Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Torment: Tides of Numenera

[Stokowski]

Good review.

Perplexing thread.

Oh, and Crispy , just fuck off and die. Your trolling is shit-tier, even for a moderator.

 

[Lord Andre]

jewboy
1. Knights of the Chalice despite having very low production values, also uses 3.5 and manages to create awesome encounters by drawing on the full monster manual and doing interesting combinations with them. So even though it only has 3 of the core classes, it's encounter design elevates its combat experience well over TOEE which despite having an excellent engine it sucks balls since said engine is never really used to even 10% of its potential.

I ended up preferring TOEE to KOTC because TOEE ends before 3.5 dnd caster supremacy starts to get really bad while the best KOTC party is simply some combination of clerics and mages, no fighters. KOTC absolutely has encounter issues though, specifically the interminable part of the game where you have to go to the regular giant area to fight the regular giants, the ice giant area to fight the ice giants, and the fire giant areas to fight the fire giants, where almost every enemy is just some flavor of giant who aren't even configured in any interesting ways. I found that part of the game more excruciating than anything in TOEE.

Seems to me like you got your ass kicked at KotC so you'd rather play the steamroller experience of ToEE. Low D&D is boring as fuck as well, but there's no accounting for taste I suppose. Boo hoo hoo... muh overpowered mages... boo hoo hoo...

 

[cruelio]

jewboy
1. Knights of the Chalice despite having very low production values, also uses 3.5 and manages to create awesome encounters by drawing on the full monster manual and doing interesting combinations with them. So even though it only has 3 of the core classes, it's encounter design elevates its combat experience well over TOEE which despite having an excellent engine it sucks balls since said engine is never really used to even 10% of its potential.

I ended up preferring TOEE to KOTC because TOEE ends before 3.5 dnd caster supremacy starts to get really bad while the best KOTC party is simply some combination of clerics and mages, no fighters. KOTC absolutely has encounter issues though, specifically the interminable part of the game where you have to go to the regular giant area to fight the regular giants, the ice giant area to fight the ice giants, and the fire giant areas to fight the fire giants, where almost every enemy is just some flavor of giant who aren't even configured in any interesting ways. I found that part of the game more excruciating than anything in TOEE.

Seems to me like you got your ass kicked at KotC so you'd rather play the steamroller experience of ToEE. Low D&D is boring as fuck as well, but there's no accounting for taste I suppose. Boo hoo hoo... muh overpowered mages... boo hoo hoo...

Me: this game is too easy because of DnD caster supremacy
You: "Sounds to me like you got your ass kicked."

Do you see how you need to do better in the future when you try to troll someone? It has to be related somehow to anything that person says. Anything at all.

 

[Maculo]

That's an understatement. Let's make an inventory:

(1) PS:T had a brilliant narrative premise that hooks the player immediately. T:ToN has a shitty premise that tries to imitate the original one.

(2) The narrative premise in PS:T was tied to every single element of the game, from the art, and the itemization, to the NPCs and the exploration of the game world, which is a journey of self-discovery. The narrative premise of T:ToN is dissociated from the art, the itemization, the NPCs, and the exploration of the game world, which feels like a weird theme park with nothing interesting to do.

(3) PS:T’s premise works because it makes the player suspicious of the game world and uncertain about himself. It’s based on a sense of self-doubt and mystery. T:ToN’s premise is handed on a platter from day one, and is promoted like a hot dog in those terrible kickstarter trailers. The premise is ham-fisted on you from the beginning, because the developers were afraid that the console audience wouldn’t understand the narrative.

(4) PS:T feels so well defined because it was written by one talented individual, which also happens to had one year to write all the content. He also provided an ultra-detailed visual document of the game before development. T:ToN concept was made in a hurry to cash in on the kickstarter fad. They choose a shallow PnP system with an awful setting without knowing in what they were getting into. Key feautures of the game were thrown around on kickstarter to increase the pledges, etc.

(5) PS:T was developed by a team of passionate gamers working together. T:ToN was developed by a team of veterans of the industry meeting on skype, who also happens to have other priorities in their lives, and a bunch of pretentious writers that know nothing about game design, writing or PS:T.

