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Tyranny 1.2, no DLC: The Roguey Report

Roguey

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I was going to skip this, but after enjoying Tides of Numenera far more than I expected, I decided to give it a fair chance.

First, I was pleased to hear the menu theme's slight similarity to Front 242's Gripped by Fear, considering the suggestion I made. It's likely a coincidence, but I'm taking credit for it anyway. Aside from that, the music is about as nondescript as Pillars of Eternity's.

The second impression is that, much like Temple of Elemental Evil, the art looks far better while playing than it does in still shots. They successfully hot-rodded the art style, because I prefer it to the muted tones of Pillars. This is a beautiful and fantastic ruined world.

Going through the Conquest decisions was fun, and the animated board game presentation enhanced the experience. This may have been made with a tight budget, but it feels like a double-AA game, more so than Pillars even.

Of course there's still some jank. I noticed a couple of minor bugs, and even though this uses a newer version of Unity, load times are as long as ever (not too surprising considering Tyranny's save files are larger than PoE's). Fortunately, the only area with multiple interiors is Lethian's Crossing, so it's not something one will have to endure multiple times within a short time period most of the time.

To my surprise, I enjoyed the writing more than every other RPG in recent memory that isn't Witcher 3. There's plenty of text, but fewer text walls, and this time around they made sure not to disrupt reading along with the voice over with prose descriptions. I found the world and the self-interested characters in it compelling. It's a surprisingly nuanced take on fascism from SoCal liberals. Barik, for example, would have a home with the alt-right.

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And much like a true alt-righter, the guy has the urge to race mix.

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Additionally, Eb is a sex realist.

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I didn't like being around Verse on account of her being a low functioning sociopath, but her character didn't annoy me like I thought she would. I particularly enjoyed how she shoots down anyone looking for a romance.

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Even though Sawyer wasn't directly involved, there's still talk of rape and sexual assault.

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On that note, it's a bit disappointing that Eb essentially begs to become your slave, but there's no dialogue option to pimp her out or imply anything suggestive. A Dance with Rogues this is not. Too bad, because the way she says "Shit! Shit! Shit shit shit shit!" whenever an enemy sets her on fire is hilariously endearing.

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I have a feeling my coining of Fenstermaker's Folly really struck a chord with MacLean and/or Kirsch, because a variation of it is used not just once but twice. Too bad they couldn't work some alliteration in there.

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Persuade, bluff, and intimidate getting rolled into lore, subterfuge, and athletics was a good call to make when it came to making sure each skill would get enough use. I didn't make a spellslinger, so it wasn't until I was past the middle of act two before I could pass all the checks; even then, I wouldn't consider any of them optimal no-brainer choices.

For those curious, here's the loyal to Kyros ending text, where compassionate fascism wins.
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Given how simple and brief it is, and how the last sentence still leaves an opening to railroad you into the standard ending for a sequel, I imagine it was only absent from the release version because they just never considered it. Better late than never anyway.

The biggest surprise came with the combat: I consider it some of the best Obsidian has ever delivered. I suppose the improvements to enemy ability use and targeting priorities they made with 1.1 played a factor here, in addition to all the general balance improvements they made through multiple patches. Unlike Pillars, combat speed felt just right at normal, with the slow mode being too slow for my tastes. It's true that you're mostly fighting other humans, but there's plenty of variations provided through their armor and abilities, and the use of terrain. Up until the middle of act two, I couldn't get anywhere on Hard with select all-attack or alpha striking; every battle required me to pay attention to positioning and properly prioritize targets. It did falter with the Oldwalls dungeon in Stalwart (too combat dense, too much trash, and too much time without reading breaks), but it picked up soon after (I can't speak for the Lethian's Crossing path, but the Library was a great area), continued to provide demanding battles, and never hit that nadir again.

Granted, I can still see how it's not for everyone. Like Dragon Age: Origins and Divinity: Original Sin, it disregards the illusion of strategic resource management almost entirely and relies on cooldown-based abilities (with some extremely powerful one-shot per-rest abilities meant to be used for emergencies). Some people aren't ever going to like this particular style of combat no matter how well it's executed, though I have no doubt the majority of scrubs at Obsidian love it and can understand it better than the style of combat Pillars of Eternity attempted to improve (hence why Deadfire's gameplay is being changed to be a lot more like Tyranny's even though PoE sold more).

