Game News Bard's Tale IV Kickstarter Update #44: Dev Team Q&A, Remastered Trilogy Update

[mondblut]

"Grow your party" sounds so ambiguous that we should rather wait for the beta before we make definite conclusions.

"You start off with one character" is already pretty definitive. You don't start with a full custom party out of the box as is the only proper way.

It could be right. It could wrong. It could be good. It could be bad.

One of these four assumptions is way off the mark. Guess which one.

 

[Curratum]

You don't start with a full custom party out of the box as is the only proper way.

I never realized there was one proper way to do RPGs. Thanks for pointing this out, now I see games in a different light!

 

[Sacred82]

Yes, but still better than getting predefined characters, which you will hate through the entire game (like in Dragon Age).

It could be right. It could wrong. It could be good. It could be bad.

in the case of pre-defined characters, almost always bad, because parties will be samey.

 

[mondblut]

You don't start with a full custom party out of the box as is the only proper way.

I never realized there was one proper way to do RPGs. Thanks for pointing this out, now I see games in a different light!

Glad to be of service.

 

[Sacred82]

You don't start with a full custom party out of the box as is the only proper way.

I never realized there was one proper way to do RPGs. Thanks for pointing this out, now I see games in a different light!

Glad to be of service.

as a maid should be

 

[Darkzone]

Yes, but still better than getting predefined characters, which you will hate through the entire game (like in Dragon Age).

It could be right. It could wrong. It could be good. It could be bad.

in the case of pre-defined characters, almost always bad, because parties will be samey.

Wouldn't bet on it. If the possible character roster has enough elements then you could have different members of the same class with different skill builds.
As an example where the amount the elements was small, was in Baldur's Gate and it still resulted in different party every time i played it. I also never got Minsc with his Rat into my party, because i had no need for him. In Fallout 2 i had a party of 3 people and one of them was always Sulik, because i liked his remarks like Morte's in PST. In FNV i traveld with most of the characters, but my favorite were Craig Boon, Raul Tejada and Veronica Santangelo. And i played nearly the whole time with them, but some prefered Gannon and Lily Bowen and nobody is complaining about this predefined characters. But that was my way of solving the games, and because i play such a game alone it doesn't make a difference if 50% or 3% of players had a similar party composition.

Yes, but still better than getting predefined characters, which you will hate through the entire game (like in Dragon Age).

It could be right. It could wrong. It could be good. It could be bad.

One of these four assumptions is way off the mark. Guess which one.

And that depends on many variables, like how good are this characters writen. Would be PST still as good with blank slates as it was with the different interesting characters, that you could recruit into your party? How about the characters in BG I and II did they take something away from the experience? Sometimes even a character that no one likes can be a driving vehicle for the story and gameplay and therefore have its place.

 

[mondblut]

And that depends on many variables, like how good are this characters writen.

It's a fucking Bard's Tale we are talking about. Not Numanuma. Not Ass Effect. Bard's Fucking Tale, fourth of that name. Remember that series?

Would be PST still as good with blank slates as it was with the different interesting characters, that you could recruit into your party?

Were PST a proper Planescape D&D RPG designed around real D&D rules, combat engine and thoughtfully placed encounters, and not a visual novel with trash mobs thrown in as an afterthought, yes, I'd rather have a real party, thank you very much.

How about the characters in BG I and II did they take something away from the experience?

They wished they could, but thanks to the multiplayer exploit they failed and I get to play with a proper party. As far as an RTWP IE game can be played, at least.

Sometimes even a character that no one likes can be a driving vehicle for the story

Who cares? Not I.

and gameplay

by ruining it.

 

[Sacred82]

Yes, but still better than getting predefined characters, which you will hate through the entire game (like in Dragon Age).

It could be right. It could wrong. It could be good. It could be bad.

in the case of pre-defined characters, almost always bad, because parties will be samey.

