Torment: Tides of Numenera

[Damian79]

Skill progression and level progression.

[Great Rumbler]

[Himu]

[Human Snorenado]

[Great Rumbler]

Writing team meeting:



From left to right: Steve Dobos, George Ziets, Monte Cook, Kevin Saunders, Shanna Germain, Tony Evans, Matthew Findley, Colin McComb, Patrick Rothfuss, with Nathan Long in the front, with Chris Avellone present but not on the photo.

[Human Snorenado]

[Great Rumbler]

Contrast between in-process and final version of one of the screenshots released earlier:



They also mention a ton of other stuff in the latest update on Kickstarter, definitely something of interest to anyone who has been following their progress:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/547455?ref=activity

[Great Rumbler]

There's currently a backer-only poll going on to decide whether the combat will be turn-based or real-time-with-pause [like the old IE games]. At present:

Turn-based = 5,382
Real-time = 5,290
Don't care = 585

[Himu]

I respect developer vision. They haven't even decided what kind of battle system it'll have yet, much less have go ask their fans? Fucking kick starter.

[Great Rumbler]

I respect developer vision. They haven't even decided what kind of battle system it'll have yet, much less have go ask their fans? Fucking kick starter.

You're really misconstruing this. Like, a lot.

[Great Rumbler]

It's been a while since the thread got an update, so here's some new stuff:





And George Ziets [Nevewinter Night 2: Mask of the Betrayer] is now working full-time on the game as the lead area designer.

[Great Rumbler]

They’re basically shorter, non-handcrafted combats that are always entered into by player choice or occasionally by player failure, but usually the player will be aware that he’s trying something that could start a fight. In this way, we can give the player freedom to attack people that are reasonable to attack, while still maintaining control over which NPCs can die and when. It also gives players who want to focus on combat more opportunities to do what they’re good at.

Combat is the obvious one. Many felt that PST’s combat was tedious and uninteresting, and we have set out to improve that from the start. PST also many times had to wrestle with or completely break its own RPG system. While we didn’t choose Numenera because of its flexibility, it has turned out to be a huge boon on that front, giving us the freedom to do many things we could not have done otherwise.

And although PST’s endings were pretty nuanced, there was one that is generally considered “best”. In TTON, we hope that each player will feel that they got the best playthrough, because it was the playthrough that was best for them. This is a high bar, and I don’t know if we can reach it, but we’re sure as heck going to try.

In general, we’re trying to think of our companions as family members, and fitting them into the party in that relation to the PC. We’ll give the player a choice of two companions at the start of the game. Due to a side effect of certain of the player’s abilities, which can be honed throughout the game, the player can pick only one of these two to adventure with – or can pick neither.

Since they appear almost at the start of the game, I think it’s probably safe to reveal that one of them is a fallen Aeon Priest whose arms are covered with intricate, living tattoos. He can pull these tattoos from his body and siphon their energies to create a blazing wall of force or a spray of acid. The other companion is a brash nano, a mad-scientist type whose recklessness has turned her into a series of quantum shadows echoed through multiple realities. Either of these can act as a mentor, a replacement for the father-figure of the Changing God.

More bluntly, while our companions might contain echoes of archetypal companions, we intend that they’ll prove themselves different in the execution.

The Numenera skill system is atypical in that any character can attempt any task, and for moderately difficult tasks, even an untrained character can succeed for a cost. This is extremely versatile. We can worry less about whether certain character builds can pass obstacles or not—they all can; it’s just a matter of how much it will cost them.

Say the ancient ruins you’re exploring are trapped by a complicated prior world detonator. To disable this thing would be a difficulty 6 task, which on the Numenera scale is very hard – an untrained character could only succeed about 15% of the time. Training in any skills that apply will lower this difficulty up to two steps per applicable skill. So someone specialized in, say, Lore: Machinery would attempt the task as a difficult 4, with a 45% change of succeeding.

Additionally, there’s the concept of Effort, where you can spend points from the appropriate Stat Pool (in this case, Speed) to lower the difficulty even further. An untrained character of a high enough level could spend points to use 4 levels of Effort, reducing the difficulty to 2 and giving themselves an 85% chance of success. And if our specialized character did the same thing, they’d reduce the difficulty to 0. When this happens, the task automatically succeeds—no roll is made and there is no chance for critical failure.

It is tempting, especially given the worldview of typical skill-use in RPGs, to think that skills aren’t very important – anybody can succeed at anything if they’re willing to spend the points to do so. While it’s true that skills aren’t as important in Numenera as in typical RPGs, they are still very important. First, they save the PC’s Stat Pool points: easy and moderate tasks cost the trained character nothing while succeeding more consistently than for the untrained character. Second, Numenera difficulties range from 1 to 10, and everything above difficulty 7 is impossible without training or Effort. A high-level character, purchasing the maximum amount of Effort, can reduce a difficulty 10 task to 4. For the high cost of all that Effort, they will still fail more than half the time. But the cost and risk for a trained character are greatly reduced.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/06/17/torment-tides-of-numenera-interview-1/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/06/17/torment-tides-of-numenera-interview-2/

[Squiddy]

Well yeah, reviving all your friends and merging back with Transcendent, getting god-like powers and saying goodbye before deliberately going to hell (as you well deserve) is way better than just taking an axe to Transcendent's face and dying automatically when he dies.

