391 réponses à ce sujet

[Rawgrim]

Armour isn`t a fashion advice, its more about safety. Realism will go straight out the window as soon as I see Isabella battling a fire breathing dragon, in her push-up bra, instead of her wearing something that might actually protect her.

[bzombo]

Suprez30 wrote...

Rawgrim wrote...

So you can chose how they level up. Meaning you decide what they learn to do. How they kill, and whatsnot. But you can`t put an armour on them?

i just find it weird and immersion breaking if morrigan talk about her magery in full plate armor while swing a two-handed sword.

well, wouldn't that be where the class limitations being introduced would come into play? mages only wear mage gear, rogues only rogue gear, and warriors only warrior gear. then you can customize all you want within those confines. that seems to me to be the best way. this seems more of a static armor that will get boring by end game and can not be removed or changed other than adding runes.

[UberDuber]

 Ugh!

Modifié par UberDuber, 05 novembre 2010 - 07:22 .

[Fishy]

Ryzaki wrote...

Suprez30 wrote...

Rawgrim wrote...

So you can chose how they level up. Meaning you decide what they learn to do. How they kill, and whatsnot. But you can`t put an armour on them?

i just find it weird and immersion breaking if morrigan talk about her magery in full plate armor while swing a two-handed sword.

...?

You forget Aracane Warrior was a mage class? 

Come on .. This is getting childish .

[Ryzaki]

Suprez30 wrote...

Come on .. This is getting childish .

That doesn't even make any sense.

You're complaining about Morrigan being a mage and wearing plate.

...When there's a class that allows a mage to wear plate.

...And still cast spells.

It makes no sense that you're complaining about it. Just don't put her in the plate. Don't give her the AW specilization.

You are perfectly capable of doing that.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 novembre 2010 - 07:18 .

[SoulRebel_1979]

Rawgrim wrote...

So you can chose how they level up. Meaning you decide what they learn to do. How they kill, and whatsnot. But you can`t put an armour on them?

No, but they now have the option to sell us more outfits with wicked awesome DLC!!!!!!!!!!!

[Deviija]

Well. I expected as much (re: follower unique attire/lack of customization).  I am really disappointed. 

[Rawgrim]

The static outfits will get very very static when one wishes to re-play the game a few times too.

[tmp7704]

Maria Caliban wrote...

ME 2 manages to bypass that entirely. Fallout: NV never has to control companions during combat and you don't level them.

ME2 "bypasses" it by removing it entirely. I enjoyed watching Garrus through most of the game in busted armour that apparently despite all Cerberus funds and technology was impossible to fix... not.

Haven't played Fallout: NV but in Fallout 3 you could gave companions armour and gear and they would put it on, and use it. They weren't stuck with "iconic appearance" nonsense. Heck, if they had no armour or weapons they'd loot bodies of enemies and put things they'd get out of it to good use too. Quite more believable than ME2 approach.

That said, i'm not looking forward to bickering with AI team on who gets to use the purple ring that dropped off the boss.

That's why I always make sure the PC has high Speech.

Won't help you when Morrigan 2.0 snatches the drop, puts it on and goes "If you liked it you should've rolled Need on it"

Modifié par tmp7704, 05 novembre 2010 - 07:20 .

[AlanC9]

tmp7704 wrote...
Can you elaborate on why do you think a game should actively remove the player's ability to "write the fanfiction" as you put it? I.e. what exactly is there to gain from it, especially for the person who is ultimately the person that's supposed to be entertained by it, i.e. the player?

Hold it. "Actively remove" doesn't mean the same thing as "fail to support." You're making it sound like it's more work to do it the way DA2 is doing it. You sure about that?

[ashwind]

Rawgrim wrote...

Armour isn`t a fashion advice, its more about safety. Realism will go straight out the window as soon as I see Isabella battling a fire breathing dragon, in her push-up bra, instead of her wearing something that might actually protect her.

 My character is his companion's best protection. Who needs armor when they can have Hawke B)

p/s: okok just kidding.

Seriously, I do not mind the change - I like my companions looking unique. Rather welcome it too because it is a chore to equip everyone. I am lazy

[Fishy]

Ryzaki wrote...

Suprez30 wrote...

Come on .. This is getting childish .

That doesn't even make any sense.

You're complaining about Morrigan being a mage and wearing plate.

...When there's a class that allows a mage to wear plate.

...And still cast spells.

It makes no sense that you're complaining about it. Just don't put her in the plate. Don't give her the AW specilization.

