Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

[Livonya]

Hey, Vault Dweller, I just have to say I admire your high constitution.

I don't know if I could stay sane after reading all of the complaints. I think I would end up eating the wrong side of a shotgun if I had to deal with all the endless complaining.

I understand that some people don't like what you are doing with AoD, but their solution is often to have you redesign the game according to their design specifications. Or they just throw a tantrum as if that is somehow going to change AoD into something else. It is pretty interesting.

At some point many of these people just have to walk away and find something else to play.

No matter what AoD does there will be endless complaining. So I guess you were prepared for that.

I can only imagine the shit storm that will come when Wasteland 2 is released.

 

[felipepepe]

Managed to save the bro I'm protecting from the 2 thugs on the ambush with the mercenary, got way more money, 1 extra skill point and a achievment.

 

[Excidium]

It's not that hard.

I Don't know what makes a target priority for the AI, but the one in brown turned to me immediatelly after I poked his ass with my spear and the merchant could tank the other guy while I raped his friend.

 

[zeitgeist]

As for the second one, what exactly makes forcing you to spent skill points a horribly shitty fix?

It seems similar to something that pops up very often in Workshop save scumming threads: if there's a need to implement special measures against it, and so many players are using it that it hurts the overall game experience somehow, then this is indicative of something being wrong with the game design on a much deeper level, and this should be fixed first instead of concentrating on the symptoms.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

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

All right so they reload from 10 quests ago. What's the difference? What have you solved?

If a player is holding on to so many skill points, it means there wasn't any choice or decision they had where they had to spend them between point A (gaining the skill points and hoarding them) and point B (the point where they decided that they now needed to spend them). Forcing them to re-play just because they have to "spend a point when you earn it" when there was no need to doesn't actually solve anything, other than make a player reload large portions of the game (assuming they're one of these players willing to do that - which given that's "the problem" we're trying to solve, we have to assume they are). If they're not reloading, than they're getting frustrated ("frustration" isn't a "I'm a happy gamer word").

The fact that in Fallout, I used to level-up and spend my 21+ points with glee the minute I could because I knew what I wanted to spend them on, versus hoarding them in AoD means something is either fundamentally wrong with AoD or that's how it's meant to work. And if that's how it's meant to work, then why is it a problem? Do I really need to spend every single point the minute I earn it? Really? How fun is that? At least in Fallout I had multiple points to spend at a time.

Fun Fact™: Mount & Blade also uses the "you only get 1 point every time you level up" system (or near enough to it). People hoard points in that too. If you perceive that as a problem, than the problem is with how the system is designed.

As for the second one, what exactly makes forcing you to spent skill points a horribly shitty fix?

We currently assume:
1. People are holding onto their skill points, rather than spending them.
2. Therefore, those people feel there is a benefit to holding on to those skill points. In other words: They're making a choice to deliberately hang on to those skill points as long as possible until they reach a situation where they need to spend them. Put another way: These people aren't finding any reason to spend them earlier¹.
3. You think this is bad and want to stop it.

Given 2, 3 is a horribly shitty fix. If people didn't have some desire to hold on to those skill points, they wouldn't. By taking the option away from them, you're not fixing the core issue. That is, the need to hold onto those skill points because doing so enables the player to spend them more wisely (because they're unable to second guess what the next skill check coming up is going to be / whether they need to buff dodge or block for the next fight). Therefore, you're forcing the player to make an unwise decision (as far as they're concerned) and when they realise that, reload and re-play a slightly longer portion of the game so that they can get the outcome they want.

If this is a problem (and that's a mighty big if) than the answer falls in only one of two options:
1) Re-design the entire levelling up system to a more traditional method (people don't hoard points in those).
2) Give people reasons to spend that "1 extra point" the minute they earn it. Don't force them to do it, give them a reason to do it. Like gosh, for this next fight you're going to need that 1 extra point in Dodge...

¹You have a system where people are earning a reward but they don't value it. It can mean your reward system is b0rked. IE: What's the point of "being rewarded" with a skill point if there's nothing worth spending it on?

