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The Storm Guard: Darkness is Coming - turn-based roguelike RPG inspired by GoT's Night Watch

GrainWetski

Arcane
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
Messages
5,081
If you're even considering Firaxcom for a list of good combat, your opinion is completely and utterly useless.
 

Durwyn

Prophet
Joined
Oct 29, 2006
Messages
1,132
Location
Erewhon
Cool game, got my adventuring party wiped twice, once because of taking too much risk and the second time by the grace of RNG God.

8/10
 

Shackleton

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
1,301
Location
Knackers Yard
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
If you're even considering Firaxcom for a list of good combat, your opinion is completely and utterly useless.

Interesting that you say this, considering this game uses a very similar AP system as nu-xcom, hence why it came to mind as a comparison. You get two action points and you can either move and attack, or attack twice in a turn. Not a very nuanced system and part of the reason I got bored with combat inside two hours.
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,367
Pathfinder: Wrath
Thank you guys for the information. The only thing that has me hesitant is the hero/regular type recruit. I assume you are supposed to replace regular troops with heroes when they are available and that just undermines my need to have a team I am 100% vested in.

Actually the regular troops (there are only 3 kinds) will not be filling your party like after the very first battle. Regular troops are basically inferior character you get for very low cost in case you fuck up really bad or really need a certain role within your party but the tavern doesn't spawn them in a while (namely: heavy melee, archer, healer).

You can rename the character you buy whoever you wish, but mind that there is stamina mechanic (each mission take some, resting restore stamina) so you need to rotate your roster. And of course perma death so investing in certain group of character only is viable but require you not fucking up.

As for character progression, it is a bit simplistic. You basically buy armors in blacksmith, and upgrade skill using money. Every class only have certain number of skills which you could theoretically learn all so it is more of synergizing your party and resource management to upgrade the more important skills as you have a whole roster to keep in check.

Overall, it is quite fun and I think based on your previous taste on RPGs you could like this one Roqua
 

Latro

Arcane
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
7,345
Location
Vita umbratilis
>inspired by night's watch

what's there to be inspired by? a real game based on night's watch would be a tower defense game, only your resources go to shit all the time
 

vmar

Savant
Joined
Oct 17, 2015
Messages
210
So after 12 hours I gotta say this game needs more variety, the combat feels too samey after awhile. Like I feared, every encounter plays out the same, you're dropped into the middle of a battlefield and charge your opponents, so tactics never really come into play other than figuring out what buffs and debuffs to use in order to compliment your other character's skills. Positioning is common knowledge stuff, tanks in front, ranged/heals in the back. It does do a good job of mixing up the enemy composition though.

Also the game could use more classes, or some way to make a custom class or something. There's only one ranged dps (hunter) and they're op as fuck. The only thing stopping them from soloing the entire game is their energy reserves. Melee dps classes don't seem all that useful, it's easier to just bring an extra tank if you want melee, especially since the champion can switch back and forth between sword+shield/two handed. I've only seen one encounter that wasn't just a big field, it was a cave with a couple different corridors and two seperate enemy packs, which got me excited. Unfortunately it played out exactly the same, cause by the time I killed the first group right in front of me the second group had already moved in range of my hunter, so it was still just a tank n spank. Game would probably be better without the mmo aggro mechanics, once an enemy is taunted I've never seen them move off the tank and go beat up the healer or anything, even if you put your archer like directly behind them on their flank, they'll just ignore it and let you do your thing.

Most encounters end up going like this:

-send tanks forward, taunt once enemies are in range
-healer buffs tank
-hunter kills everyone while tank cleans up
-repeat

Game is still pretty fun though, and it's probably worth 20 bucks. Might be another game I put 20-30 hours in but never finish, we'll see.
 
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Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
So after 12 hours I gotta say this game needs more variety, the combat feels too samey after awhile. Like I feared, every encounter plays out the same, you're dropped into the middle of a battlefield and charge your opponents, so tactics never really come into play other than figuring out what buffs and debuffs to use in order to compliment your other character's skills. Positioning is common knowledge stuff, tanks in front, ranged/heals in the back. It does do a good job of mixing up the enemy composition though.

Also the game could use more classes, or some way to make a custom class or something. There's only one ranged dps (hunter) and they're op as fuck. The only thing stopping them from soloing the entire game is their energy reserves. Melee dps classes don't seem all that useful, it's easier to just bring an extra tank if you want melee, especially since the champion can switch back and forth between sword+shield/two handed. I've only seen one encounter that wasn't just a big field, it was a cave with a couple different corridors and two seperate enemy packs, which got me excited. Unfortunately it played out exactly the same, cause by the time I killed the first group right in front of me the second group had already moved in range of my hunter, so it was still just a tank n spank. Game would probably be better without the mmo aggro mechanics, once an enemy is taunted I've never seen them move off the tank and go beat up the healer or anything, even if you put your archer like directly behind them on their flank, they'll just ignore it and let you do your thing.

Most encounters end up going like this:

-send tanks forward, taunt once enemies are in range
-healer buffs tank
-hunter kills everyone while tank cleans up
-repeat

Game is still pretty fun though, and it's probably worth 20 bucks. Might be another game I put 20-30 hours in but never finish, we'll see.
Actually, 30h should more or less be the completion time of the game.
You also need to cast KD resistance to make tanks work, as getting Knocked down is a good recipe for disaster.
I had found taunt not to be that effective actually, between the guys immune to it, and its relatively short duration.
The thing is that the enemy will never disengage if they are in ZoC, even if your regular attack does little damage.

