Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

[Mrowak]

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:

Exactly. I think the game is too late in development to add many new things others would want.

I mean, I would love to see expanded dialogue trees with mechanics like that:

As much as I love skillchecks system, as many have noted before in AoD it all too often resembles clicking [I WIN!!111] button. Frequently there's little thought involved in picking the option, other than "well, I have shitloadz of points in this skill, so let's go for it". I think AoD could use the way some skillchecks worked in Mask of the Betrayer. In that game you could get options like these (ok, I "enhanced" the options a little):

a). [Diplomacy] AAAAAA (consequence A, if success)
b). [Diplomacy] BBBBBB (consequence B, if success)
c). [Diplomacy] CCCCCC (failure if success, critical failure if check failed)
d). [Bluff] DDDDDD (consequence A, if success)
e). [Bluff] EEEEEE (consequence B with some bonus if success, but critical failure if check failed)

A short explanation is in order. Choices a), b) and d) lead to different consequences. Choice c) goes against beliefs/agenda of the interlocutor or challenges some special abilites he may have (e.g. Gann didn't like when you tried sucking up to him, and Kaylin could discern lies) so in the best case scenario you just fail, in the worst you fail critically. Node e) is a gamble reflecting e.g. a snarky remark - depending on the skill score/roll you enjoy extra benefits or penalty. The consequences of critical success or failure don't have to be anything serious - e.g. reputation boost/reduction.

However, at this stage it's simply not feasible. I think VD should stick to what he did in the demo, and start improving stuff after the feedback from the whole thing. As it is now - sure, the game is rough, but it is fun and accomplishes all the goals VD aimed for. I, for one thing, can't wait for its release.

And cutting things out? Guys, seriously? It's not that making things not appear, will improve anything :/

The only change I want at this point is making picking skill-options in dialogues more sensible e.g. so that after selecting from these the first option:

1). [Persuasion/Streetwise]
2). [Trade]

... after a successful check one node later I am not faced with this:

1). [Trade]

Da fuck? What's the point of selecting [Persuasion/Streetwise] and passing when I still have to pick [Trade] to succeed.

 

[MumbaUmba]

Suggestions?

Well actually I have one, take a leaf out of last D&D. Skill challenges.

First you need several successes to complete a check or several failures to well fail. Skill check should be a roll not a flat compare.

For example 5 successes vs 3 fails.

You can display success vs failures in real time with some delay obviously, player always have option to try to drop check to avoid negative result, but then he has to make another one off check to be able to back off, for example etiquette to gracefully stop persuasion. This only needs to be done for important situations like thief's example above. Most of the simple checks will still go as an one off checks.

This will void a lot of issues with binary pass/fail situation. But it obviously requires quite a bit of additional work to implement.

 

[hiver]

Exactly. Removing skills, making game ironman ffs..., forcing points spending, merging skills... its only going to make matters worse by devaluating the whole game.

If the problem with assassins quest is that you get teleported in the middle of several fighters then change THAT. If its a problem that choosing one skill leads to another skill check - change that. If a quest needs several skills to complete - enable player to be warned about it in a reasonable manner. Through skills he already has or through dialogue or through items he discovers previously, maps, plans, notes etc. etc. etc.

/

The loremaster should have an opportunity to discover an old temple may be filled with deadly traps.
i.e. build his knowledge in a more game ralated experience then reloading after dying.

The assassin should get the chance to scout out areas he plans to visit or victims, either through scouting and sneaking or by bribing NPCs to get the info.

Same for the thief.

Merchant should be able to hire assassins to do some jobs.

Having additional skills upgraded even a little should help them with related info, although, naturally in a smaller ways.

There should also be "bad" consequences sometimes for using "inappropriate" ways to deal with something, not by killing them but making things more complicated.

and so on..

 

[Infinitron]

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.

How would you compare it to this other game I've heard of? Why does that work where this fails?

I don't think anybody got too excited over optimized allocation of INT, WIS and CHA stat points in PS:T.

