KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

considering that Piere is expanding assets etc for the next campaign I would assume KotC2 manage to be a financial success for him. Nice

On the other hand, Pierre has never struck me as fiscally conservative, Jeff Vogel type.

 

[mediocrepoet]

considering that Piere is expanding assets etc for the next campaign I would assume KotC2 manage to be a financial success for him. Nice

On the other hand, Pierre has never struck me as fiscally conservative, Jeff Vogel type.

Yeah, Pierre's always struck me as a: he wrote a book on economics? ... How?

I do hope this venture is a success for him though. He's made some good stuff.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Man how come the second game manages to look worse than its predecessor. I greatly appreciated the intentionally stylised look (being a reference to Dark Sun I guess?) in the first game, whereas this one took the turn for a more garish and inconsistent appearance, ending up like a jumbled mess (though it does have its charm). Also, the game graphical assets don't seem to scale properly when desktop scaling is set to values other than the default 100% - in particular, the text and UI elements end up pixelated and even deformed sometimes.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Man how come the second game manages to look worse than its predecessor. I greatly appreciated the intentionally stylised look (being a reference to Dark Sun I guess?) in the first game, whereas this one took the turn for a more garish and inconsistent appearance, ending up like a jumbled mess (though it does have its charm). Also, the game graphical assets don't seem to scale properly when desktop scaling is set to values other than the default 100% - in particular, the text and UI elements end up pixelated and even deformed sometimes.

As far as I know, he's always just purchased either art packs or art services from freelancers as needed. He's not much of an artistic fellow (which I sympathize with) and can be stubborn so you can end up with stuff that looks more or less like dog shit. I don't think anyone goes to Pierre's games for art design though anyway, it's sort of a trade off for what you get. You can find pretty pictures in the latest Bioware release.

Maybe someone who's artistically inclined will make some sort of graphics replacement mod down the line, but I wouldn't hold my breath either way.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

mediocrepoet I had zero objections to how the first game looked, but in KoTC 2 dev apparently decided to do his own thing, and it came out worse. Not that it's that big of a hurdle for me, of course, but it's just strange. Why couldn't he preserve the original style, it suited the game so well. Maybe it's somehow related to modability.

 

[mediocrepoet]

mediocrepoet I had zero objections to how the first game looked, but in KoTC 2 dev apparently decided to do his own thing, and it came out worse. Not that it's that big of a hurdle for me, of course, but it's just strange. Why couldn't he preserve the original style, it suited the game so well. Maybe it's somehow related to modability.

There's an answer to this, people were bugging him about it before release, I just don't recall what he said about it. Eventually he put the KotC1 sprites into KotC2, but then it looks even weirder imo because you get a mixture of those guys and other art. Like I say though, as far as I recall, he didn't make them himself.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

KotC 2 was designed initially using token to play like some virtual table top. Then people complained and he started to add KotC1 sprites and I guess he also buy some licensed sprites for the rest of the game because actually doing KotC 1 sprites for all new stuff in KotC 2 is probably going to be very expensive.

 

[ItsChon]

I didn't like tokens at first, but since the sprites are so bad, I just forced myself to make the switch, and by the end, I didn't even notice them. I strongly recommend just using them as you'll get used to them shortly.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Ok, after 8 hours I've finally created my party, now it's time to select the difficulty level and start the game at last. Judging by the descriptions, Very Hard is actually the normal level (no advantages for player, no disadvantages for enemies)?

 

[Serus]

I suggest playing the second most difficult one - don't remember the name (hard?). It's difficult but reasonably so. We had several discussion on that subject here, there is no consensus but the game can be a masochist's dream on hardest level. Still, the hardest one now was the basic = only difficulty at first and is the closest to p&p. Because of that "purists" think it is the only "correct" one to play. I think the game is better balanced for the second hardest one - at least for first play-through. Ymmv.


Only 8 hours?

 

[Covenant]

For what it's worth I'm playing the second hardest (Enchanter) difficulty on my playthrough and it seems well-balanced. I'd want more experience with higher level spells (and forewarning of later encounters) before going up to the hardest setting.

Still having fun with it, though I'm encountering enough bugs that I'm surprised I didn't see more mention of them here. The latest was that a few of the spell scroll choices from the crones seem to not actually give you a scroll (Fly and Mass Hideous Laughter, for example, as well as all of the level 9 druid spells I tried), which justifies my impending slaughter of them far more than a detect evil reading ever could.

 

[Tweed]

Unless you played on 1.0 you niggas ain't real.

