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[Purkake4]

Just got the Bloom. Can't say I'm impressed so far, for the most part it feels like a poor man's PS:T knock-off. There are some nice vignettes and characters, but so far they seem to be concentrated at the beginning of the game.

The crisis system feels like a bad mini game, which is good incentive for avoiding combat, I guess. I want to like the meres, but I feel that Pillars' written cutscenes were much better. It probably doesn't help that I don't really like Numenera's kitchen sink approach to the campaign setting, but that's a matter of personal taste.

I will push through to the end, but at the moment all I can think is that you could make a decent-ish White Wolf game with this engine, if you manage to fix the crisis system somehow.

EDIT: Oh and the "sometimes failure will result in more interesting outcomes" is a crock of shit like 90% of the time. Mostly you just won't get what you wanted.

 

[Sinatar]

Latest kickstarter update outlines their plans going forward, looks like some free content coming.

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!

 

[QFNS]

Crisis System Improvements sound like something that could potentially very much help the game.

I dunno how I feel about adding post-release companions, but hey free content is probably a good enough reason for me to go back and play it again in a different style.

Does anyone remember what the Voluminous Codex is/was supposed to be? It doesn't ring any bells for me.

 

[aravuus]

Latest kickstarter update outlines their plans going forward, looks like some free content coming.

Looks like I'm waiting before I start, then.

 

[KraftyKrankins]

Latest kickstarter update outlines their plans going forward, looks like some free content coming.

Great to see that the Codex is back in. It's something the game desperately needs, IMO even more than the improvements to the Crisis system.

 

[Eusis]

Looks like I'm waiting before I start, then.

Game's supposed to be highly replayable, I'd just completely wing it the first time then come back months or even years later to check out the new stuff. FFXV being patched this isn't.

 

[kionedrik]

Let's just hope the Toy is not Nordom v2 because he was no fun.

 

[Grym]

Latest kickstarter update outlines their plans going forward, looks like some free content coming.

Is it really free if I already paid for it?


(I'm very happy they are releasing the content)

 

[Sinatar]

Looks like I'll wait for the inevitable director's cut before I do a replay.

 

[Durante]

I don't replay games. I have no idea where you find the time.

Anyway, I've completed the

Spoiler

Bloom

section now. And

Spoiler

Rhin is back

. I assume I'm getting really close to the end.
I still like the game, a lot actually, though that was another great area punctuated by an annoying Crisis.

 

[Sinatar]

I don't replay games. I have no idea where you find the time.

Anyway, I've completed the

Spoiler

Bloom

section now. And

Spoiler

Rhin is back

. I assume I'm getting really close to the end.
I still like the game, a lot actually, though that was another great area punctuated by an annoying Crisis.

You've got like 30 mins to an hour left.

 

[The Wart]

Latest kickstarter update outlines their plans going forward, looks like some free content coming.

I feel like they could have avoided a lot of backlash if they had just said at the beginning said that they had to postpone some stretch goals until after launch. Maybe they didn't know if it they would be able to, though.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

~100,000 owners according to steam spy. Not great. Sales not far from Tyranny by my reckoning.

 

[Sinatar]

~100,000 owners according to steam spy. Not great. Sales not far from Tyranny by my reckoning.

Had 74k backers too, so they aren't pulling in a lot of new customers though I'm sure some backers went GOG.

 

[Whompa02]

so I never played Torment but I want to play this game. Will I like it?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Had 74k backers too, so they aren't pulling in a lot of new customers though I'm sure some backers went GOG.

It is on console too at least... not that I think it would sell well there.

 

[Violet_0]

~100,000 owners according to steam spy. Not great. Sales not far from Tyranny by my reckoning.

the game is so incredibly niche that this is not much of a surprise. I wish it would sell more, Torment is a huge improvement over WL2. I like it better than PoE, even

how they want to sell Bard's Tale to today's market is beyond me as we

so I never played Torment but I want to play this game. Will I like it?

maybe? Do you like reading?

 

[Llyranor]

I'm still in Sagus Cliff and quite enjoying it, but maybe I should stop and wait until those 'Crisis system improvements' get patched in. Hopefully they won't invalide old saves.

 

[Conezays]

I don't replay games. I have no idea where you find the time.

Anyway, I've completed the

Spoiler

Bloom

section now. And

Spoiler

Rhin is back

. I assume I'm getting really close to the end.
I still like the game, a lot actually, though that was another great area punctuated by an annoying Crisis.