 

[CappenVarra]

Phew, after much time wasted and lots of loading screens, I've finished the demo with all backgrounds except the Drifter, finished all the major faction quests (Thieves, Assassins, Imperial Guard, House Daratan, House Aurelian), and gotten a bunch of traits (Kingslayer, Chosen One, Manipulator, Infiltrator, Terminator, Interrogator). So yeah, mission "Replay AoD Demo 7 times" accomplished, even if I'm sure I missed some quest options.

I really like the variety of options, and am curious how will these paths continue in the full game. The way it's going, AoD will be the most replayable game ever released (in before: "AoD proves that CnC is an adventure game mechanic"). I also love the various death screens, and the dialogue when you select the "Can I fight the giant rats?" option - now that's what I call attention to detail. Also, people who say the music is repetitive and boring need to get off their high horse, seriously.

"Talky" characters were very straightforward, while combat ones took a bit of figuring out. Favorite was probably the non-combat thief (even if I had to restart that one 3 times), simply because the bastard was so smooth he should be called Garret (too bad it doesn't sound Latin... so, Garrus, perhaps?). Will now probably try to meta-game a hybrid Drifter just to see how far can that option be stretched...

I agree that the block/dodge divide is mostly caused by crafting - after beating my head against the wall with a merc using store-bought armors, it was really ridiculous how much difference a Hardened Iron Praetorian Armor made (later made a Steel one which was even more imbalanced). So changing the crafting availability just before the demo was probably not the best move ever, and before deciding how much balancing do dodge/block need, I would like to see how good are the crafted light armors. As someone already mentioned, using shields heavier than a buckler seemed mostly a situational tactic suited to closing distance to archers.

The "teleporting" is all right and doesn't bother me anymore - it's just slightly overused and missing the escape clause in some situations. I understand sometimes these text adventures should not allow breaks (such as when infiltrating the Daratan palace), but in a number of them there was no option to adjust gear and skill points even when it was implied that a large period of time passed (allocating the skill points earned for manipulating the raiders into attacking the outpost before interacting with the console would've been very welcome, and makes more sense than rushing it imho). Note1: when [critical strike]-killing the raider chief and intimidating the others, I really really missed the option to loot the fucker (first rule of RPGs: if I kills it, I gets to loots it). Note2: please don't switch weapons so much during teleportation, it's annoying as hell. Not sure if all situations where weapons were automatically unequipped made much sense either... If you insist on doing it, perhaps add a "draw predefined (last used) weapon set" option costing less than 4 AP.

Arcanum-like starting gear character creation shop is an excellent suggestion, +1.

As far as skill challenges are concerned, it's hard to say what would work best, but some way of alleviating the "X skill points = win; X-1 skill points = utter failure" syndrome would be welcome. Now, I think this was already suggested, but perhaps making the skill challenges a bit "coarser" would help. Of course, Bethesda-level failure where only 0/25/50/75/100 skill levels are recognized are bullshit, but I don't really see how making only skill levels divisible by 5 count would reduce the number of options, and it would help "streamline" the logic. 100 discrete skill levels affecting possible checks seems like overkill, and lead to situations where there is a huge difference between 39 points and 40 points. 20 discrete levels (only numbers divisible by 5) seems to give plenty of space for variety, while also making the difference more intuitive ("no way, that's like a whole 5/10/15 skill points above you") - but that's just me talking randomly without giving it much thought (I remember a Workshop thread on topic, but it was a while ago), so perhaps I'm wrong.

The good thing about tagging skills is that fallout players could intuitively grasp that raising just a few skills is the best starting strategy - and since it also applies to the AoD demo, I suspect fallout players who stuck to the habit had a much easier time than others. So if you're looking for ways to communicate that to new players, that's an option...

Anyway, sorry for rambling so much, I enjoy the demo a lot and will add other suggestions as I remember them, have to run now...

 

[Grunker]

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

Oh the irony. You really can't see it, can you?

