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Age of Decadence is the best CRPG of the past 15 years

Joined
Jan 14, 2018
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Codex Year of the Donut
Then you get into a fight and realize the build you need to poison them is incapable of actually killing anything
 

Black Angel

Arcane
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Then you get into a fight and realize the build you need to poison them is incapable of actually killing anything
:deathclaw:
Why would you go out of your way to poison them, then?

Anyway, if you actually played the game, a full combat build could pretty much do what I described above.
If you've been piling up corpses until you get the quest, you can intimidate the supplier with [Body Count] check so he will poison the Aurelians, while the rat poison is practically free (by free, I mean you can get it regardless of your build, it actually cost 50 gold or so) and you can get it from a trader in the market.
 
Unwanted

Soulstones

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It's true though. While there are many paths, you're only given the paths VD gives you
How's that any different from other, similar RPGs like Fallout? I think I know why: because in other RPGs, you're allowed to click anywhere, on whatever you want, while ITS force you to make your choice from dialogue-esque window (or as Zed Duke put it, like a gamebook).
I think that doesn't make it as CYOA as people make it to be, but I'm glad they learned from this experience and is going to do it like other RPGs with Colony Ship RPG. Even though, from what I know, it seems like they'll still do dialogue-esque/gamebook format for stealth mission, or something.
Ronk. VD saw people meta gaming and hoarding points and he said "not on my rpg watch"! And went full retard with a strange learn-by-doing system. Which seems like more control to the player but since its gonna be all statically designed, its more control to him and zero to you.
What that will do is gate content even harder than blind AoD! Since everything is gonna be skillcheck gated anyway, potential paths are gonna collapse into 1 rigid corridor far faster than they did in AoD even! Except if the checks get lowered after a hard Steam review fucking which in turn will make the whole strict system moot.
It reminds me of Sawyers tardification of spellcasting design in PoE. He made it slower for reason X and then made it retargetable without recovery to counteract reason X.
Quote me when your teleport through your corridor in Space CYOA full of deadends...
 

Black Angel

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Ronk. VD saw people meta gaming and hoarding points and he said "not on my rpg watch"! And went full retard with a strange learn-by-doing system. Which seems like more control to the player but since its gonna be all statically designed, its more control to him and zero to you.
What that will do is gate content even harder than blind AoD! Since everything is gonna be skillcheck gated anyway, potential paths are gonna collapse into 1 rigid corridor far faster than they did in AoD even!
Sounds like you just want to grind until max level and experience 90% of the content in one playthrough
 

Egosphere

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Then you get into a fight and realize the build you need to poison them is incapable of actually killing anything
I poisoned them and killed everyone as an assassin with high dodge and medium alchemy, crafting. I distinctly remember that because I was down to 1 hp with 1 of the mine workers left alive and missing his attacks several times in a row. I don't remember what the stat checks were, but poisoning them was accessible even to the combatants. Just stock up on some liquid fire and nets to break them into smaller groups of 2.
 
Unwanted

Soulstones

Unwanted
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Ronk. VD saw people meta gaming and hoarding points and he said "not on my rpg watch"! And went full retard with a strange learn-by-doing system. Which seems like more control to the player but since its gonna be all statically designed, its more control to him and zero to you.
What that will do is gate content even harder than blind AoD! Since everything is gonna be skillcheck gated anyway, potential paths are gonna collapse into 1 rigid corridor far faster than they did in AoD even!
Sounds like you just want to grind until max level and experience 90% of the content in one playthrough
Sounds like you just want to grind Teron/Maadoran/City3 over 7 times to see similar content over and over...
Im pretty sure I know which is better and why...
 

Black Angel

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AoD is what happens when an autistic accountant takes a good game and then proceeds to strip it of all fun.
What part of it that makes you think the fun was stripped off?

Sounds like you just want to grind Teron/Maadoran/City3 over 7 times to see similar content over and over...
Im pretty sure I know which is better and why...
Simply playing the different classes aside from Drifter, Grifter, and Loremaster allows you to experience completely different storyline. I don't have specific preference when it comes to AoD and other RPGs, because while I think it's neat that you can freely decide even the most trivial things like in Fallout, AoD's design allowed me to experience one playthrough in a span of between 1 hour to 15 hours. Because of this, one could literally replay the game over 7 times, and there's still parts of the game not yet experienced. The combat itself is fun, with a lot of possible build combination, so even Merc storyline can be replayed several times and it can be very different experience based on what combat skills you specialized in.
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
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San Isidro, Argentina
What do you disagree with?

