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With the current mechanics, each point of Finesse gives you (very) roughly a 2.5% reduction to all damage taken and to all hostile CC effects, in addition to the accuracy bonus. That's pretty strong.
I finished it tonight on the independent path, clocking in just a little under 27 hours. While becoming overlord of the tiers is I guess satisfying, the route as a whole felt too straightforward, with it basically being summed as 'kill everyone'. I mean, is it even possible to get Voices and/or Ashe on your side during that route? Even with high favor they basically just attacked me. I also can't see how they can do a sequel given how out of hand the scope of the game's story gets towards the end.
The Oldwalls dungeons were a bit disappointing too. The puzzles are extremely easy and only two of them have actual dungeons, the other two just have one room for the teleporter puzzle, I wonder if they had something more planned but got cut.
The companions were also a mixed bag. I liked them overall but they're very front-loaded. You can pretty much exhaust their dialogue trees as soon as you recruit them and then they have little to say for the rest of the game when you talk to them. They have no personal quests and while many of them suggest some sort of subplot nothing ever comes of it (i.e. you can outright suggest that Verse, with her ability to absorb skills, may be something similar to the Voices of Nerat... but outside of that conversation it's never brought up again). It feels like they definitely had larger relationships between the PC and the companions in mind but ultimately cut them.
All that said, the companions do interject in conversations a lot -- more so than any other Obsidian game I can think of. Their interjections can also change depending on your party set-up (Verse and Barik constantly talk to each other during conversations). The amount of interjections do taper out towards the end, though that may've been because I was on the independent path which overall felt half-baked.
Despite all my bitching I did like the game well enough. After a few rounds of patches I'll probably replay it, the 'unify the Tiers' path sounds both interesting and yet retarded given the concept of the game. Did anyone do that path already? If so, how was it?
Despite all my bitching I did like the game well enough. After a few rounds of patches I'll probably replay it, the 'unify the Tiers' path sounds both interesting and yet retarded given the concept of the game. Did anyone do that path already? If so, how was it?
I don't think that you outright betray Kyros, but she is moving against you, so you are forced to do something. Nominally, you are still an Archon under her.
I'm about 3 hours in and the only annoying thing so far is the strong womyn bullshit that's being shoved down the player's throat at every turn. Basically every female or female like thing in this game boasts about how strong or better than men she is, it's beyond comical. Sawyer really couldn't help himself.
I think you actually betray Kyros in her/its face only when siding with the rebels, if that's even possible, but I think it is, judging by the achievements. In the end you betray the empire either way, by usurping powers of the Overlord, at least in small capacity. She/it has a bigger spire after all.
I took a second glance at the achievements, by the way, and it seems that I missed some stuff. Never went to the Burning Library for example, I don't even know if that's possible if you side with the Disfavored as I did.
I'm about 3 hours in and the only annoying thing so far is the strong womyn bullshit that's being shoved down the player's throat at every turn. Basically every female or female like thing in this game boasts about how strong or better than men she is, it's beyond comical. Sawyer really couldn't help himself.
Yeah, that's sadly true. Game is full of this bullshit and it quickly becomes annoying. I don’t think Sawyer understands how gruesomely unrealistic and out of place all of this is.
I think you actually betray Kyros in her/its face only when siding with the rebels, if that's even possible, but I think it is, judging by the achievements. In the end you betray the empire either way, by usurping powers of the Overlord, at least in small capacity. She/it has a bigger spire after all.
I took a second glance at the achievements, by the way, and it seems that I missed some stuff. Never went to the Burning Library for example, I don't even know if that's possible if you side with the Disfavored as I did.
Well, it took me 40 hours to finish game, and I spent probably half of that staring at the loading screens while traveling between the towers.
I wanted to write some sort of post-finished impressions or maybe a review on Steam, but game turned out to be just too boring to pick positive or negative things about it. It is really one of the most boring and dissapointing releases I experienced recently. It is not an awful or completely incompetent game, but almost everything about it is just shallow and not very, well, deep or comlicated as you might expect from the concept of the game.
The setting, was a very good idea, and is incredibly impressive visually. Sort of traveling the lands after tactical magical nuking. Locations are pretty, but they are small, and super simple, and incredibly linear and streamlined - basically Dragon Age 2 locations, but with not-copypasted backgrounds.
The combat is a terrible chore. The AI is retarded, the encounters are basically either soldier boys or "elementals" "use fire to kill ice" that sort of thing, you can always just rest spam and rape everything with companion combo-abilities.
The magical system stands out from all of this, especially some of the special abilities and effects. Note that, you will not feel it for about 60% of the game because your Lore skill won't allow you to use anything fun, and you would rely only on simpliest and most efficient spells (Gravelight spam etc.), but it has potential. The things they did in an isometric game - super ability that lifts people in the air, or bouncing projectiles - that's just sick.
Remember a Stone BroFist from Nox? Well, I got as excited in Tranny when my stone boulder ricocheted a few times from walls and rolled a crit on some low health enemy, who died in a big red SPLAT being crushed into a wall.
