Preview Age of Decadence R4 Preview at GameBanshee

[Lhynn]

Just raise your skills to whatever you feel you are "owed". I just wouldnt want the devs spending time on this. To you it is just a simple addition, but from experience,they woild probably spend a lot of time making it as good as possible.

And you have made a very good point.

 

[Elhoim]

We were thinking of an awesome guy DLC with unlimited SP

 

[J_C]

We were thinking of an awesome guy DLC with unlimited SP

Only for 14.99

 

[Lhynn]

The idea is to give more flexibility while keeping it just as challenging, not breaking it.

 

[Brandon]

How do the Merchant, Knight and Loremaster compare with each other? Those are the classes that interest me the most.

If you stick with the merchant guild to the end you will be doing a lot of talking. There is an instance in Teron I can think of that you can solve a quest without persuasion skills and use combat instead, but that seems rare. I really need to play the Commercium quests more especially in Maadoran, want to see how well a hybrid would work.

Praetor is more setup for where you can do combat or talking or a mix of both.

Loremaster doesn't have a set quest line, you would end up picking a faction to join.

Well really that's how all of them work. The starting background you pick doesn't set your factions and quests in stone. Even if you start off as Merchant you could switch sides to Imperial Guards. Or you could make a Loremaster, join the merchant guild, then switch sides to the Imperial Guards, then later switch sides to the assassin's guild and after a couple quests get Darista's blessing to go be a Praetor for House Aurelian, and move on from there to become Arena Champion and become renown for slaying gods and demons. Just like this Rufus character already did.

 

[hiver]

yeah... it seems they are slacking again. the game got easy again. needs tightening. should raise all skill checks for 2-3 points i think. increase thc costs, decrese DR... increase prices in traders.

Spoiler

 

[Johannes]

Why cant you just console in more stats and skills instead of asking for a mode that runs contrary to the main design of the game?

Is there a command to conveniently do this?

 

[mvBarracuda]

Just use a hex editor. Just search for your base stats (STR, DEX, etc.) and you'll find the right spot without much trouble.

 

[Brandon]

New hybrid video, this time playing as a Merchant.
Hopefully I run out of these cheesy titles soon:

 

[Irxy]

I agree that non-combat characters aren't as fun to play in AOD but I guess my questions would be: Why would anyone expect a non-combat character to be as fun to play as a combat character? How many games even offer a non-combat path, let alone make it as fun as playing a character that engages in combat?

Most games allow you to combine both combat and non-combat skills without much compromise so that your pc can be a good diplomat/thief etc and still not suck at combat when required, because combat is the focus of most games and everything else is just a flavour. So if this game aims at providing a dedicated non-combat path by discouraging hybrid builds, why shouldn't we expect it to be as fun and engaging at different levels?

 

[Vault Dweller]

I agree that non-combat characters aren't as fun to play in AOD but I guess my questions would be: Why would anyone expect a non-combat character to be as fun to play as a combat character? How many games even offer a non-combat path, let alone make it as fun as playing a character that engages in combat?

Most games allow you to combine both combat and non-combat skills without much compromise so that your pc can be a good diplomat/thief etc and still not suck at combat when required, because combat is the focus of most games and everything else is just a flavour.

And that's the problem. Non-combat abilities are nothing but flavor, to be used for "role-playing" or to get more XP or when you're bored of fighting, because truly, when you can kill bandits, why on earth would you use "diplomacy" or pay them to leave you alone?

So if this game aims at providing a dedicated non-combat path by discouraging hybrid builds, why shouldn't we expect it to be as fun and engaging at different levels?

We did the best we could. Much like with everything else, some people love it, some people hate it, some people think it's ok. I don't think you can design a universally acclaimed non-combat path in RPGs (i.e. dedicated games like Thief don't count), but maybe we missed something.

Anyway, if you guys want to discuss it and try to figure out a better way, I'm all for it.

 

[Irxy]

Oh I'm not critisizing AoD here since I'm waiting for a full release and have only played the combat demo so far, it's just looks weird to me that some people expect one of the central game aspects to be deliberately inferior in the fun factor.
Sea suggested increased world interactions at the beginning of this thread which seems like a valid way to make non-combat paths more fun out of dialogs - things like searching or crafting/buying the right tools/objects for bribes etc., kind of like the adventure game mechanics. Which is probably not easy to implement at this point, though. As for the skill allocation guessing save/load game, it looks like a matter of quest design and balance.

 

[hiver]

If i may...

If you want to increase the sense of achieving things, with diplomacy, in more active ways, instead of "reading a lot" that some see it as - you would need to increase gameplay effects diplomacy achieves. In a way where the player can see this or experience it - instead of being told about it.

- this could be easiest to achieve by letting a diplomatic character influence some fights - with his meddling, bribery, persuasion and so on - while he gets to see how it unfolds, so the player can directly witness the effects of his decisions and choices.

Instead of turning the whole game upside down because of this, i would think that only several bigger, more important fights that most diplomatic characters get involved in - would need to be changed to accommodate all of the diplomatic backgrounds.

- let the diplomatic character bring in some additional allies into a fight. let him influence the defense forces, if any, let him influence what kind of weapons and gear his side will use.

Then, let him or make him (due to things done or not done) - live through that fight, while his life is at stake.



