What do you think about AoD?

[likaq]

Removing filler combat IS improving.

 

[Jasede]

Yeah I hate all those cliches and tropes of RPGs like loot

I know you're being sarcastic, but holy fuck do I hate the idea of 'loot' as it's applied in CRPG games. Over 4 books, Frodo and Bilbo find one 'phat lootz' sword between the two of them. And somehow characters in many RPGs are changing weapons multiple times in a single dungeon floor.

Sounds like you are playing the wrong RPGs; I played Fallout and PS:T and Betrayal at Krondor and Realms of Arkania and in all of those weapons are rare and special.


No, it's not; you are missing the point. Filler combat is actually very entertaining because combat is one of the main things that are fun in RPGs. If you zip from even to event it's no better than a quest compass streamlining you to the next objective, or an FPS that teleports you into the next room when there are no more enemies to kill or a video game where the normal game is greyed out and you can only select boss rush.

If you cut out everything that you think is bad there won't be much left. When there's a problem with something, don't remove it; fix it. "Loot and filler combat are often handled poorly. Therefore we listened to the fans and removed both." - that's the Bioware approach; removing what didn't work out well because no effort was spent on it.


Forced teleport vs not forced teleport is like the difference between reading a book and reading its summary; you're missing all the stuff in-between. To be fair the demo gives you the option to do some optional reading, but I'd still be ticked if a book advanced to the "good parts" for me.

How can something be special or stand out when it is all there is? It'll feel soulless and dull.

I enjoy AoD demo for what it is but I do feel that this may have been better as CYOA book in the vein of Lonewolf instead of a videogame.

 

[Infinitron]

Removing filler combat IS improving.

Agreed - it should be converted into non-filler whenever possible.

Hey, weren't we talking about teleportation?

 

[Excidium]

Again with the reduction-to-Diablo. What if the trash mobs do have a reason to be there? Who says you can't do classic RPG tropes in a fun, believable way? But no, let's amputate instead of improve, just like Bioware.

Yeah, maybe they're a suicide cult that instead of drinking poison, pick fights with random adventurers.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Yeah I hate all those cliches and tropes of RPGs like looti and levels,

To be honest, having XP, leveling, and tons of loot is starting to annoy me. The only thing that they really seem to provide most of the time is that MMORPG feeling of progress by seeing number go up.

Maybe RPGs just aren't for you? Just a thought.

Removing filler combat IS improving.

Removing useless skills/stats is also improving, I hear.

 

[Infinitron]

Hey, I'm all for making games with believable, realistic towns with no combat and treasure - just politics and business. Just make sure you have plenty of game outside the town where I can actually do shit.

I've reached the conclusion that the "townification" of RPGs is yet another case of "cherry takes over ice cream".

 

[likaq]

Removing filler combat IS improving.

Agreed - it should be converted into non-filler whenever possible.

Hey, weren't we talking about teleportation?

Let me quote DraQ:

Will the game storyline and general storytelling (meaning notable events that are not part of the main story) change meaningfully with removal of this combat encounter?
If not, is the encounter somehow necessitated by the gameworld logic?
If not, the encounter is filler.

In other words, repetitive filler combat is combat that serve no purpose but to extent the playing time and offer nothing of interest. E.g. 99% of all combat in Bio and Beth games.

How you can convert filler combat into non-filler?

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Removing filler storyfaggotry is imp... Oh, wait.

You really should reward exploraton in some ways, at least with information or more storyfaggotry. That gives the player more control over his character and his adventure, you know, important shit in RPGs.

 

[hiver]

dont you guys see how great it would be to make it optional?

Then infinitron can walk around to his heart content ... and then when he starts complaining about there not being enough loot and random fighting encounters we can all enjoy posting :
"well why dont you just teleport ... you have that OPTION, y know...?" and add many smileys.

FYI, I'm not personally that offended by the forced teleportation, but I'm advocating for those who are.

Please stop doing it. Youre hurting the cause.

also nobody elected you, speak for yourself only.

 

[Infinitron]

In other words, repetitive filler combat is combat that serve no purpose but to extent the playing time and offer nothing of interest. E.g. 99% of all combat in Bio and Beth games.

How you can convert filler combat into non-filler?

Okay, let's say you have a town full of random hostile thugs. Convert it into a criminal investigation quest, like in Fallout's towns, with a big fight after you've gathered evidence and presented it to the authorities.

 

[Jasede]

In other words, repetitive filler combat is combat that serve no purpose but to extent the playing time and offer nothing of interest. E.g. 99% of all combat in Bio and Beth games.

How you can convert filler combat into non-filler?

