Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

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I agree, except for the idiot part. On my first build, with no prior experience, I handled a majority of the starting encounters using only daggers without much in the way of tactics. For instance, I have not even tried to use a net or bola. I was solely using normal attacks as well.

Then again, I was playing as a drifter so I am not aware of how difficult the opening scenes are. And, of course, when 3 or more enemies show up I am right and truly fucked. I figure this won't be much of a problem in the full game as you will have the chance to avoid the hard encounters until later.

Also, for people who are complaining about being a warrior with little in the way of dialogue options, I recommend putting as much points in intelligence as possible. It is not only used as a dialogue check, but also helps you gain skill points--which look like they might be scarce in AoD.

Bro maybe you ought to pay closer attention. You're basically telling people they need to pay attention becuase they don't know the 'right' way to do things. You designed the game, so of course you know how to win the fucking fights easily. The codex didn't and don't. Ignoring feedback like this is textbook bad design. 'If you don't already know how to play you're fucked!'

Also, the Imperial Guard questline is stupid as shit:
'Hey new guys we don't know or trust go and do some incredibly illegal shit for us thanks.'
'Hey new guys we only want one recruit, and now we need two corpses, kill each other.'
'Yeah we've been recruiting dudes so we can take over the town. Go take over the town.'
So for those following along at home, we have a questline in which an organisation kills two guys they really could have used (and who they apparently trusted implicitly). Aren't there beggars and raiders and shit everywhere? Going and grabbing a couple of them would actually make sense.

EDIT: I also love how no-one thought death spirals are a bad idea in a single character game, especially one where tactics cost AP. 'Yep better use some tactics, I'm getting my arse kicked here. Oh shit I don't have enough AP left to do anything except normal attacks.' Yeah nice one boys. The best part was how I lost all my HP before I even had a chance to react. How does init work in this game anyway?

+easy combat doesnt teach anything - comment.

The problem here is rather that the players do not get the chance to learn how hard it is.
They do not get the chance to learn the combat.

- because they dont have the chance. (yeah some do but we can actually disregard those because they had some for knowledge or read info about the game here or on the IT forums. some rare, rare few maybe got it without this but those are actually rare exceptions)

In order to actually learn it, and in order for the game to teach it - first few encounters must be easier.
It does not take anything from combat hardness or rather quality away. It just makes it better.

This is like having Ordu duo as a first arena fight....
There is a nice enemy progression in the combat demo.
Very nice. Its great. Isnt it? It starts with easy opponents and the ramps up with great few spikes, like three barbarians, Ordu, Triari etc.

JUST-MAKE:IT:LIKE:THAT:IN:THIS-DEMO

Thats all you have to do.
In fact its even easier since you only need to adjust first two or three fights and nothing else.

I mean, forget that guy on RPS, forget morans and forget skyway and biodrones and mass market crap.

Do it for you audience.
Because like this... youll loose a good deal of sales for no fucking reason.

/
btw, ... im just being blunt here, nothing else.

At the risk of sounding like I want to dumb things down...maybe a combat tutorial akin to the first few fights in the combat demo wouldn't be a bad idea?

I don't like the idea of changing the difficulty of the opening fights...as someone on ITS pointed out, making the first fight fairly difficult can help you determine if you've made a worthwhile combat build or will run into even greater difficulty later in the game.

I've already explained, so let's try it one more time.

Day 1 complaints about combat difficulty are worthless and there is nothing 'constructive' about them. If you can figure out everything a combat system does and kill everyone in your path, this system is poorly designed.

We spent a long time on the combat system and it was tested extensively: testing combat demo, release and reaction, testing the full demo, release and reaction. We made exactly what we wanted to make and after 2 years there are no surprises there for me. I know what to expect and I know what's possible and what isn't.

But I suppose I should listen to people who played it for a few hours and felt that they are entitled to bitch and moan.

A hard fight gives you a perfect opportunity to learn combat and try different things.

Besides, after seeing what the options are, it's really fucking easy. Use the default stats, increase CS a bit, attack him with the bolt and finish him off. I just did that. Killed him 3 times out of 3.

Or play with your stats, increase THC and use the net, shield bash, and aimed/power attacks. Killed him 3 out of 5.

Or go with swords and CS. Or ranged.

Or increase persuasion and leave without killing him. It's an optional fight. You don't have to fight fair or at all.

