Tyranny Pre-Release Thread

[Infinitron]

http://www.polygon.com/e3/2016/6/23...n-rpg-e3-2016-bad-guy-evil-windows-pc-paradox

In Obsidian's new RPG Tyranny, you play a bad guy in a world where evil has won
Learn about the factions and political intrigue at the heart of this old-school role-playing game

When developer Obsidian Entertainment showcased its latest title, Tyranny, at the PC Gaming Show last week, it came with an intriguing tagline: "Sometimes, evil wins." As it turns out, the world the game takes place in is exactly one of those times.

Not only has evil already won in Tyranny's world, but players will take on the role of a character allied with the evil emperor now ruling over that world. As told by Alec Frey, who works in quality assurance for Obsidian, this is key to what sets the game apart from other role-playing games.

"You have the ability to be judge, jury and executioner," Frey told Polygon. "You make decisions in just about anything that goes on in the world. You can issue your brand of justice."

The bad guys may have won, but that doesn't make Tyranny's world any less politically tense. As you play the game, you'll have choose between multiple factions, many of which ostensibly serve the same evil overlord, but all with their own motives and methods.

Choosing which factions you support and building reputation with them will take up much of the focus of Tyranny.

"Reputation is a very important part of our game," said Frey. "Not only does it change how people react to you in the story, it also changes what skills and abilities you gain access to through the game."

Those skills are important, too. As in most RPGs, combat takes up a good chunk of time inTyranny, and it's as tactical and challenging as anything Obsidian has done previously. You'll be able to use skills like Sunder to lower enemies' armor, or Blood Soaks Stone to knock an enemy to the ground. That latter one is a combo ability — one that's only available when you've built up a strong enough reputation with one of your party members.

When it comes down to it, skills define the characters in Tyranny in a way that nothing else does.

"It's really skill-based and not class-based," explained Frey. "You build your character based off what you have them do. If you give them a one-handed sword and then teach them fire spells, they can be a fire spell one-handed sword fighter. It's all however you want to build your character."

That freedom carries over to the story as well, of course. Beyond choosing between multiple factions that are serving the big bad guy who took over the world, you can make the decision to join up with the rebels and fight against evil. Or you can just make choices that no one will be happy with.

"There's always that option if you don't believe in any of the factions," Frey said. "You can always say, 'No, I'm going to try to take care of this my own way.' There's always those anarchy options."

In our demo, we played as a fighter on the rebel side, defending a fort against two invading factions at once. But upon reaching the final boss battle, we decided to take that anarchy option, betraying the rebel forces while remaining hunted by various other factions. Frey laughed, basically suggesting that we had set our character on a very difficult path. But it's a path that Tyranny leaves open to players at all times.

"One of the challenges when making a Dungeons & Dragons-style game is that in a video game format, you can't quite do everything like you can in Dungeons & Dragons," said Frey. "Something Tyranny really excels at is giving you options to take any path that anyone might want to take."

While Obsidian's last RPG project, Pillars of Eternity, gained a reputation for its unforgiving difficulty, the developer is hoping to make Tyranny a little more approachable. Frey said that the game will include a huge variety of difficulty options, including some that allow you to "just walk your way through it, killing everything." If you want all the story and none of the challenge, there should be an option for you.

The developer also says it's keeping fan requests from Pillars of Eternity players in mind as it creates a game that's easier to pick up and understand. Mostly, though, it's just thankful to have the chance to make another old-school RPG like this.

"The biggest thing we learned from Pillars of Eternity," Frey said with a smile, "is the fact that there's a community out there that wants these games and absolutely is behind them. We've listened to those fans."

Tyranny will be out on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems some time later this year. Check out our video at the top of this article for a look at the game in action and how things can play out with characters of different factions.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/...2016-When-Being-Evil-is-a-Day-Job.html/page/1

Previews: E3 2016 - When Being Evil is a Day Job

Pillars of Eternity is not your typical RPG. Instead of being filled with hope and wide-eyed enthusiasm for justice, it places you in a world that has already fallen to the forces of evil—the forces you work for. At E3, I got a chance to go hands on with Tyranny for about a half an hour, exploring a bit of the story and new refinements to both the combat and just the game in general, some which were subtle but also extremely welcome. And while I walked into that demo already excited for Tyranny, I'm walking out even more so.

