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AoD Combat Demo R3 Released

Jora

Arcane
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Droog White Smile said:
So you're saying that Dragon Age's combat is chaotic while heavily luck based Fallout-style TB somehow isn't? Oookaay.
First of all, I was speaking about AoD, not Fallout. And when I said that the combat is chaotic I meant that it's difficult to keep control of the player characters and follow everything that's going on on the screen.
 
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GarfunkeL said:
Plus, the various attacks actually are different. When you get to know the system, you notice the difference between fast and power attacks. Then you have the aimed attacks with various bonuses (disarm, tripping, knockout) plus throwing and whirlwind. Add that that attacks of opportunity and the way that different weapons really ARE different and you have a good system.

Especially as combat is one path in the game, amongst many others so the combat system doesn't even have to carry the whole game on its shoulders.

Sure, the attacks and weapon functions are different. But there is pretty much always a best one. Different weapons are good, but you only use 1 or 2 so its not like you can switch around for a different battle. The different attacks boil down to 1 that does the most efficient damage and, possibly, one that you use to otherwise incapacitate your enemy.

I do hope that the non-combat aspects will be well developed enough that the game can rest on them. Fallout was good and certainly had less interesting combat, but it doesn't mean that Fallout wouldn't be improved if the combat was better. The same goes for AoD.

Soulforged said:
Both statements are untrue. In Age of Decadence a lot of work and thought has been put into making the mechanics as deterministic as possible, there's random factors still, but luck wont play a part in your victory or defeat unless your skills and those of your enemy are evenly matched or generally close to each other, otherwise you wont have any chance against your opponents/s or viceversa. Also terrain, positioning, armor and weapon types are taken much more into account than they were on Fallout. These are obvious things, the fact that you didn't notice them makes me think you did not play the demo.

So is the entire game going to be fights against opponents who are always less skilled then you? I would hope not.

While I wouldn't say AoD's combat is chaotic, I would say it feels... soulless. There really isn't much to do during the fights other then go through the same motions every time until the enemy dies. The point of a turn based system is to give the player time to think and make decisions, but as a spear user the only decision I ever made during battle was "Step forward, aimed attack at arms (or whatever), step back and hope I stop him from advancing. Repeat"
 

Soulforged

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Overweight Manatee said:
So is the entire game going to be fights against opponents who are always less skilled then you? I would hope not.
That's when your skills as a tactical player show up.

EDIT: I mean when your opponent's skill and yours are evenly matched.
 

Chaud

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Overweight Manatee said:
Sure, the attacks and weapon functions are different. But there is pretty much always a best one. Different weapons are good, but you only use 1 or 2 so its not like you can switch around for a different battle. The different attacks boil down to 1 that does the most efficient damage and, possibly, one that you use to otherwise incapacitate your enemy.

Although what you said is partly true, I don't think that it's 100% correct. Yes, you can change weapons during the game, but your skill with different weapons cannot be changed so easily. Looking at the conversations in IT's forums, you can see that different people had very different experiences with different character builds. If you have 180 skill points in sword, switching to a bow where you have only 55 points isn't always helpful. If your dodge is not working so well, simply using an armor will not always be enough to save you.

So although there is rather a, ideal "build" for each meeting, the problem is that you cannot just use it whenever you want. Here, you will use your decision-making ability, in which skills to spend your points, which use armor, etc... Wich is much easier in the demo, as Vince said that you get too many points to spend after every battle. It won't be so simple in the game, I hope. Not that I'm saying that the game is very complex, mind you. For an experienced player, I find that the best way to confront their adversaries should be nothing very mysterious.

But I still think that this system isn't so bad as ppl say it is.

Overweight Manatee said:
So is the entire game going to be fights against opponents who are always less skilled then you? I would hope not.

As far as I know, this will depend a lot more of you than the game. There is no kind of "level scaling", which means that strong enemies are always strong, and weak enemies are always weak. Ultimately, your decisions are going to take you to face a determined combat, so if you're facing an enemy much stronger/weaker than you... It was your choice.

But I understand what you mean. Surely, AoD would have benefited from a party system. Why Vince chose not to, only he can say.
 

Blind Eye

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The society of bitchers and whiners.
Jesus Christ Drog, your butthurt and envy just seeeeeth out of your pores. Pathetic really.

