334 réponses à ce sujet

[phordicus]

DA is to rpg as walmart is to shopping. it's not going to become deeper or more complex (or more interesting) at the cost of sales. they found a nice market spot amidst the other top rpg contenders (rightly so) and can't afford to innovate. we're fortunate there's a toolset.

[Suron]

no JRPG's have repetitive combat that really can't be approached many different ways depending on your party makeup.



DA:O (and most WRPGs) combat can be approached MANY DIFFERENT WAYS even after you've established your companions "roles"



I disagree that LO's combat is better..and so do others...you have your opinion..we have ours..stop speaking as if your opinion is fact...it's not...it's relative to the person and if DA:O adopted JRPG style combat...I'd never buy another ****ing one again.

[soteria]

no JRPG's have repetitive combat that really can't be approached many different ways depending on your party makeup.

Not really my experience. In fact, if you look at Final Fantasy, three of the more popular ones (VI, VII, and X) afforded the player great opportunities for party customization. VII possibly allowed the player more control over your party's strengths and weaknesses than any Bioware game since BG2 on multiplayer.

I think individual players, more than a given game, tend to place themselves in a gameplay rut. I've seen players claim that DA:O forces you to play a certain way. Although it's true that you *can* always play the same way in DA:O and be successful, you don't have to. That's largely true for the good JRPGs I've played as well, except that the optional bosses tend to be soul-crushingly difficult.

FFXIII, which you claim is supposed to be more westernized and has a reputation for being difficult, has been accused of forcing the player to use a certain "optimal" group (Lightning, Hope, Fang). My experience has been that I can use almost any group I want and adjust my playstyle as I please--though I tend to favor highly aggressive group makeups and styles.

As for repetitive combat, I'm not sure how you can say JRPGs have reptitive combat but WRPGs don't. That's just a non sequitor. Unless you decide to grind--some people--the combat itself is no more repetitive than any other game. I even thought the combat was a little thin in some places in FFVII.

DA:O (and most WRPGs) combat can be approached MANY DIFFERENT WAYS even after you've established your companions "roles"

You can probably approach DA:O 3 or 4 different ways on Nightmare and still be successful, which is no more or less than any JRPG I've played. The problem is, those ways work in pretty much every fight, leading to repetitive combat, ironically. Too few bosses require that you pay attention to what they're doing to succeed, and too few generic enemies merit any change in what you're doing from the last ten fights.

I disagree that LO's combat is better..and so do others...you have your opinion..we have ours..stop speaking as if your opinion is fact...it's not...it's relative to the person and if DA:O adopted JRPG style combat...I'd never buy another ****ing one again.

/shrug.  I enjoy the combat in both genres.  Though I think the JRPG often has hokey and unbelievable monsters, well, the WRPG tends to have generic, pushover monsters.  If there's someone that's trying to push off opinion as fact, it's you.  You seem to have a hard time distinguishing between "I hate JRPGs" and "this is what's good and bad about them."  Anyway, until the devs tell us that they think their game is perfect and to stop giving player feedback, I, at least, will keep on giving suggestions.

Modifié par soteria, 11 avril 2010 - 01:42 .

[hexaligned]

Master Woo makes some good points, and I agree with him in a general sort of way. DAO does in fact have a better story and characters than most games. It is a game however, it isn't going to win any literary awards, in my opinion at least it isn't good enough to justify slimming down other aspects of gameplay to the degree they were in DAO.



I at least wasn't asking for a "complete overhual" of the combat system, just that some more variety and challenge be injected into it, which I think is a reasonable suggestion from a player when you consider what we ended up with, even when it's compared to past Bioware titles.

[0LunarEclipse0]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Unfortunately, Upper_Krust, it really sounds like the entirety of your argument isn't that DAO needs more depth or complexity, but that it needs to be the Lost Odyssey combat system because of how much you enjoyed that system.

Don't get me wrong. That is an acceptable argument and your opinion is as valid as anyone else's, including mine, but I think the point that you're not getting from those arguing (maturely and respectfully) against you is that you are considering Lost Odyssey's combat system only within the context of Lost Odyssey and its genre. In a JRPG, that level of complexity in a combat system is acceptable and desired, because less time can be spent on things like story branches and player choice in that story. And that's fine... for a JRPG.

Western RPGs have to contend with a different audience, one that also enjoys a gripping story where they make the decisions. That necessarily requires more time and resources to be spent on writing and voicing and design, and less on the intricacies of positioning and rings and whatnot.

As for the "more is not better argument," I think it's a little disingenuous to compare your "more is better" statement to "more DA products is better" because that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing the combat system, not a game franchise. In most western RPGs, the combat system is there to support the story. Many people in this thread can win Dragon Age combats with ease, even on Nightmare, but many are in it for the story. They want to see how it ends.

