Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

VD, have you folks considered just giving people the ability to choose a difficulty level?

What I would suggest is that the difficulty level only gives extra starting skill points, and nothing more.

So if someone wants to play it on "easy" then they would for example start with 20 extra skill points. On easy the game will start out super easy and will slowly get harder as those extra skill points become less and less important over time.

This wouldn't involve much codding and it would let you keep your vision without having to make it easier. Everyone wins, and you won't have to fight with people about the difficulty as much.

I actually prefer the current difficulty, and I only bring this up because I fear in some small ways all the complaining will influence you to make it just a tad easier even if you don't want to do that.

You could have 3 or 4 settings.... even 1 that was harder.

Seems simple and if it relieves some of the complaints then you can get past this "difficulty debate"

 

We did think about it. Haven't decided anything yet.

It won't.

However, we need to tweak the THC formula because it rewards focusing on dodge/block too much. Defense is king at the moment and we want to change that. Naturally, changing the formula will change the difficulty instantly (probably making it even harder), so we'll need your help (and everyone else who likes the difficulty) to balance it the right way.

Are you registered on our forums?

Fuck 'em. Simple solutions for simple problems.

 

Just skip battles and focus on 1-2 skills like merchant & persuade bro, that's the "easy mode". Even the "impossible" first fight can be skipped, people are being presented a easy path, but keep complaining that the hard one is hard...

 

That would actually be optimal. The Combat/Diplomacy balance could effectively work as a difficulty slider - the more focus on combat, the greater the difficulty.

 

Yes, I liked the look of the world map too. Those supahcraters on the map looked really promising and like something I'd love to check (outside dialogue boxes )

 

I'm pretty sure i missed about 3-4 kills in the city.. i guess i could go back to the city and up the number a bit after work.

 

Yeah, I though they could do something like Dark Souls, recomending Merchant for first/easy playthrought.

But just making dialog "easy" and combat "hard" would be dumb, both should have hard challenges, especially in a game so focused on in-dialog checks.

 

If anything, going all out in either direction should be the harder than a more balanced build (giving you good access to easier enough fights), at least if you'd play your cards right in the actual gameplay. But as it is, that's possibly harder instead (just a hunch)?

As far as the difficulty goes, I'd just want it possible to have more breadth to your skill selection and therefore gameplay options. So maybe make straightforward bumrush-approach battles harder, and solutions that let you totally bypass combat harder, and give the player some more skillpoints to compensate.

And apparently killing (some) random people will give you skillpoints, while not giving any consequences? Haven't tried it, just read here, but why not get rid of idiotic shit like that and possibly give some of those points to the player directly if needed.

 

I wouldn't say dialog is "easy". It's easy when you know exactly which skill checks you're going through after replaying the demo a dozen times. Try to finish the demo joining the commercium with just dialog skills. :p

 

Actually I think that is one of the problems with the design in the demo (and possibly the full game).
If you have the right skills figured out (usually after reloadeing a few times), it's pretty banal - just click through dialogue, everything resolves itself.
By comparison combat is much harder and more unforgiving, but also more of a game, as it requires more player input.

 

It was never intended. I didn't have time to tag every NPC as a civilian of Teron (killing them carries consequences), and thought it would not be a problem for the first release. But I forgot that 90% of RPG players are psychotic murderers.

Adding tags now plus making some "teams", so if you attack a member of the shanty town, the others jump in his defense.

 

The problem with this is the demo design where a group of 3-7 npcs ambushes ONE player. These npcs have 40-50 HP, have high str and dex, and appears to have 40-50 weapon skills.

Proposal 1:
Offense becomes viable if npcs are nerfed, or companions(meatshields) are provided.

Proposal 2:
Another alternative is to make a few quests which are focused on offensive capabilities (IE: Kill all these guards in X turn).

I had a bunch of other ideas.. but i think these two are probably the most viable ones without changing a lot of gameplay mechanics.

 

This. Even if you pump just 2-3 noncombat skills, it often seems like a lottery, and trial and error is your only game manual.

 

The escort one with the mercenary is like this. The problem is the fight was tailor made is insanely hard to save the guy.

I almost did with my hammer dude, you need lot's of action points to be able to attack the first thief on the first turn and the second one on the second/third, so they will stop attaking the guy and focus on you. Tonight I shall try again.

 

I dont see why overall difficulty in combat should be changed.

I think only the first few fights should be made a bit easier by lowering the skills of the enemies.
Well, additionally going over some others individually could be good and just adapting them if necessary but i dont know any.

