Kingdom Come - Deliverance

Malf on 15/2/2018 at 13:07

Neb, what language have you set your audio to?
I just ask, 'cos the English language voice acting is pretty cringe-worthy so far for me.
And I'm struggling to like it, as it keeps getting in the way. I've just got to the stage where I'm trying to get out of the second castle (guessing I'm still in the intro), and it keeps putting barriers in the way of fun.

Neb on 15/2/2018 at 13:25

English, but it sounds fine to me. I'm spending less time than other games pretending characters are acting as they should to get engrossed.

inn-sidious on 15/2/2018 at 13:44

This game has some interesting bugs.

[video=youtube;TgTGg1kUQCo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgTGg1kUQCo[/video]

Sulphur on 15/2/2018 at 14:46

Quote Posted by Malf

I dunno about that, it sounds like a mix of accents that ranges from decent to phoned in, but there's nothing to cringe at so far? The main bloke's overly earnest but it's almost endearing.

As for the actual game, it's pretty much an RPG by way of ArmA in some ways, so I don't think fun or streamlining was the order of the day here. Stuff like the convo checks and save system definitely seem to be implying you deal with stuff however you feel like, but then let the chips fall where they may.

Ostriig on 19/2/2018 at 11:55

So I got to sink two hours into this yesterday and I'm relieved. I hope I don't eat my words later, but I'm running a High preset with Global Illumination and Shadows throttled to Medium and it's staying north of 45fps for now even with torchlight. Will have to see how things progress once I reach the more populated areas which is where things get rough, supposedly, I don't mind dropping down to Medium overall as long as my framerate doesn't dip under 40.

Anyway, the game's a looker, no argument, it has all the latest graphical bells and whistles and a real sense of scale to the world. Funnily enough this is my first CryEngine title. The game world looks authentic, to the best I can judge, and I'm getting a peculiar whiff of STALKER about how it's built, which is very appealing. I also love the art direction in the UI, the way the map and character screens look, blending period illumination styles into skeumorphics that hark back to Infinity Engine interfaces. Character models and textures are higher fidelity than The Witcher 3's, though facial animations, while fine enough, lack the finesse and subtelty of CDPR's work. There are a couple of inexplicably absent technical settings, such as control over Anti-Aliasing and V-Sync, though Vavra's promised they should be added in short order.

The essential controls are easy to pick up and it doesn't take long to start figuring out the interface and what RPG stats you need to track. The game expands on the basic form of survival mechanics from STALKER, including things like bleeding, exhaustion, hunger (overindulging which slaps you with a debuff lovingly represented by a pig's head), but it seems to stop short of the tedious micromanagement of the actual survival genre.

Now, combat... I've only had an opportunity to do a sword training session and to box a drunk, but I'm not entirely sold on it yet. I expect there's a serious learning curve by design and that various perks and skill progression will make a significant difference, but I also get the feeling this works better with a controller than a mouse. Specifically, choosing your attack direction struck me as difficult to control with minor movements of a mouse, whereas a thumbstick I imagine will be a lot easier to push into the appropriate position.

I haven't had an opportunity to deal with the game's other novel feature, the armour layering system, unless you count getting Henry's shirt ripped and bloodied in a fistfight. But it all looks pretty impressive on other characters, at least.

Oh, and the save system... Yeah, I modded that right out, just hope Warhorse don't get all auteur and try to break the relevant hack. Just block achievements and let me savescum in peace. If any of you guys want make your lives easier, it's (https://www.nexusmods.com/kingdomcomedeliverance/mods/1) right here.

Anyway, it's early days, I'm only two hours in and haven't even learned lockpicking yet. Could go either way, but first impressions are good and I found myself wanting to play more last night but, you know, gotta wake up in the morning.

Bucky Seifert on 20/2/2018 at 08:16

How much meaningful role playing is there in the game? I know you are playing a preset character with a set personality, but how much agency do you have in terms of how he behaves in the game world and interacts with NPCs? I guess another way to put it is on a scale of Fallout 4 to Fallout 2, how is the role playing?

Malf on 20/2/2018 at 12:55

I've played a lot more of this, and am enjoying it a lot more than I originally was. The voice acting is still ropey, but I'm now in the phase where the game isn't getting in the way.

