59 réponses à ce sujet

[Avaflame]

OP, to me most of your first point is, well, kind of pointless. Just because you CAN spam the potions, you CAN be careless about the traps and you CAN run through your party as long as one is left standing doesn't mean you have to. I don't the like the notion of potions and getting 'knocked out' really ruins the immersion for me.



So I don't use potions or get knocked out. I'm the biggest schizo when it comes to games I'm not sure some people would believe me. I only just got to the Archdemon fight for the first time today and I've had this game since November because of how many times I've had to restart for my own completely irrational dilemmas. But my point is, I'm proud to say that I'm at the end of the game (though I keep getting slaughtered when the Archdemon's reinforcements join in) having used no potions and with no friendly fire or injuries. On Nightmare too, because I feel like cheating otherwise.



Now I don't know about you, but that's hard enough for me. It certainly entailed a lot of strategy and thinking on my part, though maybe that's just me.



As for your other two issues, I can see where you're coming from for both of them, though enemy scaling doesn't really bother me personally.

[1varangian]

4) Endless scaling of stats

It's impossible to put attributes like Str in any context when a "strong" character like Sten begins with 16 and ends up with 60. After a few levels Leliana with 20 Str is stronger than a low level "strong" character. The stats lose their meaning. Compare to DnD where you instantly know what Str 16 or Int 8 means. The stats are an important tool in an RPG to describe the characters. I would really like to see the stats evolve much less over the levels.

5) Level scaling of equipment

Equipment scaled parallel to your character level, sort of a "more stuff just because" approach. While I like the idea of weapon materials, having Dragonbone weapons and armor litter every corner after you reach a certain level just makes those weapons less special than they could be. It gets even worse when the stores suddenly have a huge selection of Dragonbone/White steel equipment for your high level PC. As a result, all equipment have this manufactured feel to them and none of the higher tier items are special. The stores at least should cap at steel, with some rare smiths being able to handle better materials.

Modifié par 1varangian, 16 juillet 2010 - 08:04 .

[1varangian]

Avaflame wrote...

OP, to me most of your first point is, well, kind of pointless. Just because you CAN spam the potions, you CAN be careless about the traps and you CAN run through your party as long as one is left standing doesn't mean you have to. I don't the like the notion of potions and getting 'knocked out' really ruins the immersion for me.

Self imposed restrictions don't work. You still know the game is too forgiving and getting hurt is inconsequential. Knowing breaks the immersion, the actual events just reinforce that knowledge.

[Avaflame]

Maybe for you it does. I suppose I can sort of understand where you're coming from, but then the game would only be catering for you and other gamers like you. This way, people can just plough on through the game without any thought by making use of all the assistance the game has to offer while I can still restrict myself to make it more challenging and better suited for my choice of playthrough.

[1varangian]

Avaflame wrote...

Maybe for you it does. I suppose I can sort of understand where you're coming from, but then the game would only be catering for you and other gamers like you. This way, people can just plough on through the game without any thought by making use of all the assistance the game has to offer while I can still restrict myself to make it more challenging and better suited for my choice of playthrough.

They should design the game in a "hardcore" mode, and then create easier difficulty settings with things like the current no death system + superfast regeneration, and call that "Normal".

I'm not asking to remove anything from the game, just add to it.

[Avaflame]

So what you're saying is the difficulty should affect what you can and can't do? Kind of like how



Easy/Normal: No friendly fire

Hard: Half friendly fire

Nightmare: Full friendly fire



Except with other things like whether you party members can be knocked out? I suppose that makes sense. To me anyway, to be honest I'm really clueless about the technological aspect so if doing that would detract from other things, it might not be worth it. But I think I get your idea now.

[Rzepik2]

Overall I agree, but IMO main problems with the combat mechanics are:

1. There's no need for varied tactics. Fighting a dragon or a revenat, it's all the same.

2. Cooldown - because of it battles (especially with bosses) are just endless repetitions of short abilities combinations. They should try spells per encounter system.

