Game News Tyranny Released

[Kz3r0]

I just won a big bet.

:mrpresident:

 

[ArchAngel]

4 characters makes the clusterfuck of this terrible combat easier to manage and read. And as the whole it makes it more fun. I don't want AI to control my characters, and going around and casting all the stuff for 6 characters would be much worse than doing that for 4.

4 characters in tranny is harder to read and manage than 6 characters on PoE, that's my point.

Wound system is way better. They managed to do is same like PoE but without 2 retarded health stats. I would still prefer a game with IE or NWN where you only got one health stat that does not regenerate and you die at 0 or -10 but current game is not balanced for that.

it's not the same. In PoE Tanks have higher health but get hit all the time so it gets down at a constant rate, while squishies have low health so when they get spanked their health goes down fast. In Tranny your tanks get wounds basically never and you squishies need to rest everytime they get downed in a fight.

Also tranny has the same +1 stat consumables as PoE, even same icons. And potions are useful in PoE, you just use more often in tranny because there's no tactical consideration, as soon as you're down the % the potion heals you pop it instantly to avoid getting wounds.

Your math must be crappy, 4 is less than 6. And if you can count to 10 and you still think it is harder to manage party in Tyranny, you got some brain damage or something.

Resting often? The horror! The horror! (In PoE you didnt' need to rest often enough so this is good news. Or maybe you just suck at playing games )

 

[DeepOcean]

After the introduction, there is the whole attacking the fortress bit, you have 8 days to conquer a fortress but the timer is so generous that is almost the same as it don't being there. While technically, you can visit multiple places here, this whole section is very linear as on reality, there is only a handful of errands to do before assaulting the fortress. I suspect that if you do those errands, it will change the assault of the fortress and which faction will have the advantage in the end, we will see.

This bit I played was mostly focused on combat, not much on decisions and exploration so... how the combat is? Well, to me: TB>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BG 2 IE Engine>>>>> PoE3.0>>>>> PoE 1.0>>>>>>>>>>Tyranny. RTwP and a ton of abilities on cooldown should be a crime. I saw myself just spamming all the abilities I had, rotating the ones that were on cooldown, lighting cone, lighting bolt, lighting touch, all on cooldown? Spam some others while they come back, rinse and repeat. The enemies love to spam their abilities too and they come on bigger numbers than just your four dudes, rogues blink and teleport to strike your mages, fighters beeline to your mages... boy, things degenerate on a mess. Pausing every second is mandatory on the last difficulty level. Investing on Barik Sentinel talent tree especially the more engagement slots is a must have. Have Barik surrounded by dudes and just bombard his position as there is no friendly fire.

I dunno if I can use the word tactics to describe how I won these fights. Not really into the whole learn by doing system, for some reason, my character that is a squishy nerd mage dude with zero investment on athletics and subterfuge, has now a ton of athletics and subterfuge, things develop way too automated for my taste.

 

[Excidium II]

You're the brain damaged here since you can't understand that even though there's less characters each character has way more abilities and requires more micro. Enemies are very aggressive and generally more numerous so if you stay in bad position you get rekt p. fast in PotD.

Resting often? The horror! The horror! (In PoE you didnt' need to rest often enough so this is good news. Or maybe you just suck at playing games )

You need to rest p. often in PoE if you're playing on the difficulty mode.

 

[Bohrain]

Finished my first playthrough. I like this one more than Pillars - suffice to say that if you thought Pillars was garbage I doubt you'll get much enjoyment out of this one.
Although the game would've been a whole lot better if there was more room to build your party, your choices for primary tank are basically the protagonist or Barrik and Lantry is the only character with a resurrection spell.

 

[you know what time it is]

I gave up, can't stomach fighting through the endless copy-pasted human bands, even on story mode it's a slog.

Honestly I have no idea how did they end up having two enemy types in the whole game.

 

[Ludo Lense]

I am fundamentally convinced that beyond the QA and Sawyer no designer plays RPGs at Obsidian and if they do it is probably in story mode. It is probably just PNP people galore. I would say writers but I don't want to offend actual writers. You get to be bad at killing wolves if you are Avellone and can add something else.

Also the garbage blink strike that almost every single encounter pulls makes hate the lack of proper CC more and more. I miss ye Infinity engine even though I wasn't the biggest fan.

 

[Jedi Exile]

The only thing I actually like about this game are the portraits. They remind me of NWN ones, which were pretty good.

 

[Junmarko]

I find it hilarious that Tunon has the fucking nerve to ask why a civil war has erupted between Ashe and Nerat - all while laying a subtle level of blame on me in the process. You didn't see this coming, o wise Tunon?

