334 réponses à ce sujet

[CybAnt1]

 Look, I have never played a JRPG, hell I have never played any Final Fantasy, nor Lost Odyssey. 

But I wanted to say something on the monster variety issue. It kind of comes down to this. 

It just seems like in DA all you are fighting most of the time are other humans, humanoid monsters (darkspawn), and the very occasional beast, golem, or creature. 

I understand making multiple monsters takes "zots". You've got to make the meshes, the textures, animations. So I understand this is YANO thing that requires dev. resources. 

However, to me the key thing of monster variety is that as it increases, hopefully so also do the different types of creatures utilize different kinds of tactics, abilities, or attacks, and have different kinds of vulnerabilities, thus forcing the player to strategize. 

Like: "hmmm. undead. time to get out the holy water, and the energy drain resistance potions." 
Or "hmmm. fire elementals. time to get out the ice weapons, and fire resistance gear." 
Or "hmmm. beholders. Let's get the eye ray reflecting mirror shield out." 
Or "hmmm. trolls. they regenerate, unless we hit them with fire/acid to prevent it." 
Or "hmmm. basilisks. they can turn us to stone. better have some stuff that increases resistance to petrify." 

Etc. You get the idea. DA seems lacking in this dimension. I'd like to have a greater variety of non-humanoid monsters, that also puts more thought into how to respond to them. 

[tmp7704]

CybAnt1 wrote...

Etc. You get the idea. DA seems lacking in this dimension. I'd like to have a greater variety of non-humanoid monsters, that also puts more thought into how to respond to them. 

I think it's more of case, while the enemies in DA do have quite a few of these abilities and mechanics you mention (rage demons are vulnerable to ice but nearly immune to fire, desire demons have special abilities against players dependant on the gender, trolls grab requiring reactive gameplay, some creatures overwhelm, some poison, some are actually immune to nature damage, etc and so on) ... most of the time the player can just power through it all with the heal/potion spam and so they simply don't bother with varying their own tactics, no matter what they face. When your enemy (the player) is effectively immortal then it really doesn't matter what tricks the monster has up its sleeve, it's going down eventually.

Modifié par tmp7704, 12 avril 2010 - 04:30 .

[Realmzmaster]

CybAnt1,



Why would the player character and his party know anything about the enemy they face if they have never seen it before. Now if you are stating that after their first encounter with the creature they would acquire that knowledge I will agree with you.

I think the first time you meet an enemy you should have no knowledge of its name or abilities.

Also if you meet a group of enemies that contain a mixture, your party can only identify the ones you have encountered before.

I think the names of the creatures should not appear when you first encounter that type. You may want to have the health bar to show the color level of the enemy.

Better yet remove the health bar above the enemy and change the circle when you target them to the appropriate color level.

Why should you know how much health you enemy has, what you should see is a change in their attack ability and they are easier to hit. The same for your party.

[Faust1979]

 Lost Odyssey sucked turn based combat is way outdated and I can only put up with it in certain games like Xenosaga other than that I would rather it be left out of Biioware games

[soteria]

Upper_Krust wrote...
More enemies than what games?

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

Yeah, you probably should. Never played ME or Crysis, and I've only seen Half-Life, but you didn't pick very good games to make your case.

Fallout has all sorts of different enemies that have unique attack patterns, weaknesses, and abilities: super mutants, ghouls, wolves, ants, deathclaws, scorpions, humans of various flavors, and five or six others I can think of off the top of my head but don't know the names of.

I'll give you Oblivion, though it's not far behind DA:O. It matches DA:O for humanoid enemies, has its own unique enemy to match darkspawn, and has a few different types of monsters.

Again, never played Half-Life, but I remember watching it and seeing a good number of genuinely unique monsters (the ant lions come to mind). I don't know how many other monsters the game had (or didn't have), but...

Dragon Age has elves, humans, dwarves, hurlocks, and genlocks, which are all functionally identical, and make up the vast majority of the fights. I appreciate the various beasts, but in practice they mostly share a lot of the same abilities and can be handled in the same way. In fact, although I enjoyed what variety the game has, in practice what unique abilities are out there rarely, if ever, made me change what I was doing.

Almost every fight in the game can be handled by a tank backed with a healer/glyph of warding. Or, just CC everything. Or, use multiple mages and fry everything from long range. Or, deck out a dual-wield templar warrior with high dex in the best gear, and watch him mow over everything and shrug off every attack.

