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Torment: Tides of Numenera |OT| What Can Change The Nature of a Man?
- Thread starter valentine71
- Start date
Now that more people are finishing, can we talk about how incredibly shit the ending is.
Sorrow shows up and is like "hey bro, I know I've been trying to kill you for the past 30 hours, but I guess you're an alright guy after all. Here are all the endings in a convenient menu, please choose the one you want regardless of your tidal affiliation.
So incredibly shitty. I saved and did all the endings and all the changes is the dialog in the courtyard (and only slightly) and the first paragraph of the first ending slide.
It's Mass Effect 3 level of bad.
So incredibly shitty. I saved and did all the endings and all the changes is the dialog in the courtyard (and only slightly) and the first paragraph of the first ending slide.
It's Mass Effect 3 level of bad.
Oh in that case I am happy to oblige!
Spoilers for the quest the decanted send you on follows.
They start by asking you to bring them people. But not just anyone, they have be aestheticly pleasing in some way. There are a number of people you can give to them. Rhin is one, but I didn't do it. They slave you buy at auction is another, as it Herja or whatever her name is, whose imprisoned inthe mutant quarter. And I think the woman who translates for the murden can go since it mentions she is attractive.
After you give them someone go back and talk to them and the Decanted knock them unconscious to be "taken away to a life of luxury". They claim to treat them better than slaves. Their every need is seen to and they are kept in prime condition.
The twist is that like the robot before you, everyone in that society removes their heads and the people you give over will have the "useless" head removed and replaced by one of the Decanted's people's heads so they can enjoy the prime specimens you turn up. The heads are preserved but obviously without​ the body that is some kind of nightmare life. They also claim that usually the heads of the people go on to become a robot like the one in front of you if they have aptitude for that sort of thing. They pay you shins for each person you bring. I only gave them one before I stopped. Not sure what happens if you give them everyone.
Pretty weird sorry overall but I believe you can't find it out without giving them at least one person. So you do kinda have to damn at least one person which maybe can be hard to square with the kind of character that is trying to be moral. Anyway after you give them one and get the explanation, you can tell them to take a hike and never come back.
Very strange quest, but exactly the kind of no-win thing that makes games like this fun. Since at least one of the people you can turn over is kinda already dead (murden lady) is giving her body to them so bad? It's definitely not a good thing to be encouraging their race to do this though.
After you give them someone go back and talk to them and the Decanted knock them unconscious to be "taken away to a life of luxury". They claim to treat them better than slaves. Their every need is seen to and they are kept in prime condition.
The twist is that like the robot before you, everyone in that society removes their heads and the people you give over will have the "useless" head removed and replaced by one of the Decanted's people's heads so they can enjoy the prime specimens you turn up. The heads are preserved but obviously without​ the body that is some kind of nightmare life. They also claim that usually the heads of the people go on to become a robot like the one in front of you if they have aptitude for that sort of thing. They pay you shins for each person you bring. I only gave them one before I stopped. Not sure what happens if you give them everyone.
Pretty weird sorry overall but I believe you can't find it out without giving them at least one person. So you do kinda have to damn at least one person which maybe can be hard to square with the kind of character that is trying to be moral. Anyway after you give them one and get the explanation, you can tell them to take a hike and never come back.
Very strange quest, but exactly the kind of no-win thing that makes games like this fun. Since at least one of the people you can turn over is kinda already dead (murden lady) is giving her body to them so bad? It's definitely not a good thing to be encouraging their race to do this though.
Anyway that's the deal. I dunno what other effects that stuff has but you definitely lose the people they take. So they will not show up in other places.
His Majesty
Banned
I think I found the Codex character.
You can learn
what they do by talking to the slave auctioneer. You can then confront it about it, where it tries to lie to you. You can then tell them to take a hike, even threatening if you like. They fuck right off.
Really? They pulled this shit?
If it turns out that the shade you first meet in the labyrinth
is the actual changing god,
This is a really interesting point actually. PST ending spoilers:
PST gets around this through the framing device. Because the ending has basically always been decided for you (you die all the way and pay for your crime(s)), the choice feels 100% yours and personal. You confront your mortality and deal deal with it whichever way you choose, but whatever you do, you die for the final time and end the cycle.
