Has anyone ever read this Torment review?

[FeelTheRads]

And again that stupidity only a power-gamer could utter: "Mage is teh only wai! Lol!!1"

Just like in Arcanum, eh?

 

[mondblut]

That'd be what you're getting from Planescape. All story, all style, no substance. No gameplay.

I won't bother reading that review, but it looks like something *I* would write.

 

[Tolknaz]

Not liking the game for its flaws is okay, however most of this "review" is either brainfart or flat out lies.

 

[Erebus]

Sometimes, when you hear/read too many über-positive opinions about something, you become predisposed to disliking it : you'll pick every single flaw it has, make them greater than they truly are, invent some non-existent problems if need be and pretend that all the good stuff is either irrelevant or not so good after all. It's stupid but it happens.

 

[Thrasher]

Stupid review. Needs to be ignored.

 

[xantrius]

Stupid review. Needs to be ignored.

 

[Sodomy]

To be fair, the reviewer DOES have a point when it comes to Trias. He's the most difficult fight in the game by an absurd margin, and he's so much more difficult than everything else before him that it's possible to get to him extremely underleveled... and, when that happens, thanks to Torment's linearity, there's no "go do something else for a while and come back when I can take him".

To pull from my personal experience- my first time through Torment, I got to him at level 8. At that point, the only way to kill him is to just keep running in, getting one or two hits in, and dying instantly to one spell until he runs out, at which point he's mostly helpless. Not exactly great gameplay there.

Also, as the reviewer wrote, the game is mostly absurdly linear (although the Dead Nations was probably a bad example, heh), guiding the player by the hand far too much.

I'm not saying that PS:T is a bad game- it's certainly not- but it's quite far from the paragon that the Codex holds it up to be. Fallout, Arcanum, the entire Geneforge series, MotB, ToEE, PtD, and Darklands all slaughter it.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I don't think anyone here disputes the fact that MotB is much much better than Torment.

It is more fresh and fascinating with its shadow planes and dreamscapes, and the cascading possibilities in the game are infinitely more than those of Torment. And it has an excellent use of skill checks and a good character creation system.

MotB indeed does slaughter Torment, because it is not just a better way of doing an old thing - it is a completely novel game that carves out its own niche.

 

[Jasede]

My sarcasm detector exploded.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I mean it.

MotB is better than Torment.

Refer to Lumpy as well.

 

[gromit]

Sometimes, when you hear/read too many über-positive opinions about something, you become predisposed to disliking it : you'll pick every single flaw it has, make them greater than they truly are, invent some non-existent problems if need be and pretend that all the good stuff is either irrelevant or not so good after all. It's stupid but it happens.

heh heh heh

 

[Fat Dragon]

I don't think anyone here disputes the fact that MotB is much much better than Torment.

I greatly appreciate it when you speak for me and everybody else on the Codex.

 

[Wyrmlord]

OK.

 

[Sodomy]

I don't think anyone here disputes the fact that MotB is much much better than Torment.

It is more fresh and fascinating with its shadow planes and dreamscapes, and the cascading possibilities in the game are infinitely more than those of Torment. And it has an excellent use of skill checks and a good character creation system.

MotB indeed does slaughter Torment, because it is not just a better way of doing an old thing - it is a completely novel game that carves out its own niche.

Assuming that you are being sarcastic:

Torment has no "story areas" that can be skipped, and only one "story event" (getting the orb from Pharod).

MotB has, depending on how you count, 2-4 skippable story areas, (Wells of Lurue, Ashenwood, and the dreamscapes at each of those), each of those having at least one "story event", with there being other skippable "story events" (such as walking away from Bishop without getting the mask fragment).

And that's before you even consider the mutually exclusive companions, with more interesting oppertunities to interact with them than "please tell me your problems that I'm responsible for from previous lives kthx", more actual decisions to be made in quests (aren't there like a grand total of three quests in Torment where you actually have any choices other than do quest/don't do quest?), fewer fetch quests, fewer quests that are irrelevant to the MQ and setting, better combat (yeah, it still sucks, but still...), a better character system (3.5 > 2nd edition any day)... the list goes on and on. MotB is a vastly better game than PS:T.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Dude, I am not being sarcastic.

I agree with you.

MotB is the working of several different plotlines - the story of Akachi, the mystery of the Sunken City, the Woodman, and the mask fragments.

The player is allowed to a combination of any of those plotlines, all of which make their own difference in the outcome of the game, as well as each of your party members.

I genuinely feel this is far more than what Torment achieves.

 

[Qwinn]

Torment has no "story areas" that can be skipped

For the -life- of me, I cannot figure out why this is considered such an important quality in a game. It seems completely nonsensical to me.

I don't care what game it is, unless there's a -wide- disparity in the quality of the required content vs. optional content (which is unusual), I play a game to squeeze every last bit of content out of it. So making it "skippable", IMO, is utterly pointless.

