Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Ezrite]

Oh, you poor innocent child. Do you really want to know an answer to this question?

Oh...I read it as love-slab. Now...I think I get it. Oh...Skyrim...yeah.

No, probably not.


They're called the developers.

Probably not.

 

[Parabalus]

I feel like the point I really realised this was a bad turn based system was when I was alt tabbed watching entire youtube videos in the time it took my turn to come around in a Crisis, just like Wasteland 2. Something about InExile makes them think that having enemy turns that last for 5 minutes is good game design, I don't know what it is but whoever came up with that one can be flipping burgers at McDonald's plzthxty

I played some of the larger Crises on 10x speed with Cheat Engine. That's worse than Underrail or AoD, game also got a bit wonky on that high a setting.

In the PnP, they're 1/3 of your character, and can have a profound effect on what you are, ranging from "who is literally on fucking fire" ("Bears a Halo of Fire") to "who is practically the hulk with claws" ("Gazes into the Abyss"). It determines whether you're Batman or Magneto, a musketeer, witch-doctor, cyborg, rock-thrower, or a hovering drone. Since I've taken the decision to run this generally-accepted-to-be-cancer system in the near future, I've actually started (WIP) compiling a list of PnP foci here. Note that this covers an extremely wide selection and the GM is meant to police what's available depending on the game.

And out of these, we get "You're better at talking", "You get bonuses to stealth", and "You don't suck at defense". The worst thing is that two of those, Breathes Shadow and Brandishes a Silver Tongue, are actually interesting in the PnP book. The former basically turns you into a Shadewalker or Shadowdancer type deal, while the latter is written as to sound like you're literally poetry incarnate - it's not just that you're better at talking, it's that you're basically Hitler if he'd been a poet instead of a world savior.

And while I have only played extremely little Tides of Numenera so far (swamped in school work), I cannot imagine that Foci can be shared. Each CNPC has a unique Foci, and even in the PnP it's repeatedly emphasized that only a single player should ever have a specific Foci. There's lots of Foci (in the PnP) that have abilities that affect your allies, but that's not the same, and there's a very particular, specific foci ("Forges a Bond", which is not in ToN) that allows you to share Foci with someone you've made a life-bond with. And since we know that you only get to pick one out of three foci that are thrown at you as part of a quest in ToN, I wouldn't get my hopes up - even though Forges a Bond would be a very appropriate Foci for the game (if worked into CNPC dialogues).

All in all, ToN is based on a system that is mostly recognized as being "not that great", yet it still fails to do it justice, even on it's strongest points, in addition to not delivering something that's been described as being part of the core game during the Kickstarter pitch. Foci being an afterthought in a Numenera game is not OK.

...

Just to give a different perspective, as somebody who hasn't touched PnP, you just won't care that much about foci. Your foci doesn't get mentioned after the first 1 hour and you just couldn't give less of a fuck. It's basically a bonus which is less that half a tier, ie. a missed opportunity doesn't mean much to you when you don't know what you're missing, it doesn't affect most Codexers.

But if they have the proper skills and "work for you", that's what would happen, no? I was also very critical of the idea that you can burn your stats to beat checks, but Deep Ocean mentioned in the other thread that this makes your skill checks more active, and I have to agree.

It's unpolished - you can have Eritis snap someones neck and the animation will show you doing it. They disable it in a lot of cases where it makes sense, so the few times it doesn't it stick out.

 

[Sranchammer]

People still buy games at release?

 

[Mikeal]

The best thing for now is loading time. Compared to W2, POE, T and beta performence, loading bar run as bastard child of Speedy Gonzalez and Flash. Damm my tea is still hot, when I enter new location and that's something I didn't see in the long time.

 

[HoboForEternity]

WTF is loverslab?

heaven for virgins, teens, degenerates, and people with impossible or illegal sexual fantasies

 

[Efe]

those of you playing, how is release quality? should wait for patches?

 

[Luckmann]

People still buy games at release?

Yarr harr harr.

The best thing for now is loading time. Compared to W2, POE, T and beta performence, loading bar run as bastard child of Speedy Gonzalez and Flash. Damm my tea is still hot, when I enter new location and that's something I didn't see in the long time.