Here are my end game stats:

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Turns out that two hours can feel like a long time. Even though my kill count was about one hundred more than Planescape Torment, it felt like I was doing a lot more fighting the entire time, which can be attributed to better pacing (most of Torment's takes place after you leave Sigil) and Tyranny's de-emphasis on easily killed trash mobs. As you can see, my accuracy monster made those trades-jacks' hit rates look pathetic, but my shameful damage:hit ratio is on account of so many enemies having sky high piercing armor (I'll live an archer and I'll die an archer; I suppose I could/should have used more whetstones).

Even though I liked it, I'm not sure if I'll ever bother with the DLC. The Tales from the Tiers CYOAs might be worth a spin, but I vaguely recall that Bastard's Wound adds another Oldwalls dungeon that's allegedly no better than the one I went through. It also has a companion quest called "Annal Sects," a crude pun to which I have an intense negative reaction.

Tyranny learned a lot from the writing and combat mistakes and missteps of Pillars of Eternity, and though I don't prefer some of the solutions with regard to the combat, I consider it the best party-based computer role playing game in recent history (keep in mind it'll be a while before I play Original Sin 2). As far as I'm concerned, it leaves Wasteland 2, Tides of Numenera, and the Shadowrun trio in the dust in every way possible. Divinity: Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity surpass it in some ways when it comes to gameplay, but Tyranny has stronger writing and reactivity. It's changed my mind about Deadfire; I was going to skip that as well, but now that I've seen first-hand what Sawyersidian can do with a familiar engine, I have little doubt it's going to be a great experience once they've spent a year or so polishing it after release.
 

Kyl Von Kull

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I couldn't have said it better myself and god knows I've tried. +M

You just finished your first playthrough? At least for me, Tyranny was one of the few games that I felt compelled to replay immediately.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Roguey was hilariously pissy about PoE2's per-encounter spellcasting and removal of health, but by enjoying Tyranny's cooldown combat, he pretty much LAWGIC TRAPPED himself into having to play PoE2 too.

Not sure I believe he was ever going to skip it though.
 

Roguey

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You just finished your first playthrough? At least for me, Tyranny was one of the few games that I felt compelled to replay immediately.
Yep. I'm going to give it a break, I have a Stygian demo to go through plus various NWN mods to try out. I am interested in going through the rebel path next, since it seems like it'd be very different dialogue-wise from a loyal-to-Kyros path. I'd have to role play a really nasty character to ever ally with the Voices of Nerat. When
Ashe's son broke through to talk to his father
I felt utterly sickened.
 

Sentinel

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So you were going to skip out on Deadfire, for reasons... but played Tyranny and "[enjoyed] Tides of Numenera far more than [you] expected?"

:whatho:
tbh he does hint that he'll play deadfire after the patches are done
 

Vorark

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Dat anime prefix. :shittydog:

Did you join any of the factions or flew solo the whole game? From what I remember, the loyalist path was the anarchist one with a spin at the end. I felt the game falled apart when it came down to faction interaction, lacked flexibility. Pissed someone? Then goodbye, you're locked into the "anarchist" path. I was expecting something similar to Fallout New Vegas.
 

Roguey

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Did you join any of the factions or flew solo the whole game? From what I remember, the loyalist path was the anarchist one with a spin at the end. I felt the game falled apart when it came down to faction interaction, lacked flexibility. Pissed someone? Then goodbye, you're locked into the "anarchist" path. I was expecting something similar to Fallout New Vegas.

I went with the Disfavored even though I disagreed with some of their philosophy (e.g. the insistence on slaughtering everybody in their way). Never had the heart to actively turn on them, and it paid off in the end since I ultimately got control of the army, and thus able to enforce new rules. :cool: My wrath with Ashe was nearly 2 and over 1 with the Disfavored itself, so you're given some leeway to sass them or make decisions they don't like, as long as you keep their favor greater.
 

