The Dark Eye Blackguards 2

[Gord]

At last a short introduction: Hi, I`m John, or "Johannes Kiel". I worked as producer on Blackguards 2.

Cool, maybe Crooked Bee or Infinitron or whoever can persuade him to do a proper interview before he gets scared away by some of our more special members.

 

[Infinitron]

Don't worry, I've briefed him.

 

[Grunker]

Cool, maybe Crooked Bee or Infinitron or whoever can persuade him to do a proper interview

Maybe. But considering they removed their community manager from our site I doubt they'll respond kindly to the sort of critical questions we're like to do in the wake of BL2. I dunno, maybe they will.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Maybe. But considering they removed their community manager from our site I doubt they'll respond kindly to the sort of critical questions we're like to do in the wake of BL2. I dunno, maybe they will.

Infinitron (or whoever did the BioWare interview) can into doing good interviews regarding critical topics, see "romances", "chosen one", "uninspired campaigns" in the current Knowles interview.

 

[Bubbles]

Most decisions in the game influence cassias reputation in the populace. I'm talking about decisions like

Spoiler

freeing or hanging prisoners, rumours that Zurbaran can spread about you, but above all your decisions as ruler of Mengbilla.

As you say, the thing that matters most are the decisions you make in the final three minutes of the game. I guess it's technically C&C if you choose between two different ending cutscenes just before you see them, but it really isn't very satisfying C&C.

So yes, you can win back the peoples hearts as ruler,

Spoiler

but that's after your conquest of mengbilla. The consequences of being cruel will hit you before that.

I may have unintentionally gamed the system here by being indecisive and saving up the town razing decisions and assorted rewards until I had to enter the final series of battles (which made me "feared" when I finally did them), but I didn't notice any consequences for them in the brief space between that and the epilogue. I expected

Spoiler

playing all the melodies at the same time

to pop up as an option when entering the end game with a cruel character, but I didn't get the option. Maybe I wasn't cruel enough?

There is also C&C regarding your companions. For example: The C&C regarding Naurim

Spoiler

are about invoking his old wrath or calming him down in dialogues. His stats can rise, but there is a catch to it.

I kept trying to talk to him and establish a family connection constantly until the final battle, but the option to do so always disappeared after the second "melancholy" option, when I just had the option to provoke him into a rage and couldn't even back out of the dialogue anymore. It's either a bug or a very well hidden unlock trigger that I didn't hit.

The C&C regarding Zurbaran

Spoiler

are linked to Niobe and the creators, their melodies, etc. Also his stats can rise depending on your decisions.

I'm curious about what the triggers for the stat gains are for the NPCs. I did every battle and entered camp and the cities whenever I could with the NPCs, but the only one I got a stat gain Compendium entry for was Naurim, enraged. He was also the only visitor I got during the epilogue. And Zurbaran has a major connection to the melodies and the creators? I never noticed anything at all, and I always talked to him.

One example:

Spoiler

What about the prisoners that spawn on the enemy side during the following battle, if you let them free?

Another example:

Spoiler

What about the blind emissary that you can meet in Cuoris if you allow him to live?

Well, these are incredibly minor consequences, but they technically fit the bill. I was more thinking about the decisions that are presented as being "major", like saving or killing the boss enemies, that seemed to amount to nothing for me when I let them live. Although the insect creator boss kept bugging out (get it?) during her battle, so I couldn't see whether talking her down would have actually worked, or whether it would have made a bigger difference than it did with the other shapers.

Or were the named prisoners also supposed to spawn on the enemy side after a camp decision? Because that definitely never happened for me.

 

[Infinitron]

Infinitron (or whoever did the BioWare interview) can into doing good interviews regarding critical topics, see "romances", "chosen one", "uninspired campaigns" in the current Knowles interview.

We already had an interview about Blackguards 2: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9521

We can do a post-mortem interview, but let's wait a while and let more people play it first? Unless somebody from Daedalic really insists on doing it now, or something.

 

[vonAchdorf]

We already had an interview about Blackguards 2: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9521
We can do a post-mortem interview, but let's wait a while and let more people play it first? Unless somebody from Daedalic really insists on doing it now, or something.