Just finishing this area myself, despite the game crashing twice during the last crisis. Haven't had too many issues bugs-wise prior to this, besides text staying on the screen a couple times.

 

[aravuus]

Game's supposed to be highly replayable, I'd just completely wing it the first time then come back months or even years later to check out the new stuff. FFXV being patched this isn't.

You're probably right, but I've got my hands full with other games already, it's not like I have to force myself not to play the game or anything. Things slow down considerably in May-June, so I'll probably check Torment out then.

 

[Taruranto]

Sales are incredibly low for the spiritual successor of Torment. They are even lower than Torment's sales!


They really messed up the release timing too, who the heck release a game in the middle of Nier, Horizon, ME:A and the Switch + Zelda (+ All games released last month, like Yakuza, DQVIII and ToB). Sure, it's a niche game with a specific target audience, but it's not like that audience only plays niche cRPG.

 

[Bluth54]

Sales are incredibly low of the spiritual successor to Torment. They are even lower than Torment's sales!


They really messed up the release timing too, who the heck release a game in the middle of Nier, Horizon, ME:A and the Switch + Zelda (+ All games releases last month, like Yakuza, DQVIII adn ToB). Sure, it's a niche game with a specific target audience, but it's not like that audience only plays niche cRPG.

Yeah I've dropped Torment (and pretty much everything else) once Zelda came out. I do plan on finishing it later though.

 

[Lanrutcon]

Sales are incredibly low of the spiritual successor to Torment. They are even lower than Torment's sales!


They really messed up the release timing too, who the heck release a game in the middle of Nier, Horizon, ME:A and the Switch + Zelda (+ All games released last month, like Yakuza, DQVIII and ToB). Sure, it's a niche game with a specific target audience, but it's not like that audience only plays niche cRPG.

The timing is abysmal, like you said. It's also a very read-heavy title, which means it isn't exactly fit for consumption by the masses. The marketing for the game was also very light, and the heritage the game tries to tap into doesn't exactly do it any favors: PS:T is a very old game that's incredibly difficult for modern gamers to get into.

 

[Durante]

I think the sales are quite fitting for a spiritual successor to PST.

But yeah, this was never going to be a mainstream success, that's why we had to crowdfund it.

 

[AntiFacebook]

Sales are incredibly low for the spiritual successor of Torment. They are even lower than Torment's sales!


They really messed up the release timing too, who the heck release a game in the middle of Nier, Horizon, ME:A and the Switch + Zelda (+ All games released last month, like Yakuza, DQVIII and ToB). Sure, it's a niche game with a specific target audience, but it's not like that audience only plays niche cRPG.

I doubt many of the target audience of Torment care about those games, especially mass effect. It's just that there aren't many of those.

 

[Basileus777]

I doubt many of the target audience of Torment care about those games, especially mass effect. It's just that there aren't many of those.

What are you defining as the "target audience" here, people who backed the Kickstarter? Because those titles appeal to a huge swath of people that could potentially be interested in this game.

 

[AntiFacebook]

What are you defining as the "target audience" here, people who backed the Kickstarter? Because those titles appeal to a huge swath of people that could potentially be interested in this game.

Older gamers, that played the infinity engine games back when they were released. Those tend not to be affected by the hype surrounding the likes of zelda and nier,and not to like bioware's recent offerings.

I know I stopped buying stuff and shelved others because of the torrent of quality games out recently. Nier: Automata, Yakuza 0, and Mass Effect are all Buy Down the Line games (not to mention the ton I've bought and played five minutes of). Torment more than likely is other folks' Buy Down the Line game, unfortunately.

I believe that for most people that care about torment, it is the top priority game, even in these crazy times. The issue is that there aren't that many of those, but I believe the game would sell the same no matter when it was released.

 

[Dsyndrome]

I doubt many of the target audience of Torment care about those games, especially mass effect. It's just that there aren't many of those.

I know I stopped buying stuff and shelved others because of the torrent of quality games out recently. Nier: Automata, Yakuza 0, and Mass Effect are all Buy Down the Line games (not to mention the ton I've bought and played five minutes of). Torment more than likely is other folks' Buy Down the Line game, unfortunately.

 

[Paertan]

I got an email yesterday explaining about stuff that will be added. Now I have just played a few hours. Haven't really gotten anywhere. I wont play this game several times. Highly doubt it. But now I am wondering if I should wait until they add stuff.