In Tyranny, my main character is known as a Fatebinder, a judge, jury, and executioner for my tyrannical overlord Kyros. Beforehand, Obsidian had asked me some questions in order to make some decisions for me to set the stage for the story. Things open up in a rather bleak way, an edict has been given that a fortress currently occupied by rebel forces must fall. Originally my master sent two armies to do the job, but when neither could get it done he sent me to clean up the mess in any way possible.

What always surprises me about Obsidian is how powerful their worldbuilding is, and even though this opening bit of context was likely halfway through the game, I didn't feel lost so much as enchanted by what was happening. Edicts are powerful spells that the overlord can cast, creating a binding contract of sorts for all those affected. If I fail to take the fortress with the help of the two armies, everyone, including me, will die.

When I arrive at the fortress, Obsidian's pre-demo questionnaire determined I would align myself with the Disfavored, one of the two forces. When I arrive, it is to find them quarreling with the second army, the Scarlet Chorus, over who should get to take the castle instead of, y'know, actually taking it. It's even possible that I could've selected a third option and chosen to defend the rebels in the castle.

Immediately a challenge was laid out: The door to the inner courtyard of the fortress was being reinforced by mages from within the castle, and someone needed to find an alternate way in. That someone was me. Heading north with my party, we quickly encountered enemy forces that we had to dispatch, and it was here that the first of Tyranny's adjustments from Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian's last RPG, were felt.

Unlike Pillars, which very much wanted you to micromanage a party, Tyranny is a much more hands off affair. While you're certainly free to micromanage, the game also doesn't punish you for looking after your main character and letting your party's AI do its thing. There's a wealth of new and original abilities to play with, and I was so happy I chose a mage because Tyranny has some really unique spells.

In reality, the spells aren't anything groundbreaking, but Obsidian has given them a flavor that really invites you to take the action on screen and crack it wide open with your imagination. Instead of a simple knock-down spell, I had one that would make enemies feel like they were falling into a bottomless pit. It was ingeniously evil.

Something else that is new are special abilities you can trigger alongside one of your party members. For example, one of my team had an ability where they would trip an opponent so that I could follow up with a devastating blow of my own. And I loved playing with these little synergies.

I eventually battled my way onto the castle walls, cutting down more rebels before pushing into the inner courtyard for a rather large fight against the mages who were reinforcing the door. Once they were dispatched, I met up with the Disfavored general to chat before the final push into the keep.

The dialogue system in Tyranny remains largely unchanged, but there are some subtle improvements I really enjoy. One of them is a system that highlights special keywords that you can mouseover for additional information. In an unfamiliar fantasy setting as densely wrought as this, being able to get a quick refresher on a certain faction or location is a godsend.

There's also a favor system, which changes your reputation with certain factions depending on the choices you make in the story. That reputation will eventually lead to certain abilities being unlocked for your group depending on how that faction feels about you, and apparently it's even possible to get yourself into a bit of a love/hate relationship as the two factors aren't binary.

Inside the keep, a final fight with the rebel general put my combat skills to the test, and as I dispatched her I was given a series of options to make which beautifully highlighted just what a freeform experience Tyranny should be. Instead of trying to string you along on one path with a decent variance of choice, Tyranny feels like you're basically given free reign to do whatever you please.

Case in point: I killed the Disfavored and the Scarlet Chorus generals and claimed the castle in my own name, effectively betraying my overlord too. Later, when talking to a rep from Obsidian, I asked how long Tyranny was expected to be, and they told me that the game is actually shorter than Pillars of Eternity. Instead, Tyranny has been built to be replayable because each of the branching choices is so distinct from one another—and that's something that really excites me.

While I love a good, long fantasy epic, the idea of Tyranny being a more concise but more replayable experience really speaks to me. It's going to be hard waiting until later this year so that I can finally see the consequence of my betrayal.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q2-2016/062416a.html

Tyranny Impression - E3
06.24.2016

​

The good guys usually win. It's just the story most of us prefer. However, it's not always the case. Sometimes, like in Obsidian's newest, Tyranny, the bad guys win. That's the setup for the Tyranny, an RPG set in the aftermath of a devastating war where the evil lord came out on top. While not an unheard of premise, very few developers have given it a serious take, usually falling into comedic realms. While my time with the game was mostly combat related, it was easy to tell that Obsidian is looking to let the game live up to its potential.

