Paradox had their “fair share of headbutting” with quite a few third-party companies at this point, it seems. Obsidian, Neocore, Cyanide, AGEOD, 1C, Graviteam, Kerberos, Arrowhead. I wonder if Eugen will be next, especially if Steel Division doesn’t sell as expected.
Tyranny was really good, but yeah, there was almost no marketing for it leading up to its launch. I remember being floored when I found out its release date was only weeks away. I was even worried it would feel rushed/buggy and delighted it turned out quite the opposite.
I started it a second game and didn’t get very far but I really like that game and I’m glad I got a copy. I hope it eventually finds it’s cult classic standing and we can maybe some day get more content for it.
As for text heavy, I’m ashamed to say the text heavy nature of Torment Tides of Numenara eventually drove me away from finishing it. It was more like reading (a decent, not amazing) book with combat that was kind of annoying and with gameplay mechanics that were kind of boring, to boot. But Tyranny, which may have had a little less text I suppose, never made me feel like it wasn’t worth reading nor that I was doing a lot of it - I think people not wanting to read a lot will find Tyranny is not as text heavy as they might suppose.
It was really good, but the unwashed masses don’t want a story heavy rpg. At most they want an open world rpg with action controls, but they probably want a shooter with minimal rpg elements.
I liked Tyranny, but I didn’t love it. The story was good, but not great. However, even a good story seems to be unusual in today’s market so this is a definite plus for the game.
However, where it strongly lacked was the combat. Every encounter seemed to be the same regardless of who you fought. First you cast a bunch of buffs, then start the same spell / power rotation you use every single fight. Lots and lots of fights in theory, but in reality its just one fight you play over and over. Only boss fights have any kind of difference to them.
Also story line plays out mostly the same regardless of what path you take. The only difference is your quest giver. I suppose that is too much to ask, yet the game presents it as a real possibility, even if the choices ultimately are mostly meaningless.
This. There was a lot more variety in Pillars of Eternity. The story was interesting enough in Tyranny, but damn I was tired of fighting such similar battles over and over.
This is what’s killing my interest in Mass Effect Andromeda. There are like 3 different enemies in the game. Those with shields, those with armor, those with neither of those things. Some are robots, some are kett (aliens) and there is almost no variety among them. It’s… incredible.
That’s not good. I’ve been more disciplined this year (so far) and resisted buying at release, but I was planning on getting and enjoying it when it got cheaper. I liked ME 1 through 3 quite a bit. Sad they kicked this franchise in the nuts.
There are actually pretty distinct differences between them but on lower difficulties in singleplayer it doesn’t necessarily register. Like, the kett have a dude who cloaks themselves and everyone near them and takes you on with a shotgun, and a dude with a heavy autocannon that will tear you to shreds if you’re out of cover, and invisible dogs, and a giant armored hulk that can grab you and murder the shit out of you, and the super annoying floating teleporters with the invulnerable shield and giant exploding orbs. Whereas the remnant have like, flying laser orbs and suicide hug bots and freaking enormous death robots with individually destructible turrets and so on. Learning that shit and how to deal becomes way more important in multiplayer, probably also in high end singleplayer.
I would definitely have said that about ME2’s enemies, though. And have, actually.
Yeah, I know all those enemies (and to be fair, I think you listed every non-boss enemy type in the entire game, or at least the first 30 hours) are interesting in there own way, but I am on Normal because playing higher was making the combat take too long (it seems like the enemies just become bullet sponges?) and I’m getting a little burned out, so I figured I should try to wrap things up. The biggest killer is where I’m at the game keeps freezing up after 30-90 seconds. I suspect if I leave the planet (or maybe just this part of the planet) I could be okay, but that irritates me.
I am categorically not suggesting the game is more fun on higher difficulties - hell, after the second bullshit boss I dropped down to casual. Just that there is actually meaningful enemy variety. Anyway. This isn’t the thread for any further discussion of that particular game.
Just finished Tyranny this past weekend. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It was definitely a game that wasn’t marketed particularly well (at all?) considering it was exactly the sort of game that I’d go for yet only heard most about it here and only shortly before release. Still, it stayed on my radar and, even though I used the 50% coupon at the Paradox store, I spent more on it than most games these days. Got my money’s worth in one play through (so far).