Wouldn't bet on it. If the possible character roster has enough elements then you could have different members of the same class with different skill builds.
As an example where the amount the elements was small, was in Baldur's Gate and it still resulted in different party every time i played it. I also never got Minsc with his Rat into my party, because i had no need for him. In Fallout 2 i had a party of 3 people and one of them was always Sulik, because i liked his remarks like Morte's in PST. In FNV i traveld with most of the characters, but my favorite were Craig Boon, Raul Tejada and Veronica Santangelo. And i played nearly the whole time with them, but some prefered Gannon and Lily Bowen and nobody is complaining about this predefined characters. But that was my way of solving the games, and because i play such a game alone it doesn't make a difference if 50% or 3% of players had a similar party composition.

I wouldn't cite the IE games here, too easy to break. Still, most times you'd probably not play without a thief and a cleric unless intentionally gimping yourself/ lots of meta knowledge. Also IE games made it easy to outlevel things with small parties which encourages different setups.

The Fallouts on the other hand never depended much on the characters, they were mostly a liability, or at least not required in FNV. You may have any number of goons tagging along or not, they're mostly for shits and giggles.

A game with predefined characters of a greater number than BG will be hard to find though. Compared to modern games, their reactivity was still pretty low, which allowed for more of them, or at least it made sense to add more of them. There's really no point in forcing companions on the player if they're not deeply reactive, and in BTIV, we'll have 6 PC's.

 

[Darkzone]

And that depends on many variables, like how good are this characters writen.

It's a fucking Bard's Tale we are talking about. Not Numanuma. Not Ass Effect. Bard's Fucking Tale, fourth of that name. Remember that series?

Yes i remember and it was my first RPG. And since then many new things have happened and were developed. Sorry, but i didn't play Numanuma very far into the game and not even the Ass Effect, therefore i don't go into this path of argumentation.
But also thank you for remembering that i wanted to point out that you should use Bard's Tale explicit and not write so generalising like you did and how it play into this:

You don't start with a full custom party out of the box as is the only proper way.

I never realized there was one proper way to do RPGs. Thanks for pointing this out, now I see games in a different light!

So let me correct your statement with: You don't start with a full custom party out of the box as is the only proper way in the Bard's Tale series.
Now that makes more sense overall, but still this is not a necessary requirement for the BT IV.

Would be PST still as good with blank slates as it was with the different interesting characters, that you could recruit into your party?

Were PST a proper Planescape D&D RPG designed around real D&D rules, combat engine and thoughtfully placed encounters, and not a visual novel with trash mobs thrown in as an afterthought, yes, I'd rather have a real party, thank you very much.

How about the characters in BG I and II did they take something away from the experience?

They wished they could, but thanks to the multiplayer exploit they failed and I get to play with a proper party. As far as an RTWP IE game can be played, at least.

Sometimes even a character that no one likes can be a driving vehicle for the story

Who cares? Not I.

and gameplay

by ruining it.

Concerning real party: Nowhere it is written that you cannot build all party characters from scratch. It is just written that at the beginning you just start with one premade character that you can later change.
None of this was a argument or a rebuttal to presented arguments by example of companions as a world building and supportive narrative means, that are here in high regards, but what i get from your post is your opinion: PST characters were shit, because they were premade and the entire game was not good, because it was to much like an interactive novel in the Infinity engine (RTwP and no correct ADD2nd edition rules) that deviated from the Planescape setting. I hope that doesn't misrepresents your opinion and my reading of this first sentence is correct. Can you verify or falsify this so that i can structure my argumentation for expansion of narrative elements like the companions with their history as a part of world building?
Then i ask you what do you get if you get rid of all storytelling elements?

Btw. 2017 was the most successful year for D&D according to someone who listened to the talk of the WotC CEO. I wasn't there so i cannot confirm this.

I wouldn't cite the IE games here, too easy to break. Still, most times you'd probably not play without a thief and a cleric unless intentionally gimping yourself/ lots of meta knowledge. Also IE games made it easy to outlevel things with small parties which encourages different setups.
The Fallouts on the other hand never depended much on the characters, they were mostly a liability, or at least not required in FNV. You may have any number of goons tagging along or not, they're mostly for shits and giggles.
A game with predefined characters of a greater number than BG will be hard to find though. Compared to modern games, their reactivity was still pretty low, which allowed for more of them, or at least it made sense to add more of them. There's really no point in forcing companions on the player if they're not deeply reactive, and in BTIV, we'll have 6 PC's.

