Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

You're assuming 5 skill points makes the difference in your first point.

As for the second one, what exactly makes forcing you to spent skill points a horribly shitty fix? If some skills costed more points so there would be some point to saving up skill points I could understand it, but there isn't, so why?

 

Because that's a way to work around the game's binary skill checks, like New Vegas had those stupid magazines.

 

Hey, Vault Dweller, I just have to say I admire your high constitution.

I don't know if I could stay sane after reading all of the complaints. I think I would end up eating the wrong side of a shotgun if I had to deal with all the endless complaining.

I understand that some people don't like what you are doing with AoD, but their solution is often to have you redesign the game according to their design specifications. Or they just throw a tantrum as if that is somehow going to change AoD into something else. It is pretty interesting.

At some point many of these people just have to walk away and find something else to play.

No matter what AoD does there will be endless complaining. So I guess you were prepared for that.

I can only imagine the shit storm that will come when Wasteland 2 is released.

 

Managed to save the bro I'm protecting from the 2 thugs on the ambush with the mercenary, got way more money, 1 extra skill point and a achievment.

 

It's not that hard.

I Don't know what makes a target priority for the AI, but the one in brown turned to me immediatelly after I poked his ass with my spear and the merchant could tank the other guy while I raped his friend.

 

It seems similar to something that pops up very often in Workshop save scumming threads: if there's a need to implement special measures against it, and so many players are using it that it hurts the overall game experience somehow, then this is indicative of something being wrong with the game design on a much deeper level, and this should be fixed first instead of concentrating on the symptoms.

 

YES IT IS! We only did because we are awesome players and everyone who didn't is a consoletard fag that should go play ME3!

 

I agree that the problem lies in the design of the game itself. It's too unfocused and it's unfocused by design. Which is both good and bad. It offers freedom in character creation, but that freedom doesn't really mean much left unguided. "Spend SP immediately" is just a band-aid fix to a deeper problem.

Let's compare the original Fallout and AoD Demo. Correct me if I'm wrong DU, it's been a while.

In Fallout you had to tag 3 skills. So you would naturally focus on those skills first. Depending on skills and stats you would need about 5 levels of skill points to reach 100 in all 3 and you'd probably want to go up to 130 or higher (again depending on the skills). That would take another 5-6 levels. Then at level 12 you'd get Tag! and you'd put a couple more levels of SP in that skill. Congratulations, you're lvl 15 and the game is almost over. There were also perks with skill requirements driving the point spending and focus.

The skills were pretty straightforward. 6 combat skills, 3 thief skills, 1 speech skill and 8 less useful skills (let's call them secondary skills). So you basically got to choose from a pool of only 5 skills (speech, steal, lockpick, sneak + 1 combat skill). Rest were not important and never rarely tagged (with the exception of science maybe?). So, let's make a diplomat. Tag speech. Done. Thief? Tag sneak, tag lockpick, tag steal. Done. Fighter? Tag one of the six combat skills. Combined with the gifted trait, there were never really though choices to be made in Fallout character creation. There were 3 ways to complete most of the quests: combat, diplomacy, stealth. It was a simple system that looked complex.

In AoD you have a bazillion skills that are not clearly defined and overlap in their use and usefulness. The quests can be resolved in any number of different ways, with little room for improvisation or player agency. It's essentially a case of tyranny of choices and having no ability to influence their effects after they have been made, without save scumming.

Making pure combat focused characters is the only straightforward thing in character creation. Put points in a weapon skill, defensive skill, add crafting and/or critical strike later. Done. Even the weapon skills synergize, so it's not too costly to switch preferred weapons. You still have to juggle the stats, as there is no gifted trait, but you rarely save points if you only go from fight to fight.

Now make a thief? You'll want a weapon skill, a defensive skill, sneak, steal, lockpick, traps, streetwise, maybe critical strike, maybe disguise, maybe alchemy. That's about 7+ skills. To make matters worse, you can't improvise with the sneak skill, either you pass the check or you die.

Introducing tagged skills would lessen the problem, IMO. You would pick your strengths and stick to them. What good is it to raise etiquette skill from 30 to 40 before dealing with a noble, when your persuade skill is already at 80 and can be raised to 100 with same amount of points (assuming skills obey Fallout rules and go to 200)? I would raise persuade to 100 and hope I could overcome the inevitable faux pas with my silver tongue.

The main problem are binary skill checks. That can't be easily fixed, as it is considered not broken by many and would essentially require scrapping the whole game and starting over.

