Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

[felipepepe]

Just skip battles and focus on 1-2 skills like merchant & persuade bro, that's the "easy mode". Even the "impossible" first fight can be skipped, people are being presented a easy path, but keep complaining that the hard one is hard...

 

[Lumpy]

Just skip battles and focus on 1-2 skills like merchant & persuade bro, that's the "easy mode". Even the "impossible" first fight can be skipped, people are being presented a easy path, but keep complaining that the hard one is hard...

That would actually be optimal. The Combat/Diplomacy balance could effectively work as a difficulty slider - the more focus on combat, the greater the difficulty.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Do you know what is one of my favourite thing in the game? The map screens, both the town screen and the world screen. The latter reminds me of BG2, it has a nice style to it. How I missed those from modern games.

Yes, I liked the look of the world map too. Those supahcraters on the map looked really promising and like something I'd love to check (outside dialogue boxes )

 

[Kenneybounces]

I have the re-occurring cut scene where the guards tell you off about killing innocents too. Serves me right I guess. How the fuck did you get 83 kills kenneybounces?

I'm pretty sure i missed about 3-4 kills in the city.. i guess i could go back to the city and up the number a bit after work.

 

[felipepepe]

Just skip battles and focus on 1-2 skills like merchant & persuade bro, that's the "easy mode". Even the "impossible" first fight can be skipped, people are being presented a easy path, but keep complaining that the hard one is hard...

That would actually be optimal. The Combat/Diplomacy balance could effectively work as a difficulty slider - the more focus on combat, the greater the difficulty.

Yeah, I though they could do something like Dark Souls, recomending Merchant for first/easy playthrought.

But just making dialog "easy" and combat "hard" would be dumb, both should have hard challenges, especially in a game so focused on in-dialog checks.

 

[Johannes]

If anything, going all out in either direction should be the harder than a more balanced build (giving you good access to easier enough fights), at least if you'd play your cards right in the actual gameplay. But as it is, that's possibly harder instead (just a hunch)?

As far as the difficulty goes, I'd just want it possible to have more breadth to your skill selection and therefore gameplay options. So maybe make straightforward bumrush-approach battles harder, and solutions that let you totally bypass combat harder, and give the player some more skillpoints to compensate.

And apparently killing (some) random people will give you skillpoints, while not giving any consequences? Haven't tried it, just read here, but why not get rid of idiotic shit like that and possibly give some of those points to the player directly if needed.

 

[Excidium]

I wouldn't say dialog is "easy". It's easy when you know exactly which skill checks you're going through after replaying the demo a dozen times. Try to finish the demo joining the commercium with just dialog skills. :p

 

[Gord]

Just skip battles and focus on 1-2 skills like merchant & persuade bro, that's the "easy mode". Even the "impossible" first fight can be skipped, people are being presented a easy path, but keep complaining that the hard one is hard...

Actually I think that is one of the problems with the design in the demo (and possibly the full game).
If you have the right skills figured out (usually after reloadeing a few times), it's pretty banal - just click through dialogue, everything resolves itself.
By comparison combat is much harder and more unforgiving, but also more of a game, as it requires more player input.

 

[Elhoim]

And apparently killing (some) random people will give you skillpoints, while not giving any consequences? Haven't tried it, just read here, but why not get rid of idiotic shit like that and possibly give some of those points to the player directly if needed.

It was never intended. I didn't have time to tag every NPC as a civilian of Teron (killing them carries consequences), and thought it would not be a problem for the first release. But I forgot that 90% of RPG players are psychotic murderers.

Adding tags now plus making some "teams", so if you attack a member of the shanty town, the others jump in his defense.

 

[Excidium]

But I forgot that 90% of RPG players are psychotic murderers.

 

[Kenneybounces]

However, we need to tweak the THC formula because it rewards focusing on dodge/block too much. Defense is king at the moment and we want to change that. Naturally, changing the formula will change the difficulty instantly (probably making it even harder), so we'll need your help (and everyone else who likes the difficulty) to balance it the right way.

The problem with this is the demo design where a group of 3-7 npcs ambushes ONE player. These npcs have 40-50 HP, have high str and dex, and appears to have 40-50 weapon skills.

Proposal 1:
Offense becomes viable if npcs are nerfed, or companions(meatshields) are provided.

Proposal 2:
Another alternative is to make a few quests which are focused on offensive capabilities (IE: Kill all these guards in X turn).

