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Age of Decadence Reviews

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
At some point the AoD community will have to accept there is no such thing as patching IQ points on fucktards. Morons gonna moron. I wrote my mechanics guide to help players understand the system and all that, but there's a limit to how much "help" is actually useful. Some people simply can't be helped and there's nothing we can do about that.
What makes me angry is not that some people don't know the basics of character building, but that they insist that it is impossible to learn because they are lazy and don't want to learn the basics. They think they have to figure it out everything by osmosis without any thinking whatsoever.
 
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Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Hypothetically, if you wanted to go back and add easier difficulties like Dungeon Rats has, would that be a lot of work?
It didn't really work. Most people who complained about the difficulty in DR played on Hard and didn't want to lower the difficulty. One guy said it would be humiliating [for such a great warrior] to play on Easy. He wanted to beat the game on Hard but he wanted it to be easy. Quite a conundrum.
 

Alphons

Cipher
Joined
Nov 20, 2019
Messages
2,579
I mean Skyrim came out in 2011.

If a game comes out in 2015 and calls itself an RPG game people are free to expect it to be as good as Skyrim. And let's face it- AoD is nothing next to Skyrim. NPCs don't even have radiant AI and just stand lifelessly. No mod support, no radiant quests means the game is over after 15 hours. Plus the game allows you to complete every conflict without a fight- which is just stupid. And don't even make me talk about the voice acting- or rather lack of it. If I wanted to read I'd pick up a book not a game.

Hurr durr
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,199
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Hypothetically, if you wanted to go back and add easier difficulties like Dungeon Rats has, would that be a lot of work?
It didn't really work. Most people who complained about the difficulty in DR played on Hard and didn't want to lower the difficulty. One guy said it would be humiliating [for such a great warrior] to play on Easy. He wanted to beat the game on Hard but he wanted it to be easy. Quite a conundrum.
ego vs brain mass imbalance
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
Well, the man has reviewed a game which is obviously not his cup of tea. Big deal. I thought AoD is a solid cult classic by 2020 to be able to ignore the retarded reviews like this one.
Knocking back a glass of scotch and laughing at the absurdity of reviews is part of the AoD experience.

Cheers!
:excellent:
 

Saduj

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2012
Messages
2,549
It cracks me up when people give themselves pretentious handles like "the mediocritic" and then say ridiculous stuff that forces you to question their competency . "I finished the game in eight hours". No, you didn't.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
I mean Skyrim came out in 2011.

If a game comes out in 2015 and calls itself an RPG game people are free to expect it to be as good as Skyrim. And let's face it- AoD is nothing next to Skyrim. NPCs don't even have radiant AI and just stand lifelessly. No mod support, no radiant quests means the game is over after 15 hours. Plus the game allows you to complete every conflict without a fight- which is just stupid. And don't even make me talk about the voice acting- or rather lack of it. If I wanted to read I'd pick up a book not a game.

Hurr durr
Literally:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/ukazi2021/recommended/489830/

https://steamcommunity.com/id/ukazi2021/recommended/230070/
 

Üstad

Arcane
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
8,525
Location
Türkiye
I mean Skyrim came out in 2011.

If a game comes out in 2015 and calls itself an RPG game people are free to expect it to be as good as Skyrim. And let's face it- AoD is nothing next to Skyrim. NPCs don't even have radiant AI and just stand lifelessly. No mod support, no radiant quests means the game is over after 15 hours. Plus the game allows you to complete every conflict without a fight- which is just stupid. And don't even make me talk about the voice acting- or rather lack of it. If I wanted to read I'd pick up a book not a game.

Hurr durr
Literally:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/ukazi2021/recommended/489830/
I feel like a schoolshooter now after reading this.
 

Vulpes

Scholar
Joined
Oct 12, 2018
Messages
166
I mean Skyrim came out in 2011.

If a game comes out in 2015 and calls itself an RPG game people are free to expect it to be as good as Skyrim. And let's face it- AoD is nothing next to Skyrim. NPCs don't even have radiant AI and just stand lifelessly. No mod support, no radiant quests means the game is over after 15 hours. Plus the game allows you to complete every conflict without a fight- which is just stupid. And don't even make me talk about the voice acting- or rather lack of it. If I wanted to read I'd pick up a book not a game.

