Game News Age of Decadence Released on Steam Early Access

[Zeriel]

Fallout does this. The "Easy" setting just gives a slight boost to your skills. 10 or 20% I think.

Fallout combat is trivial if you pass a certain threshold in skill percentages, though. I don't get the feeling that a completely "maxed out" character in AoD would be similarly invulnerable.

 

[UnknownBro]

I just did with standard Merc. 5 sword, 5 block, 3 critical strike. Reloaded 3 times.

Wich fight? Only max 3 reloads in every fight? Proof or it didn't happen.

 

[Roguey]

The stuff you've quoted about how ranged combat works is inaccurate or at the very least not complete. Of course, you wouldn't know that.

The difference isn't slight (it's very noticeable actually), neither in time it takes reticule to shrink nor in damage increase, if you actually played the game through with a gunslinger you'd know that.

Sure I would. I've experimented with this a lot and have dug through the weapon stats files. Here's vdata/items/item_w_thirtyeight.txt

Spoiler

//Primary Attack
Activation
{
"Tag" "Primary"
"Type" "Attack"
"Ammo_Type" "ThirtyeightRound"
"Ammo_Cost" "1"
"Botch_Table" "Revolvers"
"Range" "35"
"SpreadAngle" "7.0"
"CriminalLevel" "3"
"Accuracy" "4"

"SkillRequirement" "4" // min. skill requirement used in dmg calculations
"BaseLethality" "7" // base lethality used in dmg calculations
"Dmg" "2 Lethal Ranged_Combat DMG_BULLET"

"Attack_Rate" ".8" //".6" The minimum allowable time between pulls of the trigger
"NPC_Attack_Rate_Min" "1.0" // The range of times for NPCs using this weapon to pause between
"NPC_Attack_Rate_Max" "2.5" // attacks when at a distance of NPC_Attack_Rate_Base_Range inches.
"NPC_Attack_Rate_Base_Range" "120" // Attack times scale down to Attack_Rate at a range of 0, and up
// proportionally as the range increases. If NPC_Attack_Rate_Base_Range
// is 0, the delay will not be scaled based on distance.

// SKS_RANGED
"KickPitchMin" "0.0" //"-2.25"
"KickPitchMax" "0.0" //"-7.00"
"KickYawMin" "0.0" //"-0.2" //"-0.0"
"KickYawMax" "0.0" //"-1.0" //"-0.5"
"KickTime" "0.00" //"0.02"
"CrosshairMinSize" "17" // smallest crosshair size for this activation [0-99]
"CrosshairFireSize" "48" // MAXIMUM size (Firearms 1) of the crosshair when the gun is fired [0-99] scales to Min as player's firearms increases
"CrosshairFireSizeMin" "48" // MIN size (Firearms 10) of the crosshair when the gun is fired [0-99]
"CrosshairWalkSizeMin" "25" // min size of the crosshair when the player is walking [0-99]
"CrosshairWalkSizeMax" "30" // max size of the crosshair when the player is walking [0-99]
"CrosshairRunSizeMin" "40" // min size of the crosshair when the player is running [0-99]
"CrosshairRunSizeMax" "48" // max size of the crosshair when the player is running [0-99]

"CrosshairIncSpeedMin" "66" //"80" min speed(10 Firearm Feat) at which to increase bloom -low # slower
"CrosshairIncSpeedMax" "75" //"95" max speed(1 Firearm Feat) at which to increase bloom -high # faster
"CrosshairDecSpeedMin" "10" //min speed(1 Firearm Feat) at which to decrease bloom -low # slower
"CrosshairDecSpeedMax" "15" //"40"max speed(10 Firearm Feat) at which to decrease bloom -high # faster

"CrosshairFirePercent" "0.8" //"0.5" percent to bloom to crosshair upon firing a bullet

Things the ranged feat affects: lethality (damage), the speed at which the crosshair blooms when firing a weapon, and the speed at which it decreases back to the base. Nothing else for this particular gun.

Feat Adjustment, as they call it, does more than nothing. It's the reason for instance, why you can't aim for shit with the sniper rifle if you have not at least 9 in ranged combat, whereas at 10 the rifle is absolutely calm, doesn't wiggle at all and you can aim with surgical precision.
How is that "putting points only increases damage"?

