Ash of Gods: Redemption - Banner Saga-like with CCG elements

[toro]

Combat is stupid.

Take a warrior, give him 10 Armor and watch all opponents take turns doing 0 damage on him (because he keeps the armor if he doesn't move).

So the AI is retarded, but you rage quit in frustration—referenced in the other thread—because it’s too difficult???

I've complain about the initiative mechanic which is obviously broken but I did not say that the combat is too difficult (that's your fucking imagination).

I've comfortably won all fights (without any party member deaths) up to chapter 3 but I lost 2 hours of gameplay because I made one wrong decision in the first chapter. Resource management is really important for one of the three parallel storylines ... however there was no way to make an informed decision at that moment in the game (basically first 30 minutes of the game) and that's why I raged quit. I admit that it was my fault but I'm pretty sure others will make the same mistake.

Now, the thing is your acting like a stupid fanboi while the game is nowhere near a great game: the combat is retarded (much worse than Banner Saga), the game events are opaque, the dialog bloat is all over the place and the game likes to take control from you periodically. That's shitty game design in my opinion and while there are good things to be found in the game overall it's just Banner Saga's retarded cousin.

If you like it then good for you but I agree to disagree.

 

[norolim]

Bros, 4 months ago I had a look at the 1st two hours or so. Below I quote, what I thought about the writing at the time (TLDR: it was shit). Is my assessment still accurate or did they improve it significantly?

Spoiler

[...] wording seems odd at times (Everything left hanging leads to the Reaping) but it is the least of your problems here. I'm afraid there isn't enough quality in the writing. It feels very immature and over the top. There is way too much unnecessary, forced swearing and way too much talk about pissing and shitting. And when it's not overdone, it often falls flat. The characters' motivations seem rather weak. The action jumps from event to event too quickly and there are frequent abrupt tonal shifts, which for me at least, makes the whole narration feels rushed and jerky.

Take the very beginning, for example: 700 years ago you fought bad Reapers and were supposed to die but you didn't; 9 years ago you started to feel uneasy and decided to do sth about it... That's a huge leap in time. WTF were you doing for the last 691 years? Were you in a slumber? If you're going to leave out 700 years of the player character's background, don't mention it at all. Keep him more mysterious for now, and let the players learn about his origins and the events he was involved in, as they play. Because dumping this meaningless, deficient information on the player is just bad exposition.

Unfortunately, this is carried over to the first dialogue with a character called Amma. At one point, she talks about a battle in which her and her interlocutor's (your) brethren perished and just moments later she seemingly refers to the same event, claiming she heard a legend about 12 brave ones who sacrificed themselves. Maybe I misunderstood something, but this sounds like extremely bad exposition.

And then when she asks him to hand over a powerful object, that he apparently needs to even think about stopping this ominous Reaping, he says: Pity. I really hoped to use it. I doubt anything else can kill a Reaper. Well, here you go...

Come on. This is hilarious.

IDK, mate. I won't attempt to judge the whole thing based on a relatively small expert, but what I read and heard was bad. And if I was making decisions, I would scrap most of it. As far as translation being the problem? It might be too some extend. I didn't see the Russian source and even if I did, my Russian isn't good enough to judge that. But many of the problems go deeper than just bad translation.

 

[MicoSelva]

Bros, how are the mechanics of the game outside of combat, does it even have any?

 

[Parabalus]

Bros, how are the mechanics of the game outside of combat, does it even have any?

Compared to TBS lack of "food" can cause also individual deaths (you triage) instead of just low morale. Sameish "randomness" of events which kill people and general encounters. Instead of a fixed path you choose routes on a map, which might improve replayability.

It's an improvement in every way from TBS, but if you disliked that it might not be enough of a leap forward for you.

 

[Solfear]

MicoSelva >> You manage your strixes on the map, choose your path, manage your deck, items, make choices and try to make your characters survive throughout all of the events (hundred of events/game). There are three different groups with branching stories. The tone and events are of the most violent/bloody kind.

I am a few hours into the game (Chapter 4) and I like it very much. The combat system is better than the one of Banner Saga in my opinion as there is a lot more options. And above all, the "rogue-like story" is a great improvement in my opinion for this kind of game.

