What do you think about AoD?

[Captain Shrek]

I'm not doing it for money, if that's what you're asking. I'd like to make RPGs for a living and AoD is a test to see if there is enough interest.

You are going to lose.

:shrug:

That's actually precisely why. But I am bored. So thanks for the answers!

 

[Jasede]

Maybe if it was about the money you'd come off as more passionate.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Maybe if it was about the money you'd come off as more passionate.

That's right. My car runs on hot air too.

 

[Vault Dweller]

That's actually precisely why. But I am bored. So thanks for the answers!

Let me elaborate. Making games isn't a goal in itself. Thus I see no reason to do 'safe' games, even for the hardcore audience, just so that I can make a few bucks.

Contrary to what's been said, I'm very passionate about games and AoD is a product of love. We just love different things, which should hardly come as a shock. I'll do my best to promote AoD and I'm glad that many people (relatively) enjoyed the demo and decided to support us. At the same time, I always knew that AoD is a risky project, and I'm ok with it. We may lose, but at least we've tried and made something, and that's worth something too.

Maybe if it was about the money you'd come off as more passionate.

 

[Jasede]

Oh come now; a lot of great artists and, yes, video game designers would certainly not have poured as much love and effort into their games if their survival hadn't depended on it.

Maybe I'm just wrong again; in that case I apologize for my ignorance.

 

[Captain Shrek]

That's actually precisely why. But I am bored. So thanks for the answers!

Let me elaborate. Making games isn't a goal in itself. Thus I see no reason to do 'safe' games, even for the hardcore audience, just so that I can make a few bucks.

Contrary to what's been said, I'm very passionate about games and AoD is a product of love. We just love different things, which should hardly come as a shock. I'll do my best to promote AoD and I'm glad that many people (relatively) enjoyed the demo and decided to support us. At the same time, I always knew that AoD isn't a risky project, and I'm ok with it. We may lose, but at least we've tried and made something, and that's worth something too.

Look.

I understand you. Very very well. But selling game is not like selling Lemonade on the street and you probably know that Better than I do. You must have suffered from costs in terms of licensed software, time and tension. Why not try and make it more attractive? This can only result into your game:

1) becoming more enjoyable
2) better
3) sold more (NO GUARANTEE)

If you actually manage the last to make some good bucks you ensure safety too as a bonus. I have nothing against bonuses and neither should you.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Why not try and make it more attractive?

Like?

Overall, we took our time and did the best we could. Some people like it, some people don't. Sure, we can tweak a few things here and there, much like we did in R2, but that's about it.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Like improving the writing!

Unfortunately, that happens to be the central reason why most people play RPGs. And you should know! You moderate a board full of us!

 

[Gord]

The writing is alright, imho, if a bit onesided maybe, at least if it only continues along the "this world is full of power hungry, scheming backstabbers" line.
I also didn't think there's not enough lore in Teron - as long as you do more than just teleporting around.
And I had no problem with the camera. Hm, maybe I'm too next-gen already.

It's just that this game is sending too many mixed signals about how to approach it and/or is too far from the way people like to approach that type of games.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

I think VD means that he already HAS done his best on the writing and is content with the general reception thereof. A wholesale rewrite by say a third party would require more time and resources for a varying gain that he has factored out as not worth the risk.

at this stage the structure has settled I think

 

[Castanova]

You're expected to play one many times, slowly learning what kills you and what doesn't. AoD's overall design is very similar. That's why we have teleporting and no filler. You create a character, distribute skill points as you get them, run him/her through the game, see what happens. Sure, the first time you have no idea what to expect (much like in roguelikes), so you'll probably die fast. Fortunately, replaying won't take much time and you won't be forced to do fedex quests and run all over the town.

I don't expect you to read it all over again. You click through and get to the point where you died.

no filler

You realize your argument (and, it seems, your game design) is internally inconsistent, right?

Dialogue check 'synergies' in R2 make failing due to missing a couple of points all but impossible

Then why do you need to put points into social skills at all? It's fairly obvious that, in this game, you play a social character, or you don't.

 

[Johannes]

I don't see how standing still and whacking opponents over and over again, gives you any room for interesting maneuvers.

Like what? What kind of maneuvers do you normally do in tactical RPGs?

Anyway, here is a non-tactical game: you face multiple opponents; all you can do is target one, fight till he dies, target another one, rinse and repeat. It's not the case in AoD. While you do have a single character, you have a very large variety of attacks that work well with different weapon types (within the class). These options can make quite a difference and explain why people who don't grasp them do very poorly in combat. The mere fact that some people claim that the game is impossible or die constantly, where others don't, clearly point that success depends not on build/gear but on tactics.

The different attack types and weapons don't really change what you're doing. You're still standing and whacking, even if you've got to do some analysis on which weapon and which attack is good in a given situation. Look at it this way - what kind of interesting things can happen DURING an encounter in AoD? You can get a lucky critical in or your opponent might, but even that doesn't change your behaviour so much - you're still just whacking away, though bad luck might force you to go for riskier moves in order to have any chance.

And what kind of maneuvers in other games? Let's think of just single PC games to compare to. Importance of movement would be the biggest thing missing. Look at roguelikes, now ADOM, for example. Even a simple fighter with nothing but a melee weapon and a ranged weapon can, against a group of enemies, try and maneuver around so as few as possible get to hit you at a time. Also if things go bad you can try to escape (and you can switch to a defensive stance where enemies have a harder time hitting you but you do less dmg if you try to hit). Then eventually there's all kinds of status effects like blindness, invisibility, stun, poison, confusion that can be applied by both you and your enemies... And most of these mostly affect the movement game, too - you can attack like you can before but you don't know for sure which square the opponent is in, etc.

