Tyranny + Bastard's Wound Expansion Thread

[Melcar]

So what's the consensus? Sounds much better than expected?

Mediocre everything with shit combat.

So Codex silver rating?

 

[evdk]

So what's the consensus? Sounds much better than expected?

Mediocre everything with shit combat.

So Codex silver rating?

GOTY 2016

 

[Ivan]

Tough choice at the end of Act 1:

Spoiler

side w/ purple bros w/ the hope of convincing them to revolt against the status quo (after all, they were a rebel faction first and foremost) or go full independent

 

[prodigydancer]

So what's the consensus? Sounds much better than expected?

Better than expected but some aspects are much worse than they could be. The writing, for example, is so uneven that sometimes it's hard to believe it's the same project. Critpath related parts are well-done (especially The Voices of Nerat dialogue) but almost everything else is unbelievably terrible.

 

[MRY]

Since it's my own particular hobby horse, how'd the historicism turn out?

 

[prodigydancer]

Since it's my own particular hobby horse, how'd the historicism turn out?

Um, it's a magical world where some especially magical guy called Kyros can level cities and in general obliterate whatever or whoever he doesn't like at will. As the sole wielder of absolute power he knows no restraints and never has to compromise. What kind of historicism do you expect with this premise?

 

[Lilura]

First part of my walkthrough has been posted. It covers Edgering ruins, just another benign starter zone. Things pick up in the next segment, as I expected they would. Enjoying it so far.

 

[MRY]

Since it's my own particular hobby horse, how'd the historicism turn out?

Um, it's a magical world where some especially magical guy called Kyros can level cities and in general obliterate whatever or whoever he doesn't like at will. As the sole wielder of absolute power he knows no restraints and never has to compromise. What kind of historicism do you expect with this premise?

Bronze age architecture, tech, cultural tropes, religious rituals, legal norms, etc., etc.

 

[Shadenuat]

Since it's my own particular hobby horse, how'd the historicism turn out?

There is none.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Since it's my own particular hobby horse, how'd the historicism turn out?

Um, it's a magical world where some especially magical guy called Kyros can level cities and in general obliterate whatever or whoever he doesn't like at will. As the sole wielder of absolute power he knows no restraints and never has to compromise. What kind of historicism do you expect with this premise?

Bronze age architecture, tech, cultural tropes, religious rituals, legal norms, etc., etc.

Bronze age Commissar arse they put Roman/Imperial Legion there; plus no tits, nor naked priestresses of fertility/moon/agricultural religions but instead we got plenty of XXI century Kwan gay couples and strong womyn cause its still 2016 for Obshitian so all of the things you mentioned would make those political correct hipsters to cry comrade.

 

[Haba]

Since it's my own particular hobby horse, how'd the historicism turn out?

Um, it's a magical world where some especially magical guy called Kyros can level cities and in general obliterate whatever or whoever he doesn't like at will. As the sole wielder of absolute power he knows no restraints and never has to compromise. What kind of historicism do you expect with this premise?

Bronze age architecture, tech, cultural tropes, religious rituals, legal norms, etc., etc.

Sorry bro, there is none.

But look at this KOOL statue instead!

 

[Urthor]

There's no bronze age architecture, there's a 14th century castle with crenellations instead.


You're just getting way too hung up on the fact they moved the metallurgy and coinage to bronze age for shits giggles and a neat loot dichotomy between bronze and iron. Every other aspect of the setting is late medieval, complex economic and legalistic concepts like command economy and adversarial justice system, alliance of city states coming from medieval Italy, they're obviously not trying to portray the Bronze age in all its Homeric glory.

It's just a vanilla fantasy setting with bronze weapons.

 

[MRY]

Haba Holy red drapes, Fatebinder!

Urthor I was just operating off of their continual description of the game as Bronze Age. For example: "I’ll talk about setting the game at the end of the Bronze Age, and how we reinforced that in our items and lore." Or this one, re: Homeric glory: "Bronze Age warfare was more up-close and brutal." I can't tell whether "It's obviously not Bronze Age" is meant as a defense of the game or as a criticism of it, but I'm quite certain they claimed they were trying to depict the age. It's like if you told me that evil didn't actually win ....

