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

[Morkar Left]

Gentlemen, may I ask why...

... dwarfs in this game aren't short...

Actually they are short. Or at least shorter. But yeah, redesigning the dwarves was something they should have avoided.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Alright, finally managed to sit down with this game. Thanks to the update the game works a bit smoother, and they seem to have fixed the issue I had with blurriness in the face of NPCs. I didn't play too far in as the game still has some hiccups every now and then so I'll wait for the game to be patched even further so that I can get a smooth experience, but so far I really, really enjoy what I'm seeing here. The combat is a lot of fun and I can see there being some potential for party building so I'm liking how there might be replayability here. The music is also very enjoyable, especially the combat theme. This game is more or less how I imagined it to be so I have no disappointments so far from the design of the game. It's just rough of on a technical level. I've noticed some odd kinks like Low, Medium and High texture options don't change the textures at all. They all look equally bad, but on Ultra it looks fine. They need to fix that so that Medium and High actually do something. I also read how people complained that different weapon types don't seem to matter. Not sure if this was something patched in or people didn't notice, but I saw that when I had a Sword equipped I gained a passive that granted me +1 attack to the Storm of Blades ability, meaning that it will do 12 damage with it instead of 9.. in theory. The problem was that this passive seems to be bugged and it isn't working.

So yeah. Fix the technical issues and this is a very good game for me. Really happy with what I've played so far.

How's the combat speed? Is there options to speed up the fighting animation or just skip it?

Combat is quite fast paced. Definitely not an issue of complaint for me so far. They are going to add an extra option down the line to make it even faster.

 

[biggestboss]

I want to buy this game so bad, but it also looks so bad.

 

[theSavant]

Despite all negative things you've seen and heard, there is no way avoiding it

 

[ProphetSword]

I want to buy this game so bad, but it also looks so bad.

I gave you my advice. But, if you really want to buy it, you should just bite the bullet and do it. Then come back here and either tell us how right we were about some of the terrible parts of the game, or tell us we're wrong. Either way, it should be entertaining.

 

[Shadenuat]

Wait until next summer sale it probably already will be there. If not on Christmas with -50% price tag.

 

[undecaf]

From what little I've played, it seems like it could be semi-fun in the long run. Lighthearted little grinder. I've not seen much technical dissues so far, some screen tearing and few glitches (like NPC's separated feet jumping out of the robes as they walk), but that's all. It doesn't seem to be as fun as MMXL, though. The mechanics (or, the lack of certain ones like weapon damage, armor values, no to-hit rolls, the character system, and so on...) do feel offputting and stupid, but I suppose if one can get used to those, there's easily at least one playthrough of this game to be had -- unless it gets way worse later on.

 

[Curratum]

For anyone considering the game RIGHT NOW, stay well the fuck away.

It's full of bizarre design choices that may not be a deal breaker but the performance is so hideously bad you simply won't be able to enjoy the experience, even if you can get with all the weird.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

I held off until level 15 to replace the story companions with mercenaries (because no respec) only to find that the Baed bonus skill points -- the entire point of picking Baed -- don't work with mercenary character gen. Don't bother recruiting Baedish mercenaries.

 

[Ulrox]

My prediction is that Roqua is right, and that this game will be hailed as a great rpg in 10 years time.

 

[turkishronin]

My prediction is that Roqua is right, and that this game will be hailed as a great rpg in 10 years time.

Well, at least it's not RTwP.

 

[V_K]

The only settings that actually affect performance are the shadow setting, the ambient occlusion checkmark and lowering (or raising) screen percentage. Everything else can safely be left on high/ultra, with possible exception of view distance.

EDIT: of course it goes without saying that with shadows on low and AO disabled the game looks absolutely terrible, worse than Oblivion.

I agree with you. I posted screenshot on medium and it runned like shit. After i killed the shadows the game runs well on ultra textures with AA on. I looks decent and it runs ok.

newtmonkey turn off the shadows and the game will run better.

Reminds me of the fun times I had with Divinity: Ego Draconis, where my character would get semi-stuck in the scenery and I didn't understand why until I turned off the shadows.

 

[Stokowski]

I want to buy this game so bad, but it also looks so bad.

Zen puppy doesn't give a fuck about Bard's Tale IV. Be more like Zen puppy.

 

[Zombra]

I want to buy this game so bad, but it also looks so bad.

Why not try it for 1.9 hours and refund if you hate it?

 

[Bohr]

My prediction is that Roqua is right, and that this game will be hailed as a great rpg in 10 years time.

