Age of Decadence - Review @ GameBanshee

[Pladio]

I disagree.

Another favourite of mine is gothic.

The first time I played it I joined the old camp as soon as I could and then got stuck because I was too low level to do anything in the game anymore.

I had to replay a large part or even restart to get to a good point in the game.

The amount of times I died in gothic trying out different things is crazy.

I even remember whistlers sword quest where I reloaded 5 times to see the different possibilities.

It's the same thing here. The only difference is that every quest has tons of different solutions.

Unlike the elder scrolls games though you just can't be a jack of all trades. If you try you fail.

It's very simple. In gothic 2 night of the raven you may have to restart the entire game of you try being a jack of all trades too.

So I really do not understand why people see this game so much differently than the gothics in terms of difficulty or deaths.

 

[lackblogger]

You're the first person to mention Gothic... I'm not sure anyone was referring to Elder Scrolls either...

I had no idea AoD was a comparable game to either of those titles! Maybe you can enlighten me further as to why those two games have been chosen for comparison so I can join your conversation?

 

[JDR13]

You're the first person to mention Gothic… I'm not sure anyone was referring to Elder Scrolls either…

I had no idea AoD was a comparable game to either of those titles! Maybe you can enlighten me further as to why those two games have been chosen for comparison so I can join your conversation?

Maybe you should read his post again, because I thought he explained it quite clearly.

 

[Pladio]

You're the first person to mention Gothic... I'm not sure anyone was referring to Elder Scrolls either...



I had no idea AoD was a comparable game to either of those titles! Maybe you can enlighten me further as to why those two games have been chosen for comparison so I can join your conversation?

I did explain.
What's not clear ?

 

[lackblogger]

I did explain.
What's not clear ?

I disagree. Another favourite of mine is gothic. The first time I played it I joined the old camp as soon as I could and then got stuck because I was too low level to do anything in the game anymore.

I had to replay a large part or even restart to get to a good point in the game. The amount of times I died in gothic trying out different things is crazy. I even remember whistlers sword quest where I reloaded 5 times to see the different possibilities.

It's the same thing here. The only difference is that every quest has tons of different solutions. Unlike the elder scrolls games though you just can't be a jack of all trades. If you try you fail.

It's very simple. In gothic 2 night of the raven you may have to restart the entire game of you try being a jack of all trades too. So I really do not understand why people see this game so much differently than the gothics in terms of difficulty or deaths.

1) What has character level in Gothic got to do with skill points allocation? Is Gothic another game where you just get skill points on level-up? Are you tying this into a discussion solely about skill checks in dialogue? Or are you talking about something that no-one else has been talking about? Your statement is entirely vague.

2) So you had to restart, I talked about restarts. I said restarting a traditional cRPG is normal. You don't contradict me by saying you restarted an RPG.

3) You died trying out different things. Yes, that's what you do in cRPGs. Did you die to a conversation skill check though? We were talking about conversation skill checks, not just general dying because you were trying out a new combat maneuver. Could you be any more vague? Died to what exactly?

4) So you reloaded 5 times to see different possibilities. Good for you. What's that got to do with anything I was saying?

5) What's the same here? You personally like reloading conversation trees a lot? We were talking about traditional cRPGs in the context of why AoD is being described by people as 'old-school genuine RPG' - and you draw reference to Elder Scrolls... In a conversation about the mechanics of 'old school' cRPGs why is anyone even thinking about ES as a reference drop? It's utterly bizzare.

6) you reference 'people' not seeing why it's not so different to Gothic. So are you even talking to me? I have no idea now. Maybe you just made a random post because you felt like posting something, but I was kinda convinced earlier in your post that you were somehow challenging my posts. However, I'm not 'people' and 'we' haven't mentioned Gothic once.

So I have no idea what your post is on about, it certainly has no meaning anything I've said. I'm glad JDR liked it, he likes posts that are vague and just represent a 'shut the fuck up' in alternative language... always good for assisting with the translation...

 

[Humanity has risen!]

It's simple, the reason why Gothic is far less frustrating even though it is also formidably difficult is that you have far more sway on other characters and on the game world. You can compensate for some lower skills in some ways because it has action combat, or because you can roam around and explore the 3D environment to find another way in, for instance. In AOD it all depends on dice rolls and it is on a grid where you have very limited freedom of movement and exploration to get around "roadblocks".

In AOD it is completely binary: you either have sufficient stats, or you will never kill those 4 centurions ambushing you no matter how hard you try. You will never activate that machine or convince this person no matter how many times you select that dialogue option. You are cut off at many points because of factors that are unfathomable to predict in the early game, you only get to have a good idea of what you need when you're confronted to them.

 

[Wisdom]

Ugh.. all this talking.. too complicated. Remove the stat checks, remove the skill checks, make this game the same as all the others. I just want to click the buttons and win the game. This game makes me think more than Angry Birds. Not nice.

