GreedFall II: The Dying World - prequel with party-based RTwP combat where native PC travels to the old continent

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

IGN deleted this from their website. Hmmm.

 

[jf8350143]

It seems DA and Greedfall swapped combat systems.

New Dragon Age is going the route of a fast combat system like Greedfall 1
And new Greedfall is going the route of a slower combat system, like the old DAO

And everyone is complaining why they are changing it.

 

[Roguey]

Reception so negative that they had to retreat?

 

[Infinitron]

You can still see gameplay in the other video.

 

[jf8350143]

The combat do look pretty bad. If you are going to use RTwP, at least make it isometric.

Also the animation is janky as hell.

 

[mediocrepoet]

The combat do look pretty bad. If you are going to use RTwP, at least make it isometric.

Also the animation is janky as hell.

It's what it says on the tin.

 

[Vulpes]

If it weren't for the fact that they're playing heavily into the noble savage trope (made much worse by it being fantasy feather-heads), I would actually be interested in this game. Especially after Failguard doubled down on the button-mashing combat

 

[Shuruga]

I was skeptical at first but I actually thought the combat in the first Greedfall was OK for what it was -- mostly a third person action game but the tactical pause allowed you to use a potion or queue a special attack. I played as a pure mage on the hardest difficulty setting and found, especially at the beginning, that I had to make good use of the system to fire off stasis spells to avoid being overwhelmed. (Then around midgame I became OP and the combat turned into a joke/slog.) A more tactical iteration on this formula could be interesting.

The game definitely had flaws but I appreciated that they had a story to tell and the setting took itself seriously. I'm pretty jaded these days but I find myself cautiously optimistic that GFII will be worth playing at some point.

 

[Yosharian]

Gameplay demonstration at 6:40

Looks like Spiders have underestimated the butthurt from casual players

It looks decent but very rough, which is to be expected from an alpha I suppose, let's wait and see what it looks like further down the line.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/g...hts-high-hitting-all-the-crpg-tropes-at-once/

GreedFall 2 is setting its sights high, hitting all the CRPG tropes at once​

Hands-on with Spiders' RPG sequel.

Spare a thought for all the mid-budget RPGs set to release in the next few months. Launching a game in a genre as storied as this is hard at the best of times. Adding to it less than 12 months after it was shocked into the limelight by a universally beloved phenomenon feels faintly masochistic.

Though if Baldur's Gate 3 will inevitably stand as the yardstick to which all CRPGs are—fairly or unfairly—compared over the next several years, at least GreedFall 2: The Dying World seems to have inadvertently repositioned itself to court those fans wanting more of its party-based combat.

This half-prequel, half-sequel to developer Spiders' 2019 gunpowder fantasy ditches its predecessor's middling action RPG fights to raise the camera to a semi-bird's-eye view for simultaneous turn-based brawls. It's more BioWare than Larian, admittedly, with all the action unfolding in real time, but a clear step towards the sort of tactical thinking that's long characterised the crunchier end of the CRPG spectrum.

Between hitting reptilian monsters in their pudgy faces and skewering human thugs, an active pause option lets you queue up your parties' next hammer swings, sword strikes and arrow volleys. The character skills available in my preview of the early game are limited, but hint at deep synergies to come. I'm able to spend from a limited pool of action points to instruct my starter companions to stun foes in knockback attacks, launch more powerful hits for big targeted damage, and distract enemies away from ailing allies.

In other words, it's a world away from the hit-dodge-parry formula that the original GreedFall clung to. And when you add in the odd footprint-tracking segments whose visual breadcrumb trails smack of Geralt's Witcher senses, mountains of lore delivered through optional branching dialogue trees, and opportunities to complete quest lines by brute forcing your way through huddles of enemies, stealthing your way around them, or using your talents in diplomacy to skill check your way out of danger without drawing blood, it soon becomes clear that GreedFall 2 isn't just chasing what's in vogue but trying to hit all the tropes of the CRPG genre at once.

New beginnings​

A little aspirational, maybe, but it seems a shrewd enough idea given the studio's past work. As Spiders co-founder Jehanne Rousseau explains, the original GreedFall's two million unit sales was a mammoth success for the small studio, and has left the team room to tinker with broader ideas. Much of that has involved considering improvements that fans requested of the first game: fleshing out the lore, introducing new settings that were previously only hinted at, and better involving the player's party. "Having control over the group makes more sense for a lot of players who come to these kinds of games where you have a team and companions with stories between them," says Rousseau. "So the first thing was completely changing the system of combat."

The second was to flip the script. Where GreedFall positioned you as a colonist arriving at the magical island of Teer Fradee in search of a cure to a disease blighting your people back home, this follow-up places you as a native of the island, soon kidnapped and transported to the colonisers' home continent. It's a part of the GreedFall world that loomed large in the first game but was largely absent from the player's journey.

