Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Lacrymas]

Stick to cellos pal.

I have, that's why I know this. Sounds are vibrations in the air. Those vibrations obviously exist without anyone being there, but it's not a sound like we hear it, sounds as noises or musical notes are only possible in our brains.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Just seems like crowdfunding still isn't nearly sufficient to fund complex CRPGs with decent production values, sadly enough

Nor Underrail, nor AoD, nor Colony Ship, nor Grimoire were crowdfunded

 

[Ol' Willy]

musical notes

Musical note is an air vibration with a determined frequency, E.G., fourth octave A is 440hz in ET. Such frequency could be measured not only by human ear but by digital tuners as well

 

[Lacrymas]

musical notes

Musical note is an air vibration with a determined frequency, E.G., fourth octave A is 440hz in ET. Such frequency could be measured not only by human ear but by digital tuners as well

I know, vibrations can be measured, but the sensation of sound/noise/music is only possible by being interpreted by our brain. A series of vibrations in the air is simply vibrations in the air without anyone there to perceive them.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Just seems like crowdfunding still isn't nearly sufficient to fund complex CRPGs with decent production values, sadly enough

Nor Underrail, nor AoD, nor Colony Ship, nor Grimoire were crowdfunded

I'm seeing a pattern here

 

[Fedora Master]

toon

Don't do this.

 

[Invictus]

Just seems like crowdfunding still isn't nearly sufficient to fund complex CRPGs with decent production values, sadly enough

Nor Underrail, nor AoD, nor Colony Ship, nor Grimoire were crowdfunded

I'm seeing a pattern here

Grimoire WAS crowdfunded in IndieGoGo but I see your point; I think the single greatest accomplishment the crowdfunded games achieved were NOT the games themselves (although there were some good early games to come out like Wasteland 2, Shadowrun & Divinity Original Sin, Darkest Dungeon and yeah even Pillars of Eternity) but to remind publishers that there was a genuine interest for these kinds of games...and frankly that there was money to be made from the not quite Skyrim level of development kind of games

 

[Thac0]

Just seems like crowdfunding still isn't nearly sufficient to fund complex CRPGs with decent production values, sadly enough

Nor Underrail, nor AoD, nor Colony Ship, nor Grimoire were crowdfunded

Crowdfunding is a cancer for crpgs. A large part of what makes Pathfinder Kingmaker shit comes from crowdfounding.
The worst part of the game is the void after you kill

Spoiler

Vordakai.

After that a bunch of quests start, which are notoriously bad, because they are the crowdfunding quests writting by founders.
https://pathfinderkingmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Deal_with_the_Devil
The wiki lists most of what is bad about that, but you can probably read from the quest design alone.
Pathfinder Kingmaker would have been a significantly better game with a normal publisher.

Numenera has a similar problem. Valley of the Dead Heroes is a run ender, because it confuses the backer created garbage for content.If the game wasn't so damn short in the first place you could cut it and increase the quality of NumaNuma.

 

[Lacrymas]

You could do a Kickstarter campaign without promising backers to write something. Even then, you could edit it and only keep the skeleton of the idea.

 

[Haplo]

Crowdfunding is a cancer for crpgs. A large part of what makes Pathfinder Kingmaker shit comes from crowdfounding.
The worst part of the game is the void after you kill

Spoiler

Vordakai.

After that a bunch of quests start, which are notoriously bad, because they are the crowdfunding quests writting by founders.
https://pathfinderkingmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Deal_with_the_Devil
The wiki lists most of what is bad about that, but you can probably read from the quest design alone.
Pathfinder Kingmaker would have been a significantly better game with a normal publisher.

Really? One bad minor quest, that is probably less then 1% of the total game time, makes you question the value of the whole, HUGE game?

 

[Thac0]

Crowdfunding is a cancer for crpgs. A large part of what makes Pathfinder Kingmaker shit comes from crowdfounding.
The worst part of the game is the void after you kill

Spoiler

Vordakai.

After that a bunch of quests start, which are notoriously bad, because they are the crowdfunding quests writting by founders.
https://pathfinderkingmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Deal_with_the_Devil
The wiki lists most of what is bad about that, but you can probably read from the quest design alone.
Pathfinder Kingmaker would have been a significantly better game with a normal publisher.

Really? One bad minor quest, that is probably less then 1% of the total game time, makes you question the value of the whole, HUGE game?

The problem is the quest is a mandatory main quest and it drags to hell and back. It is split over multiple location, all with timers in weeks between them. So you spend hours on this quest, traversing the world map which also drastically drops in quality around this time. Locations stop having puzzles, quests, npcs, dialogue, traps. Everything is just a random fight and a treasure pile. I wouldn't be surprised if those locations only existed to shoehorn backer created items in aswell.
The entire game goes on deep freeze and becomes a slog until Pitax, when it slowly starts picking up again. This is not a so bad on a first play, but on a replay, knowing what bullshit this was already, I have found the game wanting.

