursuing the Changing God and killing off Castoffs for as long as the records stretch back), and "the plan to end the sorrow" (he won't know anything, but says that the Changing God has made sanctuaries all over the place, some of which are in Sagus Cliffs, and you should probably look for them; he will also suggest that you look for other castoffs who may also know something).
Then, Undercity. More or less as it is, except:
(1) The convo with Mapper has you asking him about the Changing God's sanctuaries, which gives him the reason to point you toward the sticha.
(2) The convos where Matkina comes up. These get slight flavor adjustments to further underline that she's a castoff and you therefore have your own reasons to talk to her.
And finally: when you get to the Changing God's sanctuary (which should IMO be a little bit harder than it is), you will discover the details of his plan. There's a picture of the resonance chamber, which should be immediately recognisable as the thing you smashed. This opens up the dialog options about finding someone to repair it. As an additional hint, the Changing God cultists or the Order of Truth or whoever's hip to numenera could suggest that as a valid course of action. And if you return to your Mere, the Spectre -- now recovered from the Sorrow's attack -- can lay it all out for you at this point.
As stated: this wouldn't introduce any new content or add more dialog. It would just redistribute the "starting" information over the starting quests, instead of having the Spectre (plus Aligern and Callistege) infodump it all on you from the beginning.
So, just some points on that:
1. You're assuming that the player is going to follow a very certain line of actions within the Fathom. While you may argue that this is a game for smart people and only smart people placing that progression on the assumption that the player can muddle their way through it all is a very large risk.
2. The reef exposes a potential plot-issue, if there's no one there at the impact point, who saves you from falling to your death?
3. Sagus Cliffs is a very complex city and a very strange one, the tour guide is a necessary sense of security. A way to help the player get a slight sense of control in something that is quite mind-boggling. The whole walk up to the clock to find out about the Sorrow creates another issue: Does everyone know about the sorrow? Why has no one tried to stop this elemental force? Not to mention that it's kinda "unrealistic" (in the sense of story realism) that everyone just breaks into a panic over something that's a common factor in this world. Especially since castoffs aren't evil in this world, they're known for being super smart and destined for doing great things.
4. The companion is there for both a narrative and design reason, the player may not recruit any other party members and yet having at least a single companion for only the early game is essential. (companion delivers some world exposition and informs players that they can piss off their companions) So, where do you introduce this? And how?
1. You're assuming that the player is going to follow a very certain line of actions within the Fathom. While you may argue that this is a game for smart people and only smart people placing that progression on the assumption that the player can muddle their way through it all is a very large risk.
2. The reef exposes a potential plot-issue, if there's no one there at the impact point, who saves you from falling to your death?
3. Sagus Cliffs is a very complex city and a very strange one, the tour guide is a necessary sense of security. A way to help the player get a slight sense of control in something that is quite mind-boggling. The whole walk up to the clock to find out about the Sorrow creates another issue: Does everyone know about the sorrow? Why has no one tried to stop this elemental force? Not to mention that it's kinda "unrealistic" (in the sense of story realism) that everyone just breaks into a panic over something that's a common factor in this world. Especially since castoffs aren't evil in this world, they're known for being super smart and destined for doing great things.
4. The companion is there for both a narrative and design reason, the player may not recruit any other party members and yet having at least a single companion for only the early game is essential. (companion delivers some world exposition and informs players that they can piss off their companions) So, where do you introduce this? And how?
Prime Junta
Guest
There is only one way to follow. You can only interact with the interactable things in a certain way. There's no way any player wouldn't figure it out within minutes.
I didn't realise that I needed saving as it is. I thought that my body is just so damn tough that even a fall from a thermospheric height can't kill me.
Sigil isn't?
I specifically said that the priests wouldn't know about the Sorrow: all they know is that something has been killing off Castoffs for ever, and there might be more clues in the Changing God's sanctuaries. I do think that a cult specifically dedicated to the Changing God and castoffs would know that much.
