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

[Io-Daedalic]

First of all, thanks for all your feedback.

I'd like to state it clearly again here, that we did tune down some chapter 2 fights after we've had some complaints about difficulty with the press release. But this, on the contrary, does not at all mean we're satisfied with the difficulty of chapter 2 fights at the moment. We plan to tune them up again, but we're going to do it carefully to really get it right this time and not overdo it in the opposite direction. That's what we're using EA feedback for. Furthermore future chapters are planned to increase the difficulty level even more (except for some story fights that just add to the overall storytelling and atmosphere).

 

[Io-Daedalic]

By the way: If you could give us detailed feedback on what fights in particular you find too easy and in the best case are able to tell us why or what about them is easy, this will enable us to get an appropriate difficulty level much more easily. That would be very helpful information for our balancing game designers.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

By the way: If you could give us detailed feedback on what fights in particular you find too easy and in the best case are able to tell us why or what about them is easy, this will enable us to get an appropriate difficulty level much more easily. That would be very helpful information for our balancing game designers.

I have one fight in ch1 early access which i thought was a bit easy.

Spoiler

In early Access Chapter 1 bridge thingy saving baroness optional goal was a bit too easy to complete

 

[Crooked Bee]

By the way: If you could give us detailed feedback on what fights in particular you find too easy and in the best case are able to tell us why or what about them is easy, this will enable us to get an appropriate difficulty level much more easily. That would be very helpful information for our balancing game designers.

Darth Roxor felipepepe Could you do this perhaps?

 

[felipepepe]

Honestly, I'm a bit burned out ATM, and I've played those battles 3 times already (beta+press+steam), so I'm a bit too biased... feedback from a codexer playing it for the first time would be more valuable.

 

[Raghar]

By the way: If you could give us detailed feedback on what fights in particular you find too easy and in the best case are able to tell us why or what about them is easy, this will enable us to get an appropriate difficulty level much more easily. That would be very helpful information for our balancing game designers.

I can give you better advice. Become Game master and play RPG PnP game. You'd learn in about half year all proper stuff.

From what I seen, majority of people sucked in imagining stuff in context. They thought it would be more difficult with a mage, and put into random encounters so many mages, it would kill country supply of mages for 30 years. It feels extremely unrealistic and kills suspension of disbelief.

Actually, I can give you an example of an encounter. Go play No time for dragons, and try that encounter after you first time ride the train.
Do it without doing too many quests in the first area. And the reaction to the difficulty is: "Oww, c'mon."
Then come prepared and the reaction to the difficulty is: "I grinded everything which was grindable, and it's still not enough?"

Actually, in context of story, this encounter actually makes a lot of sense. But, the encounter is surely an eye opener.

Honestly, I'm a bit burned out ATM, and I've played those battles 3 times already (beta+press+steam), so I'm a bit too biased... feedback from a codexer playing it for the first time would be more valuable.

But when I'd play it, I'd see spoilers. (Also they didn't send me licence and early access free of charge.)

 

[Bubbles]

Go play No time for dragons

I doubt many Daedalic employees speak Russian. Or was that a dig at the "Night of the Rabbit was a Bratva money laundering scheme" rumor?

 

[felipepepe]

Raghar, you're being an asshole. Daedalic's encounter design is already miles ahead of most RPGs out there, including those from expert PnP players. Had you actually played the game, you would see that.

 

[Grunker]

The fact that it might come up on a steam sale for additional discount during christmas

I don't really feel like playing the early access because from what I hear the game is good enough that it's better not to 'spoil' it by playing an unfinished version, so buying it would only be to support Daedalic in making the final version better and to get it cheaper than release price.

My reasoning as well.

 

[clemens]

I saw a new patch was applied yesterday, so I fired up the game again and finished the "Nine Hordes" just now. Honestly, it was challenging enough ; I don't know if the patch had something to do with that as difficulty came mainly from the environnement, in contrast with the first arena fights, including the one against Takate.

