Deadfire vs Tyranny

[Skazz]

When the Scarlet Chorus takes a village, they do 'the culling'. Every able-bodied man, woman, and child is given a weapon and told to murder their family or be murdered by the Chorus. Those who survive, join the Chorus.

 

That's not entirely true, and there's a whole early game sidequest addressing this exact issue. There's a law (whose name eludes me right now) enforced severely by Nerat that protects children under certain age from being inducted into the Chorus on pain of death. You can even use this law yourself to give a better to life to a guy who should objectively be too young to serve, but slipped through because his gang boss is a moron.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Skazz

[Katarack21]

 

When the Scarlet Chorus takes a village, they do 'the culling'. Every able-bodied man, woman, and child is given a weapon and told to murder their family or be murdered by the Chorus. Those who survive, join the Chorus.

 

That's not entirely true, and there's a whole early game sidequest addressing this exact issue. There's a law (whose name eludes me right now) enforced severely by Nerat that protects children under certain age from being inducted into the Chorus on pain of death. You can even use this law yourself to give a better to life to a guy who should objectively be too young to serve, but slipped through because his gang boss is a moron.

 

 

You mean Vittles? All that quest states is that the law in question requires him to be protected by his gang-boss until he's of age to serve as a full chorus member, as far as I remember. I don't think it actually states that he can't join the Chorus, just what his position in the Chorus is as a child.

 

I could be wrong, though.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Katarack21

[Skazz]

Oh... that makes more sense. I guess I'm misremembering stuff then.

[Katarack21]

 

To some degree, but looting from civilians, random murder of civilians, and *especially* rape of anybody--civilian or military--are all considered war crimes by international law.

 

 

 

i just think it's a tad... tilted to judge the evil/good of a military or a military doctrine using modern measurements when these actions take place in an iron age world. things change, values change. etc.

 

I can see where you're coming from, but the Scarlet Chorus was written with these things with the *intention* that they'd be judged as evil. The Disfavored and the Scarlet Chorus are designed to be the two faces of evil; cold, calculating, pragmatic evil vs wild, chaotic, uninhibited evil. Both also have good sides to them; the Disfavored are disciplined, honorable, and respect the law while the Scarlet Chorus is egalitarian, values freedom, and considers individual achievement to be the best measure of leadership.

 

The choice your supposed to have is "What values are more important to me? What moral compromises will I make for those values?"

[Yria]

You mean Vittles? All that quest states is that the law in question requires him to be protected by his gang-boss until he's of age to serve as a full chorus member, as far as I remember. I don't think it actually states that he can't join the Chorus, just what his position in the Chorus is as a child.

 

There is a codex entry regarding the matter in the guidebook:

 

 

 

 

[gkathellar]

 

 

To some degree, but looting from civilians, random murder of civilians, and *especially* rape of anybody--civilian or military--are all considered war crimes by international law.

 

 

 

i just think it's a tad... tilted to judge the evil/good of a military or a military doctrine using modern measurements when these actions take place in an iron age world. things change, values change. etc.

 

I can see where you're coming from, but the Scarlet Chorus was written with these things with the *intention* that they'd be judged as evil. The Disfavored and the Scarlet Chorus are designed to be the two faces of evil; cold, calculating, pragmatic evil vs wild, chaotic, uninhibited evil. Both also have good sides to them; the Disfavored are disciplined, honorable, and respect the law while the Scarlet Chorus is egalitarian, values freedom, and considers individual achievement to be the best measure of leadership.

 

The choice your supposed to have is "What values are more important to me? What moral compromises will I make for those values?"

 

Right, fwiw Tyranny expects you to judge all of these people by modern day standards, and it's not unreasonable that it does when it wants to be a game about playing a bad guy as defined by modern day standards. In general I find the premise that we should judge characters in fantasy games by historical standards to be ... questionable, since (a) the fantasy games are not actually in those historical periods, and (b) people's knowledge of those historical periods and their values tends to be vague or entirely false.

 

On that note, it's also worth noting that there have been many times and places before the present day where that kind of warfare would be seen in the same way it is today: an abomination. The standards aren't modern in that they're unique to the modern period, they're modern in that we happen to have them during the modern period. The most unusual thing about modern laws of war is that they're generally regarded as universal across the vast field of humanity, while many earlier societies saw disparate treatment of ingroup and outgroup peoples as a norm, or even codified it in law (see also: the Thirty Years War, the Crusades). But the Geneva Convention did not invent the idea of war having rules, nor is the 20th century the first time we've seen such rules obeyed.

