Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Daedalos]

Cmon, Torment wasn't THAT bad. You guys are being edgy. It did certainly suck compared to the expectations, but it's not a bad rpg.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Cmon, Torment wasn't THAT bad. You guys are being edgy. It did certainly suck compared to the expectations, but it's not a bad rpg.

Shut the fuck up.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

it's not a bad rpg.

That's the joke, it's not a bad rpg, because it's not an rpg at all. I'd classify it as a point&click adventure but MRY is going to get triggered again, so instead I'll describe is as virtual museum of oddities. Because that's what it feels like, really. You walk around from exhibition to exhibition, read the descriptions, you go "hmm" and move on to the next one. Then you move to another room with different theme, you walk from exhibition to exhibition, you read the descriptions, then another room, then another, and then it's game over.

 

[MRY]

Just in case using "point & click adventure" as a kenning for "RPG I don't like" wasn't enough of a trigger, you went on to clarify that "virtual museum of oddities" is a further synonym. All that was needed for the triumph of the walking simulator, etc., etc.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's a point & click adventure except without the adventure. More of a point&click&stare in disbelief.

 

[fantadomat]

I doubt that many people hate the game,it is a mediocre mess for most people and disappointing mess for a few people. It is not something horrible or unplayable. If you buy it for 10-15 bucks to kill time,it will be ok.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I thought it was horribly unplayable. There was no value in NuTourment.

 

[fantadomat]

I thought it was horribly unplayable. There was no value in NuTourment.

There is no value in it the same way oblivion have no value. You play it because you don't have anything else to play and want to waste time.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I thought it was horribly unplayable. There was no value in NuTourment.

There is no value in it the same way oblivion have no value. You play it because you don't have anything else to play and want to waste time.

I'm not really into playing poop games if I have nothing better to play. I'd rather be bored than play something that sucks and annoys me, which is what Numenera and Oblivion did.

 

[Jarmaro]

If core aspects of game are writting and story, if you fuck them up then you are done. Both this things are on the edge of unbereable in ToF, why would anyone try to endure it?

 

[Morkar Left]

Removing the trash combat from PS:T is a good example of this -- lots and lots of thoughtful people viewed the combat in PS:T as something extraneous and tedious, but it turns out that it serves a variety of important roles:

• fun visuals;
• spacing out long, text-driven narrative sequences;
• giving the player very low-stakes interactions to relax between high-stakes encounters and seemingly high-stakes choices;
• stroking the player's ego;
• dramatizing key aspects of TNO (his power and his immortality) and other characters (IMO, a non-trivial part of Dak'kon's character is defined by the way he fights);
• demonstrating the power progression from leveling up.

Even if the Crises had worked as intended (the concept seemed amazing to me), I still think the lack of PS:T's "trash" combat would've caused significant collateral harm to the game.

The most baffling thing about it is that it was made by some of the same people who made PS:T

IMO, the team's connection to PS:T (Heine, a scripter, and McComb, a designer) is way more attenuated than its connection to MOTB (Kevin Saunders, project/design lead, and George Ziets, creative lead). Of course, that doesn't change the criticism, since MOTB is also amazing and TTON seems even farther from MOTB than PST in feel.

I think it's easy to underestimate what a big difference the Numenera ruleset may have had -- it just seems pretty ill-suited to a traditional cRPG because of its resistance to statistical complexity and its reliance on a live GM to make the thin stats interact interestingly with encounters. Some of stuff that gets the most grief in TTON flows from the Numenera ruleset (the effort system, the lack of character progression, the bland combat). PS:T had the advantage of working against a backdrop of a ruleset that (1) had helped frame what cRPGs are and (2) had for years been integrated into cRPGs in a fun way. Now, picking Numenera's ruleset was a choice, and choosers are responsible for the consequences, but to me at least it's pretty unsurprising in retrospect that a cRPG using Numenera rules would not feel the same (or as a good) as a cRPG using AD&D, particularly if the Numenera rules were used to make a cRPG that played like an AD&D cRPG.

Anyway, this is now quite far from my initial point, which is simply that presumptively an isometric cRPG in 2018 will be worse, not better, than an acclaimed isometric cRPG from 1999.

I agree fully with everything that's said. Except one thing. The Numenerarule set may not be the best joice but it's still a rpg system and you can use it well enough for combat and other traditional rpg stuff. Ultima had always absolute basic combat / progrssion rules. It still worked. Even most blobbrs have basic combat and leveling mechanics. It's all about the design. How challenging do you make enemies? How much impact has ressource-management? Can you handle weak enemies (trash mobs) quickly? What about the environments the combat takes place? I think the Numenera conflict system had potential for combat but wasn't used enough to have any meaning to it orwanting get comfortable with it.
It's always bad wanting to make an rpg but denying its rpg roots.

