How did Age of Decadence turn out?

[Vault Dweller]

One interesting question for VD is how someone plays in a way that you miss so much of the game. There are cases where you can go to Maadoran very very early, given what options you pick. My memory's fuzzy so I don't know exactly what you did, but basically, it's like getting caught by the Enclave in FO2 and going to see them early, or getting caught by the mages in Risen 1 and missing all of the Bandit Camp / Harbour Town quests. i.e. you never heard of Don Esteban but you now miss 40% of the game.

Basically, we bet on people replaying the game because it's very easy to miss a lot of things, especially if one is playing the game in, uh, modern fashion (i.e. doing what you're told and moving from one objective to the next). We tried to compensate for lost content by offering quests that won't be available otherwise, but it's too early to say how well it worked.

Every now and then we get complaints like Zarniwoop's - I beat the entire game in 2 hours and did like 3 quests, what the fuck? (the IGF dudes thought there were 2 NPCs you can talk to in Teron and no quests implemented, for example). Some people dislike the replayability angle and would prefer to have a linear but more 'epic' gameplay with all the quests lined up in a row, etc. Basically, the game isn't for everyone and if someone plays it once and doesn't explore, he/she won't see much and probably won't understand what's going on.

 

[Zarniwoop]

So basically I'm better off rolling a new character and going through again. Maybe that should be stated somwhere, that replays are expected? I mean, you make such a huge point about explaining that the combat isn't popamole like modern RPGs

 

[Helton]

Jesus Zarniwoop holy fuck do you even game?

Don't call it a replay. You barely played the game at all the first time.

"I rushed through your game avoiding all combat, most conversations, and skim-read the conversations I did get into. Clearly this game sucks!"

If you don't like RPGs, here's a revolutionary concept, don't play them.

 

[Vault Dweller]

So basically I'm better off rolling a new character and going through again.

Basically.

Keep in mind that you won't win every fight so walking away is ok (if you try to get into every fight you will die and combat isn't scaled to your level). You might fail some quests, which is also ok. Don't trust every NPC and don't always do what you're told. Sometimes doing the opposite might serve you better.

Maybe that should be stated somwhere, that replays are expected?

The idea was that the player will see different options and choices and would want to replay (assuming he/she liked the game to begin with).

 

[John Yossarian]

Jesus Helton how many people have you had to teach to factor quadratics today bro?

He never said it sucks, just that it was short, and in his defense playing like he did (basically following instructions) is not far off from how most RPGs play anyway. I don't know how he has missed that AoD is pretty big on replays, and that things are not quest compassed. I seem to recall that being mentioned in the game.

 

[RedScum]

On another note, AoD is the only game i've played where going for a build focusing on critical strike feels viable and fun. Sword + CS + Dodge = Super assassin.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

I think a lot of gamers these days are so used to content being laid out in a linear fashion, so you can see all of it in one or two playthroughs, that it takes a bit of time to get used to the idea of playing 6 or 10 times to see most of the content. I often see posts like that on the AoD Steam page where someone complains about the game only lasting a few hours, at which point more experienced players point out that replays are essential. The usual "it takes 40 hrs to finish!" sales pitch for new games applies a bit differently in the case of AoD.

It's a brave approach to design a game like this, and it's great to see them doing it, but one can also see why so many devs avoid it. Spending ages creating content that an average player (or reviewer) might miss probably won't go down too well in planning meetings at the big publishers. I remember Fargo talking about how the binary choice at the start of WL2 could lead to players missing a branch of content and that is what most devs would consider adventurous these days - a couple of branches. AoD takes that to a different level. When the game is released some may complain about short playthroughs but I have some hope that the game will be remembered as a standout example of C&C and replayability.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Jesus Zarniwoop holy fuck do you even game?

Don't call it a replay. You barely played the game at all the first time.

"I rushed through your game avoiding all combat, most conversations, and skim-read the conversations I did get into. Clearly this game sucks!"

If you don't like RPGs, here's a revolutionary concept, don't play them.