Edited June 3, 2018 by gkathellar

[Boeroer]

@Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell: may I politely ask you to not use white text? I know you mean well and it's cool when I read your posts on the PC, but I'm using the forums a lot on my mobile because I travel a lot - and there the background is actually... white. Hehe.

[Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell]

@Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell: may I politely ask you to not use white text? I know you mean well and it's cool when I read your posts on the PC, but I'm using the forums a lot on my mobile because I travel a lot - and there the background is actually... white. Hehe.

 

Thanks for letting me know, sure.

[Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell]

 

@Mikeymoonshine  First yes I had heard to that they where thinking of stratery game. I agree not what I want either thats as person loves play stratery games.

 

One things for me about tyranny which was great hook at making me want see tyranny 2 was fact we never meet Kyros the over lord. I want meet this Kyros and kick its butt.

 

Oh I wasn't bashing strategy games, I just think it would be a waste to turn a crpg ip into a strategy game. A strategy game spin off in the same world could work but instrad of continuing the series? That just seems wrong to me. Reminds me of Bioware turning all their IPs into shallow sandboxes and multpiplayer focused online affairs. Sandboxes and MP games are not bad but Bioware is ruining what was actually good about their ips in the hopes of making more money.

 

 

Totally agree it would be wrong direction.

 

I want tyranny 2 crpg 

[Horrorscope]

Can't you turn the tables in Tyranny and pretty much go against the bad factions, taking the side of the oppressed? To me that makes if feel like you are the good guy again, but instead of one antagonist, you have two, double duty good guy. The reason I turned on them both is one side is taking over the world but it is splintered perfectly down the center with two factions that despise one another, so when the world is conquered you still have two opposing sides and inevitable civil war. I found that profoundly stupid and no peace there, so... a total purge of the aggressor was in order, since their plan was no better then the world prior.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Horrorscope

[Casper]

 

 

Right, fwiw Tyranny expects you to judge all of these people by modern day standards, and it's not unreasonable that it does when it wants to be a game about playing a bad guy as defined by modern day standards. In general I find the premise that we should judge characters in fantasy games by historical standards to be ... questionable, since (a) the fantasy games are not actually in those historical periods, and (b) people's knowledge of those historical periods and their values tends to be vague or entirely false.

 

On that note, it's also worth noting that there have been many times and places before the present day where that kind of warfare would be seen in the same way it is today: an abomination. The standards aren't modern in that they're unique to the modern period, they're modern in that we happen to have them during the modern period. The most unusual thing about modern laws of war is that they're generally regarded as universal across the vast field of humanity, while many earlier societies saw disparate treatment of ingroup and outgroup peoples as a norm, or even codified it in law (see also: the Thirty Years War, the Crusades). But the Geneva Convention did not invent the idea of war having rules, nor is the 20th century the first time we've seen such rules obeyed.

 

i guess i can't argue with that assessment... don't know though. something seems off, but i can't put my finger on it. well, whatever. 

 

---edit

i guess i should make it clear that i was referring to the fact that tyranny was designed to be viewed from a modern perspective, and objectively the main factions the player interacts with from the beginning are supposed to be seen as evil. so that basically renders farther debate rather pointless. *sigh* and here i was hoping for a lively discussion... why does logic have to ruin everything?

Edited June 3, 2018 by Casper

[DaKatarn]

 

 

To some degree, but looting from civilians, random murder of civilians, and *especially* rape of anybody--civilian or military--are all considered war crimes by international law.

 

 

 

i just think it's a tad... tilted to judge the evil/good of a military or a military doctrine using modern measurements when these actions take place in an iron age world. things change, values change. etc.

 

I can see where you're coming from, but the Scarlet Chorus was written with these things with the *intention* that they'd be judged as evil. The Disfavored and the Scarlet Chorus are designed to be the two faces of evil; cold, calculating, pragmatic evil vs wild, chaotic, uninhibited evil. Both also have good sides to them; the Disfavored are disciplined, honorable, and respect the law while the Scarlet Chorus is egalitarian, values freedom, and considers individual achievement to be the best measure of leadership.