Spoiler

The first six encounters were easy enough. I noticed that the enemies seem a little too much willing to step into the various traps. Sometimes, you just have to let them wander around and wait for them to kill themselves. The encounter against the "gladiators doubles" is a good example of this. Also, mages and chamans seem to only use direct damage spells. They could become a bigger challenge to the player if they more often used spells that would hamper charcaters's abilities or even heal their allies.

I guess the giants were supposed to be scary but "aching limbs" + Takate wounding strikes made short work of them. Maybe their magic resistance could be increased a little ?

The hardest for me was the seventh : these "outcasts" dealt a lot of damage to my party. This high damage output combined with their poison and the random fire explosions (although that could just be me being dumb for not figuring out how to use the levers...) and the blocked path made for a nice challenge. I had to restart it three times I think. The necessity to protect or heal Aurelia further increases the difficulty in those last three encounters. To me, this is nice design and I hope to find more encounters like this in the next chapters.

I had to restart the one against the caimans too, mainly because Aurelia kept dying. Apart from that, the beast themselves were not much of a challenge : I guess their damage must have been reduced since the press build. Still, it was interesting enough.

The last one was maybe a bit too easy : I managed to tank the lice near the healing waters with Takate and Naurim after they had closed the trap doors. Maybe those healing waters should be made a little less accessible or the HP they restore might be reduced a bit.

All in all, I enjoyed myself. If that difficulty curve and the quality of the encounter design stay as good in the next chapter, I think I won't regret my investment.

 

[felipepepe]

clemens, what are the lices HP and spawn rates? They had 19HP each and IIRC 2 would appear each turn... and there was no healing water.

 

[clemens]

They had 19HP, yes. I had ample time to close all the trap doors without any additonal lice spawned. So I guess their spawn time was reduced (pretty sure it took me at least 3 turns) and they added healing water in pretty much every arena encounter : this obviously has to go (each sip heals you for 15HP...)

edit : though I should mention I think I recall seeing at least one enemy using healing water too. I think it was one of the thief (those who also use torch pillars to light the ground on fire).

Couple of others little things I noticed : armor sets effects are not visible in the tooltips.
Takate's "master healing potions" are supposed to heal 500HP. I guess it must be 50, I didn't use them. Still, those are maybe a little too good to get for free with the new recruit.
Aurelia screams in german when she's hurt in the arena, though I play in english. A friend told me that in the french version of the game, a lot of the tooltips and windows appear in a random language : spanish, german or english...
Using bandages in combat does not seem to work for me, though Naurim has a score of eight in "treat wounds". Maybe he's always failing some hidden check ? I thus seem to have no way of removing wounds, which is annoying since towards the end of the arena fights, enemies often use attacks that inflict wounds in addition to hp damage.

 

[felipepepe]

I had ample time to close all the trap doors without any additonal lice spawned. So I guess their spawn time was reduced (pretty sure it took me at least 3 turns) and they added healing water in pretty much every arena encounter

Ouch, that's a serious nerf. My main issue in this fight was controlling the lices spawn, as they would either overrun and surround you, or reach Aurelia and blow up, killing her. Had to sent takate and my character to close the holes, one on each side, and Naurim and the mage would hold the lice queen and make sure no lice reached Aurelia... was hard, but extremely satisfying to finally make it.

 

[clemens]

I had ample time to close all the trap doors without any additonal lice spawned. So I guess their spawn time was reduced (pretty sure it took me at least 3 turns) and they added healing water in pretty much every arena encounter

Ouch, that's a serious nerf. My main issue in this fight was controlling the lices spawn, as they would either overrun and surround you, or reach Aurelia and blow up, killing her. Had to sent takate and my character to close the holes, one on each side, and Naurim and the mage would hold the lice queen and make sure no lice reached Aurelia... was hard, but extremely satisfying to finally make it.