As the story shifts geography, so too does it seem to be taking a darker turn. GreedFall 2 wastes no time hopping into the tensions between colonists and natives, or hinting at the butchery many of our more untrusting clanspeople expect could be just around the corner. For the benefit of our rather wet-behind-the-ears protagonist, it's all explained from the top. "What's really important to us in the GreedFall world is that you're playing someone that is discovering something new," says Rousseau. "You're exploring new cultures and new people, so by putting you in the shoes of a native from Teer Fradee, the continent is something that you will have to discover and understand."

Muskets and magic​

It's that new world, Rousseau reckons, that gives GreedFall 2 its unique flavour, and from the game's opening moments, there's a sense that Spider is betting big on the fictional setting to hook new and returning players. From the off, you're immediately thrust into a dialogue tree that offers as much exposition as you care to take, and the starting tutorial quest that charts your journey from regular tribesman to magically attuned sage is never short of optional snippets of lore. Even the majority of NPCs I meet throughout my preview speak in a fully voiced fictional language—as much a boast of the world building that Spiders has already put into the game as a demonstration of just how committed it is to throwing the player in headfirst.

What you'll find in that world is a place of warring, wicked, militarily advanced empires, many of which have obvious analogues in history. Cartels of traders seem to operate much as the rich merchant rulers of Amsterdam and Venice once did, and the smugly democratic empire with a lion on its coat of arms looks like a stand-in for the smugly democratic Britain of old.

Rousseau says she's already created 1,000 years of history to precede the events of GreedFall 2, covering the historical figures who shaped its world, the seven factions players will meet in the game, and the rival subgroups vying for power. Your job, as ever, is to navigate their interests, and align yourself with whoever most appeals.

"We really wanted to offer a lot of choices that will be meaningful on the adventure, not only to have several different endings but really to offer a different journey," she says. The idea is to ground the game's otherwise intimidating body of lore in the personalities of your companions. With each belonging to a different faction, they can provide you with essential information that may change how you deal with an obstacle, or bring extra social weight to a pivotal encounter that could alter the course of events.

Clash of kings​

Even in this early portion of the game, my fellow Sages-to-be aren't shy to share their thoughts on my decisions, regularly commending or criticising my approach to dealing with the settlers and their treatment of our clan. But I suspect picking your party will only become more important as the journey stretches on and the stakes get higher.

Where the original GreedFall introduced the European-inspired colonial history that forms the backbone of its world, its intrigue and politticking it is more accentuated this time around. You're brought closer to the corridors of power, and don't just have the fate of Teer Fradee hanging in the palms of your hands, but the new world order. Little surprise, then, that Rousseau likens GreedFall 2's flavour of historical-fantasy to the politically charged stories of Game of Thrones author George RR Martin. Magic exists and is a force to be reckoned with, but it's the scheming, betrayals and power plays of ordinary people that form the bulk of the drama.

Not that there were many moments of my preview that dealt with those lofty ideas with much subtlety. At one point, I meet a group of trappers clearing a forest of animals that just so happen to be my tribe's regular source of food. One of my companions objects to their wanton destruction, and gets ready, I presume, to launch some choice insults at the colonial profiteers. But the only barb he can muster is a meek "We need those animals too!", after which I'm given the option of settling the conflict through intimidation or steel. Not exactly the pointed ideological showdown I was hoping for.

Tinkering tools​

Stilted dialogue, no doubt partly a consequence of GreedFall 2's translation from French to English, occasionally lets down what should be dramatic moments such as these. Though I imagine this is just one of many areas that will improve in time. With GreedFall 2 set to release first in Steam early access in the coming months, before a full launch next year, Spiders hopes the extra community involvement will help iron out big development pivots, like the combat system, as well as set the groundwork for upcoming modding tools.

It's an approach that studios like Larian and Supergiant have already found huge success in. And as the scope of videogames becomes ever larger, and the costs to produce them only spiral, might the early access model now be all but necessary to make an RPG the size of GreedFall 2? "Well, when you look at what happened with Cyberpunk, maybe they should have done early access," says Rousseau. "Now the game is wonderful, but when it was released it was not." Giving business tips to CD Projekt Red? Well, nobody can say the team at Spiders don't have their sights set high.

 

[Abu Antar]

A preview from RPGSite. I don't know if more previews are dropping, or not.
https://www.rpgsite.net/preview/159...cues-from-dragon-age-origins-hands-on-preview

GreedFall II: The Dying World takes cues from Dragon Age: Origins - Preview

The original GreedFall was something of a surprise when it released back in 2019. It may not have had the same outward production values as a BioWare RPG, but many people saw the resemblance in its structure, narrative, combat, and character writing.

