The Bard's Tale 4

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Qhue

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So now we know what happened to some of the missing classes...

*edit* This is indeed a spoiler for the game itself!
Once you return the holy relic to the priest he offers to teach one person how to contact their god thus unlocking a new skill cleric skill tree for that character.

Bard becomes Preacher
Practitioner becomes Sage
Rogue becomes Monk
I assume Fighter becomes Paladin? I didn't save scum with my Fighter to see.

I made my Bard into a Preacher since she was already turning into full time support anyway.

Perhaps other quests in the game unlock Chronomancer / Geomancer / Hunter etc?

Im actually surprised they kept some of this stuff hidden given the temptation to spoil it for marketing purposes
 
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Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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I shouldn't have clicked that.. ^spoiler is in game related, not a dev talk or anything.

Interesting to note though.
 
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Void

Experiencer
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Thanks for the warning on that spoiler, I would have clicked it otherwise.

Some jimmy rustling below, despite the fact that I am still really enjoying the game. Kind of illustrates how much I've been dying for a game like this, despite what looks like a massive wall of complaints.

Played a decent amount last night, finished that first large building with the mage in it, and it highlighted a few things that I wish they would have included in the game. First and foremost, a way to make notes on the map. I can't tell you how much time I spent wandering all over that fucking place trying to find places I had passed previously but didn't have the necessary items etc. to complete it at that time. If I could have made notes it really would have fucking helped and saved me a ton of time. In fact, there are still one or two spots there that I couldn't finish, and if I ever find/figure out how to finish them, it will take me forever to find the spots again.

An aside, I got a pretty shitty bug that was driving me fucking insane. Without going into spoilery detail, I got to the room with the elevator, and did everything I could in it. Stepped in the elevator, but the button wouldn't let me press it. So I spent HOURS running all over trying to see if I had missed an area, and yeah there is the one area I can't figure out, requires you to put something related to health in it, which seemed fairly easy to me but asks for 3 items, so I'm stumped. So I'm like fuck it, I'm taking a break, and log off in the elevator room. Decide to give it one more try before bed, log in (takes fucking forever of course, not on an ssd), and for funsies I step into the elevator again. Lo and behold, the fucking button works! I literally did nothing else story-wise, all I did was quit and start again, and now it worked. I wasted so much fucking time on that glitch, I can't even begin to describe the rustling of my jimmies.

The other thing that is beginning to annoy me is the limitation of my mastery bar. Someone further ahead tell me if I'm always going to have to choose 3 or 4 skills to use in combat, despite having many more. That's the height of bullshit there, if that continues. Add on to that the apparent inability to refund your skill points, and now I have a bunch of skills that I never would have bought if I knew I would never get to fucking use all of them. My fucking rogue, who cuisinarts shit with his awesome skills, can't even hide in fucking shadows anymore because I chose to give him yet another damage-dealing skill to use instead. I would have bought more passives and armor skills if I had realized I had to pick only a couple. And my fucking bard only gets 3???? FUUUUUUUUCK YOU. Please tell me I get more later. What's the point of all these skills if I never get to use all of them? I'm not gonna hand-pick my skills before every battle based on what I think I'll need.

Oh, another bug that really fucked with me at first. I turned down my settings to high to make it run a little smoother, and apparently it glitched or something and took me to what has to be the low setting. I noticed that the world looked like shit, but didn't realize just how bad it was so didn't think anything of it. Well, I go to try to solve a puzzle weapon for my first time in the game, and the textures are so horrible that I literally can't see what I'm doing. But I don't know that this is a graphical problem, I assume that's just how the fucking puzzles are. So I literally was just randomly clicking shit because I had no idea what I was doing, and even managed to solve a segment or two. Later, I realize that the world looks extra fucking shitty and turn it back to Ultra, just with a few things off, and not only does the world look amazing (in comparison anyway) now, but I can see ALL the fucking details on those puzzle weapons! How do you even allow that to be a thing? How can changing your graphic settings make it so you literally cannot see the puzzles? I'd think you could override a couple of settings to ensure that those textures at least showed when inspecting. If I HAD to play at a lower setting, I'd have no clue how to even approach those puzzles.

Despite all that, I still really enjoy the game. Which is maybe sort of depressing, when I think about it.
 

Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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map custom tags. yeah, iirc there is even a UI element label for "custom notes". but I couldnt figure out how to make one.

4 skill slots. agreed. odd choice there. between cooldowns, sp, and opp. skill use is pretty controlled already. odd you can get so many skills on a character, then your limited to only 4. and yeah, some kind of tactical swapping for each fight ok sure... but, then that should be done as the fight starts. aka. CHARGE!, pick skills, fight.
 