The demo began with me selecting one of three pre-built characters to play as. The game does not have a traditional leveling system, instead opting for a skill-based one. In the final game, skills will increase as you use them but for the purposes of the demo my skills and experience were static. In Tyranny, you play as one of the overlord Kyros' Fatebinders, judges and executers of Kyros' will. In the demo, I was in a position where I had openly assisted local rebel leaders against two warring factions, the Scarlet Chorus and the Disfavored. Now both had joined forces to seige the keep I was currently occupying. They were looking to gain control of the fort for the benefit of the Edict stored there. Edicts are powerful magics put in place by Kyros that could have devastating effects in the wrong hands.

Combat in Tyranny is built off of the Pillars of Eternity engine, but with a fair number of changes. Mana has been removed entirely and replaced with a cool down system. At least for the demo I played, this kept combat at a quick pace. The game keeps Pillars' real-time-with-pause combat, I was only able to control one person at a time while the AI took over for the others but control of characters could be switched at any time. I chose the mage for the demo and the difficulty was set without friendly fire activated, so my area of effect spells could be used with reckless abandon. There were also combination abilities that required the protagonist and one other character in the party to perform.

After a few battles spent trying to fend off invading forces, they manage to break through to the interior, wherein they recognized me and asked why I had shirked my duties and aided the rebels. This gave me my first meaningful choice of the demo. This was also when I began to notice that bolded words in dialogue boxes could be highlighted to bring up a tooltip that gave a brief description of the highlighted term. I found this to be an incredibly convenient tool to help with many of the in-universe terms that could be easily forgotten after hours of play. In this case, it helped to teach me about the universe in the first place. This was also the first time that combat skills could be used to provide new dialogue options. After fighting through this final group, the game left me with another choice to either leave the Edict alone, let the rebellion make use of it, or, the clearly superior option, assuming control of the keep and taking the Edict for myself. This did cause me to lose favor with every faction involved, but since it was the end of the demo I wouldn't suffer any real repercussions. Obsidian also told me that new dialogue options would open both for being in favor or disfavor with the game's many groups.

I enjoyed my time with Tyranny a lot. The game felt very far along and was about as bug-free as I had ever seen an Obsidian game. I wasn't given that much of an opportunity to see the darker world the developers are hoping to presenti due to the length of the demo, but some of it was present. The combat seems lighter than Pillars' but this feels good as it gives it a proper distinction from its closest point of comparison. Tyranny is still planned for release on PC in 2016.

 

[Rivmusique]

Combat in Tyranny is built off of the Pillars of Eternity engine, but with a fair number of changes. Mana has been removed entirely and replaced with a cool down system.

Pillars of Eternity is not your typical RPG. Instead of being filled with hope and wide-eyed enthusiasm for justice, it places you in a world that has already fallen to the forces of evil—the forces you work for.

 

[Excidium II]

 

[Infinitron]

RPGamer is a bad site. Although their recap of the C&C possibilities had stuff that the other previews didn't mention.

 

[LESS T_T]

http://www.dualshockers.com/2016/06/24/tyranny-preview-its-good-to-be-bad/
http://www.entertainmentbuddha.com/tyranny-preview-tactical-judgment-required/

 

[Kem0sabe]

Can we dumb down even further than PoE? Yes we can.

 

[Immortal]

Probably not gonna buy this.. Looks fucking shitty.

 

[LESS T_T]

Another two previews from niche and hardcore gamers:
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2016/0...is-in-the-stabbed-eye-of-the-beholder/214204/
http://nichegamer.com/2016/06/25/tyranny-hands-preview/

 

[Bubbles]

Another two previews from niche and hardcore gamers:
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2016/06/25/e3-2016-tyranny-is-in-the-stabbed-eye-of-the-beholder/214204/

It is designed to be highly replayable, with hundreds of hours of content. That alone makes this PC RPG look to be worth the asking price and then some.

Is that confirmed? If the quoted playtime of 25 hours for one playthrough is correct, that would mean that Tyranny would have even more branching content than AoD, with at least 175 hours of unique content that can't be seen in the first playthrough. I'm pretty sure it would be the most C&C-dependent game ever made.

