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Oh man, I love Tyranny. I won't deny, the gameplay's not the most exciting and some of the story beats aren't perfect, but it's got some excellent writing and stellar performances from the cast (also perhaps the sickest burn I've ever seen delivered in a video game, but that's gonna require a very specific set of circumstances to get shown in the LP). It's short, sure, but I think it's for the best. A lot of the more sprawling games in this and related genres can end up wearing out their welcomes, just from the sheer amount of content you go through (I'm looking at you, Skyrim). So, a more focused, compact experience can often be better. Just look at Beyond Good & Evil. As to Kyros' Law, I'd actually suggest looking further east for one's comparisons than the European empires of antiquity. Genghis Khan spared most people who threw down arms and surrendered when he came a-conquerin', and was typically content to let them govern themselves so long as they paid the appropriate tributes and didn't cause trouble. Had he instituted a more formal legal system, as Kyros has, it might have resembled the system of Fatebinders, minus the magical elements. That is, semi-autonomous agents with broad authority to settle disputes and interpret the law, because it's more about keeping the peace than maintaining precedent. In the spirit of that, fine the merchant. It will mollify the Disfavored without giving them cause to take you for granted as being on "their side", while also avoiding more than token resentment from the Tiersmen. Plus you'll have access to an additional merchant. (Disclaimer: I don't actually remember the outcome to this particular decision outside of the obvious "if he lives, you can do business with him, and if he dies you cannot") As to the Scarlet Chorus, they seem to be based on largely apocryphal accounts of the Mongols and/or Huns (the latter being slightly more accurate; the Huns did mercilessly sack anything in their way for hundreds of years, while the Mongols were actually much more civilized than the European historical accounts claim). Though, perhaps the closest historical comparison could be some of the armies that were raised during the Crusades. Many such forces were raised in haste, often with little training or discipline, as every noble in Christendom scrambled to claim a piece of the glory/loot, which is why every Crusade wound up being such a shitshow. By the way, for anyone who decides to play this game themselves, I won't spoil anything, but my personal Conquest recommendation is to basically do everything GreatEvilKing did except do NOT read the Edict of Fire immediately. I may have actually, physically winced when I saw that screenshot. Seriously, there's SO MUCH STUFF that's just permanently gone because we lost our only chance to make it exist; giving the Sages time to prepare is easily the biggest, most significant decision you can make in Conquest in terms of how it affects your playthrough.
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Sep 11, 2020 09:32
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I love Tyranny as well, but there was clearly more game planned than we got. How anyone thought the ending was close to even halfway decent confounds me to this day. I'd have been happier with Tyranny - Complete Edition than Pillars of Eternity II, but alas. And yet I still get the urge to play it. What shame we didn't get more.
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Sep 11, 2020 14:10
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raifield posted:I love Tyranny as well, but there was clearly more game planned than we got. How anyone thought the ending was close to even halfway decent confounds me to this day. I'd have been happier with Tyranny - Complete Edition than Pillars of Eternity II, but alas. Definitely agreed on that point, Deadfire was honestly kind of a letdown because it felt like the writers were just sort of guessing their way through making more story when all the big plot twists of the setting were covered in the first game, whereas Tyranny has left a ton of stuff unexplored. That said, Pillars of Eternity is a bog-standard fantasy heartbreaker, which are always going to sell better than a story about working within a totalitarian regime. If they do ever make a sequel, though, I hope they don't try to stuff it with unnecessary content. If anything, I'd want their efforts spent on making it as reactive as possible to your choices in this one, given that there are at least three broadly-defined trajectories the plot can be left headed in (Being loyal to Kyros, pretending to be loyal to Kyros while backing a rebellious faction, and openly defying Kyros). Each would need a significant amount of writing devoted to it, and I'd rather that be the focus than padding the playtime.
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Sep 11, 2020 15:59
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Usually I don't do the thing in the spoiler tags, it was caused by my trying to balance the Legion icon clicks. Sorry Renata!