In most JRPGs, on the other hand, the story is there to support the awesome new combat system they've developed. As an example, look at the Final Fantasy series. The few that I've played have tremendous variation and customization in combat tactics, abilities, buffs, summons, and animations. The cinematics when performing ultimate moves are spectacular, and I love watching them. Performing them starts to become a minigame in and of itself, as you perform the correct combination or number of moves necessary to fill the meter, get the timing right on the real-time rhythm game, and press the correct combination of buttons at just the right moment in the animation. It's great, and I enjoy it, but I don't like the rest of what a JRPG is, which is endlessly slogging through voiceless character dialogues to uncover a story that isn't necessary to win the game, the trilling sound effect of printed text, lack of choice in dialogue responses, all to get to the next potentially poorly-translated, voiced cinematic.

A JRPG, to me, is having to suffer through character "development" and "interaction" to get to the next cinematic or combat, while a western RPG is, to me, going through combat to get to the next bit of exciting story development and character interaction. In a western RPG, especially BioWare's, there a sense of the characters being real enough to touch, and strong attachments are developed, which is why we always have character love and hate threads, and romance threads, in every one of our game forums.

So yes, you can definitely compare RPGs like Dragon Age and Lost Odyssey, but try to incorporate entire systems from one into the other? You'd essentially be changing the genre and potentially alienating an entire audience.

And Mr. Woo lays the smackdown. 1...2...3. He is out. Upper_Krust is out.

[Suron]

soteria wrote...

no JRPG's have repetitive combat that really can't be approached many different ways depending on your party makeup.

Not really my experience. In fact, if you look at Final Fantasy, three of the more popular ones (VI, VII, and X) afforded the player great opportunities for party customization. VII possibly allowed the player more control over your party's strengths and weaknesses than any Bioware game since BG2 on multiplayer.

I think individual players, more than a given game, tend to place themselves in a gameplay rut. I've seen players claim that DA:O forces you to play a certain way. Although it's true that you *can* always play the same way in DA:O and be successful, you don't have to. That's largely true for the good JRPGs I've played as well, except that the optional bosses tend to be soul-crushingly difficult.

FFXIII, which you claim is supposed to be more westernized and has a reputation for being difficult, has been accused of forcing the player to use a certain "optimal" group (Lightning, Hope, Fang). My experience has been that I can use almost any group I want and adjust my playstyle as I please--though I tend to favor highly aggressive group makeups and styles.

As for repetitive combat, I'm not sure how you can say JRPGs have reptitive combat but WRPGs don't. That's just a non sequitor. Unless you decide to grind--some people--the combat itself is no more repetitive than any other game. I even thought the combat was a little thin in some places in FFVII.

DA:O (and most WRPGs) combat can be approached MANY DIFFERENT WAYS even after you've established your companions "roles"

You can probably approach DA:O 3 or 4 different ways on Nightmare and still be successful, which is no more or less than any JRPG I've played. The problem is, those ways work in pretty much every fight, leading to repetitive combat, ironically. Too few bosses require that you pay attention to what they're doing to succeed, and too few generic enemies merit any change in what you're doing from the last ten fights.

I disagree that LO's combat is better..and so do others...you have your opinion..we have ours..stop speaking as if your opinion is fact...it's not...it's relative to the person and if DA:O adopted JRPG style combat...I'd never buy another ****ing one again.

/shrug.  I enjoy the combat in both genres.  Though I think the JRPG often has hokey and unbelievable monsters, well, the WRPG tends to have generic, pushover monsters.  If there's someone that's trying to push off opinion as fact, it's you.  You seem to have a hard time distinguishing between "I hate JRPGs" and "this is what's good and bad about them."  Anyway, until the devs tell us that they think their game is perfect and to stop giving player feedback, I, at least, will keep on giving suggestions.

this is the only thing I'll give you..most WRPGs have boss fights that end up being typical tank-n-spank fights while JRPGs USUALLY have some bosses that require different approaches and paying attention to what they're doing...so you have that.  Honestly I think it'd be cool to see more boss fights like WoW has (and I HATE WoW)..but the boss fights are pretty decent and require more then standing in one spot hacking away while a healer keeps you alive until it's dead.....in an MMO those scripted bosses lose their gimick cause you usually end up fighting them so many times...however I think something like that would work wonderful in an RPG like DA:O...

so again i'll give you that one.

however..the rest of your response..is once again...just opinion..and relative only to you and those like-minded...I still respectfully disagree..but I'm not going to continue a pointless debate about it...as I won't change your mind any quicker then you'll change mine.

but kudo's on pointing out the boss-fights..you got that.

[Upper_Krust]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sure, but this also means avoiding most of the enemies sometimes.

Enemies don't generally start a battle on top of you.

Yeah, like a weapon talent. So what?

Its clearly still far superior. Most players believe the Mages are overpowered (in DAO), Bioware believed the Mages were overpowered in DAO too - thats why they boosted the other classes to compensate in Awakening.

Sure. I didn't say the spell wasn't good. 

Its not simply that most spells are good (spells should be good), its that they are too good in many cases.

[Upper_Krust]

uberdowzen wrote...

See, I think this kind of proves that combat wise these games don't have much to learn from each other. I just watched a gameplay video of Lost Oddysey and I don't think (and I don't get me wrong I don't think that LO is a bad game) there is anything there that would improve DAO. The combat is completely different. LO is about taking your time working out which of your attacks etc is needed to defeat the current enemies. DAO is more about the environment and where your characters are placed in it. Again, neither system is better they are just different.