In an era where BioWare was floundering, GreedFall seemed to offer something that many fans were missing from Western RPGs of the time, and the game went on to be a great success for publisher Focus Home Interactive. It only made sense that the development team at Spiders would create a follow-up to GreedFall, although perhaps not in the way people expected.


GreedFall II: The Dying World takes place chronologically before GreedFall, although Spiders hesitates to call it a prequel, instead opting for "another story in the same world". Additionally, the game is going the Early Access route, which is a new development strategy for the studio. It also makes some significant changes to the gameplay stylings, using a more tactical design rather than more action RPG like its predecessor. With so many new wrinkles in play, I was eager to go hands-on with an early build of GreedFall II: The Dying World ahead of its Early Access release later this year.

If the original GreedFall was often compared to Mass Effect, then GreedFall II more directly takes inspiration from Dragon Age: Origins. That's not just me making a blanket comparison based solely on observation, Spiders CEO Jehanne Rousseau told me that explicitly during my hour-long demo with the game.

One of Spiders' primary focuses in creating a new GreedFall game was allowing players to have more control over the entire party in gameplay this time around, instead of having companions act on their own. This necessarily meant shifting the gameplay to be much more akin to a classic computer RPG this time around, allowing you to control characters individually or as a group. Dragon Age: Origins is a good comparison, I feel.


While some small snippets of gameplay can be seen in a recent trailer, it was somewhat tricky to get a grasp of what GreedFall II actually plays like until I was seated in front of it. Put concisely, for the most part, GreedFall II is a RTwP (Real-Time with Pause) RPG now. You'll move in real-time with your companions as you explore the native meadows Teer Fradee, but action will pause when you encounter a foe that needs to be felled. The game is not purely turn-based, as you can resume play and have your party start fighting what's in front of them. However, to use various abilities, such as healing, buffs, or attack skills, you'll select them from your hotbar, with the option to pause. It feels like a classic computer RPG in that fashion.

This necessarily means that GreedFall II plays a little bit slower than its predecessor, as you'll often have to pause the action to set up your allies' abilities before resuming combat. Whatever your feelings on RTwP combat, it probably applies here, at least to some degree. There's quite a bit of clicking around the user interface to make sure your team is acting in the way you want them to.

During my demo, I had three characters in my party. My main character, who you can create to be adept with any weapon you choose, was a ranged type, using a bow-and-arrow to attack from afar. Village friends Nilan and Sheda rounded out the party, with Nilan acting as a medic while Sheda smacked foes with a big hammer. I often would pause in combat to make sure Nilan was keeping my team topped off in healing, while Sheda would cause AoE shockwaves by thundering her hammer into the ground. In this sense, Spiders definitely succeeds in giving players more direct control over the party, but it also felt a bit too much like I had to micromanage my characters at times.

The build I played was very clearly early, especially evident with a somewhat basic suite of UI elements. With an Early Access period coming up, there will be plenty of time and opportunity for nuances of combat and interface to be adjusted. I hope that by the time the game releases in full, there is more functionality in setting at least some party behavior so I don't have to always tell my medic to heal me when I am weak, for example. Even so, it'll be interesting to see how fans of the original GreedFall take to its successor's new combat structure.


I started this preview with the more mechanical side of things — the gameplay structure itself — because that's where it feels most different from what came before. The rest of my demo was a role-playing experience through and through. At the onset of the game, GreedFall II's main character's home village has been beset with an illness of unknown origin, and they are tasked with seeking out the cause and hopefully finding a solution.

From the onset, there are already two leads to take, seeking out the behavior of local fauna, or investigating the nearby settlement of miners who have come to Teer Fradee from the continent of Gacane. I went ahead and scouted the miners, who claimed their excavations were safe and not causing any ill effects to the environment. I convinced them to let me apply to work at the mine, and from there, investigated some mysterious happenings in the vicinity.

Several dialogue options ask for the input of your party, including some dialogue options that have a chance of success based on your character's stats - simply labeled with a percentage for now. I tended to be diplomatic in my demo time, but there were also options for more ... straightforward approaches in handling some of the NPC encounters I had. It's difficult to say in such a short demo period how consequential these sorts of role-playing choices become in the grand scheme, but the introduction was promising.


The full release of GreedFall II: The Dying World is probably still quite a way away, and several components of the demo I played will likely be adjusted, polished up, removed, or replaced entirely as Spiders progresses through the Early Access period. Regardless, Spiders next interpretation of GreedFall is an interesting one, and I'll be keeping an eye on it in the meantime.

 

[Yosharian]

"it's too hard to micromanage my party"

 

[Lord_Potato]

Finally a nice direction of a series. Real time action -> rtwp. Who knows, maybe if this doesn't flop Greedfal 3 goes turn based

 

[abnaxus]

Jehanne has already been one-upped by that turn-based Frenchie game called Clair de Lune or whatever.