 

[PEACH]

Not drunk enough yet, instead I decided to try The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians from my Steam library and ended up playing it for 70 mins straight. Seems pretty good so far, Real time blobber without dance of death, though you can use the real time nature of the combat to flee from combat and draw enemies into traps. XD

Got about 1/3rd that bottle left, so let's see if I wake tomorrow morning with some ugly broad in my bed—I mean, Bard's Tale IV purchased and sitting in my Steam library!

Try the 7th Circle, if you want to play a turn-based roguelike single-char blobber with a good horror mood, it's more competent than BT4

Holy Shit, tried the 7th circle. Absolutely loving it so far. and the soundtrack so far is simply superb.

As a huge bonus absolutely no KAWAI KANCER like Labyrinth of Dusk.

7th Circle is really neat but I'm curious what either of you end up thinking of the difficulty by about the fourth floor.

I hadn't died once on my run and by the time I quit I was pretty much the terminator. Considered killing off my character to reroll on a harder difficulty but it was much much harder to die at that point than to clear entire floors due to high HP/evade/armour so I lost my patience and uninstalled

There's a lot to like in the game so I'd be happy to hear if one of the other difficulties actually forced you to make use of the crafting/potions/rest spots but in my experience the permadeath system just means any character who doesn't die turns into a god really fast and the good aspects of the game get pretty severely undermined by being able to mash A to win every fight

 

[Nyast]

I want to buy this game so bad, but it also looks so bad.

Again, for the Nth time, it does not look bad ( by "look bad" I assume you're talking about the graphics ) at all, just the first areas do. In fact some of the mid-game areas look fantastic. Here, look at this and tell me this is bad (spoilers ofc):

Spoiler

Also, of note, lots of people are playing the game on medium and criticizing it for looking bad. Here's a picture someone posted on Steam some time ago to demonstrate how crappy the starting area is:

.. but on my machine that's not at all how it looks like:

Notice the better lighting, water, reflections, fog.. basically everything..

 

[Curratum]

Nyast, you absolute fuckwit, could you please stop lying to people for a minute?

The game looks like absolute shit, even on Ultra everything.

Here are two shots of Ultra settings:

This is underground, where it's not as obscene as in daytime Skara Brae. The first shot looks like it came right out of Thief 3, a game made in 2004.

 

[Nyast]

Those are the first areas, which I said were the worst.

I posted pictures of later areas in spoilers. Everybody can judge by themselves. If those are what you call "shit", then I'm afraid all games must look like shit to you.

 

[V_K]

I want to buy this game so bad, but it also looks so bad.

Again, for the Nth time, it does not look bad ( by "look bad" I assume you're talking about the graphics ) at all, just the first areas do. In fact some of the mid-game areas look fantastic. Here, look at this and tell me this is bad (spoilers ofc):

Spoiler

Also, of note, lots of people are playing the game on medium and criticizing it for looking bad. Here's a picture someone posted on Steam some time ago to demonstrate how crappy the starting area is:

.. but on my machine that's not at all how it looks like:

Notice the better lighting, water, reflections, fog.. basically everything..

I wouldn't call all those screenshots all that fantastic tbh. They differ wildly in both quality and style, and you still can see some artefacts here and there. Plus, tellingly, none of them shows any characters or monsters.

 

[Curratum]

I didn't see the rest of the screens, just the first corridor shot, then I scrolled down. Yeah, it does seem to get better, too bad I can't bear the average 30 fps and the constant freezes, stuttering and drops to 19-20something.

Some of those later shots just scream "let's throw polygons at it, it will be ok in the end!". The devs seem completely lost when it comes to using UE4.

 

[Darth Roxor]

graphix whores itt

 

[Curratum]

I upgraded my CPU partly because of DQ XI, partly because of BT4.

The difference is, DQ XI is now locked at 60 and BT4 can only remain around 30 fps if I never move the camera or never go into combat.

 

[V_K]

graphix whores itt

It's for a good cause. We're trying to make inXile go under so that Roqua would run out of good rpgs and stop posting.

 

[BEvers]

Here are peak player numbers for the first Saturday. Normally a game beats its launch day peak at this time, but inXile last two releases have been exceptions. Torment memorably collapsed from 7k to 4k , while BT4 has only lost about two hundred players.

75.429 - D:OS 2
21.848 - Deadfire
18.846 - Wasteland 2
15.730 - Tyranny
 6.075 - Legend of Grimrock
 4.146 - Legend of Grimrock 2
 4.072 - Torment
 2.887 - Ex-Vikings
 2.542 - Star Control: Origins
 2.269 - Battle Brothers
 1,878 - Bard's Tale 4     <----
 1.716 - Neverwinter Nights EE
   595 - Stranger of Sword City
   450 - Starcrawlers
   172 - Grimoire