And thus most of the things that BT4 allegedly removed weren't to be found in the series anyway.
Gord pulls ahead in the retard race!
BT1: 10 classes
BT4: 4 classes
BT1: 6 Races
BT4: 4 Races
BT1: Full party creation from the start
BT4: Restricted for dozens of hours
BT1: 7 party members including summoned monsters
BT4: 6 party members, no permanent summons
BT1: Respawning enemies
BT4: Finite enemies
BT1: 80-something spells
BT4: Fewer
BT1: Standard attack/MP usage mechanics
BT4: autistic action point/spell point/mastery limits
Yep nothing removed or dumbed down at all. Bard's Tale 2 and 3 even had engagements with multiple groups of enemies at range with archery and spells, which this game reduces to a measly two rows of combat. What does Bard's Tale 4 add? Crafting and block puzzles. Whoopee.
I never claimed the Bard's Tale games were super deep or complex, that's what makes this so odd. The first game in the series should be the
baseline for a sequel. Content is king. More levels, more characters, more classes, more items, more spells, more feats, more monsters, more everything. It's 2018, you have 50gb install space, all the CPU power in the world, and all you can come up with is fighter-mage-cleric-thief?
The original Bard's Tale had 10 classes, this game should have
at least that many. If it's so hard, try 7-8, not
four. Or maybe think about adding one or two. Bard's Tale 4, now with
eleven classes! Wowee! Brian Fargo made you his bitch!
Sure, there are specializations for the classes. Let's say with sub-classes that brings the game's total up to a whopping 8-ish. Might and Magic X had twelve classes, and they were all different AND had specializations. Starcrawlers had 8 classes with three sub-class trees each, essentially bringing the total up to 24. You know what? I thought THAT game was kinda shallow, but it was made for next-to-nothing; what is Bard's Tale 4's excuse? Not like it actually matters though because everyone is limited to an extremely stingy four active abilities, including basic attacks.
"But lots of other RPG sequels violate the 'Moar content' rule," says Jimmy. Yes they do Jimmy, and they all suck too. Everyone gets the bullet.
I know Brian Fargo understands this, because of Wasteland 2. That game perfectly encapsulates the "moar stuff" sequel concept. The original game had a lot of pointless skills, the new game made all skills useful. How rare is that? There are no dump skills in WL2. You need all of them. They even added more dialogue skills. They expanded the stat system and introduced more build choices. In the original many weapons were only viable for a limited portion of the game, like pistols. In WL2 you can use pistols for the whole game; there are even multiple weapon types at each tier with different trade-offs, like power vs. rate of fire and criticals. They added full movement system for combat, action points, cover system, and called shots. They added more areas and more content, creating a longer game (some even said it was too long). Sure, the game was buggy as shit and the second half was unfinished, but at least you can't call it dumbed down. Bard's Tale 4 is buggy, unfinished, AND dumbed down.
The codex will bash it to high heavens,for the first few days that is. After that people will begin talking about old games as usual,just look at this thread.
