Tyranny- Next Obsidian RPG

[Sly Boots]

What sort of character are you playing mate? Just wondering if you're going down the spellcaster route and if it's worthwhile...

[Wrathbone]

I did end up going spellcaster. I was going to go for a brute force, two-handed brawler type, but I decided I wanted to invest more points in resolve and wits for the conversational benefits. I'm quite excited by the possibilities of the spellmaking system - hopefully melted and ranged combat will be equally good.

[DjchunKfunK]

That's good to hear that you haven't bounced off the lore like you did in PoE as I experienced the same thing with that game. I have around £30 of credit with a site and it is a toss up between going for this or Dishonored 2 right now.

[DjchunKfunK]

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2016/11/10/tyranny-review

8.3/10

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... f-eternity

4/5

[Sly Boots]

Have you decided which to get yet, Dj?

Have put a couple more hours into this, enjoying it a lot. More so than Pillars for sure, I would say.

[DjchunKfunK]

Not yet, still trying to decide.

EDIT: Went with Dishonored 2 in the end.

[Sly Boots]

One thing that is annoying me a bit about the combat, ranged enemies. I don't know if it's just the early game, but enemy archers and in particular javelin throwers are extremely powerful. A few hits from one on your dps fighter can pretty much bring them down.

But that's not the point of irritation. It's that you can't prevent them from using their ranged weapon or from focusing on a particular party member. Several times now I've reacted to a bastard javelin thrower whose shredding my dps fighter by bringing my tank across the battlefield to engage them in melee. My assumption was this would either force them to bring out a melee weapon (as in many games), or would massively penalise their ranged ability (as you'd expect if someone was standing up in your grill smacking you with a four-foot long length of metal). But neither happens. Every time I've tried to mitigate the ranged threat in that way, they continue to pepper my fighter from distance without penalty, killing them in a couple of rounds. There's seemingly no way to prevent this from happening.

What's worse is my ranged fighter seems pathetically underpowered in comparison...

[Wrathbone]

Yeah, enemy archers are ridiculously overpowered. Part of the problem - and this is also one of my only major criticisms of PoE too - is that half of the time I don't understand what effect my actions are having in combat. There are so many factors in play in combat that I can't possibly keep track of what they all mean or what would be beneficial in a particular circumstance or why certain effects are happening. Just look at these baffling extracts from the combat wiki:

Attack Resolution
-Accuracy is determined by character skills, and any attacks and spells will use the skills associated with the chosen weapon or spell. If more than one skill is used they are averaged together to find the final value.
-Accuracy bonuses from Weapons or abilities are then added to that value to determine the attack's total accuracy.
-The skills used to determine accuracy are the skills that earn experience.
-Each attack targets one of the 5 defenses: Parry, Dodge, Endurance, Will, or Magic. Enemies have specific strengths and weaknesses regarding these defenses.
-The accuracy value is compared to the defense and the difference is used to determine the results. The higher the accuracy the greater the chance to crit, and the lower the accuracy the greater the chance to graze or miss.

Taking Damage
-There are several damage types: Slash, Pierce, Crush, Burn, Shock, Frost, Corrode, and Arcane. Enemies have different strengths and weaknesses against these.
-Armor protects against damage but also gives different protections. Heavy armors provide Armor (Stat) which reduces damage dealt to a minimum of 1. Lighter armors give Deflection which adds a chance that an attack will be downgraded a level. A crit could become a hit, a graze could become a miss and everything in between. -You can increase Deflection with Finesse and other Talents.
-Characters have a single health bar, when damage reduces it to 0, they fall unconscious. They can be revived with special abilities or items or will revive at the end of combat.
-Unconscious characters gain a wound. When wounded max health is reduced and all skills suffer a minor penalty. Wounds stack and remain until rest.

How do they expect players to keep track of any of that? Is there any point in doing so? I usually just batter away and fire a few spells off until everyone dies, but I've no idea if my tactics are effective or useless or what.

Anyway... combat aside, I've finished the first chapter and the story is so far great. Lots of esoteric titbits as well, such as the nature of Kyros and being told about places I must not go (totally going there) and forbidden knowledge I must not seek (googles forbidden knowledge). The shift of focus to order and chaos rather than good and evil is a refreshing change from most RPGs.

Some deliciously evil options are available too, such as at the end of chapter 1:

Spoiler: show

Atop the spire, a message needed to be sent to the general below. Rather than send someone down to tell him, I wrote a note, gave it to a prisoner and kicked her off the tower. I quote: "The note will survive intact."

[Sly Boots]

Yeah, reckon we're at the same point. I resisted the urge to take that option as I'm going for a 'lesser evil' type playthrough this time, and intend for an 'utter bar-steward' playthrough afterwards

And must say I am enjoying this very much. Glad I picked it up, immersing myself in it far more easily than PoE.

[Wrathbone]

Finished what I'd call chapter 2 (although there are no clear cut chapters) and the story is getting really interesting. My intentions of dutifully carrying out Kyros' laws are being challenged in ways I hadn't imagined. One side-moment with my boss Tunon stuck out:

Spoiler: show

I was asked to judge a case where a fellow fatebinder was charged with murder of two Scarlet Chorus soldiers because she stopped them from raping a woman. As Tunon pointed out, the woman had no rights and therefore the murder of the soldiers was not excusable. However, from my interrogation of the fatebinder, I found out that the woman was trying to join the Scarlet Chorus and was therefore protected under Kyros' law, meaning the murder of the soliders was justified.

I judged as such, acquitting the fatebinder of any wrongdoing. My reason for doing this was, admittedly, to try and gain favour with Tunon as I thought I was dispassionately applying the word of the law. Tunon, however, was not pleased. He accused me of allowing the fatebinder to escape justice on a legal technicality and not upholding the spirit of Kyros' law. That is the point where cracks of dissent began to appear in me.

[Sly Boots]

You've overtaken me, just entered what looks like being the first dungeon in the game, at Lethien's Crossing.

What party members have you gone with? I've gathered 5 of the 6 in the game and know the identity of the sixth, so no fear of spoilers. Ditched Verse fairly early on as she died too easily and was basically the same as my character (dual wield, bow secondary).

At the moment have Barik as my tank, Lantry as my healer and Eb as my mage, but have just recruited Sirin and she looks pretty interesting. Sent her back to my Spire as wasn't sure who to drop, but thinking of going and getting her back. Eb has a pretty kick-ass heal so might ditch Lantry, which would be a shame as he's got by far the highest lore rating in the party.

[Wrathbone]

I've got all the party members now - been using Verse and Barik as standard as they complement each other well, and I've got Landry as a healer at the moment. I might ditch him for Eb because his voice annoys me, although in story terms I think he may have significance to upcoming things. Sirin's song magic makes no sense to me I'm afraid, much as the song system made no sense to me in PoE.

[Sly Boots]

I've got all the party members now - been using Verse and Barik as standard as they complement each other well, and I've got Landry as a healer at the moment. I might ditch him for Eb because his voice annoys me, although in story terms I think he may have significance to upcoming things. Sirin's song magic makes no sense to me I'm afraid, much as the song system made no sense to me in PoE.

Might take a look at her and ditch her if I don't get it, it was only from reading a thread on the Steam forum people said she was pretty good, but I'm also pretty happy with my party as it stands.

Do you know if the party members you leave at the Spire level up when they're not travelling with you?

[Wrathbone]

Yes, pretty sure they do. I ditched Lantry briefly and when he rejoined the party he'd gained a level.

[Sly Boots]

Cool, thanks for that. Makes swapping them in and out to play with them a bit in the party a bit easier.