AoD recieves undue praise and favouritism from the Codex

[alyvain]

The only problem that I have with AoD is that the game is quite short and some parts in the second half of the game doesn't seem to be completed for me. Take Ganezzar, for example.

There are some things that I can nitpick, but overall AoD is a formidable achievement and easily a minor classic in RPG pantheon.

 

[MRY]

I guess I'm not sure what "interesting builds" means there. I found playing a diplomatist my first time through to be fascinating, in part because the way the game handles diplomatic options is much richer than all but a very small number of other RPGs. If you mean that it's hard to build an atypical character your first time through, that might be. I've never been one for wild builds; most of the time I play archetypal builds, which these days is what many RPGs limit you to, anyway. It's hard for me to imagine trying four different diplomatist builds in AOD and getting dead-ended on all of them, but maybe I just had good luck.

 

[MRY]

I guess it just never happened to me. All the gates I saw were for side material, not down necessary paths. If anything, as a talking character I often had several parallel options for proceeding down the math path.

It happened to me. I forget the exact details, but I believe my pure talker merchant was on his way to rendezvous with the ruler of Maadoran at the endgame temple, only to be stopped by some blockade or other, which invariably led to a combat encounter I had no chance of winning. I ended up having to ally myself with the ruler of Teron instead, whom my character had never met or interacted with in any way, which circumvented the encounter somehow (possibly the enemies I'd encountered belonged to house Teron, but what earlier decision had led to the existence of this event I don't know). As far as I could tell, this was my only option if I wanted to see an actual ending for that playthrough. It felt mighty cheap to have my character play Grima amongst the Maadoran elite for most of the playthrough, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a couple of unavoidable meatheads with sticks right at the end.

But that sounds like you weren't actually dead-ended, though perhaps the bypass route that you got was thinly developed or misreactive or something?

The thing I'm trying to say is that sometimes in AOD, you set things in motion that you think you should be able to pull off, but it doesn't work out that way. The end result is that you have to try another path.

My recollection of that blockade was that you could use your speech skills to persuade some religious fanatics to help you, there may also have been a bomb I was able to use to soften them up, I believe I got past them with a combination of those two things, but I might be remembering a different spot. (It's been several years since I played it.)

Anyway, my longer thoughts about the game are here (https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkY/20151125/260268/The_Fanatic_and_His_RPG.php) and here (https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/aod-dex-reviews.104099/page-4#post-4212116). I will yield the floor now to others.

 

[Trashos]

Right, I don't quite understand why focused builds are not supposed to be fun. My first 3-4 playthroughs were with focused builds and they were lots of fun.

Hybrid builds are tougher, and having experience with the game certainly helps. But why would someone expect to be able to come up with awesome sophisticated hybrid builds without having any experience with the game? I agree with what what has been written, that this is just conditioning due to other (popamole) games.

 

[Trashos]

codex: we want skills to matter

also codex: but not so we can actually lose the game or anything

I see nothing wrong with both those statements combined. Sawyer achieved it with both New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity.

Come on now, Roguey. I love New Vegas, but it is a AAA game that was designed to be easy. Even with the JSawyer mod, New Vegas attributes, skills and perks all fall into the "nice to have" category, and none of them is required. I expect much better from a game that doesn't have to sell several million copies to make a profit.

You are right that all New Vegas skills have utility, and they were an improved version of the Fallout 1-2 skill system. I give you that.

 

[Mustawd]

ITT we learn that many codexers don’t read 100% of what the OP says.

 

[Roguey]

Even with the JSawyer mod, New Vegas attributes, skills and perks all fall into the "nice to have" category, and none of them is required.

No particular skill being required for completion is a good thing. One should feel rewarded for their point investments rather than feeling punished for taking them.

 

[Trashos]

No particular skill being required for completion is a good thing. One should feel rewarded for their point investments rather than feeling punished for taking them.

Right, I didn't express myself well. There are no right/wrong skills regardless of the build. That's what I meant. I guess the simpler way to say it is that there are no bad builds in New Vegas.