I played in BGI and II mostly warrior type, but since i played mage the cleric would be also a viable character for me. In Fallout 1 there were an liability in the late game, because you couldn't give them armor and weapons. In Fallout 2 this changes quite a lot and Sulik with a super sledge and power armor was quite useful even at the end. Yes the companions were not a necessity in Fallout games, but most of them brought something forward and told in one way or other a story about the fallout world; even in Fallout 1, like Tycho.
I think that in PST the companions were quite more than shits and giggles. You are right that there were quite a lot of companions in BG, but i simply don't remember any of them (i have looked this just now up), besides Imoen, Coran, Xan, Xzar, Kivan, Khalid .
I agree that there is no need of forcing companions on the player, but companions can make the world more living and tell a specific aspect of this world. We currently don't know how much can we change the companions or if we can really make blank slates PCs according to our wishes.

This doesn't concern you mondblut and Sacred82, but others should carefully think about it:
The hypocrisy of licking Chris Avellone ass, like a Dog for his created companions and shitting at the same time at the concept of companions.

 

[Zeriel]

It's looking more and more like the only good thing to come out of this will be the remaster of the original games. Oh, well. I guess that's better than the nothing at all of their other games.

 

[mondblut]

Yes i remember and it was my first RPG. And since then many new things have happened and were developed.

Yeah. Many shitty new things have happened indeed.

So let me correct your statement with: You don't start with a full custom party out of the box as is the only proper way in the Bard's Tale series.

This is a thread about Bard's Tale, what else would you expect?

That said, any proper RPG is far superior with a custom party, unless it tries to be something else.

Now that makes more sense overall, but still this is not a necessary requirement for the BT IV.

If they want to spit into the faces of BT fanbase, that is.

Nowhere it is written that you cannot build all party characters from scratch. It is just written that at the beginning you just start with one premade character that you can later change.

Picking up custom characters as you go still sounds fucking retarded. But I suppose it's still marginally better than having to choose among a number of babbling romanceable cripples with below average stats.

what i get from your post is your opinion: PST characters were shit, because they were premade and the entire game was not good, because it was to much like an interactive novel in the Infinity engine (RTwP and no correct ADD2nd edition rules) that deviated from the Planescape setting. I hope that doesn't misrepresents your opinion and my reading of this first sentence is correct. Can you verify or falsify this so that i can structure my argumentation for expansion of narrative elements like the companions with their history as a part of world building?

No, PST is a pretty good read as far as visual novels go. It is just nowhere near the RPG experience I know and crave.

Then i ask you what do you get if you get rid of all storytelling elements?

A beautiful dungeon/overworld romp about managing a party of custom characters with a complex array of attributes and killing all kinds of enemies in glorious turn-based combat, for loot and xp. What else?

Btw. 2017 was the most successful year for D&D according to someone who listened to the talk of the WotC CEO. I wasn't there so i cannot confirm this.

Well, they didn't spend a dime on doing new books, so I figure it was all profit

 

[MuscleSpark]

Krome Studios

Ah yes, the great minds that brought us such great titles as Blade Kitten and Disney Imagicademy - Frozen Early Science Cooking and Animal Care.
Can't wait to have them work their magic with Bard's Tale!

 

[Sacred82]

I wouldn't cite the IE games here, too easy to break. Still, most times you'd probably not play without a thief and a cleric unless intentionally gimping yourself/ lots of meta knowledge. Also IE games made it easy to outlevel things with small parties which encourages different setups.
The Fallouts on the other hand never depended much on the characters, they were mostly a liability, or at least not required in FNV. You may have any number of goons tagging along or not, they're mostly for shits and giggles.
A game with predefined characters of a greater number than BG will be hard to find though. Compared to modern games, their reactivity was still pretty low, which allowed for more of them, or at least it made sense to add more of them. There's really no point in forcing companions on the player if they're not deeply reactive, and in BTIV, we'll have 6 PC's.

