Preview RPG Codex Preview: Blackguards

[Grunker]

You are talking like "you should invest points into fireball or you won't hit shit with it" is some sort of weird mechanic

No, I'm not, I am saying that spell failure that relies on skill checks isn't a usual mechanic, and it gets obtuse when you can't even read the correlation.

 

[Scruffy]

i'm more of a storyfag, but i'll give this a go anyway. thanks for the preview!

 

[felipepepe]

Game's getting a big patch now:

Spoiler

New Features

• Added the hotkey “K” for hiding dev build infos.
• Added „simple“ hex field which is only outlines. Found in the “Options”.
• Added display of actual weapon value modifiers.
• Added in-battle voice comments from heroes and npc's.
• Added missing sound fx to chapter 1 cutscenes.
• Improved overall sound balance (most significantly: lowered music volume).
• Improved sound fx for special attacks and monster maneuvers.
• Added additional loading screen hints.

Fixed Bugs

GENERAL

• Fixed several crashes and freezes.

GUI

• Fixed the savegame list overlaying the main menu loading screen.
• Fixed that hovering the attributes in the character sheet would highlight all base values after a while.
• The infobox is now cleared after switching to another character sheet tab.
• Talents/Spells/Attributes etc. are now locked to the infobox with a click.
• Fixed that stackable items have a „How much to use“ setting, even if the stack only had 1 item.
• Skill changes will not be saved without asking anymore, if the player switches to another tab of the character sheet. (E.g skilling a talent and then switching to attributes.)
• Fixed loot menu visual fx.
• Removed F12 console hotkey.
• Fixed that all armor pieces were marked as being metallic.
• Moving the worldmap via mouse drag will not accidentally let the player travel to another hotspot anymore.

TEXT

• Fixed several typos.
• Fixed several “NoKey” errors.
• Fixed several translation issues.

QUESTS

• Fixed Quest reward of the „Brotherly Love“ sidequest.
• The player can now return to the Neetha graveyard if he didn't visit all tombs before getting chased out by Lasca.
• Bal and Cadalman are now marked by a Questmarker during their part of the Main Quest in Drôlsash.

SOUND

• Fixed a number of floor material and foot stomp fx bugs.
• Fixed loot menu sounds.

GRAPHICS

• Fixed a bug that caused some dead enemies to „shine“.

STEAM

• Fixed that Portuguese was displayed as Portuguese-Portugal instead of Portuguese-Brasil.
• Register as Contributor button should work correctly, now.

Added display of actual weapon value modifiers.

 

[dibens]

Early access this, beta that. Goddamnit, is there anything worth buying this year? As I understand the release date hasn't been announced yet, right?

 

[Infinitron]

Early access this, beta that. Goddamnit, is there anything worth buying this year? As I understand the release date hasn't been announced yet?

It has. http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...blackguards-delayed-until-january-2014.87115/

 

[dibens]

Huh, missed that. Their homepage says the release date is TBA.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The UI should explicitly tell you the number that's being increased and where.

The thing is, it does do that. The spell description in your character sheet has a very clearly visible 'chance of success' line that gets modified as you put points into it.

Also, I received a PM from an oppressed individual who wanted me to post this (FREE ANDHAIRA) :

Apologies for pm'ing you like this, but I am disallowed from posting anywhere on Codex ATM, save for the LP forum. If you could, please post this message in the Blackguards Preview thread in News Sekkktion.

Anyhow, I have recently played Blackguards for quite a while, and I just wanted to put my opinion out there:

It's a great game. It's less an RPG and more a Strategy-RPG in the vein of FF:Tactics. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first full fledged, commercial western Strategy-RPG ever made in this vein. It works very well. This game has my must buy seal of approval.