[Celticon]

1varangian wrote...



5) Level scaling of equipment

Equipment scaled parallel to your character level, sort of a "more stuff just because" approach. While I like the idea of weapon materials, having Dragonbone weapons and armor litter every corner after you reach a certain level just makes those weapons less special than they could be. It gets even worse when the stores suddenly have a huge selection of Dragonbone/White steel equipment for your high level PC. As a result, all equipment have this manufactured feel to them and none of the higher tier items are special. The stores at least should cap at steel, with some rare smiths being able to handle better materials.

I disagree. What makes a weapon or piece of armor special is not solely based on its material, but also its backstory/description and stats/bonuses. There's a huge difference between say, silverite Juggernaut Armor versus a generic dragonbone chainmail/heavy chainmail/massive armor.

There are special high tier items. They cost an arm and a leg, i.e. Voice of the Velvet, The Rose's Thorn, and Reaper's Vestements. Those are the truely rare items.

Personally, I avoided buying most vendor items since I found it more economic to use looted gear/quest rewards.

Modifié par Celticon, 16 juillet 2010 - 08:32 .

[1varangian]

Celticon wrote...
I disagree. What makes a weapon or piece of armor special is not solely based on its material, but also its backstory/description and stats/bonuses. There's a huge difference between say, silverite Juggernaut Armor versus a generic dragonbone chainmail/heavy chainmail/massive armor.

There are special high tier items. They cost an arm and a leg, i.e. Voice of the Velvet, The Rose's Thorn, and Reaper's Vestements. Those are the truely rare items.

Personally, I avoided buying most vendor items since I found it more economic to use looted gear/quest rewards.

My point is that having 7 or 9 different tiers of the same sword is redundant. Partly because of the special uniques you mention. I also dislike how the equipment tiers are linked to your level because of the steep stat requirements. They might as well just have a flat out level requirement a la Diablo. Bad design for an RPG imo. And Dragonbone items littering a setting where dragons are thought to be extinct is just inconsistent.

The material tiers are also very linear and boring. The next tier is always heavier and better. Better could also mean lighter - Silverite armor could offer the same protection as red steel for less weight and a lower str requirement. The materials could have much more character.

[Jigero]

winter troll wrote...

4. hair , most of hairstyles in your games are atrociously looking and are poorly animated . Is this really too much to ask for long hair that looks good ? I mean is Gerald of Rivia only fantasy hero who is capable of having decent long hair ???!!


last thing i would like to mention is please dont make more pokemon ranch games like mass effect 2 . Game has more companions then you know what to do with , i think it would be more fruitful for you have fewer but better developed characters . And no , not all of them need to have some sobbing , horrid history , lets have some happy and jolly lads too.

First of all with hair, yes it is to much to ask, unless they are willing to write an entirly new engine for the game, the Eclipse Engine can't render hair effects and if it trys too it will look even worse. If they are changinging engines it's likely to the Unreal engine or some version of it they used in Mass Effect, which sucks equaly as much as the Eclipse Engine at rendering hair effects. It's highly doubtful we will see more dynamic hair. Which is probably all for the better because I rather them focus on other things then getting dynamic hair working (which is more trouble then it's worth) that your gonna cover up 90% of the time with a helmet anyways.

and also funny cause Mass Effect 2 only has only 2 more character then DA:O and thats if you include both tack on characters Zaeed and Kasumi. And Shale was always ment to be part of the orignal cast of DA:O but they diddn't have enough time to get him in. Oh and lets not forget all the Extra characters in Awakening and  Leliann's Song, Also DA:O had far more characters then the Original Mass Effect

[Spell Singer]

1varangian wrote...