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Sep 11, 2020 16:17
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Usually I don't do the thing in the spoiler tags, it was caused by my trying to balance the Legion icon clicks. Oh, yeah, I totally understand how it happened, and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out the other way, though I'm glad I won't have to hear how disappointed D.C. Douglas is in us. He literally never left my party during my playthrough. Also, bring Eb when you're dealing with Raetommon, and throw the rock. The world needs to see Gaming's Greatest Dunk.
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Sep 11, 2020 17:59
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After careful consideration, the Hastily Deputized Jury of Goons has selected Option 2, fining the merchant for letting him stay. Praise Kyros!
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Sep 13, 2020 18:36
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Praise Kyros! 
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Sep 13, 2020 21:30
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Cleopatra Jones and the Growing Realization We Might Be Totally hosed Last time on Tyranny, we had to intervene when a bunch of racists pulled over a merchant. Said merchant turned out to be scavenging iron weapons off the dead to resell, which pissed off the Disfavored and forced us to render judgement according to Kyros' laws which were somewhat...unclear in this situation.   : The Disfavored will tolerate your presence, but you will pay them handsomely for such charity. We had a thread vote and asked people to refer to the laws of Kyros, and the dirty little secret of that enterprise is that the laws of Kyros aren't so much a codified set of things to do as much as a collection of gotchas we can use to eliminate fuckups. This does mean we get some discretion to help ourselves out as long as we remember to do our best to uphold the status quo.  Sterling also went and told everyone in Lethian's Crossing how awesome we are with psychic crystals or some poo poo. This might come in handy later. We also saved him from being turbofucked, as the previous dialogue options indicated the Disfavored were within their rights as Kyros' warriors to just murder him and steal his cart. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
We have to meet with the Archons next. I put this off because hoo boy is this going to be unpleasant for Cleo. I start clicking on the blacksmith before I realize he's not just a merchant, he has a quest for us.  There's a shipment of iron missing. Now, Tunon is responsible for all iron production as a means of keeping the legions loyal. Guess what?  Graven Ashe is covering it up! We agree to find the iron (as a member of Tunon's court, it is our job and it never hurts to curry favor with the boss) and mentally chalk it up as yet another thing that has gone terribly wrong in the land of the incompetents.  We can't really avoid this any longer. Let's go in and get this over with, shall we?  Oh, this is a great sign! It's left unclear whether or not the PC has interacted with these Archons before, but the blue man with a big mace is Graven Ashe, and the guy with the scepter and mask is the Voices of Nerat. Let's get this over with.  We can see the that from the portrait, game. More importantly, we can take away a few things. We know the avalanches were caused by Kyros trapping all these guys in the valley. Graven Ashe is too racist to consider the Tiersmen a real threat, hilariously dismissing them as "being unable to count past nine" while promoting illiterate dumbasses to lead his troops. What we didn't know is that Kyros trapped two detachments of Disfavored troops outside of the valley, hilariously screwing us over in our attempt to suppress the rebellion. Graven Ashe has a really flangey voice like the Go'auld from Stargate.  This one requires some context. If we'd made different choices in the Conquest, we would have met Cairn, the Archon of Stone. Cairn goes on a rampage because he's had enough of Kyros' poo poo, and it's bad enough that Kyros sends us in with an Edict to destroy him. This leads to a hilarious choice where you can make everyone hate you by throwing both the Disfavored AND Scarlet Chorus troops to certain death to buy you enough time to read the Edict and win the fight. Anyway, the Earthshakers are the Disfavored's mage corps, and they use Cairn's stone magic to fight and help the Disfavored siege fortifications. You might be asking "do the Disfavored have any other mages?" The answer is no. Now, the Tiers are full of backup mages, but unfortunately Ashe has no faith in their math skills and thus has to leave himself wide open to this poo poo.  Nerat also talks telepathically with us and I'm honestly impressed by just how much use the developers get out of these little hyperlinks. It's really clever!  