Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Coma White]

Eh, the entire argument is missing the point anyway. What guys like The Game Analists are really mad about is that the hit points made the game less unique and special, not that it's dumber. And then there are people on the Codex, who don't really give a fuck about Numenera or know anything about it, who have piled on that because they're eager to see signs of decline everywhere. But Numenera isn't even a very good system so it's all kind of silly. Here's our review of it: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9315

The thing that draws me to the game is less the rules or the Torment legacy (I still don't even know what this means exactly) and more the Numenera setting itself. The art, the world, the ideas are really fucking compelling and imaginative. And hey, health pools are like whatever; Bloodlines is one of my favorite CRPGs ever and it isn't even close to actual WoD rules. What perturbs me is sweeping shifts in design philosophy so late in the development cycle. Unless it isn't as late in the cycle as I was led to believe -- which now of course seems to be the case. Again, I have not played Early Access or even followed this game too closely precisely because I am so excited for it.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Personally, I think that Numenera is a shit setting. It doesn't have new weird feeling a-la China Mieville, it doesn't evoke memories of a Dying Earth or Dark Tower, it's just a random mish-mash of "awesome" shit, with no rhyme or reason. I also don't like its PnP mechanics. But I held some hope for writing. At least until GG happened, and writers piled up in defense of poor Anita and Zoe. That was the first sign. And then came the beta, and in addition to SJW pandering I saw quite a few good ideas and characters, but they were seriously hamstrung by inane setting and lack of editing. It didn't help that good parts were just that - parts. It had as much stupid shit as it had good, and while I never hoped for a pretty graphics, I still was put off by the result somewhat, especially by Tumblr-friendly char designs with browns skins, sidecuts and whatnot. Now, when they are trying to get consolefags on board, simplifying the system, and probably tweaking the narrative too - well, I don't have much hope left. Everything is shit, men.

It's the second fucking project which I backed presuming that at least part of the money goes to MCA and we get a significant input of his. PoE and TToN kickstarters are more jinxed towards MCA than fucking wolves, heh.
And to think, I spend a hundred dorra to back this.

 

[Coma White]

Personally, I think that Numenera is a shit setting. It doesn't have new weird feeling a-la China Mieville, it doesn't evoke memories of a Dying Earth or Dark Tower, it's just a random mish-mash of "awesome" shit, with no rhyme or reason.

I was under the impression this IS the central theme of Numenera as a setting. The notion of "everything that can happen HAS happened, so now what?"

At least until GG happened, and writers piled up in defense of poor Anita and Zoe. That was the first sign. And then came the beta, and in addition to SJW pandering I saw quite a few good ideas and characters, but hamstrung by inane setting and lack of editing.

This is perturbing to me, but I'll try to not hold the devs' politics and public mistakes against their work. Unless it, you know, actually compromises their work. In which case I'll be right beside you. I honestly don't know enough about this to tilt one way or the other, but I'm receptive to damning examples of overt faggotry.

presuming that at least part of the money goes to MCA and we get a significant input of his.

Dream on. The last true MCA game is in my signature. It remains to be seen how significant his involvement in Prey is.

 

[Zombra]

Do you really not see the difference between a character build and an in-game decision?

You're going to have to elaborate on this one.

Colin was talking about dumb in-game decisions, which you seem to understand. But they don't like the idea of a player making, say, a dumb Glaive with a low Intelligence pool, being unable to proceed on the MQ because there's an Intelligence-based challenge on the way that kills him every time. The obvious answer to that is "then don't put in tough challenges!", but hopefully you can see why that sucks. What they're doing instead is allowing for tough challenges that DO bust hell out of the dumb Glaive, but his dumbness isn't also his hit points, so he will take a major hit but survive, while smart characters will pass the challenge and not have to expend recovery. That's the simplified explanation.

Do I think players should be expected to invest a certain degree in understanding a rules system before committing to big decisions (character creation for example)?

You mean in a game with 3 freaking stats? It's not reasonable to expect players to not min-max. The only way to prevent extreme characters is to put strict limits on how much those stats can be tweaked - essentially house-rule away min-maxing (which also would be breaking the rulebook) - or again, just don't put in any challenges that can be lost by a min-maxed character's weak stats. Both of these solutions are far worse than what they ended up doing: they chose to allow variance of character design and extreme challenges in the game, while still removing the "you lose because of numbers completely beyond your control for the past 30 hours" screen.

What perturbs me is sweeping shifts in design philosophy so late in the development cycle.

lol. What "sweeping shifts"? Making PC survivability more predictable for balancing purposes isn't some mustache-twirling betrayal of Numenera's lofty principles. And again, sticking to the iron letter of the rulebook come hell or high water was never part of their design philosophy in the first place.

It's great that you're excited about the game, but marrying yourself to slavish obedience to the P&P rules is the wrong way to be excited. They never said they were doing that and you're a fool if you think they did.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Eh, the entire argument is kind of missing the point anyway. What guys like The Game Analists are really mad about is that the hit points made the game less unique and special, not that it's dumber. And then there are people on the Codex, who don't really give a fuck about Numenera or know anything about it, who have piled on that because they're eager to see signs of decline everywhere. But Numenera isn't even a very good system so it's all kind of silly. Here's our review of it: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9315

I was avoiding the Numenera threads until I tried the beta and then I came to post about my disappointment that they had added in generic HP. Numenera may not be the best system ever (for combat), but that's no excuse for removing what unique aspects it actually did have going on for it. The game system was going to be crippled enough due to the impossibility to add anything but the most generic Character Foci.