Yes, I'd wait for their public reactions to the player feedback first and of course for more people having played it. I started yesterday, but can't play more than a few battles each day. Despite the flaws mentioned, I'm looking forward to the battles later today, but that's because I'm a fan of the first and it still has the same atmosphere (and soundtrack) which I enjoyed. If I was new to the series, I think, I wouldn't be impressed. That's why I don't understand their design decisions - it really appears that they managed to streamline the game and in the process make it less accessible for both veterans and newcomers. The new % system makes it harder for me to cursory judge weapons / armor and skills and a newcomer is required to create a character from scratch with not a lot of help. They added a printed strategy guide (potential for incline), but who reads those nowadays?

 

[CreepyJohn_Daedalic]

I may have unintentionally gamed the system here by being indecisive and saving up the town razing decisions and assorted rewards until I had to enter the final series of battles (which made me "feared" when I finally did them), but I didn't notice any consequences for them in the brief space between that and the epilogue. I expected

Spoiler

playing all the melodies at the same time

to pop up as an option when entering the end game with a cruel character, but I didn't get the option. Maybe I wasn't cruel enough?

No, you didn't miss any content there. This option is not included in the endgame.

I kept trying to talk to him and establish a family connection constantly until the final battle, but the option to do so always disappeared after the second "melancholy" option, when I just had the option to provoke him into a rage. It's either a bug or a very well hidden unlock trigger that I didn't hit.

There should be a third melancholy option, so that's a bug. It has already been fixed and will be included in the next patch.

I'm curious about what the triggers for the stat gains are for the NPCs. I did every battle and entered camp and the cities whenever I could with the NPCs, but the only one I got a stat gain Compendium entry for was Naurim, enraged. He was also the only visitor I got during the epilogue. And Zurbaran has a major connection to the melodies and the creators? I never noticed anything at all, and I always talked to him.

Actually it works like this: If Naurim, Takate and Zurbaran

Spoiler

stand before you in the throne room you can decide individually (in dialogues) what will become of them.

Major spoiler incoming: For example... if you tell Naurim that

Spoiler

Zurbaran set him up, he will kill him (only in Naurim-Rage-Mode). If you warn Zurbaran he will instead poison Naurim.

With Takate it's like this:

Spoiler

If you want Takate in the end you have to keep him separated from Mirai in the cities.

Or were the named prisoners also supposed to spawn on the enemy side after a camp decision? Because that definitely never happened for me.

Well, I already told you about

Spoiler

the blind emissary.

There are others, like

Spoiler

Niobe, but that will be included in the next update.

it really appears that they managed to streamline the game and in the process make it less accessible for both veterans and newcomers. The new % system makes it harder for me to cursory judge weapons / armor and skills

I`m intrigued. Why would you think that comparing equip/skills would be harder in Blackguards 2?
Maybe you misunderstood: You need to add up the percentages. Like 40% Offense plus 30% Swords/Sabres Skills equals 70% Swords/Sabres Offense.
Actually it should be much easier to "cursory judge" equip and skills now due to the "hover" feature. You know: Just hover over something in your inventory and you can see the stat chances at a glance.

 

[Grunker]

If you really want to sate our curiosity, CreepyJohn_Daedalic, you or someone else at Daedalic should reply to mr. Roxor: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9704

I really wish I could stop ending articles with the same old, tired mantra of "I don’t know what happened, but [sequel of x] has screwed up everything it could." Because this is exactly how I feel about Blackguards 2.

I feel disappointed, but I also feel somewhat cheated. When the previews and showcases (Gamescom included) showed this game and talked about "streamlining" and "ironing out pointless mechanics," I felt certain that this time it was for a good cause. Did it need some UI streamlining? It sure did. Did it need readjustments when it came to raising Dexterity on melee fighters just to get Death Blow? No doubt about it. Did it need to remove all randomness in favour of instant gratification? It most certainly did not. And seeing as there is just over a month till release, it seems fruitless to hope that any of these terrible changes will be revoked. Especially since most of them concern the very basic design principles of the game. For this reason, the game seems rotten to its core.

