Disclaimer: This is the product of me and my friend fantasizing about Dragon Age, if it had Coop. It will be presented as if it were possible. This is a list of things we though would be cool, and I'm posting it to get everyone's opinion on our ideas. We do not in any way shape or form believe this will happen, or that it's even possible.
There's a tl;dr at the bottom.
New Disk
If this were to happen, it would be released as a new disk, with a new price. My friend and I would both pay $60 for this disk, but we think it should only be a $30-40 value. It would have to be released on a new disk, because of all the changes to story and character interaction.
Difficulty Scaling
There would be a Gears of War 2 style difficulty style. We would both be able to pick out own difficulties, and the game would compensate accordingly. For example, I like to play on Hard, and he likes Normal, and this would allow us to have a fun experience, regardless of our skill levels in-game.
The AI would always be on the hardest difficulty chosen, when both players are in the same area. It would be according to the difficulty chosen when they're in seperate areas.
When calculating damage against the enemy, or vice-vesa, the settings per difficulty chosen would be applied. For example, we're engaging an enemy who is resistant to Fire. I am on Casual, and my friend is on Nightmare. I use a fire based spell, and it calculates damage as if I were on Casual, doing damage accordingly. My friend uses the same fire based spell, and if he has the same stats as I do, his would do considerably less, because he's on Nightmare, and the enemy is fire resistant.
If we're taking damage, he gets hit just as hard as if he were playing Nightmare without coop, and I get hit just as hard as if I was playing Casual without coop.
It would compensate for varying levels, in the same way.
Origin Stories
Because we haven't played them all, the only interracial origin stories we could come up with were replacing the rapists in the Ciry Elf origin story with the Human Noble, and replacing Arl Howe in the Human Noble origin, with someone else, maybe the Dalish.
Gameplay
-The Wheel
The tactical wheel would only pause the game if both players had it open at the same time. If one player had it open, he would either stop moving, or his combat AI would take over. There would be an option to toggle this in the options menu. There would also be a notification in the area where the level up notification is, informing you that your partner has the wheel open.
-The Pause Screen
Pressing pause to go into your Inventory, Codex, Map, or any other such thing would also only pause if both players had it open. You shoudn't be equipping items in combat, anyway. There would be a similar notification to the one for the wheel, when your partner is in pause. There would also be one when he leaves pause.
-Free Roam
Simple. Free Roam like in Crackdown. You wouln't have to share a screen like in Fable II, nor would you even have to even stay in the same area. For example, I could be slaying dragons atop a mountain, while my friend is out hunting werewolves. If he's in Lothering while it's attacked, he can try to fight off the darkspawn, but eventually will be killed, or have to leave. The darkspawn here give no exp or loot.
-Party
We had a difficult time with this one. We went through various ideas, involving letting just the 2 play coop together, to letting each person pick 3 members and have a full party each.
We eventually decided that you should act as one full party, letting each person pick one ally. This combines the good and bad of all our ideas. The game remains as balanced as it can be, and you're not totally alone.
-Combat
If you die, you'd take control of your remaining pary member, just like in Dragon Age. If your party gets wiped, and your partner is in another area (he requires a loading screen to get to you), you would "respawn" at camp, with an injury that can only be healed through an injury poultice. They're not hard to come by, but we needed some consequence, other than having to run back through 5 minutes of empty areas.
If your partner is in the same area as you, and you die, you would take control of someone else, just like in the actual game. If everyone is dead except one guy, you can become a free-roam "ghost". You won't trigger enemies, they won't see you, but you cannot do anything other than look around. This is to ease boredom if your partner takes a long time to finish off the enemies, and bring you all back.
Your partners health, mana/stamina, and his allies information would be available to you at all times, in the same way as in Dragon Age. In little circles on the screen. Your partners picture and status would always be the third one, to make it easier to switch between AI characters, if you're in the same area. In different areas, it wouldn't matter, because you would only be able to switch to one other character.
