Game News AoD demo released

[Melcar]

Block for me starts being somewhat useful once it hits 80%. However, once the tough opponents start showing up I always need +150% just to get the darn fool to block once every third hit.

 

[Elhoim]

I keep hitting myself in fights. Why is this? The enemy does this as well. I can have a 95% to hit, etc, etc, and still hit myself with a power attack.

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/in ... 231.0.html

Please play a game, get this bug and post the log in that thread. Thanks!

Sword n board is a motherfucker. I suspect if you are going with a defensive tank build, you need to invest HEAVILY into block. I have >100 block and it almost never repels a hit.

100 block against which enemies? I would recommend something like 200 for the last stages.

Edit: what's with the "use on" text in the off-hand attack button? Is there something that needs to be done with the shield besides hold it passively?

No, there's nothing to do with it.

 

[Melcar]

I wish you had the option of pushing/hitting opponents with the shield.

 

[Elhoim]

I wish you had the option of pushing/hitting opponents with the shield.

We also wished that. But with only one programmer and limited time there's only so much you can do. It was either implementing shield bash and feint attacks or screen resolutions and sounds. Choices and consequences at its finest

 

[Twinkle]

Actually, I played sword and shield biuld with a focus on block. Battle with triarii dudes was pretty dumb - the one with an axe always destroyed my shield but never inflicted any damage thanks to my heavy armor. So I had to kill him first, then to add skill points to block and didn't have any problems with the other two. Heck, even sledgehammer guy couldn't do anything to my shield, but triarii with the axe always broke it.

 

[hal900x]

Actually, I played sword and shield biuld with a focus on block. Battle with triarii dudes was pretty dumb - the one with an axe always destroyed my shield but never inflicted any damage thanks to my heavy armor. So I had to kill him first, then to add skill points to block and didn't have any problems with the other two. Heck, even sledgehammer guy couldn't do anything to my shield, but triarii with the axe always broke it.

That is the fight I'm having trouble with. No damage? I block now and then, and have decent DR too, but they slip in quite a number of crits on me(which baffles me, since my CD is 135), and their regular strikes frequently exceed my DR. My sword strikes are not killing fast enough, whether I try for head shots, power shots, disarm, whatever, so I just sort of get "nickel and dimed" to death. I tried focusing on the leader, using head shots, and he went down after two or three turns, but by then I was too weak to survive the other two. Main problem seems to be my weak AP right now.

Sword: 170
Block: 107
Crit: 101
DR: 10
AP: 8
Head: 7/110

Edit: yeah, they are landing a fuckload of crits. On the reg. Also, my DR seems to function at 9 rather than 10, as far as this noob can tell.

 

[Twinkle]

I had ~ 210 sword and ~ 130-140 block. Used meteor gladius and heavy armor from Ordu warrior (AP9). In my walkthrough only leader had insta-crit chance. It took me 5 or 6 tries to clear them out.

 

[hal900x]

Maybe I should not have put any points into crit chance, because at this point Triarii are unbeatable for me. Looking over my logs, about 3/5 of their strikes are successful crits. Is there maybe a bug with Crit Resist? I have Crit Defense at 135, 110 on the head.

Even the regular strikes almost always do damage. Each of the 2-3 strikes of the grunts are doing 15-20 points a hit so I'm sucking up 4 to 9 points from each one of those, after DR. My 55 HP don't last very long when you factor in all the crits. I last maybe 2 or 3 rounds at close range and I'm done.

I'm thinking I'll challenge some of you badasses to come up with a successful strategy, since I ain't quittin. Or I could send you a save game.

 

[Elhoim]

Not everything that says "Critical Strike!" is a critical strike, many times is a weapon passive effect, or an aimed attack. Confusing, I know. We should change the descriptions.

 

[hal900x]

Not everything that says "Critical Strike!" is a critical strike, many times is a weapon passive effect, or an aimed attack. Confusing, I know. We should change the descriptions.

OIC. So most of those hits are prolly called shots to the torso. And lemme tell ya, they are landing. Even so, if I read the logs correctly the leader's chance to crit is 74%. I'm stumped. I've played that scenario at least 30 times with every strat I could come up with. 8AP limits the strategy choices somewhat though.

 

[Murk]

I guess I am one of the few that has not encountered any bugs - all's been running fine for me.

Dodge/Dagger character was really doing good until I got to the champion who buried me real easily, only tried once though so I don't know if it was a fluke or if his build is just too much for me to handle (can't really do much damage on armored opponents and this guy has high AP and hit chance too, my dodge is like 250 and he missed maybe twice or three times of the ten or more swings).

Sword/Board and medium armor character got raped by an axe wielding doge type but I hadn't factored in possibly bringing a second shield with me.

Very interesting how either ridiculously effective or ineffective archers are depending on your build - I like it, seems realistic, and is kind of interesting how a playthrough with an Archer will go.

Like how the camera is a solid object that actually collides with tall enough structures. No more going through walls, though that might possible get annoying if there are places with a lot of tall objects (forested areas, possibly?).

Right click to move didn't make sense to me at first until I realized how much clicking to attack you do and that it's very possible to accidentally attack when you meant to move or vice versa which can VERY EASILY fuck you up -- happened to me on ToEE a few times. So while it takes a second to get used to, it's not a bad feature at all.

