223 réponses à ce sujet

[Addai]

crimzontearz wrote...

Look....I was just replaying awakening and rhe more I replay it the more I realize that a general streamlining is needed.

I am playing as always with a 2 hander warrior

I have some 4 talents for AOE damage, three for AOE kockdown...four with the long range one three forced criticals three sustainables to increase damage and attack....and for the love of god they all almost work the same way! We need less redundancy and abilities that actually workas they are supposed to (forced criticals my ***....cone of cold + forced critical practically never ends up in a shattering effect)

Speaking of which...mages have even more redundancy...like six spells for paralisys...three of them with added damage, two with chance of shatter. Several AOE damage spells differing solely in the type of damage dealt

Yes...I'd say intelligent streamlining is much needed

You're talking about an expansion, where new stuff was added to keep Origins players from getting bored.

Why in the world would you lament having more things to choose from?  Just ignore what you don't like and use the talents you do.  Don't talk about "streamlining" things that other people like and found useful just because you didn't.

[Addai]

Revan312 wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

Customization....yes

Redundancy? No...

Give me a few effective abilities over an arsenal of redundant and less effective ones

Well how was the spell creation system in Oblivion redundant?  Maybe I'm thinking back on my modded Oblivion, but IIRC you could add multiple effects to either ranged or touch spell types.. Such as paralysis and frost on a palm spell or weaken and flame on a ranged etc etc..

Or soul capture on a destruction spell, my favorite.

I just don't know how, in a single player RPG that stacking more and more choices on top = a bad thing

Color me also confused.

[Addai]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

I know many people who played and loved Mass Effect but did not like Dragon Age at all. It doesn't have to be the same as Mass Effect to attract those people, it just has to be something familiar to ME and easier to get into. And what have we heard so far? That it's "easier to pick up and play" and "we are injecting some of Mass Effect's features into DA2".

Just listen to what they say about the game and connect the dots. I'm not trying to bring them down or say these are bad ideas (in theory), but it is a little concerning coming off of something like Origins.

That said, they may not be able to attract the folks who didn't enjoy the first game, but with everything being "more action oriented" and "pick up and play", and the trailers of the game stressing that, they have a far better chance than they ever did with Origins.

And I loved Origins but hated Mass Effect.  I consider myself a casual gamer, not some crusty Baldur's Gate holdout.  My husband is an old-time gamer and he didn't like ME, either.  Anecdotal evidence is just that.

[Wicked 702]

Choice good.

...also beer.

[Selene Moonsong]

As for me, I like a game to keep me interested. BioWare has managed to do that with most of their games, beginning with Baldur's Gate, SoA, and ToB, Neverwinter Nights,, SoU, and HotU, Jade Empire, and Dragon Age: Origins, all of which are still installed on my computer because I still play them all.



What keeps my interest is character interaction, as opposed to combat and advancement. Believable companions requires a fair amount of story telling that isn't just fluff, but affects various outcomes in various situations.



I was quite skeptical about Origins until I finally played at the urging of a friend who knows what type of games hold my interest. I wasn't just pleased with the way Origins was done, I was estatic over it because many of the things I had hoped for in a cRPG finally made it into a cRPG.



I have been in the BioWare forums for a decade now (under different names) From the old BioBoards to the Social Network. Many of the things that Origins has in it are exactly as I longed for in the old forums, ranging from the wealth breakdown between copper, silver and gold, to very distinct and detailed companions with chances for romance and friendships, as well as hostility from them, and handled in a mature manner.



I wonder if I will even like DA II after being offered so many options in Origins, but as long as the characters are believable and unique and the story is well told, I likely will, even though I may harbor a few doubts now.

[crimzontearz]

Addai67 wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

Look....I was just replaying awakening and rhe more I replay it the more I realize that a general streamlining is needed.

I am playing as always with a 2 hander warrior

I have some 4 talents for AOE damage, three for AOE kockdown...four with the long range one three forced criticals three sustainables to increase damage and attack....and for the love of god they all almost work the same way! We need less redundancy and abilities that actually workas they are supposed to (forced criticals my ***....cone of cold + forced critical practically never ends up in a shattering effect)

Speaking of which...mages have even more redundancy...like six spells for paralisys...three of them with added damage, two with chance of shatter. Several AOE damage spells differing solely in the type of damage dealt

Yes...I'd say intelligent streamlining is much needed

You're talking about an expansion, where new stuff was added to keep Origins players from getting bored.

