Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[StaticSpine]

 

[Jarpie]

The game has so little of actual content, so it probably didn't long to write the voluminous codex.

 

[Malpercio]

Shortly after most of the mysteries are reavealed - you are the Last Castoff and there's a supernatural force hounding your every step

The beginning is a fucking disasters. Most writers love to not give twists asap, TtON is one of the few games I've seen where 90% of the plot is given at the beginning. Like holy shit, I understand the Changing God is not exactly unknown, but let me find stuff on my own please? I was tired of The Changing God's flashbacks after the first... 10. He didn't even feel mysterious, I was not interested in his agenda, he just is.

Jesus, literally 90% of the plot is about fixing the resonance chamber with barely any twist until the Bloom's "boss".. At one point I even forgot what I was doing.

 

[Roguey]

Alex Proyas has more respect for the intelligence of his audience than inXile, and that was with a $27 million movie.

Though Dark City ended up bombing as well even with the studio-mandated narration at the beginning explaining the premise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At least the director's cut has integrity, which is more than inXile can say.

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

Torment is now down to 67% ratings on Steam. This continuing decline - despite Valve's new rating policy of excluding reviews from people who didn't even purchase the game - should put to rest once and for all the claim that all the negativity was just people from this site trolling inXile for lulz.

That being said, I'm sure there were people who really were trolling Mr. Fargo, Mr. McComb, et al. for lulz, but those trolls clearly can't be used as the scapegoat. The criticisms are real, and inXile can no longer be in denial about it.

 

[Luckmann]

Heard about it, and it's been discussed, and all I can feel is "Too little, too late". The game needs an overhaul, especially in the narrative department, and needs relocation and restructuring of areas and quests, as well as restoration of core content that should've been in the base game as originally pitched, at the very least. The last thing it needs is more "stuff" just tacked onto the side.

It's like the promise to add The Toy, likely made to alleviate the criticism relating to the CNPC:s being uninteresting and bland, so they take the most interesting CNPC that wasn't done, and they'll likely "uniqueify" it like a massive snowflake to hell and back, but it completely misses the point of the criticism - the original CNPC:s need to be addressed, just adding another (badly integrated, I will assume until proven otherwise) CNPC won't fix them. Even in a best-case scenario where it's fully integrated, makes sense, and meshes seamlessly with existing content, and gives blowjobs without you even having to ask, it won't change the fact that the others are enormously meh.

 

[Jarmaro]

What's consensus now? More good than bad? In number/10 scale please.
Personally, I haven't left first city yet.

 

[Nael]

What's consensus now? More good than bad? In number/10 scale please.
Personally, I haven't left first city yet.

I'd give it 4/10. So much missed promise. I think the overall concept and the setting were good but the execution is a goddamn chore to get thru. I'd need a shit ton of Adderall to get thru this clunker. I stopped playing in the second main hub. Couldn't keep going.

tl;dr -

Planescape Torment fags like:

End result:

 

[Luckmann]

What's consensus now? More good than bad? In number/10 scale please.
Personally, I haven't left first city yet.

It's my personal interpretation of a consensus that we're talking the range of 4-6/10. Even those that don't entirely trash the game have a hard time putting more than a 6, and those that shit relentlessly on but that are remotely honest would probably give it a 4.

Personally, I'll give it a 5 or a very, very weak 6, keeping in mind that I would consider a 5 extremely average and a 7 would mean that it's pretty damn good. If we compare it to Torment, I would definitely rank it 3 or 4 out of 10, maybe lower, but on it's own, I'm sticking to my ranking. It's simply not a very good game, and it's got enormous issues with writing, pacing, combat, and resolution mechanics. All core aspects of the game are basically crippled, and the surrounding meat is tough and hard to swallow. The fact that they're talking about FreeLC before even even addressing any of those issues and the way they behaved just prior to the release of the game tells me that they haven't learned anything, and it's unlikely that the issues will actually be addressed.

All in all, a tremendous let-down on all fronts, except, perhaps, stylistically; I can't say that I don't like the visuals of the game. I would perhaps have preferred if some effects were more elaborate (á la Torment)

 

[Parabalus]

It's my personal interpretation of a consensus that we're talking the range of 4-6/10. Even those that don't entirely trash the game have a hard time putting more than a 6, and those that shit relentlessly on but that are remotely honest would probably give it a 4.

Personally, I'll give it a 5 or a very, very weak 6, keeping in mind that I would consider a 5 extremely average and a 7 would mean that it's pretty damn good. If we compare it to Torment, I would definitely rank it 3 or 4 out of 10, maybe lower, but on it's own, I'm sticking to my ranking. It's simply not a very good game, and it's got enormous issues with writing, pacing, combat, and resolution mechanics. All core aspects of the game are basically crippled, and the surrounding meat is tough and hard to swallow. The fact that they're talking about FreeLC before even even addressing any of those issues and the way they behaved just prior to the release of the game tells me that they haven't learned anything, and it's unlikely that the issues will actually be addressed.

