218 réponses à ce sujet

[Amioran]

danielkx wrote...

Ummm, he didn't like the combat and knew that since the combat would be largely the same throughout the game and that combat was a very significant aspect of the game, he knew that he would not enjoy it. Finding the combat to be "correct" has nothing to do with it. Finding the combat to be boring, not fun, almost unbearable, that means a lot more and I believe that was the case here.

Apart that the Witcher is not only combat, also to that you can accomodate. With the setting of that particular game the combat could have been appropriate, and in a way also made sense. You should also consider the setting and the background, never the single parts by themselves. Surely you can also not like it, but that's no reason to don't like a game just for that, because this demostrate only that you are strict on what can be "correct" or "incorrect" for your point of view.

Ah, but explaining why you like or dislike something, or approve/disapprove of something is very relevant. If you were to simply say, "I dislike shooters because they are boring." That is a vague and uninformative statement and would come off as close minded. Contrast that with saying, "I dislike shooters because I do not enjoy twitch/reflex based combat. I find most shooters to require too much focus on each part of the battle and that is not what I am looking for in a game, I prefer to relax and make more strategic decisions in regards to combat..." That is a more rational argument and one would seem less close minded because it is obvious that he/she has valid reasons for not liking shooters.

And I repeat, you can explain a closed minded argument as much as you want, it doesn't change just for that. This doesn't actually mean that the argument must be closed minded, but in case it is also an explanation of the points long 100 pages will not change that status.

Sylvius saying he uninstalled The Witcher because of the timing based combat is not close minded at all. That is him simply not liking the combat at all and deciding that since the game is focused heavily on this combat, he would not like the game. The fact that he uninstalled it in 10 minutes is irrelevant. I spent 3 hours before I decided to uninstall The Witcher for the very same reason. Am I more or less open minded because of that? No.

You are as closed minded as him, in fact. Time is not an issue, but just the way you handle the problem. While I didn't like too much the way the combat was handled in The Witcher it wasn't per se a motive to disinstall the game nor to find something in the same that could be good. Above all because a game is the sum of all its parts, and not only one of them without the others. Then definite standards don't exists. Nor it exist a "correct" way of gameplay, also if you and him think otherwise.

Also, change is only necessary when there is a point/reason for the change.

No. Change happens, period. It is not that change can or cannot be necessary. Change is the reason you and everything exists. Without change you will be already dead from a lot of time, or worse, you will be retreated to the level of an aomeba.

Points and reasons of changes are inherent in the same. Not all changes are good, not all are bad, but change will and must happen, no matter if you like it or not. The more you fight, the more you will feel out of place, and the more you will blame the change instead of yourself. Understand this rule because it is important. People have problems with understanding this all the time, and trouble always arise just for that. Games are only little things, but this applies to everything.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Risax wrote...

Mr Laidlaw,
In one of the podcasts I heard how enemys are now more tactical themselves, will you be eased into this as well? Or do they do it early on in the game?

Eased in. The early foes, luckily, are darkspawn, who are a bit less...tactical than who you'll face later.

[Risax]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Risax wrote...

Mr Laidlaw,
In one of the podcasts I heard how enemys are now more tactical themselves, will you be eased into this as well? Or do they do it early on in the game?

Eased in. The early foes, luckily, are darkspawn, who are a bit less...tactical than who you'll face later.

Thank you for the information, I hope you do get a turtorial.

[nightcobra]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
But I really was asking a serious question there.  Would you describe the speed of the characters in the game as unrealistic (using DAO's speeds as realistic to slow)?

I'm also very curious to see how acrobatic these acrobatics are.  If
they're Sacred Ashes level acrobatics, then they're incredibly stupid. 
But it they're Jade Empire level acrobatics that's wholly acceptable.

There's a line.  I want to know if you crossed it.  DAO was safely inside the line, so you have significant wiggle room.

