Torment So is Tides of Numenera actually worth a damn?

[Kyl Von Kull]

Wut? I actually find TToN just fine, like I said, apart from the aforementioned quirks.

I just don't get your points in relation to other popular games that did it pretty much exactly the same since the very beginning of rpgs.

Really. It's a staple of RPG's that most of your gold is going to go into renting a fucking bed while all items you'd ever want can be had for a pittance.

Dude, in both Saugus and The Bloom you can easily rest for free after completing a single quest from each innkeeper. That’s actually a problem because there aren’t enough timed quests so free resting trivializes everything. I wish TTON forced you to spend all your money on resting, the game would have required a lot more strategic planning that way.

 

[Sacred82]

Wut? I actually find TToN just fine, like I said, apart from the aforementioned quirks.

I just don't get your points in relation to other popular games that did it pretty much exactly the same since the very beginning of rpgs.

Really. It's a staple of RPG's that most of your gold is going to go into renting a fucking bed while all items you'd ever want can be had for a pittance.

No. Its a staple of rpgs going back to the beginning that they don't even include money sinks like restricted resting mechanics

If anything, resting at inns traditionally costs money and resting outdoors often comes with a chance for random encounters. How about if we stick to less transparent lies

that cost a lot of money and you just have tons of gold and nothing to spend it on. This really can't be argued.

Not true for e.g. any IE game ever

And I could be remembering wrong but I think there was a way for you to enter your mind and rest for free.

I played through the game once very quickly and haven't completed it again, it might be a late game thing but definitely not early on.

And I'm not saying I like this. I wish more games made gold far more valuable for far longer and had great and unique items to buy you were still saving for near end game. I wish upgrades after filling all your item slots became rare and tied to special loot and bosses or from rare and special vendors and cost way more gold than you have. I think BG2 and IWD 2 did a decent job of this I think.

yeah, the problem here isn't really not having a money sink. RESTING IS THE MONEY SINK. Like, a bed is literally the most valuable commodity in that world. That's retadred. I'm pointing that out because you might not be able to get it.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

yeah, the problem here isn't really not having a money sink. RESTING IS THE MONEY SINK. Like, a bed is literally the most valuable commodity in that world. That's retadred. I'm pointing that out because you might not be able to get it.

Resting refills all of your effort pools, which makes it far more valuable than resting in D&D. It needs to be expensive or else the whole Numenera ruleset falls apart. You missed two easy quests that made resting free in the two main hubs. Since you get those quests from the innkeepers, they are hard to miss.

But the real issue is that you’re asking for shitty design here. With TTON’s ruleset, there needs to be a strong deterrent to keep players from resting too frequently. Either a time limit or money. The thing that stopped most players from resting in Saugus was the murder investigation quest where another person died every time you slept.

 

[Roqua]

If anything, resting at inns traditionally costs money and resting outdoors often comes with a chance for random encounters. How about if we stick to less transparent lies

Traditionally resting at Inns costs almost nothing. You stated it was a gold sink in TToN. I don't remember if it was expensive or not. I know the games that come to mind where what you said is true (ToEE, IE games) it didn't feel like a gold sink or expensive. It was a pittance.

Not true for e.g. any IE game ever

In BG2 in the first map you get to out of the dungeon you can steal and resell to one guy with tons of high level weapons. It is 100% true for BG. And you skip my reference saying the IE games did a good job with this. This isn't saying they left some wife open holes in their system.

I played through the game once very quickly and haven't completed it again, it might be a late game thing but definitely not early on.

I'm almost certain if what I am saying is true it is opened earlier or around the same time as the Inn. I may not be remembering correctly but I think it is tied to a skill check and isn't possible for everyone. I could be wrong about the whole thing, but if I am right it was not opened late game.

yeah, the problem here isn't really not having a money sink. RESTING IS THE MONEY SINK. Like, a bed is literally the most valuable commodity in that world. That's retadred. I'm pointing that out because you might not be able to get it.

