Octopus Overlords

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:46 am

Max Peck wrote:Yeah, Bethesda owns all the original Fallout IP.

Ah, OK. In that case, not so ‘OMFG!!!1!’ then.

So what are we talking about, Castles 1 and 2 (remember the second one fondly), Stonekeep? Battle Chess? (Loved that, too)

I guess when I think ‘Interplay’, my mind immediately goes to the bronze spinning globe and that awesome fanfare that preceded FO1 and 2

The shambling corpse of Interplay announced a push to sell off IP a couple of years ago, so I don't know how much it actually still owns. The Giantbomb wiki entry for Interplay shows 59 games that they developed and 198 games that they published, but the number of IPs that they still control is probably much less.

Seems like there are some optimization issues - I'm experiencing periodic moments where I'm turning and everything stops for a second or two. And OMG, the load times seem horrible. I know I'm not using the best hardware (no SSD for example), but when I can hit load game and it takes over a couple of minutes to load something is off.

As is usually the case, I'm expecting an "emergency patch" in the next 72 hours, followed by a much larger patch to address additional non-critical issues sometime in the next two weeks. Yes, I'm a cynical PC gamer, why?

This is fantastic so far. A loving update to the core Bard's Tale formula.

Really glad I played through Bard's Tale recently too as there are a lot of small details about the city in 4 I doubt I wouldn't have caught otherwise.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 4:40 pm As is usually the case, I'm expecting an "emergency patch" in the next 72 hours, followed by a much larger patch to address additional non-critical issues sometime in the next two weeks. Yes, I'm a cynical PC gamer, why?

Can't imagine why.

The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep Patch Road Map

Patch 1 – Est. Friday 9/21

Patch 2 – Est. Friday 9/28

Continued improvements to load times
Continued work on optimization and framerate. By this patch, we expect to have some solid improvements in place for some areas that have higher than expected hits to your GPU.

Definitely needs optimizing based on my initial walking around. I should note that my gfx card is at the minimum recommended (GeForce 760), but the rest of my internals are current (i.e fast).

Apparently RPS guy is going to trash it today, if he hasn’t already.

This is actually good for me. Gives me time to finish my play through of the remaster.

Huh, this actually looks like a lot of fun. I've never played any of the others (I didn't own a computer when they were current), but I think I will put this on my wishlist.

Yeah, I watched a few minutes on Twitch, and while I will get this eventually, I am going to wait for patches, and some improvements on performance.

Some of those streamer machines are all cutting edge, and the game was still dragging. Also, some of the art decisions are not to my taste, which is minor, but it still turns me off a little.

Anyone else been playing this?

Granted mine is pretty high end again finally, but for what it's worth it plays fine on my rig.

Just got through the tutorials and the first extended dungeon last night, and it felt very Bard's Tale... lots of puzzles, talking mouths, riddles, etc.

Really enjoying how they included the original Skara Brae into the game as well. Lots of easter eggs there for old time players to find.

I jumped in yesterday for a short time, but the performance issues made me think I'll wait for the first patch. I do dig the style, though. I saw Brian Fargo mention on Twitter that the game defaults to Ultra-quality everything. I kicked it down to Medium and the performance got better. Still will likely wait for the patch, tho.

RMC wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:21 am Yeah, I watched a few minutes on Twitch, and while I will get this eventually, I am going to wait for patches, and some improvements on performance.

Same. It looks kinda interesting, but more in a "$10 during a Steam sale" sort of way.

EDIT: Reading feedback like this certainly doesn't help its case.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:51 am EDIT: Reading feedback like this certainly doesn't help its case.

Wow, that review is way over the top. It reads like an old man telling kids to get off his lawn.

I won't go point by point, but I haven't had anywhere near the technical problems he talks about in there (I'm using the same graphics card and get well above 60fps with Ultra settings), my load time are on the average of 10 seconds (granted I'm using an SSD, but I would expect a professional reviewer to be using one), I find the graphics great for a RPG, find the story to be typical of a dungeon crawler, the combat great, the exploration good, the voice acting perfectly fine. I think he's absolutely off base with most of his complaints.

