KickStarter Serpent in the Staglands Thread

[agris]

Ah, I've only popped my Imp out of his jar to talk to him. I haven't used the ability yet.

It does make sense that they're single use, given the advantage. Have you asked on Whalenought's forums if there are more? 2 Imps for 3+ in Philosophy seems kinda weak.

 

[ArchAngel]

Patch 9 is ONLINE:

Patch 9 should finish off the remaining kinks we’ve seen and some of the other smaller ones, and includes a few more balance items and UI additions! Steam and patches are currently up, we’ve submitted to GOG, so they should upload it soon as well!

If you do see any errors or fringe cases please let us know on our forums or Steam page and we’ll mark it down! We’ll be having a small UI update down the road with some of your suggestions that will take a bit more testing or weren’t a huge priority, like windowed mode in Windows to scroll properly (this is a universal Unity engine issue we’re looking into a workaround for) and some other requests for other camera movement or hotkeys.

We’ll be continuing to balance leading up to the expansion as well, but this will be more sporadic going forward. Closer to that release we may add in any neat AI updates for new enemies onto some of these older ones (like new spells/skills and mechanics for them for grade 4, or other AI updates). More on that in the future.

For those of you who purchased the art book, we’ll be having a KS update soon related to that (we’ll re-host here and Steam like usual), so stay tuned!

Version 9 Updates:

General:
_____________

• Trap description update
• Rune book requires a bit more precision, cannot be activated until returning to scene
• Binding a character after they attempt to abandon you changes their portrait appropriately.
• Soul bound companions, once dismissed, cannot be found again
• Emerald Metalis barracks map could have issues when entering with full party, fixed
• Harvester animations may not correctly play burrowing animation, fixed so it always plays
• Bruul hostility fixed which could occur for some players
• Various merchants in Rumin and Corem given more money (only occurs if you haven’t visited yet).
• Some companions, when released, could be found again with duplicates and wrong inventories, fixed to have correctly saved inventory and without original clone
• Hitting barrels no longer procs combat-starting skills
• Less chance of enemies spawning near you upon load if in hostile area (unless you missed some in the grouping you are in/near)
• Additional thieving imps added to various NPCs

UI:
_____________

• Toggle added for running the game in background *if you’re experiencing memory allocation issues on Windows, advised to leave this turned off*
• Magic Axe description updated to correct skill name it augments (Crushing Blow -> Seismic Swing)
• Arrow keys to move camera now have hotkeys
• Chain whip description updated with correct stats
• Ringmail Coat: New — description update for correct stats
• Various helms and rings updated with correct AS stat reflection
• Attack speed number could display to a large decimal, fixed

Skills/Spells:
_____________

• Turn to Stone damage output changed in game feed: once proced it instantly kills target — no longer displays target’s health as damage
• Poison Weapon damage reduction, but now includes any Skill points in Herbology Aptitude to give a flat bonus
• Amplify visual effect positioned correctly
• Shimmering Scales had chance to stack AC bonus, fixed
• Searing Light effect could linger above enemy cast on it if interrupted, fixed

 

[agris]

Btw, is there Thieving Imps for sale anywhere besides a single one in Corem?

• Additional thieving imps added to various NPCs

• Arrow keys to move camera now have hotkeys

There you go.

Anyone who has been on the fence about starting a new game due to the bugs can play now. It's amazing what they've done in ~12 days. Being able to rebind the camera scrolling keys is a huge usability improvement.

 

[Sensuki]

Hmmm. Well, why don't they just make it a toggleable option??? Whalenought_Joe

Your wish has been granted.

 

[agris]

I've finally stopped dicking around am actually exploring the game. Holy shit, the over-world travel map is giving me huge Fallout vibes.

map

And that's just part of it. It's easily one more full screen in all directions except West. Zones within a quadrant are connected like in Fallout too, with the colored areas at the edge representing travel to a different map. It's like BG1 wilderness areas in that the the intra-quadrant maps have a logical N/S/E/W connection to them, too.

Man, this game is doing it for me in a way that none other have in a loooong time.