Risk of failure and reward are connected, you can't have great reward without risk of failure. Build design in New Vegas is not as rewarding as in AoD.

 

[isador]

As far as I remember there is no real way to get blocked in the game. The main quest line is not challenging at all and the game can be finished in a few minutes if you only stick to it.

The game is certainly not perfect by any mean but it is far less difficult than people believe it to be. Yes some knowledge on how the game works and what it expects of the player is required to get the full experience but that’s true for any real RPG.
Like how people complain that BG is bad because they don’t understand how D&D rules work or that you need to click on the map to travel when you are out of the Zeppelin zone... .

Stick to it and you,lol discover a true gem. Honestly I haven’t played a game that offers so much C&C, and yes many are hidden behind a skill check/battle which imo make the game better. It’s always a pleasure going back and discovering a new route with a new build or destroy a group of enemies that seemed impossible with your social/hybrid build but are trivial with a well built fighter.

And yeah many build are viable. Even the pure social that can handle almost all fight in the game that I have shown earlier.

Just some need more experience/skill. Just like someone playing Mage as a PC in BG1 with no experience is down for a lot of hurts. (Been there)

 

[Safav Hamon]

New Vegas attributes, skills and perks all fall into the "nice to have" category, and none of them is required.

The fun in New Vegas isn't autistically meta-gaming every skill check, but finding creative ways to apply every skill.

Age of Decadence is terrible in comparison. Non-combat builds consist of running from NPC to NPC pressing the win button.

Come on now, Roguey. I love New Vegas, but it is a AAA game that was designed to be easy.

You can design a hard game without completely stonewalling players for the skills they chose to invest in.

RPGs should be about playing your own way, and not the autistic and meta-gamey way the designer wants to force upon you.

 

[Azarkon]

The game pits you in several situations where if you have not specced a minimum of points in "XY" skill you're dead, and have to start over, and does this for purely the sake "being hardcore". ... You're not playing the way you want to in this game; you are playing the way you must do to succeed. That is, you're not role-playing your character, rather you're manipulating your character's stats once you've found out through trial and error what stats your character needs to have to progress.

This is the only legitimate complaint and it's a weakness of hard gated design - ie "you need 18 skill in lock picks and anything less is a fail" instead of "the higher your lock pick skill is, the less resources you need to succeed." But there is still a justification for preferring the former in a CRPG - it's easier to balance because "resources" are often either insignificant, or just a more convoluted skill check. For instance, in a game where time and money are finite, skills that allow you to vastly decrease the amount required often operate the same way as skill requirements. Yet, in a game where time and money are infinite, why would the player even bother with having the right skill?

It takes very careful design to balance these two factors, so I'm not at all surprised that AOD went for the relatively more straight forward path of using hard gated design.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

OP you've brought shame to your family name. A difficult cRPG ought to inspire defiance and motivation to git gud.

 

[toro]

AoD's design is pure cancer because the idea behind it was not to make a fun game but to show how edgy the designer is. It's all about boundless arrogance.

AoD has 2 things going for it: (1) combat and (2) world reactivity. And that's it. Everything else is subpar.

Despite all the praise, combat is good but nothing special, even a retard like me could specialize and win most fights. That was not a problem.

However AoD's world reactivity is a different matter because it's the game's strongest and weakest point at the same time. It's betrays the autistic mentality of its designer as if he had one idea and one idea only: world reactivity through skill checks. And in order to fulfill his limited vision he went on and removed exploration, pacing or fun from the game which means that the end product is a glorified CYOA/Powerpoint presentation with can be navigated using a hidden Excel chart.

With much indulgence even the shit above doesn't sound so bad however the designer went one step further: he implemented the most obscure and opaque Excel chart in existence because you are not worthy of his game unless you do 20+ runs and then you know how to metagame. Not only you have to waste time but you also have to learn his Excel chart because that's what makes you a truly hardcore RPG fan playing a truly hardcore RPG. It's all about numbers and shit (not like Tim Cain said).