Kyl Von Kull

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You just finished your first playthrough? At least for me, Tyranny was one of the few games that I felt compelled to replay immediately.
Yep. I'm going to give it a break, I have a Stygian demo to go through plus various NWN mods to try out. I am interested in going through the rebel path next, since it seems like it'd be very different dialogue-wise from a loyal-to-Kyros path. I'd have to role play a really nasty character to ever ally with the Voices of Nerat. When
Ashe's son broke through to talk to his father
I felt utterly sickened.

Oh man, I got those lines my first time. Then I reloaded an old save to replay the end of act one and I just couldn't get there again--Ashe and Nerat would always get too pissed off at each other and the scene would end. I must have save scummed my way through that conversation half a dozen times and I never recreated my first run. Finally, I threw in the towel. As far as I'm concerned, that's a sign of really well put together dialogue.

I had to think like a utilitarian to ally with Nerat. Sure, he's a monster, but he's not out to genocide anyone. Assuming human life has some value, enslaving the Tiers is less horrible than killing the entire region. More importantly, it's much less wasteful. It's easier to get behind Ashe the leader and Nerat's a monster, but in terms of the big picture Nerat's agenda may be the less evil of the two (unless the mercy of a quick death is preferable to life under the Chorus).

The Stygian demo does not disappoint.

Did you join any of the factions or flew solo the whole game? From what I remember, the loyalist path was the anarchist one with a spin at the end. I felt the game falled apart when it came down to faction interaction, lacked flexibility. Pissed someone? Then goodbye, you're locked into the "anarchist" path. I was expecting something similar to Fallout New Vegas.

You had to try pretty hard to piss them off that much. I thought it was obvious where you had to choose--take the fortress for yourself was never gonna go down well with anybody.
 

Fairfax

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I don't get it. I remember you mocking (with good reason) Tyranny's flaws in the official thread, calling it single-player MMO and whatnot, but here you didn't even bring them up. In fact you did a complete 180 on some of them, like combat and writing. I know you hadn't actually played the game, but you seemed to know enough about it.

The game has an extremely rushed ending, very few sidequests, no companion quests, zero exploration, poor itemization, level scaling, skill-check scaling, skyrim-like progression but worse, dumbed down mechanics, lack of enemy types, copy-pasted encounters, etc. I know some are subjective and it's fair to have a different impression when playing, but some of these flaws are self-evident, so I'm surprised you didn't mention them at all. My impression is that you're willing to forgive/ignore almost anything as long as you enjoy the writing and there isn't too much combat, which I find rather ironic considering Sawyer's approach to game design.

Turns out that two hours can feel like a long time. Even though my kill count was about one hundred more than Planescape Torment, it felt like I was doing a lot more fighting the entire time, which can be attributed to better pacing (most of Torment's takes place after you leave Sigil) and Tyranny's de-emphasis on easily killed trash mobs.
You posted that it takes an average of 15 seconds to kill an enemy, spent fewer than 2 hours in combat for the entire game, and think that Torment, with its 5 second rounds, is quicker?
Told you, and you had pretty much the same stats I did (same difficulty as well): 6% of time spent in combat, ~15.5s per enemy. :M
 

Vorark

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You had to try pretty hard to piss them off that much. I thought it was obvious where you had to choose--take the fortress for yourself was never gonna go down well with anybody.

Yes, there are points of no return. However, I was hoping there would be double crosses, backstabbings, but once you cross the line, you're done for and locked in anarchist route.

Speaking of Nerat, the path is pretty cool 'cause

you can let him devour a party member and then shenanigans ensue.
 

Kyl Von Kull

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I don't get it. I remember you mocking (with good reason) Tyranny's flaws in the official thread, calling it single-player MMO and whatnot, but here you didn't even bring them up. In fact you did a complete 180 on some of them, like combat and writing. I know you hadn't actually played the game, but you seemed to know enough about it.

