Age of Decadence

[Slowtrain]

That was great. I played a sword guy with high str and con through until I got to the three barbarians who were too much.

 

I kept discovering more options as I went along. The game looks very promising.

[Purkake]

The combat is pretty solid, but I'm getting horrible Runescape flashbacks for some reason...

[Jora]

The combat is pretty solid, but I'm getting horrible Runescape flashbacks for some reason...

Come on, even you can't think the graphics are that bad!

[Slowtrain]

I played through with a few more builds.

 

A dodge/dagger guy did OK, but had so few hitpoints that he couldn't make it past the barbarians, though the fight went on for a while.

 

I had the most success with a high strengh/con hammer guy, but the dude with the spear took him out quickly. Same with my axe guy. I trieda spear guy but I wasn't as good as the AI spear guy.

 

ANyway, its a very solid system.

 

I think the graphics are fine. The camera view is a bit wonky though.

[Slowtrain]

After several more playthroughs I would say that the combat is a little bit unbalanced, in that there is too much luck involved. I can go through one fight and get totally wiped out in just a few turns, reload a save and refight and cream the other guy in just a few turns, not really doing anything differently either time.

 

 

Also, related to the above, critical hits seems somewhat overpowered.

 

So far I've had the most luck with a max str/con hammer guy splitting his skill points between hammer and critical and ignoring dodge and block completely. Althougn now I am fight two barbarians and they keep criticla hitting me into oblivion. I'm not sure why since my own critical skill is pretty high and based on the read me notes should offset their critical bonus.

Edited December 31, 2009 by Slowtrain

[Tigranes]

Got through it now with xbow/dodge, axe/block, dagger/dodge, bow/dodge, spear/dodge. It's a very solid system, but it's characterised by (a) low hit points, and therefore risky, on-your toes battles; (b) a very firm rock-paper-scissors specialisation route; © I am not certain, but probably the use of absolute thresholds for certain things like critical chance. And of course, in the demo, extraordinary elements like alchemy is absent. So yeah, it does depend quite a bit on luck.

 

Critical skill has to do with your own critical hits, I'm not sure if it helps you defend. The vsCS (defending vs. crits) value is heavily modified by shields, armour and helmets though, and you can check individual vsCS for each part of the body in the inventory screen. Generally if you have the best armour you can grab at that point, you won't do too bad against crits except a certain crit-specialist later on.

[Humodour]

Why a square grid? What happened to hexagons? ****ing wankers.

[Slowtrain]

Critical skill has to do with your own critical hits, I'm not sure if it helps you defend. The vsCS (defending vs. crits) value is heavily modified by shields, armour and helmets though, and you can check individual vsCS for each part of the body in the inventory screen. Generally if you have the best armour you can grab at that point, you won't do too bad against crits except a certain crit-specialist later on.

 

 

I just realixzed that some of the armor is more much protective of critical hits than others. WHich in some ways seems to be more important than anything else.

 

dodge is badly hamped by any armor since armor reduces dodge by a percentage rather than absolute value, so the higher your dodge skill the more you lose by wearing armor.

 

I took a guy and put all skill points into dodge and made it through the first six battles without dying while only fighting in underwear. Problem was he had such a low chance to hit that it took him a long time to kill people, and even though his enemies rarely hit him, when they did it was usually pretty news.

[Tigranes]

In the demo, where no general skills are used, the most balanced character is one that shares points between a single offensive skill and either dodge or block.

 

That said, I'm trying to do a Sulik-like hammertime where you have no block or dodge, just very high health, very good armour and one big sledgehammer.

[Slowtrain]

In the demo, where no general skills are used, the most balanced character is one that shares points between a single offensive skill and either dodge or block.

 

 

So do you think those dodge or block are mreo important than critical? I'm trying to figure out how much value the critical skill has.

 

 

That said, I'm trying to do a Sulik-like hammertime where you have no block or dodge, just very high health, very good armour and one big sledgehammer.

 

 

This build worked very well for me. Except he seemed to get critically hit all the time. I still haven't been able to get him past the Ordu archer/swordsman combo despite multple attempts.

[Tigranes]

If you find that you are having difficulty beating the arena, yes, simply ignore the crit skill for now. The most efficient build is a 'dodger' build; e.g. you'd put roughly equal points in crossbows and dodge until both reach 175, after which you would concentrate exclusively on dodge, eventually maxing it out. You'd go for 10 DEX and 10 PER to maximise your chances of hitting people and moving around. You don't really need criticals: you are hitting things 3 or 4 times a round with great accuracy (so you can afford to do aimed shots), while, if you're keeping dodge along at a good pace, they'd need to try 10 times to hit you once. My extreme dagger/dodge build eventually got 300 dodge and a special dagger from one of the opponents that costs only 1 AP to do fast attacks. So I could fight naked, attack 12 times a turn, and get hit about once every 50 attacks. The downside is, of course, (a) armour penetration - you do less damage per hit so sometimes its very hard to damage heavily armoured opponents; (b) if you're unlucky and you can't dodge a couple of hits it might be the end of you.

 

Still, I found 'dodgers' by far the easier and better of the various builds. And never try to invest in more than 2 skills for one character, you won't get anywhere.

 

Just beat the Arena with that hammertime man, but the group fights were especially tricky because he kept getting crit'd and hit in the legs. The trick with the Ordu is you rush the bowman as fast as you can, as soon as the arena opens, and close down that distance before the combat turns start. Then close him down and smash, he doesn't have a lot of HP.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Why a square grid? What happened to hexagons? ****ing wankers.

IRON TOWER SCREWS US AGAIN.

[Starwars]

So do you think those dodge or block are mreo important than critical? I'm trying to figure out how much value the critical skill has.

