Tyranny - The Skill System @ PCGamesN

PCGamesN interviewed the game director of Tyranny about the sill system:

Tyranny's game director on its new skill system and creating "different shades of bastard"

Tyranny is a deceptive kind of game. At first glance, it looks like yet another entrant in the "what's old is new again" revival of classic RPGs that seem to be all the rage these days. But the time I spent with it at a preview event this weekend has proven that, underneath that layer of Infinity Engine nostalgia, Tyranny is a very different type of RPG. With a skill system reminiscent of Skyrim and a story that shrugs off the heavy mantle of fantasy tropes, Tyranny feels like a wolf in sheep's clothing.



During the event, I got to preview Tyranny's unique Conquest mode, which introduces you to the world by letting you conquer it. I also sat down with game director Brian Heins to talk about how Tyranny isn't here to pay tribute to an older generation of RPGs and what it means to be good in a kingdom ruled by bad.

[…]

Obviously that's super telling in Tyranny's skill system. Can you run me through how that works?

This is something I wanted to do differently because I love skill-based systems for games, it's my favorite type of game to play. The way it works in Tyranny is you have different weapon, magic, and support skills. As you use those skills you gain experience, the more experience you gain the higher they rank and the more your character levels up. People who've played Oblivion or Skyrim will be familiar with that type of skill system. As you go up in level on your character, you can purchase attribute points that make your character more powerful, learn new talents that give you new abilities, and new passives that make your character more specialized.

So with the old class system so deeply ingrained in this type of RPG, why abandon it in favor of more freeform character progression?

It's my favorite type of RPG system to develop and it's like coming home for me to work on that type of game.

What do you love so much about it?

Class systems are great because you have defined roles that you know—if I'm playing a fighter, I know it's going to play a certain way. But oftentimes I want to make the hybrid, I want to make the fighter-cleric hybrid. I love living in that grey space in between the defined classes which is one of the things that a skill-based system allows you to do. You can create your own character. Whatever concept you have, by just focusing on the right skills, you can really make that character for yourself which allows you to roleplay the character the way you want to.

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More information.

Thank you for the info, Farflame!

wow the chargen is copy-pasted from poe

As is your comment from prior threads. I think we got it.

I have no issue with the PoE-like approach or the skills-based characters. It's other aspects of the game that doesn't appeal. Hopefully they can take this skills approach and apply it to a future title that holds more interest.

I hope it isn't so verbose as pillars of eternity. Obsidian writers probably think they are Nobel worthy judging by all the terrible walls of texts. Yes, I know many were kick starter rewards, but I skipped those.

well, being a bastard (even of a different shade) doesn't appeal to me much.

Originally Posted by ruysan
I hope it isn't so verbose as pillars of eternity. Obsidian writers probably think they are Nobel worthy judging by all the terrible walls of texts. Yes, I know many were kick starter rewards, but I skipped those.

Agreed! I find RPGs much more engaging when the innkeeper simply says "Gronk want kill 10 bushy creature, then give loot!" Rather than explaining the politics of local area, the setting, or why im being asked to terminate the local banditry or wildlife.
Screw setting, atmosphere, reasoning and immersion.. don't make me read.

Originally Posted by Wisdom
Agreed! I find RPGs much more engaging when the innkeeper simply says "Gronk want kill 10 bushy creature, then give loot!" Rather than explaining the politics of local area, the setting, or why im being asked to terminate the local banditry or wildlife.
Screw setting, atmosphere, reasoning and immersion.. don't make me read.

Except you don't need endless walls of text to achieve any of that. Just as there's filler combat overly verbose games suffer from filler dialogue.

Too often you'll have say 6 dialogue choices, 2 will be irrelevant, 3 will eventually lead to the same place and 1 may give you a nugget of different info or not.

Anyway I also prefer less verbose games mainly because when there's several dialogue choice I feel like I need to read them all to avoid missing content but most often I feel like I've wasted my time reading because there's not enough compelling or meaningful dialogue.

"No need read! Kill monster, Gronk give loot!!!"

A) Yes.
B) No.
C) Sarcastic (loop back to A-B).

etc.

Also, which games other than Planescape: Torment actually have "endless walls of text"? No RPG I've played has had that.

And would the Lord of the Rings books be considered endless walls of text today as well?

Originally Posted by ruysan
I hope it isn't so verbose as pillars of eternity. Obsidian writers probably think they are Nobel worthy judging by all the terrible walls of texts. Yes, I know many were kick starter rewards, but I skipped those.

Yup, I agree 1000%.

That is one of my pet peeves with some of these games these days, its as if no one is editing these writers. An editor is so very important. Otherwise, you get long and rambling stuff, and you get overly long books that have enough unnecessary padding to fill out several rubber rooms in some kind of huge state run mental institution.., or you end up with gargantuan books that seem to never end, like the books in the wheel of time series, or some of Stephen King's books…and I think he is a great writer, by the way.

Tolkien was brought up, but the point is these video game writers aren't Tolkien, they just think they are Tolkien....and that every word they write is golden. Anyway, my opinion is some of the video game writing can be pretty good at times, but not Tolkien, not even close. And that a good editor is critically important, and can vastly improve the writing in most of these games.

Originally Posted by Wisdom
Agreed! I find RPGs much more engaging when the innkeeper simply says "Gronk want kill 10 bushy creature, then give loot!" Rather than explaining the politics of local area, the setting, or why im being asked to terminate the local banditry or wildlife.
Screw setting, atmosphere, reasoning and immersion.. don't make me read.

Because in RPGs you can only work on one way or another right?

Not only the writing wasn't good in poe but all the lore exposition didn't make much sense. People were happy to be info dumps to the player instead of just telling him to fuck off.

There are RPGs which have great writing with the conversations flowing naturally , unfortunately those are few. Vampire bloodlines being probably the best example. Jeff Vogel also is quite an underrated writer. He knows that is quality and not quantity that matters.

Originally Posted by Fluent
"No need read! Kill monster, Gronk give loot!!!"

A) Yes.
B) No.
C) Sarcastic (loop back to A-B).

etc.

Also, which games other than Planescape: Torment actually have "endless walls of text"? No RPG I've played has had that.

And would the Lord of the Rings books be considered endless walls of text today as well?

Add to that D) Tell me more

and you got a typical Fo4 quest and dialogue.