Gwardinen Posted March 4, 2017 I'm pretty much exactly where you are, Bjorn. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Wookie Posted March 4, 2017 Hmmm, maybe I am lucky that I haven't played a huge number of CRPGs then, just Baldur's Gate 1 and most of 2 (the insane high level magic system kept me from completing that), as well as a bit of Planescape: Torment, the start of Wasteland 2, and Divinity Original SIn. Call it 3 complete text-heavy CRPGs. Oh yeah, I got quite far in Pillars of Eternity, but encountered a bug that destroyed my playthrough, but may have been fixed since However, I do like the huge wealth of unexpected possibilities due to the setting as I understand it, which involves millions of years of technical evolution, over a number of civilizations that become so advanced that they are essentially magic. I've put in over 11 hours now, and have finally travelled away from the first area, failing the few quests that remained open. I've had 4 Crises that are canonical to my save, but I've only had to fight in 2 of them... I am enjoying exploring the more non-violent ways of achieving the quest goals. I've met 6 companions, and having just started the second act (say), I wonder if my choices are fixed, though there's good reason to think they are not. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cakedotavi Posted March 4, 2017 I'm all of an hour into this game so take this with a grain of salt, but so far I think Torment will live or die based on your expectations of it. If you're looking for a slick, modern game that will keep you interested with engaging minute-to-minute mechanics like movement or combat you will be disappointed. If you want to basically read a well written choose-your-own adventure novel that has some cool systems not possible in a book, and an opportunity to show you the world you're adventuring through instead of just tell you, you will be very pleased. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bjorn Posted March 5, 2017 I'm trying to be better about not pissing on things other people are enjoying, so I'm going to spoiler some critical thoughts I have about Torment (and inXile in general). So if you're digging Torment and don't want to hear someone complaining about it, skip away. Reveal hidden contents The more I play this, the more I'm realizing that I think it may just be that inXile as a whole doesn't do a particularly good job of developing or creating characters. Wasteland 2 and Torment both share some writers, and each have non-shared writers, but ultimately they've both struggled to really make me particularly care about any character. I'm not sure if it's the shared writers, or just their overall process, but it seems to produce the blandest characters. In Torment, I hit a companion who I was genuinely intrigued by (Rhin), and then learned that she's written by Patrick Rothfuss of the Kingkiller books (which I haven't read) and was a stretch goal. But I'm hardly surprised that the most interesting character so far is one written by an outsider. Characters, even ones who should be fascinating, are just boring as fuck. Callistege is a woman existing across a multiverse, with an army of sister selves whispering advice and poison into her brain, some of whom would prefer to see her dead, and others want to take control. She should be stark raving mad in a fascinating way (and maybe she is and that comes into play), but in her initial presentation she's just like "Oh yeah, got this condition, no biggie". It's genuinely impressive that they take a great setup for a setup for a character and manage to make her as humdrum and boring as she is. The other starting companion didn't even have a great setup. Drool inducing dourness is not an endearing character trait. I played through the first half of Wasteland 2 twice, and can barely remember a single character from it. And I can see Torment being much the same, there's just a distinct lack of charm or memorability to a lot of characters it seems. Which I think ultimately underlies why I quit Wasteland 2 and why I doubt I'll finish Torment at this point. I really don't care about video game stories, good ones are few and far between. But I do really enjoy engaging video game characters. I'd much rather have a fraction of the words, and twice as much personality. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TurboPubx-16 Posted March 5, 2017 In my 12 hours of play, this game has been consistently good, but not once has it been great. None of the obstacles have presented any challenge thus far because it's so easy to restore your effort points. There has yet to be a difficult moral choice. Thus far, this hasn't been a game about making tough decisions, at all. Reveal hidden contents Callistege in enigmatic and unique, whereas Aligern is just an angry, paranoid man who calls Callistege a bitch. The pro-Changing God cast-offs are all ridiculous authoritarian/fascist/religious non-characters. It doesn't even matter what the other side says, the pro-Changing God group indict themselves with every word they say. Their leader says, "Our sire has a master plan for us" but when you read his thoughts, he's thinking, "I don't think the Changing God even knows who I am." Will you reason with the evil cannibals and try to reach a comprise with the people they are torturing and eating? Their goal of opening a gate to hell is just as important to them as - *has an aneurysm* Return the slave girl to her owner? Help the obvious domestic abuser find the woman he forced into marriage? Help the evil mayor scapegoat the innocent immigrant? Just like Wasteland 2, I'm just waiting for it to get to the great part, the transcending part, the part that will be memorable, the part where I have to choose between two things I like, the big reveal, the twist, fuck me, I don't think it's coming, is it? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mikemariano Posted March 6, 2017 On 3/5/2017 at 4:39 PM, TurboPubx-16 said: Just like Wasteland 2, I'm just waiting for it to get to the great part, the transcending part, the part that will be memorable, the part where I have to choose between two things I like, the big reveal, the twist, fuck me, I don't think it's coming, is it? This must be really frustrating to you but your frustration was really useful to me in becoming certain that I would not enjoy Torment. You have my thanks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
