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

[Telengard]

There's no need to spend anything on it now, unless you want a spell or two now. (I did do so, but it's not necessary.) If you're a completionist, then your dual-class character will have so many xp that you will be able to raise the spells you want to whatever level you want them to be at later. The game starts handed out free xp like pez at some point, and never stops after.

 

[SirSingAlot]

alrighty, played for a few today. seems fun.
now i am kinda fucked in those dwarf games, the trouble brothers get on my nerves pretty good

 

[SirSingAlot]

i read that in the very first town u can obtain some good armor set (Kulslikan Lamelar).
i was constantly saving Shekels during Act one, got back there....and its not there.
fuck
did they patch it or do i miss smtg?
also, whats another solid set to aim for?

 

[Grunker]

alrighty, played for a few today. seems fun.
now i am kinda fucked in those dwarf games, the trouble brothers get on my nerves pretty good

The dwarves are tough, but you'll get there.

 

[tuluse]

I'm pretty sure I have all 9 pieces of the Kor spear, but I don't remember who to talk to get it made (and the quest didn't update to tell me).

Any help?

 

[abnaxus]

Mengbilla smith.

 

[OSK]

i read that in the very first town u can obtain some good armor set (Kulslikan Lamelar).
i was constantly saving Shekels during Act one, got back there....and its not there.
fuck
did they patch it or do i miss smtg?

I'm guessing it was patched out. It wasn't there in my play through either.

 

[SirSingAlot]

whats is the consensus bout other solid armor sets i can obtain early?

 

[abnaxus]

Just use brigandine set until better stuff appears.

 

[Lord Azlan]

It's the holiday season and I just bought a worrying amount of games on Steam.

Before I begin a new adventure I wanted to close the book on something - hence I finished Blackguards.

Steam says about 6.6% of players have finished the game - in my limited experience that seems quite high. My rarest Steam achievement was Jack of All trades at 4.1%.

Quite impressed with my first encounter with the Dark Eye universe.

Despite the game being quite simplistic in some places such as the portrayal of the towns and travelling, I really got caught up in the story and the world the designers have created. Interaction with NPCs was basically mission running, merchants, trainers etc. I nearly completed all side missions. However, I did find the in game journal only slightly helpful. Often you would lose track of where to go. This could have been because some of the side missions took place over a few chapters. The various trainers you find throughtout the game are lost to you unless a notepad by your side recorded where everyone was.

I really liked the way you could choose how to develop your party, noting however some of them would never gain magic. Of a party of five I had two tanks and three ranger/magicians. I found I was normally using the same spells all the time such as healing or fireball. Totally impressed how important poison and immunity to poison was - excellent stuff indeed. One particular encounter took me more than half a day to complete. You need to cross a long winding cavern full of spiders and zombies. You needed to get to the end in time before a travelling mist of poison gas reaches you. I could have smashed my PC in frustration but insead enjoyed the challenge.

I liked how the ranger x3 damage was very effective - appart from against some enemies that were immune to piercing damage.

If I played again I think I would specialise in a few spells only rather than buy them all. Some of the spell effects used against my party were quite impressive indeed.

The game was basically a long journey through various encounters on a hex grid. I was quite impressed how the developers seem to have paid a lot of attention to the various maps. I never thought "I had seen this map before".

In the end I found the story quite interesting but could not explain to you what the hell happened. I need to Wiki that some day.

Some parts need improving.

Armour - what the heck happened with that - very difficult to tell what was better. In the end I used the web to sort them out for me. Why does not the stats screen include Armour Class?

Trainers - there should be an easier way to find those guys.

Weapons - It's not Diablo right? I suppose the weapons came out of the Dark Eye universe. Decent mix of swords, axes, bows, crossbows, staves, with shield, dual wield etc Even throwing weapons. It was very difficult to find the "best" one - I suppose that is good.

Bandages - seems random. I would fail ten times in a row and on reload work first time.

