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Game News Wartales Released

Saark

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
Messages
2,343
A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
What about the graphics?
Depends on whether you prefer stylized graphics like Battle Brothers or Urtuk, or want a more realistic look. For my own personal taste, the game looks polished and nothing is out of place visually. I didn't mention graphcis, because gameplay matters most, but I think much of the success of the game with a wider audience is due to its realistic and pretty polished graphics. They're obviously re-using graphical assets and there isn't a whole lot of variation to battle locations, but whether you fight in a rat infestation or in the foggy dark of the night against the Ghost Pack, the game just evokes a very realistic feel.

Battle and special-kill animations (every weapon only has 1-2 variations of full take-downs) are realistic looking, and if the devs keep working on the game, this is gonna be a ridiculously polished game.

The only downside compared to a game like BB, is that the customization of individual characters and archetypes just isn't quite there yet, because the devs clearly had differnet design priorities than Overhype did.
 

Shaki

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 22, 2018
Messages
1,708
Location
Hyperborea
I am shocked at how much commercial success this game is having. I mean it looks polished, but it's not every day you see a TRPG with almost 10k Steam reviews and banner placement on release.
Shouldn't be surprised. Tactical games still have a big fanbase, with modern graphics, proper level of polish, and game journalist difficulty option available, they tend to do great - look at modern XCOMs for example. Even Battle Brothers, which lacks the graphics/easy difficulty, which makes it much more niche, still managed to achieve incredible success.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,496
Finished two playthroughs at different points of Early Access, so I'll give my thoughts. Again, this was played ~2y and ~3 months ago, so some things might have changed since then.

The Great

Combat
: Very solid TB combat system. Every character in your troop has a set movement range per turn (can be increased when leveling up). Attacks can be used at any point without depleting your movement, so you can move half your movement, attack an enemy, and move some more. Most Melee attacks or skills engage a target, if it isn't already. An engaged target will take an opportunity attack if it moves, and can only attack the target it is engaged with. Attackign an engaged enemy from behind allows backstabbing/ambushing, and surrounding enemies makes them take more damage as well, allowing you to flank individual enemies.

Initiative doesn't really exist, for the player anyway. Once you enter combat, you and your enemy will take turns moving 1 character at a time, provided both sides have the same number of troops. If you are outnumbered 2:1, then for every time you get to move a character, they move 2. If you are outnumbering them, same rules apply. Bossfights are an exception. The order in which enemies attack is set at the beginning of each turn. If you are acting next, you can pick any character that did not yet act this turn. You can pick and choose your order freely, so by surveying the battlefield and checking on which enemy attacks when, their movement/attack range etc, you will want to plan the order in which you use each of your party members and take out targets strategically to minimize the damage you take.

Each characters occupies a square, and you will not be able to move through another square that is blocked by an enemy, an obstacle, or a friendly unit. This can be a bit awkward at times, but it also allows you to utilize the battlefield to create choke points. Useful agianst larger enemies like most of the wildlife, which occupies a 3x3 tile instead of a 2x2 like any non-boss humanoid.

Overall its simple but also a lot of fun. If I took too much damage, it's because I didn't strategize and plan correctly. If a unit died, it's because I made a mistake.

Crafting: Crafting is great in this game. You unlock recipes in a bunch of different ways, and every partmymeber can learn a profession to craft and build items, from potions, poisons, traps, to armor, weapons, or tools that improve your resting. You can buy iron at the local market, or you can go out to some of the mines you discovered, and have your Miner hack away at some ore. Herbs found while travelling can be made into healing kits or weapon oils by your Alchemist, and your Strategist can craft items for your warband that can be used during camps, like meat drying racks, tents, items for your ponies etc. If you don't like crafting, you'll have a hard time in this game. Some items are difficult to craft and barely offer any significant benefit. Blacksmithing is way too important. Some professions are barely developed.