Not going to lie just to be contrarian - this is correct. Sure, I'm on an SSD, but after having played W2, PoE and Ty, I must say that the loading times are really, really, really fast.

 

[Lurker King]

Why fight the truth? It's quite obvious now they never intended to make a true PS:T successor.

If they tried to do that, it would be even worse. Do you ever saw a great game that is a spiritual sucessor, or it is paying homage to a classic?

 

[Ezrite]

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?697888-Numenera-W-T-F-Monte

This community is fucking weird to. That "Succubus" probably slept with less people than these angry liberals.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?697888-Numenera-W-T-F-Monte

This community is fucking weird to. That "Succubus" probably slept with less people than these angry liberals.

Why do you think they're really angry?

 

[Lurker King]

Regarding the party control out of combat, ksaun said that he was the one who decided to cut full party navigation from the game early on to save resources. It was like that from the very first alpha.

That's the magick word: "resources". They didn't have the funds to make everything they wanted. I bet they also burn part of this money on W2. That is the reality of crowfunding, kids. Or maybe it's just that Fargo can't handle money properly.

 

[Ezrite]

Why do you think they're really angry?

I can think of a ton of things, Im a Swedish citizen so I see and hear em every day...But yeah!

 

[Luckmann]

Why do you think they're really angry?

I can think of a ton of things, Im a Swedish citizen so I see and hear em every day...But yeah!

Swedish, or a Swedish citizen?

 

[Lurker King]

I noticed this as well. Much as the Codex hates it (and I don't like it either), a lot of "old school" PC gamers who lived and breathed PC games in the 80s and 90s stop playing games altogether

Fixed.

 

[prodigydancer]

If they tried to do that, it would be even worse. Do you ever saw a great game that is a spiritual sucessor, or it is paying homage to a classic?

You probably won't agree but both WL2 and PoE were good enough for me.

The problem is usually some kind of middle ground approach when instead of honestly saying "X is a great source of inspiration but we have our own ideas so don't expect anything closely resembling X" the developers try to play the nostalgia card without actually following through on their promises. You can't have your cake and eat it. It's either sticking to the original's formula and largely foregoing your ambitions, or being careful with namedropping but enjoying your creative freedom.

And that's what happened to TToN. If they didn't shower us with false promises, they wouldn't have to make any bad compromises, and no reasonable person would scorn them today for breaking their word.

This is, of course, without taking the console version into account. Consolization is pure poison that destroys or at least maims everything it touches.

 

[Lurker King]

The writers are obviously trying to tube-feed agendas down your eye sockets, which is grotesque and unsubtle, even un-art-like.

That is why TNO was a leathery, scarred man, as opposed to a semi-androgynous nothingness.

But muh social agenda.

It Follows. It's a movie where a force assumes the form of normal people and stalks the main character. It works well, because it's framed in such a way as to convert normalcy into fear. This depends on the context, Hellraiser wouldn't work with normal people. Exactly how PS:T wouldn't work with the cast of DA:I. The themes are too strong for such mediocrity to thrive. I don't actually know where I'm going with this, what I do know, however, is that character designs tell us a lot, both about the work we are consuming and the writers themselves. And that not being extreme enough cheapens extreme themes, like that of suffering. What Numanuma's designs are telling me is that it's bland and cardboardy.

 

[Ismaul]

People still buy games at release?

No, now we buy them before they're even made. Get with the times man.

 

[Lurker King]

You probably won't agree but both WL2 and PoE were good enough for me.

Being good enough doesn’t make it great.

The problem is usually some kind of middle ground approach when instead of honestly saying "X is a great source of inspiration but we have our own ideas so don't expect anything closely resembling X" the developers try to play the nostalgia card without actually following through on their promises.

Which is precisely what Obsidian did with PoE.

You can't have your cake and eat it. It's either sticking to the original's formula and largely foregoing your ambitions, or being careful with namedropping but enjoying your creative freedom.

Dropping mage duels, hard counters and overpowered items in PoE is not sticking to the original formula.

