Torment: Tides of Numenera

[volsung]

I have to agree with Pug. I think text can convey emotions and descriptions that are hard or impossible with normal animation, but I am also a bit eager to explore all that weird stuff laying around and a little afraid to talk to strangers because it will lead me into this long, elaborate conversation. I think it is all very well written though, which is why I think the game is very enjoyable. Oh and I have realized even simple conversations open up interesting opportunities, or at the very least yield experience or tide points. Some seemingly simple quests turn out to be kind of important too.

Still below 10 hours of gameplay and accidentally reached the Underbelly. So that's 4 areas out of 6 in Sagus Cliffs. Did metalmaniac21 really say he finished the game in 14 hours? I don't see how that's even possible. At least not for a first playthrough.

 

[metalmaniac21]

Still below 10 hours of gameplay and accidentally reached the Underbelly. So that's 4 areas out of 6 in Sagus Cliffs. Did metalmaniac21 really say he finished the game in 14 hours? I don't see how that's even possible. At least not for a first playthrough.

Fast reading, not paying attention to purple prose (a natural skill any sensible T:ToN player eventually will develop) and skipping something unrelated to main story parts can do wonders. This and the fact that Bloom's sides are shorter than Sagus Cliffs by a suprising margin. This and the fact that the game is very easy to navigate in (which is definitely a plus). This and also the fact that T:ToN is very short game. This and also the fact that every battle can be skipped or ignored (InXile knew their reinvented TB-combat suck? Smart choice, barring the part of taking the player for a complete fool).

Hello, this is not a Planescape: Torment that was promised in PR materials, some parts can be skipped with an ease on a soul. At least for a first playthrough.

 

[volsung]

I guess we have very different styles. I like to take my time and appreciate the detail, even in action games. But even then it seems the game might be quite short, which is disappointing. We'll see.

 

[metalmaniac21]

I like to take my time and appreciate the detail, even in action games

Different games deserves different approaches. I spent five times more hours in Planescape: Torment than Numenera.

 

[M4xw0lf]

So, who else is now an Observant Nano who brandishes a silver tongue, and has Rhin following him/her around? ^^

 

[gadrael]

So, who else is now an Observant Nano who brandishes a silver tongue, and has Rhin following him/her around? ^^

Well... I am, did not have a heart to leave her ^^ Those few fights I wasn't able to avoid were sometimes painful as for the long time the only real damage dealer in my party were Matkina, but in the end (well, at least I think it's near the end) Rhin's story has interesting twist, so I would say it was worth it

 

[M4xw0lf]

Well... I am, did not have a heart to leave her ^^ Those few fights I wasn't able to avoid were sometimes painful as for the long time the only real damage dealer in my party were Matkina, but in the end (well, at least I think it's near the end) Rhin's story has interesting twist, so I would say it was worth it

I put a few points in my Nano's damage-related abilities, and with his high intellect edge and stat pool, he's now quite the killer. Rather squishy, of course, but he shells out single target damage equal to Erritis with his battle axe.

 

[volsung]

So, who else is now an Observant Nano who brandishes a silver tongue, and has Rhin following him/her around? ^^

I am playing as an observant nano who breathes shadow, and also couldn't bring myself to kick Rhin out of the party.

I planned on having Erritis, Matkina and Callistege but after one unexpected fight (the only one so far) I realized both my nano and Callistege could deal reasonable damage, so I kicked Erritis out of the party. I wanted to simply tell Rhin to wait for me and not bring her along, but I couldn't find a single satisfying way to get "rid" of her. This is a perfect example of how good writing influences gameplay decisions. There are multiple ways of "dealing" with Rhin, but all of them had heavy repercussions that my character could simply not agree with. Also her background story is interesting.

One thing to consider when playing with Rhin is she can carry 3 cyphers from the beginning and has a huge hiding bonus. I am considering making her into a healer/support character.

I have now played around 15 hours, trying to soak in every detail and read every line. I the game is very interesting, I like how all quests can be resolved in many different ways and how party members often react to my choices. I honestly think the game is quite good, there's a lot of content to experience at least on a first play through.

 

[volsung]

Just for fun I read some metacritic user opinions about this game. They complain about essentially these things:

1) Narrative style: too much (and "badly" written) text, not enough cutscenes, too wordy, the game introduces "new" terms (crisis, glaive, esotery...), "boring" companions.
2) Combat: not enough combat, "bad" combat, combat is too slow, combat is pointless (because it can be avoided).
3) Aesthetics: "ugly" characters, "subpar graphics", "bad" music.
4) Gameplay: "bad" role-playing, pointless "fetch" quests.

I am now convinced many people are simply playing the wrong game. Some of these "issues" are design decisions, whereas others are either subjective or a matter of style (finishing Sagus Cliffs in an hour if you skip side quests? well, sure...). I am not going to defend the game, it is not perfect and evidently not as complex as I hoped for. But compared with what passes for "RPG" nowadays, it's very decent. Even compared with Planescape: Torment it is very decent: the Hive is full of "pointless quests" that "only" give you background information or a bit of experience and can be resolved without violence, and there's tons of pointless combat (eg. killing unnamed Hive thugs). I suppose some people would be happier if there were hordes of Sagus Cliff thugs.

