Game News Age of Decadence May Update

[Infinitron]

Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower Studios; Vault Dweller

According to Vault Dweller, there's "nothing exciting to report yet" in this month's Age of Decadence update, but I must say, all these descriptions of the game's "R4" system overhaul seem pretty exciting to me. There are a ton of changes, so I'll quote just a few of them here:

1) Switch to 1-10 skill system as outlined here - link​

2) Chargen changes as outlined here - link​

3) Bonuses and penalties won't be applied to skills but to the derived stats - attack and defense​

Attack Modifiers​

- Perception (Bonus and penalty)​

- Weapon THC (Bonus)​

- Shield and Helmet (Penalty)​

- Attack types (Bonus and penalty)​

- Nets (Penalty)​

- Neurostymulant (Bonus)​

- Berserk (Penalty)​

- Arm Injury (Penalty)​

Defense Modifiers​

- Armor (Penalty - Dodge only)​

- Nets (Penalty)​

- Bolas (Penalty)​

- Consecutive Defenses (Penalty)​

- Leg Injury (Penalty - Dodge only)​

- Knockout (Penalty)​

- Mobility (Bonus or penalty - Dodge only)​

5) New special attacks:​

- Knockdown. Formerly, hammer's passive ability, now it's a 'hammers only' attack. Some people liked the passive ability, some didn't, so instead of forcing it on everyone, now it's up to you whether you want to knock some people or not. Hammers got a new and fairly realistic trait called Ground Slam! No, not really. Hammers' new passive makes them more effective against armor as it should be.​

- Split shield - same deal. It's a new 'axes only' attack. Axes got a new passive-aggressive.​

- Arterial strike - daggers and swords only, helmet DR/vsCS, +2 AP , -20 to THC, Power Damage, CS x 1.5.​

Now, two-handed weapons didn't get enough love previously. They are big and heavy and you can't do much but swing them once per turn. Not anymore!​

- Swing - poor man's whirlwind! It covers 3 tiles, cost 8AP, does regular damage, has a modest 10% to-hit penalty.​

- Cleave - single enemy, 8 AP, -20% THC, power attack damage, +20% critical chance, DR/3.​

- Double Tap - two consecutive attacks on a single enemy, +10% THC, fast attack damage on the first attack, reduced damage on the second, -10% critical chance, 9 AP​

There's also a whole bunch of screenshots, including a series demonstrating the player's summoning of a group of "Legendary Warriors" to aid him in a difficult battle. If that sounds popamole to you, I would recommending checking out the screenshots first. Read the full update, it's a really good one.

 

[J_C]

Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower

According to Vault Dweller, there's "nothing exciting to report yet" in this month's Age of Decadence update, but I must say, all these descriptions of the game's "R4" system overhaul seem pretty exciting to me. There are a ton of changes, so I'll quote just a few of them here:

1) Switch to 1-10 skill system as outlined here - link

I bet if another game did this, they would call it popamole.

Have to say, this is one of my most anticipated game in 2013, I hope it really gets released this year. But I have to note, I don't know what to think about the whole overhauling of the skill/combat system. Especially this late in the development cycle. VD, you should have planned the system more carefully in advance.

 

[Infinitron]

Have to say, this is one of my most anticipated game in 2013, I hope it really gets released this year. But I have to note, I don't know what to think about the whole overhauling of the skill/combat system. Especially this late in the development cycle. VD, you should have planned the system more carefully in advance.

"Pre-production is for popamole untermenschen!"

 

[Major_Blackhart]

God fuck Vault Dweller I fucking love you.

 

[tuluse]

I bet if another game did this, they would call it popamole.

Have to say, this is one of my most anticipated game in 2013, I hope it really gets released this year. But I have to note, I don't know what to think about the whole overhauling of the skill/combat system. Especially this late in the development cycle. VD, you should have planned the system more carefully in advance.

An indie dev studio making their first game, and making their own system from scratch. Pretty much the only way to find out how well things work is to have people play it.

As Brian Fargo says "nothing can replace iteration".

 

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower

According to Vault Dweller, there's "nothing exciting to report yet" in this month's Age of Decadence update, but I must say, all these descriptions of the game's "R4" system overhaul seem pretty exciting to me. There are a ton of changes, so I'll quote just a few of them here:

1) Switch to 1-10 skill system as outlined here - link

I bet if another game did this, they would call it popamole.