You're really questioning me on why a calculated war veteran is in a fued with a schizoid, floating head, imbued with the souls of hundreds of people? Get the fuck outta here.

 

[DeepOcean]

The only thing I actually like about this game are the portraits. They remind me of NWN ones, which were pretty good.

Are there portraits for old dudes? I only found portraits with fantasy millenials on them.

 

[Sizzle]

Played through it once (with the Disfavored), now I'm in the middle of Act II as an independent agent.

It does differ a lot in terms of quests you can do and locations you can visit. For example, as a supporter of the Disfavored, you will have to fight some factions that despise them, while as an independent, you will deal with them differently.

The Disfavored path did pay out really nicely in the end (wonder if it's the same way with the Scarlet Chorus), where you get the chance to flex your newfound power and status.

Speaking of the story - it's a meta-ish hero's (in the classical sense - where heroes were exemplary powerful individuals, who were also flawed and pretty psychotic) journey, where you're forging your own legend. The "your renown equals your power" bit reminded me of PS:T style belief influencing reality.

As for combat, everything has already been said - it's absolute, joyless shit. If you want to experience the story (and, honestly, can't imagine anyone playing this for the fights), just turn down the difficulty to easy, turn up the game speed to 2x, and you'll get through it relatively quickly, just by randomly clicking enemies. Can't see it getting better even after extensive, PoE-like patching, it's just fundamentally bad.

One thing that was particularly jarring is how almost all the NPCs are casually bisexual, like in Dragon Age II. That sort of heavy-handed social commentary should just fuck off, making everyone bi (even the beastwoman!) doesn't mean that you're adding something to their personalities.

All in all, like previously stated - much more of an Adventure game than an RPG one. Your decision on whether or not you should play it wholly depends on if you're the type of person who values C&C enough to stomach awful RTWP combat.

 

[hell bovine]

Finished my first playthrough. I like this one more than Pillars - suffice to say that if you thought Pillars was garbage I doubt you'll get much enjoyment out of this one.
Although the game would've been a whole lot better if there was more room to build your party, your choices for primary tank are basically the protagonist or Barrik and Lantry is the only character with a resurrection spell.

I'd rather guess the opposite: if you liked PoE, you will not like Tyranny. I thought Pillars was a wasted opportunity (the bad outweighed the good in the end) and in a way Tyranny is the same. Good design ideas like the spell-making system are not expanded enough, whereas some ideas that should be best buried in a garbage heap (regenerating health, wounds) got implemented again.

Tbh, I think Tyranny would be better off if it wasn't made by Obsidian, but by some small indie studio not hobbled by having to re-use design ideas from Pillars. But at the same time it feels like the game has more potential to make something interesting out of it. Dropping that combat system would be a good start. (which has a snowball's chance in hell happening, oh well)

 

[Visbhume]

One thing that was particularly jarring is how almost all the NPCs are casually bisexual, like in Dragon Age II. That sort of heavy-handed social commentary should just fuck off, making everyone bi (even the beastwoman!)

You miss the good old days when men were men and beastwomen were women.

 

[CyberWhale]

There's one thing I like about this - character animations. People aren't awkwardly standing in one place all the time, they move around, squat, carry things and do ordinary work.
Other than that, I'm not really into it. On both combat and story side - things simply don't seem to click with me. On the contrary, they feel really off-putting TBH.

Gonna write moar if I manage to force myself to finish it.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

So now that Western civ might yet be saved I got some time to play it.

Yeah its pretty good, in fact everything PoE lacked in reactivity and a decent setting this delivers. The combat is also much more refined which makes me think PoE 2 might actually hit something in my soul.
I hate to say it Codex but its a good game.

The "bad" guys are a very interesting bunch. I am close to finishing it btw.

One thing I forgot to mention however, the game skill system should have more clarification in the beginning, you should pump Lore and subterfuge and just train it even at Path of the Damned because combat skill will naturally go up by simply fighting. And lore opens up pretty nice dialogue options.

 

[Dayyālu]

I have finished Act 1, and I am unwilling to continue. The game is boring, and clumsily made. Lemme rant a bit, even if I know that playing a single act is not enough, but it would be a waste of time. Disclaimer: I haven't played PoE.

Let's start with the positives:

+ Reactivity: it's a pleasure. Most of the choices you do in the Conquest mode are recognized (Act I was in one area I interacted with during the conquest, and it was very nice to see everything adapt to my choices, and the Queenslayer moniker sticking). Minor choices give you small bonuses, easier fights, characters betraying others. It's very, very good. I hope such reactivity keeps up for the whole game, and I see it as its only strength.

