Planescape Torment Kickstarter: A spiritual sequel to be set in Monte Cook's Numenera

I have to agree that Wasteland 2 has been the best of the bunch. I really liked PoE as well, but not nearly as much as Wasteland. I hate to admit it, but I am really disappointed with Tides. I don't hate it, but it just doesn't feel like a complete game.

Phazael said:

No patch will solve the story or wall of text issues.

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I'll give you some of your other complaints but all I have to say to the above is Wut?

And to be honest - I just replayed PS: Torment in the past month - I've got a feeling you didn't if you expected a fuckton of combat and light on reading/prose.

Do yourself a favor and refresh yourself on PS:T if you think this shames it - PS: T has a shocking number of similarities. (Class Light vs. Classless, Stats of incredibly variable value, wonky inventory/gear system, etc)

PS:T wasn't a flawless game, and Numenara shares those same flaws - but those flaws have become more glaring with the nearly two decades since. I don't think I could stand to do too many games of the that style anymore, my tastes have moved with the times - but for scratching a PS:T itch it hit the mark for sure. For it's good sides AND bad.

Phazael said:

Back in the days of the Apple II, I would read a fucking text book of the quest info for the gold box games. I get they are on a budget and non laughable voice talent is not cheap, but for fucks sakes can we at least get animated cutscenes to go with the dialogue walls instead of stills (that are worse than the KS promo pics mind you) for eye candy? The Unity Engine has 80% of the bullshit to do it built right into the fucking engine. And if I am going to sit through all this shit for any length of time, put it in the god damn journal and make the payoff worth it, not some stupid ripping the rubber mask off Scooby Doo reveal at the end of it. At the very least, put a thumnail of who is delivering the fucking dialog in the text vomit wall so I can keep track of who is saying what bullshit. Even the decade or more old PS Torment they are milking for this did that.

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I just completely disagree. Voice Actors do not belong anywhere near this genre (crpg), we saw how limited Fallout 4 became thanks to their over reliance on voice acting. VA only serves to constrain the story in these types of games unless you have some seriously deep pockets. I will take text delivery every day of the week over voice acting if it means a deeper story in exchange. As for cutscenes I don't feel strongly enough to give a shit about them one way or the other in this style of a game. You're so pulled out from your character that watching a couple of, frankly, rather shitty Unity character models gesticulate at each other while you read the text lacks any sort of draw to me.

PS:T had plenty of combat-- certainly not BG quantities, but frequent enough. There were even areas that respawned to grind XP and level up so you could get the cool epic spells that had cut scenes. The companions also allowed for different tactics, and the equipment was interesting, had great lore, and in certain cases (like Da'akons sword) had their own story. Sure, it wasn't for the hardcore min/max RPG player, but it was entertaining and hardly faceroll easy. I remember many fights I had to reload.

As for voice acting I find the best equilibrium lies when text is "flavored" with quality voice, rather than everything being acted. Wasteland II did this well, where people you'd meet would voice a sentence, and you'd read the rest. It's more impactful as well as allowing investment in quality voice talent.

Phazael said:

I did. PS:T even if you were basically a pacifist required way more combat to complete. The companions (who were more numerous) had much more fleshed out stories and personal quests. The game had more than three towns and two rest stops. And of course, the game could not be speed run in 10ish hours, no matter how you played it. These guys phoned this one in.

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Skipping through text without reading it and avoiding side quests completely I'd buy 10 hrs - there's only a handful of mandatory quests. By comparison my runthrough of PS:T I was practically done in a single day, wasn't timing myself or anything, but I woke up, started on Sat morning and had like 30-40 min to do on Sunday morning. And recently I've been sleeping excessively enough I'm considering a sleep study to look into why. And I wasn't skipping sidequests/etc.

Torment's fight difficulty is something else that Numenara emulated pretty well - there was a huge rift in how powerful you could tailor yourself and your party to be - I went with the orphan girl so I ended up without a companion for most of a chapter and a relatively tame one for the first 2.5 chapters. Fights were mostly a challenge based on what and who you brought - just like some of the PS:T companions were comparitively weak, the same goes for Numenara.

No one with a realist view of things should've expected something drastically different than what it was - the duration was the only disappointment I could consider justified - the rest are symptoms of harkening to an archaic game that as much as I loved it back in the day, hasn't held up that well.