Ostriig: there's a second combat tutorial when you get further along the main story which really helps, and I think until you've actually played that sequence, certain important visual cues aren't visible (the game does a lot of this, locking features behind progression without explicitly telling the player).

I too modded out the stupid save thing almost immediately. And while I'm usually a fan of lockpicking minigames, the one in this sucks massive donkey-cock and is nothing like really picking a lock. So I've modded that out too, instead having locks only open when I've reached the required skill level.

However, I have ran in to a serious bug that's now preventing me from advancing the main storyline, and worryingly, it looks like this was reported 2 years ago during development and hasn't been fixed.
Basically, I can no longer sit down anywhere. If I do, it locks me in place and locks out all controls except for attack, which thankfully breaks the lock. And there's a main story quest which involves you sitting down, which I simply can't do.

It also prevents me from reading (have to sit to read), and sleeping, but I can offset the need to sleep by visiting bath-houses instead.

That aside, it's a very fun game. Just hope they fix it soon.

Ostriig on 20/2/2018 at 14:55

I've seen a couple of mods for lockpicking that I'm keeping an eye on. I want to try it for myself but I really doubt I'll want to keep it stock, even Bethesda Game™ lockpicking gets on my nerves after a bit, albeit not to the point of modding it. I look forward to the next fencing tutorial, though, it was more fun than the boxing bit.

I think patch 1.3 should be coming within a week or so with a bunch of bugfixes, they'll want to get that out in time for the GOG launch.

Quote Posted by Buccura

How much meaningful role playing is there in the game?

On a scale of Fallout 4 to ~~Fallout 2~~ Planescape: Torment, I suspect this game will be about a Witcher 3. Jokes aside, I'm not qualified to comment yet, based off the opening area and the promotional materials it's not Fallout 4 and there are choices to make and different approaches to take, though not necessarily signposted, but I'll have to play more to see just how much agency you get.

Malf on 20/2/2018 at 17:01

Thanks to the way people behave towards you depending on your actions and the layered faction system (guards in a town may have a different opinion of you than civvies for example), there's a lot of interesting ways to play the minute-to-minute content.

Then there's whether you're dressed in rich clothing, knight's armour, dark clothing or stinky rags, each eliciting different responses from different people. I'd say it's pretty deep from an role-playing perspective.

For example, whilst driven by practicality, I have two outfits depending on what I intend to do. If I'm interacting with people in broad daylight or fast-travelling, I'll put on my shiny armour. This in turn results in people addressing me with respect, calling me "Sir Knight" and variations thereof.

If I'm sneaking about, whether that be in town robbing houses, or stalking bandits in the woods at night, I'll be wearing dark, quiet clothing, and people again address me accordingly, noting that I look a bit shifty. Guards even seem more likely to stop and search me.

So I find my behaviour changing based on what I'm wearing. Pretty cool.

Neb on 20/2/2018 at 17:19

There's also a pretty neat perk called 'art connoisseur' that gives you a temporary boost to charisma whenever you discover a new fresco or shrine.

I went down the vanilla route and didn't install the save game mod. I learnt to read and learnt the herbalism skill. Spent a lot of time tracking down the ingredients for the save potion (best hidden object game of 2018 nomination right here) and then learnt alchemy. Fucking hell is it OTT. Each potion needs up to 3 ingredients which need to go into the cauldron at different times, and the mixture has to be brought to boil using a bellows for a certain amount of turns of an egg timer. Some of the ingredients need to be ground with a pestle and mortar first, and some also need distilling afterwards. If you fail a step, no potion or starting ingredients for you.

So, now I have all the Saviour Schnapps I need, and I've bumped up my alchemy skills. I went and bought a book containing the recipe for bane potion because it sounds badass and can kill people. I'm going to try sneaking up to a bandit camp at night and putting that shit in the cooking pot, and wait until morning to check out what happens. It's cool that all the AI have routines. I noticed that in shops, they get up in the morning and have breakfast and wash before opening up, like it's The Sims or something.

I've also been having fun following the treasure maps. I found an unmarked grave under a lone tree. Had a dead couple buried together and I looted a loaded die, so I went on a tour of the bars just to cheat at that dice game.