Torment: Tides of Numenera Catch-All

From today's Kickstarter Update, regarding "next steps". Spoilered for length.

Spoiler:
What Comes Next?
Since release, we have been tirelessly reading your feedback, comments, and reports, and using that to plan a few patches for the near future. These will be primarily focused on fixing some pesky bugs that some of our players have encountered, as well as performance and stability optimizations, both on PC as well as on consoles. You can expect to see our first patch coming in the next couple of weeks.

But, we also want to address the longer term. Four years is an extended development timeline for an RPG, and it is a hallmark of our ambition for the game. Torment has the longest script we've ever produced at over 1.2 million words, and provides more nuanced reactivity and more complicated quests and stories than we have ever done before.

Despite that, there were some features we wanted to include in the game that we weren’t able to finish in time for release. Companions, in particular, were a big production trade-off. Not only does a single companion take many months of work from writers, scripters, designers, and artists, but because we wanted companions to interact and react to the game world and conversations in a deep way. Their implementation needed to happen later in the development process, when quests and area design were mostly complete. As we were iterating on the companions, we felt the time was best spent building them out deeper as opposed to slamming in a few more on a surface level. These development decisions are never black and white, but we always approach it from a position of what we truly believe is best for the game. As we addressed in a previous update, reducing their number was a necessary trade-off to hit the level of quality we wanted.
But, there's a saying that no work of art is ever truly complete. We certainly know that many of you were looking forward to some of the things we couldn't squeeze into our release build, and it just didn't sit well with us leaving those behind. Now that we have had a time to see your feedback on the game, we also have a better sense of where we can focus our resources to improve.

To that end, we are pleased to announce that we will be working on additional content and updates for Torment post-release. These updates will include:
Oom ("The Toy" companion).
Voluminous Codex.
Crisis system improvements.

Our initial updates to the game will focused on bug fixes, optimizations, and other improvements, while the content additions will come later down the line. Both the patches and content updates will, of course, be completely free for all Torment owners, including backers, PC buyers, and console players. We will have more news on these in the coming weeks and months!

Sweeeeet!

Nice, sounds like boxes might finally be shipping soon.

Looking at Steams top seller list it sadly seems like it is doing quite horrible.

^ The second bit is SadPanda news. Not quite everything I'd hoped for in a spiritual successor to PST, but still a good game. It's highly imaginative and I love that you can talk through a lot of the fisticuff bits.

I thought this was interesting, pulling it out of the spoiler tags:

Companions, in particular, were a big production trade-off. Not only does a single companion take many months of work from writers, scripters, designers, and artists, but because we wanted companions to interact and react to the game world and conversations in a deep way. Their implementation needed to happen later in the development process, when quests and area design were mostly complete.

That dovetails well with my observation that this game isn't really about the companions, that it's about the world. They're almost afterthoughts, and only one of them (Rhin) really interested me. All of them felt a bit perfunctory. The great classics in the genre are very focused on character, with Planescape probably being focused on the NPCs more than anything else. It's a major design shift, and I don't think it's as good as what came before.

Still a damn shame if it's not selling, though, as I've enjoyed the hell out of it anyway. It's obvious that this game was a labor of love, even if it didn't hit all the targets it was aiming for.

I think as GOG becomes more and more popular choice It will be difficult to gauge a game's success by looking at Steam charts.

Companions- Yeah I feel while individually they were nice I would have liked more interaction between them. My gold standard for this is Dragon Age Origins. Although that is a tough standard to hold this game too as that was fully voice acted.

I love the whole Endless war back story in this game, brings back memories of A. A. Attanasio/Greg Bear/ David Zindell/Frank Herbert.

There's an absolute glut of good games out now, and not nearly enough time to play them all. I got Zelda last week and have only put about six hours into it, plus I've still not touched Resident EVIIL, or Horizon... or Pillars of Eternity. The list goes on.

I'm happy that I backed this game years ago, but sad that it'll be months before I can touch it.

Companions- Yeah I feel while individually they were nice I would have liked more interaction between them. My gold standard for this is Dragon Age Origins. Although that is a tough standard to hold this game too as that was fully voice acted.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect the hundreds of hours of voice work they had in Origins, but in a game that's so very, very, very much about text, you'd think they could have devoted more of it to the companions. The original Torment's technique of just voicing the first line or two, and then writing the rest, worked very well, and it's still working in current games like Pillars of Eternity.

