1279 réponses à ce sujet

[RyanHawkz]

Hmm... I don't know what to think about this.

I like the talking character thing but not the fixed character thing, and his obvious superiority to his predecessor is probably necessary.  He doesn't look that cool either. But whatever I'll wait and see

[nightcobra]

RyanHawkz wrote...

Hmm... I don't know what to think about this.

I like the talking character thing but not the fixed character thing, and his obvious superiority to his predecessor is probably necessary.  He doesn't look that cool either. But whatever I'll wait and see

hawke's as fixed a character as it was the cousland, amell and etc.

[Pauravi]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

I agree refinements needed to be made in regards to inventory, instead of doing that they essentially removed inventory, removed companion armor altogether, removed 95% of the skills from the first game, etc etc. If thats not dumbing down, I'm not sure what is.

Having a huge inventory is a stupid idea, no matter how easy they make to manage.  It simply makes no sense.  No soldier could, or would, go into battle carrying 37 assault rifles and 14 suits of spare battle armor.  No soldier would pick up every dropped pistol and ammo catridge to try and hock at a swapmeet later.  A soldier takes what he needs into battle, no more, no less.

As for companion armor -- frankly, I don't care that much.  It isn't "dumbed down", they were just trying to create a unique visual style for each character.  I liked it.  It isn't like picking armor was extremely tactical in ME1 anyway -- they all looked the same and had the same functionality, you just pick the one with the biggest numbers.

As for 95% of the skills being gone, it simply isn't true.
Characters get about the same number of actual, meaningful powers as they had in ME1.  Take Vanguard, for instance.

In ME1 they had Barrier, Lift, Throw, and Warp, for a total of four.
In ME2 they have Pull (Lift), Shockwave, and Charge, and Barrier is learnable from Jacob (or one of the other several powers).  Four, again, and certainly stronger powers that emphasize the Vanguard's close combat style.

In ME1, Adepts had Lift, Singularity, Throw, Warp, Barrier, and Stasis, for 6 total.
In ME2, Adepts have Pull, Singularity, Throw, Warp, and Shockwave, with Barrier, Stasis (with LotSB), Reave, Dominate, or Slam being learnable.  5 total.

So, pretty close as far as the number of powers go,
except that you have more choice in your exact powers in ME2, with several options that play VERY differently from each other.  I don't call that dumbed down -- in fact if ME2's system had come first and it changed to ME1, you'd probably be po'd that you couldn't choose which powers you wanted.

Other powers are intact but are more useful in combat (AI Hacking / Overload  vs. Hacking/Decryption), some have already been brought back or incorporated in other ways besides as talents (Unity, Charm / Intimidate), a lot of the missing talents were just lame passives that didn't add much (Tactical Armor, Assault Training), and some of them simply wouldn't make any sense to bring back anyway (Weapon skills?  Who ever heard of a Spectre who can't shoot straight or put on combat armor?  Preposterous!).

Really, the number of meaningful powers has not changed appreciably.  The only thing that has changed is how you assign points. In the old ME1 the talents came in tiers just as ME2 does, but they were less meaningful. Because the talents were so quantized, you could decide if you really wanted that last tier in Throw, or if you'd rather forgo +10% Throw damage for a whole +2% accuracy on your pistol or something.  It doesn't honestly make much difference.  In ME2 you have to decide if you want to improve your Pull to a Pull Field at the cost of having an orphaned point, or if you just want to get to tier 3 in two things instead.  Frankly, I think that is a lot more meaningful of a choice, and one that has a much greater tactical effect on how you do combat.  It is the opposite of "dumbed down", in fact.

Modifié par Pauravi, 05 octobre 2010 - 08:36 .

[Pauravi]

RyanHawkz wrote...

Hmm... I don't know what to think about this.

I like the talking character thing but not the fixed character thing, and his obvious superiority to his predecessor is probably necessary.  He doesn't look that cool either. But whatever I'll wait and see

Is his appearance fixed?
In ME they even went and found a real dude to model Shepard after, but they still let you customize the face if you wanted to.

[Pauravi]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Oh joy, I can take the one pistol with a higher rate of fire or that other pistol that does 2 more damage, so much choice there.

Still leagues better than ME1, which really only had 1 of each type of weapon with different numbers under it.  You can either take a pistol with 120 damage or a pistol with 125 damage.  Even less choice, there.

At least in ME2 those two pistols felt different, had different rates of fire, meaningfully different heat sink capabilities, different amounts of recoil, etc.  ME2 has more choice in weaponry than ME1 ever did.

