Tyranny talk concerning skills, locking them (or not), builds; incomprehensible money currency...

[aweigh]

an Administrator Infinitron Roguey hivemind

I'll start off real light and slow because frankly speaking Tyranny does not have much to offer in the area of "builds", so...

WTF is up with the skill system!? It's basically an updated take on Final Fantasy Tactics complete with the exact same flaws and loopholes as FFT.

Feel like raising some lawr and thus some quick levels on your low-lore character? Well friend, simply have this character utilize a low-tier healing spell/ability on injured comrads over and over for 2 hours or until you realize this is not good game design. It will raise that character's skills and that will in turn make that character quickly level up a few times since the first "tier" of levels in each Skill gives much bigger amounts of "XP" to a character, whereas it soon begins giving exponentially lesser amounts of XP for usage of said Skill(s) so as to make it "balanced". (???).

It's absolutely balls-to-thefucking-wall retarded and I heard from Roguey that when the young intern who designed Tyranny's skills systems, a fresh-faced lad freshly graduated from clown college with a doctorate in psychic surgery went running through Obsidian's hallways and skillfully jumped over the lava pits--

--Editor's note: the group of 'special' young people who were tasked with making Tyranny signed contracts that prohibited them from breathing air that may have possible have already come into nose-contact with Obsidian employees, with exponentially greater punishment upon breach of said agreement if the victim/plaintiffs whose air air is stolen from them is a high-ranking official; and said contract stipulates that if aforementioned Tyranny slaves, hark employees heretofore, were to allow their eugenically challenged breathing appendeges to soil the atmospheric oxygen rich air that can only reach the most elite of noses in Obsidian, those of Sawyer, Feargus, and Avellone; this heretofore unto now commences the summary death via cause of murder, to each person who infringed on agreed upon don't-breath terms and also extending unto all other Tyranny developers and anyone who happens to be in the vicinity because Alien, the movie, spoke gospel then and it remains gospel now--

--uhh, wtf was I gonna oh right, so Sawyer saw this shit, as I was told by Roguey in deep confidence, and immediately raped the young man in hopes of helping the poor creature find grace in this life or expire, as the fates dictatated.

























































TL;DR So If I get the system "correctly" I should make sure to "lock" skills I don't want to 'accidentally acquire XP' if the character (in question) has no use for them, correct? Since this would force too-fast leveling (potentially) on said character and this causes problems due to the fact that Tyranny's event/encounters are scaled tightly to the level, without taking into account any type of discrepency in level gaps within player's party.

TL;DR part two: I ran out of ways to insult the Tyranny team, so I turn to you fellow codexers please.

 

[aweigh]

Also am I analyzing the talent trees correctly if I were to say that they make absolutely no sense?

The game allows you to go for any talent(s) you want to and obviously the player will want to aim for the best ones, except the best ones are by far and by absolute the "best ones" which means all builds will always 'waste talent picks' in order to quickly get the one that makes parry/dodge function symbiotically (or whatever, and thus immediately destroy whatever conceptual power the parry and dodge modifiers might have had were it not for said talent), or a more clearer example the Evasion talent buried 2 or 3 levels down inside the Agility skill tree which will have the player literally wasting 4-6 talent picks in order to get it because:

- Bows are useless and not in a funny way but in the sad way where you can quickly see how easy it would be to fix the bows but alas, you're not going to be able to and it will never be fixed and thus the only balm for your pecker is:

- ...the 1st companion given to you who specializes in motherfucking bows. Thanks for buying our game fuck face how does our herpes taste.

Another somewhat hugely glaring flaw I have noticed that PoE _does not share_ is the fact that ALL ENEMIES are scripted to always beeline for party members based solely on the sum of their Armor, Deflection, Parry and Doge ratings, with Armor being the most important trigger and Deflection close second.

This means that in order to have your back line not get always bumrushed you need to dress them up in full plates, and in order to most easily guarantee your "front line" engages the enemy's "front line" 9/10 times you'll have to dress them in light armor.

The very definition of amateur design.

 

[aweigh]

in this tree if you waste enough perk picks you are rewarded with a skill that will automatically use your char's parry OR dodge defensive modifier when being attacked by ranged enemies:

one skill tree hop to the immedite right, and after once again wasting enough perks you are rewarded with an ability that will automatically choose your highest defensive modifer between parry/dodge when being attacked by... MELEE enemies:

These two skills are, without even me having to inject psychotic hyperbole here, what some would call, i dunno... "unbalanced" comes to mind. And the sad part is that it completely trivializes the work they (I assume...) put into making up this whole parry/dodge/deflection/armor defenses.

