14 réponses à ce sujet

[mr_luga]

http://www.1up.com/d...age?cId=3180929

Figured I should post this since I didnt see a thread about it.

I'm not too excited after reading it since it seems alot is going to be put away in favor of more of an action oriented story thingy.

Buuut since I havent seen any acual gameplay, im going to just take a deep breath and not be too fast to judge ^^

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
The whole tracking of dialogue choices sounds interesting- I just hope that just because maybe you choose a sarcastic choice a bunch early on that doesn't mean that maybe an angry choice or something gets locked off later on.

Nope. You can "switch" your dominant personality if you pick different responses enough. Tracking personality affects those times when a line is forced (so the line used might use your dominant tone) or when you're selecting a choice that isn't reflective of tone ("I'll help you" isn't reflective of tone-- so in that case you're not adding to your personality tracking but the response you see could vary according to your dominant personality. In that case a roguish player might see "Sure, why not? It's not like I had anything else to do.")

I say "might" and "could" because we don't use dominant personality in every situation-- sometimes a neutral tone will do just fine, but this is our way of allowing the player to choose the tone they favor and inject some personality into the PC without having a whole list of options every time you need to make a choice.

Having a dominant tone also comes up in other situations, but we'll get to that.

I'm not caring for the art direction or their desire for more austere environments- I thought the environments in Origins were already fairly simple and boring mostly, whats DA2 going to be like? Hopefully we'll see more in some gameplay.

Personally, I think austere means clean and uncluttered. I know you guys have only really seen the Blightlands so far (ready for something else, yet?) but to me the new areas look quite striking. Part of it is the new lighting system (as a non-artist I had no idea what a difference that makes until I saw an Origins level using the new lighting) and part of it is the stylistic choice the artists are making. If one simply isn't open to the idea of something different, however, I guess it might be hard to accept. It took me some time to warm up to it, myself, but I'm a bit of a design curmudgeon.

I just hope there is some solid exploration in DA2- from most of the previews it seems like its all combat then talk, comabt, talk, switch to Varric and Cassandra, then combat, talk...

That's because they're playing the game's introduction.

One question I have though is with the exaggerated flashbacks- how does inventory and such work there? Or just in general with the flashbacks? Will our inventory constantly be emptied or generically restocked throughout each of the flashbacks?

I'm not sure what you're asking. I think you're making an assumption which I'm not following, and asking a question based on that? Either way, I doubt the flashbacks work quite like you think they do.

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
Sounds interesting- is there some metric to tell what your "dominant tone" is? Or would that be too much like paragon/renegade points?

A metric? You mean like an on-screen "personality meter"? No-- tracking personality choices occurs under the hood, so to speak.

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
Well something along the lines of the approval system- some sort of numerical indication or way to quantify what cumulative personality your Hawke was taking. I'm not a big fan of shoving the mechanics and such on screen, but sometimes its better than keeping them hidden and ending up confused as to why things are playing out a given way...

No, there's no indication of what your current dominant personality is other than what you're seeing play out on-screen. This is a simple number tracked behind the scenes (though "switching" personalities takes a few more choices each time you do it, to avoid the appearance of schizophrenia).

At least, that's how it works right now. As with other things if our testing proves that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the mechanic we might have to give more feedback. As it is, my feeling is that this is purely a story mechanic and thus not one we really want people to "game".

We still show the approval meter for followers, as before... although approval itself has changed somewhat (heh, I'll just throw that nugget out there for fun).

_Loc_N_lol_ wrote...
I think the question is like : since those "exagerated" flashbacks are not real, does what you do there have an impact on the more authentic version of the story.

Err... no, they don't. But I'd wait until you actually see them to start worrying about it, as you won't expect them to.

nightcobra8928 wrote...
so if i choose a lot of "good" character choices but also choices that make hawke sound like a commanding officer, will these mix and alter hawke's dialogue or will the game choose the more dominant one even if they're pretty close with each other in numbers?