 

[Haplo]

Hours? Lol. The quest hardly takes half an hour. Sure, before that you need to wait for some timers to trigger in your capital.

 

[Tarkleigh]

combat is shit yea..
but about the rest, what makes disco elysium a success and this game a pile of turd?
simplest answer would be, bad writers...?

Implying Disco Elysium is a success (or even an RPG) - it got better press for a) edgy pseudo-deep writing which spoke to the wannabe intellectuals in gaming journalism and b) having less mechanics that get in the way. The skill checks system in Tides of Numenera is just annoying at first and useless in the late game and probably turned a lot of players off.

That being said, I could tolerate the bad mechanics in Tides if the story had delivered. But it is just extremely dull, superficial and without any tension or build up. There are no suprises, you know from the start that you are a castoff and what it means. Not like Torment where it took a long time to get all the answers. Also - and this might be pet peeve - I hate the way they handled regeneration in this game. They wanted to have the body horror from Torment - where you are technically immortal and can regrow everything - and use the Castoffs regenerative abilities in the same way. But the difference is that you are not immortal and some of the stuff you do inside Tides should kill you even with the best regenerative abilities but they don't since the writers apparently have overlooked this problem. Just a minor issue, to be sure, but it clearly highlights the sloppy writing in the game.

And don't get me started on the silly choose-your-own-adventure sections that are the most boring things I have ever seen in a game.

 

[Efe]

I would call it a narrative adventure game but apparently devs call it an rpg so whatever.
honestly I won't ever purchase a game from these guys.
Same goes for mry's products even if he only worked as a contractor.

 

[Bester]

Implying Disco Elysium is a success (or even an RPG)

"REEEEEEE the RPG I hated is.... NOT AN RPG!!!"

What a child. Do you really wanna be a person like that? Everyone looks at you and sees a crybaby.

 

[Harthwain]

Implying Disco Elysium is a success (or even an RPG) - it got better press for a) edgy pseudo-deep writing which spoke the to the wannabe intellectuals in gaming journalism and b) having less mechanics that get in the way.

Trying to shoehorn Disco Elysium's success by saying "The press did it! The commie propaganda worked!" is not only lazy - it's utterly stupid, because it doesn't really work like that.

Almost everybody is talking about how great (RPG) Disco Elysium is. Not just the press and award-givers, but players too (it has 94% positive reviews out of ~31 800 reviews total). It has got a plenty of language translations, a full voice acting, released or plans to release on consoles... If that is not a mark of success, then what is? Like it or not, but it is going to be a huge point of reference for many RPGs in the future. Similarly to how Planescape: Torment became a landmark for RPGs for years to come.

So why did Disco Elysium succeed where the others have failed? Obviously it did SOMETHING right...

 

[Tarkleigh]

Implying Disco Elysium is a success (or even an RPG) - it got better press for a) edgy pseudo-deep writing which spoke the to the wannabe intellectuals in gaming journalism and b) having less mechanics that get in the way.

Trying to shoehorn Disco Elysium's success by saying "The press did it! The commie propaganda worked!" is not only lazy - it's utterly stupid, because it doesn't really work like that.

Almost everybody is talking about how great (RPG) Disco Elysium is. Not just the press and award-givers, but players too (it has 94% positive reviews out of ~31 800 reviews total). It has got a plenty of language translations, a full voice acting, released or plans to release on consoles... If that is not a mark of success, then what is? Like it or not, but it is going to be a huge point of reference for many RPGs in the future. Similarly to how Planescape: Torment became a landmark for RPGs for years to come.

So why did Disco Elysium succeed where the others have failed? Obviously it did SOMETHING right...

Oh, of course it did something right. I think its writing is very distinct and one of the main reasons for its good reputation because it is so different from standard RPG stories. However, the story and the writing style is also very polarizing. Some players find it deep and intereseting, I find it pretentious and overly verbose. Just compare the writing with Torment which also had a lot to say but was way more efficient about it.

I think you are overly optimistic by declaring it a "huge point of reference for many RPGs in the future. Similarly to how Planescape: Torment became a landmark for RPGs for years to come". First of all, I don't think Torment actually was that influencial at the time. It is a masterpiece and is recognized now but I don't think it inspired many games at the time. Everything was already moving away from the Baldur's Gate infinity engine RPGs towards what would eventually become Mass Effect / Dragon Age. I bet five years from now, the RPG that will have the most impact from this time will be Cyberpunk and not Disco Elysium.

