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

[Bubbles]

Wait two years, buy both on the cheap and fully patched.

 

[Jack Dandy]

But if I won't buy these kind of games fullprice, who will? I won't live with myself if I just get them cheap at some steam sale.

I mean, look at this. I'm having problems deciding on which TURN BASED WRPG to purchase.
This is an unprecedented situation.

Gotta make this shit count.

 

[felipepepe]

EDIT: I just found out there isn't. Can you sum up what you do in between battles, then?

Not much, really... you go to cities, visit the blacksmith, the healer and the merchant, rest on a inn, learn skills with a trainer and talk with NPCs for gossip, story quests or sidequests. As I said, this game is heavily focused on combat. That doesn't mean that there aren't optional fights and side-quests, but don't expect to play Baldur's Gate or Fallout.

To help you understand, this is the world map (a small part of it):

And this is a city:

 

[tuluse]

That did make the project ambitious when the game was less so.

You deny SRR failed to live up to its ambitions?

I'm not sure how to answer this question. In the end, the game wasn't ambitious. It was just linear set pieces.

If you picked up the game not knowing anything about it, you wouldn't know about the dropped plans for stealth or subterfuge.

I think what you're calling ambition, I would call lack of focus. Yeah the game has the charisma stat, which is almost useless. The problem isn't that they were ambitious and tried to do something with charisma. The problem is that they didn't know what to do with charisma.

 

[Grunker]

That did make the project ambitious when the game was less so.

You deny SRR failed to live up to its ambitions?

I'm not sure how to answer this question. In the end, the game wasn't ambitious. It was just linear set pieces.

If you picked up the game not knowing anything about it, you wouldn't know about the dropped plans for stealth or subterfuge.

I think what you're calling ambition, I would call lack of focus. Yeah the game has the charisma stat, which is almost useless. The problem isn't that they were ambitious and tried to do something with charisma. The problem is that they didn't know what to do with charisma.

The game has free-move environs with attempts at exploration. The ambition was clearly to have exploration. Failed ambition.

The game has multiple ability trees with sub-skills and abilities, and multiple nearly without. The latter should have had, but doesn't. Failed ambition.

The game has dialogue-trees and one or two choice situations, then 20-30 fake choice situation. The ambition was clearly to have some choice in the trees. The game fails.

The game has an armorupgrade system and an itemsystem. The intention was clearly to have some choice and item progression, but all you have is a linear progression in damage and damage reduction. Failed ambition.

I could keep going on. The game's systems are shallow and do not live up to their ambitions.

 

[tuluse]

The game has free-move environs with attempts at exploration. The ambition was clearly to have exploration. Failed ambition.

I see no evidence of failing their ambition. The game does have parts where you can scout the levels.

The game has multiple ability trees with sub-skills and abilities, and multiple nearly without. The latter should have had, but doesn't. Failed ambition.

Doing something badly isn't the same thing as failing ambition. They made a crappy character system, but there's nothing ambitious about it.

The game has dialogue-trees and one or two choice situations, then 20-30 fake choice situation. The ambition was clearly to have some choice in the trees. The game fails.

Or the ambition was to copy those super successful Bioware games.

The game has an armorupgrade system and an itemsystem. The intention was clearly to have some choice and item progression, but all you have is a linear progression in damage and damage reduction. Failed ambition.

To me, failed ambition would have been to have broken item progression. Theirs pretty much worked, it was just boring. That's not having ambition in the first place.

I could keep going on. The game's systems are shallow and do not live up to their ambitions.

Yes, they're super shallow, but it's because they didn't have ambition in their game design.

 

[Jack Dandy]

This actually sounds pretty neat, felipe. Thanks!

Although- is there any sort of freedom to the choice of battles you wish to take on at any given time?

 

[Infinitron]

But the systems aren't shallow, tuluse. On the contrary, they imply great depth, that the game fails to deliver.

 

[Jaedar]

The obvious answer is to wait for the Steam sales and see which one gets a deeper discount. (probably MMX since it's been out longer)

I don't think early Access games go on steam sales so it will probably be a while yet before either game is eligable.