Missions - some were plain diabolical. The damn insects appearing all the time. More difficult or frustrating than they needed to be.

Excellent game - thoroughly recommended!

 

[Gord]

I'm replaying BG on hard, with a fighter/archer for my MC.
Now in chapter 2. I disliked it the 1st time, since it's extremely linear and restricted.
This time I'm disliking it due to some of the fights being just plain idiotic. The first couple of fights are your ill-equiped chars (since you lose your stuff initially) against higher level enemies with full equipment. Due to limited tactical possibilities those fights are decided mostly by the RNG, which makes them some of the most boring in the game, imho. Either you are lucky and win or you aren't and lose. Not much you can actually do to influence it.
Then come the nine hordes. You've got your stuff back, which is cool and they implemented autosave in between the fights now, which is great since you aren't forced to play all 3 fights of a day in a row (which sucks if you have to leave for some reason). Also many of them have some interesting gimmick, making for some fun fights.
But some of the fights can get - problematic - in the way they are set up, like the fight against the tigers on day two. It's the first fight of the day, but the damn beasts cause wounds like crazy. I've not yet been able to raise Balsam up to level 3, so I'm restricted to Naurim's healing talent. And Naurim's really shitty at it, due to it using his worst abilities for the roll.
So basically, after restarting the tiger fight a dozen times due to getting 2+ wounds on most chars, I'm now in the next only to restart it a dozen times because Naurim never succeeds at healing the fucking wounds. And when he does, I get 2 more in the next round due to some lucky hit by the fucking Utulu archers.
Whatever they were thinking when they made the tiger fight the first fight of the day, I don't know.
So yeah, Blackguards can get pretty fucking frustrating due to the RNG in some fights...

 

[tuluse]

Gord if I remember correctly there is healing water after the tiger fight that heals wounds.

 

[Gord]

Hm, not in the Utulu fight which comes right after the tigers, as far as I can tell. Probably in the third fight of the day?
Will see.

I'm already in joyous expectation of playing with drugged Niam on day three. My butt's ready.

 

[Lios]

fucking good fights and awesome character sheets
blackguards does many things right.
it has no character at all but you remember that you wildly enjoyed the Deponia trilogy too.
must-play but you have to have PATIENCE or else LOADING.
awesome game

 

[Gord]

So, what's the consensus on the RNG and/or the displayed THC in Blackguards?

I'm usually skeptical when I see too much whining about wrong probabilities in games, but since playing chapter 4, I get an awful lot of misses on 90% attacks.
Now, coming from DSA PnP I didn't wonder too much about it at first - you attack (roll a D20 against your attack value for the given move) and if you succeed the enemy can still evade or parry (rolling a D20 against his parry or evade value).
However, according to what I found about the mechanics in Blackguards, the displayed THC should already include this, since attack and parry/evade are allegedly calculated against each other to come up with the chance to successfully execute an attack.
The argument being, I guess, that otherwise fights could draw on a bit when an enemy's parry and evasion are very high, and/or players might not understand how a successful attack can still fail if the enemy evades.

Anyway, my point is, I get a lot more misses on 90% attacks than I would expect, especially since I reached chapter 4.
Maybe I should start writing a table, just to be sure it isn't my imagination playing tricks on me...

 

[Telengard]

I don't know about the consensus or the formulas going on behind the scenes, but it's not your imagination. I once missed 7 times in a row on 90% attacks. But that was better than when I was in the 70s and would sometimes go 3 rounds without a single hit from anyone in the party.

 

[Infinitron]

Interesting. Personally, I found that I quickly reached a point in Blackguards where I almost always hit. The only exception was certain enemies that seemed to "cheat" or something.

 

[Grunker]

Eh? What you're describing is just the enemy dodging or parrying like Gord said.

The criticism you're putting forth is exactly the reason these mechanics were changed in BG2 for the much, much worse. Attacks nearly almost hit and enemies are reduced to one dodge per turn, meaning nearly all randomization is removed.