If some skills costed more points so there would be some point to saving up skill points

If there's no benefit to saving up skill points, then there's no need "to fix it" is there? So why is this an issue?

Savings skill points typically means you have a system where you are earning a low number of skill points and those points either:
a) don't make much of a difference (no need to spend these now, it won't do much of anything), or;
b) they make such a huge difference that holding on to them until you know what the next challenge is makes perfect sense (just one more point in my Buttkissing skill and I'd have passed this skill check!).

 

[felipepepe]

It's not that hard. :p

YES IT IS! We only did because we are awesome players and everyone who didn't is a consoletard fag that should go play ME3!

 

[Marsal]

The fact that in Fallout, I used to level-up and spend my 21+ points with glee the minute I could because I knew what I wanted to spend them on, versus hoarding them in AoD means something is either fundamentally wrong with AoD or that's how it's meant to work. And if that's how it's meant to work, then why is it a problem? Do I really need to spend every single point the minute I earn it? Really? How fun is that? At least in Fallout I had multiple points to spend at a time.

I agree that the problem lies in the design of the game itself. It's too unfocused and it's unfocused by design. Which is both good and bad. It offers freedom in character creation, but that freedom doesn't really mean much left unguided. "Spend SP immediately" is just a band-aid fix to a deeper problem.

Let's compare the original Fallout and AoD Demo. Correct me if I'm wrong DU, it's been a while.

In Fallout you had to tag 3 skills. So you would naturally focus on those skills first. Depending on skills and stats you would need about 5 levels of skill points to reach 100 in all 3 and you'd probably want to go up to 130 or higher (again depending on the skills). That would take another 5-6 levels. Then at level 12 you'd get Tag! and you'd put a couple more levels of SP in that skill. Congratulations, you're lvl 15 and the game is almost over. There were also perks with skill requirements driving the point spending and focus.

The skills were pretty straightforward. 6 combat skills, 3 thief skills, 1 speech skill and 8 less useful skills (let's call them secondary skills). So you basically got to choose from a pool of only 5 skills (speech, steal, lockpick, sneak + 1 combat skill). Rest were not important and never rarely tagged (with the exception of science maybe?). So, let's make a diplomat. Tag speech. Done. Thief? Tag sneak, tag lockpick, tag steal. Done. Fighter? Tag one of the six combat skills. Combined with the gifted trait, there were never really though choices to be made in Fallout character creation. There were 3 ways to complete most of the quests: combat, diplomacy, stealth. It was a simple system that looked complex.

In AoD you have a bazillion skills that are not clearly defined and overlap in their use and usefulness. The quests can be resolved in any number of different ways, with little room for improvisation or player agency. It's essentially a case of tyranny of choices and having no ability to influence their effects after they have been made, without save scumming.

Making pure combat focused characters is the only straightforward thing in character creation. Put points in a weapon skill, defensive skill, add crafting and/or critical strike later. Done. Even the weapon skills synergize, so it's not too costly to switch preferred weapons. You still have to juggle the stats, as there is no gifted trait, but you rarely save points if you only go from fight to fight.

Now make a thief? You'll want a weapon skill, a defensive skill, sneak, steal, lockpick, traps, streetwise, maybe critical strike, maybe disguise, maybe alchemy. That's about 7+ skills. To make matters worse, you can't improvise with the sneak skill, either you pass the check or you die.

Introducing tagged skills would lessen the problem, IMO. You would pick your strengths and stick to them. What good is it to raise etiquette skill from 30 to 40 before dealing with a noble, when your persuade skill is already at 80 and can be raised to 100 with same amount of points (assuming skills obey Fallout rules and go to 200)? I would raise persuade to 100 and hope I could overcome the inevitable faux pas with my silver tongue.

The main problem are binary skill checks. That can't be easily fixed, as it is considered not broken by many and would essentially require scrapping the whole game and starting over.