It really feels like yet another review where the reviewer comes in with some sort of preconceived notions of the game and is disappointed when it strays from what he expects.

Oof. Is the save system really that bad? Inability to save can be a deal breaker for me. Not only do I despise having to play content multiple times due to bugs/crashes/difficulty spikes, but I'm all growed up and frequently have to quit and leave to deal with real life.

Wow, that save system sounds horrific. I did soldier through BT1 as a kid with exchanged hints with friends and painful mapping of dungeons on graphpaper. I do have enough nostalgia that I bought the recent remastered trilogy - though I doubt I will ever make it all the way through any of the 3 games. But my nostalgia is not nearly great enough to play through a game with the save system as detailed in the RPS review. I hope they already have plans to patch in a quicksave for those who want it.

I just lost a few minutes progress because I consumed a save spot for XP rather than using it. Clever idea, but I always hated limits on saves.

Fake edit: *minutes, not hours.

Hours? The saves are hours apart? Like missing a trap and losing an afternoon's progress? Like only being able to play every other Thursday when you can arrange to play for said hours?

I'm early on, but the saves have been maybe 5 min apart. You can, however, choose to consume a save point (ie, destroy it) for XP rather than saving, which would spread them further apart.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:34 pm Oof. Is the save system really that bad? Inability to save can be a deal breaker for me. Not only do I despise having to play content multiple times due to bugs/crashes/difficulty spikes, but I'm all growed up and frequently have to quit and leave to deal with real life.

You can quit the game at any time and when you load it up you'll be in the exact same spot. The save points are really only if you die and are very plentiful. They make you cautious if you've fought a lot of battles and haven't seen one recently, but it's never more than a short backtrack to save if you feel the need.

The criticisms of the save system, like many of those other critiques, are overblown.

Ah, I can handle that. I've had too many games ruined by bad save systems, though, so I had to ask.

That's weird about the saves design decision. You can even save anywhere in the remake of the original they just released!

I watched the ACG review last night, and came away much more interested. Seems that the RPS one is a definite outlier.

RPS has really gone downhill in my eyes. Used to be a site I read a few times a week, now I might read it once a month.

The writing is not any worse, or anything like that, I just have not really liked the style lately. <shrug>

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:14 pm Hours? The saves are hours apart? Like missing a trap and losing an afternoon's progress? Like only being able to play every other Thursday when you can arrange to play for said hours?

lol, no. I was just pissed that I have do the content all over again. It was a new zone, so I spent more time exploring than regular. It was probably closer to like 10-15mins because I was searching every box, talking to every character.

It really is janky, but in the Wizardry/Grimrock sense. Haven't seen the tough puzzles yet, but they give you a free strategy guide in case you just want to skip them. They actually said that was why they ship it with the guide.

Performance on this one seems to be all over the map. Seems that PC World had graphics issues with a very high-end system as well, and specifically mentioned the load times being awful.

Sounds like the underlying game is pretty fun, but I'll definitely be waiting for a patch or three.

I love that in the early portion of the game you're basically visiting all the highlights from BT1. Finally getting my party up a bit in level, and my practitioner is getting powerful now. Got him rated as a Conjuror which gives him some nice bonus damage, and a 20% chance of getting a spell point from casting a spell which means if I get lucky I can occasionally chain cast some of my spells for a big damage boost.

I think one thing that I should reiterate is that the combat here is excellent. The combat grid allows for positioning and moving enemies around to be a big factor, you are limited in the skills you can have available in combat, which makes for some good, hard decisions and encourages you to try and find combos with your characters different abilities. There's also a lot of fights where it pays to swap out skills to best meet the threat. For instance bards have a song that can cut ranged damage in half. Useless in some dungeons without ranged enemies, but very useful in others.