 

[Abu Antar]

Another two previews from niche and hardcore gamers:
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2016/06/25/e3-2016-tyranny-is-in-the-stabbed-eye-of-the-beholder/214204/

It is designed to be highly replayable, with hundreds of hours of content. That alone makes this PC RPG look to be worth the asking price and then some.

Is that confirmed? If the quoted playtime of 25 hours for one playthrough is correct, that would mean that Tyranny would have even more branching content than AoD, with at least 175 hours of unique content that can't be seen in the first playthrough. I'm pretty sure it would be the most C&C-dependent game ever made.

You know what salt is? Take a pinch of it and then take another one million pinches.

 

[undecaf]

If the quoted playtime of 25 hours for one playthrough is correct

You can probably add at least another 10-15 hours to that estimate for the average gamer and journo that doesn't speedread and rush through the game.

 

[Theldaran]

Probably the game has a lot of content. But, is it interesting content?

I mean, DA:I is allegedly immense, and full of stupid fetch quests and the like.

Also, how much time was spent on this game? And does that indicate a lot of content?

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Sannom]

The game has its product page up on GOG :

https://af.gog.com/game/tyranny?as=1649904300

 

[Neanderthal]

Wonder if this Kyros bloke might be another Silent King?

 

[LESS T_T]

Now talking about combat: http://blog.tyrannygame.com/2016/06/29/dev-diary-5-combat

Dev Diary #5 – Combat

Hello, everyone! In our last dev update, I mentioned that we’d start talking more about gameplay systems and combat after E3. So let’s get to it!

I’ve mentioned what combat in Tyranny will be like in several interviews. But for those of you who haven’t read any of those, here are some highlights: Our combat is real-time, with the ability to pause at any time to issue commands to a party of up to 4 characters, including your own. In addition to the spells and abilities each character can use, we’ve also added companion combos – abilities that allow your character and a companion to work together in concert to create a powerful effect. Abilities use a cooldown system, allowing you to use most of your abilities multiple times per encounter. Combat is based on your character’s skills, and the more you use those skills, the more experience you’ll gain.

With that overview in mind, let’s dive into some specifics!

Attack Resolution

When you perform an attack in Tyranny – whether it’s a basic weapon attack, casting a spell, or using an ability – your Accuracy is compared to the target’s Defense to determine how well the attack does. As with Pillars of Eternity, each attack can have one of four possible results: Miss, Graze (attacks deal less damage, status effects are applied for a shorter duration), Hit, or Crit (attacks deal greater damage, and status effects are applied for a longer duration).

Your Accuracy is determined by one or more character skills. A basic attack will use the skill associated with the weapon you’re attacking with. A spell will use the magic skill for that type of spell and the character’s Lore skill. If more than one skill is used, their values are averaged together to produce the final skill value. Accuracy bonuses from weapons or abilities are added to that base value to determine the final Accuracy for the attack. The skills used to determine Accuracy are also the skills you gain experience in for that attack.

Each attack targets one of five possible Defenses: Parry, Dodge, Endurance, Will, or Magic. Enemies and party members have different strengths and weaknesses in these defenses, making some attacks better options against one type of enemy than another.

Accuracy is compared to Defense, and the resulting difference is used to modify the combat result table. Higher Accuracy results in a greater chance to Crit or Hit, reducing the chance to Graze or Miss. A lower Accuracy has the opposite effect, making you Graze or Miss more often.

Taking Damage

Damage in Tyranny works similarly to Pillars. We have multiple damage types based on the armor a character wears: Slash, Pierce, Crush, Burn, Shock, Frost, Corrode, and Arcane. Different enemies have strengths and weaknesses against different types of damage. To maximize the pain you inflict, you’ll want to target your enemies with damage types they are weak against.

Armor is still important to mitigate damage, but we also wanted to give more options for different character builds. Heavier armors (bronze or iron) provide Armor, which reduces damage dealt down to a minimum of 1. We’ve also added a new stat to lighter armors called Deflection. Deflection provides a chance that an attack will be downgraded one level (IE: a Crit becomes a Hit, a Hit becomes a Graze, or a Graze becomes a Miss). Deflection can be increased by the Finesse stat, and by talents and other items you can find in the game.

