Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

[commie]

Hang on, this is 25% of the game? That's got to be a joke, surely...2.5% it has to be, right, RIGHT? A 2 hour long RPG and maybe 10 hours for 4-5 builds until you see most of what there is to see before it repeats? 5 years of development for a two hour game?

That can't be right, can it?

o_O


Also the DU v Grunker battle is fucking great...has me on the edge of my seat. Keep it up!

Jackoeatingpopcorn.gif

 

[circ]

For some reason, people assumed that it's gonna be Fallout with swords, which was never the goal. So, I understand that many people here look at and go "what the fuck is this shit?". As a Fallout/Arcanum clone, AoD fails miserably, but it's not a Fallout/Arcanum clone. It's something fucking else.

Maybe it's the UI.
No I'm not expecting a Fallout clone. I was hoping for more environmental interaction however and less BioWare(tm) style dialogue with fuck and shit thrown in.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I thought that Bioware-style dialogues were 'personality' options usually leading to the same outcome. "It's war and we must fight it!" vs "It's war! Let's fuck some shit up!"

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Okay, so we all agree:
1. there is a problem in the design of the game,
2. rewriting the game is not a realistic solution.

We don't agree on what #1 is though. I believe the problem is a fundamental issue in how the game is designed. Particuarly its "skill checks in dialogue" that lead to WIN or DIE scenarios and things like the teleportation. I believe you also see that as the problem too and others in this thread also seem to concur. Of course the only way around this is for the developers to spend an awful lot of time, as you say, doing #2 and re-writing large portions of the game and changing that.

I have no idea what problem Grunker sees though, other than his own mental illness caught up in his hyperbole.

Grunker and I think there exists a (partial) "fix", what do you think, DarkUnderlord? Is the game good enough that we should stop trying to "fix" it or do you think it can't be "fixed" by introducing half-assed solutions? Or is the proposed "fix" not good enough and we should continue the discussion and try to get to some kind of an answer?

Let me put a problem to you. You're role-playing a Thief. You encounter the following options in dialogue:
"Why good sir, bandits are blocking the bridge and we need to get passed!"
1. [Sneak] Attempt to sneak past the bandits.
2. [Asslicking] Let us go over there and converse with them so that we may negotiate some conclusion.
3. [Combat] Let's go grab their collars!
4. We'll bypass them completely by taking a boat over the river.

Given you're a Thief, the natural instinct is to take option #1. That is, after all, why you've been buffing your Thief skills and ignoring the combat. But there's no indication as to how successful your attempt at Sneaking is going to be. Hopefully if they see you because your skill is poor, you'll have the chance to back-out and take the boat at that point (IE: run away) or maybe negotiate at that point.

So you choose #1... only to find yourself instantly teleported into the middle of a group of hostile bandits with no other way out other than fighting to the death. You did have a bow on you for long range combat but you're slap-bang in the middle of them now. You die.

Was that fun? Is that fun? Can that be fun?

At this point, re-starting the entire game is really fucking stupid. So we re-load to our choice... What do we pick now? Asslicking? We didn't up that skill... Combat? Nope. Bypass it? Well, ok. But I'm a Thief damnit! I wanted to do Thiefy things! Well hey, we've got a skill point here so let's put that into Sneak. We try that and choose option #1 again...

Success! We get passed the bandits and can continue with our quest. It turns out our Sneak was 49 and it needed to be 50 to successfully pass that check. Of course, we didn't know that before we tried it. And in fact, there is no way to know that without trial and error. Saving and reloading. Changing something and trying again.

Now obviously the real problem here is, as you and I both see, the silly teleportation that dumps you into the middle of a group of armed bandits (really? I mean, really?) and the lack of knowledge about how high your skill needs to be to "win". How is the player supposed to know? It might be one thing if he was dumped into their midst and then given an "escape option" there or just not dumped into their midst, but the only option seems to be to die.

Reloading is mandatory.

"Solution" #1: Now let's say we're forced to spend skill points when we earn them. Now we don't have that 1 spare skill point that would allow us to sneak passed the bandits. Unless of course... we reload back to when we last earned a skill point. Well that's ok, that's only one combat encounter away. So we just reload from slightly earlier (in real-time, around about 5 - 10 mins of game-play). We re-play those parts (though why we have to is really just annoying) get the skill point, spend it appropriately and pass our check. We save and move on.