Pick one of those strategies and apply it to every fight, and you'll probably do fine. Part of the problem is, as others have suggested, that the game is too easy on nightmare to require any great tactics.

Modifié par soteria, 12 avril 2010 - 06:59 .

[SphereofSilence]

tmp7704 wrote...

CybAnt1 wrote...

Etc. You get the idea. DA seems lacking in this dimension. I'd like to have a greater variety of non-humanoid monsters, that also puts more thought into how to respond to them. 

I think it's more of case, while the enemies in DA do have quite a few of these abilities and mechanics you mention (rage demons are vulnerable to ice but nearly immune to fire, desire demons have special abilities against players dependant on the gender, trolls grab requiring reactive gameplay, some creatures overwhelm, some poison, some are actually immune to nature damage, etc and so on) ... most of the time the player can just power through it all with the heal/potion spam and so they simply don't bother with varying their own tactics, no matter what they face. When your enemy (the player) is effectively immortal then it really doesn't matter what tricks the monster has up its sleeve, it's going down eventually.

You make a very good point. With health and mana being instantly replenished as they are with potentially no end to their supply (if a player spends the time making loads of them), any variety in enemy tactics are somewhat made moot. This is the reason I suggest that there should be some sort of imposed limitations to potion usage or capacity.

The Witcher did a good job here. There were plenty of potion types there,  from giving a boost health regeneration, stamina regeneration, nightvision, blackblood (instantly kills vampiric monsters who dares overwhelm you to consume your blood), boost reflexes, ability to see through walls/invisible enemies, double hit points, resistance to poison, resistance to acid, resistance to bleeding, doubles stamina, increase intensity of magic, increases physical damage to enemy but decreases evasion, immunity to stun, knockdowns, increases critical hit chance, to increases attack significantly when vitality reduces to below half. You can see there were plenty of variety here with many tactical possibilities.

Yet to make sure the player do not just spam every potion available in his/her backpack, each potion gives a certain amount of toxicity to the drinker. You can't take more than 3 or 4 potions at one time, before the toxicity kills the character. This limitations can be lifted off - especially against really tough opponents - if you have the potion that removes all toxicity from body, Luckily this potion is not exactly easy to come by.

Potion making is a more involved (and to me, a more believably compelling one) than what we see in Dragon Age.

Furthermore, in the game, the player picks a more evenly distributed bag of potion ingredients throughout the game world, which means that the resulting potion inventory is likely more varied rather than confined to only a few types like we see in Dragon Age, (unless the player goes out of his/her way to look for rarer items, to make more of different potion types).

Theresulting effect is that this encourages players to vary and mix their potion consumption, and using this not unlimited resource wisely, thus increasing combat and tactical variety.

Modifié par SphereofSilence, 12 avril 2010 - 07:46 .

[SphereofSilence]

opps double post.

Modifié par SphereofSilence, 12 avril 2010 - 07:44 .

[uberdowzen]

soteria wrote...

Upper_Krust wrote...
More enemies than what games?

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

Yeah, you probably should. Never played ME or Crysis, and I've only seen Half-Life, but you didn't pick very good games to make your case.

Of the 5 games I mentioned, 2 you haven't played so you don't know, 1 you've seen played and 1 you give me. How are they not good examples?

soteria wrote...

Fallout has all sorts of different enemies that have unique attack patterns, weaknesses, and abilities: super mutants, ghouls, wolves, ants, deathclaws, scorpions, humans of various flavors, and five or six others I can think of off the top of my head but don't know the names of.

I'll concede there although far too many enemies in F3 can be beaten by going into vats and headshotting them.

soteria wrote...

I'll give you Oblivion, though it's not far behind DA:O. It matches DA:O for humanoid enemies, has its own unique enemy to match darkspawn, and has a few different types of monsters.

I'm not saying it's any worse than DA:O enemy-wise, I'm saying that it's a fantastic game even though it doesn't have hundreds of enemies.

soteria wrote...

Again, never played Half-Life, but I remember watching it and seeing a good number of genuinely unique monsters (the ant lions come to mind). I don't know how many other monsters the game had (or didn't have), but...

Yeah, probably not the best example, but I think it shows that fewer well crafted enemies is more effective than lots poorly crafted ones.

soteria wrote...

Dragon Age has elves, humans, dwarves, hurlocks, and genlocks, which are all functionally identical, and make up the vast majority of the fights. I appreciate the various beasts, but in practice they mostly share a lot of the same abilities and can be handled in the same way. In fact, although I enjoyed what variety the game has, in practice what unique abilities are out there rarely, if ever, made me change what I was doing.

