Luckmann
Arcane
Anyone else annoyed by how finding Rhin plays out?
Sure, this might sound oddly specific, but if you don't intend to give me the possibility to do something, don't drop hints left, right and center that that thing you can't do would be the right thing to do. If I hadn't had Scan Thoughts, this encounter would've been fine (and also less interesting).
The Tides feel like an arbitrary abstraction of morality (of intent, no less, rather than action or consequence), that is in no way established or conveyed to the player (I guess they are unable to actually tell a story without lore-dumping on you). You're left wondering why you would even care about the Tides at all, or why they exist as a mechanic at all. The idea could've been good, I have no doubt, but the execution is so sub-par, especially for something that is supposed to be so central to the themes and the plot (insofar the game has one beyond what is spoiled by promotional material) that it's hard to take serious.
I hate alignments, because they're so arbitrary, but from a normal modern west-european perspective, the ideas of "Lawful", "Evil", "Chaotic" and "Good" are actually better than these Tides, and as fundamental cosmic forces in the Planescape setting, it works, despite how ridiculous the idea is on a more fundamental level (the issue always was adding the Good vs. Evil axis to the more well-established (at the time) axis of Order vs. Chaos, however). Interestingly, I think that in a Planescape-esque setting, the idea of Tides, rather than moral alignments could be a pretty good one, and would allow you to maintain the whole faith-shapes-the-universe and dangerous-extremes-etc without "Good" and "Evil" in the mix, although I would keep the idea of Chaos vs. Order around.
But anyway, in Tides of Numenera, it just falls flat. Which is a downright shame and pity, because I'm convinced the idea could actually work.
The nature of the locales do not come off as "too weird" - at least not to me. I know some people disagree, obviously. I also haven't finished the game yet (I keep having other shit to do, and I keep reloading to try shit out or because things don't play out in an expected manner (again, I cannot stress how much I loved the Disposition system in Pillars of Eternity, not for it's own sake, but because of how it interacted with dialogues) so this might go out the window later. I absolutely agree that Numenera is a pretty strong setting, especially compared to Pillars of Eternity. For all the shit and incompetence inXile has displayed, they should have a big-ass kudos for daring to put this shit in Numenera, whereas Obsidian went with a very vanilla setting in PoE expressly as to not confuse people, wanting instantly familiar and relateable contexts (which in turn highlighted the things that deviated from the norm.. which weren't many).
I think that Tyranny had a very strong setting, however, completely sabotaged by social justice-warrioring and a completely mediocre game hamstrung by massive narrative issues. Tyranny was more wasted potential than anything I've experienced in recent years. Yes, even worse than this.
As for ToN, I find the writing to vary between "pretty good" to "fucking awful", without any degree of consistency. The lore-dumps are awful and the storytelling pacing is off, but this is partly because of the concentrated inXile/Techland effort to spoil much of everything, combined with the aforementioned lore-dumps. The reason you're seeing people hate different issues are not because it's hard to please everyone, but because these are different issues at different times. As someone that aspires to be an insufferable know-it-all, even I must confess that there were times where the purple prose became all too much and started becoming annoying. The setting-specific terms are not as bad, because you tend to know that they're nonsense. The issue with those is that the actual meaning of the words are never explained to you. Even the common "berk" was explained to you in Torment, although not immediately.
Had the game not been filled with both, or if the setting-specific terms would at least be covered, it wouldn't be an issue, but sometimes you're left wondering whether something even is a real word or not, which combined with the fact that words aren't explained to the player or conveyed in a way so that the meaning could be immediately inferred, it becomes taxing and frustrating even to an avid reader.
Basically, when you initially find Rhin, three thugs working for the slavers that are looking for her walks up to you. Even if you've been hired by the slavers and tell them this, you're faced with the situation of having to persuade/intimidate/deceive them, or fight.
If you have Sense Thoughts (or whatever it's called), you know for a fact that they are doing this reluctantly. This is reinforced even harder by the fact that if you succeed on the Persuasion test, claiming that slavery is evil (which many of us might be reluctant to pick as an option, seeing as how this is a post-apocalyptic medieval science-fantasy setting in which that is by far not a given moral assumption by the protagonist, or anyone in the fucking universe, really - you might also want to avoid it since you fear that you'll get Gold or Indigo Tide, despite intentions) you again Sense Thoughts, where the key thug thinks to himself that he cannot face his children if he does this.
All of this is annoying not just because I may not want to be opposed to slavery on moral grounds or risk those moral grounds affecting my tides, but because I'm hauling around over 600 shins. I know that this guy is only doing this to keep his family fed, I know that this guy isn't a bad person, and I know that by not handing Rhin over, I'm depriving three thugs and their families food. Why the fuck can't I just pay them off when it's hinted at me repeatedly that shins are all they need?
