702 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Maye we should have a completely different topic about trash fights?

[Tirigon]

AlanC9 wrote...

Maye we should have a completely different topic about trash fights?

Go ahead, start one and link it here.

[Sidney]

Dick Delaware wrote...

Yeah, I seriously don't get this reaction. I thought that this idea would get the most support from the so-called "hardcore roleplayers" who hated the lack of RPG elements in ME2. Guess not . Right now, in Dragon Age, there are times where the game feels like a dungeon crawler with romances and a few chatty bits rather than a true RPG that really gives you the freedom to tackle challenges and experience the game in a unique manner. Occasionally, you can avoid combat for a few parts of the game, but that doesn't really do anything for you except leave you short of loot to sell and XP.

I am on full extermination mode in a dungeon because the game rewaeds me for killing every single last thing that draws breath and some that don't. I will actually avoid going one way if think that is the thing that pulls me into the cutscene to end the dungeon because I'm not gonna miss out on killing a couple hundred XP more of something.

The "quest" is what matters. Take the human origins story . If you rush to save dad and the treasury - which is actually th better role play - you get a lot less XP than the guy who crawls around the castle XP hunting for everyone of Howe's men. That ain't right.

[Kenrae]

I've seen this discussion on PnP RPGs for years now. Some people like D&D. I prefer RuneQuest or HeroQuest. Different tastes, I suppose.

That's why I don't like Diablo.

[tmp7704]

Dick Delaware wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

... and yet, his detailed example of 'non-combat approach to assassination" is exactly that from the player's standpoint -- clicking on lines with more than three words with couple skill checks thrown in. Having these wordier lines may or may not require clicking on some similarly long lines when talking to other characters earlier. But still, it appears to fail moving beyond what the author himself calls bad design.

In his example, you'd have to find an appropriate disguise, investigate the situation that the Lord in the fortress is in, and really know your sh*t to pull off the disguise well. It's not like you can go up to the guard and ask him to let you in and he just opens the door because you have a maxed out Charisma stat. There's an investigative portion to non-combat dialogue that fills up the time and makes it really interesting.

Yes, and my point is these parts are still done picking the lines in dialogue longer than 3 words. To put it differently -- you are getting caught up in the illusion of character's activities in game because they're described using many different verbs, but try for a moment to envision exactly how all these various verbs translate into game mechanics, i.e. how they're done in the game.

I'm interested in what you would suggest to avoid the "clicking on lines more than three words long with a couple of skill checks thrown in" problem. Thoughts?

That's the core problem, isn't it? There's been few experiments with turning dialogue into something more game-like (which typically involved introducing some level of abstraction to the system). Examples would include pretty old game Republic: The Revolution with it's negotiation system, and i think the Vanguard MMO tried to use sort of a card game to serve as diplomacy. Even these few dialogues from DAO i mentioned earlier were slightly more advanced (in the sense they allowed to generate outcome which wasn't just win/lose but a certain score from wider range)

tmp7704 wrote...
"Combat demo".

Yes, I have not tried it yet but I will soon. I don't see why it's particularly ironic - combat is still an important part of the game if you choose to create a combat based build.

I found it rather ironic that for all talk how equally if not more important all these alternative solutions are (seeing how he'd invent 5-6 alternatives for combat situation) they're apparently not important enough to provide potential player with sample of such gameplay and maybe hopefully hook them up on that.

Modifié par tmp7704, 22 juillet 2010 - 04:12 .

[tmp7704]

Dick Delaware wrote...

Why should you be rewarded more for going into a room and shooting a bunch of geth and taking stuff than a player, who, say, hacks into a mainframe and shuts them down?  But that's the precise problem with XP per kill - it encourages the player to just do things like head into rooms and brainlessly shoot things for more XP, and is partially the cause for the mostly poor encounter design in Origins.

Well, if you consider what xp is supposed to be -- experience points, reflecting the process of gaining knowledge and becoming more proficient at doing tasks -- then it certainly makes sense to award player xp for kills, because the players practices (and hopefully gets better) at this task. While shutting the geth down through the mainframe also "kills" them, it doesn't allow the player to become better with their guns and such, because they don't get to practice this task. Although they gain some experience in hacking the mainframes of course but it is quite different sort of experience. And you probably get more experienced at killing when you defeat 40 enemies than you get experienced at hacking by hacking one mainframe, so in this way yes, there's logic behind giving player more xp for doing the former than for doing the latter.

(unless of course hacking that mainframe involved doing 40 hacks in a row or something and perhaps took as much time as shooting these enemies. Would anyone want hacking game like that? When they actually have to sit down there and hack hack hack hack hack and hack some more, instead of just clicking a button and getting full result 10 secs later?)