Do you get -pleasure- out of skipping some percentage of a game's content? If you don't like a game's content, why are you playing it?

(aren't there like a grand total of three quests in Torment where you actually have any choices other than do quest/don't do quest?

No. Not even close. Bullshit complaint.

Qwinn

 

[overtenemy]

shit son trust qwinn, he is very professional, he probably knows about 50-100 things
very thx!! torment!!

But for real, MotB may have been structured abit better than Torment, but I can't see it riding to "better than Torment" status on that alone. Sure, the Mask fragments thing was alright, but I don't see how it was better than getting the best Torment ending using either the sphere or an extremely high wis or cha stat (was it possible with int? I don't remember). Not to mention, it's not as if the fragments were particularly difficult to get, or even hidden. They were a bit hard to miss, easy to get, and were quest items, which assigned importance to them immediately. IIRC, there was nothing in Torment that even hinted that the Bronze Sphere had anything to do with you. Was just an extra item to haul around in your inventory for the entire game in hopes that it'd eventually have a use. That may seem a tad lame, but the delight I felt upon discovering it did have a use was many times more satisfying than the yawn I let out upon fixing that Akachi fag.

And yeah, the mutually exclusive NPC thing is pretty cool. Least it would be if Okku wasn't such a loser. One-of-Many aside, the MotB NPCs are pretty lame in comparison to the Torment ones. That I'm unable to get ONE of them in any given playthrough is cool and all, but really does not make up for the gap in awesomeness, in my opinion. Safiya is bland. Gann was alright, his homoerotic tendencies aside. Kaelyn was a bit bland as well, but I did at least enjoy her plot relevance. Torment...well, people have dissected this a million times on here. -Torment NPC breakdown goes here- Do any of you really think there's any competition there?

I also hate to point out the obvious, but Torment sports a great deal more dialogue, due to not being saddled with the burden of providing super cool next gen features such as voice-acting for all the important NPCs. I also recall there being a great deal more interactivity regarding the environment and NPCsl in Torment, which could lead to all sorts of fun things. The tattooed arm, and what you can learn from it is a great example. MotB doesn't really have much to shoot back with here. The combat in both games sucks pretty hard. I suppose MotB has more character customization, which is a plus. As for the story, it's a subjective toss-up; too subjective to declare a winner if you ask me. People are going to prefer one over the over. Let's call it even.

All that said, what am I missing precisely that declares MotB a sure winner here? I'll state again that I enjoyed Torment more, but I loved MotB as well and can see how someone would enjoy as much if not more than Torment. But I don't see anything that would make ANYONE assert with absolute surety that MotB is simply a better game.

 

[Wyrmlord]

A totally legitimate complaint against Torment however:

Since some areas have respawning enemies, you get so much experience just walking to and fro those places and killing things, that it really makes it less of an incentive to do quests. Sometimes I feel like I am doing quests in Torment simply for the satisfaction of doing them.

It's not a big disincentive, but hey, quests in a game are limited; respawning enemies are not.

Simply killing a Greater Tann'arri gives you a boatload of XP that equates to several quests worth of XP.

 

[MetalCraze]

To pull from my personal experience- my first time through Torment, I got to him at level 8.

Shit and I got to him at a much higher level. Yessir, "Torment's linear nature" - or probably because I tried to something else than rushing through main plotline?

MotB is better than Torment.

You got to be kidding

 

[Qwinn]

Simply killing a Greater Tann'arri gives you a boatload of XP that equates to several quests worth of XP.

No. By the time any Greater Tanarii (70k xp) are available to kill, you're getting 125-150k xp from even simple quests.


Which is also why this statement:

To pull from my personal experience- my first time through Torment, I got to him at level 8.

...is ludicrous. Unless you are -deliberately- evading getting XP like a dealer dodging narcs, this is virtually impossible. In fact, I think it may actually be technically impossible no matter how hard you try.

To give an idea here... a good while -before- you fight Trias, when doing the bartender's chain of quests to gain access to the prison:

Step 1 gives 65k xp
Step 2 gives 150k xp
Step 3 gives 43.75k xp
Step 4 gives 200k xp
Step 5 gives over 190k xp

Hell, just triggering a trap on the way to the prison gives you 87000 xp.

Hell, -freeing- Trias cannot possibly give you less than 300000 xp.

This doesn't count the huge amount of xp (some of which is to the protagonist -only-) you get dealing with Ravel.

None of this includes the -even larger- XP hits you get in Curst Gone. All of that massive xp was in Curst -before- you visit Fhjull.

And you're telling me you fought Trias at level 8? When the most XP you can have as level 8 is as a fighter, with 249k xp?

Sorry. Bullshit detector is off the freaking charts on this one. If by some bizarre deliberate design you did manage to avoid that much xp, then thel "you can't skip any story related PS:T content" whines become even more ludicrous. And it also means that you royally deserved to get your ass kicked.