I had a bunch of other ideas.. but i think these two are probably the most viable ones without changing a lot of gameplay mechanics.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

I wouldn't say dialog is "easy". It's easy when you know exactly which skill checks you're going through after replaying the demo a dozen times. Try to finish the demo joining the commercium with just dialog skills. :p

This. Even if you pump just 2-3 noncombat skills, it often seems like a lottery, and trial and error is your only game manual.

 

[felipepepe]

Another alternative is to make a few quests which are focused on offensive capabilities (IE: Kill all these guards in X turn).

The escort one with the mercenary is like this. The problem is the fight was tailor made is insanely hard to save the guy.

I almost did with my hammer dude, you need lot's of action points to be able to attack the first thief on the first turn and the second one on the second/third, so they will stop attaking the guy and focus on you. Tonight I shall try again.

 

[hiver]

I dont see why overall difficulty in combat should be changed.

I think only the first few fights should be made a bit easier by lowering the skills of the enemies.
Well, additionally going over some others individually could be good and just adapting them if necessary but i dont know any.

 

[Livonya]

However, we need to tweak the THC formula because it rewards focusing on dodge/block too much. Defense is king at the moment and we want to change that. Naturally, changing the formula will change the difficulty instantly (probably making it even harder), so we'll need your help (and everyone else who likes the difficulty) to balance it the right way.

Are you registered on our forums?

I wasn't registered. I have been following the forums at Iron Tower for both AoD and Dead State for several years now, but I rarely feel inclined to post my opinion... but I went ahead and registered today as I do think the difficulty issue is worth fighting over.

And, yeah, I agree that changing the focus from dodge/block to weapon skills would really change the balance quite a lot. The static hit points makes dodge/block really important in the current build. But that isn't a bad thing really... I mean the demo is only the beginning of the game... so being forced to go heavy on block/dodge in the beginning doesn't mean that later you can't focus on other things.

Defense first is usually a good starting build for any melee character, and the mercenary can easily defeat the assassin in the opening scene following that rule.

Anyway, I am now registered over there and if I see a place for my point of view I will make it.

 

[Havoc]

I like the demo, but it needs some stuff to not make it irritating (bigger fonts, show AP for movement faster or on the squares and other that were said here).

 

[Gord]

Started a new game with a thief, after playing through with a Praetor first.

Thief feels much better - you seem to get more options, most importantly, more different ones while the Praetor felt more like you just had to find the one combination of skill points that really worked.
Generally the gameplay with the thief class seems pretty enjoyable to me.

Btw., I doubt Vault Dweller that you give much on my opinion or will change much about those parts now, but I think if you would increase the available number of different skill-checks that will lead to the same or similar outcome (e.g. if there's a persuasion option available, add a streetwise or etiquette option in those situations where it fits, maybe with a certain malus), the issue that often you have to find a very specific combination of skills will be mitigated a bit.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I do, actually. Just because I dismissed day 1 complaints about the difficulty doesn't mean I dismiss everything else.

 

[Tigranes]

As has been pointed out, I think a big part of the stat-gaming tendency you get in the demo is the range of quests; there are only 4 or 5 options, at most, for you to take to earn more skill points/gold within the demo. If the demo's "FULL GAME IS" ad is correct about ~120 quests well, that's a lot more than I would have thought based on the demo-Teron, so good stuff.

Depends on how you count and what's a quest, but I'd say there are about 30 quests in Teron: 7 vignettes, 12 guild quests (3 x4), 2 Dellar's quests, 2 Daratan quests, Feng's quest, Flavius' quest, Cado's quest, Miltiades', refugees, the pickpockets, the cellar, plus minor stuff like the ring, the infiltration, etc.

I also don't know if the whole 'stuck in Teron then sent to Maadoran' deal is true in the full game, but I assume at the very least, after Teron, the world will open up.

Keep in mind that the world is mostly ruins. You need to know where you can go, but we'll give you 3-4 places to start with in the full game (like Aemolas' gold quest).

Thanks. Interesting - it sounds like AOD is a quite short game, that plays out like, say, a ten hour game that is made up of dozens of five to ten minute episodes. Then obviously, becoming a very long experience due to the replayability. Seems like you won't really develop a strong attachment to a particular character you rolled, that you stick with for hours and hours and see them develop, but more about fleshing out an intended character type over a short arc and seeing how it interacts with the world differently to your previous and future characters.