The game has an extremely rushed ending, very few sidequests, no companion quests, zero exploration, poor itemization, level scaling, skill-check scaling, skyrim-like progression but worse, dumbed down mechanics, lack of enemy types, copy-pasted encounters, etc. I know some are subjective and it's fair to have a different impression when playing, but some of these flaws are self-evident, so I'm surprised you didn't mention them at all. My impression is that you're willing to forgive/ignore almost anything as long as you enjoy the writing and there isn't too much combat, which I find rather ironic considering Sawyer's approach to game design.

Turns out that two hours can feel like a long time. Even though my kill count was about one hundred more than Planescape Torment, it felt like I was doing a lot more fighting the entire time, which can be attributed to better pacing (most of Torment's takes place after you leave Sigil) and Tyranny's de-emphasis on easily killed trash mobs.
You posted that it takes an average of 15 seconds to kill an enemy, spent fewer than 2 hours in combat for the entire game, and think that Torment, with its 5 second rounds, is quicker?
Told you, and you had pretty much the same stats I did (same difficulty as well): 6% of time spent in combat, ~15.5s per enemy. :M

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

I wish more people here could admit when they’re wrong, even if only implicitly.
 

Roguey

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Did you use Kills-In-Shadow? Or did you Kill-Her-In-Sunlight?
I went through her dialogue, but never took her outside the spire. Starks ended up being the weakest of the writers, as I figured she would be, but she wasn't Bioware bad.

The game has an extremely rushed ending,

If you're not loyal to Kyros, sure. But it ends exactly where it should if you are. :cool:

very few sidequests,

Feels intentional given that you're cut off from about half of them depending on which faction you go with. It's certainly still more than Mask of the Betrayer. You can always pay $6.99 to play through 40 additional text adventures..

no companion quests,

$14.99, buddy. Companion quests have become an expected feature, but they're not essential.

zero exploration,

True, but this is a Bioware-style narrative RPG circa Knights of the Old Republic through Dragon Age 2. It's all about conversation and combat crawling (and using your athletics skill to climb the occasional rope, wall, and cliff). Obsidian wisely realized that any given RPG shouldn't try to be all things to everyone, it ends up being stretched too thin. As Josh put it "if you dump everything and the kitchen sink into a game, there's not much of a chance the core gameplay is ever going to receive enough attention to move beyond being 'okay'."

poor itemization,

Items have never been something I've cared too much about, but I disagree. I liked the soulbound-esque weapons with the unique once-per-rest powers. Lantry's quill fit him well enough that I followed the item description's suggestion to continue upgrading it to masterwork. Some of those accessories gave some nice bonuses.

level scaling, skill-check scaling,

I didn't notice..? It's rather linear, so it's hard to tell.

I do have an anecdote though: After act 1 I was given the choice to complete a sidequest in Lethian's Crossing before reporting to Ashe, so I went there and was blocked by the Bronze Brotherhood. They creamed me three times in combat, so I figured "Okay, this is obviously a higher level area you're meant to visit later unless you're a super pro so I'll come back later." Once I was finished with Stalwart and the library, I returned and utterly demolished those guys. Then I demolished the chumps holding the town itself. So if it does use level-scaling, it's the Dragon Age: Origins kind where each area as a level range and they're locked in once you've visited them.

skyrim-like progression but worse, dumbed down mechanics,

I got to make the character I wanted to play, so the system didn't bother me.

lack of enemy types, copy-pasted encounters, etc.

Hey, I argued against this. Tyranny's no Jagged Alliance 2, but one could oversimplify and say it also has a lack of enemy types and copy-pasted encounters.

My impression is that you're willing to forgive/ignore almost anything as long as you enjoy the writing and there isn't too much combat, which I find rather ironic considering Sawyer's approach to game design.

I liked the combat though. It was Dragon Age (which I also liked) done better. It's really too bad the Biodrones didn't flock to Tyranny, because Obs outdid them. I guess they have to have their hero's journey and their romances and their cinematic dialogue.