If you like visual novel/tatical rpg with a lot of c&c, you can go for it. I can't see a point where Banner Saga is better than Ash of Gods. And the developper are working 7/7 24/24 on it.

 

[fantadomat]

Bros, how are the mechanics of the game outside of combat, does it even have any?

Compared to TBS lack of "food" can cause also individual deaths (you triage) instead of just low morale. Sameish "randomness" of events which kill people and general encounters. Instead of a fixed path you choose routes on a map, which might improve replayability.

It's an improvement in every way from TBS, but if you disliked that it might not be enough of a leap forward for you.

Fucking up fun time gameplay for replayability is shit. Rogue like elements are really annoying in this kind of games. If i want such shit i would play Rogue Legacy,Super House of Dead Ninjas or Dungeons of Dredmor. Not some story heavy game,that doesn't even have a manual save. Sorcery! did the branching paths the best in my opinions,it was really fun how you are able to rewind back to the time you want.

 

[Parabalus]

Bros, how are the mechanics of the game outside of combat, does it even have any?

Compared to TBS lack of "food" can cause also individual deaths (you triage) instead of just low morale. Sameish "randomness" of events which kill people and general encounters. Instead of a fixed path you choose routes on a map, which might improve replayability.

It's an improvement in every way from TBS, but if you disliked that it might not be enough of a leap forward for you.

Fucking up fun time gameplay for replayability is shit. Rogue like elements are really annoying in this kind of games. If i want such shit i would play Rogue Legacy,Super House of Dead Ninjas or Dungeons of Dredmor. Not some story heavy game,that doesn't even have a manual save. Sorcery! did the branching paths the best in my opinions,it was really fun how you are able to rewind back to the time you want.

I don't get how choosing routes fucks up the gameplay though.
The hook is that you have limited supplies and can choose a longer or shorter route, with the longer potentially having more/different encounters?
The events are the same as TBS, bunch of fixed ones (here dependent on route) and random, first time you play you have no idea what's going to happen.
Roguelike in the descriptions just refers to random deaths, not much else I think.

 

[fantadomat]

Bros, how are the mechanics of the game outside of combat, does it even have any?

Compared to TBS lack of "food" can cause also individual deaths (you triage) instead of just low morale. Sameish "randomness" of events which kill people and general encounters. Instead of a fixed path you choose routes on a map, which might improve replayability.

It's an improvement in every way from TBS, but if you disliked that it might not be enough of a leap forward for you.

Fucking up fun time gameplay for replayability is shit. Rogue like elements are really annoying in this kind of games. If i want such shit i would play Rogue Legacy,Super House of Dead Ninjas or Dungeons of Dredmor. Not some story heavy game,that doesn't even have a manual save. Sorcery! did the branching paths the best in my opinions,it was really fun how you are able to rewind back to the time you want.

I don't get how choosing routes fucks up the gameplay though.
The hook is that you have limited supplies and can choose a longer or shorter route, with the longer potentially having more/different encounters?
The events are the same as TBS, bunch of fixed ones (here dependent on route) and random, first time you play you have no idea what's going to happen.
Roguelike in the descriptions just refers to random deaths, not much else I think.

I hate resource management in this type of games,especially if it is not balanced well. This game would have been a lot better as a exploration adventure,the map looks gorgeous and the moving on it is good.But the "urgency" is annoying to me,hate getting rushed.

 

[Solfear]

fantadomat >> I don't agree with your opinion. The "urgency" fits very well the background and how the game has been planned.

Where I am in the game, I have no more strix, and a character died along the road, which is perfectly fine in my opinion. I expect most of my characters to die and a few to survive until the end. It's supposed to be the apocalypse, not all of them should survive it. By the way, the combat system allow you to match your ennemy even with one or two characters left. It tends to make me think that the game has been planned this way and I am perfectly fine with it.

 

[1manstudio]

I have this game on my wishlist -- but like most games on my wishlist, I wish I had the time to play them ...But I do have a long weekend coming up soon, so I think I will have to dive right in.

How long is the total gameplay? Anyone know on average how long is the playthrough?

 

[fantadomat]

fantadomat >> I don't agree with your opinion. The "urgency" fits very well the background and how the game has been planned.