Why in the world would you lament having more things to choose from?  Just ignore what you don't like and use the talents you do.  Don't talk about "streamlining" things that other people like and found useful just because you didn't.

well I don't know....maybe because these "other" things are pretty much the same as the OLD things?

So, your problem is Awakening?

ok, let's talk straight DAO, depending on specialty subclasses a 2 hander Warrior had some 3 knockdown abilities, several damage + attack increase sustainablesand a number of passives to advance armor penetration, damage increase and so on

all of which pretty much did the SAME job minus some small differences.

the result remains, there are redundancies that can be streamlined in order to make room for actually effective abilities. You may not like it and may prefer having a plethora  of redundancies to choose from but a lot of people (and no not just the console players.......god forbid we start that one again) prefer the opposite.



about Oblivion, The spellcrafting system did literally nothing you could not do with 2/3 separate spells for no appreciable advantage 

sure, I LOVED my home-crafted "Sight of the Hunter" spell that gave me night vision and life detection making me virtually un-surprisable....but ultimately by casting night vision and life detection separately (even through hotkeys) I had the same result really. Sure one could go on and craft the spell duration and to trim consumption and whatnot or find a couple of nifty (and sometimes broken) combinations but ultimately ALL the basic effects were already there in the basic spells thus making every home-made one just redundant...


now IF Bioware created the equivalents of LIMITED Discpline Techniques or Devotions (from the OWoD and NWoD RPG lines) then THAT would make for some  very interesting ability crafting  but then again the very idea behind Devotions and DTs is that they are NOT the sum of the basic abilities that created them

[Monica83]

Stramlize is the key word in this days ita like a fashion for rpgs..... Streamlize an rpg have the same effect like you streamlize a book..... At the end you have no more a rpg videogame you have only a videogame

[errant_knight]

LostScout wrote...

I completed DAO ten times, and ME2 five times. Bioware doesn't know this because I turned off their data collection feature. I don't keep my computer connected to the internet unless I am actively on the internet, and the first time I got a pop-up in the Dragon Age menu saying "can't connect to server" I went looking for the cause and disabled the feature. So the only data Bioware is collecting is from people who allowed it to be collected, and the only way the data has any meaning is if you know why each individual did not finish the game. Maybe they got frustrated by a bug, found a problem they couldn't solve, got bored, got divorced and lost custody of their computer, etc. Drawing conclusions from data points without analyzing why leads to poor decision making. Just my 2 cents.

This is a damn good point. I only connect to the server to download content, and don't automatically upload anything. If I'd known I was undermining the kind of game I want to play, I wouldn't have done that, but it's too late now, I guess.

Modifié par errant_knight, 17 novembre 2010 - 03:39 .

[crimzontearz]

Monica83 wrote...

Stramlize is the key word in this days ita like a fashion for rpgs..... Streamlize an rpg have the same effect like you streamlize a book..... At the end you have no more a rpg videogame you have only a videogame

Monica I BEG you....spellcheck

also, ever played World of Darkness games? if not I suggest you compare the WoD rules set with the WoD 2.0 Rules set, you will see why in certain cases streamlining is a good thing

[Monica83]

Not in this case and not how they did... They streamlized not only the gameplay but also the dialogue system... This game from what i read from what the devs says and from the video i seen is similiar to a beat em up with the difference of a story and classes inside the game.... This game is very bad from a company like bioware that maded masterpieces like bg saga.... Im sorry but from bioware i want more... And not a streamlized title..

[crimzontearz]

Monica83 wrote...

Not in this case and not how they did... They streamlized not only the gameplay but also the dialogue system... This game from what i read from what the devs says and from the video i seen is similiar to a beat em up with the difference of a story and classes inside the game.... This game is very bad from a company like bioware that maded masterpieces like bg saga.... Im sorry but from bioware i want more... And not a streamlized title..

yes, abilities needed to be streamlined because they were often redundant

Dialogue system has not been cut down it now just has a different interface (let me guess you wanted to read the whole phrase before choosing it? that is a matter of tastes because the substance had not changed.)

Combat plays just like DA:O just faster, you can still pause and play, you can still use a tactical camera and you can still pretty much do anything you did in DAO and that is straight from the Devs

so exactly what are you referring to?

and again, it's "streamlining" and "streamlined" not "streamlize"

[Monica83]

its not a simple matter for tastes.. Paraphrase system give you partial control of what your character is going to say the full written answer give you the opportunity to select what your character says this mean more phsicological control of your character... The actual system don't give you this opportunity you are playng only with the illusion to create your hero... But the hero is not maded from you is a partial defined one.. So you create nothing..Now.. this work well if you have a total predefined character like geralt in the witcher saga but not if you create your hero... This because this system force you to be a spectator and break the Immersion because you only have the illusion to roleplay with your character but you not..

