Blackguards - Preview @ RPG Codex

Hey crpgnut,

yeah, I saw your posts on the Steam board. Thanks for your feedback :). We're currently thinking about adding an advanced method of character creation. No ETA or even a promise this is going to happen, yet.

Cheers,
Io
 
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Just popped to say hi to Io (and presumably also to Europa, Ganymedes and Callisto ;)).

I bought the game but somehow am not really into the "early access" thing so I'm waiting for the completion. Just so you know I'm not alone, there are quite a few of us here who support your (previous awsome adventures and future any genre) work.
 
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Yeah, same here. Bough it, but will play when it's finished.

I'm a little disappointed by the lack of exploration and NPC interaction in Blackguards (accordiung to the previews).
But unfortunateley I'm possessed by some kind of small demon that makes me buy every game with TDE on it anyway...
 
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Blackguards isn't really a crpg. It's a TDE combat simulator with tiny, tiny hubs between battles. The hubs are there to heal and change your load out and that's about it. I hope that the Blackguards engine eventually becomes a full-fledged crpg.

The story in Blackguards is so minimal, at least in chapter one, as to not exist. I don't care about alchemy boy or the protagonist because there isn't enough there to make me care. So far there has been more with mage npc than all the other folks combined and even that stuff is really lame.

Play the game for the tactical combat, ala Jagged Alliance.

P.S. Mage NPC has the worst hair style I've ever seen anywhere, real or imaginary.
 
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Here's a question. There are supposed to be bonuses for wearing a set, but I don't think they're implemented yet. Is there any AC benefit to wearing pants, shoes, helms or gloves outside of the non-working set bonuses? I couldn't tell that they added anything but encumbrance, so I only wear the chest armor.
 
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Here's a question. There are supposed to be bonuses for wearing a set, but I don't think they're implemented yet. Is there any AC benefit to wearing pants, shoes, helms or gloves outside of the non-working set bonuses? I couldn't tell that they added anything but encumbrance, so I only wear the chest armor.

Are you sure about that? Every piece of armor should add a little more protection to at least one of the damage resistance categories.
 
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Nope, not sure. I just would wear it, fight a battle. Take it off, fight the same battle and take the same damage. The only piece that truly made a difference in battles was the chest piece. Just because the stats say a piece of armor is doing something, doesn't mean it's doing something. I tried this strategy with several fights and really only noticed a difference in the chest armor. That's why I asked if the other pieces "really" do anything. :D
 
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I can only guess that the reason for this is that either bad luck in the form of the enemies dealing just more damage while you wore the armor pieces. Or the armor pieces you wore were either so bad that you'd hardly notice a difference at all or they were protective against another type of damage than the one that was dealt.
 
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We'll have an article about Blackguards too. I saw the game at the GC but got stuck in real life before I could finish the article. I'm playing the game now, and enjoying it quite a bit.

—————

Here's a simple piece of technical feedback:
The game isn't compatible to a 2 monitor setup yet. The mouse runs out of the main monitor into the other one. (I've been told fixing this is trivial for a coder.)

—————-
Other stuff:
- I'm missing feedback on which character is group leader now, or whose stats are used for a check during a dialog.
- trading: I would like to see the gear each of my characters is wearing, to compare it to the stuff available at the shop. Having to enter / leave the shop dialog several times produces unnecessary mouse clicks.
- trading: I don't really like the current item comparison method (-> color coding of different stats). Of course it's better than no item comparison, but I would prefer to see the full stats for both the shop item and the item my char wears next to each other.


Hi Watchers!

I'm Io and I'm the Community Manager at Daedalic Entertainment responsible for Blackguards. First of all, we would like to thank you for your interest in Blackguards and that you seem to enjoy the game so far!

Also we would like you to know that if you have any questions concerning Blackguards, I will be happy to answer them. If you played the game already, we would greatly appreciate any feedback or even suggestions on how we could improve the game. Our aim is to really get the best experience out for you guys. So just ask or post along :).

I'll re-visit RPGWatch from time to time and get back to you as fast as I can. In the meantime enjoy playing Blackguards if you bought it!

Cheers,
Io
 
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We'll have an article about Blackguards too. I saw the game at the GC but got stuck in real life before I could finish the article. I'm playing the game now, and enjoying it quite a bit.

—————

Here's a simple piece of technical feedback:
The game isn't compatible to a 2 monitor setup yet. The mouse runs out of the main monitor into the other one. (I've been told fixing this is trivial for a coder.)

—————-
Other stuff:
- I'm missing feedback on which character is group leader now, or whose stats are used for a check during a dialog.
- trading: I would like to see the gear each of my characters is wearing, to compare it to the stuff available at the shop. Having to enter / leave the shop dialog several times produces unnecessary mouse clicks.
- trading: I don't really like the current item comparison method (-> color coding of different stats). Of course it's better than no item comparison, but I would prefer to see the full stats for both the shop item and the item my char wears next to each other.

Nice feedback! I'm looking forward to the article. Thanks for your effort :).
 
