Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep - Director's Cut

[felipepepe]

Also, I know this might be a groundbreaking idea, but... if the game is unstable maybe you shouldn't remove the savepoints and instead opt to use them?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Also, I know this might be a groundbreaking idea, but... if the game is unstable maybe you shouldn't remove the savepoints and instead opt to use them?

Save early, save often.

 

[BEvers]

-runs and looks like ass

I think they went too far with the smear shaders. Some guy used reshade to take some of the blurriness away; I think he also went a bit overboard, but it actually looks better than the base shaders:



https://steamcommunity.com/app/566090/discussions/0/1733213724891451329/?ctp=4#c1733213724892958893

 

[Ulrox]

It plays/looks neither like hearthstone, nor an animu jrpg, IMHO.

Feel like the mana system is very similar to slay the spire, and the puzzle adventure gameplay reminds me a bit of wild arms, due to the songs that you use to solve various problems, in wild arms, it was items you used. The combat seems similar to a jrpg to me, in that you have a bunch of actions, and a party where you fight monsters. They used a grid system for combat in wild arms 4 for instance.

 

[cvv]

To be fair, there was a massive save system debate on official forums where people demanded more punishing save system. So they've done that.

I love alternative save systems if done well but the massive shitstorm with Kingdom Come should've made it clear vast majority of gaymers are lazy and comfortable as fuck nowadays and savescumming is a hard drug. The only way you can come up with an alternative save system today is to hide it behind a Veteran mode or some such or people will rip you a new one.

 

[Curratum]

So today I finally installed that i5 3470 to replace my decrepit i3 2120, then got to testing games that were giving me grief. GPU is an R9 380 4 gb, playing at just 900p because of a small monitor.

Dragon Quest XI, which I stopped playing once the first big town killed my fps entirely, went from ~20 to ~50 fps from just the CPU swap.

Bard's Tale 4 went from ~20 to a whopping ~30 with near-constant drops into the 20s, second-long freezes and stuttering present at all times, even when just rotating the camera around, in a dungeon.

How the fuck can you have any sort of compassion for the cunts who got paid to produce this and worked on the engine and locations?

No matter what they tell you about exciting discoveries for potential optimization, this will never get sufficiently fixed. The best they can do is squeeze another 5 or 6 fps out of their shit-smeared code, then call it a "20% boost in fps" and this will be the end of it.

You can go from gamedev to panhandling for all I care, Fargo and company, you fucking cunts.

 

[Xeon]

Saving is limited?

Cohh was playing and game bugged out during a fight resulting in it not ending, lost 20-30min of progress or something.

 

[Bohr]

Chin up

 

[Mortmal]

That Mangar's tower bell puzzle. Anyone have the bell combination at the end of the puzzle? I did the sides and pulled the lever.

First you read the runes on the skulls front .. and back, green and red . Then you place those combinations on the wheels according the colors. Then a lever appears in the blood pool, it will raise the skulls, read them like music notes.
Ring the bells in that order 5342142321
Now go to the end, enjoy boss fight not dropping any loot....

 

[TT1]

Haha, this game really looks like mobile. Infinity Blade looks better than this piece of crap.

 

[agris]

-runs and looks like ass

I think they went too far with the smear shaders. Some guy used reshade to take some of the blurriness away; I think he also went a bit overboard, but it actually looks better than the base shaders:



https://steamcommunity.com/app/566090/discussions/0/1733213724891451329/?ctp=4#c1733213724892958893

aweigh's tweaks of

r.Tonemapper.Sharpen=1.20
r.TemporalAASharpness=1.20

Essentially do the same thing. Assuming you're using temporal AA, otherwise just the Tonemapper.Sharpen will suffice (I think). Also, disable motion blur and DOF. The blur kicks in when you simply rotate, making the smeared visuals smear-i-er. Regarding DOF, huge studios can't do it well - so I didn't even bother trying it here.

 

[Bohr]

Heavy drinking focus:

 

[Shadenuat]

They decided to make weapon skills being part of the 4 skill mechanic

It's funny how even banal action RPGs have Standard Attack based on stats and equipped weapon, and this game actually doesn't. If you don't have skill, then regardless of your weapons, you cannot attack.

This, btw, makes investing into weapon skills for bards and mages a bad idea. Especially bards - at the very least you want a few of their buffs and high drunk-counter abilities - to use them, you also want spell points and other passives; equipping any weapon skill to that just weakens your bard. Mages, obviously, would end up with more skills than they can use just by following one of their skill leylines.

Eventually as you want to be effective you end up with a bunch of one-trick ponies that do same combo-wombo every fight and that is where party development ends.

 

[fantadomat]

That Mangar's tower bell puzzle. Anyone have the bell combination at the end of the puzzle? I did the sides and pulled the lever.

First you read the runes on the skulls front .. and back, green and red . Then you place those combinations on the wheels according the colors. Then a lever appears in the blood pool, it will raise the skulls, read them like music notes.
Ring the bells in that order 5342142321
Now go to the end, enjoy boss fight not dropping any loot....

I read it on steam,i have doing that,it seems that my game is bugged in this place and i get no final battle. Also i read that there is a stairs on a bridge with blood,they lead to the treasure. Hope that helps you.

 

[Gord]

Eventually as you want to be effective you end up with a bunch of one-trick ponies that do same combo-wombo every fight and that is where party development ends.

That does sound pretty close to Bard's Tale trilogy, actually...

Spoiler

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Chin up

Haha, they are not learning animals, are they. Same as after TTON launch, it's strikingly obvious that game has failed but they only respond to positive comments and act as if everything is going great.

Shit like this is why I can't take them seriously anymore.

 

[Mortmal]

That Mangar's tower bell puzzle. Anyone have the bell combination at the end of the puzzle? I did the sides and pulled the lever.

First you read the runes on the skulls front .. and back, green and red . Then you place those combinations on the wheels according the colors. Then a lever appears in the blood pool, it will raise the skulls, read them like music notes.
Ring the bells in that order 5342142321
Now go to the end, enjoy boss fight not dropping any loot....

I read it on steam,i have doing that,it seems that my game is bugged in this place and i get no final battle. Also i read that there is a stairs on a bridge with blood,they lead to the treasure. Hope that helps you.

yes i saw it, but that fight was labeled as overpowering , while everything else was trivial...

 

[BEvers]

 

[TT1]

Yeah, sure, man, take your time. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is just one week away. Watch your game fall into oblivion.

 

[Xeon]

Yeah, it seems its doing really bad, sales wise. Hope W2 will be better and have better reception if its good.

Music sounds pretty good tho.

 

[BEvers]

Top priority!

 

[Max Heap]

But will it outsell Grimoire?

 

[hellbent]

Yeah, sure, man, take your time. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is just one week away. Watch your game fall into oblivion.

Is that a typo, or does this mean something in current software QC processing? Is Fargo thinking about rocking a mullet again?

 

[J_C]

Yeah, it seems its doing really bad, sales wise. Hope W2 will be better and have better reception if its good.

Music sounds pretty good tho.

Torment sales disappoint. PoE2 sales disappoint. BT4 sales disappoint. And whatever the Codex says, these are good games, loved by critics. But still falling short at the box office. Does this mean the end for the nostalgia ride for RPGs? This cannot be a coincidence. If Wasteland 3 also flops, we can say goodbye to these projects I'm afraid.

Edit: Oh we have Pathfinder next week. That will be a big milestone. If that fails, it's gameover.

But will it outsell Grimoire?

My RPG Maker game outsells Grimoire.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I wish.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Yeah, it seems its doing really bad, sales wise. Hope W2 will be better and have better reception if its good.

Music sounds pretty good tho.

Torment sales disappoint. PoE2 sales disappoint. BT4 sales disappoint. And whatever the Codex says, these are good games, loved by critics. [...]

Yeah. Really impressive stuff...