Completed it:
Was slaying Eyeless just an event or would it have triggered a new battle? I wanted to kill her but my party was in bad shape so I wasn't sure. Does killing or not killing play a role in how Bolverk turns out?
Banner Saga 2 on GoG and PAX East Recap
Proud to share that we now have a DRM-Free version of Banner Saga 2 available via GoG.
If you are a backer at $50 and up, and you’d like a GoG key for Banner Saga 2 - then please send us a KS message and we’ll get you your key.
Apologies that we couldn’t share this information sooner, but there have been several behind the scenes things going on that have prevented us from making any announcements or sharing information ahead of this time.
During the last week we also had PAX East where we talked about the future of Banner Saga and got to reveal an awesome new trailer from cartoonist Kris Straub. GameSpot did a nice recap of the panel below.
GameSpot Panel Link = http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-banner-saga-3-discussed-dev-says-universe-is-v/1100-6439132/
That you observe the choices you made during BS1 comes to effect in BS2?
You also retain fame, supplies, items, heroes and levels that you gathered during BS1.
Although, it seems that with a default save you get all heroes
You get egil instead of ekkil
Yrsa comes back later in the game
Survival Mode Info
Hello All!
We’re excited to see what you think about Banner Saga 2 - Survival Mode!
Survival Mode is a fun addition to the game that we’ve been working on. It’s still in development but we are at the point where we would like to get you involved with some playtesting and feedback.
What is Survival Mode?
It’s all about staying alive through as many battles as possible! Assemble a team from almost all of the Banner Saga Heroes and equip them with items earned through your victories. Heroes who fall in battle are permanently dead. Renown is used to recruit new heroes and to promote the heroes who survive. A 30-second timer keeps the action moving, leaderboards will track how you rank against other players, and a whole set of Survival Mode achievements has been added. Try a game on Hard Mode for an even more difficult challenge and see if you have the skills to survive!
How do I access Survival Mode?
- Right click Banner Saga 2 in your Steam Library
- Click on Properties
- Navigate to the “BETAS” tab
- Use the dropdown menu to select “survival” branch
- Download the Update
- Launch Banner Saga 2
- Click on the “Survival Mode” banner
We’d love to hear your feedback, thoughts and opinions. We’ve created this “Survival Mode” subform for all of your questions and discussion.
Skol!
Survival Mode!
A new gameplay mode that is all about staying alive through as many battles as possible! Choose six heroes from most of the 40+ Banner Saga characters, then pit them against dredge, horseborn, bandits, and varl alike. Earn Renown and an item with each victory, unlock heroes to replace those who fall in battle, and upgrade the veterans who stay alive. To play, simply click on the Survival Mode banner on the start screen of Banner Saga 2.
Survival Details:
- Choose 6 heroes from a full roster. After you begin, you can recruit more heroes with renown.
- Your progress is saved, but you can only reload a battle a limited number of times. You have 3 reloads to start with and you gain 1 more reload ever 5 battles.
- Heroes who fall in battle are _dead_ and can be given a Viking Funeral to regain some renown and recruit new heroes.
- Heroes have no kill count requirement for promotion. If you have the renown, you can promote the hero.
- Battles have a 30 second turn timer (and 60 second deployment timer) to keep the action moving quickly.
- Battle turn order is fixed from the start, like pillage mode.
- Scores are tallied and leaderboards are displayed for playing in Normal or Hard difficulty.
- 12 new Survival mode achievements!
- One enemy per battle spawns with an item equipped. Kill the enemy, and gain the item!
- Every 5 battles offers the opportunity for a second wave of fighting, which opens up the possibility for additional renown and items.
Join the discussion about Survival Mode on our Steam forum:http://steamcommunity.com/app/281640/discussions/3/
Other Changes in Build 2.30.120:
- Fix issue preventing '+x Renown' banners in battle from displaying the correct renown for higher ranked enemies
- Fixed seam in baldrungr's godstone background sprites
- Fix reversed red/green coloration on DRAWING AGGRO items description
- Added 'Consequences' section on Match Resolution that displays Injuries (or Deaths, in Survival)
"We were quite exhausted at the end of The Banner Saga," he continues. "Running a Kickstarter campaign is extremely demanding. There's the setup portion, there's running it for the month, and then for the rest of the development you're supporting that community, answering questions, giving updates. It's a full-time job, and we didn't have anybody dedicated to being that community manager. It was a scary prospect."
Ultimately, Stoic decided on what amounted to an "almost 180-degree turn" for The Banner Saga 2. "Let's just close the doors, close the curtains, spend our own money and do it our own way, without having to answer to anybody. And that's what we did.
"About halfway through, when the money starts getting tight, we started thinking, 'why the hell didn't we get a Kickstarter?'"
The reason might well be success. The Banner Saga raised far more money from Kickstarter than Stoic had expected, and it went on to sell more copies than expected, too. That money could fund what they wanted for The Banner Saga 2, while also being tangible evidence of a community of people who would be interested in playing the next chapter of the story. Stoic decided to focus on making sure that the next chapter was even better.