Perhaps part of the problem is, for game the xp is the xp is the xp -- you can hack mainframe and then use that xp to unlock say, shotgun skill which makes very little sense because how does hacking a computer enlighten the player on how to operate the shotgun instead of getting better at hacking? etc.

And while we're at it, let's turn the tables for a second -- you say xp per kill is a problem because it encourages the player to kill enemies so they get gain experience. And i have to ask, what exactly is the problem here? That a player may feel compelled to go the xp-rich route? But as long as the xp is mostly used to buy combat related skills anyway, a player interested in non-combat route doesn't actually need much of xp (because they have little need to advance combat skills and there's very few other skills to advance otherwise) so it's not like they aren't free to practice their own method of play as long as one is provided, of course... no?

Modifié par tmp7704, 22 juillet 2010 - 04:43 .

[Orchomene]

In a RPG where there are alternative ways to solve situations besides killing, you may expect skills not related to combat. Just consider again Bloodlines, more than half of the skills/attributes/powers are not combat related.
Also, I don't understand the argument : the one that put a lot of effort and took 30 minutes to kill all enemies should get more xp than the one that use a non combat solution that only took 5 minutes. The first reward in the game is enjoyment. If you feel it's better to only play 5 minutes instead of 30 minutes for the same result, that means you don't really enjoy your time spent.
This is the main problem of H&S games and some MMO : the game is tedious in itself but the xp rewards are like a drug. I would rather have less combats and more enjoying ones than killing a bunch of enemies waves after waves by just spamming fireballs. I think this is the eseence of old scholl games that gave a bit less battles but more difficult battles. I think if you are a bit objective, you would agree that among all the battles in DAO, there are some you found interesting because challenging and changing from the generic monsters.

Modifié par Orchomene, 22 juillet 2010 - 04:54 .

[V-time]

As much as i love Bloodlines system if one wants to have an "RPG" system that makes sense then i guess the Elder Scrolls comes closest to it. Sure it has it´s problems with scaling and possible too muc skills and useless ones plus the obvious balance reasons should you not focus on combat skills etc. but using the ES System in a world designed with non-combat solutions like mentioned in the Article (like having in-game knowledge of certain habits and quirks of NPC in order to persuade them) would be pretty awesome.

Till such a thing exist though i would love Bloodlines system over the generic slaughter system.

[tmp7704]

Orchomene wrote...

Also, I don't understand the argument : the one that put a lot of effort and took 30 minutes to kill all enemies should get more xp than the one that use a non combat solution that only took 5 minutes. The first reward in the game is enjoyment. If you feel it's better to only play 5 minutes instead of 30 minutes for the same result, that means you don't really enjoy your time spent.

I think this is somewhat a red herring -- provided the enjoyment of both situations is the same, when one option still can take much more out of the player to accomplish (if just in amount of movements that have to be done, key/mouse clicks, decisions to make, time spent playing etc) why shouldn't this relatively larger effort be reflected in proportionally larger xp gain?

Or to put it differently, let's apply the same logic to slightly different scenario -- a player who spends 30 minutes practicing  non-combat solutions should accumulate more xp than the player who spends 5 minutes practicing non-combat solutions. Yes or no? If not, why not?

[Ravenwoud]

i think we should get exp from both killing and conversation. that way we wont always taunt the NPC's in fighting us. and perhaps even a bit more xp by succesfull persuading someone from NOT attacking us?

[Sidney]

tmp7704 wrote...

Well, if you consider what xp is supposed to be -- experience points, reflecting the process of gaining knowledge and becoming more proficient at doing tasks -- then it certainly makes sense to award player xp for kills, because the players practices (and hopefully gets better) at this task
.

Unless you have a strictly Oblvion style of leveling where doing X over and over and over makes you better at X all XP can work the same way. I can wade through gore up to my ankles hacking Darkspawn to bits with my sword and then dump by skills points into Archer or Templar or some other skill you never used to gain those XP.

To put an extreme take on it you are sent to kill Jarvia - and I'm using random numbers here for illustration. That "quest" is worth 200 XP. Along the way you kill 20 guards each worth 20 XP.

Player A fails to kill Jarvia but slaughters all 20 meaningless guards. Player A gets 400 XP.
Player B avoids all the guards and killls Jarvia. Player B gets 200 XP.

That's not the way a reward system should work. You have been given a mission with a strict goal, achieving that goal or not is really all that matters,

[tmp7704]

Sidney wrote...

To put an extreme take on it you are sent to kill Jarvia - and I'm using random numbers here for illustration. That "quest" is worth 200 XP. Along the way you kill 20 guards each worth 20 XP.