If you have Sense Thoughts (or whatever it's called), you know for a fact that they are doing this reluctantly. This is reinforced even harder by the fact that if you succeed on the Persuasion test, claiming that slavery is evil (which many of us might be reluctant to pick as an option, seeing as how this is a post-apocalyptic medieval science-fantasy setting in which that is by far not a given moral assumption by the protagonist, or anyone in the fucking universe, really - you might also want to avoid it since you fear that you'll get Gold or Indigo Tide, despite intentions) you again Sense Thoughts, where the key thug thinks to himself that he cannot face his children if he does this.
All of this is annoying not just because I may not want to be opposed to slavery on moral grounds or risk those moral grounds affecting my tides, but because I'm hauling around over 600 shins. I know that this guy is only doing this to keep his family fed, I know that this guy isn't a bad person, and I know that by not handing Rhin over, I'm depriving three thugs and their families food. Why the fuck can't I just pay them off when it's hinted at me repeatedly that shins are all they need?
The idea was that there was going to be all these things tied to it, from the foci to the factions and interactions and so on and so forth. Basically alignment-by-any-other-name, a bit like how alignment is central to the Planescape setting (although not necessarily a major mechanic in Torment). They absolutely dropped the ball on that one, on account of all the things cut.
The Tides feel like an arbitrary abstraction of morality (of intent, no less, rather than action or consequence), that is in no way established or conveyed to the player (I guess they are unable to actually tell a story without lore-dumping on you). You're left wondering why you would even care about the Tides at all, or why they exist as a mechanic at all. The idea could've been good, I have no doubt, but the execution is so sub-par, especially for something that is supposed to be so central to the themes and the plot (insofar the game has one beyond what is spoiled by promotional material) that it's hard to take serious.
I hate alignments, because they're so arbitrary, but from a normal modern west-european perspective, the ideas of "Lawful", "Evil", "Chaotic" and "Good" are actually better than these Tides, and as fundamental cosmic forces in the Planescape setting, it works, despite how ridiculous the idea is on a more fundamental level (the issue always was adding the Good vs. Evil axis to the more well-established (at the time) axis of Order vs. Chaos, however). Interestingly, I think that in a Planescape-esque setting, the idea of Tides, rather than moral alignments could be a pretty good one, and would allow you to maintain the whole faith-shapes-the-universe and dangerous-extremes-etc without "Good" and "Evil" in the mix, although I would keep the idea of Chaos vs. Order around.
But anyway, in Tides of Numenera, it just falls flat. Which is a downright shame and pity, because I'm convinced the idea could actually work.
Reconquista. We've been here before, and this time we can weed them out with the power of science! Genetic screening and fusion ovens, activate!Not anymore now that Kebabs and Arabs are there
Only germans are white you niggers
I've said it before and I can say it again, I can levy shit on Numenera/Cypher System and Tides of Numenera all day, but as far as settings go, there's little wrong with it. It's got an over-reliance on "oh look how weird!" which can become way, way too much, but so far, I think that how Tides of Numenera handles it have been good. It all comes across as fucking weird, but it's still fundamentally grounded in the daily lives of the characters living within the universe.
The nature of the locales do not come off as "too weird" - at least not to me. I know some people disagree, obviously. I also haven't finished the game yet (I keep having other shit to do, and I keep reloading to try shit out or because things don't play out in an expected manner (again, I cannot stress how much I loved the Disposition system in Pillars of Eternity, not for it's own sake, but because of how it interacted with dialogues) so this might go out the window later. I absolutely agree that Numenera is a pretty strong setting, especially compared to Pillars of Eternity. For all the shit and incompetence inXile has displayed, they should have a big-ass kudos for daring to put this shit in Numenera, whereas Obsidian went with a very vanilla setting in PoE expressly as to not confuse people, wanting instantly familiar and relateable contexts (which in turn highlighted the things that deviated from the norm.. which weren't many).
I think that Tyranny had a very strong setting, however, completely sabotaged by social justice-warrioring and a completely mediocre game hamstrung by massive narrative issues. Tyranny was more wasted potential than anything I've experienced in recent years. Yes, even worse than this.
As for ToN, I find the writing to vary between "pretty good" to "fucking awful", without any degree of consistency. The lore-dumps are awful and the storytelling pacing is off, but this is partly because of the concentrated inXile/Techland effort to spoil much of everything, combined with the aforementioned lore-dumps. The reason you're seeing people hate different issues are not because it's hard to please everyone, but because these are different issues at different times. As someone that aspires to be an insufferable know-it-all, even I must confess that there were times where the purple prose became all too much and started becoming annoying. The setting-specific terms are not as bad, because you tend to know that they're nonsense. The issue with those is that the actual meaning of the words are never explained to you. Even the common "berk" was explained to you in Torment, although not immediately.
Had the game not been filled with both, or if the setting-specific terms would at least be covered, it wouldn't be an issue, but sometimes you're left wondering whether something even is a real word or not, which combined with the fact that words aren't explained to the player or conveyed in a way so that the meaning could be immediately inferred, it becomes taxing and frustrating even to an avid reader.
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The "islamic golden age" is 