Party Management/Exploration: Managing food, medical supplies and armor repair kits can be tough, especially early on. Gold is pretty scarce, at least on the settings I played at. You might not be able to repair everything fully at the start. There's a big world to explore, but your forays into some of the more distant places will be limited by your ability to feed and pay your warband. You'll likely stay close to a city because moving too far away from one, will spell almost certain doom. Once you've taken on some contracts, leveled a bit and acquired a few abilities that make your exploration easier, you will be able to go days or weeks without having to visit a city. It feels like solid progression throughout, and the mid-way point of the game is definitely the strongest part. Managing Action Points

The Good

Characterbuilding/Itemization
: Theres a bunch of difference base classes, that can choose additional specializations once you leveled once or twice. These allow you to develop into typical archetypes, like Rangers being able to become proper Archers with an Overwatch like attack or Beastmasters which allow them to boost and buff beast-allies; you can catch wild animals you fight with ropes and train them, or shackle human enemies and sell them to the local prison if they're bandits, or try to recruit them. They all suck though, for the most part. The specializations decide what kind of armor you can wear, which is your main defense in not taking damage to your hitpoints, and heavy armor provides more "shield" as well as higher damage mitigation, i.e. a well geared heavy armor specialist can take some serious beating. Speciailization also grant additional skills, which can be used with Action Points you generate after a rest or through certain combat passive actions. Managing Action Points is critical to success in combat. Characters also gain traits through a variety of actions, that can grant bonuses or maluses to your combat or warband management. Stats are simple but mostly useful. Some only affect your damage, others like Willpower grant a chance to crit, and allow you to gain damage bonuses during combat or make the enemy retreat faster. The Stat system is definitely the weakest part in all of this, and leveling up is a massive power boost due to the gain in HP and stats.

Paths: Theres a few paths that are focused on Exploration, Crime, Combat, Crafting etc. that allow you to gain additional bonuses once you have accomplished specific tasks. Some of them are easy to get, others not so much, and they unlock more quests or passives along the way. It's a solid system, but needs some balancing. Ultimately it's just another progression system, but with added characters and questlines, it feels meaningful enough.


The Bad

Contracts/Bounties:
While there's a bunch of contracts, the pay is kinda shitty and barely keeps you afloat. They're also very random, and you might take care of some objectives that could have a bounty on them, but it simply didn't show up yet. Since a bunch of locations are one-time encounters, this feels like bad overall design, and you might meta-game around this on a second playthrough.

Difficulty: Difficulty can be great or bad, depending on what you expect from the game. The game has two settings: Everything level-scales, or each zone has specific levels. With how much HP and armor enemies gain by just having one extra level, level-scaling keeps a solid difficulty across the entire game. You can explore the entire world immediately, and whether you have a small or big warband, the game will feel somewhat challenging throughout.

Alternatively, you can choose the mode which doesn't levelscale, and instead each area has a level-range. Going back to a previous one allows you to breeze through the fights, and it's a great choice for a first playthrough. As there's no procedural generation, subsequent playthroughs might feel too limited or same~y as a result.

Loot: Sadly, Loot kinda sucks. With the exception of unique items, which can be found from bosses, in certain predetermined places, or through some quests, loot is completely random. And, for the most part, entirely useless. Crafted items are almost always better, and you will rarely use items dropped by enemies.

Replayability: As a result, the game isn't really all that replayable. While some or even most quests have two possible outcomes, they don't really change the world in a meaningful way. Unless you want to run a small warband on purpose, you'll likely end up having one of each specialization or character.


While these sound pretty damning, I still spent a solid ~100 or so hours on the game. It can get a bit same~y if you play it a lot in a few sittings back to back, but there's a lot of small sidequests and storylines to explore, so you won't really mind unless you want to min-max your crafting and gear. I would second some of the reviews, in that the game doesn't feel finished. Each of the already solid systems, as well as the bad ones, could be a lot better with just some minor improvements, and if the devs follow up on the feedback and their own ideas, this game could become a true gem. As it stands, it's still got a long ways to go, but the current product was well worth my money.

