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

CryptRat

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Sure if blobbers with full party creation, phase-based combat, big party, tons of recruitable, summonable, a decent range of spells, some puzzles and riddles, relatively high challenge... are their own thing, and I'm not saying it's wrong, then yes many (existing or not :)) Bard's Tale imitations are arguably better than Bard's tale games.

Now if these premises were all given things in your average RPG it would be heaven.
 
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theSavant

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I know it's alpha... but...
That's what people said about the Wasteland 2 and Numanuma alphas as well. Beware.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm afraid of. Especially nowadays, where most "Alphas" suddenly become "Finals".

Tbh, I don't expect much changes anymore. If they haven't done it til now, they'll probably don't do it til Q3.

:negative: (I still hope they make things more consistent til then)
 

Nyast

Cipher
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Jan 12, 2014
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So is there a grid walking mode ? If so can anybody record a small video showing it ?
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Bard's Tale IV's Special Weapons Are Also Puzzles

The puzzles in The Room series are equal parts captivating and haunting, but they have just one problem: you can’t use them to kill anybody after you’ve solved them. The Bard’s Tale IV takes its inspiration from The Room, but with weapons instead of rooms.

The Bard’s Tale IV was Kickstarted by inXile back in 2015 and is now ready for alpha testing. I got to try a demo of the first-person dungeon-crawler at GDC in San Francisco. I came away impressed by its fusion of ability-stacking turn-based combat, environmental puzzle-solving, and bards. The thing that stood out to me most, though, was a single loot drop.

The Bard’s Tale IV is modern spin on classic dungeon crawlers, and things in the demo started out typically enough. I defeated a gang of wizards who, in their pained final throes, farted out an assortment of weapons and items. Immediately after, however, I was approached by a man the wizards hadn’t quite finished killing, who had a sword stuck in the middle of his barely-attached face. He was mad that they didn’t finish the job and asked me to pull the sword out so that he could die. I complied. For my troubles, I received an Elven Puzzle Weapon. This was a steel sword made of multiple segments that I could look at and rotate. Its grip, guard, and pommel turned out to be individual puzzles that I could zoom in on and interact with. If I managed to solve them without too much trouble, the weapon would gain a stat or modifier like acid or fire damage. If I tried to brute force it, however, my shiny new Totally Not A Keyblade would come away tarnished by a stat-lowering curse.

One puzzle centered around aligning ornate patterns on the hilt, while the other two involved riddles. The pommel riddle required me to pick from three gems that came with the sword like magical Duracell batteries, but the hilt riddle led to an optional goblin-killing quest outside the weapon menu. Lead designer David Rogers told me that he wants special weapons to represent a starting point instead of an immediately gratifying reward.

“We wanted finding a magic item to feel like the beginning of a quest, not the end,” said Rogers. “So the elves made these really powerful weapons, but they have what are basically magical security systems on them. You have to prove yourself worthy to unlock the power.”

Rogers was unabashed about the influence that led to this unique approach to RPG weaponry. He told me that inXile president Brian Fargo played The Room, fell in love on a level that not even professional The Room advocate Stephen Totilo can comprehend, and the rest was history.

“He played The Room,” said Rogers, “and he was like ‘oh my god, imagine if you got a magic weapon that was like something you found in The Room!’”

Weapon puzzles, however, won’t be the same for everybody. Rather, The Bard’s Tale IV will take stock of the puzzles you’ve already solved when generating new weapons.

“We dynamically assemble them at run time,” said Rogers. “So you might get a puzzle bow or a puzzle axe or a puzzle longsword, and there’s some common parts and some unique parts to each one. The game looks at all the puzzle components we’ve given you in the past, and then it assembles a weapon for you that you haven’t gotten before.”

If we’re being real, I’ve been over loot-driven games for a while now, but this spin on the idea threatens to drag me back in. The Bard’s Tale IV will be out later this year.
 
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aweigh

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Infinitron

went into the chat and made sure my caps lock was on

: I WANT TO WATCH BARDS TALE 4 LIVE STREAM
: is this new 3gb soniss bundle different from last years?
: THEY DIDNT ARCHIVE IT
: 30gm*
: BUT I WANT TO WATCH IT
: i want see that material graph
: plz
: aweigh0101: they will put it on youtube later
1
:
@aweigh0101
Things will be archived soon
1.0

: gb*
: this segment would actually be useful for me, since I'm noob
: yeah
: i can hear but cnant see anything
: sorry, but Uhm.. I dont see a thing.
1
:
@aweigh0101
it'll be up soon (tm)
: "you see that"
: WOW THANK YOU FOR THE RESPONSE
1.0

LOL surprisingly going into that chat and shouting works
 

LootSeeker

Educated
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Jul 14, 2017
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Might & Magic XI

Stonekeep 2.0
Stonekeep was a good blobber.