Hurr durr
Literally:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/ukazi2021/recommended/489830/
After some digging, I've found a picture of this fine gentleman.
friendly_old_player.jpg
I don't know about you guys, but he looks like a pretty trustworthy individual to me. Now, please excuse me while I go and buy Skyrim for the 9th time.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Another phenomenon I noticed is some players (about half I'd say) giving a negative review and then keep playing for hours:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/ukazi2021/recommended/230070/
8.4 hours at review, 16.7 overall

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198008012572/recommended/230070/
"There just isn't enough substance to justify the meat grinder this game puts its players through."
5.6 hours at review, 40.4 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198211852248/recommended/230070/
"Not worth playing"
35 hours at review, 69 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/id/strifes683/recommended/230070/
"...I don´t understand how hobos even in a group can kill my tank super strong merc..."
118 hours at review, 145 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/id/danielthebatman/recommended/230070/
"Unfortunately, the game has mistaken 'hardcore' gameplay for 'masochistic.' I can understand making combat tough and wanting to avoid it until it's unavoidable but to make a player nitpick every single skill point doesn't make a good game."
0.8 hours at review (i.e. knee-jerk reaction), 22.6 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Simpson3k/recommended/230070/
"Leave this game alone unless you enjoy to play countless hours without any successfull accomplishment."
17 hours at review, 38 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198007433004/recommended/230070/
"Basically you either need to become a set of moronic slavering super hard wired muscles & reflexes OR the total bulging headed smarmy run from & con everything because a sneeze will kill you. Nothing in between works."
43 hours at review, 184 hours overall
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,768
I can relate to that. I've drowned a couple hundred hours in games that were shit and that I couldn't recommend to anyone. They were just the brand of shit that keeps you playing, like junk food – you know it's trash, you don't even really like the taste, but you still eat it.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Another phenomenon I noticed is some players (about half I'd say) giving a negative review and then keep playing for hours:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/ukazi2021/recommended/230070/
8.4 hours at review, 16.7 overall

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198008012572/recommended/230070/
"There just isn't enough substance to justify the meat grinder this game puts its players through."
5.6 hours at review, 40.4 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198211852248/recommended/230070/
"Not worth playing"
35 hours at review, 69 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/id/strifes683/recommended/230070/
"...I don´t understand how hobos even in a group can kill my tank super strong merc..."
118 hours at review, 145 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/id/danielthebatman/recommended/230070/
"Unfortunately, the game has mistaken 'hardcore' gameplay for 'masochistic.' I can understand making combat tough and wanting to avoid it until it's unavoidable but to make a player nitpick every single skill point doesn't make a good game."
0.8 hours at review (i.e. knee-jerk reaction), 22.6 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Simpson3k/recommended/230070/
"Leave this game alone unless you enjoy to play countless hours without any successfull accomplishment."
17 hours at review, 38 hours overall

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198007433004/recommended/230070/
"Basically you either need to become a set of moronic slavering super hard wired muscles & reflexes OR the total bulging headed smarmy run from & con everything because a sneeze will kill you. Nothing in between works."
43 hours at review, 184 hours overall
gotta admire the dedication to keep playing for 184 hours despite hating it
 

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
4,773
Some of it could be sunken cost: "I bought it, so I might as well try and make the most out of it". Others could be trying to find out if the game gets better after a bunch of hours, despite their initial disappointment.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
We had the Awesome difficulty mode before:

But we had to take it down due to complaints that the mode wasn't awesome enough and the game was still hard.

Also needs a description update, as a novice player starting out will think he can easily take on 2v1 fights and win without skillups, just based on his background and the first text (he woke up in inn by fight, killed assasin, guard and merchant by himself, went back to bed... if he was actually in that fight he would have lost about 90% of the rerolls, even assuming he fought the 3 opponents in sequence, not together.)

