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

[ProphetSword]

The game should have opened up party creation sooner

Like, as soon as you start the game. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to create a party or a character immediately. Even the tutorial sections could have used the age-old trick of adding important story based characters to the party as temporary NPCs. There was zero reason to make them your party.

I'd just play it through once and never think about it again like M&MX

A game that allows you to properly create a party from the beginning, at least...

 

[newtmonkey]

I say, scrap having to start the game with that bard character. The intro makes no sense anyway. Why can't you just make your own character? You can just replace her with your own like 10-15 mins later, which I assume everyone does.

Like you said ProphetSword , the game actually does just add story-based characters as you go along. I mean, I guess it's like Baldur's Gate/DAO or whatever. But here's the strange thing: there's party banter between characters even if you dump all the story-based characters. It's just an annoyance to go all the way back to the Adventurer's Guild, drop the story-based character, and use a mercenary token to make a new one. I don't think there's an easy answer tbh; as is, I really do like the game, but I am not gonna play it again once I finish it.

As for M&MX, it's true that you have full party creation from the start. That's definitely one point in its favor!

 

[theSavant]

I would love to see them implement some kind of "legacy" mode where you can just make your own characters as the game goes along.

I'm not exactly sure what their supposed "Legacy mode" really contains in regards of custom team members:

- Addition of a Legacy Mode (hardcore mode with grid move, option to turn off mini-map, the A-Team, perma-death, auto-resurrect)

The A-Team was obviously preconfigured team in the old trilogy (found out by googling, I didn't play the trilogy). But if that means, that the legacy mode allows you to start with the *full* preconfigured A-Team at once, then they should also allow you to start with a full custom team at once. It would be dumb if they wouldn't allow it. I really don't care about "their" version of a team. I've enough of "their" ideas. It would also be dumb if they would bind this exclusive to hard-core mode, no-map, perma-death.
Just mentioning it... you never know what shitty ideas they come up with, just because they think it's cool and thereby implement things totally at cross purposes...

 

[newtmonkey]

I really have no idea what they mean by A-Team. In a game like BTIV where you slowly (so slowly) unlock new party members—like a JRPG almost—the concept of "A-Team" (a default fully made and equipped party) makes zero sense. It's almost like they are just saying shit without realizing what they are saying. Just saying words they think will resonate with "old school" players.

 

[Country_Gravy]

The combat is growing on me. Like an updated Phantasie Star combat. I created a bard. Might have been a bad choice.

Still super early, only just got to Skara Brae Above.

Load times really take me back to the C64 days.

 

[newtmonkey]

A bard is actually a good choice. The NPC bards you get quickly leave, and then you get stuck with other NPCs that are not bards (trying to avoid spoilers, if you care).

 

[Zombra]

The intro makes no sense anyway. Why can't you just make your own character? You can just replace her with your own like 10-15 mins later, which I assume everyone does.

That's a big assumption. Pretty sure inXile's idea is to draw in players who aren't hard core RPG fans. For example it turns out that a lot of players used premade characters in Wasteland 2, were too intimidated/lazy/casual to make their own. I didn't believe it at first either. Strange but true.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

That's a big assumption. Pretty sure inXile's idea is to draw in players who aren't hard core RPG fans.

I'm fairly certain that inXile failed to draw casual players to BTIV.

 

[Roguey]

Making one character and filling the other three slots with pre-mades certainly saves time if you want to jump in asap.

 

[newtmonkey]

That's a big assumption. Pretty sure inXile's idea is to draw in players who aren't hard core RPG fans. For example it turns out that a lot of players used premade characters in Wasteland 2, were too intimidated/lazy/casual to make their own. I didn't believe it at first either. Strange but true.

I saw your post on WL3 forum, when there was some question about whether you could make a party or not. It seems you're right, since it seems that's the direction they are going with WL3. I dunno if this works for casual audiences (based on BTIV sales, maybe not), but it sure does annoy me lol

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Pretty sure inXile's idea is to draw in players who aren't hardcore RPG fans.

Hardcore cRPG fans? You mean, actual cRPG players instead of pseudo-gamers who enjoy pseudo-FPSs.

 

[ProphetSword]

For example it turns out that a lot of players used premade characters in Wasteland 2, were too intimidated/lazy/casual to make their own. I didn't believe it at first either. Strange but true.

Anyone remember when building characters was the barrier to entry into prestigious gameplay? Fucking casuals.

 

[agris]

I did it right after talking to the guy you have to meet there for the mainquest. Most of the encounters in the tower are indeed not very difficult, except for the last ones (somewhat depending on your party, I guess).
I liked the boss-fight at the end, as it had me play around a bit with the skill and equipment loadout of my party. There's also another optional & big fight close to the boss that might be too challenging at first.
The total XP is not so much that you need to worry about overleveling and by comparison the lowlands had imo more difficult encounters.

So I just completed all of Mangar's Tower with a 4 person group, going in at level 8 - just after the Kylearan's tower. I wish the game were harder tbh, even on Hard I found the fights to be kinda underwhelming. Question about all the optional fights in spoilers, I want to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Spoiler

Are there more optional 'boss' fights than just the 8 waves of skeletons? That was by far the toughest fight, lost two party members, but it still wasn't that close.

Mangar's shadow / spectre was laughably easy, 150 hp with 8 armor? Did I miss other set piece encounters in his tower? I think I explored it fully.

Maybe you're considering the fight after you finish the bell puzzle as a boss fight as well? I lost a single party member during it, but it still wasn't that hard.

