Vault Dweller
Commissar, Red Star Studio
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2003
- Messages
- 28,024
Yes, replacing. Thanks.
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
Age of Decadence Released
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
Elhoim
Iron Tower Studio
I'll say this much: this is maybe the first game I've played in which steam cheevos have an actual purpose inside the game: that is, they keep track for me of how much content i still have in store for doing other playthroughs.
btw Vault Dweller , these are my stats upon arriving on Maadoran with a Praetor. They seem a trifle...er...high to me? pls comment
Looks good to me. Don't get in a fight, though
Last edited:
Kilus
Educated
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2012
- Messages
- 40
Vault Dweller The trailer on Steam Page says the game is in early access. When you get a spare moment you may want to change that. There is already a moron on reddit who couldn't see the game is out of early access(the lack of the early access disclaimer didn't help).
Executr
Cipher
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2014
- Messages
- 303
That's the guy who made the Stardrive games, the MoO2 clones. The guy's an asshole.
Johannes
Arcane
Would the game sell worse if it was easier?
Ayreos
Augur
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2015
- Messages
- 109
Next game will have an "Easy" and "Very easy" settings, with "hard" and "impossible" unlocked on subsequent playthroughs. "Impossible" will be roughly the current difficulty. The game after that will be an Oblivion clone.
Just putting my bets out early seeing the "market pressure" out there...
Just putting my bets out early seeing the "market pressure" out there...
Zorba the Hutt
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2012
- Messages
- 1,865,661
Steam is still a goldmine. If only there had been a few oldschool RPGs that weren't party based:
sqeecoo
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2006
- Messages
- 2,618
Guys, congratulations on publishing your game! I preordered a while ago when you could barely enter Mandoraan, so I hope I'll soon find the time to play the full thing.
I must say I was a bit turned off by the reliance on savescumming and metagaming (hopefully that's been toned down a bit for the final), but that's partly personal preference - other than that, the game is amazing in every single aspect, from art to story to worldbuilding to combat. A huge achievement, and I hope you make more.
I must say I was a bit turned off by the reliance on savescumming and metagaming (hopefully that's been toned down a bit for the final), but that's partly personal preference - other than that, the game is amazing in every single aspect, from art to story to worldbuilding to combat. A huge achievement, and I hope you make more.
Or you could just do that yourself... 
Or you could just do that yourself...
It's nice to not have the temptation though of breaking the play style. Low willpower.
lightbane
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 10,193
Wow, so this is out, for real? Yay! Congrats to the whole team! Hopefully Underrail and Barkley 2 are the next to come out.
I tried the Steam demo, rolling as an Assassin because everyone knows that violence solves everything. Died during the first quest against the bodyguard, in spite of passing the Critical strike skill test, the fucker managed to get a critical attack before I was able to finish him. Then the game proceeds to insult me for dying against a hired mook for extra injury. 10/10, woulddie play again.
My only complains are that the font size is a bit small and I can't find the hotkeys, but I believe these are easily solvable problems.
I tried the Steam demo, rolling as an Assassin because everyone knows that violence solves everything. Died during the first quest against the bodyguard, in spite of passing the Critical strike skill test, the fucker managed to get a critical attack before I was able to finish him. Then the game proceeds to insult me for dying against a hired mook for extra injury. 10/10, would
My only complains are that the font size is a bit small and I can't find the hotkeys, but I believe these are easily solvable problems.
bminorkey
Guest
I finished the game a couple of times now and got most of the interesting endings (I haven't played it since the Teron alpha thingy was released). Did I beat yall? This is a quick bullet-point review with some spoilers.
- The combat is passable to good. I thought it was somewhat repetitive and the animations felt slow-paced, but I was impressed with a lot of the functionality (enemies ending up shooting each other because I'm in the way or because I dodged a bolt; spears; alchemy; other good things)
- The setting is really nice and I thought the combination of Roman Empire+alien'thulu was very creative.
- I'm very impressed with how every playthrough feels so different from the other and how there are so many ways to do things.