Have to say, this is one of my most anticipated game in 2013, I hope it really gets released this year. But I have to note, I don't know what to think about the whole overhauling of the skill/combat system. Especially this late in the development cycle. VD, you should have planned the system more carefully in advance.

First, it's not an overhaul, it's a refinement through iteration. As you understand, the scale change changes little except for how your current skill level is perceived by the player and how important each skill investment is.

"We switched to 1-10 skill system in R4. Why? The 1-100 system contributed greatly to meta-gaming and general confusion, because you had no clue what skills values really meant and how they benefited your character. Do you increase your key skills by 3-4 point? Does it matter? Do you get your best skill to the nearest ten?

We tried to make each investment useful by going with checks like 34, 37, 39, etc, but somehow it created even more uncertainty. In comparison, 1-10 is a lot more straightforward. Everything else stays the same: you get the same SP for quests and use them to buy skill ranks (similar to Bloodlines). We've already had different 'SP to skill values' conversation rates for higher skills, so the change is mostly cosmetic (so don't freak out) and is about how we present you the information necessary to make decisions."

We started with 1-300 skill range (see the combat demo), but it was even more vague. We reduced it to 1-100 by making higher level skill points more expensive, but it still wasn't enough, mainly due to the heavy use of skill checks, which led to meta-gaming.

Second, it's impossible to plan the system in advance, especially when you lack experience, and create something on paper that's perfect in every way. You do your best, then test and gather feedback, introduce changes, test and gather feedback, etc. Overall, the R3.2 system is much better compared to the previous version, and much, much better than the combat demo's system. R4 will bring clarity, provide more info, and add more attacks. It doesn't remove or change anything in a significant way.

 

[Melcar]

Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower

According to Vault Dweller, there's "nothing exciting to report yet" in this month's Age of Decadence update, but I must say, all these descriptions of the game's "R4" system overhaul seem pretty exciting to me. There are a ton of changes, so I'll quote just a few of them here:

1) Switch to 1-10 skill system as outlined here - link

I bet if another game did this, they would call it popamole.

Have to say, this is one of my most anticipated game in 2013, I hope it really gets released this year. But I have to note, I don't know what to think about the whole overhauling of the skill/combat system. Especially this late in the development cycle. VD, you should have planned the system more carefully in advance.

Wasn't AoD the most anticipated game in 2012 too?

 

[Excidium]

I really like the changes.

 

[J_C]

Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower

According to Vault Dweller, there's "nothing exciting to report yet" in this month's Age of Decadence update, but I must say, all these descriptions of the game's "R4" system overhaul seem pretty exciting to me. There are a ton of changes, so I'll quote just a few of them here:

1) Switch to 1-10 skill system as outlined here - link

I bet if another game did this, they would call it popamole.

Have to say, this is one of my most anticipated game in 2013, I hope it really gets released this year. But I have to note, I don't know what to think about the whole overhauling of the skill/combat system. Especially this late in the development cycle. VD, you should have planned the system more carefully in advance.

Wasn't AoD the most anticipated game in 2012 too?

It was. I hope it won't be in 2014 or 2015.

 

[J_C]

Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower

According to Vault Dweller, there's "nothing exciting to report yet" in this month's Age of Decadence update, but I must say, all these descriptions of the game's "R4" system overhaul seem pretty exciting to me. There are a ton of changes, so I'll quote just a few of them here:

1) Switch to 1-10 skill system as outlined here - link

I bet if another game did this, they would call it popamole.

Have to say, this is one of my most anticipated game in 2013, I hope it really gets released this year. But I have to note, I don't know what to think about the whole overhauling of the skill/combat system. Especially this late in the development cycle. VD, you should have planned the system more carefully in advance.

First, it's not an overhaul, it's a refinement through iteration. As you understand, the scale change changes little except for how your current skill level is perceived by the player and how important each skill investment is.

"We switched to 1-10 skill system in R4. Why? The 1-100 system contributed greatly to meta-gaming and general confusion, because you had no clue what skills values really meant and how they benefited your character. Do you increase your key skills by 3-4 point? Does it matter? Do you get your best skill to the nearest ten?

We tried to make each investment useful by going with checks like 34, 37, 39, etc, but somehow it created even more uncertainty. In comparison, 1-10 is a lot more straightforward. Everything else stays the same: you get the same SP for quests and use them to buy skill ranks (similar to Bloodlines). We've already had different 'SP to skill values' conversation rates for higher skills, so the change is mostly cosmetic (so don't freak out) and is about how we present you the information necessary to make decisions."