Almost every fight in the game can be handled by a tank backed with a healer/glyph of warding. Or, just CC everything. Or, use multiple mages and fry everything from long range. Or, deck out a dual-wield templar warrior with high dex in the best gear, and watch him mow over everything and shrug off every attack.

Pick one of those strategies and apply it to every fight, and you'll probably do fine. Part of the problem is, as others have suggested, that the game is too easy on nightmare to require any great tactics.

Um, you just mentioned several different ways of approaching the fights.
Think of it like this, the enemies in the game are just fodder for your party to use their unique fighting tactics on.

Also, the people who find Nightmare I have a suspicion are hardcore players who have played a lot of games like this and are very good at them. People like me who never played the RPGs of yesteryear (and are probably reprensentative of the majority of DAO players) find the game plenty challenging at normal.

Crysis, if you include tanks and stuff, has no more than 10 enemies. But that's fine, because they are there more to create challenge when you act upon your plan. It doesn't matter that most of the enemies are the same, they're just there to create situtions. It's emergent gameplay.

And just for the record:
Call of Duty 4, Fable, KOTOR, most RTS games (essentially there are 3 main unit types that make up the Rock-Paper-Scissors gameplay and the rest are just variations on them), Tomb Raider games, Beyond Good and Evil, any racing game. Honestly very few games have more than 15 enemies max.

Modifié par uberdowzen, 12 avril 2010 - 08:47 .

[CybAnt1]

Why would the player character and his party know anything about the enemy they face if they have never seen it before.

They shouldn't, which is why one of the things I proposed a while ago is a Beast Lore skill, where as it increases, you know more and more about the creatures you're facing. But I agree your knowledge of your enemies should never be complete until having faced them for the first time, then you get the codex entry on the creature type. 

The weird thing is, this knowledge isn't even available 'metagame'. Like, would you know rage demons are resistant to fire without having read it on forums? That didn't even appear until the 2nd iteration of the Prima guide. (I suppose you could guess by the fact that they kinda look like fire elementals, and use fire attacks, but anyway.) 

I'm saying put that knowledge ingame but yes it isn't something players should have automatically. As with everything else, they need to increase their skills to acquire it. 

Anyway, I will just reiterate my point that fighting something other than humanoid monsters (darkspawn) 90% of the time would make the game more interesting. 

[CybAnt1]

BTW, comparing enemy variety in a FPS shooter vs. a fantasy RPG is really an apples and oranges issue.



When going through Call of Duty, I expect to see people shooting back at me. The people may have all kinds of different gear and training, but they are all just people.



When going through a fantasy RPG, whether the fantasy world is made from scratch (as DA's is) or not, you expect to see creatures of fantasy/mythology staple like ... well, all the stuff in the D & D monster manual. Centaurs. Manticores. Basilisks. Beholders. Hydras. Elementals. Etc., etc.



Just because D & D had its particular version of these creatures (which were fantasy archetypes long before the game rules were written) doesn't mean they can't exist in other gameworlds.

[soteria]

Of the 5 games I mentioned, 2 you haven't played so you don't know, 1 you've seen played and 1 you give me. How are they not good examples?

Because the games I knew something about I didn't really agree with you on, and the ones I hadn't played are shooters.  Oh, and racing games?  Really?  Do they even have enemies, as such?  In shooters and racing games I'd expect my enemies to be people and cars, respectively.

I'll concede there although far too many enemies in F3 can be beaten by going into vats and headshotting them.

Very true. Of course, as I said before, far too many enemies in DA:O can be beaten just by tank/healer. The exceptions in FO3 are the ones that stand out--remember the radscropions? And those giant crab things with the non-existent heads that are impossible to kill? Of course you do, because they were memorable. I'd argue that the fights that stood out in DA:O are the ones that required more thought.

Yeah, probably not the best example, but I think it shows that fewer well crafted enemies is more effective than lots poorly crafted ones.

I agree. Unfortunately, I couldn't say that the generic humanoid enemies were particularly well-crafted. The animations are good, and the personality is there, but they all do the same thing, every time, and they make up the bulk of the fights.

Um, you just mentioned several different ways of approaching the fights.
Think of it like this, the enemies in the game are just fodder for your party to use their unique fighting tactics on.

Yes, but I don't want to fight fodder. Any of those strategies will work every time, and that's the problem. You never have to adapt. In a select few fights, adapting will make things *easier* but it's never actually necessary.

