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

[agris]

Don Peste That happened to me, with Paladins, in the beta...

 

[DeepOcean]

Is it weird to anyone else to see these quick post-release patches fixing huge things? "Oh, now we're going to patch framerate so the game can run. We didn't bother to do that in the last 3 years but since feedback indicates players want the game to run we will patch that in by next week."

"If we delayed the game by two weeks and paid some nerds a few doritos to test it, we might have avoided this shit show of a launch."

 

[newtmonkey]

The environments in the game look pretty good on high/ultra settings. It's the characters that look awful no matter what and the underwhelming performance that really holds the game down in terms of visuals.

It's also weird that all of the NPCs just stand there all the time. That bothered me in M&MX also, but at least that game had the excuse of being turn-based/step-based. It's just weird that you have full freedom of movement and yet everyone in the world is just standing in place for eternity. At least the monsters patrol their little areas.

 

[ortucis]

Unrelated to anything above but I just spotted this comment and found it amusing:

I just extracted some of the textures in this game. 2k textures are 10-16mb. LOL so big. No idea why crate textures are 16mb.. and there are a ton of crates in this game. I wonder why it runs poorly.

"Boss! Boss! I finished making all of the crates and barrels in 4k ready textures!"

"Good, good, now just put those things anywhere you can't think of something else to place, you know, pad it out real nice so it looks more dense"

"Oh sir, you're so brilliant!"

[Suddenly the source of both voices becomes silent and our hero Brian Fargo stops talking to himself as he notices that someone is knocking at his door]

Textures and models are loaded in memory and re-used, they don't really cause such performance issues these days (especially with even lowest tier GPU's having over 4GB memory).

However, asinine use of things like volumetric fog and LOD can cause such issues. Do note that in first patch, they worked with volumetric fog to fix performance issues. Just feels like amateur hour at inXile.

Anyway, I think I'll wait for Steam sale to buy this game. Whenever they are done patching it up and fixing the annoying gameplay issues.

 

[Blightor]

I find it a little odd that most of the digital extras including the manual weren't included in the download with the game. And that you have to manually download all the digital extras from the crowdox website.

Manual is there in steam.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Not drunk enough yet, instead I decided to try The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians from my Steam library and ended up playing it for 70 mins straight. Seems pretty good so far, Real time blobber without dance of death, though you can use the real time nature of the combat to flee from combat and draw enemies into traps. XD

Got about 1/3rd that bottle left, so let's see if I wake tomorrow morning with some ugly broad in my bed—I mean, Bard's Tale IV purchased and sitting in my Steam library!

Try the 7th Circle, if you want to play a turn-based roguelike single-char blobber with a good horror mood, it's more competent than BT4

Holy Shit, tried the 7th circle. Absolutely loving it so far. and the soundtrack so far is simply superb.

As a huge bonus absolutely no KAWAI KANCER like Labyrinth of Dusk.

7th Circle is really neat but I'm curious what either of you end up thinking of the difficulty by about the fourth floor.

I hadn't died once on my run and by the time I quit I was pretty much the terminator. Considered killing off my character to reroll on a harder difficulty but it was much much harder to die at that point than to clear entire floors due to high HP/evade/armour so I lost my patience and uninstalled

There's a lot to like in the game so I'd be happy to hear if one of the other difficulties actually forced you to make use of the crafting/potions/rest spots but in my experience the permadeath system just means any character who doesn't die turns into a god really fast and the good aspects of the game get pretty severely undermined by being able to mash A to win every fight

I started as the dual blades wuth light armor preset class in 7th circle and honestly didn't play beyond 3rd floor so can't say much about the difficulty.

so far its decent enough i suppose. although those new to blobbers might get a bit overwhelemed.

combat is kind of simplistic i suppose but infinitely better than the fargo bloated aids bt4.