MDPS are weak indeed. They were buffed lately, but the benefit/cost ratio remains horrible compared to tanks or ranged DPS, as they drop really quickly.
 

jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,420
Having a bigger party in this game is usually more of a hindrance then a good thing which is dumb. You have to make sure your heroes have gear and skills up to date, if they're useful for the run. Better way of handling it is if some missions were tagged with needing 1 or 2 more companions. Or simply give out more gold rewards for having bigger party. Where is the fun in 3 man parties? :(
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,825
Decent game with a ton of problems.

First is the abysmal encounters. Unless you are doing a very speshul encounter, fights can be broken down in the following way:

- Party vs Enemies (same amount of characters on each side, this is so fucking retarded i cant believe anyone thought it was a good idea)
- Starting positions are set, perfectly facing eachother (come on brother, you could have at least set different starting positions, that would at least change up encounters a little).
- Enemies scale to the level of the mission you are currently undertaking, so you can find level 1 drakes and level 5 goblins.
- Big enemies have dumb immunities that reduce encounters against them to dps.
- Every map except the cave is the fucking same.

Every fucking encounter is the fucking same. You cant employ enemy units in your party (biggest wasted opportunity ive ever seen), not even human ones.

Retarded constitution mechanic where the damage you take in any given fight reduces your heroes "durability", this wouldnt be so bad except that there are classes that actively hurt themselves to attack.
Other than that, cooldowns, this make it so that you always do the same shit to win fights, my archer will always poison his arrow, then proceed to barrage and then to bleed, my dwarven healer will always cast mp regen on cast followed by chain lighting, etc. Every fucking class already has some sort of resource management, alter those numbers and drop the fucking cooldowns.

The other retarded mechanic are sieges, you get attacked basically every other day, and have to take care of that or people wont pay their taxes, its inane and soon becomes a fucking chore. The basic idea of panic is good, but it should be tied to something else, not tied to grinding.

Retarded non hero units, these exist for the sole reason of cooking and tax collection, as there is never a good reason to slot them in your party (why would you ever want a non hero unit taking experience that should go to a hero one). ever.
If the developer was smart he woulda limited the amount of hero units a party can have, or maybe give heroes the capacity of have a different amount of non hero units at their disposal, frontline fighters having more of them, also maybe including some modifiers for race.


Everything else is ok
 

vmar

Savant
Joined
Oct 17, 2015
Messages
210
necro etc

Did this game ever get better with updates? New maps or anything at all? I wanted to like it but it got sooo repetitive
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
:necro:

This game is in a very weird position where it is almost good, but stumbles over its own feet too much. There are enough heroes and skills and enemy types to have really fun combat, but the game really wants you to field a healer (to the point where you get a prompt that you should field a healer if you don't field a healer) and a tank to hold some matter of frontline. That designates you to playing some kind of dps/healer/tank trinity, and thus takes a good bit of depth from the party building, as playing fun teams like 3 ranged DPS always feel suboptimal and not designed for.
Then the games biggest sin of combat still being pretty much always 3v3 comes on top. How does 3 enemies versus a trinity play out? Very samey. You focus down their weakest member before combat engages, then you entangle their two remaining units with your tank and grind it out. That would maybe even still be alright if you only fought one battle per day, but each day has a dungeon with a dozen battles or so, and staying in the dungeon and grinding for xp and gold is a definitive upgrade to make the game easier. So you fight dozens of fights with your trinity against the same arrays of enemies.

Everything the game advertises with
  • Rich turn-based combat with a wide range of interesting mechanics, including numerous conditions (bleeding, burning, weakened, blind, crippled, ...), knockdowns, shouts, buffs, enchantments, and hexes.
  • Interesting combat mechanics that allow flanking, tying up, disengaging, and smart combinations of skills.
  • Numerous playable hero classes to pick from to add to your team with dozens of unique abilities to specialize in.
  • Challenging encounters against close to 40 different creature types each with their own abilities. Ever since the Ancient Dragon returned, Orks, Giants, Undead and Mystic Creatures roam the realm of men causing death and destruction.
  • Defeat intelligent monsters that collaborate, heal and buff their allies and have their own strategy on how to put your heroes to the grave.
  • Use your gold wisely on the strategy layer to invest into skill development, equipment, consumables or additional heroes.
  • Rest in town to recover from injuries that reduce your constitution or gain morale boosts by exceptional performance in battle.
  • Classic RPG/roguelike features like permadeath, procedural dungeons, and random events result in high replayability.

is certainly true, so the myriad of flaws, all coalescing into one glaring one that makes the game grindy and samey is quite disappointing.
To take the same comparisons as Shackleton, it has the problem of steep competition. RPGs are no longer a starved genre, multiple worthwhile tactical rpgs have been releasing per year for a few years now, and many of them are plain better than this.
I like it about the same as Hard West, which is saying that I refunded both, as they were competently made games, but had some grievances which annoyed me to much to bother with them.
 
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notpl

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 6, 2021
Messages
1,376
As opposed to a real-time roguelike?
 

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