Review RPG Codex Review: The Age of Decadence

[Esquilax]

VD L1beral and arbitrary sometimes choice of skills used in quests. Game is still 10/10 Goty! for starved RPers though no doubt but it could be always better.

It’s only arbitrary if you assume that the game world should be design in a way that makes every skill useful and allows you to know in advance in which skills you can invest SPs. The problem is that this implies a game world that it is too childish and artificial to be believable, like most cRPGs do. There is no way around this.

I love the game, but come on, there are most definitely places that put you in awkward situations in terms of SP that are difficult to anticipate. The biggest culprit here would be the Thieves' Guild in Ganezzar. Another serious issue is that the synergy system seems to imply to new players that investing in multiple weapon types is a viable character option, when it is not because you spread yourself too thin. It's a great game, but you have the most ridiculous rose-coloured goggles about it.

 

[Lurker King]

I love the game, but come on, there are most definitely places that put you in awkward situations in terms of SP that are difficult to anticipate. The biggest culprit here would be the Thieves' Guild in Ganezzar. Another serious issue is that the synergy system seems to imply to new players that investing in multiple weapon types is a viable character option, when it is not because you spread yourself too thin. It's a great game, but you have the most ridiculous rose-coloured goggles about it.

I think that one way to solve this problem is to require fewer skills in skill checks and avoid stat checks completely. However, this would imply the typical cRPG design for 10 years old. You have a few fluffy skill and stat checks, but you can smash up your enemies any time you want. Vault Dweller would never do that.

I don’t think that is possible to let players now in advance what they should expect, unless your quests are all about combat. It’s no surprise that the Imperial Guards playthrough is the favorite of most players. They are allowed to retrocede to the familiar and simplistic mindset in which you can just kill things without further complications – although this playthrough is more sophisticated than the garden-variety, because you can use clever solutions to many problems.

Perhaps the only way to solve this problem requires using the AoD mindset in a more open way. If all quests were designed in a way that at least three or four builds could make it in a believable way, that is, without being too simplistic or easy, players would feel less restricted. In a sense, I think that the Thieves Guild playthrough already achieved this. You have so many options, especially in Teron, that the fact that you are fighter, alchemist or talker is irrelevant. You can solve your problems by brute force, intelligence or persuasion. If every quest were designed like this, you could have both the sophistication of AoD world that is unique, and the feeling of freedom that you have in most cRPGs.

Concerning the weapons synergy, I have to agree. They are vestigial organs of the first demo, a time in which the game has very little SPs and fewer choices, and VD was trying to assure people that the game was worth it. The fact is that weapon synergy is not only useless, but it is misleading. It leads the player to believe that he can spread his SPs, which he can’t.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Wait so I can go maximum fuck in TG throughout the game?

 

[Lurker King]

Spoiler

The only annoyance that I remember is after Antidas killing, that is, if you decided to kill him. Carrinas will use you as a scapegoat to please Gaelius. You will be transported in chains to Maadoran. The last time I played as an IG, you can either (1) escape and face two guards with a knife, but without armor or (2) get to Maadoran and face Gaelius’ trial. You will fight five slaves, without armor, but you get a shield and a weapon of your choice. But that’s about it. If your build is good, you can beat the trial without complications. In option (1), you face two guys, but you will need to invest some points in dagger, which most likely you will never use again, unless if you’re using a dagger build. To sum up: kill everything that moves, but don't escape and face the trial.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The only annoyance that I remember is after Antidas killing, that is, if you decided to kill him. Carrinas will use you as a scapegoat to please Gaelius. You will be transported in chains to Maadoran. The last time I played as an IG, you can either (1) escape and face two guards with a knife, but without armor or (2) get to Maadoran and face Gaelius’ trial. You will fight five slaves, without armor, but you get a shield and a weapon of your choice. But that’s about it. If your build is good, you can beat the trial without complications. In option (1), you face two guys, but you will need to invest some points in dagger, which most likely you will never use again, unless if you’re using a dagger build. To sum up: kill everything that moves, but don't escape and face the trial.

