Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

[Marsal]

Some questions and observations Vault Dweller:

1. Have you considered enforcing spending skill points as you acquire them, Fallout 3 style?
2. Strength shouldn't give a flat damage bonus, IMO. How about x0.5 for daggers, x1 for 1-handed weapons, x1.5 for 2-handed, x2 for 2-handed axes and hammers. You add this (extra) bonus only when using power attacks with 2-handed weapons.
3. While there is a plethora of builds and options in combat, there should be more diversity within some builds. Playing 1-handed spear + shield build is most fun I've had in the demo. Shield bash opens space and enables spear special to come into play. Throwing spears is an excellent way to deal damage keeping enemies at a distance. If you knock an enemy down, aimed head attack deals a lot of damage. My point is that you should introduce more "moves" that don't deal damage, but influence positioning and introduce more movement. Maybe even tie some to skill levels as "perks", like HTH moves in Fallout. Something like SHIELD PUSH: For 4AP push the target one square back and step into the square it was standing in without provoking AOOs. Must have (large) shield equipped, 95% chance of success, block 50, strength 7+ required.
4. Add (smaller) 3rd and 4th combat slots. You can keep rarely used combat items here (nets, bolas, maybe throwing knives, bombs?). Cost of actions with these items is doubled compared to items in hand slots and they hold ONLY 1 item each.
5. Don't charge 4AP for OPENING inventory, but for changing equipped items. Don't let players change armor in combat.
6. Disable quick save between dialogue and combat. You can quick save and load a game where enemies aren't hostile.
7. Add autosave before combat.
8. Add a slider for speed of NPC combat animations. This should go to 400% (it goes to 200% now, IIRC).
9. What material are crossbows made of? Can you craft them in the demo?
10. Does the assassins guild have a vendor like the thieves guild?

 

[felipepepe]

Bug: I started the game as a assassin, opened the world map and even before talking to the guard I could travel to the mine and the bandit camp (they weren't higlighted in the map, but I clicked and worked anyway), but they were completly empty. At the mines it even promped me the "you kiled all the guards, go in and finish the ones inside" event, but inside the mine was empty too.

If this work for all classes, I could probably speedrun the demo in 30 seconds going into the mine with a loremaster.

 

[Gord]

Finished the thief now. Well almost, will come to that in a second.
Was quite fun for the biggest part, as you generally had several different options available.
Generally many of the thief missions already did what I suggested earlier: Give possible checks for more than one skill to succeed in the CYOA-mode.
I think in these situations the game is handling the whole non-combat skills stuff really pretty well.

It broke apart at the end though:
I could play the entire demo with a non-combat thief (unless you count the critical strike options as combat) but the ending seems to force combat on you.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but avoiding it seems to be impossible. As you have three npcs with you, probably all would be well if my character wouldn't spawn directly in front of the enemy and be killed in one or two rounds almost every time (remember, I played exclusively non-combat).
I gave up eventually.

I'm still not happy about the fact that it's often hard to predict which skill will be needed or how difficult the check will be, especially in situations that will mean a quick and certain death.
I'm fine with not being able to beat a side quest in a perfect way, or beat it at all, but if lacking a skill (esp. one that has not shown up so far - e.g. traps) means insta-death, then it can become frustrating at times.
And then there are a few situations were you start with one skill but the next check suddenly is on something completely else, a skill/attribute you do not have a large enough value in and the whole branch suddenly comes to a full stop - not sure what to think about that.

As it stands the game shows a lot of potential but is still pretty rough around the edges, at least for my taste.

P.S.:
Is the mission given to you by the refugee at the gate part of the demo? There doesn't seem to be a location on your map after you talk to him inside of the city.

 

[Elwro]

I also played an entirely non-built-for-combat thief and managed to get through the last combat on my second try. I really thought it was just a demonstration of how in some cases you should definitely rely on others, who are clearly better fighters than you are, and at the beginning just run to the back and try to survive; then, when there may be 2-3 groups of people fighting, carefully, maybe, try to flank someone.

edit: and your spawning location depends, I think, on the dialogue just before the combat.

 

[Elhoim]

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?

Yes, it does.

Bug: I started the game as a assassin, opened the world map and even before talking to the guard I could travel to the mine and the bandit camp (they weren't higlighted in the map, but I clicked and worked anyway), but they were completly empty. At the mines it even promped me the "you kiled all the guards, go in and finish the ones inside" event, but inside the mine was empty too.