 

[Azarkon]

Isn't that why Grieving Mother and Durance's plots advanced only after resting/time has passed? Because Chris knows that instant character development not only doesn't work, but is also jarring and gamey? The massive dialogue trees are present in Tranny as well, where you read for 15 minutes their entire backstories/motivations/development and then looong stretches of nothingness and they start feeling like puppets. What I find good is that your companions aren't average Joe's, they are special in some way and that makes them qualified to do what they are doing. Bioware's characters are all normal people and that's one of the reasons they are so cringey. PoE had the same problem of run-of-the-mill people who happen to stumble across you (except Durance and GM) and somehow have the capabilities to go against everything the game throws at you. I kinda digressed a little. What the problem here is that characters aren't involved in the plot/setting or with other characters, they are museum exhibits that you exhaust all possibilities with. And like good little exhibits they are relegated to being walking information dispensers, you have the option to ask every single one of them setting questions and they start blathering on about shit nobody really cares about. I've already forgotten the economic state of the Free Cities or the geography of the Tiers and I learned that info a few hours ago. That is not critical to the plot, it's fluff that takes extra space that could be used for more interesting things. But it's easy writing a setting, isn't it? Just conjure up whatever nonsense you can cram into a paragraph and everyone will believe you, because "suspension of disbelief". Ugh. Can you imagine Dak'kon going on and on about Sigil and the planes, deities and factions, something that doesn't pertain to him as an individual? Ugh, horrible, nightmare-inducing crap. I.e. learn to write characters, Obsidian!

Imagine being able to go through all the circles of Zerthimon with Dak'kon the moment you meet him, and sitting through the entire history of the Githzerai in one giant dialogue tree right at the beginning.

Imagine being able to figure out that Morte was lying to you about everything in the very first conversation, and spending the rest of the game not trusting him.

There would be no story. Or rather, there would be a story and it'd have been told and you'd feel nothing because you haven't even gotten to know the subject that it's about.

A character's narrative is a journey, and like all journeys, it's not the destination that counts. Character writers that know what they're doing understand that the experience of discovery is more important than the end result, and pace the developments & reveals accordingly.

The problem with Obsidian's recent games is that character development feels disconnected from the rest of the game, and the bulk of the reveal, and at times even the development, is done through an information dump right at the beginning. In Pillars of Eternity, their personal quests provided a second opportunity to get to know the character, but most of the times, you learn only a little more than you already knew. Thus, whereas Eder's failure to close the book on his brother might tell you more about his personality, that's just the final touch on a finished painting. Your understanding of Eder changes very little from having completed his personal quest.

It's not necessarily about how normal the characters are, either. Chris Avellone liked characters that were not normal, but when he had to write normal characters, like Atton Rand, he had the same basic philosophy, and it's only when he's had to create a lot of characters in a very short time, such as in the case of Neverwinter Nights 2, that he falls behind on development, and it shows. To this end, I've always considered Chris to have had a comic book approach to character development - which is a model of show, don't tell, since comic books can't usually do information dumps in the same way novels can.

 

[veevoir]

Man the ending really sucks.

Spoiler

Why the fuck did I collect all that evidence? It literally never comes up. Did I miss some point where I could go to trial and present the evidence against Ashe/Nerat? I went independent, so I had to kill both, is that why the evidence was irrelevant in the end? Or is there a route that lets you take our Ashe/Nerat by presenting evidence to Tunon?

Also holy shit I screwed up some things...not killing the stone archon, and not returning the helm to Lethien's crossing...

Also is there a way to save the library? It got edict of fire thrown at it in conquest mode, can that be avoided?

About the Tunon talk in act 3

Spoiler

yes, you can get one archon killed by presenting a case against him. It comes out of nowhere though. Still - interesting concept

 

[Mei Scarlet]

Man the ending really sucks.

Spoiler

Why the fuck did I collect all that evidence? It literally never comes up. Did I miss some point where I could go to trial and present the evidence against Ashe/Nerat? I went independent, so I had to kill both, is that why the evidence was irrelevant in the end? Or is there a route that lets you take our Ashe/Nerat by presenting evidence to Tunon?

Also holy shit I screwed up some things...not killing the stone archon, and not returning the helm to Lethien's crossing...

Also is there a way to save the library? It got edict of fire thrown at it in conquest mode, can that be avoided?

Spoiler

During my playthrough I sided with Disfavored and at the start of Act III had a court session with Tunon where I could present all of the evidence I've collected about VoN. Though Tunon still ruled in his favor so I'm not sure if I fucked up and didn't do a good enough job or you just can't rule them as guilty. He was not present in the court anywa so I went and killed him myself.

At least they didn't lie about replayability, I'm starting the second playthrough with Scarlet Chorus right now since I feel like I've played through like 40% of content. And I guess there will be content left for a third playthrough too (siding with rebels everywhere).