Some thoughts:
- I liked the attempt at a different take on the genre through the story. The game forces you to be the bad guy even when your instinct is to try and please everyone. When I play a second time, I’ll definitely attempt to go against my inclination and instead go extreme evil, maybe piss everyone off (to an extent).
- I felt most of the Spires were way too easy to gain access to and I was always wondering why a few other people didn’t just press some glowing buttons in combinations until they got through. Would have been nice to have the improvements be slightly different if you built them on different Spires to offer up some variety. I did like that the improvements existed, and you could hire a variety of people to people the place. I didn’t use the trainers much, and focused more on buying sigils and potions over anything else.
- There was some trouble in the logic of dialogue that took place after certain events involving Archons. They didn’t take into account the timing of some talk, so earlier happenings weren’t considered, making the dialogue out-of-sync with the world.
- Enjoyed the combat and I didn’t find it boring or repetitive. Looking back on it, I can see why people would feel that way, but I somehow avoided it. There were a couple of unexpectedly difficult battles, but the vast majority were ones I could make it through unwounded (this is on the normal difficulty level, of course; I rarely seek to make combat more difficult, I just want it to be satisfying).
- The Lore/Magic/Sigil use was brilliant. I loved the feeling of creating my own spells and improving them as my lore increased (well, Lantry’s Lore, that is). Much better than just memorizing a scroll that you found, even if it amounts to the same thing. A small change, perhaps, but one I enjoyed.
- The characters and factions and their loyalty, fear, & wrath and their tiers made it feel like they were actually reacting to my decisions, although some of the jNPCs sticking with me despite some happenings felt a little odd. That you could gain abilities regardless of which leaning others had towards you made it easy to not worry so much about how your behaviour affected the world. In a way, that let you be a little more callous when you may have otherwise tried to force a particular feeling just to ensure the gaining of a skill.
- There wasn’t a lot of different equipment that stood out and remained memorable, but what was available was more than adequate for the job. I never felt under or over powered by what I had. It would have been nice to have the artifacts be more interesting and have more impact than they did, though.
- The ending was too abrupt. I spent a good 20 minutes prepping my group (because I added a new party member) only to have the game end after the next thing I did. Unexpected. I did like the wrap-up, though.
The magic sigil system was good idea, but the implementation of much of it was very limited. For example, most of your cores were just frost / fire / electrical / physical damage. Not all that interesting.
Other cores, like the illusion and charm ones had very few combos you could do. For illusion, I can only remember the buff that made you harder to hit and the illusionary pit spell which affected someone for like 10 seconds. Now back in the day, with good old D&D illusion spells, there is a hell of a lot more you could have done, yet Tyranny didn’t. How about mass invisibility? How about summoning phantom warriors to fight for you or mirror images for party members? Illusionary walls, or mass insanity spells?
I like the world of Tyranny more than the game itself. Id like to see a sequel with lessons learned, however, I do not think that will happen at this point.
For me, there were a splurt of these games, that all kind of ran together. They all have weird/obtuse or forgettable names, that I either can never remember, intermixed, or somehow all lumped together. As far as the marketing on Tyranny, I still find myself asking ‘what’s Tyranny’? Even though I’ve been following this thread, I’m still not sure lol.
There is a weird cloud of amnesia around all these games for me, and I own a few of them. Path of Eternity, from here to eternity, exile eternity, tyranny in eternity???..maybe it’s too many words that end in y or something…
Yeah, there was suddenly a glut of these games, wasn’t there? Pillars, Torment, Tyranny, Divinity, BG Enhanced, BG2 Enhanced, Planescape Enhanced. For years there was nothing, and then suddenly, so many that you can’t possibly have time to finish them all unless you’re a single bachelor or something.
Ohhhh… my!
New DLC I suppose. (Joking. It had better be something better.)
As for marketing, maybe Paradox were expecting a lot more word of mouth from sites like RPG Codex who were not impressed with the game.
I’m not sure what you mean - what are you hoping for? Unless you are assuming DLC is not equal to Expansion, which usually from Obsidian DLC is expansion (for instance, The White March is Pillars DLC).
I mean, something more substantial than horse armor. An expansion preferably. F:NV DLC were somewhere in between the two.
I really enjoyed the game, but not sure I want to go back to it for DLC. I guess if it is substantial enough.
I didn’t think it sold that well, seems odd to release DLC for a game if not.