AoD recieves undue praise and favouritism from the Codex

[Kalin]

All this bitching and whining reminded me it's time for another replay.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

VD, selling movie licence when? I want to see expensive cgi of all the ruins.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

... snip ...

he is the game's main designer but he is also an experienced and competent salesman ... which means that he wanted to grow an community for his game.

Also, we are ruled by lizards.
Man, you ARE paranoid one.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

but I would urge at the very least offering different end game boss for different factions

Like Arcanum, FO1/2, and Planescape? Underrail? Fuck off.

You read some of these posts, and you just have to ask yourself, are these people fucking serious? How can anyone be so stupid? Did they drop on their head as a child? Maybe they regularly drink from lead pipes or their house is slowly giving them CO2 poisoning. I just don't know any more. These posts have no rhyme or reason, they are simply dumb. The guys who make these posts are cowards. They know nothing about high powered cut-throat environments of the business world mirrored with a sublime combination of realism and artistic exaggeration into the game world. They are clueless, and still dare complain. Pride and no substance. They can't handle defeat, they are incapable of learning, how dare is there an internal game world logic present here? Why does my 4 int char not have the funny dumb lines like in fallout? Why is every single moronic decision not completely simulated and presented as a viable choice? How else am I meant to compare it to my own life and feel immersed? I just want to know if they were this stupid before their clueless parents had them vaccinated. I don't think so. Mental midgets who prefer the tedium of small animated legs clumsily making their way through the city instead of the patrician comfort of teleportation induced narrative tension. Don't even get me started on the camera. You dumb ass. You fool. You clown. Why does this game not work like a VR simulated reality piece from my wet dreams that are completely devoid of any design temperance or good taste? Just shut the fuck up. Stupid idiots. They are larpers. Playing the game for them doesn't mean engaging with the game world and system, it simply means a one way ticket to escapist lalaland where they are liberated from the necessity to think or engage with problems. They write lines and lines of text pointlessly. The only thing they learned from VD is the autistic style of line by line quoting. Have they ever heard of Hegel? No. The dialectical perfection of AoD is beyond these base animals. Have you killed the Zamedi demon, you pretentious idiot who sullies the name of his great game? Trick question, moron, he isn't a demon, in fact, it could be argued that the player character is the real demon, you just don't get that in other games. Listen to me, I have seen the inside of Meru's hidden library, there isn't even an achievement for that, it's a hidden reward for killing Meru after his mind got infected with foreign entities just like your own got infected with extreme levels of retardation. You cannot even begin to talk to me about this game. I know everything, and you know nothing. Why is there a lockpick check? You fucking moron. If you asked me this in real life I would have my boyfriend beat you to a pulp. I actually don't have a boyfriend but if I did I would have him do that. There should be more reactivity if you play a woman? Maybe true, but did you know that in the thieves guild quest in Teron, Cado berates you for being late if you stop by Linos to tell him about the heist and says he will never work with a woman again? Subtle, but realistic, men often complain to women about things they would tolerate from other men. That's what social reactivity is about, not dressing up in harem clothing to appease loser nerds who just want to have a quick wank before dying to the bossfight because they are too stupid to build their characters properly. Yes, there are proper ways to build your character? Don't like it? Go live in a conformist utopia, you absolute mongrel. That's how life works, you live or you lose, you figure out what is the correct path through. People who complain about this are probably the same sort of a troglodyte that studies STEM or CS as a westerner in the 21st century in hopes of getting a well paying job even though all of your fields are oversaturated and getting outsourced overseas. Go dagger and crit, grab some dodge, max one or two non combat skills. There. Your problems are solved. Moron. Don't ever complain about AoD again. I will kill you.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

The thing with AoD is that it's a mediocre game at best. The only aspect which elevates the game from an absolute state of shite is the narrative but you need a strong stomach in order to actually find out. You probably know better than me because I did not bother with the game past the beginning.

lmfao, please refer to the quote above.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