If this work for all classes, I could probably speedrun the demo in 30 seconds going into the mine with a loremaster.

Known bug and fixed for the next version. The issue is that map information is kept between saves and sessions. So if you die in a game in which the locations are known, and start the game, they'll stay known.

Finished the thief now. Well almost, will come to that in a second.
It broke apart at the end though:
I could play the entire demo with a non-combat thief (unless you count the critical strike options as combat) but the ending seems to force combat on you.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but avoiding it seems to be impossible. As you have three npcs with you, probably all would be well if my character wouldn't spawn directly in front of the enemy and be killed in one or two rounds almost every time (remember, I played exclusively non-combat).
I gave up eventually.

Which fight is it, exactly?

P.S.:
Is the mission given to you by the refugee at the gate part of the demo? There doesn't seem to be a location on your map after you talk to him inside of the city.

No, it's not. We'll make it clear in the journal.

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.

Can you send me a save?

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.

Already fixed, thanks!

 

[Gord]

Elhoim:

The mission were you are supposed to get the gold out of the city.
You first run into a mob, which is easy to solve peacefully with the right skills, but combat isn't that hard there, either.

Then you meet the two guards you had to bribe earlier and they want you to take a different route - at this point I always appear right in front of the guard when the (inevitable) fight starts. They seem to hit rather hard and take me down before I can run away.
Maybe I just had a streak of bad luck, though.

Alternatively I can also go to the gate, of course, but there again I had to resolve to fighting as my skill was too low to reach a peaceful solution (ok, so it might be possible if you have raised just the right skill high enough).

 

[Grunker]

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 LARPing.

?

Trolling aside, are you saying that gaming your game is somehow wrong? Of course you're gonna go for the best outcomes. Many games would have a lot less legitimate criticism against them if they could just say "ah, well, you're reloading/save-scumming, so you're not playing it right"

 

[Elwro]

Gord: Whoa, so you're talking about the easier of the ending fights for a thief :D Don't you have some bit of dialogue just before that can help a bit?

You know, if you don't have the combat training, this means you have put skill points in non-combat skills, right? And as a thief, you certainly put many of them in Streetwise, I hope? ;D (Or Disguise?)

 

[Grunker]

Have you considered enforcing spending skill points as you acquire them, Fallout 3 style?

+1! No, fuck that, plus one million! Would be an extremely simple solution to the "problem" many players are talking about right now. It would also help solve some reload-issues, unless some players are willing to reload very far back indeed for optimum results. I wouldn't.

It would make the game harder for those relying on reloading perhaps, but it's better than the current system methinks!

Strength shouldn't give a flat damage bonus, IMO. How about x0.5 for daggers, x1 for 1-handed weapons, x1.5 for 2-handed, x2 for 2-handed axes and hammers. You add this (extra) bonus only when using power attacks with 2-handed weapons.

And tried and true system to make up for no shield. I concur. Just be careful Power Attack doesn't become the only viable option, and also be careful Dodge doesn't become so good it substitutes the shield effectively making dodge+twohander king.

Don't charge 4AP for OPENING inventory, but for changing equipped items. Don't let players change armor in combat.

Seconded.

Add autosave before combat.

Oh god yes. More autosaves in general, please.

Lots of good suggestions from Marsal, please consider them, Vault Dweller and Elhoim

 

[Vault Dweller]

Have you considered enforcing spending skill points as you acquire them, Fallout 3 style?

No. While it would fix the hoarding issue (which is on the player's side), it wouldn't fit the level-less style.

Strength shouldn't give a flat damage bonus, IMO. How about x0.5 for daggers, x1 for 1-handed weapons, x1.5 for 2-handed, x2 for 2-handed axes and hammers. You add this (extra) bonus only when using power attacks with 2-handed weapons.

We're already tweaking it. It made daggers too powerful.

While there is a plethora of builds and options in combat, there should be more diversity within some builds. Playing 1-handed spear + shield build is most fun I've had in the demo. Shield bash opens space and enables spear special to come into play. Throwing spears is an excellent way to deal damage keeping enemies at a distance. If you knock an enemy down, aimed head attack deals a lot of damage. My point is that you should introduce more "moves" that don't deal damage, but influence positioning and introduce more movement. Maybe even tie some to skill levels as "perks", like HTH moves in Fallout. Something like SHIELD PUSH: For 4AP push the target one square back and step into the square it was standing in without provoking AOOs. Must have (large) shield equipped, 95% chance of success, block 50, strength 7+ required.

Not a bad idea. I'll see what we can do, but can't promise anything.