Therefore instead of saying what I like about it, I will point out the flaws:

-No real character generation: This flaw has been called out on the steam forums so much, rightfully so, that the devs are considering doing something about it. Basically, you can only choose from 3 premade classes, with points already allocated. The mage for instance, has points in the axes weapons talent (carefully chosen so mage players can whack the guards using torches in the opening scenes of the game. Yes, torches fall under the axes category)

-The story. The mystery of the murder is fun and a great way to start (wolf rape!!) but the follow up is lacking. FF:Tactics thus far had a better story

-Too few NPCs. Right now after hours of playing chapter 1 I still only have Naurim the Dwarf and the Dandy Mage

-All Talents (skills) have been worked/reworked to give advantages in combat. That's ok, I understand, but would it be too much to ask to have more dialogue checks? Thus far it's only Charisma checks but too few. And these checks should really matter, mainly give you free xp, open up areas, give bonus rare loot, etc.

-The price to increase all your shit is way to expensive. Why should I spend hundreds to points to bup up charisma just by one measly point when I can pump up Ignifaxus, or my Fireball spell, since I am going to have to fight anyway? The DSA Ruleset used in Realms of Arkania gave you much more points. In that sense it was better.

-No Daemonology spells. I mean really, this game just begs for summoning type spells. I miss my Heshthots.

-No negative attributes like Claustrophobia, etc.

-Environment and spell graphics are sweet. The character models could be better though. Right now, ToEE had better models. Hopefully thought, this improves with more cooler looking equipment.

-Game is poorly optimized, but I am 99% sure this will be rectified when the full game is launched.

-Death to Early Access. Go Kickstarter if you have to, but fuck Early Access. It ruins the game by only playing a broken version, then redownloading the final one and starting all over again and slogging through the battles all over again.

Verdict: All in all this is a fine, fine game by Daedlic. Not only that, but now that they have a great engine the sequel to this game can seriously end up not just being a full on rpg with excellent combat, it could actually be one of the best crpgs of all time. I kid you not, there is a ton of potential here along with a fun game to boot. It all depends on how much this sells. Just look at how much Baldurs Gate 2 improved over BG1, which was barebones too comparatively speaking. Daedlic too could make such a jump with Blackguards, especially since they have resources Bioware never had like Kickstarter, Steam, Online Distribution (thus cutting out the massive costs associated with retail along with all the middlemen) etc etc

Daedlic should quite the adventure game making business now (or lease it to Obsidian ) and focus on making quality cRPGs. Apart from DSA, I would love for them to use other rulesets too, like Shadows Of Esteren, WFRP, etc. No D&D please though. In fact, Daedlic should stick to European rulesets.

 

[Murk]

You are talking like "you should invest points into fireball or you won't hit shit with it" is some sort of weird mechanic

No, I'm not, I am saying that spell failure that relies on skill checks isn't a usual mechanic, and it gets obtuse when you can't even read the correlation.

This has already been covered; but you can read the correlation because an entire descriptor, in-game, of the spell is "chance of success". That's more than enough to figure out that increasing the rank leads to more success.

Now, more documentation is great; I love reading the manual and planning character builds, but the fuggholes complaining that "spell failure is completely out of the blue" or that it should be removed so spells never fail can fuck right off.

 

[Grunker]

You are talking like "you should invest points into fireball or you won't hit shit with it" is some sort of weird mechanic

No, I'm not, I am saying that spell failure that relies on skill checks isn't a usual mechanic, and it gets obtuse when you can't even read the correlation.

This has already been covered; but you can read the correlation because an entire descriptor, in-game, of the spell is "chance of success". That's more than enough to figure out that increasing the rank leads to more success.

Now, more documentation is great; I love reading the manual and planning character builds, but the fuggholes complaining that "spell failure is completely out of the blue" or that it should be removed so spells never fail can fuck right off.

Go back to my original post. I'm not defending the "fuggholes", I'm arguing that new players don't intuitively know these things.

 

[felipepepe]

Weapon stats display is perfect for me now:

You now have how your stats are gonna be with it equipped, color code to show if it's a improvement or not AND the actual stats of the weapon inside thew parenthesis.

Obviously there will be people saying stuff like "I found a bug, my attack is decreasing even though there's a clear (+1) besides it!", but there's a limit to how you can simplify a complex set a rules without destroying them...

 

[Grunker]

 

[Murk]

Go back to my original post. I'm not defending the "fuggholes", I'm arguing that new players don't intuitively know these things.