You read some of these posts, and you just have to ask yourself, are these people fucking serious? How can anyone be so stupid? Did they drop on their head as a child? Maybe they regularly drink from lead pipes or their house is slowly giving them CO2 poisoning. I just don't know any more. These posts have no rhyme or reason, they are simply dumb. The guys who make these posts are cowards. They know nothing about high powered cut-throat environments of the business world mirrored with a sublime combination of realism and artistic exaggeration into the game world. They are clueless, and still dare complain. Pride and no substance. They can't handle defeat, they are incapable of learning, how dare is there an internal game world logic present here? Why does my 4 int char not have the funny dumb lines like in fallout? Why is every single moronic decision not completely simulated and presented as a viable choice? How else am I meant to compare it to my own life and feel immersed? I just want to know if they were this stupid before their clueless parents had them vaccinated. I don't think so. Mental midgets who prefer the tedium of small animated legs clumsily making their way through the city instead of the patrician comfort of teleportation induced narrative tension. Don't even get me started on the camera. You dumb ass. You fool. You clown. Why does this game not work like a VR simulated reality piece from my wet dreams that are completely devoid of any design temperance or good taste? Just shut the fuck up. Stupid idiots. They are larpers. Playing the game for them doesn't mean engaging with the game world and system, it simply means a one way ticket to escapist lalaland where they are liberated from the necessity to think or engage with problems. They write lines and lines of text pointlessly. The only thing they learned from VD is the autistic style of line by line quoting. Have they ever heard of Hegel? No. The dialectical perfection of AoD is beyond these base animals. Have you killed the Zamedi demon, you pretentious idiot who sullies the name of his great game? Trick question, moron, he isn't a demon, in fact, it could be argued that the player character is the real demon, you just don't get that in other games. Listen to me, I have seen the inside of Meru's hidden library, there isn't even an achievement for that, it's a hidden reward for killing Meru after his mind got infected with foreign entities just like your own got infected with extreme levels of retardation. You cannot even begin to talk to me about this game. I know everything, and you know nothing. Why is there a lockpick check? You fucking moron. If you asked me this in real life I would have my boyfriend beat you to a pulp. I actually don't have a boyfriend but if I did I would have him do that. There should be more reactivity if you play a woman? Maybe true, but did you know that in the thieves guild quest in Teron, Cado berates you for being late if you stop by Linos to tell him about the heist and says he will never work with a woman again? Subtle, but realistic, men often complain to women about things they would tolerate from other men. That's what social reactivity is about, not dressing up in harem clothing to appease loser nerds who just want to have a quick wank before dying to the bossfight because they are too stupid to build their characters properly. Yes, there are proper ways to build your character? Don't like it? Go live in a conformist utopia, you absolute mongrel. That's how life works, you live or you lose, you figure out what is the correct path through. People who complain about this are probably the same sort of a troglodyte that studies STEM or CS as a westerner in the 21st century in hopes of getting a well paying job even though all of your fields are oversaturated and getting outsourced overseas. Go dagger and crit, grab some dodge, max one or two non combat skills. There. Your problems are solved. Moron. Don't ever complain about AoD again. I will kill you.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

VD, selling movie licence when? I want to see expensive cgi of all the ruins.

I think AoD have more chances for adequate anime adaptation WAIT WAIT DON'T RUN I mean, Technolyze-like gloomy anime adaption. Oh, shit, you still ran away, my imaginary friend.

 

[Harry Easter]

I still think that AoD was to big for it's own good and its skillchecks way uneven. You could have countered that either with more sidequests and more dialogue options (more work for the devs) or more XP. In the end it would've helped if they had kept one big city and strengthen the relationships with the NPC's there with giving them the quests of less flesh-out NPC's and maybe also cut out a few paths.

I mean, the combat is fine, but it also happens often enough that you get into a combat situation, because you didn't fullfill the requirement for a skillcheck. What those requirements are seems to be quite random, because I can influence a smart politician easypeasy, but a random, hungry thug can't be talked with?

It would've needed more time and money. But I'm still glad it got finished, because after that came Dungeon Rats and now we get Colony Ship, which I'm quite optimistic about. Because the good stuff is already in AoD, now they can make it better.

 

[RNGsus]

I like Dungeon Rats.

 

[Goral]

... snip ...

he is the game's main designer but he is also an experienced and competent salesman ... which means that he wanted to grow an community for his game.

Also, we are ruled by lizards.
Man, you ARE paranoid one.

This is nothing, check this thread out where he's gone ape-shit when no one (except for other Underrail fanboys) listened to his paranoic theories (plus he got destroyed in a discussion because he doesn't even know AoD):
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/game-shilling-on-codex-accepted-or-not.113594/
After that discussion he put me on his ignore list :D.

