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Game News Bard's Tale IV Backer Beta Released - Previews, Interviews, Final Release On September 18th

Joined
Jul 8, 2006
Messages
2,930
However I almost never have them use their music ability because it never made much sense.
You mean contrary to wizards who wave their arms and conjure fireballs out of nothing? I would argue that bard makes more sense than a practitioner.

magic makes sense in the world it exists in. Playing a flute while an orc charges you with a battle axe does not make sense to me, and so I don't use it..

I still like bards (in D&D at least) for their jack of all trades and Lore ability. I imagine them singing and playing music at night around the campfire or at an Inn, instead of in the heat of battle. In a large war however, drums and trumpets make sense for a number of reasons, but that is a different scope of conflict.
 

Darkzone

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
Messages
2,323
Good since now i have a bit of time i will go deeper into character and items and the problems with BT4. I have also checked in the Official inXile BT forum if the people have the same concerns that i do and the answer to that is yes.

Character:
Every character has 3 places for their active combat abilities / skills, that is more then just attack, but in the case of the Practitioner it is rather low. Also the number of spells is also not that high compared to the previous installations in the franchise and it seems that even BT 2005 had higher number of spells. BT I-III had many spells for the casters and in my opinion this should somehow preserved. Perhaps the current spells grow with each level in strength according to INT or STR, but i cannot confirm this from my playthrough and if they would then the spells would retain their value. I know that it is rather unlikely that this will be changed by inXile, but investing skill points into additional slots would have been great, at least for the Bard and Practitioner. One additional ability slot of is from a utility item slot, where you can store health potions or caltrops or booze for the bard or even a spell from an item that you can use in combat.
The skills can be mostly devided into active skills including spells, passive skills and bonus skills to INT, CON, STR, Spellpoints and Armor.
The skill trees are grouped in Attack (Bard, Fighter and Thief), Defense (B, F, T and P), Command (F), Spellcraft (P), Meditation (P), Bladecasting (P), Music (B), Brewing (is crafting with booze for the B), Subterfuge (T) and Crafting (F,P and T). But even if the classes share the same grouping, then this group for the Fighter and Thief has the same skills and also different skills. For example the Fighter can use two-handed swords, while the Thief can use two weapons (main and off-hand). So this results that besides crafting, which is for all classes equal besides the Bard, there is only around 20%-70% intersection in Skills in a skill group. Sadly i think that the skill groups are notinfluenced by the race of the character and it would be nice to have special skill trees in certain groups for "blunt weapons dwarf Fighters" or "Bladecasting elves Practitioners" or "2handedsword human Fighters".
Btw.: the party members do not die if their HP are reduced to 0, instead they are unconcious till the end of the fight and are revived after the fight with 25% (or so) of their health. The amount of HP for as an example the Fighter is much lower then in BT I-III.
What i miss is also the monk class where you could fight without weapons and dealt much more dmg with his fists.

Concern:
There is a thing that shouldn't be in the released version and that is that you can remove all the invested skill points for free any time you want and how often you want it to. Such a thing should be restricted to the review board and should cost much.

Items:
Food is crucial in BT4, because it regenerates health for the entire party and after each fight i was eating bread or apples or cabbages to heal my entire party. I have forgotten once to eat-heal my part and that resulted nearly in a lost fight, where i have survived with just one party member.
Health potions heal one specific party member and their value is mostly in battle where you can heal a wounded party member.
Caltrops are great, and i have spread them very often with the trow Thief to weaken enemies when they entered the front row, from the back row. The funny thing is that even after the fight they are still lying there on the ground.
One of the tactics changing elements were the boots and i mean extremely changing. In my case this were the apprentice slippers or so, for just 40 coins. This slippers gave one spellpoint for the Practioner if the practioner walked a step and since the elven "The Green Lady (wife of the the green knight?)" gained one spellpoint per round for free this resulted in one "Dragon Breath" each round dealing at least 16 HP of damage.

Concern:
The armor and weapons have a very large influence on CON, STR and INT and that is a bit detrimental in my opinion, since this are also core values that determine how much damage you can sustain before you go down or deal to your enemies.
 

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,789
Location
Mexico
Divinity: Original Sin 2
I agree that that respeck anytime option seemed like a bone thrown at the popamolers (Fargo still has not learned his lesson) to try to respec on the fly and allow your char to be dovahkin master of all
In almost everything else it looks very good and I really cant wait to play it
 

Ranarama

Learned
Joined
Dec 7, 2016
Messages
604
Given that this looks like crap (understandable given the budget) why are the requirements so high for this turn-based blobber???


Because the same graphical talent that would make the game look good, would also optimise the performance.
 

Darkzone

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
Messages
2,323
Given that this looks like crap (understandable given the budget) why are the requirements so high for this turn-based blobber???
Because the same graphical talent that would make the game look good, would also optimise the performance.
Funny but not that easy. InXile is using InstaLOD for the optimisation of the 3d Model LODs ( to lower its Polygon count ). It can autogen the LODs for an asset and it is fast and easy. Therefore there is something else that is going on which is outside the 3d Models, that lowers the performance. Or the InstaLOD plugin for the UE4 is working while the game runs? I dont know how InstaLOD works as a UE4 plugin, because i have only seen it in Maya.
 
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Grotesque

±¼ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 16, 2012
Messages
8,986
Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
f you are refering to Battletech game thats fault of the fake master race.

...and Might and Magic X.

starship-troopers-wyltkm.jpg
 

Darkzone

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
Messages
2,323
Zombra tell raveen or Koshinator in inXile BT4 forum / thread "Missing Rune" the following:
The rune is visible from the caste side where the riddle ("Noble house, honor sold, lost to evil, trapped in cold") is (not with the 6 Paladins) the wall is supported by two beams and you can go up on a beam to look at it. But i don't know how to get to the rune.

On my second playthrough i have to say that the AI lacks and due to my exploit of its weakens i was able to beat enemies that i never should have with my group of 4 original members (besides the starting char) and my 3 opportunity points. InXile devs have stated that the AI of the Paladins has problems, but i have witnessed the same problems with the ramp fight for the mages and the eye femorian. This are the strongest fights and normal one should not be able to beat them in the beta, especially with this party and with only 3 opportunity points. I have to say further that the tactical aspects are even better than previously stated in my posts. Also to add is that there seem to be hidden subclasses for the 4 archtypes, like the paladin or even the hunter and monk, because the fighter class can have Spellpoints and perhaps can be taught by the fatherites.
 
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