Story was quite solid and I enjoyed it a lot except for the third act. It was a really weird transition from "a professional guy on a mission with a stoic boss and a lot of responsibilities" to a "Eh I guess I'll try to challenge overlord now".
My character never felt powerful, like we have: a centuries old general with a mystical connection to his soldiers, a crazy soul-consuming dude, a shadow lurking mythical assassin and a floating masked weirdo. And here we have a regular guy who absorbed some powerful magic and found an ancient device by chance. Like, I can't even use this power at field, I totaly couldn't phantom how we could stand against these powerful Archons in the open battle.

Spoiler

I wanted to bow to Tunon, keeping working relationships with him, employ Belen and Ashe and kill off Nerat, it almost worked like that except that Tunon for some unphantomable reason bowed to me. And of course they have a huge DLC\sequel bait; act III ended way too quickly.

plus no tits

There are beastwomen tits though.

On the unrelated note, should I go and play PoE now? Last time I finished it was a release version and it was a mixed bag though I kinda enjoyed it in the end.

 

[Darth Roxor]

On the unrelated note, should I go and play PoE now?

sure

whats the worst that can happen

 

[prodigydancer]

"Bronze Age warfare was more up-close and brutal."

I'm not sure what exactly they meant but Tyranny combat is about what you'd expect from a party-based RTwP CRPG using almost the same engine as PoE. No matter what my opinion on TToN may be, I must admit that TToN combat is unique. In Tyranny, they've added javelins (which isn't bad per se). Whether it's how they actually envision Bronze Age warfare or not, I cannot say.

It's like if you told me that evil didn't actually win ....

Evil definitely won. And it's true evil, no doubt here. It's just... you could call it "evil of proportions." Proportions trump substance so much, you constantly feel like a Toy Story character about to face the wrath of Sid.

 

[Azarkon]

On the topic of combat, I think Obsidian's combat system would have been better had they limited themselves to per encounter and per rest abilities, instead of cool downs that remind me of Blizzard games but with much worse controls and many more characters to control.

A game like World of Warcraft can get away with cool downs because you're only controlling one character and you can use the key board to implement rotations.

I don't want to play party games where I have to keep up rotations on four different characters and use the mouse each time.

 

[Haba]

The problem with Obsidian's recent games is that character development feels disconnected from the rest of the game, and the bulk of the reveal, and at times even the development, is done through an information dump right at the beginning. In Pillars of Eternity, their personal quests provided a second opportunity to get to know the character, but most of the times, you learn only a little more than you already knew. Thus, whereas Eder's failure to close the book on his brother might tell you more about his personality, that's just the final touch on a finished painting. Your understanding of Eder changes very little from having completed his personal quest.

Obsidian characters are literal lore dispensers. That is their main purpose. There are no layers, it is just one giant blob of DEEP LORE that you get. And those days you get the DEEP LORE beforehand on their website. If you've been reading Tranny updates on their website, you'll already know everything there is to know about the characters. There is no journey, there is no discovery.

And if you have to make choices about the fates of characters that you don't care about... well, let's just say the lack of meaningful consequences becomes even more blatantly obvious. Howcome Obsidian repeatedly fails at this, we'll never know. Stubbornness? Does someone Obsidian so deeply resent Avellone's design philosophy that they are intentionally choosing not to do the sane thing?

 

[J_C]

On the topic of combat, I think Obsidian's combat system would have been better had they limited themselves to per encounter and per rest abilities, instead of cool downs that remind me of Blizzard games but with much worse controls and many more characters to control.

A game like World of Warcraft can get away with cool downs because you're only controlling one character and you can use the key board to implement rotations.

I don't want to play party games where I have to keep up rotations on four different characters and use the mouse each time.

What I don't get is why doesn't Obsidian finally make its first turn based game (Stick of Truth doesn't count). We are finally living in an age where turn based combat is not shunned upon, and many people are prefereing it over RTwP. Somehow I doubt that their games would sell less because of a TB combat system. It would be also a lot easier for them, because they are clearly struggling with making a RTwP system as good as the IE games were for example.

 

[Israfael]

I only started the game, but this choice between the Chaos cultists and the Imperial Fists feels kinda forced. You are RP'ing a person of great power, a personal envoy of a supreme ruler, so you are basically extension of his will in the region. Obviously, you don't want your forces' leaders to bicker, so you'd have to devise a way to keep them in line. On the surface of it, both of them are eager to start a war with another, and the victor needs to somehow shift the blame etc so that Kyros won't execute him for treason/wasting life of servicemen.