Player A fails to kill Jarvia but slaughters all 20 meaningless guards. Player A gets 400 XP.
Player B avoids all the guards and killls Jarvia. Player B gets 200 XP.

That's not the way a reward system should work. You have been given a mission with a strict goal, achieving that goal or not is really all that matters,

Except the actual reward for that mission is proceeding with the game plot, which happens no matter what route you take. The xp is additional system here, which focuses more on the route taken than the outcome (or takes into account both these factors) Player A practices their fighting skills while player B doesn't, and it's being reflected in the additional amount of xp gained.

Modifié par tmp7704, 22 juillet 2010 - 06:34 .

[Tirigon]

tmp7704 wrote...

Sidney wrote...

To put an extreme take on it you are sent to kill Jarvia - and I'm using random numbers here for illustration. That "quest" is worth 200 XP. Along the way you kill 20 guards each worth 20 XP.

Player A fails to kill Jarvia but slaughters all 20 meaningless guards. Player A gets 400 XP.
Player B avoids all the guards and killls Jarvia. Player B gets 200 XP.

That's not the way a reward system should work. You have been given a mission with a strict goal, achieving that goal or not is really all that matters,

Except the actual reward for that mission is proceeding with the game plot, which happens no matter what route you take. The xp is additional system here, which focuses more on the route taken than the outcome (or takes into account both these factors) Player A practices their fighting skills while player B doesn't, and it's being reflected in the additional amount of xp gained.

Well, what does this example matter?
You can´t sneak past Jarvia´s guards anyways.

[Judas Proximity]

No exp is one of the big reasons I hated the **** out of FFXIII. That game was horrible.

[EEmotion]

Ahhh ppl who play a roleplaying game and somehow just avoid roleplaying all together are amazing... truly. Or nvm you roleplay as a GOTTA GET ALL THE EXP I CAN Person... excellent choice...

[soteria]

Well, what does this example matter?

You can´t sneak past Jarvia´s guards anyways.

Sure you can, except for the first group. Even if you sneak past all the rest of them, Jarvia still acts like you slaughtered everyone.

Except the actual reward for that mission is proceeding with the game plot, which happens no matter what route you take. The xp is additional system here, which focuses more on the route taken than the outcome (or takes into account both these factors) Player A practices their fighting skills while player B doesn't, and it's being reflected in the additional amount of xp gained.

Why does it matter that one player "practices their fighting skills"? It's a game, not a job to get paid more for putting more hours in.

[iTomes]

soteria wrote...

Well, what does this example matter?
You can´t sneak past Jarvia´s guards anyways.

Sure you can, except for the first group. Even if you sneak past all the rest of them, Jarvia still acts like you slaughtered everyone.

Except the actual reward for that mission is proceeding with the game plot, which happens no matter what route you take. The xp is additional system here, which focuses more on the route taken than the outcome (or takes into account both these factors) Player A practices their fighting skills while player B doesn't, and it's being reflected in the additional amount of xp gained.

Why does it matter that one player "practices their fighting skills"? It's a game, not a job to get paid more for putting more hours in.

hmmm i think the difference is that a character who often fights usually shall get better at combat. otherwise it could happen that a character who almost never fought becomes a swordmaster out of nowhere^^

[soteria]

hmmm i think the difference is that a character who often fights usually shall get better at combat. otherwise it could happen that a character who almost never fought becomes a swordmaster out of nowhere^^

So? You can get better at persuasion, unlocking doors, setting traps, and crafting poisons, all from combat experience without "doing" them at all. This isn't some sort of reality simulation where you have to practice tasks over and over again to get better at them. The reality argument is bunk when you're talking about exp.

[iTomes]

soteria wrote...

hmmm i think the difference is that a character who often fights usually shall get better at combat. otherwise it could happen that a character who almost never fought becomes a swordmaster out of nowhere^^

So? You can get better at persuasion, unlocking doors, setting traps, and crafting poisons, all from combat experience without "doing" them at all. This isn't some sort of reality simulation where you have to practice tasks over and over again to get better at them. The reality argument is bunk when you're talking about exp.

but were getting experience points for unlocking doors^^. so of course, we can learn something out of nowhere, but thats just one ability-tree like lockpicking. in combat it usually are 3 or something plus the fighting ability... thats a total different level. 

[Orchomene]

tmp7704 wrote...
Or to put it differently, let's apply the same logic to slightly different scenario -- a player who spends 30 minutes practicing  non-combat solutions should accumulate more xp than the player who spends 5 minutes practicing non-combat solutions. Yes or no? If not, why not?