 

[Coma White]

Colin was talking about dumb in-game decisions, which you seem to understand. But they don't like the idea of a player making, say, a dumb Glaive with a low Intelligence pool, being unable to proceed on the MQ because there's an Intelligence-based challenge on the way that kills him every time. The obvious answer to that is "then don't put in tough challenges!", but hopefully you can see why that sucks. What they're doing instead is allowing for tough challenges that DO bust hell out of the dumb Glaive, but his dumbness isn't also his hit points, so he will take a major hit but survive, while smart characters will pass the challenge and not have to expend recovery.


You mean in a game with 3 freaking stats? It's not reasonable to expect players to not min-max. The only way to prevent extreme characters is to put strict limits on how much those stats can be tweaked - essentially house-rule away min-maxing (which also would be breaking the rulebook) - or again, just don't put in any challenges that can be lost by a min-maxed character's weak stats. Both of these solutions are far worse than what they ended up doing: they chose to allow variance of character design and extreme challenges in the game, while still removing the "you lose because of numbers completely beyond your control for the last 30 hours" screen.


lol. What "sweeping shifts"? Making PC survivability more predictable for balancing purposes isn't some mustache-twirling betrayal of Numenera's lofty principles. And again, sticking to the iron letter of the rulebook come hell or high water was never part of their design philosophy in the first place.

It's great that you're excited about the game, but marrying yourself to slavish obedience to the P&P rules is the wrong way to be excited.

You make a very compelling case re the dumb Glaive, and I acquiesce to your understanding of Numenera's rules and design philosophy, which is clearly superior to mine.

Though I think you are reading into my reservations regarding the addition of health pools to the game at this stage. I never meant to imply it's a betrayal of the system's principles, nor did I ever suggest their original intention was to convert the system wholesale intact. What I WAS implying is that Numenera may not have been the best system to adapt in the first place, if in fact they are only running into these severe balancing issues this late in the development cycle.

I was avoiding the Numenera threads until I tried the beta and then I came to post about my disappointment that they had added in generic HP. Numenera may not be the best system ever (for combat), but that's no excuse for removing what unique aspects it actually did have going on for it. The game system was going to be crippled enough due to the impossibility to add anything but the most generic Character Foci.

People -- especially fans of Numenera's system -- are gonna have reactions like this. Because it feels like something they should have thought about at the beginning.

EDIT: Basically it's just starting to sound to me like Numenera is, as Infinitron stated, kind of a shitty system altogether.

 

[Lurker King]

The Game Analists, what do you have to say about this?

 

[Hobo Elf]

EDIT: Basically it's just starting to sound to me like Numenera is, as Infinitron stated, kind of a shitty system altogether.

Numenera isn't outright awful. If you want a deep combat simulation then Numenera isn't going to scratch your itch. It's heavily focused on the narrative and story telling and a lot of the mechanics are streamlined in a way so that the experience doesn't ever get bogged down by arguments over rule obscurity. It's supposed to be easily explainable with a fast flow and it succeeds at that quite well. If you're not into it then that's cool, but it doesn't mean that the system is bad. I'm usually into the wargame simulations but I thought Numenera was decent enough at what it did and I especially loved the archeology focused setting.

 

[Roguey]

Remind me how the console ports ruined Wasteland 2. Honest question.

Store UI, full voice acting.

 

[Coma White]

Numenera isn't outright awful. If you want a deep combat simulation then Numenera isn't going to scratch your itch. It's heavily focused on the narrative and story telling and a lot of the mechanics are streamlined in a way so that the experience doesn't ever get bogged down by arguments over rule obscurity. It's supposed to be easily explainable with a fast flow and it succeeds at that quite well. If you're not into it then that's cool, but it doesn't mean that the system is bad. I'm usually into the wargame simulations but I thought Numenera was decent enough at what it did and I especially loved the archeology focused setting.

Really I'm into both types of systems, as long as they support their games well. But some on here will say that's an easy answer, and they're probably right.

But I was referring to the system's overall adaptability to a CRPG, or the apparent lack thereof. There are a couple other threads going in General RPG on the differences between CRPGs and tabletop, and the individual demands of each are very different on various levels. When I say Numenera sounds like a shitty system, what I really mean is that it sounds like one more suited to tabletop wheeling-and-dealing with the GM as opposed to CRPG conventions.

 

[Zombra]

Numenera may not have been the best system to adapt in the first place, if in fact they are only running into these severe balancing issues this late in the development cycle.

They didn't "run into" anything. Nothing snuck up on them, nothing jumped out at them, they didn't scream and flinch, they didn't swerve crazily to avoid. They used the basic rulebook as a starting point, tried that for a while, decided it would work better after an adjustment, and adjusted it. This is all part of the normal iteration process every developer does with every game.