 

[ArchAngel]

A mix of BG1 and Fallout was something we all wanted without even knowing it :D

For that reason this game needs to be talked about and its authors earn money to make their next game even better and more ambitious. Codex should support these people big time in both money and advertisement

 

[agris]

I'm really surprised more codexers aren't playing and talking about it. This game is like a fucking unicorn. I really hope they get enough sales to continue development.

 

[Lhynn]

I'm really surprised more codexers aren't playing and talking about it. This game is like a fucking unicorn. I really hope they get enough sales to continue development.

Was waiting for one of you to give the ok to play it. Gonna buy it before the weekend.

 

[agris]

I'm really surprised more codexers aren't playing and talking about it. This game is like a fucking unicorn. I really hope they get enough sales to continue development.

Was waiting for one of you to give the ok to play it. Gonna buy it before the weekend.

Cool. Keep in mind the first town (Lumen Targ) is essentially Shady Sands or Klamath.

 

[Obviousplant]

I'm really surprised more codexers aren't playing and talking about it. This game is like a fucking unicorn. I really hope they get enough sales to continue development.

I wonder if it's the visual style? I advertised it on a few forums&retro gamer hangouts just before it launched and so far and no one's gotten excited about it (and these are people who like retro games/RPGs). Well, one guy wished for a 3DS port, but that's about it. I hope that at least my review will convert some people, I made an account to few RPG forums just to promote it :D
There's a ton of games with horrible pixel art that sell really well on Steam, yet when there's a game with actually good pixel art, it doesn't get much exposure.

Or maybe it's the fact that Witcher 3 was just launched? Divinity and Grimrock reached mainstream exposure, and atleas Original Sin was released when there weren't any major RPGs (or other games for that matter) being released.

 

[agris]

It might just be a slow burn. Lots of cult media items are. I'm worried that it won't even get to cult status though, because of really poor media exposure. Here's hoping that gaming outlets were waiting to review it until it got patched.

 

[ArchAngel]

I'm really surprised more codexers aren't playing and talking about it. This game is like a fucking unicorn. I really hope they get enough sales to continue development.

I wonder if it's the visual style? I advertised it on a few forums&retro gamer hangouts just before it launched and so far and no one's gotten excited about it (and these are people who like retro games/RPGs). Well, one guy wished for a 3DS port, but that's about it. I hope that at least my review will convert some people, I made an account to few RPG forums just to promote it :D
There's a ton of games with horrible pixel art that sell really well on Steam, yet when there's a game with actually good pixel art, it doesn't get much exposure.

Or maybe it's the fact that Witcher 3 was just launched? Divinity and Grimrock reached mainstream exposure, and atleas Original Sin was released when there weren't any major RPGs (or other games for that matter) being released.

Both D:OS and Grimrock are way less hardcore games with graphics much more attractive to bigger audience.

 

[commie]

Where's all the Codexers howling that it isn't turn based as they did with PoE? Better start...

(clears throat)

Fucking RTS combat! Banal shit boring! Moar like Derpend in the Shitlands amirite????

Where's the TB combat patch????

 

[agris]

Where's all the Codexers howling that it isn't turn based as they did with PoE? Better start...

(clears throat)

Fucking RTS combat! Banal shit boring! Moar like Derpend in the Shitlands amirite????

Where's the TB combat patch????

A reviewer for PC Gamer sits down to write a review of SitS. He's played it for 45 minutes and doesn't get it. There's pixels and shit, and no in-game tutorial. What. The. Fuck. Knowing his deadline is fast approaching, he decides to take the pulse of the internet to gauge how people received the game. A quick search turns up the 70 page thread at the RPG Codex. Going to the most recent post, he reads this.

The review writes itself.

 

[AetherVagrant]

ducked around with the demo and first release enough, just picked it up from Steam. I dont know when ill play it, but these guys need first-week sales for sure. And the patching speed has me greatly impressed.
Now whalenought just needs more sexy videos of the two of them nerding out and the summer's entertainment is in the stag.
bag.

 

[Pope Amole II]

I wanna make a funbuilding for the game, maybe even the russian LP as, obviously, it's even lesser known to the russian community than it is to the english one, but all this patching bullshit is kinda preventing me from digging into it. I fucking hate this "release is the new beta" bullshit, especially from the indie devs. Not to mention that they're changing the game balance with each update so a funbuilding released now will probably become useless in a month or so.

That's just not the way how a fledgling, unknown studio (any studio, for that matter, but bigger fishes have the PR tools to white-wash themselves in the eyes of the public) should release the game - that's a big "fuck you" to the players.

 

[agris]

I wanna make a funbuilding for the game, maybe even the russian LP as, obviously, it's even lesser known to the russian community than it is to the english one, but all this patching bullshit is kinda preventing me from digging into it. I fucking hate this "release is the new beta" bullshit, especially from the indie devs. Not to mention that they're changing the game balance with each update so a funbuilding released now will probably become useless in a month or so.

That's just not the way how a fledgling, unknown studio (any studio, for that matter, but bigger fishes have the PR tools to white-wash themselves in the eyes of the public) should release the game - that's a big "fuck you" to the players.

I think they ran out of money. They were getting humanitarian relief via codex air-dropped coffee rations.

FWIW, all the serious balance wrt spells and abilities has been patched and is done. There's small shit left I'm sure, but it won't change very much. They even mentioned back-patching the expansion abilities (Grade 4) and AI to some of the end-game content in the base game. Joe did a series of profiles on different character build concepts, so you might start there.

edit: and AA is right. They dialed up the difficulty of the end-game content by both buffing creature stats, and toning down OP spells. I don't think there's any other large balance changes coming, just UX improvements.

 

[ArchAngel]

I wanna make a funbuilding for the game, maybe even the russian LP as, obviously, it's even lesser known to the russian community than it is to the english one, but all this patching bullshit is kinda preventing me from digging into it. I fucking hate this "release is the new beta" bullshit, especially from the indie devs. Not to mention that they're changing the game balance with each update so a funbuilding released now will probably become useless in a month or so.

That's just not the way how a fledgling, unknown studio (any studio, for that matter, but bigger fishes have the PR tools to white-wash themselves in the eyes of the public) should release the game - that's a big "fuck you" to the players.

They are changing balance because people are complaining about game being too easy in mid and late game. We complained about that for PoE and Obsidian didn't change shit. But they nerfed fun stuff we didn't complain about.

Seems it is impossible to win on the Codex.

 

[Ninjerk]

I wanna make a funbuilding for the game, maybe even the russian LP as, obviously, it's even lesser known to the russian community than it is to the english one, but all this patching bullshit is kinda preventing me from digging into it. I fucking hate this "release is the new beta" bullshit, especially from the indie devs. Not to mention that they're changing the game balance with each update so a funbuilding released now will probably become useless in a month or so.

That's just not the way how a fledgling, unknown studio (any studio, for that matter, but bigger fishes have the PR tools to white-wash themselves in the eyes of the public) should release the game - that's a big "fuck you" to the players.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.

The difference is, there's a huge amount of people interested in PoE and even if something changes, they're interested in that too. That's a huge opportunity if you know what to do with this (PoE raised my subs from 356 to 1952 and they're growing, like, 10 per day, fyi). So putting extra work in redoing all that shitload of videos when the time comes is fine by me - moar subs that way.

On the other hand, apart from the codex and a couple of people here and there, no one really gives a fuck about Serpent in the Staglands. Nothing to squeeze out of there. Mind you, I'm interested in the game personally and I'm not again giving them extra PR (if the game turns alright), but my time (or, rather, my working capability as I'm feeling shit nowadays and can't do as much as I'd want to) is limited so I'm absolutely unhappy with such bullshit approach.

 

[agris]

Ok, but now 12 days have passed and the game isn't in flux. Better? The concepts behind the EEs of WL2 and D:OS inform us that those games, as-released, weren't finished either. Only those games were more insidious about it, waiting loooooong amounts of time to rebalance things. Here Whalenought are, a two person team, and they've got their shit fixed up in under 2 weeks.

