Thursday is finally here.

[Erebus]

Yeah, Feng's a clever subversion of the stereotypical sages so often found in CRPGs. Loremaster was one of the last classes I tried and it was quite amusing to hear him explain how the "this is a very rare and valuable object" line he'd previously used on me when looking at my map was nothing but his usual way of extorting more money from his clients.

I have no problem with the writing, but I think that the dialogues are a bit too utilitarian. Very little is said that's not directly linked to a quest. Adding a few unnecessary dialogues here and there would lessen the dry practicality (and they could be used to fleshen out the setting, to detail how people view the world around them, to introduce elements that will later become important, etc.).

 

[Forest Dweller]

At the same time, I was blind to many other issues that taken me by surprise and the feedback (and posts like yours, Marsal) have really helped me see it and realize the mistakes. We started fixing them almost immediately. We aren't going to change the core, but there is quite a lot we can do within it. Not to make someone like the game, but to make the game better.

What are those things, exactly? What are you doing?

 

[circ]

More references to sweaty gay sex.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Actually yeah, I'm very interested in an update changelog myself.

And perhaps even what you want to change but can't for technical/excessive work required reasons.

 

[kazgar]

Actually yeah, I'm very interested in an update changelog myself.

And perhaps even what you want to change but can't for technical/excessive work required reasons.

Also curious, and wondering if there's going to be a second demo, or fixes are going into main game. I'm guessing a second demo, while useful, will get weird as the first one's gone around the internet a few times, and you'll have people not knowing which version is which.

 

[made]

...OR FACE THE WRATH OF SKYWAY!!!

You would do well to drop the attitude and listen when skyway sacrifices his valuable time to school you. He is exceptionally well versed in TB combat, as evidenced by his mastery of ToEE.

 

[J_C]

Wow, Skyway has really picked up arms against VD. And meanwhile souding like a whiny little bitch (no surprise here). The game has problems but calling every part of the game broken is retarded. And some of these "broken" things are not really broken, he just doesn't like the design of the game.

 

[Shadenuat]