One of my favorite tricks so far is using my fighters free taunt ability to pull an enemy to the front rank in front of another enemy thereby setting up my mage to fire off a lightning spell that hits all enemies in the row.

Here's what the entryway to Mangar's tower looks like:


Plus some pretty landscapes from when I finally got out of Skara Brae:

Yeah it's a fun game. My only real annoyance is the long loading times. Most of the performance hiccups went away when I played with the graphics settings...still looks ok and the stuttering is few and far between now.

The puzzle with the fire and stones was a little annoying because I didn't really know what they wanted me to do.

I have had some glitches with combat where the enemy was waaaaay too zoomed in so I could only target the first row, middle 2 squares. That only happened twice a d luckily were easy fights

I had no interest in this at all because nostalgia doesn't appear to work on me, but I watched a video review this morning just out of curiosity and it's going (back) on my wish list.

Stop this right now! I finally was not going to buy a game, and OO was going to help me do that.

But oh, no..Now it's all "Performance was fixed with a little work"

And "This is a great homage to the first Bards Tale"

I am not going to get caught up in the OO effect again...

I mean, I am not going to hit the buy button...Nope, not going to do it..

So, how do you like it, RMC?

Zaxxon wrote: ↑Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:45 pm So, how do you like it, RMC?

I am currently not talking to anyone.

After 30+ years, I finally killed Mangar. I feel accomplished.

Sepiche wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:52 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:34 pm Oof. Is the save system really that bad? Inability to save can be a deal breaker for me. Not only do I despise having to play content multiple times due to bugs/crashes/difficulty spikes, but I'm all growed up and frequently have to quit and leave to deal with real life.

You can quit the game at any time and when you load it up you'll be in the exact same spot.

Oh. This is important. Removes my #1 caution regarding this game. (Although I think I'll keep playing Aggressors for a while, to give them time to smooth out the rough edges.)

Im waiting for the Thanksgiving sale.

dbemont wrote: ↑Thu Sep 20, 2018 8:16 pm

Sepiche wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:52 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:34 pm Oof. Is the save system really that bad? Inability to save can be a deal breaker for me. Not only do I despise having to play content multiple times due to bugs/crashes/difficulty spikes, but I'm all growed up and frequently have to quit and leave to deal with real life.

You can quit the game at any time and when you load it up you'll be in the exact same spot.

Oh. This is important. Removes my #1 caution regarding this game. (Although I think I'll keep playing Aggressors for a while, to give them time to smooth out the rough edges.)

Wait, really? Not that I don't trust you, but I will have to test it. Spent awhile playing longer than I wanted last night because I had to locate a save spot in a tough area.

Does this game have multiple difficulty levels? Specifically any sort of "Easy" setting?

I’ve put in a few hours and while it didn’t initially *really* grab me, it has now. I’m still figuring out new tactics for fighting as the battles get tougher, and I’m still in Skara Brae. It does have some rough edges but they aren’t hindering me at all. No long load times for me either.

I was a backer and got some items from that (which I initially had forgotten to unlock) and one of them is a puzzle weapon. Although I’m not totally clear on how those work. I had slotted a gem in one part of the weapon but it’s gone now. Not sure if that is a bug or they expire after some time. I’ll have to give the manual a read...

It's not covered in the manual.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:31 am It's not covered in the manual.

Except for those two paragraphs on page 36.

There is also some info on the puzzle weapon system in one of the Kickstarter updates.

I've also seen at least one bug report that claims that if you solve the puzzle weapon while it is equipped, then the solved state will revert and you lose the gem. If true, then the workaround seems to be to unequip the weapon before slotting the gem.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:14 am

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:31 am It's not covered in the manual.

Except for those two paragraphs on page 36.

Or that...

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:01 am Does this game have multiple difficulty levels? Specifically any sort of "Easy" setting?

Video review I watched I am pretty sure mentioned an easy difficulty. I don't have the game so I can't confirm.