KickStarter Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness - Tales of the Moon Cult expansion on the way

[BarbequeMasta]

So help me Codex, for someone who liked Owlcat pathfinder games, and found POE1 decent enough, should I grab this or is it a waste of time?

 

[Angelo85]

It certainly has a slower pace than Pathfinder games and combat is less interesting. Apt description is janky, low budget Baldur's Gate 1. If you have absolutely nothing else in your backlog and you are craving more RPG in your life go for it. Else wait for (deep) sale.

 

[BarbequeMasta]

It certainly has a slower pace than Pathfinder games and combat is less interesting. Apt description is janky, low budget Baldur's Gate 1. If you have absolutely nothing else in your backlog and you are craving more RPG in your life go for it. Else wait for (deep) sale.

Thx, I'll wait for a sale then. Maybe I'll start KotC2 since I haven't had time for it yet.

 

[Grunker]

I was planning to try and finish the game before forming an opinion on it, but I have had the main quest break now (a cutscene that doesn't play out properly, all of the actors within it are just frozen) and I have played what I assume is a fair amount of it (I am level 16), so I will comment on what I have seen so far.

+ The backgrounds for areas look good and are sometimes reminiscent of IWD and BG.
+ The story does not annoy me. Whilst I can't say its memorable, I can read through it without actively wanting to drive nails through my eyes, which is more than I can say for the writing in most modern RPGs.
+ The greed system was somewhat interesting. I deliberately played into it to see how "bad" it would become, being an obnoxious asshole always demanding more money. Bezos would have been proud of me. If there was anything worthwhile purchasing from shops, then going this route would have been extremely punishing as prices shot up a great deal, unfortunately all the gear in shops is, by my reckoning pretty damn bad and the only time I had any incentive to buy anything was when quests demanded me to buy items to turn in.

- The load times between zones are awful. This is the worst aspect of the game.
- The character models are poor and contrast badly against the background.
- The combat is piss easy. The last major fight I did, I started combat, walked out of the room, made myself something to eat and came back with the fight finished. I was literally able to let the AI auto attacking resolve the "boss fight." This is on the hardest difficulty by the way. I would say I spent 90% of my time in combat reading books on my 2nd monitor while I play, simply because there is nothing interesting about the combat in this game which truly requires player involvement once you have constructed a semi decent character.
- There is not much variety in terms of spells. I am willing to give them a pass here considering they are trying to "reinvent the wheel on a shoestring budget" so to speak, but it would have been nice to actually have a fair amount of magical customization to play around with.

Overall I would say that, for an indie project with rookie developers it is ok for what it is, but I wouldn't call it a classic by any means. The combat needs a great deal of work. For anyone else who enjoys combat in RPGs (like me), this game will definitely be a disappointment. If anyone is interested I can give a more thorough breakdown on all of the different problems with the combat, but otherwise I assume its not really necessary. Amusingly enough the music reminded me of Pool of Radiance Ruins of Myth Drannor, I hope uninstalling it does not wipe my drive.

Sounds literally unplayable with that combat

 

[Sharpedge]

Sounds literally unplayable with that combat

Unfortunately I would have to agree with you on that. I probably would have dropped the game sooner, but the previous 95 pages in this thread were somewhat entertaining to read and kept me occupied while I was fighting.

 

[fantadomat]

It certainly has a slower pace than Pathfinder games and combat is less interesting. Apt description is janky, low budget Baldur's Gate 1. If you have absolutely nothing else in your backlog and you are craving more RPG in your life go for it. Else wait for (deep) sale.

Thx, I'll wait for a sale then. Maybe I'll start KotC2 since I haven't had time for it yet.

check out drakensang river of time

 

[Contagium]

I remember reading on their Kickstarter about a "Stronghold System" and how the player will have their own base. Turns out it was a lie. Or rather a half truth. The Stronghold stuff apparently is not in the game but is planned to be released as first DLC.

This makes total sense. I thought it was happening in the game then the king just says HAHAHA YOUR KINGDOM IS WORTHLESS! I just hope they fix the loading times before adding kingdom management jank

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Guys, are you fucked? Game is really good crpg.

 

[Contagium]

Guys, are you fucked? Game is really good crpg.