 

[Pladio]

1) What has character level in Gothic got to do with skill points allocation? Is Gothic another game where you just get skill points on level-up? Are you tying this into a discussion solely about skill checks in dialogue? Or are you talking about something that no-one else has been talking about? Your statement is entirely vague.

2) So you had to restart, I talked about restarts. I said restarting a traditional cRPG is normal. You don't contradict me by saying you restarted an RPG.

3) You died trying out different things. Yes, that's what you do in cRPGs. Did you die to a conversation skill check though? We were talking about conversation skill checks, not just general dying because you were trying out a new combat maneuver. Could you be any more vague? Died to what exactly?

4) So you reloaded 5 times to see different possibilities. Good for you. What's that got to do with anything I was saying?

5) What's the same here? You personally like reloading conversation trees a lot? We were talking about traditional cRPGs in the context of why AoD is being described by people as 'old-school genuine RPG' - and you draw reference to Elder Scrolls… In a conversation about the mechanics of 'old school' cRPGs why is anyone even thinking about ES as a reference drop? It's utterly bizzare.

6) you reference 'people' not seeing why it's not so different to Gothic. So are you even talking to me? I have no idea now. Maybe you just made a random post because you felt like posting something, but I was kinda convinced earlier in your post that you were somehow challenging my posts. However, I'm not 'people' and 'we' haven't mentioned Gothic once.

So I have no idea what your post is on about, it certainly has no meaning anything I've said. I'm glad JDR liked it, he likes posts that are vague and just represent a 'shut the fuck up' in alternative language… always good for assisting with the translation…

I disagreed with your points saying AoD is so different to other traditional RPGs.

I explained in an example.

I compared Gothic, not in its graphics or every point of how it works, just that it can also present walls to progression if you do something wrong. It also makes you make choices just like AoD.

It doesn't have the same type of skill points, so what? That doesn't mean there can't be walls to progression... Which was your original point as far as I understood.

You said the following :

But reloading a two hour old save because you lack a perception skill or because the game glitches or because you feel the dev is being a dick produces a different emotion, one more likely to rage-quit, because it just doesn't feel 'natural'. Going back two-hours in a traditional cRPG just gives you greater enthusiasm to get back to the important fight again (which wont take two hours because this time you know what's coming and rush there). Rushing back to a skill check or dialogue option just doesn't have that same emotional impetus.

Which I also disagree with for the same reason which is why presented the Gothic example, having to restart the entire game.

Another example would be Fallout if you play for the first time.
Have you ever tried playing Fallout putting all your points in Energy weapons, only to realise there are none of those at the start of the game ?

So, does that explain it any better?

 

[lackblogger]

Ugh.. all this talking.. too complicated. Remove the stat checks, remove the skill checks, make this game the same as all the others. I just want to click the buttons and win the game. This game makes me think more than Angry Birds. Not nice.

That is possibly the most ironic post I've ever seen. It's so obviously ironic I don't even know if it's directed at me or Pladio or, in fact, anyone else on this thread or the game itself. Dude's taking the mick out of people who don't like reading and thereby providing solid proof that Dude's not read a word of what anyone's saying!

 

[lackblogger]

So, does that explain it any better?

Not really mate, I guess we'll have to leave it here as none of your points seem to correlate with anything I'm saying and just seem to be a big ol' knee-jerk. Of course it matters if Gothic had skill-point in conversation brick walls, that's exactly what I/we were talking about. And, yes, it does matter what your walls are and are not, that's exactly what I was talking about.

 

[Pladio]

Well yeah, if what the wall is made of is as important as there being a wall for you then it wouldn't make as much sense.

For me it's basically the same.

When I played gothic for the first time, I remember spending points on strength, dexterity, sneaking, acrobatics and hunting.

Then I couldn't kill anything anymore.

Once I realised I had to specialise it started making more sense.

For me it's the same with aod.

If you specialise you won't hit any roadblocks in conversations.

It's quite simple.

So those walls are just there for people who are trying to be jack of all trades which was the point.

I played as a merchant focusing only on trading, persuasion and streetwise. And not one quest blocked me during the entire game.

So all these walls are only there if you are making it hard on yourself trying to do everything.

The concept is the same. Whether it's called skill points or learning points or experience points....

You might disagree with me and that's fine but saying there's no correlation is wrong.

 

[lackblogger]

Well yeah, if what the wall is made of is as important as there being a wall for you then it wouldn't make as much sense. For me it's basically the same. When I played gothic for the first time, I remember spending points on strength, dexterity, sneaking, acrobatics and hunting.

Then I couldn't kill anything anymore. Once I realised I had to specialise it started making more sense. For me it's the same with aod. If you specialise you won't hit any roadblocks in conversations. It's quite simple.