 

[Infinitron]

The obvious answer is to wait for the Steam sales and see which one gets a deeper discount. (probably MMX since it's been out longer)

I don't think early Access games go on steam sales so it will probably be a while yet before either game is eligable.

They do; Kerbal Space Program has gone on sale several times.

 

[tuluse]

But the systems aren't shallow, tuluse. On the contrary, they imply great depth, that the game fails to deliver.

To me failed ambition is actual depth that doesn't work right. While lack of depth, even if implied, is saying "ah fuck it, we might as well not even try" or lacking ambition.

 

[Bubbles]

EDIT: I just found out there isn't. Can you sum up what you do in between battles, then?

Not much, really... you go to cities, visit the blacksmith, the healer and the merchant, rest on a inn, learn skills with a trainer and talk with NPCs for gossip, story quests or sidequests. As I said, this game is heavily focused on combat. That doesn't mean that there aren't optional fights and side-quests, but don't expect to play Baldur's Gate or Fallout.

To help you understand, this is the world map (a small part of it):

Ah, so you move along the western side of the southern part of the continent. That's a weird area, with the borders of fantasy Greece, fantasy France, fantasy Spain (Drol), fantasy Africa and fantasy Central America meeting directly next to each other. Fun setting. Hope you fight some cyclopses.

 

[coldcrow]

That video looks quite cool.

@ Felipepepe: Is this structured like FFTactics?
If so, then this could become an instant classic, because those combat situations looked way more interesting.

 

[XenomorphII]

Purchased and downloading. Will post my impressions sometime tomorrow.

 

[Roguey]

The combat log is a tool designed to show a detailed summary of a battle. The game's calculations are pretty complex and displaying all variables would render the combat log much less useful.

Make it a toggleable option anyway.

The portraits are useful for showing initiative sequences, but are not suitable to display complex tactical situations. Declaring actions by relying on portraits could result in pretty frustrating mistakes.

Not if highlighting a portrait also highlights the character on the battlefield.

Why is there no window mode?
So you won't get distracted ;-).

Cute.

We experimented with a flanking system, but ultimately, we ditched it. It would've caused unwanted 'tactical' patterns, having players running around enemies every turn just to get a flanking bonus/backstab.
...
Endurance mechanics would have caused a great imbalance between casters and melee fighters. To keep the balance, we decided against such a system.

I approve. Balance ftw.

 

[felipepepe]

@ Felipepepe: Is this structured like FFTactics?
If so, then this could become an instant classic, because those combat situations looked way more interesting.

Yes, it plays like a western Final Fantasy Tactics. It uses a classless system and have less abilities/spells and party customization options, but, as you said, the combat encounters are more varied and more numerous. Also, once you reach Chapter 3 the game opens up a lot, you'll have various side-quests to choose from and almost the entire world map to explore, instead of the mostly linear progression of the first two chapters.

 

[oscar]

western Final Fantasy Tactics.

Sold.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

...plays like a western Final Fantasy Tactics... classless system...

Specially excited for the classless system. Which edition of TDE pnp is blackguards based on? 4th edition?
I will wait for the full release though... cannot into early access.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Another day, another turn based RPG that looks promising. Who needs money anyway.

What is next? AAA turn based games?!?!

 

[Infinitron]

What is next? AAA turn based games?!?!

 

[Jack Dandy]

Yes, it plays like a western Final Fantasy Tactics

Aight, done
Imma throw my shekels all over this motherfucker

 

[felipepepe]

We should get our preview out so they can use "plays like a western Final Fantasy Tactics" as a quote on the Steam page, seems like a convincing statement.

 

[clemens]

Bought it last night on a hunch, played a bit this morning before going to work. So far so good. Plenty of options to choose from for character develomment, hand-crafted battlemaps seem nice. Dialogues are OK I guess, even if this Zumabaran mage-guy is already getting on my nerves a bit... Not epic "save the world" storyline, always a bonus...

 

[Infinitron]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/249650/discussions/0/666825524853616310/

 

[Cyberarmy]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/249650/discussions/0/666825524853616310/

And there are people answering him it...

Edit: It is funny how easily I forgot about new X-Com.