I completely understand what you are saying, and have from when you first said it. I really don't think you are putting any effort into trying to understand what I am saying. I criticized TToN not having better, more expensive upgrades in this game as a money goal to look forward to. Two of my favorite games did the same - ToEE and Blackguards. Another favorite of mine went a different route I disliked - WL2 with constant nickel and dime upgrades almost about as formulaic jrpg systems.

I can think a game is great and love it and still see what I believe to be its faults. I love Arcanum and the FOs and Underrail and AoD, etc, and think they all have major faults. Some may agree with what I fault them for. Others may not. But what I always try to do is have a constant narrative and not be a hypocrite with my criticisms, and point out myself when I am being a hypocrite.

 

[Sacred82]

Wut? I actually find TToN just fine, like I said, apart from the aforementioned quirks.

I just don't get your points in relation to other popular games that did it pretty much exactly the same since the very beginning of rpgs.

Really. It's a staple of RPG's that most of your gold is going to go into renting a fucking bed while all items you'd ever want can be had for a pittance.

Dude, in both Saugus and The Bloom you can easily rest for free after completing a single quest from each innkeeper. That’s actually a problem because there aren’t enough timed quests so free resting trivializes everything. I wish TTON forced you to spend all your money on resting, the game would have required a lot more strategic planning that way.

I knew about the Bloom, not about Sagus Cliffs. Note that TToN isn't meant to be a 'tell me about all your problems, I need that XP' kind of game. If the conversation option that you need to choose to open up a quest line is phrased e.g. very sympathetically, not every character would even go there. Just like you can close off the entire submerged structure in the reef of fallen words by choosing any of the 4 'lies' instead of the one truthful answer (which neither you nor your character know to be the truth, funnily enough). You can try to play it like a traditional quest collecting RPG ofc, question is why you'd do that as other games do that much better and it defeats the whole point of the game.

 

[Sacred82]

yeah, the problem here isn't really not having a money sink. RESTING IS THE MONEY SINK. Like, a bed is literally the most valuable commodity in that world. That's retadred. I'm pointing that out because you might not be able to get it.

Resting refills all of your effort pools, which makes it far more valuable than resting in D&D. It needs to be expensive or else the whole Numenera ruleset falls apart. You missed two easy quests that made resting free in the two main hubs. Since you get those quests from the innkeepers, they are hard to miss.

I didn't miss them (see above)

Since when do meta-game reasons make in-game design not retarded? "Dude, our armor system is somehow fucked up, so OF COURSE any old dagger is worth more than a magic greatsword, that's why it costs you the equivalent of half a kingdom. Then again, you can get several daggers as a gift from street orphans and stable boys if you do some fetch quests for them, you just missed that lolol usux"

But the real issue is that you’re asking for shitty design here. With TTON’s ruleset, there needs to be a strong deterrent to keep players from resting too frequently. Either a time limit or money. The thing that stopped most players from resting in Saugus was the murder investigation quest where another person died every time you slept.

I already pointed out how to get around this. Give the player more incentives to not deplete any stat pool within 1-2 tasks, and give the player something else worthwhile to spend their money on. If combat was more challenging, you'd be upgrading weapons and buying new cyphers constantly.

 

[Roqua]

Resting refills all of your effort pools, which makes it far more valuable than resting in D&D. It needs to be expensive or else the whole Numenera ruleset falls apart. You missed two easy quests that made resting free in the two main hubs. Since you get those quests from the innkeepers, they are hard to miss.

I agree but just want to point out that casters in D&D had their spells refilled by resting, very similarly to effort pools. Games like NWN2 just decided that rest spamming was more fun for their target audience than having the whole ruleset fall apart.

 

[Roqua]

Since this is completely subjective I can't say you are wrong.

This a heavy writing game with C&C gameplay. If you belive that there are no standards to discuss the writing, any further discussion about this game with you is pointless. Have a nice day, sir!

Are you saying this game didn't have standards for writing? That it wasn't chock full o'writing? It had standards. The only question is if people liked it or not. Lowbrow monkey cretins didn't, but love games with, in my opinion, far worse writing. If you are so biased and prestigious that you do not think a reasonable person with reasonable expectations for quality writing could think the writing in TToN was done well, and that the writing is bad by objective standards, you are too far gone into la-la crazy land to discuss anything with.