1) Inconsequential, simple minded combat

2) Level scaling enemies

3) Clothing and hair

1.  That is what all combat in an RPG is.  It isn't a wargame.  The purpose of combat in an RPG is to generate tension and excitiment in the story...at least as a DM that is what I view it as.  However, if you have objections to the use of potions then don't use them.  Nothing in the game forces you to use a potion.  I prefer to use the minimal amount of potions I can, and guzzelling lyrium potions is right out.  But I distinctly recall the frustration of being  near the end of the deep roads and being out of said potions, and living on what I could scrounge.  That changed fights dramatically and I'd point out not so much for the better.

If it offends you that characters come out of combat injured then when you loose a companion restart the game.  Reloading from the last save is immersion breaking no?  Yes this is rude but given the number of ways a character can die in the game perma death would require a serious change in the amount of combat not just the mechanics.  I've had companions die for reasons ranging from: a lack of constitution, a lack of dexterity, me being busy keeping my character alive, the tactical situation, bad luck, my errors, poor scripting in the tactics, a misunderstanding of the behavior mods, running out of mana or potions, the mechanics, etc.  People die in computer games due to the fact that the more combat you have (and it is excessive in computer games)eventually murphy will get you.  In a great many case nothing can be done about it getting hit by insect swarm and curse of mortality is pretty much death unless you can dispel magic and it might be death anyway if in addition to dispelling those spells you also dispel your protective magics that are defending you from the hail of arrows you are standing in.

The combat system is run by scripts, if you can read what I am writing you can out think a script.  It will never learn or develop and so after a few encounters you as a thinking learning human will have a system in place to out perform it.  This excludes "exploits", "Cheesy tactics" or whatever.

Combat in any modern CRPG is excessive and ultimately not rewarding.  I don't see how changing minor mechanics (how healing works, availablity of potions) will change that.  I've played I don't even want to think about how many different RPG combat systems, most are suffiecient to the task but rarely do they perform it well.  Ultimately the mechanics don't matter what makes combat special is nothing a designer can influence.  Having your two team mates down, being low on hit points out of medigel and surounded by 5 creepers in a stairwell and surviving is exciting and exhillerating but has nothing to do with the combat system or the level design.

2.  Level scaling is exactly what a good DM does without thinking about it so why is bad in a computer game?  I've concluded the only valid objection is that with level scaling you can't out level the encounter and so the munchkins complain.  It is a staple of PnP roleplaying games so stop worrying about it unless it is of the stupidity that Bersheda introduced into their "oblivion" where leveling up is counter productive.  Is it counter productive to level up in DA?  No.  So level scaling makes sense.  Or is it less imersion wrecking to simply walk into a clearing ... be obliterated in a handfull of seconds and reload and avoid the clearing until you get more levels or get 2/3 of the was through a quest and then when you go to the conclusion get killed in seconds?  Frankly to allow people to walk about semi freely you need level scaling.  My experiences with Morrowind game of the year edition before the game bored me to tears showed what happens without it.  The...oh unprintable obscentiy string I haven't saved in 3 hours....  The reason it is more glaringly obvioius in computer games is because the available number of monsters is reduced due to the need for art and animations.  In PnP you start with rats and Kobalds and at some stage never see them again since you have moved onto dieties and demigods or whatever.  I'd perfer to just remove the whole walking about freely and have a more tightly scripted story which reacts to my actions but well other people want a sandbox so level scaling is the compromise solution.

3.  Yes more clothes.  A use for them too.  Why is my character greeting nobles all in finery while wearing armour?  More clothes and more chances to wear them I support fully.  You could even say of the big 3 in DA:O...Violence, Lust and Betrayal...I think they had Betrayal at a good level. the violence was overboard and to the point of gratitious (did you ever check your "heroic" stats at the end of the game??  I'd depopulated a small town worth of humans) and there was insufficient lust.  So make lust not war and give us better clothes.  And no I'm not being sarcastic here.  After 3 playthroughs of DA:O I can't recall all that many combats that stand out as "good" most of them just blur into the mess of  "get it over with" or "thank god now i can get on with the game."