I can understand VD being too close to the game to see the problems. I just don't understand what feedback the testers have been giving him and the team? If save scumming is an accepted and expected way to play the game, the game becomes disjointed and loses any kind of flow. The quests are clever and the accent on skill use is refreshing, but pass the check or die is not a good game mechanic. The combat is clearly too static and random to be enjoyable in the long run. The 3D world is unused and a gimmick that could be replaced (and improved) with a bunch of 2D concept art. Surely this was evident way, way before now.

AoD beta testers, for shame!

 

DU is going in the right direction here - in Fallout you were really waiting and waiting for that next level up because you knew you just needed a little bit more in something, or in the perks list you saw 3 or 4 perks you wanted to get. In AOD you still have that with combat skills I think, because while fighting you feel your weapon skills are too low or you are just getting hit too often. But with noncombat skills, you are only ever using them in text adventures, you don't know which skills will come up in which text adventures, and since sometimes you don't even see the dialogue option unless you're close, you don't know that either. Whereas in Fallout, you're trying to sneak by Geckos early on or something and you learn you should invest a bit more in sneak. Same with lockpick, the fifth time you fail to open a door. Same with doctor. You get that incremental improvement in your character and persistent feedback on where your character is lacking by roughly how much - you don't get that information most of the time in AOD, because many noncombat skills are only designed to be used in text adventures. Now, let's not make a strawman of Fallout - similar stuff did happen in FO, and people did save up points. But it wasn't the dominant way in which the game was played. But the point is, there are no incremental benefits and there is inadequate feedback.

I'm not sure if tagging itself will fix this, though it might help. And I think it's not practical to implement in-game uses of the non-combat skills, or a dramatic overhaul of the character system. Maybe one thing that can work is reducing the 0-100 scale to at least 50. In AOD right now you have no clue whether there is any difference between 36 streetwise and 38 (unless you have metagaming knowledge of exact skill checks), so you just end up raising by 5s, or raising as much as you can, and hoping for the best. I don't think there's any benefit to having such a large scale. A smaller scale makes it easier for players to understand where they stand in the gameworld and what each point sunk into a skill might mean, even in the current context. Hell, I'd even advocate putting it at 0-10 or something, but going that far will probably fuck with balance of points distribution and the weight of each point.

I also wonder if AOD hasn't given itself too big a task. I think the only way to preserve the current combat set piece + text adventure system, and make people feel like the episodes are too restrictive or encouraging of stat scumming, is for each episodes to be even more reactive and nonlinear than they already are - e.g. so that it's not a case of Persuade or Fight, but even more like 'conversation battles' where you might fail the initial persuasion check but recover the situation with a trading check to make the best of the mess for a different outcome, etc. This does happen in a few of the episodes already. But doing that throughout the game would have made it impossibly complex. It feels like AOD stripped away many conventional shortcuts and mechanisms in RPGs and tried to replace them with a different system, which is admirable, and which does succeed by and large, but they stripped away more than they could hope to replace with their resources. (e.g. I don't think it would have hurt to have retained a more typical loot system where you have containers in the world, doors, chests; it is not ideal, but it would have been a useful way to flesh out the world without overspending resources.)

 

Bro. Just for that, I'm going donate to da forum.

*tearsof47*

 

No, I'm not complaining about the easy fight with the mob. I think, I actually said that this one is fine to me. I was talking about the fight at the gate or wall, depending on what you did choose. The player is placed close to rather strong enemies there (esp. if you go with the bribed guards) and has a small chance of survival.
I did play a non-combat character with no points in combat, save for a few in critical strike, as this comes up quite often in CYOA mode. Yet I had a hard time succeeding the skill checks in the end, as you seem to need rather high values there. Maybe I had spread out my points too much, but I played a thief, so naturally I raised lockpicking, stealth, stealing, a bit of traps (due to me dying to a trap in one side-quest) and disguise, as this came up a lot in the last mission.
Surely I could have moved the points around a bit to acchieve a more "optimal" distribution, but that can hardly be the goal of the game.


Regarding the skill point saving discussion:
The reason I am doing that is because it's hard to foresee which skills/values you are going to need and points are rare. As part of the quests have binary outcomes (fail horibbly/can't continue or succeed), preserving some points is almost a must to prevent even more excessive reloading.