I would say that the ground traversal speeds of the closing attack are past the upper edge of humanly possible, so it depends on where you draw that line. It's a pretty personal preference. I would say that if you felt Jade was within the realms of acceptable, you'll be fine.

Basic movement speeds, etc. are a bit faster than Origins, but only because of the animations. Nothing too significant.

Acrobatics are pretty much on par with Jade, though less common. At the most extreme I would equate them to leaping tiger.

Not to say the game you want to play wouldn't be good. It might. I have copies of some classic RPGs on a shelf 10 feet from me that suggests I have as much a taste for the old school as you do, but that's not the game I'm making.

Is that because you don't think new games with some of those featuers would sell?

DAO did.

Not in specific, no. But it's a slippery slope. Any feature can work, but it has to be woven into a larger whole. Let me risk opening the kimono for a moment:

My current thinking about RPG sales can be summed up like this: "We need to make mountains, not walls." To reference what I mean by a wall, take a look at this.

Now, I loved loved loved Ultima 4. I have my original boxed copy sitting right here. But I'm in my thirties. The old school games that an entire generation of us grew up and loved are, by today's standards, borderline inpenetrable. It's a wall you have to scale. No gentle slopes of increasing complexity.

Is the new generation of gamers incapable of understanding them? Not at all. But the barrier to entry is exceptionally high. You have to read, study, ponder and so on before you can even begin to engage with a game on the level it's meant to be played.

By contrast, if you've ever played World of Warcraft, whether you love it or hate it, that game does an exceptional job of easing you into the gameplay. Those convoluted talent trees that you use to spec your character are absolutely core to the WoW experience, and yet it's not that you don't get talent points until level 10...

...you cannot even open the menu until you have a point to spend.

It's rather brilliant. Those talent trees are complex. As a new gamer, or one new to RPGs, seeing one of those might scare me off, and drive me back to something simpler.

What Blizzard has chosen to do is create an experience that has emergent depth. The more you engage with the game, the more complexity it opens up for you, dragging you forward into someone who is suddenly participating in co-ordinated 20-person raids.

Setting aside any personal feelings people have about WoW, I think their subscription numbers make it self-evident that WoW does a very good job at bringing people into the fold. WoW walks its players up a hill. They might be a little winded at first, but they
don't have to worry about the rope breaking until they're into the end
game. Old school RPGs do a reasonably poor job of bringing people into the fold, becuase they present a cliff-face of comprehension that must be scaled before you can engage and see the fun. To be clear, that climb is (almost always) totally worth it, but it's still a climb.

So, then, take that as my thought process and look at everything you know about DA2 through that lens. How does the game open? With an over-the-top combat where enemies are blown apart in single swings. Why? Because people can get that. They can register that the essence of the game is about exploding hurlocks. It's not, really. It's about exploding a wide variety of people and creatures in exotic locales and in the context of a rich, decade-spanning story, but at the very least, they're engaging with one of the core elements of the game without having to worry about a single statistic or talent tree. Those all come later, once the player's a little invested and has developed a keen interest in exploding foes.

So, then, with that in mind, let's circle back to the original question: do I think that the very hard-core features would sell? Yes, absolutely, if woven into a game that's reasonably accessible in a seamless manner. The danger, of course, is that if you have an extremely dense block of hardcore features, you will eventually find yourself having to weave more and more of them into the early game. Because it's not very fair to the player to keep the majority of features locked away until they're half way through the game, right? But then, by my rationale above, it's not great pacing to overload a player with feature after feature too early.

The tension between how quickly you get a feature into players' hands and how much systems overload you present is a constant balancing act, and very hard to get right. Even when we were trying to make Origins more friendly, I still think we overloaded a bit.

So, for DA2, we're putting a lot of effort into addressing complexity and how it's introduced into the game. Will there still be some hardcore features? Yep! The experience is very "Origins-esque," in terms of complexity, what with enchanting, tactics and so on still there in all their glory. Will I be adding even more hardcore features than Origins had? Probably not. After all, we've put a lot of effort into making combat better and figuring out how to best leverage player VO. Though once that work is done, there might be some room for more complexity in the future.