I've gone all meta-ass one game with my Mercenary to get some insight on playing fighting type. Here's my way of doing things so far:
- Create a Merc (10-9-9-4-4-4). All points go in DODGE.
- You will spawn with a one handed weapon and, if you are lucky, some nets. Attack assasin, throw nets on him if you have any. Use FAST attacks to bring him down. I ended up with about 25 HP. Equip leather armor from assasin and hood.
- Agree to escort trader. You will face two thugs. We are going for maximum kills, so choose attack option and go for upper thug. Once again, I used FAST attacks to bring him down. The other thug will go for trader, but I managed to kill both of them before trader was killed. Ask trader for more moneyz, and when he disagrees, kill him. Grab 250 gp from him, and all the stuff from thugs.
- Go to Feng, kill the dude for him and take ingots from dude's body. Don't buy any junk from Feng, just get your 50 gp.
- We have a lot of stuff now. It's time to create weapon of choice for the game. Decompose three iron daggers and sell all the other junk. Up Craft to 35, else goes into weapon of choice. I've made a two-handed Axe (exotc one, NOT Labris. Exotic has bonus damage for Fast Attacks). This type of weapon will have DR -2 on target and can crush shields. With DEX 9, you can deliver 2 fast attacks or 1 normal and 1 fast attack. The balance with targeting is shitty, so FAST attacks are the real deal.
- Also buy Silk Ordu armor and helmet (0% Dodge penalty).
- It's time to get some free Skill Points by worshiping the goddess of all CRPG players - Lady Mindless Slaughter:
1) Accept the deal of Maltedas. You have first turn in a fight. Go for dude with dagger and bring him down with fast attacks. Proceed to axeman, he's not that good in dodge and does't wear a helmet, so one could get lucky with targeting his head. Kill Maltedas when he shows up.
2) Buy a Kebab at the gate and attack guard and thief. Kill thief first, then guard (axe probably will split his shield). Pay 5 other guards 200 gp. That way we trade 200 gp for dead guards Iron Lorica. Equip it.
3) Go to gates, pay for refugees with "I'll want tenfold!" option. Follow refugee smith and bring him down with fast attacks, and kill everyone else.
- Time to join assholes. My Axe skill was 40, Dodge 52 and Craft 35. Switched to Ordu Armor again (but keep Lorica). Go to Barracks and join Imperial Guards. In the first fight, you can throw some nets, but with 2-handed iron axe dudes actually go down pretty fast. The thing behind 2-handed is to flank opponents by standing in diagonal square near them. That way 1-handers can't reach you and ignore you til later, but you can hit them. Try to protect your axeman and then kill lightly-armed opponents, starting with merchant himself.
- Now you must kill your comrades. I had about 20 HP. Fast attack them to death.
- It's time to get some real action, the kind of action which would make you jump on your chair when you'll manage to win hard combat like that. But we must prepare and meta everything first.
Okay. Put all points into CRITICAL STRIKE, up to 43, and grab yourself a dagger. Go to Palace and take all quests. Then look for alternative entrance. Choose the guard near wall. Critical Strike him - you'll get +1 Critical Strike skill for that. Go inside, climb the roof with DEX check, critical strike second guard. Another +1 to CS. Grab key, go to bedroom, then to throne room. Critical Strike last guard. He needs 45 check, but you got it by killing 2 dudes before. Show map to the Lord. We now have 46 CS. More than enough... for a slaughter.
- Time to mop up Raiders Camp. It's hard (or impossible?) to do with only dodge or armor. Arrows will kill a dodger, and targeted attacks will go through heaviest of armor. So the perfect balance would be this: decompose Lorica, buy more iron, create DR7 Lorica. Now it's about 40 Dodge and 7DR. That is JUST enough to pull this off.
Critical Strike leader. Bring down dude with club, then spearman, then axeman. Timing and luck should be just right, if when axeman falls down, the guy in Ordu armor runs out of arrows and goes for you with saber. Kill him. When he will die, the next guy will probably run out of arrows and go for you with axe - bring him down too. The last naked guy then dropped his bow and tried to kill me with axe - I ended the combat with 5 HP. Loot!
- 53 Axe, 52 Dodge, 50 Critical Strike. Though it does't really matter, because the next hard as shit fight is actually a test for your ability to survive, not to kill. Speak with Centurion and go for Tower quest.
There is a 45 Dodge or Block check. Pass the Dodge, and choose to fight Outside. Thing is, archers are cheating. If you try to AOO them by blocking their exit when they are standing in doorways inside the tower, they'll teleport. It's not the only encounter where stuff like that happens.
You will be paired with axeman, against one-hander with axe and shield, dude with sword and archer. Now we need to play our cards well to get some kills and survive, too.
Disengage and run for archer. Hit him with fast attack. If you get lucky, you can wound him severely or even kill with AOOs. Your mate will probably die. Try to kill axeman then, and after him - swordsman. Things will start to get rough in a few turns, when more archers will go down to meet you, and whole Imperial team will get slaughtered, probably.
That's our time to "desert". Run away from tower to south, where some trees are, and hit "end turn" button until every other of your comrades is dead. Enemies won't follow.
Combat will end and you get teleported back to Centurion, and get 10 SPs. Killcount - 30+.
- Provoking Antidas and fighting him. I have not a fucking single clue what to do here. You are outnumbered by 2 dudes who are bosses. Enemy seems better trained and equipped, too.
Antidas himself is not a Lord with etiquette and persuade, but a Deadshot, able to snipe with his crossbow across whole room from his chair to door for more than 10 damage, and with 55 Axe I had about 36% chance to hit him... with *fast* attack.
The main doors are locked, the stairs at left are useless (there is no escape by roof, even if it looks like it), and guard at the right door does nothing.

 

[RK47]

IMO, all this Codex bitching is the Universe's corrective mechanism for ensuring this game has a bright future. It just may turn out to be the best thing that could've happened.

The Codex is like the abusive parent that pushed you into becoming a star athlete.

... A broken, emotionally stunted, star athlete...

...for the special olympics.

 

[Johannes]

Oh, is there even any LGBT NPCs in the game? The game really could use some "filler" dialogue to flesh out the world and make you care about what side you pick.