Nothing has changed.

Maybe a handful of people won't be willing to replay those last 5 minutes. But let's face it, if we've got guys save-scumming, trust me when I tell you they'll reload and try something different. Hell, I've reloaded Fallout half-way through replays enough times rather than re-start just to see how a series of choices play out. Why would I want to re-start and go through the Rat Cave or the Temple of Trials again when I just want to change the last couple of decisions so I can become a Made-Man of another family and see what their reward is? And really, does me playing the game in this way really hurt anyone?

"Solution" #2: We can't reload. It's Ironman bitches! So we re-start. We work our way all the way up to the same challenge. Only this time we're not going for Sneak. We tried that. It failed. This time, we're trying Asslicking! We get our Asslicking up to 65. We're a mother-fucking Asslicking supremo. We pick option #2...

... and die as the bandits reject our proposal and attack.

But let's re-start again. This time we increase our Asslicking to 72 (like all good puzzle-games we've got this path memorised for optimal proficiency now)!

... and die.

And re-start and get Asslicking up to 74! Oh God, we sacrificed some points and only just made it through a really tough battle to get those extra two points.

... and die.

We don't know it but the Asslicking check requires at least 75 to pass. So once again, we've encountered the same situation. We still don't know what the "magic number is" that we require to pass the skill check. We don't even know if the skill check is a hard skill check (>75 = insta-success) or a random die roll and we're just getting bad random rolls (rage, I hate bad random rolls grrrr).

We still don't have the information we need to make an appropriate decision when it comes to spending those skill points. We still don't get that information until after we've successfully passed the challenge.

Nothing has changed.

Now look, I don't think the game is quite that bad. But it is a puzzle game with broken combat (broken because it needs to be fixed. Let's not half-ass this here). There's a whole bunch of stuff missing that would make non-combat skills useful outside of dialogue. And it's a real disappointment that stuff is missing (as in "Wow, where's the rest of the game got to?" and "What's with this silly everything-happens-in-dialogue stuff anyway?" and "OH GOD, who thought teleportation was a good idea?").

But coming up with any solution other than actually re-working that stuff isn't going to help. I'm one of these save / re-loaders we're talking about here. But clearly I have some fundamental issues with the game. Please don't piss me off anymore by forcing me to reload parts of the game I've already played just because you're upset with how I choose to get around the lack of content in the game. And for the love of God, don't force Ironman on me just because you can't fix your piece of shit.

Why should I suffer because you fucked up the design (as far as I'm concerned)? If you like the design and enjoy it immensely, that's great. If you can get through the game without re-loading, fantastic, give yourself a medal. But please don't take away the small little joys the rest of us are able to salvage from it through save scumming... by removing save-scumming / point-hoarding / whatever.

The problem is binary WIN / DIE options. And you're really proposing that the solution is to give us more of them?

 

[made]

As a Fallout/Arcanum clone, AoD fails miserably, but it's not a Fallout/Arcanum clone. It's something fucking else.

Yeah I guess that's the crux of the problem. I knew you love Arcanum. I thought AoD would be like Arcanum. Just less broken. And with Romans. And a scope reflecting the smallish team ofc.

Maybe put a sticker "NOT FUCKING ARCANUM" on the box so there's no more confusion.

 

[Infinitron]

Hang on, this is 25% of the game? That's got to be a joke, surely...2.5% it has to be, right, RIGHT? A 2 hour long RPG and maybe 10 hours for 4-5 builds until you see most of what there is to see before it repeats? 5 years of development for a two hour game?

That can't be right, can it?

o_O


Also the DU v Grunker battle is fucking great...has me on the edge of my seat. Keep it up!

Jackoeatingpopcorn.gif

25% percent in terms of areas visited, sounds more likely.

 

[Regdar]

At this rate even if the demo is 50% of the game's actual content you're looking at anything between 50 and 4000 hours of gametime for your average masochist.

 

[Gord]

Again, it's kind of like roguelikes. You don't play them the same way you play a 'proper' RPG. You explore the design, dying at every step, until you learn what kills you and what doesn't. Naturally, some people like it and some people don't. We made this game for people who do.

Maybe you should then do something to communicate that this is your intention with the game. No idea what, honestly, but it might help if you find some way.