Told you, and you had pretty much the same stats I did (same difficulty as well): 6% of time spent in combat, ~15.5s per enemy.
Yes, I remembered being wrong about this. :P
 
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yes plz

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Pathfinder: Wrath
Bastard's Wound was pretty crap. It didn't really offer anything new in terms of abilities or items that would add to character building or would make you consider playing any differently like soulbound equipment did in the White March. The Bastard's Wound location and its content is fairly thin and lackluster, offering only a few quests and another dull Oldwalls dungeon to slog through. It's also pretty incompatible with the loyal to Kyros route that the content patch added alongside it -- either you let one of the three BW leaders take control and live freely or you kill everyone.

The only thing worthwhile added to the game from the expansion are Barik and Verse's companion quests (which, incidentally, do add extremely small romances for them, though they feel like [or Verse's did anyway, which I pretty much stumbled on to; never did Barik's] they were added just because some fans wanted them and they hoped it'd bolster sales, though like much of the game they're incomplete and rushed). The obvious climax to Barik's quest, though, comes so late that there's really no content for it and Verse's quest just sorta peters out. You're not really missing much by having not played with Bastard's Wound.

Tales From the Tiers could be alright if you purposefully wander back and forth between locations to trigger the new travel events. They happen infrequently and since the game doesn't really offer much reason to constantly travel you'll likely only see like a dozen events unless you're really trying to trigger them. Which is a shame since they are decent, especially if you like the companions because they all get their own unique interactions during them if you select them for the event rather than just generic text about succeeding or failing.
 

Fairfax

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If you're not loyal to Kyros, sure. But it ends exactly where it should if you are. :cool:
I played it at launch. I don't know how it's changed, but it was terrible at the time. The game had 2 entire acts cut, and it showed.

Feels intentional given that you're cut off from about half of them depending on which faction you go with. It's certainly still more than Mask of the Betrayer. You can always pay $6.99 to play through 40 additional text adventures..
Weird comparison, MOTB was an expansion pack. And they seemed to think it lacked side content as well (no doubt due to the 2 cut acts), hence the DLCs.

$14.99, buddy. Companion quests have become an expected feature, but they're not essential.
It's still $45 on Steam.

True, but this is a Bioware-style narrative RPG circa Knights of the Old Republic through Dragon Age 2. It's all about conversation and combat crawling (and using your athletics skill to climb the occasional rope, wall, and cliff). Obsidian wisely realized that any given RPG shouldn't try to be all things to everyone, it ends up being stretched too thin. As Josh put it "if you dump everything and the kitchen sink into a game, there's not much of a chance the core gameplay is ever going to receive enough attention to move beyond being 'okay'."
Why lower your standards to specific BioWare games? And I'd argue exploration is much more of an expected feature than companion quests, especially when you have a game structured like this.

I didn't notice..? It's rather linear, so it's hard to tell.

I do have an anecdote though: After act 1 I was given the choice to complete a sidequest in Lethian's Crossing before reporting to Ashe, so I went there and was blocked by the Bronze Brotherhood. They creamed me three times in combat, so I figured "Okay, this is obviously a higher level area you're meant to visit later unless you're a super pro so I'll come back later." Once I was finished with Stalwart and the library, I returned and utterly demolished those guys. Then I demolished the chumps holding the town itself. So if it does use level-scaling, it's the Dragon Age: Origins kind where each area as a level range and they're locked in once you've visited them.
Yes, they have a range and are locked to the level they have when you see them. The enemies didn't scale because you had already fought them earlier.

I got to make the character I wanted to play, so the system didn't bother me.
I don't get that either. If that's enough, why did you mind the decline in PoE2 in the first place?

Hey, I argued against this. Tyranny's no Jagged Alliance 2, but one could oversimplify and say it also has a lack of enemy types and copy-pasted encounters.
I saw it, but I think it's a major stretch. Tyranny has very few enemy types, and most look and behave in the same way, just have different stats.

I liked the combat though. It was Dragon Age (which I also liked) done better. It's really too bad the Biodrones didn't flock to Tyranny, because Obs outdid them. I guess they have to have their hero's journey and their romances and their cinematic dialogue.
What I meant is that Tyranny's combat is extremely simple, quick and easy, and it only takes a small fraction (6% in our cases) of the player's time, yet you liked it a lot. It's very different to the gameplay in games directed by Sawyer.
 

karoliner

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I quit Tyranny halfway through because of how aggressively boring it got. It's not so much that it's a bad game but more that nothing it does is particularly well done. It's like playing the ultimate average game. I must have played it less than a year ago and i can't remember any interesting line of dialogue.
 