On Gord's latest point, I think the tricky bit is making it rather intuitive. If I can hike up Etiquette and expect to have it help me get out of many, though not all, situations where I need to persuade nobles, then I don't have to save scum and metagame skill points. I think in the demo that works well with Etiquette, Sneak or even Disguise, but say, with Traps, you could potentially use traps anywhere, and in a dog eat dog world like AOD streetwise-persuasion-trading could be used interchangeably too. Don't think there's a problem in the demo per se, but in the full game will be a balance challenge.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

I wouldn't call non-combat character gameplay a "lottery" per se, it might seem like that if you're aiming for "perfect" quest outcome. My very first playthrough was with a very non-optimized grifter-like character, and even despite royally fucking up several times (f. i. borking myself over by blowing the "disguise" option of getting to the Palace by epically failing the kill Cassius quest) I did manage to get through - I simply had to look for ways to utilize the skills I did have, and see what these could get me. I ended up enlisting with house Aurelius through the mining camp, thus ending the demo.

But yes, if you're planning ahead which outcome you want, you gotta hoard skillpoints and go by trial and error.

And my as inefficient loremaster managed to fail his way through the Commercium questline. In this game, failure is fun.

As to the dodge/block debate - actually my gung-ho, kill 'em fast characters with no defense whatsoever did not do that bad, but were unable to cope with the Imperial Guards questline (problems during the assault on the tower). If you want deadly efficiency, just disregard everything, get 10 dex, high perception, and go for crossbows and crit-strike. I wouldn't say that combat is imbalanced. It actually makes sense that if you're going up close and personal, defense is king. The innkeeper even says so to the mercenary character: if you wanna go with Imperial Guards, better make sure you can hold the line. Killing fast isn't as important there as keeping yourself alive.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I wouldn't call non-combat character gameplay a "lottery" per se, it might seem like that if you're aiming for "perfect" quest outcome. My very first playthrough was with a very non-optimized grifter-like character, and even despite royally fucking up several times (f. i. borking myself over by blowing the "disguise" option of getting to the Palace by epically failing the kill Cassius quest) I did manage to get through - I simply had to look for ways to utilize the skills I did have, and see what these could get me. I ended up enlisting with house Aurelius through the mining camp, thus ending the demo.

But yes, if you're planning ahead which outcome you want, you gotta hoard skillpoints and go by trial and error.

I agree. I don't see a problem if you make a character and 'role-play'. The exact knowledge of checks matters only if you want to beat as many quests as possible in a single playthrough and get all the items/sp. It's a different game (not better or worse than X, but different) and it requires a different mindset.

 

[Achilles]

Hey VD, a question: When determining THC, does the system keep track of your previous attacks in order to balance out the hits and misses during the course of an encounter? Let's say for instance that you have a fight in which you get 10 offensive moves, with a 60% THC. Is it possible to actually miss with all ten of your attacks? or is there some system in place to make sure that the 60% holds true in the long run?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Possible to miss all 10, but to the best of my knowledge the RNG works fairly well.

 

[belated]

Bit dissappointed now, but only because it was too short! Just finished as an assassin (drifter originally) after finally beating the legion commander (5% CTH, oops) with Nereos, and was hoping to use my post battle created steel daggers/armour (or my new and improved bodycount) for dealing with the bandit camp. But the demo was over. Didn't even get to the mine! Maybe I'll try another loremaster next.

Encountered a bug at after the battle as well, when creating my new steel armour and some steel daggers. I decomposed the commanders steel armor to create a new one of the same type, only hardened and masterwork. And I got two, both upgraded. Didn't notice during creation, but checking the inventory I now have two.

 

[circ]

Ok bug, might be a one time thing. I killed everyone at the mine, entered and died to a trap, reloaded - picked straight to Del and all I see is my UI. Can't escape with escape key, was able to activate battle prompt with mouse but can't leave it. Just had to shut it down manually through TM.

Oh it's worse than that. Luckily I saved. Mine entering triggers mission complete apparently, but leaving (exploring more), then heading back to Del and Anwhatshisname will just return fuck off. Returning to mine, I can't even enter the gates because the barricade script whatever isn't triggering as they're all dead.

Also, not really a bug but. I cleared the bandit camp earlier and rescued that guy. I go back a little later and everyone's gone, except for that dude in the cage.