"I think we dropped the ball there," Watson admits. "We thought that audience would still just be there. We really neglected our community during the development of Banner Saga 2, because we were focusing on our work. I think that was a mistake. We all agree that was a mistake."
The Banner Saga 2 launched for PC in April 2016, and the mistake was immediately clear. In its first few months on Steam, The Banner Saga 2 sold around a third of what The Banner Saga sold over the same period. When GamesIndustry.biz spoke to Versus Evil, Stoic's publisher, last year, Steve Escalante lamented a massive increase in the number of competing titles on The Banner Saga 2's launch week.
"That is a factor," Watson agrees. "With The Banner Saga we launched against 70 games that month. With The Banner Saga 2 it was over 400, so that is a factor. You are fighting more for attention, and it's remarkable how many people I meet say, 'oh, Banner Saga 2 is out?' They just don't know, and we spent a lot of money marketing it. We tried to make it known."
To his credit, Watson swiftly moves the conversation away from factors beyond Stoic's control, seeking instead to identify - and address - its mistakes. As much as anything else, The Banner Saga 2's PC launch demonstrated that retaining a community for a sequel is about more than making an even better game. Stoic now has one person working as a full-time community manager, and that's in a team of just six people.
Indeed, Stoic is looking even deeper than that to ensure its future stability. The team could see that up to 75% of new players who started The Banner Saga 2 on a given week were importing a save from the first game, and The Banner Saga had "a significant flaw" that had gone unaddressed at the time of the sequel's launch. There was, Watson says, "an absurdly steep difficulty curve" for its final boss battle, a consequence of Stoic angling for climactic challenge and tipping the balance too far. Only half of players who reached that fight persevered, leaving the other half with a sour final impression.
"If they finish that battle they are minutes from finishing the game," he says. "It's fucking tragic. They're so close."
According to Watson, 1,000 new people play the first game every single day, and "the funnel" from there into the sequel is clearly observable in Stoic's data. "Seeing this funnel from The Banner Saga really woke us up to the necessity of getting people through the first game," he says. "We've actually spent the last few weeks working on an update to The Banner Saga that basically tunes that battle, so that people can get through."
This kind of thinking is integral to Stoic's strategy in the fallout from The Banner Saga 2's underwhelming early performance. In addition to smoothing the path between the two games, it has translated the sequel into six languages and launched on iOS, Android, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The Banner Saga 2 actually launched on Xbox as part of Games With Gold, where it was downloaded more than 1.6 million times. Stoic only received a flat fee for all of those downloads, Watson admits, but the studio is now more focused on the whole franchise rather than an individual game.
"Those things help, and then the launch of The Banner Saga 2 drove sales of Banner Saga. If you look at The Banner Saga as a franchise - all the platforms and both the games - it's generating about the same revenue... It's like building a wedge. Banner Saga 3 might sell a third of what Banner Saga 2 did, but it should lift up the other games. That's what we're betting on."
With The Banner Saga 3, the final game in a planned trilogy, the discussion around funding it was more difficult. "Arnie [Jorgensen] and I... all of our personal fortunes, all of our finances, are buried in The Banner Saga," Watson says. "We've been doing this for four years, we spent all of our retirement money, and we haven't replenished that yet. We both have kids, they have to go to college, and we can't just keep betting it all every time, because making entertainment is the riskiest thing."
It is still too early to seriously contemplate a return to crowdfunding, but Stoic's projected budget is likely greater than the sum they could reasonably expect to raise through Kickstarter - it isn't 2012 any more. Watson admits that he and Jorgensen seriously discussed seeking private investment, and even "shopped around" for options.
"That would have worked, but you're paying back quite a bit. The Banner Saga 3 is probably gonna cost about $2 million to make - that's a lot. So maybe we could get $500,000, but when you get investment you're basically paying it back 3x... That means when we sell The Banner Saga 3 $1 million of extra money goes away [to the investors], as well as giving back the $500k. That would take the pressure off us for sure, a little bit. We would each de-leverage ourselves by $250,000, but when the game ships we're paying back an extra $1 million.
"Is taking investor money gonna make the game sell? Is it gonna make it $1 million more profitable? No. It'll make it a little bit better; we could spend some of that money maybe doing some more animations, maybe we increase the quality level a little bit. The quality has to reach a certain bar for people to accept it as a sequel, because we set that bar for ourselves. But beyond that it won't really affect the profitability. It would be a vanity thing. We just want to make it better."
When Stoic is finished with The Banner Saga, when it is making an entirely new project from scratch, investment of that kind would make a great deal of sense. For The Banner Saga 3, though, taking an investor's money would be "kinda stupid" - a little peace of mind in the here and now in exchange for a lot more potential problems further down the road. Stoic is betting on The Banner Saga as a franchise, and once again it will make that bet with its own money.
"We have to do it," Watson says. "We set out to make this trilogy. We can't leave the story unfinished."
Mostly just repetitive since there were no new mechanics to be found and the first Banner Saga was meant to be replayed, so the combat system already felt old by the time the sequel came out.Was banner saga 2 combat not completely retarded? i dont think i ever asked, lost interest after banner saga 1.