Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

[Gord]

You can invest skill points in dialogue - and you can't fail a check, you can only choose it if you have enough skill to succeed.

I had an idea yesterday while reading a post by DU where he talked about how combat can turn out very differently even if you win, due to RNG and hitpoints, while for the skill checks it's usually either success or fail.

Now, this obviously won't make it into AoD anymore, it's too much of a redesign, but how about...DIALOGUE HITPOINTS?

Say, you have a certain amount of "dialogue hitpoints", maybe depending on your charisma or class, or perks, whatever.
If you fail a check, you lose some of those DHPs, the amount depending on the difficulty of the check (i.e. how large the difference between your skill and the requirement is).
If you lose all of them, you fail the check and/or the quest. Your DHP could be restored through successful actions, like completing a quest, special events, earned rewards, etc.

If you play a smooth talker, with many DHP, a failed check or two in a skill you did never raise won't mean automatic failure anymore, but loremaster Clumsy McHamfisted still can't "cheat" his way through all the thieves guild missions.

 

[Percy]

How do you get enough material to craft good shit?

 

[Lumpy]

You can invest skill points in dialogue - and you can't fail a check, you can only choose it if you have enough skill to succeed.

I had an idea yesterday while reading a post by DU where he talked about how combat can turn out very differently even if you win, due to RNG and hitpoints, while for the skill checks it's usually either success or fail.

Now, this obviously won't make it into AoD anymore, it's too much of a redesign, but how about...DIALOGUE HITPOINTS?

Say, you have a certain amount of "dialogue hitpoints", maybe depending on your charisma or class, or perks, whatever.
If you fail a check, you lose some of those DHPs, the amount depending on the difficulty of the check (i.e. how large the difference between your skill and the requirement is).
If you lose all of them, you fail the check and/or the quest. Your DHP could be restored through successful actions, like completing a quest, special events, earned rewards, etc.

If you play a smooth talker, with many DHP, a failed check or two in a skill you did never raise won't mean automatic failure anymore, but loremaster Clumsy McHamfisted still can't "cheat" his way through all the thieves guild missions.

How is that supposed to work though?

[Persuasion] Release the prisoner.
No! *lost 2 DHP*
[Persuasion] Please!
Nope. *-2 DHP*
[Persuasion] Aw come on!
[Persuasion Success!!] Quest completed!

I mean there's only 4 skills in total, and you either fail or you don't, how can you fail but then succeed?

 

[Gord]

Decompose the other shit.
Open the crafting menu, and drag weapons and armors onto the empty box on the right side.

 

[Percy]

Yeah, I am decomposing sutff but mainly have bronze and steel. IF I am not a complete retard (this may be the case) - I need 5 different metal types?

 

[Gord]

How is that supposed to work though?

Something like this:
[Persuasion(25/30)] Let me go!

Game then checks difficulty (30) vs skilll level (25), so 5 points difference.
For sake of simplicity, let's say you lose 5 points to your DHP, but you will succeed.
If you have, e.g. 10 in total, but the next check would have you lose more than the remaining 5, you fail the check.

 

[Lumpy]

Yeah, I am decomposing sutff but mainly have bronze and steel. IF I am not a complete retard (this may be the case) - I need 5 different metal types?

Yes you are a retard. You craft each weapon out of one metal type. You can't even get blue steel and meteor in the game.
Just click on the metal at the bottom.
You can buy bronze and iron stuff, and you start getting steel later on in the game.

 

[Percy]

Okay, I got it now. Derp.

 

[Hellraiser]

You can't even get blue steel and meteor in the game.

Actually you can but...

Spoiler bros

You need to kill the commercium shopkeeper, he has epic amounts of loot including mithril and meteor equipment on him. There are however two problems with abusing this fact. Odds are your crafting skill will be too low to use any material better than steel. The other problem is of a more permanent nature. Basically the second you leave the commercium building with all the fat loot a certain bro+quite a few guards confront you because the person you killed wasn't some random nobody. They force you to either leave Teron permanently (which ends the demo obviously) or to fight them.

 

[hiver]

I have to wonder, with there being so many reasonable Codex posts exposing design problems and offering fixes in great detail in such a short time since the release of the demo, what was the exact nature of the feedback given by the testers throughout all these years?