Now, this is good advice. We nominally have the authority to force these two to get along. In practice, our actual authority is that we are here representing Tunon. We can snitch to Daddy if things get really bad, but this might piss him off as he expects us to handle it, and he will not appreciate us wasting his time on anything he views as frivolous. In theory they can't touch us. In practice one of them could have us assassinated and blame it on the Vendrien Guard. It would be a very audacious thing to do but things are breaking down. : [Remain silent] : I always know you've run out of things to say when you resort to mocking my vassals. If we are to speak of treachery, why is it that my scouts see Scarlet Chorus warriors defecting back to the Vendrien Guard? Your fearsome reputation has gone flaccid, for it seems you cannot control your soldiers... or perhaps you simply choose not to.This also has the advantage that one or both of the Archons might incriminate themselves in front of us, which is when we can call in Tunon to deal with it. No wonder this campaign is going to poo poo, they're both on the brink of accusing each other of being actual traitors. Did you notice how the only mention of the Tiersmen was to dismiss them and accuse Nerat of working with them? This is supposed to be a strategy meeting, and yet no one is actually discussing the capabilities or characteristics of the enemy!  You poor damned soul.   : [Cough audibly] The poor Iron Marshal is ignored. Remember, Tunon is these guys' direct supervisor and we are here as his emissary. Nerat has acknowledged us privately because he believes he can get Ashe to incriminate himself and wants us to watch.   In other words Nerat wants us as a witness to Graven Ashe supposedly being a stubborn rear end in a top hat. The irony is, of course, that all we see here are two equally stubborn assholes and Nerat fantasizing about ruling the Tiers during an ongoing insurgency that neither Archon is capable of putting down. : [Remain silent]There's no reason not to play along honestly, we don't have the full picture but the outline we have is quite disturbing. : If I could trust the information I get from you and your conscripted mouth breathers, perhaps I'd order my cohorts around a bit more aggressively. But last time I trusted your 'all clear' report, my troops failed to come home.The irony of Ashe insulting the Chorus troops after bitching about Nerat insulting his men is not lost on me.  Sirin is the Archon of Song, and she'll become important later. In the meantime, Nerat has another message for us.  : You hear the Voices in your head.: Take care that you don't learn too much, Fatebinder. An excess of knowledge - of curiosity, even - can earn unwanted attention. To borrow from the Dark Id, Nerat is loving this poo poo so much he could be a McDonald's spokesperson.  Fifth Eye for the save! Ok, I can't type that with a straight face. Something should be bothering you about the characterization here if you've been paying attention to what the game is saying. The game has been taking great pains to portray the Disfavored as disciplined combat troops and the Scarlet Chorus as an undisciplined trash mob. Here we see Nerat manages to push Ashe and Erenyos' buttons in about five seconds while snarkily giving us the down low that we're about to see something entertaining. Now that Erenyos has finally lost it that Nerat is mocking the deaths of her troops, the Fifth Eye is able to step in and restore the gathering to something like order and tries to forward Kyros' agenda. On the first glance it might seem like the Fifth Eye is heroically stepping in and pissing off his boss to restore order. This is a blatant lie. This entire thing is a show orchestrated for our benefit. Remember, our lone party member explicitly admitted she was spying on us for Nerat. While we haven't let Verse out of our sight since, other members of the Chorus saw us with her and you can be drat sure some of them went to Nerat. I will bet actual money the Fifth Eye and Nerat coordinated this, either on the spot with telepathy or ahead of time, to provide the show that Ashe is working with traitorous earthshakers and is a fuckup as they deliver their accusations in a calm manner while Ashe goes off the handle.  : [Diplomat] [Bow and salute each Archon]Of course as the youngest Fatebinder we get the poo poo assignments.  Everyone liked that!  As much poo poo as I give Graven Ashe, he does legitimately care for his men. Ashe is trying to salvage the situation here by pointing out that he appreciates teamwork unlike that total rear end in a top hat Nerat. : I require no thanks for doing my sworn duty. We can't win. These assholes have us by the sensitive anatomical portions. Oh, and by the way we are from the North, meaning that the Disfavored aren't racist against us.  : I come bearing an Edict of Kyros.We kind of want to stay in the Archons' good graces. You can gently caress up horribly here if you choose to, and I will be doing a fuckup run after this one if there's interest.  