• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Torment: Tides of Numenera |OT| What Can Change The Nature of a Man?

Azzanadra

Member
I really wonder what possessed them to release this on the same day as Horizon.

Does this game suffer from the bloated purple prose of Planescape? Because as much as I liked it, this style of writing that permeates all the CRPGs like this, Pillars etc. is exhausting, too much exposition honestly brings these type of games down when the writer realizes they can write as much as they want when they are not constrain by voice actors and animations. There literally exists no economy of words in these type of games, and this trend I fear will continue so long as "good writing" = "more words".
 
Does this game suffer from the bloated purple prose of Planescape?

I never felt like Planescape Torment had purple prose, but I guess this is very individual and comes down to opinion. In any case, I feel like Torment: Tides of Numenera is surprisingly economic with its writing so far, and I'm saying that as a writer myself. There's extended dialogues, but it doesn't feel like they're being stretched out. They come to the point relatively quickly without drowning you in words.
 

Jag

Member
Reading all this text does make me get sleepy though. I've been playing on and off all day, but have to stop before I fall asleep.
 

Moff

Member
It really is a testament to the quality of the writing when such a fascinating, alien and bizarre world seems believable and inviting. I can't wait to spend more time in this.

My biggest complaint so far: I would have loved to have portraits of the characters you talk to. There is even a huge blank spot on the right side of the dialogue UI, I wonder if they ever planned that and just didn't have the resources to do it.

I am also not completely sold on the effort system. but it certainly shakes up usual RPG mechanics and behaviors, like so many things in this game, and that's certainly a plus.
 

bati

Member
I really wonder what possessed them to release this on the same day as Horizon.

Apart from a very small % of players there probably isn't a lot of overlap between the audiences for these two games.

Does this game suffer from the bloated purple prose of Planescape? Because as much as I liked it, this style of writing that permeates all the CRPGs like this, Pillars etc. is exhausting, too much exposition honestly brings these type of games down when the writer realizes they can write as much as they want when they are not constrain by voice actors and animations. There literally exists no economy of words in these type of games, and this trend I fear will continue so long as "good writing" = "more words".

It's been pretty good so far. Actual dialogues feel natural but there is a lot of text that describes what is going on in the scene and it's worth paying attention to.
 
Have they ever mentioned if they plan on expansions or anything?

Torment isn't exactly well suited to expansions because of the game's focus, so I wouldn't hold my breath. Planescape Torment never received expansions either, despite pretty much all its Infinity Engine siblings getting them.
 

Vlodril

Member
After three hours, I think the game is fantastic. I went with Intelligent Jack, and I'm finding Amanuensis to be a HUGE perk. I'm getting so many details and extra info with it. For those who want to go in depth, seems invaluable. And no combat so far!

Do you mean anamnesis (means memory in greek) or is there another skill?

I myself got anamnesis trained and scan thoughts because i like reading into other people's minds :)

So many usefull skills in this game. Love it so far hopefully it holds up so i can do another playthrough in the future with a totally different character and skillset.

Didn't expect to get a full party on the first couple of areas either.
 

DrSlek

Member
Trying for a pacifist run...or as pacifist as possible. I've gone with a clever jack, but my current main focus is increasing my mental edge to talk my way around crisis.
 

goblin

Member
Warning for Nanos: You get a free point in Concentration at Tier 4 and Specialized+ does nothing, so having two points in Concentration before that is a wasted Step. This is a pretty frustrating design oversight.
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
Think I made a bit of a mistake making this the first of the recent CPRG revivals to try out. I prefer more exploration and combat (like Icewind Dale) to meticulous combing over areas and poring over tons of dialog.

Not really enamored with the capital-W "Weird" setting yet either. It doesn't feel very reminiscent of the Planescape setting to me and seems like they just mashed a bunch of fantasy and sci-fi into a big cluster eff all willy nilly. Game seems to assume I know what a "tide" and a "numanera" is too and I honestly don't. There's a lot of vocab and things to learn about this setting and they're just kind of dumping it all on you at once.

Hoping it grows on me a little bit but I've been playing for hours now and I've only engaged in one "crisis" that I tried to resolve via combat and got waxed pretty good. It was interesting that the game didn't end when I lost tho, especially given that I'd died from poor choose your own adventure dialog options twice up to that point and had to reload a save.
 
I really wonder what possessed them to release this on the same day as Horizon.

Does this game suffer from the bloated purple prose of Planescape? Because as much as I liked it, this style of writing that permeates all the CRPGs like this, Pillars etc. is exhausting, too much exposition honestly brings these type of games down when the writer realizes they can write as much as they want when they are not constrain by voice actors and animations. There literally exists no economy of words in these type of games, and this trend I fear will continue so long as "good writing" = "more words".

Curious about this too. I recently tried to get back into Pillars and couldn't because of the constant WoT's (and loading).
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
EDIT: On the technical side (PC version) everything has been smooth sailing so far. I've learned from the other Obsidian tech games to disable G-Sync ahead of time and I was getting 90 - 144 fps at all times. Conversely both Pillars and Tyranny would often run in the 30 - 50 range.

