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

Curratum

Guest
Why would the head of a studio stoop to posting butthurt comments on twitter? None of this makes any sense to me. It's obvious that if they really did pour 7 mil into this out of their own pocket, they're never making that money back and if they did, why the fuck does the game look so bland? Where did the money go anyway? In the 350 needlessly voiced NPCs I bet.
 

SophosTheWise

Cipher
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Feb 19, 2013
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mE0XkNA.jpg



:incline:
 

TT1

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Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Well...

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/09/18/the-bards-tale-4-released/

The Bard's Tale IV is out now

70


Looking at screenshots of The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep, it seems a crying shame that it’s not a game about a metal band putting on a rockin’ good show to get the mosh pit fired up. Sadly, the game inXile Entertainment released today is just an olde schoole turn-based RPG – and one that our John tells me is a bit bum. He’ll have more to say about it tomorrow but for now, here’s word that it’s out. Given that thousands of folks chipped in a combined $1.5 million during its 2015 Kickstarter campaign, I assume at least some of you do want turn-based fantasy fisticuffs more than big doomy beats.

Get this: there are monsters. Oh no. And the person having to fight them is: you. Oh no! But not you-you the real person you: wizards and swordmen. Oh phew! Build a party, fight, loot, level up, solve puzzles, and sometimes sing songs – but only with the bard class. Oh okay!

I cannot stress enough that, no matter how much it looks like we control the theatrical metal bands on the top half of the game’s screen performing for a crowd down in the pit at the bottom, we’re actually put in charge of that bottom lot to duff up the topfolk. It really is not a third-person version of Stage Presence.




This is continuing from ye olde Bard’s Tale games out the 1980s, which inXile founder Brian Fargo worked on back in his Interplay days. inXile had a sort-of crack at the series before with 2004’s spoofy game named simply The Bard’s Tale, but this one is going closer to the roots of the series. The studio are big into crowdfunded retro revivals these days, with this coming after Wasteland 2 and the Planescape-inspired Torment: Tides of Numenera.

The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep is out now for £28/€35/$35 on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store. As I mentioned, John has been playing The Bard’s Tale IV and not enjoying it, and he intends to do some of these here squiggly ‘word’ thingies tomorrow to tell us all about his discontent. I bet he will! Alright, you simmer down.

But what if…



The bomb has been planted.

31% on Steam, right now. Prepare for massive layoffs.
 
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toro

Arcane
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Messages
14,023
For Steam there is a patch. You have to restart the game.
 

Electryon

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Jun 3, 2015
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Stuck on Axeoth
Man this generation of gamers has become a bunch of whiny bitches. I completely get people to be angry about crashes but to claim that you cant play a game because you get "below 60 FPS at Ultra" is beyond me.


It isn't just on ultra, it's on fucking medium as well. On machines that should blow this game out of the water. You don't know what you're talking about.
 

BEvers

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 14, 2018
Messages
808
For Steam there is a patch. You have to restart the game.

Probably the digital rewards:

Digital Goods (all users)

Sorry about the delay. There was a slight hiccup in pushing the build out this morning where the associated depots that contained all the digital goodies did not sync properly with the build. We are testing the fix now and delivering it ASAP.
 

dragonul09

Arcane
Edgy
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
1,445
Man this generation of gamers has become a bunch of whiny bitches. I completely get people to be angry about crashes but to claim that you cant play a game because you get "below 60 FPS at Ultra" is beyond me.


It isn't just on ultra, it's on fucking medium as well. On machines that should blow this game out of the water. You don't know what you're talking about.

The typical righteous dumbass, talking outta of his ass without even trying the damn product first, defending a company that has done this kind of bullshit again and again.
 

Ulrox

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 18, 2014
Messages
363
When the combat music started having vocals, I was blown away! My first impressions of this game are that it's amazing, but, keep in mind, I'm also someone who enjoyed might and magic x, even though it was extremely poorly optimized. A great joy to play for me - saddened to see that steam reviews it so poorly, would've loved to see expansions and such for it.
 
Self-Ejected

theSavant

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Joined
Oct 3, 2012
Messages
2,009
Got my digital rewards email.

Thanks, that information made my day. Checked my mail and got it too. Now with the manual and guidebook I can at least fantasize and plan out my future party (can't play for a couple of months because of shitty computer :().
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
That's a ruthless review:

SpectralShade
1,259 products in account
7 reviews


Not Recommended
11.6 hrs on record


This review may not accurately reflect the state of the released version." PRE-RELEASE REVIEW

POSTED: 18 SEPTEMBER
This game can be reviewed in 2 ways:
1) as a random stand alone game and it is called "Barrows deep"
2) as a sequel to a trilogy of previous games and it is called "Bards tale 4"

1) Barrows Deep
You start out with a pregenerated character. Later, after some walking around where you are basicly walking a script with zero variety you get the chance to change your starting character into something else. Additional characters can only be recruited by spending "mercenary tokens", and you don't get any of those until later, so you are stuck for quite a while with pre-scripted characters you get one at a time.

