Vault Dweller, when is Age of Decadence's "skill plateau moment"?

[almondblight]

In theory you could also design a game where a hybrid is just as difficult as a fighter. Non-combat makes combat easier by some amount - enough to bypass it entirely if maxed, enough to make mediocre fighters have a good chance at the halfway point, etc. It'd probably just be hell to make something like that be just as viable as the other builds when you have multiple non-combat skills (did this guy put all of his non-combat points in streetwise? or all of them in tough talk? or half in each? Is this guy a 30/70 talker/fighter, or a 70/30 talker fighter?).

Having a hybrid be doable but difficult seems fine; I wouldn't want them wasting their time trying to balance all the different permutations. Just make a fighter (or talker if you prefer).

 

[Drowed]

It all depends on how you balance it (i.e. your priorities). Make pure fighters hard and hybrids will be even harder. Make sure everyone can play a hybrid and pure fighters will be the easy mode.

Well, maybe AOD really lacks a "easy mode". Not literally! But it seems that most events/quests/places in the game are targeted to "experts" characters. As I only reached the ending with one character (and played about 30-40% of the game with another), I cannot say that I have a complete understanding of the content offered by the game, but I have the feeling that AOD would be a more interesting/fun game if he had more "intermediate" content. In other words, more quests, enemies and events that could be faced by "generic" characters (with skill levels varying from 4 to 6). Thus, these characters would have more content to enjoy, and people who like to have several options when playing (as opposed to fully commit to a specific archetype character) would be satisfied.

...Well, but of course, this brings the problem that with more content for "hybrid" characters, this would increase the pool of points... And that would certainly "break" the balance in the game, or allow for some kind of "power leveling", I guess. As I write this post I'm realizing that there really isn't a solution to this, at least not in the way the game was designed.

 

[Sensuki]

br00tal combat ist krieg. Don't dumb it down

 

[Johannes]

It all depends on how you balance it (i.e. your priorities). Make pure fighters hard and hybrids will be even harder. Make sure everyone can play a hybrid and pure fighters will be the easy mode.

Depends how you balance it. My common sense says that pure fighters with no secondary skills would face a lot harder fights than someone with a diverse skillset, wouldn't get sent out for missions which are perceived to have any non-violent solutions, and especially get poorer rewards for their effort. They would have their place as an arena fighter or basic grunt in a military, but rising in prestige beyond that wouldn't be possible without some speciality skills, charisma, intellect.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There is a difference between fighters with supportive skills and characters aspiring to be masters of all trades. You can play a pure fighter or you can add crafting, alchemy, critical strike, and lore. Nobody's claiming that you have to stick with 2-3 skills the entire game. I give this advice to new players, usually those who can't even beat the first few fights.

Hybrids are more than doable but you need to know what you're doing. It's not too much to ask, is it? Players' screens:

 

[Infinitron]

It all depends on how you balance it (i.e. your priorities). Make pure fighters hard and hybrids will be even harder. Make sure everyone can play a hybrid and pure fighters will be the easy mode.

Pure fighter: Has to fight eight people, difficult.
Pure talker: Manages to get the number down to three people, still difficult.
Hybrid: Gets it down to five people, doable.

(Just throwing out random numbers)

 

[Vault Dweller]

^ It's a traditional design where non-combat path doesn't really exist and the speech skill is used for flavor, getting more money for quests, and occasionally reducing number of people you have to fight. It's telling that you just forced a *pure talker* to fight.

Such situations do exist in AoD (speech checks reduce the number of enemies) but that's for fighters who dabble into persuasion and streetwise, not talkers.

 

[Infinitron]

It's an example. Plus, it's also telling that you force a hybrid to fight the same number of people as the pure fighter, isn't it?

 

[Johannes]

^ It's a traditional design where non-combat path doesn't really exist and the speech skill is used for flavor, getting more money for quests, and occasionally reducing number of people you have to fight. It's telling that you just forced a *pure talker* to fight.

Such situations do exist in AoD (speech checks reduce the number of enemies) but that's for fighters who dabble into persuasion and streetwise, not talkers.

Why is forcing a pure talker to fight so bad? It happens in real life, you can't rat diplomacy your way out of everything, unless they really pick everything correctly. It's a silly design to want non-combat path to be too easy or obvious. While a fighter with non-combat skills mixed in may be totally doable if you know what you're doing (have enough trial'n'error behind you), is a small amount of combat skill ever gonna be very relevant (worth the stat/skill points) for a talker? Why isn't it equally bad to force a *pure fighter* to talk?

Pure talker or pure combat should be extremes that are hard to complete. Whereas hybrids, which are the kind of characters most people initially want to play, should be the "normal" way of doing things. If you wanted a pure talking game and a pure combat game, why do they benefit from being packaged together? That the different forms of gameplay come together, is traditional design for a reason.

