Torment: Tides of Numenera - Cut Companions
 

Pinx found an answer on Reddit why some originally planned content has been cut from Torment: Tides of Numera:

More information.

"We can say that any DLCs or expansions that we put out will always be free to our backers of that game, so there is no need to worry about paying for any additional content in Torment."

This is one reason why Inexile is a great rpg company. With so many AAA companies trying to get every penny they can squeeze out of gamers these days through preorder scams and bonuses and micro-transactions up the yin yang, this statement above is very refreshing.

Not a big deal, IMO. Things get cut, things happen during development. The weird thing is when you have these stretch goals that I assume make some people pledge even more than they might otherwise because they want that stretch goal in the game. The most famous example of this I think is the day/night cycles in Divinity: Original Sin.

But overall, the game is going to be great (I think it will be a hit for InXile), so it's all good. Original Sin was great as well, even without that feature. Maybe they'll add some stuff back later for free if the game really does well and people ask for it.

I agree as well. No big deal but hopefully some of the missing stuff will get patched in over time or form part of a "Directors Cut".

Yep. It's possible if the game really takes off as well. I think it's going to do pretty well. Just a gut instinct, really, but it seems like a game that's going to intrigue some people.

I take deep and meaningful companions over many shallow ones any time. Shadowrun Dragonfall (as indie) had only few companions but you could make whole games or write novellas about each!

I'm weird in that I'm the opposite. I want many companions that each offer a unique gameplay element, i.e. if they are companions you recruit then they each bring some different gameplay element to the party. So rather than have 1 of each basic class - Fighter/Mage/Cleric/Thief, who have deep stories, etc., you have more choices on how to build your party. Maybe a few hybrids, maybe an Evil Thief vs. a Neutral one, etc. etc. I'd take that over heavy dialogue characters, personally, because I'm more into building an interesting party gameplay-wise in the long run.

That doesn't mean I don't want dialogue and story as well, but I'd prefer cutting back on that for most characters and adding more gameplay-oriented options. However, in my "perfect" game there would be many options for building your party via different companions and just enough dialogue and story to keep them interesting. Also, using your imagination can work well to fill in the blanks in story and dialogue as well. I usually have more fun when I do that anyway.

I don't think it's a given that cutting 3 out of 9 promised companions will lead to remaining 6 being deeper (than initially planned), same with the additional major city cut (oasis stretch goal) leading to deeper remaining hubs.
Managerial fuck ups are just as, if not more, likely reason.

Cutting out large swaths of content promised during the Kickstarter campaign can be easily seen as "preorder scam", especially since inXile hasn't been upfront about it (if it wasn't for people digging into data and achievements leak, they'd be still silent by now).

IIRC, for example Larian, an actual great RPG company in my book, made update(s) concerning cut features long before release.

It can very easily be seen as that indeed and I would even replace 'can' with 'must', given the over two year delay of Torment. A two year delay and still not the full promised package makes me wonder if 'scam' isn't too friendly a term…

Worst thing about this is they probably wouldn't have even said anything had people not noticed what was going on and called them out on it.

I think it depends on the game. Your approach is better for more open and bigger games that gives you enough time and opportunities to try different companions and groups. While for more linear, story-driven games its probably better to have more deep characters that helps to elevate that story to higher level.

I.e. An RPG. :P

They promised a spiritual successor to torment according to whatever their interpretation and ability to make it, which is what I'll assume people will be receiving.

IMO this makes a good case for keeping all this stuff internal until the pruning has been done and the product is ready for general mass consumption. Might seem nice to air all your crazy ideas during the kickstarter when that's pretty much all you've got at that point, but it'll come bite you in the ass later when reality hits and it's time to actually make the damn game. Same shit with DOS and their day and night cycle. Too much work? Oops indeed.

In the end, there's only so much money to spend before they have to ship so expecting everything to turn out perfectly as planned after a multi-year development is a pipe dream. The important thing at the end is if the game is good, and signs are positive so far. That said, they should be communicating better.

Not so much cut characters (unless they specifically promised a specific character), but things like cutting the Italian language (which was promised in the kickstarter). I can understand that it became too costly to justify that translation for the number of people who'd use it, but they should be telling people up front that it's been cut the moment they made that business decision, not just quietly changing it on their 'about torment' page and waiting for users to pick it up for themselves a month before release. Communicate, Inxile, communicate.

That what you get for trusting InXile

I don't see an issue here. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. We're trusting the developers to put their expertise into play and create the best game they can with the resources they have.

I downloaded the beta today (apparently all kickstarters with digital edition get it free) and did a 30 minute test drive and at least the prologue is very reminiscent of Planescape. It was very text heavy and if continues to be like PST then I prefer companions with more depth and uniqueness. BG had way too many and I dont even remember them all while PST had some of the best ever.

Also I had no illusions that the game would meet the deadline, if the quality is there then any transgressions will be forgiven. I also cannot recall a single kickstarter I backed that met scope and deadlines and most have never come close.

