Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV Pre-Release Thread [RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Rivmusique]

As far as I know, positional tactics are not on the table. Think JRPGs instead.

That's a shame. Is that a shame? I think it might be a shame.

Neither Wizardry, Bard's Tale or Might and Magic had positional tactics - does that make them bad games?

I'd say it makes bothering with the viewpoint switch a waste of time. Pulling the camera back like that doesn't really have any value in a blobber.

 

[agris]

As far as I know, positional tactics are not on the table. Think JRPGs instead.

That's a shame. Is that a shame? I think it might be a shame.

Neither Wizardry, Bard's Tale or Might and Magic had positional tactics - does that make them bad games?

I'd say it makes bothering with the viewpoint switch a waste of time. Pulling the camera back like that doesn't really have any value in a blobber.

That's the crux. If they never mentioned pulling the camera back, it wouldn't bring these great first person exploration, 3rd person tactical games to mind.

As it is now, inXile is just teasing the cock.

 

[Zombra]

Neither Wizardry, Bard's Tale or Might and Magic had positional tactics - does that make them bad games?

I'd say it makes bothering with the viewpoint switch a waste of time. Pulling the camera back like that doesn't really have any value in a blobber.

That's the crux. If they never mentioned pulling the camera back, it wouldn't bring these great first person exploration, 3rd person tactical games to mind.

Ehh. Seriously, ever played a JRPG, either of you?

 

[Zeriel]

Creator inXile entertainment 44 minutes ago
Hi guys, just to clear up some confusion below - we do not currently have plans to bring The Bard's Tale IV to consoles. That doesn't mean we are ruling them out forever, but right now we are focused totally on delivering a great PC experience.

I love how every time there's eyecandy the casuals rush in.

"Muh PS4/Xbox One when?"

 

[Rivmusique]

Neither Wizardry, Bard's Tale or Might and Magic had positional tactics - does that make them bad games?

I'd say it makes bothering with the viewpoint switch a waste of time. Pulling the camera back like that doesn't really have any value in a blobber.

That's the crux. If they never mentioned pulling the camera back, it wouldn't bring these great first person exploration, 3rd person tactical games to mind.

Ehh. Seriously, ever played a JRPG, either of you?

Yeah, I get that it can be done (and has been done), but I don't think it adds anything. So you can see your character models and their animations as they run and hit the enemy then come back, great. It doesn't really effect gameplay at all, so adding models, animations and a viewpoint switch seem an odd thing to do for a low budget game. Definitely had me thinking "wonder if they're going with PoR etc. FP exporation, tactical turn based combat" when I saw/heard they were doing it.

I do just think it is pointless though, not an awful thing that will ruin the game. As long as the animations that now need to play are short so it doesn't feel like a cutscene after every player input, or they can be sped up or skipped in an options menu it doesn't matter to me.

 

[Zeriel]

I think I already established my distaste, but yeah, I agree. If the only thing they are doing with the zoom out is showing character models and animations, I think it's fairly pointless, and worse than that, actively undermines the first person immersion. I'm not a fan of games that switch perspective in general, but this seems an especially dumb use of the idea.

 

[Zombra]

I can dig it.

Personally I'm looking forward to it. Anything that lets me see my characters more.

 

[theSavant]

They really need to address combat / view soon. This is critical! Also it would be a shame if they don't even establish simple tactics like a simple front/backrow.

Besides I can't repeat often enough how unhappy the zooming out makes me. If they want to make just another isometric game like Wasteland, Torment, Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, Pillars of Eternity... then I'm out. As if we haven't enough of them already - while full first person turn based blobbers haven't appeared since 15 years.

By all fairness to Guido Henkel's and Brenda Romero's failed Kickstarters I must say, inXile are equally unprepared in what they actually want to create.

 

[Delbaeth]

Now that I'm thinking of it, the characters would be displayed in combat like in Shining the Holy Ark ?

 

[Zeriel]

Now that I'm thinking of it, the characters would be displayed in combat like in Shining the Holy Ark ?

You can see it at the very end of the video.

 

[The Fish]

Listened to an interview with Fargo at www.spieleveteranen.de (the last 30 minutes of the podcast).

Fucking hell, that eating while being interviewed. This only confirms my belief that most of these developers are disgusting gauche nerds. It's like when you first see some blizzard developers with their bad facial hair and graphic t-shirts - all the horrible writing and art design suddenly makes sense.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, it's past a million.

I'm not up on this thread, but is RoA / BaK style presentation of combat being considered? They keep talking about pulling the camera back and I keep thinking of these games.

As far as I know, positional tactics are not on the table. Think JRPGs instead.

If you look closely, you can see one of the characters actually dodging a magical bolt. That's probably just for show though. Or maybe it's like the "miss" animation.

I doubt there will be free movement, but maybe they add some kind of option to move between a set of positions (like front/backrow or whatever)

By all fairness to Guido Henkel's and Brenda Romero's failed Kickstarters I must say, inXile are equally unprepared in what they actually want to create.