Btw., I'm not too eager to approach the game as a sort of roguelike (because roguelikes have at least one advantage there, they are more random, while AoD will always be static), but I still think the whole text-adventure mode could benefit greatly from a few tweaks, mainly:

• add some (limited) predictability of the requirements of the task ahead, e.g. through NPC comments or skill-checks when applicable
• either add some more options (esp. preparing for combined skill checks is a fucking shot in the dark), or maybe even better
• provide some outcome between total failure and success more often (e.g. when succeeding in one of the two, or when your skill is just slightly too low)

 

[DarkUnderlord]

For some reason, people assumed that it's gonna be Fallout with swords, which was never the goal. So, I understand that many people here look at and go "what the fuck is this shit?". As a Fallout/Arcanum clone, AoD fails miserably, but it's not a Fallout/Arcanum clone. It's something fucking else.

Pretty much this. On some level it's good for what it is but I did really want a Fallout-style game. I suspect most of the people who have issues also wanted that.

In which case, you'd be making a terrible mistake trying to "fix" anything. It's clearly not our game or the game we expected or wanted. We'll either accept that or not.

One other thing I want to add too... Going for the pure-text method exacerbates a large number of problems inherent in dialogue choices. If you think about combat for a moment, think about how many times the die are rolling. You attack, you hit or miss based on a die roll. Your opponent attacks and hits or miss based on a die roll. You have a few options in combat to improve your chances by changing armour, throwing a net or spear or swapping weapons. Maybe even running away. Combat usually goes for a few turns at least. So in other words, you've got lots of options and lots of things are happening before you get to that final "DIE" position.

But now look at dialogue. You don't get the same number of options. There's no chance to change your costume if your disguise didn't work. You don't get the chance to roll the die a few times as you try to con your way passed the guard. You get one choice. One. And it either succeeds or fails.

Imagine if combat was the same? You'd start combat. You'd either miss and die when the enemy hit you, or hit the enemy and win. Man, how much would that suck?

 

[circ]

Speaking of, nothing in particular. Does anyone know if the blonde chick in red at the inn responds to any class combo? Or does she just stand there for no reason like most of the mobs?

 

[Infinitron]

Speaking of, nothing in particular. Does anyone know if the blonde chick in red at the inn responds to any class combo? Or does she just stand there for no reason like most of the mobs?

Romance option, unlocked if you preorder.

 

[Vault Dweller]

In which case, you'd be making a terrible mistake trying to "fix" anything.

We are not changing the model, but there is a number of things we can do to fix or improve the existing design.
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2564.0.html

But now look at dialogue. You don't get the same number of options. There's no chance to change your costume if your disguise didn't work. You don't get the chance to roll the die a few times as you try to con your way passed the guard. You get one choice. One. And it either succeeds or fails.

Suggestions?

Edit:

I mean, there aren't many design options there. If you're designing a "talk your way through" path through the game, there is only so much you can.

We do have situations where you can walk away and come back later (where it makes sense). We do have situations where if one skill fails, you can try another (i.e. persuasion failure can lead to a streetwise attempt), but if we do too many of those, the difference between persuasion and streetwise or trading would be that between swords and axes - either will get you through the game so pick one and don't worry about the rest.

If the checks are low and you can always pass them, the game is too easy. So, you fail, die where appropriate, try again. We'll auto-save your game when you enter combat and between quests, so replaying won't take longer then a minute.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Just tried the Assassins approach. No forced combat at all in the Commercium route, but the Assassins... well lets just say there's no way to have the 'good' ending to the "Kill the old man and the girl" quest without fighting them. I like to keep my characters professional, if they are hired to do something they do it, so I wasn't going to go the "Ok here's some money bye" route. And I hate combat. That would be one thing I would change - say, a critical strike skill above 40 gives the opportunity to quickly knife them both.

 

[commie]

At this rate even if the demo is 50% of the game's actual content you're looking at anything between 50 and 4000 hours of gametime for your average masochist.

Spoken like a true EA plant....Aren't the ME games good for 'hundreds of hours of amazing cinematic entertainment?'

 

[Marsal]

Now, a couple of changes to make it "more fair". This is just on top of my head (like everything else so far). Introduce 2 tagged skills (1.5x the SP effect on the skill value, no effect on synergies). Why? It lets players focus and rely on 2 core skills. Fighting characters will take 1 defensive and 1 weapon skill, raising them faster and making fights easier. Diplomats and thieves will get less of a benefit, because of the number of non-combat skills, but that's fine.