It will choose the one your choose most often. But keep in mind this is just for situations when we need to figure out what tone you actually take in order to use it-- very often you'll be able to speak with whatever tone you like from the choices available.

Modifié par David Gaider, 18 août 2010 - 03:15 .

[David Gaider]

Oblivious wrote...
Not that worried about the tone since I'm sure I won't be the only smartass their first 5 playthroughs but I am curious as to how the tone translates into other responses. For example, if a good character takes a response that has them threaten someone and cut off a limb would the character do it all in a nice, soothing manner? Or would he shout it like a bad character would usually do? Or, and this is the most important one, if a smartass were to select that option would he make a joke and "laugh out loud"?

What you'd need to understand is there are two types of player responses that you're being asked for: one is the "personality choice" -- picture those times in Origins where you're not really making a story decision (take/refuse a quest, decide which path in a quest to follow, etc.) but simply selecting how you say something. In Origins we called that flavor and they didn't affect anything. Here we track it and have it affect the other responses-- the "action choice". If you're taking/refusing a quest or deciding on a path, we're not generally assigning a tone to that response. We offer you options (and possibly different motivations for those options) but how you say them will depend on the personality choices you've been picking. Not all the time, of course, but often enough that you'll notice.

So you may be talking to someone where your personality choices are threaten/negotiate/joke... but as soon as you're offered an action choice it isn't with a tone. The action choice might, I suppose, be to threaten them if that leads to an action-- and thus you could indeed threaten them in a joking manner, yes.

Clear as mud, I'm sure. The icons are present on lines to offer some context to the player, as otherwise paraphrases could lead to some surprises, but as I said before the idea is to allow the player to craft her own personality.

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
The personality tracking thing sounds interesting, but I'm somewhat worried it may railroad you into playing as a certain type of character. Like if my guy is sarcastic most of the time but say there is a certain instance he doesn't want to jokingly threaten somebody, but actually slam some heads, that angry action wouldn't be available? I guess it comes down to the devs determining the significance of the scene as to when its ok for the personality to dictate things versus when the full range of options should be open.

Right. Whenever you're presented personality options, you're always going to get them all. It's when you get the action options that you will see the personality pop up-- but even then, we're going to take the situation into account. If something sad just happened we're not going to have you cracking wise (as a for instance). If there's a question in our heads of motivation (as in it's not clear from the paraphrase why the player is taking an action, in situations where the motivation could be really different even if the action is the same) then we'll list those action options separately.

Ultimately, though, it's down to the writing. Trust us?

[David Gaider]

Wolverfrog wrote...
Dominant personality? You mean I can't role-play as a schizophrenic this time around?

Damn you Bioware!

I assume you're joking, but I'll just add that you can be as much a schizophrenic as you like-- when the personality choices come up you can veer from one to the other as much as you like.

The idea behind the entire thing is that while it's okay for Sheperd to have a single personality (Sheperd is, after all, a soldier as much as anything else) we figured giving players more options for Dragon Age was appropriate.

Modifié par David Gaider, 18 août 2010 - 06:24 .

[David Gaider]

term8 wrote...
All of Mr.Gaider's posts on this thread have me really really excited about the new dialog system. the pc voice actors must have had to record a record number of lines for this game.

Sweet Jesus, you have no idea.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Haexpane wrote...

Great preview, very positive. I love that the combat is not fundamentally changing.

But I can't resist a jab at this unfair out of context quote from BioWare

"So what I basically said to the combat team was, 'Let's get the feeling of when I press a button, something awesome happens.'

Almost sounds Molyneux-esq

Press A for something Awesome-Bad Ass to happen!

Actually, there's nothing unfair or out of context about that quote.

Would you prefer if I'd said "Okay, guys, when I press a button, something INCREDIBLY lame happens. Actually, no...wait. Nothing happens at all. It's like...yes...! The OPPOSITE of something. Can we make pushing a button result in existential angst?" 

