183 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Ideally, it lets you know what to sell quickly, and limits the "digging deep" for stats to stuff that's in the same star range.

Ideally, yes, but practically this will only be true if you tell us how those star values are calculated.  Otherwise, how can we trust them?

And what if we're looking for a specific benefit?  Reducing the quality of a piece of a equipment to a single number seems pointless.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Brockololly wrote...
So does that mean you couldn't respec Isabela out of her Swashbuckler tree? And is it like one tree for mage, rogue, warrior, plus one companion/Hawke specific one, plus ones for different specializations?

Well, you can't make the pirate into a not-pirate, if that's what you're asking.

Yes, but can I make her into an archer?

[Sir JK]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Ideally, yes, but practically this will only be true if you tell us how those star values are calculated.  Otherwise, how can we trust them?

And what if we're looking for a specific benefit?  Reducing the quality of a piece of a equipment to a single number seems pointless.

My guess is that the stars don't so much tell you if an item is good as it tells you that it is rather low-levelled compared to you. So that when you open your inventory you at once see what items are low levelled and are candidates for replacement. Few stars doesn't so much mean bad as old, but the old item can still compensate for that by other means.

[slimgrin]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Brockololly wrote...
So does that mean you couldn't respec Isabela out of her Swashbuckler tree? And is it like one tree for mage, rogue, warrior, plus one companion/Hawke specific one, plus ones for different specializations?

Well, you can't make the pirate into a not-pirate, if that's what you're asking.

Yes, but can I make her into an archer?

Thats a good question.

[Brockololly]

slimgrin wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Brockololly wrote...
So does that mean you couldn't respec Isabela out of her Swashbuckler tree? And is it like one tree for mage, rogue, warrior, plus one companion/Hawke specific one, plus ones for different specializations?

Well, you can't make the pirate into a not-pirate, if that's what you're asking.

Yes, but can I make her into an archer?

Thats a good question.

Yeah- in the podcast it was made to seem as if Isabela was sort of dedicated to dual daggers and nothing else.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Sir JK wrote...

My guess is that the stars don't so much tell you if an item is good as it tells you that it is rather low-levelled compared to you.

What does "low-levelled" mean in this context?

And I want the answer to that question to contain an equation.

Basically, when I open my inventory and look at an item, and the game displays a star-value next to it, how does the game generate that star-value?  That is the only way for the player to know whether that star-value contains useful information.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Brockololly wrote...

Yeah- in the podcast it was made to seem as if Isabela was sort of dedicated to dual daggers and nothing else.

"made to seem" is insufficiently clear to support any conclusions.

[slimgrin]

Brockololly wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Brockololly wrote...
So does that mean you couldn't respec Isabela out of her Swashbuckler tree? And is it like one tree for mage, rogue, warrior, plus one companion/Hawke specific one, plus ones for different specializations?

Well, you can't make the pirate into a not-pirate, if that's what you're asking.

Yes, but can I make her into an archer?

Thats a good question.

Yeah- in the podcast it was made to seem as if Isabela was sort of dedicated to dual daggers and nothing else.

I'm fine with dedicated skill trees for our followers, but I hope they have a fun variety of skills to choose from, ones that really affect how you play. 

[soteria]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Brockololly wrote...

Yeah- in the podcast it was made to seem as if Isabela was sort of dedicated to dual daggers and nothing else.

"made to seem" is insufficiently clear to support any conclusions.

I thought he was pretty explicit.  "Isabela is a dagger-user.  She's not really a bow girl."  I didn't think he left much question but that companions are largely going to be restricted to a single weapon style.

[tmp7704]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

And what if we're looking for a specific benefit?

Then apparently you can still view the exact stats of the item in the tooltip, just like in DAO. The stars thing is a more generic hint intended for situations where you aren't looking for a specific benefit.

It can likely make quite a bit of sense if they still have "generic" armours and weapons in loot drops -- say, if you have Fereldan Leather Armour equipped and you get Fereldan Leather Armour in loot (or in shop) and it has couple stars next to the name, then you can tell outright this particular armour is better than what you're using at the moment.

[Sir JK]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
What does "low-levelled" mean in this context?

And I want the answer to that question to contain an equation.

Basically, when I open my inventory and look at an item, and the game displays a star-value next to it, how does the game generate that star-value?  That is the only way for the player to know whether that star-value contains useful information.

My guess is that every item have some sort of level or level-interval for which it is designed. At this level or in this interval it has five stars and once you start passing it the stars will gradually drop. The example given was 5 stars at lvl 1 and no stars in the teens (so from 13), making it dropping a star roughly every 2,5 levels (less since I suspect it will retain it's 5 star value for a few levels).
Just as an indication that this item is a bit low levelled and you might want t have a look at it.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Ideally, yes, but practically this will only be true if you tell us how those star values are calculated.  Otherwise, how can we trust them?