Let me just clarify here. No one is saying Dragon Age should suddenly ape Lost Odyssey's combat. 

Enemies do get stale in Dragon Age though (through a combination of overuse and too many samey enemies). So more variety and (more importantly) identity would be welcome.

Choice in combat means less in Dragon Age. How much choice should matter is indeed a grey area (I agree with that). However, I do think this has a knock on relationship to how challenging you can make a game. The Dragon Age developers cannot rely on choices being the difference between winning and losing because the difference between those choices is so slim. It leaves them very little room to maneouver, which is why they have to err on the side of caution (as shown with Awakening) and make the game vastly easier (even on the higher difficulties). 

Uh, no, I mean more like the Lord of the Rings where the fights develop and things change. Look at is this way, if LO was a movie it would be one where all the heroes go in, the fight goes perfectly and they run on further. DAO is more like a movie where things go wrong in the fight and the excitement comes from the heroes fighting back.

The DVD that comes with the CE of DAO, has a great quote from the lead designer explaining what I mean. I'm paraphrasing but it went along the lines of "You set up your heroes as best as you can and then you're just frantically adjusting your heroes to try and get that tiny advantage you need to win. And then when you've finished you're like Yes! now I've just got to do that hundred more times."

I agree and thats the beauty of the realtime combat, the chaos of it all. But in most cases when you have seen one fight you have seen 90 fights because the enemies (or encounters in general) just don't have that diversity.

I don't know what game you're playing but I thought Dragon Age was really difficult in places and I always felt like I was on the border of losing.

Past the initial learning curve (of DAO) I think about 1-2% of the fights you have in the game were challenging. In Awakening its less than that. 

Remember the console versions of DAO have less enemies and the combat has been rejiggered to feel more like KOTOR.

The console controls are far more limiting though. Overall I'd assume both games were of about equal difficulty.

Uh, no, not really. Like I've said before it has more enemies than most games.

More enemies than what games?

If mages were that over-powered how come they haven't fixed them in a patch? I find if my line is broken and a melee enemy gets through to my mage he/she is screwed.

Well why did they never fix Mana Clash or Force Field - both spells are broken - I don't know.

Instead of fixing Mages in Awakening they did boost the other two classes. So obviously they thought there was some disparity. 

[AlanC9]

soteria wrote...

I think what he's saying is that creating a more intricate combat system would take more development time away from the writing. I guess what I don't understand about that is, as far as I know the writers weren't the ones that developed the combat system. I can understand saying that the combat design folks and art people just didn't have time to create more or more diverse enemies, but I don't understand saying that they were so busy working on the story that they couldn't get the combat any better.

Bioware's only got so big a staff.  The folks who would have been doing more combat design wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing -- they'd be working on other projects.

In the end, there are only so many man-hours a project gets. Bio could change its staffing proportions for a project -- more combat design and testing, less plot. But then either the plot gets simplified or the whole game gets shorter. You don't want the first, obviously. Would the second work for you?

[xCobalt]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Unfortunately, Upper_Krust, it really sounds like the entirety of your argument isn't that DAO needs more depth or complexity, but that it needs to be the Lost Odyssey combat system because of how much you enjoyed that system.

I think you missed something if that's what you interpreted. I think hes trying to make DA have a more memorable experience. Personally, I truly enjoyed both DA and LO. It has been awhile since I've played LO but it has left a greater impact on me than DA. The Rune system was simple (which doesn't have to be a bad thing) and when I think of it, Fable comes to mind first rather than DA.

The enemies in DA are quite generic with a few exceptions. I think the most memorable enemies are definitely the half dozen unique looking Demons. When I think of LO, there are many enemies where I found myself saying, "Wow, that looks awesome!".

Western RPGs have to contend with a different audience, one that also enjoys a gripping story where they make the decisions. That necessarily requires more time and resources to be spent on writing and voicing and design, and less on the intricacies of positioning and rings and whatnot.

Even though JRPGs are linear, I would say a lot of time is put into writing as well. Many have pointed out that LO has been extremely emotional. Which is something DA lacks. There are moments in LO that made me sad (teary-eyed you could say). It has been the only game so far, that I have played, to have legitimately made me feel sad.

In terms of positioning/strategy, DA definitely has a more complex and detailed tactic system compared to LO's positioning.

In most JRPGs, on the other hand, the story is there to support the awesome new combat system they've developed. As an example, look at the Final Fantasy series. The few that I've played have tremendous variation and customization in combat tactics, abilities, buffs, summons, and animations. The cinematics when performing ultimate moves are spectacular, and I love watching them. Performing them starts to become a minigame in and of itself, as you perform the correct combination or number of moves necessary to fill the meter, get the timing right on the real-time rhythm game, and press the correct combination of buttons at just the right moment in the animation. It's great, and I enjoy it, but I don't like the rest of what a JRPG is, which is endlessly slogging through voiceless character dialogues to uncover a story that isn't necessary to win the game, the trilling sound effect of printed text, lack of choice in dialogue responses, all to get to the next potentially poorly-translated, voiced cinematic.