There is a difference between fighters with supportive skills and characters aspiring to be masters of all trades. You can play a pure fighter or you can add crafting, alchemy, critical strike, and lore. Nobody's claiming that you have to stick with 2-3 skills the entire game. I give this advice to new players, usually those who can't even beat the first few fights.

Crafting, alchemy, and critical strike are functionally combat skills, so those aren't really relevant here.

 

[SniperHF]

Pure talker or pure combat should be extremes that are hard to complete. Whereas hybrids, which are the kind of characters most people initially want to play, should be the "normal" way of doing things.

It's not that way because of the game world. Your average nobody hanging around town is essentially a talker. There can be elite talkers who form factions and sometimes get assassinated but your average NPC is still a talker. Fighting others to the death is supposed to be hard and most people avoid it.

This is a little at odds with pure combat characters being easier than hybrids, but this is offset by the player receiving less exclusive endings/results/cheevos.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's an example. Plus, it's also telling that you force a hybrid to fight the same number of people as the pure fighter, isn't it?

A true hybrid can either fight, reduce the number of enemies, or avoid a battle and solve a problem with diplomacy.

Why is forcing a pure talker to fight so bad? It happens in real life...

We aren't talking about a bar fight here, are we? Force a talker to fight 3 thugs in real life and you'll have one dead talker.

... you can't rat diplomacy your way out of everything, unless they really pick everything correctly.

Unless they have the skills. Pick persuasion, streetwise, and etiquette backed by high Charisma and you can talk you way out of most situations (the tougher situations require thinking it through first and approaching the right way). It's not as random as you're implying. In fact, it's not random at all.

It's a silly design to want non-combat path to be too easy or obvious.

It's much easier to learn how to convince 3 people than to learn how to kill 3 armed men before they kill you.

Whereas hybrids, which are the kind of characters most people initially want to play, should be the "normal" way of doing things.

How is this argument different from "most people want to get all content in a single playthrough" or "most people do want to become the guildmasters of all factions?"

 

[Lurker King]

Hybrids are more than doable but you need to know what you're doing.

For “hybrid build”, they mean "the same experience that I had in other cRPGs". What this implies is a build that can do both the combat and the talker part with the same level of excellence than a specialist. Which doesn’t make any sense. If you specialize in what you do, you will be better than anyone will in your specialty.

 

[Lurker King]

Why is forcing a pure talker to fight so bad? It happens in real life, you can't rat diplomacy your way out of everything, unless they really pick everything correctly. It's a silly design to want non-combat path to be too easy or obvious. While a fighter with non-combat skills mixed in may be totally doable if you know what you're doing (have enough trial'n'error behind you), is a small amount of combat skill ever gonna be very relevant (worth the stat/skill points) for a talker? Why isn't it equally bad to force a *pure fighter* to talk?

Pure talker or pure combat should be extremes that are hard to complete. Whereas hybrids, which are the kind of characters most people initially want to play, should be the "normal" way of doing things. If you wanted a pure talking game and a pure combat game, why do they benefit from being packaged together? That the different forms of gameplay come together, is traditional design for a reason.

In every single cRPG out there, you only have combat with fluffy talk skills. There is always too much forced combat in FO, FO2, Arcanum, VtM:B, PS:T, etc. AoD is the only game in the genre that takes the talker skills seriously enough to the point you can make a proper diplomat playtrough. People should acknowledge that first when they are trying to criticize the game, since it is no small achievement. Now that we have achieved this landmark thanks to AoD, we can understand it better and its limits. The problem of a pure talker playtrough is that it's too passive. On the other hand, to say that there isn't it equally bad to force a *pure fighter* to talk is silly, because you can talk, but you can’t be as convincing as a pure talker. Hybrids are the kind of characters most people initially want to play because they were spoiled by cRPGs with fluffy talker skills and easy combat. To complaint that AoD have bad design because of that is like complaining that they take talker skills too seriously and should have easier combat. Players have the irrational tendency of calling bad design everything that goes against their habits. They argue as if the fact that most games are easier should be a proof that AoD is bad designed. I remember that there was a guy complaining about this in the steam foruns the other day. He was a Bethesda fan.

 

[Lurker King]

How is this argument different from "most people want to get all content in a single playthrough" or "most people do want to become the guildmasters of all factions?"

Exactly. All their arguments amount to different formulations of this.

 

[Cazzeris]

Forcing a talker to fight? Seriously?