These opinions of T:ToN reveal the current state of the gaming scene: "classics" like PS:T are good by definition, 10/10 and so on. Modern "RPG's" must have cool cutscenes and fast, exciting combat, among other things (amazing 3D graphics, etc.). However, a modern RPG without these things is bad, but action games with barely recognizable role-playing elements are "great RPG's".

My advice: approach this as an RPG that plays more like a graphical adventure than an isometric action game. If you can't deal with that, it's not for you.

 

[gadrael]

One thing to consider when playing with Rhin is she can carry 3 cyphers from the beginning and has a huge hiding bonus. I am considering making her into a healer/support character.

This is exactly what I had done with her, and it worked really well. Good healer is very useful, also shooting ranged weapons from hiding has big accuracy bonus.
TBH, I don't know why ppl complain about combat, I find it entertaining and requiring tactical thinking (imo huge improvement over original P:T combat), and I will definitely try to replay game with Glaive character choosing more violent options

These opinions of T:ToN reveal the current state of the gaming scene: "classics" like PS:T are good by definition, 10/10 and so on. Modern "RPG's" must have cool cutscenes and fast, exciting combat, among other things (amazing 3D graphics, etc.). However, a modern RPG without these things is bad, but action games with barely recognizable role-playing elements are "great RPG's".

I have to agree, it looks like people are not used to read nowadays, and can't imagine things described by text. Writing is the strongest part of the TToN (I find it better than in Pillars of Eternity), so if someone is skipping descriptions, maybe they should just choose to play other games instead, market is full of action games...

 

[M4xw0lf]

I just passed a pivotal point in the game -I think- and have no idea if my path was a good idea. But the whole sequence was way too long to immediately go and try different options.

Spoiler

I reached the castoff sanctuary and "met" the guy who was supposed to be able to repair that chamber. After which the Sorrow attacked the sanctuary, and the specter in my mind revealed himself to be the Changing God in hiding. I refused to let him take the body back. Then I escaped from the sorrow and saved most of the castoffs - maybe all? Except for the leader of the sanctuary, who sacrificed herself in order to save the rest. I feel there would have been a chance to save her, too, but I took too long, trying to reach and save everyone.
Then during the escape, I think the Changing God tried to overpower my mind again. At least something did, but I fought it off.

I so want to know what else could have happened during all of this, and what the consequences will be!

 

[volsung]

Just curious, how many hours a day do you guys play games?

 

[schinderhannes.999]

So, who else is now an Observant Nano who brandishes a silver tongue, and has Rhin following him/her around? ^^

Went with the 'breathing shadows' descriptor like volsung too.
Pondered quite a bit which companion besides Alighern and Matkina to take for the next leg in the journey. Rhin I thought about 'putting into the care' of a certain institution, but ultimately kept her around since I couldn't get warm with either Tybir or Erritis. Still haven't had another crisis (of the combatative sort at least) yet, so I didn't turn Rhin into someone who can hold her own in a fight either.

Just for fun I read some metacritic user opinions about this game. They complain about essentially these things:

1) Narrative style: too much (and "badly" written) text, not enough cutscenes, too wordy, the game introduces "new" terms (crisis, glaive, esotery...), "boring" companions.
2) Combat: not enough combat, "bad" combat, combat is too slow, combat is pointless (because it can be avoided).
3) Aesthetics: "ugly" characters, "subpar graphics", "bad" music.
4) Gameplay: "bad" role-playing, pointless "fetch" quests.

I am now convinced many people are simply playing the wrong game. Some of these "issues" are design decisions, whereas others are either subjective or a matter of style (finishing Sagus Cliffs in an hour if you skip side quests? well, sure...). I am not going to defend the game, it is not perfect and evidently not as complex as I hoped for. But compared with what passes for "RPG" nowadays, it's very decent. Even compared with Planescape: Torment it is very decent: the Hive is full of "pointless quests" that "only" give you background information or a bit of experience and can be resolved without violence, and there's tons of pointless combat (eg. killing unnamed Hive thugs). I suppose some people would be happier if there were hordes of Sagus Cliff thugs.

These opinions of T:ToN reveal the current state of the gaming scene: "classics" like PS:T are good by definition, 10/10 and so on. Modern "RPG's" must have cool cutscenes and fast, exciting combat, among other things (amazing 3D graphics, etc.). However, a modern RPG without these things is bad, but action games with barely recognizable role-playing elements are "great RPG's".

My advice: approach this as an RPG that plays more like a graphical adventure than an isometric action game. If you can't deal with that, it's not for you.

I reckon quite a bit of the negative feedback can also be credited to disgruntled backers that just want to get back at inXile for not being upfront about and 'tricking' them into funding the console versions, as well as the too late acknowledgement of the cut (stretch goal) content. Which is understandable considering inXile's slightly arrogant and dismissive 'deal with it' attitude towards these 'trivialities'.

