Preview RPG Codex Re-Preview: The Age of Decadence

[Blaine]

As I've said, the art direction itself is fine.

My opinion is less a criticism than an observation that concessions and compromises had to be made, resulting in a less-than-ideal implementation. Given more resources and/or the presence of more and/or better artists earlier in development, I'm sure the game would look quite different now.

It gets the job done and isn't bad, but can anyone honestly look at it and say, "Good enough! No room for improvement, I wouldn't have done anything differently."?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Even though the game looks pretty blocky (especially character models), I think you guys really made the most out of it and the art direction overall is fantastic. Strangely enough, it reminds me of Thief in that way; blocky, ugly character models and buildings, but an unforgettable style and personality that more than makes up for the flaws. The portraits are every bit as good as Arcanum's, Maadoran looks really nice (especially the Commercium District), and the game has quite a few scenic areas like the Monastery that look memorable.

Thanks.

 

[Blaine]

Thanks.

You missed, much like my AoD character 75% of the time.

 

[Vault Dweller]

As I've said, the art direction itself is fine.

My opinion is less a criticism than an observation than concessions and compromises had to be made, resulting in a less-than-ideal implementation. Given more resources and/or the presence of more and/or better artists earlier in development, I'm sure the game would look quite different now.

It gets the job done and isn't bad, but can anyone honestly look at it and say, "Good enough! No room for improvement, I wouldn't have done anything differently."?

Not me, that's for sure.

 

[MRY]

It gets the job done and isn't bad, but can anyone honestly look at it and say, "Good enough! No room for improvement, I wouldn't have done anything differently."?

Not me, that's for sure.

Game development, like Arakis, teaches the attitude of the knife — chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: "Now it’s complete because it’s ended here." VD may have resisted this more than almost any other developer I can think of, but at some point you have to say enough. (Also "Good enough" and "no room for improvement" seem very different; the former should always be true before you ship, the latter will almost never, alas.)

 

[Vault Dweller]

Amen, brother.

 

[epeli]

We switched the engine because we ran into problems with the 'homemade' 2D engine.

That was the real reason? My different impression came from this 2006 interview (took a while to find it again, emphasis added):

RPGDot: You originally started development with a 2D engine and switched to 3D using the Torque engine. At the time, some of your fans criticised you for focusing on graphics with this decision. Looking back, did you make the right decision and how did the change benefit the gameplay?

Iron Tower: Time will tell whether or not we've made the right decision. Back then it seemed to me that way too many people were writing the game off because of the "dated" look. The 3D version certainly gets a better reaction and more interest, so no complaints here. The benefits are mostly on the visual side: locations, character models, animations, etc.

Sorry if I'm coming off as antagonistic here, it isn't my intention. I'm just morbidly curious.

But whatever the reason, you probably made the right decision. After all, you definitely know your own game better than anyone else. And I honestly think your team is already doing a better overall job with on the 3D side than WL2 did. More cohesive art direction and no unity assetstore-tier garbage. Doing a better job than a highly acclaimed big-budget RPG by veteran devs did is something you guys should be proud of.

 

[Vault Dweller]

When some guys with no prior experience start working on a game and then change the engine because they ran into a problem they couldn't solve, it doesn't exactly inspire much confidence. So I gave an evasive answer, talking about the visual benefits but never stating that that's why we changed engines. Yes, many people were writing the game off because the crude early version looked, well, crude, and yes, there were certain benefits, but had we not run into a problem, we wouldn't have switched.

 

[Andkat]

While I haven't read the whole thread, I'd like to echo a point the review makes- it'd be nice if having high levels in attributes like Int and Cha gave some boost to skill checks for skills that would logically be heavily influenced by those stats (Streetwise and Cha for Int, Lore and Commerce or Crafts or whatnot for Int, etc.). I played through the game around 5-6 times before the Ganezzar update, and while I found that making a decent diplo build was pretty common sense brute force-remaking and reloading over and over to sequence up your skill ups correctly to finish more content became increasingly tedious.

I feel that giving some "skill synergy" for the noncombat attributes would help not only relieve the brute force-y aspect here (obviously skill allocation is much of the "challenge" to a noncombat build) but more importantly might make executing a decent hybrid more feasible (without plotting through the game skillpoint by skillpoint) by relieving pressure on optimal sequencing of social skill-ups. Obviously there are very dedicated players who have rolled through the game with all kinds of builds and who might find such changes to make the game even easier for them, but I feel that making planning out a hybrid or fleshing out a diplo playthrough a little bit more intuitive/less arbitrary (I'm not really the type to map out every possible sp gain in excel and I suspect this is true for many potential players) for everyone else would be a positive change.

Of course, I haven't played since the Ganezzar beta stuff was released so maybe a lot has changed since then in terms of these elements.