I played in BGI and II mostly warrior type, but since i played mage the cleric would be also a viable character for me. In Fallout 1 there were an liability in the late game, because you couldn't give them armor and weapons. In Fallout 2 this changes quite a lot and Sulik with a super sledge and power armor was quite useful even at the end. Yes the companions were not a necessity in Fallout games, but most of them brought something forward and told in one way or other a story about the fallout world; even in Fallout 1, like Tycho.
I think that in PST the companions were quite more than shits and giggles. You are right that there were quite a lot of companions in BG, but i simply don't remember any of them (i have looked this just now up), besides Imoen, Coran, Xan, Xzar, Kivan, Khalid .
I agree that there is no need of forcing companions on the player, but companions can make the world more living and tell a specific aspect of this world. We currently don't know how much can we change the companions or if we can really make blank slates PCs according to our wishes.

This doesn't concern you mondblut and Sacred82, but others should carefully think about it:
The hypocrisy of licking Chris Avellone ass, like a Dog for his created companions and shitting at the same time at the concept of companions.

I actually meant Fallout companions were a liability for blowing you up. Unless you're moving out of the way and hanging back sniping. Ofc giving them melee weapons is a way around this, but then the fuckers die and they are carrying your stuff. Weird that even in Arcanum there's no resurrection spell considering how dumb the companions are. From where I stand, FO's and Arcanum are basically single character games.

Well I don't know about half-developed companions. They may bring something to the table, but just not a hell lot. Developers should know what their audience is; grogs or companion loving casuals. BTIV clearly aims at grogs. In this case, if you want to have that flavour brought to your travelling, just put like 2 or 3 henchmen into the game who basically act like tour guides, and make them occupy e.g. a slot meant for summons. Each tour guide could even do something unique in combat, like a mass heal, debuff etc. so they're not just hanging around and it's actually a choice that matters, just that it's not an element of your party composition.
Or, as I would prefer, simply have NPC's pop up more often even during dungeon exploration, just like in the old games. They give you some exposition about your surroundings, and then vanish. Not any worse than a companion who comments from time to time, and it doesn't intrude on party creation. Because it can be pretty jarring if one of the party members is highly interactive and the others aren't. In this regard, it's actually good the BTIV party members are spouting retarded lines all the time. At least they don't leave all the talking to the companions that way.

 

[Darkzone]

Yes i remember and it was my first RPG. And since then many new things have happened and were developed.

Yeah. Many shitty new things have happened indeed.

What happened is that games like Fallout 1 - 2 and PST were made possible. Sadly the later was forgotten in later cRPG development.

Nowhere it is written that you cannot build all party characters from scratch. It is just written that at the beginning you just start with one premade character that you can later change.

Picking up custom characters as you go still sounds fucking retarded. But I suppose it's still marginally better than having to choose among a number of babbling romanceable cripples with below average stats.

Romancible is not a necessary requirement of a companion and also not mentally crippled with below average states. Just saying.

what i get from your post is your opinion: PST characters were shit, because they were premade and the entire game was not good, because it was to much like an interactive novel in the Infinity engine (RTwP and no correct ADD2nd edition rules) that deviated from the Planescape setting. I hope that doesn't misrepresents your opinion and my reading of this first sentence is correct. Can you verify or falsify this so that i can structure my argumentation for expansion of narrative elements like the companions with their history as a part of world building?

No, PST is a pretty good read as far as visual novels go. It is just nowhere near the RPG experience I know and crave.

You premise is that every companion no matter how well written is worse in comparisson to a blank slate.
And my statement about your opinion was not to force you to admit that you think that PST was shit, but make you think about what you are saying or what is the conclusion from your premise and that is the following:
PST with (Morte, Annah, Dak'kon, Ignus, Fall-from-Grace, Nordom, Vhailor) << PST with (blank slate, _ , _ , _ , _ , _ , _)
Now think what is Planescape Torment about and how the choice presents itself to us.

Then i ask you what do you get if you get rid of all storytelling elements?

A beautiful dungeon/overworld romp about managing a party of custom characters with a complex array of attributes and killing all kinds of enemies in glorious turn-based combat, for loot and xp. What else?

I was hopping for a simple answer, like "turn-based strategy game with party management". But this is also ok, because it has contained some information that reflects perhaps you view of the current BT IV.
And from this i get that you think that Bards Tale IV looks beautiful with a glorious turn-based combat and the characters contain a complex array of attributes, because we are talking here in this thread about BT IV as you have stated here:

This is a thread about Bard's Tale, what else would you expect?