In the end, I have to ask this question: what was this for? Why was this done?

I'm sure you and your team are keenly aware that many of us were immense fans of the first game, including me, Darth Roxor and Infinitron. I'd like to believe that Roxor is way off in his preview, but some of the things he writes about seem questionable at best and incredibly hard to explain away. A good portion of it is backed by Bubbles here.

I'd love to just fucking play the game and find out, but until January 28 I'm stuck with no access to playing games.

 

[Infinitron]

If you really want to sate our curiosity, CreepyJohn_Daedalic, you or someone else at Daedalic should reply to mr. Roxor: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9704

I'm sure you and your team are keenly aware that many of us were immense fans of the first game, including me, Darth Roxor and Infinitron. I'd like to believe that Roxor is way off in his preview, but some of the things he writes about seem questionable at best and incredibly hard to explain away. A good portion of it is backed by Bubbles here.

I'd love to just fucking play the game and find out, but until January 28 I'm stuck with no access to playing games.

Unfortunately posts in the news forum tend to take longer to pass the moderation queue. So let him rack up five posts here first.

 

[Grunker]

I forgot about the queue, lol.

 

[vonAchdorf]

I`m intrigued. Why would you think that comparing equip/skills would be harder in Blackguards 2?
Maybe you misunderstood: You need to add up the percentages. Like 40% Offense plus 30% Swords/Sabres Skills equals 70% Swords/Sabres Offense.
Actually it should be much easier to "cursory judge" equip and skills now due to the "hover" feature. You know: Just hover over something in your inventory and you can see the stat chances at a glance.

Thank you for your reply. I'll give more feedback on this after I played more – like I said, I'm currently at the first couple of maps after the conquest game starts. My observations are all about the context and the relation information has to things you already know, recognizing patters. Being versed in the TDE ruleset, 1d6+4 has an immediate meaning for me, the equivalent of the Blackguards 2 stats system doesn't (yet). It's a bit like analog and digital clocks, the latter you actually have to read, while with the first, you pretty much can get an approximation of the important information without actually exactly reading the time. Just hovering over the different rusty weapons in "Cassia's collection" showed different numbers in read and green, but I honestly couldn't immediately judge which was better. Sure, that will change once I'm getting used to the new system, which is not that difficult to understand, but in the beginning, it makes it less intuitive for veterans / TDE players.

And to say something nice – already the first maps had some good ideas in them, like the controllable spider and the split party. Also 25€ for the boxed special edition is extremely good value, hopefully not too good of a value that you don't make a fair cut.

 

[Infinitron]

Darth Roxor Crooked Bee http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/01/22/a-better-class-of-criminal-blackguards-2/

A Better Class Of Criminal: Blackguards 2
By Adam Smith on January 22nd, 2015 at 3:00 pm.

The original Blackguards was like a wax apple. I saw it sitting there in the fruitbowl of the internet – shiny, red and tempting – but when I plunged my pegs into it and tore off a mouthful I made a face like Stan Laurel chewing a wasp. I love tactical RPGs but the early missions of Daedalic’s villain ‘em up felt like puzzles with a single solution rather than reactive scenarios.

Enter the sequel, with a somewhat dynamic strategic map and increased scope for customisation of the main character. I’ve taken a bite.

Given the speed with which Blackguards 2 has been released, I expected the worst. Well, not quite the worst, I suppose, because I did like the idea of battle actually causing changes on the world map. It’s now possible to take territories, hire mercenary defenders and then fight to reclaim them when the mercenaries get killed during a counterattack.

That change aside, the biggest difference appears to be the ability to mould the main player character Cassia into the hero/antihero/bastard of your choice. You can decide just how unpleasant she’ll be once she gets the upper hand on the folks who have wronged her and, more importantly, you can shape her skillset and class as well.