 

[Lumpy]

Yes, you are right, but why start listening to people now if you never did before? A lot of the things would take 5 minutes to fix, like dodge sucking so much over block and enemies critical hitting like ever single time (compare to how much this happened in fallout, almost never), and have been brought up a hundred times at least. Go fix those two items immediately and I will give a list of a hundred small issues that can be fixed just from the combat demo. Again. Otherwise I won't even bother.

Dodge vs. Block is not a matter of stubbornness - as far as I remember, Dodge was a lot better than Block in the Combat Demo.

 

[J_C]

So, my impressions about the demo. Keep in mind that although I played a lot of RPGs in the past, I never was the kind of player who made the best, most optimal build, I hate metagaming and min-maxing. Meaning I know my build is not the best, but I wanted to make it this way.

I rolled a crossbow using assassin, with stats: 6-10-5-9-5-4. I put the most skillpoints to crossbow, critical strike, dagger, dogging and sneaking.
Combat: AoD is one tough motherfucker, I had to restart the game at least a dozen times, because I couldn't defeat the first mercenary with my current build. The fights after that were no easier, I almost gave up the game at the mining camp and the bandits camp. Then I realized that combat should be the last option, if the enemy outnumbers my PC (at least most cases). Thankfully there are always other options (sneaking, intimidating, bribe, critical strikes etc). The problem with this is that it is possible that your skills are not high enough, so the alternatives are not available and you have to resort to combat. Which you will lose, if you don't have a very good build. This system encourages skill points hoarding, which I don't like. Of course nobody is forcing you to hoard skillpoints, I for one never used it and spent my points immediately.
The only thing I hate about the combat is the encounter design. In the demo you are always teleported into the fight, which sometimes puts you into a disadventage if you are a ranged character. This especially sucks if you are alone. If you have NPCs with you, the fights become more interesting, because the enemy is not concentrating only on you, so you can use your crossbow/bow better.
Oh and there is a bug which sometimes unequips every weapon, so you have to spend APs to equip the weapons in the beginning of the fight.

Writing: I think it is OK. It's nothing spectacular but didn't have problems with it. But there should be more NPCs on the map who you can talk to about stuff. The town, gossips, hints, things like that. This never hurts in an RPG. Oh, and conversations which lead to death if you lack skill is stupid if you don't have Leave option.There are a few of this kind.

Graphics: Decent. Torque engine, 'nuff said. But it is not a problem. I like the UI. Question: I had a magic ring (Gallo's ring IIRC), which had a discription, but I couldn't see what bonuses it gives. Is this normal, or it is just a bug?

Sound: The background music is nice, but - and this is my biggest gripe with the game - the whole game lacks atmosphere. I'm an audio whore when it comes to games, and the lack of ambient sounds and sound effects was offputting. You can hear the weapon sounds, blocking sounds when you fight, but that's it. No footsteps, no people talking at the market, or at the inn. No birds singing or wind blowing in the forest. Maybe it is a small thing to others, but it is important to me. Edit: OK, I disabled the music and sometime you can hear some silent ambiance, but you can't hear that if the music is on.

Other: Teleportation. I mentioned that during the combat, but I don't like it at other parts of the game either. I remember when VD said that running there and back during quests is boring and doesn't add anything to the game. Maybe, but watching fade-in fade-outs one after the other is not better.

All in all I think AoD will be an enjoyable RPG, but I must say that there are some questionable design decisions in it. I know that ITS wanted to make an unique, hardcore RPG, and as far as I know, they will succeed. But there are things in the modern RPGs, which work well, they should have used these mechanics.

 

[Notorious]

Wow you pissed off both 1eyedking and skyway. You must be doing something very right.

Also saying that the game is completely broken is retarded, it has good performance and interesting mechanics, you can criticize it in detail but the game itself looks very solid. And yes the biggest problem is metagaming you should be able to guess better what level of skill you need. Teleporting will just piss off a lot of people (And critics), personally I don't have a problem with it, but you might wanna take it out completely because it isn't all that important to begin with.

 

[skuphundaku]

Yes, you are right, but why start listening to people now if you never did before? A lot of the things would take 5 minutes to fix, like dodge sucking so much over block and enemies critical hitting like ever single time (compare to how much this happened in fallout, almost never), and have been brought up a hundred times at least. Go fix those two items immediately and I will give a list of a hundred small issues that can be fixed just from the combat demo. Again. Otherwise I won't even bother.