If finishing a game as a pure talker (i.e. without ever fighting) was so difficult in the past it wasn't due to "well-thought" traditional design, but because older CRPGs were rarely developed with diplomacy in mind. Being a talker in The Age of Decadence is so easy because it follows the traditional dialogue design in RPGs where the gameplay consists in just picking the obvious skillcheck option, which is the primitive way diplomacy has been depicted in CRPGs since forever. Pushing diplomacy design to the next level is the only correct thing to do as far as I'm concerned, and that means developing a conversation system of some kind which takes proper player input and character's social skills into account (exploration/investigation, NPCs personalities, interests, item usage, decision-making and the presence of multiple outcomes are some elements that could be put together into such a system).

 

[Lurker King]

True, but the game already takes into account “exploration/investigation, NPCs personalities, interests, item usage, decision-making and the presence of multiple outcomes are some elements that could be put together into such a system”. To make dialogues more active it is easier said than done. I remember how Obsidian implemented a timer in dialogues of Alpha Protocol to make them feel more alive, but they only succeeded in pushing the player to read super-fast and making irrational decisions in the heat of the moment.

 

[Cazzeris]

Well, I'm pretty sure the game doesn't include those elements using a systemic approach. If such was the case, then there would be many more options in every conversation, reputation would be based in concrete events that come into the interests of certain people organically, every character would be important, the player would be able to try to bribe other NPCs, investigate their stuff and use what he has discovered against them in various ways, gain different kinds of affinity, convince other people to do any kind of stuff for him...

In Age of Decadence, those concepts I've mentioned earlier are treated in a superficial and "thematic" manner. You simply can't use take those elements into account as tools and use them to achieve things. The game itself provide a decent amount of pre-created paths that can be related to “exploration/investigation, NPCs personalities, interests, item usage, decision-making and the presence of multiple outcomes", but only because Vince decided that it'd be fun that the player had to "do" this and that in X part of the game. What I'm talking about is a "diplomatic engine" that was built to provide a wide variety of tools in order to create proper gameplay the same way a proper combat or stealth system would work. I know that this hasn't been done before in an RPG, but it should be established at some point. The way talker characters work in today's RPGs is too banal to continue existing.

What you say about Alpha Protocol is just a retarded attempt at making the dialogues more dynamic, not deeper. It's the equivalent of making real time with pause dialogues.

 

[Johannes]

We aren't talking about a bar fight here, are we? Force a talker to fight 3 thugs in real life and you'll have one dead talker.

Well, force anybody at all to fight 3 thugs in real life and the likely outcome is a dead anybody. Having more 1v1 fights, or 2v2 with an ally, etc., easy fights wouldn't be a bad idea, of course dedicated warriors woudln't be challenged by such people. As far as I remember all fights (that go into combat mode) in the game are lethal, changing that would open up the game a lot too though it'd bring extra work of course.

Unless they have the skills. Pick persuasion, streetwise, and etiquette backed by high Charisma and you can talk you way out of most situations (the tougher situations require thinking it through first and approaching the right way). It's not as random as you're implying. In fact, it's not random at all.

I never said it's random in the game. It's pretty simple indeed. I meant that real life isn't that simple or safe, if you go into dangerous situations constantly you're likely gonna get into a violent altercation sooner or later, whether you solve them yourself or by having bodyguards around. If you're involved with violent, possibly hostile people on a constant basis it's highly advisable to learn some self-defense.

How is this argument different from "most people want to get all content in a single playthrough" or "most people do want to become the guildmasters of all factions?"

It's different by degree. Playing a Jack of Each and Every Trade and a monomaniac aren't the only possible ways a game can go.
A character that has many (exclusive) choices in a given questline is more interesting to play than one shackled by its stats to a given approach. And incentivising interesting characters seems like a sensible choice. Now, a pure talker or pure fighter can be interesting too - if there's a gameplay challenge to make up for the character's 1-dimensionality, that it actually feels like you're playing an Xtreme character.

 

[MF]

In every single cRPG out there, you only have combat with fluffy talk skills. There is always too much forced combat in FO, FO2, Arcanum, VtM:B, PS:T, etc. AoD is the only game in the genre that takes the talker skills seriously enough to the point you can make a proper diplomat playtrough.

Please keep FO out of this. Fallout 1 is very easy to complete without entering combat once, except maybe the first rat. You can persuade The Master to kill himself and you can talk your way into nuking the Cathedral.

 

[Lurker King]

Well, I'm pretty sure the game doesn't include those elements using a systemic approach. If such was the case, then there would be many more options in every conversation, reputation would be based in concrete events that come into the interests of certain people organically, every character would be important, the player would be able to try to bribe other NPCs, investigate their stuff and use what he has discovered against them in various ways, gain different kinds of affinity, convince other people to do any kind of stuff for him...

