Lessons learned from Tainted Grail: Conquest

[PatDay]

So I've been playing a lot of Tainted Grail: Conquest (on gamepass) and it's a game I want to love, but it just doesn't bring the pieces together into a cohesive package. I'm hoping that the developers are taking notes and learning lessons from it so it can be rolled into this game. I have a lot of little complaints (about graphical issues, quest tracking, flood of garbage cards, etc), but ultimately there's just one major issue that absolutely has to be addressed: The complete lack of game balance.

There's such a massive difference in the various classes/sub-classes that should be apparent past the first few difficulties. By the time you get to difficulty 15+, there's only a couple of viable classes/builds and everything else is either near impossible to win with or a complete grind.

Awaken Realms Digital: Please finish this game strong!

[Zothen]

Maybe somebody should explain to you that Fall of Avalon is a port from the original boardgame. So its the same "balance" as the board game. Nothing to adress for the devs.

[Whirblewind]

Originally posted by Zothen:

Maybe somebody should explain to you that Fall of Avalon is a port from the original boardgame. So its the same "balance" as the board game. Nothing to adress for the devs.

Uhh... it's not a port, and it was never meant to be. We were told even before the board game shipped that the PC game wouldn't play the same as the board game. Bit of egg on your face, eh?

[Joruli]

Originally posted by Whirblewind:

Originally posted by Zothen:

Maybe somebody should explain to you that Fall of Avalon is a port from the original boardgame. So its the same "balance" as the board game. Nothing to adress for the devs.

Uhh... it's not a port, and it was never meant to be. We were told even before the board game shipped that the PC game wouldn't play the same as the board game. Bit of egg on your face, eh?

I'm an all-in Kickstarter backer.

Update 20: BTW posted December 22, 2018 (we are dam near 3 years from this post)

"Now, the time has finally come to share with you something we started working on a few months ago. Tainted Grail will go digital (PC)! Not as a simple board game port, but a totally new experience crafted from grounds up for the digital medium."

"The game is handled by a separate group of video game developers and artists who joined Awaken Realms specifically for this project - so if you’re worried that it will somehow slow down the development of the tabletop edition, you can stop now. In fact, the idea that a lot of writing and art would also be used in a digital project was one of the factors that encouraged us to promise sooo much content in the tabletop campaign." <underline added by me>

"While the video game borrows a general feel, ideas, art, writing, and design from the tabletop game, we’re not aiming for a straight digital conversion. Instead, Tainted Grail for PC will be an adaptation that makes full use of strengths of its new medium, expanding some mechanics and changing core systems in a way that would introduce too much upkeep and too many components for a board game to handle." <underline added by me>

"The aim is to capture the desperate struggle for survival, the thrill of exploration, and the immersive, non-linear story of the tabletop Tainted Grail using gameplay language more suited to a cRPG. In short, our developers work hard to make the digital Grail stand on its own legs." <underline added by me>

CONQUEST:
Pros: graphics and Animation
Cons: separate group of developers..."if you're worried that it will somehow slow down the development of the ""Tabletop edition"", you can stop now", no ideas, no writing, no design from the tabletop game, no thrill of exploration, not immersive, no non-linear story, no cRPG feel,

FoA:
Pros: ???
Cons: doesn't exist

[Joruli]

Originally posted by PatDay:

So I've been playing a lot of Tainted Grail: Conquest (on gamepass) and it's a game I want to love, but it just doesn't bring the pieces together into a cohesive package. I'm hoping that the developers are taking notes and learning lessons from it so it can be rolled into this game. I have a lot of little complaints (about graphical issues, quest tracking, flood of garbage cards, etc), but ultimately there's just one major issue that absolutely has to be addressed: The complete lack of game balance.

There's such a massive difference in the various classes/sub-classes that should be apparent past the first few difficulties. By the time you get to difficulty 15+, there's only a couple of viable classes/builds and everything else is either near impossible to win with or a complete grind.

