530 réponses à ce sujet

[AngryFrozenWater]

dbankier wrote...

AllThatJazz wrote...

dbankier wrote...

Lotion: I agree completely, especially on BG1's loot system. Like I said, excessive looting is not a hallmark of traditional RPGs. I find it a little strange to say the least that toning down the amount of loot is somehow seen as a convention from action games and dumbing down, when three of the most highly regarded CRPGs of all time (Ultima VII, Baldur's Gate and PST) had pretty sparse loot.

Really? BG? I seem to remember having more than enough stuff in both Baldurs' Gate and Torment. Every kobald would drop arrows or a dagger, every goblin a sword and shield. Looting the xvart village or the gnoll fortress was waaaaay more painful than in anything in Origins. And everyone in my party had one magic item at least.

The main difference is that most of the loot in BG isn't worth carrying to take back to a merchant and sell. I could pick up, say 30 daggers, but each of those only fetches 1gp each, and you couldn't even sell some items like quarterstaffs. In DAO, the tiered equipment system means that you're always coming across generic equipment that has significant monetary value (the standard heavy chainmail etc) but has very little worth to your characters because in all likelihood they're already outfitted with unique equipment.

In other words, you're penalised more for ignoring items that are no use to you in DAO than you are in BG.

In DA:O I often find myself upgrading the party in the first half of the game by equipping them with stuff I find. I don't have that awesome unique armor or weapon yet or if I have then I can't use it because my attributes are too low. So, no. I don't agree with you. I don't complain either. It's part of the gameplay.

[AlanC9]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...
That ME2 solution was horrible, though, and was in no way ever proposed by gamers. I was there on the old forums and watched and participated in the discussions.

Actually, I proposed removing inventory for KotOR; in fact, my KotOR proposal was even more radical. I didn't talk about it incessantly on the ME1 boards, but that's only because I had no faith in Bioware doing something as progressive as they did in ME2. but I did talk about it from time to time

I wasn't alone. There certainly were plenty of posts saying that the whole concept of inventory was silly in ME1 since Shepard should have had the best stuff available from the get-go, just as there were posts saying that traditional RPG skill progression made no sense for a character who begins the game as an elite warrior.

As for the topic, don't the vast majority of DAO enemies already drop only money? I'm currently replaying the Sacred Ashes sequence, and in the last hour of play the only items I've actually taken off of a dead body are drake scales. All the junky loot comes from chests.

Modifié par AlanC9, 12 octobre 2010 - 04:24 .

[AlanC9]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...
In golden age RPGs, loot was actually fairly sparce. This is due to it being based off of PnP RPGs which tend to not be very loot based. You pick up magic items every now and then, but for the most part looting is a very secondary part of the game if that. If players loot anything, chances are that something is special.

I don't check your causality there. In PnP D&D games it was very common to loot nonmagical equipment and sell it off until you got into the higher levels. Of course, D&D was something of an outlier since it was so loot-centric, what with gold providing XP.

I think the lack of loot in early CRPGs has more to do with inadequate memory space.

[Martanek]

The inventory system for DA 2 will be very similar to that of DA:O. At least that is, in a nutshell, what one of the devs replied some time ago when I asked him about it. So we can expect "item received" again, shared inventory, little inventory space, resulting in destroying or selling most of useless stuff, permanently packed inventory and generally, a lot of frustration in this important area of every RPG. Honestly, I truly dislike console-based inventories. Apparently, Bioware thinks that their inventory design is flawless and fine despite so many complaints of DA:O' s inventory system (and ME before DA:O), which was anything but flawless and perfect. I thought that most people learned from their mistakes. Bioware, can you learn from your mistakes and listen to the feedback these forums provide? Honestly, please...

[AllThatJazz]

AlanC9 wrote...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...
That ME2 solution was horrible, though, and was in no way ever proposed by gamers. I was there on the old forums and watched and participated in the discussions.