He also got a dumbfuck, safe space and weasel tags as a result but then begged administrators to remove it: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/reason-for-tag.113658/
:D :D :D

And got destroyed by VentilatorOfDoom: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/reason-for-tag.113658/page-2#post-4975174

Not to mention this (read spoiler): https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/reason-for-tag.113658/page-2#post-4975364

wall of quotes

Now, I don't blame Vault Dweller

/continues to blame VD and slander him in his next posts

I don't care if Vault Dweller is paying them

/right, so why does he even mention this AND suggest some unethical behaviour?

I actually tried to give them the benefit of the doubt.

lol

I don't really care if the mods will do something about it or not.

/continues to ask the mods to ban me and LK, later to give us tags, goes on creating another thread to cry

Goral is advertising himself as DR tester (aka Dungeon Rats tester) therefore his opinion on the game cannot be subjective. His relation with IronTower must be completely disclosed.

/lol Not only it's a lie (which VD has uncovered) but it's also dumb. Saying "advertising" when only a stalker like him noticed this, lol. He also failed to notice that Darth Roxor and many others also had "DR tester" tags.

They shilled on (...) rpgwatch (...) and others.

/Another lie.

1) They are part of you testing group which implies that you have off-forum conversations with them (mail, messenger and so on).

2) They used your forum to coordinate this kind of operation.

In fact in that thread Goral is spewing confidential information like this:

How the fuck does he know that the game is not selling too well?

(...) 3) You were part of this operation - with intention or without intention. (...)

1) They shilled hard in the "The Age of Incline: RPG Codex's 2012-2016 GOTY Results" thread.

There are clues that vote manipulation took place and AoD was one of the games that profited the most.

/dumbfuck lies

You have a communication tool with them that is private (non-transparent) and also not available to regular AoD players therefore technically my statement is correct.

/technically and otherwise he's an imbecile, nothing would stop VD from contacting anyone via email or PMs here or IRC (join #aodcultists on irc.irchighway.net, password: "AoD>UR").

Goral What's your take on this?

And to answer your/OP question - promoting superb, obscure games is more than OK, spamming about RTwP/FPP popamole games made by studios with over 100 employees is not (and Obsidian until recently had about 200) since they don't need any amateurish promotion. Codex for some time now resembles some Obsidian/inXile fanpage.

I apologize for mentioning you in that post. I'm not really interested in your opinion ... about anything.

:D

I did not want to spend half a day on this crap

Posting it for lulz, if he really needed to spend half a day to write his shit then he deserves a dumbfuck tag.

Also in the original thread I used valid criticism against the game

Right, it was so valid that once I've responded to his post and exposed his idiotic claims and lies he got so butthurt that he created another thread dedicated to me and attacking me personally, not my arguments. Pathetic. And it's so like him to try and twist everything around:

My mistake was that I took Goral's bait and I exposed them in such an inept way that most posters dismissed my arguments and went after my persona instead.

I was answering to his baseless claims presenting sound arguments with actual arguments which proved he's talking out of his ass while he used "argumentum ad personam" and created another thread. Same thing happened on UR subforum where he admitted he agrees with me but started spouting lies anyway, lol.

I could go on and on but since most users will "tl;dr" it what's the point? Most of these lies I've exposed in the thread where toro posted them but no staff member besides VentilatorOfDoom and Scrooge bothered to read them.

Seriously though, if you don't see how retarded and petty he is and don't see the reason why VentilatorOfDoom gave toro these tags then you deserve dumbfuck tags yourselves.

I got a Tag. I don't want it to be removed

Will you consider removing my tags and end this charade?

Toro in a nutshell.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

toro said: ↑
1) They are part of you testing group which implies that you have off-forum conversations with them (mail, messenger and so on).

2) They used your forum to coordinate this kind of operation.

Oh my God, this is so fucked up.