There's no need to be intuitive; the game tells you that there is a chance of success involved in the spell when you are hovering over it.

 

[Brother None]

"Strategy RPG" in the vein of F:Tactics is a good way of putting it. Game's delish. The River of Time with this combat system would've been my dream DSA game. Still quite happy.

The full process is that you roll 1d20 for each ruling attribute of a spells (here Cleverness, Dexterity and Constitution), and every roll has to be LOWER than your character's corresponding attribute. If any roll is higher you fail, but you can use your Spell Levels to adjust the rolls. Here I have 8 points to modify it. However, enemy Magic Resistance subtracts from your Spell Casting level, so if I try to cast at a guy with RM 3, I'll only have 5 points to adjust my rolls.

Oh man, delicious DSA. Being German they're probably subconsciously all "what, everyone knows that?" coz people are more familiar with the DSA systems there. Not an excuse, just saying, I kind of understand not having this done yet at this stage of development, but definitely something that's good to get through and fixed before early access. I'm generally against any obfuscation, your screenshot shows well how much better full display of stats is.

for focusing on fixing it to y'all giving feedback and Daedelic for patching it in. Looks sweet.

Big ups for how faithfully they adapted the systems, even with it being only the combat portions of the system. Very fond of DSA.

 

[Grunker]

Go back to my original post. I'm not defending the "fuggholes", I'm arguing that new players don't intuitively know these things.

There's no need to be intuitive; the game tells you that there is a chance of success involved in the spell when you are hovering over it.

Well, I had no chance of knowing that based on the convo

 

[Darth Roxor]

So, apparently chapter 2 will be released in a week or so.

Can't wait for the tears!

 

[felipepepe]

Yeah, if they didn't nerf the battles, this will be glorious.

I honestly doubt that most will even get past Takate, much less the crocodiles or the final fight.

 

[abnaxus]

No crafting is a bit of a downer.

-No Daemonology spells. I mean really, this game just begs for summoning type spells. I miss my Heshthots.

Summoning animals and undead is fine but even in RoA daemonology was utterly ridiculous, considering the amount of preparation necessary to actually summon even a minor demon. Unless you larped a mage who made a pact with an Archdemon.

 

[Murk]

Well, I had no chance of knowing that based on the convo

u r a poop e

 

[clemens]

Daedlic should quite the adventure game making business now (or lease it to Obsidian ) and focus on making quality cRPGs. Apart from DSA, I would love for them to use other rulesets too, like Shadows Of Esteren, WFRP, etc. No D&D please though. In fact, Daedlic should stick to European rulesets.

A full-fledged crpg based on Les Ombres d'Esteren by Daedalic sounds awesome indeed. There are actually so many fantasy rpg systems that are waaaaay better than D&D...

Also, I love it so much when I can look at something resembling a proper character sheet in my crpgs ! Fuck the whiners.

 

[Roguey]

The UI should explicitly tell you the number that's being increased and where.

The thing is, it does do that. The spell description in your character sheet has a very clearly visible 'chance of success' line that gets modified as you put points into it.

Oh okay, then the Steamtards deserve what they get for not reading.

 

[ben_reck]

but, yes, nod, R, a little unconventional the relationship between skill upgrades and accuracy. Only some spells with the "melee touch" attribute in AD&D required a "to hit" roll (Burning Hands); most everything else was auto hit such as fire ball and lightning bolt.

will wait for the full release before purchasing but always love turn-based tactical fantasy combat. On custom maps!

 

[Ninjerk]

I really want to play this now. Also, ban Darth Roxor for accomplice to ban evasion.

 

[Minttunator]

Good preview, guys! I haven't really followed this game until now, but it looks really interesting.

 

[Awakened_Yeti]

i'm more of a storyfag, but i'll give this a go anyway. thanks for the preview!

im more of a combatnigger, but occasionally i like to rape storyfags in the ass with my big choicecock

 

[Morality Games]

Is the story bad in the way that suggests it is always going to be bad or is there hope its quality will improve in the future chapters? For that matter, is it bad or just mediocre?

Not that it matters terribly.