I can understand VD being too close to the game to see the problems. I just don't understand what feedback the testers have been giving him and the team? If save scumming is an accepted and expected way to play the game, the game becomes disjointed and loses any kind of flow. The quests are clever and the accent on skill use is refreshing, but pass the check or die is not a good game mechanic. The combat is clearly too static and random to be enjoyable in the long run. The 3D world is unused and a gimmick that could be replaced (and improved) with a bunch of 2D concept art. Surely this was evident way, way before now.

AoD beta testers, for shame!

 

[Tigranes]

DU is going in the right direction here - in Fallout you were really waiting and waiting for that next level up because you knew you just needed a little bit more in something, or in the perks list you saw 3 or 4 perks you wanted to get. In AOD you still have that with combat skills I think, because while fighting you feel your weapon skills are too low or you are just getting hit too often. But with noncombat skills, you are only ever using them in text adventures, you don't know which skills will come up in which text adventures, and since sometimes you don't even see the dialogue option unless you're close, you don't know that either. Whereas in Fallout, you're trying to sneak by Geckos early on or something and you learn you should invest a bit more in sneak. Same with lockpick, the fifth time you fail to open a door. Same with doctor. You get that incremental improvement in your character and persistent feedback on where your character is lacking by roughly how much - you don't get that information most of the time in AOD, because many noncombat skills are only designed to be used in text adventures. Now, let's not make a strawman of Fallout - similar stuff did happen in FO, and people did save up points. But it wasn't the dominant way in which the game was played. But the point is, there are no incremental benefits and there is inadequate feedback.

I'm not sure if tagging itself will fix this, though it might help. And I think it's not practical to implement in-game uses of the non-combat skills, or a dramatic overhaul of the character system. Maybe one thing that can work is reducing the 0-100 scale to at least 50. In AOD right now you have no clue whether there is any difference between 36 streetwise and 38 (unless you have metagaming knowledge of exact skill checks), so you just end up raising by 5s, or raising as much as you can, and hoping for the best. I don't think there's any benefit to having such a large scale. A smaller scale makes it easier for players to understand where they stand in the gameworld and what each point sunk into a skill might mean, even in the current context. Hell, I'd even advocate putting it at 0-10 or something, but going that far will probably fuck with balance of points distribution and the weight of each point.

I also wonder if AOD hasn't given itself too big a task. I think the only way to preserve the current combat set piece + text adventure system, and make people feel like the episodes are too restrictive or encouraging of stat scumming, is for each episodes to be even more reactive and nonlinear than they already are - e.g. so that it's not a case of Persuade or Fight, but even more like 'conversation battles' where you might fail the initial persuasion check but recover the situation with a trading check to make the best of the mess for a different outcome, etc. This does happen in a few of the episodes already. But doing that throughout the game would have made it impossibly complex. It feels like AOD stripped away many conventional shortcuts and mechanisms in RPGs and tried to replace them with a different system, which is admirable, and which does succeed by and large, but they stripped away more than they could hope to replace with their resources. (e.g. I don't think it would have hurt to have retained a more typical loot system where you have containers in the world, doors, chests; it is not ideal, but it would have been a useful way to flesh out the world without overspending resources.)

 

[RK47]

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.

Bro. Just for that, I'm going donate to da forum.

*tearsof47*

 

[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?

No, I'm not complaining about the easy fight with the mob. I think, I actually said that this one is fine to me. I was talking about the fight at the gate or wall, depending on what you did choose. The player is placed close to rather strong enemies there (esp. if you go with the bribed guards) and has a small chance of survival.
I did play a non-combat character with no points in combat, save for a few in critical strike, as this comes up quite often in CYOA mode. Yet I had a hard time succeeding the skill checks in the end, as you seem to need rather high values there. Maybe I had spread out my points too much, but I played a thief, so naturally I raised lockpicking, stealth, stealing, a bit of traps (due to me dying to a trap in one side-quest) and disguise, as this came up a lot in the last mission.
Surely I could have moved the points around a bit to acchieve a more "optimal" distribution, but that can hardly be the goal of the game.


Regarding the skill point saving discussion:
The reason I am doing that is because it's hard to foresee which skills/values you are going to need and points are rare. As part of the quests have binary outcomes (fail horibbly/can't continue or succeed), preserving some points is almost a must to prevent even more excessive reloading.