You can't. You can't trust anyone. Luckily, it's clear that you don't need stars.

And what if we're looking for a specific benefit?  Reducing the quality of a piece of a equipment to a single number seems pointless.

Is it? You have the ability to go through the stat of every thing in every store and every piece of equipment in your inventory. So you have lost not one iota of functionality there.

But you now have a thing in place that suggests, that, just perhaps, that armor you were wearing at the beginning of the game isn't good enough for you at this later point in the game. What's pointless about that?

That it's simple? That it does some of the work for you? That you already know that, because that's how it always works?

Have you considered that it might, just maybe, help someone who has never played an RPG before understand the concepts of equipment and stats at a high level, and then encourage them to go a little deeper into the stats themselves and maybe start to love a genre for which you apparently have so much passion? That, maybe, just maybe, they might become an RPG fan that helps keep the genre alive, and maybe, just maybe, even more robust than it is today because it's got a larger fan base than it currently does?

I have rarely disagreed with you more, Sylvius. Feeling that features that add entry-level usability without taking away hardcore functionaly are "pointless," by my reckoning, is a sentiment that will kill RPGs.

[slimgrin]

Uh-oh, Laidlaw has the gloves off.

[upsettingshorts]

How will I know if these players are any good? Pat Rice is an incompetent assistant and lying to me! These are pointless, how can I manage a team based on this!

Oh.

Let me guess, it's almost exactly like that.  Sometimes a 2.5/5 star player is more useful in a specific system than a 3/5 star player in my experience - in DA:2 perhaps a 2 star crushing weapon is better against skeletons than a 4 star piercing weapon. Bad assistant managers can give misleading evaluations, and in Football Manager that's working as intended for obvious reasons - but Pat Rice is pretty good, and I expect the evaluation system in DA:2 is meant to be more objective. 

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 07 novembre 2010 - 07:38 .

[Mike Laidlaw]

slimgrin wrote...

Uh-oh, Laidlaw has the gloves off.

Just for one post. I'm happy to indulge a lot of flak over stuff that's changed, but when a feature is added that I believe benefits a very large swath of people, and it's then denounced as useless for reasons that essentially boil down to "I wouldn't use that," I find it, frankly, inconsiderate.

It's like saying that you never use holding right and left mouse down together to run, and you have no intention of using it, so that feature is useless. Meanwhile there's someone out there who only has use of one hand who relys on that exact control scheme for something as fundamental as locomotion.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
Let me guess, it's almost exactly like that.  Sometimes a 2.5/5 star player is more useful in a specific system than a 3/5 star player in my experience - in DA:2 perhaps a 2 star crushing weapon is better against skeletons than a 4 star piercing weapon. Bad assistant managers can give misleading evaluations, and in Football Manager that's working as intended for obvious reasons - but Pat Rice is pretty good, and I expect the evaluation system in DA:2 is meant to be more objective. 

Pretty much hit it on the head. Properties are assigned values. Add the values of all properties on the items together, then compare to a rough target number for the character's current level. If higher, go above three stars. If lower, go below.

[Leonia]

So.. this star-value system is like when you play an MMO and you loot a new piece of equipment and it is compared to your currently equipped gear so you can decide if its worth adding to your inventory to use later? Sounds useful to me (actually, given the post Laidlaw *just* made sounds even easier to understand than simply comparing two windows listing individual stats side-by-side), even if I already understand the stat system and am an experience RPG player. I can only imagine how awesomely useful that would be to a complete newbie. More power to Bioware for making their games highly accessible.

Modifié par leonia42, 07 novembre 2010 - 07:45 .

[upsettingshorts]

Makes sense. And to make the Football Manager connection even more relevant, in the screenshot I posted Abou Diaby (2.5 stars) on a team like the New York Red Bulls would quite easily qualify for a much higher (I'm guessing 4 stars) rating. The system in FM considers your team's "level" in much the same way.

A 5 star player on Barcelona (think max level, endgame) is basically in the conversation for best in the world. A 5 star player for Torquay United (think just getting to Ostagar) wouldn't even be worthy of sitting on Barcelona's bench.

leonia42 wrote...

I can only imagine how awesomely useful that would be to a complete newbie. More power to Bioware for making their games highly accessible.

It helps veterans too.  It can give them a quick idea of what they've got on them.  Are they carrying a bunch of junk?  Has the equipment on an infrequently used character become obsolete as you've gained levels?  It gives the player at-a-glance impressions without sacrificing any detail.  Like my example, the first thing I do when taking over a team in Football Manager is take a peek at the team report and get a general overview of what I'm dealing with, then get into the specific details of what each player is capable of in the second screenshot.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 07 novembre 2010 - 07:53 .