I don't think so. Its not the time spent or the effort put in that is important (to my taste), it's the result.
I know I can play a game like DAO during 100 hours and finish level 20 and someone else can finish level 20 in only 40 hours. It doesn't bother me since I've enoyed the 100 hours where he only enjoyed 40 hours. I explored a bit more, took my time, watched the landscape.
For the same combat, someone having a party not well prepared and built could take 30 minutes to defeat all opponents where someone else could breaze through it in 5 minutes. At the end, the one that took only 5 minutes should earn the same amount of XP, doesn't it ?
Since it's a single player game, what is important is pleasure you get by playing the game and build your character (power wise and psychologically wise). If another player would rather avoid all the difficulties and finish the game easily, it's his/her problem. That's like cheating, the one that want to cheat and enjoy the game nonetheless are free to do it. I'd rather take the hard way to beat the game, but each one his/her way to play.
No ?

[Kenrae]

soteria wrote...
So? You can get better at persuasion, unlocking doors, setting traps, and crafting poisons, all from combat experience without "doing" them at all. This isn't some sort of reality simulation where you have to practice tasks over and over again to get better at them. The reality argument is bunk when you're talking about exp.

To be fair, there are RPG games where you improve the skills you use (more on PnP than on computer, though, but there are some even on computer, like Betrayal at Krondor). Those games aren't based on experience points and classes, anyway.

[Kenrae]

Orchomene wrote...
I don't think so. Its not the time spent or the effort put in that is important (to my taste), it's the result.
I know I can play a game like DAO during 100 hours and finish level 20 and someone else can finish level 20 in only 40 hours. It doesn't bother me since I've enoyed the 100 hours where he only enjoyed 40 hours. I explored a bit more, took my time, watched the landscape.
For the same combat, someone having a party not well prepared and built could take 30 minutes to defeat all opponents where someone else could breaze through it in 5 minutes. At the end, the one that took only 5 minutes should earn the same amount of XP, doesn't it ?
Since it's a single player game, what is important is pleasure you get by playing the game and build your character (power wise and psychologically wise). If another player would rather avoid all the difficulties and finish the game easily, it's his/her problem. That's like cheating, the one that want to cheat and enjoy the game nonetheless are free to do it. I'd rather take the hard way to beat the game, but each one his/her way to play.
No ?

I couldn't have said it better myself. My first playthrough took me a little more than 100 hours and I enjoyed it immensely. My second was quite long too, 85 hours. I like to take my time, talk to everybody, micromanage on combat, plan my next steps, stare at the landscape... I don't understand people who rush through this sort of game but, hey, as long as you're enjoying it you're playing it "right". Sometimes we forget the simple fact that this is a game and we overanalyze it.
And this is why having multiple options is a good idea (besides, it improves replayability).

[Dick Delaware]

I don't like this fixation on game length, either. Big deal, so completing a game in one way is shorter than completing it in a different way. The horror. It's not like solving things with non-combat gameplay would mean ten minutes of play compared to one hour of play - that's an unreasonable assumption, IMO.



If anything, I've alluded to a major problem in Origins being the filler combat present in places like the Deep Roads. I honestly think that trimming parts like The Deep Roads and shortening it would have improved things greatly there. As it is, you just get a fetch quest with an interesting political conflict in the background that unfortunately lacks context so you're not as invested in it as you should be, because you don't really know enough about Bhelen or Harrowmont.



If you look on YouTube, there are speedruns of people beating Fallout 1 in under ten minutes because it's so non-linear. Obviously, you can't do it blind, these are people who know the game inside and out, but it can be done. So some people are going to complete the game in different times - Dragon Age is pretty linear, yet I completed it in 70 hours my first time through, while the poster above me did so in 100 hours. That's a total non-issue.



Game length is one of the most overrated aspects of RPG's anyways. I'd rather have a brilliant, tightly constructed masterpiece that gives you a ton of different and viable ways to play the game, great writing and dialogue, and a whole lot of options to play with that lasts 20 hours than a piece of crap like NWN2: OC that lasts forever because of the ridiculous amount of padding. Besides, a short but very non-linear game with lots of different ways to complete quests according to your character would add up in different ways by providing you with meaningful replayability since the experience will change drastically.

[tmp7704]

soteria wrote...

Why does it matter that one player "practices their fighting skills"? It's a game, not a job to get paid more for putting more hours in.

If "it's a game" is supposed to be argument then why does it matter one player gets more xp than the other simply because they do something the other player doesn't? After all "it's a game", no?

[soteria]

If "it's a game" is supposed to be argument then why does it matter one player gets more xp than the other simply because they do something the other player doesn't? After all "it's a game", no?

You'd have a point, but I explained myself better in another post. I don't mean rewarding the player for accomplishing tasks doesn't matter; I mean requiring "practice at combat skills" to level up is nonsensical since at least half the exp in Dragon Age is quest exp already.