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

Are you saying this game didn't have standards for writing? That it wasn't chock full o'writing? It had standards. The only question is if people liked it or not. Lowbrow monkey cretins didn't, but love games with, in my opinion, far worse writing. If you are so biased and prestigious that you do not think a reasonable person with reasonable expectations for quality writing could think the writing in TToN was done well, and that the writing is bad by objective standards, you are too far gone into la-la crazy land to discuss anything with.

The setting was utterly shit, practically not even a setting at all since it rejected all structure. You can find some ancient powerful wonder hidden away, but no-one will care about it and who knows, there's probably an even older, more powerful one hidden around the next corner too, so why does it matter? Planescape had a lot of random stuff and out-there secrets, but there was still an overarching cosmology, which there isn't for Numenera.

At least when Pillars had those irritating golden guys with the backstories you could read, they did it for backer money, which is a perfectly decent reason.

The plot was pretty bad, for example the foreshadowing of the destruction of that big Castoff hideaway was completely hamfisted. When the main macguffin suddenly came spinning into the throne room in the Bloom and the Sorrow popped up too, I was so disgusted by how clearly the plot had been mangled by cuts that I just quit playing right there. The characters were mediocre to bad too, not even interesting enough for me to remember anything about them to criticise. But I do remember reading that the writers deliberately chose to have boring companions as a relief from the out-there setting.

The style of the writing was thesaurus bloat with extra single-use made up words. I can easily read that, but there better be a payoff after wading through all the guff, and there wasn't in this game. Reading it felt like eating lard.

 

[Roqua]

Are you saying this game didn't have standards for writing? That it wasn't chock full o'writing? It had standards. The only question is if people liked it or not. Lowbrow monkey cretins didn't, but love games with, in my opinion, far worse writing. If you are so biased and prestigious that you do not think a reasonable person with reasonable expectations for quality writing could think the writing in TToN was done well, and that the writing is bad by objective standards, you are too far gone into la-la crazy land to discuss anything with.

The setting was utterly shit, practically not even a setting at all since it rejected all structure. You can find some ancient powerful wonder hidden away, but no-one will care about it and who knows, there's probably an even older, more powerful one hidden around the next corner too, so why does it matter? Planescape had a lot of random stuff and out-there secrets, but there was still an overarching cosmology, which there isn't for Numenera.

The plot was pretty bad, for example the foreshadowing of the destruction of that big Castoff hideaway was completely hamfisted. When the main macguffin suddenly came spinning into the throne room in the Bloom and the Sorrow popped up too, I was so disgusted by how clearly the plot had been mangled by cuts that I just quit playing right there. The characters were mediocre to bad too, not even interesting enough for me to remember anything about them to criticise. But I do remember reading that the writers deliberately chose to have boring characters as a relief from the out-there setting.

The style of the writing was thesaurus bloat with extra single-use made up words. I can easily read that, but there better be a payoff after wading through all the guff, and there wasn't in this game. Reading it felt like eating lard.

What you wrote is pretty much how I feel about PST. Except I kept my criticism of PST to what I did for all the IE games - the objectively bad retard combat. I think PST was a decent crpg and the crpg world richer for it having been made and crpg fans are better off for having played it, even though I was not a personal fan of most parts/aspects of it. There is a huge gap between me not being a fan of something and me thinking something is abject shit. I try to be sane, reasonable, and able to have a consistent and coherent narrative. I don't see many people shitting on TToN doing that in any objective way. Especially when they claim they do as they write completely subjective explanations.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

The themepark setting.
The dial-it-up-to-eleven purple prose.
The absolutely shit engine.
The unity animations.

Nothing subjective about these. You are obviously free to like these things. A lot of people don't.

 

[Xeon]

Played it recently after several people said it was really good overall or something.

Played it until the bloom I think, the part after you meet the girl who sacrifices herself against the big dude. Anyway disliked the game. The story wasn't that great and I think someone said Cipher was really good for getting the most out of the game but I don't know man, a lot of times their thoughts is the same as what they are saying or you get the same thing with a persuasion or something I feel so it didn't feel like anything special, also a lot of times you can't tell people I caught your lie so why not fess up or something beneficial to you, its like ok, lets just move on. Would have been nice if it was a little bit like in Divinity 2 with the mind reading where you can get hidden secrets or something.