(6) The setting, the NPCs, the quests, the art and even the soundtrack of PS:T are memorable and lively. The setting, the NPCs, the quests, the art and the soundtrack of T:ToN are either bland and forgetable, or annoying.

(7) PS:T gives you freedom to role-play. T:ToN arbitrarily restricts your choices due to political correctness.

(8) PS:T is a strong game with strong themes. T:ToN is a mediocre game that treats strong themes in a mediocre and constricted manner.

(9) PS:T had bad combat that ends fast. T:ToN has even worse combat that takes forever.

I could increase this list all day long. If you look at these differences impartially, there is nothing surprising about the difference in quality between the two games.

At this point, I am dying to know what happened during development. It sounds like a mixture of "too many cooks" in the writing department and/or no consistent coders. Alternatively, perhaps it was a mistake to choose Numenera as the setting. The more I read about Numenera, the more it sounds like "lol so random" the setting. In contrast, PST had weird elements too, but it was not beyond reason.

Did WotC deny use of the license to DND or something?

 

[Lord Azlan]

I agree with some of the points in the review but what I struggle to comprehend is how the reviewer could possibly hate this game so much when he liked Pillars of Eternity. Praising that generic, dull mess of a game and having the audacity to say that this game was poorly written and verbose? Wow.

No, the writing was far better than pretty much any other video game for whatever that's worth, only surpassed by PST. There were plenty of choices and consequences, alternative quest solutions, reactivity based on what you've done (NPCs will acknowledge who is standing right next them, respond differently based on quests you've done up to that point, the order and method in which you completed those quests and your dominant tides), there are tons of skill checks (admittedly partially ruined due to them all being impossible to fail) and some of the areas like The Bloom are very memorable and interesting to explore. The combat isn't very good and is very easy, but still better than PST's and the developers were admirable in their choice to have almost no filler combat; virtually every other developer would've had adjoining rooms to The Underbelly filled with rats to kill or other such nonsense merely to pad out the game. The fact it still manages to come to a playtime of 30+ hours despite their refusal to pad it out is actually very impressive, much less worthy of scorn.

The cuts are a shame and their defence of it, as it turns out, was nonsense. The remaining companions are not especially fleshed out which is what they said would be the case in exchange for cutting 3 companions. None of them come close to the likes of Morte and Dak'kon and they're all fairly ordinary humans which is a waste, although a few of them are still quite good. The skill and effort systems are interesting ideas but very poorly executed as the review points out - you've got 0 points (inability) in Lore: Machinery? Who cares? You will still never fail to pass those checks. Character advancement, then, means nothing. Visuals and audio are whatever, fine I guess, nothing special but not awful like some seem to suggest aside from the character models which are gross and maybe once they fix the fucking permanent buff sounds you'll actually be able to hear the music.

8/10

I liked PoE quite a lot.

Agree with some of the things you say here. You are right to say the C&C and reactivity was done. Probably more than any recent RPG I can remember. I was never one who needed it as I tend not to play RPGs twice so I would never notice anything being different.

On some occasions NPC interacted by somehow knowing about something that had happened before - it was of tiny noteworthyness, like a checking a box on a list of 1,000 to do list.

It added something to the game but not to the overall quality to the game. A bit of innovation. Cool.

A nice abundance of skill checks and quite varied. Even smashing got a good going over. However, the way it was implemented meant a normal, average balanced party would pass them all. That was a terrible idea and meant the skill checks were almost like clicking another line in conversation. The line that interesting things happen on a failed skill check will probably never be fully explored. Examples? The ability to use the skills of the other characters broke this mechanism. Good idea but made no difference.

Really liked the Bloom. Graphics and sound in that area was of sufficient squishy and deeper probing about the creature and the consequences of those eaten alive were well done.

I think the PST combat was better - and it should not have been. Firstly, in Tides, about 3-4 instances in the entire game for compulsory combat was brave, but ultimately fail. Is combat mandatory in RPG? I would suggest yes. Turn based combat could have worked like D:OS which I thought was very innovative and creative. Tides combat was bugged and broken. At one point I had a fella knocked down for about three rounds surrounded by nearly ten enemies who somehow could not touch him. Some decided to go the long way around and not open a door. Others tried and failed to hit the fella, including human bad asses.