In Age of Decadence, those concepts I've mentioned earlier are treated in a superficial and "thematic" manner. You simply can't use take those elements into account as tools and use them to achieve things. The game itself provide a decent amount of pre-created paths that can be related to “exploration/investigation, NPCs personalities, interests, item usage, decision-making and the presence of multiple outcomes", but only because Vince decided that it'd be fun that the player had to "do" this and that in X part of the game. What I'm talking about is a "diplomatic engine" that was built to provide a wide variety of tools in order to create proper gameplay the same way a proper combat or stealth system would work. I know that this hasn't been done before in an RPG, but it should be established at some point. The way talker characters work in today's RPGs is too banal to continue existing.

What you are suggesting are not ways to make the dialogue system more active, but additional quests related to talker skills that would only serve the player’s interests. You want quests in which you can act like Miltiades, for instance. You can’t have this in AoD due to the narrative choice, although is arguable that the player’s interests and his faction interests are the same. My only complaint is that you can't use streetwise or persuasion skills in some encounters – like the gang behind the tavern, for instance. I think VD mentioned that the colony ship would have a more open narrative. I don’t think that would solve the problem of the dialogues being too passive in comparison to combat, but maybe you are right.

What you say about Alpha Protocol is just a retarded attempt at making the dialogues more dynamic, not deeper. It's the equivalent of making real time with pause dialogues

 

[Lurker King]

Please keep FO out of this. Fallout 1 is very easy to complete without entering combat once, except maybe the first rat. You can persuade The Master to kill himself and you can talk your way into nuking the Cathedral.

You mean, if you don't have the misfortune of dying like a dog in random encounters, right?

 

[MF]

You mean, if you don't have the misfortune of dying like a dog in random encounters, right?

Put some points in outdoorsman and you won't. AoD is very similar in that regard, you need to know the game's mechanics in order to play it the way you want to.

 

[likaq]

Well, I'm pretty sure the game doesn't include those elements using a systemic approach. If such was the case, then there would be many more options in every conversation, reputation would be based in concrete events that come into the interests of certain people organically, every character would be important, the player would be able to try to bribe other NPCs, investigate their stuff and use what he has discovered against them in various ways, gain different kinds of affinity, convince other people to do any kind of stuff for him...

In Age of Decadence, those concepts I've mentioned earlier are treated in a superficial and "thematic" manner. You simply can't use take those elements into account as tools and use them to achieve things. The game itself provide a decent amount of pre-created paths that can be related to “exploration/investigation, NPCs personalities, interests, item usage, decision-making and the presence of multiple outcomes", but only because Vince decided that it'd be fun that the player had to "do" this and that in X part of the game. What I'm talking about is a "diplomatic engine" that was built to provide a wide variety of tools in order to create proper gameplay the same way a proper combat or stealth system would work. I know that this hasn't been done before in an RPG, but it should be established at some point. The way talker characters work in today's RPGs is too banal to continue existing.

I agree, but keep in mind that this is a game made by 4 guys working in free time and with almost no budget.
You can't have everything in this conditions.

What you say about Alpha Protocol is just a retarded attempt at making the dialogues more dynamic, not deeper. It's the equivalent of making real time with pause dialogues.

 

[likaq]

Put some points in outdoorsman and you won't

If I remember corectly, even 200 ( max in fal1 ) in outdoorsman doesn't give you 100% chance to avoid random encounter.
This is 100 % true in fal 2, i remember having 300 in outdoorsman and still be forced to fight with random navarro patrols.

 

[Cazzeris]

What you are suggesting are not ways to make the dialogue system more active, but additional quests related to talker skills that would only serve the player’s interests. You want quests in which you can act like Miltiades, for instance. You can’t have this in AoD due to the narrative choice, although is arguable that the player’s interests and his faction interests are the same. My only complaint is that you can use streetwise or persuasion skills in some side quest encounters – like the gang behind the tavern, for instance. I think VD mentioned that the colony ship would have a more open narrative. I don’t think that would solve the problem of the dialogues being too passive in comparison to combat, but maybe you are right.

What I said might be a bit difficult to imagine, since Age of Decadence isn't a game where you are free to use any kind of tool to your advantage. Think of a computer role-playing game where the only goal is to "gain as much power as possible" in a world similar to Age of Decadence. Well, if that game was properly open-ended and deep, then you would be able to start combat with anyone using all the tools your character has at hand and end up conquering everything and you would be able to use the social arts to your advantage and gain a similar amount of power and wealth. The problem with RPGs is that they should always provide a lot of paths, which makes it impossible to implement all of them properly at the same time. The bigger problem is that diplomatic paths are important, but there isn't any Jagged Alliance 2 equivalent to them that teaches how to design a good social system.

I'm not sure if that explained it better, but since there is no game that features a dialogue system that feels as deep as the other ways a character can follow solve problems, it's a concept that seems difficult to grasp.