I guess that the final game might attenuate that issue somewhat, because there will be hopefully more content that allows you to diversify or train your character a bit if you are hit with a quest you cannot solve otherwise.
Otherwise, what could maybe help is more skill options/synergy between skills in some of the CYOA parts (I did already mention, but some thief missions are quite nice in that regard), or fail-safe checks to at least prevent some of the "lol, you dye" outcomes in some quests when your skill is one or two points too low. E.g. allow for a DEX roll to save against a trap.

Edit: Or how about splitting more outcomes into fail/partial success/success?
If a skill-check fails because your skill is just a little too low (like 5 points, depending on the situation), it's a partial success and you could allow an alternative check of a related skill or attribute.

In case a dev is reading this: I might come across rather negative in my posts, but I just try to stay objective and point out things I consider problematic (maybe too often right after playing instead of after I have thought some more about them). I don't consider the game bad, just still too rough around the edges.

 

[Elwro]

: 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?

No, I'm not complaining about the easy fight with the mob. I think, I actually said that this one is fine to me. I was talking about the fight at the gate or wall, depending on what you did choose. The player is placed close to rather strong enemies there (esp. if you go with the bribed guards) and has a small chance of survival.

Well, I'm talking about the fight at the wall, after going with the bribed guards. But my thief only faced the two bribed guards, ran to the back, and my other guys finished them with crossbows.

...but my character did notice that something was wrong (a streetwise check, makes sense for a thief) and that was perhaps why he only had to face the two guards.

 

[Gord]

Well, I'm talking about the fight at the wall, after going with the bribed guards. But my thief only faced the two bribed guards, ran to the back, and my other guys finished them with crossbows.

...but my character did notice that something was wrong (a streetwise check, makes sense for a thief) and that was perhaps why he only had to face the two guards.

Yeah, I noticed that, too, but my character got placed in front of the guard. Got hit 2 times, tried to turn and run, got hit two more times. Dead. :D
If I won against the first guard, I had to face another fight right after that, where I got killed, again.
Happened a few times, then I stopped and decided to continue another day. Maybe it was bad luck.

 

[circ]

Ok, couldn't reproduce mine black screen bug. Made a sword merc, testing if it's as beefy as spear, and well not quite. Killed those guys, left and healed. Killed the other guys and entered, returned to Del using that route and no bug.
I would have thought it was a memory issue, but the same thing happened when I still had the save and reloaded, entered, tried returning. Had to enter, exit, enter, return for it not to bug. But this time nothing went wrong.

 

[Grunker]

@Dark Underlord: Marsal said most of what I'd say, but I'd like to add some things:

1) IT's a fallacy that something is inherently wrong with design just because it encourages a type of behaviour "we don't like." It is almost impossible to design a game that eliminates extreme gamistic behaviour. You're blowing the problem way, waaaaaaaaaay out of proportion by black-and-white lining it up as a matter of "well, either there's nothing wrong with the game, or otherwise the whole thing needs to be re-designed."

2) You're saying that the system is broken because there is nothing to spend skill points on - wow, mate, do you understand the nature of the problem? I'll explain it: People save skill points, go to the next quest. If they CANNOT complete it, they reload, and spend their saved skill points on whatever it is that quest requires. This is what you earlier defined as "wow a problem with game design, nothing left to do but redesign the entire game." I agree that it's a problem with game design, but which games do not have problems? Fallout's useless skills were a much, much larger problem and we still like that game right? Now, let's be practical instead of talking only in big, extreme syllables: We have a problem with design here. We can either let it be, encouraging save scumming and point saving (and people REALLY want to spend their skill points, they're just afraid too). We can also remove the option to save them up. This removes a slight element of choice but as far as I see it that's fairly unproblematic compared to the gain.

If there's no benefit to saving up skill points

In other words, I never said there's not benefit to saving up skill points. There is no benefit within the system itself to do it. People are doing it because they are meta-gaming. Removing options to meta-game is a good thing, not a bad thing.

b) they make such a huge difference that holding on to them until you know what the next challenge is makes perfect sense (just one more point in my Buttkissing skill and I'd have passed this skill check!).