brkl Posted March 6, 2017 Same for me. Wasteland 2 was so underwhelming right from the start I never considered the Kickstarter for this game. I want something better than decent. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bjorn Posted March 6, 2017 I've played a couple of more hours of this, and there's some genuinely good stuff in this game, but all of my previous criticisms I think still stand. Spoilering a couple of story things. Reveal hidden contents I accidentally got myself killed screwing around, and woke up in the cannibal temple with a bunch of the cannibal priests about to eat me. After a bit of a talk, I could decide to go ahead and let them chomp on me for a bit in exchange for them sharing some knowledge with me. Which was delightfully gruesome as an idea, but ultimately was kind of meh. I gave up 2 permanent hitpoints for some vague story hints. Meh. It just seemed like the risk vs reward element here was badly out of whack. Letting a bunch of crazed cannibals eat you as a snack should have been more momentous? Like one of the dialogue options was just "Okay, sure, why not." Which I think is a good characterization of what I mean by the writing failing to capture the batshittery of what's going on around you at times. I went down the rabbit hole of talking with companions, and discovered that our thief Tybir spent years as a swashbuckling thief and mercenary with his long time friend, business partner and gay lover. Which, is like cool! A bisexual video game guy character, that's rare! But then, reading about his adventures, I couldn't help but think that everything he was describing sounds more interesting than the game I'm actually playing. Which has now happened a couple of times. There's also a pair of adventurers who have built a trap to hold a god, but accidentally captured Cthulu instead, and now they're a traveling house of horrors showing off Cthulu to make money to fund going and murdering this other god. And it's like, hell yeah, I wanna roll with those guys! That sounds way more interesting than running around talking with a bunch of petulant whiny castoffs and the cult who loves them. But I didn't see any indication that they're anything other than flavor. The game teased me with being able to set Cthulu free, but then you couldn't actually do it. Don't tease a player with being able to set loose an elder horror upon an unsuspecting city and then NOT let them do it! Non-spoilery version, some of the game's backstory, flavor and lore appears to be way the fuck more interesting than the story you're actually playing. Which, I think back to the original Torment, and Ignus. A crazy ass fire mage who you could actually free and recruit. I have every confidence that if Ignus was in Torment Tides, he would just be flavor text to run across. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bjorn Posted March 6, 2017 I think I'm going to keep playing this, but from now on, it's getting the MST3K treatment if it can't get its shit together on realizing what kind of batshittery is going on. Dammit, need to spoiler this cause more story stuff. Reveal hidden contents Like, FFS, you can fucking grill and shame the shit out of Rhin, your kid character, because she talks to a rock in her pocket. Listen here fucko, you just let a bunch of cannibals blend your kidneys into a blood smoothie and you think the fucking kid who talks to the rock is the one with issues? Our resident witch over there exists across 38 dimensions and acts like it's no big deal. But the kid with the rock is the weirdo? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gormongous Posted March 6, 2017 On 3/6/2017 at 9:32 PM, Bjorn said: I think I'm going to keep playing this, but from now on, it's getting the MST3K treatment if it can't get its shit together on realizing what kind of batshittery is going on. Dammit, need to spoiler this cause more story stuff. Reveal hidden contents Like, FFS, you can fucking grill and shame the shit out of Rhin, your kid character, because she talks to a rock in her pocket. Listen here fucko, you just let a bunch of cannibals blend your kidneys into a blood smoothie and you think the fucking kid who talks to the rock is the one with issues? Our resident witch over there exists across 38 dimensions and acts like it's no big deal. But the kid with the rock is the weirdo? I get the feeling that inXile either doesn't have a supervising editor or has an extremely permissive one, because Wasteland 2 also had a huge problem with inconsistent reactions by the same characters to surprising or absurd things. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bjorn Posted March 6, 2017 On 3/6/2017 at 9:54 PM, Gormongous said: I get the feeling that inXile either doesn't have a supervising editor or has an extremely permissive one, because Wasteland 2 also had a huge problem with inconsistent reactions by the same characters to surprising or absurd things. Yeah, my suspicion at this point is that much of the writing/story did not get heavily reviewed, and each chunk was written without particular reflection about where it fit in the rest of the game/story/theme. Which, when you write a dozen novels worth of text for a game, that's a problem that you are absolutely creating for yourself. I've also been thinking about Fallen London and Sunless Sea, both games that ultimately didn't work for me, but are written with so much more passion and color than Torment is. I think Fallen London is what Torment wants to be, but either didn't have the chops or the guts to really let loose with the writing and embrace the crazy. Like dealing with a rat infestation in my apartment in Fallen London was far more compelling and memorable. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jutranjo Posted March 6, 2017 The freeing of the Reveal hidden contents biomechanical squid, you totally can free him and not kill him. I don't think he does anything bad to the city tho. The whole Sagus Cliffs feels more like an introduction to the world of Numenera, not to the game of Torment. It goes weirder. Also for the asshole/not asshole responses, mechanically they'd have to track something you do and then enable/disable responses? I dunno. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Moosferatu Posted March 7, 2017 I've enjoyed what I've played so far, but I really dislike how the combat works. I love the there are so few encounters (at least as far as I've gotten), but have gotten no pleasure out of the few there are. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bjorn Posted March 7, 2017 On 3/6/2017 at 11:06 PM, Jutranjo said: The freeing of the Reveal hidden contents biomechanical squid, you totally can free him and not kill him. I don't think he does anything bad to the city tho. The whole Sagus Cliffs feels more like an introduction to the world of Numenera, not to the game of Torment. It goes weirder. Also for the asshole/not asshole responses, mechanically they'd have to track something you do and then enable/disable responses? I dunno. Wait, what, how? I messed around with what's in your spoiler for awhile and never got any prompts or anything. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jutranjo Posted March 7, 2017 I haven't done it in my playthrough but all the bits of this video were exactly the same in the game: One of the outcomes is freeing it. ALSO, I thought I spoiled myself on this one quest by watching that video, turns out there's at least one more interaction than it shows. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bjorn Posted March 7, 2017 On 3/7/2017 at 12:26 AM, Jutranjo said: I haven't done it in my playthrough but all the bits of this video were exactly the same in the game: ne of the outcomes is freeing it. ALSO, I thought I spoiled myself on this one quest by watching that video, turns out there's at least one more interaction than it shows. Ah, okay, it requires talking to someone I either overlooked or hadn't met yet. That makes sense. It initially felt like there was something I ought to be able to do there. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TurboPubx-16 Posted March 7, 2017 I have a couple of questions for y'all: 1) Does anyone here NOT spec an charisma/intelligence/wisdom character in these games? You buy this game for its writing, so it just seems obvious to me that you would choose to be great at conversation, perception, fixing things etc. 2) Does anyone play as an evil character in these games? Again, you want to play this game because it lets you engage in ideas, not because you want to accumulate virtual wealth and power. (Yes, I know you can role-play as a moron in the Fallout games. Seems like a joke that's funny for a few minutes that would be totally painful for an actual play-through) I spec'd my character for intelligence and non-combat skills, and not once have I failed to do whatever "smart guy" thing I wanted to do. I'm also totally rich and have equipment that makes me even better at being a know-it-all, but also I can utterly annihilating evil cannibals when I feel like it. My character is thus far the single most intelligent (and thus powerful) being in the universe, and also a very good person. Wait, am I good person? I think that good people make sacrifices to achieve their virtuous acts. What have I given up? One person offered a piece of information that she thinks I want, and a Baron promised he'd owe me a favour. I'm the love child between Stephen Hawking and Jesus Christ and people want me to do things for them for "information" and "favours"? I'm not really a good person, in fact, I'm an incredibly gifted person for whom virtuous acts are just as easy to perform as evil ones. Indeed, herding slaves and refugees back to their owners and persecutors sounds like a lot more work than just making everything right with Intimidation and Persuasion. I'm not really a smart guy either. I don't think about problems and come up with ways to solve them, it's more like I'm directly tapped into the wiki for this game. Looking at my options, it's not greedy vs kind vs evil vs lawful, it's stupid vs stupid vs OBVIOUS CHOICE vs stupid. Not actual spoilers/anger/frustration/crowd funding was a mistake/TWO YEARS LATE/getting old/loooooong Jake Rodkin fart sound: Reveal hidden contents Another thing: people are living under the thumb of Slave Families and crime bosses, but everywhere I look I can find cash money on the ground? And how are people living on the streets when the premise of the setting is that there are valuable objects all over the place, some of which are worth hundreds of dollars to vendors? "When you wipe your face with this napkin you can smell different crumbs from all nine of the worlds. Estimated value is equal to three laser pistols and a stimpack." Not too hard to be a good person when wealth just keeps appearing out of nowhere. Remember what was on the ground in Planescape? Literal junk. Just a world of garbage. It was crushing. Ok, this turned into a rant because I just can't get over the fact that this game is two years late. I was promised something different, something mind-expanding, something true to the spirit of Planescape. I really should have known better after Wasteland 2 turned out to be nothing special at all, but damn it I believed their pitch and now I feel like an idiot, doubly so because they it took two years longer than what I was told. As you get older you start to realize, two years late is a big deal. I might not have time to play a game like this in four years! I might have time for any video games in four years! I gave these dudes my money, twice, and I was let down, twice. This one of those situations where the more I dissect a game the more I dislike it. Pillars of Eternity is a good game. Go play that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
