Incline I finally played and beat Age of Decadence

[vazha]

When there's nothing else to play and you're itching for a challenge, solo runs are the way to go. I regret nothing ))

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I thought about doing a solo run but decided against it and played Age of Decadence instead! When I left the game I had 72.5 hours in it, now it's 84.4 hours, so the 6.99€ I bought it for were well worth it (seriously the game is criminally underpriced in sales (and also while not on sale))

Did my first merchant run! This time I played non-fighter and read almost everything. It was a really interesting experience and I discovered a lot more stuff than before.
Destroyed Inferiae for example which was really unexpected, discovered the hidden room in the library of saross, made Strabos the magistrate and sided with Meru in the end. I grinded a lot to prevent the destruction of Al-Akir but alas you couldn't go there even if it wasn't destroyed. Did sidequests just with talking and killed only a few npcs (all or almost all in the arena). It was really fun and gave me even more appreciation for the game!
On a sidenote I found a few mostly minor bugs - would be great if AoD would get another update somewhen in the future but I understand that they are occupied with Colony Ship (I was very pleased to see that Dungeon Rats got an update :D)



I also made a female character to see the guards reaction when you run around naked (still amazing that the devs thought of that)


Here's my character and his stats in the end.

Spoiler

 

[vazha]

What got updated in Dungeon Rats? Thinking about replaying it for a solo bow run, if its at all possible.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Last time i checked the log it was Chinese localization...

 

[Moaning_Clock]

And a small fix in October. Not a big update but cool that they still support the game!

 

[Moaning_Clock]

After a couple of months I decided to give Age of Decadence another go.

Spoiler

To be honest I wanted to try out Titan Outpost but shouldn't spend so much money right now. I also thought about giving Kingdom Come Deliverance a try but wanted to have two missing DLCs before I do it. In the end I decided to play AoD and see what I'm still missing!

Did a Praetor-run. Was part of Daratan and didn't switch to Aurelian. Made a deal with Carinnas. I wanted to do more for house Daratan but it felt like I didn't have really the option? Maybe I missed something but I ended up in the Imperial Guards and sided with Paullus in the end.
Killed Meru and did lower the gate in Ganezzar (that was new for if I'm not mistaken). Espcially Teron was awesome (since I saw a lot of new stuff, poisening the mine guards and getting poisons from four different sources, talking with Sohrab) but the fighter/talker hybrid without much planning behind wasn't that great. Maadoran felt a bit grindy since I wanted to do certain stuff and lacked the necessary skill-points.

Wanted to try to fight Agathoth with 7 bombs but didn't even manage to kill the machines before him lol. So I let the temple rest.

Spoiler

 

[Moaning_Clock]

After the last run was a bit unsatisfying, I did another run and it was awesome! Did a talker-praetor who was very pacifist but killed the one machine with the nullifier. Was married to house Daratan till the end and made Antidas the rightful emperor.
It was my quickest run yet, maybe 2 or 3 hours.

Destroying the slums and getting expelled from Maadoran was great fun. Really great part of the game. Got 5 new achievements out of that run (Matters of Faith, Fire in the Hole!, Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts, On His Lordship's Secret Service and Manipulator). I skipped a lot of side missions which I already knew (but did the Lady Anthea miniquest which was also fun).

Had a few bugs this time but nothing major or show-stopping.

Spoiler

blowed al-akia up but can still join the expedition to it? speaking with antidas about bowing to agathoth - you can do it multiple times

Right now I'm standing at 72 of 109 achievements and have almost 100 hours in the game (Steam says 99.9).

Spoiler

 

[Technomancer]

Moaning_Clock try ultimate max lore hybrid next. Even with shitty combat stats you can clear all combat encounters. Loremaster - Boatmen (for Word of honor, let the spy go and getting training from both feng and other loremaster and gaining acess to Aemolas village later in the game). In Maadoran instead of boatmen (but grab boatmen training first), join Gaelius which means you will get access to Darius Tomb, Helm of Destiny and every location in the game, including Al-Akia grabbing Aegis to dive in the Arch. Best part of it - you will be swimming in skill points doing everything.

 

[Rincewind]

One of the very few games that actually gives you a lot of incentive for replays, and the only one I replayed twice more straight after my first playthrough.

 

[wishbonetail]

Somehow, no matter how hard i try , I just run out of steam after the first town. Gameplay just feels really restrictive for me.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

try ultimate max lore hybrid next.

I wanted to stay away from hybrids a bit since my pure combat or pure talker guys were most of the time more fun - but Darius Tomb is one of the few locations I never encountered (yet!) The amount of skillpoints is really staggering!

Somehow, no matter how hard i try , I just run out of steam after the first town. Gameplay just feels really restrictive for me.