Barely any combat, even Torment with its shitty combat had some pace changes instead of the constant text walls. Most combat was related to the cult in the second area, other than that almost no combat unless you intentionally choose a bad response or something.

I went with the little girl, the jelly and the assassin girl, a lot of people praised the little girl, the jelly and assassin girl showed up while following the main quest so I stuck with those.

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

What you wrote is pretty much how I feel about PST. Except I kept my criticism of PST to what I did for all the IE games - the objectively bad retard combat. I think PST was a decent crpg and the crpg world richer for it having been made and crpg fans are better off for having played it, even though I was not a personal fan of most parts/aspects of it. There is a huge gap between me not being a fan of something and me thinking something is abject shit. I try to be sane, reasonable, and able to have a consistent and coherent narrative. I don't see many people shitting on TToN doing that in any objective way. Especially when they claim they do as they write completely subjective explanations.

But PST has a setting acting as a frame of reference for all the random wacky stuff; Numenera doesn't. PST had cuts to its later acts, but nowhere near as bad as Numenera's. PST's writing style was nowhere near as dense as Numenera's, and it delivered more. Even Planescape's combat was good in terms of looking cool and being over quickly, whereas Numenera was so horribly slow.

But what really tips people over into trashing Numenera is how pretentious and smug both the game and its creators were. If it was made by some random indie dev we might even give it limited praise with caveats. But because it was made by established people claiming the Torment mantle, it's judged by a high standard, and is therefore utter shit.

 

[Malpercio]

The last area is good and there are some decent ideas, but the rest is overwritten and kills any fun you could possibly have with the game. With a decent editor the game would have been at least a decent way to pass time, but in its current state it's just no_fun. Also the setting is awful. Even worse than a generic D&D copy.

Just replay Planescape or something.

 

[Roqua]

Even Planescape's combat was good in terms of looking cool and being over quickly

I really hate combat watchers making statements about combat. Combat is supposed to be fun to play, not cool to watch. If the best thing about combat is that it looks cool and is over quick - it is abject shit.

And in both games I spacebarred/clicked quickly through the story because I play games for the game part. I watch movies and read books for quality story. The stories in bith were equally bloated and equally badly implemented. You critique the setting when neither game invented theirs and both borrowed it along with the pnp system used. I

Just replay Planescape or something.

This mindset from children really bothers me. Why would any sane, reasonable person want less of something similar that they like? It is retarded kid-think. Why should they make an Avengers 2 when we can all just rewatch Avengers over and over? Why would I want an author I like to make a new book when I can read their last book over and over?

Like any sane, reasonable person I want more of what I like. TToN, to me, was PST with much better rpg systems and combat. If storyclowns are going to shit on it because they, subjectively, disliked the story less than in PST - why bother shitting on the systems it objectively did better or were at least comparable to other loved games within the genre? Why does consistency not count? Because close-minded shills are going to stay stupid shit to look cool to the hivemind hipsters they are trying to impress by bloviating and hot air.

Its like the Democrats currently trying to explain why the extremely more recent and far more credible claims against Ellison, while they openly threaten or dismiss his accuser while claiming the 36 year old claims that have been denied by the only Kavanaugh witness are super credible and the accuser should just be believed...because...just because okay?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Roqua

You're contradicting yourself, then you're incoherent.

Well, if you like BT4 and Numenera, good for you, really, i can say you're going to enjoy a lot of games in the future because the industry isn't going to stop developing this kind of "amazing" games just made for you, really, i mean it, on the other hand, us PST fans have nothing to look forward to, i'm afraid.

 

[Roqua]

You're contradicting yourself, then you're incoherent.

How so?

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Like any sane, reasonable person I want more of what I like.

 

[Sizzle]

Why would any sane, reasonable person want less of something similar that they like?

We did expect more of something similar we like. Which is exactly why T:ToN was such a huge disappointment - it was nothing like PS:T.

