364 réponses à ce sujet

[Amioran]

Dorian the Monk of Sune wrote...

Nah I kid. Really I dont think gamers have changed much. My guess is console gamers were so sick of spiky haired blob combat that they were willing to take anything that wasn’t turnbased and the developers misread their audience’s tolerance for anything that isn’t turnbased as a shot on strategy. If the market was never split in the late 90s and the masses got to play the infinity engine games we would never settle for such regression with Bioware.

A toggle for FF has never existed in a party based CRPG, it is not a problem of present, nor of "lazy" devs (as someone seems to think), or for "I want all at once" users. So there's no regression at all here.

Now if you talk about FF in general then I can understand what you are saying, but we were talking specifically about a toggle independent from difficulty, so all your rant has not much sense given that it has never been done, not now nor in the past.

[diviator]

Peter Thomas wrote...

Friendly fire is only on Nightmare. There were discussions on it months ago (including toggles, having it not be toggle-able in certain modes, and even locked difficulty levels) and that was the decision that was reached.

For reference, here are our current goals for difficulty balance:

Casual - Able to be beaten playing a single character sub-optimally, with the rest of the party using default AI tactics.

Normal - Able to be beaten playing a single character optimally, with the rest of the party using default AI tactics.

Hard - Able to be beaten playing the entire party sub-optimally, either controlling directly or using custom AI tactics.

Nightmare - Able to be beaten playing the entire party optimally, either controlling directly or using custom AI tactics. Friendly fire active.

And what exactly are the reasons for this decision?
- Some people in this thread (including me) think that the real-time mode is the reason. Please tell me that we are wrong and that you have a real decent reason to do that, becaue I love RPGs but I don't get/understand this.

For me an area of effect damage spell has to deal friendly fire in most situations (specially the hot one). I want to get punished for not beeing careful or thinking about using it.

In DAO I have to think about useing these spells. Do I cast them so that
I barely hit the enemy with a chance that they will run out of the area
and chase my mage or do I place the spell so that I hit the enemies for
sure but also my companion?

I can't see the challenge in a diabled FF mode.
BUT I have faith in you that you can balance it out. I simply don't understand it and would like to know the reason.
I also hope you don't do it so you can save some scripts that will stop enemy spellcasters from blowing up allies.

What do you suggest for us RPG fans that love friendly fire or think that it should be in a game. Are we suppose to play nightmare because it will be just like the hard mode simply with FF activated? Should we wait a few days for a mod that activates FF in normal and hard mode?



But here is something I can predict that will happen in the first few days (at least for the PC version):
- We will see threads complaining about the game, because it is too easy and mage too powerful. (Wait I have a deja'vu.)

[In Exile]

FF prevents you from spamming spells in the midst of your own party, but that's about it. Let's not overstate the challenge that FF poses when it's enabled from a tactical standpoint. Just as an aside.

[Ziggeh]

In Exile wrote...

FF prevents you from spamming spells in the midst of your own party, but that's about it. Let's not overstate the challenge that FF poses when it's enabled from a tactical standpoint. Just as an aside.

It had a bigger effect on crowd control than on damage.

[Xewaka]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

In Exile wrote...

FF prevents you from spamming spells in the midst of your own party, but that's about it. Let's not overstate the challenge that FF poses when it's enabled from a tactical standpoint. Just as an aside.

It had a bigger effect on crowd control than on damage.

Besides, some challenge is more than no challenge. I'd like more.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

FF prevents you from spamming spells in the midst of your own party, but that's about it. Let's not overstate the challenge that FF poses when it's enabled from a tactical standpoint. Just as an aside.

The practical effect of this is that AoE spells, when used, will tend to hit fewer opponents because they need to be more carefully placed.  It's like a nerf on AoE damage.

However, when enemies are subject to FF it behaves like a bonus to PC damage, as the enemies tend to hit themselves a lot.  This was quite prominent in NWN - at low levels meeting an enemy sorcerer was like an "I win" button because all of his minions would promptly get killed by his first Fireball.

[Ziggeh]

Xewaka wrote...

Besides, some challenge is more than no challenge. I'd like more.

Me too. I'd also like them to resolve problems, so ideally I'd like them to find ways of adding challenge that don't have the issues FF apparently does. Seems they're doing that, so I'm largely content.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I don't think FF has issues that need fixing.

And regardless, now that Laidlaw says that DAO PC was too dificult, I have every reason to expect Nightmare to be acceptable for me.

[Dorian the Monk of Sune]

Amioran wrote...

A toggle for FF has never existed in a party based CRPG, it is not a problem of present, nor of "lazy" devs (as someone seems to think), or for "I want all at once" users. So there's no regression at all here.

Now if you talk about FF in general then I can understand what you are saying, but we were talking specifically about a toggle independent from difficulty, so all your rant has not much sense given that it has never been done, not now nor in the past.

When I said Bioware has regressed I'm generalizing about the mechanics, and technical aspects of the gameplay post BG 2. I'm not referring to FF. I see that as more of a bad design decision than a pattern of regression. The reason I consider it bad design is that even if they balanced the game so bombing tanks isn’t an overpowered tactic I’m dubious to what you have to tilt to make such a tactic balanced. And I at least a few others like to roleplay which means we don’t play the game optimally. In DA:O I had a terrible party. I doubt I could have beaten the game on Nightmare.