Actually, I proposed removing inventory for KotOR; in fact, my KotOR proposal was even more radical. I didn't talk about it incessantly on the ME1 boards, but that's only because I had no faith in Bioware doing something as progressive as they did in ME2. but I did talk about it from time to time

I wasn't alone. There certainly were plenty of posts saying that the whole concept of inventory was silly in ME1 since Shepard should have had the best stuff available from the get-go, just as there were posts saying that traditional RPG skill progression made no sense for a character who begins the game as an elite warrior.

As for the topic, don't the vast majority of DAO enemies already drop only money? I'm currently replaying the Sacred Ashes sequence, and in the last hour of play the only items I've actually taken off of a dead body are drake scales. All the junky loot comes from chests.

Yeah, you're right, a lot of the drops are gold - I have found ammo/weapons or whatever in my last couple of hours of play, though. Most of it being gold anyway would make an autoloot system (toggleable, of course! ) make even more sense.

[In Exile]

Martanek wrote...

The inventory system for DA 2 will be very similar to that of DA:O. At least that is, in a nutshell, what one of the devs replied some time ago when I asked him about it. So we can expect "item received" again, shared inventory, little inventory space, resulting in destroying or selling most of useless stuff, permanently packed inventory and generally, a lot of frustration in this important area of every RPG. Honestly, I truly dislike console-based inventories. Apparently, Bioware thinks that their inventory design is flawless and fine despite so many complaints of DA:O' s inventory system (and ME before DA:O), which was anything but flawless and perfect. I thought that most people learned from their mistakes. Bioware, can you learn from your mistakes and listen to the feedback these forums provide? Honestly, please...

The Dragon Age list inventory was not designed with the console UI in mind; it was designed with the PC UI in mind. Bioware just doesn't really care all that strongly about inventory; this is not one of the features that is central to their design. People look at BG and BGII, but absolutely fail to see what Bioware added compared to the other games of the day (i.e. IWD), which was not gameplay so much as story & characters.

[AllThatJazz]

In Exile wrote...

Martanek wrote...

The inventory system for DA 2 will be very similar to that of DA:O. At least that is, in a nutshell, what one of the devs replied some time ago when I asked him about it. So we can expect "item received" again, shared inventory, little inventory space, resulting in destroying or selling most of useless stuff, permanently packed inventory and generally, a lot of frustration in this important area of every RPG. Honestly, I truly dislike console-based inventories. Apparently, Bioware thinks that their inventory design is flawless and fine despite so many complaints of DA:O' s inventory system (and ME before DA:O), which was anything but flawless and perfect. I thought that most people learned from their mistakes. Bioware, can you learn from your mistakes and listen to the feedback these forums provide? Honestly, please...

The Dragon Age list inventory was not designed with the console UI in mind; it was designed with the PC UI in mind. Bioware just doesn't really care all that strongly about inventory; this is not one of the features that is central to their design. People look at BG and BGII, but absolutely fail to see what Bioware added compared to the other games of the day (i.e. IWD), which was not gameplay so much as story & characters.

I suppose this encapsulates how I feel in the end - if Bio is going to spend their resources on something, I would rather it be on almost anything else than overhauling a loot and inventory system that, after all, is not so heinous that people switch off their computers in RAAAAAAGE. Is it?

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

The Dragon Age list inventory was not designed with the console UI in mind; it was designed with the PC UI in mind.

That DAO used a list - something no BioWare PC game had ever done before - suggests otherwise.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Sidney wrote...

No all weapons available to you are not on each mission. If I suddenly get on a mission and discover - gosh I wish I had the Flamethrower and not a Mini-Nuke I'm out of luck. You have to make choices among your weapons at the mission start. Same with armor. I wish I'd brought my melee upgrade on the armor on a husk level, I can't just pop it on my suit,  it is back on the normandy.

Great, so let's approximate that with individual inventories and realistic weight and volume limits.