You know what's fucked? This game is by no means perfect, but it's playable at the very least. I'd hope anyone buying this is someone who cherishes CRPG's and how rare these classic types of games are. Currently only 1.3% of Steam players have completed chapter 4, where I'm currently sitting. Only 25.2% have finished the FIRST chapter. WTF is going on? How can you spend your hard earned money (or your mom's if you're some basement-dwelling useless cuck) and only play it for a few minutes , say "UHH GAME SUX IT'S NOT PILLARS" and then shelve it for some other crap? I really don't fucking get it. I'm ashamed of the day we live in.

 

[Tyranicon]

low budget Baldur's Gate 1.

Ouch. That's less of a backhanded compliment and more of just a regular backhand.

 

[Jenkem]

game is better than pillows or cuckfinder... you guys just care about production values, by-the-numbers 'epic stories' and studio clout.

 

[Angelo85]

You know what's fucked? This game is by no means perfect, but it's playable at the very least. I'd hope anyone buying this is someone who cherishes CRPG's and how rare these classic types of games are. Currently only 1.3% of Steam players have completed chapter 4, where I'm currently sitting. Only 25.2% have finished the FIRST chapter. WTF is going on?

The game officially released a week ago, but quite a few people bought it way earlier during Early Access or activated Kickstarter Keys when Achievements were not yet implemented. So over time many people fired it up tested it out a bit, got logged as owners on Steam.
Naturally not everyone drops everything they got going on in their life or abandons the games they are playing at the moment just to play through Black Geyser because it's officially released now. So the numbers being where they are at the moment is IMHO nothing out of the ordinary considering the circumstances.
Also all the players that played during Early Access, perhaps as far as Chapter 4, and abandoned the game / came to the conclusion it's just not for them are still logged as owners. But never will unlock the Achievements for beating the chapters they did, further lowering the percentage.

Also Achievements are kinda buggy for some folks (including myself), further messing with the percentages. See my Achievements for instance where I unlocked the one for Chapter four, but not one, two or three:

 

[Sharpedge]

Guys, are you fucked? Game is really good crpg.

If you have absolutely no taste in combat, sure. Combat and character building in this game has so little depth that calling it 1 dimensional would be an insult to any creatures that exist in a single dimension. For starters, damage mitigation within the game is based off of percentage mitigation and is not hard capped at a value well below 100%. Furthermore, there are large values of damage mitigation on gear. This makes it exceptionally easy to build a character (any character, so long as you can put armour on them) which is basically immune to damage. If this was the only issue with the combat, you could "deal" with it by deliberately building a shitty character and not choosing armour intelligently, but it is not. When it comes to character building, the only time you make a meaningful decision is when you first create your character and need to assign your attributes. On level up, martial characters only assign points into making themselves more accurate in a weapon type, or into a small selection of active powers which they will use in combat. Mages are even worse in this regard, the only choice they ever have is choosing a spell to add to their spellbook and gaining more spell slots, but because you can copy spells from scrolls gaining a spell on level up is absolutely meaningless. As a result of this, the extra spell slots gained on level up are the only perk a mage truly gains and that is not an active choice the player makes, you are just given these. There are no feats to customize your character. The only choices you really make are on character creation and what gear you wear - that is it and so long as you can wear medium armour (which mages can wear so long as you have enough points in supernatural, I played a mage wearing medium armour because of this), its possible to make your characters neigh on unkillable. In fact, when I first encountered the "impossible fight with the king" I actually killed him + 3 of his guards before reloading - I am pretty sure if I had continued playing that fight out it would have been a win.

Decisions made in combat aren't any better either. The enemy AI is not good and doesn't make smart decisions. Unfortunately even if it was good however, it wouldn't matter, because of the aforementioned problem with armour. Calling this game a janky Baldur's Gate 1 is only accurate insofar as the general appearance of the game is concerned. Even BG 1 had more character building decisions than Black Geyser and considering how few decisions you could make in BG 1, making a game that has less decisions than effectively zero is some kind of an achievement.

 

[Infinitron]

For starters, damage mitigation within the game is based off of percentage mitigation and is not hard capped at a value well below 100%. Furthermore, there are large values of damage mitigation on gear. This makes it exceptionally easy to build a character (any character, so long as you can put armour on them) which is basically immune to damage.

