344 réponses à ce sujet

[Terror_K]

The-Person wrote...

Then the fans should be more specific in what they want instead. Fans complained, but offered no other example in return, then Bioware believes that the player does not want them.

Except that we were. Numerous times. The main problem is that rather than address the issue to repair it properly, in most cases BioWare simply  scrapped the aspect entirely and simplified it to the point where very little could break or go wrong with it, but leaving it in a rather shallow, anemic and/or overly automated manner that took away any real semblance of depth, proper player input and/or satisfaction. The basic solution was, "if it's not there at all, it can't be a problem."

When they brought up how they approached ME2 as a game, BioWare admitted that they basically took all the feedback and reviews and looked at the things that were generally praised and criticised and isolated them. They even showed a spreadsheet/chart of this at some point (may have been Christina Norman's presentation, I don't recall exactly).

Here is where I feel the problem comes from, because what it seems they did was basically break down the complaints and sum them up into a single buzzword assosciated to the issue. So rather than them analysing what everybody said about planet exploration with The Mako and elevators being used as loading transition methods, etc. and actually looking into detail what was said about them and why, they just chalked them down to single words related to the issues: "The Mako" and "elevators" in these cases. This lead to these words then being percieved as the problem itself, rather than merely the factor most commonly or easily assosciated with the issue. This led to them being seen as the problems, and their removal from the game entirely as a means of solving "the problems" rather than actually exploring the issue and working out what did and didn't work with them and then solving it to make it a better experience while still retaining the positive factors.

Now I can't say for sure that's what happened, but given the evidence and what I've seen, that's what it looks like happened to me. And that's why I say BioWare didn't properly listen to the fans in the past. If they had, I imagine ME2 would have been a far richer and more satisfying game, not only for those who were disappointed in it, but for those who weren't.

[adam_grif]

ME 1 was shallow? ME 1 was mediocre? ME 1 had boring fetch quests? Are you serious?

Dead serious. ME1 was already RPG lite, ME2 just went even further removing it. ME1 "tactical combat" consists of spamming biotic powers as soon as the cooldowns let you, cheesing enemies to death with crap like push and singularity. Meanwhile, you pray that the enemy doesn't fling you into the level geometry and force you to reload your last save.



The shooting portion of the game was a crappy cover shooter, where most of the enemies had so many hit points that the optimal strategy for them was to simply charge at you and overwhelm you with shotguns/melee attacks (see: Krogan). Did you ever play on Insanity? The game's broken balance really starts to shine then, when every enemy and their mother spams Immunity so firefights drag on for what seems to be aeons. Meanwhile you pray that a stray geth doesn't decide to close the gap and blast you to death, since you can do jack ****e to them charging at you (because their hp/shields take so long to take down unless you're abusing the sniper rifles + HE X ammo or something) but you die so easily.



ME1 side-quests are dull, repetitive and reuse the same assets to a shameless degree. ME2 sidequests are the best part of the game (if you count loyalty missions as sidequests). Even if you only count N7 mission as sidequests, they're still superior since there is less reused crap, the combat is far superior and it has much more variety.

[The-Person]

Terror_K wrote...

The-Person wrote...

Then the fans should be more specific in what they want instead. Fans complained, but offered no other example in return, then Bioware believes that the player does not want them.

Except that we were. Numerous times. The main problem is that rather than address the issue to repair it properly, in most cases BioWare simply  scrapped the aspect entirely and simplified it to the point where very little could break or go wrong with it, but leaving it in a rather shallow, anemic and/or overly automated manner that took away any real semblance of depth, proper player input and/or satisfaction. The basic solution was, "if it's not there at all, it can't be a problem."

When they brought up how they approached ME2 as a game, BioWare admitted that they basically took all the feedback and reviews and looked at the things that were generally praised and criticised and isolated them. They even showed a spreadsheet/chart of this at some point (may have been Christina Norman's presentation, I don't recall exactly).

Here is where I feel the problem comes from, because what it seems they did was basically break down the complaints and sum them up into a single buzzword assosciated to the issue. So rather than them analysing what everybody said about planet exploration with The Mako and elevators being used as loading transition methods, etc. and actually looking into detail what was said about them and why, they just chalked them down to single words related to the issues: "The Mako" and "elevators" in these cases. This lead to these words then being percieved as the problem itself, rather than merely the factor most commonly or easily assosciated with the issue. This led to them being seen as the problems, and their removal from the game entirely as a means of solving "the problems" rather than actually exploring the issue and working out what did and didn't work with them and then solving it to make it a better experience while still retaining the positive factors.