While that is true for most JRPGs. The topic at hand here is Lost Odyssey. I could also write a paragraph on the faults of WRPG but I won't because characteristics of a genre doesn't necessarily represent the game fully. It seems you haven't played any recent JRPG if you that's how you're describing them. Also, I realize that you haven't played LO but its hard to criticize something if you haven't experienced it right?

A JRPG, to me, is having to suffer through character "development" and "interaction" to get to the next cinematic or combat, while a western RPG is, to me, going through combat to get to the next bit of exciting story development and character interaction.

That's quite a harsh word to describe it. I wouldn't say I suffer while going through the combat in DA.

Other than what I quoted, I do agree with you but its hardly the point that Upper_Krust is trying to make. I can't speak on his behalf but I do have a valued opinion of someone who has played both games. I won't be making ignorant comments about a game I haven't played (not you Stanley but some other posters).

I do have a request for you though. What if you decided to give Lost Odyssey a chance? Play through the game, or until you've 'suffered' enough. I do think you will be pleasantly surprised and hopefully LO will break the mold of what you consider a JRPG.

Modifié par xCobalt, 11 avril 2010 - 04:18 .

[Upper_Krust]

Hello again Stanley!

Stanley Woo wrote...

Unfortunately, Upper_Krust, it really sounds like the entirety of your argument isn't that DAO needs more depth or complexity, but that it needs to be the Lost Odyssey combat system because of how much you enjoyed that system.

Then either you are reading me wrong or I am not explaining myself properly.

What I am saying is that enemy diversity (both individually and encounter groups) and identity are a weak area of Dragon Age. This is stronger in Lost Odyssey, thus (as per the OP) the Bioware developers could learn something about it from the other game.

Same with bosses and the consequences of choice in combat.

Don't get me wrong. That is an acceptable argument and your opinion is as valid as anyone else's, including mine, but I think the point that you're not getting from those arguing (maturely and respectfully) against you is that you are considering Lost Odyssey's combat system only within the context of Lost Odyssey and its genre. In a JRPG, that level of complexity in a combat system is acceptable and desired, because less time can be spent on things like story branches and player choice in that story. And that's fine... for a JRPG.

I understand that. However, I am not simply saying Bioware should create more monsters and pull resources from other areas to do so. What I am saying is that the existing roster of Dragon Age monsters have very little identity within the mechanics of the game (again unlike LO) which is why fighting hurlocks, dwarves, genlocks, elves, humans, werewolves, shrieks, ghouls, ghosts, corpses, skeletons and others feels completely the same. Dragon Age would have a perfectly fine monster list if those monsters attacked/defended/behaved notably differently from each other - which they don't.

Western RPGs have to contend with a different audience, one that also enjoys a gripping story where they make the decisions. That necessarily requires more time and resources to be spent on writing and voicing and design, and less on the intricacies of positioning and rings and whatnot.

I'm not necessarily saying Bioware should concentrate in one area (ie. Monster Design) more than they already have (although more unique bosses would be nice*). But I would rather they didn't squander resources creating a dozen (supposedly different) enemies that all feel the same.

*

As for the "more is not better argument," I think it's a little disingenuous to compare your "more is better" statement to "more DA products is better" because that's not what we're discussing.

Well (IIRC) the initial "MOAR is not Better" cry was to do with Lost Odyssey having more monsters not being better than Dragon Age with fewer monsters. Which of course would be a fair point if it were not for Lost Odyssey having not just 'more' but more variety and stronger identity within its monster roster.

We're discussing the combat system, not a game franchise. In most western RPGs, the combat system is there to support the story. Many people in this thread can win Dragon Age combats with ease, even on Nightmare, but many are in it for the story. They want to see how it ends.

Absolutely. But if someone tries to give constructive criticism as to where Dragon Age can be improved, can they not then suggest - hey lets improve combat and heres how and why?

Dragon Age has combat in it. Its not the primary feature of the game but it is a massive part of the game. Therefore you can't argue that because some people are only in it for the story, that combat becomes irrelevant and thus should not be discussed or improved.

In most JRPGs, on the other hand, the story is there to support the awesome new combat system they've developed. As an example, look at the Final Fantasy series. The few that I've played have tremendous variation and customization in combat tactics, abilities, buffs, summons, and animations. The cinematics when performing ultimate moves are spectacular, and I love watching them. Performing them starts to become a minigame in and of itself, as you perform the correct combination or number of moves necessary to fill the meter, get the timing right on the real-time rhythm game, and press the correct combination of buttons at just the right moment in the animation. It's great, and I enjoy it, but I don't like the rest of what a JRPG is, which is endlessly slogging through voiceless character dialogues to uncover a story that isn't necessary to win the game, the trilling sound effect of printed text, lack of choice in dialogue responses, all to get to the next potentially poorly-translated, voiced cinematic.