"Miss me yet?"

 

[Sharpedge]

Infinitron I saw that.

 

[NJClaw]

game is better than pillows or cuckfinder... you guys just care about production values, by-the-numbers 'epic stories' and studio clout.

The chances of this game being even remotely as good as PoE and Kingmaker are in the "Crispy having sex with Emma Watson" territory.

 

[Reinhardt]

I've been cautiously looking forward to this as a game trying seriously to be in the vein of the original Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast, my favorites of the series.
Anyway, I just booted it up to make a character for the first time, and made a surprising discovery. There's no moustache option. Hungarians are supposed to be fellow growers of the moustache! At least back in the day when the graphics were pixelated you could use your imagination for that kind of thing.

try female characters

 

[ArchAngel]

For starters, damage mitigation within the game is based off of percentage mitigation and is not hard capped at a value well below 100%. Furthermore, there are large values of damage mitigation on gear. This makes it exceptionally easy to build a character (any character, so long as you can put armour on them) which is basically immune to damage.

"Miss me yet?"

Nah, we don't need even more bad cRPGs that we will not play.

 

[razvedchiki]

anyone know which file holds the class/race portaits?

 

[Cryomancer]

So help me Codex, for someone who liked Owlcat pathfinder games, and found POE1 decent enough, should I grab this or is it a waste of time?

Yes!!! If you liked Dark Sun games(Shattered + Wake) you will probably gonna love this game.

 

[Erebus]

Okay, is it just me or is this game unbelievably buggy right now ? I've reached the first city, I'm on Market Street, if I try to move to a different district I get sent back to the middle of Market Street, if I try to enter the temple I also get sent back to the middle of Market Street. And if I try to restart the game with a new character, I'm unable to leave the character creation screen.

WTF.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

Okay, is it just me or is this game unbelievably buggy right now ? I've reached the first city, I'm on Market Street, if I try to move to a different district I get sent back to the middle of Market Street, if I try to enter the temple I also get sent back to the middle of Market Street. And if I try to restart the game with a new character, I'm unable to leave the character creation screen.

WTF.

That's exactly what I wanted to write, the game seems extremely buggy to me too. I had many crashes (especially when loading new areas), situations when the whole GUI disappeared when I quicksaved, tutorial messages that didn't disappear, sometimes my char didn't react to my orders, it has ridiculously long loading times (not a bug technically, but still a sign of bad optimization). I'm not happy with the state of the game, not happy at all. I'll refrain from playing any further for at least half a year I guess. After a ton of patches maybe it'll be worth my time. I can't understand that an early access game still has such an amount of issues on release.
Well, at least there seems to be no obtrusive liberal propaganda in this game (my hypersensitive sensors didn't spot any as of yet). That's one plus point in my book.

 

[Serus]

There is no need to be upset. God still loves you.

Crom doesn't "love" any mortal. He, at best, ignores them. If he is in a good mood.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

There is no need to be upset. God still loves you.

Crom doesn't "love" any mortal. He, at best, ignores them. If he is in a good mood.

Leave that asshole outta this.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Okay, is it just me or is this game unbelievably buggy right now ? I've reached the first city, I'm on Market Street, if I try to move to a different district I get sent back to the middle of Market Street, if I try to enter the temple I also get sent back to the middle of Market Street. And if I try to restart the game with a new character, I'm unable to leave the character creation screen.

WTF.

That's exactly what I wanted to write, the game seems extremely buggy to me too. I had many crashes (especially when loading new areas), situations when the whole GUI disappeared when I quicksaved, tutorial messages that didn't disappear, sometimes my char didn't react to my orders, it has ridiculously long loading times (not a bug technically, but still a sign of bad optimization). I'm not happy with the state of the game, not happy at all. I'll refrain from playing any further for at least half a year I guess. After a ton of patches maybe it'll be worth my time. I can't understand that an early access game still has such an amount of issues on release.
Well, at least there seems to be no obtrusive liberal propaganda in this game (my hypersensitive sensors didn't spot any as of yet). That's one plus point in my book.

FWIW, I encountered none of this during the early access. I was actually impressed at how not buggy it was. It must have been added as part of the major release patch.
Perfect example why they shouldn't have mixed dropping a major patch with releasing the game...