You are perfectly capable of doing that.

She's a shapeshifter . So even if you make her a berserker  or a templar or a arcane warrior.She's still a shapeshifter.In concept art and any story done by bioware she will remain a shapeshifter .. When she will talk with you .. She will talk about shapeshifting  or magery .. When she will talk about her clothing . She won't talk about her 2 tons plate armor.If she wear full plate armor in lothering with a two handed sword . The NPC will talk about her staff and clothing.If your character's ugly like hell and seem to be 70 years old .. Ppl will find him handsome and young.

But you play the game has you see fit .. I'm not complaning.I want to understand.

[daverath]

I am loving what I'm seeing so far. For all the bad things about mass effect 2's "dumbing down" of inventory, what it did was allow that team to focus on what they want the major experience to be. For them it was all about making combat faster, more exciting, while maintaining strategy of skills. ME1 on insanity, your BEST strategy if you want to really be optimized is to be going into the menu and changing ammo type/weapons mid fight based on the current situation. It's cool that you had a choice of ammo type, but the problem is that choice took attention away from the more interesting choices of which ability to use, what weapon class to use, or where to position yourself in battle.



I'm all for the idea of making the choices you do have more impactful as opposed to just giving more choices. "Do less things better" is a motto that gets thrown around at my software company a lot. You can see in the inventory system and in the skill trees that this is the approach they are taking. Less skills, but more meaningful and impactful. The choice to upgrade abilities is new(ish, things like shield mastery or fade shroud just upgraded previous abilities) and allows the progression to powerful skills more meaningful. Instead of wasting points to get haste, you can get a mini version which evolves. This way you don't have weak spells required to get strong spells and then be left as clutter. Instead you have weak spells become strong spells and not waste space.



At the end of the day, I am obsessed with min/maxing in games like these and so being bloated with inventory options appeals to that side of me. It's more of an OCD thing than fun thing though, and when I can just pull myself away from the urge to swap into fire resist gear mid-fight to take an incoming fireball, I have more fun by making the tactical decisions during combat with what I have.



For some people, managing equipment and such might be the most fun part of the game for you, and I'm sorry you are losing a little bit of options in DA2. For me, the more interesting choices are which companions to bring and how to use their unique skills to form my general battle strategy. Adapating to specific battles on the fly when the general plan falls apart are the best moments of the game. By reducing inventory clutter and decisions and giving unique trees to each companion, this game appears to be pushing the focus into those battlefield decisions.



I'm the type of guy who spent more time on thottbot.com than in WoW when I played. If you know what that means, you understand that I get the fun of large inventories and tons of customization. I don't think there's a right or wrong along the spectrum in general. It all depends on what experience you want to deliver with your game. It appears the DA team has a more clear vision this time of exactly what they want the experience to be and they are making big bet decisions to push that experience. From the way this game is shaping up, I can't wait to play it.



Kudos, Bioware and thanks for the update.

[Ryzaki]

Suprez30 wrote...


She's a shapeshifter . So even if you make her a berserker  or a templar or a arcane warrior.She's still a shapeshifter.In concept art and any story done by bioware she will remain a shapeshifter .. When she will talk with you .. She will talk about shapeshifting  or magery .. When she will talk about her clothing . She won't talk about her 2 tons plate armor.If she wear full plate armor in lothering with a two handed sword . The NPC will talk about her staff and clothing.If your character's ugly like hell and seem to be 70 years old .. Ppl will find him handsome and young.

But you play the game has you see fit .. I'm not complaning.I want to understand.

And her shapeshifting abilities aren't stopped by her wearing plate. I actually did find the talking about her clothing in Denerim to be off but assumed she had changed since she was no longer in a combat area.

What NPC talks about her staff and clothing at a point where she can be a AW? 

True ah. I found that so hilarious. Ugly Shepard  

Frankly its personal preference. You had the option to keep her in her normal robes the whole game if you wanted. I just want the option to place her in heavy plate. In the first game we both could get our choices but in the second mine has gone out the window.

[In Exile]

Nozybidaj wrote...
That's a fairly arbitrary distinction to make.  They aren't your characters after all, right?  Why should you get to decide what skills Isabella will take or what weapon Oghren uses? 

Of course it's arbitrary. I thought I was as open as possible that I was advocating this because it's fun for me, not out of any particular broad philosophical point.

All I'm trying to point out is that the solution isn't choice, because what feature I want is directly contrary to what feature others want. Only one of us is getting what we want, and I'd rather it be me. That's my point.

