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:

Hey all,

The companion roster has been slightly reduced from our initial plans. Throughout development on Torment, our philosophy has always emphasized depth and reactivity in our storyline and in our characters. We know you would not be satisfied with anything else. During development, we found that the more far reaching and reactive our companions were, the better they felt and the more justice it did to the original Planescape: Torment. This trade-off meant we were able to add more companion conversations, banter, voice-over, quests, and story endings. We did not want to leave some companions feeling shallow, with storylines that felt incomplete, or be forced to shove them into the late game.

That said, we certainly haven't shut the door on Torment’s development. We still have a lot of early work done on other companions and are open to continuing to work on the game. 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.

As for the Oasis, that is still represented in the game, and as some of you have pointed out, we've shown it several times before in screenshots and media.

You may have noticed we've been showing off the Bloom a lot lately, and that's no coincidence. Despite being one of the earliest locations we showed, the Bloom was originally intended to be smaller than it ended up being. Though we initially planned for the Oasis to be our second major story hub, over time our fascination with the Bloom's darker, more Tormenty feel, led to it being recast as the game's second major city hub instead. We felt creatively this was the right thing to do, and the change did not shorten the gameplay experience.

As a result, the Oasis ended up taking on a smaller role, but you will still be able to visit it during the game.

(Also, I'd suggest you avoid reading the achievements. There are some significant plot points in there, and with such a story-focused game we'd hate to see you spoil it!)

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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".

bjon045 said:

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".

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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!

SpoonFULL said:

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!

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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.

SpoonFULL said:

I take deep and meaningful companions over many shallow ones any time.

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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.

Arkadia7 said:

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.

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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.

DeepO said:

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).

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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.

Fluent said:

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.

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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.

Farflame said:

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.

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I.e. An RPG.

Moriendor said:

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…

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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.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=17049&start=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.