Also, the people who find Nightmare I have a suspicion are hardcore players who have played a lot of games like this and are very good at them. People like me who never played the RPGs of yesteryear (and are probably reprensentative of the majority of DAO players) find the game plenty challenging at normal.

I don't know if I'm "hardcore" or not. I never even played an RPG until 2005... before that it was shooters and RTS and TBS. And a mud and some other games way back in the day, but I didn't play BG or Planescape or even Final Fantasy until very recently. If I'm "hardcore" it's more to do with my experiences playing WoW than anything else. From your signature, you've played as many Bioware games as I have.

And just for the record:
Call of Duty 4, Fable, KOTOR, most RTS games (essentially there are 3 main unit types that make up the Rock-Paper-Scissors gameplay and the rest are just variations on them), Tomb Raider games, Beyond Good and Evil, any racing game. Honestly very few games have more than 15 enemies max.

WC3 had many more, especially if you count creeps, and it was awesome. Same with Civ, Heroes of Might and Magic, BG and NWN. Age of Empires probably falls into the "too many too much the same" category. Diablo, for what that's worth. Red Alert, Command and Conquer....

I'm calling BS if you're saying the RA2 just had a bunch of units that were variations of each other. Chrono Legionaires, Tesla Tanks, Kirov Bombers, Prism Tanks, Mirage Tanks, Mammoth Tanks, Tanya... and, of course, the generic RTS units like regular troops and tanks, but even those were pretty interesting. Try treating every situation in RA2 the same way, and you wouldn't get very far past the first little spider bot jumping in one of your tanks.

Also, linking to this (new) thread because of the irony:  http://social.biowar...9/index/2235266

Modifié par soteria, 12 avril 2010 - 01:04 .

[zx2781]

Dragon Age is far superior to Lost Odyssey. Any thing BioWare took from that game would only diminish the experience. Bad choice.

[xCobalt]

tmp7704 wrote...

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?

I just provided a simple example. One spell vs 3 of the best runes. Would you rather use a single skill point and get this useful spell or try and find these hard to come by runes or spending a relatively large amount of gold for them. It's also stupid to say that a single factor would make a make insignificant. A mage doesn't just provide Flame Weapons. The damage coming from runes begins to diminish as we factor in other abilities. Any sort of sustainable that aids in damage output.

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.

You wouldn't think the numbers would be more noticeable or comparable if I use a high-end ring rather than the weakest one to compare to a high-end rune? High level rings can hold up to 3 abilities as well, so thats similar to DA. 

[Upper_Krust]

uberdowzen wrote...

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).

I'm not suggesting we make the combat more difficult (on normal) - thats the strength of having multiple difficulty levels. But you can still make it more involved without necessarily making it more difficult.

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.

Not suggesting EVERY encounter be different but if the choice is every encounter different or every encounter the same, I want them different. Dragon Age doesn't give sufficient variety in this area. You literally fight basically the same battle a hundred times. Sometimes you even fight basically the same battle about 10 times in a row.

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.

Certainly DAO was more difficult than Awakening.

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.

I don't see how giving monsters better identity necessarily makes things more complicated.

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

I wouldn't have counted games that only last a fraction of the time.

Interestingly it only has about the same number of models as God of War 3, Darksiders, Bayonetta (which average about 10-15 hours).

But I was thinking in terms of Final Fantasy (basically every game), Lost Odyssey (as mentioned), Baldur's Gate (arguably?)...

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.

So if Bioware don't patch Mana Clash - it can't be broken, is that your logic?

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.

Personally I think it would be too much effort to fix at this stage.

Arcane Warriors might be a little OP but that's it.

Don't be silly - how can they be OP? Bioware would have fixed them right?

[Upper_Krust]

xCobalt wrote...

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.

Very interesting indeed. I hate to ask but any chance you could do the same for a Volcano Ring Ultra. Then we could get a good contrast.

I'd do it myself, but I'm really short of time over the next few nights, barely have the time to answer these posts.

The weakest Ring is averaging a 15.75% difference before we even factor in an enemy weak against that element. Which would be approx. 20% of all enemies (given 5 elements).

[AlanC9]

CybAnt1 wrote...
When going through a fantasy RPG, whether the fantasy world is made from scratch (as DA's is) or not, you expect to see creatures of fantasy/mythology staple like ... well, all the stuff in the D & D monster manual. Centaurs. Manticores. Basilisks. Beholders. Hydras. Elementals. Etc., etc. 