You're forgetting about weapons with zoom, Jaime Sue does a lot more damage when zoomed in, without investing in firearms/perception (to boost your ranged combat feat) it's very shaky.

I had completely forgotten about the zoom function of the rifle and assault rifle on account of those being the only weapons in the game that have that feature. The increased damage from zoom-mode is also undocumented and I had no idea it existed until you told me about it, making me check the data files to verify. I figured it existed only for people who absolutely had to snipe, and I never did.

Anyway this avenue of discussion is a derail because that weapon is first unlocked in Hollywood, where the good guns become available. There are no zooming weapons in Santa Monica and Downtown, where a person gets their negative first and second impression of the guns in Bloodlines.

Also Ming Xiao is very beatable with a melee build, as long as you have the right attribute/skill and potence discipline (it's possible to beat her even with clans who don't have it but potence makes it a lot easier) maxed.

Ming has 1400 HP, spawns clones of herself with 325 HP when she gets damaged enough, and the most you can do in melee is 50. What a grind, not even worth doing.

Please, thirtyeight and shotgun are more than enough to deal with enemies in Santa Monica if you invested in firearms/perception, and braddock and brock are a nice step up from those.

I tried a 38 and I hit twice out of the six shots before I had to reload and decided it was a joke of a gun. Had similar results with the brokk. The shotgun works best up-close and at that point you're better off just using your fists.

Sure melee is more powerful at the beginning (and you don't have to buy ammo for it) but guns take over from about the middle of the game and are noticeably more powerful in the end, it's a trade off (not to mention the advantage of picking enemies off even from a moderate distance compared to having to wade into the crowd).

Mmm hmm. If only Troika had made the phased obsolescence of unarmed->melee->ranged known in advance.

And really, stop with this "if the bullet is gracious enough to hit the target", if you even moderately invest in ranged you'll rarely miss, saying that the guns behave in such a way that you can't hit the broad side of a barn (or that you can hit a wall several feet away from the garbage can you're aiming at point blank, or whatever garbage Josh said) is the statement of someone who either only played tutorial, didn't invest in necessary skills/attributes for ranged weapons or is outright lying.

I posted a screenshot of low-skill versus high-skill showing no difference between accuracy. I can do the same with the Downtown pistol if you want. Up above I pasted what the ranged feat actually modifies.

In most FPS games (whether run of the mill or FPS/RPG hybrids) guns don't have perfect spread but regardless what Bloodlines succeeds at is satisfying character/skill development when it comes to guns which is the goal, you start out having trouble hitting shit and when you max the skill you're a killing machine.

Its character system is terribad (biz as usual for Troika) and that's a bad goal to have considering the other primary forms of combat are "start out good, become obsolete" and "start out mediocre, become good, become useless against one particular boss but otherwise okay." Why should one of those start out bad regardless of how much you invest in it at the beginning?

 

[SuicideBunny]

No, WoH should be earned.

dunno, i kinda dislike the idea of characters being complete blank slates outside of their initial quest, especially the local ones. p. much the only guy this works for is the drifter.

 

[hiver]

No, WoH should be earned.

dunno, i kinda dislike the idea of characters being complete blank slates outside of their initial quest, especially the local ones. p. much the only guy this works for is the drifter.

Yes well, i can agree with that notion but the thing is that if you ascribe a point to the player - youre removing the player agency and C&C from it - him. We are starting as blank states and everything that happens should be a consequence of our choices and actions.
And we are not really local guys. We just got to Teron, whatever the background we choose.

Some backgrounds have a description of being there already, but it always seems like a short time, like we just arrived recently.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Yes well, i can agree with that notion but the thing is that if you ascribe a point to the player - youre removing the player agency and C&C from it - him. We are starting as blank states and everything that happens should be a consequence of our choices and actions.
And we are not really local guys. We just got to Teron, whatever the background we choose.

that depends on whether it's done automatically or as a choice. i could see char creation offering you pick of a single perk or whatever... stuff like be known for being trustworthy vs more starting money vs better rep with a house vs better quality gear vs some crafting mats or something like that. works best if you attack small three to four sentence stories to them.