 

[newtmonkey]

I'm 3 hours into BT4 now, and it's alright I guess. The combat is not horrible, but there's not really much to it yet. It can be fun using your abilities to maximize damage efficiency each round, and I probably prefer it to the combat in M&MX which was just tedious and dull.

The biggest problem with this game thus far is how linear it is and how few options you really have. It's closer to a JRPG than anything, in terms of just following the story along and having little to no input on not just the story, but even on character development as you're stuck with whatever characters the story forces on you at a given moment.

I can't see anyone ever wanting to play this a second time due to the structure of the initial part of the game. It's not something that can be fixed by just adding a mode where you get to create your own party from the start, since the encounters are all balanced on you slowly adding members with fixed classes/skills as you go along.

Leveling up is never very exciting, although getting a new combat skill can drastically improve the character. I'm thinking specifically of the rogue ability that does some impressive damage to an enemy in front, and then moves the rogue to the rear immediately after. With that one skill, the rogue is now by far the most powerful damage dealer in my party (and you can even buff it for more damage by hiding in shadows as a free action).

I think this could have been a really interesting blobber if the game was less linear and you were given the option to at least make a 3 character party from the start with slots for plot characters.

Alternately, they could leave the game as is but shorten the part up until you get to make your full party, and allow players to select to start from the beginning or from the part of the game where you get full party creation. Maybe even add some wandering respawning enemies so that you can experiment with different builds/parties. That alone would increase replay value imo.

 

[Blightor]

I'm 3 hours into BT4 now, and it's alright I guess. The combat is not horrible, but there's not really much to it yet. It can be fun using your abilities to maximize damage efficiency each round, and I probably prefer it to the combat in M&MX which was just tedious and dull.

The biggest problem with this game thus far is how linear it is and how few options you really have. It's closer to a JRPG than anything, in terms of just following the story along and having little to no input on not just the story, but even on character development as you're stuck with whatever characters the story forces on you at a given moment.

I can't see anyone ever wanting to play this a second time due to the structure of the initial part of the game. It's not something that can be fixed by just adding a mode where you get to create your own party from the start, since the encounters are all balanced on you slowly adding members with fixed classes/skills as you go along.

Leveling up is never very exciting, although getting a new combat skill can drastically improve the character. I'm thinking specifically of the rogue ability that does some impressive damage to an enemy in front, and then moves the rogue to the rear immediately after. With that one skill, the rogue is now by far the most powerful damage dealer in my party (and you can even buff it for more damage by hiding in shadows as a free action).

I think this could have been a really interesting blobber if the game was less linear and you were given the option to at least make a 3 character party from the start with slots for plot characters.

Alternately, they could leave the game as is but shorten the part up until you get to make your full party, and allow players to select to start from the beginning or from the part of the game where you get full party creation. Maybe even add some wandering respawning enemies so that you can experiment with different builds/parties. That alone would increase replay value imo.

Im about 20 houurs in. Really like it. The puzzles are good, some really easy, some a bit more to it. Linear wise... I dont mind it in a blobber.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Yeah the game actually looks fine as far as I'm concerned. It's just disappointing to see a game hurt so badly by stuff that they are gonna take as little as 2 weeks to a month to fix. It's years of work and the entire word of mouth surrounding the game on launch ruined by stuff they should have delayed the game one or two months to fix.

They NEEDED positive word of mouth since it's such a niche game of an unknown series, but no, they just had to release it broken instead of taking care of the most obvious issues first. Now the game looks like a dumpster fire to anyone who looks at its steam store page or reviews.

 

[newtmonkey]

Even delaying it a week would have helped a lot I think. The first patch seems to fix some important stuff.

Still loling at all the pro reviewers, none of which could possibly have played the game to completion since the main quest was bugged up until yesterday lolz. No wonder none of the pro reviews covered the game in any detail whatsoever. Business as usual for game reviewers these days.

 

[aweigh]

I said as much to John walker in the RPS comments for the review and less than 1 hour later my comments were deleted. I was actually pretty surprised as I phrased it all very civilly and while LARPing as a confused normie instead of someone with an agenda. Pretty cowardly of them.

