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AoD demo discussion.

likaq

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Messages
1,198
Release of Age of Decadence combat demo incline me to finally register in both ITS and codex forum.
I've been lurking around here and ITS for nearly 2 years and guessed I might
as well register now to get some interest discussion ( mainly about rpg design ) and
add finally my voice to the forum after 2 years when i only reading.

To AoD team:

Combat demo is good, very good.
Graphic is good* , animations is superb ( it's quite ironic, when 5 man team can make better animations than AAA developer like Bethsoft... Just compare animations in Oblivious and in AoD :lol: ), writing is very good . Music and combat is also excelent .
I post my more detailed impressions/suggestions on ITS forum.
I don't have arena master crash even though I using old version of aod.exe.
Only save corruption bug is annoying but Nick already fix that.
When new version of combat demo will be released?


* interiors are simply awesome Oscar, f.e:

thievesguildinterior3.jpg



When we expect full game?
3 or 4 quarter 2010?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
likaq said:
To AoD team:

Combat demo is good, very good.
Graphic is good* , animations is superb ( it's quite ironic, when 5 man team can make better animations than AAA developer like Bethsoft... Just compare animations in Oblivious and in AoD :lol: ), writing is very good . Music and combat is also excelent .
I post my more detailed impressions/suggestions on ITS forum.
Thanks. Glad you liked it.

I don't have arena master crash even though I using old version of aod.exe.
Only save corruption bug is annoying but Nick already fix that.
When new version of combat demo will be released?
Nick has fixed a lot of (hopefully all) issues already. We'll test the new build and if it's good, release it in a day or two.

When we expect full game? 3 or 4 quarter 2010?
Q4 most likely.
 

OSK

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
7,993
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Vault Dweller said:
Basically, shields must be destructible because a blocker has two lines of defense: shield, which blocks attacks completely, and heavy armor, which absorbs a lot of damage.

But I was playing a blocker who was wearing light armor to keep my AP up!
 

Melcar

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
35,205
Location
Merida, again
Yeah, if you're playing a blocker you must go the heavy armor route. However, maybe it was just luck, but when I was playing a high AP buckler and dagger dude he never got the shield broken once.
 

Melcar

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
35,205
Location
Merida, again
Is the only effective way to play a crossbowman with dodge? I'm trying a CS specialist and it sucks ass. Also, what determines the knockdown effect? I already got 200+ on crossbows and it doesn't do shit. Can't get pass the Triarii.
 

tarkin

Augur
Joined
Apr 27, 2005
Messages
939
Wasteland 2
Triarii Leader doesn't have a helmet, shoot him in the face. I defeated the other two with repeated shots in the chest. Also try to lure them out, move around so the don't have a clear shot otherwise they can fuck you up with throwing axes.
 

Seymour

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
152
Played it a couple of times around and I'm really impressed by how good the game looks and plays. I think it's shaping up to be pretty awesome, so kudos to everyone at ITS.

Combat is solid and varied enough in fighting and using different builds that it avoids becoming tedious, and I especially liked the way the AI responds to your tactics, doesn't easily break formation when in groups, etc. I do feel the game to be really lacking in balance between light and heavy fighters, though. Heavy armored blockers are insanely more reliable than dodgers, having not only as good a chance to completely evade attacks against all but axe-wielders but also way better DR and, even more important, critical defense. Nearly every hit that gets through to a dodger is a critical, and it strongly gimps this play style. Maybe it's something I did, but I had a hard time getting a light armored character through most fights without reloads, while a first timer sword+shield user got all the way through the demo losing only to the butcher a couple of times. Light fighters' better mobility wasn't much of an advantage against anyone but ranged attackers due to attacks of opportunity - the risk of taking a single hit is pretty steep to dodgers - and even then my blocker was able to kill them only with AoOs.