Dear dumbfuck

You HAVE to avoid most combat and use other skills in order to make it through any encounters if you're not a heavily combat focused character.

That's the whole point of the game. It even says so multiple times. YOU DON'T NEED TO FIGHT ALL THE FUCKING TIME. If you do go for combat and get killed, the death screen will even remind you that you maybe should have tried another approach and that attacking might not have been the best choice. So, well done displaying your ignorance, it's mildly entertaining but otherwise not really helpful.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Basically.

Keep in mind that you won't win every fight so walking away is ok (if you try to get into every fight you will die and combat isn't scaled to your level). You might fail some quests, which is also ok. Don't trust every NPC and don't always do what you're told. Sometimes doing the opposite might serve you better.


The idea was that the player will see different options and choices and would want to replay (assuming he/she liked the game to begin with).

I always play through RPGs a few times of course, to take different paths and see things from the other side, but what I had was different. Like some other poster said, it's like in Fallout 2 if you encounter the Enclave accidentally when you're not suppsed to know they exist yet. That's kind of the idea I got from my playthrough.

 

[Helton]

You couldn't find a second zone in Madoraan and somehow I'm the dumbfuck.

 

[Agesilaus]

For example, in Teron you're told that the Imperial Guards are planning to take over, like, now. If you're playing as a Guard, you see it happening. If you're playing as a merchant or assassin, you're trying to prevent it. If you leave Teron early (as in without getting involved in the events), they proceed without you, as it should be.

Like people have pointed out, AoD is a bit different from most CRPGs. Here's my read of what you've done:

You made a character, obeyed all the requests of Feng, then joined up with the nobles in Teron and completed the handful of quests they give out to loremasters (bandit and mine, maybe gave him the fake ring, right?). Then you immediately went to Maadoran to follow up on finding the temple, completely bypassing the whole power struggle thing.

This is what you could have done in Teron before leaving:

(spoilers for people who haven't played before)


Return to the inn and obtain the remaining items from the person you met during the initial mission.
Refuse to commit murder for Feng. Make friends with the new loremaster that you spared, or be a jerk and have him pay you back with metallurgy.
Cross the Teron noble family by using your lore to fix the mine, and join the royalty in Maadoran.
Join the IG and do their quests.
Join the MG and do their quests.
Join the TG and do their quests.
Join the AG and do their quests.
Swear allegiance to the Teron nobility and help them in their powerstruggle (can you do this as loremaster?)
Go annoy the bums in the tower and find the jellyfish.
Go catch the pick pocket and eat the kebab of strength.
Let the villagers into Teron, do the quest about retrieving the gold or be mean to them.
Throw rocks at the cultist.
Go look at Miltiades goods and then STAB HIM IN THE FACE I HATE YOU MILTIADES. Or team up with him; all of these quests I'm listing have a bunch of different resolutions.
Beat up the mean gang members.
Beat up the thief and her friends. Or don't; I think you can save her from a life of petty crime if you're with the thieves' guild.
Trick the lady and get the gems.
Look at the items in the fancy man's home. I don't know if you can do anything there, but I think you ought to be able to.
Walk around naked and beat on the weakling guards.
Speak to the alchemist and learn alchemy.
Learn crafting.
Try sneaking into the Teron noble compound. Probably get killed, hope you are stealthy.
Trick the merchant outside the inn and take his gold or items.
Does the old guy in the graveyard give you a quest involving cassius? I don't remember, might be just additional lore/dialogue options.

There might be a few more things, it's been a while since I last played. I'm waiting for the next city to be implemented. These options can be mixed and matched, they have multiple different ways of being resolved, they cannot all be done in one playthrough, and they will affect Maadoran and later stages of the game in major ways. You would need to play at least 4 times to get a anything approaching a handle on the general storyline as a loremaster in Teron, and you'd still have plenty more surprises waiting on your 5th playthrough.

 

[Vault Dweller]

 

[Agesilaus]

You could say I've spent a little time with AoD. I played it before it came out on Steam, too. There's a lot of gameplay here; I still haven't seen all the current content, and the strength of the game is that I genuinely want to find that content.