And as a final point, let's be frank. Hardcore features do not great marketing make. For every person who has mocked me saying "think like a general, but fight like a spartan" as over the top, or innaccurate, or whatever, there's a hundred people who hear that and come away with at least a vague impression that "it's like 300, but I have to think about it? Huh. I liked 300, so that's kind of cool."

Were I to go on stage and say: "Dragon Age 2 features X numbers of talents which may be upgraded by spending experience points so that you can coordinate up to four characters in combats that may be paused to give a tactical overview and provide a stronger mechanic for issuing orders such that the abilities you execute are done so in up-to-the-moment paradigm in which the animations have seen significant upgrades while the core combat remains largely the same," I would lose my audience about 5 words in. It would be more accurate, but hardly memorable.

The hard-core would be elated, but they would probably be less elated when the game sold 100,000 copies and never saw a sequel because our messaging was, just like Ultima 4, inpenetrable to an entire generation. And the simple truth is that for my favorite genre to thrive, I need to make games that don't actively push people away from it.

Speaking of which, this provides an interesting perspective on genre death. Another good read to bookend this epic post.

great post mike:) 

just one thing, the idea of starting the game right into the fray of battle worries me a bit...while it conveys to the player that combat is fun within the game, it also can lessen the impact of the story. let's take final fantasy 13 as an example, we were thrown into a battle right off the bat without the game ever introducing us to the world and it's characters making me and others not care in the slightest for their characters, this made it a cliff i had to climb, as you said, for me to care for these characters.
 
:)let players ease into hawke's lifestyle in lothering first, letting them bond with their character and his/her hometown before it is destroyed. 

Modifié par nightcobra8928, 26 septembre 2010 - 06:41 .

[Amioran]

Glory71 wrote...

Why did it hurt your feelings? Did your mother forgot to breastfeed you again. Do you own this board? It seems you do. I am sorry princess. If I may your highness...would you revel me with your wisdom and teach us lowly folk how denying someone to share a laugh is idiocy?

1) It has been posted 1000 times already (use the search button and you will see it for yourself).
2) It is an idiocy made by idiots, so I don't see what there's really to laugh. But I suppose it is too much for you to differentiate true satyr instead of a thing masked by it only to troll
3) It is neither true.
4) That particular scene has been used to no end. Now everybody uses it and all the time it becomes worser. A bit of originality would not be a bad thing to have, don't you think?
5) It has nothing to do with the thread in question.

No, I do not own this forum, but neither you. Post what you like but either be open to receive comments on what you post if it is an idiocy or a thing that it is not fun at all, or at last it shouldn't if you have an IQ greater than an orc (just to remain in the theme of the forum).

Modifié par Amioran, 26 septembre 2010 - 07:01 .

[Brockololly]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
The tension between how quickly you get a feature into players' hands and how much systems overload you present is a constant balancing act, and very hard to get right. Even when we were trying to make Origins more friendly, I still think we overloaded a bit.

Oh, I agree. You definitely need a game that has a low barrier to entry but at the same time once you have that person invested you need a decent amount of depth and complexity to keep the person interested and invested. With Origins and Awakening, my issue is that once you get to certain level, in the upper teens probably, the game gets way too easy and you sort of lose out on any depth as you can sort of just mindlessly go through it. Now sure, the PC is insanely powerful at that point, but it just seems like developers focus all their attention on hooking the noob player at the beginning but once you get to a certain point, depth and complexity gives out as you end up with mindless instant win type abilities.

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
Will I be adding even more hardcore features than Origins had? Probably not.