Tyranny handles hit points differently than Pillars did. Instead of the combination of Health and Endurance, we have a single Health bar to focus on. As attacks deal damage, your character’s Health is reduced. When it reaches 0, a character falls unconscious (or dies, depending on game options). Characters can be revived using special abilities or consumables, or they will regain consciousness at the end of combat and begin regenerating Health.

We’ve also added the Wound system. When your character falls unconscious, they will gain a Wound – more than one on the hardest difficulty settings. On harder difficulties, you’ll also gain a Wound when a character reaches low health. When a character is Wounded, their max health is reduced and all of their skills suffer a small penalty. Wounds can stack and will remain on a character until they rest.

Game Difficulty

Tyranny will ship with four difficulty settings for the game: Story Mode, Normal, Hard, and Path of the Damned. Each of these difficulty settings will affect how challenging combat is with Story Mode being for players who mainly want to experience the story and reactivity of the game. If you watched any of the videos from E3, this is the difficulty setting you saw.

As difficulty increases, we focus more on the AI and tactics of enemies rather than just adding more enemies to each encounter. On harder difficulties enemies will choose targets more effectively as well as use their abilities more frequently and strategically. We also replace some weaker units with more challenging ones at higher difficulties.

Other Combat Changes

We’ve made several other changes to combat, a few of which I want to highlight:

Interrupt: We still have interrupt in Tyranny, but we’ve simplified this a bit. Unlike Pillars, we don’t have a separate Interrupt roll. Only some abilities will interrupt the target. When those abilities Hit or Crit, they will interrupt (Grazes and Misses do not interrupt). An interrupted target has any queued actions cleared and enters recovery. The length of their recovery depends on how strong the ability’s interrupt was.

Consumables: We’ve changed how consumables work in Tyranny. They’re now an instant action, meaning the effects apply as soon as you use the consumable, even if the character is on recovery. Once a character uses a consumable, all consumables for that character are on cooldown for a short duration. This allows you to rescue a character at low health, but you can’t just spam healing potions to make your party members invincible.

Friendly Fire: We’ve removed friendly fire from abilities in Tyranny. I wanted players to be able to focus on maximizing their damage to enemies, without worrying about harming their own party members in the process.

Hopefully this gave you some insight into how combat will work in Tyranny. In our next dev update, we’ll introduce you to one of the Companion characters who can travel with you through the world.

~Brian Heins, Game Director

 

[Infinitron]

Parry, Dodge

That's new.

We’ve also added a new stat to lighter armors called Deflection. Deflection provides a chance that an attack will be downgraded one level (IE: a Crit becomes a Hit, a Hit becomes a Graze, or a Graze becomes a Miss). Deflection can be increased by the Finesse stat, and by talents and other items you can find in the game.

As is this.

We’ve also added the Wound system. When your character falls unconscious, they will gain a Wound – more than one on the hardest difficulty settings. On harder difficulties, you’ll also gain a Wound when a character reaches low health. When a character is Wounded, their max health is reduced and all of their skills suffer a small penalty. Wounds can stack and will remain on a character until they rest.

Explaining why there are still rest supplies.

 

[Space Satan]

Because rest supplies worked so well in PoE

 

[Excidium II]

If they made it just a consumable people would call dragon age clone.

 

[Infinitron]

If they made it just a consumable people would call dragon age clone.

Well, if it turns out there's no maximum cap on the number of rest supplies you can hold, that's basically the same thing as making it a consumable (but I'm guessing it will be like PoE where there's a low cap on high difficulties)

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

No friendly fire at any difficulty, apparently.

Well, I hope that reactivity is worth it.

 

[ThisNameIsFree]

Friendly Fire: We’ve removed friendly fire from abilities in Tyranny. I wanted players to be able to focus on maximizing their damage to enemies, without worrying about harming their own party members in the process.

aka "Teh battle is so much clasterfuck we have no clue how to make it manageable. Screw positioning and tactical skill usage lets focus on dps."
I hope they added dpsmeter so players can upload statistics on bosses.
Why not enable friendly fire on higher levels of difficulty - is it WHAT BAD?

 

[prodigydancer]

you’ll also gain a Wound when a character reaches low health.

Eh? How the hell is this a good mechanic? Unless, of course, if you want to encourage degenerate playstyles.