If you enjoyed Battle Brothers, you'll likely enjoy this.
Loot is always inferior to what you can craft indeed, but the very best are artefacts you have to loot in the mini dungeons then research in your campsite. Really worth playing game, i played in early acess for dozen of hours too, and worth a purchase. It deserves it success and not only because there's absolutely nothing else released lately.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
7,772
I found this the most competently-made of the non-BB mercenary sims when I played it during early access.

I'll probably give it another try now that it's 1.0.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Depends on whether you prefer stylized graphics like Battle Brothers or Urtuk, or want a more realistic look.
A realistic look in tacticool tends to detract from the experience when you wonder why the hell you can't seem to hit a guy who's literally eating the gun muzzle. These issues are far less apparent when it's a legless bean glued to a stand firing at another bean. The only thing more than the basic functional graphics adds to a tacticool is if you add more titties. Otherwise seeing more realism will detract from the experience.
 

Saark

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
Messages
2,343
A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Loot is always inferior to what you can craft indeed, but the very best are artefacts you have to loot in the mini dungeons then research in your campsite. Really worth playing game, i played in early acess for dozen of hours too, and worth a purchase. It deserves it success and not only because there's absolutely nothing else released lately.
The problem is that it's basically one unique weapon per weapon type, so you would have to build your warband around the idea that you have every weapon represented once. But yes, since you can upgrade the unique weapons to scale their level up as well, they are far and beyond the strongest loot in the game and remain so at every stage of the game.
A realistic look in tacticool tends to detract from the experience when you wonder why the hell you can't seem to hit a guy who's literally eating the gun muzzle. These issues are far less apparent when it's a legless bean glued to a stand firing at another bean. The only thing more than the basic functional graphics adds to a tacticool is if you add more titties. Otherwise seeing more realism will detract from the experience.
That's a cool story and all, but it's not at all related to this game, seeing how there is no to-hit-chance in this game. The immersion stays intact. Realistic portrayals of characters, weapons, armor etc. can certainly add to the immersion, it's what games like KCD or Exanima are built around, and theres no reason why a tacticool game HAS to suffer as a result of more realistic graphics. Just because a bunch of games sucked ass and clearly compromised their gameplay just to look or sound better, doesn't automatically mean that all games that look visually appealing or simply more realistic are garbage.
 

MrBuzzKill

Arcane
Joined
Aug 31, 2013
Messages
694
Nice, been expecting it, also to see what it has to offer over Battle Brothers (in which I have over 600 hours), besides 3D graphics.
A realistic look in tacticool tends to detract from the experience when you wonder why the hell you can't seem to hit a guy who's literally eating the gun muzzle.
This issue is one of the reasons I liked Phoenix Point. Sure it's not perfect or great but the aiming system there makes the most sense I've ever seen in a tactical shooting game apart from Jagged Alliance 1-2.
 

Nikanuur

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Mar 1, 2021
Messages
1,754
Location
Ngranek
Is there any magic in the game, or at least alchemy, etc. or is it really "only" medieval alternate-reality?
 

Barbarian

Arcane
Joined
Jun 7, 2015
Messages
8,090
Is there any magic in the game, or at least alchemy, etc. or is it really "only" medieval alternate-reality?

Monsters/ghosts/interdimensional beasts but it is really contained. Most enemies you will face are regular humans and beasts. There is a "boss" of sorts which you might face in the new region, I'm not sure because I haven't reached it(waiting on a few more updates before playing it).

There is an alchemy profession(crafting bombs, oils and potions).
 

Saark

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
Messages
2,343
A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Is it as pozzed as the trailer indicates?
The first region has you choose between supporting the refugees who are fleeing a civil war from a neighboring region, or standing by the local populace to hunt the refugees down or sell them as slaves. That should answer your question.

Also, fuck off to the appropriate sub-forum for your retarded politics talk.
 

