The Dark Eye Blackguards - turn-based tactical RPG set in The Dark Eye world

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Too late, and now I can't get the metal piece for the spear for Takate, this is an outrage.

 

[circ]

Would rather have Niam + Takate instead of Aurelia.

Would rather have Niam + Aurelia. Aurelia starts with shadow something spell, so - set her up with triple shot and watch shit die. Takate is boringtothemax - plus he can barely hit shit with maxed attack, especially if you give him the 9 spear. Then again he's got stats to be an archer too, or would if some loon developer hadn't made arrows limited.

 

[Gord]

Yeah, you need to choose to recapture her to be able to finish the quest. Thankfully the battle is fast and easy, so I wasn't too upset by the bug.

VentilatorOfDoom, I finished the quest just fine by letting her go. If it's not working it might be a bug introduced in either 1.2 or 1.3?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

the kor spear has a substantial attack penalty (-5, looked it up on the internet) that boggles the mind, after all it probably doesn't matter much I can't get it. Anyway, I think Takate would do better with a bow or a two-hander, his wounding is nice, but the dmg of his spear (though I have a spear for him with magic dmg, Efferd's Beard or something) is often lacking. Wie üblich holt der Zwerg die Kastanien aus dem Feuer!

Gord, yeah seems they've introduced quite some new bugs in the latest patch

 

[Bubbles]

I have a pretty strong suspicion that it was caused by installing the DLC, since that modifies the quest giver.

Other bugs:

- certain values carry over after quickloading. Specifically, I learned Ecliptifactus from a book (which cost 100 AP), then increased it to 8 (all I could afford), then reloaded. Then I learned it from the book again, and now the spell was level 8 instead of level 1, even though it only subtracted the 100 AP to learn it.

- the quest "Drachenhatz 2" doesn't put the eggs in my inventory if I choose to keep them, and doesn't give me any boosts if Takate eats them. At least in chapter 4. If something is supposed to happen later on, that should be more clear.

 

[Bubbles]

the kor spear has a substantial attack penalty (-5, looked it up on the internet) that boggles the mind, after all it probably doesn't matter much I can't get it. Anyway, I think Takate would do better with a bow or a two-hander, his wounding is nice, but the dmg of his spear (though I have a spear for him with magic dmg, Efferd's Beard or something) is often lacking.

I get the feeling that most of the enemies in chapter 4 onward are particularly resistant to magical damage. Naurim's Wuchtschlag with a 6-11 magical weapon does 3-4 damage against wolves.

edit: just checked - evil wolves have 90% magical damage resistance, and 50% to most others (nothing to infantry damage, so the Kor spear would actually be useful there). Salva has 20% magical resistance and no other listed resists. Magical weapons are a bad idea later on.

 

[Gord]

the kor spear has a substantial attack penalty (-5, looked it up on the internet) that boggles the mind, after all it probably doesn't matter much I can't get it. Anyway, I think Takate would do better with a bow or a two-hander, his wounding is nice, but the dmg of his spear (though I have a spear for him with magic dmg, Efferd's Beard or something) is often lacking.

It does infantry-damage, which most enemies are vulnerable against. Coupled with some +Attack spells, it can be worth it.
Also wounding helps reducing the threat from enemies, so while a spear might not be best in terms of raw damage, it has its uses.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Of course wounding has its uses, but in comparison to Drakensang it's much weaker. You can't dispose of enemies by wounding them. Even wounded they're still there, blocking sight for your archer, scoring a lucky hit here and there, poisening the target etc. At the same time I wonder how it would be like if Takate would dish out 90 dmg criticals with hammer blow like Naurim does.

Bei Angrosch!

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

the kor spear has a substantial attack penalty (-5, looked it up on the internet) that boggles the mind, after all it probably doesn't matter much I can't get it. Anyway, I think Takate would do better with a bow or a two-hander, his wounding is nice, but the dmg of his spear (though I have a spear for him with magic dmg, Efferd's Beard or something) is often lacking.

I get the feeling that most of the enemies in chapter 4 onward are particularly resistant to magical damage. Naurim's Wuchtschlag with a 6-11 magical weapon does 3-4 damage against wolves.

edit: just checked - evil wolves have 90% magical damage resistance, and 50% to most others (nothing to infantry damage, so the Kor spear would actually be useful there). Salva has 20% magical resistance and no other listed resists. Magical weapons are a bad idea later on.

really, and what do I do then with Takate, I don't have a different spear and can't get the Kor spear. I kept the Rondracomb, in case I wanted to level up his two-handed sword skill but that is magic dmg too, jeez

 

[Infinitron]

GameBanshee (Steven Carter) review: http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/113141-blackguards-review/all-pages.html

He hates it lol

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

really, apart from some quest bugs which can get ironed out I really think it's a very enjoyable game. Nice twist at the end of ch 3 btw, for a combat game the story is pretty good as well, so far.

 

[abnaxus]

By the endgame I have Takate specced out as a two-handed bashing weapons user, an extra character with Deathblow is always a plus.

