Torment: Tides of Numenera Devs on Visibility, VA, Tides

The official Torment: Tides of Numenera Tumblr blog has rounded up some developer posts on the game’s forums from design lead Adam Heine and project lead Kevin Saunders. The quotes concern topics such as visibility in combat, the use of voice acting in the game, what the game’s focus on storytelling entails for the game’s overall quality, and the Tides system. Here’s a quote on the latter, courtesy of Kevin Saunders, from the RPG Codex forums:

1. Right the Tides focus on actions for two reasons:
a) we can detect player actions, but we can’t detect motivation. We wanted to avoid the frustration that would result from us inevitably miscategorizing a player’s intentions. Especially since the Tides are new and unfamiliar (and deliberately involved), preventing this frustration is a challenge even when it is based upon the actions.
b) a person’s legacy is based upon how they were perceived, which is arguably more based upon their actions (which could include their stated motivations), not their true internal motivations. (To that end, in cases where the player explicitly declares their motivations, it’s treated as an action, albeit a fairly minor one.

‘‹ 2. We are undecided on how transparent Tide changes should be to players. Fortunately, this should be easy to adjust as we develop and play through more content (which is why we haven’t prioritized answering this particular question). A player option is a possibility, but not a certainty yet.
3. In general, we have found the Tides’ complexity and nuances to be challenging to navigate. We recognized and accepted this challenge from the start and haven’t been disappointed. (This is a reason, for example, that some of our earliest work was on the five novellas that explore the nature of each Tide.) We see risk in how well we’ll be able to both clearly communicate to players about the Tides as well as how fully we can realize their potential. It’s been going reasonably well, and I think many players will find it interesting, but there are still weaknesses and I’m not sure yet how close we will get to (amazing.) In any case, the Tides are by no means an afterthought and they receive considerable attention because we strive for (amazing.)
4. This may seem contrary to my (by no means an afterthought) comment above, but most of our reactivity is focused first on the characters and the situations. We rarely structure conversations for the Tides. This was deliberate because we don’t want to warp the content to serve the Tides. And if the Tides can reasonably accomplish what we’re asking of them, then they can be somewhat unobtrusive. (There are some cases where the Tides are more front and center, but more often the part they play is more supportive than driving.)
5. Yes, an action can increase more than one Tide (or none of them). We try to avoid having an action that seems appropriate for more than two Tides, however, though part of this is in iteration. The Tides are not in direct conflict with each other.
6. Yes, it is possible for the PC to be balanced in the Tides such that they have no dominant one. We aren’t approaching this (or any of the Tides, really) as an explicit philosophy or such, but we are accounting for this possibility. (I.e., you shouldn’t expect explicit conversations debating the value of one Tide vs. another – any comparison will be more subtle than that and they aren’t really things to compare. They aren’t exactly an alignment system in the flavor of D&D’s.)