 

The choice your supposed to have is "What values are more important to me? What moral compromises will I make for those values?"

 

 

I'm agree with that, Disfavored is Loyal Evil and Scarlet Chorus is Chaotic Evil.

 

In a way Disfavored is fascism and Scarlet Chorus is bolchevism-leninism.

 

However you're wrong about Waffen-SS, non-german Division are real division like the Viking Division (Scandinavians), Wallonie Division (Belgium) and Charlemagne Division (French).

Edited June 3, 2018 by DaKatarn

[Starwars]

Tyranny is a weird game to me. I mean, I enjoy it but there are things that don't "fit" with me.

 

1) The combat system is a huge snore and maybe the biggest reason why I don't like the game more than I do.

 

2) The decision to have a companion system feels a bit like a mismatch to me somehow. To me, the whole Fatebinder thing would've fit better if it was more of a Fallout 1 thing, where the player character is really the star of it and any companions coming along are more on the light side. That or they should have enforced the consequences of your actions more. It's been pointed but it's just weird as hell to have Barik along if you go the rebel path, or Eb if you go against the rebels. And you can talk to them just fine, without any issue, despite the fact that you just went completely against their whole worldview and everything they believe in.

And the whole Fatebinder thing makes it feel... weird at times. Like, the game gives you the opportunity to throw your weight around as Fatebinder (which I love and is one of my favorite things about the game), and you can be this intimidating figure. At the same time, you have this classic companion system where they're all like "buddy buddy" with you. The whole like/dislike system is cool but I don't think it feels like it has enough actual consequence in the game.

 

3) I think the presentation of the Chorus and Disfavoured, and certainly their leaders, was pretty poor. They feel completely like bickering children, completely unable to accomplish anything on their own. I remember reading about Ashe and Nerat before the game was released and thinking that they sounded like really cool characters. All that was shattered the first time you listen to them talking to each other. They literally sound like whiny children. I mean, especially Nerat who sounded like this horrible, twisted figure... and he sounds like a... well a voiceactor doing a really bad british "I'm a slippery evil guy" accent. 

Of course, part of their squabbling is just part of the characterization, and the Fatebinder is there to shape them up so to speak. But they go to far into "pathetic and annoying" territory. 

 

4) Even in gameplay, the game is full of you leading the charge and your allies coming up behind you and saying "good work Fatebinder, we'll uuh, stay here and watch the rear, you go on ahead and do all the work!" As cool as it is being Fatebinder, you're still reduced to running errands left and right.

 

5) The writing is pretty good most of the time but it balances along the "grimdark" edge and sometimes it falls pretty heavily on the wrong side of it. And for me, a lot of the conversations feel far too... contemporary to sell the setting. I mean, it doesn't need to be "thou speak" but I think it goes too far into a modern way of talking at times and it feels weird, stylistically speaking.

 

6) Stuff like the Oldwalls section just feels shoehorned in because they were afraid of excluding classic dungeon areas or something. They feel completely uninspired and uninteresting to me.

 

At the same time, there are a lot of things I do enjoy about the game. The world and lore is great, I loved that Kyros is just this entity looming over everything. The mystery of it is great I think, and it was fascinating to hear Sirin talk about her experiences with him/her, but I'm glad that nothing truly specific was revealed.

Exploring a RPG from the "evil" lens is great, giving the player a role of importance from the start as a Fatebinder is great, obviously the replayability is fantastic and you can betray people left and right... but yeah, for all the people I greatly enjoy about Tyranny, there is also quite a lot of things that keep it from becoming what I would call a great game.

 

It's a cool game and worth playing, but it is also quite a frustrating experience if you ask me.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Starwars

[Casper]

Tyranny is a weird game to me. I mean, I enjoy it but there are things that don't "fit" with me.

 

1) The combat system is a huge snore and maybe the biggest reason why I don't like the game more than I do.

could you elaborate? i found the combat system enjoyable, till about my first character's 4th NG+ playthrough when even the lightest armored enemies had ridiculous amounts of armor protection. 