Not sure if it's possible (to do without wasting much time), but I'll see what we can do.

I must admit I did not expect this kind of answer

This is just a random suggestion, something to think about (as were "special moves" and skill perks before). The point is to go "all in" and commit to ironman design or just leave it as is. I have a very strong feeling that making things kind of ironman will just cause more problems than it solves (spending SP as you get them could be an example of this, judging by reactions of everyone except Grunker).

While you're at it, here's a couple of more ideas:

1. CON seems like it could be useful, but it isn't. Maybe later in the game it could be, but I just don't see it. It could act like a second chance at using some live/die skills, like climbing the Palace wall or getting hit by an arrow in IG quest. You fail the first check, but live/shake off effects because you're built like a brick wall. That would enable the combat focused characters to at least take a chance and attempt some checks and not die instantly. Also, you might think about raising HP gain as you get higher CON. Perhaps 5->+5, 6->+5, 7->+6, 8->+8, 9->+11, 10->+15. That would give max HP of 80 instead of 60, making barbarian type characters more viable.

2. If you decide to introduce tagged skills, high INT could allow more tagged skills. Something like (5->+1SP/20SP, 6->+2SP/20SP, 7->+1 tag, 8->+3SP/20SP, 9->+4SP/20SP, 10->+2 tag). You would help hybrid characters, thieves and smart fighters gain 1 more tagged skill.

3. Tagged skills should be a moderate boost to SP use. 1.5x modifier should be enough. Needs testing, of course.

 

[Davaris]

...

So you choose #1... only to find yourself instantly teleported into the middle of a group of hostile bandits with no other way out other than fighting to the death. You did have a bow on you for long range combat but you're slap-bang in the middle of them now. You die.

Was that fun? Is that fun? Can that be fun?

...

The problem is binary WIN / DIE options. And you're really proposing that the solution is to give us more of them?

One way to get around it, without changing the design, is to make the text options non-binary. Turn them into a text maze, like the Zork games. In this case you sneak several times in the text and are given an indication as to how well, your sneak attempt is going. It might go bad early on and if you are discovered, you have time to run away.

 

[Grimlorn]

A walkthrough? Really? VoD saying that it's definitely doable isn't enough? What the fuck happened to people?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ence-demo-released.70534/page-24#post-2024985

Can you just write down all the dialogue checks we need for each quest so we don't have to deal with the C&C?

 

[Grimlorn]

Here are my 2 cents to the "force players to spend their skillpoints" debate.

It's nonsense. First, you have to be aware who designed the game. Vault Dweller. If we have learned one thing from the TW2 spectacle it's that Vault Dweller never spends his skill points in cRPGs unless he has to. Never. He hoards his points and only when he encounters a situation he can't overcome he starts to spend points. So, what a surprise, AoD's design reflects VD's gaming habits.
Second, therefor you are expected to save your points until you need them. It's how the game is meant to be played by design. It's deliberate. Take infiltrating the palace for example. There are a lot of different paths to reach the throne room, each requiring different sets of skills. It's up to you to find out, reload and distribute skill points accordingly. It's like a puzzle.
You're trying to fix something that isn't broken because it was intentionally designed that way. Hoard your points, spend them as need arises. Problem solved.

I kind of disagree. It would be better if you had to spend your skill points there and that there are enough options that you can sometimes fail quests for not having invested points in the right skills. That way there is more variety and C&C going on in the game leading to different outcomes and results in the game. But that's just me personally and I'm mainly talking about the non combat side of things.

 

[Gord]

So you choose #1... only to find yourself instantly teleported into the middle of a group of hostile bandits with no other way out other than fighting to the death. You did have a bow on you for long range combat but you're slap-bang in the middle of them now. You die.

You forgot the "...only to find that after you sneaked successfully around the bandits, you encounter a cliff. Use [STRenght] to climb down. Don't have enough strength? Back to start then!" outcome.

Fighting characters will take 1 defensive and 1 weapon skill, raising them faster and making fights easier. Diplomats and thieves will get less of a benefit, because of the number of non-combat skills, but that's fine.

So, the fighters that can already build a pretty focused character without problems and therefore don't need it, profit even more?