All in all, a tremendous let-down on all fronts, except, perhaps, stylistically; I can't say that I don't like the visuals of the game. I would perhaps have preferred if some effects were more elaborate (á la Torment)

My perspective might me a bit lenient because I resumed a EA playthrough, so I only had ~9 hours instead of 20ish to finish the game, meaning I was less fatigued by bullshit, but 4-5 seems a bit harsh.

Mind you, all this talk about ratings is completely stupid because there isn't a normalized scale, a 4-6/10 on the Codex GoTY poll would put TToN above PoE, which not even the most rabid Sawyer haters would think to do, while that rating in standard journo circles would be unplayable garbage (IGN gave TToN 8.8/10 )

Simply content wise, the game just isn't worth 45€. An entire TToN run takes time similar to one virgin(ish) full AoD playthrough, anyone who backed it should be furious and that's enough to massively tank the rating.

The game reminds me most of Cyanide's RPGs , Game of Thrones and Of Orcs and Men, which both had very interesting ideas with glaringly flawed execution, they sit around 6-7 on Metacritic, which is where I'd say Tworment belongs.

 

[Lord Andre]

In a vacuum I would say the game is a solid 7/10. Outside the vacuum, it is a major disappointment of cataclysmic proportions.

To provide context, it's better than PoE* and better than Shadowrun:HK. It's worse than Shadowrun: Dragonfall and it comes nowhere near the brilliance of AoD.

I don't compare it to Wasteland 2 because apples and oranges in my opinion.

*Yes, it's better than PoE and your impotent screams of primal rage and incontinent asshurt don't change that. You know who you are...

Of course I don't compare it to PST because... well, it doesn't come close. At all. Ever. Not even a fraction.

 

[TT1]

What's consensus now? More good than bad? In number/10 scale please.
Personally, I haven't left first city yet.

5.5/10

I finished today (~ 46 hours). I fell asleep three times while playing the game... So, you can imagine how interesting is this game...

I'm writing a review and post here later.

 

[Nael]

*Yes, it's better than PoE and your impotent screams of primal rage and incontinent asshurt don't change that. You know who you are...

Agreed. PoE had its issues but at least I was able to finish it because wasn't one of the most boring games ever made.

Seriously... ToN is at least in my Top 3 for most boring games ever made. I think the problem is that they were trying way too hard to make this a game for pacifists and pseudo-intellectuals (AKA SJWs). They might as well have named it "Torment: Tides of Social Justice."

 

[agris]

All in all, a tremendous let-down on all fronts, except, perhaps, stylistically; I can't say that I don't like the visuals of the game. I would perhaps have preferred if some effects were more elaborate (á la Torment)

I feel like the mood of maps, conveyed in large part by lighting, is seriously lacking. If you've followed the development of Stasis/Cayne/Beautiful Desolation on these forums, you've read about Pyke's methodology when it comes to adding and blending light to create an atmosphere in scenes. The maps in Tworment all look universally lit by a fluorescent source at a constant perspective. It gives the maps a clean, but sterile feel.

OE artists have also talked about how they layer light to convey meaning in maps. This combined knowledge makes me acutely aware of how poor a job the map artists did in Tworment with the lighting.

edit: haven't finished, but it's a 6/10 for me. and i use the full scale.

 

[MRY]

Alex Proyas has more respect for the intelligence of his audience than inXile, and that was with a $27 million movie.

FWIW, I think something else was going on than doubts about the players' intelligence. (I had no role in designing the intro of the game, and the parts that I worked on were all shunted elsewhere, so I may be wrong.)

My sense is that that the rationale was that there was never going to be a mystery on par with PS:T's because of (1) the Shyamalan effect -- when you watch his movies expecting a particular style of twist, as you inevitably do, the twist tends not to deliver, and the PS:T franchise would create certain twist expectations; (2) the Kickstarter pitch already revealed a lot of stuff, and treating it as secrets would seem lame to Kickstarter backers. But I think the rationale was also that it might be interesting to tell a different kind of game where you actually provided the player with the contours of the scenario early on rather than trying to withhold them.

Finally, from a mechanical standpoint, where the "mystery" elements involve extrinsic things (i.e., things going on outside the player character), it can be a pain to script because if, like, the player doesn't know who the Changing God is then you have to write every dialogue without knowing whether the player has or doesn't have that information yet. This requires tons of variants that are basically worthless because 99% of the players will ask the first major NPC they meet, but for the 1% that doesn't it'll look like a glitch if in the second major NPC dialogue the PC acts as if he knows the information.

Given the generally negative reactions to the start of the game even from people who liked the game overall, I think it's fair to say that the approach was not successful. But I don't think it's accurate to say it's because of negative views about the players.

Incidentally, Kiefer Sutherland's voice over intro to Dark City was like the first thing I ever bitched about in a published review (for my school newspaper), so the reference takes me back. That was a movie that could've been better but was pretty neat in mood, especially early on. Is the director's cut worth watching? (I haven't seen the movie since it was in theaters in '98.)