Store UI

Yeah, after I made that post, I was thinking to myself, "There was something legit I bitched about after the DC release, what was it?" That was it. Consolitis definitely ruined the trade UI.

full voice acting.

Eh, that wasn't consolitis, just Director's Cut let's spend more money.

 

[Coma White]

They didn't "run into" anything. Nothing snuck up on them, nothing jumped out at them, they didn't scream and flinch, they didn't swerve crazily to avoid. They used the basic rulebook as a starting point, tried that for a while, decided it would work better after an adjustment, and adjusted it. This is all part of the normal iteration process every developer does with every game.

Fair enough. A question: how does the HP system work in the game? Can anyone link to a source that explains it? Is it extrapolated from your Body, or do you earn base increases as you level?

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

The game was funded under the promise of being a PC exclusive cRPG.

Was it? I backed the game and don't remember any such promise.

Here's the relevant paragraph on the Kickstarter page:

Do we know whether any campaign funds were spent on console port? If so I am pretty fucking pissed.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I'm pretty sure the campaign funds ran out a long time ago.

 

[DosBuster]

It wasn't that the using tides as health system was too complicated for players to understand, problems arose when they ran into difficulties balancing the system as well as the problem

Sudden

The game was funded under the promise of being a PC exclusive cRPG.

Was it? I backed the game and don't remember any such promise.

Here's the relevant paragraph on the Kickstarter page:

Do we know whether any campaign funds were spent on console port? If so I am pretty fucking pissed.

Techland are funding console development

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

Personally I do believe they've been dishonest about the release date, but it might be better for them to release next year rather than during Christmas when there's lots of competition. Somebody on the Codex suggested that a few months ago (that the game would simply be delayed even though it was already done - he didn't guess there would be a console release too). I was skeptical at the time, but it looks he was right.

I am suggesting this in order for InXile to be OK to the PC owners : Release the full game this year for steam players! :D Even in December. Crate Entertainment did this for it's Grim Dawn and it was just fine.

 

[Jaesun]

Do we know whether any campaign funds were spent on console port? If so I am pretty fucking pissed.

The console port is being paid for by the new Publisher. The Kickstarter funds are all for the base PC game.

The game IS already using Unity, which already has the ability to do ports for PS4 and Xbox One, so that is irrelevant.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Only in your imagination is anyone saying this.

Yeah, sure thing, that's why every time someone is saying anything you pop-up to tell us all how they're just going overboard.
It's funny how your "plz don't criticize" type NEVER has any problems with people saying the game will be great and awesome. Somehow that's not retarded and overblown.
So go fuck yourself. You know as much as anybody else. So deciding whether something is overblown or not is just an opinion that you have or maybe you simply suffer from delusions.

If you've actually been reading this thread, you'll see that I've played the beta quite a bit and I think the combat is pretty shit. Does that qualify as a ringing endorsement in your book? There's a difference between informed criticism and "Hur dur consolez! Brian Fargo is a greedy cuck!"

Or, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you've played the game and have something useful to say...?

Yes, I played the beta. That's not the point, this is as much about console humping pretty much always turning out bad one way or another as it is about principles because fuck consoles and their retarded users.

Also I don't give a shit you didn't like the combat. If I remember correctly you were also dismissive about that too because LULZ COMBAT IN TORUMENT SUCKED SO THATS OK LOLOL. Informed criticism if I ever saw one.

So I'm talking about this kind reasoning where apparently when you take all these "unimportant", "small", "marginal" or whatever else adjective you want to use to lie to yourself and make a game then that game will totally be great!

 

[Prime Junta]

Not thrilled at this news. Having to dev for consoles and PC side by side requires compromises on both sides and introduces complications that affect both. If they're saying that this has no impact at all on the PC experience, they're either dishonest or naive.

If you have to add platforms, tablets would've been a better choice. The distance between a tablet UI and a PC UI is smaller than between a console UI and PC UI.

 

[DosBuster]

What complications does console development add aside from ui?

 

[Coma White]

If they're saying that this has no impact at all on the PC experience, they're either dishonest or naive.

 

[Lady_Error]

What complications does console development add aside from ui?

Larger fonts. Though seriously, what everyone seems to be afraid of is a dumbing down of the game, for which (other than the 4 NPC design decision) there are no indications yet.

 

[Excidium II]

What complications does console development add aside from ui?

Larger fonts. Though seriously, what everyone seems to be afraid of is a dumbing down of the game, for which (other than the 4 NPC design decision) there are no indications yet.

That and general issues of deploying to multiple platforms. Time solving problems specific to a console release is time that could have been spent with anything else.

If you have to add platforms, tablets would've been a better choice. The distance between a tablet UI and a PC UI is smaller than between a console UI and PC UI.

Doesn't this game still require decent hardware to not run horribly?

 

[Infinitron]

Time solving problems specific to a console release is time that could have been spent with anything else.

It is possible that if not for funds acquired for console development, they wouldn't have had extra time at all and the game would have had to come out this year (and maybe with crappier localization and a bit more bugs/cut content etc)

 

[Haba]

Can I still get a full refund, thx.