Okay fine, then make it a crowd of curious onlookers rather than a full-on panic. Thing is, some people already wonder if I'm the Changing God, and others recognise me for a castoff, so this would just be pushing it a bit further.
Why?
Oh. And my main criticism was precisely that there's already too damn much world exposition and hand-holding.
Aligern and Callistege could make a cameo in the confrontation on the Reef, and subsequently approach you -- individually, since they're from opposing factions -- once you hit Sagus Cliffs. There would be lots of places they could do that.
It sounds to me that you like a great deal more hand-holding and explicit exposition than I do. That's a legitimate preference, but not one we're likely to agree about.
I think most people don't have a problem with more initial exposition and starter handholdy to get the game off the ground and on its feet. Once you clear the intitial areas, the game shouldnt hold hand or give alot exposition all the time. Which may be why they have chosen to do what they do, it's just subjective preferences , really.
Lurker King
Self-Ejected
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The main reason PS:T story is so great is that the game world is immediately and deeply connected to you in ways that makes you wonder what the hell happened to you before the game starts. This creates an absurd bond between the player and the character, right from the get go. A bond that only increases as you progress in your exploration in the game world.
Now that I’m thinking about, nobody complained that the TToN updates and marketing was filled with spoilers. I don’t think that my experience of playing PS:T would be the same with so many spoilers before hand, even if the game is not spoilerish.
Lurker King
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The first impressions based on everything I read in the threads and watched in videos:
(1) The game releases info dump right at the beginning of the game. There is no sense of mystery or urgency involved. Nothing that will make the player immediately connected to the game world.
(2) Weird UI.
(3) Beautiful backgrounds.
(4) The writing is too verbose. Excessive use of adjectives.
(5) NPCs are SJW types.
(6) No much combat. Game is focused on reactivity.
The only thing that looks good is the isometric perspective, backgrounds and the focus on C&C. I hope that I’m completely wrong, though.
(1) The game releases info dump right at the beginning of the game. There is no sense of mystery or urgency involved. Nothing that will make the player immediately connected to the game world.
(2) Weird UI.
(3) Beautiful backgrounds.
(4) The writing is too verbose. Excessive use of adjectives.
(5) NPCs are SJW types.
(6) No much combat. Game is focused on reactivity.
The only thing that looks good is the isometric perspective, backgrounds and the focus on C&C. I hope that I’m completely wrong, though.
Last edited:
Lurker King
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So people is already in denial even in the early access, huh? That is a bad sign. Perhaps we will just have another huge disappointment with another kickstarter failure. They should rename "kickstarter" as "Cash grab platform". This game will be shit, guys. Don’t get your hopes up.
Hey LurkerKING, You should stick to just lurking and not posting, thanks.
Perhaps even playing the game for yourself, before mouthing off.
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That is a red flag?
Lurker King
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No, that is one of the things that looks promising.
Prime Junta
Guest
This is my single biggest criticism of the beta ATM. There's also too much of a feel of the world being there for your benefit rather than existing on its own terms.
Nah it's just rough. Weird icons for things plus no hotkeys and some bugs etc.
Er, how is this a red flag?
It is. Easy to remedy though, just change half of them to "fucking" and then have the editor remove them.
LOL
I'd correct this to barely any combat. In fact I found a single optional fight after the initial one on the Reef. (Which is good at this point because Crises are really bugged; they tend to conk out in ways that forces a reload.)
You're not completely wrong. I wouldn't put it quite that extremely though... and we'll see how far the game will come before it's done. Some of the problems could IMO be effectively addressed with relatively small changes -- mostly just changing a bunch of early-game dialogs.
They said that the UI is a placeholder, for whatever that's worth.
alphyna
Ice-Pick Lodge
Oooh. This is awful. Hopefully they still have time to do something about this.
To me, the original Torment is the prime example of how to do the beginning of the game (and the general mystery that drives the plot for the rest of it) right. You're always playing fucking detective. Which is great. Playing fucking detective is... "fun" may be too strong a word, but it's intriguing, satisfying, and motivating.