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Pauravi wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Oh joy, I can take the one pistol with a higher rate of fire or that other pistol that does 2 more damage, so much choice there.

Still leagues better than ME1, which really only had 1 of each type of weapon with different numbers under it.  You can either take a pistol with 120 damage or a pistol with 125 damage.  Even less choice, there.

At least in ME2 those two pistols felt different, had different rates of fire, meaningfully different heat sink capabilities, different amounts of recoil, etc.  ME2 has more choice in weaponry than ME1 ever did.

I'm not going to get into a pissing match with an ME2 fanboy in the dragon age2 section, but I think you forgot about ME1's gun mods, and the fact that well, there were actually more guns and different manufactors had different stats. 

At any rate, personally for me? ME2 wasn't a game I particulary enjoyed.

[Bryy_Miller]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Pauravi wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Oh joy, I can take the one pistol with a higher rate of fire or that other pistol that does 2 more damage, so much choice there.

Still leagues better than ME1, which really only had 1 of each type of weapon with different numbers under it.  You can either take a pistol with 120 damage or a pistol with 125 damage.  Even less choice, there.

At least in ME2 those two pistols felt different, had different rates of fire, meaningfully different heat sink capabilities, different amounts of recoil, etc.  ME2 has more choice in weaponry than ME1 ever did.

I'm not going to get into a pissing match with an ME2 fanboy in the dragon age2 section, 

Wait, you both actually own Mass Effect weaponry?

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

The character never was my own.  It never has been in any Bioware CRPG.  Every possible line of dialogue the game and every single NPC response is predetermined.  I am playing Bioware's character, my roleplaying options are, as a result - choosing which version of the protagonist's story I prefer.

And you can play that way, but it's your choice to do so.

Those limitations are of your own making.  At least until Mass Effect came along and forced them on everyone.

This is why I'm complaining.  BioWare's games used to accommodate a wider range of playstyles.  But now they're eschewing one - mine - even though the other was clearly already possible (as you just demonstrated).

Regarding the bolded part:  No they aren't.  Those limitations are inherent in the CRPG medium.  If we're going to assign broad indictments like that of each other's playstyles, I'd say I've accepted the games for what they are and are not, and you use your imagination to try and make them into something more than they can be.  If that's a misrepresentation of your point, then I'm not above or adverse to correction.  But what I gathered you're saying is that the transition from text-based PC chatter to voice-over characters limits your ability to pretend then while I can't begrudge your right to an opinion, what precisely is anyone supposed to say to that? 

Furthermore, "my playstyle" wasn't possible in a Bioware game until Mass Effect.  I don't think it's unreasonable to say that my desire for immersive, believable, evenly represented (as in the PC talks just like the NPCs do) conversations is as valid as your desire for ambiguity for your imagination to work with.  They aren't really compatible preferences though, and I wouldn't say that BG1-2 or DA:O "fully realized" what I'd like to see out of a CRPG any more than Mass Effect 2 would be considered your idea of an ideal setup either.

My incredibly basic opinion as to the historical development of CRPGs is that it is similar to the film industry.  At first, films tried to reproduce stage plays as closely as possible.  Then, once filmmakers began to master the medium they changed the way movies were produced to take advantage of all the different tools at their disposal.  Early CRPG took their inspiration from table top RPGs and tried to reproduce them as closely as possible.  In my view, the movement towards what is condescendingly described as "the interactive movie" is an evolution of the genre that reflects the strengths of the computer and console gaming platforms.  In trying to emulate tabletop RPGs, CRPGs only revealed what software can't reproduce.  There are things that it can do though, and games like Mass Effect and its sequel are starting to show it. 

I'm way too tired to go on further, and I probably shouldn't anyway, but since I'm basically passing out on the keyboard I reserve the right to contradict myself in a few hours after I've slept.  So there.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 05 octobre 2010 - 11:02 .

[Vaeliorin]

Pauravi wrote...
As for 95% of the skills being gone, it simply isn't true.
Characters get about the same number of actual, meaningful powers as they had in ME1.  Take Vanguard, for instance.

In ME1 they had Barrier, Lift, Throw, and Warp, for a total of four.
In ME2 they have Pull (Lift), Shockwave, and Charge, and Barrier is learnable from Jacob (or one of the other several powers).  Four, again, and certainly stronger powers that emphasize the Vanguard's close combat style.

In ME1, Adepts had Lift, Singularity, Throw, Warp, Barrier, and Stasis, for 6 total.
In ME2, Adepts have Pull, Singularity, Throw, Warp, and Shockwave, with Barrier, Stasis (with LotSB), Reave, Dominate, or Slam being learnable.  5 total.

