Game News Expeditions: Viking Released

[Atomical]

ok, now I just have to wait for it to show up on GOG.

atomical, are you still making a mac version?

we want to! but its something we have to look at after the initial release period. Releasing Expeditions: Conq on Win mac and linux with different builds for steam and GOG mean having to build and test 6 different builds, and we're not a big enough studio to do that at the same time and still turn over stable patches in a timely fashion.

 

[Severian Silk]

I'm glad everyone thinks this game is better than the first, as I found the first to be a bit underwhelming. (I'm a story fag.)

 

[Lhynn]

The game is better.
Can anyone give a bit of information on the best material for a ship? is intimidation important?

 

[hivemind]

haven't really seen the impact of anything other than speed tbqh

 

[Starwars]

I wasn't that impressed by the first campaign but things seem a bit more interesting when you've crossed the water. That's when the strength of the setting kicks in a bit, makes for an interesting backdrop for a game to be sure.

I'm not sure how I feel about the RPG-fication to be honest. The game feels a bit smoother to play than Conquistador but in some ways I almost wish they had improved upon the HOMM-ish formula there. Perhaps it's just the "pick up loot everywhere" thing that is getting to me.

 

[Jrpgfan]

I was between the high speed one and the 50/50 speed/intimidation. Ended up with the second - I like to get there fast but I want to impress the ladies aswell.

 

[Lhynn]

What does intimidation do? just how much cargo difference is there between low and high? speed is the only noticeable thing?

 

[Jrpgfan]

So far I can't tell, just got to the british isles. But I'm assuming it changes something even if it's just some dialogue lines and not anything related to gameplay, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense giving you the option.

 

[Lhynn]

Apparently intimidation is how durable your boat is, how battle ready it is. Its supposed to play a role on events in the sea. Being a weak bitch isnt really desirable tho, so i guess ill go with either mid or high intimidation

 

[Jrpgfan]

Now that you mention it I remember experiencing an event during my travel. Some ship passing by me shot an arrow and then fled afterwards. Maybe if I had low intimidation they would have tried to board me?

 

[Sensuki]

Apparently intimidation is how durable your boat is, how battle ready it is. Its supposed to play a role on events in the sea. Being a weak bitch isnt really desirable tho, so i guess ill go with either mid or high intimidation

I asked about this during the beta, apparently it's a mostly cosmetic choice. Not sure if they ended up making it mean much.

 

[Barbarian]

To be honest I prefered the less developed and more abundant companion options in Conquistador. The npcs in this game feel biowarian.

The bissexual hunter, the fat single mother warrior and the strong and empowered shieldmaiden specially.

 

[hivemind]

the strong and empowered shieldmaiden specially.

There is a scene where she has to stop herself from crying when she leaves her mum in the home village. I mean I get being triggered by a women warrior but this one is not even done that terribly over the top woman powah. You also have another woman in your village tell you that being a shieldmaiden is not a lifestyle she wants because it's impossible to keep a family that way, hardly something bioware would write.

But I do agree in general that Conquistador npcs were better, mostly because you had choice on what type of people were in your party personality wise. In this game you have a couple more trad cRPG styled companions with preset personalities where you don't really get much leeway on who you take with you and then the randomly generated personalities of the custom made soldiers. THe problem also is that I don't feel like the story NPCs are that much more fleshed out compared to what the Conquistador NPCs were, especially if you compare them to how talky companions in other RPGs usually are.

 

[Harpsichord]

I was wondering about that as well. One of the named companions I didn't even want to take(the fat old lady). Heck, why the hell would a viking expedition take a 40 something old fat single mother in anyway?

I maxed out her cooking and stole her unique item.

I don't even feel like this is being cheesy, the other npcs comment on how good her cooking is. I was going to ditch her because for reasons unknown her morale is just awful, but then realized that wouldn't interfere a bit with her main duties of cooking and cleaning.

If we are listing annoyances - going hungry is not indicated anywhere other than combat. I dont get indicator on travel map when someone will get hungry, I don't get a message about it and "Hungry" status is visible only in combat. Out of combat - you only have visible stat drop from no reason.

It should mention when somebody goes without food while on the travel map, it does for me at least. The status itself isn't mentioned, but it shouldn't be hard to infer from there.

I was a fan of Conquistador and having finished the Denmark campaign I'm pretty satisfied with Viking.

Good stuff, in no particular order:
-The setting makes good use of the source material and wonderfully illustrates the sort of drama that I think makes the Viking Age so darned interesting. Furthermore, I enjoy feeling smart when I see references to different sagas, the Havamal, and customs. My experience with the Denmark campaign has rewarded me time and time again for my extensive reading on the period.

-It refines and improves upon Conquistador's combat system in almost every way, and I only express the reservation of 'almost' because I can't help but wonder how many game breaking abilities are hidden in that huge talent tree.

-The inclusion of lose-states that don't result in a game over is super cool and I have been whining for years that it isn't more commonplace in video games. However, it's especially great that it's a part of this game because it's thematically fundamental to (at least, my interpretation of) the setting.

Complaints, in order of seriousness:
- Grabbing everything I see, definitely a step backward from the system Conquistador had, which I felt did a really good job of encouraging exploration without devolving into an obsessive compulsive hunt for loot.
- Bugs
- Voice acting is all over the place, and while I generally like the NPCs, I do find some of their sound bites to be overly campy and/or downright shrill.