That it is the best RPG in the past 15 years, as a broad statement. The most branching of all fucking time for sure it is. The downside is that it lacked some meat between the bones (branching), making the pace a bit awkward. But that's the best we could do with the time and resources we had.

We won't be the best overall, but no other game goes close to the branching in the story AoD has. And that's a pretty big achievement by itself.
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
It's true though. While there are many paths, you're only given the paths VD gives you (e.g. as an assassin, I was ordered to take out this guy in his house however the only way to do so is to just stroll right in to an obvious ambush).

Ok, but:

The choices he gives you have more narrative relevance than the typical alternatives of emergent gameplay. Instead of having three different and goofy ways to kill the character, you can take multiple choices that have different narrative implications, whether we are talking about betrayals, forging documents or fooling a third party.

The fact that these narrative choices happen in text-adventures or pure text it’s not detrimental to their enjoyment.

You need to consider the importance of stats and skills for your choices. 99,9% of CRPGs pretend to care about character building, but disregard skill/stat checks as fluffy, which implies that stat/skills are also negligible. Age of Decadence does the opposite. This is important because it takes character building seriously outside combat, but also because it adds immersion and realism to the gameworld.

What you lose in emergent gameplay you gain in realism and well-throughout scenarios, which make the gameworld more interesting than the usual goofy generic gameworlds of most cRPGs.

TL;DR

Age of Decadence is a storyfag cRPG for grown-ups. It takes C&C and stats/skill checks seriously, punishes you for relying on cRPG cliches and still manage to provide some good combat on the side.
 
Unwanted

Soulstones

Unwanted
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Age of Decadence is a storyfag cRPG for grown-ups
giphy.gif

realistic emergent cringeplay
 

toro

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how will Goral react to this criticism? :bounce:

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Unfortunately where he lives suicides are endorsed.

AoD is what happens when an autistic accountant takes a good game and then proceeds to strip it of all fun.
Isn't it Grimoire?

I would rather play Grimoire than AoD ... but only in case I ever run out of decent games to play.

We won't be the best overall, but no other game goes close to the branching in the story AoD has. And that's a pretty big achievement by itself.

I agree: having a branching narrative is the most important aspect in a CYOA game.
 

Stavrophore

Most trustworthy slavic man
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Strap Yourselves In
1.13 makes the game far easier and is actually pretty gay. If you obsessively recommend it it's probably because you weren't able to finish vanilla and need all the extra merc skills and mountains of guns that 1.13 dumps in your lap.

Absolutely untrue. 1.13 makes the game much harder, since the accuracy with NCTH is way lower especially in the beginning of the game, where you have pistols and smgs. In vanilla with competent mercs like grumpy or buns you can shoot reliably at enemies at 100m range with ease. In 1.13 impossible.
 

vota DC

Augur
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
2,259
The fact you hoard points and you can be punished if you level up some skills is bad. The fact they gave you points allocable on combat only was interesting, they could reduce the amount of generic points and give more specific points to avoid hoarding maybe.

Both Grimoire and AOD are fun.

An accountant stripping fun out of games? Take a look at every committee-designed AAA game out there.

Mostly Duke Nukem 3D second level of first episode. Full of stripping fun there.
 
Unwanted

Micormic

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Mar 25, 2009
Messages
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It wasn't bad but probably not in my top 5 even if the last 15 years have been dismal.
 
Unwanted

Micormic

Unwanted
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What do you disagree with?

That it is the best RPG in the past 15 years, as a broad statement. The most branching of all fucking time for sure it is. The downside is that it lacked some meat between the bones (branching), making the pace a bit awkward. But that's the best we could do with the time and resources we had.

We won't be the best overall, but no other game goes close to the branching in the story AoD has. And that's a pretty big achievement by itself.

Yeah working on a game since like 2004 was such a tight schedule.


I'm aware you guys were working on it part time and it took a huge amount of dedication to get it done but don't play the time card if you take over a decade lol.
 

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,789
Location
Mexico
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Mmm I do love AoD but it beign “the” best.... I would have to go with Fallout New Vegas honestly as my pic and New Vegas, Age of Decadence, Witcher 3, Dark Souls and Grimoire as my favorite RPGs of the last 15 years

As for Jagged Alliance 2
Without the 1.13 fanpatch what would be needed for a first time playthrough in a Windows 10 system?
Or would you rather start off with the patch
 

Strange Fellow

Peculiar
Patron
Joined
Jun 21, 2018
Messages
4,015
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
As for Jagged Alliance 2
Without the 1.13 fanpatch what would be needed for a first time playthrough in a Windows 10 system?
Stracciatella. Just don't set the resolution too high. Not for any technical reason, it just looks bad, same as Fallout.
 

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