In Tides (ending spoilers):
You are given the choices by a third party, basically taking true agency away from the player character.
Finished the game with 35 hours, played mostly in 8 hour marathon chunks.
All in all I was really engrossed in it while playing. Duh, 8 hour sessions. But did not really long to play between sessions.
It felt more like reading a good book than a game but I think that was what they went for.
I stayed very pure "good" so I'm curious to see how the game would react to a more "evil" character and if I skip over most of the explanations/exposition I could probably play it much quicker the second time.
I have seen some people claim to play the game and skipping over most of the text and with that play style I understand if they hate the game. It really is all about the writing.
Quick players may skew the user score low. It will be interesting to see if the user score improves as the slower more thorough players finish.
Something I noticed was that the game was very quiet with very often no music and very little ambient sound. This almost felt like a bug, was this something everyone else also experienced?
Music would start in a crisis and sometimes in new areas but usually when reading dialog in e.g. Sagus Cliffs the game would be silen.
All in all I was really engrossed in it while playing. Duh, 8 hour sessions. But did not really long to play between sessions.
It felt more like reading a good book than a game but I think that was what they went for.
I stayed very pure "good" so I'm curious to see how the game would react to a more "evil" character and if I skip over most of the explanations/exposition I could probably play it much quicker the second time.
I have seen some people claim to play the game and skipping over most of the text and with that play style I understand if they hate the game. It really is all about the writing.
Quick players may skew the user score low. It will be interesting to see if the user score improves as the slower more thorough players finish.
Something I noticed was that the game was very quiet with very often no music and very little ambient sound. This almost felt like a bug, was this something everyone else also experienced?
Music would start in a crisis and sometimes in new areas but usually when reading dialog in e.g. Sagus Cliffs the game would be silen.
Well... about that...
SOME-MIST
Member
kind of surprised at all the negativity. maybe it gets worse when you start venturing into new zones but
I was also a big fan of planescape: torment but haven't played a handful of other titles thrown around in here like nw2 motb
so far I've completed 12 quests (two mainline), I've done nearly all that I think I can throughout circus minor, underbelly, cliff's edge, government square, and now I've just arrived at caravanserai and unlocked a 13th quest. I'm hoping to wrap up the sagus cliffs tonight or tomorrow. I have spent about 10-12 hours so far so I think that I'm taking it very slow?
I started with callistege and tybir, found matkina then made my way to erritis. everyone I interacted with told me tybir is a shithead so I dropped him for erritis, then I had to drop callistege to complete the rhin quest, but then I dropped rhin to get callistege back because I liked her better.
my favorite characters so far are meatmonger, mallet, crooked qeek (rip), sn'erf, and erritis.
the battle system is alright... tho I've only actually battled a few times (afaik required at least for the sorrow battles I've been in). I also didn't know how to handle tol maguur without having to battle, and when I won I ended up etching an insult into her skin and mashing mud against it so it permanently scars. none of my party liked that except for matkina. I'm glad no one left me.
I started with callistege and tybir, found matkina then made my way to erritis. everyone I interacted with told me tybir is a shithead so I dropped him for erritis, then I had to drop callistege to complete the rhin quest, but then I dropped rhin to get callistege back because I liked her better.
my favorite characters so far are meatmonger, mallet, crooked qeek (rip), sn'erf, and erritis.
the battle system is alright... tho I've only actually battled a few times (afaik required at least for the sorrow battles I've been in). I also didn't know how to handle tol maguur without having to battle, and when I won I ended up etching an insult into her skin and mashing mud against it so it permanently scars. none of my party liked that except for matkina. I'm glad no one left me.
I was also a big fan of planescape: torment but haven't played a handful of other titles thrown around in here like nw2 motb
Well... I just finished the game and I think I need some time to sort my thoughts on it to write some sort of detailed and informative review.
If I had to say something right now it'd be that I mostly enjoyed it, especially the first 2/3rds. It felt like a Torment experience and I guess that's what I was looking for when I backed it so long ago. The "game-y" part of the game left a lot to be desired and I'm not sure if the Numenera rule set limitations or the development team interpretation of said rule set are to blame.