Just because D & D had its particular version of these creatures (which were fantasy archetypes long before the game rules were written) doesn't mean they can't exist in other gameworlds.

But does it mean they should? You don't have this sort of kitchen-sink design in all fantasy RPGs. The Ultimas come to mind most obviously.

[CybAnt1]

I'm not saying it has to have *everything*. I'm sure I would groan along with everyone else if they added vampires. After all, vampires are so oversaturated right now, in movies, books, comics, etc.



I think I'm just saying I would like to see some new creature types other than just humanoid monsters. Not lots. A few more. Really all Awakening gave us were the Children, and that was ... about it. And basically they were, AFAICT, maggots with arms & legs. Not anything all that interesting or notable about them.

[xCobalt]

Upper_Krust wrote...

Very interesting indeed. I hate to ask but any chance you could do the same for a Volcano Ring Ultra. Then we could get a good contrast.

I tested using a Bruiser ring since I loaded up a somewhat new game file. To maintain its accuracy, I'll use the L3 version of Bruiser (forget the name) on an older play through.. I'll run some numbers later.

[uberdowzen]

[quote]soteria wrote...

[quote]Of the 5 games I mentioned, 2 you haven't played so you don't know, 1 you've seen played and 1 you give me. How are they not good examples?
[/quote]

Because the games I knew something about I didn't really agree with you on, and the ones I hadn't played are shooters.  Oh, and racing games?  Really?  Do they even have enemies, as such?  In shooters and racing games I'd expect my enemies to be people and cars, respectively.[/quote]

Yeah racing games have enemies, the other racers. Think about them, they always just go around the track, the interest in racing games is the different environments and your car changing.

[quote]soteria wrote...

[quote]I'll concede there although far too many enemies in F3 can be beaten by going into vats and headshotting them.
[/quote]

Very true. Of course, as I said before, far too many enemies in DA:O can be beaten just by tank/healer. The exceptions in FO3 are the ones that stand out--remember the radscropions? And those giant crab things with the non-existent heads that are impossible to kill? Of course you do, because they were memorable. I'd argue that the fights that stood out in DA:O are the ones that required more thought.[/quote]

I can't argue with you there, mostly because I didn't play F3, just watched someone play it.

[quote]soteria wrote...

[quote]
Yeah, probably not the best example, but I think it shows that fewer well crafted enemies is more effective than lots poorly crafted ones.[/quote]

I agree. Unfortunately, I couldn't say that the generic humanoid enemies were particularly well-crafted. The animations are good, and the personality is there, but they all do the same thing, every time, and they make up the bulk of the fights.[/quote]

I think this is reaching the point where there is no point arguing, as we're just going backwards and forwards.

[quote]soteria wrote...

[quote]Um, you just mentioned several different ways of approaching the fights.
Think of it like this, the enemies in the game are just fodder for your party to use their unique fighting tactics on.[/quote]

Yes, but I don't want to fight fodder. Any of those strategies will work every time, and that's the problem. You never have to adapt. In a select few fights, adapting will make things *easier* but it's never actually necessary.[/quote]

But that's to appeal to new players. Adapting makes it easier, my problem is the OP is suggesting making it almost critical to adapt, which just isn't as appealing. If adapting makes a fight easier 95% of players will adapt.

[quote]soteria wrote...

[quote]Also, the people who find Nightmare I have a suspicion are hardcore players who have played a lot of games like this and are very good at them. People like me who never played the RPGs of yesteryear (and are probably reprensentative of the majority of DAO players) find the game plenty challenging at normal.[/quote]

I don't know if I'm "hardcore" or not. I never even played an RPG until 2005... before that it was shooters and RTS and TBS. And a mud and some other games way back in the day, but I didn't play BG or Planescape or even Final Fantasy until very recently. If I'm "hardcore" it's more to do with my experiences playing WoW than anything else. From your signature, you've played as many Bioware games as I have.[/quote]

There you go, you played WOW. Anyone who plays WOW at any level above noob I consider to be a hardcore RPG player, and many WOW tactic transfer almost directly to DAO.

[quote]soteria wrote...