The companions, yes plz said it right. You exhaust everything there is to them just by meeting them. Durance's or even Sagani's personal quests look like Planescape in comparison. They're also quite stupid. The "lol I flayed cows when I was a little girl" "OH NO I DONT WANT TO BE MURDERED NAO LIKE ARCHON" Verce is just cringy.
There are, however, 2 things that bothered me in the game to no end in it's writing and quests the most. Perhaps I chosen the wrong options (Disfavored playthrough), perhaps I didn't get what they promised about evil, but:
1) For a long time, I have not experienced such a strong disconnection between what my character is and what I was doing in the game. Meaning, it has been a long time since I felt such an errand boy. Fatebinder, we suck, please halp? Fatebinder, the iron ore is missing, plz bring back? Fatebinder, can you distract enemy plz for us? Fatebinder, we are too weak, can you kill these bad dudes, and those, and these too?
On rare occasion, you get to solve some dispute (Fatebinder, dude stole iron helmet, what to do?), but they are so uninteresting, simple and could have happened in every other game, they're not worth mentioning.
In the beginning of the game, you can promise to save some dude's life, but he is killed and you can say that "By killing him you made me a lier, and offended my honor, whatcha gonna do scrub?". It was the only line I sorta remembered as interesting in an authoritan/supportive to your position and that made some good amount of sense in the setting.
2) Tranny is cute flowers liberal in an evul bronze setting, ya whatever. Let's not pick on that. There is other problem with the game - it has no hard choices. And it is especially apparent because game bombards you with choices in the beginning when player has no information to give a choice some thought and actually make it because you feel the choice is right, logical, interesting or suits the role, not because you get a minigame about removing thingies from the cool cloth map.
It feels like you can always cheat out of any evil or hard choices game has to offer because game just doesn't have the balls to make whatever the game about to actually affect the player in a strong way. Remember DA:O's Redcliffe? It sorta allowed you to have your cake and eat it, but not quite (which you learned from ending slides). It really made bio lovers butthut on the forums, oh I 'member. Better example - remember the trial where you are just forced to choose between Alistair, Loghain, future of the kingdom or maybe even, if you are a crazy fanchick waifu, being a queen? Or choosing between Morrigan waifu/child/death of some other guy?
Well, how Tranny does it, you probably seen that child quest somewhere, but do you guys know that you
can solve it with one click and save child and fix everything and we lived happily ever after?
And didn't you guys even blink when in the end game makes you
archon slaying new overlord rising fantasy empowered kickass?
So i have now completed the game once and i will write my short opinion on what i think of the game.
Did i enjoy it? Yes. I had fun and i returned back to the game wishing to find out more on what would happen.
Is it a flawed game? Yes even more so then PoE.
First of all it feels like many things were cut out to either be part of some kind of DLC pack or simply rushed out the door. You will end up maybe enjoying the story and then you get to the end, at that point the game fades to black and its over. The end. Roll "what happen" ending texts. And your reaction will be something like: "wtf is that it?". It feels like there are multiple quests chains and even towers that are simply removed from the game. There is no explanation for anything, while the game boasts a "because good is stupid" one can't help but sit there and ask oneself "Looks like evil is even more stupid". Besides it dont "feel" like a world where evil have won, people are surprisingly "neutral" or fine with the situation they are in.
The game also lacks dungeon's, puzzles and i would say direct character interactions while you travel. Towards the end the npc's will almost not say anything at all and it feels like some things are removed from the NPC's. Its possible i might have missed something, but i went to every area, did every quest and i think only one of the NPC's had a "request ("quest"(if you want to call it that)). There is almost any variation of enemies. You will be fighting the same 5-6 things across the entire game and the tactics wont change unless you are fighting a boss.
The bosses overall are not that much fun either, mainly because i never felt like i was in any danger from them.
I enjoyed the spell system but it lacked depth. The reputation system while interesting could most likely be improved if they had another thing that it kept track of. The sound track was ok, but sadly not memorable for me atleast. The feat system felt like it was just something they rushed to get done. Some trees have some very powerful things in them while others are almost 100% useless. When you have a conversation with a companion it can at times be annoying to figure out what you have said and not said and that simply makes it so that you end up going over all of the topics again. The quests are overall meh. Considering you are meant to be a important figure and all you do is clean up after other people. And the loading screen's are god awful. They also push alot of political opinions in this game every few min you will be slapped in the face with these things.
Should one buy it? If you enjoy these types of games. Its a slightly worse version of PoE with more rushed/cut content.
1) For a long time, I have not experienced such a strong disconnection between what my character is and what I was doing in the game. Meaning, it has been a long time since I felt such an errand boy. Fatebinder, we suck, please halp? Fatebinder, the iron ore is missing, plz bring back? Fatebinder, can you distract enemy plz for us? Fatebinder, we are too weak, can you kill these bad dudes, and those, and these too?
Well, for me it was more of a "Oh, here's a Fatebinder, let's use him to solve some of our problems". This, combined with the fact that Disfavored are highly incompetent bunch of idiots, with exceptions, made for this feeling.
Well, whole game was about this, and having Lantry in the team made it possible to look into the past and inquire about the nature of the spires, their power, Edicts, power of the Fatebinder and so on. From the beginning it was the game about the Chosen One in a setting where evil won.