Phazael said:

The simple fact that a 10 hour play is EVEN possible on a 50 dollar title that took four years to complete is utterly unacceptable.

And, no. The fight balance was trash. Once a person realizes that Nano AE spam is faceroll, its over. Orphan cunt is a healbot with invincible hide, which is pretty much all you need for the main to win, if you go Nano. Please, the story shit is arguable, but the combat.... it is shit from a balance standpoint. Don't even try to go there.

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And there's similar OP combos doable in PS:Torment... and nearly every RPG ever - playing a broken combo and not ever feeling challenged is a symptom that you created for yourself.

And it was a $20-25 title for many people FYI. I personally paid as much for Numenara my copy as I did for Landmark - and I've already gotten twenty times the enjoyment out of it than I will ever out of that (cancelled now I think, right?) dungheap.

By no stretch am I claiming Numenara is a 10/10 or anything silly like that, but it's a 6-7/10 range - if the appropriate style of text heavy RPG in a "out there" universe appeals to someone it's something to consider IF they're in the right mood for it - definitely not a game for everyone.

Phazael said:

And of course, the game could not be speed run in 10ish hours, no matter how you played it. These guys phoned this one in.

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Phazael said:

The simple fact that a 10 hour play is EVEN possible on a 50 dollar title that took four years to complete is utterly unacceptable.

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And Dark Souls has been speed run in just over an hour. This is a bad argument. I finished my Torment playthrough in around 25 hours which is acceptable as far as I am concerned.

^ Uhh yeah, anyone who Kickstarted got this for $20 to $30 bucks. Game is a bit combat light, but totally worth it IMHO. Many reviews probably take that into account.


First rule of Steam - never go full price.

Also, load time complaints are console I assume? Because loads times are near non-existent on PC if you have an SSD.

Perhaps a substitute to ease the pain.

http://kotaku.com/planescape-tormen..._source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow

Welp, Beamdog will find a way to fuck this game up while trying to stuff 15 trannies into it.

I finished this a few days ago, and ended up very confused. I didn't know who half the people were in the ending text. I kind of played it in bursts with months in between so forgot everything when I came back.

Alot of things finally made sense though, so I started over and have been playing daily so I don't forget things and people. The first town I had done twice before after a mid game restart, and I was surprised at how much new stuff I found. This new playthrough has been very different.

Being a glaive this time I seem to fail every skill challenge, but I don't mind, the results are usually entertaining, and I smash through combat.

Alright, went all the way back through, and I really really missed alot the first time. There were whole areas I just didn't see for some reason.

Tidally I tried to stay balanced, but eventually drifted back towards gold and blue like I was in the first game.

The story between the new and old Torment are very similar. Both are tragedies, and I never expected sunshine and rainbows. I think few saw the full extent of the first, I played through 10 times and each time was different. I once ended the game at level 104 with 25 in all stats. If anything the new gives more ending options than the old.

Very much enjoyed it all, have 91 hours in it. There's a few things I'd like to try and I just noticed I'm only 26/52 on cheevos, so maybe there's more I've missed.

For downsides, remembering everyone is difficult. I think it is the names that make it tricky. Torment had a lot of interesting people but they mostly had simple names that were easy to remember. If you step away from the new game for a month, you'll come back confused.

The world setting is both a plus and minus. The plus is how incredibly old it is, so there's so much to find and learn. By comparison the original Torment dealt with the planes of existence, legendary places and creatures all of us growing up playing D&D had heard about. There was a real sense of amazement and awe in the places and sights of the later parts of the first game that the second really can't match.

Combat is a bit too consumable based for my tastes. I've played numenera tabletop at dragoncon, and in that setting, cyphers make more sense. You know you are only there for an hour or two so you may as well use them. In any crpg though I tend to hoard potions and the like. By the end all my characters were cypher sick.

[Gaming] Disgruntled Torment: ToN producer reveals some juicy inside information • r/KotakuInAction

Edit:

One of the writers for inXile.

What's up with the writing team? - inXile Forums

Funkor said:

[Gaming] Disgruntled Torment: ToN producer reveals some juicy inside information • r/KotakuInAction

Edit:

One of the writers for inXile.

What's up with the writing team? - inXile Forums

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SJWs fester and destroy everything they become involved with