 

2) The decision to have a companion system feels a bit like a mismatch to me somehow. To me, the whole Fatebinder thing would've fit better if it was more of a Fallout 1 thing, where the player character is really the star of it and any companions coming along are more on the light side. That or they should have enforced the consequences of your actions more. It's been pointed but it's just weird as hell to have Barik along if you go the rebel path, or Eb if you go against the rebels. And you can talk to them just fine, without any issue, despite the fact that you just went completely against their whole worldview and everything they believe in.

And the whole Fatebinder thing makes it feel... weird at times. Like, the game gives you the opportunity to throw your weight around as Fatebinder (which I love and is one of my favorite things about the game), and you can be this intimidating figure. At the same time, you have this classic companion system where they're all like "buddy buddy" with you. The whole like/dislike system is cool but I don't think it feels like it has enough actual consequence in the game.

barik and the rebel path i grant you, that would be a bit jarring. the rest of it? i don't see it. eb for instance. in my opinion that final fight you had with her near the beginning (the final stage of the beginning, oh, whatever) of the game broke her, she has seen that fighting against the tide is hopeless (as this is what the 3rd time resistance proved to be futile to her), and she is more concerned with survival, unless you're a fairly/somewhat decent fatebinder, then i get the idea she actually likes you and is actually loyal, instead of simply afraid of you (though i've never been a strictly evil for the sake of evil type of player, especially in tyranny).

 

3) I think the presentation of the Chorus and Disfavoured, and certainly their leaders, was pretty poor. They feel completely like bickering children, completely unable to accomplish anything on their own. I remember reading about Ashe and Nerat before the game was released and thinking that they sounded like really cool characters. All that was shattered the first time you listen to them talking to each other. They literally sound like whiny children. I mean, especially Nerat who sounded like this horrible, twisted figure... and he sounds like a... well a voiceactor doing a really bad british "I'm a slippery evil guy" accent. 

Of course, part of their squabbling is just part of the characterization, and the Fatebinder is there to shape them up so to speak. But they go to far into "pathetic and annoying" territory.

well, this was to be the end of their campaign of conquest. for that entire section of the of the pregame setup they were sabotaging each other and trying to gain the upperhand, and gain the prestige of seizing final victory. by the point post invasion and conquest when we actually get involved with their little spat they've already been provoking each other for weeks, or even months. i have no trouble seeing the characters devolving a bit into somewhat childish snickering. (also they were bitter enemies for what centuries before that?)

 

4) Even in gameplay, the game is full of you leading the charge and your allies coming up behind you and saying "good work Fatebinder, we'll uuh, stay here and watch the rear, you go on ahead and do all the work!" As cool as it is being Fatebinder, you're still reduced to running errands left and right.

well, would you have preferred to hold the line wihth your party against endless spawns of marauding whelps while your allies went in to finish off the next leg of the mission, and likely fail, leaving you to deal with hordes of whelps biting at your heals as you're trying to finish a boss battle (actually that does sound like fun)? i kind of feel like you might just be looking for excuses to nitpick here, perhaps?

 

5) The writing is pretty good most of the time but it balances along the "grimdark" edge and sometimes it falls pretty heavily on the wrong side of it. And for me, a lot of the conversations feel far too... contemporary to sell the setting. I mean, it doesn't need to be "thou speak" but I think it goes too far into a modern way of talking at times and it feels weird, stylistically speaking.

in regards to the language... couldn't disagree with you more here. this isn't old england, nor is it earth (at least that we know of), it's quite likely that they are talking an some ancient, alien, and unintelligible dialect but to make things easy on us they have "auto translated" the dialogue so we could understand it. well, whatever. we choose to disagree i guess.

 

6) Stuff like the Oldwalls section just feels shoehorned in because they were afraid of excluding classic dungeon areas or something. They feel completely uninspired and uninteresting to me.

in my opinion most/all of the oldwalls sections were integral to the entire plot... how are they shoehorned in? 

 

At the same time, there are a lot of things I do enjoy about the game. The world and lore is great, I loved that Kyros is just this entity looming over everything. The mystery of it is great I think, and it was fascinating to hear Sirin talk about her experiences with him/her, but I'm glad that nothing truly specific was revealed.