 

[Morkar Left]

I said as much to John walker in the RPS comments for the review and less than 1 hour later my comments were deleted. I was actually pretty surprised as I phrased it all very civilly and while LARPing as a confused normie instead of someone with an agenda. Pretty cowardly of them.

He has more important stuff to do than playing oldschool rpgs ofc. You should feel blessed he actually gave it a go...

I'm 3 hours into BT4 now, and it's alright I guess. The combat is not horrible, but there's not really much to it yet. It can be fun using your abilities to maximize damage efficiency each round, and I probably prefer it to the combat in M&MX which was just tedious and dull.

The biggest problem with this game thus far is how linear it is and how few options you really have. It's closer to a JRPG than anything, in terms of just following the story along and having little to no input on not just the story, but even on character development as you're stuck with whatever characters the story forces on you at a given moment.

I can't see anyone ever wanting to play this a second time due to the structure of the initial part of the game. It's not something that can be fixed by just adding a mode where you get to create your own party from the start, since the encounters are all balanced on you slowly adding members with fixed classes/skills as you go along.

Leveling up is never very exciting, although getting a new combat skill can drastically improve the character. I'm thinking specifically of the rogue ability that does some impressive damage to an enemy in front, and then moves the rogue to the rear immediately after. With that one skill, the rogue is now by far the most powerful damage dealer in my party (and you can even buff it for more damage by hiding in shadows as a free action).

I think this could have been a really interesting blobber if the game was less linear and you were given the option to at least make a 3 character party from the start with slots for plot characters.

Alternately, they could leave the game as is but shorten the part up until you get to make your full party, and allow players to select to start from the beginning or from the part of the game where you get full party creation. Maybe even add some wandering respawning enemies so that you can experiment with different builds/parties. That alone would increase replay value imo.

Im about 20 houurs in. Really like it. The puzzles are good, some really easy, some a bit more to it. Linear wise... I dont mind it in a blobber.

In this review the guy mentiones that there is actually backtracking but he doesn't say if there is actual stuff like sidequests to do or if monsters respawn sometimes. I completely agree about the party creation. I was finally at the point were I could make my own full party if I wanted. And with full I mean 4 because the other slots are still locked besides me having enough tokens... I decided to make finally a bard just to have him abandoned 5 minutes later because another npcs had to join me (and ofc locked to 4 chars total). That's some serious flaw and I don't get why they took that root.

Overall the game isn't bad and I enjoy it. And I actually like the puzzles. I hope the game opens up and we can have some respawning monsters or random encounters spawning in places where it makes sense.

I think the game shares some similarities with Frayed Knights, too.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

To think I've wasted over 100 bucks for this trainwreck... And now I don't have enough money to buy and play and enjoy Grimoire. Fuck you Fargo.

Found in the Adventurer's Guild in the ruins of Old Skara Brae:

 

[Bohr]

Not much of a weekend peak then. Jokes aside, this is quite sad, unless there is a massive turnaround (v unlikely) this is not just a flop but heading into legendary disaster territory

 

[aweigh]

They spent more time modeling Fargo's face for that NPC than they did for any other one. Disgusting.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Not much of a weekend peak then. Jokes aside, this is quite sad, unless there is a massive turnaround (v unlikely) this is not just a flop but heading into legendary disaster territory

And all they had to do was delay release by some two weeks. What a joke.

Makes me wonder whether they just kicked it out thinking nobody will care about the glitches.

 

[BEvers]

It's out of the GOG top 10 now, which takes some serious effort. Barely staying ahead of undiscounted HoMM 3

 

[aweigh]

Whenever a game comes out with this level of bad performance on mid-range machines I always wonder: don't they fire this shit up before hand? Like at least once? On a budget PC? It's just so baffling.

