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Game News The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep Released

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
12,787
Well, the problem is we expected an RPG, not a chess game
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Again, I'm fine with a deterministic system, it's not really 'RNG or death'. I'm just not sure what the combination of cooldowns, shared action points, ~4 abilities, fixed damage & guaranteed hits does, other than turn the game into a weird kind of merry-go-round masher.

Of course would love to hear that it plays quite differently than that.
 

Rpguy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,168
Pathfinder: Wrath
Again, I'm fine with a deterministic system, it's not really 'RNG or death'. I'm just not sure what the combination of cooldowns, shared action points, ~4 abilities, fixed damage & guaranteed hits does, other than turn the game into a weird kind of merry-go-round masher.

Of course would love to hear that it plays quite differently than that.

I find the combat much more diverse than the best blobbers like might and magic/original bards tale/Wizardry , if you just stand and spam basic attack or a damage spell you will find yourself dead unlike most of the fights in the above mentioned games.

There are fights where you have to move or use special interrupts on enemy special attacks, you can do stuff like levitate an enemy monster in front of another enemy beholder that is about to cast its uber spell so it would hit it instead of you etc.
 
Last edited:

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
12,787
Again, I'm fine with a deterministic system, it's not really 'RNG or death'. I'm just not sure what the combination of cooldowns, shared action points, ~4 abilities, fixed damage & guaranteed hits does, other than turn the game into a weird kind of merry-go-round masher.

Of course would love to hear that it plays quite differently than that.

I find the combat much more diverse than the best blobbers like might and magic/original bards tale/Wizardry , if you just stand and spam basic attack or a damage spell you will find yourself dead unlike most of the fights in the above mentioned games.

There are fights where you have to move or use special interrupts on enemy special attacks, you can do stuff like levitate an enemy monster in font of another enemy beholder that is about to cast its uber spell so it would hit it instead of you etc.

So it's a poor man's tactical RPG. Why not play Goldbox games or KotC or ToEE then?
 

Rpguy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,168
Pathfinder: Wrath
Again, I'm fine with a deterministic system, it's not really 'RNG or death'. I'm just not sure what the combination of cooldowns, shared action points, ~4 abilities, fixed damage & guaranteed hits does, other than turn the game into a weird kind of merry-go-round masher.

Of course would love to hear that it plays quite differently than that.

I find the combat much more diverse than the best blobbers like might and magic/original bards tale/Wizardry , if you just stand and spam basic attack or a damage spell you will find yourself dead unlike most of the fights in the above mentioned games.

There are fights where you have to move or use special interrupts on enemy special attacks, you can do stuff like levitate an enemy monster in font of another enemy beholder that is about to cast its uber spell so it would hit it instead of you etc.

So it's a poor man's tactical RPG. Why not play Goldbox games or KotC or ToEE then?

Because I already played them
 

Sirbolt

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
497
So, decided to give it another go yesterday. Had like 40 minutes to play something. Five minutes load time to load the save in the Adventurers Guild. Five minutes load time to exit. Then went on to walk towards the first quest, dutifully following the marker. Noticed strange stuttering, then everything froze. CTD time. Booted the remake instead. Made a stupid mistake that killed two frontline party members. Had actual fun trying to get out from the dungeon alive...

And no, nothing running in the background and a rig that runs most games at 4k...
 

Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
And therefore they celebrate neo-noir CP77 (could be an exception in nihon)? People are stupid and don't know what they want and therefore instead of good things like CB we get the shit, like DB and OP.

There are several reasons as to why we don't get pieces like CB anymore.

One could be the lack of audience, as I hear that Japanese salarymen (the average office worker adult) have it hard, I just read a text the other day where the fucker slept like 5 hours a day, worked regularly from 9 to 9 and even worked some Sundays. In this environment there are hardly any adults left to enjoy something like CB. Provided they have any time left, they'd probably want something fluffy to relieve stress.

The other could be the lack of talent. CB was very experimental, even if its core was something like a John Woo movie. There are hardly any producers willing to take such a risk. Therefore they play it safe. However, it's just the trend of all anime to deliver few blockbusters and a lot of filler.

If you enjoyed CB, maybe watch Steins;Gate, which is regarded as Seinen (young adult audience) and provides a good drama-filled, science-inspired, challenging ride. One of the best blockbusters of the last years.