Yep, and this is the case. You apparantly see this as some catastrophical, fatal error in game design. I don't. In AoD it is certainly a problem but it is one that can be sortta fixed by @Marsal's suggestion.

 

[DwarvenFood]

I usually hoard skill points in games before spending to make things more challenging and also to get a better idea of what I need to upgrade, when the game simply does not allow me anymore to for example pick locks with my current skills. The harder the game in question, the more reason to quicker/immediately assign skill points. It's a little bit like optional level-up in D&D games, not so much as for the HP bonus some games give you (insta-heal on level-up) but to increase the challenge a bit, see how far you can stretch it without leveling up. I don't think one has to necessarily force the player to spend skill points, it is a choice of playing the game and should be left to the player.

 

[Leimreу]

Played the demo. My impressions:
1. Dodge is underpowered, because it is ineffective when used in conjunction with heavy armor (which is logical). There's absolutely no incentive to take dodge and wear light armor even while playing a thief, as you can switch mid-fight from your light robe/armor with no sneak penalty to heavy armor. The few extra AP you retain while wearing light armor are not worth it compared to fuckhuge damage reduction of heavy armors, especially since HP do not increase with level. Also, judging from my experience, the block and dodge rates are more or less the same at the same skill level. IMHO, dodge should have higher evasion and counter rates than block at the same skill level. Alternatively, you could make it impossible to switch armor mid-fight, forcing sneaky characters to roll with light armor.

2. Long spears aren't worth it, except in fights when you have support from other characters and even then they're hardly useful, because you have to rely on dodge (which implies light armor) for defense, when a warrior would have already invested heavily into the block skill.
3. The damage of javelins and other thrown spears is shit. Absolutely not worth it, better switch to a crossbow even with a low skill level (especially since they can use armor piercing bolts). I think it would be good if the damage was increased with higher range penalty applied to ensure that crossbows retain their usefulness.

4. Game feels more like a text adventure or a visual novel, not a fallout inspired RPG.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

1) IT's a fallacy that something is inherently wrong with design just because it encourages a type of behaviour "we don't like."

If that where true, then nothing would need to be fixed, would it?

It is almost impossible to design a game that eliminates extreme gamistic behaviour.

So why are we trying to then? As I said, this is either a problem or it's a massive non-problem that we can happily ignore.

You're blowing the problem way, waaaaaaaaaay out of proportion by black-and-white lining it up as a matter of "well, either there's nothing wrong with the game, or otherwise the whole thing needs to be re-designed."

I'm not entirely sure you understood what Marsal said because if you agree with him, then you're pretty much saying there is something inherently flawed in AoD's design. "the point is, there are no incremental benefits and there is inadequate feedback."

Adding "incremental benefits", as Marsal goes on to point out, is a big, big task that means re-designing pretty much a large chunk of the skill system and re-balancing the game to match. Even Marsal's proposed "easy" suggestion ("to preserve the current combat set piece + text adventure system") involves a lot of work adding in extra dialogue options.

These are some pretty major re-designs. And a re-design implies there's something wrong with the current design.

2) You're saying that the system is broken because there is nothing to spend skill points on - wow, mate, do you understand the nature of the problem? I'll explain it: People save skill points, go to the next quest. If they CANNOT complete it, they reload, and spend their saved skill points on whatever it is that quest requires.

At which point they save the game, having successfully passed the challenge they wished to meet - having designed their character to meet that challenge - and then move on.

Any future reloads would at most take them back to that point (the last challenge they wanted to pass). Thus entirely defeating your mythical "reload 10 hours of game-play" example. At best, they're reloading a quest or two... Which means 1 or 2 (or 5) skill points matter and saving them up to "spend them just right" is pretty important.

This is what you earlier defined as "wow a problem with game design, nothing left to do but redesign the entire game." I agree that it's a problem with game design

You didn't earlier. I mean you've just contradicted yourself in this post where you called it a fallacy and that we're "blowing the problem way, waaaaaaaaaay out of proportion by black-and-white lining it up as a matter of "well, either there's nothing wrong with the game, or otherwise the whole thing needs to be re-designed.".