Of course, with written dialog, they have to stop play to show it to you, where the spoken dialog in Origins can blend in seamlessly as you explore. There are real advantages to voicing everything, but.... man, it's expensive as heck.

plus I've still not touched Resident EVIIL, or Horizon... or Pillars of Eternity.

This game's world is a lot better than PoE's, and I think the characters are fundamentally stronger. PoE has a lot more content per character, though, and it's got a combat system that's quite good. Its main plot is dull, but the end is awesome, where Torment is awesome for most of the game, and then sort of whiffs it a bit at the end.

Which is better? Depends on what you want. If you're looking for a world to explore, Numenera is better. If you want a good battle simulator, PoE is much stronger. It has a lot more depth on the tactical side of things. It's also quite a bit longer, with a lot more combat.

Shadout wrote:

Looking at Steams top seller list it sadly seems like it is doing quite horrible.

Long tail will mean a lot to this game.

Also, it was in the top ten in the first week. The backers got it "free", which also sucked its market out a bit. On the other hand, they had their costs paid up front, which means their decisions about this game and possibly others will not hinge solely on sales performance.

wanderingtaoist wrote:
Shadout wrote:

Looking at Steams top seller list it sadly seems like it is doing quite horrible.

Long tail will mean a lot to this game.

Also, it was in the top ten in the first week. The backers got it "free", which also sucked its market out a bit. On the other hand, they had their costs paid up front, which means their decisions about this game and possibly others will not hinge solely on sales performance.

Looking at SteamSpy and they estimate ~ 100,000 copies. 79,000 of those are probably backers so this game is not doing very well.

It's probably a variety of reasons.

- There were a lot of high profile releases recently. Heck, I backed the game and probably won't get to it for months as I have been playing Breath of the Wild and Nier: Automata comes out on the 17th.

- Wasteland 2 wasn't fantastic.

- It's a hard sell as it's so strange.

- Torment was a niche game.

I don't know why Fargo expanded inXile so much and how he even has the funds to. They raise a lot of money in their crowd funding campaigns but not "open a new studio and dabble in a VR side project" money. I wonder how much they banked on Numenera lighting up the sales charts. Not only that but I'm sure Techland had a lot riding on it as well since it's their first high profile game as a publisher.

Wasteland 2 is fantastic! Wasteland 2: Director's Cut is fantasticer! Wasteland 2 did launch broken, though.

I didn't back the game but will be picking it up sometime. The problem is that the buggy launch of Wasteland 2, my tepid enthusiasm for Planescape: Torment, Mass Effect: Andromeda releasing, and my own vacation means it was never going to be a day 01 sale.

BNice wrote:

I don't know why Fargo expanded inXile so much and how he even has the funds to. They raise a lot of money in their crowd funding campaigns but not "open a new studio and dabble in a VR side project" money. I wonder how much they banked on Numenera lighting up the sales charts. Not only that but I'm sure Techland had a lot riding on it as well since it's their first high profile game as a publisher.

That's one of my concerns with inXile long term. I like Brian Fargo; he's got the fever and he's a a more likable faceman|'suit' than the guys at the top of most of my favorite gaming companies. That said, I've always felt that he was less grounded than Feargus Urquhart over at Obsidian. Torment's a good step up from Wasteland2 release quality. I'm hoping they really breakthrough on Wasteland3 and the Bard's Tale game -- they're trailing behind Obsidian (imho) but I'd very much like them to both stay viable|stick around.

I wasn't able to play Wasteland 2: DC because it CTD every 5 minutes or less. Never did find a fix.

Wasteland 2 was good, though really buggy at first. Torment: Tides of Numenera was a release day purchase for me from the moment they announced the success of the kickstarter (didn't actually see the campaign, else I'd have put money into it). In reality, I only manged to grab it a few days after release, but it was a done deal. There was no way I was going to not have this game as soon as possible.

I hope they make enough money over time, as I'm positive it'll be a game that will gain traction as the year goes on. It's a wonderful game, from what I've played so far. While the focus is different than in PS: T, I don't find this at all disappointing.

FYI: Torment on PS4 and 360 seems to be part of Target's Buy 2, get 1 free game sale.

I didn't like Wasteland 2 much, it was merely ok, yet I have supported all their kickstarters, since I really love that they are at least trying to make these kinds of games. Obsidian cant carry the torch alone.
Torment is an outright good game, though it certainly got its issues.

Their handling of the "broken kickstarter promises" also seems to have angered some Angry Internet Men quite a bit, lots of negative steam reviews focusing on that issue.