--EDIT--

By the way, in some thread I saw someone say the game would've been better received if it hadn't been a Torment game, which might be so, but it's a ridiculous point, like saying, "That politician would have an easier time governing if he hadn't made all those campaign promises and hadn't taken all that special interest money." The game only exists at all because the Torment license drew resources and developers to it. (If nothing else, I doubt I would've put in for a job on it.)

That said, I do think that the "Shyamalan twist" point underscores that it might have been better to veer farther from the Torment setup. For example, I know that there was a big issue of making sure the Sorrow wasn't too much like the TTO. At one point, I had this idea that the Sorrow could actually be the Changing God (after all, the Sorrow is described over and over again as mutating/changing/etc., and it might be a neat hiding-in-plain-sight kind of twist), and that the being thought to be the Changing God was the First Castoff -- every time a new castoff was created, it further deformed/distorted the original Changing God, and basically he was trying to put a stop to the process because it really sucked for him (obviously). (Early on, he'd worked with the First until he realized what the process was doing to him, then he was imprisoned, and then he escaped, and has been hunting ever since.) I have no idea whether it was a good idea or not, felt a little Akira-ish, but it was nixed, probably rightly so, as making the Sorrow too close to TTO (although, really, he was more like TNO and the PC was like TTO, but the point stands). (Also, making course changes at the point I joined would be tough.) But it seems to me that the problem arose from having a ~TTO antagonist to begin with, rather than simply some altogether different antagonist, like a ~Irenicus or something else entirely.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

By the way, in some thread I saw someone say the game would've been better received if it hadn't been a Torment game, which might be so, but it's a ridiculous point, like saying, "That politician would have an easier time governing if he hadn't made all those campaign promises and hadn't taken all that special interest money." The game only exists at all because the Torment license drew resources and developers to it. (If nothing else, I doubt I would've put in for a job on it.)

I think you're mixing up two issues here.

InXile themselves absolutely cannot complain that game is being judged in comparision with PS:T, because like you pointed out, it's exactly that comparision that made them $5 million.


That being said, some of the PS:T most hardcore devotees are so deluded that you just can't help but point and laugh. I've seen people arguing that first game had "Shakespeare level of writing"...I mean for fucks sake, if there was ever a case when expectations were so absurdally high, the final outcome just had to dissapoint, it's when people actually expected anyone get to Shakespeare level.

And RE: revealing most of the plot at the start, I don't know why are people bitching about that. Sauron Sorrow is a bad guy and the whole story is going to be about travelling with the ring fixing the resonance chamber. The plot certainly fails to grab, but I don't think it has anything to do with having big reveal right at the start.

 

[Prime Junta]

But I don't think it's accurate to say it's because of negative views about the players.

But but but, the game just treats players like complete idiots all the time. Not just the start. The quests are incredibly easy, with everything you need to solve them within arm's reach, and as if that's not enough, the journal tells you explicitly where you need to go or what you need to do next. And there's an obnoxious amount of infodumping going on. The game insists on explaining every little thing to you at the outset. That's what kills the mystery, and it sure feels like the thing was written for cretins.

The reason people like the philethis so much is that it's not like that. It's says stuff which tantalises and half-makes-sense, and it's not explained; you're left to draw your own conclusions. I'm not saying it should be all philethis, all the time, but dropping about 75% of the exposition and explanation and letting the player figure it out -- or not -- would have been a massive improvement.

As an aside, I've been thinking about game openings lately. Most of them are utter garbage, even when people who really should know better are doing them. And this isn't btw, they always tended to be like that -- Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2, Deus Ex and plenty of other classics had shit openings. What's bizarre is that there hasn't been any progress: Mass Prosper: Hopw Roewur Ne apparently makes all the same mistakes as everybody else.

It's kinda surprising that solid conventions haven't emerged like in e.g. cinema or TV. But that's fodder for a whole 'nuther thread.

 

[Darth Roxor]

As an aside, I've been thinking about game openings lately. Most of them are utter garbage

play less shit games

 

[Prime Junta]

As an aside, I've been thinking about game openings lately. Most of them are utter garbage

play less shit games

Such as...?

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Whats your issue with the opening of BG?

 

[RK47]

As an aside, I've been thinking about game openings lately. Most of them are utter garbage

play less shit games

Such as...?

 

[Prime Junta]

Yeah that's one of the exceptions. Brilliant game too, they got just about everything right within the constraints of what they're doing IMO.

 

[Prime Junta]

Whats your issue with the opening of BG?

It's a boring tutorial with fetch-and-carry shit in a safe environment, plus a bunch of loredumps.

Basically, if you get a strong urge to skip the opening when replaying a game, it's a sign that the opening is shit. This is very much the case with Candlekeep.

 

[Infinitron]

How many people on the Codex know who wrote this, I wonder.

 

[Darth Roxor]

As an aside, I've been thinking about game openings lately. Most of them are utter garbage

play less shit games

Such as...?

Alpha Protocol, the real spiritual sequel of Torment