And that, at least partly, is where the old problems persist. Given the right amount of devotion, Blackguards 2 may well be a rewarding game but I don’t find the majority of decisions meaningful enough to keep my interest. Cassia’s free-form development didn’t feel it was planting me at a crossroads and allowing me to choose a direction – it felt like I’d been dropped in the ocean and left to flounder.

The tactical battle maps, attractive and replayable as they are, still retain some of the original game’s sticky points as well. They’re packed with interactive elements but I feel like I’m supposed to find precisely the right moment to use those elements rather than integrating them into a flexible plan. There’s also an element of unwanted surprise when certain objects are activated. They don’t always behave as I’d expect them to and even in the couple of hours I’ve been playing, I’ve ended up clobbering my companions a couple of times, without fully understanding why. It’s as if I’ve selected a toaster expecting to make some toast and my character has inexplicably decided to jam a fork into the workings instead.

Despite all of that, I want to play more of Blackguards 2 and I hope I’ll manage to ignore the wrinkles after a while. It may not be wax but I’d like it to have ripened a little more before harvesting.

Welp.

 

[KoriTama]

http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/nUNuA2ai/file.html
Blackguards 2 Animation Speed Mod For Blackguards 2 v1.1.8454 (Steam)
Movement Speed = 3x
Animation Speed = 2x

 

[Bubbles]

http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/nUNuA2ai/file.html
Blackguards 2 Animation Speed Mod For Blackguards 2 v1.1.8454 (Steam)
Movement Speed = 3x
Animation Speed = 2x

If this is toggleable in-game, I strongly recommend everybody play with this from the start. Otherwise, I'd still install it after the halfway point.

No, you didn't miss any content there. This option is not included in the endgame.

For the post mortem, I'd be interested to know if that was planned and scrapped later on or if it was meant to be a bit of a surprise to the player (not: "surprise! you don't have a choice!", but... well, you know)

[talking about C&C content]

It has already been fixed and will be included in the next patch.

but that will be included in the next update.

I suppose a fair review would have to wait a while then.

I'm intrigued. Why would you think that comparing equip/skills would be harder in Blackguards 2?
Maybe you misunderstood: You need to add up the percentages. Like 40% Offense plus 30% Swords/Sabres Skills equals 70% Swords/Sabres Offense.

I know I'm not the addresse of this point, and my main problems with the game are really the encounter design and the simplified character development system (BG1 didn't have jack for C&C and I still enjoyed it much more). I do however agree that there's a basic problem with how to-hit chance is communicated.

For instance, with an offense value that goes from 0 to 100+ and a defense value that covers the same range (simplifying here to ignore the difference between parry and dodge), my immediate instinct would be to assume that somebody with 70 offense would have a 50% chance to hit someone with 70 defense. Maybe a 40% chance to hit someone with 80 defense, and so forth. However, I find that hard to prove in practice. One of the buff spells gives something like +60 dodge to the whole party, which should be monstrously OP, but it only seems to make a small to medium difference at best.
There's also a nitpicky issue with "dodge" not really meaning "dodge", since characters can also "dodge" while knocked down to the ground; I assume "dodge" is general shorthand for "miss" here. I also don't understand how spell dodge works or if it exists at all; I don't recall ever missing with a spell, but the Narrenholz ranged attacks (which look magical to me from the animation) ended up having something like 60% miss chance on my characters by the time the end game rolled around. Do those count as physical special attacks?

There's also, as far as I can tell, no in-game documentation on how the calculations for suffering a wound work. I'm not 100% certain on this because I can't seem to access any gameplay tips except the very last one (another bug?).
I'm also not sure if the skill that gives +15% knockdown resistance simply means that you randomly resist 15% of all knockdown attempts (which isn't really all that good) or if there is something more complex at play here (because the resistance doesn't look to be affected by anything else, nor is it listed anywhere on the character sheet).

There is also a spell that increases saving throws, which I had to see in action on an enemy mage to realize that parry and/or dodging count as saving throws. By the by, this makes me wonder as to the difference between a +60% increase in saving throw when you dodge and a +60 increase in absolute dodging value (does the percentage increase work off the base or perhaps even modified dodge value? does it set your chance to dodge to at least 60%?). And I still have no idea if knockdown or poison have "saving throws".
The rage spell has a saving throw, right? Is it based off anything, or is it a flat value for every player character?

