Preview Age of Decadence R4 Preview at GameBanshee

[Vault Dweller]

I just starting playing it in ernest last night and I found the exact problem people are talking about. I am playing an assassin, so in essence I try to avoid straight up fair fights, and instead use cunning and guile to get by, but I have a problem. I am stuck. My character is not good enough to solve the quest lines I have open by combat, nor is he skilled enough in any one thing that will succeed all the skill checks needed to complete the quest. It fustrating since I started doing exactly what the reviewer said, and that is loading an earlier save and fiddling with my skills to pass the skill checks. So, the game is training me to craft the correct kind of assassin. I love the story and the writting, but the RPG elements are limited when you fail every skill check branch and have no options left but to reload.

Can you be more specific?

Stats? Skills? Quests completed? Quests stuck on?

Hmm.. Okay.. I will try to summarize.

So, started the game and one of the first thing was to kill a merchant. I did that and got a scrap of paper which turned out to be a map. I went to Feng and he analyized the map for a 100 imperials. Then wanted another 100 for this eye thingy to read the map. I didn't have another 100 so he sent me off to kill a rival Loremaster that just arrived in town. I went to the Inn and talk to the Loremaster and decided to take him to the Lord, I forget his name. So, I am stopped at the gates by some captain of the guard who takes charge of the Loremaster. I want to see the Lord, but the Guard Captain wants me to do a couple things for him before I can see the Lord Antidas(?) Anyway, one is a bandit camp with a prisoner and another is a rival city army is digging in some ruins. I am suppose to go find out what the deal is with both.

I start with the thief camp. I talk to the leader and I get a great story about some dangerous and mysteriaous cave etc, etc... and then we get around to the prisoner. He wants a 1000 imperials for "protecting" him all this time. The camp has like 6-7 guys so there is no way I can fight it out and I don't see any sneak break free option so I leave. I go back to the captain and tell him the situation. I try to convince him to pay the randsom and I fail. I then am asked if there is anything I can do, which there isn't but I decide to go back and talk to the guy again. Nothing... no dialogue option. So I go back and talk to the captain again and my only option is to take the mission fail and have him attack the bandit camp which losses prestigue and doesn't get my any closer to the Lord. So, instead of tweeking my skills and try it agian I press on.

I check out the mining camp. I fail to bluff my way in as the machinist. I fail to sneak in, though I succeed in the sneak check I constantly fail the climb check for the walls. I can't talk my way in or fight my way in, so I head back to the city to figure out how they are getting supplied. I pay more money of which I have little left now to find out some guy in shanty town is supplying them food. Which is wierd, since if you are supplying such a large outpost of soldiers and miners food and water you would think you are not so poor to be living in a lean-too in shanty town. Anyway, I confront the guy and blow my first check. So now I have to bribe him but he wants 100 imperials, Again I don't have that, so I try to tlak him down to 20. I fail again, so now my only option is somehow find more money, which I am not sure how I can do that since I am near broke and everyone wants me to do things for them as payment instead of paying me to do things. So, I decide to kill him. For no armor and only a knife he puts up a hell of a fight and nearly kills me, but I get him down. I take his clothes and poison the wine that is to be delivered. I then have to deliver it. But wait! Another check for bluffing past the guard. FAIL. So, now I have no option of completing the mission successfully. So, I can't get in good with the Captain to see the Lord to look at my map. And I can't go back to Feng since I turned him for trying to kill the other Loremaster. I don't know what I am suppose to do next. I am apparently not skill enough in anything to get past the checks I need to make.

I was thinking why I couldn't just secretly drug the wine without the guy knowing and he would deliver it for me, but I never got that option. Anyway, I am looking at starting the game over and skilling differently so I can pass the skill checks I need to make.

Stats and skills?