Some backgrounds have a description of being there already, but it always seems like a short time, like we just arrived recently.

you have that impression because they are blank slates and there seems to be no character reactivity towards backgrounds outside of the quest chain you get dumped into while their actual descriptions state otherwise. loremaster, thief and merchant p. much say that you are teronborn, mercenary implies you've been there for at least quite a load of years, praetor doesn't really say anything but it's also the one with even less info than the drifter, which is kinda weird (work in progress?), assassin could have arrived a few months ago or be a local but does not say, grifter arrived a few days ago, drifter might have arrived the instant the game starts.
that's four longterm locals vs two recent visitors and two that could fall either way.

 

[Why.jpeg]

I got the impression from the merc background you were just some no name local tough who took a job at the tavern because the owner got tired of you breaking the God damn tables.

 

[hiver]

SuicideBunny
Sure, yet that can be easily excused just by nothing interesting happening in the town.
Now, your suggestions could work but i think they are a bit too complicated for such a small matter. I would rather have some simple in-game solution then something that necessitates reworking stuff to that extent.
I would rather earn or destroy my reputation myself, directly in the game then get it in the CS through some contrived mechanics.

 

[Black]

I don't know what it is that makes me like this crop so much. The avatar of freedom flag? The inability to grasp the concept of "low magic" or that he plays bg2: awesome edition.
Maybe all of the above. Game needs more fireballs and its sales will skyrocket.

 

[felipepepe]

Using "Underrail without psionics" as a offense.

 

[Saduj]

I just did with standard Merc. 5 sword, 5 block, 3 critical strike. Reloaded 3 times.

Wich fight? Only max 3 reloads in every fight? Proof or it didn't happen.

You said "try winning that fight (and others) with a mercenary + sword + shield without reloading 66 times in the process." Now we don't know what "that fight" meant? The Outpost fight including the subsequent fight inside the mine. I've also won plenty of "other" fights with same build without reloading. There are some fights that involve a lot of luck because they rely on lots of rolls for allies in addition to your own but that's true with any build.

 

[Lexx]

Reading the AoD Steam board is my new hobby right now. I love how people are so used to not try game demos anymore. They go out and buy, and then complain if they don't like it. If they would have checked out the demo, this wouldn't have happened.

 

[Zeriel]

Their sacrifices will pave Vince's bathroom with tiles of purest gold, though.

 

[Tigranes]

Sword / Block / CS mercenary killed the bait thieves with a couple of god-inspired whirlwinds; needed that to get up to 5 Sword / 5 Block / 4 CS for the Aurelian camp. (I assume spiking the wine decreases their combat ability somewhat?) The spearman in particular could hardly damage me, but the real danger was the leader with the huge 2h sword. Turns out though that he was a glass cannon with pretty low CON.

Got to the final battle of Teron Mercenary route quite easily, but I have no idea how I'll beat this one. I don't have enough mobility to get to where I need to be to efficiently take down the Daratans quickly, even with 6 Swords I don't have great THC on Dellar, I can try and be the group tank with 6 block and a tower shield but hasn't worked yet.

 

[Why.jpeg]

Sword / Block / CS mercenary killed the bait thieves with a couple of god-inspired whirlwinds; needed that to get up to 5 Sword / 5 Block / 4 CS for the Aurelian camp. (I assume spiking the wine decreases their combat ability somewhat?) The spearman in particular could hardly damage me, but the real danger was the leader with the huge 2h sword. Turns out though that he was a glass cannon with pretty low CON.

Got to the final battle of Teron Mercenary route quite easily, but I have no idea how I'll beat this one. I don't have enough mobility to get to where I need to be to efficiently take down the Daratans quickly, even with 6 Swords I don't have great THC on Dellar, I can try and be the group tank with 6 block and a tower shield but hasn't worked yet.

I'm having a very tough time clearing the hard version of the third Imperial Guard fight myself. I'm basically stuck, really sucks because I just don't have a clue how to beat it. Good luck man, good luck.