So by your own admission you love some bits of JRPGs and not others. Thus (as has been my point) could Bioware not learn from those aspects of JRPGs to improve their own game?

A JRPG, to me, is having to suffer through character "development" and "interaction" to get to the next cinematic or combat, while a western RPG is, to me, going through combat to get to the next bit of exciting story development and character interaction. In a western RPG, especially BioWare's, there a sense of the characters being real enough to touch, and strong attachments are developed, which is why we always have character love and hate threads, and romance threads, in every one of our game forums.

Which is of course why I didn't say, lets have less story development or less character interaction (as per Lost Odyssey). In addition I have noted multiple times in this thread which areas I think Dragon Age does much better.

So its not about which is better. Its more a case well this game is strong in this area, so what can we learn from that.

So yes, you can definitely compare RPGs like Dragon Age and Lost Odyssey, but try to incorporate entire systems from one into the other? You'd essentially be changing the genre and potentially alienating an entire audience.

I would agree, if thats what I was suggesting. However, it isn't what I am suggesting.

WRPGs and JRPGs can learn from one another.

I think the combat in Dragon Age can be improved. One key area of this is enemy design, another is the impact of choices. No one is suggesting lets wedge the Lost Odyssey turn based combat system into Dragon Age, far from it.

[soteria]

this is the only thing I'll give you..most WRPGs have boss fights that end up being typical tank-n-spank fights while JRPGs USUALLY have some bosses that require different approaches and paying attention to what they're doing...so you have that. Honestly I think it'd be cool to see more boss fights like WoW has (and I HATE WoW)..but the boss fights are pretty decent and require more then standing in one spot hacking away while a healer keeps you alive until it's dead.....in an MMO those scripted bosses lose their gimick cause you usually end up fighting them so many times...however I think something like that would work wonderful in an RPG like DA:O...

I agree. Thank you for the reasonable response.

Bioware's only got so big a staff. The folks who would have been doing more combat design wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing -- they'd be working on other projects.



In the end, there are only so many man-hours a project gets. Bio could change its staffing proportions for a project -- more combat design and testing, less plot. But then either the plot gets simplified or the whole game gets shorter. You don't want the first, obviously. Would the second work for you?

Possibly. Obviously I enjoyed DA a lot or I wouldn't be here, and it's hard for me to say exactly what areas I would cut if I had a choice. I think probably I would eliminate the "hard" difficulty as hard and nightmare are already almost the same. Add a toggle in to turn friendly fire on and off for any difficulty, so that players who want to have the game easier in general can still have the realism of friendly fire if that's what they want. That eliminates an entire difficulty of playtesting, which has to free up some time.



If I had to cut content I would possibly trim down some of the longer dungeons. I remember a few times on the first playthrough I had this feeling like, "Is this dungeon ever going to end?" On subsequent playthroughs I've usually felt the length was fine (because I was playing more efficiently), but I know I've seen other people remark that some dungeons are rather long. That would be a possible area to cut content.



It's a hard call, though, because even for that, I think some places *should* feel like it takes some endurance for the characters to make it through. One brighter note, though, is that sequels should take significantly lesser development time, with the world and setting and basic engine already in place.

[Harcken]

Stanley Woo wrote...
So yes, you can definitely compare RPGs like Dragon Age and Lost Odyssey, but try to incorporate entire systems from one into the other? You'd essentially be changing the genre and potentially alienating an entire audience.

What I got from that whole quote was: We can't change the combat system because it's subordinate to the story. While I completely agree that I'd take story over combat in any Bioware game (besides Mass Effect 2 maybe), the time spent in combat is probably a good 40-60% of the game, if not more. I think one of the major problems with the combat system is the devs did take "moar is better" to heart in that specific area of design, which, they shouldn't have. All the "tough" fights, excluding a couple bosses, just threw 10 archers and 8 melee against you, with no real tactical depth. Sure, there were a few , here and there (Tower of Ishal), that pitted a smaller group against you with some combo to back them up, and those are the fights I enjoyed most.

I also think, in terms of enemy placement, Bioware should mimic the system NWN2 used at the Keep. DA:O used it at the final battle, and the Redcliffe; which made for some fun levels. I'd say the only problem in Redcliffe, was that you fought the entire army of undead around a small campfire, whereas, it would have been nice to push up to someewhere, or run around, like in an actual battle. The Dark Roads was another area that made me feel as though I was trapped in a pit of endless darkspawn, but that was mostly due to its overbearing length, that eventually tired me out after the first half'n'hour or so.

[Sable Phoenix]

Harcken wrote...

While I completely agree that I'd take story over combat in any Bioware game (besides Mass Effect 2 maybe), the time spent in combat is probably a good 40-60% of the game, if not more.

Honestly, I think that if you were spending that much time in combat you're skipping the other stuff.  I would say (and granted, this may be just perception) that 40% is about the maximum amount of time spent in combat in the game.  I would not be surprised if the combat portion of the content in the game represents as little as 25% of the actual game resources.  Much much more of the game is focused on, in order, dialogue and conversations, journals and lore, exploration, item accumulation and management, and animatics or cutscenes.  I would contend that you can't spend 60% of your time on combat unless you never read a codex entry, and if you try to track down every sidequest in the game, well, there are a lot of them that involve no combat at all.