You just said yourself, there's a problem with the game design. And if there's a problem with something in the game's design, then we need to re-design it to fix the problem, don't we?

... or we ignore it. Any other solution is a half-assed fixed that doesn't actually solve the problem inherent in the game's design. More to the point, it goes the one extra step of pissing off your gamer.

The situation is simple:
1. There is a problem with the game's design.
2. Hoarding skill points is a simple and effective way of over-coming that problem.
3. Your solution isn't a solution - your solution actually removes the solution.

Your solution forces the problem to become front and centre. A problem we actually just resolved quite easily by hoarding those points now becomes a MAJOR FUCKING PROBLEM.

but which games do not have problems? Fallout's useless skills were a much, much larger problem and we still like that game right? Now, let's be practical instead of talking only in big, extreme syllables: We have a problem with design here. We can either let it be, encouraging save scumming and point saving (and people REALLY want to spend their skill points, they're just afraid too). We can also remove the option to save them up. This removes a slight element of choice but as far as I see it that's fairly unproblematic compared to the gain.

Your solution exacerbates the problem. It doesn't fix it. If you accept - as you seem to say - that the game's design is flawed, forcing people to experience that flaw is NOT a solution.

If there's no benefit to saving up skill points

In other words, I never said there's not benefit to saving up skill points. There is no benefit within the system itself to do it. People are doing it because they are meta-gaming. Removing options to meta-game is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Except in this instance people are meta-gaming because they feel they have to. In the same way that people who play any puzzle game start writing down solutions. They map the invisible maze, they write down notes that get them through the jumping puzzle, they google the answers to the riddle. In AoD, they hoard skill points.

b) they make such a huge difference that holding on to them until you know what the next challenge is makes perfect sense (just one more point in my Buttkissing skill and I'd have passed this skill check!).

Yep, and this is the case. You apparantly see this as some catastrophical, fatal error in game design. I don't. In AoD it is certainly a problem but it is one that can be sortta fixed by @Marsal's suggestion.

Marsal's suggestion is a major re-design. As Marsal says "[AoD] stripped away more than they could hope to replace with their resources".

What you fail to understand is that the "problem" is the game's design (even though you seem to agree). Hoarding skill points is the "solution" to that problem. Removing the ability to hoard skill points is removing the solution. It doesn't solve anything. In fact, it makes it worse.

In a game like Fallout, if you found a challenge you couldn't beat that you wanted to, you had the option to walk away. You'd find another quest to solve or you could go out and kill some raiders in random encounters. Eventually you'd level up enough that you could put points in the skill you wanted, come back and solve the challenge. In AoD, this doesn't seem to be an option. The best comparison is killing all the townsfolk to gain those valuable extra skill points. Now maybe this is just an issue with the demo and the full game will have plenty of these opportunities for you to level up in side quests. To be honest, I some-what doubt that. The forced teleportation denies you a lot of opportunities to go out and get some skills before you come back to deal with the challenge.

 

[felipepepe]

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.

Was even worse, you could hang to skill points AND perks. You could get a perk at lv 9, save it, level up to 10-11, and spend the new skill points to unlock better perks and take them.

 

[RK47]

DU

 

[Grunker]

You didn't earlier. I mean you've just contradicted yourself in this post where you called it a fallacy and that we're "blowing the problem way, waaaaaaaaaay out of proportion by black-and-white lining it up as a matter of "well, either there's nothing wrong with the game, or otherwise the whole thing needs to be re-designed.".

Full stop. I can say there is a problem with game design without saying the game needs to be redesigned from the ground up to be good. If I didn't ackknowledge there was a problem, why would I try to introduce a fix?

Seriously, you must have understood that was my position when I said you were blowing the problem out of proportion - otherwise why wouldn't I have said "there is no problem" and conversely had I done that, why would I think a fix was needed?