Where I am in the game, I have no more strix, and a character died along the road, which is perfectly fine in my opinion. I expect most of my characters to die and a few to survive until the end. It's supposed to be the apocalypse, not all of them should survive it. By the way, the combat system allow you to match your ennemy even with one or two characters left. It tends to make me think that the game has been planned this way and I am perfectly fine with it.

Different tastes mate .

 

[Solfear]

1manstudio >> One playthrough should last about 25 hours on average from what I have heard, depending on your choices and on your will to read everything lore related.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

this game is fucking horrible

I feel bad for whoever did the art and music because it's top notch but the rest is just wow. I don't even know how to explain the writing, is it translated from another language?

 

[Beowulf]

this game is fucking horrible

I feel bad for whoever did the art and music because it's top notch but the rest is just wow. I don't even know how to explain the writing, is it translated from another language?

Aside from writing, what didn't you like about the game?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

this game is fucking horrible

I feel bad for whoever did the art and music because it's top notch but the rest is just wow. I don't even know how to explain the writing, is it translated from another language?

Aside from writing, what didn't you like about the game?

It adopted the horrible combat initiative system from TBS

 

[Galdred]

this game is fucking horrible

I feel bad for whoever did the art and music because it's top notch but the rest is just wow. I don't even know how to explain the writing, is it translated from another language?

Aside from writing, what didn't you like about the game?

It adopted the horrible combat initiative system from TBS

I would really like an option to at least skip the turns of all the remaining characters after all the opposing ones have played, so that if I want, I can have some of my characters have as many actions as the remaining enemy ones.
It would also feel much less gamey (and less like TBS, which would also be a good thing).

 

[Rahdulan]

Devs at least seem to be on top of their game with patches.
http://steamcommunity.com/games/691690/announcements/detail/1646502942093891722

PATCH 1.0.41

Hey! Balancing patch for the AI behavior at the Reaping level of 4+ (see details below) is on the way which brings some balance to difficulty level and AI behavior. We also would like to explain a couple of things about how it works.

The difficulty in the game is set by several matrices—the complexity changes smoothly from chapter to chapter due to the increasing coefficients for AI, so at the beginning of the game we weaken enemy's AI, and in the end we strengthen them to keep up with the developed player's units.

The second matrix—regulates the increasing levels of the Reaping, which add up to the parameters of the chapters and, most importantly, changes the key AI settings—its responses to defense, attack, tactical depth of analysis, priority of targets. So, for example, when Harvest level is more than 7, AI attempts to attack units that already have injuries, and on difficulty 2, it almost does not see protection and happily attacks those who would receive no damage.

We constantly collect impersonal combat stats—how many turns and round combat lasts, what units are the most effective, what AI did and how it affected the game. We also constantly read your feedback and recommendations on Steam and Discord and thus we have decided to improve the behavior of AI at levels 5 and above, allowing AI to analyze the field better, respond better to units in defense and counter-attack, better choose its goals.

CHANGELOG:

• The maximum Reaping level is limited to 10
  
• Updated localization for the Italian language
  
• A small update of the Ens faction (sometimes in combat they had difficulties with making tactical decisions and stood in place in a counterattack instead of attacking the player)
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed to increase the level of Reaping multiple times by quickly clicking on the event pop-up
  
• Fixed the UI bug on the level up screen (numbers shifted)
  
• Fixed the UI bug on the level up screen on resolutions less than 1378x768
  
• Fixed the names of the Reaping for the Italian language
  
• Multiple corrections of spelling and punctuation in the Russian language (many thanks to all who helps us find them)
  
• Removed extra scenes from the Steam build
  
• Fixed a bug with a window that comes up on the first occasion when party doesn't have enough strixes and Gleda is not in the team
  
• Fixed a bug when Mact "came back to life" in Opakum
  
• Fixed a bug where the party selection would not save after combat for Thorn's and Pheng's parties
  
• Fixed incorrect selection of units in the team management in multiplayer
  
• Fixed the display of the arrows for Friza's military company on the map after 53 days
  
• Fixed a bug when the Reaper was not visible during the encounter in the forest
  
• Fixed a bug where icons on the multiplayer screen disappeared when zoomed
  
• Fixed the inability to give "The Hurricane's Soul" to Assassins

WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW:
We are not only correcting mistakes. You write a lot to us about what the game lacks in your opinion. We are working now on:

• Finishing the multiplayer. We are currently testing: getting daily chests, opening combat chests, leveling up for all the 54 units, correcting mistakes. By the end of April, we plan to deliver you "clans" in online battles and the ability to fight versus AI, which will allow us to do everything that we wanted for the multiplayer version.
  