Yeah, you should. These people are your customers. Most people on the Codex are reasonably experienced with TB combat systems. Most of them were looking forward to a game which wasn't a high fantasy murderfest. You're getting a lot of feedback about how the combat system is slow, requires min-maxing, and is generally at the mercy of the RNG. You're ignoring it on the basis that they haven't played the game enough, and that they expect to 'kill everything in their path'.
As to the first point, your design rests on the fact that players will be willing to experiment with the combat system in order to solve the puzzles, while the game simultaneously punishes you for attempting this (since you'll have to click through the text adventure sequences AGAIN). Therefore, they won't do it. The second point simply isn't true.

In conclusion: your game's badly designed. Deal with it. Then fix it.

I'd love to check if the people who are complaining the AoD combat is too difficult to be fun and those who claimed Skyrim is good for what it is are mostly the same. But I can't bother checking and I already made a guess about it.

To make it brief on combat, from my experience the following are the most important stats and skills:

Ranged: Intelligence, Dexterity, Perception; Critical Strike, (Ranged Weapon Skill), Dodge, Throwing*
Melee: Intelligence, Strength, Endurance, Dexterity**; Block, (Weapon Skill), Critical Strike, Crafting(optional but recommended)

Still didn't try spears, but most 2hw are a bad idea IMO. You'll want the protection of heavy armor more often than not to survive. If it was possible to parry strikes using your own weapon two-handed weapons other than the spear would be a little better.

As for crafting. In the demo the best armor you can craft with 50 points in it offers 11 DR.

Depending on the type of melee weapon, Critical Strike will be more important than the weapon skill itself, and as a plus it'll allow you to take down enemies through dialogue choices at times if you carry a dagger. This is particularly true for daggers, although the effects of criticals delivered by hammers and axes can also be good enough to justify investing in it first provided you have enough of to-hit chances without boosting your weapon skill any further.

*Whatever is enough for your character to have a reasonable chance of hitting the enemies with nets and bolas.

**6 in the demo, or 7 in the final game if you intend to invest in crafting up to 50 points for the lightened technique that gives the heaviest steel armor 9 max AP.

Problem with combat is that skills aren't particularly balanced(2hw are only better if you get lucky) and truth be told, for better or worse I'm starting to think that character development in AoD will be like your progress in those oldschool adventure games where making mistakes will require you to start all over again sometimes. Except it isn't as obvious. What I mean is that in this game it is usually better to start over with a different build than to grind through save/load.

This is of course a purely academic debate, but with a King of Dragon Pass style interface, the kind of encounters there are in the AoD demo could be handled exactly the same way as in KoDP, i.e. as semi-random events tied to leaving/arriving at specific locations (tavern, marketplace, gate, etc.). The actual advantage of the 3D graphical environment is that (even if it doesn't happen in AoD) ITS can easily add (meaningful) exploration to text adventures and combat, which if done well would be an amazing combination.

On a different note, after several playthroughs I'd say the game is actually a lot more entertaining with a less-then-ideal character, because a) you get to see a lot more content and various paths to different goals as you fail almost every check (my first and extremely conservative grifter build "completed" the demo in under 9 minutes, passing every check, which is of course cool too, but tends to give a false sense of railroading) b) it plays sort of like an actual adventure game as you slowly run out of options and need to work out a precise sequence of actions to pull through. I know some people hated this aspect but I thought it was both original and fun (if a little unfair with certain builds where the optimal set of skills runs at least in part contrary to intuition).

No it doesnt. If its the first one you get.

Why was the combat demo different then? Why not put Ordu at the very start?

The whole system is not being taught by this fight.
I know this (maybe not to such detail) you know, people that get the system do.
This has nothing to do with that first fight. (except the option to not fight at all - but that comes before the fight too)

- Basically i would just repeat the previous post here. I cant explain it any better than that, and its not supposed to be taken as each sentence separately.

Fuck off ass kisser.

ONLY for those that already understand the bloody combat system and have experience with the whole bloody AOD system.

HOW MANY BUYERS DOES THAT TRANSLATE TO?

Er...maybe that's why I suggested having a combat tutorial similar to the combat demo? So people can get familiar with it?

I'm ignoring it on the basis of two beta tests. We've recruited a lot of people (many are Codex veterans) to test the game, so I'm not talking about my opinion here. These people have shaped the game's difficulty, but it took them more than a day to learn it.

Naturally, people who aren't good at it (yet), go for min-maxing or reloading looking for better rolls, which doesn't mean that these are the best and only ways to beat the demo.

You've been very helpful.

Linear, unskippable fights require a different approach.

Anyway, I hear what you're saying; I'll see what we can do but can't promise you much.

I'm liking this so far. It's been a while since I got my ass handed to me in the first 5 minutes of a game.