That said, I adore the game and it's one of the best RPGs I've ever played. The writing is fantastic for both the diversity of options and the verisimilitude with which it captures how people would actually be expected to behave in a premodern society (especially one under major stress) and the brutal dynamics of intrigue and power politics. In terms of aggregate "narrative quality" I'd rank it alongside MotB/PST (obviously quite a bit different in theme/aesthetic from those two) as the best I've experienced in an RPG. Having actually tense combat on top of that is also a pretty unique selling point ( RPGs with great narratives often have subpar or trivial combat...), although some elements can be a little silly (i.e. archery-focused characters turn every fight into a goofy benny hill montage, complete with running circles around oblivious and inert city guards).

Spoiler

I also feel like the Lovecraftian elements are the closest I've seen to what I'd consider the original concepts of Lovecraft while still being novel and compelling in their own right, which for me is a massive bonus.

 

[Niektory]

What kind of problems did you run into with the old engine? If you don't mind sharing the details.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Z-order issues affecting maps and buildings.

 

[Niektory]

Really? That doesn't sound very serious. Oh well, what's done is done.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Few things are. It all comes down to how much time you need to fix it. We were running into issues all the time (basically, the more we did, the more we became aware of the engine's limitations). Torque has plenty of issues too but none required complex workaround. On the plus side, Torque has a very robust scripting engine (TorqueScript), which was probably our number one requirement.

 

[Elhoim]

Ganezzar is out of Beta:

http://steamcommunity.com/games/aod/announcements/detail/205255358020875401

 

[hiver]

Cool screens. I hope that atleats the second one is actually from a playable scene, not just some fake camera screenshot.

 

[Eyestabber]

From the article:

"That actually may be the problem – often when I lose a fight I feel that it’s not because I played the fight poorly, but rather that I got screwed by the random number generator. When I reload to do the fight again, I don’t really do anything differently to adapt to the battle – I just hope the RNG doesn’t screw me as badly. I have no problem with dice rolls, mind you, but I like feeling that when I lose I’ve learned something new that will allow me to be better at the game, and I just don’t get that here."

This is EXACTLY how I felt about the combat system back in 2012, when I played the beta. Thought they would make the system more consistent/less random, but, sadly, that wasn't the case it seems.

Still buying the game when it's released. From what I recall the writing is pretty good, atmosphere is great and the game has a pretty "original feel" to it, which I like.

And the combat? Well, don't worry Vault Dweller, I'm still going to buy your game AND recommend it to my friends. You know why? Because Baldur's Gate taught me how to love a good game despite raging at its RNG bullshit from time to time.


Getting instagibed by an unlucky crit on BG1 was fairly common, so I'd be a hypocrite if I bashed AoD for doing the exact same thing. Therefore...

 

[Vault Dweller]

This is EXACTLY how I felt about the combat system back in 2012, when I played the beta. Thought they would make the system more consistent/less random, but, sadly, that wasn't the case it seems.

We keep the odds fairly low, which means that you have to make an effort to even them out and gain the upper hand. The effort requires a good understanding of the system and all the tools we give you. If you do it, you'll have a more or less predictable and consistent experience. If you don't do it (i.e. if the odds remain low), your experience will be appropriately random.

 

[Eyestabber]

Well, I'm gonna try an updated beta, because back in '02 AoD combat was like "Regular talk-and-combat-dude -> 50% chance of beating most combat encounter", "Min-maxed combat-only-brute-murder-machine -> 65% chance of beating most combat encounters". And NO, don't say "lol, u fail at min-max", because I copy pasted another guy's build that was widely regarded as "the OP build" for my "murder-machine" example.

 

[hivemind]

Was the 2012 version just the combat demo or the first entire teron demo?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Well, I'm gonna try an updated beta, because back in '02 AoD combat was like "Regular talk-and-combat-dude -> 50% chance of beating most combat encounter", "Min-maxed combat-only-brute-murder-machine -> 65% chance of beating most combat encounters". And NO, don't say "lol, u fail at min-max", because I copy pasted another guy's build that was widely regarded as "the OP build" for my "murder-machine" example.

"I think you might be surprised at the variety of tactics available. During testing, I lagged behind many of the other testers. Sometimes I'd try, say, one of Galsiah's builds and still fail badly. If the build was the same and he could win the whole arena and I repeatedly failed halfway through, that means the choices during combat were the difference.

It took me a while to get my head in the right place. Positioning can be important, sometimes a different weapon is better (faster, rather than more outright damage, for example) and so on. It's more subtle than most games and that took some adjusting for me."
- Dhruin (RPG Watch)

Min-maxing will only take you so far. You'll hit harder, have a THC bonus, more AP and HP. If that was the secret to success, the rest would be pointless. Skills matter, attack types matter, weapon types (within the class) matter, support items matter, positioning and decisions matter, etc.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Was the 2012 version just the combat demo or the first entire teron demo?