I think they know exactly what they want to create, but you might not like it

I think I already established my distaste, but yeah, I agree. If the only thing they are doing with the zoom out is showing character models and animations, I think it's fairly pointless, and worse than that, actively undermines the first person immersion. I'm not a fan of games that switch perspective in general, but this seems an especially dumb use of the idea.

But if it's the only way to avoid getting written off as a Grimrock clone and getting shit sales...

 

[Zeriel]

With graphics like those, I somehow doubt they'd get written off as a Grimrock clone.

Speaking personally I don't care about sales, I kickstart things that would otherwise (imo) not get made that I enjoy. Not sure if "dumb 3rd person combat" is enough to get me not to enjoy it, I'll probably still back it.

 

[Infinitron]

If the JRPG camera goes in, I think they should make an effort to make it optional, same as with grid/non-grid. With good planning, it's not an impossible proposition.

 

[theSavant]

I think they know exactly what they want to create

Nope. Obviously not. If they knew exactly what they want, we would have much more information by now. Hence we don't even know how many characters will exist in a player party. The only thing they know is "We want to make Bards Tale 4, but more modern, and in Unreal Engine".

 

[Infinitron]

If they knew exactly what they want, we would have much more information by now.

Nooope, that's not how Kickstarter campaigns work. There are 35 days left.

 

[Zombra]

They really need to address combat / view soon. This is critical! Also it would be a shame if they don't even establish simple tactics like a simple front/backrow.

Yeah. I don't know anything, but I'm imagining it'll be the same as the original games. Characters 1-3 are front row and can melee easily and be hit easily, 4-6 are back row etc.

Besides I can't repeat often enough how unhappy the zooming out makes me. If they want to make just another isometric game like Wasteland, Torment, Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, Pillars of Eternity... then I'm out. As if we haven't enough of them already - while full first person turn based blobbers haven't appeared since 15 years.

Not going to happen. It's still going to be blobber gameplay, just with party visuals.

I'm still hoping for something nice and JRPG-y like:

 

[Zombra]

If the JRPG camera goes in, I think they should make an effort to make it optional, same as with grid/non-grid. With good planning, it's not an impossible proposition.

Actually that is a very good idea. Keeping the option to leave the camera down on the ground in traditional 'blob perspective' would satisfy traditionalists with minimal cost. Since it's all going to be 3D anyway, just have it be the same combat screen from a different perspective. Maybe put character portraits along the bottom or somesuch like

I think that's a very ugly perspective, but who knows, first-person squeegs might like it.

 

[theSavant]

Zombra
Ah, this first JRPG screenshot reminds me of the game "Gods - Lands of Infinity" (a quickly found Lets Play here). Was also 1st person blobber exploration and 3rd person combat. Funny, now that I watch this game again I can see they also used 2-row-combat. Interesting. Yeah, I recall the view transition somehow worked, but still...

 

[theSavant]

Actually that is a very good idea. Keeping the option to leave the camera down on the ground in traditional 'blob perspective' would satisfy traditionalists with minimal cost. Since it's all going to be 3D anyway, just have it be the same combat screen from a different perspective.

Sounds easier than done. You'd also need to make all 3d characters invisible then, disable all their animations and actions, and instead create additionally sophisticated portraits (instead of 3d models), and then start all particles of spells effects from the middle of the screen (instead of from the characters), etc. While this doesn't sound much, it is much. I only picked a handful of differences, but you can be sure it's double the work. It ain't gonna happen. We'll get only 1 solution.

 

[Athelas]

I don't think it's a good idea to develop for different combat systems or even just combat perspectives, certainly not on a Kickstarter budget.

Isometric camera without movement is indeed rather pointless, unless they think the added emotional engagement factor of seeing your character will improve the game's reception or something. Personally, I like it though.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I think it's a good addition to make the party visual during combat. Do I absolutely need it? Nah. But it's great for reeling in all the plebs. There are a lot of people who love the visual feedback aspect of RPGs where you can view how your character(s) grow in power as their equipment becomes more and more impressive visually. At the end of the day it's a feature that doesn't change how combat works in a blobber, it just looks nicer.

 

[theSavant]

I didn't play the older BT games, but it seems like hordes of enemies played a big part in it. Even though I'm against top down view, I'd probably accept a top down view if you'd really see ridiculous large hordes of enemies (and not stacked), and which would be impossible to show in the narrow corridors. But then again, this would happen in a separate battlescreen and could therefore also be shown from 1st person. Definitely not so easy to solve the issue. Whatever inXile comes up with, I'm excited again

Edit: LOL... was lurkin' in the inXile forums and found this pic posted by Zombra. I thought I copy this in here. Looks ludicrous and awesome at the same time.

PS: don't get me wrong, I'm still for Wiz8 style enemies and combat, but this scene is cool. Something different than the default handful of enemies or stacked ones. I could probably befriend myself with similar visualisations. However I don't want to imagine the duration for 1 turn, if 100 enemies need to make an action. But maybe there are ways...

 

[Infinitron]

Kz3r0 Kickstarter performance comparison table: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...0pRbktBdHZ0MzFSd25pekl3alE&usp=sharing#gid=14

 

[stony3k]

So they may even get less that WL2