Exploring a RPG from the "evil" lens is great, giving the player a role of importance from the start as a Fatebinder is great, obviously the replayability is fantastic and you can betray people left and right... but yeah, for all the people I greatly enjoy about Tyranny, there is also quite a lot of things that keep it from becoming what I would call a great game.

 

It's a cool game and worth playing, but it is also quite a frustrating experience if you ask me.

i honestly disagree with just about every point you made, but like i said earlier... variety, life, spices... add heat, sizzle and stirfry.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Casper

[Katarack21]

 

 

 Then there is that other group, that while being a little dumb, are also fairly good guys.

When the Scarlet Chorus takes a village, they do 'the culling'. Every able-bodied man, woman, and child is given a weapon and told to murder their family or be murdered by the Chorus. Those who survive, join the Chorus.

 

The Chorus is known to loot, murder, and rape anybody they feel like during the conquering stage prior to the culling. Kyro's Peace doesn't cover people who aren't part of the Empire, so there are *no* rules limiting what they can do to the people their conquering--and you find out this is a thing that happens very early on, if you have the Scarlet Chorus take Lethians Crossing and you get the line "The Scarlet Chorus flooded Lethian's Crossing with overeager and undisciplined recruits. In the first few days of occupation, settlers suffered under rampant theft, murder, rape, and arson."

 

I don't know how you could think the Scarlet Chorus are "fairly good guys". It's literally a horde of murderous, rapist thugs handed weapons and shoved at Kyros's enemies.

 

and their leader..didn't he steal soul or something too ?

 

And think the other 'blue' were bad as well...just don't recall what it was . 

 

Voices of Nerat did in fact steal "souls", or minds or personalities or however you think  of it, through a long process of flaying people alive. He even did this to Graven Ashes *son* just prior to the events of the game.

 

The other side, the Disfavored, are genocidal racists.

 

They're both *really* ****ed up. One of the disturbingly well-done aspects of the game is how very easy it can be to identify with either one of these groups, and even come to like or admire them, even *knowing* how terribly, horribly evil they really are. I personally found Tyranny to be a very nuanced experience of trying to be a good person and making good choices in a world that is ran and administered entirely by bone-chilling evil; every decision you make ends up as some sort of moral compromise, and there's really no way to progress through the game with a "clean" moral slate.

[E.RedMark]

 

 

 

 Then there is that other group, that while being a little dumb, are also fairly good guys.

When the Scarlet Chorus takes a village, they do 'the culling'. Every able-bodied man, woman, and child is given a weapon and told to murder their family or be murdered by the Chorus. Those who survive, join the Chorus.

 

The Chorus is known to loot, murder, and rape anybody they feel like during the conquering stage prior to the culling. Kyro's Peace doesn't cover people who aren't part of the Empire, so there are *no* rules limiting what they can do to the people their conquering--and you find out this is a thing that happens very early on, if you have the Scarlet Chorus take Lethians Crossing and you get the line "The Scarlet Chorus flooded Lethian's Crossing with overeager and undisciplined recruits. In the first few days of occupation, settlers suffered under rampant theft, murder, rape, and arson."

 

I don't know how you could think the Scarlet Chorus are "fairly good guys". It's literally a horde of murderous, rapist thugs handed weapons and shoved at Kyros's enemies.

 

and their leader..didn't he steal soul or something too ?

 

And think the other 'blue' were bad as well...just don't recall what it was . 

 

Voices of Nerat did in fact steal "souls", or minds or personalities or however you think  of it, through a long process of flaying people alive. He even did this to Graven Ashes *son* just prior to the events of the game.

 

The other side, the Disfavored, are genocidal racists.

 

They're both *really* ****ed up. One of the disturbingly well-done aspects of the game is how very easy it can be to identify with either one of these groups, and even come to like or admire them, even *knowing* how terribly, horribly evil they really are. I personally found Tyranny to be a very nuanced experience of trying to be a good person and making good choices in a world that is ran and administered entirely by bone-chilling evil; every decision you make ends up as some sort of moral compromise, and there's really no way to progress through the game with a "clean" moral slate.

 

yeah I know..

 

Got to read some bickering about who was the best to side with  hilarious reading! 

 

I usually go with the rebel and kill everyone else . The only one I had alot of hard time with (as making me doubt)...was..uh...Talon? that Judge guy ?

