The Dark Eye Blackguards - turn-based tactical RPG set in The Dark Eye world

[MrMarbles]

Scooter has released 16 studio albums, making them one of the most diverse bands of all time

Spoiler

 

[Grunker]

Scooter has released 16 studio albums, making them one of the most diverse bands of all time

Spoiler

I actually ripped the music directly out of the game once with disunity. I ought to upload all of that to Youtube.

do it fagget​

 

[Essegi]

Just finished the first playthrough. I liked it. The game has a different feel than most other RPGs I've tried which in itself is a good thing. The highlights were character building, battle backgrounds, the trainer system and finding new ways to use skills. Most talents and spells had uses, although like some people have mentioned direct damage spells are far from optimal, and you end up relying on buffs and debuffs.

Only a few things annoyed me. One was the repetitiveness of battles. A lot of them didn't do anything new, just a new background and the same group of ghouls or whatnot. With turnbased combat (and sluggish animations) just going through the motions takes up a lot of time. It must have been possible to create new variations of battles. How about just throwing a crapload of mages at the party? The highest number in a battle was 3, and those were the most interesting.

Another was the limited soundtrack. Clearly daedalic only had the cash for 4-5 songs. They could have diverted some funds from the art budget without causing too much of a drop in quality. The third, and most important, was

Spoiler

losing characters to plot twists repeatedly. I like to plan ahead and diversify characters. It's incredibly frustrating when your balanced party suddenly sucks balls again because the mage that casts haste disappears. Losing Niam was bad enough, losing Aurelia at the end was just overkill, and a shit way of keeping the story interesting. There's apparently a way to keep her in the party, but that's difficult to know on the first playthrough.

I finished it too, more or less i agree (at least i didn't suffer spoiler part too much). On repetitiveness it's true especially on second part of the game.
For example the last part:

Spoiler

Poison cloud battle was different and interesting, crystal battle different, black ogre with fire battle was different too, of course Urias and Aurelia one. Other just time wasting.

Btw i really enjoyed the game.

 

[Lord Azlan]

Well into Chapter 3. Blackguards has made belts cool again.

Unlike the beginning of the game - you are now mostly free to explore quite a large map in whatever order you want.
Many sub-quests are difficult to follow as they often require you travelling to a number of locations and then a final visit back to the quest giver - where the heck are they? Or were they. The journal is okay but won't always tell you - just a generic fantasy name. Reminds of a bit of the problems I had in the Kings Bounty series. Play with a notebook and write down the quest details is the way forward.

A bit miffed that I seem to have a number of unfinished sub-quests. I wonder whether I should have paid more attention to these from the beginning. I seem to be cut off from the very first area I started in with no way back, so far.
Again, I am finding the design of the battle maps and complexity of your character development the main reason to plough on. Even the storyline is becoming of slight interest.

Example map - poison

So, I thought I could ignore poison damage and related spells. Well - you can in other games right?

In this map there are four rooms. The first is heavily trapped and any wrong move by your party can set off poison and fire damage. I failed terribly many times before pausing for thought. There is a tendency to accrue Action Points for the famed "Triple Shot" or other big ticket skills. Each time where I had found myself stuck in the game, an investment in my party skills had seen me through.

The second room in this encounter is heavily poisoned - it is a sea of green. And the poison lingers. So my plan of running my most HP fighter through this area failed in an epic way due to the penalties related to poison. They suffered from poison damage each turn on top of penalties to hit, to dodge etc.

Hence, an investment in "Antidotes" and "Cure poison", "Poison Resistance" spells.

So, approaching the fifth attempt my two fighters get through the green room of poison and win the battle. They don't need to drink an antidote as their resistance to poison gets them through. It's simply planning ahead right?
Example map - demon tentacles

In this encounter, your party is in a large room filled with water. There are no "dry land" places to stand. Demonic tentacles appear and can do serious damage to your party. They are EVERYWHERE. They attack all your characters and push them back. It is easy for your weakest character to get trapped. The game tells you that a certain amount of tentacles need to be chopped off before you can win a battle. After a few failed attempts I amended the attack/defend balance for each of my characters so they had a higher parry chance. This time I got through the battle.

Belts

In Hitchhikers, the only thing you needed was a towel. It's Froody man!

In this game no adventures should leave their home without having a tight fitting snug and spacious belt. Don't leave home without one! Your belt can hold between 1-4 items which can then be used in combat. I know, let's all lament the "time-pause" and use of unlimited potions in many other games. Blackguards has made belts cool again! I have two four-capacity belts. My main melee char has four health potions stuffed tightly into his belt - and these can be life savers - definitely time savers.

Probably 30 hours+ into this game. It is still interesting. Still have that "One more go" attitude to see what is coming next.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

I'll ask this here since the old thread died.

Dual-wielding confuses me. Is there supposed to be one attack roll for both weapons (so you either hit with both or miss with both) or is my version bugged?

 

[Phage]

hey everyone, super late to the Blackguards party.