Betrayal at Krondor, Realms of Arkania, Knights of the Chalice- encounters have a point and are logical; everything seems mostly hand-crafted, every room has a story behind it. These games are CHOCK FULL of combat.

if you get rid of this you lose a big part of what makes RPGs fun: tactical encounters meant to whittle down your resources, spells and HP and used to build up to a boss encounter. You end up with a CYOA game where you zip from scene to scene and fight only a very few battles. It's a game, but it's not an RPG- it's a CYOA, a choose your own adventure book.

Also quoting DraQ is counter-productive. If you remove all encounters that aren't meaningful to the story from an RPG, what are you left with? AoD. And AoD feels cold to me. Maybe you like this kind of game; but it's not for everyone.

This being the Codex I am sure you will now tell me to enjoy my Dragon's Age 2 Mass Effect 3 popamole, nevermind that I never played those games.

 

[20 Eyes]

Yeah I hate all those cliches and tropes of RPGs like loot

I know you're being sarcastic, but holy fuck do I hate the idea of 'loot' as it's applied in CRPG games. Over 4 books, Frodo and Bilbo find one 'phat lootz' sword between the two of them. And somehow characters in many RPGs are changing weapons multiple times in a single dungeon floor.

Well that's complete bullshit, didn't read too carefully. And in the hobbit they found an entire mountain of gold. A diamond as big as a hobbit's head. A suit of mithril worth more than a small kingdom.

I was just talking about swords. But besides that, my point still stands. Money != 'phat loot'. Money is what you buy it with. And one suit of armor worth a small kingdom. Not a costume change after every other battle.

But I'm not talking about Tolkien and I wouldn't consider myself especially versed in his work, my gripe is with this formula being used in RPGs:

Win battle - Loot room - YAY! Sword of Fire + 1!
Win battle - Loot room - YAY! Sword of Fire + 1.2!
and so on...

Sounds like you are playing the wrong RPGs; I played Fallout and PS:T and Betrayal at Krondor and Realms of Arkania and in all of those weapons are rare and special.

I'm speaking merely for my opinion on the genre as a whole. I agree some examples get it right, Fallout definitely does a good job with loot.

EDITED - quotes got messed up

 

[Jasede]

We could argue that; I consider money/gold/precious trinkets phat loot just as much as swords or magic weapons. That was also neat about RoA: you could never really tell what things did without spending a lot of precious AE on casting dozens of spells to figure out what was magic and what wasn't. It was very strange. If you didn't carefully scrutinize crap you'd end up throwing away magic weapons - of which there were maybe 5-6 in the game; probably twice as many in RoA 2. They were extremely precious because only magic weapons hurt demons and they didn't break.

 

[Shadenuat]

VD's example with Arcanum puzzled me. Can't believe anyone would *not* like running around Tarant for the first time. And maybe for a few others. When you are routinely doing quests there on 5th replay, then maybe, but otherwise? There are people be talked to, history to be read, sightseeing to be done, things to be stealed, and fetch-quests send you into all the places to explore and tie stuff together, helping to learn about setting you are in. Figuring out PS&Sons by reading street signs was a game in itself. And, most importantly, quests allowed some preparation and creativity when using skills.
A lot have been said already and I dont really want to but inability to scout territory with interactive tools (skills) is anything but grand design decision. Sure, you can substitute a lot by dialogue, but here's the thing with choice given on a plate instead of thought out in player's own head - you can never give player enough. So what if bandits can be persuaded to give hostage in AoD, or their leader backstabbed, or money spent? Any of these does't fix that you have to (in a harsh "all about survival" world!) walk, in a bright sunlight, right into their camp full of armed brigands and speak with the guy to utilise any of your abilities.

 

[hiver]

Also quoting DraQ is counter-productive. If you remove all encounters that aren't meaningful to the story from an RPG, what are you left with? AoD. And AoD feels cold to me. Maybe you like this kind of game; but it's not for everyone.

This being the Codex I am sure you will now tell me to enjoy my Dragon's Age 2 Mass Effect 3 popamole, nevermind that I never played those games.

AoD isnt cold or empty. There are loads of options and multiple paths and content available based on your skills.
Some of it is available through dialogue options, like gambling in Thiefs guild den and getting a nice knife if you have high enough perception.

You people just want all of that presented in random encounter popamole combat cosmetics.

Also you didnt play Dragon's Age 2 Mass Effect 3 popamole???
You should, youre going to luuve it.

btw,
None of you is worthy to mention Tolkiens name, especially a blathering idiot like Knotanalt.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

I've reached the conclusion that the "townification" of RPGs is yet another case of "cherry takes over ice cream".

this is probably because towns carry overt narratives far easier than dungeons

if you read pnp adventure modules you know that saying that dungeons/danger areas are less interesting or easier to make with no character interactions would be horseshittery, but your modern cinematic roleplayer cannot into that at all,

and also because of the subtleties required in balancing both combat and coherent level design those are harder to get right than some emotional/political feudal business that your important character is going to make tough choices about next to shops and a novelty whorehouse, and less impressive to your titular gaming dumbfuck

see: Dark Sun 1's dungeons

 

[Excidium]

Hey, I'm all for making games with believable, realistic towns with no combat and treasure - just politics and business. Just make sure you have plenty of game outside the town where I can actually do shit.