Yeah, I liked it back in the day. It might be the only blobber with RTwP combat ever released. BT4 with TB combat should be even better - the only Kickstarter I ever backed. ;)
I don't back too many kickstarters and missed Bard's Tale IV but was able to get on it, albeit late, with a CrowdOx pre-order for the collector's edition. Some are having doubts about the game, but I have hope.
 

Grotesque

±¼ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
- so the characters are in 3D in the inventory UI but in combat screen they're in 2D.
- if puzzles will have this level of difficulty it will be just busywork and time lost with no rewarding feeling
- the fighter had a hatchet but attacked at 2 spaces away?
 
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theSavant

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Messages
2,009
Re-Re-Rewatched some combat until I got the hang of it. And I came to the conclusion that the system solves some issues I had with Wiz8:


- Changing positions matters in BT4. In Wiz8 once the positions were set up, you stayed with it the rest of the game and rarely changed them within a battle. So this feature was almost obsolete for the rest of the game (which is maybe why japanese Wizardrys reduced it to a static frontrow/backrow setup). In BT4 it's changing positions matters in each and every battle. Makes it much more tactical.

- You can clearly see who can reach and attack whom. In Wiz8 sometimes one of your characters couldn't attack the same enemy, even though he was in the same row. Only by looking at the radar you saw that this enemy was on the utmost left or right corner and couldn't be reached. In BT4 there are no such confusions. You know exactly who can attack who.

- You don't lose attacks. I was sometimes annoyed in Wizardry when a character killed a guy, and another character who targeted the same guy lost his attack. In BT4 you don't have this problem because you make one action after the other.


This system is a bit more "what you see is what you get" than Wiz8. It also makes sense that they made a major effort in displaying a huge combat grid and characters sliding around on it (even though I don't like the visual style), because it's a core feature. And it actually requires to use your brains (though not so much, that you are overwhelmed). It's a good system. The only disadvantage is, that the combat feels slow...
 
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theSavant

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Ok there is something I couldn't figure out from watching the clips:

So we have the opportunity points... and most "abilities" cost 1 opportunity point. Now we have this guy who has the "Woodsman's Chop" ability - which costs 1 opportunity point. Ok... but what if the opportunity points are gone? Can he do a default attack without any "ability"? A simple default action with his sword which costs no opportunity point?
 

V_K

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Messages
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at a Nowhere near you
Re-Re-Rewatched some combat until I got the hang of it. And I came to the conclusion that the system solves some issues I had with Wiz8:
I'm not sure why Wiz8 would be the frame of reference here. Quite a few older (Amberstar) and newer (Lords of Xulima) blobbers had more meaningful positioning options way before BT4. From what I see in the video, BT's system is more or less a carbon copy of Amberstar (except Amberstar had a somewhat bigger grid, and melee attacks could only hit adjacent tiles).
- You don't lose attacks. I was sometimes annoyed in Wizardry when a character killed a guy, and another character who targeted the same guy lost his attack.
That's not an issue, that's feature of phase-based systems.
 

Zombra

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So we have the opportunity points... and most "abilities" cost 1 opportunity point. Now we have this guy who has the "Woodsman's Chop" ability - which costs 1 opportunity point. Ok... but what if the opportunity points are gone? Can he do a default attack without any "ability"? A simple default action with his sword which costs no opportunity point?
Opportunity points are essentially your "turn". If zero-cost moves existed, you'd have infinite attacks.

Also, there are no "basic" or "default" maneuvers. Woodsman's Chop is the guy's workhorse attack.
 
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theSavant

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- You don't lose attacks. I was sometimes annoyed in Wizardry when a character killed a guy, and another character who targeted the same guy lost his attack.
That's not an issue, that's feature of phase-based systems.

You're right. And I wouldn't say that the BT4 system is better. It's just different. And unfortunately it looks much slower.

Bards Tale 4 system: select character - select action - pause - select character - select action - pause - select character - select action - pause - chrrrrr... (falling asleep)
Wizardry system: select character - select action - select character - select action - select character - select action ---- start phase! (and watch it like an action movie)

I'd probably prefer the Wizardry system in this respect. Especially with multiple waves of enemies I can see the BT4 way becoming tedious, i.e. if you have lots trash-mobs you can't just hit "start phase" (repeating the last actions), but must always rinse and repeat the same slow way of applying actions :|
 
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aweigh

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frankly this positioning system utilized in this Alpha Demo seems like an utter waste of the players time. Doesnt seem like it merits its existence (too time consuming for no real pay-off just brainless busywork) but Ill wait until final release to judge for real.
 

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