I just don't want to see too many "hardcore" features stripped from DA2. I'm all for making the early game easier to grasp and then ramp up the depth and complexity curve as the game progresses. I 'm just concerned that in the rush to make games more "accessible," things across the board are "streamlined" but then as the game goes on, the amount of depth and complexity isn't amped up for fear of alienating the player that probably gave up on the game 10 hours ago. And then come sequel time, to try and draw in that mythical "new player" the features are again "streamlined" until you end up with a 2008 Prince of Persia type game where its impossible to actually fail and its all one big "press button to win!" experience.  But thats just my irrational concern

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
there's a hundred people who hear that and come away with at least a vague impression that "it's like 300, but I have to think about it? Huh. I liked 300, so that's kind of cool."

Meh...there are likely another 300 people groaning too, going "300 in Dragon Age? Ugh..." I enjoyed 300 enough, but when I hear that, I think DA2 is just going to be more juvenile with the already ridiculous blood splatter and just have bearded dudes flexing their pecs screaming at the top of their lungs in an affair thats all style and no substance. I have enough faith in you guys to hope DA2 isn't  like that, but it just seems with marketing slogans like that, you're simply marketing the game to the XTREME! Bro crowd that likely didn't bother with DA in the first place because it had "duM GobLiNs + wizzerdS and stuFF."

Or marketing to the people that saw the Sacred Ashes trailer with Leliana doing gravity defying backflips and Morrigan doing cartwheels and were enraged when Origins actually played out...somewhat realistically? You see it with other franchises and I'd hate to see it with DA, that over time in the press to keep things new and fresh, eventually you lose sight of what made the franchise successful in the first place and you end up making a game for some fabled "new player" that doesn't exist. And then the franchise needs to go underground for years awaiting a "reboot."

Just as there is a danger to have things snowball and get too complex over time, I think the same could be said with "streamlining" too much over time, to the point where you're sanding away features and aspects of the game people enjoyed for something thats "new and shiny" for some marketing demographic that might not be interested in the game in the first place.
/rant

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
Were I to go on stage and say: "Dragon Age 2 features X numbers of talents which may be upgraded by spending experience points so that you can coordinate up to four characters in combats that may be paused to give a tactical overview and provide a stronger mechanic for issuing orders such that the abilities you execute are done so in up-to-the-moment paradigm in which the animations have seen significant upgrades while the core combat remains largely the same," I would lose my audience about 5 words in. It would be more accurate, but hardly memorable.

Or....you could show gameplay video and let the game do the talking!

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
The hard-core would be elated, but they would probably be less elated when the game sold 100,000 copies and never saw a sequel because our messaging was, just like Ultima 4, inpenetrable to an entire generation. And the simple truth is that for my favorite genre to thrive, I need to make games that don't actively push people away from it.

I totally understand where you're coming from Mike, but at the same time, its a 2 way street. If a game is too simple and seems too juvenile masquerading as mature simply because it injects gallons of blood on to everyone, thats not appealing to me either and could push away people too. I'm not saying thats what DA2 is, but I just don't think you can paint with a broad brush and only think about bringing new people into the fold with accessability and ease of use but neglect the other more longtime players that are looking for more depth and substance and maybe more "hardcore" features.

Take New Vegas, they've got the "hardcore" mode where you need to drink water, eat food and factor in the weight of ammo and everything. They're marketing that as an asset of the game to appeal to the more "old school" Fallout fans. Of course, we'll see how New Vegas does but the stuff I've read about it combined with more skill based (silent PC!) dialogue sounds fantastic to me.

Again, I'm not saying how DA2 fits in on that spectrum, but I've just seen too many game franchises sputter out and fade away as they try to make things more "accessible" while forgetting the core of what attracted people to them in the first place. And given how I really enjoyed Origins, I'd hate to see that happen with DA.

I rant because  I care:)

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
It's not that different from a raw mechanical perspective. It presents  itself a lot better, and is more comprehensible to the average gamer. If we've succeeded, we've managed to make a sleeker, sportier version of  DA, like the different between a family commuter car and a Porsche.  They'll both get you to work, but one's a lot more fun.

Fair enough, but I guess to further that analogy, is the Porsche an automatic or a manual? Is the car doing all the work or does the driver have to invest in things a bit too?