[crimzontearz]

Monica83 wrote...

its not a simple matter for tastes.. Paraphrase system give you partial control of what your character is going to say the full written answer give you the opportunity to select what your character says this mean more phsicological control of your character... The actual system don't give you this opportunity you are playng only with the illusion to create your hero... But the hero is not maded from you is a partial defined one.. So you create nothing..Now.. this work well if you have a total predefined character like geralt in the witcher saga but not if you create your hero... This because this system force you to be a spectator and break the Immersion because you only have the illusion to roleplay with your character but you not..

that makes NO sense

by your logic then  ANY CRPG limits the RPG experience because you are not able to make your character say EXACTLY what you want him to say as opposed to one of the 5 non-paraphrased answers


truth is that paraphrased or not you were going to have the very same amount of answers with one interface or the other, what's more monica is that with the old non paraphrased system  out of 5 replies you could give to your interlocutor 3 got the EXACT same response  and only one or two actually changed to conversation

Furthermore now with the dialogue wheel we KNOW which options will further the conversation and which ones will merely get more details from the person we are speaking with which is a major plus that  DAO lacked

[Monica83]

It's hard to understeand and my english is not perfect but if you check de thread complains and things you dont like of dragon age 2 some people explains better than me

[kr33g0r]

I can see what she is saying. I found it with ME1 and 2. You would select an option on the wheel and Shepherd would say something completely different to what you thought because you interpreted the wheel wrong. Totally kills immersion and is annoying when you have to go back to a previous save just so you can choose a different option and go down the path you wanted to go down in the first place.



Personally I think the dialogue wheel is rubbish. But that's just my opinion

[Brockololly]

Thats the larger problem I have with the "cinematic" approach and dialogue wheel/paraphrases: you can't see exactly what all of the other choices actually are. So for instance, with the full text in Origins, even if I wasn't going to pick the nasty angry response, I could fully see what it was. With the dialogue wheel, you don't know exactly what Hawke will do. And the emotion icon thing keeps things vague as well, since maybe a response is labeled aggressive, but just how aggressive or how sarcastic? Is it a joking sarcastic or a "I'm a huge jerk!" sarcastic?

I'll wait and see, but I fail to see how you can try to present Hawke's story as a "first person" narrative like Origins and not a "third person" one like ME, when you're left guessing what exactly Hawke is going to do and say.

[Ziggeh]

kr33g0r wrote...

I can see what she is saying. I found it with ME1 and 2. You would select an option on the wheel and Shepherd would say something completely different to what you thought because you interpreted the wheel wrong. Totally kills immersion and is annoying when you have to go back to a previous save just so you can choose a different option and go down the path you wanted to go down in the first place.

Personally I think the dialogue wheel is rubbish. But that's just my opinion

I can't say I remember the line but I've heard people refer to the "Zevran problem", where a line of dialogue that seemed innocent enough accidently led you into romance dialogue. One of the beauties of the english language is that it is imprecise and often subjective. So no, printing the full text is not protection against misinterpretation.

What is protection against it is literally printing the intention alongside the paraphrased statement on the dialogue wheel, which, unless I've happened to misread something is exactly what they're doing.

[kr33g0r]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

kr33g0r wrote...

I can see what she is saying. I found it with ME1 and 2. You would select an option on the wheel and Shepherd would say something completely different to what you thought because you interpreted the wheel wrong. Totally kills immersion and is annoying when you have to go back to a previous save just so you can choose a different option and go down the path you wanted to go down in the first place.

Personally I think the dialogue wheel is rubbish. But that's just my opinion

I can't say I remember the line but I've heard people refer to the "Zevran problem", where a line of dialogue that seemed innocent enough accidently led you into romance dialogue. One of the beauties of the english language is that it is imprecise and often subjective. So no, printing the full text is not protection against misinterpretation.

What is protection against it is literally printing the intention alongside the paraphrased statement on the dialogue wheel, which, unless I've happened to misread something is exactly what they're doing.

Oh yeah don't get me wrong. I am not saying having the full text there is fool proof. There is still a chance of misinterpretation (as you have pointed out). However, don't you see the fact that having an icon next to your paraphrased dialog option indicates that the option is too vague in the first place so now we need an icon to let us know what the intention is?

That's how I see it anyway and I reckon more people misinterpret the dialogue wheel than a full text option.

[Ziggeh]

kr33g0r wrote...