If I had to say something right now it'd be that I mostly enjoyed it, especially the first 2/3rds. It felt like a Torment experience and I guess that's what I was looking for when I backed it so long ago. The "game-y" part of the game left a lot to be desired and I'm not sure if the Numenera rule set limitations or the development team interpretation of said rule set are to blame.
The ending was pants... No doubt about that.
He wasn't the Changing God.
I know he's a recording of the changing god, which is almost more stupid.
Can anyone tell me whether this was explained and I missed it or just rolled over: (spoilers, obviously)
Why did the Changing God allow the castoffs to live and why did they all gain consciousness? Being a paranoid nutter, you'd think he would make sure to get rid of them to avoid any competition...
This is rage inducing. It was so obvious that I thought for sure that they would not do this.
Dsyndrome
Member
I'm pretty sure I can guess what's behind those spoilers without clicking on any of them. How unfortunate.
Just got to Valley of Dead Heroes at 20 hours in. Only crises I've 'had' to do thus far have been the Labyrinth
and the mirror
. Didn't mind the former, not looking forward to the whichever ones y'all are talking about with tons of waiting between turns.
Edit: Forgot about the Peerless. That fight got grating.
Just got to Valley of Dead Heroes at 20 hours in. Only crises I've 'had' to do thus far have been the Labyrinth
Sorrow enemies
Abykos enemies
Edit: Forgot about the Peerless. That fight got grating.
I'm at 16.5 hours so far and just headed over to Valley of the Dead Heroes.I'm traveling with Callistege, Erratis, and Rhin because they seem the most intriguing to me and I want to learn more about them. My quest log says I've completed 2 main quests and 17 secondary quests. I'm really enjoying it so far. I can see how the Crisis system could become overbearing with huge groups though. So far the only Crises I remember needing to fight in though were
and
, and the
(All of them were fairly quick and straight forward though)
Anechoic Lazaret drone things
Klin'Kar and the cultists upon arriving in Valley of the Dead
Sorrow
One thing I noticed during the finale was that
Imho there's only 1 crisis that needs serious balancing but I didn't really fight a lot so I don't know about the other many crisis that are solvable through dialogue.
Rhin's story didn't have a proper ending, it was left open with a "her adventures are a story for another time" kind of epilogue. Do you think they intend to do a sequel with her as a main protagonist or some sort of central character?
Imho there's only 1 crisis that needs serious balancing but I didn't really fight a lot so I don't know about the other many crisis that are solvable through dialogue.
MasterMenace
Member
25 pages. Game is dead.
Maybe they could flesh out all the characters in comics...
https://steamspy.com/app/272270
anyone remember how d
s, poe, wasteland 2, tyranny, or the shadowrun series did their first 2 weeks?https://steamspy.com/app/272270
anyone remember how d
PoE was at ~300k about a month after launch and 500k half a year later. Not sure on any of the others.
Fuz
Banned
I've finally finished it.
I didn't like it AT ALL.
I've fallen asleep in front of my PC don't know how many times. Especially during the meres. They're just unbelievably lazy ways to make the game feel longer without investing resources. Pointless text adventures.
The bloom is mildly interesting, the rest is a disgrace.
It's overly verbose, dull, boring. You can't make two steps without having to deal with yet-another-wall-of-text. This is, by far, the game worst flaw. And it should have been its strong point.
The idea behind the crises is good, not really "combat" but action sequences, and I give them point for that, but the combat itself is terrible. The skills are pointless, the idea behind the cyphers and their management is horrible - it's just a chore and a huge annoyance - and the sequences are soporific.
The story is bad. There's no way around it. It's just a giant MEH. And the supporting characters are all uninteresting, with the sole exception of Rhin.
And that ending. Oh my god.
What the Sorrow actually is is
SO
FUCKING
DISAPPOINTING
I would never have thought of something so utterly uninspired, so dull and unimaginative.
First time we see it we're thinking "wonder what that actually is?
" And instead is... a lump of disappointment.
This game is my biggest letdown of the year.
I didn't like it AT ALL.
I've fallen asleep in front of my PC don't know how many times. Especially during the meres. They're just unbelievably lazy ways to make the game feel longer without investing resources. Pointless text adventures.