Other than that piece of delicious butthurt your following posts are quite good. I like this:

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?

Since I guess it's the precise reason I'm not as hooked as many others who like the text-adventure stuff on playing a pure asslicking character. The text-adventure is more like an extra element for me to the base combat gameplay.

Alas as good as this point is it's a bit out of reach of current AoD development to actually implement a "solution." So again, we're back to whether you have a suggestion for something that would upgrade the way the game handles it now within a realistic scope? I guess the answer is no?

I also agree with you on this:

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

which is why, as excellent as the latest post of Marsal is, I really don't like the IRONMAN suggestion. That solution would turn the game into a true old-school text-adventure and they have some glaring problems for people that don't enjoy repeating shit for twenty times to get it right - not because they need to switch tactics but because they need to know the arbitrarily right amount of skill points to put into stuff.

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".

Fucking this.

stuff about hoping they won't merge skills

Then what do you propose instead? That is if you recognize DU's above-mentioned problem...

 

[Jasede]

This game might be more fun if it was text-only. I always dreamed of making a branching, text/dialogue only RPG. Think Fallout, but no graphics. Just CYOA-style prompts with skillchecks. Think AoD with no graphics and probably combat also based on just skillchecks.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

Some more comments. I'm totally spoiling stuff here. You have been warned.

I beat the IG questline, twice, I think. One sword + shield tank, the other big hammers. Both with decent INT (but dumped CHAR). Loved the way the guy turned into a killing machine at the very end of the questline, can't wait for the full game to see what happens further.

I don't know why you would go on a rampage for additional skill points, I actually missed several legit SP-giving mini-quests (I only learned of them here), and did not clear the Aurelain mine (got pwnd), but I did manage to get through all of 'em IG quests without much trouble (and by "much trouble" I mean "getting frustrated", not "doing everything in one go on the very first attempt".)

Since folks around here seem to be unable to grasp AoD's combat, I guess making a combat tutorial would be nice. Something akin to the combat demo, but focused on explaining the combat system, not pitting you against impossible odds.

I still don't have too many complaints about the text-adventure/talky-talky side of things. Though I did get somewhat annoyed by what Mrowak mentioned above to be honest. To an extent. Hence the skill-point hoarding. And you never know when you might get fucked because of it (the final task for the Commercium, for instance. If there's no way to bypass the thugs who attack you after you fail to convince Mercato to go with your plan and not hold a grudge, many non-combat, 100% social skill characters are gonna hit a dead end there, simply because they happened to miss the mark for the required combo of skills. Or maybe I'm missing something there? An option to hire bodyguards, perhaps? It'd be nice, too, why would an affluent merchant with numerous enemies travel alone?)

I'll have to second one more complaint: sometimes the starting position in combat does not make much sense. The Assassin questline, for instance. Your second hit, the spies. I mean, why would my assassin with 10 perception not notice anything crummy before getting right next to the people he's planning to kill? Especially when he's planning to kill them using his trusty crossbow? Why not give the player one more option: an additional

1. Approach
2. Fight

option before getting into stabbing distance to the bed-ridden gramps would actualy be very welcome. Maybe another option to use critical strike there to take out one of the enemies, because why not? It's sometimes used in less probable circumstances.

Making the dodge skill more useful would be nice, too. I remember it being much better in the early versions of the combat demo, for instance. But it got nerfed because the guys who beat the combat demo ironman found it "overpowered compared to block". Re-balancing is fine, but nerfing? Playing a dodge melee specialist requires a helluva lot reloading, mang.

EDIT:

Oh, and a little bit of synergy between non-combat skills could be nice, too, if it would not make the whole thing imbalanced. Maybe very slight synergies? Would lower the frustration of "not-hitting-the-exact-skill-combo-and-hence-being-fucked-whichever-way-you-look-at-it". Since the skills are supposed to work in conjunction in skill-checks, why wouldn't they synergize? Some food for thought.

 

[circ]

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.

How would you compare it to this other game I've heard of? Why does that work where this fails?