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Shmoopy

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Ok finally testing this.

Liking the game play, voice acting, etc... but it looks and runs like total ass for what it is. The Dwarf models are a fucking war crime.

Wasteland 2 was 2D and top down so shitty unoptimized art wasn't hard to compensate for. But man, Skara Brae is the first zone in the game and is a poster child for technical art ineptitude … ;(
 
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Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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qhue, that "qhue" on steam discussions, complaining about practitioners you?

in theory, about the limitations of the combat system agree. as noted about the 4 skill slot thing. This isnt really a system I would have devised.
In practice, mages are my top characters easily.

The replies mention most of the things. Arcane barrage 1 mana point, no opp cost, no cooldown. Passive spell crit giving +sp, gives a solid chance to spam this, over, and over, and over again.
A bard with +1 sp, battle mages for +1sp at start of combat. giving 2 at the start for immediate aoe fire. (1 rogue for party stealth)
And regular 1op attack is Linear AOE and can also proc the +1 SP passive.

(I havent decided if instant meditate for +2ap, or channel mediate for +4ap, and +1ap start of combat ap is best)

2 mages will lay down a truckload of burst aoe.
 
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Qhue

Trump's Staff
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Even with that they don't hold a candle to bards for AE destruction though. Bard can do AE True damage on round one and every round thereafter, just need a basic hit to trigger the Falkentynes chain. Yes Spectre Touch and Mangar's Mallet are big hits, but thats two out of 4 slots and meditate takes a third.

BTW seeing lots of people complaining about the level 20 limit... we'll half my party is currently level 21 so that's a bunch of BS. I'm guessing they were theory-grousing based on there being a level 20 achievement on Steam.
 
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fris

Blackwing Lair Raider
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man, I played BT1 endlessly on my old ibm xt clone, think that is what it was called. this game built the foundation for my monk love, and bard hatred lol.

there was a way (free legit even?) to play the 1st one in a browser, but it wouldn't save your progress so i lost interest. i remember abusing a bug where you could dup items by trading & restarting the pc. i max leveled so many characters, killing the 99/99/99/99 guys in cloaks 100s of times leveling up new characters.

considering this just for the nostalgia, but have a hard time conniving myself to drop $35 on a single player game.
 
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Sterling

El Presidente
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The 396 Berserker fight doesn't respawn on the remaster unfortunately. The 69 Wight fight in Catacombs is probably where you want to go if you want to just grind xp for whatever reason now.
 

Droigan

Trakanon Raider
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I don't understand why it is happening. I keep losing skills at random. I only get 3 slots in mastery instead of 4. Had 4, zone, now 3. Not done anything. Now my tank and rogue both have 3 slots, and I have far more skills than that.

I do know there is a bug about the wrong skills in the mastery displaying, my mage has that, but I am actually missing skills now, as in they don't show up in combat either.
Bug or some game mechanic I am missing?

EDIT: It was the weapons. I picked the skill that lets me use 2h as a 1h on my tank, however didn't realize that it meant that my greatsword skills no longer applied to the counter. You need to a have mastered 4 skills to get 4 slots. Don't have that on tank now that the greatsword skills don't count (can still use them though).

Same with rouge. Just recently swapped out a sword for a dagger. Lost skills.

So not a bug, but a fairly stupid thing. Everyone should just have 4 mastery slots to start with.
 
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Armadon

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Does the game get harder? Just finished the first dungeon and it was pretty easy. I'm liking the game just need a little more challenge.
 

Qhue

Trump's Staff
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It does and it doesn't. I'm at a point now where I routinely punch well over my weight taking on orange and red encounters, but that is largely due to a crazy synergistic build that seems to work in almost every scenario. On the scenarios where it doesnt result in massive death in round one I often get my clock cleaned as my party gets bitch-slapped around the room.

The key to the combat system is that it is very one-sided. Instead of having a 6 vs 6 type fight of enemies that are roughly your equal you fight against a bunch of enemies who have either no health or have 300 hps with 75 armor or some such. Armor rend, however, makes short work of this which means that you absolutely must be using rend and that will primarily come from whatever practitioner you give the elven wand that does 2 stacks of rend to everything you hit.

The chained effects, however, are wonky enough that I think it might actually be a bug causing some of the massive damage taken by the enemy as you litter the battlefield with AE explode-on-hit effects and traps.
 

Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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just about every class has at least one OP combo. So seems "intended" to me.

Acid weapons are both needed and Op it seems. armor rend skills are weak and few. acid weapons turn every skill, esp multi-hit skills into rending machines.
Mental damage, burning damage seems more reasonably balanced for armor bypass.
 