However, don't you see the fact that having an icon next to your paraphrased dialog option indicates that the option is too vague in the first place so now we need an icon to let us know what the intention is?

That's how I see it anyway and I reckon more people misinterpret the dialogue wheel than a full text option.

Possibly, but the fact that it's not exactly what they're saying might allow them to put it in a way that's less vague than the actual statement, which might need to be vague in pure text for dramatic purposes, or similar.

And I'm not sure how you'd misinterpret the literal intentions.

[kr33g0r]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

Possibly, but the fact that it's not exactly what they're saying might allow them to put it in a way that's less vague than the actual statement, which might need to be vague in pure text for dramatic purposes, or similar.

Sorry, I'm not sure I get what you mean.

Modifié par kr33g0r, 17 novembre 2010 - 04:54 .

[Ziggeh]

kr33g0r wrote...

ziggehunderslash wrote...

Possibly, but the fact that it's not exactly what they're saying might allow them to put it in a way that's less vague than the actual statement, which might need to be vague in pure text for dramatic purposes, or similar.

Sorry, I'm not sure I get what you mean.

They could make the paraphrase less ambigious than the actual text, in a case where the full text might have been ambigious because it sounded better that way. Not saying they will, but it's a counter point to the idea that a paraphrase would by definition be more vague.

Modifié par ziggehunderslash, 17 novembre 2010 - 05:01 .

[Realmjumper]

I can't really go against Bioware on this decision. One of my friends never finished Dragonage: Origins. He just didn't appreciate the story as much as I did.



This begs the question if I was to create something would I want someone to finish it? Of course I would. If I play a board game I want the people playing to finish and enjoy their time.



If I was to create a hamburger, I would want you to enjoy that delicious hamburger. Which is why I would take my time toasting the bread, and spreading the condiments on it. I also would let the cheese melt on the meat before I served it to you. I would include lettuce and a fresh cut slice of tomatoe, perhaps a side of fries also. The complete package wouldn't be complete without your favorite soda and a glass and icecubes.



If you don't like hamburgers, then I will have to change to something else whether it be steak or hot dogs. The point is, this is what Bioware is doing.



Let's just give them a chance before we decide the game is worthy or not.

[Challseus]

Sorry, can't read through entire thread....

With regards to people finishing games, while I did finish DAO, I can see how many don't. For me, I was out of work last year when it came out, thus I spent close to 8 hours a day on it. Good times.

Now that I am fully employed once again, I barely have time to finish any long term games, like Final Fantasy 13 for instance. For me, pick up and play games like Black Ops, SF IV, and Halo: Reach are perfect. Anything long term, I just don't think I could do right now.

So, Dragon Age II seems to be right up my alley. Assuming they trimmed the fat (i.e. Deep Roads), so to speak, I'll think it'll be an enjoyable romp.

[In Exile]

Brockololly wrote...

Thats the larger problem I have with the "cinematic" approach and dialogue wheel/paraphrases: you can't see exactly what all of the other choices actually are. So for instance, with the full text in Origins, even if I wasn't going to pick the nasty angry response, I could fully see what it was. With the dialogue wheel, you don't know exactly what Hawke will do. And the emotion icon thing keeps things vague as well, since maybe a response is labeled aggressive, but just how aggressive or how sarcastic? Is it a joking sarcastic or a "I'm a huge jerk!" sarcastic?.

How does seeing the literal line do any of these things? What benefit does the literal line provide that intent does not match or exceed?

[kr33g0r]

Realmjumper wrote...

I can't really go against Bioware on
this decision. One of my friends never finished Dragonage: Origins. He
just didn't appreciate the story as much as I did.

This begs the
question if I was to create something would I want someone to finish it?
Of course I would. If I play a board game I want the people playing to
finish and enjoy their time.

If I was to create a hamburger, I
would want you to enjoy that delicious hamburger. Which is why I would
take my time toasting the bread, and spreading the condiments on it. I
also would let the cheese melt on the meat before I served it to you. I
would include lettuce and a fresh cut slice of tomatoe, perhaps a side
of fries also. The complete package wouldn't be complete without your
favorite soda and a glass and icecubes.

If you don't like
hamburgers, then I will have to change to something else whether it be
steak or hot dogs. The point is, this is what Bioware is doing.

Let's just give them a chance before we decide the game is worthy or not.

I loved Dragon Age Origins. A friend of mine didn't. So they change DAII to something my friend might like but now I might not. They aren't catering for everyone, they are simply changing their target market.

Modifié par kr33g0r, 17 novembre 2010 - 05:11 .