Modifié par Brockololly, 26 septembre 2010 - 07:20 .

[SafetyShattered]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Alodar wrote...

That's a fantastic post Mike.

Thanks for taking the time to explain to us old fogeys why you've approached DA2 in the direction you have.

Considering all that is on your plate, your patience with those of us who are set in our ways is extremely commendable.
Alodar

I don't think it's that anyone's necessarily set in their ways, so much as that there's a fear that we've only talked in detail about things that are different from Origins thus far. The lingering impression could easily be "OMG: They have changed everything."

But the harsh truth is that saying: "Our sequel is not different from
our first game" will never, ever expand your audience. Or get anyone
excited. And in this case it wouldn't be true, anyway.

It's not that different from a raw mechanical perspective. It presents itself a lot better, and is more comprehensible to the average gamer. If we've succeeded, we've managed to make a sleeker, sportier version of DA, like the different between a family commuter car and a Porsche. They'll both get you to work, but one's a lot more fun.

But you guys, the forum folks, are pretty important to us, so Dave, myself, Sebastian, Peter and so on? We've been putting a little extra effort into being around here for some clarity.

Thank very much for answering all of our questions. At first I was worried about all of the changes you were making but after seeing all of the time you guys spend to quell our worries I know that you guys care about your fans. Thank you!

[Mike Laidlaw]

Brockololly wrote...
Or....you could show gameplay video and let the game do the talking!

That is an awesome idea! Why haven't you mentioned it sooner?

Fair enough, but I guess to further that analogy, is the Porsche an automatic or a manual? Is the car doing all the work or does the driver have to invest in things a bit too?

To this I answer, in all earnestness: "Who the hell wants to drive an automatic Porsche?"

[LPPrince]

*Rimshot*

[Brockololly]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Brockololly wrote...
Or....you could show gameplay video and let the game do the talking!

That is an awesome idea! Why haven't you mentioned it sooner?

I know, right!? I'm just happy to give you guys good ideas!

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
To this I answer, in all earnestness: "Who the hell wants to drive an automatic Porsche?"

Good to know we're on the same page there

[ErichHartmann]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Brockololly wrote...
Or....you could show gameplay video and let the game do the talking!

Feel free to hit the print screen button on your computer of ingame shots to give us a taste of what's to come between now and when a video is released.

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlanC9 wrote...

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. If the actual numbers are OK, I don't know how they're supposed to fix your feeling.

I don't know why he would even bother having the feeling without running the numbers first.

If it matters, measure it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

danielkx wrote...

Ummm, he didn't like the combat and knew that since the combat would be largely the same throughout the game and that combat was a very significant aspect of the game, he knew that he would not enjoy it. Finding the combat to be "correct" has nothing to do with it. Finding the combat to be boring, not fun, almost unbearable, that means a lot more and I believe that was the case here.

Exactly.

The difference between Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege II was very small from most people's perspective, but I loved teh first game and found the second awful.

Because the first game allowed the characters to select their own targets, while the second required the player to select a new target every time one was needed.

I think Dungeon Siege was a great game.  I also think Dungeon Siege II was an unplayable click-fest.

But they really weren't that different.

[Sylvius the Mad]

[quote]Mike Laidlaw wrote...

I would say that the ground traversal speeds of the closing attack are past the upper edge of humanly possible, so it depends on where you draw that line.[/quote]
I think the characters in BG2 moved too quickly.

But they were walking (at superhuman speeds).  Characters who run are a different matter.

DAO's character's ran at a fairly sedate pace.  A bit faster than that isn't a significant problem.  If everyone in DA2 runs at the speed of a Hasted DAO character, though, that's too fast.
[quote]It's a pretty personal preference. I would say that if you felt Jade was within the realms of acceptable, you'll be fine.[/quote]
Good news.  Thanks.
[quote]Basic movement speeds, etc. are a bit faster than Origins, but only because of the animations. Nothing too significant.[/quote]
They don't actually cover more ground?  Or they do, but not because you wanted them to - only to match the faster animations?