Now I can't say for sure that's what happened, but given the evidence and what I've seen, that's what it looks like happened to me. And that's why I say BioWare didn't properly listen to the fans in the past. If they had, I imagine ME2 would have been a far richer and more satisfying game, not only for those who were disappointed in it, but for those who weren't.

The problem with elevators is that it was one of the key factors that caused the bad frame rates and graphic pop ups in ME1. That was one of the problems people had with ME1, that is why they added loading screens, because it solves the elevator problem and graphic/framerate problems. You also can't make the elevators any faster without making the game run worse,  the 360 can not handle it. You can't have large planets with large amount of detail, because the 360 can not handle it. What a lot of people need to understand is that the 360 has limitation.
Also,
-The Majority of fans do not post on forums
   - Majority of  people imported their game. (Meaning they are not just "your" casual players)
   - Majority of players play as male shep---> Majority of Forum player play as Fem Shep
   - Majority of players play as a soldier-----> Majority of forum players played as a vangaurd
Bioware needs to stop listening to the loud minority, people who complain usually post more then those who were fine with everything.

[royceclemens]

I concur with adam_grif yet again. In ME1 there were only six side missions: Undergound Bunker, Warehouse, Geth Outpost, Mine, Freighter Ship and Outdoor Monster Hunt. And it chafes something terrible to have to play those six missions over and over and over again.

Captain_Obvious_au wrote...



No, you're not. It's more like



1. Fans complain to Bioware



2. Bioware goes overboard and goes too far in addressing the complaints



3. Fans complain to Bioware because they completely trashed things that fans wanted fixed



The problem is that for example, fans say the Mako had bad controls. Instead of fixing the Mako, they completely got rid of it, and then sort of replaced it with a very simplistic vehicle that doesn't do antwhere near the same things.



Fix =/= remove is my point.

See, now we're getting somewhere. Perhaps you can provide some documentation of some sort that proves your thesis? Maybe a post from the old forums of someone saying what you're putting forth that was written before ME2 came out? Otherwise, I just can't see how the fault lays with BioWare and am forced to conclude that the widespread displeasure with ME2 among the posters on this forum was largely their own doing.

[Terror_K]

The-Person wrote...

The problem with elevators is that it was one of the key factors that caused the bad frame rates and graphic pop ups in ME1. That was one of the problems people had with ME1, that is why they added loading screens, because it solves the elevator problem and graphic/framerate problems. You also can't make the elevators any faster without making the game run worse,  the 360 can not handle it. You can't have large planets with large amount of detail, because the 360 can not handle it. What a lot of people need to understand is that the 360 has limitation.

Actually, the texture pop was a feature/factor of the original interation of the Unreal 3 engine. All early Unreal 3 engine games had it to varying degrees. On the PC it's far less noticable, especially with a decent rig. It was a feature that was part of the game engine purposefully designed that way so that all textures in an area loaded early rather than gradually appearing and loading over time, meaning once a level was loaded it was loaded. Unfortunately there were a lot of complaints about it from many players over many UE3 engine games (also including Bioshock and the original Gears of War) so it was improved and removed in the next iteration of the engine by Epic.

You are correct about the frame rate thing, but that was --according to BioWare-- a factor related more to the size of the levels, and they've already countered this by creating smaller levels in ME2 as it is (a bit of a shame because Mass Effect suits larger worlds, but a price that must be paid with the 360's limitations if we don't want areas to pause the game and make us load all the time). I imagine that with smaller levels now this factor shouldn't be as much an issue, but I suppose the only way to know for sure would be to test and see.

Also,
-The Majority of fans do not post on forums

I'd actually say a majority of fans do actually. Or at the very least they lurk here. The majority of players on the other hand is a different story, and you'd be right there. But who should they make the game more for: fans who really love the game as more than just a game and get into the IP, or the greater masses of more casual players to whom Mass Effect is just another game that'll probably be traded in next year for the next CoD, Halo or Gears of War?

- Majority of  people imported their game. (Meaning they are not just "your" casual players)
- Majority of players play as male shep---> Majority of Forum player play as Fem Shep
- Majority of players play as a soldier-----> Majority of forum players played as a vangaurd
Bioware needs to stop listening to the loud minority, people who complain usually post more then those who were fine with everything.

Of course they do... that's just common sense and logic. When you're fine with everything there's no real need to complain. I only complained about a small number of things when ME1 came out. Hell... half the time I was defending it and actually saying some were overreacting to the issues and things weren't as bad as they made out and that it would only take a little tweaking and/or reworking to fix.