Dodge vs. Block is not a matter of stubbornness - as far as I remember, Dodge was a lot better than Block in the Combat Demo.

So the solution to dodge vs. block being very imbalanced in favor of dodge is to make it very imbalanced in favor of block? The fact is that, in this demo, dodge is significantly weaker than block. With block, you rely on high DR armor and shields, which means that each hit you take is at least attenuated by the armor, the only disadvantage being fewer AP. With dodge, sometimes you roll enough to dodge a hit, but even with 60+ dodge, it's still quite infrequent and you're at the mercy of the RNG. If you fail the roll, you get nothing and, because you're forced to wear light armor or just plain clothes in order to avoid being penalised too much, you take damage much faster. The advantage of up to 3 AP (1 or 2 more likely) is not enough to counterbalance the much faster rate at which you take damage.

 

[Gord]

So one could either increase AP penalty from armor, increase success rate with dodge or add additional benefits, like successful dodge incurs a to-hit penalty for your enemy on the next hit, because you moved a bit out of reach, or such.

 

[Pope Amole II]

- Provoking Antidas and fighting him. I have not a fucking single clue what to do here. You are outnumbered by 2 dudes who are bosses. Enemy seems better trained and equipped, too.
Antidas himself is not a Lord with etiquette and persuade, but a Deadshot, able to snipe with his crossbow across whole room from his chair to door for more than 10 damage, and with 55 Axe I had about 36% chance to hit him... with *fast* attack.
The main doors are locked, the stairs at left are useless (there is no escape by roof, even if it looks like it), and guard at the right door does nothing.

The problem here is that you were fucked from the moment you have created your char - mercenary without 8 int is a dead meat, unable to walk through the demo. In the end quest, if you just stormed the tower, Carrinas sends you straight to your death - end fight is almost impossible with retards in bronze crap he gives you. Now, if you had 8 int and chosen to storm the tower cleverly, he'll see your value as a soldier, will train you greatly (+10 free dodge & block!), and will send ironclad elite troops to accompany you, making the slaughter of antidas possible. Your only choice when you don't have int is pumping the skills needed to persuade ol' Anti and I heard somewhere that skill check there is pretty low, just 35 in both, but I can be mistaken there.

Still, it's a fucking great design that a typical meathead that a mercenary is can't go on without having much Int, really great subversion (no).

BTW, in your grinding you all miss the broken tower behind the healer - if you have high enough per and craft, you can find an extra artifact there, but even without them, you can just kill the squatters there for 4 xp and free body count.

 

[Tigranes]

You mean to say, the fight is too difficult and should be balanced better, right? But I guess you could put it as some sort of 8-Int Conspiracy if that helps you sound cool. Also, it's nice that you point out the alternative then it doesn't factor into your polemic at all.

I've tried the fight a couple of times with my combat IG that could beat the mines and the best I did was getting through just over half of the enemies, I'll do a few more before I start harping on about whether it's fine or should be nerfed.

Edit: With 8 AP you can close Antidas down in one turn, then, with good combat skills, take him down in two. With 50 sword and fast attack I had little trouble hitting him, and of course, he has no armor and not that good dodge. The bigger problem I think is that your IG fellows are outnumbered and generally weaker; I'm thinking that for melee characters the key is to lure 3-4 (including Dellar) to you. I've heard it's a lot easier with throwing / nets / etc.

 

[Menckenstein]

Can we get more dialog(ue) like this:

 

[circ]

- Provoking Antidas and fighting him. I have not a fucking single clue what to do here. You are outnumbered by 2 dudes who are bosses. Enemy seems better trained and equipped, too.
Antidas himself is not a Lord with etiquette and persuade, but a Deadshot, able to snipe with his crossbow across whole room from his chair to door for more than 10 damage, and with 55 Axe I had about 36% chance to hit him... with *fast* attack.
The main doors are locked, the stairs at left are useless (there is no escape by roof, even if it looks like it), and guard at the right door does nothing.