I brought up all these issues in the first combat demo .... My response was that I was a stupid trolling a-hole. Vince was polite but everyone else shouted me down, and it seems every issue I pointed out was just ignored.

News flash! People told you you were a stupid asshole - because thats what you are!
I know, astounding isnt it? True non the less. A stupid, stupidity induced arrogant, moronic-asshole.

Its not about your brilliant design advice at all.
... btw, starwars being arrogant?

 

[CappenVarra]

I think the player feeling of various outcomes being arbitrary comes down to (engineerspeak incoming) positive feedback loops, both in combat an in skill checks. Pardon the rampant generalizations and simplifications ahead...

Take combat. Let's say you have two AI-controlled characters with identical stats, skills and equipment. Have them fight each other 1000 times, and you expect 500:500 wins. But I'm guessing (yeah, just guessing) that in a lot of the combats, you would find that the winner is the guy who scored the first critical. Now obviously, differences in tactics and equipment adjustments do (and should) make a huge difference, and are the interesting part of combat gameplay (hey, that guy has no helmet and my weapon skill is high enough that going for the eyes head has a reasonable chance of hitting - aimed shot at the head; hey, that guy has a shield and is hard as fuck to hit - throw axes at him until his shield splits; hey, if I stand in this corner, only two opponents can reach me, etc.). But since criticals reduce combat stats (penalizing all further combat check for the victim) and are mostly random, hard fights (those in which the player has to use solid tactics to even have a decent chance of winning) seem to come down to that single (quasi-random) variable: who scores the first crit.

Take skill checks. Character A has 40 points in [Skill X] at character creation, which is used in the starting quest. 40 points is enough to get a DoublePlusGood ending in the quest, giving 10 skill points and an extra reward. With those rewards, the character can raise [Skill Y] to the level required to get the DoublePlusGood ending (and the extra rewards) in one of the next quests, and so on - breezing through much of the game. Character B has 39 points in [Skill X] at character creation, which only gets him the PlusGood ending of the starting quest, giving 7 skill points and no extra rewards. This is only enough to get him PlusGood endings in further quests, or means he will fail some of them (having to deal with harder challenges such as combat, which gain inferior rewards). Perhaps the character will be able to finish the game, perhaps the player will give up. While the variety of options and possible quest outcomes is great (and seeing the way different skill choices play out is one of the main appeals of the game), it's a fact that the only difference between Character A and B is a single skill point at character creation.

So in both combat and skill checks, a small difference at the beginning translates to a (seemingly) arbitrary huge difference in the outcome (I'm ignoring the obvious fact that combats have a much higher number of variables involved, so things are not all that straightforward). And this is exactly the trait all positive feedback loops have - small differences in input result in huge output swings, and eventually destabilize the system. While I'm sure this was a design decision made on purpose (and don't expect it to be changed at this point), I think it explains the levels of player butthurt even among prestigious audiences... And explanations are good, right?

Uhm, also perhaps consider adding text "levels" for stats: for some reason I miss Fallout-like "10 Strength = Heroic, 7 Dex = Very Good" etc. labels a lot. Perhaps I'm only a filthy text-lover, but it bugs me to unreasonable levels.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

You can't even get blue steel and meteor in the game.

Actually you can but...

Spoiler bros

You need to kill the commercium shopkeeper, he has epic amounts of loot including mithril and meteor equipment on him. There are however two problems with abusing this fact. Odds are your crafting skill will be too low to use any material better than steel. The other problem is of a more permament nature. Basically the second you leave the commercium building with all the fat loot a certain bro+quite a fews guards confront you because the person you killed wasn't some random nobody. They force you to either leave Theron permanently (which ends the demo obviously) or to fight them.

You should have never told me that.
Now I have to...

 

[DarkUnderlord]

How is that supposed to work though?

Something like this:
[Persuasion(25/30)] Let me go!

Game then checks difficulty (30) vs skilll level (25), so 5 points difference.
For sake of simplicity, let's say you lose 5 points to your DHP, but you will succeed.
If you have, e.g. 10 in total, but the next check would have you loose more than the remaining 5, you fail the check.

The success or otherwise of this system would boil down to: How would you get Dialogue Hit Points? And how would you re-claim them? IE: Do they "heal"? Do you get more as you put points into your dialogue skills?

 

[Gord]

Yeah, balancing it might be an issue.
Still, it can be done. Look at Frayed Knights, they did something similar with their drama stars.

