616 réponses à ce sujet

[TMZuk]

KitsuneRommel wrote...

TMZuk wrote...

I guess the same is true for shooter-games... when I served my conscription in the Danish military, we were still issued the old H&K G3, and I can say for sure that if you tried to fire that on full auto, you'd be spreading bullets all over Creation... Even if you are commander Shepard. So perhaps the basic ME1 Storm assaultrifle, is an H&K G3 with unlimited ammo...

I don't think G3 was THAT bad though my shooting experience with it was rather limited. It was ugly as hell though but military loves blocky things.

I didn't think it was bad. It was sturdy, reliable, and very accurate when used semi-automatic. But the full-auto option was next to useless.

[KitsuneRommel]

TMZuk wrote...

I didn't think it was bad. It was sturdy, reliable, and very accurate when used semi-automatic. But the full-auto option was next to useless.

The rifle would have to be pretty horrible if it wasn't accurate on semi-automatic.

[AlanC9]

SuperMedbh wrote...


How do you know if someone is any good in real life?  We're told Jack is "the strongest biotic known", Grunt is "pure krogan" and clearly built like a brick, Garrus is a good shot with a sniper rifle, etc.  We know that upgraded powers/tech will work better than the old version.  And if nothing else, we have experience--  taking Grunt out and watching him running over husks tells us that he's "what it says on the label". 

In paper based RPGs, players need to know all those numbers because it gets unwieldly and slow for the gamemaster to do everything (although some try).  That's not an issue for cRPGs, obviously.  Would you want to have to roll dice everytime you shoot or use a power?

Thing is, ITRW you can test who's actually a good sniper, etc. Games typically don't give me a very good way to do this in a controlled environment. Even if they did, it would require an awful lot of combat feedback log comparison. I don't really want to do that.

[Alex_SM]

The "tactical aspects" have never been a key point on RPGs. I've been years playing pnp RPGs and that's always a secondary point. Even I've played whole sessions without a single combat. Sometimes even hours without a single dice rolling.



And in ME2 not every weapon you get is an upgrade; for example the best assault riffle is the Vindicator 15. Way better than the Geth pulse rifle or the collector's assault riffle.



And in the snipers it depends on what style of combat do you prefer. I don't think theres one better than everyone else.



In shotguns and pistols I can't tell, I never use them.

[Rennivant]

I personally love Mass Effect 1 with the exp system but prefer the weapon/armor upgrading system of Mass Effect 2. I feel in the middle of the weapon clip aspect of ME2. The story is great for both and really look forward to the 3rd one. I love that upgrading your ship and your room can be done. I love collections and stuff like that. I hope they bring back the EXP from ME1but keep things simplified like in Mass Effect 2.

[AlanC9]

slimgrin wrote...
But any new weapon you get is predetermined, and each one is essentially an upgrade, so there is little in the way of deciding which to to use.

And this is a bad thing? I prefer my RPGs to be about the chraracters' abilities, not their stuff's abilities.

[SuperMedbh]

I get the "knowing who's/what's better" idea, and agree that in the real world, we have yardsticks as well for performance. I'm not sure that (for example) scores on a gun range equate directly to combat ability-- I suspect there are other factors such as coolness under fire and combat savvy that would come into play as well. And as long as we're talking about guns, certainly you'd have the manufacturer's specifications on range, caliber and all that.



But do we really gain from knowing that Grunt has a 25 strength? Or is simply knowing that even by Krogan standards he's darned strong enough? How much impact does having the precise numbers really have on your tactics?



I don't know. Really, I'm just thinking aloud here and playing a bit of devil's advocate. I suspect, but am not sure, that ME2 might be seen as one of the early examples of a game genre that has yet to have a formal name. I still think of it as an cRPG, but it has some very definite differences with regard to its underlying philosophy, no question about that. And one of those differences is the level of game mechanic transparency.

[FlyingWalrus]

I've had experiences like Alex. Hell, many books themselves tell you to forgo the dice rolls if it would either A) slow the game down, hurt the story, or C) success can be assumed. That's why Take 20 rules exist. Either way, the main focus in almost all pnp RPGs is story or character development. That's why you can have an RPG campaign without a system of combat.

And I don't think slimgrin is right with his assessment. Each weapon differs enough in its mechanics so as to make choosing weapons an actual choice. It's not just a difference in statistics but a difference in the way they work, too. I know some people here on the forums have said they prefer the SMG that you initially start with to the Tempest because of the decent accuracy and fire control.

[Sajon1]

More RPG please

[lukandroll]

FlyingWalrus wrote...

lukandroll wrote...

Alex_SM wrote...

lukandroll wrote...