So those walls are just there for people who are trying to be jack of all trades which was the point. I played as a merchant focusing only on trading, persuasion and streetwise. And not one quest blocked me during the entire game. So all these walls are only there if you are making it hard on yourself trying to do everything.

The concept is the same. Whether it's called skill points or learning points or experience points…. You might disagree with me and that's fine but saying there's no correlation is wrong.

I'll just refer you to HHR's post, it's a good nutshell post. Since both you and him know Gothic better than me, it's best if you continue your conversation with him. I would have said it's fairly obvious to specialise in any cRPG, and that's kind-of "it goes without saying", though it's mostly a question of extent and extremity (see HHR's post).

I'm saying "what's so special about having conversation stat-checks as your wall?" and "Why is this considered old-school when it's not old school to have hard conversation walls/fail states governed by stat-checks?" and "do people really prefer conversation walls instead of combat walls?" Which is really leaving me kinda only interested in replies about… conversation walls…

 

[Pladio]

I have never played a game like this before so there's no direct comparison.

This is how this game works though.

 

[lackblogger]

I have never played a game like this before so there's no direct comparison.

This is how this game works though.

Exactly, so it's not 'old school cRPG', which was my main point of discussion. There might be elements which take inspiration from 'old school cRPGs' but if someone was looking for a game that was 'like' and 'old school' cRPG then, like a lot of games knocking around at the moment, it's kinda-close, but, like a lot of others, no cigar. And, like those others, people like me wouldn't even be discussing such points if the primary hype-train language wasn't "please buy my 'old school' cRPG".

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I'll just refer you to HHR's post, it's a good nutshell post. Since both you and him know Gothic better than me, it's best if you continue your conversation with him. I would have said it's fairly obvious to specialise in any cRPG, and that's kind-of "it goes without saying", though it's mostly a question of extent and extremity (see HHR's post).

I'm saying "what's so special about having conversation stat-checks as your wall?" and "Why is this considered old-school when it's not old school to have hard conversation walls/fail states governed by stat-checks?" and "do people really prefer conversation walls instead of combat walls?" Which is really leaving me kinda only interested in replies about… conversation walls…

Yes many old games had fail states. The big difference with AOD however is that there is very little to do in the game that doesn't involve dealing with a failed state.

Due to its design choice and greatly streamlined content, in AOD there are almost no tangential activities that allow you to progress a little: no random encounters, nothing to loot, nothing that doesn't have a very specific purpose (and involves binary fail states).

That's why it's such a rigid experience. Sure you shouldn't have access to all the content… but you should always be able to do a few tangential activities that offer some degree of progress.

Dead State is the exact reverse: it is almost nothing but tangential activities, so much that you quickly become sick of all the empty locations to visit and loot that all play out the same, and very little of how you choose to deal with NPCs is restricted by fail states, or really matters in the grand scheme of things.

The ideal lies in a good balance between the two extremes.

 

[Pladio]

Exactly, so it's not 'old school cRPG', which was my main point of discussion. There might be elements which take inspiration from 'old school cRPGs' but if someone was looking for a game that was 'like' and 'old school' cRPG then, like a lot of games knocking around at the moment, it's kinda-close, but, like a lot of others, no cigar. And, like those others, people like me wouldn't even be discussing such points if the primary hype-train language wasn't "please buy my 'old school' cRPG".

Ah ok. I get you now.

I think people see different things as meaning old-school RPG though.
So it's not as simple as you seem to portray.

But I guess, the point is, you get to play a demo, which few games nowadays let you do. So you get to decide whether or not it's for you.

 

[zahratustra]

Due to its design choice and greatly streamlined content, in AOD there are almost no tangential activities that allow you to progress a little: no random encounters, nothing to loot, nothing that doesn't have a very specific purpose (and involves binary fail states)

Yeah, nothing really that would allow you to level up and get a skill point which would give you a bit of a room to manoeuvre. You follow dev's scenario exactly as he envisaged it or you die…

 

[Archangel]

Ah ok. I get you now.

I think people see different things as meaning old-school RPG though.
So it's not as simple as you seem to portray.

But I guess, the point is, you get to play a demo, which few games nowadays let you do. So you get to decide whether or not it's for you.

Most games let you play a "demo", just AoD is nice enough to offer it from Steam directly

 

[Pladio]

Most games let you play a "demo", just AoD is nice enough to offer it from Steam directly

If you're talking about pirating then that's the opposite of demos being offered by the devs...

 

[VDweller]

Yeah, nothing really that would allow you to level up and get a skill point which would give you a bit of a room to manoeuvre. You follow dev's scenario exactly as he envisaged it or you die…

That's not true at all.

First, there's plenty of room for maneuver (unless you're playing a jack of all trade as your first character). Second, there are multiple options taking different stats and skills into account, so there's no such as things as "follow the dev's scenario exactly".