Barbarian

Arcane
Joined
Jun 7, 2015
Messages
8,090
Is it as pozzed as the trailer indicates?
The first region has you choose between supporting the refugees who are fleeing a civil war from a neighboring region, or standing by the local populace to hunt the refugees down or sell them as slaves. That should answer your question.

Also, fuck off to the appropriate sub-forum for your retarded politics talk.

Like the bro said, you can side with the mayor, kill all rapefugees and restore order to Tiltren in the very first area. Wouldn't really call that PC.

The wymmin in plate armor fighting with oversized zweihanders is indeed bs, but I guess it goes with the zeitgeist. Only game in the last 20 years or so to go against the "warrior wymim" meme was probably Battle Brothers.
 

Barbarian

Arcane
Joined
Jun 7, 2015
Messages
8,090
Obligatory do I play it now that 1.0 launched or wait a year for inevitable expanded edition.

I was going to wait another year, but will probably end up playing it.

Worth to note that the devs have made a very good job with backwards compatibility throught EA. Whatever they release from now on will probably be compatible with your current playthrough without the necessity of starting a new game.

I'm thinking of maybe going through every current region and keeping the save for later.
 

Larianshill

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
2,096
Playing this right now and enjoying it. Rescued a bandit, had him in my squad in a while, decided that I have too many rangers already, clapped him in chains and delivered him to prison for money. 10/10 game.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Is this one of those games that comes to an abrupt ending right when I've finally unlocked all the content?
 

Barbarian

Arcane
Joined
Jun 7, 2015
Messages
8,090
Is this one of those games that comes to an abrupt ending right when I've finally unlocked all the content?

It is a sandbox game but the map and most quests are not randomly generated. The game won't end but you will eventually reach the level cap(currently 12) and run out of new things to do.

Considering the success the game is having, devs previous games and what they have been saying, this will likely be supported for at least another year and get a couple of paid dlcs.
 

Vincente

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 16, 2018
Messages
795
Location
Location
The wymmin in plate armor fighting with oversized zweihanders is indeed bs
I personally don't find female warriors out of place in a fantasy setting. I also find BB Legends' option to have fitting female cast like widows/milkmaids or whatever, experience enhancing.
 

Kev Inkline

(devious)
Patron
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Messages
5,472
A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The wymmin in plate armor fighting with oversized zweihanders is indeed bs
I personally don't find female warriors out of place in a fantasy setting. I also find BB Legends' option to have fitting female cast like widows/milkmaids or whatever, experience enhancing.
It's not the female warrior people are mad about, but her short hair. :codexisforindividualswithgenderidentityissues:



(also the animation is a lot worse and more jerky than what Blur studios produced some 15 years ago, by several magnitudes, but it's indie, so I'll let that slide)
 

Tavernking

Don't believe his lies
Developer
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
1,264
Location
Australia
The wymmin in plate armor fighting with oversized zweihanders is indeed bs
I personally don't find female warriors out of place in a fantasy setting. I also find BB Legends' option to have fitting female cast like widows/milkmaids or whatever, experience enhancing.
It's not the female warrior people are mad about, but her short hair. :codexisforindividualswithgenderidentityissues:
So female warriors in a fantasy setting are fine but they draw the line at female warriors with short hair in a fantasy setting? :lol:
 

Kev Inkline

(devious)
Patron
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Messages
5,472
A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Yes, and not showing cleavage, as is customary.


A simple visual guide to appropriate representation:

QWMf6ON.png
 
Last edited:

Mebrilia the Viera Queen

Guest
It's not the female warrior people are mad about, but her short hair.
Careful, you're going to summon the Valerie autist from depths of Hell.
Mebrilia the Viera Queen
And i am summoned! I seen this game on steam i was interested on it but i have too many games to play now looked decent enough to worth a try.
As for females in fantasy videogames i favour beautiful characters and i welcome female and male objectifications in games. Wartales tho aims to a gritty realistic look wich is perfectly fine. I dont think short hair should be a reason to be an outrage but i favour long hairs.
 

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