Of course, the global cooldown (and really short overall cooldowns) makes having multiple powers much less useful in ME2.  In ME2, there's literally pretty much no reason not to just max as many powers as possible with one orphaned point in a power that you're probably never going to use anyway (unless you put it in an "oh shoot" shield-boost power.)  You just spam the power most appropriate for the situation, whatever that may be, instead of having to take into account long cooldowns, whether it's really worth it to use a certain power at a certain point, etc.  I can't imagine anyone playing a soldier at not essentially spamming Adrenaline Rush at every opportunity, an Infiltrator who didn't spam Tactical Cloak, or a Vanguard who didn't spam Charge.  That's honestly where I felt the dumbing down of ME2's combat.  I no longer had to make tactical decisions in combat about whether or not to use a power, and which power to use, I just spammed whichever power was best for removing whatever armor/shield/barrier/health the enemy had every opportunity (with the occassional CC power on the rare charging enemy.)

But this thread isn't about ME2.

Honestly, I feel that the dialogue wheel and voiced protagonist just strip away far too many options.  Though I've played ME numerous times, I had an interesting idea for a character the other day, but it was just impossible to play the character I wanted simply because of all the voice over.  I wanted to play a character with strong nationalistic tendencies who generally rejected the concept of the Alliance, but had joined anyway in an attempt to subvert members and/or steal secrets from the Alliance.  With the voiceover, that's basically impossible (and I knew it wouldn't work since the Joe Midwest accent and name of Shepard would be totally out of character for her...I don't know why I bothered.)  Without the voiceover, I could very well have played that character...I was certainly able to do something similar in DA with an Orlesian mage who may even have succeeded (it's impossible to know for sure, as her plan would take some time after the game ended to play out...it was going well at the end of DA, however) in seizing control of Ferelden's throne.

My whole point being that voiceover is far too restrictive.  Even with the origin stories as fixed as they were in DA (and they were more fixed than Shepard, I feel, as Shepard's past is largely unknown outside of a very generic statement as to where he grew up and one specific event) I was able to stretch my roleplaying wings farther in DA due to the protagonist not being voiced than I could ever hope to do in a game with a voiced protagonist.  Given, then, that the purpose of RPGs is to enable roleplaying (I can't imagine anyone disputing that, but who knows?) why would you include a system in a game that so rigidly clamps down on who and/or what you can play (and I'm not speaking of having to be human...there are more than 6 billion people humans who have a massive range of personalities)?

[Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien]

There is one thing that the VO will ensure doesn't happen.



No more "Can I get you a ladder, so you can get off my back!"



As for the VO itself, meh, if I really wanted to rant about it, I would say I wished that Shepard said 'DAMMIT' more often *points to Avatar for obvious reasons why* but it doesn't bother me that much, I just imagine him saying it when he doesn't. Just because you have a voice with scripted lines doesn't mean to say you can't add more yourself.



@Vaeliorin with regards your idea about the Orlesian Mage, that is what makes the ending of DAO good, because you could still keep that idea. One of my Mages, basically went into the stereotypical evil mould of her wanting to take over Ferelden or at least cause wanton destruction to it. She saw the Blight as a threat to her plans so she was happy to go along with that but she did her best to ensure that Ferelden would be in a pretty bad state post-blight ending and I think even if there had been VO I would have been able to get it to work. Now granted in your situation it might not work but IIRC the Mage Origin has them being originally from Denerim or Highever anyway. So they would have most likely been a british voiced character.



Same applies for Hawke. They are a native Ferelden, thus they will speak with a british accent, because all Fereldens do (and before anyone mentions elves, I'll point out wales is in britain).



I don't think VO truly messes things that badly. I think in some cases it helps to hear the voice of the character.

[Sidney]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

It has little if nothing to do with "smart vs dumb" and all to do with preference. Alot of people buy and play Bioware games for the RPG aspect. Especially the ol timers. It comes down to different tastes and expectations.

When that core sees Bioware games changing to the point of no longer being titles they're going to enjoy as much, one should expect a bit of out cry about it.

Please, don't pull the ol' timers card. I've been playing CRPG's back into the early 80's and Bioware from BG. I've got all the ol' timer street cred I need. I have an opinion on SPECIAL vs 3rdEdition rulesets - SPECIAL all the way BTW. What I don't have is the ol' timer disease that if it doesn't look exactly like X or Y then it ain't right.