On the side of polish, I also get the hourglass bug a lot while manoeuvering about, which made spears all but unplayable. Reloading crossbows was something of a chore, maybe an option for auto-reload is in order. Also, I love how being a dick to townspeople will trigger different endings, even though the AI for npcs and guards isn't fully implemented yet.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Seymour said:
I do feel the game to be really lacking in balance between light and heavy fighters, though. Heavy armored blockers are insanely more reliable than dodgers...
There are plenty of people who are absolutely certain that there is a balance problem and that dodgers are insanely more reliable than blockers. Like I said I see it as a sign of well balanced system.
 

Melcar

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
35,205
Location
Merida, again
I find heavy blockers just as reliable as light dodgers. Now, what is pissing me off is that I can't have a good light blocker. Well you can, but it's just a severely gimped build compared to a heavy blocker. A heavy dodger is more useful.
 

Martin

Educated
Joined
Nov 24, 2009
Messages
678
Location
Lusitania
I got a very good impression from the demo overall. There is a certain addicting quality to the combat which can only mean its a well designed system.

I didnt like the arena master dialog very much, I hope its not a good example of the dialog style in other characters in the full game.. I think profanity is definately a plus but the arena master's lines sometimes gave me the impression I was talking with a contemporary illegal street fighting manager or something. Just an opinion.

Also are there any combat moves/options that arent available in the combat demo but will be available in the full game?

Some very minor faults that I can think of:

- I think it would help the combat pace alot if you could hold down the left mouse button while placing a cursor over the enemy you wish to attack and open the combat options menu, that or some other solution that didnt require moving the cursor to the weapon slot all the time. Are there hotkeys for every combat option?

- Maybe there should also be an option to keep the camera centered on the character at all times instead of clicking the eye button whenever you want to recenter it.

- The text box seems a little small considering the amount and size of text lines that pop up. Maybe the size of the right side of the interface panel could be reduced in favor of the text box?


These are only opinions of course, at these stage of development these details are probably already set in stone.

But the game seems very solid indeed for an indie project, and the combat is challenging and interesting enough for me to reload over and over to beat the difficult fights.

Congratulations to Iron Tower. Hell I might actually buy this.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Martin said:
I think profanity is definately a plus but the arena master's lines sometimes gave me the impression I was talking with a contemporary illegal street fighting manager or something.
He is, to some degree. That's why he's outside looking for the right candidates. His arena makes money as long as there are plenty of fights and they are entertaining enough.
 

hal900x

Augur
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
573
Location
A good place to own a gun.
Be careful about taking the opposed opinions on builds as gospel that the game is balanced. What I have seen so far is that most builds can take on most opponents. BUT...certain opponents are incredibly difficult, too difficult, against certain builds. Now, it may be that there are some glitches, miscalculations, bugs or what have you, that cause this viewpoint (as opposed to lack of balance). I say that because I have had weird things happen like I try 60 times against the butcher, give up and turn off the computer. Then I come back that night and kill him the first try because strangely, his 70% successful crit rate has vanished. Maybe a random number generator is being reset per session? I mean, I've seen random number generation do some pretty strange things, granted. I know you have to be careful about reading too much into them, because they do get natural streaks you could SWEAR were bugs or human intervention. But damn...
 

Morkar Left

Guest
I had some time testing the combat demo and here are my mixed impressions in short form:

- Fonts are too small for my reading convenience. Maybe it should be adjustable, especially if the game is textheavy.

- APs should be shown in the "Choose your attack" - menu for every attacktype before selecting the attack.

- Shields break way to easy. As it is now there is no point to focus on shields in the main game because they will break EVERY fucking fight. To make use of shields you would have to carry at least 10 shields in your inventory. This reminds me of Kotor Shield-Generators. And no, that´s not a good thing...
Maybe cut off the DR shields give but make them more durable. Or introduce a special attack for breaking shields. Or use only special weapons for breaking shields (Axes)...

- if the pc talk to a npc he should automatically turn his view in the npc´s direction (not really necessary but would bring in Immershuun)

- The heads are too big. Charakters are looking cute like in the Lego-games because of this. 66% of the size would be enough.