Awaken Realms Digital: Please finish this game strong!

I removed my original response for a do over. What you have posted I believe belongs in the Conquest game discussion page. Although you are concerned that what you are seeing could somehow affect the FoA version of the game is very speculative at this point especially considering FoA doesn't really exist. FoA the board game has 5 characters/classes (or 6...I haven't played my board game version in quite some time), anyway the Conquest classes/subclasses are garbage (and yes not balanced) but really should have Nothing to do with FoA in my opinion nor in the discussion threads for TG: FoA.

[OlMaltelO]

Originally posted by Joruli:

Originally posted by Whirblewind:

Uhh... it's not a port, and it was never meant to be. We were told even before the board game shipped that the PC game wouldn't play the same as the board game. Bit of egg on your face, eh?

I'm an all-in Kickstarter backer.

Update 20: BTW posted December 22, 2018 (we are dam near 3 years from this post)

"Now, the time has finally come to share with you something we started working on a few months ago. Tainted Grail will go digital (PC)! Not as a simple board game port, but a totally new experience crafted from grounds up for the digital medium."

"The game is handled by a separate group of video game developers and artists who joined Awaken Realms specifically for this project - so if you’re worried that it will somehow slow down the development of the tabletop edition, you can stop now. In fact, the idea that a lot of writing and art would also be used in a digital project was one of the factors that encouraged us to promise sooo much content in the tabletop campaign." <underline added by me>

"While the video game borrows a general feel, ideas, art, writing, and design from the tabletop game, we’re not aiming for a straight digital conversion. Instead, Tainted Grail for PC will be an adaptation that makes full use of strengths of its new medium, expanding some mechanics and changing core systems in a way that would introduce too much upkeep and too many components for a board game to handle." <underline added by me>

"The aim is to capture the desperate struggle for survival, the thrill of exploration, and the immersive, non-linear story of the tabletop Tainted Grail using gameplay language more suited to a cRPG. In short, our developers work hard to make the digital Grail stand on its own legs." <underline added by me>

CONQUEST:
Pros: graphics and Animation
Cons: separate group of developers..."if you're worried that it will somehow slow down the development of the ""Tabletop edition"", you can stop now", no ideas, no writing, no design from the tabletop game, no thrill of exploration, not immersive, no non-linear story, no cRPG feel,

FoA:
Pros: ???
Cons: doesn't exist

"Tabletop edition" in this context refers to the actual boardgame - as in: digital development will not slow down the process of making the actual boardgame.
"Seperate group of developers" was in this context meant as "no staff will be removed from the boardgame, but rather new people got hired" - down the line, as board game finished up, the digital team got a lot of help from the boardgame department - and the story for conquest was written by Krzysztof Piskorski, the very same author that wrote the board game stories, and in fact a lot of Conquest encounters borrow dialogue and narrative FROM the boardgames (which only becomes apparent when you know the board games - and ties into the whole conquest narrative of it playing in a limbo, outside of the real time line).
Conquest was never meant as cRPG with a non-linear story and a TON of exploration. In fact they wanted to keep exploration in conquest as simple as possible, to maintain focus on gameplay - because thats what Conquest mostly was about. All these things are supposed to go in the FoA digital adaptation.
From what I was told, FoA will have a much more fleshed out text-exploration, where they can play a bit more with different branching outcomes, compared to what was possible in conquest.
But in the end, all of this remains to be seen. I agree, its been like forever, since we last heard something about FoA, and Im all on board for them finally showing something, but at the same time I really want something that is great, rather than a rushed mess of something that could have been good. I have great faith in the ability of the devs, they are great guys, they listen a lot to community feedback, while maintaining their own vision of the game, and I can say I feel the game (i.e. Conquest) has come very far over the past <2 years. If you compare the closed beta release state (or even the EA release state) to how it is today - they are worlds apart!
I can definitely understand your frustration, but I think we just gotta be a bit more patient! :)