LOOOOL

And to put the cherry on top of bad design: you can power-level either parry or dodge during combat by letting enemies attack you. Just like Final Fantasy Tactics!

And wiat, not done yet: how about out of combat?

Yep, see those traps? Nah, don't disarm them YOU STUPID FUCKING FUCK, just go over and trip them on purpose and the traps' effect will trigger your character's dodge/parry modifiers and thus cause them to raise up!!!!!

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

More to the point, why are you wasting time with a declinist game, when you could instead be enjoying the glorious incline of Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar?

 

[aweigh]

who says i'm not? i am currently playing many games, including the PS3 game Catherine. It's about sex and women, and I don't know shit about that so I think playing it will help me better understand such things. Also you're forced to solve block puzzles in between understanding the banality of it all.

ok, truth? I already wrote several, i hink like 6 in total, very long and detailed posts in the grimoire review thread (with some splash dmg/crossover ejaculate words making it to the wiz series thread) where I go in depth and talk neutrally, without any attempts at any type of humor, to coherently and passionately convey all the reasons I consider grimorie a below-average game (and i typed that but the word "bad" and "a sad and inferior version of an already casualized entry in the Wiz series... but i'm trying to be generous here).

If you want go read 'em they're not yet buried too far, posts are in the more recent 10 or so "last pages" of the review thread. TL;DR Besides the fact that Grimoire is Cleve's attempt (and failure to) ape Wiz 7, it is riddled with some egregious dips in quality of design with, because im tired of typing, the outright amateurish itemization and encounter design in the game.

But of those two the itemization is the worst offender. Everything you find is junk and it is painfully obvious cleve spent all of his time drawing a ridiculous amount of maps in order for his game to have nigh-limitless dungeneering; except at the expense of almost every other facet which makes what he is imitating with Grimoire be a fun sub-genre of RPGs (er, he failed to make a decent Wiz-clone, but I believe the strengths of the game which are Cleves writing which straddles many lines and does so like an expert circus performer walking a tightrope while chain-smoking and at ease; and additionally I also opine that Grimoire is very "atmospheric" and it is indeed sometimes quite pleasurable to simply be in the game, doing something like talking to a mummy you just beat up, or as show in Cleve's amazing trailer, riding a turtle into the blue yonder.

I think Cleve should for his next magnum opus decide to aim for a different niche, and instead of trying to make a (fake-Wiz!!!!) Wiz clone he should double down on his strengths of map making, writing, area design (being generous with that one tho, as my 2nd big criticism of Grimoire is that it has too much filler content, too much filler "areas" that serve little purpose and that the game would dramatically improve were 60% of the game's areas simply be removed); becaus ehe most definitely _cannot_ for the life of him design good enemies, classes, character races, spells and spell systems, nor did he show capability in the progressive itemization and its design with every loot found being comprised literally of random shit with no rhyme or reason, as apparently Cleve thinks that a 'random drop' is... supposed to actually be random!!!

HINT: They are _not_! Everything a player might possible acquire (in thise case let's say loot) should have been very methodically designed from the very beginning of the pre-production work on said game, and systems need to be implemented that provide aofrementioned "loot" _without being literally RANDOM_, as LITERALLY random loot serves NO FUCKING PURPOSE.

Also he failed in the game's economy, blah blah blha who gives a shit man? Cleve is fucking raking in so much fucking money off his steam sales you think his dick isn't tired right now from all those fuckbois riding it nonstop? Who gives a shit about his game dev competence: he proved he can sell his product and remove money from victims, and this proves then that he is (TM) LEgitimately A Better Man Than Us And Thus Above Reproach.

 

[aweigh]

And also thou fully admit this is personal mania thing of mine I hate having to click on everything during every goddamn battle it's like, just fucking hotkey at the very least the standard atk option to a fucking keyboard key. In fact this is so dumb I may be complaining in error and he actually did do this and i'm simply too unCleve to have noticed. But even if he did and i am wrong...

...IM STILL FUCKING RIGHT because there aren't enough hotkeys in the fucking game. Ugh, it's like playing a screen saver.

EDIT: I do freely admit that anyone would be certifiable if they said Tyranny is a better RPG than Grimoire, tho. I may not like Grimoire much but It I fully recognize a fully-fledge RPG when I see one. Compared to something like Tyranny it is like comparing a 7 course meal (with half the courses tasting like cologne and aftershave?) compared to... two pieces of chicken mcnuggets because someone just stole the others from your table (i.e. Tyranny being the nuggets).

