Bard's Tale IV - Spotlight #2 - Combat

The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep spotlight #2 video focuses on combat.

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Huge downgrade from the combat in BT1, 2 and 3 and in Devil Whiskey. Looks like CCG crap.

I like the combat system of Bard's Tale 4 and from what I saw in the Beta it works great.

Comparing it to a card game isn't that incorrect as you basically have your whole party and need to use the action points among the members as efficient as possible and in the best order with some planning ahead, which, at least as far as I can judge is more tactical and involving as usual turn based combat in an RPG.

Unlike CCGs you don't collect "cards" or abilities that way and there isn't that much luck involved.

So for me it's the best of both worlds. If it is actually that great during the whole game is something we won't be able to tell till release I guess.

Just finished BT1 again. My #1 issue with the game was how much effort it was to have a battle. Lots of typing and I started getting cramps in my left arm from it. I like strategic/tactical battles but I dont like having to do that work every single battle. So either every battle should be meaningful or there needs to be some assistance for semi-intelligent defaulting. I never thought I'd praise realtime with pause but it allows getting through the chaff. If they add some assistance here I will be happy or I will end up hacking it and adding my own. The balance in automating is how to avoid recreating ProgressQuest and having meaningful feedback from the user when needed.

Doesn't look half bad, I like the positioning aspect and that you can sneak up and attack first. Still doesn't feel like a bards tale game to me though.

Combat is worse than in BT Trilogy..

The combat isn't the problem. It's the progression and skill mastery that turns me off.

Combat looks good to me… it seems to offer some nice tactics. Everything I've seen of the game looks good, but then I am not judging it against any early Bard's Tales (it's always a bad idea to compare your current girlfriend to you last one).

Why? If your current GF is worse than the old one then you need to reevaluate your priorities, mate.

Originally Posted by aweigh
Why? If your current GF is worse than the old one then you need to reevaluate your priorities, mate.

Haha, I was thinking of writing the same thing. Or the other way around, if you don't compare your girlfriend to others you've had, how do you know when you've found your future wife?

First love never truly dies

I didn't like the combat in the Beta unfortunately. It was too slow, too tedious and far too limiting. There's a lack of variability in the damage compared to the originals, so everything felt quite predictable. Add in the low skill masteries (adding more may improve matters at full release) and the low amount of spells compared to the originals, and the game really does have a long way to go before it can adequately scratch my Bard's Tale itch.

OMG! This is worse than anything I could ever have imagined. I'd already taken this game off my radar when I heard about turn-based combat. But dear God! That looks appalling!

I wish them well, but this is NOT my type of game!

I think it looks good, although the video is a bit too chaotic so it really doesn't say that much. I'm looking forward to playing this.

Even if this game tanks, I'll spend months with the remastered versions of the three earlier games, so in the end I'll still win.

Originally Posted by Tiptoe
OMG! This is worse than anything I could ever have imagined. I'd already taken this game off my radar when I heard about turn-based combat. But dear God! That looks appalling!

I wish them well, but this is NOT my type of game!

Why would a Bard's Tale even be on your radar if you don't like turn-based combat?

Originally Posted by Tiptoe
OMG! This is worse than anything I could ever have imagined. I'd already taken this game off my radar when I heard about turn-based combat. But dear God! That looks appalling!

I wish them well, but this is NOT my type of game!

I thought all the bard's tales were turn base ?

To me it looks like a decent evolutionary step away from the tedious style of the classic blobber. Plus the animations are colorful and mildly humorous. I'm not a fan of blobbers, but I might give this one a try at some point.

While I find the combat fine, I really dislike limiting how many skills can be used in combat. I don't care if they give you 4 hot keys for abilities for those who are too lazy to use their full compliment, but having a ton of spells to choose from is the great part of playing a wizard in Dungeons and Dragons inspired games.

Originally Posted by forgottenlor
While I find the combat fine, I really dislike limiting how many skills can be used in combat. I don't care if they give you 4 hot keys for abilities for those who are too lazy to use their full compliment, but having a ton of spells to choose from is the great part of playing a wizard in Dungeons and Dragons inspired games.

Especially these old D&D inspired RPGs though were extremely limiting regarding spells as you basically chose one spell per tier due to the "memory mechanic", essentially leaving your mage with 5 spells or so in combat, as you just chose the best fitting spell of each tier.

I'll say it again: This game is a freaking disaster.

Your character growth is limited by an arbitrary mechanic called mastery slots (think about how Diablo 3 limits you to 5 skills, except you have even less than that here). Just levelled up and got a cool new skill? Sorry, you have to swap out another cool skill to use it. And that includes spells! So out of your massive pool of 12(!) spells (eventually…you start with like 3), you can only have 1-2 spells available to use at any one time. It's comical how there's a final spell for being an 'Archmage', after you've selected all the other final mage spells, when I see no point in having so many spells if I can't use them.

And you start each battle with 0 spell points and have to build them up each round, which makes using your mage painfully slow and frustrating. I levelled up enough to get some spells that cost 4 SP to cast, and I'm just thinking, WTF is the point??

Oh, and spell damage is based on Strength, which means that your high-STR mage does more melee damage than your high-CON fighter. And since your opportunity points (ie, action points) for each round are spread among your entire party, your mage and rogue use all your action points to do damage, while your fighter LITERALLY just stands there as a meat shield and takes damage.

All damage and defense values are constant, so there is no variance in action results. This makes combat feel more like a puzzle, where you're trying to calculate the most efficient way of doing damage to get a 35-HP mob down to 0. And what happens over time is, you soon find the optimal sequence of actions for your characters to take to systematically take down mobs, and pretty soon you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again every combat.

There are NO stat-increases on level-ups. There are a few minor stat increases available in the skill tree, but all substantial stat increases are obtained through item bonuses (picture finding some armor that provides +6 strength, +5 Armor Class, +2 spell points, and +3 Intelligence, and figuring out whether to swap it with your armor that gives +8 strength, +4 Armor Class, +3 spell points, and +2 Intelligence). With itemization so important, I found myself constantly perusing all of the shops for better items, which of course are spread out everywhere (including some down in the dungeon beneath the city). Oh, and I could only afford to buy one really good item with decent stats, because gold is sparse and there are no random encounters available anywhere to farm.

There's a lot of consternation on the official forums that this isn't a "real Bard's Tale" game because of all the different mechanics (which is obvious and goes without saying), but I'll go a step further: This is not a real CRPG, at least not in the classic sense that we all know and love. This is some kind of hybrid puzzle-game/card-game experimental mish-mash of a disaster. The game reeks of millennial game designers (the project lead was too young to play BT when it was released) who are trying to be edgy and unique, and in the process they've put a really dark stain on one of the classic CRPG series of all time.

I played the beta until I gathered all the pre-made characters and was able to make my own, but I completely lost interest and have had no urge to fire it up again to play. The release date will be a giant thud for me. If I could get my Kickstarter pledge money back, I would…