Pretty much how the fight unfolded for me too, except less lice and easy to tank. They went a little too far with the nerf on that one, I agree. It should be the hardest encounter of the nine and it was definitely not.

Another problem with "healing waters" is that it could be easily exploited to get to the next fight with full health, just kiting the last opponent until everybody is healed. It should at least deplete once someone has used it. Which could be nice, actually, if the enemy gets to it before you do...

 

[felipepepe]

That's a good feedback Io-Daedalic, maybe make so that on Hard the healing waters can only be used once. That would solve a lot of problems.

 

[abnaxus]

Go play No time for dragons

I doubt many Daedalic employees speak Russian. Or was that a dig at the "Night of the Rabbit was a Bratva money laundering scheme" rumor?

Game is available in English also under title "A farewell to dragons".

 

[Raghar]

Go play No time for dragons

I doubt many Daedalic employees speak Russian. Or was that a dig at the "Night of the Rabbit was a Bratva money laundering scheme" rumor?

Game is available in English also under title "A farewell to dragons".

This. While it's a bugfest, that single encounter is interesting. BTW what was that money grab talk about? All I heard it was based on one of least interesting books of that author.

They had 19HP, yes. I had ample time to close all the trap doors without any additonal lice spawned.

Lice? I still remember them from Drakensang I. Are as nasty as they were? Or are they direct copy from Drakensang I?

Takate's "master healing potions" are supposed to heal 500HP. I guess it must be 50, I didn't use them. Still, those are maybe a little too good to get for free with the new recruit.

Actually wasn't DSA relatively potions are uncommon and will not be given to random retard settings?
Does someone remember how long it takes for AE to recharge before an experienced mage can cast second lance of flame, in original PnP game?

Raghar, you're being an asshole. Daedalic's encounter design is already miles ahead of most RPGs out there, including those from expert PnP players. Had you actually played the game, you would see that.

Still waiting for a PM from Daedalic with a free licence number, and download link. I doubt it would be much better than PnP sessions from average RPG players because high end PnP RPG isn't only about encounter design, but about well crafted world design and writing/possibly storytelling, from which these encounters flow naturally.

 

[abnaxus]

This. While it's a bugfest, that single encounter is interesting. BTW what was that money grab talk about? All I heard it was based on one of least interesting books of that author.

It seems the game was pulled from Steam one year ago for unknown reasons. Probably because too buggy (IIRC in English version you couldn't finish the game correctly).

 

[Infinitron]

Raghar FYI felipepepe did not receive a free copy of the game

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Played up to saving the baroness, and here are my 2 cents:

1. Drakensang character creation/progression system. Worst one known to RPGs imo. Never thought I'd miss DnD 3.5 yet here I am. Few spells, bad weapon skill progression and point system...I mean, you end up using Ignatius' gust of flame or w/e it's called 90% of the time because there is no point putting your AP into any other spell. Casters can't shape the battlefield to suit their purposes (only arcane wall comes close and with that AP cost you end up blocking 3 hexes at the best of times) making them absolutely boring to play.

2. Combat. HEXES!!!1 just don't cut it. Cover system could be a good gimmick if combat actually lasted a bit instead of your characters just plowing their way through everything. ( and I play at hard, easy must be something like hub-1 minute of poping moles with burst of flame-next hub) Interactive objects are good though. During the Baroness quest where you had to overcome barricades and plan your strikes in such a manner that you could reach her in a set number of turns was the only fun I had since I started the game.

No unique mobs, no random encounters to rape your party while they are unrested, nothing. Even that wood troll fight was laughably easy. (ignatius' popamole flame to the rescue once again)

3. Blackguards. There are none. A conspiracy theorist dwarf, a fat non-elf non-homo Zevran and a dude framed(?) and hunted as a criminal. Could be blackguards in the drakensang sense only, which means anyone that isn't goodie-two-shoes to the max (anyone who played TDE or RoT would understand) So far, story is simply uninteresting.