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I don't recall if I locked any skills in Tyranny or what. Grinding is not needed for the game at all. It's balanced for a casual player, just go from fight to fight and don't worry too much about builds or stats. Just pick the cool-sounding abilities and don't worry about it! Shhh, just lie back and let it happen....

OTOH, I thought the spell-crafting system was neat.

 

[aweigh]

YO DAWG


HERD U LIKE WERDS

 

[aweigh]

Grampy_Bone

yeah i was very manic when i wrote this post. textbook hypomanic episode. fortunately for us and for me since i have little social life they get to play out in a forum instead of weirding out strangers.

on the bright side the extreme bonus surge of manic energy the upswing gave me just allowed me to feverishly hunt down a very obscure japanese dungeon crawler that that has a half-done english patch but the patch is only compatible with the first series issue of the game (the hash numbers) so that was fun, definitely not the kind of task I'd ever get done if not feeling "peppy".

(Obviously now that I found the ROM and patched the thing I could not care less about playing it). As you say Grampy_Bone I'm letting Tyranny have its way with me, but I double-dog dare you and anyone else to tell me this game is not the wordiest fucking most exhaustively written RPG ever made.

It's almost as if they intentionally set out to push the very limit of how much meaningless, cliche'd and derivative exposition, backstories, inconsequential plot and childish characterizations they can cram into one endless string of dialog windows.

My space bar is getting a hell of a work out.

Something I do very much appreciate about Tyranny is the fact that it h as surprisingly great visibility during combat.

The absolute clusterfuck of fireworks and day-glo that happens during every singoe fight in PoE plus the obligatory time when your party for some reason finds themselves completely indistinguishable from their environment because the occlusion serves only to obscure... is not present in Tyranny.

I like the more laconic animations and the the sparser more stripped down aesthetics and sound effects (during the combat encounters). PoE can become seizure inducing to look at once you start fighting mini armies of shit and they keep forcing you inside tiny areas that seem to laugh at the designers for not knowing how the fuck to make something invisible.

And yes, I don't think anyone will disagree the spell crafting/system is the best. I enjoy it too. I want that core idea to carry over and transplant itself into PoE 2 and it wouldn't necessarily have to deal specifically with magic or spells.

 

[Somberlain]

Life is too short to waste on Tranny.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The game can be beaten in 25 hours. I'm not going to spend 10% of that time spamming a low level spell in order to raise a secondary skill and gain some levels, when the game can be beaten without it.

Get the fuck over yourself.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

As you say Grampy_Bone I'm letting Tyranny have its way with me, but I double-dog dare you and anyone else to tell me this game is not the wordiest fucking most exhaustively written RPG ever made.

It's almost as if they intentionally set out to push the very limit of how much meaningless, cliche'd and derivative exposition, backstories, inconsequential plot and childish characterizations they can cram into one endless string of dialog windows.

I liked it more than Pillars. A lot more in fact. Over-verbosity notwithstanding, I thought the story had a lot better lore and more personality than the Boring World of Boringness that was PoE. Then again, my favorite-written games are mostly JRPGs, which seems liable to get you flamed off the Codex.

Endings are pretty nonsensical though. I won't spoil it for you but lets just say when a judge finds you not-guilty of a crime that doesn't somehow make you his boss.

 

[aweigh]

mmm I am kind of enjoying this game now alot more than earlier.

The game's highly scripted beginning just didn't jive with me too well. Could've used some little "mini areas of exploration", like PoE's little area between the Intro Dungeon's Exit and The 1st Town, you know where that Bear cave is?

And right after the 1st town you can experience a good illusion of choices in doing the Temple or continuing to "explore" (as much as one can in a game like this) the two forested areas Blackwood and Magran's Fork.

Tyranny's characters, the Archons, and all that are getting better. I don't really think the writing itself is getting better but what's happening around my characters is getting more interesting.

Combat still remains less fun than PoE's but only due to its limited implementation. Funnest thing by far is playing for ultimate war-mage destruction.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I recall the bow chick working better if you ignore bows and just dual-wield her.

 

[aweigh]

 

[aweigh]

and the amazing conclusion


Thought I could win this fight on PotD at level 2 but, guess not. prolly could if i do it 50 itmes eventually i'll get lucky but that ain't real winning.

This kind of thing, when it's super early and you're dead-in-a-flash and you get opportunity to fight tougher enemies; this is the only time when PoE/Tyranny feel exciting to play.

My personal favorite PoE fight? Solo'ing the Cave Bear at level 1... trying and trying until I do it, trying as many different weapons/classes/abilities/race combinations as I can think of.

