Bard's Tale Kickstarter

[rivethead]

I understand random bugs on release but really...you didn't figure out ultra-wide support? Just stupid.

I'd be throwing them under the bus right now but...they really did a miracle on getting the remasters so I still have faith. That probably wasn't an easy transition.

The remasters were done by a completely separate company. InXile subcontracted that work out.

That probably doesn't make you feel better about BTIV

I agree with your assessment. Take grid-based movement. That's something the old-schoolers wanted. That's something InXile said we'd get. It's not in the game. It'll come in a subsequent patch.

The more I read, the more disappointed I get. Apparently there are only female elven character models, but only male elven voices (or maybe vice versa).....that just points to a game being rushed out the door....

 

[kn51]

Don't get me wrong, I understand the whole remaster fiasco...that's why I have more faith because they yanked it out and gave it to Krome Studio to finish. That is quite impressive to be honest. They could have said "Well sorry folks, we can't do this..." which points to backers having low expectations and here I am cheering it on as actually delivering a product.

Eh, won't actually get to around to the "real" game for a few more weeks. Just funny that the "Hey, we have scaling issues with the UI" when you had quite a long beta test. This SOB is quite late (which I know is normal) yet they couldn't hash out some of these simple issues that couldn't be solved with their "2 week patch plan."

 

[Malogeek]

Well there was some patch as ultrawide is working correctly now and performance seems much better.

 

[paperfist]

So either you guys are too busy role playing or the game is lacking? I figured there would be a lot of positive posts causing me to buy it...

 

[Worthington]

I/m having a good time with it. There are some design decisions that I don't love and it doesn't really feel like a "Bards Tale" game. But, if I don't let that get in the way of the experience it's still pretty fun to play.

 

[you2]

I'm enjoying it quite a bit but a lot of people are screaming bloody murder rip off. There are a few things that irritate me like not being able to place notes on the map and a few ui glitches but overall i like it.

 

[rivethead]

I'm not touching it until all three patches are delivered and the dust settles. "Official" review for this game have been glowing...8/10, 8.2/10, 4/5 type of scores. But user reviews are bloody. Not sure who to believe ................truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

The "this isn't a Bard Tale game" cries don't really concern me. I didn't want another edition of a 30 year old game. I wanted a more advanced Legend of Grimrock with beautiful music set in Scottish folklore......and that sounds like that's what this game could be (once they work all the bugs and issues out).

 

[you2]

So far the bugs are minor. I have some real gui complaints (can't put markers on maps; some things could trivially be streamlined; no sorting or other arrangements in inventory; ...) but i haven't really encountered any bugs. For me personally so far it is a good game. Not a 10 for sure but 7.5. Like it a lot better than grimlock but there aren't a lot of games one can compare this game to. It is better than MMX; and in some ways almost as a good as wiz 8 but not quite.

 

[nakedfrog]

Definitely still rough edges, but I've got around 20 hours in and I'm having fun.

The "this isn't a Bard Tale game" cries don't really concern me. I didn't want another edition of a 30 year old game. I wanted a more advanced Legend of Grimrock with beautiful music set in Scottish folklore......and that sounds like that's what this game could be (once they work all the bugs and issues out).

I really am enjoying the music.

 

[nakedfrog]

So far the bugs are minor. I have some real gui complaints (can't put markers on maps; some things could trivially be streamlined; no sorting or other arrangements in inventory; ...) but i haven't really encountered any bugs. For me personally so far it is a good game. Not a 10 for sure but 7.5. Like it a lot better than grimlock but there aren't a lot of games one can compare this game to. It is better than MMX; and in some ways almost as a good as wiz 8 but not quite.

Yeah, I saw sorting inventory is on their to-do list, don't know how they could have missed that feature.
I did encounter a quirk/bug, not sure which, but if you're crafting an item, and you're on a full inventory page, it will say your inventory is full... change to a different page, and then it works.