 

But while they were screwed up evil...gotta say , they did paint them well though . I mean that Nerate was close to Sith Lord of twisted voices like creepy....

 

I kinda enjoy in a game seeing 'new' (Sort of , if you live under a rock like meh) sort of vilain and those 2 were new to me . Not something like something else from some other game or book , y'know . 

[Katarack21]

 

 

 

 

 Then there is that other group, that while being a little dumb, are also fairly good guys.

When the Scarlet Chorus takes a village, they do 'the culling'. Every able-bodied man, woman, and child is given a weapon and told to murder their family or be murdered by the Chorus. Those who survive, join the Chorus.

 

The Chorus is known to loot, murder, and rape anybody they feel like during the conquering stage prior to the culling. Kyro's Peace doesn't cover people who aren't part of the Empire, so there are *no* rules limiting what they can do to the people their conquering--and you find out this is a thing that happens very early on, if you have the Scarlet Chorus take Lethians Crossing and you get the line "The Scarlet Chorus flooded Lethian's Crossing with overeager and undisciplined recruits. In the first few days of occupation, settlers suffered under rampant theft, murder, rape, and arson."

 

I don't know how you could think the Scarlet Chorus are "fairly good guys". It's literally a horde of murderous, rapist thugs handed weapons and shoved at Kyros's enemies.

 

and their leader..didn't he steal soul or something too ?

 

And think the other 'blue' were bad as well...just don't recall what it was . 

 

Voices of Nerat did in fact steal "souls", or minds or personalities or however you think  of it, through a long process of flaying people alive. He even did this to Graven Ashes *son* just prior to the events of the game.

 

The other side, the Disfavored, are genocidal racists.

 

They're both *really* ****ed up. One of the disturbingly well-done aspects of the game is how very easy it can be to identify with either one of these groups, and even come to like or admire them, even *knowing* how terribly, horribly evil they really are. I personally found Tyranny to be a very nuanced experience of trying to be a good person and making good choices in a world that is ran and administered entirely by bone-chilling evil; every decision you make ends up as some sort of moral compromise, and there's really no way to progress through the game with a "clean" moral slate.

 

yeah I know..

 

Got to read some bickering about who was the best to side with  hilarious reading! 

 

I usually go with the rebel and kill everyone else . The only one I had alot of hard time with (as making me doubt)...was..uh...Talon? that Judge guy ?

 

But while they were screwed up evil...gotta say , they did paint them well though . I mean that Nerate was close to Sith Lord of twisted voices like creepy....

 

I kinda enjoy in a game seeing 'new' (Sort of , if you live under a rock like meh) sort of vilain and those 2 were new to me . Not something like something else from some other game or book , y'know . 

 

Agreed. I particularly enjoy Graven Ashe; he's a major antagonist and possibly villain whose powers and fall to darkness both center around his empathy and compassion for his followers. It's something unique and fascinating to think about, how such traits generally thought of as "good" can be twisted to serve evil.

[Karkarov]

 The other side, the Disfavored, are genocidal racists.

Not sure I concur.  There is a lot of "talk" in game where they discuss their attitudes about the superiority of northmen.... but I am not a northman and they are taking my orders just fine.  Barik talks about crazy genocidal things..... but never seems particularly inclined to actually commit any during the game.  I understand it is in the lore, but unlike the Chorus, the Disfavored don't really show a ton of evidence in game that they are really that bad.  Just talk and "back in blah blah 20 years ago....".

[Katarack21]

Well, murdering the baby in the Stalwart questline is the Disfavored option, isn't it? And there's one point during the Conquest where the Disfavored option is to ambush and slaughter the entirety of a peace envoy. But in general I think you're right; they don't get as much opportunity to show it off as the Chorus does.

[Yria]

I understand it is in the lore, but unlike the Chorus, the Disfavored don't really show a ton of evidence in game that they are really that bad.  Just talk and "back in blah blah 20 years ago....".

 

They doom an entire region to be forever plagued by the Edict of Stone (not sure if I recall the name correctly, but I'm talking about the one tied to Cairn's body) just to deny the Chorus an advantage. Sounds pretty bad to me. The only comparable thing the Chorus does is keeping the Edict of Storms on Stalwart in a similar fashion. But unlike Azure that stil has a chance to thrive, Stalwart is mostly ruined and uninhabited at this point anyway.