No, you're playing the Shepard YOU created with whatever proficiencies YOUR Shepard  has

When a game doesn't offer this level of character progresion and diversity anymore, it can't really be called a role playing game, as you are playing the same set character that we all were playing, with an universal set of proficiencies on all classes, on all playthroughts on all games....

Is not the same character. Building a character is not abour numbers or skills, it's abour character's personality. As long as it makes sense with the character conception the rest is accesory. 

No, you're wrong, the conception of creating a character in a role playing game, it is NOT only about character personality... an RPG IS NOT a choose your own adventure book.
When you create a character on any role playing game, you create his battle abilities as well, as it is a role playing GAME. And gameplay is the most important thing on a game.

And yet that's what all console (a PC is a console, too) RPGs are, a kind of "choose your own adventure" book. All the story threads have to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, somehow. Because of the limitations in software, you're going to have a set number of choices to make. Once you make those choices, the game then shows you the proper outcome. To get upset about it, you'd have to get upset at the medium for being limited the way it is. No matter what game you play, it's going to have a finite number of outcomes.

As for rolling characters, my Infiltrator Shepard and Vanguard Shepard and Engineer Shepard differ enormously
from one another in terms of battle abilities. On top of looking different from each other and having completely different relationships with the other characters in the game.

Honestly, what ARE you complaining about?

Well for starters, ALL what you do with the character is a "choice" in an RPG. The moment you choose to boost that abilitie/stat/proficiencie, you are altering the character abilties and the income of future events in your character story.
And that's where ME2 fails for two mainly reasons; one being that all character have the same preset proficience with guns, do you honestly believe that an Engineer could have the same accuracy than a Soldier with a pistol in a WELL balanced RPG game?; and the other being the LACK of alternatives in the combat.

Take a classic RPG like fallout 1. What is it that make FO1 so good as role playing game??
And here I'm gonna quote NicklasBertelsen , because he nailed it on that regard:

"FO1 allowed for such a wide
range of role playing, both in how you responded to people and solved
quests, take decicions and affect the story; but also in how you build your character.
Lockpicking, First
Aid, Sneaking and Repair were skills that were just as useful and viable
as Small Guns and Big Guns, and picking a character who focused on any
of the aforementioned lead to such a different gameplay experience that
ME will look like a straight shooter in comparison. In ME, lockpicking
and hacking skills were supplementary skills that could be used to solve
the odd sidequest and hack containers with loot, in Fallout 1
lockpicking and hacking were skills you could use to kill the endboss,
avoid most combat encounters and solve quests that were otherwise
unsolvable if you were a gun toter. In other words, focus on different
skills lead to different gameplay, and you could actually build your
character around being a sneaky thief with lockpicking, hacking and
speech skills and then play the game in accordance with this build. You
could avoid combat entirely and thwart your enemies without ever firing a
gun.
THIS is the core element of an RPG, being able to make a
character build that makes the gameplay experience a unique one
depending on your choice of skills."

[SuperMedbh]

There's as much difference between a sniper soldier and a shotgun soldier as there is between an archer rogue and a backstabbing rogue. There is more than a little choice between skill trees in ME2. Certainly, there could be more but there can always be more. The question is really "Are the multiple 'experiences' dependent on being able to calculate advantages to the decimal point?" I'd say no.



We're a bit in danger of heading into "I like ME1 and ME2 stinks" territory here (or vice versa). I'd suggest examining the question of RPG in general. What IS an RPG? I'll differ from Slim here and say that ME2 was quite different in a fundamental way from previous RPGs. It took a cinematic approach instead of a game approach to things. The question is whether a story telling approach with a less open ended narrative will define future cRPGs or simply become a different genre (sitting alongside Heavy Rain and visual novels)

[Greek Trojan]

lukandroll was pretty much on the right track. I think character building is the most critical RPG aspect maybe people feel is missing. The think is, the vast majority of RPGs use a very shallow and inflexible system of character building, which is basically slapping more stats onto what you already have. The common joke hold true that the shiny +1 sword gives a sense (however bland) of progression. Inevitably most players, via a specific games mechanics, choose the most powerful combination and go with that. What Bioware did was remove the shiny numbers and focused on abilities/power evolutions, armor, and weapons as custom traits. Because of how rigid RPGs have been over time, many gamers had come to associate things like weapon choice and power use as separate from RPG choices. Somehow getting Xp from enemies (even if not unlimited like in ME1) is more interactive than getting the same gross amount of XP at the end of a mission. Having 10 separate points, each giving a small bonus, is worse than fewer points giving those same bonuses.



Another part of it is the lack of clearly defined uber gear. There is no Spectre X weapons in this game, or Ultima blade, of Knights of the Round uber summon that makes you a uber force. WHile most feel the revenant is the best AR in the game, many like the Vindicator. Widow is the favorite sniper but many like the Viper. Armor is customized to what you want but there is little in the way of best. This is important because many people never feel the sense of improvement when the handcannon you get early on is the best handgun in the game.