In fact why should we even be able to tell them how to act or fight?  Lets get rid of tactics and being able to "control" them in combat.  In fact, the Warden and Hawke aren't really our characters either.  Why should we get to decide how they fight or when to swing their weapon?  Lets just get rid of combat all together and replace it all with pre-rendered cut scenes. 

It'll be just like watching a movie, then no one will have to think at all about what they want to do.  It will forever remain a pristine example of the developer's flawless vision of how "the game should be played".

Ah, we're just going to be hyperbolic now. Okay. Let's do that, then.

Addai67 wrote...
For one thing, DA2 is also cutting down the
openness of the PC role, as well.  Significantly.

We discussed this before, so you know how I feel about it via VO. The ability to think about it using my imagination is worthless in comparison to seeing it on screen. So if we sacrifice 10,000 different variations possible only through the imagination for 5 concrete reactions shown consistently in the visual medium, for me this is worth it.

Secondly,
it doesn't allow the NPC's personality to shine through.  It just
decides who gets to limit it- the game AI, or the player's own sense of
their follower's character. 

I have a "sense" of my friend's characters. That doesn't mean they're my puppets.

They wear whatever it is they like. The writers decide what that is. The artists and graphic designers render it. The mere fact that they wear it shows who they are. Morrigan dresses sensually and reveales a lot of herself in a seducitve fashion. That is who she is, because she uses her sexuality as a weapon. Throwing on Arcane Warrior armour on her because the player thinks that's better for whatever reason is essentially overwriting the writer.

I usually kept Sten 2H and I never made
Wynne a blood mage.  But there's nothing in Alistair's character that
says he's a sword and shield wielder only.  There's no character reason
why he should be. 

Well, to begin with, I think there should always be a story reason for why characters have the abilities they do (like Wynne being  healer or sten being 2H). That DA:O lacked this for Alistair does not mean that a game should lack this.

If he announced "I only wear metal armor, I'm
allergic to leather," then putting him in leather armor would be
breaking the story.  I still think a player should have the freedom to
do it, but it would be in support of your point that the game should
determine how our NPC followers look and act rather than player agency. 
And I'll say again, you could already impose those limitations
on your Origins game if you chose.  What you really want is that
everyone should have the same game as you did.

See, this is precisely what I'm against. I want Alistair to have a castle forged steel longsword and shield given to him my Arl Eamon at the age of 13, because despite his childish tantrums Eamon loved him like a son. I want him to use those for most of the game, until he can replace then with weapons Duncan used, because Alistair loved Duncan like a father.

I want the player to have no choice in what the NPCs wear so that the writers can make every single choice of item and weapon critical to the story (whether the game, or the personal story of the character).

What I want is absolutely at odds with choice in inventory. This is what I am trying to tell you. I am not saying all of the above should have been in DA:O, or that I write fan-fiction like some other people do that it was in DA:O but that the writers never included it. I want explicit dialogue about it. I want quests around it. And the only way to have any of that content is for the choice to be removed.

[daverath]

Oh, and when I say things like "a mini haste that evolves," that's just me making up an example. I am making some speculations just for examples of what's possible based on their statements

[DarthCaine]

Suprez30 wrote...

Rawgrim wrote...

So you can chose how they level up. Meaning you decide what they learn to do. How they kill, and whatsnot. But you can`t put an armour on them?

i just find it weird and immersion breaking if morrigan talk about her magery in full plate armor while swing a two-handed sword.

I find it more immersion breaking that a party member would wear the same thing for 10 years during hundreds of battles and surviving dozens of injures while the armor looks exactly the same as it did brand new.

[Aphetto_LC]

Rawgrim wrote...

The static outfits will get very very static when one wishes to re-play the game a few times too.

It is clear that Bioware is not intending DA2 to have replay ablility.

[pitchblaq]

Rawgrim wrote...

Realism will go straight out the window as soon as I see Isabella battling a fire breathing dragon [truncated]

Nothing more need be said. You can also wear Cailan's armor and not die when an ogre grabs you, and survive being mawled by the Archdemon in your smallclothes. It's an uphill making an argument for realism.

Modifié par pitchblaq, 05 novembre 2010 - 07:32 .

[Nerevar-as]

Did they say if upgraging companion´s armor changed the looks? Curious way to go considering it has been so critizied in ME2.



Quite relieved the writing team is not the same as the art team. Otherwise semi-fixed follower clothing to make them better characters on their own would really worry me.



Hawke´s armor in the inventory screen looked really poor.

