Thursday is finally here.

[Havoc]

Trying to help? "The game is too hard. It must be broken! PS. Swords are useless." Yeah, that was incredibly helpful.

I also like "I was going to give you my money, but now I won't!" posts. As if I give a fuck.

 

[Excidium]

It's a lot harder than in the combat demo. In the combat demo we played powergamed gladiators equipped with the best gear possible for each battle.

As it is, you better avoid combat unless you're a combat focused praetor or a mercenary. Which is how it should be of course, but it doesn't change the fact that damage absorption is completely broken.

What I'd like to understand is why I can easily dispatch someone during a text adventure, but during a fight it feels like hitting somebody with a spoon. Being stabbed only kills if you aren't looking?

 

[Excidium]

It's a lot harder than in the combat demo.

Seriously? If you didn't choose to spend each skill point in the best manner you were boned.

Yes because a large part of your attributes and skill points are going to non-combat characteristics in this demo.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

For testing purposes, I rolled a merc (with default stats), put 10 points in block, 1 point in Swords and the rest into non-combat stuff. Killed the two thugs ambushing Vardanis, losing a total of 2 hp in the process, blocking every second attack.

Then I rolled another merc, lowered Str and End to 7, raised Int and Cha to 6, 5 points in Swords, 5 points in Block, rest into crafting/streetwise. Killed the thugs while losing 12 hp.

Literally the only thing I did was spamming power attack every round. So maybe there is a bug? I wouldn't be surprised if I could kill them comfortably without putting any skill points into combat skills, and just relying on the merc's stats to carry me through.

The dialogue-teleportation thing is still the biggest fault of the demo for me.

 

[Phelot]

Glad you like it, Bee. These "combat is too hard, I don't want to play anymore" posts on the Codex (of all places) scare me, so it's good to see that some people still remember how to kick ass without a cover system.

I like the combat a lot, I just don't like the idea that after combat you may not get a chance to properly rest and heal before getting into more combat. Like with the assassin, I killed him, but was left with little health, my next option was to either forgo delivering the contents of the merchant's chest or continuing on to another potential combat encounter. Now, granted, I said potential and I see that you can avoid that fight, but it felt cheap having to do so only because I was very low on health. Happened again after trying to join the Imperial Guard, killed the caravan guards, then couldn't get by fighting the two other recruits.

Now, I appreciate the whole "World doesn't wait for you" approach and if that's what this all boils down to then so be it, but at times it'd be nice to ask people to wait a bit.

 

[Oriebam]

What a shitty game. You spent 10 years making a "RPG" and you can't even get the combat right? There's not even voice acting, what is this 1980?





















I was going to try to bullshit more but I honestly haven't found issues with combat yet, besides friendly NPCs suddenly ignoring the fact that I tried to murder them when I end my turn

I can't help but LARP american psycho, quests aren't that interesting for me, not really a complaint though

The game's p. cool, would buy, hope it gets popular yadda yadda

I have a few questions, all of them probably asked before but I can't be arsed to go search

1. How do you change the camera angle?
2. Do skill checks all end in multiples of 5?(can't think of the correct english term)
3. Why do stats only go from 4 to 10? as opposed to 1 to 6 or something
4. Can you wipe cities out by (somehow) killing everyone?
5. Is there a way to make the game unwinnable, like by killing the wrong persons?
6. Do you expect to get panned by reviewers? I think if the actual game starts out like the demo there's gonna be a lot of journalist butthurt and some spread of prejudice
7. Does the game reach a point where you can one hit kill regular people or something like that?

that's all for now

 

[Excidium]

1. Is there a way to make the game unwinnable, like by killing the wrong persons

It can be made unwinnable by using a shitty character build. Like on my assassin, I didn't put any points in disguise because it looks like a pain in the ass and then I couldn't advance in the storyline. Sure, I could sneak and critical strike everyone but that didn't help because it often resulted in body count/lore/persuasion/lockpick checks which I couldn't pass.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Perhaps there's some bug that affects hit chance and/or damage numbers that lead to people having vastly different experiences? There's really not that much in terms of tactics you can do differently to "fuck up".

I brought up stupidly low hit chances in the first few fights earlier, now I did the encounter in the warehouse against the two thugs, and hit chance was much higher across the board - ~60-90%. Either a bug or these thugs aren't as tough as the earlier ones. Cba restarting to check.

THC is determined by your stats, skills, weapon, attack type, enemy's dodge/block, and enemy's status. No bugs there.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Just because he's an assassin doesn't mean he is invulnerable, he should be easy to take out for a straight up fighter in an honest fight.

He IS easy to take out if you know what you're doing.

As it is, you better avoid combat unless you're a combat focused praetor or a mercenary. Which is how it should be of course, but it doesn't change the fact that damage absorption is completely broken.

In which way?

I like the combat a lot, I just don't like the idea that after combat you may not get a chance to properly rest and heal before getting into more combat. Like with the assassin, I killed him, but was left with little health, my next option was to either forgo delivering the contents of the merchant's chest or continuing on to another potential combat encounter. Now, granted, I said potential and I see that you can avoid that fight, but it felt cheap having to do so only because I was very low on health. Happened again after trying to join the Imperial Guard, killed the caravan guards, then couldn't get by fighting the two other recruits.

