Incline (not so) Long Awaited Volournian EARLY Impressions of AOD Demo

[RRRrrr]

I completed the demo with an assassin. Which fight caused all the complaining? The only hard fights were the first (idk, it took me 3 attempts to win it) and the last one (it would have been significantly easier if I could recover my health between fights. I didn't have any alchemical ingredients/potions, so I had to fight it with too little health). It wasn't too hard overall, though, I used heavy armor, a shield and the axe thing.

It would be cool if you had the option to walk away from any quest, though. What if I changed my mind and didn't want to enter the barracks, even though I agreed? It's not like everyone isn't backstabbing you when they have the chance :D.
Is there a way to see your enemies/allies hps? It would make things a lot clearer.


As for skill-checks- Sometimes I get a certain dialogue option that requires a certain skill (persuasion, streetwise etc) and it doesn't say whether I failed it or not. Is it just another dialogue option unlocked through having enough point in a certain skill that isn't about success or failure? Or is this a partial success?

Spoiler

As for my assassin playthrough, I chose to remain loyal to the guild and ended up fighting the guards. I used all my arrows in the fight when they set the guild on fire. It was very intense. Somehow, the combat system works even though you can only control your character. The AI still does some strange things, though, like using fast attacks on armored enemies...

Is there a way to convince the other assassins not to attack the barracks?
I was forced to leave the 3rd spy in the abandoned house alive, did that affect anything in the demo?

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's not the fights that cause all the complaining but people who can't play games requiring more than clicking really fast.

 

[Kem0sabe]

There are 7 different faction questlines (not counting the main quest): 3 noble houses and 4 guilds. Assassin, thief, praetor, and merchant start the game as active members of their respective guilds. They can change guilds later on (like assassin going to Maadoran in the first quest and offering his services to Gaelius or changing sides and joining the Guards, etc). Loremaster, grifter, merc, and drifter start as a free agents and have more flexibility in choosing their guilds.

You bastards are forcing me to do multiple playthroughs... Are you available to speak with my wife's divorce attorney if it comes to that?

 

[Vault Dweller]

 

[tuluse]

It's not the fights that cause all the complaining but people who can't play games requiring more than clicking really fast.

The most difficult thing for me was figuring out how high skills needed to be to survive the beginning. There's so many options with almost no guidance. Compare to Fallout where you got 3 skill tags which was a clue you wanted to pump 3 skills with your starting points.

Once I figured out what I needed in critical strike to kill that first guy (in the assassin playthrough) it was a breeze.

I almost think you should have a noob helper where it tells you "you want 45 skill points in either skill A, B, or C unless you know what you're doing".

 

[Vault Dweller]

I thought that would be obvious. From an older discussion on our forums:

"How are players supposed to know that a combat failure is because they need higher skills? How do they know it's not a poor distribution of stats? How do they know it's not the choice of weapon, of which there are 25+? How do they know it's not their attack choices, which vary subtly between weapons?"

"Here is how I see it (at leas that's how I play games):

- make a balanced build first, enter combat, see what happens.
- if almost beat your opponents (i.e. if you were very close), try again
- if not even close, change stats - see what you can do without. If a charismatic fighter can't win a fight, see if an ugly bastard can't. If he can't, see if a dumb and ugly fighter can.
- simultaneously, start decreasing skills' spread. Start with a balanced distribution, see where it gets you. If nowhere, start decreasing. It's a trial-n-error style approach, but in 3 attempts you should have a very good idea of where you stand and what's required to beat the fight you're stuck on it.
- so, eventually you should lock down the stats and skills and move to weapons and attack types.

If it sounds too complicated, it really isn't."

 

[tuluse]

The text adventures give way less feedback than the combat does. So my complaint is more addressed towards that end.

Also, I did figure it out, it was just the least fun part of the game.

 

[RRRrrr]

I deleted the demo because I have too many (important) exams right now. Can't wait for the full version. I only hope that it expands the setting much further as I really like the game world. The class that suits me best seem to be loremaster, so that would be my choice for the first playthrough once the game is out. I will roleplay a geek who is only interested in history and uncovering the secrets of the world, meaning I'd distance myself from politics as much as possible, serving no one.
The only thing that worries me is that in the demo the world didn't seem to big and there wasn't much to explore outside of the town. It would be great if the final game has a lot more wild territories.

Then I'd probably play as an assassin, and destroy the world if possible. Or just punish everyone who is in power.

With AoD and Wasteland 2 October will be an interesting month

 

[Vault Dweller]

In the full version there are 20 locations: 3 towns, a large military camp, the Ordu camp, a mountain pass, 2 Teron's satellite locations, the rest are ruins where interesting things could be found.

 

[Kosmonaut]

So... when will you release R4?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Don't know yet. First, we're still working on it. Second, we need to fix loading times and memory leaks first, which is a project in itself. We've made some progress, but not done yet. Third, we'll probably release it with Maadoran (makes more sense).

 

[Kem0sabe]

I found load times to be tolerable, didn't hamper my enjoyment of the demo in any way.

On another point, is it possible to do a no kills playthrough or are certain encounters unavoidable?

 

[Vault Dweller]

It depends on the questlines. Some are combat-oriented like the Imperial Guards who think that the best solution to the world's problem is a liberal dose of ol' fashioned violence. The thieves' questline is a good mix of combat and non-combat. You can fight your way through, you can sneak/talk your way through, or do a good mix. You can also avoid combat in both the merchant's and praetor's questlines.

Overall, combat is never forced on you. If you have to fight, it's because you made a choice or did something to trigger it.