 

[Bastardchops]

I suggest playing the second most difficult one - don't remember the name (hard?). It's difficult but reasonably so. We had several discussion on that subject here, there is no consensus but the game can be a masochist's dream on hardest level. Still, the hardest one now was the basic = only difficulty at first and is the closest to p&p. Because of that "purists" think it is the only "correct" one to play. I think the game is better balanced for the second hardest one - at least for first play-through. Ymmv.


Only 8 hours?

How does the difficulty compare to KotC 1?

 

[mediocrepoet]

I suggest playing the second most difficult one - don't remember the name (hard?). It's difficult but reasonably so. We had several discussion on that subject here, there is no consensus but the game can be a masochist's dream on hardest level. Still, the hardest one now was the basic = only difficulty at first and is the closest to p&p. Because of that "purists" think it is the only "correct" one to play. I think the game is better balanced for the second hardest one - at least for first play-through. Ymmv.


Only 8 hours?

How does the difficulty compare to KotC 1?

I haven't played it since he's been nerfing everything, but earlier on it was significantly harder than KOTC1. Assuming you could progress through the bugs anyway.

 

[Bastardchops]

I suggest playing the second most difficult one - don't remember the name (hard?). It's difficult but reasonably so. We had several discussion on that subject here, there is no consensus but the game can be a masochist's dream on hardest level. Still, the hardest one now was the basic = only difficulty at first and is the closest to p&p. Because of that "purists" think it is the only "correct" one to play. I think the game is better balanced for the second hardest one - at least for first play-through. Ymmv.


Only 8 hours?

How does the difficulty compare to KotC 1?

I haven't played it since he's been nerfing everything, but earlier on it was significantly harder than KOTC1. Assuming you could progress through the bugs anyway.

I'd say 1 was a fun challenge but definitely not punishing.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I suggest playing the second most difficult one - don't remember the name (hard?). It's difficult but reasonably so. We had several discussion on that subject here, there is no consensus but the game can be a masochist's dream on hardest level. Still, the hardest one now was the basic = only difficulty at first and is the closest to p&p. Because of that "purists" think it is the only "correct" one to play. I think the game is better balanced for the second hardest one - at least for first play-through. Ymmv.


Only 8 hours?

How does the difficulty compare to KotC 1?

I haven't played it since he's been nerfing everything, but earlier on it was significantly harder than KOTC1. Assuming you could progress through the bugs anyway.

I'd say 1 was a fun challenge but definitely not punishing.

I didn't find KotC1 to be overly challenging up until the final optional event. That kicked my ass.

 

[Serus]

I suggest playing the second most difficult one - don't remember the name (hard?). It's difficult but reasonably so. We had several discussion on that subject here, there is no consensus but the game can be a masochist's dream on hardest level. Still, the hardest one now was the basic = only difficulty at first and is the closest to p&p. Because of that "purists" think it is the only "correct" one to play. I think the game is better balanced for the second hardest one - at least for first play-through. Ymmv.


Only 8 hours?

How does the difficulty compare to KotC 1?

I haven't played it since he's been nerfing everything, but earlier on it was significantly harder than KOTC1. Assuming you could progress through the bugs anyway.

I'd say 1 was a fun challenge but definitely not punishing.

I didn't find KotC1 to be overly challenging up until the final optional event. That kicked my ass.

I have a confession to make. I never won the optional battle. On my single full playthrough i had a party of 2 knights/1 mage/1 cleric. With a party like that that battle would require too much reloads... i tried. If i replay fully Kotc 1 one day i'll go 0 or 1 knight and do it.
Anyone beat it with a melee heavy setup?

 

[Bastardchops]

I suggest playing the second most difficult one - don't remember the name (hard?). It's difficult but reasonably so. We had several discussion on that subject here, there is no consensus but the game can be a masochist's dream on hardest level. Still, the hardest one now was the basic = only difficulty at first and is the closest to p&p. Because of that "purists" think it is the only "correct" one to play. I think the game is better balanced for the second hardest one - at least for first play-through. Ymmv.


Only 8 hours?

How does the difficulty compare to KotC 1?

I haven't played it since he's been nerfing everything, but earlier on it was significantly harder than KOTC1. Assuming you could progress through the bugs anyway.

I'd say 1 was a fun challenge but definitely not punishing.

I didn't find KotC1 to be overly challenging up until the final optional event. That kicked my ass.