I'm very much looking forward to this game. Mostly for its non combat game play. The fact that they are, at least, trying to make combat interesting in a game that doesen't even requior it, is a great sign.
 
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Blind Eye said:
Jesus Christ Drog, your butthurt and envy just seeeeeth out of your pores. Pathetic really.
Everyone criticizing the most excellent game Age of Decadence is a pathetic troll who's obviously butthurt!

Seriously, though, fuck off. I hated the Fallout combat and it saddens me that VD is such a Fallout fanatic that he blindly copied the shitty mechanics.
 

Hory

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As oposed to Arcanum's (which I don't see you criticising nearly as much), Fallout's combat is good for what it is (single-character control, modern weapons). Which games did this better? It's silly to call it shitty when you can only name a few others (or none at all).
So I guess the question is whether Fallout should have been party oriented as well. I don't think it should have. It's precisely because combat has not been focused that Fallout was developed so well in other areas. It's a C&C RPG, not a tactics RPG, as AoD also tries to.
 
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Hory said:
As oposed to Arcanum's (which I don't see you criticising nearly as much)
It's common knowledge that it isn't even worth discussing. It's just a mess.
Hory said:
Fallout's combat is good for what it is.
Fallout 3 is also good for what it is, as VD stated in his review.
Hory said:
Which games did this better?
JA2, Silent Storm, etc.
Hory said:
So I guess the question is whether Fallout should have been party oriented as well. I don't think it should have. It's precisely because combat has not been focused that Fallout was developed so well in other areas. It's a C&C RPG, not a tactics RPG, as AoD also tries to.
The combat was a pretty large chunk of Fallout's gameplay. You can't deny that the game could have been much better if it had a proper party and a better balanced character system.
 

Hory

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Hory said:
JA2, Silent Storm, etc.
But those aren't anything like single-character RPGs such as Fallout, maybe precisely because of the focus on tactics.

The combat was a pretty large chunk of Fallout's gameplay. You can't deny that the game could have been much better if it had a proper party and a better balanced character system.
I deny that Fallout should be criticised for something which no game has ever achieved: highly tactical combat and highly interactive quests. Fallout does a lot of things right. JA2 does a lot of things right. Calling Fallout's combat shitty is as silly as calling JA2's quests shitty. Fallout and JA2 are rare games as it is. You can't have it all.
 

Trash

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Since every mayor developer has abandoned the genre my best bet will be indie developers. And this still looks like it's going to be the best real rpg out for the foreseeable future.
 
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I should probably mention that since AoD doesn't have guns/modern weaponry, the better examples of games with proper TB combat would be ToEE and the like. Funnily enough, even though VD worships Tim Cain, he still decided to rip-off his first game instead of the third (which was much more mature in terms of the mechanics). Guess, ToEE's mechanics are just much harder to copy.

Trash said:
Since every mayor developer has abandoned the genre my best bet will be indie developers. And this still looks like it's going to be the best real rpg out for the foreseeable future.
But VD himself said that Dragon Age is the best RPG since Arcanum!
 

Trash

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Yeah, and that game has been in production for years when they were independent. Now that EA is running the show I wouldn't expect either Bio to last very long or keep producing rpg's much longer. Apart from some Russian developers who produce mostly buggy shitfests and the Germans who made the sub-par Drakensang the whole scene seems to be as dry as ever. Unless some of the suits decide that rpg's are viable now they see how good Dragon Age has been selling I don't expect the market to suddenly become any different.
 

Hory

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Droog White Smile said:
I should probably mention that since AoD doesn't have guns/modern weaponry, the better examples of games with proper TB combat would be ToEE and the like.
Not really. ToEE's tactics revolve around magic fantasy. AoD is, like Fallout, about melee and ranged weapons. And this aspect is developed more deeply than in ToEE.
Funnily enough, even though VD worships Tim Cain, he still decided to rip-off his first game
Oh, now making a game in an existing genre is ripping off? The butthurt is strong in this one.
instead of the third (which was much more mature in terms of the mechanics). Guess, ToEE's mechanics are just much harder to copy.
Maybe they are! That's why the game wasn't as good in other areas. I'd rather have a Fallout-like than a ToEE-like.
 
