364 réponses à ce sujet

[Am1vf]

This tread is starting to make my head hurt. I don't know how hard or not is FF to balance, i don't think it would be impossible but if they say it is not worth it, I just hope that they didn't make that decision considering it only a matter of difficulty.



Anyway, the game will surely be fun for me even if the fighting is completelly broken as long as the story and the characters are interesting.

[In Exile]

TucoBenedicto wrote...
That's cause what you are suggesting it's the wrong way to handle it.

You don't create a tactical battle balancing FF off. You balance your combat system with FF turned on, to any difficulty level, and just then you give an ulterior option to incompetent players which want an easy mode where they don't have to think or plan anything and can just nuke everything AOE, mindlessly.

That's just the opposite of what Bioware is doing. All you're saying is, FF should be the default instead of the reverse. You're not proving that FF requires less work, just that if FF was the default we'd have more difficulties with FF.

...Which has nothing to do with the toggle argument.

[Qset]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

Aermas wrote...

Just because they added more doesn't mean they should get rid of the old

I've been waiting two years to use this in conversation, so thanks:

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

classic, you have been waiting two years to use it and then you use it wrongly

[TucoBenedicto]

In Exile wrote...
That's just the opposite of what Bioware is doing.

And that's exactly the problem.

All you're saying is, FF should be the default instead of the reverse. You're not proving that FF requires less work

Well, maybe cause I don't think so? I think, instead, that FF by default makes a better game by a far lenght.
And the toggle should  supposedly be aimed just for all these casual gamers who simply don't like better games and just want their simpliest, easiest version. Which is a very bad thing, but that would be their loss, so who cares.

[In Exile]

TucoBenedicto wrote...
And that's exactly the problem.

But that's not what we were debating. Yes, I agree, Bioware should have FF on every difficulty. It makes the game harder and more fun. But they're not, and people are wrong to say a toggle wouldn't require a lot of work to implement.

Well, maybe cause I don't think so? I think, instead, that FF by default makes a better game by a far lenght.
And the toggle should  supposedly be aimed just for all these casual gamers who simply don't like better games and just want their simpliest, easiest version. Which is a very bad thing, but that would be their loss, so who cares.

Who cares about how you feel? I think you deserve the same curtesy you extend to others.

[Qset]

I think I can see why they have done this as FF is more prevalent in game now since from Peter Thomas's thread we know that:
1. S&B warriors do AOE now but in a limited arc and very close range
2. 2H warriors do AOE now, wider arc that S&B and slightly greater range
3. There are a lot more AOE dmg spells from mage types
4. Archer Rogues appear to have a bit more AOE that DAO (from PC demo)

So FF will have a greater impact on play. I would still like to see some level of FF at hard mode though - maybe they can set it a 50% at that level at least. FF ON does add some nice tactical elements and playing with and without is almost another playthru as the game would feel very different.

Modifié par Qset, 18 décembre 2010 - 04:50 .

[TucoBenedicto]

In Exile wrote...
Who cares about how you feel? I think you deserve the same curtesy you extend to others.

I care, and very much.
But this is irrelevant, cause we are not arguing about how I feel, we are arguing about giving people options.

Modifié par TucoBenedicto, 18 décembre 2010 - 04:52 .

[In Exile]

Vaeliorin wrote...
That's a terrible argument.  With that logic, you should also remove all the advanced graphics options, because they don't work for everyone.  Just have a slider with poor/mediocre/good/great.  And heaven forbid that your operating system should have advanced user options, and maybe even a command prompt (where you can do all kinds of damage to your installation, and there's nothing to stop you!)

That's not the argument, though. Both your analogies miss the central crux, which is that an FF toggle could actively lie to users, in a way that graphical inequalities or the command promp can't. For one, the command prompt has an obvious baseline expertiese requirement that people that use computers would be aware of. The graphical fidelity has a hardware requirement people are roughly aware of.

But hard with FF being easier than normal with FF? That's not something people expect.

At some point, you have to stop trying to protect people from their own stupidity.  If someone were to turn on a friendly fire toggle and find it made the game too hard, it's not like they couldn't go back and turn it off (or turn down the overall difficulty to compensate.)  It's not a crime to give people options, and there's no reason that every option has to work for everyone (do the different difficulty options work for everyone?  Aren't Nightmare and Easy specific things for a specific audience?)

People are reducing things to this, but that's not the problem. If FF just made the game much harder, anyone could just go from nightmare no FF to easy FF, even if that was an inordinate difficutly jump.