I have a confession to make. I never won the optional battle. On my single full playthrough i had a party of 2 knights/1 mage/1 cleric. With a party like that that battle would require too much reloads... i tried. If i replay fully Kotc 1 one day i'll go 0 or 1 knight and do it.
Anyone beat it with a melee heavy setup?

I also didn't with 2 knights 1 mage and cleric.

 

[Reinhardt]

clear case of "not enough knights"

 

[Mortmal]

KotC 2 was designed initially using token to play like some virtual table top. Then people complained and he started to add KotC1 sprites and I guess he also buy some licensed sprites for the rest of the game because actually doing KotC 1 sprites for all new stuff in KotC 2 is probably going to be very expensive.

No one asked for sprites, and you can tell with ease, as there's only on the codex that people speak about this game. Complaints were about the art used on them being absolutely awful and still is. The isometric and sprites really arent that bad , but a waste of time instead of using 2D classic artstyle , even generating itself with AI would give good results.

 

[Serus]

I think sprites look serviceable in the prologue (and the "tutorial" too). It was created with sprites in mind. Most of the game is not so tokens are better. What I'm saying is that the problem is not with sprites or tokens or 2D. All are ugly but they all could have worked anyway. The problem is inconsistency. Pierre should have never changed his mind in the middle of development. Choosing one and sticking to it was the way to go.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I suggest playing the second most difficult one - don't remember the name (hard?). It's difficult but reasonably so. We had several discussion on that subject here, there is no consensus but the game can be a masochist's dream on hardest level. Still, the hardest one now was the basic = only difficulty at first and is the closest to p&p. Because of that "purists" think it is the only "correct" one to play. I think the game is better balanced for the second hardest one - at least for first play-through. Ymmv.


Only 8 hours?

How does the difficulty compare to KotC 1?

I haven't played it since he's been nerfing everything, but earlier on it was significantly harder than KOTC1. Assuming you could progress through the bugs anyway.

I'd say 1 was a fun challenge but definitely not punishing.

I didn't find KotC1 to be overly challenging up until the final optional event. That kicked my ass.

I have a confession to make. I never won the optional battle. On my single full playthrough i had a party of 2 knights/1 mage/1 cleric. With a party like that that battle would require too much reloads... i tried. If i replay fully Kotc 1 one day i'll go 0 or 1 knight and do it.
Anyone beat it with a melee heavy setup?

I also didn't with 2 knights 1 mage and cleric.

Yeah, I too was in the 2 knights "balanced" party group that relatively easily rolls through the OC and then gets completely destroyed at the very end. If/when I replay it, it'll be with a caster-oriented group that's more aimed at trying to win that even though it may make the early game harder.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Wow, the game is asking for a ridiculous amount of 1150 gold just to raise a *single* 1-lvl character to the next level, now isn't it a bit much, considering I've only amassed something about 1300 gold in total by now, and that's all the allowance I have at the moment to support my entire party? I'm thinking about disabling this level-up cost for the time being (or maybe there is a way to lower it just a little bit?), but I have a question - do your characters stop accumulating EXP once they reach the required amount for the next level, until you level them up, or do they continue getting EXP as usual?

Also, is there a way to decrease the speed of the game (and animations) when out of combat? Everything is moving too fast, I have difficulty catching up somethimes.

Also, the interface definitely requires some more work. Like for instance, why when trading with an npc, if I open the character sheet and then go back, I unexpectedly find myself outside the trading screen? Why even put that button there at all, if after clicking it you involuntarily exit the trading screen and have to speak to the npc again to continue trading?

Also, the music in the dialogue with Griffith, lmao... It didn't have to go as hard as it did. I know Griffith is a cool dude and all that, but damn. Weird choice.

 

[CryptRat]

Wow, the game is asking for a ridiculous amount of 1150 gold just to raise a *single* 1-lvl character to the next level, now isn't it a bit much, considering I've only amassed something about 1300 gold in total by now, and that's all the allowance I have at the moment to support my entire party? I'm thinking about disabling this level-up cost for the time being (or maybe there is a way to lower it just a little bit?)

You're certainly craving in the beginning but then it gets more and more affordable as you advance, which is fine. I would not disable it.

do your characters stop accumulating EXP once they reach the required amount for the next level, until you level them up, or do they continue getting EXP as usual?

Not only do they keep accumulating EXP but they even get more the lower their level is. I think that during later parts waiting a bit on purpose before leveling up when current fights feel "easy" is fine.

 

[Covenant]

Would appreciate a spoiler on the following - is there any benefit to keeping the magic lamp rather than using it?