+ I liked the Voices of Nerat. Sure, it's a stereotype, a mind-soul-eating clown, and his army is a tired rehash of Caesar's Legion. His writing is bad bar the amusing tidbits during the Archon duels, where they employ the wikipedia-style word thingies to let the "Voices" speak with you. His dubbing is weak but somewhat adequate, and it's probably the only character I'll remember in a week.


Negatives:

+ Setting: As a "bronze age RPG where Evil won" I had some.... expectations.

Spoiler

Ok. I did not get this. Whatever, I can understand creativity is in short supply, but the lore is.... weak. Very weak. I could not help but compare Tyranny with a old French comic I liked when I was a teen, The armies of the Conqueror , 1977. I still remember years later how the image of a powerful "evil army" conquering the world was set up in direct and effective terms, with a blend of visual style and narration. The opening was simple (pardon my rough translation):

The Armies of the Conqueror march forth to conquer the world. No one knows from where they come from, or where they are now: it's merely known that someday they will be here. Many times they were stopped, sometime even repelled, but they were never defeated. And the losers swelled their endless ranks.

Spoiler

Why I am rambling about "setting" "lore" and comparing it to both historical and comic book fiction? Because Tyranny's lore is boring and trite. You get endless lore dumps from every character and from every dialogue with the hyperlink system, and I dread to think that someone had to write so much stuff that has no meaning and no value. I started after a bit to ignore all the details because they were redundant (the eleventh time someone repeats basic trivia on the Chorus or on the Disfavoured I can get a tad bored, pardon me). After a while , they got me to say the dreaded "I don't care about this setting, I don't care about those characters, and this seems silly and childish". Most of the characters are simply random NPC n.567, with a trait taken from the usual DM's table of NPC traits (the young soldier, the commander heir to a great family). I found distasteful that a good number of female NPCs but no male NPCs tried to hit on my character, but that's a small thing.

Art design is outright atrocious. Nothing is pretty, nothing is memorable, weapon, armour and character designs are MMORPG level. I can't point this enough: there are games with subpar design (Disciples II, for example) that can keep you hooked merely to see the next creative piece of unit design or map. Tyranny is fugly, and the art direction was beyond poor.

+ Combat: Combat mechanics are boring. They aren't bad, they are simply completely and utterly boring. Magic system is nice, but it's useless in the end. The apex of combat complexity in Tyranny is juggling an endless amount of cooldowns or "I win" abilities, while the enemies are the same generic mob number 56. Even "bosses" feel nothing but trash mobs. There is not a single combat in Act 1 that show some skill in design: even a rookie DM with a good monster manual could do better. JRPGs do better. *I* could do better, because placing group 16 of Archer, Two handed guy, Mage, Shield guy is not design.

+ Exploration: Press button. Highlight loot crates. Traps are automatically found. Secret caches are automatically found. No free roaming, no hidden goodies. No limits either, as a party can get everything easily. That's it. Boring.

+ Character building: Someone will be excited in optimizing, but I can't see why. I hope people like unlocking endless % bonuses, abilities that all look the same and that are in the end meaningless as combat is a uncreative slog. You can't create a unoptimized character, as far as I can see. Why I am playing this again?

+ Companions: There is nothing meaningful to say about them. They are nothing and their writing is mediocre. Sure, I did not pick up three of them, but I hope 50% was a good sample.


Tyranny is a game with boring lore, ugly art design, incredibly uninspired combat and mediocre writing. This feels like a indie studio first game. Vogel did better. Eschalon is better. JRPGs are better (and it pains me to say so!). Reactivity is great, but it can't save a game where everything else is outright mediocre.

Maybe the next one will be better.

 

[ArchAngel]

I am fundamentally convinced that beyond the QA and Sawyer no designer plays RPGs at Obsidian and if they do it is probably in story mode. It is probably just PNP people galore. I would say writers but I don't want to offend actual writers. You get to be bad at killing wolves if you are Avellone and can add something else.

Also the garbage blink strike that almost every single encounter pulls makes hate the lack of proper CC more and more. I miss ye Infinity engine even though I wasn't the biggest fan.

And you people competed about who can bash Siege of Dragonspear more because of 2 bullshit sentences while this game is much much worse and lacks a good and fun combat system.

 

[Ravn7]

The setting is inspired by Glen Cook's "Black Company". Good novel (imo first book is much better then others).