I've reached the conclusion that the "townification" of RPGs is yet another case of "cherry takes over ice cream".

Actually, fantasy cities SHOULD have plenty of room for adventuring, just look how much time you spend questing in a city like Athkatla in BG2 and it has a p. reduced scale. I hope nobody is arguing against that.

 

[hiver]

ive seen that jasede!!!
:shakes fist angrily:

cmonn..its just a joke...

 

[Jasede]

Humor doesn't translate well through text, unfortunately, and this goes both ways.

 

[Infinitron]

Hey, I'm all for making games with believable, realistic towns with no combat and treasure - just politics and business. Just make sure you have plenty of game outside the town where I can actually do shit.

I've reached the conclusion that the "townification" of RPGs is yet another case of "cherry takes over ice cream".

Actually, fantasy cities SHOULD have plenty of room for adventuring, just look how much time you spend questing in a city like Athkatla in BG2 and it has a p. reduced scale. I hope nobody is arguing against that.

Sure, but remember Athkatla also had underground sewers with monsters, a cemetery with undead, vampire attacks at night, and even that random boisterous party at the inn that you could get into a fight with. Just off the top of my head.

 

[Internet]

After reading 2/3 of this thread I got the impression that AoD is a text-heavy roguelike (?) where you are teleported around a lot. Or something.

I downloaded the demo, I liked it (I tried an assassin). Teleporting is somewhat confusing the first time, but I actually don't mind it (maybe a little animation with a map would help, but is no big deal). The world feels somewhat empty at times, but it has its charm and I don't exactly expect the next Divine Divinity/Gothic by some small indie studio.

I think overall its a good game. I liked the character creation system, writing seems mostly good (but I'm not a native English speaker), quest branching looks well done. I won't comment on the combat because I skipped most of it. A game that does a couple of important things well (character creation and quests) is good enough for me. It run somewhat clunky on the PC I installed it to, but it's an old machine so I expected it.

 

[Excidium]

Hey, I'm all for making games with believable, realistic towns with no combat and treasure - just politics and business. Just make sure you have plenty of game outside the town where I can actually do shit.

I've reached the conclusion that the "townification" of RPGs is yet another case of "cherry takes over ice cream".

Actually, fantasy cities SHOULD have plenty of room for adventuring, just look how much time you spend questing in a city like Athkatla in BG2 and it has a p. reduced scale. I hope nobody is arguing against that.

Sure, but remember Athkatla also had underground sewers with monsters, a cemetery with undead, vampire attacks at night, and even that random boisterous party at the inn that you could get into a fight with. Just off the top of my head.

Yes? That's common stuff for any fantasy metropolis. There's a lot of opportunity for fighting stuff and collecting treasure that doesn't involve random suicidal thugs and barrels with gold coins.

 

[Infinitron]

Yes? That's common stuff for any fantasy metropolis. There's a lot of opportunity for fighting stuff and collecting treasure that doesn't involve random suicidal thugs and barrels with gold coins.

It's a town with more to do in it than politics and dialogs, that's the point.

 

[hiver]

At this point I would just suggest creating a kind of experiment poll asking whether teleportation should be an option or remain forced like it is currently, all other things remaining relatively same.
(if that's necessary at all...)

Some people are throwing in a lot of secondary arguments into this, which do not concern teleportation itself but reflect their preferences for different games entirely... which is not the issue of teleportation itself.

 

[Alex]

One of my favorite games of all times is Ultima 7, a game where sightseeing the towns, countrysides, roads and everything else is half of the point. It is a game that rewards the player to go out of his way to talk to each NPC, no matter how unimportant. So, I can understand how some people don't like this philosophy AoD seems to follow of boiling everything down to something that can be done quickly.

But I think this feature makes a lot of sense in AoD. While it isn't something I would like to see in all games from now on, allowing the player to restart and move through content already seem quickly can be very important. Currently, I am playing through the Space Quest games, having just finished the 5th. One thing I noticed is how annoying walking very slowly through screens can be in a game you may need to restart multiple times. I like the idea that I can become locked in a "game over" state in an adventure game. But it seems to work way better when you are playing a text adventure, where getting to any point in the game again can take less than a minute.

So, I really think people here ought to give the feature a chance. The real point here is if the game can capture the player in a way that makes him want to replay it many times. If it clues in enough about what things might be worth trying without giving those away. If the game has far reaching consequences so that it is clear how certain events later on are consequences of your choices without it being obvious what choices you should make to get the events you desire instead. If it can do that, I think it will definitely be worth playing, even if its environment exploration is flimsy.