If all you want to do is tell me what I think, then there is no point is there? It's quite evident that we disagree on the proportions here, and there is no need to invent my words. If you think otherwise, please point to exactly where I contradict myself?:

1. I support Marsal's solution (so obviously I recognize a problem)
2. I claim that the problem is not big enough that the game is completely broken

How on fucking earth is this contradicting, exactly?

The situation is simple:
1. There is a problem with the game's design.
2. Hoarding skill points is a simple and effective way of over-coming that problem.
3. Your solution isn't a solution - your solution actually removes the solution.

Not my solution - Marsal's solution which I support. And I disagree very strongly with your stance here. I have finished a fine replay of the demo without hoarding skill points, and not because I got lucky, but because I accepted failed checks when they arose. I accepted the unperfect playthrough. What I'm saying right now is that to do this right now you'd have to accept some amount of LARPing - because right now the game can be efficiently played by saving up skill points and reloading when you need a major boost to a skill. This problem would be mitigated by forcing you to spend skill points right away.

It's quite logical that this wouldn't encourage the same amount of save-scumming, as you would have to reload far further back (because if you needed 15 skill points for something you would have to go through enough quests to provide you with such because you have to spend skill points on level up).

Summa summarum I don't think you're right that game is unplayable or inherently broken if you do not save up skill points. There is certainly a problem, yes, but not one that breaks the game or makes it unplayable.

Your solution exacerbates the problem. It doesn't fix it. If you accept - as you seem to say - that the game's design is flawed, forcing people to experience that flaw is NOT a solution.

You are assuming we agree on the nature and extend of the problem. We do not.

 

[Vault Dweller]

A few points:

1) Fallout - if I recall correctly, it was very easy to tag or invest into wrong skills when playing for the first time. The biggest issue with Fallout, in my opinion, was that many non-combat skills were useless. The system, basically, promised a lot more action than the game delivered. Once you knew how to play (i.e. once you understood the design), what to expect (including quests), it was fun to experiment with different character builds and see what you can uncover.

2) It's like CYOA lol, if pass a check, go here, if fail, go there - not sure I get this one. Isn't that how skill checks work?

3) VD is too close, he doesn't see the issues - I do see the issues and they were discussed openly in the past. However, like I said earlier, there is a difference between seeing issues and knowing how to fix them without breaking something else.

Yes, the checks are high, which means that until you figure out how the game works, you will be in the dark. The way I see it, it's no different than any other complex (more than killing) RPG - you have to understand how it's designed and what the internal rules are, but let's put it aside for now.

Let's say we lower the checks and give you more points to play with. Then you have enough points to throw around and then you don't fail checks, which is as much fun as playing an adventure game with a guide.

Now, I'm not saying that what we did is the best design there is. I'm sure there are better ways to do non-combat gameplay. If someone has any thoughts, I'd love to read them.

Edit:

4) Skill point hoardng - I don't see that as a problem. You never know what to expect from a game so saving points until you know for sure what the challenges are is a viable and even standard approach.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I accepted failed checks when they arose. I accepted the unperfect playthrough.

 

[circ]

Yeah, I just finished another thief walkthrough. Didn't have the persuasion to bypass some mobs and just get the guard captain solo, instead I got half a dozen mercs. So I just killed shit. Only me and Lucius left.

If my dodge had been 60s, I could have maybe done bandit camp, but I cheesed out and crit hit the leader and then intimidated. Then sneak lockpicked the mine. Mine is probably completely undoable without ludicrous dodge, or if you ignore your AP's I guess you could go heavy armor. I just stuck with the default thief shitarmor.

Anyway, probably already identified, but I figured out what's causing the disguise bugging out and other such stuff.
When you pick a disguise option succesfully you switch to armor so and so, but it doesn't check PC sex when it puts your old armor back in inventory. So you're trying to wear wrong sex armor.
This seems to happen with all the disguise options I've run into. Also happens when there's a script where you pick up armor and wear it, like the palace iron armor at one point.