Add (smaller) 3rd and 4th combat slots. You can keep rarely used combat items here (nets, bolas, maybe throwing knives, bombs?). Cost of actions with these items is doubled compared to items in hand slots and they hold ONLY 1 item each.

We'll consider it.

Don't charge 4AP for OPENING inventory, but for changing equipped items. Don't let players change armor in combat.

Good ideas. Armor should be easy to do. Not sure about the other thing. It's doable, but not a priority at this stage.

Disable quick save between dialogue and combat. You can quick save and load a game where enemies aren't hostile.

Already on it.

Add autosave before combat.

Already on it.

Add a slider for speed of NPC combat animations. This should go to 400% (it goes to 200% now, IIRC).

If it's easy to do.

What material are crossbows made of? Can you craft them in the demo?

Wood. Will be fixed. We removed materials from stores a few days before the release, but didn't have time to replace bulk-buying with something more balanced.

Does the assassins guild have a vendor like the thieves guild?

No.

 

[Excidium]

Have you considered enforcing spending skill points as you acquire them, Fallout 3 style?

+1! No, fuck that, plus one million! Would be an extremely simple solution to the "problem" many players are talking about right now. It would also help solve some reload-issues, unless some players are willing to reload very far back indeed for optimum results. I wouldn't.

It would make the game harder for those relying on reloading perhaps, but it's better than the current system methinks!

Maybe if C&C in the game had more "apply your skills in an intelligent manner" (like you get to do on Dellar's hostage situation if you're playing a powergamed social praetor: you actually have CHOICE, it isn't just a matter of clicking on the only check you can pass) and less "hope you invested in the right skills for the next checks" I could agree with this solution.

 

[circ]

Can you send me a save?

Fraid not, I clear them too often unfortunately. Anyway, I'll try to explain it exactly if that's of any use.

Head to mine, approach, attack or however that sequence goes. Kill everyone up top. Head back to town to heal, go back to mine. Now kill all the slaves and 2 or so soldiers that are there. Save, because you wouldn't want to get bugged or anything.

Go near the mine entrance and get teleported, you get three choices uh, enter mine (death), return to Del or keep exploring. Returning to Del at this point gives you nothing but the lower UI with the text box and wielded stuff, not sure what it's called. Everything else is black. No keyboard shortcut seems to work, only thing you can click with your mouse that does something is start combat. Combat music queues, but nothing happens. Can't click the same button again. Only option for me was to alt-tab and shut it down.

Anyway, if you at that point instead clicked keep exploring and returned to town, you couldn't enter the mine again and the quest was still active. Del and Antidas just said get lost or whatever. Reloading, you had to keep exploring, enter mine again and then pick go to Del. Dunno what script or trigger is bugging out and if it was a very rare occurrence.

 

[circ]

Also VD, every other path, well thief and assassin anyway have extra guildmaster type mobs that teach stuff. Hammer and crit. Considering how ridiculously tough merc is, even after crafting steel imp armor and steel weaponry, maybe add an interactive one for IG too? Other than the shoppie guy. Also, pretty low that you get locked in in IG after tower fight. I think the merchant mob stocks anything you might need and I have 7k gold, but still. I forgot to kill that guard the kebab guy ran to.

 

[Livonya]

While there is a plethora of builds and options in combat, there should be more diversity within some builds. Playing 1-handed spear + shield build is most fun I've had in the demo. Shield bash opens space and enables spear special to come into play. Throwing spears is an excellent way to deal damage keeping enemies at a distance. If you knock an enemy down, aimed head attack deals a lot of damage. My point is that you should introduce more "moves" that don't deal damage, but influence positioning and introduce more movement. Maybe even tie some to skill levels as "perks", like HTH moves in Fallout. Something like SHIELD PUSH: For 4AP push the target one square back and step into the square it was standing in without provoking AOOs. Must have (large) shield equipped, 95% chance of success, block 50, strength 7+ required.

Not a bad idea. I'll see what we can do, but can't promise anything.

I agree that more moves would be interesting, especially if they were defensive in nature but actually giving you an eventual offensive advantage.

For example...

Sacrifice your turn to add % advantage to dodge and % advantage to counter attack.

Spend 4 AP to feint which then adds % advantage to the to hit roll on next attack

You get the idea...

I also thought his idea about secondary slots was pretty good. You could have that tied into dexterity so that the more dexterity you have the less penalty there is from using these secondary slots.