 

[Flacco]

Haven’t played the previous games but I’ve enjoyed the 6 or so hours I played of it. There are definitely issues though. I have a 8700k and a 1080ti on a 1080p monitor and I was getting FPS issues. Was bearable but the experience wasn’t smooth. I’ve been traveling for work this week so hopefully when I’m back home this weekend some of that stuff will be fixed.

 

[rivethead]

Haven’t played the previous games but I’ve enjoyed the 6 or so hours I played of it. There are definitely issues though. I have a 8700k and a 1080ti on a 1080p monitor and I was getting FPS issues. Was bearable but the experience wasn’t smooth. I’ve been traveling for work this week so hopefully when I’m back home this weekend some of that stuff will be fixed.

Patch #2 is supposed to be delivered this Friday with further improvements to FPS, loading times, bugs, etc.

 

[nakedfrog]

I had to drop my settings to get a non-painful framerate in the forest area.

Still having fun overall, not a whole lot in the way of bugs other than a weapon disappearing once, and the occasional flickering inventory screen. And (light spoiler)

Spoiler

I thought the set piece leading up to my encounter with Mangar in his tower was very well-done.

 

[Worthington]

I used 2 seeds to unlock the first puzzle weapon you get, and then got bit by the bug that if you solved the puzzle while the item was equipped the minute you logged out it was reset. So, now I don't have enough seeds to finish it. Hoping I find some of the same type later but so far no luck (just made it into the forest).

Oh, and that StrifeSpear is bad ass.

 

[kn51]

Part II of the remasters should be out today. Looks fantastic.

https://youtu.be/Tcp_5hfomF8

 

[DrMrLordX]

Oh, and that StrifeSpear is bad ass.

If you played BT3, you would know why.

 

[nakedfrog]

Finished it last night. 80 hours played, crashed on me twice in the same room in the final area, fortunately it was shortly after a save point, no other crashes that I can recall. I regret nothing. I probably did most of the things, never made it into Harkyn's castle (didn't really try, just got close enough to get the quest on my tracker and never followed up).
In the last part of the game I barely felt like bothering to open chests, since it seemed like they mostly had gold in them, and I was already walking around with 20k+ gold and nothing to really spend it on. Even after hitting the last merchant and actually finding a few worthwhile pieces of gear to buy, I still finished with about 28k gold.

 

[you2]

I also finished and i think it was 60 to 90 hours. I can't say i had regrets but i felt the game just missed the mark and went from a great game to a at best so so. The later 1/2 to 1/3 is just plain bad but the start is great

 

[rivethead]

I also finished and i think it was 60 to 90 hours. I can't say i had regrets but i felt the game just missed the mark and went from a great game to a at best so so. The later 1/2 to 1/3 is just plain bad but the start is great

That's an interesting observation. Several of the "official" reviewers are saying the game starts off (too) slowly....you really need to get out of Skara Brae before the excellence kicks in.

I'm continuing to wait on the next patch. Despite 3 patches, people are still reporting long load times, crashes, bugs.....stuff I don't want to deal with.

 

[nakedfrog]

The biggest annoyance for me bug-wise was the flickering inventory, because if you keep the inventory open too long while it's flickering, then much of it will just turn black until you save/load (I think loading into a new area fixed it too).
And for some reason, the framerate drops into single digits when I'm in the adventurer's guild, or later on in the game, in a tavern, leading me to guess it's something to do with the number of people in a small area.

 

[rivethead]

So InXile kicked out a major new patch for BTIV yesterday:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/566090/announcements/detail/2484194130791350449

They added "save anywhere" as well as a bunch of legacy mode features like grid movement. As well as a ton of bug fixes and polish, which were readily noticeable to me (I just started playing this past weekend and re-started post-patch.

Good to see the dev team continuing to work on this title. They botched the launch of this game, but their pace of kicking out patches since then has been admirable.

 

[rivethead]

So I finished The Bard Tale IV this weekend. 123 hours of gameplay (I'm a completionist, but I also didn't discover pressing the shift key to "run" until I was almost done )

Overall, this is a fantastic game with a decent story, incredible music, fun (and thoughtful) combat, and beautiful settings. It's also hard as hell in spots with puzzles that are just wicked.