[Aggie Punbot]

I think they listen just fine when there is legitimate griping. People complained that femShep had the exact same animations as maleShep, so they altered a sitting animation for her in LotSB. People complained about the silent squadmates in Overlord, so they added in a piece of dialogue taken from elsewhere in the game for each squadmate.

[sinosleep]

Bourne Endeavor wrote...

The core fanbase are accredited as the hardcore, arguably fanboy/girl group. These people are dedicated to the series, discuss it at length, create followings to support favorite characters, and yes, post on forum pages. They are usually a small, yet vocal minority as the remainder are casual fans liable to finish the game once or twice and not play or talk about it again for a while, if at all.

Core is not short for hard core.


core audience

The main kind of people who watch a particular type of programme, listen to a particular type of music etc.

Longman Business English Dictionary

Main type, IE majority. The hard core DO post on forums, the core audience however most certainly does not. It's kind of like comic book fans and comic book movies. Your top shelf comics only sell 100k issues a month, most are far closer to 40 - 50 k range. And yet successful comic book movies are seen by FAR more people. The hard core audience is those comic book fans, which only make up a very small percentage of the actual core deomographic of comic book movie goers.

Modifié par sinosleep, 15 décembre 2010 - 01:04 .

[SithLordExarKun]

Chaos Gate wrote...

ME 1 was shallow? ME 1 was mediocre? ME 1 had boring fetch quests? Are you serious?

Dead serious. With a light and already poor RPG system mashed together with clunky shooter mechanics, i fail to see how it is any better than ME2's. Sure it has "better" RPG mechanics, but being better than "little RPG" mechanics in ME2 doesn't mean its good.

ME1 had so many uncompelling characters, had a very cliche story(right like stopping some ancient evil has never happened before) and horrible side quests. Sure landing on different UNC planets was fun with its different sky boxes and landscapes ,which ill admit is larger than ME2's N7 worlds but had absolutely nothing to do except raid the same bunker 10 times over with the lazy cut and paste bases.  Its either that or raid the same freighter with the same exact layout.

Not to mention how horrible the gameplay mechanics were and how horribly clunky the combat is which is to essentially spam as much fire power as possible to take down you're enemy.

Am i saying ME1 is bad? No. I loved it almost as much as ME2, but its idiotic to witness RPG elitist snobs like you'rself bashing something thats actually great just because you prefer one game over another. Thats almost as retarded as hardcore halo shooter fans bashing call of duty.

[sinosleep]

Captain_Obvious_au wrote...

True Stanley, but the problem was that Bioware took fan complaints and then magnified them to the point that those features had to be removed, not fixed, which wasn't what the majority of fans (ie your customers) wanted.

I'm not going to have a go at the plot of the ME games or anything like that, but I just wish that for ME3 the devs take fan feedback into account and use it to influence the gameplay mechanics to a less extreme extent than with ME2.

Sales/reviews disagree with you. ME2 scored higher with both segments.

[Captain_Obvious_au]

sinosleep wrote...

Captain_Obvious_au wrote...

True Stanley, but the problem was that Bioware took fan complaints and then magnified them to the point that those features had to be removed, not fixed, which wasn't what the majority of fans (ie your customers) wanted.

I'm not going to have a go at the plot of the ME games or anything like that, but I just wish that for ME3 the devs take fan feedback into account and use it to influence the gameplay mechanics to a less extreme extent than with ME2.

Sales/reviews disagree with you. ME2 scored higher with both segments.

It scored higher because they changed the game to be more generic and appeal to the shooter crowd. Regardless though, it's not relevant. Yes there were changes - some were good, some were bad. This thread though is about Bioware listening to fans, which I frankly don't think they do.

royceclemens wrote...

Captain_Obvious_au wrote...

No, you're not. It's more like

1. Fans complain to Bioware

2. Bioware goes overboard and goes too far in addressing the complaints

3. Fans complain to Bioware because they completely trashed things that fans wanted fixed

The
problem is that for example, fans say the Mako had bad controls.
Instead of fixing the Mako, they completely got rid of it, and then sort
of replaced it with a very simplistic vehicle that doesn't do antwhere
near the same things.

Fix =/= remove is my point.

See,
now we're getting somewhere. Perhaps you can provide some
documentation of some sort that proves your thesis? Maybe a post from
the old forums of someone saying what you're putting forth that was
written before ME2 came out? Otherwise, I just can't see how the fault
lays with BioWare and am forced to conclude that the widespread
displeasure with ME2 among the posters on this forum was largely their
own doing.

Really? You want me to go back to just after ME1 was released, copy things people said, and then post them here? I think not good sir. I'm sure the evidence is there, but I'm not going to try to find the evidence on forums that no longer exist.