Ranged to-hit calculations are a whole other kettle of fish and make very little sense to me.

With BG1, figuring this sort of thing out was a simple matter of reading the help file *cough* and drawing on the knowledge and pre-existing documentation of the DSA ruleset. With BG2, I usually had no clue.

There's also the question of enemy variety and enemy abilities in the late game. I noticed that there were very few wizards around in the game, and they really used only a small selection of spells. I liked fighting wizards in BG1, but in my playthrough the enemy wizards basically served as weak debuffers who packed a surprising punch in melee (if they bothered to do any direct damage at all). One particular example is the druid boss, who started the fight by turning himself invincible, then cast a weak group debuff, and then proceeded to just stand there while I killed his pets. The fight was still reasonably challenging, but it simply amounted to fighting a lot of the same enemies I'd already been fighting for a while.

Or the inclusion of Overwatch attacks for player archers, which seemingly not a single enemy archer unit was actually capable of. Considering how many of the fights against ranged enemies can be won with a strategy of "haste your ranged fighters, pop out of cover, burn down the enemy, pop back into cover before enemy takes action", I think giving the end game enemies overwatch would have diversified the experience a bit.

I'm also curious to know by what criteria you decided which battles should have seemingly random spawn points (like the optional Takate fight), and which should have fixed spawn points (like the one at the colossus - at least the spawns there looked fixed on two restarts). Or why you decided that traps in the later game should mostly be timer based "you can pass on every second turn" stuff that seemed to give no benefit to characters with the defuse traps mechanic. I assume it was a mixture of improving balance and increasing battle length, but it's more fair not to make assumptions.

There are clearly major AI issues as well, with melee enemies (trained soldiers, mind) just skipping their turns in cover while I sling fireballs into their ranks (and then continuing to do nothing after I've stopped slinging fireballs). Or running into the same traps that they've just seen someone else run into. Or just standing around in burning fire pits and skipping their turns on top of a spike trap.

I don't think you should make a tactical RPG that's 95% combat if your AI holds back on making complex decisions. I won't say "can't make complex decisions", because the ranged insectoid fighters generally seem reasonably smart with targeting their AoEs (although they also seem unable to exploit environmental objects). Even giving melee enemies the "rush the player" AI command if one of their nearby allies is taking damage would have greatly improved the feel of combat. End game difficulty seemed to rely chiefly on the insectoids' ability to teleport straight into the party's back lines at will, and that didn't make for much of an intellectual challenge.

Speaking of intellectual challenge, am I correct in assuming that the final battle AI was hacked so that

Spoiler

when you choose to spare Marwan, he runs straight into the main arena, neglects to cast any spells, and then keeps hovering at a certain distance from the Petrifier so that it's easier to get him petrified? He acted this way - which I would cautiously interpret as "we wanted to offer this option but couldn't make it reliably work without a suicidal AI" both times I played through the battle, and I found it rather odd.

There's also a point to be made here about the special companions, which have a thrillingly OP skill layout compared to recruits, but share the same slots in selection (why would I ever take a regular spear fighter over the dude who does almost double of Takate's dps?) and come with powerful potions that regenerate after every battle. I found that these guys immediately became a crutch to get through the somwhat tedious battles much more quickly, usually even outdamaging my regular party (since I didn't feel like sacrificing mana, poison and stamina potions on every battle). It's completely unsurprising that you're barred from bringing them into the portal boss battles.

There seem to be some huge missed opportunities in the story telling as well, but I'll wait until all the dialogue is accessible before saying anything about that.

Finally, I feel like there are many signs of rushed development on the final few maps (the "parcour of traps" on the first palace map was not exactly a major deterrent, the whole "Takate makes his decision" cutscene just looks hilarious, and those 5 hp spiders weren't really what I expected for the end of that particular segment). I don't expect a comment on that, but I hope that future patches will smooth over the things that are fixable.