There are two main things that I think need improvement:

1) The economy is broken. I ended the game with 43,000 gold pieces. Nothing to spend it on. About halfway through the game, you get to the point where you excitedly figure out a puzzle, unlock/find a chest and......oh great. Another 99 gold I can't do anything with. Meh.

2) Some of the puzzles were just too complicated for me. The game is heavy on puzzles towards the end, so you just get worn down. I reverted to using the strategy guide that InXile gave out for free.

Supposedly, InXile is going to address both of the above with the next patch. They are adding new, unique, expensive weapons for purchase with all that gold. And they're adding a song that will allow you to resolve puzzles without effort. I don't really like the sound of that. They should have, instead, addressed both issues by adding a "Book of Solving" with a one-time use. Make the books limited and really expensive. Then you effectively can use up all the extra gold by getting a "solve" of a limited number of puzzles. That would have been helpful down the stretch.

But I cannot overemphasize how much effort when into this game. It was well-crafted, planned, and executed. It just wasn't well tested before release and thus had a really poor release.

But if you're into dungeon crawlers with good story, challenging, and an old-school feel this is a game to look into.

 

[Worthington]

I really need to get back to it and finish it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, just got side tracked with life and never went back to it. Enough patches have dropped that I almost feel like I'd need to start from scratch.

 

[nakedfrog]

So I finished The Bard Tale IV this weekend. 123 hours of gameplay (I'm a completionist, but I also didn't discover pressing the shift key to "run" until I was almost done )

Overall, this is a fantastic game with a decent story, incredible music, fun (and thoughtful) combat, and beautiful settings. It's also hard as hell in spots with puzzles that are just wicked.

There are two main things that I think need improvement:

1) The economy is broken. I ended the game with 43,000 gold pieces. Nothing to spend it on. About halfway through the game, you get to the point where you excitedly figure out a puzzle, unlock/find a chest and......oh great. Another 99 gold I can't do anything with. Meh.

2) Some of the puzzles were just too complicated for me. The game is heavy on puzzles towards the end, so you just get worn down. I reverted to using the strategy guide that InXile gave out for free.

Supposedly, InXile is going to address both of the above with the next patch. They are adding new, unique, expensive weapons for purchase with all that gold. And they're adding a song that will allow you to resolve puzzles without effort. I don't really like the sound of that. They should have, instead, addressed both issues by adding a "Book of Solving" with a one-time use. Make the books limited and really expensive. Then you effectively can use up all the extra gold by getting a "solve" of a limited number of puzzles. That would have been helpful down the stretch.

But I cannot overemphasize how much effort when into this game. It was well-crafted, planned, and executed. It just wasn't well tested before release and thus had a really poor release.

But if you're into dungeon crawlers with good story, challenging, and an old-school feel this is a game to look into.

Yes, I'm planning to play through it again with a different party composition next time, I like the sound of the changes they will have made since my last playthrough.
Plus I upgraded my GPU, and the framerate is much better on it (did a little testing after I installed it).
There were definitely some later game puzzles that I bailed on, figuring the reward was most likely another damn chest of coins or weapon I wouldn't use.

 

[DrMrLordX]

1) The economy is broken. I ended the game with 43,000 gold pieces. Nothing to spend it on. About halfway through the game, you get to the point where you excitedly figure out a puzzle, unlock/find a chest and......oh great. Another 99 gold I can't do anything with. Meh.

2) Some of the puzzles were just too complicated for me. The game is heavy on puzzles towards the end, so you just get worn down. I reverted to using the strategy guide that InXile gave out for free.

If the puzzles are that bad, it kind of makes me wonder why they don't put an in-game oracle of some kind that will dribble out puzzle clues for gold. That would solve both problems (sort of). I remember the puzzles from Bard's Tale 1 and 2 being particularly hideous in some places. Those Destiny Snares . . . ugh.