All in all, the classics from the 90 are not returning.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
9,939
Location
Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
You should all just get some decent harddrives and you will have faster loadtimes. The game is not at fault here
A game that looks like this should run fast on every computer produced in the last five years. And certainly not have loading times above 90 seconds (!!!!) for anyone.
There is no excuse for this shoddy programming - there are fast loading, better looking games made in Unreal 4 AND Unity by many developers with much smaller teams. The game is 100% at fault.
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,383
wasteland 2 was the best attempt so far, but I could not finish it. I did play like 50 hours though, so I got my money worth. I am sure I will try wasteland 3. The best thing we probably will get from all of this is the old bard tale remasters, they are very good so far

One thing I don't get with the remasters is why all the dungeons (including the town at night, which for some reason is treated like a dungeon) have a completely fucked up minimap, where turning makes the entire axis of the minimap turn with you. It makes the minimap unusable in dungeons. A really minor nitpick, I admit, I just don't understand why it's there.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
9,939
Location
Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
One thing I don't get with the remasters is why all the dungeons (including the town at night, which for some reason is treated like a dungeon) have a completely fucked up minimap, where turning makes the entire axis of the minimap turn with you. It makes the minimap unusable in dungeons. A really minor nitpick, I admit, I just don't understand why it's there.
That's not actually in the dungeons (or not restricted to them).
To be honest, I didn't play the remaster that long - not really my cup of tea, WAY too much grind -, but I had this minimap rotation in the starting town out of nowhere.
My guess is that it is related to some kind of key combo as it went away when I restarted (reloading alone didn't work) the game. Or a bug, of course.

But, yeah, minimaps that rotate with the player are a plague. Works somewhat with GPS/navigation system if you move by it, but is atrocious for actually figuring out where you are.
 

Martyr

Arcane
Joined
Jan 28, 2018
Messages
1,102
Location
Bavaria
A game that looks like this should run fast on every computer produced in the last five years. And certainly not have loading times above 90 seconds (!!!!) for anyone.
There is no excuse for this shoddy programming - there are fast loading, better looking games made in Unreal 4 AND Unity by many developers with much smaller teams. The game is 100% at fault.
when Serpent in the Staglands was released I had loading times between 100 and 130 seconds - on a computer that could run Witcher 3 at highest settings.
such high loading times are more tolerable in a game that looks like Bard's Tale IV than in a Serpent tbh.
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,383
That's not actually in the dungeons (or not restricted to them).
To be honest, I didn't play the remaster that long - not really my cup of tea, WAY too much grind -, but I had this minimap rotation in the starting town out of nowhere.
My guess is that it is related to some kind of key combo as it went away when I restarted (reloading alone didn't work) the game. Or a bug, of course.

But, yeah, minimaps that rotate with the player are a plague. Works somewhat with GPS/navigation system if you move by it, but is atrocious for actually figuring out where you are.

Strange, for me it didn't happen in the starting town. Only dungeons and the town at night. And that's through countless saves/reloads, the behavior never changed for me.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
9,939
Location
Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
A game that looks like this should run fast on every computer produced in the last five years. And certainly not have loading times above 90 seconds (!!!!) for anyone.
There is no excuse for this shoddy programming - there are fast loading, better looking games made in Unreal 4 AND Unity by many developers with much smaller teams. The game is 100% at fault.
when Serpent in the Staglands was released I had loading times between 100 and 130 seconds - on a computer that could run Witcher 3 at highest settings.
such high loading times are more tolerable in a game that looks like Bard's Tale IV than in a Serpent tbh.
That's like saying "If I have to take a dive in shit, I would prefer the shit of the young lady over the fat dude's."

Who wouldn't? But it's still shit.
 

Tacgnol

Shitlord
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Joined
Oct 12, 2010
Messages
1,871,736
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
A game that looks like this should run fast on every computer produced in the last five years. And certainly not have loading times above 90 seconds (!!!!) for anyone.
There is no excuse for this shoddy programming - there are fast loading, better looking games made in Unreal 4 AND Unity by many developers with much smaller teams. The game is 100% at fault.
when Serpent in the Staglands was released I had loading times between 100 and 130 seconds - on a computer that could run Witcher 3 at highest settings.
such high loading times are more tolerable in a game that looks like Bard's Tale IV than in a Serpent tbh.
That's like saying "If I have to take a dive in shit, I would prefer the shit of the young lady over the fat dude's."

