Ok, if that’s a possibility in this game, you might have convinced me to buy it at release. ;)
There are almost as many Bard Archetypes as their are Magus archetypes.
So they haven’t released steam keys yet, right? When I click on download my keys it says I don’t have any.
At least the Bard ones are fun and differentiated, unlike the 40,000 Fighter Archetypes that all amount to “Hit way better and harder with this weird weapon combo!” :)
Not yet - talk in the forums is getting a little agitated about it, but they should be coming soon.
I was asked in the Image Frame game for my thoughts on this, and will paste them here as well.
I think it could potentially be a game changer in the party-based RPG space. But. Every build of the beta was buggy af. I have some grievances with the game (like having a wizard cast a blindness spell that is permanent, or curses that require a specific spell to lift) because even as a guy that’s loved and played D&D for years, I even forgot how to deal with that stuff, and how is a new player supposed to? Cries of “game is bugged my guy is always blind” will be even more common given the real time nature of the game’s combat. How easy to miss the spell hitting you? Very.
But it’s VERY true to the material and the rules. It’s great looking (though I suspect even the last beta build has place holder art and UI here and there), it plays well (though the beta chugs in some locations, optimization stuff), and it all mostly works as intended (the number of times I myself thought something was bugged but later realized was working like it’s supposed is… a pretty big number - but this ties into my larger point about concern over new players not understanding what’s going on).
It’s also huge in scope - massive. Like, all 6 chapters of the original module are represented with post game content that will let you hit level 20. That’s DnD level 20, so like Dragon Quest level 250.
I reported a few things that I didn’t like or wanted to fix (that intro menu - it’s … very slow. Why do I need to watch candles light up and then a book zoom slowly into view before I can freaking click continue!? How annoying will that get the third… fifth… twentieth time I load my game!?), but I’m not sure if beta feedback is even being looked at - none of my previous reports were yet addressed that I could tell.
I’m cautiously optimistic - like I said it could be a game changer, and it’s fun when it’s working and all the cylinders are firing. But it’s got a big party size, lots of enemies, and while the pace of the combat is very well measured it’s still RTwP and that’s going to be tough for some folks that should otherwise love this.
It may be worth checking out post-launch reviews and thoughts to see where it’s at with patches and a road map, like Bard’s Tale IV turned out. I’m going to try and cover it when it drops next week a little, as well. I wanted to do some coverage earlier but even the last beta build felt kind of early yet. I’m not convinced it’s going to be in a super polished state next week. Time will tell.
One last note - several, quite a few in fact, developers on this game are very active in the community. They want this to be an amazing experience, and I have every faith in the world that even if it’s a little messy at launch, it will probably be overall playable and they will support the hell out of it. Just my observations, but my confidence is high.**
Wow, NPCs can blind you permanently? And there’s no tutorial popup training players how to fix it? That definitely will piss a lot of people off.
I mean, it’s the Blindness spell. It’s a level 2 spell. Duration: Permanent.
The “tutorial” would be … I guess… opening the compendium and looking up that spell? Assuming the full game has a compendium or equivalent to do that and you are the type of person that looks for information in-game before alt-tabbing to Chrome and bitching to the void.
But you also have to catch “Casts Blindness” “Stusser - fails fortitude save” on screen (if you turned on the “defaulted to off” floating text for stuff happening, which I recommend) or in the combat log.
Like I said, it’s something I’m a little worried about in terms of the reaction of the gamers. I want a game like this to be a huge success.
EDIT - Also, why the fuck is Blindness permanent? I mean, for RP I guess. A Wizard can cast that on someone the players want to interrogate and dangle a Remove Blindness spell in front of them to get them to talk or something? But mostly, it fucks the players and means nothing to the enemies.
Tutorial would be a popup saying “Drizztballz is blind! To cure this affliction, click here to go to the compendium.”.
It’s funny you said that. Because there ARE tutorial pop-ups early in the game and I turned them off… so maybe I’m bitching about being me being an idiot? I’m wondering if that actually IS how they handle stuff like that. Well, like I said, I’ve had some issues with the beta that later turned out to be fixable already (for example - group weight/encumbrance is a thing and it’s annoying to move slow out of combat - but there is (it turns out) an option to disable that.
There are options for a LOT of stuff. It’s pretty cool.
