Age of Decadence - October Update

[RPGWatch]

Vince has posted a new update for The Age of Decadence, particularly focused on the Beta and Alchemy. Release 3 should also be ready in a week for testers:

Alchemy:

Seems to be working well, but we won't know for sure until we release R3 and get hundreds of opinions rolling in. Here is what the testers think so far:

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Opinion #1:

[Alchemy] is very situational. In places where you go into one fight followed by another, like the Militiades encounter, the Aurelian Mine, etc... Healing is really useful. In all other circumstances it's useless. Acid is excellent against heavily armored enemies. But it makes you lose 7 AP (3 to throw, 4 to switch weapons, unless you're using a one-hand weapon and no shield, which is an unusual combination), takes time to work, needs the throwing skill and is not THAT helpful against multiple enemies. Gunpowder and oil flask have very small range, requiring enemies to be bunched together, although both have interesting effects (oil flask is good to separate enemies and gunpowder can knock people down, it seems). Not only that, but alchemy is a one-time use that depends on the ingredients, while other skills have more stable bonuses.

Overall alchemy can be very useful or very useless and it varies wildly, depending on the encounter. Crafting, for the sake of comparison, feels a lot more consistently useful throughout the game. I'm not saying that I don't like alchemy, mind you. Quite the contrary, it's fun to play with and trying to find uses for all those things.