The Age of Decadence

[Gamerlord]

So, the game seems to be coming out of Early Access on Wednesday so now is probably a decent time to set up a thread.

Age of Decadence is a turn-based cRPG set in a low-tech/low-magic post-apocalyptic world after the fall of an empire reminiscent of Rome. It pretty clearly is drawing inspiration from the original Fallouts; Turn based, multiple solutions to quests, C&C, etc. It seems to make a big deal out of non-combat solutions to quests (It even straight up tells you at the start combat is the most difficult way of solving things.)

I heard the game was pretty much feature complete already so after liking the demo I went and bought it. Heard that the developer recommends the Mercenary/Merchant backgrounds for the first time around so went with Merchant. Did a Persuasion/Streetwise/Etiquette focused build, with a dash of Trading and some Daggers/Dodge in case I ran into a fight (Which I never did, until the very end due to a weird oversight.) The game actually played more like a point-and-click CYOA with that kind of purely talky build. Had a lot of fun wheeling and dealing my way across the game world, and even under that specific build I still had a lot of options on how to go about things. From I can tell from my first play through and experience with the demo, this game does not like a jack of all trades; you need to specialize if you don't want a rough time. Graphically speaking it is nothing to write home about, and I ran into a lot of cosmetic bugs (Clipping through buildings, floating in the air, all kinds of weird stuff) but it seemed stable besides one CTD that never happened again. Another bizarre but not game-breaking bug was the Continue button in the main menu not doing anything when you first start up the game. It works fine during the game itself but you need to use Load whenever you first boot it up.

Up until the penultimate section, I had no issue with being forced into combat; Some side quests had to be avoided, but I suppose that is a consequence of the build. Until a point near the very end of the game, where I suddenly hit a roadblock. There was a combat bit, and when I checked for solutions online, they apparently had non-combat options for a whole bunch of builds....except mine. :smallsigh: Thankfully, that particular fight was easy even for a character with a minimal combat investment, but it was still really annoying I had to resort to it.

Another thing is that completing the game only took me about five hours, which is kind of weird for an RPG. But by the looks of it they assume you'll replay it a bunch of times, because even in my first playthrough I could see a bunch of branching paths, and trying to research a solution to the combat bit made it clear there was a lot of stuff I never even touched upon.

Has anyone else given the game a go?

[JadedDM]

Wow, really, it's finally coming out? I remember when it was first announced in 2004!

I'm going to have to check it out. I promised my 22 year old self I would, after all.

[Domochevsky]

Ugh, so brown... every screenshot of the game I've seen so far is brown. :smallsigh:

I think I'll skip this game.

[Cespenar]

I remember trying a very early build of this, and while the production quality was arguable, the skill selection and multiple solutions angles were nice. Dunno if I'll give this another try, now. Maybe.


Ugh, so brown... every screenshot of the game I've seen so far is brown. :smallsigh:

I think I'll skip this game.

That's... some reason to ignore a game.

[Tvtyrant]

I remember trying a very early build of this, and while the production quality was arguable, the skill selection and multiple solutions angles were nice. Dunno if I'll give this another try, now. Maybe.



That's... some reason to ignore a game.

Seems reasonable to me. There have been an awful lot of ugly, mud colored games in the last decade. The whole point of video games is that they provide you with a visual medium along with the gameplay, and if it doesn't appeal to someone visually it takes a lot out of the experience.

[Cespenar]

Whole point is the visual medium? Eh, if you say so.

[Tvtyrant]

Whole point is... you say so.

I agree with the above.

[Winthur]

the holy trinity of choice-and-consequence rich RPGs (fallout, arcanum, torment*) are all brown though tbh fam stop being so casual :^)

*its funny how a jrpg can be this good right

[Avian Overlord]

That's... some reason to ignore a game.

It's almost like people play video games by looking at them. How strange.

[Narkis]

I remember playing the demo when it first came out, quite some time ago. I was very annoyed by the constant teleporting from dialog to dialog. Have they changed that, or at least given you the option to disable it?

[Gamerlord]

I remember playing the demo when it first came out, quite some time ago. I was very annoyed by the constant teleporting from dialog to dialog. Have they changed that, or at least given you the option to disable it?
You can almost always pick between a "<Go directly to next dialog>" option or just leaving.

[Narkis]

Ah, cool. I hope I'll be able to buy it soon-ish, it's world was extremely interesting.

[Cespenar]

I'm going so far with a similar build as the OP, namely a Streetwise/Persuasion based Merchant, and I like how natural the consequences go. So far I started out in the merchants guild, did a quest for them, failed in a second one because I didn't want to be indebted to the thieves' guild. Then, because I failed, the merchants guild booted me. Guildless but not broke, I double-crossed a loremaster in his quest to betray another rival loremaster, and brought the prize (a map) to the town's lord, which ended up in my character getting in the good books of one of the great houses.

Then off to the big city, where I re-initiated in the merchants guild because they didn't care about the first town at all. And then it all shenanigan'd up. Run-ins with the assassin's guild, big betrayal plot, and more. I'm still more or less at the beginning of the game, though, probably.