More story less fighting.  More interactions less fighting.  A reduction in weapon and hand sizes by a little bit too please because from time to time the size of my characters hands just leaps out right at you and makes you shudder.

[Paromlin]

1varangian wrote...

I'm under the impression that the people who like the combat (the way it currently is)* play the game mostly for the story and the characters.

 

Yes, I agree. Those people mostly look at combat just as a nuisance between character interactions, therefore they're not paying enough attention to it which results in an inability to offer a valid analysis of the combat system. Just look at the post above mine; a long-winded post that completely missed the point.



*Added this part to make it more clear. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe this was your intention.

[winter troll]

also game could use similar telekinesis abilities witcher has , when you fire push spell not only enemies will fly the might lose their weapons and near by objects are destroyed into debris .

[Dick Delaware]

SirOccam wrote...

It's not so much a big flaw, in fact they did a great job on it overall, but I hope companion interaction gets improved.
When my City Elf who was romancing Morrigan went to the Alienage and turned down the Tevinter dude's offer to sacrifice the elven slaves for a minor constitution bump...Morrigan disapproves? I mean come ON. Even Morrigan can not honestly expect me to sacrifice my own FATHER.

The approval system certainly needs work. It's way too easy to do things that party members don't like but still have 100 approval with them. Even other great RPG's with party members succumb to this. It's not too bad, as there are still actions that you can take that might permanently alienate party members no matter what (Alistair, Shale, etc), but I still hate being reduced to a sycophant for extra approval rating.

I feel that there's a much more natural way to go about this. One of the ways might be mutually exclusive approval - for instance, gaining the approval of the ruthless Tevinter blood mage who's joined you should mean that it alienates the Chantry-dedicated Orlesian knight that's with you. Ideally, it should be organized in such a way that doing things that gaining the support of one member means that you ****** off the other one, no matter what.

Also, I think that you should get more approval for DOING things that your companions agree with rather than saying things that they agree with. Of course, a speech check, high approval, or maybe completion of a companion quest might allow you to sway them to your side, but only taking the right actions will net you really high approval.

I also don't like the gift system. I think it should be scrapped. It's basically a cheat to get extra approval with Morrigan so that she'll sleep with you because you are too much of a p*ssy to kill some stupid elves.

Overall though, the party system in Dragon Age was very good. You had a lot of control over who entered your party (only Alistair and Morrigan were mandatory at first, but even then you could kick out Morrigan), members were reactive, and each member had a crisis point. Awesome.

That being said, I think the above changes, if indeed they can be implemented, would make interaction feel a lot more natural and add more consequences to your choices.

[Faust1979]

I hope they don't make combat harder if the game is to hard I will get bored with it and move on to something else. Just keep the three easy medium and hard I would hate to not be able to finish a bioware game

[Paromlin]

Faust1979 wrote...

I hope they don't make combat harder if the game is to hard I will get bored with it and move on to something else. Just keep the three easy medium and hard I would hate to not be able to finish a bioware game

Absolutely - a difficulty slider is essential.

That's why it nauseates me that some people think the absence of level scaling would make the game too hard/too easy. There's a freaking difficultly slider.

[javierabegazo]

There was some mention in the GameInformer article that there will be combat combinations, not just with magic, like getting your Warrior to Sunder an enemy's armor, to set them up for a lethal Backstab by your Rogue. Sounds interesting

[FedericoV]

I do agree with the OP. In general, I think that there was too much filler combat in DA:O and that even the boss felt pretty generic (a part the Ogre at the end of Ostagar wich was the better fight). And the loot... don't even begin to speak about that .

Imho, that was all because of level scaling but I understand that there wasn't a lot of solutions since they choose to make DA:O open to exploration just like the Baldur's Gate games.