If you have CS and streetwise, you can kill the raiders' leader and intimidate his men (or kill them after, if your combat skills are high enough). You can acquire climbing gear that can help you with that palisade around the mining camp. As for what to do next, any reason why you didn't do the assassins guild's quests?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Ok as much as I understand some of the objections, it's absolutely beyond me how anyone can say that skill check failure equals death or reload in AoD. Sure, I reloaded a bunch in those cases because I wanted to check what could've been, but I have also went with the flow, and AoD seems particularily good for such approach. While playing a mercenary who decided to become a thief while lacking any thieving skills I botched a couple of quests and still finished the beta with ease.

Precisely.

 

[hiver]

Dorf

Youre not supposed to be dealing with Aurelian outpost as a first thing you do. Or the bandit camp. And getting Dellar to attack bandits is not a failure.
Once you go for getting the 1000 gold, the bandit simply awaits for you to return with the gold and if you dont have it - there is no dialogue options to take - which isnt the best solution (and it happens in another place too) and i mentioned that several times already to the team so it will probably be corrected in the future.

Also... search that first merchant and the room more thoroughly. (the chest!) Sell items for moneys. Try sticking with Feng, instead.
Walk around, meet interesting people. Visit the Boatman guild, do the first mission for them (but not the second since it puts you on the road out of Teron without any chance to stop the development of that whole situation).
Visit the gates of the city.

Also, read this great little guide for Absolute Beginners:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/a-small-quick-guide-for-absolute-beginners.88350/

And do have a bit higher fighting skills. Youre a Boatman of Styx and taking people across the river is hard physical work. Youre not some wishy washy gentle "assassin" hippie.
And make another build from the scratch to support that better. (then you maybe wont fail in climbing walls)

forget about stealing, youre not a thief, man.
spend those hoarded points! dont hold them desperately like some old virgin holds... something.

and forget about that "well you would think that the start of the game would let you ..."

It wont.
It will kick you in the balls and then sell your internal organs to alchemists, the rest for kebbab.

Ok as much as I understand some of the objections, it's absolutely beyond me how anyone can say that skill check failure equals death or reload in AoD.

Its easy when you dont play the game, but actually give up after the first thing you tried foolishly, without thinking about what youre doing very much - got you killed.

i.e these complaints come from people who dont know shit about what they are talking about.

 

[Tigranes]

Does having Dellar attack the camp not count for gaining audience with Antidas? Going to see Antidas was never an issue with any of my characters. But it's not a failure, no, and it's actually the in-character option for some builds. Sometimes you'll be clever or connected enough to call in a favour from Cado or make them attack the Aurelians, sometimes you'll kill them yourself, sometimes you don't have the magic bullet and, quite understandably, don't solve verything on your own.

 

[Elhoim]

He's talking about the option of "Tell me about the camp", which relies on perception.

 

[hiver]

well... he made an "assassin" ... with low perception. And not enough dexterity (and Str) to climb a wall...plus he has high enough charisma to get that story from the Raider leader.... and he went and attacked the Aurelian outpost right off the bat
.... always the bloody same... eh guys?




besides that, even with all that he had done before coming to a full stop, with:

I have like a 3 in dagger and 4 in dodge and a beggar nearly kills me. My non-combat skill are 2 in steal and sneak and a 3 in persuasion. I have about 14 skill points in reserve to spend.

He can actually just continue playing, even with those attributes he probably has. He just needs to do a few smaller quests - and he has 14 points to invest available. And then go back and deal with Raiders and the outpost.

He isnt actually prevented to continue in any way.

 

[Brandon]

No matter what VD, I agree with Marsal more and more. This discussion basically hasn't changed for months on months, there's no reason to keep replying if you're not going to change this anyway.

Grunker, since you have enjoyed certain aspects of the game and given it a lot of support, I'm quite interested to know exactly what aspects you wish were changed?

Lower skill checks so they are easier to pass?
More non-skill/stat based dialogue options (with lower reward or consequences for balance)?
Something more drastic?

 

[CappenVarra]

on my 8th Assassin build in R4... I want to play other paths, but there's just something about Assassins that keeps drawing me in... damn, must roll a Merchant one of these days...