Instead of refining PS:T's formula, it amplified its worst parts: Combat is bad? Let's make it even worse! The original was considered too wordy in places? Triple the word count and then brag about it on social media like it's some indicator of quality! Weird companions? Make them mundane and boring - this will make them stand out in Numenera!

It took everything that was good about PS:T - the way that the story's themes resonated throughout the game, how well the PC was integrated not just into the setting, but also its past and the fates of most major characters, how gaining a new ability or +1 to your statistics actually mattered and made a change - and pissed on it with subpar design, laziness, and inept management.

Why should they make an Avengers 2 when we can all just rewatch Avengers over and over?

Considering how much of a shitty movie Avenger 2 was - yeah, you would be better off just rewatching the first one.

Why would I want an author I like to make a new book when I can read their last book over and over?

Why would anyone want an author they like to make an awful new book that he tries to present as much better than all his past works, an evolution of his style and themes, both in terms of prose, as well as overall narrative quality, only to have it turn out so bad that it makes you sad to see a once-magnificent author stoop to such deplorable levels of inane drivel that never would have gotten published if not for their superior older novels?

So, yeah, it comes down to reading a good old book you know you will enjoy (no matter that you know its story by heart), or reading a shit new one just because it's new and declaring it good because you need your fix - quality be damned!

 

[Cael]

Why would anyone want an author they like to make an awful new book that he tries to present as much better than all his past works, an evolution of his style and themes, both in terms of prose, as well as overall narrative quality, only to have it turn out so bad that it makes you sad to see a once-magnificent author stoop to such deplorable levels of inane drivel that never would have gotten published if not for their superior older novels?

You mean like Lord of the Rings defined an entire genre and 4th Ed takes a dump all over it? :D

 

[Roguey]

Combat is bad? Let's make it even worse!

ToN's combat was better.

 

[Sizzle]

Combat is bad? Let's make it even worse!

ToN's combat was better.

No :D It's buggy, agonizingly slow and boring, and, while it does have more options than PS:T's combat, that complexity is badly designed and designed, and is wasted on this game.

 

[Roguey]

It's buggy, agonizingly slow and boring, and, while it does have more options than PS:T's combat, that complexity is badly designed and designed, and is wasted on this game.

Worked on my machine, didn't feel slow to me, and I thought it was fun and tense enough (not overwhelmingly so, but that clearly wasn't a goal).

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

Even Planescape's combat was good in terms of looking cool and being over quickly

I really hate combat watchers making statements about combat. Combat is supposed to be fun to play, not cool to watch. If the best thing about combat is that it looks cool and is over quick - it is abject shit.

Personally I don't even want great combat gameplay from RPGs, because combat gameplay is competitive; however hard someone tries to make singleplayer combat interesting, at the end of the day you're still only versus an AI, which it ultimately lame. Since combat is competitive, it's much better suited to a multiplayer game with a ranking system, where enemies can scale and level up as you do, like DotA2. The part of combat that best fits with an RPG is the flashy fantasy aspect where you get to try out new spells, weapons, party members and enemies, not the gameplay itself. So in my eyes, Planescape actually has great combat.

And in both games I spacebarred/clicked quickly through the story because I play games for the game part. I watch movies and read books for quality story.

You should play DotA2, it's great.

The stories in bith were equally bloated and equally badly implemented. You critique the setting when neither game invented theirs and both borrowed it along with the pnp system used.

Numenera refuses to create an overarching structure. It doesn't even discuss how the previous Nine Worlds compare to each other, and what sort of relics come from each, which is the absolute first thing I would write if I was working on it. The Numenera 'setting' is purely a justification for having absolute junkheap randomness. It's not really a setting at all. Planescape is a perfectly decent setting, maybe even above average. In contrast to Numenera's refusal to discuss the Nine Worlds, Planescape has a system of alignment-ordered planes.

TToN, to me, was PST with much better rpg systems and combat.

Both games have the same system: max your mental stats. But in Planescape it was fun to root out those little +1 to wisdom stat bonuses, that didn't really occur in TToN. TToN's combat.... lol.

subjectively

Actually, it's my views that are objective. And when people disagree with me, their views are subjective.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

So in my eyes, Planescape actually has great combat.