 

[Jenkem]

I doubt that many people hate the game,it is a mediocre mess for most people and disappointing mess for a few people. It is not something horrible or unplayable. If you buy it for 10-15 bucks to kill time,it will be ok.

if it was horrible it would be remembered more, tbqh.. as it stands it is mediocre milquetoast shit that is easily forgotten, it isn't good enough to be remembered famously nor is it bad enough for it to remembered infamously.. it just kind of exists and easily forgettable

 

[fantadomat]

I doubt that many people hate the game,it is a mediocre mess for most people and disappointing mess for a few people. It is not something horrible or unplayable. If you buy it for 10-15 bucks to kill time,it will be ok.

if it was horrible it would be remembered more, tbqh.. as it stands it is mediocre milquetoast shit that is easily forgotten, it isn't good enough to be remembered famously nor is it bad enough for it to remembered infamously.. it just kind of exists and easily forgettable

Yup,if it wasn't for the codex and idiots constantly writing how much they like it and why people hate it,i would have forgotten that existed.

 

[Lhynn]

My point a few pages back, where i said lefties would like this game because they dont mind the amount of bullshit the game features, the lack of any feeling of adventure, the complete lack of understanding of the world around them, being superspeshulsmaybegods, and a whole bunch of etcs. is literally how many of them experience the world.

They have been born in a safe world, sheltered from any danger, never had an adventure, reality is a big mix of shit they dont get but feel they have to have an opinion about, feeling that their opinion should matter, etc. They identify these and other elements and feel comfortable with them.
This is just a thought that had been forming in my head at the time of release after playing it for an hour, how every element of the game repelled me, which got me thinking about who would be able to appreciate this shit. It may not be an entirely coherent and complete argument, but its me trying to make sense of people actually enjoying this unplayable mess.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

My point a few pages back, where i said lefties would like this game because

Lifelong socialist reporting in to inform you this game is absolute garbage.

 

[Lhynn]

Then i stand corrected. Also please change your avatar, it looks awful.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

My point a few pages back, where i said lefties would like this game because they dont mind the amount of bullshit the game features, the lack of any feeling of adventure, the complete lack of understanding of the world around them, being superspeshulsmaybegods, and a whole bunch of etcs. is literally how many of them experience the world.

They have been born in a safe world, sheltered from any danger, never had an adventure, reality is a big mix of shit they dont get but feel they have to have an opinion about, feeling that their opinion should matter, etc. They identify these and other elements and feel comfortable with them.
This is just a thought that had been forming in my head at the time of release after playing it for an hour, how every element of the game repelled me, which got me thinking about who would be able to appreciate this shit. It may not be an entirely coherent and complete argument, but its me trying to make sense of people actually enjoying this unplayable mess.

I'm a dirty Russian commie, and I fucking hated this piece of shit game, especially after spending hard-earned 100$ on it and thinking that we might get a decent RPG.

 

[Morality Games]

Cmon, Torment wasn't THAT bad. You guys are being edgy. It did certainly suck compared to the expectations, but it's not a bad rpg.

The writing in Torment feels like an open world game (aimless, directionless) in a game design that purposes to be narrative driven (purposeful, strong thematic subtext).

 

[aweigh]

it's way harder to write something interesting and engaging than it is to just fill a game with combat (or combat-equivalent mechanics) which is why RPGs with bad writing can still be enjoyable thanks to the player doing other things; but TToN decided to go all in on writing text-dumps and failed to make them good... and (unlike most RPGs) decided not to include anything else in the game that would be engaging for the player.

they went all in on a bad hand.

 

[Iznaliu]

My point a few pages back, where i said lefties would like this game because they dont mind the amount of bullshit the game features, the lack of any feeling of adventure, the complete lack of understanding of the world around them, being superspeshulsmaybegods, and a whole bunch of etcs. is literally how many of them experience the world.

They have been born in a safe world, sheltered from any danger, never had an adventure, reality is a big mix of shit they dont get but feel they have to have an opinion about, feeling that their opinion should matter, etc. They identify these and other elements and feel comfortable with them.
This is just a thought that had been forming in my head at the time of release after playing it for an hour, how every element of the game repelled me, which got me thinking about who would be able to appreciate this shit. It may not be an entirely coherent and complete argument, but its me trying to make sense of people actually enjoying this unplayable mess.

This goes to show that you don't make any attempt to understand leftism whatsoever other than reading clickbait on rightwing media.

 

[Roguey]

Guess Tides of Numenera is an RPG for moderates like me.

 

[aweigh]

i don't think it's healthy to try to rationalize everything that displeases you as part of a political ideology...

 

[HoboForEternity]

It is not that bad of course.

Some of The quests are interesting, branched nicely. Some locations and NPC are interesting, some good, some bad.

The problem is really lack of cohesion unlike planescape torment, which has one focal point and the side content and other stuff are there to support it, tton feels more like frankenstein. In the end some parts came from a good source, some bad.

For all that's worth i enjoyed the location of the last chapter and some quests you do there.

To say it has no redeeming value is exaggerated. Of course this is the codex so people are being edgy for the sake of edginess

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

i don't think it's healthy to try to rationalize everything that displeases you as part of a political ideology...

That's exactly what filthy leftist would say.

 

[Lhynn]

This goes to show that you don't make any attempt to understand leftism whatsoever other than reading clickbait on rightwing media.

Not gonna start actually arguing politics here. Just that lefties seem to favor this game.