I dont' like this trend toward letting Art make these decisions.
[quote]Acrobatics are pretty much on par with Jade, though less common. At the most extreme I would equate them to leaping tiger.[/quote]
That's no problem at all.  That's good, even.  I'd have liked to see DAO Rogues duck and roll a little.

I had to ask these questions because your marketing is specifically trying to emphasise these differences from DAO, a game I quite liked.  I understand that you need to appeal to new players, but some openness with existing players goes a long way toward  retaining us.
[quote]Not in specific, no. But it's a slippery slope. Any feature can work, but it has to be woven into a larger whole. Let me risk opening the kimono for a moment: [/quote]
Please do.  I've been trying to have this conversation with someone at BioWare for 12 years.
[quote]My current thinking about RPG sales can be summed up like this: "We need to make mountains, not walls." To reference what I mean by a wall, take a look at this. [/quote]
Okay, I have to say this.  The intro to Ultima IV specifically tells you to read the manual.  And when you click OK, it says "No, really, read the Book of History".  That they still didn't do that scares the hell out of me.
[quote]Now, I loved loved loved Ultima 4. I have my original boxed copy sitting right here. But I'm in my thirties. The old school games that an entire generation of us grew up and loved are, by today's standards, borderline inpenetrable. It's a wall you have to scale. No gentle slopes of increasing complexity.[/quote]
Ultima IV is, in my opinion, the greatest computer game ever made.

We penetrated it.  Are we median gamers in today's market?  No.  I get that.  And I'll admit that I had to ask for help in U4 when I was a kid.  I could not figure out how to get my Eighth for Compassion.  It seemed to condradict the rules of Valour (which I now realise were more complex than I'd thought).  But that I still remember all these details 25 years later says a lot about the quality of the game.  Is there a game you played in the past 5 years that you'll remember as well in 2030?  I somehow doubt it.
[quote]Is the new generation of gamers incapable of understanding them? Not at all. But the barrier to entry is exceptionally high. You have to read, study, ponder and so on before you can even begin to engage with a game on the level it's meant to be played.[/quote]
True.  I still see that as a positive feature of the games, though.
[quote]By contrast, if you've ever played World of Warcraft, whether you love it or hate it, that game does an exceptional job of easing you into the gameplay. Those convoluted talent trees that you use to spec your character are absolutely core to the WoW experience, and yet it's not that you don't get talent points until level 10...

...you cannot even open the menu until you have a point to spend. [/quote]
I did briefly play WoW.

And had it not been for the internet, where I could go look at those talent trees before I even created a character, I don't think I would have been able to play the game at all.

I understand that you want those details hidden from many gamers (at least temporarily), but some of us need those details.  So while I know you're probabaly never again going to put a combat log in a game by default, I'm going to keep asking for one as an option.

You can make the mechanics available to the players without requiring that they learn or study them.
[quote]It's rather brilliant. Those talent trees are complex. As a new gamer, or one new to RPGs, seeing one of those might scare me off, and drive me back to something simpler.

What Blizzard has chosen to do is create an experience that has emergent depth. The more you engage with the game, the more complexity it opens up for you, dragging you forward into someone who is suddenly participating in co-ordinated 20-person raids.

Setting aside any personal feelings people have about WoW, I think their subscription numbers make it self-evident that WoW does a very good job at bringing people into the fold. WoW walks its players up a hill. They might be a little winded at first, but they don't have to worry about the rope breaking until they're into the end
game.[/quote]
Agreed.  WoW is terrific at collecting new players, and you'd be well served to emulate them.

I would only complain about that if you did so by eliminating complexity or other features I like (rather than simply hiding them or making them less intimidating).
[quote]Old school RPGs do a reasonably poor job of bringing people into the fold, becuase they present a cliff-face of comprehension that must be scaled before you can engage and see the fun. To be clear, that climb is (almost always) totally worth it, but it's still a climb.[/quote]
They were aimed a market who was used to learning the rules of a tabletop game from a 200 page manual wherein most of the rules were open to interpretation.