The important thing to take away from this conversation is that both of these guys see you as someone who can tell Daddy to put the other child on time-out. We have the paper authority - but not the real power - to tell both of these guys to shut up and sit down. However, we can report to Tunon, and he can make these two shut up and sit down, so Nerat and Ashe are going to lay on the flattery to avoid the belt. : The Overlord's loyal servants must hold Ascension Hall by Kyros' Day of Swords, or all in the valley shall perish.  If you're not proclaiming an ominous Edict with a bunch of SFX, what's the point? : The Overlord means to compel us into action, no doubt the avalanches in the mountains are part of this ultimatum. We must conquer the oathbreakers or die in failure. There is no room for error, and no other way out of this valley alive. ...are you telling me the Disfavored's siege engineer corps are locked out of the valley where we're supposed to take a stone fortress?  Unfortunately Ashe's flash of competence doesn't work with Nerat's plan to discredit him and become King of the Tiers, so Nerat is going to try to push all his buttons to discredit him again.  A smarter manipulator would not say this poo poo, but Nerat's weakness is his huge ego and his assumption he can charm or coerce anyone. As much as he's trying to come off as the calm cool one confronting the angry traitor with something to hide, he comes off as a bickering rear end in a top hat more concerned with cementing his future rulership instead of crushing the insurrection. : [Subterfuge 20] They call you the Archon of Secrets, but you certainly don't seem to know anything remotely useful. Ashe is happy we might be putting the bad man into the time-out corner. : The Archon of Secrets turns his head to the side, until the face of his mask has turned around and a new facet of the mask presents itself as facing forward. When next the Archon speaks, the booming voice of an older man can be heard.: "Cowards! If I were still alive, I'd freeze the blood as it runs in your veins! You may take the river, but you'll pay for it with your lives!": The Archon slaps a hand against his mask, rotating his mask until a new facet looks forward. Yea, uh...we did that.  : [Conquest] I know that voice... Master Hagrivar of the School of Tides? It keeps getting worse. Nerat is a weird amalgamation of personalities not completely in control of himself, and did you notice how despite having a master Tidecaster on tap, he was "unable" to tell us what exactly was planned for the Matani river? The one Ashe just stated he wanted to march over? Kyros just told us they were going to kill us all, and Nerat set Ashe up to fail. : Then enough talking, there's work to be done. : My Lord, Barik and his band have been drilled on the Echocall assault plan. The Crescent Runners should be briefing him as we speak regarding the latest enemy movements along the river. I will dispatch him at once." The Iron Marshal salutes, clapping her gauntlet to her breastplate. : And I will ensure the Chorus stands ready to march. If the Disfavored can take the river, the Chorus has the manpower to secure the outer ring of the valley.The important thing is that the Disfavored lose a ton of troops securing the river so Nerat can make himself look good. : Our soldiers clamor for battle, and at last we shall have it! Verse, we command you to continue guarding the Fatebinder - Tunon's chosen is our honored guest, and must be shown our finest hospitality. : I won't let you down, boss. She'll get through the campaign in one piece, as long as she doesn't do anything too stupid.  Nerat and the Fifth Eye leave, having deposited their spy with us for the foreseeable future and sabotaged the Disfavored's attempts to cross the river.  Graven Ashe is having a terrible, no-good, rotten bad day. : Though the Edict threatens the Scarlet Chorus just as it threatens us, I cannot shake the feeling that our 'allies' will work against us.They just did! They gave you information that Eb the last Tidecaster was going to do "something" at the river that was going to be "ineffective" and then happily let you march to the river! Now, this might be going over the player's conscious attention right now because that was a lot of words and most people are going to take away that Ashe and Nerat are both incompetent fuckups distracted by bickering (which is true) but Ashe is doubly hosed here. Kyros took away a pile of his troops and all of his mages. Then Nerat hosed him over by giving him bad intel, and Ashe is perturbed enough to openly question Kyros. : You've shown your worth in war, and your name has been known to the legion since the very beginning of this long conquest. So I'd ask that you join us this one last time, and help us wrap up this last objective.: If you wish to be counted among the glorious, speak with the Iron Marshal - she will direct the order of battle until we are ready for the final push into the Citadel. : I would be honored to help.  Erenyos is actually trying to be professional, bless her heart. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