Like I said, the problem is that FF changes the relatively difficulty between each setting, and that's what you need to balance. The issue comes from how AI mook bands behave and how resistances work, as well as what statistics the enemis have available.

[In Exile]

TucoBenedicto wrote...

I care, and very much.
But this is irrelevant, cause we are not arguing about how I feel, we are arguing about giving people options.

Well, no. You're actually arguing about swapping options, because you're leaving the same difficulty setting with more FF. So the people that like FF now have 4 difficulties to choose from instead of 1, and the people who don't want FF have 1 difficutly to choose from instead of 4.

You're not creating more choice. You're just changing which side gets the same choice.

[Ziggeh]

TucoBenedicto wrote...

But this is irrelevant, cause we are not arguing about how I feel, we are arguing about giving people options.

Mmm. Sort of.

I think we have two arguments going on:

1) Is FF important? The arguments for which are depth, realism and preference, none of which get you very far.
2) If a toggle was included, would they need to balance the results? Which itself is open to preference, but personally I think it's unrealistic to expect Bioware to not at the very least, want to.

Modifié par ziggehunderslash, 18 décembre 2010 - 05:00 .

[Xewaka]

In Exile wrote...

TucoBenedicto wrote...

I care, and very much.
But this is irrelevant, cause we are not arguing about how I feel, we are arguing about giving people options.

Well, no. You're actually arguing about swapping options, because you're leaving the same difficulty setting with more FF. So the people that like FF now have 4 difficulties to choose from instead of 1, and the people who don't want FF have 1 difficutly to choose from instead of 4.

You're not creating more choice. You're just changing which side gets the same choice.

With a Friendly Fire toggle, you double the number of choices. A rough informative scale should be enough to inform of the relative difficulty, such as: Easy < Normal < Easy with FF < Hard < Normal with FF < Very Hard < Hard with FF < Nightmare (Very hard + FF).
Have the information available to the player, so that he can mix and match. The problem with a FF toggle, as some people see it, is that it misleads people on their difficulty choice. A simple scale as above on the options screen would avoid any misleading.
Then again, I tend to assume that people is smart enough to read and pick options instead of randomly flipping switches.

[TucoBenedicto]

In Exile wrote...

TucoBenedicto wrote...

I care, and very much.
But this is irrelevant, cause we are not arguing about how I feel, we are arguing about giving people options.

Well, no. You're actually arguing about swapping options, because you're leaving the same difficulty setting with more FF. So the people that like FF now have 4 difficulties to choose from instead of 1, and the people who don't want FF have 1 difficutly to choose from instead of 4.

You're not creating more choice. You're just changing which side gets the same choice.

Ehr, no, not at all? I'm advocating for the friendly fire as a toggle option here, instead of giving it "hard wired" with the difficulty level you pick, so I'm theoretically giving 4 and 4 to each.
Of course, I think the main balance in this case should be done around FF turned on, for obvious reasons.
First, cause it makes more sense. Second, cause if you do otherwise you can make an huge mess, making the game a pain on harder levels to players who want friendly fire.

Someone here is arguing that if you do it so, it will change the balance for players who want FF off, but I can't see the problem, considering how people who want FF off are obviously players aiming for a less challenging experience.

Modifié par TucoBenedicto, 18 décembre 2010 - 05:03 .

[errant_knight]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

errant_knight wrote...
 I probably should have phrased it differently, though, and said that it would remove an element that I find integral to a sense of realism in tactics rather than that it makes them meaningless.

Ah, well, realism isn't an argument that you can take very far either, though I do understand what you mean.

I get that it's fantasy, and there's magic and dragons and all, but I just find it all more immersive if physics don't cease to exist. Which I suppose is interesting in itself. I can more easily believe in dragons than that physics isn't unchangable.

Modifié par errant_knight, 18 décembre 2010 - 05:05 .

[Am1vf]

ziggehunderslash wrote...
 Is FF important? The arguments for which are depth, realism and preference, none of which get you very far.

If  none of those is important, what do you consider important for the gameplay?

Modifié par Am1_vf, 18 décembre 2010 - 05:07 .

[Ziggeh]

errant_knight wrote...

I get that it's fantasy, and there's magic and dragons and all, but I just find it all more immersive if physics don't cease to exist. Which I suppose is interesting in itself. I can more easily believe in dragons than that physics is unchangable.

It's more than it's an abstraction than it is fantastical. If you run into your friends fireball, rather than second degree burns and the crippling pain that involves, your health bar goes down a bit.

We could get into the subjective nature of belief suspension, but what it boils down to is that we don't mean "realism", we mean something along the lines of "lack of previous acceptance of the specific abstraction".