Again, this is all perception and I could easily be wrong.  But my perception, and the perception I would guess of the majority of DA players, is that combat is ultimately a smaller part of the game.  One of the major focuses, yes, but definitely not the primary one.

[Tirigon]

Upper_Krust wrote...

Its clearly still far superior. Most players believe the Mages are overpowered (in DAO), Bioware believed the Mages were overpowered in DAO too - thats why they boosted the other classes to compensate in Awakening.

It´s actually off topic, but:

I really disagree. I am currently playing a 2h-warrior, and I am a LOT stronger than my mages were (finished both DAO and Awakenings as AW / BM mage).

[Tirigon]

Sable Phoenix wrote...

Harcken wrote...

While I completely agree that I'd take story over combat in any Bioware game (besides Mass Effect 2 maybe), the time spent in combat is probably a good 40-60% of the game, if not more.

Honestly, I think that if you were spending that much time in combat you're skipping the other stuff.  I would say (and granted, this may be just perception) that 40% is about the maximum amount of time spent in combat in the game.  I would not be surprised if the combat portion of the content in the game represents as little as 25% of the actual game resources.  Much much more of the game is focused on, in order, dialogue and conversations, journals and lore, exploration, item accumulation and management, and animatics or cutscenes.  I would contend that you can't spend 60% of your time on combat unless you never read a codex entry, and if you try to track down every sidequest in the game, well, there are a lot of them that involve no combat at all.

Again, this is all perception and I could easily be wrong.  But my perception, and the perception I would guess of the majority of DA players, is that combat is ultimately a smaller part of the game.  One of the major focuses, yes, but definitely not the primary one.

I don´t give a percentage, because it´d be only guesswork, but combat is definitely a big and important part of the game. And I don´t think it´s only 25% -  unless you read EVERY codex entry AND are a slow reader AND very good at the fights so you can finish them fast.

[Nobody Important]

I don't see why Bioware needs to turn Dragon Age into a JRPG. Although I do wish Dragon Age had a darker and more mature storyline like Lost Odyssey. I guess it would also be nice to have some manly characters with a personality similar to Kaim's rather than a whiner like Alistair. Also I disagree 100% with Lost Odyssey's combat being better. Dragon Age totally destroyed it at that point. Also they really need to get Kaim's voice actor to do a party member in future games. That guy's voice was just awesome.

Modifié par Nobody Important, 11 avril 2010 - 06:57 .

[uberdowzen]

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

See, I think this kind of proves that combat wise these games don't have much to learn from each other. I just watched a gameplay video of Lost Oddysey and I don't think (and I don't get me wrong I don't think that LO is a bad game) there is anything there that would improve DAO. The combat is completely different. LO is about taking your time working out which of your attacks etc is needed to defeat the current enemies. DAO is more about the environment and where your characters are placed in it. Again, neither system is better they are just different.[/quote]

Let me just clarify here. No one is saying Dragon Age should suddenly ape Lost Odyssey's combat. 

Enemies do get stale in Dragon Age though (through a combination of overuse and too many samey enemies). So more variety and (more importantly) identity would be welcome.

Choice in combat means less in Dragon Age. How much choice should matter is indeed a grey area (I agree with that). However, I do think this has a knock on relationship to how challenging you can make a game. The Dragon Age developers cannot rely on choices being the difference between winning and losing because the difference between those choices is so slim. It leaves them very little room to maneouver, which is why they have to err on the side of caution (as shown with Awakening) and make the game vastly easier (even on the higher difficulties).[/quote]

I think the point is though that making the combat more difficult would not improve it. The majority of DAO's audience already find DAO too hard on Normal (I'd just like to point out that I'm only occasionally playing DAO on hard mostly I still play at normal).


[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

Uh, no, I mean more like the Lord of the Rings where the fights develop and things change. Look at is this way, if LO was a movie it would be one where all the heroes go in, the fight goes perfectly and they run on further. DAO is more like a movie where things go wrong in the fight and the excitement comes from the heroes fighting back.

The DVD that comes with the CE of DAO, has a great quote from the lead designer explaining what I mean. I'm paraphrasing but it went along the lines of "You set up your heroes as best as you can and then you're just frantically adjusting your heroes to try and get that tiny advantage you need to win. And then when you've finished you're like Yes! now I've just got to do that hundred more times."[/quote]

I agree and thats the beauty of the realtime combat, the chaos of it all. But in most cases when you have seen one fight you have seen 90 fights because the enemies (or encounters in general) just don't have that diversity.[/quote]

I vaguely agree but the thing is that that battle was so awesome you want to do it again. I don't think DAO would improve by having every encounter be different.

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

I don't know what game you're playing but I thought Dragon Age was really difficult in places and I always felt like I was on the border of losing. [/quote]

Past the initial learning curve (of DAO) I think about 1-2% of the fights you have in the game were challenging. In Awakening its less than that. [/quote]

I did think Awakening was a little too easy but I have to disagree with you on Origins. Like I said I felt as if I was always on the border of losing.

