Thursday is finally here.

[Vault Dweller]

It does make fights bleaker, desperate, and geared towards attrition, survival and grim resolve, though. You do feel like the dude in a fucked up world getting through rather than some high-flying artiste.

Pure poetry.

Can't wait to get back home and try more characters.

I'm glad you're enjoying it.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Stop masturbating.

 

[Excidium]

If your character isn't built for combat there are plenty of ways to avoid it, I didn't need to engage in a single fight on my praetor, and I'd probably lose hard if I did.

If you're a fighter, use the shield bash, attack their arms and legs to disarm/pin down, attack their heads if they don't wear helmets, throw nets, etc. There's plenty of tactical options, and you'll need to use them because people in the post apocalyptical empire developed an incredible resistance to damage, being stabbed in the face with a gladius somehow just leaves them slightly wounded.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

The cape physics are also pretty cool.

 

[Ermm]

Actually, someone should really make a fake trailer out of this.

I swear, the only reason I'm not stopping my work to do a quick trailer like this NOW is because my workstation is a filthy mac, so I can't play the game & capture some footage. Wait for it this weekend.

But don't forget to add ''uninstalled it'' after ''yes, died after the first fight'' like it was originally posted on RockPaperShotgun.

 

[Tigranes]

Stop masturbating.

Sorry.

 

[Phelot]

Still messing around as a merc. tried to join the Imperial Guard, attacked the caravan, barely survived, then had to fight two dudes with 1HP. This is pretty frustrating with the teleporting. Also, am I missing how to heal? Is rest all you can do to heal up?

EDIT: Derp. Well, I just noticed the giant "HEALER" sign on the map, but is there any way to heal during combat? Forgive me, I haven't been following the development all that closely, is there no magic or potions?

 

[Vault Dweller]

No healing in combat.

PS. I made a new friend:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/22/oh-look-the-age-of-decadence-public-beta/#comment-944662

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

I remember a time without AoD...

 

[Excidium]

I don't know how you people have the willpower to even open the RPS page.

 

[Phelot]

PS. I made a new friend:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/22/oh-look-the-age-of-decadence-public-beta/#comment-944662

Sounds like a love interest. Hopefully your charisma check will unlock the sex scene.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/22/oh-look-the-age-of-decadence-public-beta/#comment-944662

The game’s an “RPG” but dialogue options are incredibly scarce, with essentially no real roleplaying allowed.

The only way in this game to build even a barely passable fighter is to put none of your starting stat points in Strength or Constitution, and put none of your starting skills into any of the weapons.

This game will likely not make it past this beta period, and if it does it’ll be a $1.99 special on Steam because the basic combat/interaction code for the game is nonsense, and the “roleplay” is more like “knowing which options to choose”.

Honestly, after about 100 player builds and most of the day spent playing this garbage, you’d be better off playing the original Europa Universalis or D&D Daggerdale, or hell, Fable 3.

 

[Surf Solar]

One thing I have to add (on top of my stuff on ITS forum) - the game over screens were fucking good before. Now, you even went a step ahead. Fuck yeah, VD. This is such a big inspiration for my own stuff aswell that I just have to thank you. Even though I have horrible slowdowns still ( :/ ) on a new PC, I will try to wrestle through the game!

 

[made]

I'm not seeing what's so challenging about the combat. Maybe later on, but not the first few fights in the town.

I made a pretty balanced merc, spread points equally among the 4 combat stats, dumped all SP in hammers and some in crafting. I like how the other weapon skills increase by a percentage when you raise one btw.

I got through the entire chain of 4 or so fights without resting, just spamming fast attack. Maybe I got lucky with the RNG, idk. Had a look at the other attacks but with hit chances <50% or <25% for aimed attacks they are just not viable at this point (I assume hit chance increases with higher weapon skill) which leaves me with exactly one option for the foreseeable future. In Xcom for example you trade AP for increased chance to hit, here it's the other way around; the fastest attack is the one most likely to land. And ofc in Xcom you have a whole squad at your disposal so individual hit chance isn't that important, but with only one character your tactical options are severely limited. Do you get party members/henchmen in this game at some point? If not, I imagine the combat will get tedious real quick. Maybe other, non-combat focused builds are more fun, but my merc experience has been very underwhelming.

 

[sea]

Quick question - why no skill synergies for non-combat stuff? Why doesn't increasing Persuade also improve Trading, for instance, or Sneaking improve Stealing? Is it a balance consideration?

 

[Erebus]

I've played through the beginning with all types of characters except for the Praetor. It's obviously too early for me to have a global opinion about the game, but here are my first thoughts :

- During character creation, the player can only change his PC's ability scores if he chooses a Drifter. It's a tiny bit frustrating. I think it'd be better if he could make some changes (albeit not to the same extent as with the Drifter) with other classes.