No one who plays a shooter wants to play ME2. ME2 didn't sell like  a MW or a GoW, why? Because it isn't a shooter. The basic critique from all the non-RPG'ers I ever recommended the game to was the same, "I got sick of just talking to people all the time". To which an RPG'er goes, "Yeah but the plot and the characters are what are so great and why it rocks. In GoW all you do is kill from one end of the map to the other." Of course that is exactly the point for them.

You act like the game has stripped all depth out but you'd never claim a guy who rolled a Fighter in BG2 was "dumbed down" despite the fact that that character had about zero to do in terms of skills and stats. I think the dumbed down people assume that picking from 12 skills vs 4 is somehow a huge challenge and focus on the quantity of choices vs the quality. Sure BG2 had a lot of spells but did you ever use most of them? DAO had a blizzard of spells but Telekinetic Weapons, Frost Weapons, Fire Weapons are all the same spell in functional terms. Inferno, Death Cloud, Lightning Storm, all the same spells. That's really the history of RPG's is giving player a ton of choices but most players wind up with the same choices because the usefulness of the options is so limited. That's why having a smaller set of useful powers doesn't bother me.

[AlanC9]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Windows was like the WoW of operating systems (I'm not saying that pejoratively - this will make sense).  As explained by Mike Laidlaw earlier, the thing WoW does really well is easing new players into the game by hding all the complexity from them until they need it (and are ready for it).  Windows did the same thing.  If you want to do something in DOS, you need to know both the vocabulary and the syntax of that command, and you need to know it perfectly.  A CLI isn't a forgiving tool.  But Windows will let you fiddle around the try stuff (the ubiquitous right-click menu).

That's a pretty good metaphor. But isn't cutting out training time, time spent looking stuff up, time spent talking to more knowledgeable users, etc., a gain in efficiency, at least for the average user? 

Oddly, I have no idea how this works on Macs.  Macs are supposedly the pinnacle of user-friendliness, but I have no idea how to figure anything out in that interface with that single mouse button.

IIRC the Mac equivalent is a control-click. Don't ask me why the Mac folks like inferior mice.

[AlanC9]

Wyndham711 wrote...

I think what's happening with this supposed "genre blurring" is that the character progression aspecs most common to RPGs are getting spread out to almost every genre perceivable. However that doesn't make them any closer to being RPGs in any relevant way, in my opinion.
On the other hand, features most common to other genres (such as action games, adventure games etc.) are getting pushed into RPGs, and in some cases those diminish the tactical aspects of franchises that have previously had those as an integral element. In other cases the influences from outside are so strong that the game comes at least dangerously close to ceasing to be an RPG altogether.
In other words, the outside influences are so strongly incompatible with the tradition of roleplaying that when push comes to shove, the elements supporting actual roleplaying are the ones that tend to get thrown out.

This confuses me. Traditional RPG elements support role-playing in RPGs, but not in games of other genres. And RPG gameplay is so inherently fragile that incorporating other elements.... drowns it out?

I'm not sure I buy the premise anyway. The traditional RPG elements in ME1 tended to diminish role-playing rather than promote it.

Modifié par AlanC9, 05 octobre 2010 - 03:59 .

[the_one_54321]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
That the writers claim something is true does not make it so.

At this point this has become you just making stuff up to suit your opinion.
The people who wrote the story are not allowed to decide what is true in the story? Are you serious? Your argument is now officially full of crap.

Oh, and the way to perfectly illustrate the ownership of the writers over the story is right in our faces right now. DA][. You say that you can imagine whatever you want and throw out what the writiers say happens in the story? Well, now you can't. Because having wrote the story, they own the story and now they've exerted that authority over your interaction with the story by putting a voice in it and stoping you from imagining different tones. The writiers definitive interpretation has just been demonstrated for you.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 05 octobre 2010 - 04:26 .

[AlanC9]

Well, if I can put on my lit-crit hat for a second, it's not so much that we now have access to a definitive interpretation -- assuming it even makes sense to speak of such in a work that's written by committee -- as that the universe of possible interpretations is somewhat smaller for DA2.

[the_one_54321]

AlanC9 wrote...
Well, if I can put on my lit-crit hat for a second, it's not so much that we now have access to a definitive interpretation -- assuming it even makes sense to speak of such in a work that's written by committee -- as that the universe of possible interpretations is somewhat smaller for DA2.

You probably need to read through the rest of Sylvius' claims and arguments to see what I'm getting at. He thinks the writing doesn't even exist unless it's actually acted out by the character in the gameplay. He's gone as far as to claim that the dialog text is a UI that doesn't actually occur in the game since the character doesn't speak. It's ludicrous.