Basically, I think the unexpected backlash from the changes stem from a lack of "shiny carrots" (for lack of a better term) that makes the RPG player feel like they are actively growing/evolving as the game progresses. Personally (as a RPG nerd and not a huge shooting fan) I thought ME 2 was fine and had no issues with the changes as I found more than enough RPG to satisfy me (plus the combat was more dun, and tactical)>

[AlanC9]

Agreed. I think I'm not at all disturbed by ME2's approach because I started with PnP RPGs, where defining your character by his abilities rather than his inventory and getting your XP at the end of the mission are pretty much standard these days.

[Iosev]

The role-playing video game genre is a very loosely-defined genre that share variable degrees of the following characteristics:

Story
Characters (including actions and abilities)
Exploration and Missions/Quests
Combat
Experience and Levels
Item collection and Inventory

If you look at Mass Effect, it contains all of these elements (albeit in varying degrees), so it is undoubtedly a role-playing game. I think the problem with the first game was that Bioware tried to implement all of these characteristics evenly. The difficulty with Mass Effect is that its combat system is shooter-based. More specifically, shooters are based more on hand-eye coordination rather than statistics, so putting so much emphasis on statistics and inventory ended up detracting from the combat, and ultimately, from the game (since it resulted in the mindless selling/destroying of most of the items that you picked up, as well as the bloated stat progression while leveling up).

So in the second game, Bioware decided to streamline your character's abilities, statistics, and inventory to improve the game's overall combat, which I think turned out to be successful. Instead of constantly worrying about stat and item management, you get to focus on the game's story, characters, and experience solid game play.

Like I mentioned earlier, each RPG has their own variation of how much of each characteristic that they focus on. Games like Monster Hunter or Borderlands focus heavily on the item collection characteristic, while games like Final Fantasy focus heavily on story.

Just because a game doesn't follow closely to the Dungeons and Dragons formula, doesn't mean that it is not a RPG. And more importantly, I think that you're only short-changing yourself if you only play RPGs that follow one specific tradition. Some of the best RPGs I've played in recent years have all been drastically different from each other (e.g., Mass Effect, Demon's Souls, Dragon Age: Origins, Valkyria Chronicles, Monster Hunter, Persona, Fallout 3, etc.).

Perhaps instead of asking if Mass Effect has become "Too much RPG or too little RPG", just ask people what they specifically would like to see more or less of, instead of using the blanket term "RPG elements."  I personally think that it is quite silly to say that ME 2 is a shooter and not an RPG, when many shooter-only gamers will refuse to touch this game, simply because of the amount of dialogue and exploration in it.

Modifié par arcelonious, 14 juin 2010 - 07:25 .

[KalosCast]

Remember, above all else, despite a wide variety of games falling into the obscenely huge genre of RPG, you're wrong because I say this game is something different so **** you.

[javierabegazo]

KalosCast wrote...

Remember, above all else, despite a wide variety of games falling into the obscenely huge genre of RPG, you're wrong because I say this game is something different so **** you.

Typing "**** you" is the same as typing the actual word and is against forum rules. Please review the Site Rules during your 24 hr vacation before submitting crude posts.

[Pocketgb]

Readin' my mind, Arcelonious, readin' my mind!



I hope you don't mind if I quote you on that?

[SkullandBonesmember]

arcelonious wrote...

I think the problem with the first game was that Bioware tried to implement all of these characteristics evenly. The difficulty with Mass Effect is that its combat system is shooter-based. More specifically, shooters are based more on hand-eye coordination rather than statistics, so putting so much emphasis on statistics and inventory ended up detracting from the combat, and ultimately, from the game (since it resulted in the mindless selling/destroying of most of the items that you picked up, as well as the bloated stat progression while leveling up).

So in the second game, Bioware decided to streamline your character's abilities, statistics, and inventory to improve the game's overall combat, which I think turned out to be successful. Instead of constantly worrying about stat and item management, you get to focus on the game's story, characters, and experience solid game play.

The way combat was implemented was wonderful in ME1. There was an over bloating of items, yes. But an RPG does rely on stats. ME2 was butchered thanks to the change in direction plus the QUANTITY of combat and subsequent lack of character interaction.

[Geth001]

SkullandBonesmember wrote...

arcelonious wrote...

I think the problem with the first game was that Bioware tried to implement all of these characteristics evenly. The difficulty with Mass Effect is that its combat system is shooter-based. More specifically, shooters are based more on hand-eye coordination rather than statistics, so putting so much emphasis on statistics and inventory ended up detracting from the combat, and ultimately, from the game (since it resulted in the mindless selling/destroying of most of the items that you picked up, as well as the bloated stat progression while leveling up).

