Tyranny - Dev Diary #2

Myrthos

Myrthos

Cave Canem
Administrator
Supporter
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
The second development blog for Tyranny talks about, skills, attributes and progression, by Game Director Brian Heines.

One of the first decisions I made when I started designing systems for Tyranny was to make it a skill-based game. These are my favorite RPG systems to play, as they give players a lot of freedom and flexibility to make their own character. A lot of my favorite games – both pen and paper RPGs and computer games – are skill-based, and the first game I ever worked on was a skill-based RPG. Making this change felt a bit like coming home.

Skills in Tyranny are grouped into three broad categories: Weapons, Support, and Magic. Weapon skills determine how accurate your character is when wielding weapons of that type. Support skills determine how good you are at avoiding being hit in combat, as well as how nimble, sneaky, or knowledgeable your character is. Magic skills determine how precisely your character can draw various magical sigils and control the forces they evoke.

Skills increase as you use them, but there must be some challenge involved. You can’t fight characters who are far below your level to gain experience, or climb up and down the same wall over and over.
Click to expand...
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
Hopefully they don't prune the skill set down to a Bonsai tree like they did in PoE. I'd like to have enough differentiation to be able to create very distinctive characters.
 
Joined
Mar 22, 2012
Messages
5,531
Location
Seattle
rjshae said:
Hopefully they don't prune the skill set down to a Bonsai tree like they did in PoE. I'd like to have enough differentiation to be able to create very distinctive characters.
Click to expand...

indeed, though they call Tyranny a "skill-based system" in contrast to PoE. So I hope we'll have a good number of useful skills (I especially hope for about 6 non-combat skills).
 
You can see their skills in this picture:


14779.png


They have less than POE: Subterfuge, Athletics and Lore.
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2014
Messages
3,819
Archangel said:
You can see their skills in this picture:


14779.png


They have less than POE: Subterfuge, Athletics and Lore.
Click to expand...

I have seen the screenshot… but I refused to believe that those are all the skills in the final product. After all, you're supposed to be a mediator of sorts… but those are almost exclusively combat skills. Of course it would fit with Sawyer's professed hate of conversation skills… I don't like the new Obsidian, I'm afraid. :(

edit: also note how she has only one Magic skill, "Control frost". There are probably more skills in the game.
 
I also don't believe that all skills are represented in that screenshot. It's possible that you choose skills when you create a character that you wish to use or it's a something you learn as you go.
 
Joined
Nov 16, 2014
Messages
155
borovnica said:
I also don't believe that all skills are represented in that screenshot. It's possible that you choose skills when you create a character that you wish to use or it's a something you learn as you go.
Click to expand...

I don't think you do. They said you will level up skills as you use them so no reason to not start with all non-combat ones
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2014
Messages
3,819
Archangel said:
I don't think you do. They said you will level up skills as you use them so no reason to not start with all non-combat ones
Click to expand...

We shall see, because it's really strange to have just one skill in Magic category if every skill is available to you from that start :D
 
Joined
Nov 16, 2014
Messages
155
Sacred_Path said:
I have seen the screenshot… but I refused to believe that those are all the skills in the final product. After all, you're supposed to be a mediator of sorts… but those are almost exclusively combat skills. Of course it would fit with Sawyer's professed hate of conversation skills… I don't like the new Obsidian, I'm afraid. :(

edit: also note how she has only one Magic skill, "Control frost". There are probably more skills in the game.
Click to expand...

Seems like they are using any of the skills in conversation, instead of having specific skills just for that. From the blog:

A benefit of this is that it makes even optional combat encounters rewarding for the player. This change could have made conversations less rewarding, as players would need to fight in order to level up their characters. To resolve this, we added functionality to allow players to level up their skills in conversations. Player choices that are gated by skill requirements will add experience to those skills when they are used. Additionally, if you use a skill to intimidate an encounter into fleeing, we grant skill experience to the party equivalent to what you would gain if you fought them.

As for one magical skill, when they announced the game they talked about players making their own spells. Seems like there is no "school" to improve, you improve the individual spells instead.

Saying that, the screen is clearly a placeholder. No game release with thrown weapons, unarmed combat, dodge and parry skills these days.
 
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
7,313
That doesn't tell us much though, I can't imagine many conversations that could check my weapons skills without being silly. But Sawyerism pervades this aspect, because it makes the skill gain easier to balance. And we know how Sawyerism likes/ enforces silly things from PoE.
 
borovnica said:
We shall see, because it's really strange to have just one skill in Magic category if every skill is available to you from that start :D
Click to expand...
I was talking about non combat skills. I doubt all magic skills are going to available to everyone.
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2014
Messages
3,819
Do you think they'd use a different skill for every single spell? I hope not.
 
Archangel said:
I was talking about non combat skills. I doubt all magic skills are going to available to everyone.
Click to expand...

Honest question:
If non combat skills are available to everyone, then why shouldn't magic skills be available to everyone?

What is your reasoning behind this?
 
Joined
Nov 16, 2014
Messages
155
Sacred_Path said:
Do you think they'd use a different skill for every single spell? I hope not.
Click to expand...

Well the one we seen said Control Frost so we can make an educated guess that magic skills are going to affect groups of spells.
borovnica said:
Honest question:
If non combat skills are available to everyone, then why shouldn't magic skills be available to everyone?

What is your reasoning behind this?
Click to expand...
Because normally in RPGs standard skills are usually widely available while magical ones are not. This is also based on PoE engine where non-combat skills are available to everyone while magic only to some.
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2014
Messages
3,819
Archangel said:
Well the one we seen said Control Frost so we can make an educated guess that magic skills are going to affect groups of spells.

Because normally in RPGs standard skills are usually widely available while magical ones are not. This is also based on PoE engine where non-combat skills are available to everyone while magic only to some.
Click to expand...

Yea I get that in most RPG non combat skills are considered "common" skills and are available to everyone, but I thought that they were trying something different here with Tyranny. Guess I read it/figured it as I wanted it to be :D
 
Joined
Nov 16, 2014
Messages
155
borovnica said:
Yea I get that in most RPG non combat skills are considered "common" skills and are available to everyone, but I thought that they were trying something different here with Tyranny. Guess I read it/figured it as I wanted it to be :D
Click to expand...
We will find it out for sure once more info comes out. I would also like more non combat skills.
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2014
Messages
3,819
Archangel said:
Well the one we seen said Control Frost so we can make an educated guess that magic skills are going to affect groups of spells.
Click to expand...

in that case, why shouldn't all magic skills be available to everyone? That makes no sense.
 
It could well be that in place of speech skills, attributes will be checked in conversation, like in Pillars.
As far as the screen goes, it could also be that it is intended to be a companion, and perhaps companions are limited in what skills are available to them. For example, a companion probably won't need speech skills, since your character will do most of the talking.
 
Joined
Jan 29, 2014
Messages
2,719
Location
Vienna, Austria
I would expect subterfuge to be at least in part a conversational skill.

But whatevs, all of that is speculation. It's just that I had a lot of interest in this project but I have trouble trusting Obsidian post-PoE.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom