Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Quillon]

I don't think inXile are in touch with reality, why would you release something like Torment for consoles? It makes no sense.

Because the publisher who is funding the rest of your development wants a multiplatform release

So it was techland's decision? Did techland also dictate the game was gonna be TB?(TB: easy to make primitive system for the slow minded, friendly with console controls).

Butthurt backers were the ones who demanded turn-based. But from I've seen so far, it looks pretty good. Real time would probably be worse.

What I tried to hint was inXile made the decision that the game will be TB, despite planescape was RTwP and they released Wasteland 2 to console so it could be that inXile themselves wanted to port it to consoles so they chose TB ...or they thought they were incompetent for making RTwP like most indie rpg devs and chose TB.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

PoE is shit, W2 is shit, SR is shit, ToN is shit. Big kickstarter bulshit. Fuck these studios.

What games do you like?

Recent cRPGs? “Age of Decadence”, “Underrail”, “Battle Brothers”, “Serpent in the Staglands”, “NEO Scavanger”, “Dungeon Rats”, “The Banner Saga”. There are others cRPGs I intend to play, but I didn't have the time. I also played other non-cRPG games that are interesting more recently, but know I need to focus on one cRPG classic at a time.

What makes The Banner Saga better than Shadowrun Returns? Both have turn based combat systems.

In before you say you never tried Dragonfall or Hong Kong...

 

[Ismaul]

Oh, they are catering to new demographics all right. That’s their mission in every segment of society. But I don’t think they thought that SJW sensibilities would increase their sales on consoles. I think that they think it’s their mission to talk about these themes even if it can hurt the sales due to your target audience sensibilities. It’s the opposite really. They are so convinced that these ham fisted agendas are normal and morally imperative that the thought of doing otherwise didn't occur to them.

Oh I'm not saying the writers or publishers SJW-ed the game to get an audience on console, we all know there are many writers on a personal mission to "educate".

I'm saying that when the port was commited to, they thought they could get an audience with that kind of game. What audience, we asked? So speculation followed, and I presumed the Final Fantasy crowd, and SJW crowd. Who else would play that on consoles? Consoles are for couch stuff, lazy mind shit, ergo with Torment, that would have to be a crowd that pretends to be sophisticated, I would think.

Now if inXile management/Techland didn't even think about their target audience before deciding to port, they are definitely totally incompetent. But I wouldn't think they're that dumb. So they must've had a target demo.

 

[Projas]

What I tried to hint was inXile made the decision that the game will be TB, despite planescape was RTwP and they released Wasteland 2 to console so it could be that inXile themselves wanted to port it to consoles so they chose TB ...or they thought they were incompetent for making RTwP like most indie rpg devs and chose TB.

You are making it sound like those are the only possible reasons why a game might be turn based.

 

[Lurker King]

What makes The Banner Saga better than Shadowrun Returns? Both have turn based combat systems.

In before you say you never tried Dragonfall or Hong Kong...

The combat, the writing, the art, etc. Banner Saga could be a much superior game if it wasn’t held down by its rigid narrative structure, but at least you can make interesting combos, etc. Shadowrun is just painfully shallow. I even played two of these games in order to ascertain whether I was right. What a waste of time. I miss the good old days when the only popamole cRPGs were triple-A FPSs that don’t pretend to be something else.

 

[Infinitron]

What I tried to hint was inXile made the decision that the game will be TB, despite planescape was RTwP and they released Wasteland 2 to console so it could be that inXile themselves wanted to port it to consoles so they chose TB ...or they thought they were incompetent for making RTwP like most indie rpg devs and chose TB.

You are making it sound like those are the only possible reasons why a game might be turn based.

I spoke with Brother None frequently when the combat system decision was made. As far as I can tell, they just preferred turn-based. Brother None personally despises RTwP and he must have lobbied strongly against it.

I raised the possibility once that they'd gone with turn-based because it's simpler to design/implement than RTwP. He seemed dismissive of that idea.

 

[Quillon]

What I tried to hint was inXile made the decision that the game will be TB, despite planescape was RTwP and they released Wasteland 2 to console so it could be that inXile themselves wanted to port it to consoles so they chose TB ...or they thought they were incompetent for making RTwP like most indie rpg devs and chose TB.

You are making it sound like those are the only possible reasons why a game might be turn based.

Yes I am.

 

[ArchAngel]

Not true, he knows how to sell steel at platinum price, I mean, he is a genius, doesn't risk his money and still people pay him for smoke.

Maybe he is not an honest person, but he knows how to make money, at least concede that to him.

I concede that he knows how to inherit a fortune, pose as tycoon, and fool alt-right. In order to have business sense, the amount of money he earns must be higher than the amount of money he burns.

I see you are talking about Trump :mrpresident:

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's not InXile that's out of touch with reality, it's Techland. InXile actually made an pretty good fucking deal. Techland fronts the bill for marketing, publishing, shipping, dealing with retailers, and pays for two console ports. And what does Techland get in return? Console sales, which obviously will be shit. There's no chances in seven hell Techland breaks even on this deal.