[sinosleep]

Captain_Obvious_au wrote...

It scored higher because they changed the game to be more generic and appeal to the shooter crowd. Regardless though, it's not relevant. Yes there were changes - some were good, some were bad. This thread though is about Bioware listening to fans, which I frankly don't think they do.

I'm a fan, most of my complaints were dealt with, I feel they listen quite well.

[Gleym]

As far as I can tell they listened to the loudest of the nagging and complaining, but none of the constructive critique, instead thinking 'let's just throw it out' rather than 'let's fix it'.

[Vena_86]

The-Person wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...

@Terror_K: Perhaps while discussing and developing the "we don't like Mako and elevators because..." arguments, the development team had some other ideas that they wanted to add. i mean, we are allowed to fit our own ideas into our own game as well as fan ideas, are we not?

Yes, but in both these cases it just seems like you missed the point regarding the good aspects of them and replaced them with things that completely defeat the purpose and ignore these factors (namely, the loading screens and Hammerhead).

Only you guys know for absolute sure of course, but the message sent to me with the choices you made with ME2 just says to me that you missed the point. The elevators were actually good at keeping one immersed in the game by purposefully ignoring loading screens in favour of a more natural transition. They merely needed to be sped up and not removed. Regarding The Mako, it wasn't the vehicle that was the main issue but the worlds we had to drive it on. The Hammerhead is an awful, gamey vehicle that completely misses what was actually fun and practical about The Mako in the first place.

It just seems that in both cases (and in other ones) you noted that these things were a problem, but you didn't (seem to) look into why they were a problem.

It just seems to me you guys in most cases where there were complaints about ME1 cut off your noses to spite your face and threw the baby out with the bathwater. Simply put, you overcompensated for ME1's failings and took away what was good about them in the process for the sake of simplicity and a more user-friendly approach. You guys didn't just cut the fat on these things, you cut off a whole bunch of good meat too, leaving a tiny, simple portion that just isn't satisfying enough.

No, most people before ME2 said they did not want Elevators, I remember reading it up after ME1 came out. Same with the Mako it self, people complained about the planet and the mako it self and how bad it was to drive it. Anyways, I don't think that Bioware should listen to the fans on forums, because they are just listening to a small number of people/ If the forums were the voice of the majority, you would think most people played fem shep, but the statitics show otherwise.

When a Porsche misses one wheel then the car sucks, to put it simple. You can either add the missing wheel to fix the actual problem or you can blow up the Porsche and buy a new speed boat.

[sanadawarrior]

Terror_K wrote...

I'd actually say a majority of fans do actually. Or at the very least they lurk here. The majority of players on the other hand is a different story, and you'd be right there. But who should they make the game more for: fans who really love the game as more than just a game and get into the IP, or the greater masses of more casual players to whom Mass Effect is just another game that'll probably be traded in next year for the next CoD, Halo or Gears of War?

Thats a pretty huge assumption. I have a friend who loves ME2, has played it through at least 5 or 6 times, gotten all achievements, and done the same for the first game and he has never even come here once.  In fact out of all of my friends who love ME and ME2 I am the only one who comes here at all.

Edit: Think about it, out of the 2 million plus copies of Mass Effect 2 sold, only the few hundred people on these forums are Fans? You are kiding yourself if you believe that.

Modifié par sanadawarrior, 15 décembre 2010 - 03:17 .

[sinosleep]

sanadawarrior wrote...

Thats a pretty huge assumption. I have a friend who loves ME2, has played it through at least 5 or 6 times, gotten all achievements, and done the same for the first game and he has never even come here once.  In fact out of all of my friends who love ME and ME2 I am the only one who comes here at all.

Edit: Think about it, out of the 2 million plus copies of Mass Effect 2 sold, only the few hundred people on these forums are Fans? You are kiding yourself if you believe that.

And even those numbers are hugely misleading. Many people will register at a forum to ask ONE OR TWO questions and never post again. It's quite telling that I run into the SAME group of 15 or so posters OVER AND OVER AND OVER again on these forums. The actual number of people who post here on a regular basis are a fraction of a fraction of a miniscule percentage of "fans" of the game.

Modifié par sinosleep, 15 décembre 2010 - 03:32 .

[Captain_Obvious_au]

Vena_86 wrote...

When a Porsche misses one wheel then the car sucks, to put it simple. You can either add the missing wheel to fix the actual problem or you can blow up the Porsche and buy a new speed boat.

A pretty apt analogy really.

[Elite Midget]

They listen but the demands of the vocal minority isn't going to change what they have planned for their games. Especially when they're selling as good as they are.