 

[Tigranes]

Yeah, 6 mercs + you versus 7 of them + Antidas, where one on one the Daratans are generally superior, and it's a clusterfuck. One major thing is that when an AI merc has nearly killed an enemy, and another enemy wanders nearby, then it will switch attention, instad of killing the nearly dead one off - that makes a huge difference in such a big scale fight. I can get maybe 3 or even 4 down, but by that point they have mowed past all my allies; even if spearmen basically do nothing to me, I don't know if mathematically I even have a chance.

I know I won this fight once, back in R1, but it probably took about a hundred tries with several characters...

 

[Why.jpeg]

Yeah, 6 mercs + you versus 7 of them + Antidas, where one on one the Daratans are generally superior, and it's a clusterfuck. One major thing is that when an AI merc has nearly killed an enemy, and another enemy wanders nearby, then it will switch attention, instad of killing the nearly dead one off - that makes a huge difference in such a big scale fight. I can get maybe 3 or even 4 down, but by that point they have mowed past all my allies; even if spearmen basically do nothing to me, I don't know if mathematically I even have a chance.

I know I won this fight once, back in R1, but it probably took about a hundred tries with several characters...

God damn man, seriously? I thought maybe I was just being retarded or a spearman was just a bad build for the fight but if its that difficult I may not bother with the Imperial Guard quest line unless I pump INT to 6.

 

[Black]

If you're having trouble with combat, don't forget to buy Nets, they can make "unwinnable" encounters winnable.

 

[Why.jpeg]

If you're having trouble with combat, don't forget to buy Nets, they can make "unwinnable" encounters winnable.

I have nets and use them, the problem is I still get my ass kicked. I know if I keep trying it I'll win eventually, but it'll probably because I got lucky instead of because I built a good character and used the right tactics for that fight.

 

[hiver]

Sounds like alchemy would help the most for such a fight.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Sorry for derailing the thread, I'll just answer this and leave it at that, won't bring up Bloodlines again in this thread.

Sure I would. I've experimented with this a lot and have dug through the weapon stats files.

Did you play the game through with a gunslinger build? It's a rhetorical question.

Reading game's documentation is fine, however it cannot substitute first hand experience with game mechanics obtained while you know, actually playing the damn game.

Things the ranged feat affects: lethality (damage), the speed at which the crosshair blooms when firing a weapon, and the speed at which it decreases back to the base. Nothing else for this particular gun.

Which is more than enough for the difference between ranged levels to be noticeable, sure it could have affected base weapons' accuracy and reload speed (like in Deus Ex) but it still achieved its goal which is satisfying/rewarding skill development, the goal which is not achieved by making character awesome right off the bat with any weapon group/at any skill without investing enough into it.

I had completely forgotten about the zoom function of the rifle and assault rifle on account of those being the only weapons in the game that have that feature. The increased damage from zoom-mode is also undocumented and I had no idea it existed until you told me about it, making me check the data files to verify. I figured it existed only for people who absolutely had to snipe, and I never did.

"Had to check the data files", dear lord.

I played the fucking game few days ago, Jaime Sue does like 5-6 times more damage when zoomed in (going from 40-50 to 250+) and Steyr Aug does around 20 damage more per shot (which is considerable given Steyr's high rate of fire)

Anyway this avenue of discussion is a derail because that weapon is first unlocked in Hollywood, where the good guns become available. There are no zooming weapons in Santa Monica and Downtown, where a person gets their negative first and second impression of the guns in Bloodlines.

No zooming weapons but faster reticule shrinking and increase damage are more than welcome and once again make a noticeable difference.

Ming has 1400 HP, spawns clones of herself with 325 HP when she gets damaged enough, and the most you can do in melee is 50. What a grind, not even worth doing.

Yeah but the best melee weapon in the game (katana that does aggravated damage, IIRC it's called Talmahera blade or something similar) is quite fast so you do more than 50 damage in one attack, even better if you have Celerity.

That said, I do consider rushed end areas (The golden temple and Ventrue tower) to be by far the worst part of the game and I dislike HP spounge bosses (which Ming Xiao is, no argument there) in general.