 

To make it worse, you can't even disagree with the geomancers' plan and quit. The game gives you half a dozen ridiculous ways to betray your alliance with the Disfavored, like killing a random soldier because lol why not, but when it really matters you're railroaded into helping them commit atrocities.

[Palas]

Considering Tyranny was a game about Team Evil winning, i was not nearly as conflicted over the choices i had to make in that game versus the ones in Deadfire.  I'm still going though my first game, but i still have major decisions pending because my character is very uncomfortable with them all. Is it just me?

Well i think Osidian make a great job! I feel similar. Especially among the factionquest it's sometime hard to decide. I like it grey and realitic. It's politics. So you can't stay forever the good guy, because it would harm your people if u play fair and the others do not. I understand that for some gamers this to close to RL (aren't we playing, to free reality - well at least this may be one reason ^^), but i like it. The moral dilemma. I. e. the pirates: i like Furrante and his way of honorable thiefes more as Alys and her "hey we are pirates and could do whatever we want to". But Furrante gives u a task i can't do.

 

And Tyranny: i don't think u can compare the games. In Tyranny you know from the beginning, that you are minion of the tyrannic Overlord. But even you follow the rebels (what may be the "good" way in tyranny) u must do some hard decisions, wich are not the shiny hero like.

 

And the game design differ much. Tyranny focus mainlay on its mainquest, with little and short sidequests, Deadfire is the opposite.

 

I like both games, but i think Tyranny wins for me, because i like the focus on mainstory. And the motivation for replay is much higher, i make 5 playthroughs ^^

[mrmonocle]

tyranny while being linear is just better

 

1. There are some actually innovative systems in tyranny (spell casting) unlike deadfire with it's ship combat.

 

2. The character cast is not even comparable. Tunon, graven ashe, vioces of nerat, Siryn and bleden mark were awesome, as well as all the companions with the exception of Harambe. Deadfire is dwarfed by this cast of greatness.

 

3. Deadfire beats tyranny only in the opportunity to play it IWD style with multiclassing being a great party building/customization tool. And even that is debatable.

 

4. Tyranny's setting is more engulfing.

 

Why even compare the two? I'm pretty convinced that Tyranny's budget doesn't even come close to Deadfire and it still manages to stand tall near it's competitors and actually won a place in my heart.

Edited June 4, 2018 by mrmonocle

[Casper]

tyranny while being linear is just better

 

1. There are some actually innovative systems in tyranny (spell casting) unlike deadfire with it's ship combat.

 

2. The character cast is not even comparable. Tunon, graven ashe, vioces of nerat, Siryn and bleden mark were awesome, as well as all the companions with the exception of Harambe. Deadfire is dwarfed by this cast of greatness.

 

3. Deadfire beats tyranny only in the opportunity to play it IWD style with multiclassing being a great party building/customization tool. And even that is debatable.

 

4. Tyranny's setting is more engulfing.

 

Why even compare the two? I'm pretty convinced that Tyranny's budget doesn't even come close to Deadfire and it still manages to stand tall near it's competitors and actually won a place in my heart.

i don't know how many times i've replayed tyranny. i think i've replayed with just my first character at least 4 times, as i think i noted earlier.

 

---edit

though i also had to admit my first character's personality was near perfect, no matter how many times i tried to do something different with her, making alternate decisions just didn't sit right, so i just wound up playing basically the same playthrough 4 or 5 times with only minor changes. lol

 

---edit again many, many typos

Edited June 4, 2018 by Casper

[Katarack21]

My first playthrough I managed to go the "for yourself with no faction" route entirely by accident. I deliberately made entirely different choices on my other playthroughs.

[Yria]

I only played Tyranny twice, first on the Disfavored route (but I snapped in the final act and went for Ashe's head because I grew tired of their nonsense in Azure), then Chorus --> Anarchy route (this time I planned to ditch them all along, though I'll give it to Nerat, unlike Ashe he was at least fun to talk too). That covered all the locations there were in the game, so I didn't see any point in replaying it again. Imo Tyranny is way more railroady than it tries to appear.

 

But now I grabbed the DLC and plan to take a third run, probably siding with the Rebels (though with my track record, there is a good chance I'll eventually flip out and go anarchy again).