Some of the Tides combat felt a lot like Blackguards and even those guys did it better. With the pause button PST combat could get quite on the seat of your pants and movement of your team and the various spells came into play.

I think if you did not know about this game and there was no "Planescape" in the title, objectively, this game would be laughed out and sent back to school to finish its homework.

 

[duanth123]

At this point, I am dying to know what happened during development. It sounds like a mixture of "too many cooks" in the writing department and/or no consistent coders. Alternatively, perhaps it was a mistake to choose Numenera as the setting. The more I read about Numenera, the more it sounds like "lol so random" the setting. In contrast, PST had weird elements too, but it was not beyond reason.

Did WotC deny use of the license to DND or something?

Probably the sad truth is that no one in the game can write like Avellone in his prime, much less a retrospectivelly haphazard array of writers. It was a fool's venture from the first, led by a fool king.

• They do not possess the true fire. They speak of creation and they boast of their potential but they do not create anything beyond the mundane. Their imagination is poor, obsessed with the small details. A true Dreamer, I say, creates a grand scheme and then concentrates on the details. Starting with the details is for the ants of the imagination - the small insects who aspire only to be fed.

• Nihl Xander, Godsmen Engineer

 

[Lord Andre]

I have shit taste and I like regurgitating buzzwords I read on the internet.

'k

 

[Lurker King]

At this point, I am dying to know what happened during development.

You just need to have a glance at those Glassdoor reviews to have a vague idea of the amount of shit that happens behind closed doors. If we knew everything, the toxic attitude of the Codex would feel more than justified.

 

[Aenra]

Have not run the game nor am i really planning to, so cannot comment.
I do have to say however that PJ is good at this. He writes well. We should use him more often
(i said he writes well, not that he's always right mind)

For those of you following twitter and all that shit, any semi-"official" reaction from InXile or its employees thus far? Wouldn't mind me some extra butthurt, i mean we're already T3 for them, so am kinda curious to see what they brand us next, lol

 

[Darkzone]

Did WotC deny use of the license to DND or something?

WotC have opened the D&D system for any use under the OGL 1.0 (open game license). What is forbidden is the use of a setting and characters from any D&D campaigns. But there is something that could allow to use the Dark Sun setting under certain context.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

For those of you following twitter and all that shit, any semi-"official" reaction from InXile or its employees thus far?

Mostly just spamming out "Another 10/10 review from Console magazine!", from what I've seen. Although that has started dying down. And a mention of hiring the community manager.

Sadly it looks as though Colin won't be watching any of the excellent videos by Codexers though

 

[jewboy]

jewboy Boy, you are dumber than a second coat of paint.

Follow the quest compass:

You are the one who likes quest compass games buddy. Not me.

1. ToEE had a very very tight implementation of 3.5. Good.

It's neither good nor bad. How closely a developer follows a ruleset is not relevant to well anything.

The encounter design was shit.

The encounters were fun. More so than any other game every made probably. In the face of that some abstract ideal of 'encounter design' matters not at all.

diversity of enemies was shit. Bad.

Not much different than Pillars and again it doesn't matter because the combat is fun.

AI was shit. Bad.

Name a single cRPG where it wasn't. Writing good AI for enemies in a game is not easy and developers have a hard enough time without that.

Number 2 and 3 negate the advantages of 1.

Well one isn't an advantage so it doesn't matter.

I specifically mentioned the "bugbear conga line", which unless you are really bad at english, you would understand that it references an encounter with a shit-ton of bugbears that takes forever to finish in TB because you have to wait for each one to move. It takes forever and it would even cause the game performance to drop on the machines of the time.

The encounter you are referencing is one of my favorite in the entire game. I replay the game just to replay that encounter. If Pillars had even a single encounter that was even 1% as good I wouldn't think it was such piece of shit. You don't need highly complex encounters when you have superb combat mechanics. Those bugbears were great fun. I didn't find the combat sluggish. It worked fine on my machine.

