AoD recieves undue praise and favouritism from the Codex

[Background Character]

only to realize that you've built an extremely un-optimized character and you need to restart, all the way not really explaining anything of note. Very bad and vague introduction to concepts and mechanics.

Nah not me, beating the game as a bumbling chucklefuck was amazing

 

[isador]

A smooth-talker, for example, cannot do the heavy combat scenarios. Nor vice versa.

O'rlly ?

Spoiler

I mean... git gut dude.

 

[Bester]

What I found weird is that I had almost no skill points. Usually you can at least choose one path and stick to it, and be mediocre at the rest of the stuff. In this game though, I was playing a worm who could do nothing. I had no silver tongue, nor combat prowess. I was playing a dweeb and could do absolutely nothing.

How come? In real life, I'm a sambo veteran and I'm a high IQ programmer. This game was challenging in aspects you're not usually challenged in games. I didn't find this particularly interesting.

Does this game suggest that all fighters are absolute fucking retards? And that smart people are physically handicapped? Why?

 

[AwesomeButton]

You're not playing the way you want to in this game; you are playing the way you must do to succeed. That is, you're not role-playing your character, rather you're manipulating your character's stats once you've found out through trial and error what stats your character needs to have to progress.

Kindly find the solution to all your gaming needs here: https://tinyurl.com/y6u2ppmj

 

[Trashos]

What I found weird is that I had almost no skill points. Usually you can at least choose one path and stick to it, and be mediocre at the rest of the stuff. In this game though, I was playing a worm who could do nothing. I had no silver tongue, nor combat prowess. I was playing a dweeb and could do absolutely nothing.

How come? In real life, I'm a sambo veteran and I'm a high IQ programmer. This game was challenging in aspects you're not usually challenged in games. I didn't find this particularly interesting.

Does this game suggest that all fighters are absolute fucking retards? And that smart people are physically handicapped? Why?

In AoD you CAN be good at various things. You can be a good fighter and not be a retard. You just have to figure out a build that can do it, it is not automatic.

 

[Molina]

OP wants AoD to be an RPG that he can't lose and in which any character build can do everything.

Virtues of AoD over nearly all modern RPGs: you can lose and not any character build can do everything.

In my point of view, it's an unjustified criticism. I didn't play AoD, so I can't judge the game. But what an RPG player wants is reactivity. If the only reactivity of the game in facing a bad decision is death... then we could say that it is badly designed. If I choose one faction, and all the others don't talk to me anymore and/or want me dead... Well, it's not very exciting either. And wanting responsiveness is not wanting ease, it's just seeing the world react to our choices in different ways.

 

[Safav Hamon]

The codex will praise anything that's perceived as being hardcore, whether it's actually good or not.

 

[FeelTheRads]

In my point of view, it's an unjustified criticism. I didn't play AoD, so I can't judge the game. But what an RPG player wants is reactivity. If the only reactivity of the game in facing a bad decision is death... then we could say that it is badly designed. If I choose one faction, and all the others don't talk to me anymore and/or want me dead... Well, it's not very exciting either. And wanting responsiveness is not wanting ease, it's just seeing the world react to our choices in different ways.

But hurr it's hardcurr if there's one good choice and the rest are all dead ends.
That's what choices mean for AoD-tards.

And these fucktards keep bringing up Fallout comparisons when AoD is NOTHING like Fallout. Fallout had actual choices and Fallout let you play the game. The complete opposite of the visual novel that AoD is.

 

[hoothoot]

shit game

 

[Safav Hamon]

Oh my God. My build may not be able to succeed. What am I going to do?!

Time is valuable. Being punished for not having meta knowledge isn't respecting the players time.

 

[Funposter]

It's alright. I'd rather play it than have blood in my urine or something.

 

[Safav Hamon]

How often is it the case in AOD that you can't advance at all because of your build, versus, you can't advance in the particular way you want at that moment?

I hit four brick walls with three different non-combat builds. In one case I had to completely restart after five hours, and believe me I tried everything.

It's one thing to make a scenario more difficult without metaknowledge, but to completely block progress is bad design. It's why I consider AoD more of a CYOA than an RPG.

 

[BING XI LAO]

I don't think AoD's praise is undue in a world where what passes for an RPG is almost always complete popamole trash. The game certainly has some serious problems, namely the CYOA structure and terrible camera.

I was feeling really confused by the thread so I had to ctrl-f 'camera'
Seriously, it has to be as bad as NWN, or maybe worse?
Literally unplayable for me.

 

[Jrpgfan]

How often is it the case in AOD that you can't advance at all because of your build, versus, you can't advance in the particular way you want at that moment?