From the AMA:
Prestige Classes at launch:
- Arcane Trickster
- Stalwart Defender
- Duelist
- Dragon Disciple
- Mystic Theurge
- Eldritch Knight
How important is “hex crawling” (whatever that is) and Kingdom Building?
We changed exploration and kingdom building quite a lot from pen-and-paper version. There is no hex-crawling , but you are exploring map while travelling. As for kingdom building - it is part of the game. You can select special auto-option and kingdom will behave close to the “kingdom in background” option in AP. You can decide whether to spend a lot of time on the exploration and travelling or on kingdom development, it is up to you. Both decisions have benefits to them
On custom “merc” characters (if you don’t want to use one or more companions):
Yes, you can mix mercenaries with companions.
Mercenaries are built with 20 point buy, they have all the same options as your main character
Will there be many choices/consequences?
Many, and all alignments are taken into consideration (evil, chaotic). Also, because there’s repercussions in the Kingdom Building and Capital City building as well, that’s another way consequences play out.
Favorite Race/Class combo so far?
My last playthrough was LN aasimar-lawbringer empyreal sorcerer, and I liked it a lot.
I asked if they’ll fix that stupid slow loading animation on the front menu
Yes, we know about the issue, so in final build we included couple of optimizations that made starting the game faster
On evil characters
Evil characters have some unusual (and cool) quest solutions - and kingdom-building repercussions - I “blame” the Alexanders for some of these solutions. :)
Note - Alexanders is the lead writer (this answer was provided by Chris Avellone)
Ammo?
We do not have ammunition for ranged weapons
How does auto-pause work? Asked by a Reddit person that hasn’t played a D&D cRPG in the last 15 years
There are a lot of auto-pause options, including pausing the game as soon as one of the characters completed action. So you get a lot of control if you up to microing everything.
How close are the numbers to the Pathfinder Kingmaker RPG?
We are really close to the pen-and-pare version, with similar numbers for hit points and everything. Your character is 25 point buy, companions made with around 20 point buy, and you get a lot of nice items, so you characters can be a bit more powerful than on the table
Can I dual-wield shields?
Unfortunately no.
My answer - fuck no stop asking with every RPG random person
Hellknights?!
There are some Hellknights in the game, you can even befriend them and they give pretty nice benefits to your kingdom. There is no dedicated storyline and prestige classes though.
I hate Reddit. I can never figure this out. I’m super annoyed the developers don’t have some sort of distinct tag or something. Avellone doesn’t have ANYTHING next to his name, it’s only randomly I noticed he was also answering stuff.
More to come, parsing as best I can…
How do video games work?
You’ll be controlling the whole party. You can tell the game to level-up companions for you, if you don’t want to do it by hand, but you’ll be issuing commands to everyone in combat. There’s a limited AI to make sure they’ll all defend themselves and perform basic actions by themselves, but they’re not gonna do anything overly complex, like hurl a bunch of fireballs, unless you specifically tell them to. Micromanagement is part of the game.
With that in mind, there are easy modes and story mode difficulty settings, for those who don’t want to spend ages figuring out the ideal battle strategy and just want to focus on the story and exploration.
My thoughts - make CERTAIN you turn auto-level off from the options before you get too far into your game, because you hit level 2 fairly quickly and you won’t get to level your companions up if you don’t. I hope it’s off by default in the full version, but it’s ON in the beta.
Spell summon limits?
There is no limit, you can have lots of them
Can I Haz Timestop?
Unfortunately your wizard will be as sad as mine. Timestop is also one of mine favorites, but it is difficult as hell to implement properly.
My pleasure!
If people want an RPG where they can dual-wield shields, have I got a game for them! It’s called TOME 4 and it’s fabulous.
(I think only one class can do it, the Stone Warden, but hey.)
Shield dual-wielding got nerfed some how, didn’t it? Or maybe I’m thinking of something from ADOM.
I think this might not end well (see: Pillars 1 launch).
Yeah, honestly, I completely didn’t realize there wasn’t an AI in the game when I played other than auto-attacking because I was just micromanaging my party and didn’t think twice about it. But you are right, many folks will not like that. I didn’t mind it but I was glad when it was patched into 1 and then made much better in PoE2.
Man, I didn’t say anything about whether it was a good idea. Just that you can do it. :p
How is Timestop hard to implement?
You get extra rounds and can’t attack anyone during that time.
It’s not like it’s a competitive multi-player game here.
You should work for them as a game dev! :)