So in the second game, Bioware decided to streamline your character's abilities, statistics, and inventory to improve the game's overall combat, which I think turned out to be successful. Instead of constantly worrying about stat and item management, you get to focus on the game's story, characters, and experience solid game play.

The way combat was implemented was wonderful in ME1. There was an over bloating of items, yes. But an RPG does rely on stats. ME2 was butchered thanks to the change in direction plus the QUANTITY of combat and subsequent lack of character interaction.

But at the same time, ME1 had horrendous balance. Pretty much for any class all you needed to do was pop your defensive power and then do anything remotely thretening and you'd win every encounter. Failing that, you could just put frictionless materials in your pistol (or other weapon of choice, pistols were unbalanced as the top weapon though) and fire with impunity.

[Pocketgb]

SkullandBonesmember wrote...

The way combat was implemented was wonderful in ME1...

I always compared it to a first person shooter that controlled like a racing game: Out of place.

And yes, immunity existing was quite a drag on the game.

Modifié par Pocketgb, 14 juin 2010 - 09:52 .

[FlyingWalrus]

lukandroll wrote...

FlyingWalrus wrote...

lukandroll wrote...

Alex_SM wrote...

lukandroll wrote...

No, you're playing the Shepard YOU created with whatever proficiencies YOUR Shepard  has

When a game doesn't offer this level of character progresion and diversity anymore, it can't really be called a role playing game, as you are playing the same set character that we all were playing, with an universal set of proficiencies on all classes, on all playthroughts on all games....

Is not the same character. Building a character is not abour numbers or skills, it's abour character's personality. As long as it makes sense with the character conception the rest is accesory. 

No, you're wrong, the conception of creating a character in a role playing game, it is NOT only about character personality... an RPG IS NOT a choose your own adventure book.
When you create a character on any role playing game, you create his battle abilities as well, as it is a role playing GAME. And gameplay is the most important thing on a game.

And yet that's what all console (a PC is a console, too) RPGs are, a kind of "choose your own adventure" book. All the story threads have to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, somehow. Because of the limitations in software, you're going to have a set number of choices to make. Once you make those choices, the game then shows you the proper outcome. To get upset about it, you'd have to get upset at the medium for being limited the way it is. No matter what game you play, it's going to have a finite number of outcomes.

As for rolling characters, my Infiltrator Shepard and Vanguard Shepard and Engineer Shepard differ enormously
from one another in terms of battle abilities. On top of looking different from each other and having completely different relationships with the other characters in the game.

Honestly, what ARE you complaining about?

Well for starters, ALL what you do with the character is a "choice" in an RPG. The moment you choose to boost that abilitie/stat/proficiencie, you are altering the character abilties and the income of future events in your character story.

And that's where ME2 fails for two mainly reasons; one being that all character have the same preset proficience with guns, do you honestly believe that an Engineer could have the same accuracy than a Soldier with a pistol in a WELL balanced RPG game?; and the other being the LACK of alternatives in the combat.

But... ME2 lets you do that at level ups. Unless I dreamt the part where I upgraded Cloak to an Assassination Cloak up...

So you're saying that if a game doesn't let you incrementally assess ALL aspects of your character in game by hand, it's not an RPG. Or at least that's what you imply by putting such heavy emphasis on "ALL" in your post.

Your post is negligent of a few key points regarding this criticism:

1) No matter what class you choose, you are still going to be playing the role of a special forces badass in Mass Effect 2. And yes, I honestly do believe that a combat engineer can shoot as well as an infantryman. Someone better qualified to state that CAN and HAS in this thread, so it's not unrealistic or unreasonable to anticipate that Shepard can shoot well regardless of what profession he specializes in.

2) I hope you're not going to say that ME1 was well-balanced, because there are tons of Youtube videos out there laughing in the face of "Insanity." In terms of balance, ME2 is lightyears ahead of ME1 in that department. The game remains more or less difficult throughout whereas you could ****** lightning and sneeze holocaust in ME1 after doing two or three story-based missions.

3) I don't know what you mean when you say "lack of alternatives in combat." You could go pugilist on the game and try to kill everything with your fists alone, I guess.

I excised the Fallout 1 bit because I find it irrelevant to this conversation. Fallout 1 may be a good RPG, but putting it forward and saying, "This is a REAL RPG," is like someone in the table top RPG world putting D&D out against, say, World of Darkness and saying, "This is a REAL RPG." It's pointless because different systems are designed for different settings. What worked in Fallout would definitely not work in Mass Effect 2, OR 1. They are far too narrative-driven for that.