129 réponses à ce sujet

[Xewaka]

Seagloom wrote...
*snip*
But I think mook encounters can get repetitious when used to artificially extend a game's length. Battles where tactics are necessary to survive without casualties and(or) a significant loss of resources should be more common than encounters with grunts in my opinion.

This I agree with. Rather than fewer battles, have battles be more memorable. Moping up mooks feels more like a chore than anything.

[Eiia]

Ortaya Alevli wrote...

I once wanted to see how many battles I could avoid in a PS:T playthrough. By the end of it, I had fought only two battles.
Mind you, PS:T is one of the best there is.
And mind you, it didn't sell worth squat.

This. Those who play RPGs for story(telling), good dialogues and characters owe it to themselves to buy PS:T. It's on another level than any game I've played when it comes to these aspects
Mask of the Betrayer is also a very good option.

[AlexXIV]

Battles don't disturb me as much as the fact that the protagonist usually has a murdercount that any massmurderer would turn green and yellow from jealousy. Battles are ok, but is it nessessary that you go murdering through the streets, killing everyone who looks at you strange? And all of it seems to have little to no consequence. Where are the authorities?

I like what I have seen in some RPGs that if you win a fight the enemy is not dead but only unconscious. So you actually have to perform a 'death strike' to kill them off and people around who see it will act accordingly. That's of course only in 'civilized' regions where there is law against murder etc. Not 'in battle' as such, when you attack an enemy fortress or so.

I know in DA:O/A I about killed a thousand people. I mean seriously, who ever did that? Aside from Hitler, Stalin, etc.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 10 décembre 2010 - 02:40 .

[mopotter]

MIke_18 wrote...

I'm playing a game for the game-play. If the strongest point of the game is talking to NPC's well then the game fails, it's simple as that.

Besides it doesn't impress me anymore. It was fun maybe in Kotor. But after seeing it in every Bioware game i got sick of it.

And for me this is the only reason I buy BioWare Games.  The story, the talking to NPC's and then the game-play/battles.  If they cut back on the story and involved NPC companions/LI then I have no reason to buy the game.    
If they decided to change their balance, I'd want more story related conversations.  But I like the way the do their games now, so I don't have to have more story and don't want more battles.
edit- quote thingy

Modifié par mopotter, 10 décembre 2010 - 03:15 .

[MKDAWUSS]

You can still have memorable fights without the mass body count and fighting mobs everywhere you go. A tournament in a Colosseum in a glittering jewel of a city is one such example. Several great fights, but your body count is only going to be in the singles or tens, rather than the hundreds.

[AlexXIV]

MKDAWUSS wrote...

You can still have memorable fights without the mass body count and fighting mobs everywhere you go. A tournament in a Colosseum in a glittering jewel of a city is one such example. Several great fights, but your body count is only going to be in the singles or tens, rather than the hundreds.

I wouldn't know why you should kill your enemy in a tournament, unless you have no choice or it is an accident.

[SteveGarbage]

I don't think the game needs more story or more combat. I just think they need to be interjected among each other a little better.

For example - running around Orzammar with the occassional battle against Harrowmont/Bhelen goons is torturous. It's like, run here, then run there, talk to Guy No. 1, run to point C. Then followed up with the Deep Roads which is essentially just hack your way through bland caves with a stop for the Legion of the Dead and a stop for Branka.

A better example of mixing the story well with the combat is the Brecilian. You're fighting your way in but the story keeps developing with run-ins with Swiftrunner and interest self-contained sidequests like the Old Oak/Crazy Hermit and others.

If I go too long without some combat (Orzammar, Redcliffe pre-battle, etc.) I get worn out and if it's nothing but straight mobs (Deep Roads, Circle Tower (even with Skip the Fade), etc.) then I get worn out on that.

Also, thinking back to KotOR - the water world Manaan is the most torturous of the planets to get through. It's a long lame city portion followed by a long lame battle portion. They've got to blend well into each other to make a really great module.