- Rotating the cam with the Strg-Key is uncomfortable for me. I think it would be better if moving the cursor to the left and right end of the screen would automatically rotate the cam. Up and down movement of the cursor should stay as it is now (moving cam forward and backward, no zooming) and the mousewheel for zooming.

- Love the use of the players name in combat

- Blood animations are well done. Rest of the animations are good.

- Groundtextures are really good from an artdirection point of view but need a better resolution to fit the rest of the textures. As it is now it looks to blurry.

- I really like the general style of the game including the textheaviness. When (if?) the game comes out I think I will enjoy it. Only drawback seems to me that it is not partybased :lol:
 

Redshirt #42

Augur
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
336
hal900x said:
certain opponents are incredibly difficult, too difficult, against certain builds.

True. With my dodge character I didn't have trouble with any opponent until I faced the Ordu. I manage to kill the archer but then I have to face the full HP swordsman with only ~20 HP and somehow he always hits me. I am pretty sure I could win this fight easily with my heavy armor/shield character, but he is still stuck with the guy who has a "magic" sword and ignores armor.

Btw, is there any way to skip the death cutscene? Because it's faster to restart the game and load rather than wait for the zillionth time so that the game can tell me how much I suck. If you load immediately after you die, the cutscene plays during the loading screen and the game won't load.
 

tarkin

Augur
Joined
Apr 27, 2005
Messages
939
Wasteland 2
I think i know what you did. You put the "arn-armour" on your left hand and when you put a 2-h weapon to your other hand the "arm-armour" gets unequipped? That's because you have to put the "arm-armour" on your chest. Feeling a little bit silly now boy?
What? How do i know that? Uhm, err, a friend told me... :oops:
 

Luan

Educated
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
108
Location
Fukuoka, Japan
Despite the constant save game corruptions, I thoroughly enjoyed the demo. The atmosphere and mechanics had a nice charm to it. Looking forward to purchasing the full game.

Tried out many builds in the demo in the past few days through the entire gauntlet of opponents including the 6 imperial soldiers. Sword + shield, Mace + shield, Mace 2h heavy armored dodger, throwing dagger dodger, dagger dodger.

Most of the builds felt "right" with some scenarios being very tough and some a breeze relative to each build.

However, I will say that dagger + dodger was ridiculously easy on all scenarios. This was repeatable. Perhaps it's due to itemization ("Upgrades: balanced" daggers affording 1 ap fast attack spam that bypasses armor at a high enough rate that trivializes enemies). Pertaining to the demo, it felt wrong.

I realize that in the full game the majority of players will not invest exclusively in combat specific skills. Perhaps players won't meet that critical threshold for the dagger dodger to trivialize combat scenarios. Regardless, it was vastly more effective than all my previous builds. Carbo and Dellar both went down within 2 rounds. All the imperial guards suffered the same fate. If most enemies will not have any more than 50 hitpoints, and daggers bypass defense at this % with 12 attacks per round spam... see where this is going? Not to mention the counterattacks that synergize with a high dodge and dagger skill.

I'm sure you guys must have ran past this internally, but perhaps it's worth another look. I've seen this mentioned a few times in AoD threads. This is not stating that other builds are not viable, far from so. It's just that the experience I had in with dagger/dodge was too viable. It'll be a style I avoid in the full game due to E z MoDe.
 

jagged-jimmy

Prophet
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Messages
1,550
Location
Freeside
Codex 2012
tarkin said:
I think i know what you did. You put the "arn-armour" on your left hand and when you put a 2-h weapon to your other hand the "arm-armour" gets unequipped? That's because you have to put the "arm-armour" on your chest. Feeling a little bit silly now boy?
What? How do i know that? Uhm, err, a friend told me... :oops:

Huh, but i am pretty sure you can wear a "chest-armour" AND an "arm-armour"?
 

Seymour

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
152
Vault Dweller said:
There are plenty of people who are absolutely certain that there is a balance problem and that dodgers are insanely more reliable than blockers.