Thing is, you'll have enough combat training to be able to handle the two blokes at least offensively, but good luck surviving without a dodge build.

 

[quasimodo]

You get a pretty good dagger and the two guys are pretty wimpy. I beat them easily with a block build and no points in dagger.

 

[Tacgnol]

You get a pretty good dagger and the two guys are pretty wimpy. I beat them easily with a block build and no points in dagger.

This. The two guards are weak as fuck.

I also beat them with a block build and no dagger skill.

 

[Eyestabber]

Just use arterial strike. Both guys don't wear helmets.

 

[Darth Roxor]

You even get an eagle eye neurostim on top if you're that much of a scrublord that you can't beat those two suckers.

 

[Johannes]

Ancient Rome did not include India, Babylon, Islamic Arabs or Persia, and "trade relations" do not lead to building up ziggurats with persian bas reliefs and egyptian imagery.

Initially, I thought this was a strong criticism, but now I'm wondering whether it might not be. Rome definitely had a "problem" with foreign religious influence: the Bacchantes, the whole Egyptian phase:

The spread of Egyptian opinions in Rome was so rapid under Augustus that it was felt to be of political importance, and it alarmed that prudent Emperor. The Romans by no means equalled the Greeks in their indifference to all religions and their toleration of all. Augustus made a law that no Egyptian ceremony should be allowed within either the city or the suburbs of Rome. But his law was without much effect, as at the same time Virgil, the court poet, was teaching the Egyptian millennium, or the resurrection of the dead when the thousand years are ended, and borrowing visions of the infernal regions from the Egyptian funereal papyri. Tiberius repeated the same law; but so little did it check the inroad of Egyptian superstition, that when the secular games were celebrated in Rome under the Emperor Claudius, the fabulous Egyptian bird, the phoenix, was said to have arrived there. Nero openly patronised Apollonius of Tyrana, who, under the guidance of the Egyptian priests, and by the direct appointment of the Egyptian sacred tree, professed himself a teacher from heaven. Vespasian was so far pleased with the Egyptians that, when in Alexandria, he undertook, with their approval, to work miracles. His son, Domitian, wholly gave way to public opinion, and built in Rome a temple to Serapis, and another to Isis. Holy, water was then brought from the Nile, for the use of the votaries in the temple of Isis in the Campus Martius; and a college of priests was maintained there with a splendour worthy of the Roman capital. The wealthy Romans wore upon their fingers gems engraved with the head of Hor-pi-krot, or Horus the child, called by them Harpocrates.
The Museums of Europe contain many statues of the Egyptian gods made about this time by Roman artists, or perhaps by Greek artists in Rome, such as Jupiter-Serapis, Diana-Triformis, and Harpocrates. The Emperor Hadrian made his favourite Antinous into an Egyptian god; and Commodus had his head shaved as a priest of Isis, that he might more properly carry an Anubis-staff in the sacred processions in honour of the goddess. These circumstances are surely evidence enough of the readiness with which Rome under the Emperors shaped its Paganism after the Egyptian model, and prepare us to see without surprise that it looked to the same source for its views of Christianity. They prepare us for the remark of Origen, that all the neighbouring nations borrowed their religious rites and ceremonies from Egypt.

There was that meteoric stone they brought back during Hannibal's invasions, and in the East, there was a strong cult of Mithras, etc. Obviously Rome brought obelisks and pyramids back from Egypt. And then there's Christianity. . . . That's just off the top of my head.

Anyway, it's true that there was no way the level of architectural influence in reality that there is in AOD, but then, AOD posits a world in which Rome was attacked by the Aztecs. It seems to me that that might shift the Overton window such that previously "foreign seeming" culture might now seem extremely familiar by contrast.

But, what does that really have to do with the game? The issue with the mishmash of cultural influences is not that they're somehow unrealistic (it's not a historical game, duh), but that they don't really signify anything. There's basically only two cultures displayed in the game, the "roman" and the ordu. The former has different naming conventions, people that look different races too, then all the different styles of weapons and armor, architechture, all around in it though. Yet there's no racial tensions or anything like that that'd make these interesting - if the internal cultural differences had been opened up at all, and not left to purely aesthetics, that would've been better.