In the same area, you would be able to cycle through characters, just as in standard Dragon Age. There would be an option "Allow my character to be controlled", that allows your partner to control your custom character, if you're controlling someone else. The default option is off, meaning that they just skip over your character. They would always skip over the character you're currently controlling, obviously.
-Gift Giving
Because of the requirements of wielding weapons and armor, gift giving was surprisingly easy to think of rules for. The only thing you cannot do is gift the one-of-a-kind items, and Plot gifts, like Juggernaut Plate, or Flemeth's Grimoire. You would be able to gift money, poultices, poisons, traps, tomes, and other basic items in the same way as Fable II, you select the other persons character, and press A, X, or click, and you're given the option to gift, as well as a few others.
-Questing/Experience
You're allowed to replay quests, but you don't gain any new one-of-a-kind items from it, and you get reduced exp for every time to replay the quest. For example, the High Dragon would drop 2 Dragon Scales, if you haven't killed it before. If you've already killed it, it would only drop one, and you wouldn't be able to pick it up, because it's your partners scale. There would be a warning, similar to the Inventory Full warning. Maybe "Partner's Item".
The exp penalties would increase to 100% after you've played a quest 3 times. On the first time through, you have a 0% exp penalty, as expected. On the second time through, you have a 75% penalty. On the third time through, you have a 95% penalty. By the fourth time through the same quest, you're not earning any exp. You will only gain exp for your partners kills if you're in the same area as they are.
-Conversation
And now... why it has to be a seperate disk with a new price tag. Our ideas meant that it had to be fully voiced. The usual AI interruptions would still occur, and you would be given the option to say things as well. For example, when the Bann Teagan is debating with you over whether or not to spare Connor, Morrigan or Jowan interrupts with the blood magic ritual. If your partner is playing as a Mage with Blood Magic specalization, he will be given the option to do that interrupt instead, in the same way Mass Effect 2 is doing the interrupts. You will also have your own dialogue choices, and can respond to what your partner is saying.
If you disagree, and you both will not change your mind, that means it's time for...
-Player versus Player
Simple. You and your partner would have a sparring match. This would be an option when you're both in camp, or when you heavily diagree on a certain plot point. Really the only changes we had to make for PvP are that Stealth would have to have a time limit, and Feign Death would act as a stun move.
Extra Nonsense
-Player Romance
Basically, you can have sex with your partner. There would be an approval rating similar to the one in Dragon Age, but you can choose your approval and disapproval bonuses.
I know nobody will use the conversations; they'll just max out their own approval for their friend, and then "charge up their loading ramp", but it would be cool, nonetheless. My friend just want to bang my sexy elf. This is all his idea.
-Horde Mode
You're given the option to return to Lothering after it's been attacked, and have to try to hold out against the darkspawn for as long as you can. This has no bearing on the plot, and is simply something to do if you got bored. The enemies ramp up the difficulty from Casual when you start, to Nightmare by the time you've killed about 3000 of them. After 1500 kills, they send the Archdemon after you. If you defeat it, every subsequent 1500 kills he returns, with his Archdemon buddies. First with just one, then two, and it keeps increasing until everyone has died.
After everyone has died, you then return to the camp and are rewarded with gold based on how long you lasted. One Sovereign for every Archdemon defeated, and one silver for every 50 darkspawn.
tl;dr
Freeroam, Gifts, Interupts, Sex, Survival mode.
Dragon Age: Co-op
Débuté par
SaintlPatrick
, nov. 09 2009 05:18
Retour en haut
#2
Posté 10 novembre 2009 - 02:05
zimm4973
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- Members
- 25 messages
I like, but the balance system you stated is not that great imo, b/c you would have the casual person just smashing everything else to bits and the very hard person getting killed, maybe the health of the enemy could be set to the highest setting and the casual player simply made more durable? overall though great ideas, although i would rather this be an update or DLC instead of an entirely new game
#3
Posté 10 novembre 2009 - 02:09
gropax
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- Members
- 114 messages
wow you typed all that junk for a game that bioware will never make i feel sorry for you.