If you decide to introduce tagged skills, high INT could allow more tagged skills.

That would again make INT an absolute must-have stat and be possibly pretty imbalanced.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

In which case, you'd be making a terrible mistake trying to "fix" anything.

We are not changing the model, but there is a number of things we can do to fix or improve the existing design.
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2564.0.html

I'm actually still undecided on whether you should. For what you've created, you've got something that's quite interesting. And it's sure as hell got a better story than some of the other shit that's out there.

Besides, you've got a great DLC opportunity.

But now look at dialogue. You don't get the same number of options. There's no chance to change your costume if your disguise didn't work. You don't get the chance to roll the die a few times as you try to con your way passed the guard. You get one choice. One. And it either succeeds or fails.

Suggestions?

Yeah I started thinking about this the minute I said it. If we look at combat, hit and miss are die rolls, damage done is a die roll and then we've got some options with regard to positioning, weapon, attack and armour choices. You could have a poor weapon choice win with some lucky rolls or decide to let the armour save you, or get a lucky spear throw in... There are so many things that could play out differently that if you re-load any given combat and mix up just a few options, you'll find it won't ever quite play out the same way.

So random die rolls and player decisions. A good combination of both seems to be acceptable for combat.

But how do you bring multiple die rolls and player choice into a single dialogue path?

In combat, you get feedback as you're fighting. You can see your Power Attacks are constantly missing and so choose to mix it up a bit. You know you're too close to use ranged weapons so you switch. How do you get that in dialogue?

We do have situations where you can walk away and come back later (where it makes sense). We do have situations where if one skill fails, you can try another (i.e. persuasion failure can lead to a streetwise attempt), but if we do too many of those, the difference between persuasion and streetwise or trading would be that between swords and axes - either will get you through the game so pick one and don't worry about the rest.

As you say, there's a point where it gets silly. It either becomes a stupid mini-game (ala Oblivion's joke, intimidate, bribe) or there are too many ways out. Though to be honest, I do think you have too many speech skills which confuses things. Probably too many skills in general actually, given the vast majority of them are used exclusively in dialogue.

Sneak and Disguise I'd combine into the one Sneak. Steal, Lockpick and Traps I'd merge into one Burglary or Pickpocket skill. Persuasion, Etiquette, Streetwise and Lore would all be merged into Persuasion. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't really see the need for all of them. The combat skills make sense because you've got a range of weapons to play with but the others are never really used anywhere on the same level.

Again, every-time you swing your hammer, well, that's your Hammer skill coming into play. The others aren't used anywhere near the same number of times. And again, a Hammer skill of "whatever" is still some-what useful, where-as dialogue skills that aren't high enough never really get to be "some-what useful".

 

[Infinitron]

But how do you bring multiple die rolls and player choice into a single dialogue path?

In combat, you get feedback as you're fighting. You can see your Power Attacks are constantly missing and so choose to mix it up a bit. You know you're too close to use ranged weapons so you switch. How do you get that in dialogue?

This makes me think of the "conversation boss battles" in DX:HR. They give you the opportunity to try a different approach, and the CASIE aug shows you how you're doing.

Apples and oranges, maybe, but still...

 

[Gord]

We do have situations where you can walk away and come back later (where it makes sense). We do have situations where if one skill fails, you can try another (i.e. persuasion failure can lead to a streetwise attempt), but if we do too many of those, the difference between persuasion and streetwise or trading would be that between swords and axes - either will get you through the game so pick one and don't worry about the rest.

As you say, there's a point where it gets silly. It either becomes a stupid mini-game (ala Oblivion's joke, intimidate, bribe) or there are too many ways out. Though to be honest, I do think you have too many speech skills which confuses things. Probably too many skills in general actually, given the vast majority of them are used exclusively in dialogue.

Sneak and Disguise I'd combine into the one Sneak. Steal, Lockpick and Traps I'd merge into one Burglary or Pickpocket skill. Persuasion, Etiquette, Streetwise and Lore would all be merged into Persuasion. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't really see the need for all of them. The combat skills make sense because you've got a range of weapons to play with but the others are never really used anywhere on the same level.

One suggestion I just read on the ITS forums sounded quite interesting to me:
Do combined skill checks in a way that you test the combined score of both, instead of first one, then the other.