Whereas in AoD every attack besides net is first and foremost just for dealing direct damage, and you mostly shouldn't move around after engaging to avoid those AoOs. Sure, there'll be the alchemy added which I hope will bring some interest to things (at least more fun into the preparation if not the combat itself).
But to be more interesting I think the game definitely should promote movement somehow - say, remove the Attacks of opportunity on disengaging, instead make that first step out of range cost extra AP or such. And maybe give all characters an attack that pushes an opponent one square back with no or negligible damage, to give more real options beyond choosing between a high-risk attack and low-risk attack with similar average damage expectations.

And maybe add some synergy between melee and ranged skills, so you're not forced to lock yourself out of one of them or be horribly gimped - giving more options for a single character to choose from.


As far as using the correct attacks in a combat matters - yeah it does, but it's really shallow tactics and while it takes a while to figure out which attacks to use when, it's easy to soon hit a cap where you just cannot improve anymore or learn anything new.

 

[Infinitron]

VD has already sort of admitted to the tactical limitations of his game, a few pages back. No back-pedaling!

 

[Vault Dweller]

You're expected to play one many times, slowly learning what kills you and what doesn't. AoD's overall design is very similar. That's why we have teleporting and no filler. You create a character, distribute skill points as you get them, run him/her through the game, see what happens. Sure, the first time you have no idea what to expect (much like in roguelikes), so you'll probably die fast. Fortunately, replaying won't take much time and you won't be forced to do fedex quests and run all over the town.

I don't expect you to read it all over again. You click through and get to the point where you died.

no filler

You realize your argument (and, it seems, your game design) is internally inconsistent, right?

No. Filler is content that serves no purpose other than inflating gameplay time - trash mobs, in-game cutscenes, fedex quests, running back and forth between NPCs, etc.

Skipping dialogues you've already read, which takes a mouse click, can hardly be qualified as filler.

Then why do you need to put points into social skills at all? It's fairly obvious that, in this game, you play a social character, or you don't.

For the same reason you put points into combat skills in action RPGs/dungeon crawlers.

 

[Castanova]

Look at roguelikes, now ADOM, for example.

Johannes speaks the truth, here. Roguelikes are great examples -- look at Crawl, too. A melee fighter has no options at all in terms of hand-to-hand combat. You can only hit somebody or you can do something else entirely. And yet it's still fun and tactical. The tactics come from positioning and items with their wide variety of effects.

 

[Castanova]

Skipping dialogues you've already read, which takes a mouse click, can hardly be qualified as filler.

You compare the game design to roguelikes -- do you expect people to restart if their character fails 5 hours into the game? 10 hours? How long would it take to get back to where you failed, but now with a better build, even if you can skip dialogs with just a mouse click? Or do you only expect people to restart if their character doesn't seem viable in the first hour or so? Does a character that survives through the first hour generally continue on to finish the whole game?

Also, trash mobs at least have the opportunity to drop useful items. They can also drain your resources a little bit in games that don't allow infinite resting globally.

For the same reason you put points into combat skills in action RPGs/dungeon crawlers.

Not even remotely similar. Points in combat skills, at the most basic level of implementation, cause gradually better performance. Importantly, this better performance is usually quantifiable to the player (+X damage, etc). And then, on top of that, most games implement things like special abilities or skill trees that you unlock with combat skills. You don't unlock anything by dumping more points into Diplomacy. It's not even clear how much better you are at Diplomacy now. Social outcomes are binary and mysterious. Social characters have no choices to make, in terms of character building. The real choices are made in the dialog trees, not on the stat sheet.

 

[Marsal]

...

Good points, but (almost) all have been suggested before. This complete thread seems like one big déjà vu.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I realize that "It's like rogue-like" is just another weak excuse, but really, AoD would never work as a rogue-like. Rogue-likes work because they're fast and you can do 100 tries in an hour if you want. Can't do that in AoD. And skipping dialog with a click? Can you even advance in the game if all you do is click on the "Goodbye" option? And who would want to get fucked up because they just clicked blindly through the dialog? So, unless you memorize the correct options I don't see how you can skip the dialog so quickly.

 

[Vault Dweller]

First, it's not an excuse. I'm merely explaining (to those who enjoy civilized conversations and are interested in design discussions) why some things were designed a certain way and what the thinking was.

Second, yes, roguelikes work because they are fast, Captain Obvious, and AoD, with all the teleporting and no filler design, is very fast too. If you're playing a non-combat character, you can beat the demo in 20 min.

Third, no, you can't advance by skipping dialogues, but if you decide that you need a better character, you can quickly skip dialogues you've already read, like redoing the vignette and a few quests, for example, and be back where you were before in 5 min.

 

[Johannes]

What would be the result of giving the player more skill points, though? Less reloading and more varying options in skill use - a positive or negative thing?

 

[l3loodAngel]

Maybe if it was about the money you'd come off as more passionate.

You are not helping the retard side either.

 

[Johannes]

Wait. You're the guy who said AoD is like chess? Well played, I'm slowly starting to think you're actually for real.

 

[Jasede]

Maybe if it was about the money you'd come off as more passionate.

You are not helping the retard side either.

I already defended this statement; care to show how I am wrong?

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Teleporting around is annoying.

Now the bad part, id say the teleporting

Too much teleporting around. It's annoying and it completely kills the immersion.

the textportation thing is jarring.

The teleporting is certainly a matter of taste, but I didn't care for it.

Teleporting around is annoying.

This. My only complaint.

The teleporting seemed a bit forced at times

Teleporting is probably the worst decision they've made.

Teleporting sucks.

Can't comment myself though, the demo won't run on my jurassic rig. But it seems a big consensus, for the Codex that is.

 

[Phelot]

Obviously, we need MORE TELEPORTING