- The most frustrating thing with this game is how extremely easy it is to lock yourself out of content without knowing you are doing so. I had to restart my playthrough many, many times until I managed to progress certain areas (sometimes it was because I was missing an artifact you can only get at the very beginning of the game, sometimes because my Con/Dex stats were 1 point below what they needed to be, etc). From what I found online the developers' stance on this is that the choices wouldn't have as much impact if this wasn't the case, but I feel like a little more flexibiltiy and - more importantly - more telegraphing of the consequences of the individual choices would've made it a much less frustrating experience to get the ending you want. Getting to the very end of a long and arduous quest only to find out your stat checks aren't high enough to get the ending so you have to restart, is not very fun. As it is, it makes the game feel more like a puzzle game than an RPG.
- In terms of presentation, the game suffers from a whole lot of telling and very little showing, with the exception of the last act. I couldn't get myself interested in the inner political bickering of the various factions because basically none of their characters interact with each other that you can see. More often than not I felt like my character was this meta errand girl without which these guys would just be frozen in space and time.
- Gosh, the music kinda sucks.
Make no mistake though, I think this is a pretty good game. Overall I had a lot of fun playing it, but I felt it was more of a puzzle game than an RPG.
- The combat is passable to good. I thought it was somewhat repetitive and the animations felt slow-paced, but I was impressed with a lot of the functionality (enemies ending up shooting each other because I'm in the way or because I dodged a bolt; spears; alchemy; other good things)
- The setting is really nice and I thought the combination of Roman Empire+alien'thulu was very creative.
- I'm very impressed with how every playthrough feels so different from the other and how there are so many ways to do things.
- The most frustrating thing with this game is how extremely easy it is to lock yourself out of content without knowing you are doing so. I had to restart my playthrough many, many times until I managed to progress certain areas (sometimes it was because I was missing an artifact you can only get at the very beginning of the game, sometimes because my Con/Dex stats were 1 point below what they needed to be, etc). From what I found online the developers' stance on this is that the choices wouldn't have as much impact if this wasn't the case, but I feel like a little more flexibiltiy and - more importantly - more telegraphing of the consequences of the individual choices would've made it a much less frustrating experience to get the ending you want. Getting to the very end of a long and arduous quest only to find out your stat checks aren't high enough to get the ending so you have to restart, is not very fun. As it is, it makes the game feel more like a puzzle game than an RPG.
- In terms of presentation, the game suffers from a whole lot of telling and very little showing, with the exception of the last act. I couldn't get myself interested in the inner political bickering of the various factions because basically none of their characters interact with each other that you can see. More often than not I felt like my character was this meta errand girl without which these guys would just be frozen in space and time.
- Gosh, the music kinda sucks.
Make no mistake though, I think this is a pretty good game. Overall I had a lot of fun playing it, but I felt it was more of a puzzle game than an RPG.
Last edited by a moderator:
Finished it several times in just one day and with a lot of backtracking? Not a long game, is it?
bminorkey
Guest
I would say it has about 25-30 hours of content if you want to full-complete it. I have 14 hours in so far, and got I think 5-6 different endings excluding variations with minor differences, and I have 39 achievements out of 109. After the first three endings, I used info I found online to help me get the rest of the endings (there are a lot more endings than this, I just got the variations I found interesting), so that sped up my playtime by a lot I think. I also used the double animation speed option for combat and walking.
Last edited by a moderator:
Got my GOG key from Komrade VD; Rolling Infinitron Merchant now. :russia:
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,404
Something Awful on AoD, with a guest appearance from Admiral Jimbob: http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...473537&pagenumber=90&perpage=40#post451429920
(there's a good rebuttal from Leinadi there too)
THE PWNER said:
There's many disappointing things about this game. It's been in development for a long time, and most of those development hours clearly went into raw amounts of content (this is being generous, there really isn't much content) and lots of mediocre writing rather than improving the general experience. I wouldn't be surprised if a fair bit also went into begging for positive reviews and downvotes on any negative reviews - there is no way this game warrants an 88% positive rating otherwise.
