I found out the other day that I had bought this in a bundle ages ago. I think I’m going to wait for the full release to actually play it, though, mainly because I’ve got way too much other stuff to play already.
Final release date announced: December 21st.
This was my first response too.
I’d love to see a few more Fallout-esque titles in the mix, and I don’t mind the 1997-ish graphics, but I think I’d get sick of the darkness pretty quickly. Maybe I’ll wait for the L-train DLC.
OH, then the game is almost done already!
HELL. YES.
The last time I played it had ~90% of all locations and quests but was missing some skills and feats . At this point you might as well wait imo.
I think the main reason to avoid starting it now in early access is because he was redoing a lot of the early areas too. Making 'em look nicer, etc.
Know very little about the game other than I’ve been waiting for the full version to take a look. I kinda gather it’s less of a “Branching quest dialog heavy” game and more of a sorta open world combat game, but with really rock solid mechanics. Not entirely sure it’ll be my cup of tea but I own it and looking at it is a priority. Shame it’s so close to Christmas though.
Pretty much this. You do pick faction allegiance at some point and there are a few persuasion/intimidate checks in the game but nothing on the level of FO2 for example. The combat mechanics on the other hand…hooo boy. This is a game that you can easily replay multiple times just to test out different builds. I don’t want to make it sound like the game is all about combat though, there’s plenty of well written dialogue (and by well written I mean short and straight to the point) and a good sense of mystery to the story.
So the Fallout version of Age of Decadence? Sounds cool! December 21st marked on my calendar.
-TomRelease date is now 18th!
For $10 it seems like a no-brainer to pick this up. I’m really curious about that Oddity system, seems really cool, and it’s been a LONG while since I played a game like this - it seems like it has a LOT of content, too - lots of reviews have 40 or more hours (some have more than 100!) on record.
I have 70 hours on record (Steam, not sure about actual playtime without loading) and I haven’t even seen all the areas yet. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but the game feels as big as FO2, if not bigger. This is also the reason why the price of the game is going to go up at release, it has apparently grown far beyond the initial scope that Styg had planned.
I played some about 6 months ago, and I’ll second this is a really spectacular game. The only reason I stopped playing is because I didn’t want to do so much that I’d feel like I was replaying old areas when it finally released.
Anyone who is a fan of creative worlds, turn based combat, and a really crunch character building system will enjoy this game.
Chris Woods
I’ve had this game forever but never tried it till last night. Didn’t read anything beforehand, just jumped right in and was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to pick up and go. Really polished, intuitive and effective UI, plenty of tooltips and info in case you need it. Looks quite nice too and the audio is just fabulous – really enjoyed the ambient sounds to set the mood.
The discussions with NPCs were quick and to the point which is a plus for me since I’m at the point in my life where I avoid RPG’s with massive walls of text. There’s a quest journal with handy “checklist” format to keep track of your current objectives and refer back to if necessary.
One nitpick is the character creation at the start where you’re presented with attributes (STR, DEX, INT, etc), skills, and perks and must spend points increasing/choosing what you want. You literally start with 120 skill points to spend on 20 or so different skills. There’s little in the way of assistance here other than general descriptions. I’d rather skip this entirely and jump right into some early tutorial/gameplay and maybe be allowed to learn more about certain skills/classes/perks/whatever or at the very least have some sort of “interview” process about what type of role you want to play and get some suggestions on where to spend these points and how many might be needed to be “effective” at your primary role(s). For example, it seemed like Strength was the proper attribute for heavier primary weapons but the Gun skill (can’t remember the exact name) claimed that Perception was the associated attribute… Maybe it was me, it was late and I was falling asleep at the keyboard!
Anyhoo, i’m sure character builds will pop-up on the forums soon enough if not there already but a bit more guidance in-game would be welcome.
In fact, if anyone has any tips on attributes/skills/perks please let us know!
I actually did pick this up after all, it looked far to interesting to pass by and it was only $10 which I felt was a VERY fair price. I played it just a little to get a sense for how the game feels and walked away with largely the same impressions as GuildBoss, though I guess I was making a lot of assumptions from Fallout 1 and 2 how the skills and stats worked and as such, I didn’t worry too much about making good choices (I kind of expect after a few hours of playing the game, I’ll roll a new character anyway, but you never know). I loved the perks, and I really like you get so many skill points (and that there is a max you can start with of 15 points per skill - for some reason this made me feel good knowing I wasn’t locking myself out of something not putting 40 or whatever points into a skill right away - if I can only go 15, then that’s the highest I’m expected to have early on) and two perks to select!
The game looks neat, and I agree again with GB regarding the dialog - it’s short, well done, and fast paced to skim through and ask questions and such. The world feels interesting, and there is a lot of depth here from what I’m seeing. I did some shooting at the target range and then stopped there, I want to have a fairly fresh experience when the full version drops this Friday (it sounds like the early access build is pretty old and out dated now, and the save games are going to be invalidated anyway). Very excited!
I forgot to ask - is there a better way to reload your weapon than going into inventory and finding the right ammo type and right-clicking? Like a button on the UI I am missing, or maybe a hot key?
Best advice I can give you is to start from the top - check the ‘Show All’ button on the perk list, see which ones appeal to you, try to figure out synergies (it’s pretty straight forward), check out their requirements and try to come up with a stat spread. After that, mark/remember the skills you’ll have to level up in order to meet the other part of perk requirements.
Number of skill points per level is static - you always get 40 per level up, regardless of your Intelligence. The amount of skill points you can put in any category is always your current level * 5. At level 10 this means 50, at level cap of 25 it means a max base value of 125 skill points per category. However! The game uses synergy system between stats and some skills which gives you higher effective level in a skill. Note that effective level DOES NOT count towards perk requirements, only the base value does. It does however directly impact your performance while performing various actions so it’s generally advisable to get your relevant combat skills as high as possible.
Re min-maxing - in the early access build I played a character with pretty even stat spread and it turned out really good because I was good at stealthing, unarmed combat and getting into places. However, the EA build only had one difficulty and it wasn’t that hard so I’m not sure if this approach will work in release version on harder difficulty which is getting implemented.
Pretty much ever skill except Barter (and maybe Persuasion/Intimidate) gets its fair share of use though. I was surprised how handy the throwing skill I had picked up turned out to be. It was absolutely crucial for my character at some point in the story.
tldr - play whatever you want to be honest. Just try to make sure that your skills synergise well with the stats and perks you picked.
This was my 2nd nitpick but forgot to mention it. Reloading seems way too unwieldy ATM since you have open inventory. I mean, I like the concept of having so many options when reloading but it could use a quick-key or even just clicking the gun on the hotbar to bring up the sub-menu…
Which is pretty much what I do anyway in RPG’s but I just don’t want to find out later that there’s one particular “must have” perk but I can’t get it because I put a 3 in CHR (ahem, Fallout 4, Local Leader perk!)
Either way, it’s not a game-breaker by any stretch. I mostly dump my points into whatever helps me with shooting/guns the most!