For example, why do Ibn Hadad and Abukar have names of a different language than everyone else (plus anyone else pseudo-arabi I forget)? Are they indigenous to the area or from somewhere else? Sure, it's a multikult empire of some sort we can infer if only from alluding to real history. But not including that into the storyline somehow, instead having such things purely aesthetic, is quite boring.

With Feng for example you get the info on his origins, he's a refugee, that makes sense. We don't need to know much about his homeland or relations to it since its so far away.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Agree that game isn't realistic enough, but then again VD doesn't want to be arrested in MultiKulti Canada, where race realism ("racism") is literally thought crime.

Mods will fix it.

 

[Johannes]

The whole passage of time thing is really inconsistent though.

I tend to agree, but don't see a way around it.

The whole: you can't go back to Teron without triggering stuff but you can easily go back to the bandit camp just an hour from Teron. Same thing with Ganezzar, once you go there, you trigger a lot of stuff, but you can teleport between Saross, Zamedi and the Monastery as much as you want without anything happening.

Well, you could have a day counter in the game and actually track the passage of time, rather than just binary switches. If planned right it wouldn't make the scripting too much more complicated, but definitely harder for the player to play. So if you go to the Saross when you ought to go to Harran Pass, that fucks you up, that sort of thing... I'd like it definitely, like I liked the idea of a time restriction in Fallout too. Would make for more C&C in what you spend your time on, instead of doing absolutely everything (that's not mutually exclusive) being the no-brainer option.

Kinda related, I'd like it if it was possible to play a factionless guy without that majorly fucking up your SP gains (ok, you don't need much SP to finish the game, but still).

 

[Irenaeus II]

Well, you could have a day counter in the game and actually track the passage of time, rather than just binary switches.

This would be awesome. Planning a game around time passage would definitively take it to an even greater level. Sounds like programming and writing work hell, tho. In any case, I'd pay lots of money for something like this.

More quests for the factionless guy would indeed be welcome.

 

[Eyestabber]

The most important thing about that fight is to remember to loot their stuff, melt it down and craft proper gear for your character, so you can face the thugs at the entrance of Maadoran. Forgeting to do this is how I lost one of my Ironman runs

 

[Eyestabber]

I always fight them. Choosing not to murder people when you can murder them just feels wrong to me.

 

[AbounI]

The most important thing about that fight is to remember to loot their stuff, melt it down and craft proper gear for your character, so you can face the thugs at the entrance of Maadoran. Forgeting to do this is how I lost one of my Ironman runs

That's what happen when you're too confident in your PC.
At least, it was a nice try.

 

[Eyestabber]

No, this is what happens when you have shit memory. I'm going to be in final stage Alzheimer by the time I'm 40.

 

[t]

The most important thing about that fight is to remember to loot their stuff, melt it down and craft proper gear for your character, so you can face the thugs at the entrance of Maadoran. Forgeting to do this is how I lost one of my Ironman runs

...or you can just click the fort on the map when you arrive?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The most important thing about that fight is to remember to loot their stuff, melt it down and craft proper gear for your character, so you can face the thugs at the entrance of Maadoran. Forgeting to do this is how I lost one of my Ironman runs

...or you can just click the fort on the map when you arrive?

Damn, I remember beating the crap out of most of the arena, upto Al-Sahir, THEN I checked in with the Legion.


"You mean you guys had all my gear till now!"

Then again, I ended up replacing the gear with stuff from arena anyway. Good times.

 

[Eyestabber]

Tp gets interrupted =/

 

[Cadmus]

The whole passage of time thing is really inconsistent though.

I tend to agree, but don't see a way around it.

The whole: you can't go back to Teron without triggering stuff but you can easily go back to the bandit camp just an hour from Teron. Same thing with Ganezzar, once you go there, you trigger a lot of stuff, but you can teleport between Saross, Zamedi and the Monastery as much as you want without anything happening.