[Icinix]

I like the stars too..
I have stars on my bay window blinds...I don't like them so much...it's kind of weird.
and

leonia42 mentioned....
More power to Bioware for making their games highly accessible.

+ 1 There is nothing wrong with this what so ever. If I can play a game easier with each new game that comes out. This is a win for design. A win for gamers. A win for helping get more people playing.
And all of those things end up being a win for games development as a whole and lead to more games and more money to design different games.
AND DAMMIT.. I support games development before I support my local political groups!

Edit: Wow, did that take up more space that it was intended.

Modifié par Icinix, 07 novembre 2010 - 07:51 .

[slimgrin]

I'm waiting for Sylvius' concentrated beam of pure logic.

[Leonia]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
It helps veterans too.  It can give them a quick idea of what they've got on them.  Are they carrying a bunch of junk?  Has the equipment on an infrequently used character become obsolete as you've gained levels?  It gives the player at-a-glance impressions without sacrificing any detail.  Like my example, the first thing I do when taking over a team in Football Manager is take a peek at the team report and get a general overview of what I'm dealing with, then get into the specific details of what each player is capable of in the second screenshot.

Aye, I was trying to say it is useful for vets and newbies alike but it didn't quite come across as I was editting just after Laidlaw's last response. I absolutely HATE number crunching, I know there are gamers out there who love stats and comparing things to the nth degree but I've never been one of them. If I can see, at a glance, how useful a piece of gear is for a specific gear.. then I am one hell of a happy panda. Less number crunching, more adventuring, please!

Not that I would take the number-crunching fun away from those that like it, I would never try to tell someone that my way to play a game is the only way it should be done.

PS: Your football analogy totally lost me but I think I know what you were trying to accomplish. Next time could you use a cricket analogy or rugby? Thanks <3

[upsettingshorts]

leonia42 wrote...

PS: Your football analogy totally lost me but I think I know what you were trying to accomplish. Next time could you use a cricket analogy or rugby? Thanks <3

Hehe.  It's simple really though.  I clicked on the actual page of the 4.5 star player in the first screenshot (Cesc Fabregas) and that's the second screenshot.  Tons of attributes.  FM added that star evaluation page - and the system of star evaluation is sprinkled throughout, in scouting reports, team pages, etc - relatively recently to make the game more accessible.  New players can tell without understanding football, that Cesc Fabregas is probably very, very good.

The difference is the accuracy of the star ratings are dependent on the player evaluation skill of the assistant manager, in this case a guy called Pat Rice.  The reason for this is one of the features of Football Manager is you run the team's staff as well as its players, so you can fire an incompetent assistant and get a better one.  I doubt DA:2 does anything of the sort, and the star ratings are objective and - as Mike described - based on a kind of arithmetic.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 07 novembre 2010 - 08:01 .

[Fortlowe]

leonia42 wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...
It helps veterans too.  It can give them a quick idea of what they've got on them.  Are they carrying a bunch of junk?  Has the equipment on an infrequently used character become obsolete as you've gained levels?  It gives the player at-a-glance impressions without sacrificing any detail.  Like my example, the first thing I do when taking over a team in Football Manager is take a peek at the team report and get a general overview of what I'm dealing with, then get into the specific details of what each player is capable of in the second screenshot.

Aye, I was trying to say it is useful for vets and newbies alike but it didn't quite come across as I was editting just after Laidlaw's last response. I absolutely HATE number crunching, I know there are gamers out there who love stats and comparing things to the nth degree but I've never been one of them. If I can see, at a glance, how useful a piece of gear is for a specific gear.. then I am one hell of a happy panda. Less number crunching, more adventuring, please!

Not that I would take the number-crunching fun away from those that like it, I would never try to tell someone that my way to play a game is the only way it should be done.

PS: Your football analogy totally lost me but I think I know what you were trying to accomplish. Next time could you use a cricket analogy or rugby? Thanks <3

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but the lowly console gamer agrees. I just need to know if my new 'Bad Guy Kabob' is better then my current one. Also, I would prefer an American footbal analogy in the future.

[upsettingshorts]

Fortlowe wrote...

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but the lowly console gamer agrees. I just need to know if my new 'Bad Guy Kabob' is better then my current one. Also, I would prefer an American footbal analogy in the future.

If an American football game like Football Manager existed, I'd have used that.  But there ain't.  Plus, if you don't know much about soccer, it's an even better example, because the star system in DA:2 exists to help people who don't know much about RPGs.

Or don't care about specifics, them too.

Anyway, I've explained the comparison enough.  This isn't the Sports Interactive forums so I'll give the FM talk a rest

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 07 novembre 2010 - 08:06 .