[Herr Uhl]

errant_knight wrote...

ziggehunderslash wrote...

errant_knight wrote...
 I probably should have phrased it differently, though, and said that it would remove an element that I find integral to a sense of realism in tactics rather than that it makes them meaningless.

Ah, well, realism isn't an argument that you can take very far either, though I do understand what you mean.

I get that it's fantasy, and there's magic and dragons and all, but I just find it all more immersive if physics don't cease to exist. Which I suppose is interesting in itself. I can more easily believe in dragons than that physics isn't unchangable.

I think he means more the existence of hit-points judging from earlier posts.

The magic and dragons meaning that there doesn't have to be any kind of realism argument is one of my pet peeves on the other hand.

[Ziggeh]

Am1_vf wrote...

ziggehunderslash wrote...
 Is FF important? The arguments for which are depth, realism and preference, none of which get you very far.

If  none of those is important, what do you consider important for the gameplay?

I'm not saying they're unimportant, I'm saying they don't work as counter arguments to Biowares position.

See above for realism.

The depth argument so far has been largely based on the DA:O model, which isn't entirely compatable. We know they're adding some depth and removing some, and so we have no real indication of what the overall effect is. It's looking at elements in isolation, which is fairly meaningless.

Preference, sure. Got no qualms at all with people saying they just like FF. But that's not an argument that carries much persuasive weight.

[Xewaka]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

It's more than it's an abstraction than it is fantastical. If you run into your friends fireball, rather than second degree burns and the crippling pain that involves, your health bar goes down a bit.

We could get into the subjective nature of belief suspension, but what it boils down to is that we don't mean "realism", we mean something along the lines of "lack of previous acceptance of the specific abstraction".

This is why I use "internal consistency" rather than realism. Arbitrary breaks of the rules stablished by the setting are detrimental to the same. Why use an expansive ball of fire? Why not use multiple striking pin-pointed fire bolts? The effect would be the same, but the no FF would be much more easily discarded that way.

[In Exile]

Xewaka wrote...
With a Friendly Fire toggle, you double the number of choices. A rough informative scale should be enough to inform of the relative difficulty, such as: Easy < Normal < Easy with FF < Hard < Normal with FF < Very Hard < Hard with FF < Nightmare (Very hard + FF).

He didn't ask for a toggle.

Have the information available to the player, so that he can mix and match. The problem with a FF toggle, as some people see it, is that it misleads people on their difficulty choice. A simple scale as above on the options screen would avoid any misleading.
Then again, I tend to assume that people is smart enough to read and pick options instead of randomly flipping switches.

Oy vey. Listen, the very thing you pressupose has to be play-tested. You can't have that kind of ordinal ranking without resource investment. But that's not actually what I object to, because I don't think an FF toggle needs to allow the player to place each difficutly with FF relative to a non-FF difficutly.

No, the problem is within each FF difficutly.

TucoBenedicto wrote...

Ehr, no, not at all? I'm advocating
for the friendly fire as a toggle option here, instead of giving it
"hard wired" with the difficulty level you pick, so I'm theoretically
giving 4 and 4 to each.

Then the toggle is more work, and your argument is just plain wrong to say it isn't.

Which also isn't what you said here:

''You balance your combat system with FF turned on, to any difficulty
level, and just then you give an ulterior option to incompetent players
which want an easy mode where they don't have to think or plan anything
and can just nuke everything AOE, mindlessly.''

Sounds like 4+ 1 to me.

Of course, I think the main balance in this case should be done
around FF turned on, for obvious reasons.
First, cause it makes more
sense. Second, cause if you do otherwise you can make an huge mess,
making the game a pain on harder levels to players who want friendly
fire.

It doesn't avoid the problem. It just shifts it to making sure the non-FF power-scale is still coherent without FF.

Someone here is arguing that if you do it so, it will change the
balance for players who want FF off, but I can't see the problem,
considering how people who want FF off are obviously players aiming for a
less challenging experience.

I'm going to try this for the 3rd page in a row. The problem is that the difficutly setting will lie to you if it is not balanced. Easy has to be easier than normal. That requires balancing, and if you choose FF or non-FF as your default, you can easily run into a scenario where your ordinal ranking on the other one is broken.

errant_knight wrote...
I get that it's fantasy, and there's
magic and dragons and all, but I just find it all more immersive if
physics don't cease to exist. Which I suppose is interesting in itself. I
can more easily believe in dragons than that physics isn't
unchangable.

...But dragons and magic violate the laws of physics in and of themselves.