 

[Roqua]

I created my own custom party. I only have five slots open so have a bard, fighter, 2 mages (with the feather thing to help control the battlefield), and a rogue. I re-did it to focus on sp generation and work on some not optimized points for most class, and for the couple that didn't need changes I figured I'd just make my own to change the name/race. My last slot will focus on the cleric tree. I haven't decided on mage or bard yet for the sixth when it opens. My only other issue is I can't figure out for the fighter (I took two handed and have him with the strifespear thing with shield in off-hand) since the spear limits what I can slot if I should slot the armor reduction hit or the aoe sweep or the execute. I need the taunt. I gave up the mental hits for him and my bard and have one mage doing it, so my bard has the SP song, the fire buff that does damage and increases his armor (so both my front line guys have 16 now, not too bad), and the aoe seed thing, and the con shield song.

The chardev and itemization has grown on me. Every decision was made to be pretty significant, including specific items for slots. I really enjoy the boss fights, and other than about 20% of the trash fights being really trashy and easy, on hard the game is exceedingly well balanced. The dungeons and exploration are all really well done. The game gets better the more you play, whereas most games get repetitive and I lose interest. Its too bad there aren't more crpg fans on this site so we could have a real conversation about this underappreciated gem and instant classic.

 

[Hamster]

Whenever a game comes out with this level of bad performance on mid-range machines I always wonder: don't they fire this shit up before hand? Like at least once? On a budget PC? It's just so baffling.

Did it even occur to them that majority of target audience probably has budget PCs?

 

[Jinn]

Had an amazing time with this game last night. The first real dungeon is not only beautiful, but also extremely well crafted and a joy to explore. The combat and character progression really opened up as well.

After my experience last night, I would dare say this is a good game. There is also something so alluring and charming about it that I can't quite put my finger on.

 

[fantadomat]

Does anyone else think that the Bard is pretty useless class? Also i noticed that the game system was balanced around 4 people party and not around 6 people party. With the action points you rarely get the option to use more than four,and i have seven action points. A rogue and a tank in front and two wizards or wizard and a rogue in the back seems optimal.

Also i had no problem with how you collect your party,it seemed decently fast. In an hour of the start you had four guys party. Also you got two or three tokens for creating your own party. I don't really see why people would like to create a whole party tho,the premade is pretty ok and the banter is the best part of the writing.

 

[Jinn]

I find bard to be particularly versatile because of all the free-action skills at their disposal. They play like the jack-of-all-trades they're supposed to be. Always a trick up their sleeves. Though they would be better with one or two more special skill slots available.

 

[a Goat]

Whenever a game comes out with this level of bad performance on mid-range machines I always wonder: don't they fire this shit up before hand? Like at least once? On a budget PC? It's just so baffling.

They don't.

The total employment costs of a programmer(that is both his wage, taxes and other related expenses) are high enough to make the costs of upgrading or just buying brand new high-end computer for everybody every year or two basically null. I mean imagine hiring just 40 guys who work on the game. The cost of high end PC, assuming relatively overpriced parts being used - GPU $800, CPU $500, 32GB of RAM $350, PSU case, mobo HDD/SSD - $1100(assuming 4TB HDD and 1TB SSD so I'm not going cheap on it). Total $2750 add CrispyCut™ and round it up to $3000. Yearly update of every single PC in your company will cost you $120k, and if you're being jewish about it and want to give your IT a reason to ask you for pay rise you can buy disks every 3 years and PSU's every 5, saving about $24k yearly in between these replacements. IIRC $120k range is about what average game dev will get in Cali, so if you'd go bankrupt over this then you were likely going to go bankrupt anyway - at 40 people dev team you're increasing your yearly spending by less than 2,5%(because employment costs are higher than income).

edit: obviously you can go more wild on it and go for $5000 PC's or more, but the key point stays the same - the costs of giving your devs high end hardware to work on is relatively small in comparison to their cost of employment.

 

[unfairlight]

I wonder if ((())) is going to recommend this on the Codex curator.