[Dorian the Monk of Sune]

diviator wrote...


And what exactly are the reasons for this decision?
- Some people in this thread (including me) think that the real-time mode is the reason. Please tell me that we are wrong and that you have a real decent reason to do that, becaue I love RPGs but I don't get/understand this.

You could play DA:O in realtime, and hard is balanced for full party control so why would that be the reason? Most of their testers are probably compulsive tank bombers that have a harder time with friendly fire. So hard that it dramatically curves the difficulty. Thats close to Gaider's explanation.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
The practical effect of this is that AoE spells, when used, will tend to hit fewer opponents because they need to be more carefully placed.  It's like a nerf on AoE damage.

That depends a lot on your playstyle. You can still be happy to burn your own party if they have resistance or you can heal them rapidly, and most of the time you can just open with AoE damage.

A single fireball on a closer will knock them down, you can then spam single damage spells, and knock them down again with a second mage fireball as they get up and close with your warriors.

IMO, all it does is encourage you to frontload your damage.

However, when enemies are subject to FF it behaves like a bonus to PC damage, as the enemies tend to hit themselves a lot.  This was quite prominent in NWN - at low levels meeting an enemy sorcerer was like an "I win" button because all of his minions would promptly get killed by his first Fireball.

The AI is really bad with FF. I can't think of a game that did this well.

[In Exile]

Dorian the Monk of Sune wrote...
And I at least a few others like to roleplay which means we don’t play the game optimally. In DA:O I had a terrible party. I doubt I could have beaten the game on Nightmare.

That isn't true. You can easily roleplay a character who is ruthlessly efficient. This clearly means the character would optmize if possible.

[Ziggeh]

distinguetraces wrote...
 you chose to frustrate any subgroup of fans unnecessarily.

Perhaps they didn't.

[Ziggeh]

distinguetraces wrote...
No? Peter's explanation of the decision rested on the worry that some players might accidentally go into the options menu and turn on friendly fire there, but then find themselves unable to turn it back off again.

Perhaps I have too much faith in human nature, but I have difficulty believing that the group of people who would be prone to such difficulties is a larger set than those who would enjoy having the flexibility to turn the feature on and off at will.

That wasn't peter's explanation (or even peter, for that matter), but given the information we currently have available I think it's a sizable assumption, and not a little insulting to the developers to suggest decisions are made unnecessarily.

[David Gaider]

distinguetraces wrote...

ziggehunderslash wrote...
insulting to the developers

I'm fairly sure they'll recover.

No no, we were devastated. Mike was crying for days. It was horrible.

[Nighteye2]

Peter Thomas wrote...
Friendly fire is only on Nightmare. There were discussions on it months ago (including toggles, having it not be toggle-able in certain modes, and even locked difficulty levels) and that was the decision that was reached.

For reference, here are our current goals for difficulty balance:

Casual - Able to be beaten playing a single character sub-optimally, with the rest of the party using default AI tactics.

Normal - Able to be beaten playing a single character optimally, with the rest of the party using default AI tactics.

Hard - Able to be beaten playing the entire party sub-optimally, either controlling directly or using custom AI tactics.

Nightmare - Able to be beaten playing the entire party optimally, either controlling directly or using custom AI tactics. Friendly fire active.

That sounds like Nightmare is the normal for tactical PC players. Which also means that a difficulty level is missing, one notch higher than the current Nightmare target.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

That depends a lot on your playstyle. You can still be happy to burn your own party if they have resistance or you can heal them rapidly, and most of the time you can just open with AoE damage.

A single fireball on a closer will knock them down, you can then spam single damage spells, and knock them down again with a second mage fireball as they get up and close with your warriors.

IMO, all it does is encourage you to frontload your damage.

That should make threat management more difficult though, shouldn't it?  With multiple mages you can easily control the location of the enemies, but with a single mage he'd get swarmed a lot.

The AI is really bad with FF. I can't think of a game that did this well.

Nor can I, which is why I think it's weird to have FF only on the highest difficulty level.  In my experience, FF makes games easier because it makes it possible for the enemies to kill each other (especially with melee AoE attacks - I wonder if that's why they reduced melee FF by 90%).

[Sylvius the Mad]

distinguetraces wrote...

No? Peter's explanation of the decision rested on the worry that some players might accidentally go into the options menu and turn on friendly fire there, but then find themselves unable to turn it back off again.

Perhaps I have too much faith in human nature, but I have difficulty believing that the group of people who would be prone to such difficulties is a larger set than those who would enjoy having the flexibility to turn the feature on and off at will.

I have a very low opinion of humanity.  This justification seems entirely reasonable (and serves to make me ever more misanthropic).

[Dorian the Monk of Sune]

In Exile wrote...

That isn't true. You can easily roleplay a character who is ruthlessly efficient. This clearly means the character would optmize if possible.

Only on Nightmare where you are possibly forced to play the game with such efficiency anyway. A ruthlessly efficient PC should be rewarded.