I don't think anybody got too excited over optimized allocation of INT, WIS and CHA stat points in PS:T.

The difference obviously being that almost every dialogue in AoD contains a skill or stat check. There's very little story filling out details, or story just for the sake of story. It's just text QTE after text QTE.

 

[Infinitron]

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.

How would you compare it to this other game I've heard of? Why does that work where this fails?

I don't think anybody got too excited over optimized allocation of INT, WIS and CHA stat points in PS:T.

The difference obviously being that almost every dialogue in AoD contains a skill or stat check. There's very little story filling out details, or story just for the sake of story. It's just text QTE after text QTE.

That's true, but I don't see what it has to do with Castanova's complaint.

Is it just that it was so much easier to ace every stat-check in PS:T, if you wanted to? Just boost WIS and INT to max and you'll get pretty much everything.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

stuff about hoping they won't merge skills

Then what do you propose instead? That is if you recognize DU's above-mentioned problem...

How about doing something like what's currently done for weapon skills? That is to say, when you increase a certain skill, it also increases related skills by a small amount (probably smaller than the current modifier for weapon skills, but enough to make certain paths less reload intensive). For example, if you increase persuasion by 5 points, maybe skills like etiquette, trading, and streetwise go up by 1 or 2 points also. Increasing stealth would increase steal, lockpick, and traps, etc. Maybe this would lead to an area the ITS guys don't want to go, as in some ways it's basically giving out more skill points, but it seems better than the alternatives of further simplification of merging skills or keeping it the way it currently is and promoting save scumming because the dialogue options are too binary. Maybe the best argument for this method would be that it would take relatively little time to do, as opposed to adding more checks or half-fails.

 

[hiver]

I wrote what i suggest above, although thats based on what other players said, because ive been busy and somewhat averted by some examples of less than optimum decisions in specific quests. And changing the equipped weapons and not having a starting weapon by my chosen skill.
And porn.


...


And wasteland 2 forums.

 

[empi]

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.

How would you compare it to this other game I've heard of? Why does that work where this fails?

I don't think anybody got too excited over optimized allocation of INT, WIS and CHA stat points in PS:T.

PS:T was a completely different experience, a different kind of game that is unlikely to be replicated (MoTB tried its best). It was exploration heavy too, so many little details in Sigil to be discovered, unlike in AoD (No fluff!).
The dialogues were about powerful, often emotional, philosophical etc. stuff, AoD is more blunt (No fluff!). Lots of vivid and complex characters in PS:T, more quest-based with a more simple motivation in AoD (No fluff!). Much higher standard of writing in PS:T. Dialogue choices are more based on how you want TNO to act, whether to intimidate, or charm etc., in AoD it's what choices your skills will allow you.
It's the anti AoD in that you can't even die, don't need to reload if you make a mistake. "Mistakes" in dialogue usually lead to a loss of possible experience, or alignment changes in PS:T.
Arguable PS:T plays more like a novel, AoD plays like a CYOA
You update your journal in a quieter manner in AoD

I could point out more differences, but assuming you've played them both, they should be obvious.

 

[Castanova]

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.

How would you compare it to this other game I've heard of? Why does that work where this fails?

I don't think anybody got too excited over optimized allocation of INT, WIS and CHA stat points in PS:T.

PST is vastly different. The social aspects of that game basically boil down to: are you social character or not? If you fail a check in that game, you don't die. You just solve the quest the "dumb" way. Being more or less stupid/charismatic opens/closes quest solutions and adds flavor to the dialog. It does NOT strictly confine you to certain paths in a highly non-linear questline.

AoD actively punishes you for failing dialog stat-checks. While this is perfectly fine from a CYA perspective, it doesn't interact well with the way the character building is set up because your stats are a black box and are entirely abstracted.

 

[Johannes]

This game might be more fun if it was text-only. I always dreamed of making a branching, text/dialogue only RPG. Think Fallout, but no graphics. Just CYOA-style prompts with skillchecks. Think AoD with no graphics and probably combat also based on just skillchecks.