But that's no reason to eliminate loot.

[AlanC9]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
That DAO used a list - something no BioWare PC game had ever done before - suggests otherwise.

With KotOR not counting because it was primarily a console design?

I can understand how someone could look at the NWN1 inventory, then look at KotOR's, and decide that if you're going to be preposterous anyway you might as well go all the way to abstract too.

Modifié par AlanC9, 12 octobre 2010 - 09:17 .

[Sidney]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

In Exile wrote...

The Dragon Age list inventory was not designed with the console UI in mind; it was designed with the PC UI in mind.

That DAO used a list - something no BioWare PC game had ever done before - suggests otherwise.

DAO was built as a PC game ground up and it was a port to the consoles at a late date. That was the UI they wanted for the PC.

[Sidney]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Sidney wrote...

No all weapons available to you are not on each mission. If I suddenly get on a mission and discover - gosh I wish I had the Flamethrower and not a Mini-Nuke I'm out of luck. You have to make choices among your weapons at the mission start. Same with armor. I wish I'd brought my melee upgrade on the armor on a husk level, I can't just pop it on my suit,  it is back on the normandy.

Great, so let's approximate that with individual inventories and realistic weight and volume limits.

But that's no reason to eliminate loot.

Inventory and loot aren't the same thing.

ME2 has an inventory, your inventory reflects weight and volume limits by reflecting what your combat webbing, for lack of a better term, can hold. Now it might not have enough inventory for you but that is an inventory of items. I'm still never sure what the magic # is for all you hoarders to have a "real" inventory system. Is is 2x the # of items or does the quality of an inventory system scale up with the # of slots?

Looting is in the game. Did you people miss the safes, datapads, terminals, scannable items and such? There were not drops  but, again, drops are not the only form of looting. They are a kind of looting and what you have a fit about is the lack of the specific kind of looting you feel compelled to have which is random vendor trash falling to the ground.

[Vaeliorin]

In Exile wrote...
People look at BG and BGII, but absolutely fail to see what Bioware added compared to the other games of the day (i.e. IWD), which was not gameplay so much as story & characters.

I will argue until the day I die that the original Icewind Dale had a better story than the original Baldur's Gate.  Also, more options (doesn't matter what class you are in BG, but IWD had special dialogues for at least bards and paladins at certain points.)

Sidney wrote...
Looting is in the game. Did you people miss the safes, datapads, terminals, scannable items and such? There were not drops  but, again, drops are not the only form of looting. They are a kind of looting and what you have a fit about is the lack of the specific kind of looting you feel compelled to have which is random vendor trash falling to the ground.

ME2's loot was boring.  It was either money, or yet another linear upgrade that didn't really make much difference.  There was no way that you were going to get something really useful or awesome because you got lucky with the RNG. 

Modifié par Vaeliorin, 13 octobre 2010 - 12:18 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlanC9 wrote...

With KotOR not counting because it was primarily a console design?

It was a console exclusive, in fact, that was later ported to PC.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 13 octobre 2010 - 02:49 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Sidney wrote...

ME2 has an inventory, your inventory reflects weight and volume limits by reflecting what your combat webbing, for lack of a better term, can hold. Now it might not have enough inventory for you but that is an inventory of items.

How big it is doesn't matter.  What it does is what matters.

You can't pick up equipment you find on others.  You can't collect things in the world.  You're forced to carry a fixed number weapons of specific designs (eg one pistol, one sniper rifle, one smg, one heavy weapon), and a full suit of armour.

You can find cash (which makes no sense in the setting - it's not physical currency, so how does it get taken from a safe?) which I don't count as loot unless there's some limit to how much you can carry, and all those minerals (of which you can apparently carry an infinite amount).

Why not let me head out carrying fewer weapons (so I can collect others and sell them)?  Why not let me carry 4 pistols?

Looting systems offer choice.  ME2 asks the player to make no choices.