The bloom is mildly interesting, the rest is a disgrace.
It's overly verbose, dull, boring. You can't make two steps without having to deal with yet-another-wall-of-text. This is, by far, the game worst flaw. And it should have been its strong point.
The idea behind the crises is good, not really "combat" but action sequences, and I give them point for that, but the combat itself is terrible. The skills are pointless, the idea behind the cyphers and their management is horrible - it's just a chore and a huge annoyance - and the sequences are soporific.
The story is bad. There's no way around it. It's just a giant MEH. And the supporting characters are all uninteresting, with the sole exception of Rhin.
And that ending. Oh my god.
What the Sorrow actually is is
SO
FUCKING
DISAPPOINTING
I would never have thought of something so utterly uninspired, so dull and unimaginative.
First time we see it we're thinking "wonder what that actually is?
Maybe some residual emotion of the Changing God's loved ones.
And the fact that we have a infodump with the Sorrow is actually ridiculous in itself.
This game is my biggest letdown of the year.
The Illiterati
Member
Have they patched this yet? I stopped when I couldn't fight Peerless without the game locking every single time.
I can understand the criticism...
I just finished the game myself and this game was actually the reason to finally build and finish a new PC (last one i built was for oblivion). Also it's my first rpg in a few years (i have motivation problems), so for this game to kindle my interest so long and also win over zelda for playing time... that's a big compliment. Nonetheless....
After playing through it (thoroughly, trying every sidequest i found; also doing the parts at the end multiple times ) and afterwards reading the official playing guide (and looking back at the original kickstarter).... I'm happy to have completed it and all and happy that they made a good game out of all these broken promises (i don't care about those actually but it's just funny including looking at the original idea of a release date in "december 2014"). But I gotta admit: I expected more.
The game is reading, reading, reading. Usually, I like that (well, maybe not SO much). Actually, I kind of did a few fights because I was bored to only read the whole time which i usually wouldnt do because solving problems in other ways is usually more interesting for my mind... but if you never use your skills... why even care about them or the cyphers?
But the reading/fighting-balance is not my real concern about the game. It's about the reading itself: The writing is a little too thick on descriptive language and a little too thin on actual story. Yeah, I love philosophical matters too, that's why this was my most anticipated game all this time.
But
1. these philosophical themes are not really done expectionally well in the game [nor original - but I appreciate the idea of the backstory, it's a great concept.]
and
2. a good story is always about interesting characters. If the stories of the characters can be summarized in 3 sentences even after playing (reading) 30h with these characters... then you don't really get to know these characters. The worst offender is Rhin (no conclusion whatsoever
I get that they want an easy way out for additional content. Keeping everything vague means they can go in all kinds of directions but it also leaves the player yearning for a satisfying conclusion.) but the other characters are not much better. Every character has his kinda tick and that's it. Even the multidimensional Callistege is quite one-dimensional in the end.
Which leads me to "reactivity" (which I adore usually). If the reactivity does not lead to interesting stories, then it loses a lot of its appeal. That's also the reason why I won't play it a second time in the next months (although the gameplay itself probably allows for a very quick playthrough after playing it through once).
I gotta admit that I was always yearning for interesting stories/conclusions to pop up until the very end and that's how the game kept me motivated. But there were just too few in the end (the mere with the dying "sandking" [sorry, don't know how to call him] was the most interesting story to me).
I would recommend this game only to players who love to read lengthy books with very descriptive language. But for those players it's a treat. The descriptions of superficialities are top-notch.
I just finished the game myself and this game was actually the reason to finally build and finish a new PC (last one i built was for oblivion). Also it's my first rpg in a few years (i have motivation problems), so for this game to kindle my interest so long and also win over zelda for playing time... that's a big compliment. Nonetheless....
After playing through it (thoroughly, trying every sidequest i found; also doing the parts at the end multiple times ) and afterwards reading the official playing guide (and looking back at the original kickstarter).... I'm happy to have completed it and all and happy that they made a good game out of all these broken promises (i don't care about those actually but it's just funny including looking at the original idea of a release date in "december 2014"). But I gotta admit: I expected more.