Update on this. Once I left the tutorial area into the actual city the framerate dropped into the 40's same as the other Pillars tech games. Oh well.
 

Menome

Member
One puzzle that's eluded me since back in Early Access is the
colour-sphere
in the Order of Truth building. Has anyone figured it out yet?
 

Lime

Member
If anyone wants the art that InXile is using for the Backer page, here's the best resolution I could find:

pic13fscd.jpg
 
Didn't read any posts, just dropping by to leave my first impressions.

I played 3 hours of this game today, and I'm completely fascinated. Most of that time has been spent wandering around, talking to people and taking in the sights + finding out things about this world. This game is something I have been waiting for, for a long time. Even though I didn't know it until now. It's so interesting, mysterious and full of things to find out.

edit: only complaint on PC atm is that occasionally the dialog seems to stutter and slow down abnormally.
 

Eusis

Member
Is controller support really in? Going to see what happens after validation and getting past the menus, but it'd be an insane oversight if you could use controllers in-game but not in the menu to start it.

EDIT: See next post of mine.
 
Ps4 version is choppy as hell... but because I'm a weirdo I'm happy. I just prefer games with a controller, and even knowing this is the worst way to play, having on a TV helps. Well that and my pc is kinda worthless, still I hope this gets patched.
 

kionedrik

Member
One puzzle that's eluded me since back in Early Access is the
colour-sphere
in the Order of Truth building. Has anyone figured it out yet?

Yeah, I solved it. To get an hint you must
win an intellect check and recall a riddle from your memories.
 

Eusis

Member
Is controller support really in? Going to see what happens after validation and getting past the menus, but it'd be an insane oversight if you could use controllers in-game but not in the menu to start it.
Ok I see now, you had to go under Game and change the Input device. Thought it'd be auto and I looked under controls before there. Steam Controller would ideally be more of a perfect gamepad/mouse hybrid though, ah well.
 

mjp2417

Banned
I really wonder what possessed them to release this on the same day as Horizon.

Does this game suffer from the bloated purple prose of Planescape? Because as much as I liked it, this style of writing that permeates all the CRPGs like this, Pillars etc. is exhausting, too much exposition honestly brings these type of games down when the writer realizes they can write as much as they want when they are not constrain by voice actors and animations. There literally exists no economy of words in these type of games, and this trend I fear will continue so long as "good writing" = "more words".

Curious about this too. I recently tried to get back into Pillars and couldn't because of the constant WoT's (and loading).

I only played for around an hour or so last night, but yeah, it does suffer from that so far. It's not a deal breaker for me personally because I've learned to make my peace with video game writing provided that the interactive systems are sufficiently interesting, but if it was a deal breaker for you with Pillars then it's probably going to be a deal breaker here as well.
 
I really wonder what possessed them to release this on the same day as Horizon.

Does this game suffer from the bloated purple prose of Planescape? Because as much as I liked it, this style of writing that permeates all the CRPGs like this, Pillars etc. is exhausting, too much exposition honestly brings these type of games down when the writer realizes they can write as much as they want when they are not constrain by voice actors and animations. There literally exists no economy of words in these type of games, and this trend I fear will continue so long as "good writing" = "more words".

Personally, I like it when they don't have to budget for voice actors and can write a lot. Torment's world is rich and textured, and I've enjoyed going through every line of dialogue you can.

If it's quantity that bugs you then, yeah, you probably won't like Numenara. This is a game where you can walk into a bar, meet 10 named NPCs, and spend the next hour and a half delving into their histories and solving disputes. The game is absolutely lousy with NPCs that can give you lore or backstory or an interesting 2 minutes vingette; when you walk around a new area there's always at least one or two minor NPCs in addition to all the ones that have no dialogue. It's the game's strongest feature, in my opinion. They've made sure everything coheres together, and it really feels like you're in a living, breathing world, moreso than all the AI routines in Skyrim could manage.

I think if this bugged you you'd pretty easily be able to skip the walls of text, but I can't be sure.

I never felt like Planescape Torment had purple prose, but I guess this is very individual and comes down to opinion. In any case, I feel like Torment: Tides of Numenera is surprisingly economic with its writing so far, and I'm saying that as a writer myself. There's extended dialogues, but it doesn't feel like they're being stretched out. They come to the point relatively quickly without drowning you in words.

That's a good way of putting it. There's a lot of text in there, but it doesn't feel bloated in a purple prose kind of way.
 

Madouu

Member
Sorry if this has been touched upon already but is anyone else getting some weird slowdown in the first area of the game? It's bothering me to no end.
 
I only played for around an hour or so last night, but yeah, it does suffer from that so far. It's not a deal breaker for me personally because I've learned to make my peace with video game writing provided that the interactive systems are sufficiently interesting, but if it was a deal breaker for you with Pillars then it's probably going to be a deal breaker here as well.

Hmmm. Thanks for the info.

Hopefully the writing is better than PoE.
 