[quote]And just for the record:
Call of Duty 4, Fable, KOTOR, most RTS games (essentially there are 3 main unit types that make up the Rock-Paper-Scissors gameplay and the rest are just variations on them), Tomb Raider games, Beyond Good and Evil, any racing game. Honestly very few games have more than 15 enemies max.
[/quote]

WC3 had many more, especially if you count creeps, and it was awesome. Same with Civ, Heroes of Might and Magic, BG and NWN. Age of Empires probably falls into the "too many too much the same" category. Diablo, for what that's worth. Red Alert, Command and Conquer....


I'm calling BS if you're saying the RA2 just had a bunch of units
that were variations of each other. Chrono Legionaires, Tesla Tanks,
Kirov Bombers, Prism Tanks, Mirage Tanks, Mammoth Tanks, Tanya... and,
of course, the generic RTS units like regular troops and tanks, but even
those were pretty interesting. Try treating every situation in RA2 the
same way, and you wouldn't get very far past the first little spider bot
jumping in one of your tanks.

Also, linking to this (new) thread
because of the irony:  http://social.biowar...9/index/2235266[/quote]

I (the shame ) never player Warcraft 3, but I would guess that like most RTS games the units all fall into one of three catergories. Civ has lots of units, but I'd argue that at each era you only using about 3 or 4 units meant for that era, it's not like an RTS game where you using every unit availible to that side. Also, you use NWN as an example but I found that I could just blitz my way through that game without really changing tactics at all. Diablo, what tactics?

Haven't played Red Alert either so can't argue there.

[uberdowzen]

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

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]

I'm not suggesting we make the combat more difficult (on normal) - thats the strength of having multiple difficulty levels. But you can still make it more involved without necessarily making it more difficult.[/quote]

The thing is though that it's not quite as simple as going, "Let's make the way the game works completely different at Hard". That alone would probably take several programers several hundred hours of work. You can't just make the game play completely differently like that.

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

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

Not suggesting EVERY encounter be different but if the choice is every encounter different or every encounter the same, I want them different. Dragon Age doesn't give sufficient variety in this area. You literally fight basically the same battle a hundred times. Sometimes you even fight basically the same battle about 10 times in a row.[/quote]

Like I said above, I don't think there's any point arguing this anymore, we're just going around in circles.

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

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]

Certainly DAO was more difficult than Awakening.[/quote]

Yah! We agree on something!!!

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

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]

I don't see how giving monsters better identity necessarily makes things more complicated.[/quote]

Because adding more monster's is pointless if you still going to fight them in the same ways.

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

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

I wouldn't have counted games that only last a fraction of the time.

Interestingly it only has about the same number of models as God of War 3, Darksiders, Bayonetta (which average about 10-15 hours).

But I was thinking in terms of Final Fantasy (basically every game), Lost Odyssey (as mentioned), Baldur's Gate (arguably?)...[/quote]

That's because those games which are 10-15 hours long have a lot more crafting per hour. Dragon Age isn't as well crafted as those games because it is a lot longer but has to be developed in the same amount of time. Also Baldurs Gate is 2D, it's much easier to make 2D models.

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

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.[/quote]

So if Bioware don't patch Mana Clash - it can't be broken, is that your logic?[/quote]

Uh, yeah. If it was broken surely they would fix it.

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

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. [/quote]

Personally I think it would be too much effort to fix at this stage.[/quote]

I don't think so. Anyway if they were so obviously over-powered they would have noticed in testing.

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

[quote]uberdowzen wrote...

Arcane Warriors might be a little OP but that's it.[/quote]

Don't be silly - how can they be OP? Bioware would have fixed them right?
[/quote]

Yes, but they are a much harder class to develop. Done badly and they'll be underpowered.

[ObserverStatus]

1 Star Fox

I have invested a lot of time upgrading the Normandy SR2 and don't want it do get destroyed. Perhaps Bioware could place a few gold rings for Joker to fly through, or have the Normandy do a barrel roll the next time it comes under attack.

[xCobalt]

uberdowzen wrote...

Upper_Krust wrote...

uberdowzen wrote...

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.

So if Bioware don't patch Mana Clash - it can't be broken, is that your logic?

Uh, yeah. If it was broken surely they would fix it.

As a person who owns DA on the xbox, Bioware has fixed nothing relevant. The only fix I ever recall was to fix achievements, which isn't even part of the game and a bug they introduced themselves through RtO.

[Catcher]

Sorry for the long delay in reply. My older girl had her sixth birthday this weekend and that's kinda important.

Upper_Krust wrote...
 