And terribly organised.  For example, this is what you find if you look up 'Doors" in the index of the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide:

Doors
- Concealed or Secret, Detection of.....97,136,167; 16
- Listening at ......60,97,173; 27-28
- Opening.....97; 9

That was a different market.  I understand that the modern median gamer isn't likely ever to bother with anything so poorly presented.
[quote]So, then, take that as my thought process and look at everything you know about DA2 through that lens. How does the game open? With an over-the-top combat where enemies are blown apart in single swings. Why? Because people can get that. They can register that the essence of the game is about exploding hurlocks. It's not, really. It's about exploding a wide variety of people and creatures in exotic locales and in the context of a rich, decade-spanning story, but at the very least, they're engaging with one of the core elements of the game without having to worry about a single statistic or talent tree. Those all come later, once the player's a little invested and has developed a keen interest in exploding foes.

So, then, with that in mind, let's circle back to the original question: do I think that the very hard-core features would sell? Yes, absolutely, if woven into a game that's reasonably accessible in a seamless manner. The danger, of course, is that if you have an extremely dense block of hardcore features, you will eventually find yourself having to weave more and more of them into the early game. Because it's not very fair to the player to keep the majority of features locked away until they're half way through the game, right? But then, by my rationale above, it's not great pacing to overload a player with feature after feature too early.[/quote]
Combat isn't really my thing.  I'm more of a roleplaying guy.

But a good roleplaying experience does require, I think, a lot of player freedom in the early game, because the player might not have done all the background work to determine who his character is yet.
[quote]The tension between how quickly you get a feature into players' hands and how much systems overload you present is a constant balancing act, and very hard to get right. Even when we were trying to make Origins more friendly, I still think we overloaded a bit.

So, for DA2, we're putting a lot of effort into addressing complexity and how it's introduced into the game. Will there still be some hardcore features? Yep! The experience is very "Origins-esque," in terms of complexity, what with enchanting, tactics and so on still there in all their glory. Will I be adding even more hardcore features than Origins had? Probably not. After all, we've put a lot of effort into making combat better and figuring out how to best leverage player VO. Though once that work is done, there might be some room for more complexity in the future.[/quote]
DAO actually hda a ton of hardcore combat features in it.  The trouble was that the game hid them from the player for the entire game, so any players who hadn't happened to discuss the combat mechanics with Georg before release didn't know what they were.  The bonus to hit with an arrow when firing down a hill, for example - that's a terrific feature, and one that probabaly 95% of DAO players didn't ever know was there.

The hardcore fans would enjoy the game more if it had the option to be more transparent with its mechanics.
[quote]Speaking of which, this provides an interesting perspective on genre death. Another good read to bookend this epic post.[/quote]
Great article, and I loved their example.  I played and enjoyed F-15 Strike Eagle back in the day.

For the record, my all-time favourite flight sim is IL-2 Sturmovik.  It's not over the top with realism (like the MS Flight Simulator games became), but it has enough details to draw the player in (for example, early Russian bombers didn't have fuel-injection, so a negative-G dive would stall them).

That's what I look for in games.  Pure realism can get monotonous, but all the details need to fit together in a coherent way to aid the player in learning them all.

My complaint with many modern games is they're designed so that the players don't need to learn the details - which is fine - but because of that no one bothers to ensure that they all make sense at the same time.
[quote]Mike Laidlaw wrote...

To this I answer, in all earnestness: "Who the hell wants to drive an automatic Porsche?"[/quote]
Someone with cerebral palsy who doesn't have control of his left leg.

There's a market for every feature, Mike.

[Firky]

@ Mike's long post. OK, I'm glad I logged into here this morning. That was totally worth reading - thanks for taking  the time to spell things out like that, Mike. Worked for me. Food for thought.