Kidding aside, as much as you may not agree with the sentiment, I said -exactly- those words to the combat team. Why? Because it's a valid approach. I wanted to move the game as far from what I saw as a core problem with the combat system as possible: You queue up critical shot...wait...wait...wait......and you eventually fire it, likely after the emissary finishes his spell. You shield bash a guy, and he falls down and then you shuffle up into position and eventually, usually at the same time as he stands up, you get, maybe, one swing in. As I've said before, it was like the game was taking your orders like suggestions that it would eventually get around to executing.

Is that fun? Is that the kind of excitement that we could deliver? Absolutely not.

So a simple mantra was put into place. An easy litmus test: "Hey, I just activated inferno, and I'm standing here waggling my hands for like 5 minutes. That is not awesome. If I'm casting a spell, I would like it to start casting, immediately, and raining fire down on my foes." From there, it's just a matter of balancing combat as a whole so that the more reactive responses are balanced out with other abilities.

Sometimes simple rules can result in some pretty astonishing results.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Brockololly wrote...

More responsive combat sounds good in theory- at least for big AOE spells like Blizzard or Inferno, seems there should be some casting time..Or some kind of significant mana hit so that you can't spam them.

The balance is what I'm worried about with having more "repsonsive" combat- that and how it affects pause and play without a proper iso view....

It's a fair worry, but it's no more challenging to balance abilities in this new system than the old. Frankly, it's somewhat easier. For instance, if inferno still locks you in place waggling your hands, that's fine; it holds a penalty in terms of what other actions you can take and relative defenselessness, but the key is that the bloody fire comes down from the sky when you cast it, not after waiting.

So, your worries about balance mirror our own; it's an important thing to get right. But doing so with combat that lets you (as someone pointed out) -actually- intercept a hurlock on his way to bonk your mage with a shield bash is actually no harder than the balancing any other ability.

[David Gaider]

tmp7704 wrote...
Just curious, but since the whole range of available options has to be recorded anyway, why take the direct control away from the player during these "action" cases and force them to work through such system? You have the icon system to indicate the tone of response so it's not like you can't show "threaten (jokingly) and "threaten (aggressive)" as available choices rather than just "threaten (and try to guess what personality your Hawke has at the given moment)"

Because if you have even two action options, that's already six entries you'd need to display on the GUI-- which was already our limit, even with DAO. And that ignores any questions you might want to ask, and God forbid you might want to add a third action option or more.

I don't think the differences between the options are as drastically different as you seem to think. Remember that you still have the paraphrase there to tell you what the gist of the action will be.

Perhaps i have difficulty of getting what exactly is benefit here, since i tend to pick tone of responses on case by case basis and a system which tries to second-guess me and presume based on (generally very much unrelated) choices made in the past without taking into account the targets of these previous choices, the circumstances etc.... feels pretty much like something that's just going to get in the way and add an extra layer between the player and the character they're supposed to control.

And you still have the option to pick the tone of your responses-- on the personality choices. With the action choices you're getting your intended action and possibly motivation (if it makes a difference)-- the dominant tone just determines how it's expressed. So, yes, sometimes you will say "no" diplomaticaly and other times be curt... but that's based on the choices you've made so far. The alternative (as it was in DAO) would be to simply not have those other choices available at all and have the choices all take one tone. Possibly this comes with it's own problems? We'll see. But the idea is to be more reactive to your choices instead of having you assume one personality, which I assume is the basis of most people's concern with the system to begin with.

[David Gaider]

slikster wrote...
Am I to read this as we don't pick our talents anymore? We just pick the kind of warrior we want and everything is already set for them? That would be a huge deal breaker.

Umm... no. That's for whatever character they were playing. You can be a mage or rogue as well, remember? And you'll be creating your character and choosing your talents-- what you're seeing in the "fake" version is an amped-up version of yourself.

[David Gaider]

tmp7704 wrote...
I thought the questions were getting their own alternate wheel to which the player could switch...