Pros:
-Semi-interesting setting, acceptable writing, lots of reading if you feel like it - but there are much, much better works you could be reading instead.
-You get to play an isometric RPG as a single character rather than a party, which is uncommon.
Cons:
-Advertised as "hardcore," but really, the game is extremely simple at its core. Tedium is NOT difficulty. Dying a lot doesn't make the game "hard," either. Yes, you'll die a lot in Age of Decadence, but it's not like, say, Dark Souls, where you can outplay your death. You just reload and click the other option in AOD; nothing about this game requires much thought and it certainly doesn't test your skill, ever, at any point. Allow me to elaborate:
For a non combat character, you essentially just click choices in a dialogue. For you, that's the game - it's like a tedious visual novel. You also have to keep old saves and save your skillpoints, because you need to level up the correct skills to pass dialogue checks, otherwise you can't progress. You will get lots of game overs as a non-combat character just because you invested your points into the wrong skill, whereas a combat character always has the (realistic) option to muscle their way through any situation the game might present. It's a bit disingenious that the creators say that combat is the hardest way to win the game; you'll probably reload LESS as a properly built combat character than you would a non-combat character.
-Combat is extremely simple, and is mostly RNG based. You mostly spend your Action Points in the most damaging way possible, then move as far as you can to force your opponents to spend additional AP travelling to you on their turn, so they get less attacks. You'll beat the game just fine taking the violent option in basically every situation, as long as you keep your equipment and attributes updated appropriately, and you won't break a sweat doing it. It's heavily random, though, so you might have to reload some fights until your attacks actually connect. But all in all, both combat AND dialogue in this game are really, really simple.
-All combat is set pieces. There's no random encounters, roaming enemies, or anything like that. Every battle is a pre-made set piece that comes behind a loading screen.
-NO EXPLORATION. You get to places by clicking on the map. That's it. There's no roaming the plains and discovering things yourself, nothing like that. How shallow. In the few situations where you might find something interesting, instead of exploring itself, you're usually going to be clicking through a couple of dialogue screens that explain what your surroundings are like, etc.. Hey, how about you SHOW IT TO US instead?? Too much effort?
-Each location hub is heavily lacking in content. You should finish Teron in about 30-45 minutes once you know your way around, Maaadoran is the same. You'll run around thinking "surely, there's something more to do here?" mousing over every NPC you see hoping they are interactable, only to find that no, there isn't. Those npcs are just scenery.
-Every second bit of dialogue will be full of swearing. Not that this offends me, but really, writer: there are other, less obnoxious ways to emphasize that your setting is "gritty." The overuse of profanity is just hamfisted and lazy.
-Game looks like crap. I'm no graphics nut, and I'm well aware of what the devs are going for, but that's just an excuse. Visuals are an afterthought in this game, and it's not good enough that the package as a whole can make me ignore that. Compare the look and feel of AOD to other new isometric games like Project Eternity. There's no comparison.
If you're an oldschool RPG fan, I advise you to stay away unless you've played every other oldschool RPG and you're just desperate for another. This game isn't for you, I'm not sure who it's for, really. The only ways to really enjoy are:
1-Treat it like a choose your own adventure game where you have to reload your last save every 2 minutes, and save every 30 seconds, or
2-Just make a completely OP combat character and put up with the extremely random, simple, tedious and boring combat so that you can experience the story.
But the story, even on its own, isn't anything special - so why would you suffer through a bad game just to read it?
This game should have been a mostly ignored e-book on Amazon. The only reason it's getting any attention at all is because it shoved itself into a genre it doesn't deserve to be a part of. I hesitate to call it a game, let alone a "hardcore old-school RPG."
Pros:
-Semi-interesting setting, acceptable writing, lots of reading if you feel like it - but there are much, much better works you could be reading instead.
-You get to play an isometric RPG as a single character rather than a party, which is uncommon.