Attributes are simplistic. Strength is litterally the 'damage attribute', meaning all 4 classes use strength as a direct conversion of how much damage they do with an attack (regardless of which weapon is used or if a spell is used.) Constitution is your health attribute. your hitpoints (damage you can take before dying) is directly affected by this attribute. Get +1 constitution and you get +1 hit points.
Intelligence is some weird attribute that governs the likelyhood of maintaining a channelling ability if you are hit by an attack while chanelling. And that is basicly it. Then you got the 2 combat attributes of armor class and spell points. Armorclass is a raw deduction in damage taken from an attack and spell points start at zero each combat (but mages can spec into starting with one) and any spell cast removes those spellpoints. In order to get spellpoints during combat you need to channel a turn or more (note: Bards get spellpoints by drinking a consumable resource called alcohol).

Equipment affects the above by being simple 'stat sticks'. in other words, a dagger that gives +2 strength is the exact same as a sword that gives +2 strength in most cases. "armor" also merely applies attributes and the most common way for armor to give survivability to the user is to just have some +constitution on it (which in turn just gives a lfat addition to hit points). There's no real visible indication while playing of what equipment your characters are using, except for on the 'dress up doll' wher eyou drag and drop your equipment to. In this regard the backpack, or inventory, should be mentioned. It is artificially limiting in size, and you often need to click back and forth between deffirent 'pages' in your inventory to get a clear view of what you are actually carrying around. This also impacted shops, who couldn't purchase anything more if you filled up their inventory (which happened really fast).

Skill trees are like any random modern game, really. Except that the interaction with combat masteries (more on that later) means that the player often ends up feeling he have to choose between pointless skill A or pointless skill B just to progress along the skilltree. Every level-up, a character receives a skill point to place in the skill tree. Some of the "skills" are such fascinating choices as '+1 intelligence', '+1 strength', '+1 constitution' and so on. There are actually some 'real' skill choices along the way, where you get additional skill choices to use by a character. Oh, and every crafting item is skill required, so if you want to be able to use the crafting system, one of your characters will be 'that guy' that stands in the corner without participating in combat because all his skill points where used on crafting and the mastry system means he's not going to do anything in combat anyway when you have combat dedicated characters that need the actionpoints. Basicly the skill system feels unrewarding and leveling up a character gives you a 'meh' feeling instead of you feeling good that one of your characters leveled up.

Races are... well... there are different races, but at the time I was playing there was really no point to not make every character a trow. the racial benefit of getting extra actionpoints just outweighs any other racial, so there might as well just have been a single race cause the Trow race is just flat out the best. Nothing else to add.

Combat is.... crap... There, I said it. The thing is, it is turn based, but of the kind where one side do all its actions first with immediate resolvement and then the next side does its actions. Whoever initiates combat goes first. Now, instead of giving orders to each character and having everything do something, inXile looked at games like hearthstone and felt inspired by that (they specifically mentioned hearthstone as an inspiration). What this means is that each character have a limited set of masteries (active skills) they can use. Want the option to attack? that's a mastery. Want the option to move? that's a mastery slot. and so on. Some are fixed for all characters (move and trinket use is hardlocked for all characters as 2 of their masteries) and the rest 3 or 4 choices are choosable by the hero while you are NOT engaged in combat. once you are in combat you are locked into using whatever abilities you had set in the mastery slots before combat. I am guessing inXile thought this would be akin to deckbuilding or something like that. Add to this that you have a shared pool of 'action points' to use on your turn. Most mastery skills cost a single action point to use, but some cost more than one. And usually you have less actino points than you have characters in your party, so remember that guy I mentioned you put in the corner doing nothing during combat? The whole combat system feels extremely restricting and claustrophobic. Add that there are no hit chances (everything hits) and no damage variables (you make an attack, you hit for... how much strength did you say you had?) and combat stops feeling like combat, but more like a low level puzzle in a meeple placement boardgame.

Finally add to this that the setup of the grid area only allows a small handfull of monsters at a time, and in addition to needing to spend along time doing basic combat because of the artificial system, they have included 'waves' to make it appear that combat can actually deal with larger groups of monsters. So an example could be you facing off against 4 monsters, then as you kill them one by one, the last monster stands alone. Then you kill it, and wave 2 appears and 4 new monsters appear. Kill them in the same way and the last wave 3 might appear with 2 more monsters. A sure sign of a simplistic combat system that can't really handle the combats even the devs thought would be a minimum to evoke any feelings of acomplishments. Most battles seem to be of a single wave, but I experienced at least one 3 wave combat in the 10 or 11 hours of playtime before writing this review. I'm guessing more will appear as you progress through the game.

Puzzles are simplistic 'push the blocks around the game world until it stands on the switch' type. there are quite a few of them and they feel more like padding than they feel interesting. Since they are all scripted, they don't exactly add to replayability either, merely becoming a chore you need to do to progress.