Missing is part of Blackguards, fuckers.

 

[Telengard]

My failure rate also including missing 4 times in a row with 98% heal.

What's more, missing 18 time in a row isn't a big deal. But after the 5th time it happens, you do start to wonder what's going on.

 

[Gord]

Missing is part of Blackguards, fuckers.

Oh, I'm fine with missing. I just wonder if the numbers it displays are correct, that's all.
When over the course of several fights "90%" attacks seem to miss more like 30-40% of the time it's either a very lasting streak of bad luck, or there's something wrong with the displayed numbers.

As I said, I didn't worry too much about it at first (during my first playthrough), since that is kinda what I expected it to do given the rules of PnP.
However, I since read some explanations on it that confrimed that it's not using normal PnP rules when resolving attacks.

 

[Grunker]

it's not using normal PnP rules when resolving attacks.

It isn't AFAIR (felipepepe will know I think).

 

[Infinitron]

It's definitely not using the PnP rules to calculate that value, since you can see the hit chance on an enemy jump after you've attacked him for the first time in a round and caused him to use up his parry.

 

[felipepepe]

It uses a slight variation of the 4th edition P&P rules... from muh guide:

Close combat attacks in Blackguards have a base hit chance of 60%. The actual test is executed with a simulated 20 sided die roll, where each die equals 5% chance. So for a 60% attack, you have to roll 12 (12 x 5% = 60%) or less.

This chance is modified by the difference of the attacker's Attack value and the defender's Parry value. That means if both the Attack and Parry values are the same, the hit chance would stay at 60%. An Attack Value of 18 and Parry value of 12 would raise the hit chance by 30% (6 x 5%) to a total of 90%. An Attack value of 9 and Parry value of 12 would lower the hit chance by 15% (-3 x 5%) to a total of 45 %.

Enemies usually have a high parry value, but can only parry once per turn. After that, the calculation changes to the difference of the attacker's Attack value and the defender's DODGE value, which is usually lower.

What all of this means is that you should always attack first with the weak character, so that the next blow is easier to land. Also, I agree that some enemies cheat. It seems Daedalic was uncomfortable with how their rules worked and didn't mind manipulating them...

 

[Gord]

Also, I agree that some enemies cheat. It seems Daedalic was uncomfortable with how their rules worked and didn't mind manipulating them...

Hm, that's a pity, I don't like such stuff. At least Daedalics implementation (blatant cheating when displayed 90% is not "real" 90%).
I can live with and prefer insanely buffed enemies (which they also use, e.g. the pruple mobs in chapter 4) that otherwise adhere to the rules - when there's a reason for such enemies, at least.

The other thing I wonder a bit about is the magic resistance. Even with (for TDE PnP) very high values the enemy does not see a reduction in casting chance. So I guess that either they have very high values both in the respective spell and the governing attributes, or the game is cheating there, as well.
In priciple one can just ignore magic resistance - it's barely used at all up until the beginning of chapter 4 and then you should be strong enough to do without it as well.
However, I wanted to see if I can interrupt enemy spellcasters with high magic resistance and how much I need, so I started buffing Naurim. I'm now at ~15 and enemies still seem to have 95% chance for level 4 spells that affect all my chars.

Edit:
Thinking about it a bit and doing some calculations, the effect of MR indeed is pretty small when enemy casters have high attributes and skill levels. So it might just be a balance issue there. Not that we will ever see some balancing patch for BG1, but to me at least the effect of magic resistance seems too small considering how costly it is to raise eventually.
It does seem an all-or-nothing thing. If you want to raise it, put a lot of points into it, otherwise ignore it and use the XP for different stuff.

 

[abnaxus]

I've experienced some of the purple peasants of doom dodge multiple times in one turn.

And MR needs to be very very high (in the 30s) for enemies to fail casting.