I guess that the final game might attenuate that issue somewhat, because there will be hopefully more content that allows you to diversify or train your character a bit if you are hit with a quest you cannot solve otherwise.
Otherwise, what could maybe help is more skill options/synergy between skills in some of the CYOA parts (I did already mention, but some thief missions are quite nice in that regard), or fail-safe checks to at least prevent some of the "lol, you dye" outcomes in some quests when your skill is one or two points too low. E.g. allow for a DEX roll to save against a trap.

Edit: Or how about splitting more outcomes into fail/partial success/success?
If a skill-check fails because your skill is just a little too low (like 5 points, depending on the situation), it's a partial success and you could allow an alternative check of a related skill or attribute.

In case a dev is reading this: I might come across rather negative in my posts, but I just try to stay objective and point out things I consider problematic (maybe too often right after playing instead of after I have thought some more about them). I don't consider the game bad, just still too rough around the edges.

 

Well, I'm talking about the fight at the wall, after going with the bribed guards. But my thief only faced the two bribed guards, ran to the back, and my other guys finished them with crossbows.

...but my character did notice that something was wrong (a streetwise check, makes sense for a thief) and that was perhaps why he only had to face the two guards.

 

Yeah, I noticed that, too, but my character got placed in front of the guard. Got hit 2 times, tried to turn and run, got hit two more times. Dead.
If I won against the first guard, I had to face another fight right after that, where I got killed, again.
Happened a few times, then I stopped and decided to continue another day. Maybe it was bad luck.

 

Ok, couldn't reproduce mine black screen bug. Made a sword merc, testing if it's as beefy as spear, and well not quite. Killed those guys, left and healed. Killed the other guys and entered, returned to Del using that route and no bug.
I would have thought it was a memory issue, but the same thing happened when I still had the save and reloaded, entered, tried returning. Had to enter, exit, enter, return for it not to bug. But this time nothing went wrong.

 

@Dark Underlord: Marsal said most of what I'd say, but I'd like to add some things:

1) IT's a fallacy that something is inherently wrong with design just because it encourages a type of behaviour "we don't like." It is almost impossible to design a game that eliminates extreme gamistic behaviour. You're blowing the problem way, waaaaaaaaaay out of proportion by black-and-white lining it up as a matter of "well, either there's nothing wrong with the game, or otherwise the whole thing needs to be re-designed."

2) You're saying that the system is broken because there is nothing to spend skill points on - wow, mate, do you understand the nature of the problem? I'll explain it: People save skill points, go to the next quest. If they CANNOT complete it, they reload, and spend their saved skill points on whatever it is that quest requires. This is what you earlier defined as "wow a problem with game design, nothing left to do but redesign the entire game." I agree that it's a problem with game design, but which games do not have problems? Fallout's useless skills were a much, much larger problem and we still like that game right? Now, let's be practical instead of talking only in big, extreme syllables: We have a problem with design here. We can either let it be, encouraging save scumming and point saving (and people REALLY want to spend their skill points, they're just afraid too). We can also remove the option to save them up. This removes a slight element of choice but as far as I see it that's fairly unproblematic compared to the gain.

In other words, I never said there's not benefit to saving up skill points. There is no benefit within the system itself to do it. People are doing it because they are meta-gaming. Removing options to meta-game is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Yep, and this is the case. You apparantly see this as some catastrophical, fatal error in game design. I don't. In AoD it is certainly a problem but it is one that can be sortta fixed by @Marsal's suggestion.

 

I usually hoard skill points in games before spending to make things more challenging and also to get a better idea of what I need to upgrade, when the game simply does not allow me anymore to for example pick locks with my current skills. The harder the game in question, the more reason to quicker/immediately assign skill points. It's a little bit like optional level-up in D&D games, not so much as for the HP bonus some games give you (insta-heal on level-up) but to increase the challenge a bit, see how far you can stretch it without leveling up. I don't think one has to necessarily force the player to spend skill points, it is a choice of playing the game and should be left to the player.

 

Played the demo. My impressions:
1. Dodge is underpowered, because it is ineffective when used in conjunction with heavy armor (which is logical). There's absolutely no incentive to take dodge and wear light armor even while playing a thief, as you can switch mid-fight from your light robe/armor with no sneak penalty to heavy armor. The few extra AP you retain while wearing light armor are not worth it compared to fuckhuge damage reduction of heavy armors, especially since HP do not increase with level. Also, judging from my experience, the block and dodge rates are more or less the same at the same skill level. IMHO, dodge should have higher evasion and counter rates than block at the same skill level. Alternatively, you could make it impossible to switch armor mid-fight, forcing sneaky characters to roll with light armor.