Surely possible in anarchist path - were everywhere, done everything, got all the spires. Maybe that's why the game took so long, possibly being a cuck for one of the armies makes it shorter.
Surely possible in anarchist path - were everywhere, done everything, got all the spires. Maybe that's why the game took so long, possibly being a cuck for one of the armies makes it shorter.
Yeah, I also did everything except the Burning Library, yet I agree, siding with one of the armies seems like cutting content - I can't seem to think that my dealings with Cairn and Stone Sea in general were half-baked, there must be more in store for this plot than I did.
Well, whole game was about this, and having Lantry in the team made it possible to look into the past and inquire about the nature of the spires, their power, Edicts, power of the Fatebinder and so on. From the beginning it was the game about the Chosen One in a setting where evil won.
I left old fart on base most of the time, but looking on the mystic metal thingy with orb on top of the tower, and then looking at the banner of Kyros told me everything really, or so I think.
Since I don't want to be unjust, I am going to give the game a second try, and turn tips for reputation gains/skill checks on to see what I missed. But I doubt the main gameplay would change much, since locations look perfect for "replayability" aka you meet red dudes instead of purple dudes or kill red dudes and purple dudes but bronze dudes join you etc.
That's not exactly a type of "choices" I enjoy in RPGs.
Yeah, but digging things up with Lantry seems to suggest that
there's much more to the power of the Overlord than her/its spires, and she/it has much more of them than the Fatebinder that's for sure. Belief of the people seems to be fueling some of the more mystical powers of the Archons, and I think it works the same in Kyros' case. Also, it's possible to trip balls on ink with this old fart, so having him is always nice.
Surely possible in anarchist path - were everywhere, done everything, got all the spires. Maybe that's why the game took so long, possibly being a cuck for one of the armies makes it shorter.
By all the spires how many spires do you mean, exactly? because I was loyal to Ashe to the end and I got achivos for all the spires and ending all the edicts.
Actually, I'm p. sure doing so is mandatory for progression in the game.
Yeah, but digging things up with Lantry seems to suggest that
there's much more to the power of the Overlord than her/its spires, and she/it has much more of them than the Fatebinder that's for sure. Belief of the people seems to be fueling some of the more mystical powers of the Archons, and I think it works the same in Kyros' case. Also, it's possible to trip balls on ink with this old fart, so having him is always nice.
I never took Lantry because Eb's talents were the most interesting and varied of any companion in the game, what do you actually miss that you can't get my mining from his dialogues in your spires? Most of the info came from missives to the old fatebinder regardless
Speaking of Cairn (or whatever the stone dude's name was) I remember in one of the pre-release videos it looked like you could rebuild him or some such, with his various parts being listed in the 'Artifact' list on one of the spires. What becomes of that? I didn't get anything of the sort on the independent path so I figure it must be tied to one of the other paths.
Also, what's the last edict? I got the burning one, the earthquake one, the storm one, and a character gives you an eternal night one but I seem to have missed the very last one.
I never took Lantry because Eb's talents were the most interesting and varied of any companion in the game, what do you actually miss that you can't get my mining from his dialogues in your spires? Most of the info came from missives to the old fatebinder regardless
Nope, it's not. Game is actually funny that way, I think only first spire is mandatory, and perhaps Ocean Spire as well when you side with Ashe, but still I think that the rest of them are not compulsory. Still they kind of are,
because to cast an Edict you need power which you gain by acquiring artifacts and, mainly, by activating spires - and you need at least 500 to perform an Edict, where one spire gives you 200, and one artifact 25.
Speaking of Cairn (or whatever the stone dude's name was) I remember in one of the pre-release videos it looked like you could rebuild him or some such, with his various parts being listed in the 'Artifact' list on one of the spires. What becomes of that?
Also, what's the last edict? I got the burning one, the earthquake one, the storm one, and a character gives you an eternal night one but I seem to have missed the very last one.
I never took Lantry because Eb's talents were the most interesting and varied of any companion in the game, what do you actually miss that you can't get my mining from his dialogues in your spires? Most of the info came from missives to the old fatebinder regardless
Speaking of Cairn (or whatever the stone dude's name was) I remember in one of the pre-release videos it looked like you could rebuild him or some such, with his various parts being listed in the 'Artifact' list on one of the spires. What becomes of that? I didn't get anything of the sort on the independent path so I figure it must be tied to one of the other paths.
I killed him with stone dudes and was allowed to take one of his parts. You can then reforge the part to make it more powerful or make an item out of it.
Is this shit even worth pirating (god knows I'm not giving money to Obsidian)? The vibe I get from YouTube vids is that it's a more banal version of PoE, which by itself was pretty dull and banal to start with.
Also, what's the last edict? I got the burning one, the earthquake one, the storm one, and a character gives you an eternal night one but I seem to have missed the very last one.
I was seriously expecting him to be the final boss... but no, he's exactly as he paints himself as -- a helpful dude that bends the knee to you. Thought for sure he was using me to take everyone out so he could then just have me to focus on.