[DarthCaine]

Nerevar-as wrote...

Did they say if upgraging companion´s armor changed the looks?

Some might a little, that's what devs said

[In Exile]

tmp7704 wrote...
I mean if that is a factor in how enjoyable the game is to the player, then removing something which does positively contribute to player's enjoyment results in less enjoyable game. And that's after all the primary reason why the games are made and played in the first place -- to provide enjoyment. 

I agree with you fully. The problem is that sometimes players disagree on what is enjoyable. And sometimes, that disagreement is over a dichotomy. My choice means you can't have your choice. And when it comes to stuff like that, we won't ever be able to agree, and you telling me your version has lots of choice doesn't mean it's the same kind of thing I ever wanted.

Can you elaborate on why do you think a game should actively remove the player's ability to "write the fanfiction" as you put it? I.e. what exactly is there to gain from it, especially for the person who is ultimately the person that's supposed to be entertained by it, i.e. the player?

In the broadest sense, to be able to "fill-in" content, there has to be a gap to fill in.

A long time ago, on the DA:O board, someone gave me an example of inter-party banter in IWD that he imagined. He was at a merchant, and one of the party members saw a sword. The leader of the party saw the sword, and said it was a waste to purcahse it. The party member was a rogue and could pickpocket, so the rogue stole money from the leader and bought the sword. This was given to me as an example of how someone "fills-in" content in the game.

Well, for this to work the only think that a merchant - PC interaction can be is the inventory menu. If instead of this, we had a cutscene where a party member asked for a particualr type of armour, and you could agree or not and that was the end of it, then the entire scene above is impossible.

I am opposed to fan fiction, as I put it, because it means there can't be content in the game that will contradict the ability of the player to invent content. This means that a lot of the interaction simply is not in the game. For me, that's not a fun game.

For me, sacrificing the ability to invent scenarios like the above for one concrete scenario like I described is worth it. Basically, it's a trade-off.

In the specific sense for DA2, it's like this. If Isabella could wear any armour, even if she had unique starting armour it would quickly become crap. If I wanted her to keep her unique appearance, I would have to deal with a gimped character (like in KoTOR). This is a highly aversive situation for me and not very enjoyable. Her having unique armour that reflects her personality (in this case the sultry and seductive pirate) is worth the cost of custom armour.

[tmp7704]

AlanC9 wrote...

Hold it. "Actively remove" doesn't mean the same thing as "fail to support." You're making it sound like it's more work to do it the way DA2 is doing it. You sure about that?

In DAO under the hood companions are characters just like any other humanoid "creatures" as the game calls it. As such they natively support the same equipment system the Warden and "generic" NPCs do, with ability to put on separate equipment pieces. The "iconic outfits" in DA2 appear to be just what the "robe/clothing" item category would be in DAO -- a mesh which defines appearance of gloves/body/feet slots rather than just one of them.

Now, whether for DA2 they have created separate "creature" category for companions with different gear slot layout (similar how dog and Shale were done in DAO), or they did it in simpler way and just altered the UI so you don't get access to certain slots of the companions even though technically they're still there... it is extra work compared to just utilizing single system/UI for both Hawke and other companions, like it was in DAO.

[Nozybidaj]

In Exile wrote...
Of course it's arbitrary. I thought I was as open as possible that I was advocating this because it's fun for me, not out of any particular broad philosophical point.

All I'm trying to point out is that the solution isn't choice, because what feature I want is directly contrary to what feature others want. Only one of us is getting what we want, and I'd rather it be me. That's my point.

Fair enough.

That aside I'd still like to see a reason for being able to choose skills and tactics and even beyond that how this doesn't apply to Hawke.  If the point is that having static outfits maintains the vision and integrity of the character as the deve's envisioned them, how does choosing their skills and tactics not fall in to that?  I would assume at this point the companions having "unique" talent trees is actually going to be doing this, but the comments in the thread seem to say that "choosing their skills, weapons, tactics, etc., is okay, but oh no, not their outfit".  How is that not completely contradictory?

Meh, in the end I suppose I don't care personally as it hasn't effected my personal opinions about the game so far, just an interesting observation.

[tdawg7669]

Rawgrim wrote...

Armour isn`t a fashion advice, its more about safety. Realism will go straight out the window as soon as I see Isabella battling a fire breathing dragon, in her push-up bra, instead of her wearing something that might actually protect her.

I dont really like this decision either. However realism goes out the window the second you see a fire breathing dragon at all. Dragon Age by definition is not about realism.