Even Teron alone is great but that's besides the point. I think it's a really a game for a certain kind of player and an absolutely massive experience for them but if you don't like the overall design philosophy it gets hard to play. I like the way it represents you a few paths with some (or many) branches and following them to the conclusion. It's also weird that as a player you see more freedom the longer you play the game in a way (I had this experience when I got the poison for the mine from different sources for example - never would have thought that there were so many options).

What would you like to change? Is it restrictive for you because you can't do everything in one playthrough or do you want more options in certain encounters or do you dislike the part of a faction following a certain path design?

 

[Rincewind]

Even Teron alone is great but that's besides the point. I think it's a really a game for a certain kind of player and an absolutely massive experience for them but if you don't like the overall design philosophy it gets hard to play.

Yeah, I think I'm very much on the same page with Vince about the general design philosophy, e.g. not all builds should be created equal, combat should be lethal and very dangerous, unless you're a highly skilled killing machine, and some paths should be simply just unavailable for certain builds. If you follow that line of thought to its logical conclusion, it should be impossible to experience all content during the course of a single playthrough. Combined with the fact that you're not just experiencing the same story and outcomes from different angles, but the whole main story changes significantly depending on your actions, it's *almost* a one-of-a-kind game. I also love hard, slow, methodical turn based combat, and I find Vince's writing style evocative, captivating and full of not-so-in-your-face, dry humor. Well, I also love the music and the graphics, but this is starting to sound like a paid advertisement...

What I'm trying to say, the game is stellar at what it tries to do, so if you're not compelled to keep going after the first town, maybe you're looking for a completely different game and experience and there's no point in forcing it.

 

[wishbonetail]

What would you like to change? Is it restrictive for you because you can't do everything in one playthrough or do you want more options in certain encounters or do you dislike the part of a faction following a certain path design?

The game is fine as a text adventure. 3d graphics here can be misleading as nothing would've changed if we were to swap it with some background pictures. Basically "gameplay" here consists of chosing text options restricted by numbers we choose at the beginning, it is too formularic and it is just not my kind of game.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

The game is fine as a text adventure. 3d graphics here can be misleading as nothing would've changed if we were to swap it with some background pictures. Basically "gameplay" here consists of chosing text options restricted by numbers we choose at the beginning, it is too formularic and it is just not my kind of game.

There are certainly some passages like this but they usually are represented in another way - the dialogue and choose-your-own-adventure scenes. Really enjoy the combat and the visual represantation of it. Also searching around in the different towns to find new stuff. But to each his own.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

In the meantime I played Dungeon Rats a couple of times, solo iron man on easy but always failed. In the end I did a solo run on iron man. Yesterday and the day before after a long hiatus from AoD, I did a grifter run with the chosen one trait. It was fun to do a little bit of that (but I didn't go for the player reign ending, Meru lost the siege). I certainly liked the guild quests a lot more.

 

[The Jester]

Do a pure combat build.

My retarded big dick pure combat legionary was the most fun I had with this game.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I replayed the game as a thief since I did the run in the beginning and not since I obviously knew a lot more. Was a great fun! Sided with Glabrio in the end. Got 5 new achievements (Silver-Tongued Devil, Explosion Expert, Infiltrator, The Lord of Lowtown, Computer Literate). From the achievements alone you can guess that I did some stuff that was completely new for me like infiltrating the palace. Stealing from every merchant and getting into houses also was great. Are there houses to break in in Maadoran and Ganezzar? At least, I didn't saw any.

I have now 113 hours in the game and there is still stuff to do. The gift that keeps on giving.

Here is my character in the end. He had only a max life of 6 (the blue console in the Glabrio quest reduced it to 11, I couldn't recover and then I got hit by a red beam). Could have reloaded but wasn't necessary.

 

[Agesilaus]

Such an amazing game. It's one of those rare titles where they not only manage to create an interesting theme and start a decent story-line, but they also succeed in having that story culminate into something great. There's some amazing exploration and development between the time when you start out as a bum in some primitive, post-apocalyptic town, to standing in front of some all-powerful being inside an ancient, high-tech facility. From maybe knowing a few myths about the past, to a well developed history of advanced human civilizations that figured out how to communicate with inter-dimensional gods that dwell between the stars. And if you get too distracted by it all, some friendly character like Miltiades will come along and lead you to your death.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Seems this forums is quite dead for now, before the Colony Ship lands, because everybody on Codex and their pet basement sex slave has played it to death.
But i didn't and am just trying it the first time. Still not finished and was asking question in tips&tricks thread without notice.