I hit four brick walls with three different non-combat builds. In one case I had to completely restart after five hours, and believe me I tried everything.

It's one thing to make a scenario more difficult without metaknowledge, but to completely block progress is bad design. It's why I consider AoD more of a CYOA than an RPG.

Ever considered RPG is not your thing? Pure non-combat builds are the easiest in this game. Pure talker is a walk in the park. I'm not the bestest rpg player by far and I steamrolled the game with a smooth-talker without any previous knowledge about the game.

Maybe Bethesda games are more up your alley.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Criticising the skill of the player who doesn't succeed with a non-combat build is rather backwards, since it's really only the combat that lets the player leverage their skills to improve their character's chances of getting through difficult situations. Talker playthroughs are much more rigid in that regard. The fact that combat is where most of the fun in the game is found is not unrelated to this point.

 

[orcinator]

You just have to figure out a build that can do it, it is not automatic.

People keep implying that multiclassing in AoD requires you to figure out a good build, it doesn't.
What it actually requires is knowing where all the skill points are buried so you can put your route's core skills above the "yer dead kid" threshold and still be able to invest in something else.

 

[MRY]

It's one thing to make a scenario more difficult without metaknowledge, but to completely block progress is bad design. It's why I consider AoD more of a CYOA than an RPG.

So, a couple thoughts.

(1) I think there is a really bad tendency to characterize what I would call "build-service" content as "meta-knowledge-requiring" content. We run into this a lot in designing Fallen Gods, and we call it designing for the Siberian -- basically, there are scenarios where you realize, huh, if the player had X skill, Y item, and Z follower, shouldn't he be able to do something ridiculous here? (One example: you come across a field of dead birds; there is an item that lets you understand bird-talk, a skill that lets you talk to the dead, and a bird familiar you can have, and you can see why conceivably you might want the three to interact there.) Often, this is very obscure, such that the likelihood of (a) having the necessary load-out and (b) coming across the scenario is so slim that the only person likely to encounter it is someone stuck by himself in a Siberian listening post with nothing to do but play Fallen Gods (hence, "the Siberian").

We view this as "build-service," by which I mean, it's in there not because the player is expected to get it, or to strategically play to maximize his chances of getting it, but because if you should happen to have that build, it's fun to have it actually do something in that scenario.

What is so cool about AOD is that there are so many different builds that get "serviced" in that way throughout the game, and the service is way beyond what we have in FG (which amounts to a node of text and a little bonus, not an extra dungeon or something). But because players are used to the notion of 100% completion and player-ego-service -- that all things are possible to the superman, and thus if there is an item behind a door, there has to be some way for your guy to open that door, no matter whether he's a diplomatist, a berserk, or a hacker -- AOD's build-service ends up being recast as a design expectation that you're supposed to be getting every power cylinder, every possible XP and relic, etc., etc.

I think it is fair to say that Vault Dweller failed as a designer as to those unhappy players because he wasn't able to teach them how to view the game in a light where it became fun rather than frustrating. But the core concept of a highly reactive, build-service-oriented game is not a bad one IMO. It's a great one. It's why, despite being someone who hates min-max gameplay, I loved AOD. In that regard, VD was wildly successful as a designer.

(2) That said, there is one feature of AOD that is very, very weird, which is that the "correct" way to play appears to be skill stockpiling. Like, in some ways, the way the game works is not that you accumulate XP for the purpose of building your character as you go, but that you accumulate XP as an obstacle-passing currency, and a side-bonus of spending that currency to pass an obstacle is that future obstacles will be cheaper to pass using the same method. It's an upside down way of playing RPGs. But the presentation of XP in the game doesn't look upside down at all. It looks just like Fallout or a normal RPG where there is no reason not to immediately dump your skill points into the skills that you want to use on some non-specific obstacle in the future, instead of hoarding them until you know the specific obstacle you'll face. I'm pretty sure if the game had redefined the terminology, particularly for the non-combat skills, it might have been able to avoid seeming like it was broken. I'm not sure the concept is necessarily wrong (though I will say, I liked it much less than normal RPG character building), but it exacerbated people's reaction that the game was relying on meta-knowledge.

 

[Roguey]

codex: we want skills to matter

also codex: but not so we can actually lose the game or anything

I see nothing wrong with both those statements combined. Sawyer achieved it with both New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity.

 

[buffalo bill]

OP wants AoD to be an RPG that he can't lose and in which any character build can do everything.

Virtues of AoD over nearly all modern RPGs: you can lose and not any character build can do everything.