 

[Marsal]

Have you considered enforcing spending skill points as you acquire them, Fallout 3 style?

No. While it would fix the hoarding issue (which is on the player's side), it wouldn't fit the level-less style.

Does the assassins guild have a vendor like the thieves guild?

No.

Thanks for the answers.

I don't understand how level-less style matters. You already have discrete "chunks" of content (quests and combat), consider them mini-levels. Let player save a couple of points, not to interrupt the flow of the game, but after quests and big combat encounters, make them spend the points. I could be missing some obvious problem with this, but it doesn't seem that limiting or obstructive. I understand you don't see it as a problem, but sometimes you have to force players to play "the right way"

Shouldn't the assassins have some nifty instruments of death too?

One other thing, intelligence SP bonus should be "paid out" in smaller chunks. Maybe something like "you get 1 extra SP for every 20, 10, 7, 5, 4, 3 SP you gain". Could be confusing phrased this way, though.

 

[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 LARPing.

?

Trolling aside, are you saying that gaming your game is somehow wrong? Of course you're gonna go for the best outcomes. Many games would have a lot less legitimate criticism against them if they could just say "ah, well, you're reloading/save-scumming, so you're not playing it right"

LARPing in the RPG context is replacing missing content with your imagination, pretending that there are consequences, imposing artificial limits, etc.

Role-playing in the same context is deciding on a character and trying to take him through the game, without worrying about anything else. Since the demo is short and doesn't waste you time running back and forth, replaying the game is very easy. Some characters will make it, some won't.

As for gaming, it's not wrong, it's retarded, like those handy "how to join all families in Fallout 2 and get the max number of quests" guides.

 

[Grunker]

Is the latter the game's responsibility or the gamer's? I'd say it's always the game's. Besides, your examples require guides and extreme solutions, AoD requires reloading.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Of course, it's the gamer's. The moment developers start excluding content, some players start planning characters that can get as much as possible. I believe the roots of it are in power-gaming, which is a style appealing to many.

As for Fallout 2, no, it doesn't require a guide. It doesn't take many reloads to figure out how to get as many quests as you can there. I mentioned guides to indicate how obsessed some people are. As a developer, I don't really care if someone wants to min-max the game and trace a perfect trajectory through the game, but that's not the best way to play it.

 

[Grunker]

The last argument is like saying the best way to play Oblivion is to imagine your actions have consequences. And I image it's quite true; look how many get enjoyment out of that type of play-style. I would also say that a game that doesn't require you to imagine it all is better designed. Likewise, your game would be better designed if the most functional way to play it was to roll with the punches instead of reloading.

But I digress; this discussion isn't really important to me, I'd much rather you focus on AoD's combat.

 

[hiver]

If you force the players to spend skill points right away... wont that cause even more reloading?

 

[AlabasterOvercoat]

I'm with the guy talking about battle setup. For example, I'm doing spy killing mission, go into the house of the people I have to kill and then for no reason approach them at melee range. I'm a ranged character and I should start shooting as soon as I enter the house.

EDIT:
I also don't like how the game changes your weaponry all the time, mostly to the ones that can't do much damage.

 

[Grunker]

If you force the players to spend skill points right away... wont that cause even more reloading?

In the same capacity as restarting the game only. After spending 5 or so skill points per quest and realize you'd rather have spent them in another way after 10 hours of gameplay that's a reload that might as well require you to restart, unlike the 10-20 minutes of gameplay to reload after spending some skill points to complete one quest.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Not really. If you only wanted to spend 5 points differently, you'd just reload from 5 quests ago and just play through more of the game than you otherwise would have. I mean, who's really going to hang on to points for 10 hours and not spend any of them? How far are you really going to get through those 10 hours without committing to spending them on something? At some point, you're going to spend those points and be happy with it.

Fact is, if that's your suggestion than the game is broken. The fact that people are hanging onto their skill points (rather than being able to spend them wisely) is obviously a sign that something, somewhere, is fucked up. Suggesting a horribly shitty way to force that on people doesn't fix that.

And from what I recall, it's a myth that Fallout forced you to spend your points. You could hang on to skill points and spend them later by just exiting the screen when it popped up.

 

[Grunker]

You're assuming 5 skill points makes the difference in your first point.

As for the second one, what exactly makes forcing you to spent skill points a horribly shitty fix? If some skills costed more points so there would be some point to saving up skill points I could understand it, but there isn't, so why?

 

[Excidium]

Because that's a way to work around the game's binary skill checks, like New Vegas had those stupid magazines.