 

[tuluse]

For some reason I don't like dudes who get a boner for shooting 9 year olds in a game.

If it is in there, fine. If it's not, there is nothing more pathetic than a bunch of grown ass men whining about how it ruins their immersion.

Oh, so you're the blogger? Well, you've been around here long enough to know that sentences like these:

Game developers could get away with it back in 1997, but they can't do it now.

are highly unwelcome here.

What else can't we get away with today? Care to give us a list?

Sorry for digging this up, but I just had to post it.

Something a developer can't get away with now:

 

[Lhynn]

Because 95% of RPGs are relatively easy. Combat is the main path and everyone's expected to succeed. Then you invest into more skills and add more options to your repertoire. Sneaking Tandi out is great and all but why would you want to sneak her out (or pay for her) when killing them is doable and more fun? I'd be surprised if most people didn't free her a non-combat way and then came back to finish the job. You know, because you can.
The way I see it, it's bullshit. Some guy fresh out of a vault should not be able to kill a bunch of raiders unless he's a specialist.

All true, but even if fallout had the AoD difficulty curve you can still level up more than it is expected and bruteforce your way tru any obstacle, which i believe is a strength of the title, not a weakness.
Plus if you tagged small guns guess what, you were a specialist in smallguns. i want to see you doing that whole combat encounter with a knife and training in gamble, outdoorsman and science and not investing any training in your combat skills whatsoever.

All in all i dont dislike what AoD is doing, i think its a fresh concept for hardcore rpgers with the spirit of unforgivable difficulty of dungeon crawlers and excellent writing that is what all rpgs should aspire to have. I just believe it rebels too much on it.
But, the best thing about roleplaying is that you are presented with a situation and you get to chose how you proceed, granted that if everything is easy and doable the choices presented are almost worthless, but if you can only choose one approach because you suck at everything else, well, then there truly is no choice to make, just a linear path that leads you to success with a lot of branching paths that end in failure.
When it comes to choice i just punish those that do good deeds (usually) and reward those that take the easy path, i punish stupid choices and reward smart ones, i dont tell them they cant do it, but then again, there is the factor of chance, which is not present in your game (for better of for worse), my players gamble, AoD players can just reload and nothing is lost so i cant really blame you for your approach, but i cant but feel its a flawed answer.

PS: Im also not a fan of the idea of stupid/socially awkward/incompetent fighter is the strongest fighter.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

For some reason I don't like dudes who get a boner for shooting 9 year olds in a game.

If it is in there, fine. If it's not, there is nothing more pathetic than a bunch of grown ass men whining about how it ruins their immersion.

Oh, so you're the blogger? Well, you've been around here long enough to know that sentences like these:

Game developers could get away with it back in 1997, but they can't do it now.

are highly unwelcome here.

What else can't we get away with today? Care to give us a list?

Sorry for digging this up, but I just had to post it.

Something a developer can't get away with now:

 

[Kalin]

Aw hell, now I just had to repost it:

 

[hiver]

but if you can only choose one approach because you suck at everything else, well, then there truly is no choice to make, just a linear path that leads you to success with a lot of branching paths that end in failure.

I dont know which game you played that plays like that - but it sure as hell aint Age of Decadence.

In Age of decadence - factually, literally - there is more options and approaches and different playthroughs then in several other - take your pick RPGs - all combined. Especially if you count actual serious choices and options and discard superficial, pointless - flavor ones.
Only not available for a single build, or a single background.

 

[throwaway]

Have you guys considered moving the "teleporting" mechanic from dialogs to the journal. In my first playthrough of the new demo I found it very easy to skip all the side content if one uses it when available and opts for the map quicktravel when it's not.