But that ending is kind of a reward for being a completionist and investing in Wisdom in a 2nd Ed D&D game where you can't play a Cleric.

Yeah, that ending was so fucking amazing. I'd be surprised to see multiple fuckawesome endings like that (which is probably why in Planescape: Torment there ultimately only was one fuckawesome ending.)

[Squiddy]

NEW AWESOME TEASER:

[Phoenix Dark]

in before Himu shits on everything shown in that video

[Squiddy]

Himuro hating would just be praise for it in my eyes

[toku]

NEW AWESOME TEASER:

 

[Great Rumbler]

It's really happening, brehs. It's so beautiful.

[Himu]

Looks fantastic and like a game that belongs in 2014.

[Great Rumbler]

2014

I wish.

[Squiddy]

I'd be surprised if itreleased  in 2015 even.

[Great Rumbler]

Wasteland 2 was in development for approximately 29 months, a similar time frame for Torment would put its release at September 2015. And they're using technology that was already developed by Obsidian for Pillars of Eternity, so that should make content creation go a bit more smoothly than it would if they were developing all the tech themselves.

[Himu]

The art direction is PERFECT.

[Squiddy]

Wasteland 2 was in development for approximately 29 months, a similar time frame for Torment would put its release at September 2015. And they're using technology that was already developed by Obsidian for Pillars of Eternity, so that should make content creation go a bit more smoothly than it would if they were developing all the tech themselves.

September 2015 
I still wouldn't be surprised to see it pushed to early 2016, it seems to be a much greater game than Wasteland 2.

[Great Rumbler]

Most of Torment is in the writing, though, likely the bulk of which has already been completed [with some additions and tweaks coming over the course of the next year]. I think 32 months [December 2015] is probably enough time for them to finish, especially since the team has the experience of completing Wasteland 2 under their belt. But we'll see.

[Squiddy]

Shit is superior to Project Eternity anyway.

[Rufus]

Rank unreleased games, brehs.

[Great Rumbler]

New Torment video and it's chock full of even more totally amazing locations:



Combat looks jank at this point, but that will probably be one of the last things to get finalized, if Wasteland 2 is anything to go by.

[tiesto]

Graphically it looks much better than Pillars of Eternity, at least.

[Great Rumbler]

Alpha systems test went out to a few people yesterday. Here's a Russian guy playing it [in-game dialog is in English, though]:



Spoilers and all that, since it's the opening scene of the game.

[thisismyusername]

Brian Fargo...

Fallout 1-2, breh.

Edit: Whoops, I just noticed the year this was originally posted. Still~

[Great Rumbler]

We're probably still at least 8 months away from the full release.

[Bebpo]

We're probably still at least 8 months away from the full release.

And then another 12 until the definitive Director's Cut edition


Basically I wait a year for crpgs (since I don't replay rpgs, so the first time is gonna be the only time):

Witcher 1/2 Extended Editions
Shadowrun DMS Updated version that plays closer to Dragonfall
Shadowrun Dragonfall DC
Wasteland 2 DC
Divinity OS DC
Dead State DC

I think the only major crpg that's come out in the last year or two that hasn't had a much better version released within 12 months is Pillars of Eternity, but there's still at least 6 months to go for them to announce that Director's Cut!  And then there's stuff like Bethesda games where it makes sense to wait a year so people can make mods to actually make their games fun.

[Great Rumbler]

I think the only major crpg that's come out in the last year or two that hasn't had a much better version released within 12 months is Pillars of Eternity, but there's still at least 6 months to go for them to announce that Director's Cut!

Obsidian is already working on a major expansion for Pillars, so I doubt they'll do a DC at this point.

[Bebpo]

Unless it's like Dragonfall where it adds some system improvements that go back into the main game as well.

[Great Rumbler]

inXile released a video detailing some aspects of the battle system:

[Great Rumbler]

Beta/Steam EA release date announced:

Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta will be coming to all eligible backers during the week of January 17th and to Steam Early Access on the 26th of January. The team is incredibly passionate about this game and it shows in every aspect of their work. Having the opportunity to create a wholly original experience and intricate world is exactly why we got in the games business to begin with.

The beta will start you right in the beginning of the game and is quite lengthy for an early beta. It covers the game's introductory sequence (some of which you may have already seen a portion of in the alpha) as well as most of the first major location of the game, Sagus Cliffs. Sagus is a very old city that was built on top of ancient structures that predate the return of humanity to the Ninth World. It's split into five main districts: Circus Minor, Cliff's Edge, Caravanserai, Government Square and the Underbelly. As you might expect from a city location, it is rich in lore to discover, characters to talk with and obviously quests to complete!

It's gonna be hard to avoid the temptation to drop the money for the EA version, even though I already  backed it on Kickstarter.