The problem here is that you were fucked from the moment you have created your char - mercenary without 8 int is a dead meat, unable to walk through the demo. In the end quest, if you just stormed the tower, Carrinas sends you straight to your death - end fight is almost impossible with retards in bronze crap he gives you. Now, if you had 8 int and chosen to storm the tower cleverly, he'll see your value as a soldier, will train you greatly (+10 free dodge & block!), and will send ironclad elite troops to accompany you, making the slaughter of antidas possible. Your only choice when you don't have int is pumping the skills needed to persuade ol' Anti and I heard somewhere that skill check there is pretty low, just 35 in both, but I can be mistaken there.

Still, it's a fucking great design that a typical meathead that a mercenary is can't go on without having much Int, really great subversion (no).

BTW, in your grinding you all miss the broken tower behind the healer - if you have high enough per and craft, you can find an extra artifact there, but even without them, you can just kill the squatters there for 4 xp and free body count.

7 int is enough to get better IG troops. I don't know what the charisma or whatever req for centurion is though. Not that being a centurion matters for the demo.

 

[skuphundaku]

BTW, in your grinding you all miss the broken tower behind the healer - if you have high enough per and craft, you can find an extra artifact there, but even without them, you can just kill the squatters there for 4 xp and free body count.

Who says we missed it? Some of us found that on our first playthrough, not after a whole week.

 

[Shadenuat]

The problem here is that you were fucked from the moment you have created your char - mercenary without 8 int is a dead meat

Bad design then. Premade merc does't have even 7 int. Should have been a check for [Body Count] and Combats, because that is what worth when it comes to soldiers and mercs, no?

BTW, in your grinding you all miss the broken tower behind the healer

You can only kill dudes if you get artifact I think. You need 6 or 7 PER and 50 Craft.

Still, it's a fucking great design that a typical meathead that a mercenary is can't go on without having much Int

I don't see the point in combat if it's not enjoyable. At least for merc it's like:
a) You make a combat char, and win some battles, but can't proceed because combat is too hard without non-combat skills.
b) or you make more of speaking char, and you can't win most of the battles now, so you might as well forget about combat and just solve everything through dialogue metagaming.
I guess there is a thine line between those two, where you could do a lot of combat and still do some dialogue, but it's so thin, that meta is the only way to reach it.

If you can't beat combat unless you have tailored combat-only grunt, why not actually make it beatable and enjoyable? It's not like any other char would find it possible or fun to play the game through combat.

 

[Elhoim]

Bad design then. Premade merc does't have even 7 int. Should have been a check for [Body Count] and Combats, because that is what worth when it comes to soldiers and mercs, no?

It's not bad design if the designer made a check for 6 intelligence, not 8. Don't believe everything you read at forums.

Also, after that one there is a Charisma check of 6 to convince them of your plan. We changed that in the next version, you can convince a soldier to distract the guards if he respects your fighting reputation (combat and body count). Also, the charisma check is higher there.

 

[circ]

Bad design then. Premade merc does't have even 7 int. Should have been a check for [Body Count] and Combats, because that is what worth when it comes to soldiers and mercs, no?

Also, after that one there is a Charisma check of 6 to convince them of your plan. We changed that in the next version, you can convince a soldier to distract the guards if he respects your fighting reputation (combat and body count). Also, the charisma check is higher there.

Nice. Except, you're raising the charisma req from 6 to something else?

Also, charisma question. I went by the preacher guy at the palace square with a talky int guy before noticing that talky route really bores the hell out of me, and he had more to say but despite passing several streetwise and persuasion checks I failed a very high charisma check? Is this just a charisma check like the others where he will just tell some story, or something more interesting? Anyone know?

 

[Commissar Draco]

It's not bad design if the designer made a check for 6 intelligence, not 8. Don't believe everything you read at forums.

Also, after that one there is a Charisma check of 6 to convince them of your plan. We changed that in the next version, you can convince a soldier to distract the guards if he respects your fighting reputation (combat and body count). Also, the charisma check is higher there.

Maybe you should give default Merc the the 6 in CHA and INT? it is the average number (for healthy men in game) for both. Some shop for House Daratan? If only to buy the matching spare shields and Praetor helmet?

 

[Emily]

I think it would be nice to make some description next to the number, so we know just what is avrage, and what is considered what... : )
Also would be nice to make sure that new players understand that creating an char that has less then 6 in some stat will be havily penalised for it ( by being taken advantage off in this perticular case) : ).