[Kolos2]

DA a lot, ME ? where was the last time a dev or a writer posted ?

[schneeland]

Well, I do believe they listen - and while I don't think, they are reading through every 20+ pages thread every day, they will probably have an idea about what people here on the forums like and what they don't like.



Being a developer myself (business applications, not games, though), I believe the real problems start afterwards:

- What seems easy and a minor correction to the user may actually cause significant work for the developer. Technical limitations can be deadly beasts.

- Developers and game designers will have their own ideas on how that game should look like. Also, as hinted before, when listening too much to some vocal fans, you may end up with a game that only a few hundred people will buy.

- Finally: Budget. With a fixed amount of money invested in a game, at some point in time, you will have to decide whether to take in feature A, spent more time on feature B or think about feature C.



That does not mean that good suggestions from the community are not sometimes overlooked or forgotten - but my general impression is that Bioware is quite passionate about making games their fans like.

[Ahriman]

I remember old ME2 wishlist thread and a lot of those wishes was accepted by Bioware. I don't like their decisions about some things, but still.
I think now we have another situation with ME3. There is many contradictory requests (remove/keep clipses, mako/hammerhead, inventory etc), so Bioware have to choose their main auditory or ignore both sides and do what they want.

[Praetor Knight]

I'll just add or repeat this.



For ME3, Bioware does track how we play the game. So there is a more than the forums where Bioware gets feedback on the game from players.



I just want to have a great story and have the game evolve as it has from ME to ME2.



Although, I wouldn't mind taking the Mako out for another spin, for old times sake.

[-Skorpious-]

Kolos2 wrote...

DA a lot, ME ? where was the last time a dev or a writer posted ?

Following the announcment of ME2 the devs became much more involved in the everyday happenings of the forum. Since DA2 is close to release, and fans have loads of questions before they consider buying a new product, the DA team is more inclined to post of the forums to address any questions.

Just give the ME dev's some time. I'm sure in the next 1-3 months (when the real information comes) dev comments will spike tremendously.

[Aurica]

Pwner1323 wrote...

The problem is that everyone (almost) in the forums are a bunch of ungrateful whiners. They ask for Earth, BW delivers and now they're complaining that it will all revolve around earth because of a 1:00 min. trailer and a 3 sentence narration.....

WTF!?

Yeah, people in general can be rather whiny.  But the grateful part? I don't agree with it.  You are a paying customer why do you have to be grateful for something you paid for, its not like you got it for free. 

Overall,  I'm happy with the products Bioware came out with.  But I can't say the same for other games under the EA franchise....<_<

On the whole, I do think that Bioware takes in our feedback to evaluate the game they made.  And just because a certain feature does not make it in the game does not mean that they aren't listening.   There are so many fans out there with different preferences, its impossible to please everybody.

Anyway, I heard that Garrus & Tali being romancable were due to influences by the fan-base.  So correct me if I'm wrong here.

Modifié par Aurica, 15 décembre 2010 - 04:45 .

[Captain_Obvious_au]

Well Pwner has a partially valid point, people do jump to conclusions a lot. I mean with the Earth example, there isn't any confirmation yet that we'll even visit Earth, let alone have the finale there. I for one am content to wait and see what happens.



I disagree however about people being ungrateful and whiny. I prefer to look at it as constructive criticism - keep Bioware on their toes, always push for a way to do it better rather than just suck up to them and encourage the franchise becoming stale.

[nelly21]

Captain_Obvious_au wrote...

I disagree however about people being ungrateful and whiny. I prefer to look at it as constructive criticism - keep Bioware on their toes, always push for a way to do it better rather than just suck up to them and encourage the franchise becoming stale.

Except 9 times out of 10, that isn't what happens. People on these forums don't post suggestions on how to make the franchise more successful. They post suggestion on how to make the game better for them personally.

Bioware is constantly changing their approach in games. With Mass Effect, they wanted the hybrid approach. What was the reaction from the forum critics? "It isn't rpg enough!" or "It's too dumbed down!" or "the story sucks!". Are these suggestions that reflect Mas Effect 2's success? No. They are whiny posts from whiny posters who wanted Mass Effect to cater to their taste. onstructive criticism would be: suggesting that squaddies get customizable gear like Shep, adding more talents to learn while leveling up, making cover less obvious in fire fights, etc. That is constructive criticism I've heard on these forums. But for the most part? No.

Bioware has a specific direction they want to take Mass Effect in. Demanding they overhaul their system (thereby denying the popularity of the franchise) in order to suit what you think is the "right way" of doing it is not constructive criticism. It's ****ing.