 

[felipepepe]

1) Fallout - if I recall correctly, it was very easy to tag or invest into wrong skills when playing for the first time. The biggest issue with Fallout, in my opinion, was that many non-combat skills were useless. The system, basically, promised a lot more action than the game delivered. Once you knew how to play (i.e. once you understood the design), what to expect (including quests), it was fun to experiment with different character builds and see what you can uncover.

Exactly, deep games tend to make the player feel a little lost at start, but once he understands the game he will face a good, smart challenge. They are games made to last, be replayed countless times, not just "have fun on the first 5 minutes or you are doing it wrong" banal shit boring games that the only reason to replay is killing bloted HP/Damage enemies in hard mode and get an achievement. Your first playthrough may be rough, but the 6 others will be getting better and better as you understand the system.

Playing JA2 for the first time will result in countless deaths, reloads, restarts, "I should have picked merc X", and dumb rage at stuff like how your custom made sniper bro can't find a fucking sniper (believe me, I played JA2 for the first time 3 years ago, I remember it). But after the initial rape, you'll start to understand the game more and can build better and better squads, challening yourself until finally finishing the game, and immediatly wanting to replay it again with another setup just to try different things and where it could lead.

And that's exactly how I felt playing the AoD demo, so to VD and ITS bros.

 

[Gord]

2) It's like CYOA lol, if pass a check, go here, if fail, go there - not sure I get this one. Isn't that how skill checks work?

I guess the term got stuck because the representation of the non-combat parts reminds of it in so far as it is often a sequence of low-interactivity cutscenes:
Get teleported somewhere ("Read page x"), Make a decision, often between 1) Skill check A (if succeed: "read page y" if not "read page z") or 2) leave ("back to page w") and sometimes also 3) Skill check B ("read..."). Success usually means continuation along the same principle, failure either combat, death or back to starting point.

Nothing inherently wrong with that, the fact that you are offering all these possibilities for using non-combat skills, especially the number of options is something you usually don't see (and I often miss).

Now, I'm not saying that what we did is the best design there is. I'm sure there are better ways to do non-combat gameplay. If someone has any thoughts, I'd love to read them.

As I have written in my earlier post, I'd offer more "in-between" resolutions, or partial-successes. If I just barely miss a skill check, why does it mean automatic failure or even death? Why not implement a imperfect closure? Why not give the chance to "save" the situation by using another, fitting talent or attribute as a follow-up.
You are already doing similar stuff, like (and that's just one example) in the last thief quest, where your skill level seems to decide how many people will leave through your diversion.
But generally those situations are far fewer than the simple binary outcomes.

By blurring out the measures a bit, instead of demanding a certain value that's set in stone, I think players are encouraged more strongly just to keep playing a certain character, as it means that even if I'm not able to perfectly resolve every obstacle, I can still go on without worrying too much about fucking up completely and how to spend my skills to prevent that.
Yet it doesn't mean that the whole thing gets watered down, you still have to focus and not spread out too much. Too low skills still mean complete failure.

I accepted failed checks when they arose. I accepted the unperfect playthrough.

In the situation where this works, it's something I try to do, too.

Yet there are some situation where you will just die or simply can't continue unless you have raised exactly the right skills.
For the former, sometimes I'd wish to get a kind of fitting warning.
E.g.: Breaking into a house with the thief character through the window. Don't have raised traps? Too bad...
Would be nice if the quest-giver gave you a hint like "Be careful, the guy is known to have some dangerous security measures in place." Or if you could inspect the place before (with PER deciding how much info you get).
If you don't heed the warning, well, your problem then, but you got one and can prepare.

The latter struck me with the mining outpost. If you don't have a combat character, fighting is pretty much out of question, I think. So you get multiple approaches, but they are always a combination of two somewhat disconnected skills and you need both.
Bandits need high INT and then also streetwise? or persuasion?
Disguise as loremaster needs also Lore (even if you got the mantra through persuasion).
Sneaking in needs also high DEX.

If you don't have both skills/attributes for each option, you are stuck and can't finish the quest as far as I can tell.
It's a matter of probability. It's far less probable that I have two different skills above a certain value at the same time than just having one.
(This is probably only really an issue with the Praetor, as you need to do it to continue).