[Driderman]

This is actually a pretty cool game once you get into it. I mean, it's pretty damn ugly but that's not really a big deal for me. It does have an annoying amount of situations where you have to pass a skill/attribute check for a dialogue path, and then within the same specific line of dialogue, without any opportunity for exiting or changing paths, seemingly has more skill checks of a higher difficulty or using different skills. Which to me is very annoying. I mean, if you wanted the skill check to be higher or based on some other trait just make the initial skill-check so instead of railroading me into an unavoidable secondary or even tertiary skill check when I already passed the first one.

[Cespenar]

This is actually a pretty cool game once you get into it. I mean, it's pretty damn ugly but that's not really a big deal for me. It does have an annoying amount of situations where you have to pass a skill/attribute check for a dialogue path, and then within the same specific line of dialogue, without any opportunity for exiting or changing paths, seemingly has more skill checks of a higher difficulty or using different skills. Which to me is very annoying. I mean, if you wanted the skill check to be higher or based on some other trait just make the initial skill-check so instead of railroading me into an unavoidable secondary or even tertiary skill check when I already passed the first one.

I'm encountering the same thing, but I'm not sure if the game shows you all the options that you lack the prerequisites for. I mean, if one option railroads into just a higher prerequisite option, then that's a dumb design choice, yeah, but if it branches into three but you can only see one, then it makes more sense. I'm not sure which one it is, though.

This is rather a minor nitpick, though.

[Driderman]

I'm encountering the same thing, but I'm not sure if the game shows you all the options that you lack the prerequisites for. I mean, if one option railroads into just a higher prerequisite option, then that's a dumb design choice, yeah, but if it branches into three but you can only see one, then it makes more sense. I'm not sure which one it is, though.

This is rather a minor nitpick, though.

It is a nitpick, but it seems like stupid design. I'm assuming that since the game shows you skillchecks you can fail that it shows you all the possible skillchecks for a conversation but I might be wrong. In either case, putting the player in a situation where they can only pursue one avenue of inquiry after a successful skillcheck only to encounter a second one that they fail, whether this is actually the case or just seems to be the case, creates an annoying sense of being cheated, I guess. Kinda "you succceded but... haha, failed the second skillcheck which was essentially for the same damn thing as the first one" jerk-DM :)

[Gamerlord]

I've been replaying the game(Praetor, heavy focus on Lore so I can actually understand what is going on this time :smalltongue: ), and I noticed that if you go through the same conversation with a different set of skills, it has different options. I'm assuming it only shows both options you can succeed and where you can't succeed but have a fair amount of points in.

[Cespenar]

Okay, then it's as I suspected, and not simply a stupid design choice. Good to know, at least.

Edit: I'm reminded of Pillars of Eternity's "Hardcore Mode" or something, which similarly stops showing the options you don't qualify for.

[Winthur]

This game has a ton of skills that affect the gameplay, most of them extremely "out of combat", so to speak, and a possible failure state triggered if your character doesn't have a proper set of skills to progress further.

It's Long Live the Queen meets Fallout.

[Rodin]

I grew frustrated with the game when my speechifying character grew unable to continue. I had to skip the end of the questline at the first town because I couldn't pass a skillcheck with a fatal result if you failed. I tried multiple resolutions of the quest, backing different factions each time, and still always wound up at that skillcheck. Great.

At this point, I decided to completely abandon combat as I had already found that my few points put into bows and daggers was not going to allow me to take on even the simplest of fights. I focused entirely on putting points into the various speech and influence skills...and then proceeded to fail the next full set of skillchecks to influence nobles, forcing me into an unwinnable combat situation.

If my charismatic merchant, with pretty much nothing but charismatic merchant stuff, cannot pass the skill checks in the merchant questlines...

Yeah.

Combined with the lack of visuals, poor UI design decisions (useless maps, funky camera work, poor quest tracking), and a combat system that seemed designed to make you want to never use it...I was not terribly impressed. There's a core of a good game in there, but it was frustrating enough that I was not prepared to restart my game repeatedly trying to get a good build and/or make the correct decisions to try and survive long enough to get to the meat of the story.

[Cespenar]

Well, my charismatic merchant did get kicked out of the Commercium twice, but he still managed to score 3k gold out of the situation, somehow. Also, with an average dagger skill and an awesome leather armor I acquired from the big city, I somehow managed to solo... wait for it... four homeless people who ambushed me in the slums. If that's not a success story, I don't know what is. :smalltongue:

I did save-load a lot, though, admittedly. So, I understand the general concern.

[Gnorman]

There's a high learning curve but this is definitely one of the best RPGs I've played in a long time. Plus, the design team seems very engaged and willing to address the concerns. I mean, sure, it's not exactly the prettiest game ever, and parts of it play like a choose-your-own-adventure book rather than a video game, but it's intriguing and fun once you figure out the combat and skill system.

I've played through it a few times now as a hybrid fighter/loremaster, and there's nothing quite like unraveling the mysteries of the Magi while poisoning and blowing up everything in sight.

[dancrilis]

Not sure what to say about this game as I think it is very good but can see how it is not for everyone, but I will throw a compliment at it.

Had this game came out in the 90s I think it would stand a very good chance of standing with Fallout, Torment and Baldur's Gate as one of the greats - yes it is different from those games but those games are also different from one another.

Ultimately I think it does take some settling to get used to - so the decision to release a free demo serves them very well, if anyone is looking for something fairly unique I strongly encourage you to download the demo and after giving it a fair chance (it does have some items which are a little bit different than other games) and if you like it buy the game.

For an RPG where you feel that your characters stats actually matter these is perhaps none better.