Crafting (which was a stretch goal as well) also was cut from the game:
https://forums.inxile-entertainment….art=20#p179453

Italian localization is also cancelled. Refunds are being offered for people who were wanting it.

I'm actually glad crafting is gone as its typically done, in favour of something more fitting the setting.

Good crafting is a game on its own. IMHO it only works if you have a large amount of different variations and receipts. It works best, when you don't have to fear running out of ingredients. That means respawning mobs and ressources, returning to areas to collect these ingredients and so on. Imho it fits best to open world games and ARPGs, but it doesn't fit to games, where items are meant to feel special and unique.

I also wouldn't mind cutting companions. I don't think the rest necessarily becomes more "deep" or "meaningful" because of that decision. That are catchphrases, most of the time it only means more text for the remaining characters. But more text or details doesn't necessarily result in more depth. Sometimes beauty also comes with simplicity. So cutting companions first of all means it didn't fit to the budget. That's fine, sometimes you have to accept economic truths or time-tables.

Cutting content isn't something extraordinary. It happens all the time and often you even can't determine the exact moment when this decision was made. You start with small changes to the concept, make it fit to the overall vision and suddenly you realize it turned the whole idea upside down or got lost somewhere on the road. When you're part of the process, it's a logical result of all the efforts and you don't necessarily realize how it looks from the outside. So I wouldn't blame them for not telling all the time what was cut during development. After all, a designer's first goal is to deliver a game, that seems coherent. Sometimes you have to make decisions for that and you don't want the crowd to interfere permanently with their thoughts and personal opinions. Because every artisan work needs vision, not democratic public votes.

Cancelling a complete localization and don't communicate it on the other hand… well. You could expect more sensibility from a producer team, because it's their job to meet demands of different stakeholders. IMHO it was very silent on the public front during the last months. I can't speak for the official forums, but personally I don't care for that. I backed that game, it should at least have been mentioned in a progress report for backers. I'm not a million dollar investor, but IMHO the handling of the smallest investors - and IMO backers are invested in a product - reflects the true character of a company. ATM there seem to be two possibilities. They don't recognize backers as investors to their business. Because maybe they don't really need backers to make their games but use it as marketing and sales tool. That means they use it for a purpose, it wasn't originally meant for. It could explain different perspectives on that communication topic. Or they are simply not prepared to meet these demands.

Of course I could think of more trivial reasons, like a publisher/distributor decision that wasn't communicated clearly in the internal process, simple misunderstandings and coordination problems, illness or simple things like that. Still doesn't look good when the whole world watches what you're doing there, especially a month before release.

Agreed. See my Yammering About RPGs With Fluent video about Suikoden where I talk a bit about this. They managed to make most if not all of their 108 characters in each game at least a bit interesting, sometimes without even having to a say a word. :)

Also, for crafting, I think it's cool when it encourages experimentation and often results in surprises you didn't think were possible. Divinity: Original Sin is a good recent example of this.

Some localizations were cut? I thought the release date was pushed back so that the localization could be completed? At any rate, additional localization can always be provided later.

That was the publicly communicated (BS) reason. The real reason was they wanted to finish the console versions for a simultaneous release on PC and consoles.

This is from an inside source, or is it just a rumor? Whatever. They're a business, so presumably it makes financial sense to do that.

Nah. Just common sense (well, what I consider as common which might be crazy uncommon for other people, of course :biggrin: ). They announced the final delay to Q1/2017 in mid June 2016 and the main reason given was extra time for polishing the localizations.
Then six weeks later in early August 2016 they revealed that the game was also going to be a simultaneous release on consoles.

Anyone is free to do their own math and put two and two together but to me it is obvious why the final delay decision was made primarily (sure, as a secondary bonus the delay also gave them extra time for additional polishing but apparently not enough time to include the promised Italian localization or the cut companions etc.).

Okay, well here's a little math: TToN has around a million words to translate into multiple languages. Meanwhile, the software is being written in Unity, which has built-in multi-platform support. Which part do you imagine takes more labor to implement?

I'll take Words for $100, Alex. ;)

Not a matter of delay, they said they decided the Italian localization just isn't worth the money to produce.

You mean labor on the part of inXile who are working with an engine that supports multiple platforms as well as multiple language versions? Much less than the console port for sure.

They certainly don't do the translations themselves and including (copying&pasting) the outsourced translations back into the game via the editing tools is something that a bunch of interns could do working in shifts in a fairly short amount of time (if that is even required… I don't know how Unity handles multiple languages exactly but they might even have more convenient ways to work with outsourced localization which could minimize any manual work).

The console port OTOH requires a lot on the part of the actual devs because they need to adhere to all the standards and specifications of the consoles, meet requirements, pass certifications, yada, yada, yada. It's quite a lot of actual extra development work instead of something that is not even done in-house for the most part like localizations.
The console port also requires a different interface and lots of fine-tuning due to the text-heavy nature of the game (inXile said they wanted to pay extra attention to making it viable to read long texts from 10ft away on the couch).

The PC version was promised to be DRM-free. Chances are 99.9% that the main reason for the delay was the simultaneous release on PC and consoles to minimize the effects of PC piracy on console sales.