Jenkem

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Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I helped put crap in Monomyth
I bought the The Bastard's Wound and ended up telling Barik to fuck off so it cancelled his Companion quest... I was playing on ironman so I just stopped playing because the reason I was playing was to do the DLC content..
 

Kyl Von Kull

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Too late for me. There are no excuses for the pre-patched ending. Forcing the player to rebel agains Kyros snuffed out whatever sense of player agency still remained and was an insult to anyone who expected an RPG that was supposed to be a subversion of "World-Saving Choosen One vs. Evil Mastermind". That the writers didn't even consider the alternative summarizes the extent of Tyranny's roleplaying elements.

See, I didn’t mind this, although I’m glad they eventually added it. But it made perfect sense to me. It’s not your choice whether staying loyal to Kyros is viable, it’s Kyros’ choice. By the end of the game you can issue your own edicts, which makes you a threat. The whole third act is Kyros trying to force Ashe or Nerat or Tunon to kill you.

Even if you were inclined to be loyal, Kyros would order you to cut your own throat. You rebel because it’s the only way to survive.



I quit Tyranny halfway through because of how aggressively boring it got. It's not so much that it's a bad game but more that nothing it does is particularly well done. It's like playing the ultimate average game. I must have played it less than a year ago and i can't remember any interesting line of dialogue.

Huh, the combat is average, but the writing is excellent. Practically the whole thing stuck with me. I think Tyranny is a good Rorschach test for what people value in a game. It really pulled me into the setting—I could spend hours speculating about why Kyros does this or that or the other thing.
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Well, it did feel unfinished.

My summary:

The great: Spell creation system, many spell effects.
The good: Setting, writing, graphics, Favor/Wrath system, Prologue.

Neutral: Itemization. Tiered equipment is not something I like. There was enough variety for my taste, but it was all pretty meaningless in the end. Significant number of unique, uber artifacts I never cared to use because they: a) had per-rest abilities b) you had too many activated abilities without them anyway.
Story. Wasn't bad, but often not consequent. Last act kinda rushed and ending with sequel bait. And yeah, I also rather hated being railroaded to a single path/faction without opportunity to switch colors.

The Bad: Enemy variety, combat density. Too many abilities to spam - both for player characters and for the enemies. One of the reason combo abilities were only useful early on. Later using the combat time of two characters to perform an ability that's generally not stronger then their individual high-level powers? And maybe risk failing it if one of those chars is disabled? Nope. I think the game would have benefited from limiting the number of active skills available by some kind of slot system - probably all active skills should share the slots with spells.
Spires. A bit weird but maybe not such a bad concept overall, but criminally underutilized. Less of them, but with more content related to them would be much better.

The Ugly: Animated 3d caricature avatars. Seriously, they were truly awful and I hated looking at them.
 
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Roguey

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I played it at launch. I don't know how it's changed, but it was terrible at the time. The game had 2 entire acts cut, and it showed.

I posted the text. That's mostly it, aside from some extra dialogue with Ashe and some companions (Barik is scared out of his mind that Kyros will reject your olive branch and order you all killed anyway)


It's still $45 on Steam.

I was referring to Bastard's Wound, which has three companion quests. :P

Why lower your standards to specific BioWare games? And I'd argue exploration is much more of an expected feature than companion quests, especially when you have a game structured like this.

Because that's what it's trying to emulate in its own way. And why would you expect exploration? You're not playing the role of a typical wandering adventurer, you're fantasy Judge Dredd assigned the task of conquering a realm for the Overlord because the people who are supposed to be doing that aren't doing it quickly enough. Wandering around aimlessly looking for bits and baubles and errands to run for out-of-the-way peasants is the opposite of what you're supposed to do. Alternately, it's not something your character should be doing if your goal is to fight off the invading armies.

I don't get that either. If that's enough, why did you mind the decline in PoE2 in the first place?