Btw. 2017 was the most successful year for D&D according to someone who listened to the talk of the WotC CEO. I wasn't there so i cannot confirm this.

Well, they didn't spend a dime on doing new books, so I figure it was all profit

WotC has adopted a schedule of releasing two supplementary materials books per year of which one is a campaign book. In 2017 WotC have released 3 books: Tales from the Yawning Portal (4 April), Tomb of Annihilation (19 September) and Xanathar's Guide to Everything (21 November). But yes most of this was recycled und updated material for the D&D 5th edition. Nevertheless it is about the rise of salesnumbers and the new found popularity of D&D that is attributed to Stranger Things and Critical Roll.

 

[Darkzone]

I actually meant Fallout companions were a liability for blowing you up. Unless you're moving out of the way and hanging back sniping. Ofc giving them melee weapons is a way around this, but then the fuckers die and they are carrying your stuff. Weird that even in Arcanum there's no resurrection spell considering how dumb the companions are. From where I stand, FO's and Arcanum are basically single character games.

I never used Big Guns (Miniguns, Rocket Launchers and Flamethrowers) and always avoided to give them this weapons in Fallout 2. And this is also the reason why i didn't recruit Marcus, besides the reason that he couldn't have the power armor. Arcanum i had to rely on companisons since i played always a tech-centric sharpshooter and this worked out well even if i made guns for my companions.

Well I don't know about half-developed companions. They may bring something to the table, but just not a hell lot. Developers should know what their audience is; grogs or companion loving casuals. BTIV clearly aims at grogs. In this case, if you want to have that flavour brought to your travelling, just put like 2 or 3 henchmen into the game who basically act like tour guides, and make them occupy e.g. a slot meant for summons. Each tour guide could even do something unique in combat, like a mass heal, debuff etc. so they're not just hanging around and it's actually a choice that matters, just that it's not an element of your party composition.
Or, as I would prefer, simply have NPC's pop up more often even during dungeon exploration, just like in the old games. They give you some exposition about your surroundings, and then vanish. Not any worse than a companion who comments from time to time, and it doesn't intrude on party creation. Because it can be pretty jarring if one of the party members is highly interactive and the others aren't. In this regard, it's actually good the BTIV party members are spouting retarded lines all the time. At least they don't leave all the talking to the companions that way.

While i think that your proposal is a valid solution i think that making (not forced) companions available for possible (not necessary) recruitment is also a valid solution. I think that Larian has stumbled upon something that offers also a nice in between with their tags system in the PC creation process. I think that the more freedom we have in this department the better it is: You would probably make your entirely own characters, while i would use some companions that fit into my party composition.

 

[Sacred82]

I actually meant Fallout companions were a liability for blowing you up. Unless you're moving out of the way and hanging back sniping. Ofc giving them melee weapons is a way around this, but then the fuckers die and they are carrying your stuff. Weird that even in Arcanum there's no resurrection spell considering how dumb the companions are. From where I stand, FO's and Arcanum are basically single character games.

I never used Big Guns (Miniguns, Rocket Launchers and Flamethrowers) and always avoided to give them this weapons in Fallout 2. And this is also the reason why i didn't recruit Marcus, besides the reason that he couldn't have the power armor. Arcanum i had to rely on companisons since i played always a tech-centric sharpshooter and this worked out well even if i made guns for my companions.

the first guy in FO was already a liability with the SMG. I think you could make him use single shots only, doing minimal damage, and possibly still hitting you if you went melee. Haven't bothered with it since.

While i think that your proposal is a valid solution i think that making (not forced) companions available for possible (not necessary) recruitment is also a valid solution. I think that Larian has stumbled upon something that offers also a nice in between with their tags system in the PC creation process. I think that the more freedom we have in this department the better it is: You would probably make your entirely own characters, while i would use some companions that fit into my party composition.

I like the route D:OS1 went with 2 created characters and 2 companions who were kind of flexible. But then they were flexible because it was a classless system. Still, for a 4 character party, this works well IMO.

I agree that making created characters reactive with tags is a nice thing, but probably not practical for more than 1 created character.