[mopotter]

MIke_18 wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

MIke_18 wrote...

ThunderfoxF wrote...

MIke_18 wrote...

The Good thing about it, in Kotor and ME it was optional. In ME2 all i did was walk arround that ugly ass ship trough that damn elevator hoping someone might have something more to say about their boring lives.

I think you're playing the wrong games then

I like story driven games. But the party interactions on your ship/camp whatever are too artificial and boring.

I can play Torchlight for hours on end, but i always skip the mindless pretentious dribble in ME2.

Like i want to hear the life story of lesbian Riddick or Profesor Boring.

It's not mindless drivel; it's damn good writing, better than most you pick up at the book store. (You've even made me whip out the dreaded semicolon)

I've lobbied quite a bit on this site for certain types of gameplay. I love gameplay and consider it the equal of story. But with Bioware, story is gameplay because you, to a certain degree, are controlling it. 

I've played only a few games with damn good writing...

Dreamfall is one of them. 

And The Witcher. 

Bioware games..well they are just not all that. They are all similar with the same character archetypes. 

I played dreamfall, never finished it.   Just a matter of taste.   I've heard a lot of good things about dreamfall but I lost interest in it after about 2 hours.   Haven't yet tried the Witcher but it's on my list of things to do.

With BioWare games, I still play them.  Jade Empire, KOTOR, and ME1 and 2.

[blothulfur]

Got to admit I do get to a point in most bioware games where I press the space bar, heave a big sigh and say "yay another battle". That said I slog through them for the next bit of story so they can't be that bad, maybe with the faster combat of DA2 we'll not mind the combat so much.

[biostarfan]

no! and if that were the case, bioware would have to have to make an arena mode or a survival mode that I could play for months on end. I doubt bioware would take time to design that though.

[grregg]

AlexXIV wrote...

Battles don't disturb me as much as the fact that the protagonist usually has a murdercount that any massmurderer would turn green and yellow from jealousy. Battles are ok, but is it nessessary that you go murdering through the streets, killing everyone who looks at you strange? And all of it seems to have little to no consequence. Where are the authorities?

I like what I have seen in some RPGs that if you win a fight the enemy is not dead but only unconscious. So you actually have to perform a 'death strike' to kill them off and people around who see it will act accordingly. That's of course only in 'civilized' regions where there is law against murder etc. Not 'in battle' as such, when you attack an enemy fortress or so.

I know in DA:O/A I about killed a thousand people. I mean seriously, who ever did that? Aside from Hitler, Stalin, etc.

This.

If DA:O body counters are to be believed, in my only full playthrough my character had 997 kills. I did get the Bligh-Queller achievement, which means that across playthroughs I killed 1000 of something (whatever it is that it counts).

Aside of lack of realism of this kind of body count, I think it simply makes combat boring. Think about it. How many activities can you name that are still fun and exciting after you did it 1000 times? It also dilutes the story. DA:O is a good example, by the time I got to Landsmeet, I almost forgot that the game is actually about fighting the Blight.

Actually the same holds for loot. It is fun and exciting to find some cool item, but when you find several thousand items, the excitement tends to be a bit diminished. Not to mention that if you spend a significant chunk of time managing the inventory, the game stops being about saving the world, and begins to be more about managing you personal junk collection.

[maxernst]

Seagloom wrote...

Where BioWare games are concerned I think they can do with less filler combat. There are segments of Origins with too many pointless battles; such as the Deep Roads. This has been a BioWare design issue going back to the first "Baldur's Gate". Granted, a few encounters with worthless mooks is okay. It gives the player a chance to see their characters show off and dominate. It adds to a feeling of power and accomplishment when your party can cut down waves of enemies with ease. I remember slaying waves of Sith on the Star Forge fondly.