OK, the main result of this thread is that I started replaying AoD with a more thoughtful build, and holy shit, how brilliantly awesome this game is.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I mean, I couldn't imagine there was this big controversy between AoD "shills" & UR madman. Reading the links Goral provided, make me unknow this

 

[Üstad]

Spoiler

In “better” cRPG’s skill/stat checks are either inexistent or fluffy. It’s impossible to fail in any of them. Consequently, when players fail in a stat/skill check, that pisses them off. Then they start to make rationalisations and giant comments trying to downgrade the game because their precious egos are brutally violated by a hostile gameworld for the first time. It doesn’t matter that you have to achieve a number to pass in a skill/stat check. The point is that it feels like you have a hostile gameworld getting in the way, trying to make things difficult for you.

Once again this is where you are wrong, the world only feels "hostile" in the first playthrough, once you figure out how the game works it's so easy to make a specialised character and breeze through the game by passing skill checks designed for your character, the only challenging builds in the game are fighting builds, the rest are played like a more restrictive version of a visual novel, you pass a skillcheck, you move on, you pass another skill check, you move on again and it goes on and on untill the end of the game.
A game that allows the player to finish it easily by clicking one skill check after the other, isn't doing a very good job at conveying that the gameworld is quote on quote "hostile", also unlike actual C&C games where you have no idea which choice is good for you and which choice is gonna hurt you and where you're always nerve wrecked and worried about not making the right choice, in AoD as long as you're not an idiot and always follow the option that suits your character build you know that said option is almost always going to work, effectivley nullifying the whole "forced to make tough choices and fail" feel that you spoke of.

Like every single cRPG existence.

No, i am sorry this is just idiotic, not every CRPG plays itself for you, why can't AoD fans just enjoy the game for what it is instead of feeling the need to defend the things it does horribly.

Here is an example, let's say you're playing FO1 and you're given a quest to secretly assasinate a certain important person who has guards posted guarding his house 24/7, so you start trying to think of a way to do it, you wait untill night since you can't kill him publicly and you go to his house and start looking for a way to get in, maybe you bribe the guards, sweet talk them if you have speech (but without the game showing you the skill check), maybe you sneak in from the back door, maybe from a window, i don't know, once you're in you sneak around trying to find where your target is without getting caught by guards or the servants that live in the house, then you find the guy's office and remember that you have skill in explosives and you can just put a timed bomb under his office and leave so you do that, by the next morning you go take a visit to his house and find his entrails splattered eveywhere in the office and feel pride for having thought of all of this by yourself without the game explicitly telling you what to do.

Let's say we take the same scenario just this time, we execute it AoD style:

you go to the guy's house and a menu pops up:

1. [speechcraft] sweet talk the guard.
2. [dexterity] [sneak] climb and sneak in through a window.
3. [lockpick] unlock the back door and get in.

so you choose the lockpick option because you have lockpick and you succeed but the moment you get in you find a house servant facing you looking at you in shock, then this menu pops up:

1. [speechcraft] [trading] you convince him somehow to let it under the rug for a sum of money.
2. [critical hit] you stab him in the neck before he can react.
3. Attack.

so let's say you choose the critical hit option knowing that you invested points into that and it succeeds, in the next menu that pops up you find the guy's office and you are met with these two options:

1.[explosives] leave a timed bomb under the guy's office.
2.[sneak] hide somewhere in the office and wait for his arrival.

you know you have explosives so you choose the first one and you succeed, congratulations. You see it's the same scenario same method used same everything except for one important thing, in FO1 you thought of a way to kill the guy and then executed it yourself through the game mechanics, in AoD you clicked 3 menu options that SAY that you did all of those things and you only knew those specific options would work from your knowledge of your character build not because they're objectively the safest options or something.

I am sorry but this is just pathetic, the game isn't just playing itself for you it's effectivley thinking for you as well, this is not roleplaying, roleplaying means actively playing the role of a character yourself, not clicking a couple of menu options that play the role for you.

As a AoD fan this is a legit criticism but such thing is hard to implement and they have abused the 'dialouge screen' thingy and they even admit that. Other than that the game is much more than being fine enough. Thinking all these is nice, but in fallout 1 there was one problem, not many skills were useful and speechcraft was a must for every build if you wanted to complete quests aside main one. Fallout was letting you grind and letting you know there was a certain ideal build, AoD has no such thing at all. You coulnd't abuse it. You couldnt just reverse steal and put timed explosives into the guys pocket and done with it. The system was very abuseable.

 

[barghwata]

in fallout 1 there was one problem, not many skills were useful and speechcraft was a must for every build if you wanted to complete quests aside main one.