And now you're telling us that TToN fails in the best aspect of PST. That makes me a sad panda.
alphyna
Ice-Pick Lodge
Then again, to everyone saying the characters are boring humans, remember that Annah is a hot fiery furry girl that speaks with a heavy Scottish accent and is basically tsundere (sorry). Dak'kon is a taciturn samurai figure with a Super Important Katana. While characters like Morte or Nordom or Grace are explicitly weird in their basic description, I'd argue that it's not necessarily the only Torment-y approach to them; I sincerely hope that even these characters have some hidden twists going for them. One thing I wouldn't want my Torment game to do is spell out the character's secrets and drama in their bio.
While I agree in principle, part of Planescape's charm, and honestly that of the Numenera setting, is that they wear their weirdness on their sleeves. An unremarkable scholar in an overcoat can certainly have hidden depths and a fascinating story (and I'm sure we all hope he will), but you know, a giant spider who speaks English and keeps a singing head in a jar can also have hidden depths and a fascinating story. It's just that he's weird and interesting on the outside too.
Lurker King
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If you consider InXile’s reaction to more critical feedback regarding W2, and how important this is for the game, I would say that the chances are very close to zero. In fact, this is the norm. 99% of the developers just ignore more critical feedback in early access and just fix bugs and such. I don’t know if that is because they have egos of the size of cathedrals or don’t have time, or both. The fact is that unless they change the fact that you are a castoff, we would all remain spoiled, because this was promoted from day one. In this sense, your critique is accurate, but useless. We need to go back in time and ask Fargo to stop spoiling the fundamental premise of the story.
Prime Junta
Guest
It picks up somewhat after a bit, but yeah the start is a bit of a flop, and misses the crucial bits of what makes Torment Torment with a quite a lot of superficial references to it.
I started another game (two, actually) and played through the start again, and it didn't really get any better.
On the other hand, I was impressed by how differently some of the quests played out. One really cool resolution from my previous playthrough wasn't available because of a choice I made, one encounter played through completely differently because I had stacked Persuasion and Deception, the state of the world was noticeably different because I had avoided resting, that sort of thing. There really is a quite a bit of reactivity and C&C here, which is a Very Good Thing.
It's almost a shame this has PS:T's shadow looming over it. Those are really big boots to fill. I would probably enjoy this a lot more if I was just approaching it on its own merits. On the other hand there's no way they could've pried over a hundred bucks from me without the Torment reference. Choice and consequence...
alphyna
Ice-Pick Lodge
I mean, I see where you're coming from. Like with any decent work of art (and I don't mean it in the super-artsy way, good and thought-provoking entertainment is also art), everyone has their own Torment. Which is totally to be expected.
The thing is, while many PST's characters are definitely inventive, I wouldn't call their stories particularly original; on the contrary, they represent rather common archetypes. A fire-mad mage stripped of all humanity? A fanatic who lives only for the cause and is basically vengeance embodied? A hivemind robot trying to comprehend free will? A calm, collected, almost Christian figure whose reserve comes from her seeing and hating the beast within her? I can't say any of those stories have left me dumbfounded, and they unfold in a rather characteristic manner.
What makes these characters unique to me is actually MCA's surprisingly subtle writing. It's not like the stories themselves are that uncommon—and the external weirdness (look, it's a talking armor!) doesn't add all that much to it. It's how the stories are told—sincerely and mostly without ham-fisting. And, well, we knew beforehand that we won't have that in TToN for obvious reasons. That is why the characters' external blandness is not a deal-breaker: this is not what the franchise (ugh) is about to me in the first place.
But everyone is entitled to their own Torment, and I'm not forcing my opinion down anyone's throat. I just like talking about the game.
alphyna
Ice-Pick Lodge
Prime Junta I'm not sure I'm allowed to brofist people here yet, but consider yourself brofisted.
(Also please post more detailed impressions under spoilers. Pretty pretty please.)
(Also please post more detailed impressions under spoilers. Pretty pretty please.)
Prime Junta
Guest
About the combat.