They are-- but you still need the 9-o'clock spot on the wheel to direct you to the question wheel... leaving you 5 options left for other stuff. Even if it didn't, there'd stil be only six spots total. That's how many we had in Origins, but then there was no way for us to offer three tones for every action you selected there, either. This is intended to offer you more variety than Origins, based on your choices.

Yup, i just don't see this system mesh very well with the way i tend to play, hence the concern. But considering this is enhancement from having single pre-defined approach it's a welcome development, overall. Just hoping it can eventually be brought to point where the player is given control over this aspect of conversation, too*. Maybe in DA3?

*) i mean, more direct and immediate control than just picking their "flavour responses" and hoping the math of determining the "dominant personality" works out down the road

Well, I'm not sure what you're picturing but you're not going to see every action option work this way. For someone who's concerned about picking the tone for every option, yes, that's not going to be optimal-- but then, as you point out, neither is having a single tone with no other choices. We'll see how this pans out, but I think if we're going to have a voiced PC we may as well offer the player a chance to inject some life into him/her.

Modifié par David Gaider, 19 août 2010 - 01:17 .

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
As far as determining the "dominant" personality goes, does it just sort of keep track of the number of responses you had Hawke give using emotion X, tally that score and which ever "tone" comes out on top, thats Hawke's "dominant" personality?

I can tell you how it works right now, with the understanding this is a system that's subject to testing.

The first time you pick a personality option, that's your dominant personality. That personality can "switch" the first time you total of any other personality exceeds that one by 1 (so if you then picked two different personality options after the first, it would switch). Each time it switches, the threshold you need to exceed the total by increases by 1... to avoid a feeling of schizophrenia (though the personalities aren't so divergent they feel like different people). So it's not quite as simple as just tracking the highest total.

IF thats how its keeping track or determining the "dominant" personality, maybe if it simply utilized the percentages of past response emotions to generate a given "dominant" personality that could be more in keeping with the player's past actions rather than simply picking one purely on numerical supremacy?

So for example, if the player's past choices had him at 50% angry, 20% sarcastic and 30% friendly, then for a given moment when the "dominant" personality needs to be chosen, it generates the personality by kind of a weighted dice roll of sorts with the percentages affecting the outcome?
Yeah, that probably didn't make any sense...

It makes sense, but I think it would be a little random.

The idea, as I said, was not to have the tones be wildly divergent in their outcomes-- so it's not as if you're unexpectedly punching Bethany in the face with one action option and sweetly patting her on the head in the other. This is just the tone of the option as it's written in the paraphrase. We use the tones here when we think it adds something extra. If we're in doubt, we default to the same "neutral" tone that DAO used.

An example: Paraphrase = "Explain yourself. Now."

This could result in "Start talking" with an aggressive step towards the target, "I think it's in your best interest to tell me what you did" or maybe even "If I were you I'd be talking as fast as I could-- but maybe that's just me?"

That's just off the top of my head... at the same time we could just opt for the neutral "Tell me everything you know" if we felt the tones used didn't really add anything.

On the other hand (and this is more likely, with my example) if having the target start talking wasn't really an action option and we wanted the guy to explain himself anyway we could just present all three tone options complete with their tone icons. It's a bit more elegant than the DAO solution, from a writing standpoint (which did, actually, force you into a set personality for the most part), with the context icons hopefully alleviating a bit of the trepidation some people might feel about their sense of agency.

Is that clearer? It might be something you'd have to see for yourself, I suppose, as we've nothing to really compare it to at this point.

[David Gaider]

In case you missed it in the GamePro preview (or are avoiding it due to spoilers):

"Moral choices have been refined in that visual icons of your character's
dialog choices (like showing an olive branch for peaceful replies) will
create less confusion for the context of a reply, while consistency in
your character's tone will be reflected in battle cries and non-option
speech. I don't believe I've ever heard a sarcastic battle cry before,
but if you're glib enough during normal conversation, it'll start to
come out elsewhere."

This is another effect of your dominant personality: it will change elements of your soundset. So if you're picking the humorous options, as the previewer did, you're going to start cracking wise in combat (and other places).