But I think mook encounters can get repetitious when used to artificially extend a game's length. Battles where tactics are necessary to survive without casualties and(or) a significant loss of resources should be more common than encounters with grunts in my opinion.

I agree completely.  It's one of the reasons that I am not with those who complain about the (possibly) shorter game length. If they shorten the game by removing half the mook encounters, I don't feel like I've lost anything.  In fact, if they took half of those out of DA:O, I probably would have played through the game more often and gotten more gameplay out of it.

[mopotter]

blothulfur wrote...

Got to admit I do get to a point in most bioware games where I press the space bar, heave a big sigh and say "yay another battle". That said I slog through them for the next bit of story so they can't be that bad, maybe with the faster combat of DA2 we'll not mind the combat so much.

I do this with all games sometimes, FO3, Oblivion, JE.  And other times I listen to everything.  
KOTOR I used to save before talking to Carth or Bastilia and then re-play it over and over trying out the different replies.  Good times.    

[maxernst]

grregg wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...

Battles don't disturb me as much as the fact that the protagonist usually has a murdercount that any massmurderer would turn green and yellow from jealousy. Battles are ok, but is it nessessary that you go murdering through the streets, killing everyone who looks at you strange? And all of it seems to have little to no consequence. Where are the authorities?

I like what I have seen in some RPGs that if you win a fight the enemy is not dead but only unconscious. So you actually have to perform a 'death strike' to kill them off and people around who see it will act accordingly. That's of course only in 'civilized' regions where there is law against murder etc. Not 'in battle' as such, when you attack an enemy fortress or so.

I know in DA:O/A I about killed a thousand people. I mean seriously, who ever did that? Aside from Hitler, Stalin, etc.

This.

If DA:O body counters are to be believed, in my only full playthrough my character had 997 kills. I did get the Bligh-Queller achievement, which means that across playthroughs I killed 1000 of something (whatever it is that it counts).

Aside of lack of realism of this kind of body count, I think it simply makes combat boring. Think about it. How many activities can you name that are still fun and exciting after you did it 1000 times? It also dilutes the story. DA:O is a good example, by the time I got to Landsmeet, I almost forgot that the game is actually about fighting the Blight.

Actually the same holds for loot. It is fun and exciting to find some cool item, but when you find several thousand items, the excitement tends to be a bit diminished. Not to mention that if you spend a significant chunk of time managing the inventory, the game stops being about saving the world, and begins to be more about managing you personal junk collection.

I agree with you, but given the popularity of games like Diablo--which are all about repetitious combats and managing your personal junk collection--it seems many people don't.  As someone noted earlier, Planescape: Torment didn't sell very well.

[SoulRebel_1979]

Ms. Lovey Dovey wrote...

@Harid I believe all that was said was that a good story is more memorable then good game play. Alas game play would be horrible and senseless without a sense of story. Not sure if it can be said vice-versa.

Game play is not restricted to combat alone.  A great story with bad game play won't last long on my hard drive. Weak story with great game play will certainly last longer. For the most part, I think Bioware games strike a good balance between the two. 

[In Exile]

I had a character with 1520 kills in one playthrough, a SH/BM that could fireball/storm of the century spam with the best of them. It gets outrageous.

RE: video-games and books, there is a huge spectrum in terms of quality. Bioware is on the high end compared to the sort of generic fantasy fiction or science finction you'd you'd find - closer to say GRRM and A Song of Ice and Fire than, say, Harry Potter or whatever (I tend to avoid poorly written fantasy, so I'm trying to come up with a good example).

If you compare video-game writing, which looks to produce things in the vein of Dark Knight quality at its absolute high end (i.e. an action story that is well written, not say a human interest piece like the Shawshanks Redemption), to really high level artistic movies or books, then it video-games will fail to stand up to scrutiny precisely because they don't produce anything in that genre. Heavy Rain is sort of the closest style of game to that.