InXile, on the other hand?

I really doubt it's that bleak of an outlook. The people in Techland who decided on this partnership can't be totally retarded, they probably looked at W2 and D:OS numbers and thought it'd work out even in the worse case scenario.

But hey, Techland going under means the Kodex wins in the end.
No, it's actually pretty tastefully done.

Its possible Techland were sort of porfolio building, and are prepared to take some losses. This is their first serious contract as a publisher. Publishing T:TTON probably made sense because it's a high-profile game that's, you know, not high-profile.

 

[Lurker King]

Oh I'm not saying the writers or publishers SJW-ed the game to get an audience on console, we all know there are many writers on a personal mission to "educate".

I'm saying that when the port was commited to, they thought they could get an audience with that kind of game. What audience, we asked? So speculation followed, and I presumed the Final Fantasy crowd, and SJW crowd. Who else would play that on consoles? Consoles are for couch stuff, lazy mind shit, ergo with Torment, that would have to be a crowd that pretends to be sophisticated, I would think.

Now if inXile management/Techland didn't even think about their target audience before deciding to port, they are definitely totally incompetent. But I wouldn't think they're that dumb. So they must've had a target demo.

The main mistake you can make in these discussions is assuming that developers have any interest whatsoever in cRPGs or player's preferences, especially someone like Fargo. Their thought process it's much more shallow and cynic than that. He probably understood after W2 that game sales is a racket that involves game journalists that behave like whores, marketing and good graphics. It doesn’t matter whether causals enjoy heavy text-games or not. It matters whether you can convince them to buy the game with the help of game journos and a publisher. He just used Torment’s name to put a foot on the door and take grognards money. That’s step 1. Step 2 is making a deal with a publisher to increase your network and increase sales. The only thing that matter at the end of the day is whether you can increase the sales using the hyping machine and secure that most console players won’t ask for a refund. The only thing we can do is try to separate the facts from fiction, and ensure that this garbage won’t be hailed as new classic by imbeciles inside the Codex.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Seriously, don't you want try the game Lurker King? It's got CYOA sequences and stuffies, like Age of Decadence.

But does it have endless grinding intense amount of combat against totally-not-trash-mobs prestigious monsters like Underrail?

 

[Lurker King]

But does it have endless grinding intense amount of combat against totally-not-trash-mobs prestigious monsters like Underrail?

Yes, and it also has insanely detailed crafting system, perks, interesting combat builds, great weapons, well thought-out fights, etc., which is more than can be said about shallow games like W2, PoE, etc. Are you paying attention, toro? I'm trying to defend Underrail's honor here, pro bono.

 

[supervoid]

So speculation followed, and I presumed the Final Fantasy crowd, and SJW crowd. Who else would play that on consoles?

Techland has big fanbase of console-only gamers. People in Poland were swapping their kickstarter pc version for console version and buing consoles for this game. Those are 30+ y/old who played IE games on release. I have no idea why they are doing it. One explanation I heard was that "PCs are for work, consoles are for games". Recently people were asking when Torment's iOS port is coming. When Techland's local branch published some PC exclusive (Stasis?) they were crying for weeks about being neglected.
Maybe it's the same in other countries and they had researched it or Polish market is enough to break even, maybe they wanted multiplatform release for sake of having one.

 

[Lacrymas]

Trash fights in UnderRail can easily be reduced with a patch or the expansion coming up (not that I noticed them, I was playing a stealthy sniper), even the abomination that was the combat in PoE was semi-fixed by a year's worth of patches. Fixing a cynical cash grab like Numanuma however...

 

[Repulsive]

PoE is shit, W2 is shit, SR is shit, ToN is shit. Big kickstarter bulshit. Fuck these studios.

Of all these, PoE in my opinion was the most respectable attempt. I found it mildly enjoyable until I hit a brick wall and got bored as shit.

 

[Infinitron]

So speculation followed, and I presumed the Final Fantasy crowd, and SJW crowd. Who else would play that on consoles?

Techland has big fanbase of console-only gamers. People in Poland were swapping their kickstarter pc version for console version and buing consoles for this game. Those are 30+ y/old who played IE games on release. I have no idea why they are doing it. One explanation I heard was that "PCs are for work, consoles are for games". Recently people were asking when Torment's iOS port is coming. When Techland's local branch published some PC exclusive (Stasis?) they were crying for weeks about being neglected.
Maybe it's the same in other countries and they had researched it or Polish market is enough to break even, maybe they wanted multiplatform release for sake of having one.

It's true that there were a good number of Kickstarter backers - in theory the most hardcore fans of a Torment game - who vocally demanded that their PC version be swapped out for a console version.

 

[Lurker King]

Trash fights in UnderRail can easily be reduced with a patch or the expansion coming up (not that I noticed them, I was playing a stealthy sniper), even the abomination that was the combat in PoE was semi-fixed by a year's worth of patches. Fixing a cynical cash grab like Numanuma however...