 

[Longshanks]

Because 95% of RPGs are relatively easy. Combat is the main path and everyone's expected to succeed. Then you invest into more skills and add more options to your repertoire. Sneaking Tandi out is great and all but why would you want to sneak her out (or pay for her) when killing them is doable and more fun? I'd be surprised if most people didn't free her a non-combat way and then came back to finish the job. You know, because you can.
The way I see it, it's bullshit. Some guy fresh out of a vault should not be able to kill a bunch of raiders unless he's a specialist.

All true, but even if fallout had the AoD difficulty curve you can still level up more than it is expected and bruteforce your way tru any obstacle, which i believe is a strength of the title, not a weakness.
Plus if you tagged small guns guess what, you were a specialist in smallguns. i want to see you doing that whole combat encounter with a knife and training in gamble, outdoorsman and science and not investing any training in your combat skills whatsoever.

All in all i dont dislike what AoD is doing, i think its a fresh concept for hardcore rpgers with the spirit of unforgivable difficulty of dungeon crawlers and excellent writing that is what all rpgs should aspire to have. I just believe it rebels too much on it.
But, the best thing about roleplaying is that you are presented with a situation and you get to chose how you proceed, granted that if everything is easy and doable the choices presented are almost worthless, but if you can only choose one approach because you suck at everything else, well, then there truly is no choice to make, just a linear path that leads you to success with a lot of branching paths that end in failure.
When it comes to choice i just punish those that do good deeds (usually) and reward those that take the easy path, i punish stupid choices and reward smart ones, i dont tell them they cant do it, but then again, there is the factor of chance, which is not present in your game (for better of for worse), my players gamble, AoD players can just reload and nothing is lost so i cant really blame you for your approach, but i cant but feel its a flawed answer.

PS: Im also not a fan of the idea of stupid/socially awkward/incompetent fighter is the strongest fighter.

From what I've played (not going past Teron till release and in the middle of a pkaythrouh now) your complaint mostly seems to be valid. I still say it was the right decision to make though. Iron Tower have decided to separate different builds as much as possible. If you're not a good sneaker you can't sneak, not a good fighter and you won't be able to kill more than 1 or 2 enemies at a time. For me, this is good and welcome design and something we do not see enough of. Sometimes this leads to a situation where you only have one or two valid options for a given problem and it can make the game feel linear (certainly more than it is). The fix for this is not to make builds more homogenous as you'd be messing with one of AoD's greatest strengths. A potential improvement is to add further options for each build (there are already more than one in many cases). For me though, the base design is good and it was right to focus on that first, anything extra can now be added where time and resources permit (and there certainly have been additions).

 

[Grunker]

No matter what VD, I agree with Marsal more and more. This discussion basically hasn't changed for months on months, there's no reason to keep replying if you're not going to change this anyway.

Grunker, since you have enjoyed certain aspects of the game and given it a lot of support, I'm quite interested to know exactly what aspects you wish were changed?

Lower skill checks so they are easier to pass?
More non-skill/stat based dialogue options (with lower reward or consequences for balance)?
Something more drastic?

I am not a game designer. I know what the problem is, but I can't give you a step-by-step perfect solution. I have said multiple times though, that the best one I've seen is some version of Lhynn's splitting up of combat and non-combat skill pools.

(though one of the things Vince told me indicated this might already have been tried since I played?)

My support has been given from four criterion: overall I enjoy the game; I think the people I bought it for will enjoy it; it is an honest effort; we need to support people who wish to cater specifically to our interests.

 

[Brandon]

I have said multiple times though, that the best one I've seen is some version of Lhynn's splitting up of combat and non-combat skill pools.

(though one of the things Vince told me indicated this might already have been tried since I played?)

Yeah, there combat skills, civil skills, and general skills for points now.
The amount you get to begin with is based on stats; higher str/dex/con gives more combat ones, per/int/cha more civil.

I really like how it works for character creation as it encourages hybridization.
In game I'm not so sure, seems the opposite. If I want to raise my streetwise and I go kill the street gang for skill points, I can't use them cause they are in the combat pool. Most quest still give general skill points though.