 

[Gozma]

I was just thinking of something I'd appreciate: I'd like a sampling of what skill levels would be used to pass example checks, so I can get the flavor of what kind of skills are needed to pass a certain check.

E.g. how much fast talk is required to bypass a bored guard of no particular intellect that has no special vested interest in protecting what he's guarding besides his paycheck?

Just having a nice sample of shit like that (like in a .pdf manual ideally) would help me calibrate what skill levels to plan for and what a skill # "means" in-universe. Like in GURPS for example they verbally describe what stats and skill levels are mediocre/normal/excellent/superhuman in the books pretty emphatically, so you can develop an intuition for what is otherwise an inscrutable mass.

Without that I'd feel pretty justified to save/reload to determine skill thresholds.

Edit - I guess the above implicitly assumes checks are meant to be amenable to being "setting-driven" in that way, instead of just getting progressively harder as the game goes on to give you a reason to spend points. Like if that same guard-situation needs 10 points of talk to get past in the starting town and 90 in the endgame just because it's the starting town and the endgame.

 

[Severian Silk]

Overall, combat is never forced on you. If you have to fight, it's because you made a choice or did something to trigger it.

"Do you wish to engage in combat?"
"No."
"Game over. Combat was not forced on you."

 

[tuluse]

Vault Dweller, I was messing around with chargen in Darklands (since I should be banned if I haven't played it), and I came across this in the manual.

Don't you think a hint like this would be useful to first time players without really taking anything away from the game?

 

[Vault Dweller]

It might work, but we're trying something different.

 

[Azrael the cat]

why no dualweild.. yeah, you can equip 2 weapons in the two hand slots but you can't use them at same time.

Thank God. Dual-wielding is moronic, high-fantasy retardation.

Sort of. It was never ever used, nor practical, in the sense that fantasy books and computer games portray it - i.e. as attacking with 2 weapons. It wasn't uncommon in some cultures, and by some people, to use a long attacking weapon with a shorter weapon in the other hand for parrying. The idea was that they'd try to parry with the shorter weapon in such a way as to open up a gap in their opponent's defences. But they'd almost never attack wtih the off-hand weapon - it was clumsy, they'd probably end up dropping it, and it simply wasn't the strategy that it was there for.

Conversely, shields WERE actively used in a manner similar to dual-wielding in computer games. It was part of standard European combat to use your shield not only as a guard, but as something to batter your opponent's head in with. They tended to break less readily than swords, so if you wanted to really smash something, the shield was the better bet. Moreover, it was much easier to execute combinations of alternating sword and shield attacks (thrust, smash your shield into their face, then thrust again to finish them off) than with two swords.

 

[Helton]

Sometimes when I knock a guy out and there are bodies on the tile, I am unable to target him for further attacks. Serious bummer when it happens, lost a tough fight with bandits I would have won otherwise. Bug or feature?

Also, I've gotten mostly accustomed to the camera, four games in and many partial attempts. But it took a while. Its pretty clunky. I know that's not terribly constructive, sorry. Even now, it gives me some serious headache at the aforementioned bandit encounter, just for instance. The camera bumps into the zone border and trees are often in between me and the action.

I like the game a lot. Played the Assassin questline twice, Merchant Guild as a Loremaster and as a Praetor once. Missed a lot of sidequests the first three games. Might still be missing some. Feeling of badassery at the end of the Assassin quest is pretty awesome. Of course I've heard its the easiest combat questline so maybe now I need to grow some balls and work for Carrinas.

Not a whole lot to suggest other than:

Improve the camera?
Can we get shorter load times? Major suckage every time I want to try another dialogue or die in a close fight.
You could use another pair of eyes or two editing I think. A fair number of typos scattered about. The dialogue is awesome, actually, I'm not suggesting any re-writing, just proof reading.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Sometimes when I knock a guy out and there are bodies on the tile, I am unable to target him for further attacks. Serious bummer when it happens, lost a tough fight with bandits I would have won otherwise. Bug or feature?

Bug, of course. Will be fixed.

Also, I've gotten mostly accustomed to the camera, four games in and many partial attempts. But it took a while. Its pretty clunky. I know that's not terribly constructive, sorry.

It is pretty clunky but we can't do anything about it. Sorry.

I like the game a lot.

Thanks.

Can we get shorter load times? Major suckage every time I want to try another dialogue or die in a close fight.

Yes. We're working on the optimization right now. Loading time is reduced by 50-90%.

You could use another pair of eyes or two editing I think. A fair number of typos scattered about. The dialogue is awesome, actually, I'm not suggesting any re-writing, just proof reading.

Will do.

 

[Lancehead]

Wanted to ask something, probably been answered already: how does everyone know my character's Body Count, especially if I'm paying a character like assassin? Or does that particular reputation only apply to those who do know my character's exploits?

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's your reputation. Think of the famous mafia enforcers. Nobody knew how many they killed, but the consensus was that they killed a lot and had no problems murdering people and that's the role [body count] checks play in dialogues.

 

[Zed]

Do you have a modifier for that?

i.e.
High charisma = 5 dead bodies and person A reacts in a negative manner
Low charisma = 3 dead bodies and person A reacts in a negative manner

 

[Vault Dweller]

No. We use modifiers with other skills, but not with body count.

 

[Osiginon]

Just stumbled upon this Volourn and...um...wow! Thanks! As both a freelance music composer and a complete narcissist, your words have definitely given me a boost!

I haven't really gotten much "recognition" for my composing work in AOD - what with the long list of AOD-discarded-composers that preceded me - so it is nice to hear that my work is appreciated and does add to an already amazing game.

Just wanted to say thanks! And if you ever want me to send you some of the tracks, just let me know!