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Looting systems offer choice.  ME2 asks the player to make no choices.

ME2 asks the player to make tactical choices based on a weapon or armor's unique performance characteristics.  What it doesn't do however is ask you to make the same kind of inventory choices that you're talking about.

But it doesn't give you a Mattock and say "You have to use this."  You can choose the Mattock or the Revenant and dramatically alter how you're going to play the coming level.

Understand though that I'm agreeing with you on the issue of it not being an inventory management choice, but disagreeing on the general statement that ME2 offers no choices.  

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...


ME2 asks the player to make tactical choices based on a weapon or armor's unique performance characteristics.  What it doesn't do however is ask you to make the same kind of inventory choices that you're talking about.

Right.  Because those inventory choices are strategic choices, not tactical choices.

It's not enough just to get to choose what of my fixed resourses to use moment to moment in this battle.  I want to have to make choices that will determine later which tactical resources are available to me.

And I want those choices to matter.  Frankly, when ME2 asks me which sniper rifle I want to carry on any given mission, even when the sniper rifle was my preferred weapon, which one I selected never required I fight differently or significantly altered my chances of success.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 13 octobre 2010 - 02:54 .

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Looting systems offer choice.  ME2 asks the player to make no choices.

ME2 asks the player to make tactical choices based on a weapon or armor's unique performance characteristics.  What it doesn't do however is ask you to make the same kind of inventory choices that you're talking about.

But it doesn't give you a Mattock and say "You have to use this."  You can choose the Mattock or the Revenant and dramatically alter how you're going to play the coming level.

Understand though that I'm agreeing with you on the issue of it not being an inventory management choice, but disagreeing on the general statement that ME2 offers no choices.  

Meh ok so my pistol does 1 more damage, or my only other choice of pistol fires slightly faster. Yay some choice. The weapon choices in ME2 are so arbitrary its not even worth discussing.

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
And I want those choices to matter.  Frankly, when ME2 asks me which sniper rifle I want to carry on any given mission, even when the sniper rifle was my preferred weapon, which one I selected never required I fight differently or significantly altered my chances of success.

I'd say the sniper rifle is possibly the biggest exception, as it's truly a specialized weapon.  The Viper might be slightly more useful in medium/close range, but you really shouldn't be using a sniper rifle in that situation anyway - for example.  There's a reason why I'm always citing the assault rifles, because within that type the differences in tactical use are pretty dramatic.  Shotguns and pistols do this to a lesser extent, and the Locust SMG is basically the "noob" gun because there's almost nothing it does poorly - except it doesn't have a ton of ammo.  I do appreciate that you get what I'm saying, at least.

I don't think ME2's system represents the ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but I did find the variations between weapons of the same type a breath of fresh air when compared with ME1. 

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...
Meh ok so my pistol does 1 more damage, or my only other choice of pistol fires slightly faster. Yay some choice. The weapon choices in ME2 are so arbitrary its not even worth discussing.

Spoken like someone who truly misses the point. 

Go play a level in Mass Effect 2 using the Mattock.  Play it again using the Revenant.  If you didn't change where you're aiming, how long you're holding down the trigger, how aggressively your Shepard moves, what range you're engaging the enemy at, and how often you're reloading/having to think about "ammo" management then you are - objectively - using the weapons incorrectly.

In a twitch-based game, those things matter.  Citing DPS as the only difference is basically like shouting "I don't get it!"

Arbitrary.  Please. 

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 13 octobre 2010 - 03:13 .

[Sidney]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Looting systems offer choice.  ME2 asks the player to make no choices.

Right, BG2 and DAO offered "choices", assuming "I'll take it all" is a choice because with a hundred+  slots that is what you are doing. There's no tactical or strategic choice in traditional inventory systems. Tell me one time you made a tough "choice" about inventory in DAO. ME1 had a ton of choice?

Other than filling your need to corpse loot those systems didn't offer a darn thing.