I think that since DA2 looks more story driven and less of a sandbox, there will be less need of level scaling. Therefore, combat will be more "designed" and more tailored to the party you're using. At least, I hope so, since I do not think that combat in DA:O was challenging enough.

Look at Leliana's Song. Yep, the story is very linear and there is not freedom in term of exploration (not that I mind that... but many players like that aspect of fantasy gaming). But it has the better and most challenging battles in the entire DA:O series so far... maybe it's not a case.

Modifié par FedericoV, 16 juillet 2010 - 07:38 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

javierabegazo wrote...

There was some mention in the GameInformer article that there will be combat combinations, not just with magic, like getting your Warrior to Sunder an enemy's armor, to set them up for a lethal Backstab by your Rogue. Sounds interesting

That sounds great.  I hope some of them require multiple characters, and maybe even multuiple characters of the same class (imagine a combination that can only be performed by two Rogues working in concert).

That would be a fun way to improve replayability, too.

[itisi]

the thing they should definetly work on are side-quests. dao mages collective or the bulletin board were essentialy a fetch quests wich did not add anything to the story, they were also painfully repetitve. so yeah there is a huge room for improvment there.

[Dick Delaware]

itisi wrote...

the thing they should definetly work on are side-quests. dao mages collective or the bulletin board were essentialy a fetch quests wich did not add anything to the story, they were also painfully repetitve. so yeah there is a huge room for improvment there.

Chanter's Board quests were quite bad. Almost every single one of them was some variant of "go here, kill this". The main quest had way too much filler combat coupled with bad encounter design (seriously, way too many mobs of darkspawn that fight exactly like human enemies), but the side quests were much worse than this.

While I like the combat system (probably one of the few real-time with pause systems I've enjoyed), I'm glad that they're going to implement combos. 

[Paromlin]

itisi wrote...

the thing they should definetly work on are side-quests. dao mages collective or the bulletin board were essentialy a fetch quests wich did not add anything to the story, they were also painfully repetitve. so yeah there is a huge room for improvment there.

I have a feeling DA2 will have a stronger focus on side quests, or at least I hope so, since the game is not about saving the world. Maybe the whole game will be a big side quest.

[WingsandRings]

Can I add a couple? One of them is purely for console:



1. Redo the codexes and journal entries and how we access them.



On the Xbox 360, you are, of course, informed when you receive a new codex or journal entry. However, when you went to the menu to see what the new codex was, it became a problem. See, unread codexes (and journal entries) were set apart by having a thick light line around them -- they were highlighted, if you will. But scrolling through them turned them from "unread"' to "read." This meant that if the codex your received was, for whatever reason, not at the very top, then you'd never know really what you got because in the process of looking for it (scrolling) you changed it from unread to read. Because I rarely stop and check my codexes instantly when I get them, I started getting very confused about which ones I'd read and hadn't. The worst was when the instructions for a quest in a journal entry or codex, and I'd be struggling to find the one mentioned.



2. Please please something other than "items received!" when a character gives you some cool-ass thing. I hated never being sure what items I had received or in which menu I should look for them.

[Celticon]

Dick Delaware wrote...

itisi wrote...

the thing they should definetly work on are side-quests. dao mages collective or the bulletin board were essentialy a fetch quests wich did not add anything to the story, they were also painfully repetitve. so yeah there is a huge room for improvment there.

Chanter's Board quests were quite bad. Almost every single one of them was some variant of "go here, kill this". The main quest had way too much filler combat coupled with bad encounter design (seriously, way too many mobs of darkspawn that fight exactly like human enemies), but the side quests were much worse than this.

While I like the combat system (probably one of the few real-time with pause systems I've enjoyed), I'm glad that they're going to implement combos. 

Side quests are just that, side quests. They are mercenarial and straightforward favors. I don't see how you can make them any more complex without making them plot-related or simply too complicated to be considered "side" quests anymore.

Modifié par Celticon, 17 juillet 2010 - 01:16 .