Not, you can’t remove trash fights from UnderRail, because biology, chemistry and tailoring revolves around enemy’s remains. The difference is that trash fights in UnderRail can at least serve as an opportunity to test a new perk or new weapon, while in PoE is just an uninspired mess because it only has trash fights and bland items.

 

[Prime Junta]

I raised the possibility once that they'd gone with turn-based because it's simpler to design/implement than RTwP. He seemed dismissive of that idea.

Interacting with the game is like wading through molasses as it is. I shudder to think what their version of RTwP would be like.

 

[Fairfax]

What I tried to hint was inXile made the decision that the game will be TB, despite planescape was RTwP and they released Wasteland 2 to console so it could be that inXile themselves wanted to port it to consoles so they chose TB ...or they thought they were incompetent for making RTwP like most indie rpg devs and chose TB.

You are making it sound like those are the only possible reasons why a game might be turn based.

I spoke with Brother None frequently when the combat system decision was made. As far as I can tell, they just preferred turn-based. Brother None personally despises RTwP and he must have lobbied strongly against it.

I raised the possibility once that they'd gone with turn-based because it's simpler to design/implement than RTwP. He seemed dismissive of that idea.

Interesting that he suggested a TB bias. I don't remember which forum it was, but I brought up their TB bias after they promised to stay neutral, and how they changed the poll because RTwP was winning. Brother None showed up and said he was the one responsible for the poll and that he never changed it, and also said the team preferred RTwP (even though every dev who spoke about it preferred TB). Someone posted screenshots with the changes and he disappeared.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

And what does Techland get in return? Console sales, which obviously will be shit.

Did you have a source for that or was it just your impression? Genuinely interested as from what I remember the deal announcement was worded quite vaguely, but other similar deals (eg Paradox with Obs) involved more than just one revenue stream.

Anyway, interesting to see Techland's stated aims for their "portfolio" of "triple-A and almost triple-A" games:

Marmul also emphasised to MCV that Techland isn’t offering a pre-packaged publishing service, but is instead perfectly happy to tailor its skills to the particular needs of any partner. It’s willing to spend, too.

“We have the skills and assets to offer our support when it comes to every aspect of the production process of the game, as well as pre and post-launch activity, including funding of course,” he added.
...
Techland’s very much still a developer, of course, although it has pledged that any game it publishes – and it hopes to publish two major multiplatform and four digital titles every year – will get just the same treatment as its own projects. It also wants those titles to be as diverse as possible.

“We’re not closing ourselves in a certain genre or platform, we’re open for the pitches from all around the world, but to sign with us, you need to persuade us that your game will be perfectly crafted and fun to play,” Marmul stated.

“We’re looking mostly for triple-A and almost triple-A titles for PC and consoles that would catch the interest of a midcore, hardcore player. Make us believe that you, as a developer, can deliver the highest quality title and respect the players and we’ll make sure that you’ll be a part of an exceptional portfolio, that’s our promise.”

 

[Sentinel]

So is the game confirmed irredeemable shit yet?

 

[Kem0sabe]

Even with so few combat encounters in the game, reviewers are still claiming they outstay their welcome. How inxile could make combat worse than Wasteland 2 is an achievement unto itself.

 

[Infinitron]

Interesting that he suggested a TB bias. I don't remember which forum it was, but I brought up their TB bias after they promised to stay neutral, and how they changed the poll because RTwP was winning. Brother None showed up and said he was the one responsible for the poll and that he never changed it, and also said the team preferred RTwP (even though every dev who spoke about it preferred TB). Someone posted screenshots with the changes and he disappeared.

Don't remember anything like this happening.

P.S. Don't know if you saw this: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...era-release-thread.113925/page-7#post-4989537

 

[Lacrymas]

Not, you can’t remove trash fights from UnderRail, because biology, chemistry and tailoring revolves around enemy’s remains. The difference is that trash fights in UnderRail can at least serve as an opportunity to test a new perk or new weapon, while in PoE is just an uninspired mess because it only has trash fights and bland items.

I didn't say remove, mostly because of the crafting system, I said reduce. Maybe only make them available in places where you don't frequent, i.e. you can choose to go and fight them for crafting supplies.

 

[Fairfax]

Interesting that he suggested a TB bias. I don't remember which forum it was, but I brought up their TB bias after they promised to stay neutral, and how they changed the poll because RTwP was winning. Brother None showed up and said he was the one responsible for the poll and that he never changed it, and also said the team preferred RTwP (even though every dev who spoke about it preferred TB). Someone posted screenshots with the changes and he disappeared.

Don't remember anything like this happening.

P.S. Don't know if you saw this: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...era-release-thread.113925/page-7#post-4989537

It may have been reddit, I don't remember. Couldn't find a screenshot of RTwP winning at first, but I found the ones showing the changes and the biased descriptions: