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

[FeelTheRads]

I don't think it was ever really intended to mean that you learn and forget them everyday.

Have you actually read Jack Vance?

No, I have not.

Have you actually read my post, though, which was about games not books, where your problem seems to be with how the process is called? How would it be if it was mainly known as preparing rather than memorizing and yet still work the same? Still "dumb as hell"?

 

[troupeg]

Fallout 1 is the only good fallout.

Nice try, you have to actually play F1 before you get to say that.

I have. Multiple full paythroughs and I do speedruns of it when I'm bored.

 

[Xzar]

Another day has gone
BT4 is still all alone
How could this be?
At least Roqua is here with me

Like a stranger in Moscow
With his blood on the dance floor
He keeps his true thoughts in the closet
Where Fargo fucks his Liberian girl...

Who came and changed his world..
If only he knew
That no patches will come
Because they really dont care about us

Do you remember the time
When we fell in love
With Fallout world?
That game was bad, that game was dangerous...

 

[biggestboss]

Found a new obstacle

Not gonna lie, this screenshot is making me get dangerously close to buying the game.

 

[Agame]

Another day has gone
BT4 is still all alone
How could this be?
At least Roqua is here with me

Like a stranger in Moscow
With his blood on the dance floor
He keeps his true thoughts in the closet
Where Fargo fucks his Liberian girl...

Who came and changed his world..
If only he knew
That no patches will come
Because they really dont care about us

Do you remember the time
When we fell in love
With Fallout world?
That game was bad, that game was dangerous...

I like where this is going but you need to do a lot of redrafting!

 

[Xzar]

Another day has gone
BT4 is still all alone
How could this be?
At least Roqua is here with me

Like a stranger in Moscow
With his blood on the dance floor
He keeps his true thoughts in the closet
Where Fargo fucks his Liberian girl...

Who came and changed his world..
If only he knew
That no patches will come
Because they really dont care about us

Do you remember the time
When we fell in love
With Fallout world?
That game was bad, that game was dangerous...

I like where this is going but you need to do a lot of redrafting!

Heh A nice age test this, is it not? I guess anyone older than 28 should immediately recognize whats this about. But could be a mystery to teenagers.

Also, Roqua promised BT4 copy to whoever correctly counts the number of songs mentioned here.:D

 

[Renevent]

Alright, game is growing on me. After you start fleshing out your party and leveling up combat get's pretty decent. There's a lot of synergies between certain kinds of attacks/skills, decent tactics, and supporting party configurations. I like all the secrets and the puzzles and exploration are done well enough. Music is excellent and I've caught myself standing around a few times just to hear a few of the tunes out. It is rough...rougher than I expected and I did not expect AAA quality. NPC's look like degenerates you'd expect to find on Doctor Moreau's island. My original complaint about the clipping/dithering/etc is still valid, but the game actually has some decent looking areas.

One thing I wish I knew before starting the game was about how offerings worked. I didn't know about the code wheel until like 20 hours in, and now I am backtracking trying to complete them.

Another thing that annoys me, even though I am starting to like the combat, is why the fuck they went with just having 2D images of your character on the board. They even went through the trouble of creating 3D models in the item preview pane and new weapons/armor are visually equipped.

 

[ProphetSword]

Also, Roqua promised BT4 copy to whoever correctly counts the number of songs mentioned here.:D

I count 9, but I wouldn't take another copy of the game even if someone paid me.

 

[Jezal_k23]

I'd accept a free copy but wouldn't work for it.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

The intro ran... then froze my computer. That’s what my dumb ass gets for running it on an i3. To be fair I pirated a copy just to look at it. It had no thrills or frills as in extras. So.... maybe if and when I get a gaming rig. Combat looks sort of phantasy Star-like tbh.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

but your bias is really showing with this one.

It was more annoyance than bias. I kept hitting "end turn" with action points left, thinking it meant to end the character's turn, not the whole team. This causes you to waste unspent points. There's no warning that you're about to end a turn with unspent action points, and you can't carry over unspent points. It also struck me as super odd that casting spells uses a different set of points but doesn't cost actions. How is attacking an action but not casting spells? Talk about unintuitive.

It just seemed really confusing for no good reason. The comparison with Bard's Tale 1 is meant to show that this was a solved problem. Players easily understand 1 character gets 1 set of attacks, 1 spell, or 1 allotment of AP each turn. Suddenly re-writing the meta-rules of gaming shouldn't be done without a good reason.

I said this elsewhere, but if the game's wacky mechanics worked for me like they have for some, then the changes and omissions would be more forgivable. But they don't, and I don't seem to be alone.

 

[Lyre Mors]

So they still didn't release their first patch, huh? Damn, there goes their possible slight launch weekend player boost. too. This just somehow got even more depressing.

Another thing that annoys me, even though I am starting to like the combat, is why the fuck they went with just having 2D images of your character on the board. They even went through the trouble of creating 3D models in the item preview pane and new weapons/armor are visually equipped.

Unfortunately, judging from the quality of the character models in the inventory screen, I think we're much better off with the 2D representations. I do agree that it would have been fucking awesome to have well-done models with visually represented equipment on the battlefield, though.

EDIT: New patch is out now. 5gb. Holy shit.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Patch notes:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/566090/announcements/detail/1685925928824235559

The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep Patch 1
SEPTEMBER 21 - PAUL_INXILE

Hello everyone!

Today we are releasing the first patch for The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep.

Once more, thank you for your patience and understanding while we continue to resolve all issues you may encounter as quickly as we can. In addition to that, we are also very grateful for all the feedback we have received from you since launch. Please keep sending us your reports and thoughts, it means a lot to us and helps us to hunt down all remaining problems (as well as considering other revisions).

Let's take a more detailed look at Patch 1:

Our primary focus has been to address the topics which most impact your gaming experience, based on your feedback and what we’ve seen pop up during the last few days:

- Crashes
- Dropping framerates
- Non-functional widescreen support
- Unusual loading times on HDDs
- FOV slider
- Localization concerns

As already stated in the road map we released earlier this week, some of these points are not easy to resolve and require in-depth changes to the game (and subsequent testing). This applies especially to stabilizing framerates, improving loading times, and taking care of resolution issues. Today's patch lays the overall groundwork for fixing these, and you will see more improvements with patch 2, currently targeting Friday 9/28.

While we continue building on that, a number of issues have been fixed in today’s patch. We added a FOV slider, solved some pesky crashes, overhauled some funky skills, and many other things. Please take a look at the complete list of changes to get the full picture:

• Added FOV slider to the options menu
  
• Added ability to delete each save independently
  
• Updated ordering of PAK files to improve loading times up through Skyhenge
  
• Tweaks to volumetric fog in many areas to reduce load on the GPU
  
• Optimization of Kael’s Rudiment VFX to improve performance issues in combat
  
• Fix for puzzle weapons not saving their puzzle state if they were equipped when solved
  
• Fix to puzzle weapon crafting icons to remove stretching issues
  
• Updated materials on some puzzle weapons handles not displaying properly on high, medium, low quality settings
  
• Increased speed of Rain of Arrows enemy animations to reduce slowdown
  
• Fix to a crash when pressing End Turn when the player has an exploding arrow on that would kill them after the turn
  
• Added skill tree icons in subterfuge for lockpick and mastery
  
• Raised FPS cap on smoothing to 260
  
• Fixes to Inner Peace, Mindful, and Quick Thinking to not activate only once
  
• Added windowed mode drop down to replace checkbox
  
• Fix for game softlocking if a tutorial popped up right as a note was read
  
• Fix for electric boon line crash with certain abilities proccing out of combat
  
• Fix for a combatants kill action that could be triggered multiple times and after the end of combat screen which could cause a soft lock, notably with conjurers mark
  
• Fix for activating a standing stone right as combat starts causing a soft lock
  
• Fix for 2 handed weapons with 2 skills that were losing the first skill when level loading or training skills
  
• Fix for issue where combat statuses weren’t being removed after combat
  
• Removed the ability to destroy ink recipes in Mangar’s Tower
  
• Updated Mangar’s horde fight in Mangar’s Tower so traps go away when defeated after save/load
  
• Fixed a fairy golf collision issue in Baedish Lowlands
  
• Audio improvements to final game scene
  
• Removed code that auto sets controller functionality if a gamepad is connected. Gamepad functionality will be added in patch 3
  
• Updated Blessing of Mathan VFX to remove untextured squares
  
• Drunk tutorial should no longer fire off when stepping into a trap
  
• Added aspect ratio adjustments when resolution is changed
  
• Fix for changing between resolution, language, and fullscreen in the options menu causing the game resolution to revert to 1 x 1
  
• Switched Sybale’s background VFX to the rogues set instead of the bards set
  
• Fix for issue where pausing the game in certain (spoilers removed) cutscenes could cause the game to be unresponsive
  
• Updates to floating damage text for readability
  
• Fixed Rabbie’s FaceFX for Snow in Summer song.
  
• Fix for issue where level transitions while dual wielding two main hand weapons would destroy the main hand weapon and dupe the offhand weapon
  
• Fix for Elven wine tooltip to show amount of spell points you generate on use
  
• Small walkability fix in Fichti forest
  
• Fighter’s mana bar shows up now if they have the Veteran passive
  
• Updated traps in base of Song of the Sentry to deal damage to the whole party
  
• Updated text on skill points tutorials
  
• Fix to Harkyn’s Castle and logic puzzle quests to properly complete
  
• Fix to secret doors in Iwon Reg that became impassable after save/load
  
• Fix for an issue where an equipped trinket would duplicate if a consumable trinket was swapped with it
  
• Made the Torr Fion key a quest item
  
• Can no longer spam a lever in Mangar’s tower that would restrict the skulls
  
• Fixed Show North so it’s not useable in combat
  
• Fix for bug where mana was using the current mana value and not the max mana value with certain items
  
• Fix for wraith sub-abilities not respecting mana costs
  
• Update to a combat space in Iwon Reg that was on top of spikes
  
• Fix for an issue in Baedish Forest where there was a chance to get stuck in a combat space

If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at our support line[inxile.net].

The team at inXile

 

[Zombra]

I don't think it was ever really intended to mean that you learn and forget them everyday.

Have you actually read Jack Vance?

No, I have not.
Have you actually read my post, though, which was about games not books, where your problem seems to be with how the process is called? How would it be if it was mainly known as preparing rather than memorizing and yet still work the same? Still "dumb as hell"?

So let me get it straight. You're saying that games that use Vancian magic systems have deliberate story intentions for how they're "supposed" to work and what they're supposed to look like in the fiction of their settings ... intentions that are implicit but never described, not in design documents nor anywhere else, yet wholly different and disassociated from their systems' literary source?

How would it be if it was mainly known as preparing rather than memorizing and yet still work the same? Still "dumb as hell"?

Yes. Despite your angling, I am not at all caught up in the labeling of things. The idea of a wizard who has studied dozens of spells over the decades but can't cast more than one or two different ones on a given day is ridiculous. For any setting to try to make the idea sensible would require spine-snapping bending over backwards. On top of this, I can't think of a single CRPG that tries to justify its magic system in the setting at all, much less a system so awkward and improbable.

 

[Metal Hurlant]

4.9 GB patch downloading. I hope it's worth it.

 

[aweigh]

The idea of a wizard who has studied dozens of spells over the decades but can't cast more than one or two different ones on a given day is ridiculous.

It's not really that inconceivable, just establish that casting spells is hugely draining on fatigue/stamina/mental energy/MEMORIES/etc/whatever.

FAKE EDIT: Also remember Tellah in FF4? He was a wizard that was enormously powerful but old age had caused memory loss (substitute with alzheimers, whatever) so he had forgotten most of his spells, and he learns a few of them back thru the course of the game during dramatic story events.

It's actually one of the best ways I've seen for an RPG to establish the old powerful wizard who joins you but doesn't have access to Tiltowait immediately trope; what I'm getting at is that there are a few ways a writer can finagle memory loss as a component for spell casting in one way or another.