Well, I'll try to be a bit more objective, then. Here's how I break it down:
Heavy Armor + Block
Trades AP for both high DR AND Critical Defense.
Light Armor + Dodge
Gets more APs (enough for an extra attack mostly), but has close to no DR NOR Critical defense.

I used the word "reliable" for a good reason; either build can become pretty powerful and maybe even finish the demo (though I have yet to beat the tavern fight with a dodger), but a tanker will still have some degree of protection even against their worst match-up (axe wielders) while dodgers have to invest on CS for the passive Critical Defense bonus (and three main skills, at least on the demo, are a big no-no) or get used to the fact that every hit that goes through will be a crit and they'll only last about two or three. This makes them more susceptible to dumb luck.

BTW, are Bolas still in? Didn't see those in the demo and was wondering if they were dropped altogether.

jagged-jimmy said:
Huh, but i am pretty sure you can wear a "chest-armour" AND an "arm-armour"?

Nope, the Manica takes up the armor slot, same as every other armor.
 

Luan

Educated
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
108
Location
Fukuoka, Japan
There's a great armor for dodgers (from mac the knife?) which provides 6 dr, 12 ap, and 100 critical defense! I think the penalty is only like 4% dodge.
 

quasimodo

Augur
Joined
Oct 11, 2006
Messages
372
jagged-jimmy said:
tarkin said:
I think i know what you did. You put the "arn-armour" on your left hand and when you put a 2-h weapon to your other hand the "arm-armour" gets unequipped? That's because you have to put the "arm-armour" on your chest. Feeling a little bit silly now boy?
What? How do i know that? Uhm, err, a friend told me... :oops:

Huh, but i am pretty sure you can wear a "chest-armour" AND an "arm-armour"?


I think you are wearing your chest armor and holding your arm-armour. Does it make a good club?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Seymour said:
I used the word "reliable" for a good reason; either build can become pretty powerful and maybe even finish the demo (though I have yet to beat the tavern fight with a dodger)...
A lot of dodgers have finished the demo. Many beta testers beat the demo with dodgers even before the save/load system was implemented, i.e. they did it in the ironman mode.

...while dodgers have to invest on CS for the passive Critical Defense bonus...
Not at all.

BTW, are Bolas still in? Didn't see those in the demo and was wondering if they were dropped altogether.
Not every attack, weapon, and item made it to the demo. Not included:

- Flurry - special, dagger-only attack
- Impale - special, spear-only attack
- Bolas - throwing balls, can be aimed at legs or head (neck)
- Burst - special, repeater crossbow only attack
- Acid vials - thrown at armor, reduces DR, # points per turn based on the acid strength; the effect is permanent (duh!)
 

Fat Dragon

Arbiter
Joined
May 24, 2007
Messages
3,499
Location
local brothel
Vault Dweller said:
- Acid vials - thrown at armor, reduces DR, # points per turn based on the acid strength; the effect is permanent (duh!)
That reminds me, what other throwing weapons can you make with crafting? I remember a while back, poisons and black powder bombs were also mentioned. Are those still in, and what other things can you make?

Also, any chance you guys will add those special weapon attacks to the combat demo at some point?
 

jagged-jimmy

Prophet
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Messages
1,550
Location
Freeside
Codex 2012
quasimodo said:
jagged-jimmy said:
tarkin said:
I think i know what you did. You put the "arn-armour" on your left hand and when you put a 2-h weapon to your other hand the "arm-armour" gets unequipped? That's because you have to put the "arm-armour" on your chest. Feeling a little bit silly now boy?
What? How do i know that? Uhm, err, a friend told me... :oops:
Huh, but i am pretty sure you can wear a "chest-armour" AND an "arm-armour"?
I think you are wearing your chest armor and holding your arm-armour. Does it make a good club?
R00fles! That might be it.. Well thats confusing, i thought its similar to putting a shield in there, mkay.
 

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