[Wyndham711]

AlanC9 wrote...

This confuses me. Traditional RPG elements support role-playing in RPGs, but not in games of other genres. And RPG gameplay is so inherently fragile that incorporating other elements.... drowns it out?.

The point is that no matter how greatly character progression supports roleplaying in RPGs, it doesn't turn non-roleplaying games into RPGs. Giving a baby four wheels doesn't make it a car.

RPG gameplay is fragile in the sense that if you go into the cinematic direction popular in action and adventure genres (for example) it tends to take away control from the player, which in turn hinders roleplaying.

[AlanC9]

the_one_54321 wrote...

You probably need to read through the rest of Sylvius' claims and arguments to see what I'm getting at. He thinks the writing doesn't even exist unless it's actually acted out by the character in the gameplay. He's gone as far as to claim that the dialog text is a UI that doesn't actually occur in the game since the character doesn't speak. It's ludicrous.

I knew there was a reason I'd checked out of this aspect of the thread.

[the_one_54321]

Wyndham711 wrote...
take away control from the player, which in turn hinders roleplaying.

Disagree. Control only effects role playing in specific aspects of an RPG.

In the way you mention that giving a baby four wheels doesn't make it a car, you should consider how what you define as "RPG" is or is not already in how many other different kinds of games.

The thing to consider in individual features of a genre is what they have that other kinds of games don't have.

[AlanC9]

Wyndham711 wrote...


The point is that no matter how greatly character progression supports roleplaying in RPGs, it doesn't turn non-roleplaying games into RPGs. Giving a baby four wheels doesn't make it a car.

But what I take from that is that having four wheels isn't particularly important to whether something is a car or not. Of course, I come from PnP originally; as anyone who played original Traveller knows, character progression isn't necessary for an RPG.

RPG gameplay is fragile in the sense that if you go into the cinematic direction popular in action and adventure genres (for example) it tends to take away control from the player, which in turn hinders roleplaying.

Sure, it's a tradeoff of something; I suppose it's pretty similar to the tradeoff between a novel and a film of that novel.

[Wyndham711]

I see roleplaying in the traditional sense as in creating a personality which you take through the scenarios offered by the game, commiting acts based on the character's/personality's motivations and seeing the world through their eyes. And through all this having a tailored effect on the narrative. This definition of roleplaying is a feature I can't remember ever finding outside the conventional RPG genre.

This kind of roleplaying is something that is made possible through the sufficient control or "semi-authorship" the player has over the character (=personality) they have created, and to some extent the storyline they get to experience.

The game offering situations where the player gets to express said personality, or at the very least avoiding to inhibit the existence of such a personality within the game (even if the game's ability to react to the created personality is very limited), is one of the cornerstones of an RPG that supports this roleplaying tradition. I see this as the defining aspect of RPGs.

If everything is made explicit through a very cinematic approach, the player's freedom is at the very least severely limited in this respect.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Pauravi wrote...

ME2 has more choice in weaponry than ME1 ever did.

While I won't dispute that the weapons differed from each other more meaningfully in ME2, actually choosing between them based on those differences was much harder in ME2 because they didn't give you any information about those differences.  Yes, one weapon might have a better rate of fire, but how can you tell which one and how much without using them in controlled tests?

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 05 octobre 2010 - 05:42 .

[the_one_54321]

Wyndham711 wrote...
I see roleplaying in the traditional sense as in creating a personality which you take through the scenarios offered by the game, commiting acts based on the character's/personality's motivations and seeing the world through their eyes. And through all this having a tailored effect on the narrative. This definition of roleplaying is a feature I can't remember ever finding outside the conventional RPG genre.

Doesn't any game that has character creation fit this criteria? 

[Wyndham711]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Doesn't any game that has character creation fit this criteria? 

Character creation doesn't inherently support the creation and expression of a personality. If the personality is already pre-created when the player comes in, or there is no chance at all to meaningfully express it, then the game doesn't fit the criteria.

Modifié par Wyndham711, 05 octobre 2010 - 05:48 .

[the_one_54321]

Wyndham711 wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
Doesn't any game that has character creation fit this criteria?

Character creation doesn't inherently support the creation and expression of a personality. If the personality is already pre-created when the player comes in, or there is no chance at all to meaningfully express it, then the game doesn't fit the criteria.

What about Link from The Legend of Zelda, for instance? The only aspects of that character that are defined are Heroic, Warior, Hylian. Everything else you can imagine however you wish. Do you think that makes TLoZ an RPG?