Well, you could have a day counter in the game and actually track the passage of time, rather than just binary switches. If planned right it wouldn't make the scripting too much more complicated, but definitely harder for the player to play. So if you go to the Saross when you ought to go to Harran Pass, that fucks you up, that sort of thing... I'd like it definitely, like I liked the idea of a time restriction in Fallout too. Would make for more C&C in what you spend your time on, instead of doing absolutely everything (that's not mutually exclusive) being the no-brainer option.

Kinda related, I'd like it if it was possible to play a factionless guy without that majorly fucking up your SP gains (ok, you don't need much SP to finish the game, but still).

With the quests that are currently in the game, you'd be completely fucked and would have too choose one out of 10 quests in every town as so many quests you trigger by walking up to them and they are presented as an imminent situation you need to solve plus there are quests that force a night time thus fucking you up even further. I don't think it'd be much fun. They'd have to remake half the quests for them to make sense else you'd get to do one quest and skip town after.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Majora's Mask did it flawlessly.

 

[makiavelli747]

With the quests that are currently in the game, you'd be completely fucked

no need to do this to all quests

but its a kinda... fucked up, when you can come back after Ganezzar and kill everybody you didn't, completing every side quest like a cake walk

 

[Johannes]

The whole passage of time thing is really inconsistent though.

I tend to agree, but don't see a way around it.

The whole: you can't go back to Teron without triggering stuff but you can easily go back to the bandit camp just an hour from Teron. Same thing with Ganezzar, once you go there, you trigger a lot of stuff, but you can teleport between Saross, Zamedi and the Monastery as much as you want without anything happening.

Well, you could have a day counter in the game and actually track the passage of time, rather than just binary switches. If planned right it wouldn't make the scripting too much more complicated, but definitely harder for the player to play. So if you go to the Saross when you ought to go to Harran Pass, that fucks you up, that sort of thing... I'd like it definitely, like I liked the idea of a time restriction in Fallout too. Would make for more C&C in what you spend your time on, instead of doing absolutely everything (that's not mutually exclusive) being the no-brainer option.

Kinda related, I'd like it if it was possible to play a factionless guy without that majorly fucking up your SP gains (ok, you don't need much SP to finish the game, but still).

With the quests that are currently in the game, you'd be completely fucked and would have too choose one out of 10 quests in every town as so many quests you trigger by walking up to them and they are presented as an imminent situation you need to solve plus there are quests that force a night time thus fucking you up even further. I don't think it'd be much fun. They'd have to remake half the quests for them to make sense else you'd get to do one quest and skip town after.

Depends on the timetables that different quests have. A lot of it wouldn't have any limitation at all, like going to Saross, Zamedi, Inferiae, or Arch.

Of course it's not something you could just slap into a ready made game and expect to be good or functional. But the concept of limited time is totally fine. Think of JA's for example.

For it to fully work dramatically, there probably needs to be some kind of end date to the whole game in some way - if you just sleep for a year the game should somehow notify you that you missed on all the urgent content.

 

[Lurker King]

The way most cRPGs work, you can unlock a ton of side-quests, do them in whatever order you want and ignore the main quest for the most part. If you insert a time counter requirement, all the enjoyment of choosing random stuff and exploring without compromise is lost. W2 did this in Damonta. Someone ask you to get rid of some robots. I “saved” this side-quest to savor it later on, but when I got back, the NPCs were killed by the robots. It’s a clever thing to do, it’s more realistic, but it’s also the antitheses of what W2 tried to do. AoD already did this in some parts, for instance, if you decide to leave Teron without solving the main quest, the events will unfold without you. In addition, if you visit the monastery, do nothing, and come back later on, you have nothing else to explore. Maybe this time requirement should be restricted to a few quests for the sake of realism, at least if you designed the game around this concept, or maybe this thing should be dropped altogether for the sake of exploration. The only thing I’m sure is that a time requirement for all the quests in a typical cRPG would suck, unless you designed the entire game based on this concept.