Age of Decadence - Video Preview @ IndieRPGs

Gilliatt, kudos for your exellent posts. I agree on most of what you've said, very valid points.

And Vince, thanks for this gem of a game, can't wait to play the release version. (I've played the demo quite alot but after deciding I pretty much loved it I stopped not to ruin the final experience.)

Originally Posted by Archangel
You are punished for roleplaying a character that is not to your liking.

I'm not. Your character can save Vardanis if he/she is good enough. Quite a few people have done just that. It appears that you want to be able to save him for no other reason than playing a mighty mercenary.

We gave you several keys options:

- don't take the quest if you don't want to (i.e. you aren't forced to fight and you can live without the SP you'd earn there)
- walk away if you didn't expect to fight
- kill the thugs, which opens up an intro to another guild
- kill the thugs AND save Vardanis IF you're good enough

You don't care about any of that. You're just pissed that you couldn't save him just because.

Oh I am not alone. I represent every cRPG fan that will not be buying your game because of your "different" design decisions.

And then we have the general gaming public that will not be touching it with a 10 foot pole.

You seem to be enjoying this thought quite a lot.

Originally Posted by Pladio
I would suggest Vince takes your suggestions seriously, but whether he should change things is up to him I guess.

I understand he does not want to compromise his "vision" of the game too much as he's worked for 10 years on it now or so.

It's not that. We always listen and always consider suggestions if they don't go against our design "philosophy" (see Archangel's posts).

I've suggested several things on the forums he did not seem to like.

Can you remind me? Just curious.

Anyway, our priority is the new content. Until Ganezzar is out, we don't have time to tweak the existing content but we'll definitely go over it once everything else is in place.

I think one of them was about multiple difficulty settings.

With a standard mechanic and then easier and more difficult ones changing the amount of skill and attribute points depending on a 'simple' enough formula…

Would need to find the thread to say exactly what.

Please don't add any difficulty setting that would ruin the game for sure!

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
Please don't add any difficulty setting that would ruin the game for sure!

How is that ?

My suggestion was to clearly state that the difficulty called "Normal" or whatever you want to call it would be how the game was built,
e.g.:

"Normal difficulty - The game was built and balanced using this difficulty. Using any other difficulty may unbalance the game and result in the game being too easy or too hard. We suggest you play the game with this difficulty"

I haven't seen a single game who has managed to balance the difficulty setting, to try to do so in a game like AOD would be near impossible. Sure you can give enemies less HP, or make PC do more damage or whatever, but it'll for sure break balance and cause the game to play not as intended by the coder. Which is bad, probably better to just not include it.

Did you even read my last post ?

Yes, I tried to explain why I think the warning would not help / work and at least some testing would be needed and so which would be a waste of time from developers side.

Well, the point would be that no testing would really have to be done.

Difficulty normal, as intended.

Much easier : Give 1 extra attribute point and 30 more skill points
Easier : Give 20 extra skill points
Harder: Reduce skill points by 15
Much harder : Reduce skill points by 30

Could even add custom difficulty:
- Pick number of attribute points
- Pick number of skill points

I know Vince would have wanted players to play the way he created the game, but many players like to play differently.

If people can't be bothered to read a warning, they're unlikely to want to play AoD the way Vince thinks it's meant to be played anyway (see the amount of text in game) …

Originally Posted by Pladio
Well, the point would be that no testing would really have to be done.

Difficulty normal, as intended.

Much easier : Give 1 extra attribute point and 30 more skill points
Easier : Give 20 extra skill points
Harder: Reduce skill points by 15
Much harder : Reduce skill points by 30

Could even add custom difficulty:
- Pick number of attribute points
- Pick number of skill points

I know Vince would have wanted players to play the way he created the game, but many players like to play differently.

Wouldn't it be easier to create a Character Editor like the ones they have in the Spiderweb games ? (It's a genuine question. I have no idea if it would, I never tried them.)

Anyhow, I'm certainly not against difficulty settings. I have a friend who plays all his games at the easiest difficulty. We used to mock him, but we've grown up and don't anymore. If he gets more enjoyment from the game that way, why should it bother me ?

It certainly doesn't make him an idiot (he's doing research in the pharmaceutical field, and is often invited as a speaker at international conferences).

We, passionate gamers (myself included), often have a tendency to take ourselves way too seriously.

I agree with you. I think the players who just want one experience out of games do not realise other people may not be like them…

I haven't bought into the early access or even played the demo, but what I have heard about this game has me very interested…