Something like

http://www.choiceofgames.com/dragon/

?

 

[Mrowak]

stuff about hoping they won't merge skills

Then what do you propose instead? That is if you recognize DU's above-mentioned problem...

How about doing something like what's currently done for weapon skills? That is to say, when you increase a certain skill, it also increases related skills by a small amount (probably smaller than the current modifier for weapon skills, but enough to make certain paths less reload intensive). For example, if you increase persuasion by 5 points, maybe skills like etiquette, trading, and streetwise go up by 1 or 2 points also. Increasing stealth would increase steal, lockpick, and traps, etc. Maybe this would lead to an area the ITS guys don't want to go, as in some ways it's basically giving out more skill points, but it seems better than the alternatives of further simplification of merging skills or keeping it the way it currently is and promoting save scumming because the dialogue options are too binary. Maybe the best argument for this method would be that it would take relatively little time to do, as opposed to adding more checks or half-fails.

That's actually a quite resonable proposal. The only issue is balancing the whole thing out, but even imbalanced and implemented "as is" it would make much sense.

If we look at it, it's fairly easy to pinpoint which skills have what correlation with others, which we could use to set different variables of progression. .

Sneaking is corellated strongly with Stealing, less with Critical Strike, and much less with Disguise. So for every 5 points in Sneaking we could get 2 points in Stealing, 1 point in Critical Strike and 0.5 in Disguise.

We could look at it another way:

*Streetwise seems to be related more with Disguise than Etiquette

*Persuasion is more strongly related with Etiquette and Trade than Streetwise.

*Both Persuasion and Streetwise seem to have strong connection

We could actually use the "strong" pairings of the skills to indicate to the player that after a [Disguise] check he can expect [Streetwise] or [Disguise/Streetwise] but never [Etiquette] or [Trade].

Makes sense, and would be relatively easy to implement.

 

[Volrath]

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.

I like this idea.

 

[Grunker]

Yeah it's interesting. Also an easier fix I suspect than the otherwise pretty interesting suggestion from phelot.

 

[Marsal]

It seems ironman only is not a very popular idea. Let me suggest something else: "ironman until you die". What does that mean? No manual saving, if you die you get to reload autosave to the last time you were alive. Fail a persuasion check and get thrown out? Still alive, keep playing. Fail a sneak check and die, you get to reload and try again. Die in combat? Reload and try again.

How is this different than what we have now? It would lessen the urge (I'd go as far as to say eliminate) to hoard points for diplomatic characters in most situations, while allowing combat and pass or die checks to be not as unforgiving as in pure ironman. You would still need to amend sneaking options (someone in this thread suggested breaking singular sneak checks into chains and giving feedback between them), but it would be less work then revamping the whole system. Problems would include getting stuck in an unwinnable fight and being railroaded (getting "taken" if you fix the smelter while Centurion is looking), but this could be worked around by smart autosave placement.

Why am I throwing so many half-assed ideas out? I'm hoping someone picks up something from my posts, runs with it and it makes for a better AoD at the end. Worst case scenario? My ideas are found worthless and the game stays the same, save some minor tweaks. I can live with that.

 

[Johannes]

Ironman is a really good idea for a game like this, it's just that most people happen to hate the concept anywhere.

Just give me a tad more skillpoints so I have some hope of making it without constant restarting/reloading. Probably also needs more of those softer (ie nonlethal) failures to make it pleasant, but that's the case without ironman too.


If there was a mode of enforced ironman, which gave me more skillpoints on startup, I'd play that. And I'd enjoy it more than metagaming with unspent skillpoints.






Also, how about making some [skill x] options, that would always fail? Just have it so that the context would indicate (if you're paying attention) it might not be smart thing to do. But would keep you on your toes a bit more, instead of mindlessly regarding [skill x] options as awesome buttons with a requirement.