Honestly, if you aren't bored of AoD and/or waiting on the finished game you should check out the latest version R4.3. Certain NPCs now give free skill increases based on what you have the lowest, a few more skill points earlier in Teron, some fights have been made easier. And of course the R4 combat and skill system overhaul if you haven't played since R3. Its not perfect and I doubt it will removed all your grievances, but its quite a different game from earlier releases when playing hybrid seemed a complete impossibility.

 

[Grunker]

I have said multiple times though, that the best one I've seen is some version of Lhynn's splitting up of combat and non-combat skill pools.

(though one of the things Vince told me indicated this might already have been tried since I played?)

Yeah, there combat skills, civil skills, and general skills for points now.
The amount you get to begin with is based on stats; higher str/dex/con gives more combat ones, per/int/cha more civil

Yeah I know about that, I thought it had been split up further. My problem with that model is...

If I want to raise my streetwise and I go kill the street gang for skill points, I can't use them cause they are in the combat pool.

Bingo. In essence, that system encourages more linearity. At least that's my experience.

Honestly, if you aren't bored of AoD and/or waiting on the finished game

At this point, I'm waiting for the full game. I've never spoiled as much of a game before release as I have AoD, and now I want to wait

 

[Stompa]

So you've spent several pages saying you'd like a thing they already put in the game and then, when learning that it's in, you don't like it?

 

[hiver]

I am not a game designer. I know what the problem is, but I can't give you a step-by-step perfect solution.

Youre just a blathering pompous gassbag dumbass? Thats true.

You dont know what the problem is - since youre talking out of your ass.

I have said multiple times though, that the best one I've seen is some version of Lhynn's splitting up of

Its not Lhynns anything.

- If I want to raise my streetwise and I go kill the street gang for skill points, I can't use them cause they are in the combat pool.-

Bingo. In essence, that system encourages more linearity. At least that's my experience.

 

[John Yossarian]

If I want to raise my streetwise and I go kill the street gang for skill points, I can't use them cause they are in the combat pool.

Bingo. In essence, that system encourages more linearity. At least that's my experience.

Didn´t you say you haven´t played the version with the split points? Anyway, if you want to raise streetwise, I suppose you should do something that uses talking skills.

I gotta give this newest version a try when I get back home, but Im not leaving Teron until the full version. Also FWIW, I remember loving the noncombat parts and that was way back in testing R2, before many of the improvements.

 

[Grunker]

If I want to raise my streetwise and I go kill the street gang for skill points, I can't use them cause they are in the combat pool.

Bingo. In essence, that system encourages more linearity. At least that's my experience.

Didn´t you say you haven´t played the version with the split points?

No, I misunderstood and thought VD had tried Lhynn's suggestion of splitting the pools completely.

 

[Decado]

For some reason I don't like dudes who get a boner for shooting 9 year olds in a game.

If it is in there, fine. If it's not, there is nothing more pathetic than a bunch of grown ass men whining about how it ruins their immersion.

Oh, so you're the blogger? Well, you've been around here long enough to know that sentences like these:

Game developers could get away with it back in 1997, but they can't do it now.

are highly unwelcome here.

What else can't we get away with today? Care to give us a list?

Sorry for digging this up, but I just had to post it.

Something a developer can't get away with now:

Good for them!

 

[Infinitron]

http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3082

It's kind of a moot issue for us. We don't have any kids in the design that you can shoot so we don't have to remove that feature.

MORE LIES FROM IXLIE

 

[sea]

The funny thing is, those juvies are probably teenagers... which brings up the whole question, what constitutes child-killing in a game? Is taking a life only okay if the victim is 18 or above? 16? 14? "Looks adult enough?"

Most games use specific child models to clearly differentiate adults from children, and developers also reuse body types (which is why in, say, Bethesda games, there is only one male and one female body type used for everyone of that sex). So does this mean that if a game either doesn't have specific child models, or has enough models that adults and children aren't clearly differentiated, murdering them is okay?