Some fights are a sequence and the trick isn't to beat the first encounter, but to be able to handle all of them. Without healing, of course.

 

[Vault Dweller]

How do you change the camera angle?

Middle button or Ctrl + mouse or Ctril + Del & other keys above the arrow keys.

Do skill checks all end in multiples of 5?(can't think of the correct english term)

No.

Why do stats only go from 4 to 10? as opposed to 1 to 6 or something

1 to 10 is easier to grasp, i.e. it's easier to understand what 7/10 means than 4/6. 1-3 means too low to succeed at anything. You're either too weak, too stupid, or too fucking ugly.

Can you wipe cities out by (somehow) killing everyone?

No.

Is there a way to make the game unwinnable, like by killing the wrong persons?

No.

Do you expect to get panned by reviewers? I think if the actual game starts out like the demo there's gonna be a lot of journalist butthurt and some spread of prejudice.

Fuck 'em.

Does the game reach a point where you can one hit kill regular people or something like that?

No.

 

[Excidium]

As it is, you better avoid combat unless you're a combat focused praetor or a mercenary. Which is how it should be of course, but it doesn't change the fact that damage absorption is completely broken.

In which way?

In the way that everyone can shrug off a dozen blows before dying.

Using an example, when I was ambushed by the merchant on my praetor, I chose to fight the thugs. Bashed the weak-looking one with my shield, he got knocked down. Then I stabbed him in the (unarmored) head with my gladius, over 90% hit chance, leaving him just lightly wounded. Didn't even bother trying to fight the other guy when his friend can stand almost unscathed after taking a sword to the face.

 

[commie]

Do you expect to get panned by reviewers? I think if the actual game starts out like the demo there's gonna be a lot of journalist butthurt and some spread of prejudice.

Fuck 'em.

How can you dismiss the 1-2 potential customers of your wares that frequent IGN by not paying off their impartial reviewers?

 

[Vault Dweller]

As it is, you better avoid combat unless you're a combat focused praetor or a mercenary. Which is how it should be of course, but it doesn't change the fact that damage absorption is completely broken.

In which way?

In the way that everyone can shrug off a dozen blows before dying.

Using an example, when I was ambushed by the merchant on my praetor, I chose to fight the thugs. Bashed the weak-looking one with my shield, he got knocked down. Then I stabbed him in the (unarmored) head with my gladius, over 90% hit chance, leaving him just lightly wounded. Didn't even bother trying to fight the other guy when his friend can stand almost unscathed after taking a sword to the face.

Trolling?

You're acting as if you've never heard about TB combat and DR before. Shrug off a dozen blows? Isn't that how pretty much ANY tb combat works? In any decent TB system you need to be able to last long enough to trade a dozen of blows otherwise the system would indeed be luck based.

You stab him in the face and didn't kill. This comment belongs on Gamespot or gamefaq where people expect to shoot or stab someone in the face and kill instantly. But... but... it was a sword in the face!

TB combat is an abstract combat. If your sword's damage range is 2-8 and you roll, say, 4 or 5 and hit someone in any part of the body which has 35-50 HP, why the fuck would you expect to kill him outright?

 

[Excidium]

Yep, i'm trolling because I expect combat in a low-magic world to be somewhat deadly and realistic instead of the "stand around trading blows and peeling hit points little by little" that D&D has perpetuated in cRPGs.

If I stab someone in the face I expect him to die or at least end up severely fucked, unless it's some sort of fantastic creature.

I am now imagining playing VtM using AoD's rules: A hunter unloads a flamethrower on you, it just crips your chest hair. Or maybe Dark Heresy, you get shot with a storm bolter and it just chips your purity seals. Because that's how TB works.

 

[Vault Dweller]

In TB combat, for you to have a chance to win, you need to stay alive long enough, i.e. you need to be able to absorb a number of successful attacks, using your HP pool. Same applies to your opponents, obviously. From this point of view it doesn't really matter if you smacked someone over the head with a two-handed axe. We roll for damage, reduce it with DR and subtract it from your HP. Like I said, it's abstract and it works. If you could be killed with a single attack to the head, combat would be purely luck based. You could just spam these attacks until you roll a lucky number and kill anyone you want regardless of your skill.

 

[Haba]

You're acting as if you've never heard about TB combat and DR before. Shrug off a dozen blows? Isn't that how pretty much ANY tb combat works? In any decent TB system you need to be able to last long enough to trade a dozen of blows otherwise the system would indeed be luck based.

What the fuck? I hope this is a case of too many hours spent on replying at forums and too little sleep.

You can have a perfectly good turn based system where ONCE you get into a position where a defenceless enemy receives a direct hit, it results in instant death. In fact, such a system is clearly superior to one where you "trade a dozen of blows" just to not be "luck based".

If you could be killed with a single attack to the head, combat would be purely luck based. You could just spam these attacks until you roll a lucky number and kill anyone you want regardless of your skill.