In regards to aesthetics/graphics the reviews do have a point though. In particular most of the environments (so far) don't hold up all too well compared to the elaborate and detailed locales and landscapes in PoE. Most of the time TToN's maps also seem to lack the crisp sharpness and definition you'd expect from a title that's sharing the same Unity derivative. Almost like the frames/images are rendered with some sort of blur filter slapped on top of the pipeline. It's affecting and is very noticeable with the text/dialogue lines too.

I also found that prolonging and keeping quests 'open' as long as possible results in some very surprising and unexpected developments bleeding over into and affecting the approach to and the outcome of other quests. They certainly didn't exaggarate when it comes to deep reactivity and the far-reaching ripple effect of choices & consequences.

 

[M4xw0lf]

In regards to aesthetics/graphics the reviews do have a point though. In particular most of the environments (so far) don't hold up all too well compared to the elaborate and detailed locales and landscapes in PoE. Most of the time TToN's maps also seem to lack the crisp sharpness and definition you'd expect from a title that's sharing the same Unity derivative. Almost like the frames/images are rendered with some sort of blur filter slapped on top of the pipeline. It's affecting and is very noticeable with the text/dialogue lines too.

To me the backgrounds do not look any more or less sharp compared to PoE. Maybe my high dpi 4k screen helps with that, though.

 

[M4xw0lf]

Just curious, how many hours a day do you guys play games?

Average values would be misleading here - I sometimes go for weeks or months without a lot of gaming, but when something new and interesting is out, like TToN right now, I end up anywhere between 1 and 6 hours a day XD

 

[schinderhannes.999]

Just curious, how many hours a day do you guys play games?

3-5 on workdays, about twice as much on weekends. Depends on how compelling and 'worth the time' (or rather 'worth an hours-long session') the game is, obviously.

To me the backgrounds do not look any more or less sharp compared to PoE. Maybe my high dpi 4k screen helps with that, though.

No blurriness at all?
I'm running downsampled 1080p (from 1440p) which already should sharpen things up quite a bit but in particular the dialogue text is still all over the place. One dialogue option would look reasonably crisp while the next one is a blurry mess again.

 

[M4xw0lf]

3-5 on workdays, about twice as much on weekends. Depends on how compelling and 'worth the time' (or rather 'worth an hours-long session') the game is, obviously.


No blurriness at all?
I'm running downsampled 1080p (from 1440p) which already should sharpen things up quite a bit but in particular the dialogue text is still all over the place. One dialogue option would look reasonably crisp while the next one is a blurry mess again.

The text? Nope, no blurriness whatsoever. It's caressing my eyes, really, that's how perfect it looks here.

The backgrounds sometimes haven't high enough resolution for the highest zoom (or lowest, depending on how look at it ), but that's the only blurry stuff ever in the game.
Maybe the downsampling is causing the blur. 1440p -> 1080p is not a perfect ratio to start with. Can you go to 4k?

 

[volsung]

I see, that's why I'm always behind. I play around 2 hours at night. Some weekends, maybe 3 or 4. I'm trying to play games and guitar, but there's just not enough time...

I am playing in 1920x1200 and I also think the game looks really, really sharp (except for the character models with extreme zoom in). I can understand why some would think the backgrounds are not as detailed (eg. texture wise), relying on metallic or plastic looking surfaces instead of the natural landscapes of PoE. Many of the areas I've seen though (like the chapel of the Dendra O'Hur) are full of interesting things.

And yeah I am now realizing that some of the negative feedback may come from dissatisfied backers trying to get back at inXile for how they handled things. I would say it's another case of the "downgrades" (like with TW3) but the difference is they felt they had already payed for T:ToN (they actually funded a project, didn't buy a game). I think their current, negative opinion of inXile's PR is perfectly well justified but should be separate from their opinion of the game. Many of us were disappointed with many of the changes and design decisions in TW3, and yet it was still great despite not being what we were promised.

Anyway. I am almost done with Sagus Cliff and ready to move on. Also looking forward to play as a Glaive. You know... combat isn't all that bad actually.

 

[M4xw0lf]

I fought a rather tough enemy yesterday, who wiped out my party within a few rounds, until only my main character was standing - who then continued to crush the guy alone. Didn't think I'd stand a chance, but it turns out I could outrun him, and my Onslaught attacks with energy damage pushed him back every time

A general note on the character system and how it affects gameplay:
Seems to me right now that Intellect is by far the most useful stat, and therefore Nanos are the best class to experience TToN to the fullest. Therefore I fear I already found the best build to get the most out of the story and do reasonably well in violent crises.

 

[volsung]

I agree. I think the most interesting challenges require Intellect effort, especially those related to the story and memories. But we knew that. At least this time around we don't have to play a min-maxed, gimped character in order to get high intellect. With 3 points of Intellect edge plus bonuses from skills and companions, I'm getting up to 90% success on many tasks without spending Intellect points.