• We will add a number to represent the degree of morale (now it is not clear how it changes from your choices)
  
• We are working on a battle log for both singleplayer and multiplayer
  
• We are working to allow you to see unit's stats and skills during the positioning phase in combat in singleplayer
  
• We are working to allow you to see unit's stats and skills during the positioning phase in combat and enemy's turn in singleplayer
  
• Fixed and are testing the incorrect behavior of skills that manipulate rounds
  
• Fixed and are testing the incorrect behavior of skills that manipulate rounds
  
• Fixed and are testing the display of targets for random attacks

We have also started the re-editing of the text in English. You will help us greatly, please, if you point directly, just pictures where the problems are the most obvious - we have performed a full correction of the text by two literary editors in London and New York and all the comments that we sent to this early proofread were often written off to "literary preferences". We are not native speakers, sorry, help us understand where and what is done in particularly poor language.

That editing in particular is noteworthy.

 

[MRY]

I'd point out that they've gone from 77% -> 84% over the course of the last week. It's quite rare to see a game move up that way in Steam reviews, and a very good sign.

 

[Ninjerk]

I'd point out that they've gone from 77% -> 84% over the course of the last week. It's quite rare to see a game move up that way in Steam reviews, and a very good sign.

It's clearly collusion.

 

[Solfear]

Or the game is just great and needs better recognition.

 

[Rahdulan]

If you go by that image above I think you can understand why their editors are telling them there's nothing really wrong and that complaints are just literary preferences on customers' part. Count how many sentences start with "he". Problem seems to be rooted in syntax over any grammatical errors or such, and you can really only fix that with rewrites.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Nah, the translation is shit because it fails to properly conduit the actual meaning of many messages. I'm too lazy to go through the entire texts, but let's look at the last sentence of Thorn's bio - "he has also sired two children with his only wife". In the russian version the phrase "муж единственной жены" is used here which literally translates into "the husband of only one wife" and depicts an absolutely devout family man. In english it's mechanical presentation of facts with zero nuances being included.

Well, you shouldn't be surprised too much - russian development has a rich history on suiciding by hiring the cheapest translators possible.

 

[baud]

I'd point out that they've gone from 77% -> 84% over the course of the last week. It's quite rare to see a game move up that way in Steam reviews, and a very good sign.

It's clearly collusion.

So you'd say the dev are buying reviews and downvoting or flagging negative review and it does not reflect the quality of the game (as perceived by the players)?

 

[MRY]

I'd point out that they've gone from 77% -> 84% over the course of the last week. It's quite rare to see a game move up that way in Steam reviews, and a very good sign.

It's clearly collusion.

So you'd say the dev are buying reviews and downvoting or flagging negative review and it does not reflect the quality of the game (as perceived by the players)?

That wasn't what I was saying -- I took it to mean that the patches were improving the game materially, that after an initial set of "it looks like Banner Saga!" players played and were disappointed, later-arriving players were enjoying it more, etc. What is the basis for thinking they are up to no good? (I took Ninjerk's post to be a joke...)

 

[baud]

I'd point out that they've gone from 77% -> 84% over the course of the last week. It's quite rare to see a game move up that way in Steam reviews, and a very good sign.

It's clearly collusion.

So you'd say the dev are buying reviews and downvoting or flagging negative review and it does not reflect the quality of the game (as perceived by the players)?

That wasn't what I was saying -- I took it to mean that the patches were improving the game materially, that after an initial set of "it looks like Banner Saga!" players played and were disappointed, later-arriving players were enjoying it more, etc. What is the basis for thinking they are up to no good? (I took Ninjerk's post to be a joke...)

Uh, I didn't answered to you, my remark was about Ninjerk "It's clearly collusion.". And I didn't took his post as a joke, even if I tried to be sarcastic (and failed, apparently).
I agree that if the rating went up, it would have been because of players liking enough the game that they left a positive review, no because of underhanded actions.