Then the problem is not in the fact that you can be killed from a single hit, but in the fact that random chance plays such a large role and that you have no way to bolster your defences/increase your chances to score that critical blow.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The biggest issue with combat is not whether or not it's realistic or anything like that. It's whether or not it's FUN.

 

[Excidium]

In TB combat, for you to have a chance to win, you need to stay alive long enough, i.e. you need to be able to absorb a number of successful attacks, using your HP pool. Same applies to your opponents, obviously. From this point of view it doesn't really matter if you smacked someone over the head with a two-handed axe. We roll for damage, reduce it with DR and subtract it from your HP. Like I said, it's abstract and it works. If you could be killed with a single attack to the head, combat would be purely luck based. You could just spam these attacks until you roll a lucky number and kill anyone you want regardless of your skill.

Well, man, I disagree but it's your game anyway. I'm content that I can TOTALLY AVOID COMBAT on my praetor and enjoy the text adventure aspects of AoD, at least in this demo.

What the fuck? I hope this is a case of too many hours spent on replying at forums and too little sleep.

You can have a perfectly good turn based system where ONCE you get into a position where a defenceless enemy receives a direct hit, it results in instant death. In fact, such a system is clearly superior to one where you "trade a dozen of blows" just to not be "luck based".

Bullshit, games like JA2 have shitty TB combat! People dying after being stabbed or shot in the head is fucking absurd and game-breaking.

 

[Darth Roxor]

If you could be killed with a single attack to the head, combat would be purely luck based.

Tried another game with a praetor. Combat is still random crap and everything else revolves around clicking '[stat] Let's win this!' or '1. Bye!' while reading rather banally written dialogues.

If I have to be perfectly honest here, I don't see any appeal this could have to me. Short dialogues work on a basis of '1. Bye!', long dialogues are seriously boring and I found myself just clicking through most of them, playing a text adventure with [win] options (yeah, that can fail, but it's not like the other options don't imply 'failure' either) is not exactly my cup of tea, no environment interaction is BAD BAD BAD and with the rather derp combat I think I'll just stay away. My combatfag nature has been pissed off, my storyfag nature is not satisfied and my explorationfag nature has not even been woken up. Shame.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Thanks for giving it a try.

 

[Infinitron]

Hmm.
How about a 'realistic mode' difficulty level? For the people that need the immershun.

 

[commie]

If you could be killed with a single attack to the head, combat would be purely luck based.

Tried another game with a praetor. Combat is still random crap and everything else revolves around clicking '[stat] Let's win this!' or '1. Bye!' while reading rather banally written dialogues.

If I have to be perfectly honest here, I don't see any appeal this could have to me. Short dialogues work on a basis of '1. Bye!', long dialogues are seriously boring and I found myself just clicking through most of them, playing a text adventure with [win] options (yeah, that can fail, but it's not like the other options don't imply 'failure' either) is not exactly my cup of tea, no environment interaction is BAD BAD BAD and with the rather derp combat I think I'll just stay away. My combatfag nature has been pissed off, my storyfag nature is not satisfied and my explorationfag nature has not even been woken up. Shame.

While I don't think the game is as bad as you say, (I found the approach different enough to pique my interest) I will brofist you for having your own opinion and not just falling into the Bioware style fanboyism of others here who are content to overlook the many shortcomings of it just because it's the mythical 'AoD'. Funny, if it was made by Bioware I doubt there would be any part of it free from the dripping bile of rage of these same people.

Would be good to have actual environmental interaction rather than virtually everything done in text adventure mode though. That's the part that's really got me stalled at a 50/50 chance as to whether I'd get the game or not. I want to sneak past a guard or be able to search an area myself damn it!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Btw, I haven't yet installed the demo, judgment on AoD combat has not yet been passed.

EDIT: I did get some bad vibes though when I was advised to either make a tank or talk-fag, with nothing inbetween being worth it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You were advised incorrectly.

 

[Carrion]

Using an example, when I was ambushed by the merchant on my praetor, I chose to fight the thugs. Bashed the weak-looking one with my shield, he got knocked down. Then I stabbed him in the (unarmored) head with my gladius, over 90% hit chance, leaving him just lightly wounded. Didn't even bother trying to fight the other guy when his friend can stand almost unscathed after taking a sword to the face.

Having "coup de grâce" as an attack option would indeed be nice for those kind of situations, although aimed attacks seem to do the trick in some cases. Maybe it only works when you get a critical hit, I don't know. 5-foot steps would also be a welcome addition to the combat system. Maybe also different defensive stances that would increase your dodge/block chance while lowering your To Hit chance (or vice versa) or something. I don't know if it's too late to implement any of those things at this point since I'd like to play the finished game some day, but I feel that a single fighter in ToEE has more options than this (not that it'd be very fair to expect ToEE level combat, but still, you only control one character in AoD). When you get to close combat, your tactical options are heavily reduced especially since there are no consumables you can use in battle. In close combat you can't throw anything at enemies and you can't really even move since you'll only get stabbed. I'll still need to try out a pure combat build to check out how the shield bashes, spears and some other stuff works, though. So far combat has been enjoyable but still lacking something, much in the same way Fallout's combat system was.

By the way, do your unused action points go to waste when you end your turn or do they affect your defense rating in some way?