[Great Rumbler]

OMG

I PLAYED TORMENT YOU GUYS

IT'S REALLY GOOD

[Rufus]

How exactly? Writing, combat, systems...?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is important, Rumbler. T___T

[close]

[Great Rumbler]

Writing's on point, very verbose but in a good way. Really gets across the feeling of being thrown into a situation that you can't even comprehend at first [also, I died within the first minute because I picked the wrong dialogue choices]. One part of the character creation is a short vignette that's a flashback of your character's past life, presented as a choose-your-own-adventure storybook. You get a different one depending on choices that you made up to that point. It was very well written and pulled me in to the point where I actually seriously considered each choice I made, even though it was just a memory fragment.

The early locations are delightfully weird and otherworldly, a strange mashup of magic and science so advanced that it might as well be magic. It's got a little of detail and uniqueness that Pillars of Eternity really only had in flashes.

Combat's a little stiff right now [which will get fixed], but they're using some interesting concepts here, like having pools of different abilities [Might, Speed, and...Intelligence?] that you can expend during combat to perform different actions and using more of those points increases the likelihood of the action being successful.

It's beta, so it's obviously rough in parts, but the really important things [writing, art style, and atmosphere] are really nailed down [at least in the opening portion of the game].

[Rufus]

Aw man. They're doing it, huh? Really doing it? *sniff*

I mean, that sounds good, but I will not allow myself to be excited.

[Great Rumbler]

I mean, I know I tend to get overexcited about things that appeal to me, but what they're doing with Torment really appeals to me. The main problem I had with Pillars of Eternity is that I felt they played it too safe, despite talking about how not having to use an existing license/lore would give them a lot more freedom they still hewed pretty close to a lot of fantasy tropes. Torment looks to be one of the first RPGs in a while that really steps beyond those old conventions and tries to do something fresh and unique in terms of setting, lore, and stories.

[Rufus]

Yeah, Pillars plot sounds a lot more interesting on paper, but it never really amounts to anything interesting. The last 'revelation' as it were was disappointing, especially your party's reactions to it. They were in no proportion to the implications.

I hope Numenera has a core narrative that's as gripping as Torment's, but I already kind of know that it won't because nostalgia and because an immortal shaping events across thousands of lives and personalities is about as grandiose and core to the RPG genre itself as it can get. They can't just do that again with any other device. It also had that mystery of re-discovering those past live's deeds, answering a lot of questions but never too many... If Numenera can even come close to hitting that, I'll die a happy man.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I naively hoped that Lost Odyssey would do something similar for JRPGs. Younger me was an even bigger fool than present me.

[close]

[Great Rumbler]

[Great Rumbler]

[Great Rumbler]

February 28th

[VomKriege]

Torment: Tides of Numenera developer inXile has issued an apology, following the discovery that certain stretch goals promised in the game's then-record-breaking 2013 crowdfunding campaign have not materialised.

The discovery was made using leaked Achievements from the final game, due 28th February on PC, PS4 and Xbox One

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-31-torment-tides-of-numenera-apology-stretch-goals

[Great Rumbler]

The only real highlights there are the axing of the Italian translation due to cost [although they've said they're still trying to work something out in that regard] and dropping the companion count from 9 to 6.

[Great Rumbler]

At long last, the release build of Torment: Tides of Numera is now available.

[Bebpo]

Will be curious to see how people rate it in the end.  Torment is very highly regarded and W2 not so much.

[Great Rumbler]

Review have been pretty positive so far, and I've really enjoyed what I've played of it.

[Freyj]

It's real nice so far, but I'm just barely into the first area exhausting every npc's dialogue.

[Human Snorenado]

PC brehs- if I was only going to get one to play right now, should it be Torment or Tyranny?

[Great Rumbler]

If you can only get one, get Torment. I really like Tyranny, but Torment really nails so much about what made Planescape such a great experience.

[Rufus]

The latest Crate & Crowbar podcast suggest great quest design as well. Very interwoven, to put it simply.

[Freyj]

Torment is far more enjoyable than Tyranny. Tyranny has some great ideas, but the execution past Act 1 (Chapter 1?  ) is a bit lacking.

Buy Tyranny anyway so Obsidian doesn't go under though.

[Bebpo]

I never even thought they were similar genre.  Like Tyranny is basically D&D Obsidian game with a few more dialogue choices, a few less combat scenarios, but it's still a combat D&D game.  Torment, if it's anything like the first game from what I've played of that is basically a point & click adventure rpg that's almost entirely dialogue based.

[Freyj]

It's basically like comparing Baldur's Gate II with Planescape: Torment, yeah. That doesn't really surprise me given that they're still both Isometric CRPGs and the playerbases of both tend to overlap.

Still, Tyranny does do a lot of things differently. Dialogue / choices tend to be far more permanent and constraining than they usually are in CRPGs.

[Great Rumbler]

I've played Torment for more than 7 hours and I've only gotten into combat twice [one of which was a mandatory battle in the tutorial]. It's great.

[toku]

yuuuuuuh im really digging this game