Anyway, more importantly: so did the patch improve frame rate?

 

[Jezal_k23]

Found a new obstacle

Not gonna lie, this screenshot is making me get dangerously close to buying the game.

HP bloat doesn't necessarily translate to difficulty (or well done difficulty anyway). It could just be horribly obnoxious, tedious and time consuming for all I know.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I don't think it was ever really intended to mean that you learn and forget them everyday.

Yes, actually.

Vance's dying earth novels are actually post-apocalyptic, the magic runes come from another dimension. Memorizing spell runes takes mental stamina, forcing some kind of foreign dimensional energy into your head. Casting the spell releases the runes from your brain, causing you to forget them. It's weird and it's not very similar to the magic-as-skill concept that most fantasy RPGs employ.

But in any case, in Bard's Tale 4 the masteries are limited because of the dev's dumb idea of sharing action points with the whole team.

 

[Darth Roxor]

now to wait for the patch to hit zog

 

[Zombra]

The idea of a wizard who has studied dozens of spells over the decades but can't cast more than one or two different ones on a given day is ridiculous.

It's not really that inconceivable, just establish that casting spells is hugely draining on fatigue/stamina/mental energy/MEMORIES/etc/whatever.

That wouldn't explain why a wizard could cast 60 fireballs and 200 lightning bolts in a day but be totally unable to cast a single door opening spell until tomorrow, as we have here.

FAKE EDIT: Also remember Tellah in FF4? He was a wizard that was enormously powerful but old age had caused memory loss (substitute with alzheimers, whatever) so he had forgotten most of his spells, and he learns a few of them back thru the course of the game during dramatic story events.

Sure, and that was fine for that very specific character for that very specific story. It's not a suitable excuse for an entire RPG magic system where I'm making my own characters.

What I'm getting at is that there are a few ways a writer can finagle memory loss as a component for spell casting in one way or another.

It's certainly not impossible to rationalize the ridiculous. So far no CRPG I'm aware of has attempted to do so. (One prescripted character in one JRPG doesn't count )

Anyway, more importantly: so did the patch improve frame rate?

No idea, I see no sense in playing this at all until the first several patch waves crash onto shore.

 

[Cross]

So let me get it straight. You're saying that games that use Vancian magic systems have deliberate story intentions for how they're "supposed" to work and what they're supposed to look like in the fiction of their settings ... intentions that are implicit but never described, not in design documents nor anywhere else, yet wholly different and disassociated from their systems' literary source?

The idea of a wizard who has studied dozens of spells over the decades but can't cast more than one or two different ones on a given day is ridiculous. For any setting to try to make the idea sensible would require spine-snapping bending over backwards. On top of this, I can't think of a single CRPG that tries to justify its magic system in the setting at all, much less a system so awkward and improbable.

"Inside yer spell book are yer recipes... yer 'spells'... if you will. As long as they sit in the book, though, they're jist words." She tapped her head. "The Art demands ye pluck the magick out of the book and put them in yer attic... yer head, a-fore ye ken tap their power."

"Hmmph. All right then. Here's the dark of how ye memorize the spells: Pick the spells ye want to stick in yer head from yer spell book a-fore ye goes to sleep. When ye wake in the morn, they'll be buzzin' in yer head like flies, ready ta be let out."

"Ye ken cast only one, mayhap two spells a-fore needin' to rest again... as a tiny flitting mageling, there isn't much room in yer attic. So's use yer spells wisely until ye get wiser in the art. As yer power increases, ye'll get more room in yer attic for spells."

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Thats quite an impressive patch, they are definitely committed.

They may have caught some of these issues sooner maybe if the hadnt outsourced their QA, but hey i appreciate the effort they are pouring into it right now.

 

[aweigh]

But they did outsource their QA, you're doing it right now.

 

[BEvers]

Plot blocker will be hotfixed, devs are offering to help people out now:

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Reminder that reviewers don't even play the games they're paid to review. Not a single one mentioned that it's impossible to complete the game(without a Dev explicitly warning you to carefully avoid an area or your save is fucked)

What a joke