Knights of the Chalice despite having very low production values, also uses 3.5 and manages to create awesome encounters by drawing on the full monster manual and doing interesting combinations with them. So even though it only has 3 of the core classes, it's encounter design elevates its combat experience well over TOEE which despite having an excellent engine it sucks balls since said engine is never really used to even 10% of its potential.

I haven't played KotC. It may very well be an excellent game, but not for the reasons you state. Lots of very very bad games closely followed D&D rulesets. It means next to nothing. Having a variety of monsters is nice but it does not make the difference between a game that is fun to play and one that is not. Enemy variety is not a core principle of computer game design imo. Lots of great games didn't have it and lots of terrible ones did.

Get it now, dimwit ?

What I get is that you are probably a retarded preteen unable to think in terms of broad principles or concepts and you are probably a Dragon Age lover.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Just saw this TTON review summary on GameBanshee... quite amusing seeing the scathing extract from the Codex amongst the 9.5/10s.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/118630-torment-tides-of-numenera-reviews-3.html

 

[Lord Andre]

Whoever is using the jewboy alt... You got me bro, I took the bait hook, line and sinker. Excellent trolling sir 10/10.

 

[Repulsive]

Almost as bad as Fallout 4.

 

[Lurker King]

Just saw this TTON review summary on GameBanshee... quite amusing seeing the scathing extract from the Codex amongst the 9.5/10s.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/118630-torment-tides-of-numenera-reviews-3.html

Deena Garriath • 20 hours ago
As a rule, the opinions of the RPG Codex are utterly worthless to people who aren't as obsessive-compulsive or nostalgia-blind as they are. They hate everything.

bolognaking • 6 hours ago
I love reading reviews on the Codex--it's practically its own form of entertainment lol. As far as the review goes, let's remember it's just the review of one member; many of the comments below it (on the Codex) disagree with the review and some even call it a 'bad/whiny review'.

I don't even.

 

[Gepeu]

Stop ruining my fun, with your facts and logics and objective statements and and and and, you meany haters. This review should be (((((shutdown))))) this instance. I cannot fully enjoy the game while some niche forum bashes it.

 

[Maculo]

At this point, I am dying to know what happened during development.

You just need to have a glance at those Glassdoor reviews to have a vague idea of the amount of shit that happens behind closed doors. If we knew everything, the toxic attitude of the Codex would feel more than justified.

I read the few that you posted, but I just cannot believe management let this slip. Surely, someone would have seen the cracks sooner? This project took years.

 

[ROARRR]

Deena Garriath
As a rule, the opinions of the RPG Codex are utterly worthless to people who aren't as obsessive-compulsive or nostalgia-blind as they are. They hate everything

If this shit does not work here the link with the right time
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...view-torment-tides-of-numenera.114144/page-13

ok here the real one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSFWgKl-O-A#t=1m34s

 

[iammarriedwithdeath]

I'm so glad someone (thank you, rpgcodex!) had "cojones" big enough to finally write a review like the one above. I wrote one on steam. It was my first review ever, and I have been thinking for a long time, whether should I do it, or not. Finally I've decided, that too many people were cheated and deceived with new Tides of Numenera (I on purpose do not use word Torment here). Every one of my thoughts were put in your article on rpgcodex. Basically everything you Guys wrote it a truth. This game is a joke, a fraud, and the biggest disappointment ever. People should know, and inXile should pay for it. Thank you, again!

And, if anyone would like to "see" my few cents on this, just click the link above. This is almost 5 million usd worth animation. Judge for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk_mWds1Zt4

PS. oh, there's one more thing. Game is bugged like hell. For instance, there's this one, very annoying bug with inspiration aura sound effect. It basically makes the game unplayable. It was reported more then a week ago. Devs promised to repair it. But still failed to make it. Instead gamers received their word on a new patch coming... within few weeks. What a joke! This is 2 minutes work! But it is obvious now, that inXile doesn't give a f%$# about us, gamers and clients.