- Like others, I found the way we're quickly teleported from one place to another (without exiting dialogue mode, for Thieves, Loremasters or Grifters) a bit jarring.

- From what I've seen so far, I'd say the dialogue could sometimes use more options. For instance, when the PC's trying to persuade someone, instead of just having one [Persuade] dialogue option, maybe there could be two : in both cases, you'd face a skill check, but it'd be a bit easier if the player had chosen the smarter thing to say. That would increase the player's involvement during dialogues (as opposed to just hoping his skill scores are up to the task).


I liked the clever way the different beginnings are interconnected. I like the fact that all of the skills seem useful and that there seem to be very different ways of playing. I like what I've seen of the setting so far. And I liked the fact that being too gullible (in the marketplace) forced me to face a fight too difficult to win (I suspected the offer was a trap, but I wanted to see the consequences).

 

[Excidium]

I've played through the beginning with all types of characters except for the Praetor. It's obviously too early for me to have a global opinion about the game, but here are my first thoughts :

- During character creation, the player can only change his PC's ability scores if he chooses a Drifter. It's a tiny bit frustrating. I think it'd be better if he could make some changes (albeit not to the same extent as with the Drifter) with other classes.

Uh? That's not the case, you can alter the scores of any class, minimum 4 and maximum 10.

 

[Erebus]

Uh? That's not the case, you can alter the scores of any class, minimum 4 and maximum 10.

You can ?? I should stop sniffing glue before playing CRPGs...

 

[Excidium]

Yup, and I pump my intelligence all the way up in true S.P.E.C.I.A.L fashion!

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/22/oh-look-the-age-of-decadence-public-beta/#comment-944662

The game’s an “RPG” but dialogue options are incredibly scarce, with essentially no real roleplaying allowed.

The only way in this game to build even a barely passable fighter is to put none of your starting stat points in Strength or Constitution, and put none of your starting skills into any of the weapons.

This game will likely not make it past this beta period, and if it does it’ll be a $1.99 special on Steam because the basic combat/interaction code for the game is nonsense, and the “roleplay” is more like “knowing which options to choose”.

Honestly, after about 100 player builds and most of the day spent playing this garbage, you’d be better off playing the original Europa Universalis or D&D Daggerdale, or hell, Fable 3.

Whose alt is that

 

[Vault Dweller]

And I liked the fact that being too gullible (in the marketplace) forced me to face a fight too difficult to win (I suspected the offer was a trap, but I wanted to see the consequences).

You can still win it and become buddies with Miltiades.

 

[Infinitron]

Yo, VD, a question.

How would you recommend playing your game? Do you think players should try to "roleplay", by deciding on a character build they want to work towards to right from the beginning of the game and not deviating from that plan?
Or should they upgrade their character strategically based on challenges they encounter while playing the game?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Decide on the character build, but I'd play a bit first to figure out how things work. You need to know, for example, that there are joint checks, like [persuasion][streetwise], etc.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

This beta turned out to be very meh for me.

The biggest gripe is the fact that all the possible choices and solutions aren't satisfying because you simply don't do much in this game. Most things boil down to you choosing between picking a skill/stat/item related dialogue line or initiating a combat. And that's it, end of line.

I can only second what some people wrote about the engine. To me it looks rather plain, especially the colours, and doesn't really run that well on a fairly high-end PC. The worst thing, however, is how it is put to use. You get a static scene, you choose an option, screen fades black, another static scene, not even short animations of your character doing something. In some instances, like for example the very first scene with you killing a merchant as an assassin, it looks really primitive and makes you wonder what is the point of having that 3d engine. This is an isometric crpg with turn-based tactical combat and most stuff done through text, it being 2d would not only make it clearer and more functional, but probably also prettier and easier to make/quicker to release.

I guess it's not a game for me, I never followed the development closely and always thought that it was supposed to be a true Fallout-inspired crpg, in other words Arcanum done right. There are three things that remind me of Fallout 1/2 here - character creation, combat and UI. And let's face it - out of these whooping three things two (combat + UI) were hardly where F1/2 shined. At least the simple, one character tb combat in F1/2 was smooth and satisfying. Not really the case here I'm afraid.

Of course this is still tons better than most of the stuff fed to the PC crowd in the last decade under the crpg banner so sincere good luck.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Game needs a few more side quests couse now it is logical game: guess the next place you have to put 10 XP you got or it is Game Over + Death Screen. I'm not complaining as it is over lvl2 Swine herder who single handed wipes out Military unit/Orc Horde and becomes Dragon slaying HEROtm after reaching level 5 but this will limit the game appeal to potential customers Adventurers.You can always put game difficulty slider and call it fag mode.... Or better not. I get throu all Demo with streetwise 40, Etiquette and persuession 35 Pretor who had 2 optional fights... (For Gold and steel gladius) Merc was just too painful to play and merchant/loremaster/ were a breeze.