This might be part of the frustration of new players, as the description of the "awesome" char does not actually match his performance in fights.
The guy who wrote it complained endlessly and then tried to get me fired by writing a nasty email to whoever's in charge of Iron Tower Studio.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,716
Location
California
What makes me angry is not that some people don't know the basics of character building, but that they insist that it is impossible to learn because they are lazy and don't want to learn the basics. They think they have to figure it out everything by osmosis without any thinking whatsoever.
FWIW, I think the problem is that there are two different ways to look at character building in an RPG. One is that it is a basically a wish-expression of the kind of character you want to play. "I want to be a clever fighter, like the Scarlet Pimpernel. I want to be a tough scavenger like Mad Max." Whatever. From that perspective, the game should make it relatively easy to express your wishes, and should do a good job of interpreting them once they're expressed. If you then play contrary to type and fail, that's the player's fault, but if you are trying to play according to type and fail, that's the game's fault. Another way to look at is that character building is itself gameplay, a min-max puzzle to be solved by careful study and experimentation. In that scenario, the game needs to make it easy to tinker with the variables, and then needs to apply the variables in a consistent way, but has no obligation beyond that. If the player's build fails even at its intended purpose, that's the player's fault (like a spaceship failing in Kerbal or whatever).

You can make an argument that as soon as "approach 1" above gets beyond very simple archetypes, it inevitably will collapse into "approach 2" -- I'm not sure that's right, though. Also, to be clear, these things are a spectrum, not binary. For instance, V:TM:B is clearly much closer to the first approach, but there are games that are closer still (like, say, Mass Effect 2).

Codexers certainly lean hard toward the second category, but I suspect it's a minority view among cRPG players. AOD has the layered problem of both being in the second approach and having the weird skillpoint hoarding element. I'm not surprised a lot of folks bounced off it.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
What makes me angry is not that some people don't know the basics of character building, but that they insist that it is impossible to learn because they are lazy and don't want to learn the basics. They think they have to figure it out everything by osmosis without any thinking whatsoever.
FWIW, I think the problem is that there are two different ways to look at character building in an RPG. One is that it is a basically a wish-expression of the kind of character you want to play. "I want to be a clever fighter, like the Scarlet Pimpernel. I want to be a tough scavenger like Mad Max." Whatever. From that perspective, the game should make it relatively easy to express your wishes, and should do a good job of interpreting them once they're expressed. If you then play contrary to type and fail, that's the player's fault, but if you are trying to play according to type and fail, that's the game's fault. Another way to look at is that character building is itself gameplay, a min-max puzzle to be solved by careful study and experimentation. In that scenario, the game needs to make it easy to tinker with the variables, and then needs to apply the variables in a consistent way, but has no obligation beyond that. If the player's build fails even at its intended purpose, that's the player's fault (like a spaceship failing in Kerbal or whatever).

You can make an argument that as soon as "approach 1" above gets beyond very simple archetypes, it inevitably will collapse into "approach 2" -- I'm not sure that's right, though. Also, to be clear, these things are a spectrum, not binary. For instance, V:TM:B is clearly much closer to the first approach, but there are games that are closer still (like, say, Mass Effect 2).
And what happens when you decide to play a seductive Toreador and then discover that the game becomes an action RPG at some point? A character system can't be separated from the overall design/gameplay, but since the player doesn't know what to expect all attempts to play anything other than an awesome fighter (works like a charm in any RPG) becomes a trial-n-error gamble. Thus a sane experienced player would treat it as such and experiment rather than boldly declare that he'll play an outdoorsy gambler in Fallout and travel the wasteland looking for a high-stake poker game.

and then tried to get me fired by writing a nasty email to whoever's in charge of Iron Tower Studio.
well, did it work?
It did. They fired me and I've been shitposting on the Codex ever since.
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
Codexers certainly lean hard toward the second category, but I suspect it's a minority view among cRPG players.

I disagree entirely. “cRPG fans” in this sentence does not qualify because they don’t enjoy genuine cRPGs. They enjoy some games that are mislabelled as cRPGs, but have no resemblance to character building. If you reply with an accusation that this is a “No true Scotsman” fallacy, I will insist that 99% of the taxonomy of fallacies is a rationalisation of political bias and superficial nonsense.
 

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