Void

Experiencer
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I played a decent bit more this weekend and I'm still enjoying it, but the Mastery Bar thing is just killing me. I did completely dump all the premade characters though and just hired my own, so I could avoid taking too many skills that I'd never get to use. That helped a bit, as now I have better stats and shit vs. a mediocre skill I won't ever slot into use for combat. Still, I'd rather have all options available than a forced limit. Seems like a shitty, shitty design decision to me.

I'd give my left nut for a dedicated healer class though. Although, I abuse the fuck out of the free heal at save locations, even loading out of one place and back in just to get a free heal. Despite having a fuckload of cabbages that I could be using instead! I said I have a hoarding problem. Still, I'd love to not have to waste a trinket slot on a heal potion. On my fighter usually, since he might live longest.

Do all elven puzzle weapons have 3 stages? Because right now I have some with only 1 or 2, and I'm wondering if it is a bug like everything else, or it is intended.

I've tried to stay away from obvious OP combos too. I already feel a little more powerful just creating all my guys from scratch. They still banter back and forth, FYI.
 

Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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no they dont. disciple has only 2. fire sword 1.


theres hidden classes.. bards have a powerful shield+heal. +1 getting the "wine pairing" makes food really strong.
 
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Qhue

Trump's Staff
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Wine Pairing is the key for efficient out-of-combat healing.

I wish I had taken care to record the locations of shrines with their respective poems as I got a nice weapon that I solved the first two puzzles of and I KNOW I've seen the poem before, just can't recall where. By the way, the sliding tile puzzles can fuck right off. Have never liked those types of puzzle even as a kid.

I seem to be in 'ACT 3' now and my characters are all level 25ish. Haven't seen any gear upgrades in ages however...
 

Droigan

Trakanon Raider
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I'd give my left nut for a dedicated healer class though. Although, I abuse the fuck out of the free heal at save locations, even loading out of one place and back in just to get a free heal.

Spoiler for heal class
Once you get to the second area, you find a camp with paladins next to the first town. There is a holy symbol there on the table you can pick up. Take that to the cleric in the area outside of the Adventure Guild in the first zone. If you've talked to him before, you have a quest for the item. Take it back to him, and he will give the Cleric class which you can give to one character (be sure to give it to a class with spell points). If you find more symbols later, you can teach others the class as well.
 

Qhue

Trump's Staff
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4,413
Spoiler for heal class
Once you get to the second area, you find a camp with paladins next to the first town. There is a holy symbol there on the table you can pick up. Take that to the cleric in the area outside of the Adventure Guild in the first zone. If you've talked to him before, you have a quest for the item. Take it back to him, and he will give the Cleric class which you can give to one character (be sure to give it to a class with spell points). If you find more symbols later, you can teach others the class as well.

With respect to the heal class

I find myself very very rarely actually using the healing, or really any, abilities from the Cleric tree. Maybe if I had given that to a fighter who gained some passive SP due to Bard effects it would have been more worthwhile. I still have a spare relic in my inventory I could use to turn one of the fighters into a Paladin I suppose...
 

Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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yeah. My fighter is probably likely candidate. Rogue maybe even as well?

Ideal party atm is 2 practitioners, dragons breath/arcane barrage/conjurers mark. massive aoe death.
1 bard to feed SP, passive SP, and either shield or CD reduc.
1 rogue.. who at this point is just for rogue passives.. stealth/gold. did some damage work early, but the mages do it all now.
1 fighter. mostly tank. but, does do some serious work as Einharr, and that mental club attack. shillelagh reduces to 1 Op, high direct mental damage, scaling with +str on damage taken... large cd, which bard helps with.
6th slot would be another bard likely.
 

Void

Experiencer
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Are there no specific skills for weapons like the Spear of Strife or polearms, etc? For that matter, how do I even know what some of those elven weapons qualify as? Is a scepter a bludgeon or an axe or a staff? It kinda matters when I specialized in certain weapon-types.

How does the fucking censer work?? I gave the skill to my cleric, equipped the trinket, and whenever I use it I get "No target in range" or similar. It's a fucking stance, do I have to target an enemy? It doesn't show that anywhere.

This kind of shit is driving me crazy. I might remake most of my party yet again simply because of it being impossible to refund skill points. Maybe I'll look for a cheat trainer that can refund them. I don't need to cheat on anything else on the game, but that is annoying as fuck. Hey, thanks for telling me that if I pick one of those big circle skills, it locks me out of all the other ones! Oh wait, it never told me that.

And once again, that Mastery Bar is going to make me fucking rage one day. Aside from it not giving anywhere near enough choices, it fucking changes when you buy new skills, all on its own! Nothing like going into a battle assuming it would be like every other battle, only to see that there is random new shit on there instead.