The game is reading, reading, reading. Usually, I like that (well, maybe not SO much). Actually, I kind of did a few fights because I was bored to only read the whole time which i usually wouldnt do because solving problems in other ways is usually more interesting for my mind... but if you never use your skills... why even care about them or the cyphers?
But the reading/fighting-balance is not my real concern about the game. It's about the reading itself: The writing is a little too thick on descriptive language and a little too thin on actual story. Yeah, I love philosophical matters too, that's why this was my most anticipated game all this time.
But
1. these philosophical themes are not really done expectionally well in the game [nor original - but I appreciate the idea of the backstory, it's a great concept.]
and
2. a good story is always about interesting characters. If the stories of the characters can be summarized in 3 sentences even after playing (reading) 30h with these characters... then you don't really get to know these characters. The worst offender is Rhin (no conclusion whatsoever
yeah, i got to adult rhin... but what kind of world did she grow up now?
Which leads me to "reactivity" (which I adore usually). If the reactivity does not lead to interesting stories, then it loses a lot of its appeal. That's also the reason why I won't play it a second time in the next months (although the gameplay itself probably allows for a very quick playthrough after playing it through once).
I gotta admit that I was always yearning for interesting stories/conclusions to pop up until the very end and that's how the game kept me motivated. But there were just too few in the end (the mere with the dying "sandking" [sorry, don't know how to call him] was the most interesting story to me).
I would recommend this game only to players who love to read lengthy books with very descriptive language. But for those players it's a treat. The descriptions of superficialities are top-notch.
Fuz
Banned
Loved it.
Onlinehero
Member
My biggest gripe with this game so far is how broken it is once you get a couple points in edge.
My nano could get a proficiency point in just about every INT-related area from the get go. Once I got a second point in INT edge I pretty much stopped spending points, making max INT meaningless for anything but willpower (for the few fights you get into, and the few occasions someone launches a spell at you).
In combat, edge in either INT or SPD will make sure that any status effect will have 100% accuracy. If the enemy isn't immune that's pretty rough when you have multiple debuffs that take away 10-35% accuracy,
Edge makes it so you can reliably hit 80-100% on your rolls without any penalty or cost. At 3 INT edge I just auto-succeed everything. Not that a low chance random roll is more fun or anything. The whole system feels rather poorly thought out.
I do like how skills like perception, knowledge, and such skills roll in the background
and lets you see additional information. I'm also happy I got mind reading. Sometimes you also get to lie without making a deception roll, which is weird.
My feeling is that the game would've probably been better off if persuasion, intimidation, and deception were taken away. 90% of the time they auto solve a situation. Other times you navigate a conversation by using the information you have rather than doing a
persuasion-attack. The latter feels
much more rewarding and engaging, the skill category of persuasion, intimidation and deception feels like a crutch.
My nano could get a proficiency point in just about every INT-related area from the get go. Once I got a second point in INT edge I pretty much stopped spending points, making max INT meaningless for anything but willpower (for the few fights you get into, and the few occasions someone launches a spell at you).
In combat, edge in either INT or SPD will make sure that any status effect will have 100% accuracy. If the enemy isn't immune that's pretty rough when you have multiple debuffs that take away 10-35% accuracy,
Edge makes it so you can reliably hit 80-100% on your rolls without any penalty or cost. At 3 INT edge I just auto-succeed everything. Not that a low chance random roll is more fun or anything. The whole system feels rather poorly thought out.
I do like how skills like perception, knowledge, and such skills roll in the background
and lets you see additional information. I'm also happy I got mind reading. Sometimes you also get to lie without making a deception roll, which is weird.
My feeling is that the game would've probably been better off if persuasion, intimidation, and deception were taken away. 90% of the time they auto solve a situation. Other times you navigate a conversation by using the information you have rather than doing a
persuasion-attack. The latter feels
much more rewarding and engaging, the skill category of persuasion, intimidation and deception feels like a crutch.
~60%
It's very unbalanced and quite broken.
Which, honestly, just drove home to me how very little I care about that in this type of game.
Dunkelgrau
Member
Bought it yesterday for PS4. Should I wait a few weeks before I start?