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Hory said:
Droog White Smile said:
I should probably mention that since AoD doesn't have guns/modern weaponry, the better examples of games with proper TB combat would be ToEE and the like.
Not really. ToEE's tactics revolve around magic fantasy. AoD is, like Fallout, about melee and ranged weapons. And this aspect is developed more deeply than in ToEE.
ToEE without magic is still better than Fallout without guns.

Hory said:
Funnily enough, even though VD worships Tim Cain, he still decided to rip-off his first game
Oh, now making a game in an existing genre is ripping off? The butthurt is strong in this one.
Jesus, they even took almost the whole UI straight from Fallout. Don't even try to argue this point.
 
In My Safe Space
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Codex 2012
Soulforged said:
As for Fallout: the luck factor was stronger, certainly, but not enough to call it "luck based", that's implying you could safely rely on luck to win any battle and that's not true.
Luck was too important - for example you could hit people's eyes 95%, but you couldn't reliably eliminate people with eye/headshots.
On the other hand, in GURPS, you would automatically get a 3x damage modifier for hitting someone in the brain area of skull and an automatic knockout above certain damage threshold.
Also, eye shots would blind when over 2 damage is done.
The same with crippling limbs - damage over certain value automatically cripples limbs.

IMO they got the whole thing wrong - chances for hit should be lower (certainly not getting 95% to eye-shots on relatively low levels) but killing/crippling when actually hitting vital areas should be much more reliable.

Anyway, if Fallout would retain GURPS, the combat would be very close to JA2.
 

Hory

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Droog White Smile said:
ToEE without magic is still better than Fallout without guns.
Except magic is not the equivalent of guns. Bows, crossbows and slings are.

Jesus, they even took almost the whole UI straight from Fallout. Don't even try to argue this point.
Because clearly the interface makes the game.
 
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Hory said:
Droog White Smile said:
ToEE without magic is still better than Fallout without guns.
Except magic is not the equivalent of guns. Bows, crossbows and slings are.
My point is that ToEE already has medieval weapons, there's no need for any "equivalents".

Hory said:
Droog White Smile said:
Jesus, they even took almost the whole UI straight from Fallout. Don't even try to argue this point.
Because clearly the interface makes the game.
No, it's just one of the many things that ITS "borrowed" from Fallout.
 

Silellak

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I hate when people create spiritual successors to highly-praised games that weren't emulated nearly often enough by games that followed. I wish more people would just copy Oblivion.
 
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I don't think it's particularly reasonable to expect your RPGs to offer combat on par with strategy games (especially when you mention the best the tactical turn-based genre has to offer, like JA2). For one thing, this isn't very easy to pull off and RPGs that do have advanced combat of this sort usually have little else to offer (ToEE, KotC).
Then there's also the fact that tactical combat favours player skill. Fallout combat is fun. It has some tactical elements, but, once your character makes enough progress to be able to get that 95% hit chance when aiming for the eyes, it doesn't really matter whether you (the player) are Garry Kasparov or Mike Tyson. I don't see this as a drawback.
AoD's combat is a bit more tactical than Fallout (more options, minor changes to equipment and skill balance have greater impact) and about as fun from what I've seen. I have no problem with that at all.

Having said that, everyone should be allowed to have a hobby. Drog's hobby is trolling AoD threads. I have no problem with that, either. I just personally find his Arcanum patches a lot more enjoyable.
 

Evilhyde

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Marquess Cornwallis said:
AoD's combat is a bit more tactical than Fallout (more options, minor changes to equipment and skill balance have greater impact) and about as fun from what I've seen. I have no problem with that at all.

This pretty much sums up how I feel about it. Fallout's system works well for a character based RPG. The only problems I had with it was that it was maybe a bit too simple and that there was too much combat in the game. AoD seems to tweak both those problems fairly well as its a little more tactical and quite a few character builds will be able to skip combat altogether.

ToEE's system was awesome, but then it was a combat-heavy party-based game. All the complaints about AoD's system being bad since it is non party-based would only increase if it had a system like ToEE.
 

Severian Silk

Guest
So are there no parties at all, or are your party members simply not under your control?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Party as in people who join you on your quest and travel with you? No. Sometimes you will be able to secure some faction's help and they will send some people to back you up or do the fighting for you, or, if you join the Imperial Guards, you'll be frequently fighting next to your comrades in arms, but you will never control your allies in any way.
 

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