SPOILER: EASIEST WAY TO KILL BEAR IS TO CHAR-GEN CIPHER AND USE BEAM SPELL AND RUN AROUND THE BEAR WHILE IT TAKES DMG.

 

[Haplo]

It is good not too spread yourself too thin with skills. Number of levels is finite and you want to max the important ones (hint: Lore, maybe Parry), rather then have mediocre levels of everything.

That said I've never really felt the need to significantly limit myself. I did want to gain as many levels as possible, as more levels => more Lore => moar magical ownage. Early on it is quite difficult on PotD, but past level 10 or so you start to overtake the difficulty curve - badly so. I finished the game.. around level 24 I think? In any case the end game encounters were simply trivial.

Oh, and did I already mention the importance of Lore?

 

[aweigh]

Haplo Grampy_Bone

Dude I was level fucking 2 in that fight cut some slack !!11

haha. Anyway I retreated to the 1st town and planning on trianing on parry/dodge w/ the trainers/ probably train up lore as well, then see if i can find/buy better armor/deflection-clothing or for my 3 peeps.

I know Verse sucks w/ bows because bows are legit useless, not in a fun way, not in an interesting way,they flat out forgot to make them worth using, buuut I like having a front line and a back line, and since my main is 2-hander plus 1-hander (for using a shield sometimes with it and sniping w/ javelin), and Barik is pure 2-hander, I wanted someone in the backline so I'm having her use bows.

Meh, it's not like this is fucking Wizardry or sometihng. Even with shit bows all you gotta do is abuse corners and kite and maybe get "lucky" 1 time or two during the fight i.e. enemy glitches out and/or something bad doesn't happen due to nature of real time w/ pause, etc.

I was thinking of fixing up the bows since it's only a matter of editing an xml file but I realized that absolutely nobody would ever even bother downloading whatever bow-fix I whipped up, so lewl.

 

[Haplo]

Well, wait till you get Vulcanic Weapons. Then you'll really regret Verse not going dual-wielding, with her many multi-hit abilities. Plus her dual weapon companion combo (the one she does a fiery whirlwind, spinning and doing heavy damage + sick DOT) may be only 1/rest, but it's one of the few companion combos that's actually worth using. Early on it's a real game-changer.

 

[Haplo]

Really? Damn shame.

 

[aweigh]

there's tons of news concerning Tyranny modding. there's a reddit thread about how the PoE framework/whatever is now capable of handling Tyranny.

Lots of posters in the reddit thread showing off shit like one guy increased party size to 6 (but ran into GUI/UI problems as they made the UI for 4 peeps, not 6). Still cool as fuck though.

But the thing Tyranny needs most is complete overhauling of all Attribtues, all of the skills and seocndary attributes (defenses/etc) that the primary attributes trickle down and affect, and a complete reworking form ground up of the weapons such as their damage spreads and their modifiers.

Easiest band-aid solution to be honest would be editing every armor piece and every weapon in the game to match PoE's design/itemization as closely as humanly possible, and the same goes for the primary attributes i.e. essentially changing them to function as close as possible as the ones in PoE, etc, etc, same w/ enemies, abilites, etc.

Obviously i don't mean to say PoE's systems are sooooo goood man, but let's be real here: it's a gargantuan task and overhauling so much stuff (unity forces "one by one" asset manipulation, i.e. 1 sole person doing this shit well might as well interview at Obsidian instead of wasting half his life on this), so one should just take advantage of the existence of PoE, that they share engine, and just "fix" Tyranny's biggest mechanical black holes by making them emulate PoE.

It's not a proper overhauling and I know it, but who the fuck is gonna sit around and come up with entirely new defenses and bullshit when there's already PoE right there!

Still, it's a pipe dream. Like I said unity requires per-asset per-individual-case work, i.e. you wanna change that armor because you are going to remove the Armor and DEflection mechanics with something else you thought of? Well get ready to manually "edit" every single piece in the game.

Modifying the primary attributes and modifying the way skills work and the way skills develop is much more feasable though, and also modifying the way talents work.

compared to the task of overhauling all the armors and all the weapons AND making enemies then act accordingly, it is much more feasible to do the char development systems and that will work double time because the enemies will be affected by changes to those systems as well. No need to spend 6 months ediitng daggers one by one or whatever.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Tyranny fixed one glaring problem of PoE--having a stat that boosts magic damage other than might. That plus many of the spells and abilities feel a lot more decisive than anything in PoE. Hopefully Deadfire will incorporate those ideas.