His Majesty
Banned
]blacky[;232296750 said:
They are still working on including cut content I read, including a companion and an in-game codex. Might be worth waiting.
I just entered the Bloom. Really liked the last section, pacing seems to have picked up compared to Sagus Cliffs. I'm enjoying the characters, writing and story but everything else in the game is so...poor.
Onlinehero
Member
Same here. Just that I'd appreciate the game more if they just did away with the broken bits. It is pretty eye-opening to realize what I actually enjoy in this type of game. I enjoy finding loot even though it barely matters at all, I like keeping companions around although they DO NOTHING but add a line of text here and there. I feel engaged and want to progress and explore while being aware that I can't possibly grow significantly stronger. I think I even get a buzz from clicking all the 100% skill-checks, I just wish they weren't the obvious right answer all of the time as that keeps me from exploring all the "options".
I finished it last week and I don't understand why some people are upset about the walls of text the game has. They wanted to make a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, what did you think you'd get in Tides of Numenera? A hack and slash with a good combat system?
I enjoyed exploring the world because it's so different from the typical rpg but the main story feels very disjointed.
Tides is a game where the journey (the world and it's sidequests) is alot more interesting than the destination (finishing the main quest), because the destination is fairly underwhelming.
I think it's an ok game, but it's nowhere near the original Torment in terms of quality.
I enjoyed exploring the world because it's so different from the typical rpg but the main story feels very disjointed.
Defeating the monster together with the vets in the Fifth Eye tavern felt more of an actual accomplishment than finishing the main quest. Many parts of the main story didn't feel fleshed out to me. The different relationships between the many castoffs should have been explored a lot more, my characters connection to all the other castoffs and the possibility to create any kind of relationship with them felt completely glossed over by the devs as I was playing.
I think it's an ok game, but it's nowhere near the original Torment in terms of quality.
I agree, I think many of the people feel that the walls of descriptive text are there at the expense of the content. The nice description should be the extra and the substance should be front and central.
Instead of telling me how the wind is blowing this guy's nano-robe about his gross mutant face, tell me how his weird ass cult is related to anything in the game world, what he does in the cult and what led him to bug me about some McGuffin.
His Majesty
Banned
I also can't stress enough how much the absence of portraits is bugging me.
Fuz
Banned
True.
Moff
Member
it's especially bugging me because there is a huge empty space in the dialogue UI on the right side of the text
I really liked that in Tyranny they were even different based on what the NPC said, even if they looked a bit rushed
His Majesty
Banned
Finished the game in 30 hours doing most of the side-activities. Overall my opinion on the game is mixed.
+ The writing is mostly good although the game often falls into the trap of description overkill. You can be descriptive and get to the point at the same time.
+ Interesting world, especially
+ The meres provide an interesting view on the world and its history. Well done.
+ Side quests are usually well done, most have multiple solutions and some really help flesh out the world.
- The main story never realises its potential.
- Crises are really bad. Luckily you can avoid most of them and they are very easy.
- Graphically very underwhelming: few and poor animations, backgrounds look mediocre, no character portraits, ...
- Companions are very bland except for
. There are so many other characters that would have made for interesting companions. The Tortured Levy, The Genocide, ...
- The entire game is too easy, impossible to fail skill checks.
- Sagus Cliffs is a very unfocused area.
- UI is ugly and clunky.
There is a lot of potential buried deep down in Tides of Numenera yet it is never unearthed. Damn it, inXile.
+ The writing is mostly good although the game often falls into the trap of description overkill. You can be descriptive and get to the point at the same time.
+ Interesting world, especially
the Bloom.
+ Side quests are usually well done, most have multiple solutions and some really help flesh out the world.
- The main story never realises its potential.
Not enough interactions with other cast-offs. The Endless Battle is a very interesting concept yet never explored properly outside of an optional mere.
- Graphically very underwhelming: few and poor animations, backgrounds look mediocre, no character portraits, ...
- Companions are very bland except for
Erritris and Rhin
- The entire game is too easy, impossible to fail skill checks.
- Sagus Cliffs is a very unfocused area.
- UI is ugly and clunky.
There is a lot of potential buried deep down in Tides of Numenera yet it is never unearthed. Damn it, inXile.