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

Remember the console versions of DAO have less enemies and the combat has been rejiggered to feel more like KOTOR.
[/quote]

The console controls are far more limiting though. Overall I'd assume both games were of about equal difficulty.[/quote]

Yeah but my point is that KOTOR was a much more tatically simplistic game where you pretty much let the AI take control of your companions and just dealt with your abilities and force powers. DAO on console is more like that whereas on PC, it's more about controling and multitasking all 4 party members at once. I don't need that to be anymore complicated.

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

Uh, no, not really. Like I've said before it has more enemies than most games.[/quote]

More enemies than what games?[/quote]

Mass Effect 2, Half-Life 1 & 2, Oblivion, Crysis, Fallout 3...should I continue?

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

If mages were that over-powered how come they haven't fixed them in a patch? I find if my line is broken and a melee enemy gets through to my mage he/she is screwed.
[/quote]

Well why did they never fix Mana Clash or Force Field - both spells are broken - I don't know.

Instead of fixing Mages in Awakening they did boost the other two classes. So obviously they thought there was some disparity. 
[/quote]

1. Fixing something in an expansion does not constitute fixing the game, as the majority of player will still want to go back and play origins.

2. If Bioware wanted to make mages less powerful then they would have. Look at all the other changes they've made in the patch notes, they are willing to fix things that are broken. And I repeat, Mages are powerful but they have low hit points. Arcane Warriors might be a little OP but that's it.

Modifié par uberdowzen, 11 avril 2010 - 08:43 .

[tmp7704]

xCobalt wrote...

When comparing it to DA's Rune system, Rings have a much more noticeable impact. When I look at the Rune system, I feel it's something that's just tacked on. If that feature was taken away, I probably wouldn't even notice it. Top level runes simply don't have enough impact. +5 elemental damage is hardly noticeable  and I personally didn't even use resistance runes. There are features in DA that overshadow the rune system. Abilities and weapon enhancement spells make damaging runes obsolete.

I can't help but blink at this statement.

Near the end of game, the base damage of weapon is in the 25-60 range (going from daggers to two-handers and presuming characters who don't dump all their points in the single stat)  This means a single +5 rune is adding between 8-20% damage to the base. And the high-end weapons allow to equip more than one rune -- 3 of them can translate to damage boost of 25-60%  The resistance runes are similar, adding 10-20% resistances at high end which can translate to resisting 30-60% of attacks thrown at you if stacked in the same manner.

If you can say with straight face you wouldn't even notice changes this big, it begs a question if it's really shortcoming of the game or rather lack of observation skill in the player? And also just out of curiosity, how much difference the mentioned Ring system does make in this case to be noticeable when measured with the same stick, in some solid numbers? Do they double-triple your damage and make you downright immune to any sort of attacks?

Modifié par tmp7704, 11 avril 2010 - 09:27 .

[xCobalt]

tmp7704 wrote...

Near the end of game, the base damage of weapon is in the 25-60 range (going from daggers to two-handers and presuming characters who don't dump all their points in the single stat)  This means a single +5 rune is adding between 8-20% damage to the base. And the high-end weapons allow to equip more than one rune -- 3 of them can translate to damage boost of 25-60%  The resistance runes are similar, adding 10-20% resistances at high end which can translate to resisting 30-60% of attacks thrown at you if stacked in the same manner.

If one were not to use any abilities. Yes, there is a noticeable difference. 

However, I said it is overshadowed by other factors. Add in a high levelled mage as well who can contribute damage with Fire Weapons, it will easily add +15 damage. Fights do not last long when a DW Warrior can simply use a move like Whirlwind and kill most enemies with ease. For tougher challenges, you have powerful single-target skills at your disposal and 3 other team mates. Battles don't last long enough for the runes to make a noticeable impact.

 And also just out of curiosity, how much difference the mentioned Ring system does make in this case to be noticeable when measured with the same stick, in some solid numbers? Do they double-triple your damage and make you downright immune to any sort of attacks?

Rings are usually offensive so it won't make you immune to any attacks.

I'll give you some numbers in a bit. LO doesn't give concrete numbers for the rings just Level 1,2,3. I'll run some numbers in a bit. I'll be using a simple level 1 ring that just increases damage. I'll test the damage without the ring, and with it. When I do use a ring it uses a 'targeting' system so I'll record the 'Good' and 'Perfect' damage outputs.

[Tirigon]

tmp, you´re numbers are wrong. My level 20 warrior hits for 70 - 90 damage, my archer in awakening even for freaking 180 damage per hit. Even my MAGE had 60 damage with a normal staff attack. So, nothing with damage range from 25-60.

[xCobalt]

I just ran some numbers. Attempted to do about 10 attacks from each category on the same enemy. This is just a simple Level 1, Damage Up ring rather than one that has an elemental advantage. (ie, a L1 Water damage ring would do more than a Damage Up one against a fire enemy)



Character A

Bad: 172

Good: 183

Perfect: 215



Character B

Bad: 152

Good: 162

Perfect: 191



Between both Character A & B, there is a roughly 6.5% increase in damage. A perfect hit, compared to a Bad hit (which is no ring effect), is about 25% for both. This is using the weakest ring. I did not use a level 2 or level 3 ring nor one that would deal even more due to the enemy's weakness.