 

Many people have had huge luck with ranged attackers focusing more on critical, it can apparantly be very deadly. I haven't tried ranged stuff yet. I personally did find doing a close quarters fighter with critical hit + whatever weapon skill to be very hard.

 

This build worked very well for me. Except he seemed to get critically hit all the time. I still haven't been able to get him past the Ordu archer/swordsman combo despite multple attempts.

 

This is a really hard fight, and I gotta say I've had to reload it several times with any build that doesn't use block (because it really hampers the Ordu archer). It's really important to try and get as good a critical hit protection as you possibly can. The helmets can help a lot here, and even if you don't use shields normally, it can really be worth it to get a big one just for when you're moving up against the enemies at the start. Some fights can be a lot easier if you make liberal use of your inventory and have set gear for different situations.

 

But it's cool. My first build was a sword/block guy and he didn't have any problems at all with the Ordu. His "nemesis" fight were definitely the Triarii coming up later on. But when I went with a hammer/dodge character, it was pretty much the opposite.

[Slowtrain]

Thanks guys.

 

I'll try a couple block and dodge builds and see how they work while ignoring critical for now.

 

I still haven't tried any ranged builds.

[Wrath of Dagon]

The Ordu fight isn't bad with hammer/dodge if you use a light hammer and chase the archer first and do as many fast attacks as you can, since he's hard to hit but not well protected otherwise. You can also equip a buckler since there're are no penalties to dodge or hit. Any other shield is counter-productive IMO because of the penalties. Once the archer is dead, the swordsman is pretty easy as he's easy to hit.

[Tigranes]

A tower shield negates the use of a helmet as well, as you can use it to cover head shots. You might also wnat to use heavier shields if you have no more points but find you need block more than you need attack/dodge at that moment. Otherwise, yes, a buckler's pretty useful.

[Slowtrain]

The Ordu fight isn't bad with hammer/dodge if you use a light hammer and chase the archer first and do as many fast attacks as you can, since he's hard to hit but not well protected otherwise. You can also equip a buckler since there're are no penalties to dodge or hit. Any other shield is counter-productive IMO because of the penalties. Once the archer is dead, the swordsman is pretty easy as he's easy to hit.

 

 

I got through the ordu fight with hammer dodge but it took me many many tries. I finally decided to go after the swordsman first because his hits were causing more damage, especially since he woudl get opportunity attacks eveyr time I move to chase the archer. Once I took the swordsman down I could deal with archer without suffering those dang opportunity attacks from the swordsman every time I moved to chase the archer. That seemed to help a lot.

 

I tried using a light hammer/buckler combo for a while but I simply wasn't doing enough damage. I seemd to have mcuh better luck with the sledghammer.

 

After that fight, the next bunch were pretty easy for hammer/dodge until I got to this fight with some guy named Dellar or something. He crtically hits my guy three times a turn for 10-30 damage each time and kills me by turn 2. Bleah.

[Starwars]

Dellar is the last guy (arena champion) in the actual arena. After that, there is one more optional fight.

[Slowtrain]

Dellar is the last guy (arena champion) in the actual arena. After that, there is one more optional fight.

 

 

He's pretty tough. I'll go back and try some more battles against him at some point, but they were seemingly so one sided that I kind of ran out of patience.

[Starwars]

Hm, he can be rather rough but I don't recall having too much trouble with him as a hammer/dodger guy. His crits can be really nasty though, I can't remember what strategy I decided on. Think either aim vs head or aim vs torso worked well against him, but yeah... Can't remember at the moment.

[Tigranes]

Thing is, by that time you get so many points and so much money, unless you screw up (i.e. waste too much of your money or spread out your points weirdly) beforehand, it's impossible not to be superior. If you're a blocker, you will have as good as, or better, armour than him, and will be able to close in and slam him to death, as long as you work the movement squares and such right. e.g. you can simply aim-hit to arm and out-damage him. If you're a dodger, again, you should have at least 200, possibly up to 250 dodge by now, and therefore dodge ~80% of all his efforts.

[Slowtrain]

HAmmer: 234

Dodge:140

[Starwars]

Dodge definitely on the low side there. But even so, I seem to recall Dellar being so skilled with his weapon that I didn't really dodge much in that fight at any rate despite having a high doge skill. Also, if you're having a lot of trouble, it can be worth it to try using nets.

 

My most successful builds have actually been those where I put a slight focus on the defensive skills vs the weapon skills. My instinct was always to give a slight edge to the weapons, but there just isn't that much trouble hitting people towards the end. But either blocking or dodging is very important if your guy can't take people out very quickly (people say that ranged + crit builds can do that nicely).

[Slowtrain]

I agree that trying to find the balance between offense and defense is pretty impottant to the combat.

 

I've had builds that could hit anyone anywhere at any time but couldn't avoiding being hit. They could deal a lot of damage fast but went down quickly to a coule high damage hits since they couldn't avoid them. I've had other builds that were virtually untouchable by the opponent, but couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with their weapon. They tend to last a long time in the battle, but ultimately still fail becasue they take so long to do damage that they eventually get killed anyway.

[Tigranes]

You should never, for any weapon, need to go over 200, unless you're going for a specialised offensive build that tries to kill everyone with 95% aimed head shots before they lift their finger.

 

You can, I believe, get a good (80%+) hit rate with 'normal' hits against all arena enemies at 175. This would have given you a 200 dodge - enough to survive against Dellar.

 

If you're having trouble with balance, try this; first, get your attack up to ~75, then block up to ~75. Then alternate between them until 150 attack, and henceforth focus on dodge with the occasional attack when you get your hit % going lower.