We started with 1-300 skill range (see the combat demo), but it was even more vague. We reduced it to 1-100 by making higher level skill points more expensive, but it still wasn't enough, mainly due to the heavy use of skill checks, which led to meta-gaming.

Second, it's impossible to plan the system in advance, especially when you lack experience, and create something on paper that's perfect in every way. You do your best, then test and gather feedback, introduce changes, test and gather feedback, etc. Overall, the R3.2 system is much better compared to the previous version, and much, much better than the combat demo's system. R4 will bring clarity, provide more info, and add more attacks. It doesn't remove or change anything in a significant way.

Here hoping that it really works as well as you intended. Will we get a new demo with R4?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Those who have pre-ordered will get access to the second city plus 6 locations related to different quests.

 

[Excidium]

Does the new skill system mean you are removing the variation on check difficulty that AoD had?

 

[EG]

Those who have pre-ordered will get access to the second city plus 6 locations related to different quests.

But I want it now.

 

[Mrowak]

Those who have pre-ordered will get access to the second city plus 6 locations related to different quests.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!!! ITZ coming! Glad to be one of the first to see the new implementation in action.

 

[evdk]

The second city show off for those who have preordered already is nice, but I'd rather not spoil myself further. Looking forward to the complete game being released, hopefully this year

 

[BobtheTree]

The 1-10 skill scale change is interesting. I suppose that might make the benefits of progressing a bit easier to see as opposed to having to dump a bunch of little points and hoping you somehow will get a benefit from it. I wonder how involved that change is. Maybe all the checks were already in 10 point increments anyway so they just dropped the zeros and allotted less skill points.

 

[Infinitron]

The 1-10 skill scale change is interesting. I suppose that might make the benefits of progressing a bit easier to see as opposed to having to dump a bunch of little points and hoping you somehow will get a benefit from it. I wonder how involved that change is. Maybe all the checks were already in 10 point increments anyway so they just dropped the zeros and allotted less skill points.

Vault Dweller said just above that that wasn't the case.

We tried to make each investment useful by going with checks like 34, 37, 39, etc, but somehow it created even more uncertainty.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So, when do we see the crazy DLC's?

 

[evdk]

So, when do we see the crazy DLC's?

Friday.

 

[kaizoku]

VD, a few suggestions for the skill descriptions. Changes (including ordering) in bold.


Swords:

1. You're fairly certain that you stab them with the pointy end.
2. Whenever you use a sword somebody bleeds. You're that someone.
3. You've learned to hit targets. Most of the time. If they don’t move.
4. You've discovered that swinging your sword wildly will only get you so far.
5. You're getting the hang of it. Keep it up and you might become a competent swordsman one day.
6. Better than average. And still alive. Better drink to that because the ‘still alive’ part might change without notice.
7. You're good with a sword. A lot of men died to make this dream a reality.
8. Few men are as good as you are.
9. When you carry a blade, you fear neither men nor demons.
10. Whenever you use a sword somebody dies. You get to choose who, when and how. (or since you made an Arcanum reference, why not a Fallout one... well, it could be used on some other weapon) War never changes. When you wage war you come out victorious.



Lore
1. You can write your own name, with an X.
2. You like looking through scrolls, especially the ones with drawings.
3. You’re learned a few things here and there.
4. You’ve realized that knowledge is power. Your enthusiasm for learning has never been greater.
5. You are not quite a gentleman, but you’re definitely a scholar.
6. You’ve learned much about the past and what you’ve learned drives you to seek more.
7. You’re a linguist, historian, forger, and repairman. In short, you’re a loremaster.
8. You’ve learned much, from steamworks to magick obscura
9. Nothing can stop you because now you know everything there is to know.
10. You’re wiser than men who think that they know everything, for you realize that you know nothing.


Persuasion:

1. When you try to convince someone, you end up doing what they tell you instead.
2. You never give up on your arguments and you never let them go. Even when they're idiotic.
3. Your annoying insistence has gotten you some victories, but also some broken bones and death threats.
4. You're learned how to convince those who want to believe you.
5. You’ve realized that Old Man Aesop was right: persuasion IS more effective than brute force.
6. You can use words for fun and profit.
7. You’ve learned how to win friends and influence people.
8. You’ve realized that persuasion is merely a prerequisite to manipulation.
9. People are an open book to you and you can talk them into just about anything.
10. Your ability to influence minds is exceptional. Keep it up and people will make you their ruler... that or burn you for witchcraft.