I disagree, other skills are also quite useful and offered a variety of ways of dealing with problems and quests and sometimes they even open up new branches in the storyline or knowledge of lore that you couldn't get otherwise. In the example i brought up for instance which fallout is filled with the likes of, without at least a decent amount of lockpick, stealth and explosives, pulling of that assasination without problems or getting caught would be quite difficult.
then again i admit that a high level in speech had the issue of making the game a little too easy, that much i can certainly agree with.

AoD has no such thing at all. You coulnd't abuse it. You couldnt just reverse steal and put timed explosives into the guys pocket and done with it

Agreed, fallout while a masterpiece did allow the player to abuse its mechanics a bit without harsh consequences. However not to the degree that some people might think, sometimes if you even spoke the wrong way to someone even if you had good speech, you could get closed off from an entire questline or get kicked out of a city, consequences are there.
AoD, while it can be quite unforgiving of course, does have the issue of allowing the player to easily circumvent that sense of danger by effectively specialising themselves as a non combatant character, while in fallout skills functioned more like tools given to the player to make the best use of instead of a safety net, an example of this is the speech skill that was more about giving the player more dialogue options in conversations then just outright telling the player what to say.

I think it boils down to a "player skill vs character skill" debate, which i am kind of in the middle of, i think a healthy balance between player skill and character skills makes for the most fun experience, but i will say this again it's not my job to define what fun is, i might act like an elitist know-it-all sometimes but NOT THAT MUCH XD, if some people prefer games that are purely driven by the character's stats then that's their thing and i have no right to judge them for it.

I aplogize if i seemed too elitist or judgmental to anyone in this thread, i am just a guy who's little too passionate about RPGs like everyone in the codex.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

At first this game can be charming, but the charm quickly wears off as you stay longer.

The main problem is that this game is more preoccupied with "being hardcore" than actually being consistent.

Also wtf is wrong with you about "hardcore" and all, AoD was TOO EASY for me, as a talker build.

 

[HeroMarine]

At first this game can be charming, but the charm quickly wears off as you stay longer.

The main problem is that this game is more preoccupied with "being hardcore" than actually being consistent.

Also wtf is wrong with you about "hardcore" and all, AoD was TOO EASY for me, as a talker build.

Did you try any combat focused build? It's a hard game, obviously not impossible, which is very clever.

Maybe by "preoccupied with "being hardcore"" Tavernking is talking about the mood and story. That's a different angle.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

At first this game can be charming, but the charm quickly wears off as you stay longer.

The main problem is that this game is more preoccupied with "being hardcore" than actually being consistent.

Also wtf is wrong with you about "hardcore" and all, AoD was TOO EASY for me, as a talker build.

Did you try any combat focused build? It's a hard game, obviously not impossible, which is very clever.

Maybe by "preoccupied with "being hardcore"" Tavernking is talking about the mood and story. That's a different angle.

I want to try the assasin build next.

 

[HeroMarine]

It's a great branched path and story. Very hardcore, allowing for different builds.

 

[Agesilaus]

so at the end of the day we all agree that AoD is one of the best, if not the absolute best, CRPG of all time, right?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

(1) AOD has more nonlinear options than just about any RPG ever in history, joined by Alpha Protocol. This doesn't mean it's perfect, you could argue that this breadth is compromised by the way skills work or whatever. But it has a shitload of different ways things can play out that puts the majority of RPGs to dust.

No, AoD is 4 normal linear RPG packed into one game. You can forgo all the character progression and just choose a route at character generation (instead of false choice os status and skills) and the game will 85% be the same. It is only in the last few chapters that branching is actually viable as your secondary skills are high enough to do something.

"But you can always choose to do blablalala."

Yeah like drinking acid and dying in real life is a choice. It is, but in reality, it is not. Most branch in AoD rely on actually having the relevant skill point and due to how the game is designed, for 85% of the game, without meta-knowledge of course, you will be stuck into that one build.

If you save scum or have an excel sheet you might have something resembling non-linearity in AoD. Otherwise, the non-linearity is as much as a choice as jumping in front of a speeding truck is. And word of VD himself is that the game is not supposed to be played with save scum nor meta knowledge like that so it is a 4 linear game packed into 1 by design.