So overall for barrows deep I can't really endorse the gameplay or design and I would not waste my time on it unless you can get it on a good sale.

2) Bards tale 4

So as a sequel to a previous trilogy of games, there should be some connections to those, right? Well appearantly the developers thought that just slapping the name "bards tale 4" and then namesdropping a few npcs and locations would do the trick, because that is ALL there is of connection. Everything else have been changed. Those expecting a bards tale experience should look elsewhere. Everything was changed and you wouldn't know it was a bards tale game if it hadn't been named as one. Even the lore was changed.

Basicly, avoid this game unless it is on a good sale.
 
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mondblut

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Ingrija
Everyone who thinks Steam ranking has any value or weight whatsoever should apply for a brain cell replacement therapy.

It means a world for a random Joe who has clicked on the link at random. Which means 95% consumers of any given game.
 

Jenkem

その目、だれの目?
Patron
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An oasis of love and friendship.
Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I helped put crap in Monomyth
so looking at videos it seems like they use the Unreal engine only for walking around in first person and tons of post processing as everything else such as the interface looks like a fucking mobile game with big fisher price buttons and the cutscenes are literally just moving cutouts and worse than you'd find in your average visual novel

the battle inferface also looks like it was made for tablets

and you people are excited for this
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,758
So how close are we to Fargo buying Interplay and releasing games made by contractors, for contractors?
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Combat is.... crap... There, I said it. The thing is, it is turn based, but of the kind where one side do all its actions first with immediate resolvement and then the next side does its actions. Whoever initiates combat goes first. Now, instead of giving orders to each character and having everything do something, inXile looked at games like hearthstone and felt inspired by that (they specifically mentioned hearthstone as an inspiration). What this means is that each character have a limited set of masteries (active skills) they can use. Want the option to attack? that's a mastery. Want the option to move? that's a mastery slot. and so on. Some are fixed for all characters (move and trinket use is hardlocked for all characters as 2 of their masteries) and the rest 3 or 4 choices are choosable by the hero while you are NOT engaged in combat. once you are in combat you are locked into using whatever abilities you had set in the mastery slots before combat. I am guessing inXile thought this would be akin to deckbuilding or something like that. Add to this that you have a shared pool of 'action points' to use on your turn. Most mastery skills cost a single action point to use, but some cost more than one. And usually you have less actino points than you have characters in your party, so remember that guy I mentioned you put in the corner doing nothing during combat? The whole combat system feels extremely restricting and claustrophobic. Add that there are no hit chances (everything hits) and no damage variables (you make an attack, you hit for... how much strength did you say you had?) and combat stops feeling like combat, but more like a low level puzzle in a meeple placement boardgame.

Oh wow.

How something as simple as turn-based, blobber, pop-up-encounter combat already mastered in the Apple ][ days could be fucked up so much?
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
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Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Can't wait to see Roqua's reaction to this.

Also, after the hissy fit supposed blobber fans had with MMX, ensuring it was trashed and unsuccessful, I don't see any other non-super indy studios attempting to make a blobber if BT4 fails. Its funny that the biggest enemy of crpgs and blobbers are the people that are supposedly like these games. Yet, all their actions do is ensure there are fewer and fewer of them, and we get more and more children-core console games with no depth, complexity, or thinking.

If you want more of something - you have to support those somethings that come out. MMX, regardless of it fit into what you, specifically wanted or thought a M&M sequel should be, gave us another blobber and another real crpg to have. BT4 will do the same. Is it my ideal crpg or blobber? No. But it is far, far, far closer to it than the filthy console games for retarded idiots that modern nuCodexers value and slurp up with love.
 

toro

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Joined
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Messages
14,023
They kind of fucked up:
- a lot of backer did not get their keys,
- awful performance on standard configurations (UE4 configuration !?),
- i don't understand why it needs 50GB HDD space, it looks ok but nothing special,
- the pre-made characters selection is limited (only female elves or dwarf male !?),
- the combat system is weak (shared pool of actions points - W.T.F !?),
- inefficient skill tree (you have to waste points on +1 INT or +1 STR skills in order to get what you actually want),
- probably more broken stuff (dialog text is floating !?).

Honestly the first impression is a disaster but then it reminded me of Arx Fatalis which is charming in a way.

I think it has more potential than Numenera to be a good game however atm I've played too little to say anything final.

Anyway I will restart my play-through because by mistake I've chosen Brian's portrait and I honestly don't want to see his mug for the entire game.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
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Messages
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Bulgaria
Fuck that shit,it was good idea to try make some blobber,but they did fuck it up. It is a fucking blobber,who the fuck needs all that fancy shit like good graphics,shiny effects and voice acting?! The game could have been made with half a million and end up better than this one. Also how hard could be to make a blobber run on most machines and not chug on power cards like 1080ti??? How retarded you must be to push the game in this sorry condition???

:negative:
I am really pissed off because this could have been success and opened the marked for decent blobbers. Fuck you Fargo,fuck you with giant green dildo with spikes!!!
 

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