 

[Marsal]

Also, how about making some [skill x] options, that would always fail? Just have it so that the context would indicate (if you're paying attention) it might not be smart thing to do. But would keep you on your toes a bit more, instead of mindlessly regarding [skill x] options as awesome buttons with a requirement.

This is not a bad idea. What's the reason for even having the skills in brackets? Player should decide based on reading the available responses (which would ideally hint at the skill or skills used), not by comparing his skill level to the skill check offered. It also makes the lines without skill brackets an implicitly inferior choice.

 

[Grunker]

Judging on the fact that plenty of options can be disagreed upon as making "sense" and that players have asked for clearer writing when it comes to check I feel that would be an exceedingly bad idea.

 

[metzger]

Skillchecks should be more predictable. Maybe skills should be associated with specific groups of NPC? Like:
Streetwise - thugs, beggars and other lowlife scum
Etiquette - nobles and wannabees
Persuade - common people and all those who doesn't fall in any category
Intimidate - everybody, but it should be supported by something like bodycount, good gear or reputation so you can't intimidate someone into shitting his pants only with the power of your majestic personality
So if someone send you to deal with the bandits you'll know that you need streetwise and your fancy etiquette will only get you horribly raped. Then you gather some info on these bandits and find out that their leader is not a stupid brute but an intelligent ex-noble. And because of this "ex" he hates etiquette even more, but can be reasoned with by logical persuasion. You have a choice: persuade him or use streetwise skill on his thugs.
With info gathering part dialogues really can be puzzle-like. Also to support this model player should be allowed to use every fucking skill on every fucking NPC. Wrong skills always fail (maybe with some exceptions).

 

[Infinitron]

Skillchecks should be more predictable. Maybe skills should be associated with specific groups of NPC? Like:
Streetwise - thugs, beggars and other lowlife scum
Etiquette - nobles and wannabees
Persuade - common people and all those who doesn't fall in any category
Intimidate - everybody, but it should be supported by something like bodycount, good gear or reputation so you can't intimidate someone into shitting his pants only with the power of your majestic personality
So if someone send you to deal with the bandits you'll know that you need streetwise and your fancy etiquette will only get you horribly raped. Then you gather some info on these bandits and find out that their leader is not a stupid brute but an intelligent ex-noble. And because of this "ex" he hates etiquette even more, but can be reasoned with by logical persuasion. You have a choice: persuade him or use streetwise skill on his thugs.
With info gathering part dialogues really can be puzzle-like. Also to support this model player should be allowed to use every fucking skill on every fucking NPC. Wrong skills always fail (maybe with some exceptions).

This is a good idea. It doesn't have to strictly work this way all the time, but most of the time is good enough. Just a general rule so that players have a clue what skills they'll need to focus on, depending on who they're about to mess with.

 

[Tigranes]

That's a very good point, and sometimes the game does bear it out. My persuasion-heavy Praetor was able to talk Dellar into making the raiders fight IG, but when I talked to the raider guy it was either Streetwise or a Persuasion-Trading combination, meaning I couldn't get it done.

What would be really cool is if, as metzger says, the skills become a lot more exclusive, and then, faction reputation / general reputation / traits introduce new possibilities. E.g. instead of a situation where you need to use streetwise to persuade a thief or a persuade-trading combo, you might have a streetwise option, then a persuade-reputation combo. i.e. although the thief can see you don't speak his language, he can see you have a strong reputation with the thieves or as a hardened fighter, and is prepared to listen to your more highbrow persuasion. In that case, (1) the exclusivity of skills means you know what you're specialising in and you know what to expect more; (2) but you still maintain some possibility of branching out and being more flexible through the actions you take in the gameworld.

Perhaps some of this already happens - I didn't see too many instances where traits/reputations factor in dialogue in the demo, but I assume they will very much as you progress in the game. There's a lot of potential there and I hope it is used.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

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.

When did this change, i've always assumed it was gonna be like fallout. The screens had highlighted a combat ui lifted from fallout, from the guy that loved fallout, whom also goes under the pseudonym "Vault Dweller"