 

[Dayyālu]

The setting is inspired by Glen Cook's "Black Company". Good novel (imo first book is much better then others).

I have read just the first three ones, and they are charming, in a way. First one is nice, but I liked the innkeeper's tale.

Myth took much of its lore from the Black Company and it's noticeable (particularly in depicting the squabbling undead mages leading the "Evil Army"). Tyranny has tragically too few things in common with it (if it took the "rare magic" approach and made the Archons memorable, it would have been something at least). If they took inspiration from Glen Cook's books, well, they fucked up.

 

[Starwars]

I dislike the combat in this game but for a large part of it, I felt that they had a pretty good pacing going where there were lots of talky-talky stuff with combat more "sprinkled" throughout. Currently, in Act II, I'm in a period that is quite combat-heavy and it's horrible.

 

[DeepOcean]

Man, enemy rogues can teleport, cause a huge damaging attack that is almost a guaranteed wound on your squishy party members and have a huge AoE attack that cause prone, they must use the energy of their farts to power that thing, to make matters worse, Barik can only engage one enemy at time until you unlock more engagement slots meaning that everyone will run towards your mages on the slightest provocation and as there is an engagement system, this can be annoying, to make matters worse, the CC spells are really weak, they are only useful to apply debuffs to make your DPS spells hit harder or when you need to break engagement to save a character on an emergency. There isn't a clear way into knowing who are the guys that can blink too, I sorta suspect anyone on light armor dualwielding now.

Another thing, you have a vigor core, for example, gives you +2 of vitality when on single target but gives a whopping +30% of damage when cone, why a spell transformed on another? Why can't you apply +2 vitality on cone? Another example, illusion core, single target, it is a pretty good buff with +30% deflection but it becomes an attack that cause prone when single target ranged and it changes again to an attack that cause stun on cone. You kinda doesn't have much control on the spells you can "create".

Why the huge 38 seconds cooldowns on spells at quickness 10? If those were deciding spells and they kinda wanted to keep you from spamming them, I would understand but they do disappointing damage and have really small AoE so you kinda have to have multiple versions of a lighting spell for example to keep pumping damage. Enemy soldiers can eat fireballs for breakfeast on the last difficulty and as they move so quick and the attack animations take forever... mages are still the best damage dealers by the very fact you being able to hit more than one dude but it isn't fun to play with them.

Those are my first impressions, maybe later you getting better loot and sigils the combat become more bearable, we will see, I'm more seeking ways to reduce my annoyance than having fun right now.

 

[jungl]

most hard fight is very early in the game where they throw almost 10 guys at you. There a bridge though you can use to cheese the fight and make it easy. That is what I don't like about CRPGs harder difficulty modes just means cheesing fights exploiting game mechanics.

 

[hell bovine]

Another thing, you have a vigor core, for example, gives you +2 of vitality when on single target but gives a whopping +30% of damage when cone, why a spell transformed on another? Why can't you apply +2 vitality on cone? Another example, illusion core, single target, it is a pretty good buff with +30% deflection but it becomes an attack that cause prone when single target ranged and it changes again to an attack that cause stun on cone. You kinda doesn't have much control on the spells you can "create".

...and illusion single target melee range seems to cause daze. But yeah, the magicrafting system should be expanded, giving you more control over the spell features. Even then, I find illusion (so far, act 1 on PotD) the most interesting of all magic schools.

Quickness seems mandatory for all mages. Why does the Latrine guy start with such a low score, aren't sages supposed to be wise?

 

[Rahdulan]

The setting is inspired by Glen Cook's "Black Company". Good novel (imo first book is much better then others).

If they took inspiration from Glen Cook's books, well, they fucked up.

The Voices of Nerat is so blatantly Soulcatcher it's not even funny. Except he comes off as way more RANDUM and zany for some reason.

 

[Ludo Lense]

I am fundamentally convinced that beyond the QA and Sawyer no designer plays RPGs at Obsidian and if they do it is probably in story mode. It is probably just PNP people galore. I would say writers but I don't want to offend actual writers. You get to be bad at killing wolves if you are Avellone and can add something else.

Also the garbage blink strike that almost every single encounter pulls makes hate the lack of proper CC more and more. I miss ye Infinity engine even though I wasn't the biggest fan.

And you people competed about who can bash Siege of Dragonspear more because of 2 bullshit sentences while this game is much much worse and lacks a good and fun combat system.

I didn't bash anything. Shield of Dragonspear is alright, the RPG codex review reflects most of my thoughts.