Cons:
-Advertised as "hardcore," but really, the game is extremely simple at its core. Tedium is NOT difficulty. Dying a lot doesn't make the game "hard," either. Yes, you'll die a lot in Age of Decadence, but it's not like, say, Dark Souls, where you can outplay your death. You just reload and click the other option in AOD; nothing about this game requires much thought and it certainly doesn't test your skill, ever, at any point. Allow me to elaborate:
For a non combat character, you essentially just click choices in a dialogue. For you, that's the game - it's like a tedious visual novel. You also have to keep old saves and save your skillpoints, because you need to level up the correct skills to pass dialogue checks, otherwise you can't progress. You will get lots of game overs as a non-combat character just because you invested your points into the wrong skill, whereas a combat character always has the (realistic) option to muscle their way through any situation the game might present. It's a bit disingenious that the creators say that combat is the hardest way to win the game; you'll probably reload LESS as a properly built combat character than you would a non-combat character.
-Combat is extremely simple, and is mostly RNG based. You mostly spend your Action Points in the most damaging way possible, then move as far as you can to force your opponents to spend additional AP travelling to you on their turn, so they get less attacks. You'll beat the game just fine taking the violent option in basically every situation, as long as you keep your equipment and attributes updated appropriately, and you won't break a sweat doing it. It's heavily random, though, so you might have to reload some fights until your attacks actually connect. But all in all, both combat AND dialogue in this game are really, really simple.
-All combat is set pieces. There's no random encounters, roaming enemies, or anything like that. Every battle is a pre-made set piece that comes behind a loading screen.
-NO EXPLORATION. You get to places by clicking on the map. That's it. There's no roaming the plains and discovering things yourself, nothing like that. How shallow. In the few situations where you might find something interesting, instead of exploring itself, you're usually going to be clicking through a couple of dialogue screens that explain what your surroundings are like, etc.. Hey, how about you SHOW IT TO US instead?? Too much effort?
-Each location hub is heavily lacking in content. You should finish Teron in about 30-45 minutes once you know your way around, Maaadoran is the same. You'll run around thinking "surely, there's something more to do here?" mousing over every NPC you see hoping they are interactable, only to find that no, there isn't. Those npcs are just scenery.
-Every second bit of dialogue will be full of swearing. Not that this offends me, but really, writer: there are other, less obnoxious ways to emphasize that your setting is "gritty." The overuse of profanity is just hamfisted and lazy.
-Game looks like crap. I'm no graphics nut, and I'm well aware of what the devs are going for, but that's just an excuse. Visuals are an afterthought in this game, and it's not good enough that the package as a whole can make me ignore that. Compare the look and feel of AOD to other new isometric games like Project Eternity. There's no comparison.
If you're an oldschool RPG fan, I advise you to stay away unless you've played every other oldschool RPG and you're just desperate for another. This game isn't for you, I'm not sure who it's for, really. The only ways to really enjoy are:
1-Treat it like a choose your own adventure game where you have to reload your last save every 2 minutes, and save every 30 seconds, or
2-Just make a completely OP combat character and put up with the extremely random, simple, tedious and boring combat so that you can experience the story.
But the story, even on its own, isn't anything special - so why would you suffer through a bad game just to read it?
This game should have been a mostly ignored e-book on Amazon. The only reason it's getting any attention at all is because it shoved itself into a genre it doesn't deserve to be a part of. I hesitate to call it a game, let alone a "hardcore old-school RPG."
Leinadi said:
THE PWNER said:
Admiral Jimbob said:"you're gonna have a ROUGH TIME if you want to claim that this game you enjoy is good"
(there's a good rebuttal from Leinadi there too)
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,404
In before THE PWNER is here too.
Zorba the Hutt
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2012
- Messages
- 1,865,661
Haha that Kasseopea tard is now telling VD how good Oblivion was
http://steamcommunity.com/app/230070/discussions/0/490123197943449365/#p3
Starting to think this is too good to be true
http://steamcommunity.com/app/230070/discussions/0/490123197943449365/#p3
Starting to think this is too good to be true
GloomFrost
Arcane
Holy sweet fucking mother of God!! NOW I truly have seen EVERYTHING!!
darthaegis
Cipher
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2014
- Messages
- 403
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.