Personally I would keep the number low-ish, so you can not substitute much more than a few (say 2-3) checks in a row, unless maybe your skill is very close (say 1 or 2 points away).
And anyway, if your dumb fighter tries to force a check on theoretical meta-philosophy he will most likely still fail, because his skill will be much too low.

As for restoring points, as I said, probably due to finishing quest lines, or as a special reward for more demanding solutions to problems or in-character stuff. Things like that. One might also tie them to gained experience or progression through the story.

The total amount of them could be determined by CHA and to a much lesser amount skills.
Ultimately it might depend on how much you want to affect with the DHP (or call them drama points).
In a game like AoD I would use them for all the text-adventure skill checks, but in other games it might make sense to restrict their use to dialogue options only (and therefore mostly skills like persuasion, intimidate, seduce).

 

[Marsal]

How is that supposed to work though?

Something like this:
[Persuasion(25/30)] Let me go!

Game then checks difficulty (30) vs skilll level (25), so 5 points difference.
For sake of simplicity, let's say you lose 5 points to your DHP, but you will succeed.
If you have, e.g. 10 in total, but the next check would have you loose more than the remaining 5, you fail the check.

I was ready to insult your manhood, but this is actually a promising idea, when I think about it. Maybe make it regenerate as you solve quests (or specifically as you gain SP) and deplete every time you reload. Like Drama points in Frayed Knights (was already suggested, haven't played the game, but I guess the concept is similar).

Someone suggested tweaking the skill checks to be always dividable by 5, but I have a different "twist" on this (same thing, but laid out in a more transparent way). It's similar to system in Bloodlines (buy bigger skill increase points with smaller XP you earn from quests). You don't have skill values 1-100. You have skill bars divided in 10 sections (or 20, but I think 10 is granular enough). You put SP in skills like usual and the skill bar fills. Only when you put enough (SP required to next "level" would be displayed) you would get a skill rise. This way you could save XP for only a couple of skill increases (or even just 1 for higher skill levels) and when you fail, it wouldn't be because you were a couple of points short (usually). It would cut the reload and try metagaming, because there would be less "levels" of skills to play with and you would be forced to substantially commit to a skill before it became high enough to pass the check, you would get more focused characters (or even more gimped, but natural selection would take care of those). And really, if stats can differentiate characters in meaningful ways with 10 levels, why can't skills? It's still as intuitive as 1-100 scale, maybe even more so because of the symmetry with stats. Problems include not seeing immediate investment benefits (especially at higher skill levels, it would take 30 or 40 SP to raise a skill from 9 to 10).

I was thinking that combat skills should remain unaffected by this change, but maybe not. It would give less character variation, but it would simplify the combat rules and cause less randomness in combat.

TL;DR: Streamline skills into 10 discrete levels!

 

[Marsal]

I think the player feeling of various outcomes being arbitrary comes down to (engineerspeak incoming) positive feedback loops, both in combat an in skill checks. Pardon the rampant generalizations and simplifications ahead...

What about tying weapon effects (shield splitting, knockback, critical hits, ...) to (high) AP "moves". You aim to destroy the shield and if you hit, it's destroyed. You wind up and swing your hammer with great force and if you hit, target is knocked back. Same thing with criticals, you don't just swing and hope to cause a critical. Critical chance skill would influence damage and/or offset to-hit penalties tied to weapon effect use. It's still "random", but at least there is some player agency as you actively exchange extra AP for "structural damage". Enemies would also be "less lucky" and more "I intended to do that, bitch!".

 

[JrK]

How is that supposed to work though?

Something like this:
[Persuasion(25/30)] Let me go!

Game then checks difficulty (30) vs skilll level (25), so 5 points difference.
For sake of simplicity, let's say you lose 5 points to your DHP, but you will succeed.
If you have, e.g. 10 in total, but the next check would have you loose more than the remaining 5, you fail the check.

The success or otherwise of this system would boil down to: How would you get Dialogue Hit Points? And how would you re-claim them? IE: Do they "heal"? Do you get more as you put points into your dialogue skills?

This reminds me of FATE points from FATE rpg. Perhaps worth a look for an implementation.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I think the player feeling of various outcomes being arbitrary comes down to (engineerspeak incoming) positive feedback loops, both in combat an in skill checks. Pardon the rampant generalizations and simplifications ahead...