And I don't think it is quite as acclaimed as you think. It has an 8.4 user score and Metacritic which is far from Torment's 9.2 and worse than Mass Effect 2 8.9.

 

[Harthwain]

I think you are overly optimistic by declaring it a "huge point of reference for many RPGs in the future. Similarly to how Planescape: Torment became a landmark for RPGs for years to come". First of all, I don't think Torment actually was that influencial at the time. It is a masterpiece and is recognized now but I don't think it inspired many games at the time. Everything was already moving away from the Baldur's Gate infinity engine RPGs towards what would eventually become Mass Effect / Dragon Age. I bet five years from now, the RPG that will have the most impact from this time will be Cyberpunk and not Disco Elysium.

I don't mean it will necessarily influence someone (although wise men would do well to take at least some notes). I mean everybody will be pointing towards it. It's already being declared a "Torment of the new generation". By the way, why exactly do you think Cyberpunk will have any impact on the genre?

And I don't think it is quite as acclaimed as you think. It has an 8.4 user score and Metacritic which is far from Torment's 9.2 and worse than Mass Effect 2 8.9.

I could be wrong, of course. But considering I thought it will be a massive failure (I mean, a game with a lot of reading in some obscure setting?) Disco Elysium has managed to beat all the odds and surpass all the expectations, becoming the RPG of the year (and possibly the best RPG of the decade. Or two) across the board for many people. All of this after the Pillars, Numenera and other similar projects aimed at reviving the cRPGs of old had ended in failure or at least disappointment.

Also, a few points:

1) Disco Elysium got 937 ratings on Metacritic. Mass Effect 2 got 5149 ratings. Mass Effect 1 got 3543.
2) Disco Elysium's score is closer to Mass Effect - the first game of the series (8.4 versus 8.6). Which is also an action game with RPG elements.

 

[Tarkleigh]

I don't mean it will necessarily influence someone (although wise men would do well to take at least some notes). I mean everybody will be pointing towards it. It's already being declared a "Torment of the new generation". By the way, why exactly do you think Cyberpunk will have any impact on the genre?

That is certainly more likely, I think it depends a bit on how they follow up on the success. I think Cyberpunk will be more influential by pure size alone, it has a lot of flaws but I think the scope and ambition of it (and some outstanding technical achievements like the animation systems) will be remembered, espeically in the AAA section. Even more so should CDPR fix enough bugs to redeem the game in the public's eye. But this is not Disco Elysium's fault, even Planescape Torment would probably suffer the same fate, if it had been published at the time.

I could be wrong, of course. But considering I thought it will be a massive failure (I mean, a game with a lot of reading in some obscure setting?) Disco Elysium has managed to beat all the odds and surpass all the expectations, becoming the RPG of the year (and possibly the best RPG of the decade. Or two) across the board for many people. All of this after the Pillars, Numenera and other similar projects aimed at reviving the cRPGs of old had ended in failure or at least disappointment.

Also, a few points:

1) Disco Elysium got 937 ratings on Metacritic. Mass Effect 2 got 5149 ratings. Mass Effect 1 got 3543.
2) Disco Elysium's score is closer to Mass Effect - the first game of the series (8.4 versus 8.6). Which is also an action game with RPG elements.

Yes, it certainly beat expectations and even more so, if you thought it would fail. I would also agree that it was more successful than Pillars or Numenera (though I did enjoy those games more than Disco) but I think still has a lot of problems and probably will not be hallmark of RPGs like Torment was. But time will tell and I know that it could just be the writing style turning me off which is a personal perference.

 

[Darth Canoli]

REEEEEEE the game i like is a RPG even if it plays like a visual novel, REEEEEEE!!!

Well, who's autistic now?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

visual novels are not rpgs

 

[Fedora Master]

visual novels are not rpgs

At least a third of the threads in GRPG are not about RPGs.

 

[Roguey]

- it'd be OK if my Nano didn't have to spend all her (potential) attack points to navigate dialogue. My companions can't contribute to more than 1 or 2 successes (Base: 10% - use 5 points? 60% yay! and wasted if you fail) before our whole party is just done, which means everyone's useless in combat when we do run into one.
- as illustrated above, dialogue stats use the same resource pool as combat stats!

Either you're building your character wrong or you're trying to pass a bunch of checks unsuited for your character. Either way, you don't have to try to pass everything, it's okay to fail.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

it's okay to fail.

 

[Roguey]

it's okay to fail.

On my replay of the critical path I just took everything as it was and made it through just fine. There are also a number of hard checks where you're "supposed" to fail so you get an easier second check.