 

[Gord]

For instance, with an offense value that goes from 0 to 100+ and a defense value that covers the same range (simplifying here to ignore the difference between parry and dodge), my immediate instinct would be to assume that somebody with 70 offense would have a 50% chance to hit someone with 70 defense. Maybe a 40% chance to hit someone with 80 defense, and so forth. However, I find that hard to prove in practice. One of the buff spells gives something like +60 dodge to the whole party, which should be monstrously OP, but it only seems to make a small to medium difference at best.
There's also a nitpicky issue with "dodge" not really meaning "dodge", since characters can also "dodge" while knocked down to the ground; I assume "dodge" is general shorthand for "miss" here. I also don't understand how spell dodge works or if it exists at all; I don't recall ever missing with a spell, but the Narrenholz ranged attacks (which look magical to me from the animation) ended up having something like 60% miss chance on my characters by the time the end game rolled around. Do those count as physical special attacks?

IMHO this wasn't resolved so well in BG1 either. From my previous experiences with DSA/TDE (both cRPGs and PnP), I would expect a separate throw for the attacker and the defender, while what Deadalic did is somehow offset attack and defense values with each other. I guess they intended to give the different skill values between opponents some larger influence there, but personally I always felt that it made the actual calculations going on behind the scenes less transparent.

 

[twincast]

MMX not selling enough either apparently,no sequel in Ubisoft pipeline.

Erm, the team's working on Heroes VII? Alternating between the two series seems like a good idea to me.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Erm, the team's working on Heroes VII? Alternating between the two series seems like a good idea to me.

Their post-release support of the game ended pretty early though (just two months after launch iirc - coincidentally with the DLC they were obligated to deliver because they already had sold it in the premium version), leaving the game with several (also crashing) bugs.

 

[twincast]

Their post-release support of the game ended pretty early though (just two months after launch iirc - coincidentally with the DLC they were obligated to deliver because they already had sold it in the premium version), leaving the game with several (also crashing) bugs.

True, that, but Ubisoft wouldn't have given Limbic a full Heroes entry (closer in design to III and V than VI, to boot) if MM10 had failed completely. Obviously it didn't sell millions, but nobody expected it to, either. It's more likely that the company's simply too small to run support for a game while working on another.

 

[twincast]

Anyway, my copy of Blackguards 2 arrived today, and installation + patch finished a couple minutes ago, so off I am.

 

[Bubbles]

Reading steam success list "finished chapter 5" achievement is 6.7%, why would they buy the sequel of a game they never finished

By that metric it would be a catastrophic mistake to even consider making a sequel to Original Sin (4.9%).

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

I made the mistake of watching the intro on youtube... if you don't like kittens killed, don't do the same. You don't deserve my money for this, but you may have a free roundkick in the dick. Or 40.

 

[Mortmal]

By that metric it would be a catastrophic mistake to even consider making a sequel to Original Sin (4.9%).

It could be yes , mainstream gamers were dragged in cause it has graphics with a certain blizzard , world of warcraft, feel, and it looks fun on the videos.With the hype building up, good reviews, the game well exposed on steam list, people bought it not knowing it was ..gasp... a true rpg . It's probably too complicated for most, i dont think they enjoyed it as much as we did. If bioware and bethesda went that way of streamlining and dumbing down, there's a reason , they cater to the public.
Hope larian guys dont read me tbh...None do, so should be safe...

I 'd really like to know how well grimrock 2 sold compare to 1 too.

 

[Grunker]

Mortmal: I'd buy Original Sin II and never finished that. I like the first half enough to buy an improved sequel, I was just bored to tears by the second half.

I think you seriously underestimate how many gamers finish just 10% of the games they buy.

 

[Greatness]

I don't understand how anyone could finish D:OS. The writing and setting are irredeemable and the game loses any challenge it might've had around 3/4ths of the way through Cysael. I'd much prefer they adapt their engine to something else and not bother with a sequel. How the fuck did that game get chosen as GotY?

EDIT: Silly mods and their thread splitting with no regards to context. This was a reply to a post about steam achievements that showed only 5% of D:OS players finished the game.