This ends the gameplay portion of today's update, because it's fairly long but this is also a very important conversation to the narrative. Remember when we went through the tutorial section and everything was bad? Now it's worse! -We've met the Archons and the infighting goes straight to the top. Nerat wants to leverage this campaign to have Tunon and Kyros make him lord of the Tiers, and Ashe distrusts him so much he openly questions Kyros' judgement in front of a Fatebinder. -This entire argument is a show by Nerat to make Ashe look bad while snarking to us about how awesome he is and how stupid Ashe is, which culminates in Nerat setting up Ashe to fail the assault on the Matani River. -Kyros has further screwed us all by sealing two cohorts of Disfavored outside the valley along with the Earthshaker mages that Ashe depends on to destroy fortress walls, and has demanded we take the fortress of Ascension Hall or die in eight days. We are thus reduced to storming the fortress with infantry against a well-equipped and motivated force fighting for their home in a fortress they know well. We took the fortress once, sure, but we didn't have time constraints and we had the Earthshakers as well as an additional Archon. -Nerat is a master at pushing Graven Ashe's buttons and is using this to goad him into making bad decisions. He is also feeding Ashe bad intelligence to get Disfavored troops killed. -Ashe is so undermanned he is asking us, an emissary and a diplomat, to get out on the front lines and fight. -Despite coming off as the more honest of the two Archons, Ashe is hiding that a shipment of iron weapons was stolen even though the iron is Tunon's responsibility and is being honest with us because he wants something. -Nerat is a crazy unstable person who, as Kyros' spymaster, has adopted so many different personalities it's hard to tell which one is real, including some outright treasonous ones, and nothing he says should in any way be trusted. -Despite Nerat telling us there's totally not a trap at the river and having the Fifth Eye remove Chorus troops from the river assault, Ashe fails to see the trap at the river despite realizing Nerat is going to gently caress him over somehow. Next time: We're in the poo poo now, and somebody's got to shovel it! TheGreatEvilKing fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Oct 31, 2021 |
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Sep 13, 2020 23:17
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: Don't mind us Fatebinder, we're just cleaning up some trash.
: What the gently caress? I can't trade? I'm not selling weapons to the rebels, what do you mean I can't just show up and trade stuff?
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So we have to take a fortress despite being sabotaged by literally every factor in this campaign. I do find it funny that these dumbasses are so full of themselves, but the outsider coming in keeps constantly tripping over their bad decisions and blind spots left and right. It's good to have you do a detailed analysis on something that actually has depth, unlike your past LPs. They're good analyses, it's just that.... yeah.
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Sep 13, 2020 23:56
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i would definitely be missing out on a lot of this stuff if not for you pointing it out. greatly appreciated.
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Sep 13, 2020 23:58
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So do we need to read the edict for it to work? Because it says we have to take the fortress by the "day of swords" so couldn't the fatebinder just sit on their rear end for nine days until that's gone past and then have a year to do it? Or would the edict go off anyway? I mean presumably Kyros would just remotely trigger the edict to teach us not to be a smartass but it would still be a fun legal getaround
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Sep 14, 2020 00:15
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Crane Fist posted:So do we need to read the edict for it to work? Because it says we have to take the fortress by the "day of swords" so couldn't the fatebinder just sit on their rear end for nine days until that's gone past and then have a year to do it? Or would the edict go off anyway? I mean presumably Kyros would just remotely trigger the edict to teach us not to be a smartass but it would still be a fun legal getaround You're correct, and Kyros lets us do it. We can gently caress around till past the day of swords and then we have an entire year to do the siege.
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Sep 14, 2020 00:21
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Crane Fist posted:So do we need to read the edict for it to work? Because it says we have to take the fortress by the "day of swords" so couldn't the fatebinder just sit on their rear end for nine days until that's gone past and then have a year to do it? Or would the edict go off anyway? I mean presumably Kyros would just remotely trigger the edict to teach us not to be a smartass but it would still be a fun legal getaround That sounds like a major rules lawyer move. I approve.