On a totally unrelated note, try these key bindings if you want to scroll with WASD: WASD for scrolling (obviously), Z for select all (MOUES3 when it's enabled will be the best imo), E for Warbook, X for spells and T for aptitudes. When the bug with the R key is fixed, E-R-T for warbook-spells-aptitudes is the natural, and X for Stop when a stop hotkey is implemented.

 

[Johannes]

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.

The difference is, there's a huge amount of people interested in PoE and even if something changes, they're interested in that too. That's a huge opportunity if you know what to do with this (PoE raised my subs from 356 to 1952 and they're growing, like, 10 per day, fyi). So putting extra work in redoing all that shitload of videos when the time comes is fine by me - moar subs that way.

On the other hand, apart from the codex and a couple of people here and there, no one really gives a fuck about Serpent in the Staglands. Nothing to squeeze out of there. Mind you, I'm interested in the game personally and I'm not again giving them extra PR (if the game turns alright), but my time (or, rather, my working capability as I'm feeling shit nowadays and can't do as much as I'd want to) is limited so I'm absolutely unhappy with such bullshit approach.

Fuck off. While it would've obviously been better if the game had been perfect upon release, it's obviously good that they made huge improvements to the game in two weeks compared to them not doing so. Maybe a longer beta or early access or whatever could've gotten them to this point too in a while, but this was clearly the best (and maybe only realistic) way to get proper testing for the game in.

I just started a new playthrough and the difference in combat quality is night and day. It was a fun game before, but not for the combat so much - now that part works too.


My biggest remaining complaint for the combat balance would be to give more (humanoid) enemies access to special skills, and make those more varied within single encounters.

 

[Ninjerk]

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.

The difference is, there's a huge amount of people interested in PoE and even if something changes, they're interested in that too. That's a huge opportunity if you know what to do with this (PoE raised my subs from 356 to 1952 and they're growing, like, 10 per day, fyi). So putting extra work in redoing all that shitload of videos when the time comes is fine by me - moar subs that way.

On the other hand, apart from the codex and a couple of people here and there, no one really gives a fuck about Serpent in the Staglands. Nothing to squeeze out of there. Mind you, I'm interested in the game personally and I'm not again giving them extra PR (if the game turns alright), but my time (or, rather, my working capability as I'm feeling shit nowadays and can't do as much as I'd want to) is limited so I'm absolutely unhappy with such bullshit approach.

So, in short, it really has nothing to do with the "'release is the new beta' bullshit, especially from the indie devs. Not to mention that they're changing the game balance with each update so a funbuilding released now will probably become useless in a month or so." This after Obsidian just blasted the Paladin class with buffs. You really have to try hard to be this full of shit.

 

[roshan]

I wanna make a funbuilding for the game, maybe even the russian LP as, obviously, it's even lesser known to the russian community than it is to the english one, but all this patching bullshit is kinda preventing me from digging into it. I fucking hate this "release is the new beta" bullshit, especially from the indie devs. Not to mention that they're changing the game balance with each update so a funbuilding released now will probably become useless in a month or so.

That's just not the way how a fledgling, unknown studio (any studio, for that matter, but bigger fishes have the PR tools to white-wash themselves in the eyes of the public) should release the game - that's a big "fuck you" to the players.

So if a full sized studio that literally raised millions of dollars releases an extremely buggy product (that does not even resemble what they promised to deliver), and then even releases an "enhanced edition" that invalidates the entire experience of playing the game a year later, that is totally not a "big fuck you to the players", because they have PR teams. But if an indie dev of two people with a budget of 30k, release a buggy product, who in the first place never even had the resources to QA their open world game, but bust their ass releasing 9 patches in less than two weeks, fixing their game up when AAA releases from last year are still waiting for their fucking balance patches, they're assholes.

I'm sorry dude, but you're just a complete fucking retard.

 

[Pope Amole II]

You really have to try hard to be this full of shit.

Sure I am. Too bad I was criticizing Obsidian, Inxile and Larian for pretty much the same kind of thing in my russian PoE somewhere, but that doesn't really matter, does it?

In the end, despite all its claims of prestigiousness and all the shitting on the other forums, Codex is just as blind in its fanboyism as everyone else, bursting into the rage whenever a spek of criticizm touches their objects of worship.