- I love the combat! I don't get why people are having issues with it.
- The transition between scenes was a bit jarring in the beginning. I guess I'm just used to having to walk everywhere in RPGs. Not a big deal, though.
- I'm playing at 1900x1200, so I also will agree that scale-able fonts would be a plus.
- Misspelling - "Inkeeper" - in the dialogue box when I started a Drifter character.
- The music and art are quite good for an indie game. Cool setting and atmosphere.

Very promising game, can't wait to play some more.

Playing assassin.
Using a dagger/dodge, it seems like fast attack and critical is the only way to go? And use the 3 ap daggers, everything else = your death? Maybe dagger is just a wimpy way to go, but it feels like an assassins choice

So... does it work on Wine? Haven't had a chance to even download it yet.

I'll admit I don't know the 'right' way to play because I'm not clicking a dialog option that says 'Ok blindfold me and lead me into a small room with multiple enemies surrounding me' but that's pretty much what always seems to happen.

Ranged weapons are better for assassins. If you want to try a melee though, get some throwing weapons too to have a few extra strikes from range before getting to melee. Nets and bolas are good ones too, obviously. The dagger skill has a good synergy with the throwing skill. Throwing knives are good against unarmored or lightly armored foes while the pilum is the weapon of choice against armored ones. First though you should aways use nets/bolas unless the enemies are beyond their range but in range of your other throwing weapons.

Even with those tips, the battle against the spies and the final assassin's battle can be very frustrating with a melee build. High agility and dodge are pretty weak for melee characters compared to block+above average agility and heavy armor.

Had the opportunity to try the demo and I'm having mixed feelings.

I love how I can play the same story from different perspective depending on my starting class and how I can even be a character that is a NPC in another playthrough (the assassin). On the other hand, there's not that many decisions after you choose your class, though. You have one quest line, and although some quests have a couple of ways to finish them, there's usually just one outcome. I'm also disappointed how limited your choices are in dialogues, even with high persuasion and streetwise.

The demo is genuinely promising, but when you take into account that it's taken years to develop this thing, I'm skeptical whether it's ever going to be an actual game worth buying

.

edit: I fucking love how the combat is unforgiving. But teleporting around and getting only 1 dialogue choice is a gigantic disappointment.

Amazing work! I've only had time to play a scholar, but I must say I am impressed by the sheer number of alternative solutions there are. I am buying it day one.

Still, at the very end I felt trolled like hell when my outspoken scholar entered "unavoidable" random encounter and had to die in pain, because he couldn't do shit. One could say it was realistic... but frankly, if my smartass but weakling character had to travel from one city to another he would have secured himself an escort or travelled together with a caravan to better his chances of survival in the wilds. That would actually make some sense, since - in my case - I was travelling as a representative of the merchant guild - so if they were sending some wares, they could take you as well. It was even more strange considering how easily I could avoid fighting throughout the entire demo until that point.

As it is, I had to reload earlier save and give shitloads of points into sneaking, just to see the ending screen. Oh, well... I think that tomorrow I'll try assassin.

Regarding combat - earlier I creater melee oriented Pretorian, but at one point he died a horrible death. I've yet to grasp the nuances, read the guide posted earlier, but I like what I see. Nonetheless, like Grunker, I can't help feeling that the combat system would have worked wonders in party-oriented RPG with multiple controlable characters.

Edit: I hope VD has more of the content ready, and what was saw in the demo was but a minor part of it. Else, the Thursday isn't coming for a looooong while.

Thanks.

Which one? There are no unavoidable random encounters, so you must have done something.

If you mean the ambush at the end of the MG questline, it happened because you threatened Mercato instead of handling it more diplomatically. There are several options at the ambush, but I guess your stats/skills were too low.

Disagree. Been shredding everything but the mine (had to resort to benny hill tactics) with a 10/10/4/8/4/4 assassin. 10 dex is just fucking insane. Not only does it let you shank someone 6 times a turn, but it always gives you first turn so you can either crit a unarmoured target to the point of uselessness or run away and net a group of heavies.

Combat is fucking fun.

I wonder how Loremasters will play in the final version, as they are one of the most interesting character concepts after the Grifter. I've read somewhere that only lore-oriented characters will be able to get some of the best gear, and even some kind of magical power armor, while on the other hand their starting quests and skill checks mostly suggest to discard combat skills altogether. a loremaster/archer build is somewhat viable though because of the high PER benefitting loremasters, but I'm not so sure if it would pay off to have lore and crafting as the only non combat skills for one in the full game, as some kind of initially weak but mid to late game powerhouse, like the typical wizards of more cliche CRPGs.