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Sep 14, 2020 00:26
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Keldulas posted:That sounds like a major rules lawyer move. I approve. this is probably Tunon's stance on the matter, word for word.
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Sep 14, 2020 00:33
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Radio Free Kobold posted:i would definitely be missing out on a lot of this stuff if not for you pointing it out. greatly appreciated. Seconding this. I've beaten Tyranny once, but this is filling in a lot of details I've forgotten.
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Sep 14, 2020 00:49
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:You're correct, and Kyros lets us do it. We can gently caress around till past the day of swords and then we have an entire year to do the siege. from memory it's really not hard to get it done by the 'proper' date, but this is definitely the funniest way
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Sep 14, 2020 00:57
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:You're correct, and Kyros lets us do it. We can gently caress around till past the day of swords and then we have an entire year to do the siege. That's good as hell. Are there any major gameplay differences?
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Sep 14, 2020 01:09
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sebmojo posted:from memory it's really not hard to get it done by the 'proper' date, but this is definitely the funniest way Even if you gently caress around nonstop and do everything available, you'll still have like three or four days to spare. To get the achievement for allowing the Day of Swords to arrive I had to travel back and forth on the world map repeatedly to kill a bunch of time. And for anyone who's only reading along and hasn't played the game, you're missing out on some stellar voice acting. Crane Fist posted:That's good as hell. Are there any major gameplay differences? I don't think the game acknowledges it.
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Sep 14, 2020 01:12
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By the way, I don't think I saw it mentioned, but in Tyranny, Favor and Wrath/Fear are kept on separate tracks, similar to Pillars of Eternity. This is something I really like about Obsidian's recent CRPG offerings, as it feels more realistic and better reflects real interpersonal relationships than a binary scale. Also, while a gently caress-up run sounds like fun, I'd kinda like to see a 100% (that is, selecting it whenever it's available) "[remain silent]" run (which, in fairness, would probably lead to a lot of gently caress-ups). Wicked Them Beats posted:And for anyone who's only reading along and hasn't played the game, you're missing out on some stellar voice acting. No joke, this game's got possibly the best voice acting in any CRPG I've ever played, and I'd say a lot of that comes from the game itself remaining compact, so that they had the time/resources to do enough takes to get it exactly right, and also hire DC Douglas. Like, if you look at PoE: Deadfire, a much larger game also made in the wake of Pillars of Eternity's success, the main cast does alright, but then you have an NPC who pronounces "bandolier" as "ban-DO-lee-er" and apparently nobody asked him to take a second pass at the line.
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Sep 14, 2020 01:25
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EclecticTastes posted:No joke, this game's got possibly the best voice acting in any CRPG I've ever played, and I'd say a lot of that comes from the game itself remaining compact, so that they had the time/resources to do enough takes to get it exactly right, and also hire DC Douglas. Like, if you look at PoE: Deadfire, a much larger game also made in the wake of Pillars of Eternity's success, the main cast does alright, but then you have an NPC who pronounces "bandolier" as "ban-DO-lee-er" and apparently nobody asked him to take a second pass at the line. IIRC Pillars 2 had full voice acting added in pretty late. They were going to do it like Tyranny, Pillars 1, Baldur's Gate, etc. with limited voicework, and then Original Sin 2 came out with full VO and they were like "welp, guess this is the standard now."
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Sep 14, 2020 02:31
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I increasingly get the impression that Kyros has had enough of these two and sent them to the Tiers specifically to give them an opportunity to gently caress up hard enough to die / get executed.
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Sep 14, 2020 03:43
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The Lone Badger posted:I increasingly get the impression that Kyros has had enough of these two and sent them to the Tiers specifically to give them an opportunity to gently caress up hard enough to die / get executed. Three if you include Cairn, who did outright rebel. So yeah, my instinct is that Kyros at the absolute minimum sent everyone they did to the Tiers because they wouldn't be missed if and when they failed.
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Sep 14, 2020 03:46
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The Tiers are an absolute backwater. Kyros has a lot of archons and they only sent two of the ones with armies and the one who always has to go along to do the boring stuff.