I read that U4 article yesterday (because I follow Richard Garriott on Twitter, as if you wouldn't). I don't think that "accessible" and "hardcore" necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. I do think those students should have to get to the end of U4 or fail the course though! Hello, internet. (I'm just jaded because I never realised you could write to Lord British and get a certificate for finishing the Ultimas.)

And that other link is also interesting. Civ V is indeed a good example of accessibility meets complexity.

Awesome post.    

[AlanC9]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

DAO actually hda a ton of hardcore combat features in it.  The trouble was that the game hid them from the player for the entire game, so any players who hadn't happened to discuss the combat mechanics with Georg before release didn't know what they were.  The bonus to hit with an arrow when firing down a hill, for example - that's a terrific feature, and one that probabaly 95% of DAO players didn't ever know was there.

The hardcore fans would enjoy the game more if it had the option to be more transparent with its mechanics.

I think everyone who wants to play well would enjoy that, and my impression is that's a large majority of players. There's an awful lot of noise in the information a player gets when playing a complex game like an RPG or a strategy game like, say, one of the HoIs. You're not going to learn how to play better from watching the damage numbers come in unless you're running controlled tests, and that's more than we should expect of anyone.

[AlanC9]

As for that article on genre death, note that it doesn't explain everything. Space sims died out without ever going that route -- the last X-wing wasn't any more complex than the first.

[The Masked Rog]

AlanC9 wrote...

As for that article on genre death, note that it doesn't explain everything. Space sims died out without ever going that route -- the last X-wing wasn't any more complex than the first.

Then perhaps they died of stagnation? Seems like the key here is too find perfect balance between fresh and bloated.

[Mike Laidlaw]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

DAO actually hda a ton of hardcore combat features in it.  The trouble was that the game hid them from the player for the entire game, so any players who hadn't happened to discuss the combat mechanics with Georg before release didn't know what they were.  The bonus to hit with an arrow when firing down a hill, for example - that's a terrific feature, and one that probabaly 95% of DAO players didn't ever know was there.

The hardcore fans would enjoy the game more if it had the option to be more transparent with its mechanics.

I think everyone who wants to play well would enjoy that, and my impression is that's a large majority of players. There's an awful lot of noise in the information a player gets when playing a complex game like an RPG or a strategy game like, say, one of the HoIs. You're not going to learn how to play better from watching the damage numbers come in unless you're running controlled tests, and that's more than we should expect of anyone.

I won't make promises until we're done, but I believe we will improve on that front. Origins was not as transparent to expert level players as it should have been.

[Firky]

There is a bonus to ranged attack when firing downhill?



Well, aren't I learning stuff this morning?

[Nerevar-as]

Firky wrote...

There is a bonus to ranged attack when firing downhill?

Well, aren't I learning stuff this morning?

I think it was mentioned somewhere in the manual or codex when placing characters for a fight (you now, so they all get together for the cutscene after that while the enemies stay in position), but I don´t remember any mention of a huge bonus to attack. That´s the kind of thing I´d like to have in the manual, thanks.

Also, a lunge to close distance and attack? Depending on the animation, we might end wondering why no enemy is skilled enough to take advantage of that. I feel it is a wonderful way of losing balance for the PC.

Modifié par Nerevar-as, 27 septembre 2010 - 12:43 .

[Cigne]

slimgrin wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

As for that article on genre death, note that it doesn't explain everything. Space sims died out without ever going that route -- the last X-wing wasn't any more complex than the first.

I just bought Free Space 2, it's friggin awesome. And now I mourn the death of space sims, or any genre, really.

Were the X-wing games really sims? The most recent titles that I would categorize as space sims would be Independence War and its sequel Edge of Chaos; the only active series that I'm aware of is the X series.

Those three games definitely fit the pattern. The first two had newtonian physics, and the X series, well, those are games that require some serious commitment. Just to learn the interface.