[Am1vf]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

Am1_vf wrote...

ziggehunderslash wrote...
 Is FF important? The arguments for which are depth, realism and preference, none of which get you very far.

If  none of those is important, what do you consider important for the gameplay?

I'm not saying they're unimportant, I'm saying they don't work as counter arguments to Biowares position.

See above for realism.

The depth argument so far has been largely based on the DA:O model, which isn't entirely compatable. We know they're adding some depth and removing some, and so we have no real indication of what the overall effect is. It's looking at elements in isolation, which is fairly meaningless.

Preference, sure. Got no qualms at all with people saying they just like FF. But that's not an argument that carries much persuasive weight.

Well, it is not like we could say "people wil get killed if you do this", bioware makes videogames, not airplanes (altough looking at how upset some people is arround this forums it may seem so) we are talking about something we want to be fun and for some people the lack of "internal consistency" or "previous acceptance of the specific abstraction" can ruin it.

Modifié par Am1_vf, 18 décembre 2010 - 05:28 .

[Ziggeh]

Xewaka wrote...

This is why I use "internal consistency" rather than realism. Arbitrary breaks of the rules stablished by the setting are detrimental to the same.

Someone mentioned that term came from an essay on the term? I should try to track that down. I'm not entirely convinced it should apply to games in quite the same way I would very certainly argue it does film and television.

It leads to defending clearly broken systems on the basis that they've been established. Not saying that's the case here, but it means it's not a firm position, so I'm not entirely happy with it's use. Might be that that essay establishes a certain definition I'm not using though.

Modifié par ziggehunderslash, 18 décembre 2010 - 05:33 .

[Ziggeh]

Am1_vf wrote...

we are talking about something we want to be fun and for some people the lack of "internal consistency" or "previous acceptance of the specific abstraction" can ruin it.

And so can poor difficulty balance. Isolation problem again.

[TucoBenedicto]

In Exile wrote...
Then the toggle is more work, and your argument is just plain wrong to say it isn't.

I never EVER said otherwise. I just think it's a *necessary* work if you want to give a fair amount of freedom to your players.

''You balance your combat system with FF turned on, to any difficulty
level, and just then you give an ulterior option to incompetent players
which want an easy mode where they don't have to think or plan anything
and can just nuke everything AOE, mindlessly.''

Sounds like 4+ 1 to me.

 
Cause you are obviously reading it wrong. they are 4+4. 8 difficulty settings spacing between easy with FF off and Nightmare with FF on.
And you odn't have to balance all 8 of them, you can just balance the 4 with FF on and then give people a toggle, as I already stated many times.

It doesn't avoid the problem. It just shifts it to making sure the non-FF power-scale is still coherent without FF.

Not very relevant. People who don't want FF on are obviously people aiming for a less challenging experience, so they will get what they are looking for with a toggle.

I'm going to try this for the 3rd page in a row. The problem is that the difficutly setting will lie to you if it is not balanced. Easy has to be easier than normal. That requires balancing, and if you choose FF or non-FF as your default, you can easily run into a scenario where your ordinal ranking on the other one is broken.

And again, wouldn't it be exactly what "no FF people" were looking for?
If you pick an easy setting and toggle off the FF option, you are clearly asking yourself  for an even easier version of the game, and so on for any other level.
It isn't a problem cause it's exactly what these people are demanding.
It would be a huge problem if the game was balanced around "FF off" and they accidentaly made it almost impossible cause of bad design with skills and spells not balanced for FF on.

Arguing against FF and then demanding a more challenging game just doesn't make any sense, to be honest. Who would do that?
it would be like asking for a professional motorcycle with small wheels for children on  each side.

Modifié par TucoBenedicto, 18 décembre 2010 - 05:46 .

[Am1vf]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

Am1_vf wrote...

we are talking about something we want to be fun and for some people the lack of "internal consistency" or "previous acceptance of the specific abstraction" can ruin it.

And so can poor difficulty balance. Isolation problem again.

That is true.

But I don't know how hard is it to balance, that is why I said I can live with it if it is not worth the effort of properly implementing it. All I hope is that when deciding to remove the FF they considered how it will affect that  "internal consistency"and they didn't see it just as a matter of dificulty of gameplay.

[Ziggeh]

Am1_vf wrote...
All I hope is that when deciding to remove the FF they considered how it will affect that  "internal consistency"and they didn't see it just as a matter of dificulty of gameplay.

Last time I said this Mr Gaider informed us they have proper knock-down-drag-outs: I would hope decisions like this are the result of strong debate, if not blazing rows.