Because they abandoned the classic pacing and feel of combat. Sure, I can do without it, but I wanted that because it had been established that this was the gameplay style for Pillars of Eternity, and Josh just shrugged and gave up.

I saw it, but I think it's a major stretch. Tyranny has very few enemy types, and most look and behave in the same way, just have different stats.

Enemies from different factions have different talents, mage-groups use specific groups of spells, of course the Archons are immune to all forms of crowd control.

What I meant is that Tyranny's combat is extremely simple, quick and easy, and it only takes a small fraction (6% in our cases) of the player's time, yet you liked it a lot. It's very different to the gameplay in games directed by Sawyer.
I wouldn't refer to it as quick or easy (unless you're playing on story time). Though simple, quick, and easy describes New Vegas for the most part. Sawyer did a presentation that included a segment about what kind of mental/physical demands should be placed on the typical player. I'm sure he felt Tyranny's was just right for the audience it was trying to target.

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Paradox really botched the marketing though, they failed to sell me on it. Perhaps they should have focused less on "evil won" and more on "finding your place within a fascist system."
 

Sizzle

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
2,471
Paradox really botched the marketing though, they failed to sell me on it. Perhaps they should have focused less on "evil won" and more on "finding your place within a fascist system."

If they did that, SJW hordes would have descended upon both them and Obsidian well before the actual game was even released :D
 

yes plz

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,158
Pathfinder: Wrath
For side quests they could've added more content to Bastard City and the spires, seeing as how they're both neutral places that are open to you during chapter two no matter what your standing with the other factions are. With Bastard City they could've added more trials with you collecting evidence and talking to people, plus maybe quest chains connected to Tunon and Bleden Mark. I also remember someone posting unused variables from the game that gave the idea that your companions could be put on trial for something.

For the Spires... I actually can't think of anything beyond fleshing out the Oldwalls connected to them. Maybe recruitment missions for staffing them rather than just choosing them from a menu. Aside from being plot devices that are meant to show how powerful your fatebinder is they're pretty disconnected from the rest of the game.
 
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Fairfax

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2015
Messages
3,518
I posted the text. That's mostly it, aside from some extra dialogue with Ashe and some companions (Barik is scared out of his mind that Kyros will reject your olive branch and order you all killed anyway)
Yeah, that didn't do much to improve it.

Because that's what it's trying to emulate in its own way.
It is, but that's part of the problem. The game tries to emulate modern BioWarian design, not Obsidian's previous work. And as far as expectations go, the game fails at its biggest selling point, which was reactivity.

And why would you expect exploration? You're not playing the role of a typical wandering adventurer, you're fantasy Judge Dredd assigned the task of conquering a realm for the Overlord because the people who are supposed to be doing that aren't doing it quickly enough. Wandering around aimlessly looking for bits and baubles and errands to run for out-of-the-way peasants is the opposite of what you're supposed to do. Alternately, it's not something your character should be doing if your goal is to fight off the invading armies.
It's not about wandering around aimlessly. The maps are small and linear, with very little loot to find, and the game lacks different areas for you to actually be a "fantasy Judge Dredd", which goes back to the lack of side content and the linearity.

Because they abandoned the classic pacing and feel of combat. Sure, I can do without it, but I wanted that because it had been established that this was the gameplay style for Pillars of Eternity, and Josh just shrugged and gave up.
Fair enough.

Enemies from different factions have different talents, mage-groups use specific groups of spells, of course the Archons are immune to all forms of crowd control.
That's a very low standard, but ok.

I wouldn't refer to it as quick or easy (unless you're playing on story time). Though simple, quick, and easy describes New Vegas for the most part. Sawyer did a presentation that included a segment about what kind of mental/physical demands should be placed on the typical player. I'm sure he felt Tyranny's was just right for the audience it was trying to target.

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I played it the same way you did. At 15.5 seconds per enemy killed, how's that not quick and easy? And your stats show your character didn't get knocked out a single time in the whole game, while your most used companion was knocked out 3 times.

And yes, it also describes FNV's combat, but that's precisely one of the its weakest aspects.
 

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