In my point of view, it's an unjustified criticism. I didn't play AoD, so I can't judge the game. But what an RPG player wants is reactivity. If the only reactivity of the game in facing a bad decision is death... then we could say that it is badly designed. If I choose one faction, and all the others don't talk to me anymore and/or want me dead... Well, it's not very exciting either. And wanting responsiveness is not wanting ease, it's just seeing the world react to our choices in different ways.

You should play it, the game is good. Let me clarify, since I think you are responding to a straw man (a bit).

Not being able to do everything/anything in one playthrough =/= being railroaded by your initial decisions. It may seem like the latter when you play AoD, but in fact there are multiple paths and critical decisions available to any given character. It's just that the range of viable options available are limited by the sort of character you have built and choices you have made so far--but I see this sort of constraint as valuable in an RPG (I suspect you will see something similar in Disco Elysium).

 

[Safav Hamon]

It's one thing to make a scenario more difficult without metaknowledge, but to completely block progress is bad design. It's why I consider AoD more of a CYOA than an RPG.

So, a couple thoughts.

(1) I think there is a really bad tendency to characterize what I would call "build-service" content as "meta-knowledge-requiring" content.

You can't beat the game unless you pass certain skill checks, but if you haven't beaten the game you have no idea which skill checks are required to pass. That's the definition of meta-gating.

We view this as "build-service," by which I mean, it's in there not because the player is expected to get it, or to strategically play to maximize his chances of getting it, but because if you should happen to have that build, it's fun to have it actually do something in that scenario.

I'm not asking for "build service." All I want is to not have to restart because of a mandatory skill check requirement I had no way of predicting five hours into the game.

 

[sser]

Vince taking shitty journalists to task is not a fault.

 

[MRY]

You can't beat the game unless you pass the skill checks, but if you haven't beaten the game you have no idea which skill checks are required to pass. That's the definition of meta-gating.

I guess it just never happened to me. All the gates I saw were for side material, not down necessary paths. If anything, as a talking character I often had several parallel options for proceeding down the math path.

I'm not asking for "build service." All I want is to not have to restart because of a mandatory skill check requirement I had no way of predicting.

I don't think I explained myself well.

I was trying to say that AOD has great build-service. The problem is that if there is a lot of visible build-service content (e.g., a treasure chest behind a door you can't open, because you don't have the build that's serviced by opening the door), players think they're supposed to be able to get at it, and feel like the game is locking them out for want of meta-knowledge, rather than that the game is designed to respond to a huge variety of builds in neat ways, but their particular build can't get at this particular bit of content.

IMO, build-service is awesome, and it's too bad that people view it through the wrong lens and get disappointed, rather than excited, by AOD's design in this regard.

 

[The_Mask]

That said, there is one feature of AOD that is very, very weird, which is that the "correct" way to play appears to be skill stockpiling.

Yes. My initial impression which I, eventually overcame, was that the game was made by a math professor: rigid, flawless and pristine, but lacking any humanity. The dev automatically assumed that the player would never stop roleplaying the character they "built" at the beginning of the game/outgrow the class they started from.

Past the initial impression a different game takes shape, and many options become clear, the more you play the game. The style was, I thought, very roguelike actually. Closer to NEO Scavenger. The more you know how the game works, the higher the chances you'll know how to weasel yourself in and out of situations, and your story could branch out much broader.

The game opens up and once you know how the cookie crumbles, you can start spinning plates on top of sticks.

It's a flawed game, but its flaws are smaller, and the love for the RPG genre shines through, and so much is forgiven, I think.



Bottom line, while I feel the initial feelings of the OP are accurate, his stance on the game is flawed. But that's their problem, I guess.

 

[Safav Hamon]

IMO, build-service is awesome, and it's too bad that people view it through the wrong lens and get disappointed, rather than excited, by AOD's design in this regard.

The problem is that there aren't any interesting builds you can create on your first playthrough.

You either go all in combat or all in diplomacy, because multiclassing is only possible with metaknowledge. It feels remarkably shallow.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I guess it just never happened to me. All the gates I saw were for side material, not down necessary paths. If anything, as a talking character I often had several parallel options for proceeding down the math path.

It happened to me. I forget the exact details, but I believe my pure talker merchant was on his way to rendezvous with the ruler of Maadoran at the endgame temple, only to be stopped by some blockade or other, which came completely out of left field and invariably led to a combat encounter I had no chance of winning. I ended up having to ally myself with the ruler of Teron instead, whom my character had never met and had no motivation to support, which circumvented the encounter somehow (possibly the enemies I'd encountered belonged to house Teron, but what earlier decision had led to the existence of this event I don't know). As far as I could tell, this was my only option if I wanted to see an actual ending for that playthrough. It felt mighty cheap to have my character play Grima amongst the Maadoran elite for most of the playthrough, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a couple of unavoidable meatheads with sticks right at the end.