 

[almondblight]

Maybe that should be stated somwhere, that replays are expected? I mean, you make such a huge point about explaining that the combat isn't popamole like modern RPGs

Hmm...might not be a bad idea, especially if this is happening:

Every now and then we get complaints like Zarniwoop's - I beat the entire game in 2 hours and did like 3 quests, what the fuck? (the IGF dudes thought there were 2 NPCs you can talk to in Teron and no quests implemented, for example).

I imagine a bit of the response AoD will get is going to be based on how expectations are managed. Especially since it seems that if you explain this stuff to some people after they've gone through the game (when they come to the boards complaining about RNG combat and no quests), they take it as if some mean joke's been played on them and they get pissed off.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm not sure there is a way to manage these expectations. I don't want to have several warning screens explaining the game:

- combat is hard. No, not wink wink hard, but really hard.
- the game is non-linear. No, not do side quests in any order, but really non-linear so you can miss a lot of content if you aren't exploring both the locations and your opportunities
- play your character not a hero
- don't trust the skull anyone

 

[Helton]

Caution! Shirt must be removed from torso before ironing!

 

[Black]

Caution! Shirt must be removed from torso before ironing!

Fucking casuals, I swear to god.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Like people have pointed out, AoD is a bit different from most CRPGs. Here's my read of what you've done:

You made a character, obeyed all the requests of Feng, then joined up with the nobles in Teron and completed the handful of quests they give out to loremasters (bandit and mine, maybe gave him the fake ring, right?). Then you immediately went to Maadoran to follow up on finding the temple, completely bypassing the whole power struggle thing.

This is what you could have done in Teron before leaving:

(spoilers for people who haven't played before)


Return to the inn and obtain the remaining items from the person you met during the initial mission.
Refuse to commit murder for Feng. Make friends with the new loremaster that you spared, or be a jerk and have him pay you back with metallurgy.
Cross the Teron noble family by using your lore to fix the mine, and join the royalty in Maadoran.
Join the IG and do their quests.
Join the MG and do their quests.
Join the TG and do their quests.
Join the AG and do their quests.
Swear allegiance to the Teron nobility and help them in their powerstruggle (can you do this as loremaster?)
Go annoy the bums in the tower and find the jellyfish.
Go catch the pick pocket and eat the kebab of strength.
Let the villagers into Teron, do the quest about retrieving the gold or be mean to them.
Throw rocks at the cultist.
Go look at Miltiades goods and then STAB HIM IN THE FACE I HATE YOU MILTIADES. Or team up with him; all of these quests I'm listing have a bunch of different resolutions.
Beat up the mean gang members.
Beat up the thief and her friends. Or don't; I think you can save her from a life of petty crime if you're with the thieves' guild.
Trick the lady and get the gems.
Look at the items in the fancy man's home. I don't know if you can do anything there, but I think you ought to be able to.
Walk around naked and beat on the weakling guards.
Speak to the alchemist and learn alchemy.
Learn crafting.
Try sneaking into the Teron noble compound. Probably get killed, hope you are stealthy.
Trick the merchant outside the inn and take his gold or items.
Does the old guy in the graveyard give you a quest involving cassius? I don't remember, might be just additional lore/dialogue options.

There might be a few more things, it's been a while since I last played. I'm waiting for the next city to be implemented. These options can be mixed and matched, they have multiple different ways of being resolved, they cannot all be done in one playthrough, and they will affect Maadoran and later stages of the game in major ways. You would need to play at least 4 times to get a anything approaching a handle on the general storyline as a loremaster in Teron, and you'd still have plenty more surprises waiting on your 5th playthrough.

There
Was
No
Power
Struggle
Thing
In
My
Game.
No
One
Mentioned
Any
Powers
Or
Struggles
Ever.

Furthermore, assuming that it's a more old-school game, I thought that I could go do sidequests any time. Such as, once again, Fallout, the IE games and such. Go get item x for y and then I'll go ask this guard dude what he wants. Not that when you left a town something invisible would trigger and propel the story forward completely for no reason.