[WingsandRings]

I just want my battles to feel meaningful, and to have some sort of other plot thrown in. The Deep Roads in Orzammar where you spent several hours with no real dialogue, no real side quests (other than some "ooh, you found the sword pieces!" types) and no feeling that in any way the plot was advancing was just torturous. Same with the Fade and the several levels in the woods before you get to the werewolves.



I don't mind that much fighting, but 2+ hours straight of what feels like nothing but level grinding, with NOTHING to do but combat gets wearisome, especially after the first playthrough. There's a reason people created fade-skip and deep-roads skip mods.



So, basically, I don't mind the amount of combat, it's when it's all concentrated with nothing to break it up that I get restless.

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm with those who think this comes down to pacing. I don't mind lots of combat early on in the game because they're still setting things up and you're learning what is the dealio. Toward the end, I want the pace to pick up, the fights to be fewer (but nasty) but that's when there's usually a huge lengthy hack-and-slash sequence with pathetic low-level crap mobs that just gradually wear down your resources.



I would really have liked it if they'd replaced the whole end-sequence in Denerim with you issuing orders and then making tracks directly for Fort Drakon, with maybe a cut-scene of you cleaving mooks in twain while you run up the stairs to get to the Archdemon.

[1483749283]

I think of it in terms of my use of time. In game, I would rather be having dialogue rather than clear out hurlocks/mercs. It does not help to intersperse the filler combat more evenly. Because at the end of the day, I spent too much more time wrestling with hurlocks than flirting with Morrigan.
Perhaps the point I should be making, given that combat zots do not easily translate into story zots, is that given limited writing time, some of the non-party NPC interaction would be best cut, and replaced with greater in party depth. Do I really need to have an extended conversation with that guard in Ostagar when I'll never see him again.
The value of a line of conversation rises exponentially the closer you are to a character. The writing time, however, does not. Ergo, more writing should be spent on characters close to the PC.

Modifié par Pausanias, 10 décembre 2010 - 05:09 .

[lastpatriot]

leonia42 wrote...

I'd like equal parts story and equal parts combat, please. Shaken, not stirred.

Perhaps I'm missing something but isn't what leonia said pretty much what we all want?  I loved ME, ME:2 and DOA even though they were far different from each other.  My only wish for ME:2 was that I felt it ended too quickly once we went through the Omega 4 Relay.

[mopotter]

Harid wrote...

Reverie wrote...

Harid wrote...

Company website leads to delusional fans.

I mean, they write well for writing in videogames, but videogame writing is on par with like C level movies.  And they aren't really on par with some of their past work.

So.. why are you two here then?

Not but seriously. Liking a companies work does not equal a delusional fan.

Never said that liking a companies work made you a delusional fan.

But if you state that their stories are better than books, either you are insane, or you are comparing Bioware to some really ****ty books.  No one wants to be compared to the low end of a spectrum.

I always consider BioWare games a book that I can actually be a part of instead of just reading it, with everything in the game I like about books, including the NPC romances.  

I love all sorts of books from Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo to Seanan McGuire's October Daye series and anything by Andre Norton.  I would happily compare the entertainment I get from participating in a BioWare story to the entertainment I get from reading Andre Norton's witch world series, which I re-read as often as I re-read Count of Monte Cristo, once every few years.  

[RPGmom28]

The thing that I'm most irritated with is Kaidan and Ash having the same dialogue almost word for word on Horizon. They have unique personalities and so should have reacted as such- both to Lilith and to Shepard. Those are the things I'd like to see fine tuned in ME3. I like toting guns around and using them as much as the next girl, but I want my squad members to retain their personalities in cutscenes and interactive dialogue.

[1483749283]

I don't know how the focus got put on less combat in this thread. I did say combat is important. The emphasis was on more meaningful storytelling, and given limited resources, one way to achieve that might be to cut the filler---whether it's filler combat or filler dialogue.

[Shadow Warior]

DA2 is a game not a movie, a think that says it all