The Age of Decadence New Public Beta Build Released

The folks at Iron Tower Studio have been hard at work on working on the feedback they received after releasing the first build of the public beta demo for the title, and now we finally get a chance to see for ourselves how it worked out, as the team has published a second build for the beta.

You can find direct download links on Atomic Gamer and RapidShare or go for the Torrent available at The Pirate Bay. A changelog of all the changes and fixes is available on the Iron Tower forums and I’m going to quote an excerpt from there:

Changes:

– You now have 5 more skill points to spend in character creation.
– Intelligence bonus SP now it’s only applied on quest rewards, as you get them.
– Skill threshold changed from 50/75 to 50/70/90.
– Trading base value now takes into account intelligence.
– Combined checks now check for the sum of both skills (with a low min requirement), so you can compensate lack of skill points in one skill with the other one. For example, a check that was [aod.persuasion >= 36 && aod.streetwise >= 32] now is [(aod.persuasion + aod.streetwise >= 68) && aod.persuasion >= 30 && aod.streetwise >= 28].
– Faster zooming.
– Made clear which quests are not in the demo.
– The majority of the Critical strikes checks now have more outcomes than “kill or be killed”.
– New THC formula that favors builds balanced in offense and defense.
– THC bonus from weapons reduced from 10 to 8 and from 5 to 4.
– Small daggers fast and normal max damage increased by 1 point.
– Manica doesn’t accept techniques other than different metals and masterwork.
– 2H axes now have 2 points vsDR.
– Wooden sticks no longer have THC bonus nor Counter Attack bonus.
– Pickaxe has no longer have passive bonus.
– Buckler has an attack penalty of 5.
– Hardened armor now has 3 levels instead of 5.
– Lowered the difference between min and max damage for all weapons.
– The differences in weapons inside the same tier (shamshir and handar, for example) are now one that has more raw damage, and another that has more THC and counter chance.
– Nets reduce defense 20 points instead of 30.
– Perception and distance factored in nets THC. Also throwing influence is bigger.
– Dodge characters get a bonus to avoid AoO attacks, allowing characters focused on dodge to move around the battlefield more.
– Free defenses are based on dexterity and AP limit set by armor. Low dexterity and heavy armor characters get tired faster and get a penalty to defense when defending a lot within a turn. High dex, lowly armored character keep their full defense for longer.
– Strength now give a % increase instead of a fixed bonus. Ranges from -20% to 40%.
– Perception THC bonus changed, increases/decreases 4 points per stat point.
– Masterwork armor is getting a boost, now it decreases penalties much more, from 25% to 80% of the total amount.
– Increased the price of nets to 75 imperials.
– Iron price increase changed from 2.5x to 1.5x.
– Added two new items: Climbing hook and rope with grappling hook. Climbing now is a combined strength + dexterity check. Climbing hooks lower the bare handed requirements. Ropes rely on throwing (grappling hook makes the check easier) and then a small strength + dexterity check to climb.
– Changed the armor of the guard in the Kebab thief quest to bronze.
– Increased price of schematics.
– The blacksmith one time sells bronze, wood and leather.