And that's what happened to TToN. If they didn't shower us with false promises, they wouldn't have to make any bad compromises, and no reasonable person would scorn them today for breaking their word.

I disagree:

What made PS:T special was an interesting narrative premise tied to the gameplay. The exploration of the game world and your companions it’s a journey of self-discovery and suspicion. The premise is clever, but it can work just one time before the novelty wears off. So the idea that the narrative premise of ToN could be both similar and mysterious was destined to fail from day one. What made the nameless one interesting is his obscure past, but you can’t have the same past without the same narrative premise that you already know. In fact, the idea that you can make a new classic as a spiritual successor of another classic is idiotic. You are not using the same premise, the same setting, the same character, etc. Even if you could choose these things, it would feel flat, because the game is a classic due to the narrative concept and you already know the concept. A spiritual successor can’t be a classic because is not trying to do its own thing.

 

[Ezrite]

Swedish, or a Swedish citizen?

On paper im Swedish, My mother is Danish and im born in the Scanian region, conquered in the 1600's from Denmark in a fluke Danish invasion. So...im Scanian half Danish. Fucking Swedes.

 

[Ravn7]

After 2h in, I find two things irritating.

I've always assumed these portraits where just placeholders and in the full game it would be possible to choose a portrait and appearance. And I had no idea both sexes would look almost the same. Now it feels like my character looked like a moron.

First two companions you meet don't seem interesting at all. I's something exactly the opposite of PS:T.

 

[Parabalus]

After 2h in, I find two things irritating.

I've always assumed these portraits where just placeholders and in the full game it would be possible to choose a portrait and appearance. And I had no idea both sexes would look almost the same. Now it feels like my character looked like a moron.

First two companions you meet don't seem interesting at all. I's something exactly the opposite of PS:T.

The third one sucks too, the final 3 are the best imo.

 

[Sigourn]

Okay, I have to ask because I feel like I'm going crazy here.

Does anyone here actually like the absurd amount of non-dialogue text? I feel like without it I would be way ahead in the game. This pointless commentary does absolutely nothing for me, but I just can't skip it because I may also be skipping the good bits. I got the rapist-Indian-looking companion, and his backstory (or what I've asked from him so far) bored me to death as well. Why is this happening? Am I actually wrong and this is "good writing"? Because I don't remember PS:T being like this when it came to prose. Sure, it was long winded at times, but it never seemed so banal, so Eye of Argonish.

I draw a comparison few will like here, but it works just the same: I started playing Persona 4, just trying out an emulator. The game has almost no prose at all. Only the minimum necessary that is actually useful. And it worked. Because while the NPCs are anything but "otherwordly", it kept the story going. Why do devs insist in prose that literally serves no purpose to you, on using descriptions for feelings you may simply not give a shit about? Since when do we care how is the wind feeling, unless it is actually important that we know how it feels? If modding these games was easy, you bet I would make my own mod that removes all the unnecesary prose.

Oh, and my favorite: mambo jumbo of names you know shit about.

Spoiler

I don't see myself finishing this any time soon, since it's too much text for me to handle at a normal pace. There's a fine balance between dialogue, prose, and gameplay, and this game is clearly skewed towards the middle one. Especially when it describes NPCs that sound interesting, but otherwise look exactly the same as any other NPC: a normal human being.

Here's hoping some developers man up and start making use of art whenever you are talking to certain NPCs or inspecting certain things, so you can actuallly get to see the shit you are being described.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Oh...I read it as love-slab.

I always read it as lover-slab, which makes me think it's something to do with necrophilia. For all I know that's exactly what it is.

 

[Alienman]

Swedish, or a Swedish citizen?

On paper im Swedish, My mother is Danish and im born in the Scanian region, conquered in the 1600's from Denmark in a fluke Danish invasion. So...im Scanian half Danish. Fucking Swedes.

Free Scania from the Swedes!

 

[Haplo]

Dropping mage duels, harsh counters and overpowered items in PoE is not sticking to the original formula.

Eh, there's plenty of seriously overpowered items in PoE. Not many hard counters perhaps, but having items that boost defense vs an ailment by +30 is pretty damn good and should generally be enough.
Mage duels are indeed notably absent.