I tried a 38 and I hit twice out of the six shots before I had to reload and decided it was a joke of a gun. Had similar results with the brokk. The shotgun works best up-close and at that point you're better off just using your fists.

Oh please, admittedly 38 feels somewhat weak (but still good enough for early game enemies) but I rarely missed with Brokk, I just tried it the other day against zombies in Giovanni mansion that die instantly from a headshot and had no problems.

Mmm hmm. If only Troika had made the phased obsolescence of unarmed->melee->ranged known in advance.

No, not obsolete (except unarmed which is more of a backup skill and makes it easier for you to feed from human enemies), less powerful at different stages of the game, melee is still very viable at the end, as are guns in the beginning (if you invest in them of course).

It's a trade off, think of your usual mage vs fighter in fantasy games, fighter starts out more powerful and is easier to play (thus recommended for the beginners) while mage starts out fragile but eventually grows more powerful than fighter during the course of the game (which doesn't fighter isn't powerful at the end as well, just less so).

The added benefit of using melee in Bloodlines is that you don't have to pay attention to finances, while you'll eventually amass a decent amount of money in Bloodlines it's avoids the usual trap present in RPG of making you swim in money and certain ammo types are quite expensive.

I posted a screenshot of low-skill versus high-skill showing no difference between accuracy. I can do the same with the Downtown pistol if you want. Up above I pasted what the ranged feat actually modifies.

You don't get it, do you? I never claimed that:

1) Ranged skill (or combat feat to be more precise) increases weapon's base accuracy.

2) You'll hit a bullseye everytime you aim at a target.

I claim that high level of ranged skill makes using ranged weapons (guns mostly) noticeably more effective, I sincerely doubt anyone who went through the game with a gunslinger build would disagree.

You on the other hand (or more precisely Josh and by extension you) claim that you could aim at a garbage can point blank and end up hitting the wall several feet next to it so what you need to do is post a video of a character with decent skill in ranged (say 4-5) missing his target by several feet with any gun in the game (goes without saying that you have to wait for reticule to shrink) from a short distance (it doesn't even have to be point blank).

Its character system is terribad (biz as usual for Troika) and that's a bad goal to have considering the other primary forms of combat are "start out good, become obsolete" and "start out mediocre, become good, become useless against one particular boss but otherwise okay." Why should one of those start out bad regardless of how much you invest in it at the beginning?

No, Bloodlines system is quite decent, considering the uneasy balance between character skill and player skill when it comes to ARPGs in general, it does reasonably well.

Regarding "obsolete" nonsense, I already answered that.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Sure I would. I've experimented with this a lot and have dug through the weapon stats files.

Did you play the game through with a gunslinger build? It's a rhetorical question.

 

[Why.jpeg]

Sounds like alchemy would help the most for such a fight.

Which I've also tried. I've given up on it, I don't mind retrying the same fight three or five times but once it gets past that I've lost interest.

 

[hiver]

Look, this is a beta and a demo. Things like that are things to correct and improve.
Nobody is saying its your fault or something and Tigranes confirms the fight is not balanced enough.

We still have ways to go before the game is "finished".

 

[Pope Amole II]

You're all absolutely wrong about bloodlines combat, lol. Thing is, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective - weapons are not defining factor there, disciplines are. They absolutely dictate what you use or how you fight:

Brujah: fortitude is potent, so you just turn it on and then it doesn't matter that much whether your weapon is good or not. Oh, and of course there's the broken celerity which will allow you to pummel the mightiest bosses in the game with nothing but fists.

Gangrel: no point of playing them if you don't go protean so brawl it is. The only class that actually brawls.

Malkavian: auspex -> ranged build. obfuscate-> melee build. it's easy.

Toreador: auspex -> ranged build. presence -> can go both ways. celerity-> just don't give a fuck.

Nosferatu: they don't have anything that buffs ranged, so it's always melee for them.

Tremere: auspex-> ranged build. nothing for melee here, so it's simple.

Ventrue: also have fortitude, so once again it doesn't matter much.

So for gangrel, nosferatu and tremere there isn't really a choice, for ventrue, brujah and toreador the choice is meaningless, and the only clan where it matters is the malkavian. And even there it's more about whether or not you want to go stealth route.