Since they did not kill you outright, just before you read the Edict (and then claim JEWSDIDTHIS "rebs did this" to Kyros) , they need you for some reason (possibly to sway your opinion to support them at the Kyros' court, expand the power struggle to the highest levels), a prudent politician would never commit to any action that would support any Archon till the last moment (or at all), using the authority provided by Kyros' edict and whatnot. Considering that the power of Kyros is absolute, and you are his representative, both Archons would have no choice but to follow your orders (the third option in the "choose vanguard army" dialogue) or show themselves a traitor (well you can argue it happened, but I really don't think so). Sadly we got the rebuttal, "choose now, dog", and you accede, which is out of character for a purported voice and ears of the all-powerful tyrant. Maybe the reasons for this are uncovered later, but at this stage it looks kinda very uncharacteristic from a political point of view. Unless one or both archons are entertaining foolish thoughts of direct rebellion against Kyros' rule

 

[Azarkon]

The problem with Obsidian's recent games is that character development feels disconnected from the rest of the game, and the bulk of the reveal, and at times even the development, is done through an information dump right at the beginning. In Pillars of Eternity, their personal quests provided a second opportunity to get to know the character, but most of the times, you learn only a little more than you already knew. Thus, whereas Eder's failure to close the book on his brother might tell you more about his personality, that's just the final touch on a finished painting. Your understanding of Eder changes very little from having completed his personal quest.

Obsidian characters are literal lore dispensers. That is their main purpose. There are no layers, it is just one giant blob of DEEP LORE that you get. And those days you get the DEEP LORE beforehand on their website. If you've been reading Tranny updates on their website, you'll already know everything there is to know about the characters. There is no journey, there is no discovery.

And if you have to make choices about the fates of characters that you don't care about... well, let's just say the lack of meaningful consequences becomes even more blatantly obvious. Howcome Obsidian repeatedly fails at this, we'll never know. Stubbornness? Does someone Obsidian so deeply resent Avellone's design philosophy that they are intentionally choosing not to do the sane thing?

Considering how much they copied from Planescape: Torment - from the style of player-initiated dialogue, to the detailed descriptions in conversations - I don't think that's it. Rather, I think it's just a lack of experience or skill. Anything Avellone wrote had better development, even in Pillars of Eternity, and I'm sure that had his characters not been cut down so much, we'd have seen a complete narrative along the lines of what he did before. The other character writers obviously aren't there yet, and here I'm not talking about basic writing skills, but rather character & story design, which is different from just being skilled at language use.

I will say I lost a lot of faith in the company when Avellone left, but I'm not without hope. However, what I think Obsidian needs to do is to change their direction. Without Avellone or a replacement for him, it doesn't make sense to continue selling your games on how deep the character interactions are. There are styles of CRPG design in which you don't need to have complex characters or development. However, such styles of CRPG design also favor less information dumps. I get very tired of reading pages and pages of characters talking about themselves when they obviously don't have enough to talk about, so they end up repeating the same shit over and over again.

 

[Mei Scarlet]

On the unrelated note, should I go and play PoE now?

sure

whats the worst that can happen

Well yeah. I guess I'll go replay PoE first then before replaying Tyranny, maybe it'll get some quality patches meanwhile.

 

[ArchAngel]

I only started the game, but this choice between the Chaos cultists and the Imperial Fists feels kinda forced. You are RP'ing a person of great power, a personal envoy of a supreme ruler, so you are basically extension of his will in the region. Obviously, you don't want your forces' leaders to bicker, so you'd have to devise a way to keep them in line. On the surface of it, both of them are eager to start a war with another, and the victor needs to somehow shift the blame etc so that Kyros won't execute him for treason/wasting life of servicemen.

Since they did not kill you outright, just before you read the Edict (and then claim JEWSDIDTHIS "rebs did this" to Kyros) , they need you for some reason (possibly to sway your opinion to support them at the Kyros' court, expand the power struggle to the highest levels), a prudent politician would never commit to any action that would support any Archon till the last moment (or at all), using the authority provided by Kyros' edict and whatnot. Considering that the power of Kyros is absolute, and you are his representative, both Archons would have no choice but to follow your orders (the third option in the "choose vanguard army" dialogue) or show themselves a traitor (well you can argue it happened, but I really don't think so). Sadly we got the rebuttal, "choose now, dog", and you accede, which is out of character for a purported voice and ears of the all-powerful tyrant. Maybe the reasons for this are uncovered later, but at this stage it looks kinda very uncharacteristic from a political point of view. Unless one or both archons are entertaining foolish thoughts of direct rebellion against Kyros' rule

You are not the first to say our character is voice or judgement of Kyros. No he is not. Turon is the voice and judgement of Kyros, you are just one of his lackeys. Hurting you will bring Turon's eye upon the person that did that, not Kyros.
You are same like commanders other Archons posses that you meet in Act 1 in their respective camps. Your authority comes from those two Archons recognizing Turon, Archon of Justice being a formidable enemy and having backing of Kyros.