2. Long spears aren't worth it, except in fights when you have support from other characters and even then they're hardly useful, because you have to rely on dodge (which implies light armor) for defense, when a warrior would have already invested heavily into the block skill.
3. The damage of javelins and other thrown spears is shit. Absolutely not worth it, better switch to a crossbow even with a low skill level (especially since they can use armor piercing bolts). I think it would be good if the damage was increased with higher range penalty applied to ensure that crossbows retain their usefulness.

4. Game feels more like a text adventure or a visual novel, not a fallout inspired RPG.

 

Was even worse, you could hang to skill points AND perks. You could get a perk at lv 9, save it, level up to 10-11, and spend the new skill points to unlock better perks and take them.

 

DU

 

Full stop. I can say there is a problem with game design without saying the game needs to be redesigned from the ground up to be good. If I didn't ackknowledge there was a problem, why would I try to introduce a fix?

Seriously, you must have understood that was my position when I said you were blowing the problem out of proportion - otherwise why wouldn't I have said "there is no problem" and conversely had I done that, why would I think a fix was needed?

If all you want to do is tell me what I think, then there is no point is there? It's quite evident that we disagree on the proportions here, and there is no need to invent my words. If you think otherwise, please point to exactly where I contradict myself?:

1. I support Marsal's solution (so obviously I recognize a problem)
2. I claim that the problem is not big enough that the game is completely broken

How on fucking earth is this contradicting, exactly?

Not my solution - Marsal's solution which I support. And I disagree very strongly with your stance here. I have finished a fine replay of the demo without hoarding skill points, and not because I got lucky, but because I accepted failed checks when they arose. I accepted the unperfect playthrough. What I'm saying right now is that to do this right now you'd have to accept some amount of LARPing - because right now the game can be efficiently played by saving up skill points and reloading when you need a major boost to a skill. This problem would be mitigated by forcing you to spend skill points right away.

It's quite logical that this wouldn't encourage the same amount of save-scumming, as you would have to reload far further back (because if you needed 15 skill points for something you would have to go through enough quests to provide you with such because you have to spend skill points on level up).

Summa summarum I don't think you're right that game is unplayable or inherently broken if you do not save up skill points. There is certainly a problem, yes, but not one that breaks the game or makes it unplayable.

You are assuming we agree on the nature and extend of the problem. We do not.

 

A few points:

1) Fallout - if I recall correctly, it was very easy to tag or invest into wrong skills when playing for the first time. The biggest issue with Fallout, in my opinion, was that many non-combat skills were useless. The system, basically, promised a lot more action than the game delivered. Once you knew how to play (i.e. once you understood the design), what to expect (including quests), it was fun to experiment with different character builds and see what you can uncover.

2) It's like CYOA lol, if pass a check, go here, if fail, go there - not sure I get this one. Isn't that how skill checks work?

3) VD is too close, he doesn't see the issues - I do see the issues and they were discussed openly in the past. However, like I said earlier, there is a difference between seeing issues and knowing how to fix them without breaking something else.

Yes, the checks are high, which means that until you figure out how the game works, you will be in the dark. The way I see it, it's no different than any other complex (more than killing) RPG - you have to understand how it's designed and what the internal rules are, but let's put it aside for now.

Let's say we lower the checks and give you more points to play with. Then you have enough points to throw around and then you don't fail checks, which is as much fun as playing an adventure game with a guide.

Now, I'm not saying that what we did is the best design there is. I'm sure there are better ways to do non-combat gameplay. If someone has any thoughts, I'd love to read them.

Edit:

4) Skill point hoardng - I don't see that as a problem. You never know what to expect from a game so saving points until you know for sure what the challenges are is a viable and even standard approach.

 

Yeah, I just finished another thief walkthrough. Didn't have the persuasion to bypass some mobs and just get the guard captain solo, instead I got half a dozen mercs. So I just killed shit. Only me and Lucius left.

If my dodge had been 60s, I could have maybe done bandit camp, but I cheesed out and crit hit the leader and then intimidated. Then sneak lockpicked the mine. Mine is probably completely undoable without ludicrous dodge, or if you ignore your AP's I guess you could go heavy armor. I just stuck with the default thief shitarmor.

Anyway, probably already identified, but I figured out what's causing the disguise bugging out and other such stuff.
When you pick a disguise option succesfully you switch to armor so and so, but it doesn't check PC sex when it puts your old armor back in inventory. So you're trying to wear wrong sex armor.
This seems to happen with all the disguise options I've run into. Also happens when there's a script where you pick up armor and wear it, like the palace iron armor at one point.