What about tying weapon effects (shield splitting, knockback, critical hits, ...) to (high) AP "moves". You aim to destroy the shield and if you hit, it's destroyed. You wind up and swing your hammer with great force and if you hit, target is knocked back. Same thing with criticals, you don't just swing and hope to cause a critical. Critical chance skill would influence damage and/or offset to-hit penalties tied to weapon effect use. It's still "random", but at least there is some player agency as you actively exchange extra AP for "structural damage". Enemies would also be "less lucky" and more "I intended to do that, bitch!".

Great idea.

 

[CappenVarra]

I think the player feeling of various outcomes being arbitrary comes down to (engineerspeak incoming) positive feedback loops, both in combat an in skill checks. Pardon the rampant generalizations and simplifications ahead...

What about tying weapon effects (shield splitting, knockback, critical hits, ...) to (high) AP "moves". You aim to destroy the shield and if you hit, it's destroyed. You wind up and swing your hammer with great force and if you hit, target is knocked back. Same thing with criticals, you don't just swing and hope to cause a critical. Critical chance skill would influence damage and/or offset to-hit penalties tied to weapon effect use. It's still "random", but at least there is some player agency as you actively exchange extra AP for "structural damage". Enemies would also be "less lucky" and more "I intended to do that, bitch!".

Actually, the system as it is now already ties criticals to player choice - aimed shots, weapon specials, the Critical Strike skill, armor crit protection etc. already affect the crit probability, so smart playing already involves manipulating the crit chance (among other variables) to your advantage (that's why I called it a simplification and used "quasi-random" for the combat example). However, from the player's perspective, that early crit occurrence is still mostly a gamble, and in hard battles it's still "fuck, the enemy got a crit on me in the first round, now I'm gimped and will probably die - guess I'll just reload instead".

EDIT for clarity: But yes, a nice idea.

 

[Gord]

So allow a CON roll to prevent side effects from crits?

OTOH, then the enemies could do that, too, and it would favor high con builds even more, hmm...

In larger battles, chances will always be in favor of the enemies, as the player gets hit more often.

 

[Marsal]

So allow a CON roll to prevent side effects from crits?

OTOH, then the enemies could do that, too, and it would favor high con builds even more, hmm...

In larger battles, chances will always be in favor of the enemies, as the player gets hit more often.

CON needs to be made useful. It's a dump stat even for melee focused combat characters and that's just wrong. Making CON give extra DR that only stacks with light armor DR, critical resistance, ... extra HP just isn't enough. The problem is, like you say, that NPCs benefit from CON changes too and they don't use it as a dump stat. It's not an easy fix.

 

[Achilles]

Would it work if your non-combat skills behaved as your combat ones? Maybe removing the hard skill limit for success/failure and replacing it with a percentage-based check would work better. For example, now if you don't have a persuasion of say 50 you can't succeed on a skill check, right? If it were a percentage check, every skill point would matter as it would raise your chances.

 

[Marsal]

Would it work if your non-combat skills behaved as your combat ones? Maybe removing the hard skill limit for success/failure and replacing it with a percentage-based check would work better. For example, now if you don't have a persuasion of say 50 you can't succeed on a skill check, right? If it were a percentage check, every skill point would matter as it would raise your chances.

Reloading and trying again until you succeed would still be a viable "strategy".

 

[Johannes]

I don't know if I've said it before here, don't remember, but easiest way to make the game enjoyable for me (I think), would be to

1)Make it ironman so I don't feel compelled to constantly reload a step back, be it because of death or otherwise unwanted resolution
2)Give me more starting skillpoints, so I don't actually need to reload as often. Dialogue-heavy games are best on your first playthrough (of that specific path) since you just won't bother reading all the same shit again. It's what breaks the flow of the game for me, I rather restart than reload pretty much.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Wow, finally got the chance to catch up on these threads. Codex reaction is...unexpected. But I can sympathize with the complaints. Still, this is dissapointing.

For the record, at the moment I'm making no plans to play the demo for the simple reason that I've already decided to buy this game and I want it all to be fresh and completable on the first run. It seems I am in the minority here. But having read all these complaints I'm tempted to try it now and see if I agree. We'll see.

Out of curiosity, are the reactions over at the ITS boards the same or different as those here? I haven't had a chance to check.