A bunch of mouth breathers that cannot into reading properly and calling ME a casual to be Kodex Kool quite funny but, as I said something must have messed up. I know the fuckwads will ignore what I type, yet again, but I'm hoping it's like finding the Enclave early in Fallout 2, or accidentally stumbling upon the Military Base in Fallout 1. Not just a matter of not doing sidequests. Because I'm all for sidequests. I'd just like to see a bit of the game world and still be able to do them.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There
Was
No
Power
Struggle
Thing
In
My
Game.
No
One
Mentioned
Any
Powers
Or
Struggles
Ever.

Why should it be mentioned to some loremaster's apprentice? You aren't the chosen one.

For example, I bet there are plenty of local power struggles wherever you live but you're a nobody (like the rest of us) and thus you're unaware of them.

Not that when you left a town something invisible would trigger and propel the story forward completely for no reason.

The reason was explained earlier - the events are urgent and won't sit and wait for you for weeks. Surely it's not a difficult concept to grasp. I saw something similar in Wasteland 2 - if you leave Damonta without finding what's causing the old robots to come to life and attack, all NPCs will be killed. Why? Because there was a sense of urgency there and the situation couldn't wait for you to travel to to another location to restock on supplies.

I know the fuckwads will ignore what I type, yet again, but I'm hoping it's like finding the Enclave early in Fallout 2, or accidentally stumbling upon the Military Base in Fallout 1.

It's not. It's just a different design, which may or may not be for you.

 

[Helton]

Quite exceptional use of Occam's Razor there my old chap Zarniwoop! Yes, clearly, something messed up. It was the game! You must have got the supah sekrit version of the demo VD put out there for the special people. The version with no storyline. Right? I mean, that's the only explanation!

It'd be wild and fantastical to suspect that you might just be a complete dumbfuck. I mean if all these other people managed to, you know, like... Click on NPCs when the cursor was glowing yellow... And you didn't... I mean that can't possibly be some fault on your part! And when you read ending slides about this "Imperial Guard" faction you'd never heard of... Who could expect you to realize at that point you had missed anything? ITS THE GAME I TELL YOU! THE GAME!

Couldn't possibly be you.

 

[t]

Helton, are you the guy who's 15 years old like the rest of the codex but admits it?

Ad rem: no, AoD is not like Fallout or any other game for that matter. But maybe it will be better, we'll see on Thursday.

 

[Neckbeard Shitlord]

Jesus Helton how many people have you had to teach to factor quadratics today bro?

He never said it sucks, just that it was short, and in his defense playing like he did (basically following instructions) is not far off from how most RPGs play anyway. I don't know how he has missed that AoD is pretty big on replays, and that things are not quest compassed. I seem to recall that being mentioned in the game.

I think it just goes to show most of gaming is filler. I think AOD basically cut out all the filler and so it's too easy to motorboat through all the content. If you don't take the time to smell the roses then it does go very quickly.

I am not sure if there is an easy fix but making the next progress point less obvious at all times would help. Think like Torment. Not only is there a lot of content but you always have to work a little to get to it.

 

[Saduj]

IMO, it is best to pick a combat character in your first your first play through (or really the first few). You'll end up avoiding less content and you'll become familiarized with the way equipment works in the game. You'll also become familiar with some of the optional combat scenarios and their level of difficulty, which helps when you play later with a non-combat oriented character. Non-combat oriented, non-crafting characters can still gain access to good weapons and armor without having to fight for it. And in some cases investing points in combat skills even on a non-combat focused character pays for itself because it opens quest lines where you can recoup general skill points that can be invested any way you want (at least in the last build I played). That last part requires a lot of meta-gaming but I'm just saying the option is there if you're worried about experiencing as much content as possible with every character type.

 

[Tigranes]

Like people have pointed out, AoD is a bit different from most CRPGs. Here's my read of what you've done:

You made a character, obeyed all the requests of Feng, then joined up with the nobles in Teron and completed the handful of quests they give out to loremasters (bandit and mine, maybe gave him the fake ring, right?). Then you immediately went to Maadoran to follow up on finding the temple, completely bypassing the whole power struggle thing.