I agree but would factor in that its not simply about the high ground but more specifically areas it takes time to get to (whether from barricades or simply looping pathways). Lone archers in far off, hard to reach places were MUCH more dangerous than archers 10 feet away or archers bunched up. Which makes it annoying that sort of positioning was rarely used...
It should have been critical, but more often than not isn't.
For the archer problem, I'd use more thought to the positioning of archers in combat. Have them spread out in areas that are hard to reach or protected with traps and barricades. This is done brilliantly in Dragon Age Origins - but the problem is that we only see it done 2-3 times in the whole game.
For flanking, I think the way to drive home the relevance of flanking is to have enemies that are either VERY resistant to frontal attacks or even COMPLETELY resistant to frontal attacks. Meaning flanking would not just be slightly important but it would be a virtual necessity. If Bioware are looking for mythological monsters with powers like this I suggest something like the Peluda (a medieval french monster).
 
I have studied this approach and LO's. I think the problem with individual choices giving only tiny benefits is that it massively restricts how challenging you can make an encounter.
In fact I believe its crippling to game difficulty. Which I think we saw in Awakening. Bioware can't make the game notably more difficult (either in terms of boss fights or simply different difficulty levels) because the margins they have tied to player choices are so (relatively) insignificant.
Lets say (hypothetically) 10 decisions make up a given combat. If every decision makes a 5% difference then the difference between getting them all right and getting them all wrong is +/-50%. Now if a typical combat is set so that the developers assume you'll get 4 right, that means the game swings between 80-130% in terms of difficulty. That means the highest you can set the difficulty is 30% greater than average, and the lowest is just 20% less. Those just seem very small margins for error. Thats why I think Bioware have had to reduce the challenge of the enemies to almost non-existent.
If every decision you make is worth 25%, then the difficulty variable is +/-250%. That seems to give a larger margin for player success and failure.

I wrapped all these together because I think it gets at the root of the choices and combat issue: should one or even two choices necessarilly lead to failure or sucess in combat? The DA:O model is designed with a negative answer in mind whild the LO model appears (again, I'll defer to greater knowledge) to say yes. There's nothing categorically wrong with either but we are working in one model and trying to switch it to or emmulate the other is likely to lead to a botched up mess. Combat difficulty issues are far more complex than this and we're more likely to see positive gains working within the system. That said, absolute immunities on the part of a foe to a major slice of combat, like the frontal immunity you mentioned above, are a major pet peeve of mine and something I think DA:O gets right. Making a character or characters useless for the sake of challenge is a hollow response. There's got to be a better way. 

Upper_Krust wrote...
Branka n'est ce pas?

Nah. To avoid Spoilers let's just say it was all a Dream and another good example that making mistakes that DON'T kill you can be just as memorable as those that do.

Upper_Krust wrote..
You would have a strong case but for one point. Many of the enemies in Dragon Age are so similar (in terms of attacks/defenses) as to make their differences irrelevant. So my opinion is Dragon Age would already have enough enemies IF each was given more of an identity.
I mean, Hurlocks, Genlocks, Humans, Dwarves, Skeletons, Corpses, Elves and arguably Shrieks and Werewolves all basically attack in the same manner.
How about if different groups of humanoids attacked in different formations (square formations for dwarves, wedges for humans etc.). What if they all were assigned a different morale rating (genlocks are cowardly, dwarves are stubborn and fight to the death). What if ranged Genlocks used grenades instead of bows. How about if skeletons only take 10% damage from piercing weapons. Or if corpses deal injuries with each hit. I think even minor changes can give each monster type a bit more of an identity.

There's something to this, but there's also some questions that beg to be asked. I've certainly noticed distinct differences in how a number of enemies attack and there are special attack forms for several (Sylvans, Shadow Wolves, Desire Demons) enemies that can be everything from irritating to troublesome. Why is this not evident to other posters? I have a feeling it's because these elements aren't really the Party-breakers like say, level draining or Confusion spells were in D&D-based games, but I'm open to further analysis there. One thing to consider when adding special attack forms, tactics, etc. to any class of enemies is that it's likely going to have to be added at all difficulty levels. I don't have any hard numbers myself, but I would imagine that the number of Players who actually use the Nightmare level to be < 5% of all Players. Even in the heady days of BG2, the Ascention mod which significantly upped the difficulty of BG2: Throne of Bhaal was done by a Bioware employee on his own time. With the audience broader and demanding a wider variety of experiences from an RPG like DA, it will be a hard sell to add something that's seen only on Nightmare. 