 

I wasn't registered. I have been following the forums at Iron Tower for both AoD and Dead State for several years now, but I rarely feel inclined to post my opinion... but I went ahead and registered today as I do think the difficulty issue is worth fighting over.

And, yeah, I agree that changing the focus from dodge/block to weapon skills would really change the balance quite a lot. The static hit points makes dodge/block really important in the current build. But that isn't a bad thing really... I mean the demo is only the beginning of the game... so being forced to go heavy on block/dodge in the beginning doesn't mean that later you can't focus on other things.

Defense first is usually a good starting build for any melee character, and the mercenary can easily defeat the assassin in the opening scene following that rule.

Anyway, I am now registered over there and if I see a place for my point of view I will make it.

 

I like the demo, but it needs some stuff to not make it irritating (bigger fonts, show AP for movement faster or on the squares and other that were said here).

 

Started a new game with a thief, after playing through with a Praetor first.

Thief feels much better - you seem to get more options, most importantly, more different ones while the Praetor felt more like you just had to find the one combination of skill points that really worked.
Generally the gameplay with the thief class seems pretty enjoyable to me.

Btw., I doubt Vault Dweller that you give much on my opinion or will change much about those parts now, but I think if you would increase the available number of different skill-checks that will lead to the same or similar outcome (e.g. if there's a persuasion option available, add a streetwise or etiquette option in those situations where it fits, maybe with a certain malus), the issue that often you have to find a very specific combination of skills will be mitigated a bit.

 

I do, actually. Just because I dismissed day 1 complaints about the difficulty doesn't mean I dismiss everything else.

 

Thanks. Interesting - it sounds like AOD is a quite short game, that plays out like, say, a ten hour game that is made up of dozens of five to ten minute episodes. Then obviously, becoming a very long experience due to the replayability. Seems like you won't really develop a strong attachment to a particular character you rolled, that you stick with for hours and hours and see them develop, but more about fleshing out an intended character type over a short arc and seeing how it interacts with the world differently to your previous and future characters.

On Gord's latest point, I think the tricky bit is making it rather intuitive. If I can hike up Etiquette and expect to have it help me get out of many, though not all, situations where I need to persuade nobles, then I don't have to save scum and metagame skill points. I think in the demo that works well with Etiquette, Sneak or even Disguise, but say, with Traps, you could potentially use traps anywhere, and in a dog eat dog world like AOD streetwise-persuasion-trading could be used interchangeably too. Don't think there's a problem in the demo per se, but in the full game will be a balance challenge.

 

I wouldn't call non-combat character gameplay a "lottery" per se, it might seem like that if you're aiming for "perfect" quest outcome. My very first playthrough was with a very non-optimized grifter-like character, and even despite royally fucking up several times (f. i. borking myself over by blowing the "disguise" option of getting to the Palace by epically failing the kill Cassius quest) I did manage to get through - I simply had to look for ways to utilize the skills I did have, and see what these could get me. I ended up enlisting with house Aurelius through the mining camp, thus ending the demo.

But yes, if you're planning ahead which outcome you want, you gotta hoard skillpoints and go by trial and error.

And my as inefficient loremaster managed to fail his way through the Commercium questline. In this game, failure is fun.

As to the dodge/block debate - actually my gung-ho, kill 'em fast characters with no defense whatsoever did not do that bad, but were unable to cope with the Imperial Guards questline (problems during the assault on the tower). If you want deadly efficiency, just disregard everything, get 10 dex, high perception, and go for crossbows and crit-strike. I wouldn't say that combat is imbalanced. It actually makes sense that if you're going up close and personal, defense is king. The innkeeper even says so to the mercenary character: if you wanna go with Imperial Guards, better make sure you can hold the line. Killing fast isn't as important there as keeping yourself alive.

 

I agree. I don't see a problem if you make a character and 'role-play'. The exact knowledge of checks matters only if you want to beat as many quests as possible in a single playthrough and get all the items/sp. It's a different game (not better or worse than X, but different) and it requires a different mindset.

 

Hey VD, a question: When determining THC, does the system keep track of your previous attacks in order to balance out the hits and misses during the course of an encounter? Let's say for instance that you have a fight in which you get 10 offensive moves, with a 60% THC. Is it possible to actually miss with all ten of your attacks? or is there some system in place to make sure that the 60% holds true in the long run?

 

Possible to miss all 10, but to the best of my knowledge the RNG works fairly well.