 

[AwesomeButton]

No, AoD is 4 normal linear RPG packed into one game.

What AoD accentuates on is "The Stakes Are Real".

I don't see how is it linear when the game has, how many endings?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Finally got around to play it.
First time i wrestled with the camera, years back, second time last year i wrestled with mods (unpacking, modding, repacking ...).

This time, i stopped wrestling and just played the game.

It's good.
First 8 hours or something, i was mumbling to myself: "why is it not party based ? Why ? Why ? Whyyyyyyyyy ?" but i some point, either you stop or you just take it for what it is and it's really enjoyable.

I mostly agree with every pros and cons mentioned here.
There's a lot of options and builds but it's railroaded, not that any game did that part perfectly but it's more obvious here.

Combat is either painful or too easy, not very strategic, it's just about putting points on the right skills and positioning, that's what you get when you try a solo cRPG, team dynamics brings much to the formula when it's done right.

The story and world building is great.
Chapter structure is interesting and i think i understand the idea behind it (re-playability, world dynamics wizardry 7-like) i don't get fully behind it.
The Graphics are really good, besides the camera which can still be annoying.

Well, i reached chapter 3 but i'll take back my previous save to finish the chapter 2 content.
With one foot on AoD and the other one on Dungeon Rats, Colony Ship might well be the One ...

 

[JarlFrank]

I didn't see AoD as "hardcore" or anything of the sort, I saw it as a game that doesn't accept the "every build should work" philosophy, and I liked that. What I disliked was the heavy railroading of sorts by the story. Sure, you could join different factions and do different things, but you ended up following the same line anyway. Went to the same cities in the same order, just to end up at the temple, no matter what you did. In fact, it seemed as though the game went for a symetric design story-wise; makes sure every line (or, well, almost every line) follows more or less the same course, leads to the same places, and most importantly, ends in that damned temple even if the line had little to do with it. I preffer assymetric design a lot more - some lines may be longer, some shorter, some will follow the "main" path, others will veer completely off course, some will be easy, some will be hard, etc. I find it a lot more fun and infinitely more interesting to replay. Of course, such an approach requires a lot more work, but I would urge at the very least offering different end game boss for different factions, because always ending up in the same place was what really pointed the symmetry of the design out.

Pretty much. AoD is a highly non-linear game but for various reasons (railroading within each path, same structure of Teron->Maadoran->Ganezzar->Temple every time no matter which path you choose, etc) it feels linear despite its huge amount of choices and diverging paths. More like a CYOA in RPG clothing than an RPG.

As much as it's inspired by Fallout and Arcanum, it evolved to be its own thing in its own little niche. Structurally it is so different from the games that inspired it that the similarities are only superficial.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

AoD was pretty damn good and extremely well written, but I am not particularly sold on the replayability part. I found the game to get repetitive after a couple of playthroughs because a lot of the content remains similar each playthrough, with just minor variations. To me this is best enjoyed with a little delay inbetween the playthroughs. Maybe it's about time again, I still have about half the 'origins' or whatever they are called to play.

DR was one of the best tactical combat games I've played but disappointed in the story department. I'm not a storyfag but I like my tactical games to give me little context and drama for the battles. Still, great fun playing, I find the party based combat much more engaging than the single player combat in AoD.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I don't see how is it linear when the game has, how many endings?

Most of those endings are route exclusive (namely what character you build at chargen).

People try to sell AoD as this very reactive RPG with endless possibilities but it is not. When you see that it is 4 game in one, each "game" (what build you choose at chargen) it pretty much becomes a normal RPG within that 1 game.

It is just VD and the team decides to make 4 of them and put them into one game named AoD.

Within each of those game, unless you are counting you died miserably endings, most variations will happen in the last 15 - 20% of the game. Before that its just riding your chargen build flavored railroad.

The process of "levelling up" or increasing skills iin AoD is also meaningless for most of the game. Most "choice" in AoD is binary in the end: you have the skill points or not. If you do you go forward. If you don't you fail. That's it. Unless you are save-scumming (or keeping track of these skill checks using excel from previous playthroughs) you will be railroaded to stay within your build anyway because the other choices require you to have the skills you most likely don't have high enough in. As I said, you can scrap all the character building RPG stuff, choose a route at character generation and you will still play the same game.