EDIT: Forgot to ask. Does the game get better later on?

 

[Infinitron]

Difficulty settings aren't implemented yet, playing on Easy or Hard makes absolutely no difference ATM.

 

[V_K]

1. Drakensang character creation/progression system. Worst one known to RPGs imo. Never thought I'd miss DnD 3.5 yet here I am.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Difficulty settings aren't implemented yet, playing on Easy or Hard makes absolutely no difference ATM.

Thanks, missed that.

 

[Crooked Bee]

By the way: If you could give us detailed feedback on what fights in particular you find too easy and in the best case are able to tell us why or what about them is easy, this will enable us to get an appropriate difficulty level much more easily. That would be very helpful information for our balancing game designers.

One thing I'd really like you guys to keep in mind is that our previewers found the press build difficulty just right. That means that if you would just revert to that for the Hard/Expert mode, that should make for a solid challenge already.

 

[Io-Daedalic]

I can give you better advice. Become Game master and play RPG PnP game. You'd learn in about half year all proper stuff.

Rest assured that our lead designers are experienced in various PnP rulesets and have been game masters for years.

I saw a new patch was applied yesterday, so I fired up the game again and finished the "Nine Hordes" just now. Honestly, it was challenging enough ; I don't know if the patch had something to do with that as difficulty came mainly from the environnement, in contrast with the first arena fights, including the one against Takate.

Spoiler

The first six encounters were easy enough. I noticed that the enemies seem a little too much willing to step into the various traps. Sometimes, you just have to let them wander around and wait for them to kill themselves. The encounter against the "gladiators doubles" is a good example of this. Also, mages and chamans seem to only use direct damage spells. They could become a bigger challenge to the player if they more often used spells that would hamper charcaters's abilities or even heal their allies.

I guess the giants were supposed to be scary but "aching limbs" + Takate wounding strikes made short work of them. Maybe their magic resistance could be increased a little ?

The hardest for me was the seventh : these "outcasts" dealt a lot of damage to my party. This high damage output combined with their poison and the random fire explosions (although that could just be me being dumb for not figuring out how to use the levers...) and the blocked path made for a nice challenge. I had to restart it three times I think. The necessity to protect or heal Aurelia further increases the difficulty in those last three encounters. To me, this is nice design and I hope to find more encounters like this in the next chapters.

I had to restart the one against the caimans too, mainly because Aurelia kept dying. Apart from that, the beast themselves were not much of a challenge : I guess their damage must have been reduced since the press build. Still, it was interesting enough.

The last one was maybe a bit too easy : I managed to tank the lice near the healing waters with Takate and Naurim after they had closed the trap doors. Maybe those healing waters should be made a little less accessible or the HP they restore might be reduced a bit.

All in all, I enjoyed myself. If that difficulty curve and the quality of the encounter design stay as good in the next chapter, I think I won't regret my investment.

This is great. Thanks for your detailled feedback on the combat difficulty! I forwarded it to our designers. By the way, there has not been a change to chapter 2 encounter difficulties during Early Access so far.

By the way: If you could give us detailed feedback on what fights in particular you find too easy and in the best case are able to tell us why or what about them is easy, this will enable us to get an appropriate difficulty level much more easily. That would be very helpful information for our balancing game designers.

One thing I'd really like you guys to keep in mind is that our previewers found the press build difficulty just right. That means that if you would just revert to that for the Hard/Expert mode, that should make for a solid challenge already.

It's not that simple anymore. We have to keep in mind there have been some item adjustments (loot, values, vendor inventory) in the previous chapters. If we'd just revert the battles to the press difficulty, that fights would still be a lot easier due to changes prior in the game flow. Overall that means that we even have to tune things ahead of what it was in the press build (in terms of an absolute difficulty) to reach a similar challenge, and it's probably what our designers will do. It will still feel like a different difficulty situation, considering you got adjusted items and item values.