Th first Teron demo.

 

[Saduj]

There was one fight in the thief quest line in Teron that I was consistently losing and almost had me rage quitting. Then one time I ran my character laterally, ending up next to a building, during my first turn and I won the fight. Was real curious to see if it was just luck or if positioning really made that much of a difference. Did the fight ten more times and won six of them. So just by changing where I put my character at the end of my first turn, I went from a 0% to a 60% win rate. And that was with a crap character. Later on I tried another thief build and didn't have anywhere near the same problems.

Not sure about the current state of the game, but I played through Maadoran with every character class when it first came out. Once I got the hang of character building and tactics, most fights had consistent outcomes (with some of those being I consistently lose because the character in question should lose that fight). There were maybe 3-4 fights that I felt were "necessary" for a given character where I felt like the outcome was close to a coin flip.

 

[Eyestabber]

Well, I'm gonna try an updated beta, because back in '02 AoD combat was like "Regular talk-and-combat-dude -> 50% chance of beating most combat encounter", "Min-maxed combat-only-brute-murder-machine -> 65% chance of beating most combat encounters". And NO, don't say "lol, u fail at min-max", because I copy pasted another guy's build that was widely regarded as "the OP build" for my "murder-machine" example.

"I think you might be surprised at the variety of tactics available. During testing, I lagged behind many of the other testers. Sometimes I'd try, say, one of Galsiah's builds and still fail badly. If the build was the same and he could win the whole arena and I repeatedly failed halfway through, that means the choices during combat were the difference.

It took me a while to get my head in the right place. Positioning can be important, sometimes a different weapon is better (faster, rather than more outright damage, for example) and so on. It's more subtle than most games and that took some adjusting for me."
- Dhruin (RPG Watch)

Min-maxing will only take you so far. You'll hit harder, have a THC bonus, more AP and HP. If that was the secret to success, the rest would be pointless. Skills matter, attack types matter, weapon types (within the class) matter, support items matter, positioning and decisions matter, etc.

I will take your word for it, since I remember playing less than 5 hours back in 2012, therefore I didn't really put enough playtime to actually learn every little thing about combat. You do realize, however, that having a system on which 80% winrate per encounter is considered WAD makes an Ironman run virtually impossible, right? I mean, I don't really care much about the whole "I have a huge gaming dick, I play with no savescum" bullshit, but a lot of people do...

Anyway...I'm really looking forward to what happens after the first city. AoD was barely on beta, yet I still found that (actual spoilers follow, so do yourself a favor and don't click the "spoiler" button unless you also played AoD's beta)

Spoiler

bursting into Lord Whatshisname's Castle after joining the military dudes and agreeing with their plan to turn the country into some sort of military dictatorship was really cool.

I played a lot of games since 2012 and yet I still remember a lot of AoD's moment. Guess that's what "memorable writing" actually means.

Well, best of luck, VD!

 

[Mangoose]

Well, I'm gonna try an updated beta, because back in '02 AoD combat was like "Regular talk-and-combat-dude -> 50% chance of beating most combat encounter", "Min-maxed combat-only-brute-murder-machine -> 65% chance of beating most combat encounters". And NO, don't say "lol, u fail at min-max", because I copy pasted another guy's build that was widely regarded as "the OP build" for my "murder-machine" example.

"I think you might be surprised at the variety of tactics available. During testing, I lagged behind many of the other testers. Sometimes I'd try, say, one of Galsiah's builds and still fail badly. If the build was the same and he could win the whole arena and I repeatedly failed halfway through, that means the choices during combat were the difference.

It took me a while to get my head in the right place. Positioning can be important, sometimes a different weapon is better (faster, rather than more outright damage, for example) and so on. It's more subtle than most games and that took some adjusting for me."
- Dhruin (RPG Watch)

Min-maxing will only take you so far. You'll hit harder, have a THC bonus, more AP and HP. If that was the secret to success, the rest would be pointless. Skills matter, attack types matter, weapon types (within the class) matter, support items matter, positioning and decisions matter, etc.

There is indeed a lot of important decision making outside of an encounter, but within an encounter itself there is not so much decision making past initial positioning, weapon types, etc. In other words it is like a lot of emphasis on the opening phase of chess with not much opportunity to make new decisions and adapt to/predict the opponent's decisions mid-game (mid-encounter).

Granted it's like that for a lot of RPGs since good AI is not easy to design and implement. Just my preference that I do participate in the interesting decisions or interesting parts of the gameplay and then not spend so much time later (past the initial important choices of positioning/weapon/items in an encounter).