 

[hivemind]

because I can't help but wonder how many game breaking abilities are hidden in that huge talent tree.

quickshot is the most broken skill

 

[Infinitron]

Hey Harpsichord, are you any good at writing reviews?

 

[hivemind]

-The inclusion of lose-states that don't result in a game over is super cool and I have been whining for years that it isn't more commonplace in video games. However, it's especially great that it's a part of this game because it's thematically fundamental to (at least, my interpretation of) the setting.

could you give some spoilers examples of this
I didn't really lose at anything in Denmark so I'm curious about what alternative outcomes there were.

 

[Harpsichord]

Hey Harpsichord, are you any good at writing reviews?

I'm not any good at doing anything on a deadline.

I didn't really lose at anything in Denmark so I'm curious about what alternative outcomes there were.

Well, keep in mind I haven't seen the alternatives.

Spoiler

-Losing the duel with Asleifr results in Ketill stabbing him in the back and killing him. This also leads to a morale loss with Nefja on account of being really dishonorable obviously.

-Losing the fight with Gunnar after winning the two bridge fights results in the townspeople running in to KO him and save the day.

So I can't really speak for how different things are on a consequential basis, but both cases served the purpose of establishing a sense of verisimilitude imo.

 

[Infinitron]

Codex reviews don't have deadlines (within reason etc)

 

[hivemind]

tbh I feel like the amount of effort that went into the prologue is above what went into the rest of denmark imho

 

[Saark]

Enjoying the game very much so far except for one big issue that somewhat irks me, which would be the lack of control during combat, specifically when you get ambushed. Main gripes I have with ambushes (most of these issues would probably be less relevant if I were to lower difficulty but fuck that):

-Your main-character is always in front. I am playing an archer/witchcraft character and I had to invest heavily into shields since I would just get killed during the first round every single fight. Now I generally survive, but due to the relatively high amount of hexes everyone can move and the size of the combat areas I still have to spend my first turn by using Tactical Move to escape zones of control. My main-character could be one of the most valuable assets during combat, but due to having to invest into shields and never being able to do something useful in the first round, he has instead become the most useless one. I appointed my must-trusted shield-wearing huscarl to be my bannerman, I was hoping this would give me the choice to have him lead the exploration parts instead of myself, alleviating this issue.
-Not being able to "choose" a formation. I get that ambushes are supposed to be deadly, but at least being able to have your shield-wearing people in the front-line would be great. Since you cannot control your formation manually or even choose what hexes each character occupies once combat starts you get vastly different outcomes from a single reload. Sometimes my archers start in deep cover, sometimes they're getting killed in the first round because they got put in front.
-To lessen the impact of the previous point I am now having a 1h+shield setup on every single character during exploration. Archers are just too damn powerful when you cannot setup before they fire. If I can put down a puffball, demoralise and put my huscarl in front of my own non-shield units I am finishing fights in three rounds with zero casualties, if their archers get to shoot first I sometimes start the first turn with just 3 characters remaining. Having 4/6 people switch weapons during every combat encounter is something that has now become mandatory for me, and it just doesn't "feel" right. Having no penalty to switching weapons in-fight makes for a weird experience every time.
-Being unable to initiate some fights yourself just doesn't make sense. Take the ambush in Skerninge as an example. You see 3 thieves running towards the camp you already scouted previously, it's quite clear they're lying in wait with their friends. You can enter the encounter-area from 3 different sides, at least techncially. Attacking from the south has the "intended" position for you, attacking from the east or the north only initiates combat (with them still starting first) when you actually walk past by some of the enemies and right into the middle of area. Having a red outline on them and even a sword-icon made me think I could start combat myself, but unless I am missing some hotkey this just doesn't seem to be possible.
-Laying ambushes yourself (for example the pig-bait fight with the wolves, or the "rat" fight in Ribe) has similar issues due to not being able to choose positions for your characters. Sometimes the enemy just runs around you and escapes because you didn't initiate the dialogue from the right direction and thus your characters don't spread out where you would need zone of control. Which basically forces you to either lose or reload to initiate the dialogue-part from a different direction only to get an advantage during the actual encounter.

Currently stuck in Perth due to the same bug several other people are having, hopefully it gets fixed quickly since I really am enjoying the game so far.

 

[hivemind]

I hate how they fucking made a really good combat system with also really solid character system around it but all the encounters are so fucking easy that there is no point to it all

I swear if they nerfed bows a bit and made all the fights harder this would be best combat RPG besides AoD in the last couple of years

 

[hivemind]

alternatively they could remove crafting from player utility skills to achieve similar effect

 

[Saark]

alternatively they could remove crafting from player utility skills to achieve similar effect

Crafting weapons seems incredibly overpowered. Being able to craft 60-70 basedamage weapons when the "unique" ones you find from enemies are dealing 20-30 max is just ridiculous, especially since you can easily get large amounts of materials for it. Armourcrafting seems a lot more polished by comparison, with hides being rarer and more expensive, several different armour-upgrades (though some of them are fairly useless, 10 hp regen each turn just doesn't cut it when enemies are dishing out 60+ damage per hit) aswell as the fact that every non-merc NPC already has a base-armour.

 

[Monolith]

Bought it on Gog, but with the issues you've mentioned here I'll wait for it to be polished.

You have my money now so go crazy with the patching!!1