Game News Tyranny Dev Diary #2: The Basic Character System

[vivec]

Another excel sheet simulator. No, thanks,

 

[Roguey]

Obsidian separates physical and spell damage and the grogs still find things to complain about.

 

[Hegel]

Some things I like, some I don't. The UI looks better, so does the portrait. I hate the %, the cooldowns and the talent tree stuff, it reminds me of online games, but whatever.

 

[Zanzoken]

More popamole. I haven't seen a single thing about this project yet that leads me to believe it will be worth a damn.

 

[Drowed]

Well, combat won't be its strong point, that's for sure. That talent "tree" looks bland as fuck. Uninspired and generic "+X% bonus on Y" abilities.

But hey, the C&C still could be good... Right? If the C&C is good and the story don't suck (too much), who knows. Even if it's not great, if it's at least on POE's level, I will eventually play it.

 

[Flou]

Well, combat won't be its strong point, that's for sure. That talent "tree" looks bland as fuck. Uninspired and generic "+X% bonus on Y" abilities.

Once you've seen one talent tree, you've seen them all.

 

[Lurker King]

- Hello, Obsidian, this is a Codexer speaking. Do you copy?

- Hi Codexer, this is Obsidian. I can hear you just fine. Over.

- It seems your new combat system sucks. Over.

- Negative. We have the best team on it. Over.

- Sir, with all due respect, your team sucks. You must send those guys at Iron Tower, over.

- Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….

- Obsidian, do you copy?

- Shhhhhhhhhhhhh…Codexer, I can’t hear you, please repeat.

- Obsidian, DO YOU COPY?

- Shhhhhhhhhh….It seems we have a problem with interference, roger out.

 

[Darkzone]

Wits roll Success:
[you feel a malignant presence]

But this is a very unbalanced ADD resource book.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Wits roll Success:
[you feel a malignant presence]

But this is a very unbalanced ADD resource book.

That's why Sawyer is excited - he spent his weekend balancing it.

 

[DeepOcean]

Alright... after shadowrun Returns and D:OS... I can't wait to spam the same abilities over and over and over on another RPG that was supposed incline... cooldowns man... why? Obsidian can leave the popamole but the popamole can't leave Obsidian. I already saw the per encounter abilities on PoE as a dangerous slippery slope into full cooldowns and Obsidian didn't disappoint. Man, cRPG designers are really disappointing:

"We think a straight adaptation of PnP is a bad idea, we need to translate the rules to the computer."
"How are you going to do that?"
"Add a shitton of cooldowns and convoluted attributes."

Alright man, keep fighting the good fight with your words, then. Only need cosmetic Biowarean choices for this to be confirmed Tyranny of Dragon Age.

 

[Zeriel]

MMO character system design in a singleplayer game. Absolutely disgusting.

So this is it. The Obsidian of forevermore. Thanks, Sawyer.

 

[an Administrator]

If devs want to keep the hype, its better for them not mentioning anything about Combat and Character Progression until the release date.

 

[Infinitron]

MMO character system design in a singleplayer game. Absolutely disgusting.

Classless, skill-based, improve-by-use - which MMO, Ultima Online?

 

[Athelas]

MMO character system design in a singleplayer game. Absolutely disgusting.

Sounds like they're in good company:

 

[Zeriel]

MMO character system design in a singleplayer game. Absolutely disgusting.

Classless, skill-based, improve-by-use - which MMO, Ultima Online?

So this is it. The Obsidian of forevermore. Thanks, Sawyer.

The Obsidian of always and forevermore.

"This stat increases X by Y%."

"Here's your talent tree."

It's a superficial and biased takeaway, but fuck it, I can't be bothered to give them the benefit of the doubt after the last few years.

(For the record, I didn't like quite a bit about D:OS's character systems either. Its good mostly lies in the execution of combat.)

 

[DeepOcean]

Nah, both Underail and D:OS are TB so the bottom of the well is even lower for Obsidian.

 

[DeepOcean]

(For the record, I didn't like quite a bit about D:OS's character systems either. Its good mostly lies in the execution of combat.)

Pretty much, D:OS has cooldowns, that alone is enough to fuck with the quality of it, the saving grace is that they made a good use of the shit they had while Obsidian can't even make good use of the shit thing they have. Seems this will be a storyfag game, hope the story isn't as underdeveloped, railroaded and uninteresting as PoE.

 

[Infinitron]

"This stat increases X by Y%."

"Here's your talent tree."

It's a superficial and biased takeaway, but fuck it, I can't be bothered to give them the benefit of the doubt after the last few years.

OK. I dunno, seems to me like it being Skyrim with a touch of Dragon Age (which is obviously what it's trying to be, no superficiality here) is bad enough.

It's a streamlined combat system trying to attract a wider audience. They've openly admitted that, which is pretty admirable, I think. Compare with the SCL guys who tried to hide it until the last possible moment.

 

[DeepOcean]

Being better than fraudsters isn't a hard thing though. By this reasoning, Bioware is better than the fraudsters that made SCL so they must be an awesome, a beacon of incline RPG developer.

 

[Prime Junta]

There's nothing inherently bad about talent trees. It's all about what goes into them and what cross-dependencies there are.

 

[Zanzoken]

Talent trees are fine if the upper abilities logically progress from the lower ones. Something like:

1) Burning Touch -- A close range fire attack on a single enemy
2A) Cone of Fire -- A close range fire AoE that hits all enemies in a 60 degree cone
2B) Flare -- A long range fire attack on a single enemy
3A) Circle of Fire -- A 360 degree fire AoE that hits all enemies near the caster
3B) Fireball -- A long range fire AoE

You have to walk before you can run, but once your skills develop you have options to progress your build in different ways.

The problem is a lot of talent trees end up like this:

1) Stoneskin -- Increase your defense.
2A) Boulder Bash -- A long range earth AOE.
2B) Tanglefoot -- Locks a single enemy in place.
3A) Magic Poison -- Poisons an enemy and causes heavy damage over time.
3B) Blinding Fog -- Lowers accuracy of all enemies near the caster.

This is a hodgepodge of "Earth" abilities that really don't build off of each other in meaningful ways. So say you want Blinding Fog for your tank, you're going to have to waste points on Tanglefoot. Or if you want Boulder Bash for your offensive mage, you have to waste points on Stoneskin. The abilities are all useful, sure -- but no sensible build will need every one, and the XP would be better spent on other stuff.

 

[Trashos]

If devs want to keep the hype, its better for them not mentioning anything about Combat and Character Progression until the release date.

It's a streamlined combat system trying to attract a wider audience. They've openly admitted that, which is pretty admirable, I think. Compare with the SCL guys who tried to hide it until the last possible moment.

I believe they advertised the streamlining exactly to avoid the backlash by grognards. It is still business. But I agree that it is a respectable way of doing business.

If they do the same thing to PoE2 though, I 'll fucking...
...wish that they hadn't.

 

[Prime Junta]

^
This.

I will probably end up playing this anyway, but it can't hurt that they're massively dialing back expectations this way. Could even be it'll be a positive surprise. Maybe. Possibly.

 

[himmy]

MMO character system design in a singleplayer game. Absolutely disgusting.

Sounds like they're in good company:

Tyranny confirmed as Codex 2016 GOTY.

 

[Zeriel]

MMO character system design in a singleplayer game. Absolutely disgusting.

Sounds like they're in good company:

Tyranny confirmed as Codex 2016 GOTY.

Well, we do like Trannies.