Anyhow, i'm going through it first time and have to say that all the criticism and nay saying i've heard about this game has been thoroughly swept away by how awesome all its strong part are. And the strong parts are stronger than in any similarly styled games like cherished Black Isle etalons, Fallout, Arcanum, Bloodlines, while having way more challenging/fun/tactical combat build development. While combat itself is also fairly simplistic, it's still mile above the Fallout standard, which is basically a flavor feature that gets trivial after lvl5. The possibilities of both combat and plot build seems extraordinaire even in this first playthrough and i'm playing p. dumb, combat focused char (intentionally) now, but not minmaxing. Have saved/reloaded lot of times to see the various consequences and (sorry) read some walkthrough spoilers, because i know i wont be playing this game 20 times over, which is would be quite normal for 20 year old me.

To cut it short, Vault Dweller, you're not genius, but you're very hard and principled craftsmen and connoisseur of what's good in RPGs and i salute you for your determination for bringing this gem to glimmer in hate for casuals. And bringing exactly, what you promised. I described it on local forum as "Fallout on steroids", which imo isn't exaggeration. The game seems gorgeous even on first playthrough, where i've hardly even dabbled into most librul skills (only small level of streetsmarts, good craftsmenship and whatever were though for free). And combat indeed feels surprisingly compelling, even not having a tactical positioning etc. components of likes of Ja2. It's good that every single point in any level of skill seems very impactful, but they also cost much, so the path can differ very much depending on whether get that sword skill from 6 to 7-8 or get more critical strike, which can get life better and more varied on some plot quests, combat a bit different and consider your weapon choices differently. I like the intertwining of many different things, that make a whole in this game and it's already obvious that the number of very unique combos is just absurd compared to most games.

 

[Johannes]

Stealing from every merchant and getting into houses also was great. Are there houses to break in in Maadoran and Ganezzar? At least, I didn't saw any.

Off the top of my head, you can break into a noblemans house that's right next to the palace in Maadoran, but it's only possible by talking to the carpet merchant or whoever to unlock that quest. That's the only text adventure-tier robbery outside Teron that I can think of. Then there's a lot of inn rooms to rob in every city and in Ganezzar merchants guild there's a room with a lot of shit, but those are all simple skill checks like stealing from a merchant stall.

Some thieving skill is probably good to have for every character, the skill points you gain from stealing basic shit give you eventually more skill points than you spent, and some nice loot here and there too, though most of the stuff you steal is just crap you sell, and there's generally no shortage of cash for any character who can fight.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I robbed all the inns and got everything except the chest next to the guy in the tavern in Ganezzar if I remember correctly.

and in Ganezzar merchants guild there's a room with a lot of shit

I think I did not do this!

 

[Turn_BASED]

Seems this forums is quite dead for now, before the Colony Ship lands, because everybody on Codex and their pet basement sex slave has played it to death.
But i didn't and am just trying it the first time. Still not finished and was asking question in tips&tricks thread without notice.

Anyhow, i'm going through it first time and have to say that all the criticism and nay saying i've heard about this game has been thoroughly swept away by how awesome all its strong part are. And the strong parts are stronger than in any similarly styled games like cherished Black Isle etalons, Fallout, Arcanum, Bloodlines, while having way more challenging/fun/tactical combat build development. While combat itself is also fairly simplistic, it's still mile above the Fallout standard, which is basically a flavor feature that gets trivial after lvl5. The possibilities of both combat and plot build seems extraordinaire even in this first playthrough and i'm playing p. dumb, combat focused char (intentionally) now, but not minmaxing. Have saved/reloaded lot of times to see the various consequences and (sorry) read some walkthrough spoilers, because i know i wont be playing this game 20 times over, which is would be quite normal for 20 year old me.

To cut it short, Vault Dweller, you're not genius, but you're very hard and principled craftsmen and connoisseur of what's good in RPGs and i salute you for your determination for bringing this gem to glimmer in hate for casuals. And bringing exactly, what you promised. I described it on local forum as "Fallout on steroids", which imo isn't exaggeration. The game seems gorgeous even on first playthrough, where i've hardly even dabbled into most librul skills (only small level of streetsmarts, good craftsmenship and whatever were though for free). And combat indeed feels surprisingly compelling, even not having a tactical positioning etc. components of likes of Ja2. It's good that every single point in any level of skill seems very impactful, but they also cost much, so the path can differ very much depending on whether get that sword skill from 6 to 7-8 or get more critical strike, which can get life better and more varied on some plot quests, combat a bit different and consider your weapon choices differently. I like the intertwining of many different things, that make a whole in this game and it's already obvious that the number of very unique combos is just absurd compared to most games.

If you liked the combat, definitely play Dungeon Rats next. Lots of challenging fights there.