The immersion factor is none whatsoever. Decent music and ugly graphics are not enough to immerse me in your cold and diarrhea painted world. Where are the NPC's schedules? Where are the immersive sub-systems? Where is the exploration?

Also the game accessibility is close to zero. There is no foreshadowing or informed decisions, there is no pacing, the player agency is obliterated and each dialogue line can devolve into a world of shit because you are at the mercy of a game designer with a Shodan complex.

OK. Fine. I can jump through your hoops and loops but why should I do that !? Where is the fun in playing your game? Why do you think that your Excel chart is worth my time!? Are we all in-the-closet accountants?

Despite all the criticism above, I do think the game is incline (although not for me) and overrated. Basically the OP is correct.

Edit: Actually AoD writing is pretty good but not enough to make it work when the entire package is so unpleasant.

 

[oscar]

How are you blocked from completing the game? Any remotely non-retarded build can complete the game. It's getting a good ending that requires some planning, foresight and knowledge of the game's systems.

Finally beating those horse nomad dudes in that siege (with my rather unoptimised diplo-warrior) with the IG bros was one of my favourite moments in gaming. There were also lots of other memorable fights (Meru's hypnotist advisor, that crazy fast assassin when you're guarding that merchant, the 'demon') and moments.

So a very good visual novel with very good combat is a bad game?

 

[Goral]

I wanted to stay out of this discussion because at this point it doesn't matter, Colony Ship will get released anyway and AoD doesn't need promoting any more if judging by the number of votes in the Top RPGs thread alone (and there's also the fact that Tavernking only copy pasted Steam reviews and most people here didn't even bother to read to that part so why feed the troll) but this triggered me:

I guess it just never happened to me. All the gates I saw were for side material, not down necessary paths. If anything, as a talking character I often had several parallel options for proceeding down the math path.

It happened to me. I forget the exact details, but I believe my pure talker merchant was on his way to rendezvous with the ruler of Maadoran at the endgame temple, only to be stopped by some blockade or other, which came completely out of left field and invariably led to a combat encounter I had no chance of winning. I ended up having to ally myself with the ruler of Teron instead, whom my character had never met and had no motivation to support, which circumvented the encounter somehow (possibly the enemies I'd encountered belonged to house Teron, but what earlier decision had led to the existence of this event I don't know). As far as I could tell, this was my only option if I wanted to see an actual ending for that playthrough. It felt mighty cheap to have my character play Grima amongst the Maadoran elite for most of the playthrough, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a couple of unavoidable meatheads with sticks right at the end.

That could only happen if you weren't paying any attention to the game or were acting stupidly and purposefully crippled your gameplay by omitting many of the quests (so opportunities to gain experience, power and money) you could get if you met with Teron's ruler (although you had to talk with his right hand man). The only way for that was by going straight to Dellar and then to Aurelian Outpost seeking their patronage even though you could have done it much later. That's like going straight to Necropolis in Fallout 1 and then grumbling that you're getting slides about places you've never been to.

Also, you might not have any motivation to support him but that would mean that decisions you were making were done without any thinking because you must have been choosing their side unwillingly, otherwise Teron wouldn't be your only option. Either way, I don't see how you can fault a game for being logical and consistent. You don't have to know the ruler to follow him, as long as you have similar agenda it shouldn't be surprising that in such case you might find yourself in alliance with him. If you say "kill jews and niggers" you can't blame niggers and jews for not wanting you in (as opposed to KKK).

 

[Strange Fellow]

As I recall, the fact that I never met the ruler of Teron can be explained by the fact that I wasn't aware of the episodic structure of the game at that point, and so I didn't realise that leaving Teron would lock me out of a lot of quests. Besides, finishing the game didn't constitute a challenge in the end, and a few extra skill points would hardly have helped me survive the blockade encounter.