I hate Angry Internet Men and People hahahaha

I love this game. Finally a "proper" RPG to get my teeth into.

An actual alien world that's worth exploring and doesn't rely on the same old elves orcs and dragons.

Actual stats that effect gameplay.

Actual fascinating conversations that effect gameplay.

Actual consequences.

This really puts what Bethesda did to the Fallout series in a poor light.

Also I just massaged a giant sphincter in order to relax it and gain entry so what's not to like.

I really enjoyed what I played of it, but the game kept freezing on me during combat. I'm looking forward to trying again once they release a patch that fixes that problem.

That's a shame. I'm on Xbox. No freezes but a couple of crashes.

strangederby wrote:

That's a shame. I'm on Xbox. No freezes but a couple of crashes.

Yeah it really is because I was just getting into it and then it started freezing during a particular battle near the beginning of the game. Doesn't crash, game really isnt frozen but you can't click on or do anything, it just sits there like it's stuck. Only way out is to alt tab back to the desktop and end task. From what I've read it's a fairly common problem, hopefully it will be addressed soon.

It's been really, really stable for me. I think I've seen a couple of bugs, but by and large, it's been excellent.

I screwed up bad, though, and my failure was exacerbated by poor game design. One of the early choices for your character is your adjective, and I was unclear on exactly what that meant. When I chose a Glaive who Defends, that ended up working extremely well; that character became very, VERY strong. However, when I replayed with a Nano, I also chose Defends, because that was the only interesting-looking power at that level... and that was a giant mistake. This ends up being the backbone of most of your powers, and a nano that wears medium armor and tanks really doesn't work well. I think I'm going to have to scrap that playthrough.

The underlying problem is that I can't do any character planning, because I have no idea what powers will be available at the higher tiers. I don't know what the adjectives *mean*, and I find that a very frustrating design choice. I thought the nano part was the important bit, but that's not true at all.

edit: In other words, when I got those great armor and defensive powers on my first playthrough, I thought that was because I was a glaive. They're warriors, and armor and tanking are warrior powers, so I just figured that was the package. That's not how it works at all, and the manual certainly doesn't cover any of that.

It is kinda bad that the manual does not cover skills. All of it is in the strategy guide they made, so could easily have added it in the manual.
Personally I like not being able to plan ahead first time around, just going with what shows up. But if I replay, min-maxing might be its own fun.

New big patch with bugfixes today, for those who have problems running the game.
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?...

Got a text message today that my game box should arrive this week. Wohoo. Better late than never.

There are a few old Planescape: Torment threads, but this seems as good a place as any to put this:

Oh my. Guess it has to be played again.
I wish they make an EE for Icewind Dale 2 at some point, the only one of these games I have never played. Had heard that IWD2 and Planescape were harder to update than the others and that was the reason they had skipped those, but with Planescape EE, the hope is alive.

From today's Kickstarter update:

Spoiler:

Oom & Voluminous Codex
Design and writing work has begun on some of the content additions that we spoke about last Kickstarter update.
Oom's character is currently being built out by Colin McComb and Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie, and they're working hard to make it a unique character that also fits in with the overall storyline of the game. On the design front, initial work has been done on figuring out what kinds of abilities and features Oom will have, both during exploration and Crisis gameplay. Meanwhile, the art team has begun the initial stages of figuring out his character model and design.
Regarding the Voluminous Codex, most of the writing and user interface design work has been completed, and we are in the beginning stages of integrating it into the game itself, both in the interface itself as well as all the hooks and triggers to make sure the entries are unlocked at the right stages of the game. Similar to other RPGs, the Codex entries you receive will give you details on companions and characters you meet as well as provide additional lore about the world, factions, creatures, and cults.
As we stated last time, we don't have dates for these additions just yet as our focus is on doing them right. However, as mentioned, these will be completely free to all backers and owners of Torment. We hope to have them in time to give you an even more fresh experience for your second (or third, or fourth...) playthrough. We will keep you informed as progress is made!

Fixed an issue that was preventing party members from bantering. Party members should now be much more talkative!

This will go a long way towards making the companions more interesting.

Inspiring Presence and other looping sound effects have been removed.

This was driving me batty! The sound was never-ending.

Are you supposed to die in the first real encounter? This is one of those "die repeatedly" games, isn't it?

No, I've finished it a number of ways without any fighting, with fighting, dying, not dying, etc...
That said, there are a few times where dying benefits you. There are times in which you will be searching out ways to kill yourself.