I've played some way into the beta with a more combat-focused character and actively looked for trouble. It's nowhere near as bad as Pillars combat was in the beta, but it's not exactly good yet either. Here's a jumble of thoughts as to why.
First, cyphers are underwhelming. You only get one action per turn, and using a cypher uses that action. Thing is, cypher effects are pretty weaksauce. If I have to choose between using an ability that confers Stun and possibly does damage, and using a cypher that teleports me a bit of the way away, confers Immobilise (often with a lower chance of success than the ability use), does less damage than a regular attack but maybe puts a DoT effect etc., I'll most likely just use my abilities. They should be a lot more punchy especially because they're single-use items, and, I would imagine, saleable items once the merchants are working.
Second, denial-of-action attacks are dominant. There's one (optional) fight against a weird cocktopus thing that has like a half-dozen nasty attacks per round. It won initiative and I was like, "whoa." The rest of the fight it was stunlocked: one of my companions had Dazzle which stunned it for a round (more on a crit) with over 50% success rate, another had a stabby attack that also stunned it for a round (more on a crit) with over 50% success rate. So after that initial attack it was stunlocked the rest of the fight while my remaining character (PC glaive) whittled it down.
Similar experience with two other combat encounters. Just have lots of stun attacks in your party and spam them. Aligern also has a "heal" ability that's no-cost and very powerful (but mysteriously can't be used outside a Crisis).
This makes the combat kind of dull. Spam stun attacks, do damage with whoever's left, and if Aligern is in the party, Heal whenever somebody's pools start to run low. (Aligern has both Heal and Stun which makes him way more useful in combat than Callistege btw.) The combat also tends to drag on. It's not horrid by any means, it's just very peripheral to the experience. Conversely, there seems to be a lot more attention lavished on all kinds of ways to avoid combat. People who like pacifist playthroughs are gonna love this; grogs not so much.
Put another way, those of us who were hoping for another ToEE are going to be disappointed. But then combat isn't considered a huge strength of PS:T either.
I've played some way into the beta with a more combat-focused character and actively looked for trouble. It's nowhere near as bad as Pillars combat was in the beta, but it's not exactly good yet either. Here's a jumble of thoughts as to why.
First, cyphers are underwhelming. You only get one action per turn, and using a cypher uses that action. Thing is, cypher effects are pretty weaksauce. If I have to choose between using an ability that confers Stun and possibly does damage, and using a cypher that teleports me a bit of the way away, confers Immobilise (often with a lower chance of success than the ability use), does less damage than a regular attack but maybe puts a DoT effect etc., I'll most likely just use my abilities. They should be a lot more punchy especially because they're single-use items, and, I would imagine, saleable items once the merchants are working.
Second, denial-of-action attacks are dominant. There's one (optional) fight against a weird cocktopus thing that has like a half-dozen nasty attacks per round. It won initiative and I was like, "whoa." The rest of the fight it was stunlocked: one of my companions had Dazzle which stunned it for a round (more on a crit) with over 50% success rate, another had a stabby attack that also stunned it for a round (more on a crit) with over 50% success rate. So after that initial attack it was stunlocked the rest of the fight while my remaining character (PC glaive) whittled it down.
Similar experience with two other combat encounters. Just have lots of stun attacks in your party and spam them. Aligern also has a "heal" ability that's no-cost and very powerful (but mysteriously can't be used outside a Crisis).
This makes the combat kind of dull. Spam stun attacks, do damage with whoever's left, and if Aligern is in the party, Heal whenever somebody's pools start to run low. (Aligern has both Heal and Stun which makes him way more useful in combat than Callistege btw.) The combat also tends to drag on. It's not horrid by any means, it's just very peripheral to the experience. Conversely, there seems to be a lot more attention lavished on all kinds of ways to avoid combat. People who like pacifist playthroughs are gonna love this; grogs not so much.
Put another way, those of us who were hoping for another ToEE are going to be disappointed. But then combat isn't considered a huge strength of PS:T either.
Prime Junta
Guest
Sure, I can do that.
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