Suggestion: Might want to make it so that when you left-click an NPC from a distance (or object even?) your character will auto walk to it and interact instead of requiring you to walk near then interact - though I don't mind it and can see how it might be useful (like the attack/move paradigm).

 

[bozia2012]

I guess I am one of the few that has not encountered any bugs - all's been running fine for me.

Same here - got a save-crash in the beginning (game was crashing when loading a specific save), but other than that it ran flawlessly.

Sword/Board and medium armor character got raped by an axe wielding doge type but I hadn't factored in possibly bringing a second shield with me.

Just finished the demo with a s&b guy. I wore the heaviest armor (I had APs capped at 9 anyway), heaviest shield (got additional one in the backpack) and fought with a gladius (3APs fast attack + 6APs aimed to the head). I've put points only into Sword and Block (+ maybe 30 to crits).

Like how the camera is a solid object that actually collides with tall enough structures. No more going through walls, though that might possible get annoying if there are places with a lot of tall objects (forested areas, possibly?).

It's actually annoying - try walking around the arena. The same type of camera was in Sacred 2 (*gasp*) - it made the game unplayable for me.

Right click to move didn't make sense to me at first until I realized how much clicking to attack you do and that it's very possible to accidentally attack when you meant to move or vice versa which can VERY EASILY fuck you up -- happened to me on ToEE a few times. So while it takes a second to get used to, it's not a bad feature at all.

True.

Suggestion: Might want to make it so that when you left-click an NPC from a distance (or object even?) your character will auto walk to it and interact instead of requiring you to walk near then interact - though I don't mind it and can see how it might be useful (like the attack/move paradigm).

It's called "polish".

 

[catfood]

Dunno if this has been addressed or not but I just got this really weird text glitch:

It also borks the loading screen joke text and the dialogue text as well. It hasn't gone away by restarting the game. I haven't restarted my comp yet but that should do it.

Anyway I'm enjoying this so for but my number one concern with the game up til now is the damn camera which I think is almost as bad as the NWN 2 one. As suggested before an option to lock on to your charatcer while moving would help a GREAT deal. Think NWN 1 camera. Since this game is a one man party adventure it would make sense for the camera to be centered on him, with the option of panning around when you want to of course.

I too got the glitch that prevents me from selling a small number of arrows.

Also tone down the swear words. Yes, there were curses and profanities spoken in Fallout but they were sparse and never felt out of place. "Fuck"-ing left and right on a forum is one thing, but having it in a game is a different matter entirely. The writing otherwise is pretty good and I especially dig the "defeat" screen and text. But then I'm not a native english speaker so what seems good to me may seem like shit to others. I still say it gets its job done.

The arena master crash was really annoying so I had to disable the sound to get around it, but I see that it's been fixed now.

Oh, and moar tooltips plz.

That's my 2 cents up til now.

 

[Murk]

Why tone down profanity? You're a gladiator who's murdering men for fun, looting their corpses, and being cheered for it (btw, nice touch in having the audience cheer/boo on critical hits). Why wouldn't you expect people to curse and say "fuck"?

Locking on character with the camera is a definite plus, though the current system is basically how Fallout did it. I guess you'd have to program some kind of collision detection for obstacles that impede it though? Maybe just get rid of the whole "solid" camera thing all together...

edit: I really like the various armor types and variations in weapons.

 

[Serious_Business]

Man I really love hearing all the complaints about the swear words. Reviewers are going to go on a riot about this when the game comes out (WHICH IS SOON YES or at least I make myself believe that not to go crazy). I think there should be more fucking swearing, fucking cunt shit motherfuck. Fuck yes.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

Being a gladiator is quite EXTREME an occupation, I'd say. So it goes without saying that gladiators would only choose the most renegade dialogue options.

 

[bozia2012]

I'm gonna fuck you up.

 

[Melcar]

The game needs more swearing. Racial and sexual slurs would be awesome too. Come on VD, this is not a lame mainstream game. Lets see some good 'ol fashioned sailor talk.

 

[entertainer]

Don't forget to voice over the swearing.

 

[Gragt]

And when you kill someone, you hear an announcer with a deep voice yell "PWNED!" or "SODOMISED!".

 

[hal900x]

And when you kill someone, you hear an announcer with a deep voice yell "PWNED!" or "SODOMISED!".

 

[Murk]

some straight up racism would be awesome -- "how many sandniggers does it take to kill one (enter character name here)? DONNO NONE HAVE SUCCEEDED LOLOLOLOL"

 

[Mortmal]

Turn down profanity??? certainly not heres the idea i have of a gladiator fight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvDfsjIuf34

Ah and btw the death screen and the writing of the demo a nice bonus, its little touch like this that make a game great.I love it they just discard you on a pile of rotten corpses and your agony last hours, perfect, thats really close to a tabletop rpg experience.

 

[Davaris]

Turn down profanity??? certainly not heres the idea i have of a gladiator fight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvDfsjIuf34

That would be the end of the game industry, if someone made a game like that.

 

[Melcar]

See? Shield bashing would have been so awesome in AoD. Give those axe wielding fuckers something to chew on.