You compared using a +5 Rune which is one of the best for elements. I'm not sure how powerful they get in Awakenings but its clear that the Rings are more noticeable. I haven't tested anything relating to DA but Tirigon seems to have proven your numbers wrong.

[Harcken]

Nobody Important wrote...

I don't see why Bioware needs to turn Dragon Age into a JRPG. Although I do wish Dragon Age had a darker and more mature storyline like Lost Odyssey. I guess it would also be nice to have some manly characters with a personality similar to Kaim's rather than a whiner like Alistair. Also I disagree 100% with Lost Odyssey's combat being better. Dragon Age totally destroyed it at that point. Also they really need to get Kaim's voice actor to do a party member in future games. That guy's voice was just awesome.

This is the misunderstanding that many people, including Mr. Woo are making. No one is suggesting that we should delete Dragon Age and replace its cast with metrosexual males and corny dialog. The OP keeps repeating that, DA enemies all feel the same, which I agree, and that the gameplay design can be improved, like anything else.

[tmp7704]

xCobalt wrote...

However, I said it is overshadowed by other factors. Add in a high levelled mage as well who can contribute damage with Fire Weapons, it will easily add +15 damage.

So, a mage can add 15 damage, just like the runes. Yet, the same benefit from the runes is "insignificant". Does this mean by this very logic a benefit provided by the high level mage is also "insignificant" because it can be replaced by a few runes? If that's the case, then what is significant?

Between both Character A & B, there is a roughly 6.5% increase in damage. A perfect hit, compared to a Bad hit (which is no ring effect), is about 25% for both. This is using the weakest ring. I did not use a level 2 or level 3 ring nor one that would deal even more due to the enemy's weakness.

You compared using a +5 Rune which is one of the best for elements. I'm not sure how powerful they get in Awakenings but its clear that the Rings are more noticeable.

I disagree here -- from the numbers you provide it'd appear the bonus from "weakest" ring is comparable equivalent of one high-end rune, and that as long as you manage to generate 'perfect' hits. I've done a quick check and apparently there's 3 levels of rings in LO. If they scale in linear manner, then it'd seem to result in benefit that's about even to what set of 3 runes can provide? And don't forget it is also possible to equip more than 3 runes, especially in Awakening.

Tirigon wrote...

tmp, you´re numbers are wrong. My level 20 warrior hits for 70 - 90 damage, my archer in awakening even for freaking 180 damage per hit. Even my MAGE had 60 damage with a normal staff attack. So, nothing with damage range from 25-60.

I said base weapon damage, the one listed in the character data window. It was taken from l.17-18 characters including the companions. It's also supposedly normalized damage value, adjusted for the weapon speed. So yes, your l.20 warrior can score bigger hits especially if they use a weapon with +damage bonus and things like that, but it'd question it makes my numbers wrong simply because they're different from yours when the involved variables are nearly all different.

Modifié par tmp7704, 12 avril 2010 - 02:09 .

[Realmzmaster]

Maybe it is me, but in my opinion why would a darkspawn army need sixty different kinds of enemies or a variety in abilities?

The darkspawn army is all about numbers and overwhelming the enemy by sheer numbers. For example take a real insect with a hive mentality:the ant. Ants have basically the worker, drone, queen and soldier. The same with the bee (throw in wasps too). No one can agrue that the ant or bee army is not effective and can overwhelm by sheer number.

Yes there are different species of ants and bees but not within the same species and the basic structure and diversity of roles is mostly the same.

The gist i get is that the purpose in having a variety of different darkspawn with different abilities is basically to keep some players interested, because the combat gets stale and repetitive. But again that is a matter of opinion.

Some gamers want more diversity, others think it is fine. Some gamers are only concerned with the story. The different variety of darkspawn really do not matter to them combat is not the reason they are playing. It is simply a necessary evil that they must do to get to the parts they like.



Maybe it could be that different varities of darkspawn only occur on the hard or nightmare levels. But then some gamers may feel cheated because they can only battle the other darkspawn if they play on that level instead of normal.

Or maybe something could be cut out, say part of the story. Maybe eliminate the hard level. Everyone would have access to the different darkspawn, but at the lower levels (Easy, Normal) the special abilities would be turned off.

Or maybe eliminate some sidequests and add more enemies with different abilities.

Maybe instead of hiring another writer to enhance the story, hire another artist and/or programmer to render the new darkspawn and their abilities. You can explain the new darkspawn by adding new races or maybe a one in a thousand mutation occurs along the lines of the Architect.

But with limited resources and/or budget something is going to have to give.



Some people want more areas, others want more companion choices and/or romances. One way or the other someone may not be as happy as they would like to be when DA2 appears.

I just hope that Bioware finds the right balance to appeal to most of its fanbase.