Here's a thought that I think does take a little something from LO-style but is something I've been thinking about independantly before this topic came to light. One problem with making combat difficult for the more "combat inclined" Player is that the resource-availability model has changed in the DA system, but it seems the level design paradigm hasn't yet. Large encounter areas (or dungeons in common parlance) still look to a number of meeting encounters to attrit resources that are quickly replenished with a short wait time, spell, or potion. What I would propose would be to concatenate several of these into larger set-piece battles where custom placement and tactics can be more easily implemented and tactical resource depletion could become a real concern. Smaller encounters would be limited to generating flavor and Lore. This brings the DA encounter types closer to the JRPG-ish model, but for reasons and goals that fit DA. What do you think? 

[tmp7704]

xCobalt wrote...

I just provided a simple example. One spell vs 3 of the best runes. Would you rather use a single skill point and get this useful spell or try and find these hard to come by runes or spending a relatively large amount of gold for them.

I just don't see the logic in this reasoning, since it seems to hinge on presumption you're supposed to make a choice between one and the other, while you're perfectly free to take both options and both of them provide identical benefits. To use an analogy, if you can receive million USD and you can earn million USD through work then it doesn't make this second million any less valuable, and having 2 millions rather than one is arguably twice as good.
 

It's also stupid to say that a single factor would make a make insignificant.

I meant specifically the utility provided by this ability, not overall utility of mage on the whole. So that's a strawman in the making, let's move on.

You wouldn't think the numbers would be more noticeable or comparable if I use a high-end ring rather than the weakest one to compare to a high-end rune?

I said if they scale in linear manner then as long as level 1 ring equals benefit of one rune, i'd expect a ring 3x as strong (level 3 being equivalent of level 1 + level 1 + level 1) to provide benefit similar to 3 runes. Yes, it would be more noticeable just like getting 60% bonus from 3 runes is more noticeable than getting 20% bonus from just one. Would think it's rather straightforward.

[Kekse2k]

The only thing that I Think BioWare could learn from Lost Odyssey is the heartache. I remember Lost Odyssey as a very tragic game, infuriatingly so, but there were happy segments that had so much more meaning because of it. Like this song. When I first heard it in the game, considering the story that was told to me as I reached this point in the game, I was in tears. Two kids manage to see the silver lining despite all that they had gone through, which was inspiring. Then I also noticed that the person voicing Cooke voiced a rugrat...hehe. Anyways...

I don't mean to say that BioWare should become all tragic and sad. I don't necessarily hate Lost Odyssey, nor do I love it. Okay I really like it. But mostly it was a memorable experience. It opened my eyes to just how much I would not want to be immortal. But it was so sad. Grrr.

BioWare touched upon this tragedy slightly with Mass Effect - to save Kaidan or Ashley? In Dragon Age: Origins, for me, it was near the ending where I had to say my farewell to someone I was rather hoping I wouldn't, though I knew beforehand it would occur. On my subsequent playthroughs, I valued my interactions with them more than I did previously knowing it would come to an end. You shouldn't have to play the game once-over to get that sort of feeling, though perhaps I only say this because people might feel cheated at the end.

I emerged from Lost Odyssey enlightened. I lost a cherished character, but I knew exactly why it was done and I cried and applauded the display. I would buy the sequel just to see if I could ensure this character's happy ending because she truly deserved one. I emerged from Dragon Age: Origins distracted - I wanted to know more, expected more, though perhaps this is a good thing because now I will look to sequels eagerly because of it. I suppose what I am saying is if there is to be an ending of sorts, make it deserved. Make us work extremely hard for our endings. If it is to be happy, make sure we lost much along the way so that we cherish it. If it is to be unhappy, make sure it was for the benefit of another, which is in itself a happy ending. I suppose this would be much more difficult in an RPG as opposed to the linear JRPG, but...if it was done, 'twould be a spectacle.

Oh yeah, as for the combat system of Lost Odyssey, the only thing I liked was the strategy. In Dragon Age, I didn't need to pay much attention to my runes because I could give an Ogre a beating with just a plain sword. In Lost Odyssey, *everything* needed to be altered to gain the advantage against bosses. Sometimes, it was infuriating, but when victory came, it felt personally earned (especially against stupid worms who like to hide behind stupid mobs who like to respawn). I do not know how this can be applied to Dragon Age. Perhaps have enemies with elemental weaknesses? Allow for team combos? Ooh now that's interesting...sort of like the synergy concept with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2. 

Modifié par Kekse2k, 12 avril 2010 - 10:32 .