I think even if you would change a few (three, four?) bigger fights or events, like this, the sense of "just reading the story" would be greatly diminished.

 

[Shadenuat]

when you can kill bandits, why on earth would you use "diplomacy" or pay them to leave you alone?

Few games do resource management right, so usually it's C&C which is a big deal. If character is interesting you want to see his story progress. How you treat other characters also can affect how relationships with your party members would progress.

Probably not the thing you were asking though. What you asked is why would anyone, say, want to stealth through a level if it is in player's power to kill everybody instead. Aside from C&C thing, in good RPG's skills usually enrich gameplay, open new, interesting ways of play and allow some actual roleplay. The player can kill everybody in Deus Ex, but he can also make a choice not to, engage in different game mechanics and then get a pat on the head from Ol' Denton, which is a way of game acknowledging your choice.
As far as I remember, in your game skills strictly dictate way of playing instead of opening new ways of play, including progression in the story. I doubt a thief can finish fighter's storyline, ect.

That design philosophy is why in, at least previous, versions of the game metagaming and savescumming ran fucking rampart.

 

[Brandon]

things like searching or crafting/buying the right tools/objects for bribes etc., kind of like the adventure game mechanics.

I just did my first real play-through of the Merchant's guild which is one of the more dialogue heavy factions, so I'm trying to think about this idea in terms of them.

-QUEST SPOILERS BELOW-
At one point you want to infiltrate the barracks, but you need a specific Imperial Guard armor to wear. If you get Mercato to help you get in, he knows a house in town where you can get some and takes you there, and you use skill checks or gold to acquire it. Otherwise, you get Cado's help and he has some of the armor he can sell you and skill checks can lower the price.

So going by the above idea, instead of Mercato taking you to the house you might instead need to ask around town similar to the Outpost supplies. It would be nice if that was an option even if you went the Cado route instead of Cado just happening to have the armor. Both of them could tell you need the armor, but its up to you to find a way to get it.

In terms of creating it, there could be an option in crafting to create specific armors such as Imperial Guards uniform and Daratan uniform (which I think is used in a different quest?). You could do something similar with alchemy. I mentioned the Outpost supplies a moment ago where you can buy weak rat poison or use persuasion to get stronger poison for the quest, why not allow an alchemist character to create their own poison? You could add a mid-level skill alchemy poison that is tasteless and used only in text adventures such as poisoning the wine supplies. Of course if you go this route, you would probably need to add more poisoning quests and craft armor (or other items?) options to make this useful for the entire game. And even then it only really helps crafting/alchemy characters, though I do think it would be nice for those skills to be more useful to non-combat characters, and twice as useful to hybrids.

The real question here however is how much extra work would this be to implement, and would it add enough to the game to be worth it? That's not something I can answer.

As it stands right now, pure civil skills characters are fun in the sense that you have stronger dialogue options and you get to see new paths and usually learn more about the story or characters. After playing a combat or hybrid character, it is nice to go back and play the same quests as non-combat so I can see those options I missed. Having strong speech skills in Zamedi tower and finding out some very important backstory was particularly rewarding.

 

[hiver]

Yes, a bit more activity thrown into the mix, smaller things like that and a few bigger events in whole of the game to affect - but shown through and requiring player to undertake some actions personally too.
Even be present and involved in some big fight - but relying on bodyguards, allies or bribed NPCs or things like that, instead of his own meager fighting skills - which would work fine to represent the difference between a combat and non combat builds quite personally to the players.
(diplomatic character would be forced to flee from enemies and generally keep the fuck away, maybe occasionally taking a pot shot from the sides - while real men do the heavy lifting)

- it would be great if by poisoning the soldiers at Aurelian Outpost - you would actually improve the chances of sneaking in, because they would be all sick. Or most of them, so there would be less guards active and those that would be there would be less able.

It would be great of diplomatic characters would have more of such gameplay, where you use one type of skill or skills to make it easier for another skill to have more success later on, because you changed the situation.

 

[Johannes]

I agree that non-combat characters aren't as fun to play in AOD but I guess my questions would be: Why would anyone expect a non-combat character to be as fun to play as a combat character? How many games even offer a non-combat path, let alone make it as fun as playing a character that engages in combat?

Most games allow you to combine both combat and non-combat skills without much compromise so that your pc can be a good diplomat/thief etc and still not suck at combat when required, because combat is the focus of most games and everything else is just a flavour.

And that's the problem. Non-combat abilities are nothing but flavor, to be used for "role-playing" or to get more XP or when you're bored of fighting, because truly, when you can kill bandits, why on earth would you use "diplomacy" or pay them to leave you alone?

Well choices and consequences. Simply being able to kill a bandit giving you trouble, doesn't always mean that you should. His friends might come after you then, you'd risk getting wounded, maybe you need to keep a low profile, maybe you want to offer him a job, so on and so forth... I don't see how offering a player (or rather, offering a single character build) real choices, somehow trivializes anything.

First you always have to think, what can my character do here? But there should usually be more than one thing available. Then you get to think - what should I do?

Now, I haven't played the newest versions of the game in a while, and won't consider doing so until the final version ships. Reading by the comments here it seems you're going in somewhere in the right direction for me, on many if certainly not all things. And I hope you'll keep pushing further.


One thing I'm curious about though, how familiar are you with other CYOA's with stats? Because the game often feels much closer to that genre than ordinary rpg's.