 

[Sinatar]

Just finished this. If you want to completely and utterly break the game in half make this party:

4 practitioner's: focus first on conjurer's mark and then go for archmage, in meditate tree go for the branch that gets you +1 spell point at the end of the turn, don't waste points on anything that improves the meditate skill, you won't have room for it on your bar.
1 rogue: beeline for the "your party starts stealthed" prestige, this is the most broken ability in the game.
1 bard: take mana song, the "all mages start combat with +1 mana" and the rhyme of duothyme. He's just there to feed the casters.

Start battle, everyone is stealthed, no enemies can target you for 2 full turns. Play mana song and just end turn to build mana. On turn 2 use levitate to move enemies into a 3x2 cluster and cast mangar's mallet until you win.

 

[Zombra]

Just finished this. If you want to completely and utterly break the game in half

Yeah, I hope you had fun but I don't see what the purpose would be in spending 20+ hours knocking over a house of cards with a wrecking ball. Just play an actual hardcore game.

 

[Sinatar]

Just finished this. If you want to completely and utterly break the game in half

Yeah, I hope you had fun but I don't see what the purpose would be in spending 20+ hours knocking over a house of cards with a wrecking ball. Just play an actual hardcore game.

My party wasn't this, it was Warrior/Bard/Rogue/Saint/Arch/Arch. The party I describe would be far stronger than the one I used (which was already pretty ridiculous).

 

[Gord]

Spoiler

Are there more optional 'boss' fights than just the 8 waves of skeletons? That was by far the toughest fight, lost two party members, but it still wasn't that close.

Mangar's shadow / spectre was laughably easy, 150 hp with 8 armor? Did I miss other set piece encounters in his tower? I think I explored it fully.

Maybe you're considering the fight after you finish the bell puzzle as a boss fight as well? I lost a single party member during it, but it still wasn't that hard.

Spoiler

No, just Mangar and the skeletons. Mangar was quite hard (but fun) for me, since at the time I didn't have anyone skilled to deal with armor or get rid of his summoned totems quickly enough, so I didn't do that much damage to him and he would overwhelm me eventually. I had to change a few of the active abilities and my weapons-loadout to actually make a dent in him and prevent him from spamming high-damage spells.

Do you use story-companions or mercenaries? I still roll with the story companions, because I wanted to reserve full custom for a replay.

 

[Sinatar]

There's an optional 99 wave battle apparently, I never found it but some folks in my twitch chat mentioned it.

 

[agris]

Spoiler

Are there more optional 'boss' fights than just the 8 waves of skeletons? That was by far the toughest fight, lost two party members, but it still wasn't that close.

Mangar's shadow / spectre was laughably easy, 150 hp with 8 armor? Did I miss other set piece encounters in his tower? I think I explored it fully.

Maybe you're considering the fight after you finish the bell puzzle as a boss fight as well? I lost a single party member during it, but it still wasn't that hard.

Spoiler

No, just Mangar and the skeletons. Mangar was quite hard (but fun) for me, since at the time I didn't have anyone skilled to deal with armor or get rid of his summoned totems quickly enough, so I didn't do that much damage to him and he would overwhelm me eventually. I had to change a few of the active abilities and my weapons-loadout to actually make a dent in him and prevent him from spamming high-damage spells.

Do you use story-companions or mercenaries? I still roll with the story companions, because I wanted to reserve full custom for a replay.

I re-rolled my own bard as the main character, and use a custom practitioner in addition to the story fighter and story rogue companions. So a middle of the road approach I guess. The story rogue is my primary damage dealer - razor strop + slinking assault and shiv are just devastating. The practitioner is also a trow, so between the rogue and him, I get a decent amount of opportunity points back. My bard uses swarm of blades (3x5 dmg) rarely, but principally is there for sanctuary / kael's and duo. The bard is on the front line, so Kael's on the first round ensures he and the fighter reflect a lot of damage back. The fighter doesn't really do damage. He taunts, inflicts mental damage via the bludgeon skill, and can rend armor. The armor rending skill is a greatsword skill, but BT4 being BT4, I use it with a club without any problem. I got him kitted out in 8 armor pretty early, so he soaks damage while the rogue devastates everything.

 

[Gord]

Ah well, I did create my own main char (a bard) but otherwise have story chars. Getting some character with armor rend definitely helps, which I learned the hard way against Mangars shadow. I think that was my first fight against an enemy with more than 3-5 armor...

 

[Themadcow]

I really have no idea what they mean by A-Team. In a game like BTIV where you slowly (so slowly) unlock new party members—like a JRPG almost—the concept of "A-Team" (a default fully made and equipped party) makes zero sense. It's almost like they are just saying shit without realizing what they are saying. Just saying words they think will resonate with "old school" players.

The only thing about an A-Team that would resonate with old school players is looting them for their gear then dumping them for your own team within 5 minutes.

 

[Reinhardt]

Even Roqua abandoned this thread.

 

[Bohr]

Looking at the performance of games within a similar budget category that we've recently followed on the Codex, I guess if any dev is thinking of putting $5-$10m into a game it's not going to be a blobber anytime soon

 

[Reinhardt]

I don't think we ever saw 10 or even 5m BLOBBER. Even if what Brian claims is true i doubt money was spent on blobber part of the game.

 

[Bohr]

I don't think we ever saw 10 or even 5m BLOBBER. Even if what Brian claims is true i doubt money was spent on blobber part of the game.

Well I'm not trying to separate out what was spent on 'blobbing' vs what was spent on inspirational team trips to Scotland, voice acting, art or anything else. More that the market reception means it's unlikely to be repeated in a project of this sort in this niche anytime soon.