Same thing happened with Wasteland 2. I would love to play the updated version but I have played far enough to not restart and wont play another time.

So I guess I will put this game on hold and play something else for now. Not like there is a lack of great games right now.

 

[Basileus777]

Older gamers, that played the infinity engine games back when they were released. Those tend not to be affected by the hype surrounding the likes of zelda and nier,and not to like bioware's recent offerings.

Yeah and inexile wants far more than those people to buy this game. They even put the game on console. The idea that there is no overlap in potential audiences between Torment and the swarm of other games coming out around this time is pretty farfetched.

 

[Durante]

FWIW, as a backer of Torment, the only game on that list I'm interested in (or rather incredibly hyped for) is Nier. And S-E kindly spaced the PC release of that sufficiently far off Torment to finish it in time

That said, backers are not the people they want to sell the game to. (Though they are the people they primarily need to make the game for, and it's good they didn't go too far in making it more "generally appealing" at the cost of that)

 

[Lanrutcon]

As long as we can all agree the next Torment game needs to be a dating sim.

 

[Ventara]

As long as we can all agree the next Torment game needs to be a dating sim.

I'd buy that.

 

[Violet_0]

I want to see the PS4 version numbers, because I really doubt there's much of an audience to be found there. I don't even care about the recent InXile drama, but Tides and PS4 seems like such an odd mismatch

 

[Screaming Meat]

I want to see the PS4 version numbers, because I really doubt there's much of an audience to be found there. I don't even care about the recent InXile drama, but Tides and PS4 seems like such an odd mismatch

Why do you think it's a mismatch? Aren't the 'personas' dealt out to console players vs. PC players a bit old hat? I wouldn't have been able to play this if they hadn't ported it.

 

[Anoxida]

Even if the game is niche etc those numbers are fucking abysmal. I think PoE and DOS success were lightning in a bottle. I suspect the sequels to sell a lot less. Hope im wrong but I think the isometroc nostalgia thirst has been quenched.

Also they need to market these things better. Both tyranny and torment came out and nobody knew.

 

[Durante]

Personally, I'd find it a bit of a mismatch to read that much text in a generic TV setting. (Of course, you can use a console with a monitor, or a monitor like a TV, and so on)

It's too bad we don't have PSNSpy.

 

[Violet_0]

Why do you think it's a mismatch? Aren't the 'personas' dealt out to console players vs. PC players a bit old hat? I wouldn't have been able to play this if they hadn't ported it.

oh I'm a life-long PC gamer so naturally I feel entiteled to look down on console gamers
but honestly, I'm all for porting games to other systems (I'm also a life-long owner of Nintendo consoles ...)
I just don't think there's much of a market for a game like Torment on consoles. I might be wrong

 

[Screaming Meat]

Personally, I'd find it a bit of a mismatch to read that much text in a generic TV setting. (Of course, you can use a console with a monitor, or a monitor like a TV, and so on)

You never lay on your sofa and read a good book?

oh I'm a life-long PC gamer so naturally I feel entiteled to look down on console gamers
but honestly, I'm all for porting games to other systems (I'm also a life-long owner of Nintendo consoles ...)
I just don't think there's much of a market for a game like Torment on consoles. I might be wrong

I dunno. Anecdotally, all of my RL friends bought WL2 and D:OS on PS4. I know at least one of them will dip into Torment.

To be fair, there doesn't seem to be much of a market on PC either, by the looks of it. Niche game is niche game, regardless on platform. All I can say is, I'm glad they did bring it to PS4. I'm loving it.

 

[Durante]

You never lay on your sofa and read a good book?

All the time, but my book rotates with my head, and the text is right in front of me.

To be fair, there doesn't seem to be much of a market on PC either, by the looks of it.

Well, we did pay 4.5 million or so for its development

Even if the game is niche etc those numbers are fucking abysmal. I think PoE and DOS success were lightning in a bottle.

For D:OS2 we should see that rather soon. I'm not concerned about that one at all, FWIW. And PoE2 was the most successful crowdfunding in recent years by far.

 

[kionedrik]

Sales are incredibly low for the spiritual successor of Torment. They are even lower than Torment's sales!

Can you please link where you're getting the PS:T sales data from? I'd love to see it because as far as I remember it had an abysmal commercial performance in the first few years.