Qwinn

 

[ghostdog]

Wyrmlord, lately you are on a streak of either showing bad taste in games, or trolling, or both.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Big salute to Qwinn here.

The Curst-Carceri series of events ensure around 3-5 levels more for all party members, and there is really is no way someone would be at level 8.

 

[Sodomy]

...is ludicrous. Unless you are -deliberately- evading getting XP like a dealer dodging narcs, this is virtually impossible. In fact, I think it may actually be technically impossible no matter how hard you try.

To give an idea here... a good while -before- you fight Trias, when doing the bartender's chain of quests to gain access to the prison:

Step 1 gives 65k xp
Step 2 gives 150k xp
Step 3 gives 43.75k xp
Step 4 gives 200k xp
Step 5 gives over 190k xp

Hell, just triggering a trap on the way to the prison gives you 87000 xp.

Hell, -freeing- Trias cannot possibly give you less than 300000 xp.

This doesn't count the huge amount of xp (some of which is to the protagonist -only-) you get dealing with Ravel.

None of this includes the -even larger- XP hits you get in Curst Gone. All of that massive xp was in Curst -before- you visit Fhjull.

And you're telling me you fought Trias at level 8? When the most XP you can have as level 8 is as a fighter, with 249k xp?

Sorry. Bullshit detector is off the freaking charts on this one. If by some bizarre deliberate design you did manage to avoid that much xp, then thel "you can't skip any story related PS:T content" whines become even more ludicrous. And it also means that you royally deserved to get your ass kicked.

Qwinn

The XP cap is higher for mages. Add to that the fact that, being my first playthrough, I didn't know right where Mebbeth was and thus was late to change classes, wasting a few levels, and it becomes very easy to figure out. Also, the fact that about 50% of PS:T's XP comes from dumbass click-through fetch quests that I wasn't in a real hurry to do didn't help things.

Then again, a whole lot of PS:T is dumbass click-through garbage with fake choices. Brothel, anyone? God, what a timesink- talk a bitch, get the one answer. Use that information to talk to the next bitch, get the one answer. Fetch something. Talk to another bitch. And another bitch. And an armoire. Then a few more bitches. Fetch something else. And in none of this is there any actual choice, and really, very little that passes for interaction with the game. You just keep clicking your way to the next ho, and clicking your way through the dialogue. Such great gaming there.

 

[Qwinn]

The XP cap is higher for mages.

Not at that range, it's not. In fact, a mage turns level 9 -much- earlier than a fighter, at a mere 135,000 xp. You can get that in, like, 3 minutes after you left Sigil.

I mean, just talking to Ravel, which you could not have avoided, you get:

90,000 just for talking to her for the first time
180,000xp for finding out about Trias.
90,000 for talking to her about Mebbeth.
90,000 if you tell her you agree with her about the Lady of Pain
90,000 if you have a 17 INT, which I'd think you would as a mage, but even if your INT was 12 you'd get 60,000
90,000 if you were nice to her at -all- (as much as 180,000 if you were -very- nice to her, though that's tough to do)
32,000 xp for killing her

And at least -some- of those rewards aren't split with party members, it all goes just to your TNO. If you had even mediocre wisdom that should add a good 10-20% xp bonus to all of that.

That's well over half a million xp (so even if it was all split among party members, well over 100,000xp for TNO, so you'd be over 80% of the way to level 9 even if you had -just- become a mage) from that conversation alone. And that's not counting the insane amount of XP I already listed for Curst, and then the 300,000 for freeing Trias, and then for talking to Fhjull, and the Pillar, and the million or so more xp available in Curst Gone.

There's -no freaking way- you got through even just that conversation and stayed level 8. It's flatly impossible. If you'd been doing fighter, it would've been ludicrous. As a mage, it's laughable.

I would've thought you lunatic for your whole "the brothel was horrible" rant alone, but the previous staggering bullshit you've attempted to pass off makes it clear you've got some sort of agenda and you're not even remotely interested in being honest.

Srsly. If you're going to troll, at least have the dignity to be remotely good at it. But being an ass and sucking at it? Wow. That's... that's serious fail right there.

Qwinn

 

[Qwinn]

Jesus. I was curious and had to check to see just how full of it you are, and omg. Hilarious.

THREE of those xp boosts on that list are to TNO ONLY. They aren't even split among the party. Even with a 9 INT, you couldn't have gotten through that conversation without getting at least 120k xp just to TNO (assuming you didn't take ANY of the optional dialogue paths to ask about Mebbeth and the Lady, etc., which would've gotten you another 180k xp just to TNO), plus at least another 400k xp split up among the party.

So even if you screwed up everything imaginable and ignored every optional dialogue, you'd still get at least 200k xp or so. It takes 135k xp to be a level 9 mage. And you couldn't get to Trias without going through at least another 2 million or so xp after Ravel. Face it man, you're completely busted.

Qwinn