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Which RPG is better: Underrail or Age of Decadence?

Which RPG is better

  • Underrail

  • Age of Decadence


Results are only viewable after voting.

ItsChon

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Interestingly, while Underrail has a more sophisticated combat system, AoD features more carefully crafted encounters.
Easy to do tbh when you get teleported around to said combat encounters.
 

luj1

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The gameplay is vastly different. I do like some bits of AoD, but it's still a glorified CYOA booklet. Underrail is a way more traditional RPG and feels like an actual game. Colony Ship should be more comparable.
 

Jimmious

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Do you like purely combat focused CRPGs with loot porn/crafting? Then Underrail.
Do you prefer dialog heavy CRPGs with serious C&C? Then AoD.
 

111111111

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I'm fairly certain codex heavily overrates AoD more than anyone therefore I will go with under-rail.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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Story progresses through stats - Choose Your Own Adventure
Open world go anywhere - Role Playing Game

Wa.....wait a minute! WE'RE BEING BAMBOOZLED :outrage:
People who never played an RPG released prior to 1998 increasingly befuddled and flabbergasted at the notion that exploration is a fundamental component of RPGs and that good RPG design is not about arbitrarily gating players through a narrative according to character attributes/skills.

:philosoraptor:
 

AwesomeButton

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Both are great games, but I'd put Underrail higher because of its deeper combat system and exploration. AoD has better writing and more developed characters. If I could transfer something from AoD to Underrail that would be it.

Not that Underrail's writing is bad, especially if we consider the team and budget. It's still way better than PoE even with the resources Obsidian had.
 
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Drowed

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People who never played an RPG released prior to 1998 increasingly befuddled and flabbergasted at the notion that exploration is a fundamental component of RPGs and that good RPG design is about arbitrarily consciously and determinedly gating offering players content through a narrative according to character attributes/skills.

I mean, if the game has no C&C and you just want stats and exploration, you can play Diablo/World of Warcraft/Oblivion or any game like that because they fall into that definition. The content of the game is as "gated" as the top of any mountain around you: you can go there if you want, but if you can't, it's nobody's fault if you're 40kg overweight. In addition to social inclusion policies, will we now have digital inclusion policies for PCs with bad builds so that "no one is left behind"? Dear god. If you (aka your character) isn't able to do something because your competence isn't enough, deal with it.

Or, maybe, you know, make a different character. But crying for not having access to certain "content" in the game is like your idiot friend who cries for not having access to the college to be a doctor, and requires that there is a quota for him, as low as his level of intelligence.
 

hell bovine

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People who never played an RPG released prior to 1998 increasingly befuddled and flabbergasted at the notion that exploration is a fundamental component of RPGs and that good RPG design is about arbitrarily consciously and determinedly gating offering players content through a narrative according to character attributes/skills.

I mean, if the game has no C&C and you just want stats and exploration, you can play Diablo/World of Warcraft/Oblivion or any game like that because they fall into that definition.
Or maybe you just don't get the difference between a cyoa-like narrative and player-led exploration. To use your shitty analogy, kids don't get teleported from high school to college and it's not a y/n gated check. Plenty of idiots actually do make it through.

I'm beginning to think Zed is spot on; with the age of internet walkthroughs, steam achievements and yt videos came a new generation of players. No wonder even Vogel started 'streamlining' his games.
 

Kyl Von Kull

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Story progresses through stats - Choose Your Own Adventure
Open world go anywhere - Role Playing Game

Wa.....wait a minute! WE'RE BEING BAMBOOZLED :outrage:
People who never played an RPG released prior to 1998 increasingly befuddled and flabbergasted at the notion that exploration is a fundamental component of RPGs and that good RPG design is not about arbitrarily gating players through a narrative according to character attributes/skills.

:philosoraptor:

AOD may not have had much exploration, but some of what they did have was pretty great and offered a few awesome outside-the-box quest solutions that weren’t just handed to you on a silver platter. Finding the airship then using it to break the siege, for example.

Content gating aside, Fallout bringing extensive stat/skill based reactivity to CRPGs was a major leap forward for the genre. It’s like role playing in three dimensions rather than just two.
 

Vrab

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Age of Decadence has excellent combat, then again Underrail combat is quite good too. On the other Hand AoD has a world that feels totally generic, in the sense that I couldn't care about anything or anyone and choices and consequences were there in the most technical sense of the term, so yes if I pick the choice A i get the outcome X and if I pick B i get Y. However I couldn't care less about A, B, X or Y. Underrail has way more spirit to it.

My layman analysis comes down to supposing AoD devs are all into systems, which then produced the great combat - which is after all all about systems and number crunching - and the underwhelming world building, since world isn't a system. And while ofc video games need to be fundamentally systematic, they also need to create an illusion of reality in this case, by hiding their systems behind some chaos and mess. AoD factions are certainly numerous but they got no soul to them. Underrail is different and IMO much better in that regard. So in my opinion it's overall Underrail >>> AoD.

I must admit though that I preferred the AoD character progression. It feels very good, especially the static HP amount. I always disliked the HP inflation in RPGs, it makes no sense.
 

AwesomeButton

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
AOD may not have had much exploration, but some of what they did have was pretty great and offered a few awesome outside-the-box quest solutions that weren’t just handed to you on a silver platter. Finding the airship then using it to break the siege, for example.
BTW, AoD gave me the sense that nearly every dialogue choice could be my last in a way that maybe no other game has done it. And my save-scumming didn't avert the anxiety at all. I was really immersed in it. In Underrail, the feeling is very similar, but not in conversations but during exploration.
 

Vrab

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AoD has a world that feels totally generic
Ah yes, we are positively drowning in fallen-Roman-empire flavoured games. Drowning I tell ya.

Has nothing to do with frequency of the setting. It's generic, because things are made just to be there, and have no gravitas to them. There are factions, towns, NPCs and outcomes of player's decisions when dealing with them. It's all there, but I didn't care about any of it. AoD's world had me feel perfectly uninvolved and I couldn't care less about what happens to anyone there, despite constantly making choices that had appropriate consequences.

Edit

I'll admit one thing about AoD's world (although Underrail has something similar if not exactly same so it doesn't make AoD superior), and that is that it has pretty well done gradual revelation about the events that preceded the game and how we got to where we are which furthermore adjusts well to the type of character played. I only played it through completely once and it was a brawler but I assume if I played with a lore-focused talker I'd get more details about the great war in the past, technology, have gods and demons explained more thoroughly etc etc. The way I played it, I could make educated guesses but there were enough pieces of the puzzle revealed for me to get the general idea. This is another element that was well done.

But the world itself is still bland and too systematic. I could almost see the branching schematics instead of having an impression I'm talking to living people or making real decisions. I'd say ATOM would be the perfect anti-AoD, with bland and uninspired combat but otherwise great soul and atmosphere.
 
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Vrab

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Well it's literally clarified in the same sentence and the following one. I get you can disagree with it, it could even be a matter of taste which is hard to argue about, but it's not like what I said requires some massive intellect to grasp.
 

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