Who wouldn't? But it's still shit.

Exactly.

A game should not have massive loading times running on a fast SSD in this day and age.

This whole thing just reeks of InXile technical incompetence, similar to many of the technical issues that Wasteland 2 has suffered through its various versions and incarnations.
 

Darkzone

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
Messages
2,323
And therefore they celebrate neo-noir CP77 (could be an exception in nihon)? People are stupid and don't know what they want and therefore instead of good things like CB we get the shit, like DB and OP.
There are several reasons as to why we don't get pieces like CB anymore.
One could be the lack of audience, as I hear that Japanese salarymen (the average office worker adult) have it hard, I just read a text the other day where the fucker slept like 5 hours a day, worked regularly from 9 to 9 and even worked some Sundays. In this environment there are hardly any adults left to enjoy something like CB. Provided they have any time left, they'd probably want something fluffy to relieve stress.
The other could be the lack of talent. CB was very experimental, even if its core was something like a John Woo movie. There are hardly any producers willing to take such a risk. Therefore they play it safe. However, it's just the trend of all anime to deliver few blockbusters and a lot of filler.
If you enjoyed CB, maybe watch Steins;Gate, which is regarded as Seinen (young adult audience) and provides a good drama-filled, science-inspired, challenging ride. One of the best blockbusters of the last years. All in all, the classics from the 90 are not returning.
This post deserves a brofist from me, because it is based on some thoughts that might be correct or not.
I don't necessarily agree on the premise of the first argument, but the conclusion of the implication still can be true: There is no adult audience left in Nihon, for an adult anime series. That the work ethic kills slowly the japanese people is also true, but not necessary the correct premise for the conclusion.
I have seen a video or read an article about the manga creators / drawing atists and the contained the statement was that the earnings are quite low even for outside of Tokyo area / Kantoo plain and nealry all of the profits are kept by the companies. And this could be also a valid reason for the lack of capable or experimental creators / artists. Companies on the other side want to make profits and sell what sells and maximise everything towards the sales. Therefore there is only a limited space for experimentation and everything that receives not the best reception or a limited audience will be discarded.
Either way the brain fuckery by intricate story and story telling seems to be an relict of a bygone era and the juvenilization / infantilization of adults and adult populations is increasingly proceeding as indicated by the SJW movement.
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,383
Reminder that the same people who made
10MCTV.jpg
managed to create a better blobber than fucking InXile. Sure it had huge performance problems too, but at least they nailed the core gameplay. I don't even know what to say at this point. I guess blobbers are just over. It was a nice run, lads...

BTW, I'm actually playing Labyrinth of Refrain right now. If you can stand weeb stuff, it's pretty decent. The story is depressing as fuck, and the gameplay systems are a little odd, but I say that in a good way, it's got a quite interesting approach to party-building. It's its own beast, but I'd say its at least an 8/10, and its got that nip obsession with 100 hr playthroughs, secret bosses, and all that jazz, so if you're autistic like me it's okay.
 

Rpguy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,168
Pathfinder: Wrath
wasteland 2 was the best attempt so far, but I could not finish it. I did play like 50 hours though, so I got my money worth. I am sure I will try wasteland 3. The best thing we probably will get from all of this is the old bard tale remasters, they are very good so far

One thing I don't get with the remasters is why all the dungeons (including the town at night, which for some reason is treated like a dungeon) have a completely fucked up minimap, where turning makes the entire axis of the minimap turn with you. It makes the minimap unusable in dungeons. A really minor nitpick, I admit, I just don't understand why it's there.

That's actually intended. You need to cast the compass spell then the map works normally
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,383
wasteland 2 was the best attempt so far, but I could not finish it. I did play like 50 hours though, so I got my money worth. I am sure I will try wasteland 3. The best thing we probably will get from all of this is the old bard tale remasters, they are very good so far

One thing I don't get with the remasters is why all the dungeons (including the town at night, which for some reason is treated like a dungeon) have a completely fucked up minimap, where turning makes the entire axis of the minimap turn with you. It makes the minimap unusable in dungeons. A really minor nitpick, I admit, I just don't understand why it's there.

That's actually intended. You need to cast the compass spell then the map works normally

Ah. That would have been nice to know.
 

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