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- trading: I would like to see the gear each of my characters is wearing, to compare it to the stuff available at the shop. Having to enter / leave the shop dialog several times produces unnecessary mouse clicks.
That is already in. When you enter a store, you can change the display to show your character's equipment instead of the party inventory, and there are arrows to switch characters.
 
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You're right, it's in. Quite well hidden though.
 
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Interesting post from the "Leader of Rogues" at the Codex:

(A Daedalic dev)

Thanks to RPG Codex for all the input from the “Leader of Rogues”

Right from the start we made a decision in regards to the tactical part of the game; let’s say this was the easiest part. We wanted to stick as close to the P&P rules as we could but make it enjoyable to all groups of players even those never played a tactical game or RPG.
The biggest part was to create something new and having no clue if the people will like it at the end. The main focus was on creating a game that will make fun at all; therefore we made a lot of decisions during the production linked to that issue which had a massive impact at all

For example, at first we created the cities to be walkable and fully 3d as in regular RPGs, but unfortunately it slowed down the whole game a lot and we needed to find a different way doing the same without breaking the fun. It was not our intention to add more useless game time to the game because you need to run from one point to another so we came up with the version which is now inside of the game.
Pretty same for the world map, we started with a full 3D map/world it looked great, but we discovered a lot of problems linked to it. This time is was more technical problems linked to the engine.
We also first liked the idea to have random encounters on top to the unique battle maps on the world map. It was a great idea, we thought but it turned to be bad as we tested it in real. The game feeling change from unique appeal to be repetitive which not our intention was so we dropped this feature as well.
So we had also the great idea to bring in flanking, so we tried to find a good way for it to bring it in. As we had finished the options we learned we had built something like a “conga line of death”. What on paper looked like a great idea turn out to be a nightmare in our game. In general the problem was linked to the hexes and of course the way we can move the chars or the enemy could move inside of the game. After three more attempts to change it into something good we decided to deactivate the option until we will find a real solution for the problem.
In regards to the GUI we had a few iterations with total freedom in char creation and char development for the player which lead to a total mess for our test players. They were overwhelmed by the freedom and the options they had until we came to the one which is the game, right now. This is mainly the reason for the missing documentation because we are now in the situation to write tutorials and also more documented things because we finished the Gui right before the Early Access approach. Also due to the feedback we learned a lot what should be documented because after 2,5 years it’s more like running around with horse blinkers.

But honestly spoken creativity and budget are two different things. We had/have tons of ideas that not made it into the game but we have them ready for whatever comes next.
There are a lot of things more to tell but maybe we will make a postmortem when the game has been finished so you can see more clearly what we tried and why something’s are not in as well.

So I am of to work now to get solutions to work, we gathered from the communities feedback.

Sincerely
The Leader of Rogues
 
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Hey there,

I'd like to give you the heads up that chapter 2 has been released a few hours ago:

Hi there, we are proud to tell you that you can play chapter 2 from now on. We want to thank you very much for your detailed feedback and your bug reports. We are constantly improving the quality of the game and keep discussing your feature requests.

Chapter 2 is of smaller scope than chapter one and thus will take less time to play through. This is not because we were too lazy to produce content. But our writer and game designers agree that this, at least in our humble opinion, is the best way possible to present the story. The good news is that chapter 3, all sidequests included, will be around twice the size of chapter 1. So stay tuned for new content!

Don’t stop telling us your opinion and most t importantly: don't stop having fun to play Blackguards. And thank you all for your great support!

Please read our known issues list first before playing chapter 2.

Your Blackguards-team

Cheers,
Io
 
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Hey there,

I'd like to give you the heads up that chapter 2 has been released a few hours ago:



Cheers,
Io

Wow, Daedalic Staff in these forums?!? Awesome! I really like your work on Blackguards and the former Black Eye P&C Adventures. Two thumbs up! Blackguards is even in Steam's Early Access already a MUST HAVE for all roundbased strategists. Keep up the good work. BTW... When will you release Act 3??? Can't wait for it!!! ;)
 
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Ok nevermind! I saw in another thread that act 3 was already published yesterday! THANK YOU for your "German punctuality", now I know what to do over the weekend. ;) Awesome!
 
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Oh my what a nice Weekend!^^ Act 3 of blackguards rocks big time!!! Anybody else already played it?
 
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Hi guys and gals,

we would love if you could give us some feedback especially on chapter 3 and how you liked it, after you're through (or even if you're not through entirely, yet). Also you could really make us happy if you could produce a Let's Play of Blackguards or a video guide for the harder battles. We're really looking forward to hearing from you!

Have fun with the game!

Cheers,
Io
 
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I'm somewhere in the middle of chapter 3, I guess.

The balancing seems to be off. Most fights are too easy now, while at least one (The New Maiden? ... that girl on the altar with the natives and the shaman) is so hard that I'm not sure yet how to beat it.

Things are opening up a bit. I like it. Loading times could be shorter. Your game doesn't look so demanding that you couldn't cache the next screen in town.
 
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