 

[Valky]

Just saw this TTON review summary on GameBanshee... quite amusing seeing the scathing extract from the Codex amongst the 9.5/10s.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/118630-torment-tides-of-numenera-reviews-3.html

Just saw this TTON review summary on GameBanshee... quite amusing seeing the scathing extract from the Codex amongst the 9.5/10s.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/118630-torment-tides-of-numenera-reviews-3.html

Deena Garriath • 20 hours ago
As a rule, the opinions of the RPG Codex are utterly worthless to people who aren't as obsessive-compulsive or nostalgia-blind as they are. They hate everything.

bolognaking • 6 hours ago
I love reading reviews on the Codex--it's practically its own form of entertainment lol. As far as the review goes, let's remember it's just the review of one member; many of the comments below it (on the Codex) disagree with the review and some even call it a 'bad/whiny review'.

I don't even.

Jesus christ those commenters are cancer. Disrespecting the 'dex.

 

[Luckmann]

jewboy
1. Knights of the Chalice despite having very low production values, also uses 3.5 and manages to create awesome encounters by drawing on the full monster manual and doing interesting combinations with them. So even though it only has 3 of the core classes, it's encounter design elevates its combat experience well over TOEE which despite having an excellent engine it sucks balls since said engine is never really used to even 10% of its potential.

I ended up preferring TOEE to KOTC because TOEE ends before 3.5 dnd caster supremacy starts to get really bad while the best KOTC party is simply some combination of clerics and mages, no fighters. KOTC absolutely has encounter issues though, specifically the interminable part of the game where you have to go to the regular giant area to fight the regular giants, the ice giant area to fight the ice giants, and the fire giant areas to fight the fire giants, where almost every enemy is just some flavor of giant who aren't even configured in any interesting ways. I found that part of the game more excruciating than anything in TOEE.

Seems to me like you got your ass kicked at KotC so you'd rather play the steamroller experience of ToEE. Low D&D is boring as fuck as well, but there's no accounting for taste I suppose. Boo hoo hoo... muh overpowered mages... boo hoo hoo...

Me: this game is too easy because of DnD caster supremacy
You: "Sounds to me like you got your ass kicked."

Do you see how you need to do better in the future when you try to troll someone? It has to be related somehow to anything that person says. Anything at all.

This is fake news. I've trolled numerous people by posting things completely unrelated to what they were saying on multiple occasions. In fact, Lord of the Rings is a terrible series for numerous reasons, completely steamrolled by the vastly superior Bilbo trilogy.

 

[Valky]

ToEE had plenty of diversity. There were earth temple bugbears, water temple bugbears, fire temple bugbears, air temple bugbears, greater temple bugbears, and neutral bugbears.

Almost as much diversity as DAO .

As far as I know there weren't any gay bugbears in ToEE.

 

[Luckmann]

ToEE had plenty of diversity. There were earth temple bugbears, water temple bugbears, fire temple bugbears, air temple bugbears, greater temple bugbears, and neutral bugbears.

Almost as much diversity as DAO .

As far as I know there weren't any gay bugbears in ToEE.

Can we apply the immortal materialist science of marxian dialectics to quantifiably prove that an Earth-temple bugbear is in fact equal in terms of general diversity to a bisexual elven ninja? I would even argue that the bisexual elf is less diverse, because bugbears suffer both rampant speciecism and ableism whenever they interact with the majority population and the culturally normative.

 

[Valky]

ToEE had plenty of diversity. There were earth temple bugbears, water temple bugbears, fire temple bugbears, air temple bugbears, greater temple bugbears, and neutral bugbears.

Almost as much diversity as DAO .

As far as I know there weren't any gay bugbears in ToEE.

Can we apply the immortal materialist science of marxian dialectics to quantifiably prove that an Earth-temple bugbear is in fact equal in terms of general diversity to a bisexual elven ninja? I would even argue that the bisexual elf is less diverse, because bugbears suffer both rampant speciecism and ableism whenever they interact with the majority population and the culturally normative.

Cis-Elvens aren't diverse enough. A better comparison would be a bisexual (((Half-Elf))).