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Sep 14, 2020 03:51
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Wicked Them Beats posted:IIRC Pillars 2 had full voice acting added in pretty late. They were going to do it like Tyranny, Pillars 1, Baldur's Gate, etc. with limited voicework, and then Original Sin 2 came out with full VO and they were like "welp, guess this is the standard now." I know it's not gonna win me any friends, but I feel like copying the Divinity series in any capacity isn't the best idea. I'm the easiest mark on the planet for isometric CRPGs, but the first Original Sin turned me off within the first couple hours, and from what I know of the sequel, it wouldn't have made me any more interested (the entire idea of giving the pregenerated characters nobody cares about so much story content smacks of writers who have gotten high on their own supply, which I say as a fellow writer). The controls were janky as hell (largely because Larian clearly expected people to commit the heinous crime of playing a CRPG with a gamepad), the mechanics themselves were obtuse, and the writing was clearly trying to blend serious fantasy with some "humor" but it was hitting all the wrong notes. Which is a shame, because it had all the ingredients I normally like in a CRPG. It reminds me of when Brian David Gilbert tried to make an egg pudding and instead made sweet scrambled eggs (link). If they'd put the ingredients together in a totally different way, I'd have enjoyed it much more. Then again, I conversely really enjoyed Tides of Numenera and, respectfully, think the LP of it is a complete misreading (like, it's got problems, but I interpreted so much of the writing completely differently), so while I don't want that to turn into a big derail, one can take it as an indicator of where I'm coming from in terms of stuff that appeals to me, and can feel free to dismiss my opinions as those of a weirdo. 
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Sep 14, 2020 04:04
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Ha, Nerat is totally Soulcatcher from the Black Company with fancier vfx.
Sindai fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Sep 14, 2020 |
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Sep 14, 2020 04:43
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Absolutely agree on Divinity: Original Sin. Felt like the story was written by that guy in a ttrpg that always has to do the wackiest thing possible. But I also only got to the first hub before getting sick of it.
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Sep 14, 2020 04:57
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The writing on Divinity Original Sin is pretty atrocious. The villains have no pathos, which can work, but they keep trying to write them seriously. But they're just kitten eaters and puppy kickers. The good part of Divinity is the combat system, but it doesn't have the difficulty to challenge a remotely optimized build.
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Sep 14, 2020 05:03
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It definitely rakes multiple run-throughs to get everything, but these two do have a lot of legit grudges against each other. Ashe isn't so much a turbo racist as he is a die-hard nationalist.
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Sep 14, 2020 05:03
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Sindai posted:Ha, Nerat is totally Soulcatcher from the Black Company with fancier vfx. I was going to say. This is... basically the Black Company game, but you're the one (technically) giving the Taken orders. I'm curious to see how it ends up, but if nothing else it's the kind of cool idea that never actually gets made, so props for that.
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Sep 14, 2020 05:20
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Deadmeat5150 posted:Ashe isn't so much a turbo racist as he is a die-hard nationalist. I think one of Tyranny's strongest points is how it shows how little daylight exists between these two concepts (next to none), and how they ultimately go hand-in-hand even in the rare case the distinction is meaningful. It's not really important whether Graven Ashe is a bigoted, xenophobic jerk because of how much he loves his own people rather than how much he hates everyone else, in either case he still treats nearly everyone not from The North like they're savages in need of civilizing at best and vermin in need of extermination at worst. Honestly, I have marginally more respect for the Voices of Nerat. At least he's honest about being a power-hungry egomaniac. Despite all his theatrics, he never really makes any attempt to hide that he's openly, flagrantly evil and only cares about things that directly benefit and/or entertain him. I hate both of them (in a good way, like, the way any good fictional villain is hated), but Nerat gets points for being forthright rather than trying to claim some kind of moral high ground to justify his actions. Ashe is just a hypocrite who, even worse, believes his own bullshit. That's why I always play Anarchist. That and it's the only route that lets you do all four main quests in one playthrough.
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Sep 14, 2020 05:43
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Just keep in mind that these are two armies of complete psychos led by even bigger psychos with city-leveling power.
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Sep 14, 2020 06:02
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I would struggle not to mash [Glare silently.] at every opportunity.