This is what you could have done in Teron before leaving:

(spoilers for people who haven't played before)


Return to the inn and obtain the remaining items from the person you met during the initial mission.
Refuse to commit murder for Feng. Make friends with the new loremaster that you spared, or be a jerk and have him pay you back with metallurgy.
Cross the Teron noble family by using your lore to fix the mine, and join the royalty in Maadoran.
Join the IG and do their quests.
Join the MG and do their quests.
Join the TG and do their quests.
Join the AG and do their quests.
Swear allegiance to the Teron nobility and help them in their powerstruggle (can you do this as loremaster?)
Go annoy the bums in the tower and find the jellyfish.
Go catch the pick pocket and eat the kebab of strength.
Let the villagers into Teron, do the quest about retrieving the gold or be mean to them.
Throw rocks at the cultist.
Go look at Miltiades goods and then STAB HIM IN THE FACE I HATE YOU MILTIADES. Or team up with him; all of these quests I'm listing have a bunch of different resolutions.
Beat up the mean gang members.
Beat up the thief and her friends. Or don't; I think you can save her from a life of petty crime if you're with the thieves' guild.
Trick the lady and get the gems.
Look at the items in the fancy man's home. I don't know if you can do anything there, but I think you ought to be able to.
Walk around naked and beat on the weakling guards.
Speak to the alchemist and learn alchemy.
Learn crafting.
Try sneaking into the Teron noble compound. Probably get killed, hope you are stealthy.
Trick the merchant outside the inn and take his gold or items.
Does the old guy in the graveyard give you a quest involving cassius? I don't remember, might be just additional lore/dialogue options.

There might be a few more things, it's been a while since I last played. I'm waiting for the next city to be implemented. These options can be mixed and matched, they have multiple different ways of being resolved, they cannot all be done in one playthrough, and they will affect Maadoran and later stages of the game in major ways. You would need to play at least 4 times to get a anything approaching a handle on the general storyline as a loremaster in Teron, and you'd still have plenty more surprises waiting on your 5th playthrough.

There
Was
No
Power
Struggle
Thing
In
My
Game.
No
One
Mentioned
Any
Powers
Or
Struggles
Ever.

Furthermore, assuming that it's a more old-school game, I thought that I could go do sidequests any time. Such as, once again, Fallout, the IE games and such. Go get item x for y and then I'll go ask this guard dude what he wants. Not that when you left a town something invisible would trigger and propel the story forward completely for no reason.

A bunch of mouth breathers that cannot into reading properly and calling ME a casual to be Kodex Kool quite funny but, as I said something must have messed up. I know the fuckwads will ignore what I type, yet again, but I'm hoping it's like finding the Enclave early in Fallout 2, or accidentally stumbling upon the Military Base in Fallout 1. Not just a matter of not doing sidequests. Because I'm all for sidequests. I'd just like to see a bit of the game world and still be able to do them.

It's ultimately impossible to show whether you fucked up or not unless we reconstruct your entire experience. But we don't need to. It's pretty obvious that your experience was so uniquely different that (1) a different playthrough by you will probably not have those problems, and (2) it has little bearing on the qualityo f the game more generally.

 

[Agesilaus]

I think it just goes to show most of gaming is filler. I think AOD basically cut out all the filler and so it's too easy to motorboat through all the content. If you don't take the time to smell the roses then it does go very quickly.

This is a great aspect of AoD; as I've gotten older, I've come to really hate filler/grinding/whatever. I have a very low tolerance for junk mobs and the like, so for me it's fantastic that AoD is 100% substance. The way that travel works in this game plays into that; you're either teleported as a result of dialogue, or you just bring up the map and click where you would like to go. You don't have to wander around the forest punching wolves until you reach your destination. Discovery is not a product of random exploration, like a person who looks at the ground as he walks and happens to see a shiny object; rather, you discover things through dialogue and choices, which opens up new pathways. Without getting into whether this is objectively better or worse, it suits me perfectly.