You don't have to know the ruler to follow him, as long as you have similar agenda it shouldn't be surprising that in such case you might find yourself in alliance with him.

The ruler of Teron had one agenda, my character had another, but they were both overruled by my own agenda of wanting to see the game through without cheating my way through an unwinnable combat encounter. I hardly think allowing a pure talker who had been working with Maadoran for the entire game to finish it by instating the ruler of Maadoran as Zoidberg's right hand is an unreasonable expectation, especially since the choices and skillchecks involved with helping the ruler of Teron were all but identical up to the point of the blockade encounter. As it is, the ruler of Teron was nothing but a footnote in my character's story, and going back to him didn't reflect my character's agenda in any way. He became a metagame deus ex machina in the end. And MRY is correct that I wasn't dead-ended, but my point is that the rigidity of AoD's choices, while facilitating role-playing in some situations, occasionally causes characters to behave in ways that are inconsistent with their archetype and personal motivation NOT because it's a hard, unforgiving world out there, kid, but because certain contingencies, probably impossible to eliminate completely in a game as script-heavy as this one, funnel the character down paths not suited at all to their "story-arc", as if Fallout had suddenly required a diplomat to shove dynamite down people's trousers as part of the main path. In going back to Teron i felt like I was co-opting another character's path through the game just so I could get to see the ending slides.

 

[Circuit the Short]

CYOA is shit, combat is enjoying though. DR >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> AoD

 

[hivemind]

As I recall, the fact that I never met the ruler of Teron can be explained by the fact that I wasn't aware of the episodic structure of the game at that point, and so I didn't realise that leaving Teron would lock me out of a lot of quests.

I mean, you are right that it feels weird that you are forced to do that but I also think it's an unfair complaint. Your specific situation(never having talked to Antidas) is extremely niche and expecting a game that is already so very reactive to perfectly account for every possible outcome is simply asking too much imo.

I personally have experience some weird ass ending slides logic in several of the unusual world states near the end, but like it doesnt feel immersion breaking because its like one specific instant in like a very particular ocmbination of things at once and like they cant really be on top of every single combination.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

The immersion factor is none whatsoever. Decent music and ugly graphics are not enough to immerse me in your cold and diarrhea painted world. Where are the NPC's schedules? Where are the immersive sub-systems? Where is the exploration?

Stick to big budget movies then, problems solved!

 

[Safav Hamon]

How are you blocked from completing the game? Any remotely non-retarded build can complete the game. It's getting a good ending that requires some planning, foresight and knowledge of the game's systems.

I got stuck in the fort where you're not allowed to leave unless you convince three generals to support you. I asked online, and was told there's no way to progress with my four maxed non-combat skills.

So a very good visual novel with very good combat is a bad game?

There are many visual novels and turn based strategies better than Age of Decadence. Honestly I think the combat system is extremely overrated.

 

[hivemind]

what skills were those

 

[Safav Hamon]

I think Etiquette, Persuasion, Streetwise, and Lore.

 

[hivemind]

i thought maxed perusasion and streetwise would have allowed to like pass the initial check with the legatus

 

[Safav Hamon]

i thought maxed perusasion and streetwise would have allowed to like pass the initial check with the legatus

All I know is that I exhausted every dialog option and reloaded several times. No one I asked online had a solution for me either.

Even if I could convince a third general, it's annoying that you have no other way out of the fort. Despite having so many branching paths, AoD feels very restrictive at times.

 

[user]

The game is good at what it does: choosing a role and going through a story. It is very easy to make a specialized role without knowing anything about the game. If your role isn't capable of doing something, that's part of the point of the game.

the trick is to use as little points as possible in order to assign them whenever this or that skillcheck demands it
aod is very much a visual novel with cheesefest combat you can do whatever if you memorise the game

Exactly, you don't have to overinvest in anything at the start and can gradually raise 3-4 (preferably related) stats throughout the game without any problems. I found the skillchecks to be relatively low and the game mostly uses a combination of skill checks. At least that was my experience with the game.