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Sep 14, 2020 06:09
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megane posted:I would struggle not to mash [Glare silently.] at every opportunity. The game's wiki even has a joke page related to this (beware of spoilers, natch): here. That's why I want to see what happens if you hit that button literally every time it appears the whole game.
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Sep 14, 2020 06:16
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Cythereal posted:Three if you include Cairn, who did outright rebel. And it sorta makes a good bit of sense. The Tiers are the last bit of unconquered land, and I imagine Kyros didn't want any of these Archons to muck about once everything is completely under his banner. Ashe is blatantly hiding things from Tunon and Nerat would probably try to eat Kyros the second he thought he had a chance.
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Sep 14, 2020 06:56
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the best part about this segment is that Nerat is such a comedically evil piece of poo poo you find yourself wanting to side with Ashe, because at least you can buy some of his evil is coming from misguided noble impulse. Nerat's just a prick
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Sep 14, 2020 07:17
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Absolutely agree on Divinity: Original Sin. Felt like the story was written by that guy in a ttrpg that always has to do the wackiest thing possible. But I also only got to the first hub before getting sick of it. I never played the first game, but the second one is great. There's no real humanising the villains, the shades of grey morality is totally half-assed, its just like HEY I'M A BAD GUY, AND I LOVE HANGING OUT WITH MY COLLECTION OF POISON BARRELS AND TORCHES AND STEAM
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Sep 14, 2020 07:47
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Sum Gai posted:I was going to say. This is... basically the Black Company game, but you're the one (technically) giving the Taken orders. I'm curious to see how it ends up, but if nothing else it's the kind of cool idea that never actually gets made, so props for that. Straight up - the Dominator won, we're basically the voice of Lady, and these are the original fuckup Taken doing Taken things. If anyone hasn't yet read the Black Company books, they're loving amazing and you're missing out on probably the best military fantasy out there.
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Sep 14, 2020 07:55
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Welcome to effective leadership, evil-dictator-style! It is a work of beauty I admire, how the entire structure of Kyros' force here is set up for maximum dysfunctionality. Everyone in the chain of command is an egotist sociopath, who is also unable to effectively communicate with those with whom they are meant to collaborate, and Kyros' solution is to lock everybody in (but, crucially, some fundamental regiments out) and threaten them with collective death to get them to cooperate. The threat to continue the beatings until morale improves doesn't do much, as the main issue of incommunicability, distrust, and decades old grudges among the leadership are specifically not solved by Kyros' shall we say, peculiar approach. In all of this, the PC has to step in, and find a workable solution to save their own skin. I love all the tension here. Everyone hates each other, is only collaborating reluctantly and is trying to trip each other up every step of the way, while being also constantly sabotaged by their severe and impairing personal flaws.
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Sep 14, 2020 09:01
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Cythereal posted:Three if you include Cairn, who did outright rebel. Important thing of note is that the PC is also sent in, and we got handed this mission when it was very clear poo poo had hit the fan. I don't know if the game will address it, but I'm really curious about our relationship with our employer and what on earth we did to earn our suicide mission. And for that matter was it kyros or Tunon we pissed off enough to land the job.
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Sep 14, 2020 10:01
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:the best part about this segment is that Nerat is such a comedically evil piece of poo poo you find yourself wanting to side with Ashe, because at least you can buy some of his evil is coming from misguided noble impulse. Nerat's just a prick See, I had precisely the opposite reaction. Graven Ashe is a self-righteous hypocrite who tries to paper over his atrocities with flimsy excuses rather than own up to the fact that he's the mailed fist of an objectively evil regime, whereas Nerat accepts what he is and revels in it rather than make up justifications for why he commits his atrocities. At least when you embrace being the bad guy, it's a coherent, self-consistent moral framework, rather than a toxic pattern of self-delusion. With a clear moral framework, even one bent entirely towards being an rear end in a top hat, one can figure out where the line is (in Nerat's specific case, that line is basically all the way at the far end of the scale, but that's beside the point), whereas when an evil person has deluded themselves into thinking they're the good guy, they'll find a way to justify anything.
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Sep 14, 2020 10:52
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