[Sidney]

Vaeliorin wrote...
ME2's loot was boring.  It was either money, or yet another linear upgrade that didn't really make much difference.  There was no way that you were going to get something really useful or awesome because you got lucky with the RNG. 

No, the loot was interesting. If I found an upgrade, it helped - money or upgrades. It wasn't a Pistol IV when I have Pistol V which does nothing. Boss drops are a different beast than your random boring drops because those do drop interesting materials.

I know the inventory crowd loves the cry that upgrades didn't matter but math isn't a strong suit apparently. The Difference between, for example, between the Cousland Family Sword and Star Fang (longsword) is about 55% total increase in effectiveness. The bump from the M8 to M15 is 200+%.

The "meaningless" upgrades increase damage by 10% each. If you upgrade from the HMWA IV to V it is a "meaningless" 5% bump and that 5% increase is basically true for IV to X  so was ME1's inventory intensive upgrade path linear and meaningless?

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
And I want those choices to matter.  Frankly, when ME2 asks me which sniper rifle I want to carry on any given mission, even when the sniper rifle was my preferred weapon, which one I selected never required I fight differently or significantly altered my chances of success.

I'd say the sniper rifle is possibly the biggest exception, as it's truly a specialized weapon.  The Viper might be slightly more useful in medium/close range, but you really shouldn't be using a sniper rifle in that situation anyway - for example.  There's a reason why I'm always citing the assault rifles, because within that type the differences in tactical use are pretty dramatic.  Shotguns and pistols do this to a lesser extent, and the Locust SMG is basically the "noob" gun because there's almost nothing it does poorly - except it doesn't have a ton of ammo.  I do appreciate that you get what I'm saying, at least.

I don't think ME2's system represents the ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but I did find the variations between weapons of the same type a breath of fresh air when compared with ME1. 

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...
Meh ok so my pistol does 1 more damage, or my only other choice of pistol fires slightly faster. Yay some choice. The weapon choices in ME2 are so arbitrary its not even worth discussing.

Spoken like someone who truly misses the point. 

Go play a level in Mass Effect 2 using the Mattock.  Play it again using the Revenant.  If you didn't change where you're aiming, how long you're holding down the trigger, how aggressively your Shepard moves, what range you're engaging the enemy at, and how often you're reloading/having to think about "ammo" management then you are - objectively - using the weapons incorrectly.

In a twitch-based game, those things matter.  Citing DPS as the only difference is basically like shouting "I don't get it!"

Arbitrary.  Please. 

It didn't matter for either one of my two playthroughs before the game got sold to gamestop while it was still worth something. YMMV obviously, but the stripped down inventory to me was one of the worst "improvements" ME2 had. Sure ME1's system needed refinement, I don't think anyone will disagree with that, instead it got gutted completely for a couple weapons of each class that barely felt all the different from each other.

[AngryFrozenWater]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...
Meh ok so my pistol does 1 more damage, or my only other choice of pistol fires slightly faster. Yay some choice. The weapon choices in ME2 are so arbitrary its not even worth discussing.

Spoken like someone who truly misses the point. 

Go play a level in Mass Effect 2 using the Mattock.  Play it again using the Revenant.  If you didn't change where you're aiming, how long you're holding down the trigger, how aggressively your Shepard moves, what range you're engaging the enemy at, and how often you're reloading/having to think about "ammo" management then you are - objectively - using the weapons incorrectly.

In a twitch-based game, those things matter.  Citing DPS as the only difference is basically like shouting "I don't get it!"

Arbitrary.  Please. 

Spoken like someone who doesn't get it either.

There is no info about the stats of weapons, armor, and other items, available in the game. At best some random number is given which is supposed to modify some secret stat. How are people supposed to find out which item is better? Sniff a gun? And some guns require some non-standard way of firing. Maybe that is fun, but chances are yuo'll never find out, because how to fire those is never explained in-game. Could be handy in advance, you know. In case you might run into an enemy.