It's certainly a time constraint, regardless of how it impacts inXile employees. Hence it's a schedule driver. Once you realize the required timeline, the management will then look at other "opportunities" to turn it to their advantage. Presto, you get the simultaneous console port release plan coming after the decision to slide the schedule. It's a simplified release schedule, which is advantageous from a business perspective.

I think you're wrong about the motivation for the delay, but possibly correct about the benefit. You're just being too paranoid about this.

More broken kickstarter promises. This is why I've held off backing anything for quite a while despite the temptation. ( really tempted by POE2)

I have a feeling this would be a much different and nastier thread if this were EA or Bethesda.

I constantly read about broken promises but can't find what exact promises were broken in Torment2.

Nastier if it wasn't inXile? Really?
I remember yelling like crazy about MMOization of Wasteland3 and what happened? Noone basically reacted - I just got answers to shove off with my once bitten twice shy. And it's also inXile.

Development of a game involves numerous plans and ideas, some of those just don't fit in the final product or are too complicated to realize in some reasonable time. So some content gets cut. Some of it return over time as we saw with Kotor2 where fans reconstructed cut materials. Some returns as DLC if developer has funds to finish later what was cut - please do not mix this with deliberate cutouts to milk fans. Some cuts don't appear ever in a game, but sometimes gets integrated within another game (usually a sequel).
And some content is cut because the publisher does not want to admit PC pwnage over garbageware. Code: Watch Dogs. Thank god for modders.

Where exactly inXile went wrong with Torment2? Show me please. I just don't see it.

They've cut stretch goals, i.e. features that have been promised for achieving specific funding goals. And they didn't communicate it.

i.e. they've ripped off backers that paid hard-earned cash for those stretch goals, thereby cementing Fargo's rep as an out and out thief.

Sure, most if not all games have content cut for a bunch of reasons. No big deal on this part.

However, they - InXile - did advertise the game on said cut content during the Kickstarter Pitch. This makes it kinda of a big deal, not to mention they further salted the wound with zero communication up to this point, and at this point it has been months, if not years since they knew there was going to be a lesser number of companions than originally advertised/promised. I mean we're like a month from release and a companion is not soemthing you throw in the game in the last minute. Or the 2nd City.

Furthermore, they - again InXile - flat out lied twice - once, with the advertised Italian translation which they are not delivering, even when this was cited as one of the reasons for the last delay, which was really for the simultaneous console release, and a 2nd time, when they said getting a publisher in Techland was to pawn off stuff like lcalizations, among other things, when it was just a nice bonus, they got a publisher for again, the console release, since no boxed console versions would get them zilch (I would think), since Digital only release is not a biggie on the console front. Pawning off localizations and other stuff was a nice side bonus to that, but still.

In any case, we would have already had Torment 2 already out if not for Fargo's console play. Which I'm majorly puzzled about. Original Torment has always been a niche title, why would its "spiritual successor" be any big on consoles right now?

Wish they pushed a mobile port, and they would probsbly get morr sales on that

You yell scam at things like pre-orders, season pass, Xcom 2 adding a class, etc. Yet you don't see anything wrong with offering stretch goals to milk more money from customers and then cutting them? and yes if this was Bethesda or EA it would be nastier and you would be leading the charge. It would be in your BS of the week thread.

The iNXile website says that GOG keys will be provided after launch if you trade in your steam key. I dont remember exact verbiage but sounded like they will try to fulfill this.

Pulling back on the translations without explanation isn't very nice but they indicate they will refund money to those wanting those translations. Not ideal but I know I'm not going to back PoE2 this time around for a number of reasons but this doesn't help.

Just not seeing the outrage. The Italian localization is not that big a deal, Jesus. Just how many Italian customers of Torment: Tides of Numenera are out there? Maybe, oh, a handful or so, relatively speaking. It's a very small number, let's be blunt. The way some go on and on about it in some previous posts, you would think it is millions upon millions. Gimme a break. And I have a feeling most Italians will be able to get by with an English edition, somehow. (I think most Italians know English as a second language, let's get real)

I'm a backer of the game, and I'm not disappointed in any way whatsoever, indeed, I'm glad they have taken such a long time to make it because I have heard very good things about all the polish and improvements they have made, and I'm looking forward when the game drops in a month or so. Just to offer a different perspective.

Not really, no… If Bethesda or EA made a KS project then it'd go into bs thread, not because something they already did - EA cut so many content to sell as DLC a game without such thing would be a miracle. Maybe we need a miracle thread perhaps? Or not… It'd be empty. ;)

To be honest I never read stretch goals. Backed the project before those were even mentioned.
I wish someone listed which ones were removed.
Translations/localization, sorry, I don't know what and why, but better none than lousy or laughable translation.

I can't believe there are still people hung up over Steam. :rolleyes:

I can understand disappointment. I believe they are offering refunds for those that want them. You could say the same of Larian regarding the lack of a day/night cycle for D:OS, the only real difference is the lack of upfront communication. InXile needs to take this criticism regarding communication onboard and move forward with this in mind.