That way you can make up for a weakness in one skill with a high value in the other.
It also gives more flexibility.

 

[Marsal]

Fighting characters will take 1 defensive and 1 weapon skill, raising them faster and making fights easier. Diplomats and thieves will get less of a benefit, because of the number of non-combat skills, but that's fine.

So, the fighters that can already build a pretty focused character without problems and therefore don't need it, profit even more?

If you decide to introduce tagged skills, high INT could allow more tagged skills.

That would again make INT an absolute must-have stat and be possibly pretty imbalanced.

Tagged skills should be a moderate increase, 1.5x SP sounds right. These are suggestions with mandatory ironman in mind. The combat is pretty hard as it is. You would have to sacrifice other stats to raise INT (CON would be improved, too). Also, INT 10 gives you +4SP/20SP and +2 tagged skills = 4SP/20SP and about 50 SP per tagged skill (depending on thresholds and SP investment). Is 50 SP better than +1SP/20SP? Yes, but it is tied to one skill, forcing you to specialize. So, I don't think it's that "imbalanced", but it can be tweaked, it's just a suggestion.

One suggestion I just read on the ITS forums sounded quite interesting to me:
Do combined skill checks in a way that you test the combined score of both, instead of first one, then the other.

That way you can make up for a weakness in one skill with a high value in the other.
It also gives more flexibility.

This is an interesting idea.

 

[hiver]

This is not going to end good....
Same thing as in Fallout... everyone suggesting cutting skills out instead of adding content and changing specific situations in order to create more usage for all skills...


:shakes head:

 

[Castanova]

Played last night. Created a Grifter. I really don't like "diplomacy" characters in RPGs for the oft-cited reasons so I figured I'd jump right into the deep end with AoD to see if it differentiates itself. Overall, I think it's a really impressive effort but mostly because I don't know how such disparate and ultimately incompatible design choices were combined into a game that DOESN'T suck.

To me, it's fairly clear that having a 3D representation of the world which you can explore was a massive waste of time and resources. The game is about dialog and turn-based combat. Period. Exploration in an RPG is extremely hard to accomplish even if you set your mind to it and have a team of 10 level designers. Iron Tower clearly did not and does not. You do come across random little vignettes/"quests" by exploring but that could have easily been accomplished with these events happening when you "fast-travel" to a new location.

Anyway, on to the meat. How is this dialog-heavy gameplay? Ultimately, I think this game proves that it's not a terribly viable form of RPG gameplay. I have no doubt there will be a niche audience but this skill-check heavy CYA is just not very satisfying to me nor, I imagine, most people. What's the point of sticking points into a particular social skill? There is literally no feedback from doing so. It's all 100% behind the scenes.

Yes, I understand the stated design goal is to build your character and live with the consequences and AoD certainly has consequences in spades. But, ironically, in the mission to have lots of consequences there is no longer any choice. Strictly speaking you have a choice in allocating your points but your skill in each social skill has no statistical connection to anything in the game besides these arbitrary skill checks. Your character building is a meta affair with nothing to connect it to the game world besides whether you do or do not have enough points to get a desired conversation outcome.

If you take a step back from the game, the stats for the non-combat characters are basically meaningless. You could have implemented the same exact game with no visible stats at all. Just pick your starting background and that determines your base success chances in the conversations. Your chance of success could be modified by your actions in the game world. The social aspect of this game should really be a more dynamic version of CYA rather than shoe-horning character stats into the game. It just doesn't work as intended.

The interesting part of the game's social thing is the conversations themselves. The stat allocation part of it is entirely dull. I'm not even remotely excited to earn more skill points as a grifter because those skill points are effectively meaningless to me. If I succeed in a conversation in 5 minutes, I don't even know if those 5 points I just dumped into streetwise even made any difference. Who cares? The only way you get ANY feedback in this game is to hoard skill points, fail a conversation, reload, spend your skill points, win the conversation. Furthermore, there are a few different social-focused skills. Deciding how to allocate your points among them is 100% a guessing game. Again, if your intent is for the player to get a character and live with it, then you should just offer more pre-defined character types and remove allocation of skill points. The allocation aspect adds literally nothing to this game.

I won't talk about the combat because I didn't really try it yet.

Overall, though, the game is an impressive experiment and I hope you guys learned a lot from it and come back with a new game that incorporates what you've learned.