What are people like Sarah are supposed to think about a crappy system like that? That it is the best thing since sliced bread? She could be right about the DPS. She has no way of knowing in-game, Yes there is a thread on the forums that is supposed to reveal this secret data, but there is no information whatsoever in-game. There's no paper manual either. Is this how we need to play games: Pause the game, open your browser, google up stuff, and continue?

Puhlease! (Doesn't that sound cool. I even managed to add an exclamation mark and added italics! I wanted to make you feel dumb, just like you did to Sarah. Did I succeed? All of course with an arbitrary tongue in cheek).

Edit: In DA:O there is at least some data available with which we can use to make a decision to select better items. It's all in-game and present in the inventory.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 13 octobre 2010 - 04:53 .

[upsettingshorts]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...
a couple weapons of each class that barely felt all the different from each other.

So you didn't get it.  That's nothing to be ashamed of.  That you didn't like the game and exchanged it shortly after playing it a couple times, that's your perogative. 

But I'm not going to complain when a shooter-RPG hybrid makes the decision to dramatically improve the shooter element.  

I hope Mass Effect 3 continues to do so, but I wouldn't hate it if they re-introduced more complicated RPG inventory management, either.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 13 octobre 2010 - 04:44 .

[Vaeliorin]

Sidney wrote...

Vaeliorin wrote...
ME2's loot was boring.  It was either money, or yet another linear upgrade that didn't really make much difference.  There was no way that you were going to get something really useful or awesome because you got lucky with the RNG.

No, the loot was interesting. If I found an upgrade, it helped - money or upgrades. It wasn't a Pistol IV when I have Pistol V which does nothing. Boss drops are a different beast than your random boring drops because those do drop interesting materials.

It was uninteresting in that it was always fixed.  I hate fixed loot.  Money is never an interesting find, and the upgrades didn't change the way your character performed in a noticeable manner.

I know the inventory crowd loves the cry that upgrades didn't matter but math isn't a strong suit apparently. The Difference between, for example, between the Cousland Family Sword and Star Fang (longsword) is about 55% total increase in effectiveness. The bump from the M8 to M15 is 200+%.

I'm not entirely sure what the relevance of this is.  Just because one system has larger upgrades doesn't make those upgrades more interesting.  You never find a specially customized M8 that maybe has increased accuracy at the expense of some damage, or the size of the clip, for example.  In something like DA, I could choose between a top-tier sword, axe or mace, depending on my desire for armor penetration/crit/strength mod, as well as the individual stats on the weapon.  Starfang wasn't then end all, be all weapon, particularly when it comes to 2-handed weapons.

The "meaningless" upgrades increase damage by 10% each. If you upgrade from the HMWA IV to V it is a "meaningless" 5% bump and that 5% increase is basically true for IV to X  so was ME1's inventory intensive upgrade path linear and meaningless?

They don't make any difference in the "feel" of the weapons, which is what people always claim is what makes the weapon system in ME2 so interesting.  They're not even particularly noticeable outside of the increased ammo upgrades.

Regardless of how I feel about ME1's inventory system (I think it was bad, btw.  I dislike everything automatically ending up in my inventory without having any choice about what I pick up.) it at least offered some level of choice in whether you wanted more shots before overheating, accuracy, and damage.  ME2 was just pick the weapon you like the feel of the most, and never have to make any choice again (for example, I never ever use the Tempest, even before Kasumi's DLC came out.  I dislike how it performs.)  This isn't even taking into account the weapon mods, which added even more choice into ME1's inventory system.  Despite the failings of ME1's weapon system, ME1's armor system was far superior to ME2's in terms of performance and choice, if not aesthetics.  ME1's armor system also lacked the issue of having guaranteed access to the best equipment (unlike Spectre X weapons) unless you wanted to essentially cheat (I've never had all my characters in the best armor in ME1, for example, simply the best I've found/been able to buy.)