Streetwise:

1. You're able to communicate with other primates.
2. You’ve discovered that the primates respond better to well-chosen words.
3. You've learned to string words together for greater oratory effect.
4. You're learned that it’s easy to fool someone who believes everything you say.
5. You’ve discovered that people respond best to lies they want to hear.
6. You’ve learned to play on people’s fears, honor, ambitions, beliefs, and other useful qualities.
7. You're a sleazy lying bastard... and you're loving it.
8. It’s not a lie if you believe it.
9. Some people turn water into wine, you turn lies into truth. Arguably, yours is a more useful talent.
10. Your ability to manipulate people is uncanny. You can break promises repeatedly and still get their vote of confidence and loyalty.


Dodge

1. You dodge like an old man... a blind one that has both his legs broken.
2. Too slow young grasshopper. You can see it coming but it doesn't hurt less because of that.
3. You're moving, but it's still not working.
4. Your movements makes one wonder if your evasion has to do with the lack of technique or the excess of alcohol.
5. The grasshopper is not that slow any longer.
6. Your dedication to the art of dodging is paying off – you’re still alive.
7. You're easy to miss and hard to hit.
8. You flow like water and bend like a reed.
9. You don't need an umbrella when it rains water or a shield when it rains arrows.
10. Untouchable (fine print: some exceptions apply)



Stealing:

1. When you try to steal candy from a baby you get hurt.
2. Your skills are flawless when the victims are unconscious.
3. You've gotten better. You can also succeed when the victims are drunk.
4. You're able to put your hand inside someone else's pocket. Too bad most of the times they put their hand on your face too.
5. Make them look the other way and you'll get richer.
6. A little more finesse and you'll go far.
7. You're always able to get a better deal than what you're offered.
8. You can steal without thinking. It's in your blood now.
9. You can "borrow it" while they're looking and they still won't notice it.
10. You don't steal. You do magic.


Trading

1- You always end up paying more when you try to get a discount.


Etiquette
1. Farting and burping will only get you that far.
2. You tried quitting it, but picking up your nose is still an habit.
3. You've discovered the wonders of personal hygiene.
4. You've learned to listen and wait for your turn when other people talk.
5. You don't cause disgust, but you're not impressing anyone either.
6. You know how to behave according to where you are.
7. You're invited to places where other people are barred access to.
8. You are a refined individual.
9. You could teach the royal family something about manners. (or) You are easily mistaken for nobility.
10. You have both the presence and the grace of a king. Might as well become one.

 

[J_C]

snip.

This is hilarious. :D

 

[Delterius]

Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower

According to Vault Dweller, there's "nothing exciting to report yet" in this month's Age of Decadence update, but I must say, all these descriptions of the game's "R4" system overhaul seem pretty exciting to me. There are a ton of changes, so I'll quote just a few of them here:

1) Switch to 1-10 skill system as outlined here - link

I bet if another game did this, they would call it popamole.

Have to say, this is one of my most anticipated game in 2013, I hope it really gets released this year. But I have to note, I don't know what to think about the whole overhauling of the skill/combat system. Especially this late in the development cycle. VD, you should have planned the system more carefully in advance.

Wasn't AoD the most anticipated game in 2012 too?

It was. I hope it won't be in 2014 or 2015.

That still leaves everything after that. And after that.

Thursday is coming! Rejoice ye lads and lasses.

 

[St. Toxic]

Hashish addicts?

 

[MicoSelva]

Good update, but I hope all the changes won't delay the release even further.

Oh, who am I kidding...

 

[hiver]

You forgot to "whine and bitch" how you guys dont have the newest super flexy vibrato - special game dev chairs.
Include that in the next update, send it to idiots at RPS and see them cry bitter tears on misfortune of poor little indie devs working in ordinary chairs.

-edit- the rest - maybe not, after all. deleted.


/

- this is just a general acidic reaction to game journalism, hype and pr bullshit, nothing to do with you guys in any way. -


/


Changes look brilliant at first look, im not sure about skills being only 1 to -..10? really? ... totally strange. But thats just first reaction upon seeing these news. Hafta read stuff in details etc.