At the new game screen it's asking if I want to play on Basic or Expert. Obviously, Expert is the true monocled way to play, but I have never touched Black Guards nor anything using it's system. What do?

 

[vonAchdorf]

hey everyone, super late to the Blackguards party.

At the new game screen it's asking if I want to play on Basic or Expert. Obviously, Expert is the true monocled way to play, but I have never touched Black Guards nor anything using it's system. What do?

Read the 3xx pages of TDE rules you can get for free with "Drakensang" or roll an Archer. The main advantage of the expert creation is that your character spends less points on useless talents, so going with a flawed character of the basic creation is making the game easier.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

hey everyone, super late to the Blackguards party.

At the new game screen it's asking if I want to play on Basic or Expert. Obviously, Expert is the true monocled way to play, but I have never touched Black Guards nor anything using it's system. What do?

Read the 3xx pages of TDE rules you can get for free with "Drakensang" or roll an Archer. The main advantage of the expert creation is that your character spends less points on useless talents, so going with a flawed character of the basic creation is making the game easier.

How does dual wielding work?

 

[vonAchdorf]

How does dual wielding work?

You have to choose the dual wield attack, then you have two attack, the offhand weapon with a serious penalty, which can be reduced by investing points in the Dual Wield ability.

 

[Jaedar]

hey everyone, super late to the Blackguards party.

At the new game screen it's asking if I want to play on Basic or Expert. Obviously, Expert is the true monocled way to play, but I have never touched Black Guards nor anything using it's system. What do?

Definitely go expert mode.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

How does dual wielding work?

You have to choose the dual wield attack, then you have two attack, the offhand weapon with a serious penalty, which can be reduced by investing points in the Dual Wield ability.

What I meant was, how is attack/damage calculated? I kept rolling the exact same number every time I attacked with both hands, is that normal or a bug?

 

[Abu Antar]

How does dual wielding work?

You have to choose the dual wield attack, then you have two attack, the offhand weapon with a serious penalty, which can be reduced by investing points in the Dual Wield ability.

What I meant was, how is attack/damage calculated? I kept rolling the exact same number every time I attacked with both hands, is that normal or a bug?

I don't remember that happening to me. My main was a dual wielder. Can't say exactly how the mechanics work under the hood, though.

 

[vonAchdorf]

What I meant was, how is attack/damage calculated? I kept rolling the exact same number every time I attacked with both hands, is that normal or a bug?

The damage should be variable (a D6 normally stand for the variable part in weapon damage).

 

[StaticSpine]

Bros, one thing still bothers me: was the respawning on morfus in the fila round a bug or a feature?

 

[Gord]

Bros, one thing still bothers me: was the respawning on morfus in the fila round a bug or a feature?

AFAIK the morfu fight in the last chapter was bugged. IIRC they auto-healed but shouldn't or something like that?

 

[StaticSpine]

Bros, one thing still bothers me: was the respawning on morfus in the fila round a bug or a feature?

AFAIK the morfu fight in the last chapter was bugged. IIRC they auto-healed but shouldn't or something like that?

They resurrected every turn, unless you kill all of them in one turn. So, basically if you had no powerful enough aoe spells or multi-target special abilities, you couldn't win because you had 4 fighters against 5 morfus and also the goo on the floor damaged you.

 

[Gord]

Ah, that was it, yes. Well, one of the devs said they shouldn't do it, but I don't know if they fixed it in the last patches.

 

[SirSingAlot]

finally got this via key reseller at around 5 shekels.
turns out, nowadays the rules form the Dark Eye are...different from what i remember them.
anyways, is it worth it to give your Melee-Warrior the ability to spellcast? i mean it costs 500, spells not included, but i wasnt sure if i could get this ability later on, so might as well.
its pretty clear Dr.Hammerfist wont cast spells all day long, but the option for some healing/buffing might be useful, no?

 

[Abu Antar]

You must choose it at the start of the game.

 

[SirSingAlot]

and is it worth it?

 

[Emily]

For a Fighter type character, not really, since there are severe penalties for wearing armor and casting.
Maybe for a 2 handed Claymore type character it could work.
EDIT: Don't get me wrong it can work anyway it is just not that effective.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

and is it worth it?

Yes, 500 xp is peanuts and the ability to cast spells comes at no other cost. Think of a warrior who can pre-buff and heal himself.

^ armor/evasion buffs compensate for the inability to wear heavy armor

Unless you're going for the super heavy tank type but you get that type of character in your party right off the bat.

 

[Emily]

and is it worth it?

Yes, 500 xp is peanuts and the ability to cast spells comes at no other cost. .

that is not true, you get a lot lower health if I remember correctly

 

[SirSingAlot]

ok, thx guys.
i mean i dont have to spend any additional APs on spells and the like until later, eh?
will focus on melee and when i got enough of that, i can spend some additional APs to help with beeing Harry Potter

 

[Abu Antar]

I honestly didn't bother with spells for my main, despite choosing the option to have the ability to cast them. I had three melee characters and two archer/mage hybrids for the entire game.