Mudo

Member
EDIT: Nevermind I'm stupid lol. I didn't see the tab on rewards page for "keys" Move along nothing to see here..

Can anyone help me? This may be the first kickstarted game I've ever had release. How exactly do I get my digital copy? I pledged $20 which was a copy of the game. I have not gotten an email from InXile since the last update on the game, and nothing in the last few days. I poked around the website and didn't see anywhere I could access the file either?
 

JP

Member
I've got the PS4 version and the bugs are far more of a concern to me than the actual performance although I'm am certainly concerned about that as it is pretty despicable.

Do people think there's any chance at all of them trying to fix it? This should be able to hold at the very least a locked 30fps without any issues on any of the platforms they've released it on. At the absolute minimum they should be able to get a locked 1080/30 on the Pro and when I say absolute minimum I don't mean that it should be acceptable to do that without the versions running like that.

It seems to drop down to 15 to 20 fps almost constantly, which is ridiculous.
 

Fjordson

Member
I've got the PS4 version and the bugs are far more of a concern to me than the actual performance although I'm am certainly concerned about that as it is pretty despicable.

Do people think there's any chance at all of them trying to fix it? This should be able to hold at the very least a locked 30fps without any issues on any of the platforms they've released it on. At the absolute minimum they should be able to get a locked 1080/30 on the Pro and when I say absolute minimum I don't mean that it should be acceptable to do that without the versions running like that.

It seems to drop down to 15 to 20 fps almost constantly, which is ridiculous.
Really? What a joke.
 
Okay how do I fix this cripping problem of the text scroll gradually slowing down until it literally takes minutes for a paragraph to fully load. Of all the performance problems for a game to have, the fact that the text in a narrative RPG is unplayably slow is effectively a dealbreaker for me.

Nobody else has this problem? I literally can't play for longer than 10 minutes :(
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
When I tried the beta last year, I stopped just when you enter Sagus Cliff. I just spent 45 minutes talking to like ten people all within that entrance areas, barely explored past the entrance

I'm 3.5 hours in and am still in that area lol.
 
The male castoff has such a smug face in the portrait that I can't help but lie to everyone. This may be the first time since Oblivion that I may actually play again as a total dick.
 

jtb

Banned
Didn't even know there was going to be another Bard's Tale game. Not sure who was asking for that, but whatever works for them, I guess.

Wasteland 3 needs a significant step up in ambition from 2 for my interest.

When I tried the beta last year, I stopped just when you enter Sagus Cliff. I just spent 45 minutes talking to like ten people all within that entrance area, barely explored past the entrance

This is Planescape as fuck

Same dialogue options, but with different intentions (be truthful or lie, etc.)
http://i.imgur.com/YrGxUxg.jpg

Random people in the crowd all with unique dialogue about the same event
http://i.imgur.com/BNSq9UE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dprTcj6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xITu0rY.jpg

Have you played either KOTOR 2 or Mask of the Betrayer? If you enjoy P:T, you owe it to yourself to check out those two games.
 

Dec

Member
So how important is Planescape Torment to this game? From the start (only like the first hour) they seem to have a kind of similar beginning
guy wakes up with no/shattered memory and learns that he is some form of immortal and must work to remember what he has forgotten, though maybe they are going in another direction with this and you actually are a cast off
, but this game seems to have a setting, or at least art style that I like.

I've tried playing PST like 4 times now and I find it just incredibly boring. I don't like the setting so much that the interesting story it sets up becomes something I simply don't care to get through.

The first hour of this game by contrast, has me wanting to skip PST and just play this.
 

SRG01

Member
I'm thinking of picking this up, but I read some of the negative Steam reviews :/ Are they accurate at all?
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
So how important is Planescape Torment to this game? From the start (only like the first hour) they seem to have a kind of similar beginning
guy wakes up with no/shattered memory and learns that he is some form of immortal and must work to remember what he has forgotten, though maybe they are going in another direction with this and you actually are a cast off
, but this game seems to have a setting, or at least art style that I like.

I've tried playing PST like 4 times now and I find it just incredibly boring. I don't like the setting so much that the interesting story it sets up becomes something I simply don't care to get through.

The first hour of this game by contrast, has me wanting to skip PST and just play this.

This is a spiritual successor, not a sequel. They have no ties outside of some winks and nods.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
The male castoff has such a smug face in the portrait that I can't help but lie to everyone. This may be the first time since Oblivion that I may actually play again as a total dick.

This just tells me you havent played Alpha Protocol, where you role play various forms of asshole. You should rectify this.
 

Buggy Loop

Gold Member
Does the PC version have gamepad support? Tell me it does, when it's turn based, and a console version exists, there's no reason not to.
 

Taikun

Member
Holy crap, I backed this but had no idea it was releasing today. That's what I get for filtering out the backer emails.

Planescape is one of my all-time favorite games but I've been unsure if a similar title would appeal to me so many years later since I loved Baldur's Gate but couldn't really get into Pillers of Eternity.
 
Top Bottom