Holy shit Sup Forums this game is so good

Holy shit Sup Forums this game is so good.
Just finished the "main" quest in Maadoran and set to go to Ganezzar, doing side quests for now and I love it.
At first I was really frustrated with combat and the guy in metal armor was just fucking me up badly (I'm assassin with daggers) untill I discovered aimed shots. Poison - slice the unprotected parts - win. Feels great

Also I have a question about that underground library, do I want to get in? I can level my crafting and lore to the point of getting fuel for the engine, but I have 5 int, so I fail the 3rd check on it. I save skill points for now because I want to get in there, but I'm not sure if I can with 5 int
Any advice?


Age of Decadence thread

>it's still almost 20€, even on Kinguin
Fuck.

$12 on steam right now

never heard of this game before but looks neat

I pirated it because everyone was saying stuff like "this game is not for everyone", and yesterday I bought it in Steam because I love it and it's on discount in my region

>Any advice?
Unless you minmax correct checks you will get only generic endings.

It has pretty high entry point compared to most modern vidya and rpgs in particular. There are tons of text, the fights are frustrating if you don't understand the mechanics and still hard as fuck and random if you do. Don't expect too much from graphics as well, but it looks actually not that bad.
If you can get past it all, then you'll discover probably the most well-thought role-playing game.

Also it's a fucking post-apocalyptic Roman Empire setting, how fucking cool is that

I wish this game had some better railroading
Like Fallout 1/2
Stuff to get your feet wet and your bearings correct
before it starts dicking you.

The game literally welcomes you with "Hi! You're about to die but that's ok!"
What else did you expect?

This might sound like a strange and foreign concept, but that is not a fun experience.
When the game is artificial difficulty, because you have no idea if shit is hard or not, and the game doesn't have a clear and understandable path to you its bad

The combat can be great, I never got deep enough into it to realize it but I will assume eventually it makes sense and is great.

The setting is beyond godlike, 10/10 status.

But the design choices in how the game is set up, left much to be desired.

>Steam sale
Neat, thought it would never be under 15 buckaroos.

Oh boy this game.

When it does thing well, it's glorious. The rest of the time...

It was an interesting game and the setting is like the best thing ever. But the all around scenario design and the leveling / skill check system doesn't really work. At it's ugly as sin, too.

I hope the devs got enough money to make another game and perfect the idea.

>But the design choices in how the game is set up, left much to be desired.
But isn't that the gimmick of the game? That it doesn't spoonfeed you, it doesn't hold your hand to get through the first corridor. Sorta like dark souls, where you start and get the boss like 2 minutes into the game.
AoD actually has tutorial to explain you how shit works before you can start. And not sure about the rest backgrounds, but assassin's questline is pretty straightforward and steps up gradually as you would expect from any other rpg.

just ignore him, anyone who uses "artificial difficulty" unironically is just a shitter
unless they're referring to shit like dawn of war where difficulty doesn't change anything except an enemy damage multiplier (hardest is 4x and is fucking bullshit, everything oneshots you and the only way to play is cheesing with invulnerability powers

So nobody's gonna answer my question about the library, huh? So much for these "loremasters"

This was a steaming pile.

I dropped it like 30 minutes in because it was just so dull and uninteresting.

>unity
>combat blows ass
>perpetual walls of text
>completely unpolished design

There's literally only one thing the game did good and that was to separate combat/noncombat skills out so that for example swordfighting and conversation don't draw from the same pool. Everything else was bad.

>spoonfeed

There is no way anyone who uses this term has an IQ in the triple digits.

>artificial difficulty

There is no way anyone who uses this term has an IQ in the triple digits.

See I can shitpost too

Without spoiling too much, with a high enough lore you can unlock certain things but a lot depends on your other stats and character choice to get the main benefit/storyline from the library

I liked the game but really fuck the invisible skill checks. How am I supposed to know if my skill is up to snuff with the current area's standards?

Don't get me wrong. RPGs should be designed that you cannot do everything in one go. But the fact my game became literally unwinnable at one point, for missing a point in a stat, starts to feel lazy and not challengingly thoughtful like the game is elsewhere

Also: FUCK the instant death screens that don't give you a chance at combat when attacked. I can perhaps tolerate the notion that not all builds can reach endgame for the sake of roleplay, but hitting me with that CYOA shit made me livid

I agree the trial and error with stats is rough, I'm lucky I had a friend who suggested I do some 'basic' playthroughs (like full combat IG, full skills merchant etc) to get a good idea of what the stat checks are for various areas before going for the trickier endings and sections. I like the replaytability AoD encourages but think it does encourage metagaming.

I feel exactly like this. Some paths have retarded skill requeriments and many times you don't know if you are really screwing yourself down the line.

Not a fan of the skill system where you end just hoarding your points, and leveling skill just at the right moment you need 'em. Doesn't feel natural. When you reach the second town you are already playing the system and not the game.

I can't really blame them because the game does a lot of interesting things and actually makes replaying it a really fun experience. And that lore and those characters and those factions.

Also I'm not usually a graphicsfag but there's just no excuse for how ugly the game graphics and design are.

Also
>Unity
How dumb are you, really

It's alright I was gonna go loremaster as my next char anyway.

Good choice user, make sure you give your lore master perception 8 if you want the most out the library.

Will do, thanks!
Judging by the amount of non-combat solutions I missed as an assassin, I feel like loremaster would be fun

I really enjoyed the writing and world, especially the way those extradimensional god things were revealed, but the game system left a lot to be desired. Playing through the non-combat routes felt less like an RPG and more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book with stat checks, I found a lot of the time I wasn't even paying attention to the environment and just clicking through locations and looking at the dialogue box.

And actual combat itself? Fuck that. I'm all for challenge but fighting is just RNG bullshit.

Soon all rpg codex posters will pay, soon.

When the most important choice you make in-game is at character creation you have a serious design problem. Especially for a roleplaying game since everything becomes meta-gaming min-max rather than... Role playing.

I fukkin love this game but honestly struggled with any intrest in the more diologue heavy playthoughs like merchant/loremaster. Loved the combat though, did a sword and shield playthrough, a spear playthrough which was a lot of fun, and finally a dagger playthough which is borderline fucking broken with crafting and critical hit. I was shredding so many dudes in the dagger playthough and even managed to take out the final optional boss after a few reloads.

This game was easily worth my 20 canuck bucks, I might reinstall it in the new year.

Picked right up my man.

I think there are similarities between Dark Souls and Age of Decadence, but they are harder to say.
There are branching choices and the like in AoD as well as Dark souls being a linear (in the sense that the game world is defined out to you clearly and you are given a quest to guide you)

Designing a game to be confusing and difficult is a terrible philosophy for creating a game. It should be difficult, but an interesting experience to learn to master.

The same thing happens in Bloodlines as well
I think the essential problem here is that the difficulty for certain things just isn't well defined.

Less upgradeable skills, but more skills in general would be an interesting twist. So you could have

>Mechnical aptitude (Basic)
>can work with basic machinery like wenches
>Mechanical aptitude (Expert)
>Can operate complex machinery like a hydraulic water pump
>Magical aptitude (basic)
>Can work with magical devices
>Magical aptitude (expert)
>Found only in the environment, researched rather than skilled up

I think its safe to say that aod was inspired by dark souls.

Is that a JoJo reference?