 

[Taruranto]

Can you please link where you're getting the PS:T sales data from? I'd love to see it because as far as I remember it had an abysmal commercial performance in the first few years.

I honestly can't find the post on Internet right now, but they should be lower than Torment's day one sales, despite the wider market reach and all.

 

[Sinatar]

From what my hazy old man memory tells me, the old PC Data charts for PST had it selling something like 80k in it's first year in North America (no idea about globally), and the general consensus seems to be it hit 400k total worldwide by the end of it's retail life.

 

[Eridani]

I don't know how much you guys were expecting this to sell, but 100k seems about on par with other text heavy RPGs released in recent years. For comparison:

Tyranny: 153,197
Sunless Sea: 100k in the first month (Steamspy data unreliable due to the free weekend)
Sorcery! Parts 1 & 2: 73,576
80 Days: 79,204
The Age of Decadence: 78,162
A House of Many Doors: 3,463 (Now this is what I'd call abysmall)

Since this game does pretty much nothing to attract people who aren't already really into text heavy games focused on writing over gameplay I don't really see why it would be selling much more than that. Sure, this had the Torment name attached, but that doesn't really help much when PS:T is a niche game to begin with, and when Tides of Numenera isn't even close to being as good.

 

[Screaming Meat]

All the time, but my book rotates with my head, and the text is right in front of me.

What, are you an owl?! Keep that thing still, it's easier that way.

Well, we did pay 4.5 million or so for its development

...and you won't let me forget it, will you?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Since this game does pretty much nothing to attract people who aren't already really into text heavy games focused on writing over gameplay I don't really see why it would be selling much more than that. Sure, this had the Torment name attached, but that doesn't really help much when PS:T is a niche game to begin with, and when Tides of Numenera isn't even close to being as good.

It's not that 100,000 isn't good for this kind of game in a vacuum, it's more that this had a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign. I expected it to wipe the floor with a game like Tyranny, which sort of came out of nowhere and had no real hype leading up to it's release. It does appear to be doing better, but not by leaps and bounds.

 

[Eridani]

It's not that 100,000 isn't good for this kind of game in a vacuum, it's more that this had a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign. I expected it to wipe the floor with a game like Tyranny, which sort of came out of nowhere and had no real hype leading up to it's release. It does appear to be doing better, but not by leaps and bounds.

Did Tides of Numenera actually have much hype leading up to it's release? The kickstarter was huge and people were certainly hyped back then, but after that I don't really remember any sites really hyping it up, and the only advertising from inXile I remember seeing was a couple of pretty meh trailers.

We even had this thread wondering where all the hype is. Despite Tyranny having no marketing, it at least had the benefit of being an Obsidian game, which (I'd imagine) is enough to draw the attention of most people who'd be into Tides as well.

 

[kionedrik]

It's not that 100,000 isn't good for this kind of game in a vacuum, it's more that this had a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign. I expected it to wipe the floor with a game like Tyranny, which sort of came out of nowhere and had no real hype leading up to it's release. It does appear to be doing better, but not by leaps and bounds.

That's a fair point but Tyranny had some pros going for it, namely:
- It was a full release instead of coming out of early access;
- Obsidian's last work was, and still is, pretty recent (PoE and the White March expansions) while inXile's last work (Wasteland 2) feels like it was published a long time ago. And PoE had a ton of hype and following post release that Wasteland 2 never truly had;
- FWIW, it seems Paradox is a better publisher of these type of games than Techland. At least it's much more well regarded on the PC, especially when it comes to niche genres;
- Tyranny's release window wasn't as chaotic as Torment's.

Still 100k is a very reasonable and respectable number. Looking at Steamspy, Sniper Elite 4 has the same number of sales on Steam and that game has a much wider appeal and is much easier to just pick up and play than something like Torment.

 

[carlsojo]

I think the sales are quite fitting for a spiritual successor to PST.

But yeah, this was never going to be a mainstream success, that's why we had to crowdfund it.

I mean the timing of release certainly isn't doing it any favors whatsoever. I'd pick it up if I wasn't ass deep in Breath and Horizon right now with Mass Effect and Persona coming in hot.

 

[Durante]

From what my hazy old man memory tells me, the old PC Data charts for PST had it selling something like 80k in it's first year in North America (no idea about globally), and the general consensus seems to be it hit 400k total worldwide by the end of it's retail life.

See, it's a perfect spiritual sequel