Aurelia is a boring throwaway character. In the short time you get Niam she's more useful than her in every way.

GameBanshee (Steven Carter) review: http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/113141-blackguards-review/all-pages.html

He hates it lol

Fuck that loser.

 

[Grunker]

the story is pretty good.

well-written dialogue

GameBanshee (Steven Carter) review: http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/113141-blackguards-review/all-pages.html

He hates it lol

gamebanshee's decline is complete

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

By the endgame I have Takate specced out as a two-handed bashing weapons user, an extra character with Deathblow is always a plus.

Yeah I thought so, I just had Naurim do a 127 dmg hammerblow on a skelleton. Nice. Will spec Takate for 2H bashing too, if I get the AP. It's definitely better to hit for massive damage than to do 12 damage, 2 wounds but still getting hit for 20 + poison in return. Of course, in Drakensang wounding was very potent because you could end potential threats quickly by causing 5 wounds, but I think in this game massive dmg is more effective.

Grunker yes p. good story for a combat game so far, remember the story of ToEE? I don't even remember if that had a story beyond "there's an evil temple, plz go there and kill kthxbai".

 

[Bubbles]

By end of chapter 4 I had so many AP that I went for the weapon mastery perk with my melee guys and specced Takate as sword/board. That gave him better attack values (+3 through the shield perks), better def from the shield, and more damage from the sword. I prefered that to having hammerblow, since I often had pretty bad to-hit chances with that anyway (on hard at least) and failing a special attack gives you dumb penalty.

And Aurelia is great as a buffbot.

 

[abnaxus]

There should be enough AP for making Takate both master archer & weapon master, but it is possible that recent patches nerfed the amount of acquired AP.

 

[Grunker]

Grunker yes p. good story for a combat game so far, remember the story of ToEE? I don't even remember if that had a story beyond "there's an evil temple, plz go there and kill kthxbai".

I can't really say much about ToEE's story, it almost didn't have one. Blackguards on the other hand actually attempts to have fairly fleshed out story and characters. 1/4 or more of the time you spend with the game is devoted to dialogue, exposition and plot. All of it fails pretty miserably (with a few minor exceptions).

Anyway, it's sort of a moot discussion. Blackguards is downright brilliant for many parts of the game and the shitty story neither detracts nor adds much to it all, imo. I liked the elf girl and thought she was kind of interesting as a character, but that's about the extent of my investment in the story.

I wished more indie-RPGs went with a basic formular like this. Really stuck to their guns. Not necessarily the same structure as Blackguards, but just the simplicity: do one or two things, do them really well, and eschew anything else. I believe Blackguards, Knights of the Chalice and games like these succeed where others don't because of their tight focus.

 

[Excidium]

I wished more indie-RPGs went with a basic formular like this. Really stuck to their guns. Not necessarily the same structure as Blackguards, but just the simplicity: do one or two things, do them really well, and eschew anything else. I believe Blackguards, Knights of the Chalice and games like these succeed where others don't because of their tight focus.

Fuck that.

 

[Grunker]

I know you dream of a time where $30.000 dollars can make a full-fledged RPG, but meanwhile in the real world I fucking love that we have Blackguards and Knights of the Chalice instead of two barren wastelands of crushed dreams and overambitious products.

 

[Excidium]

If better than nothing is good enough of you.

 

[Grunker]

Knights of the Chalice and Blackguards is better than no games at all? You fucking bet. Both are great.

 

[Markman]

Hmm, Gamebanshee's reviewer seemed to have a shitty PC or probably some 300 euros laptop if he has to suffer 30 sec every time the game loads a map. I'd be pissed too, but he also got butthurt by the encounters, the shining point of the game, omg to haarrd.
I wasnt really pissed that much when the dice didnt roll my way and I had to restart the encounter. Shit happens.

While Blackguards does have weak points for some by not being storyfags dream, the combat with well designed encounters and a good char system carry the game well above the average RPGs we use to play.
Devs even listened to fan feedback and improved the game based on it. I personally cant wait for the next stand-alone or a sequel.
Cause I feel/know that Obsidian, inXile or Larian are never gonna make a RPG with combat or encounters this good.

 

[Bubbles]

I don't think the game is even particularly difficult once you make it past Act 2/learn how to play well. All the fights in act 3 and 4 were pretty easy once I knew what to do, and I'm playing on hard.

 

[Excidium]

Cause I feel/know that Obsidian, inXile or Larian are never gonna make a RPG with combat or encounters this good.

Which is probably true but just sad. The combat in this game isn't exactly some incredibly high standard to live up to. I found it relied way too much on hazards and gimmicks to be interesting.

 

[circ]

Combat is extremely repetitive, partly because they eschewed things like deonts and geodes and thieving in general. Plus, the skills got slimmed down too and that's not helping either. Maybe they decided to do it for pacing reasons, but that doesn't explain the really bad battlefield controls and retarded AI that walks straight into traps unless you babysit every single hex.

Also pretty sad that in the entire game, there were I think only three maps with special treasures to find, giving a risk and reward aspect to them.