495 réponses à ce sujet

[Sharn01]

wwwwowwww wrote...

I guess this all makes sense if you've played ME, which I have not but I swear I know most everything about the game from reading the DA2 forums.

Outfits that are personable to the characters give them character, go with their personality and make them seem more like companions rather than an extra group of people I control. When it comes to customization I want care about my Hawke and nobody else, so I like the fact that they have "static" outfits.

Unfortunately Hawke is going to be stuck in whatever horrible looking and probably clipping outfits you can find while everyone else gets a thematic look.  I still would love to design Hawke's outfit myself or at least be given several options to choose from.  I still want to find upgrades, I just dont feel they should unfluence appearance, at least competely influence it.  Warriors should have plate options for instance, you shouldnt be able to have Hawke running around in her underwear but equiped with plate armor.

[wwwwowwww]

Sharn01 wrote...

wwwwowwww wrote...

I guess this all makes sense if you've played ME, which I have not but I swear I know most everything about the game from reading the DA2 forums.

Outfits that are personable to the characters give them character, go with their personality and make them seem more like companions rather than an extra group of people I control. When it comes to customization I want care about my Hawke and nobody else, so I like the fact that they have "static" outfits.

Unfortunately Hawke is going to be stuck in whatever horrible looking and probably clipping outfits you can find while everyone else gets a thematic look.  I still would love to design Hawke's outfit myself or at least be given several options to choose from.  I still want to find upgrades, I just dont feel they should unfluence appearance, at least competely influence it.  Warriors should have plate options for instance, you shouldnt be able to have Hawke running around in her underwear but equiped with plate armor.

Sorry but I'm not understanding what you mean.

you shouldnt be able to have Hawke running around in her underwear but equiped with plate armor?

[Maria Caliban]

In general, streamlining something is good design. It has connotations of sleekness and efficiency.

I wouldn't use it as a synonym for 'watered-down.' To water something down suggests adding something lesser to dilute the experience.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 28 décembre 2010 - 05:37 .

[Sharn01]

wwwwowwww wrote...

Sharn01 wrote...

wwwwowwww wrote...

I guess this all makes sense if you've played ME, which I have not but I swear I know most everything about the game from reading the DA2 forums.

Outfits that are personable to the characters give them character, go with their personality and make them seem more like companions rather than an extra group of people I control. When it comes to customization I want care about my Hawke and nobody else, so I like the fact that they have "static" outfits.

Unfortunately Hawke is going to be stuck in whatever horrible looking and probably clipping outfits you can find while everyone else gets a thematic look.  I still would love to design Hawke's outfit myself or at least be given several options to choose from.  I still want to find upgrades, I just dont feel they should unfluence appearance, at least competely influence it.  Warriors should have plate options for instance, you shouldnt be able to have Hawke running around in her underwear but equiped with plate armor.

Sorry but I'm not understanding what you mean.

you shouldnt be able to have Hawke running around in her underwear but equiped with plate armor?

I am saying I would like to design Hawke's armor so long as it would be kept reasonable, plate is plate, leather is leather and robes are robes.   I still want to find upgrades to equip, I just think that Hawke should be able to have a thematic custom look that the player chooses, just like the NPC's have a thematic custom look that the Devs chose from them.

[Wicked 702]

OHHH OHHH! Can I jump into the semantics argument too???



From my perspective he was the using the term to describe simplification, which is one of the definitions (to simplify). In that context, I think he was using the term correctly.



*stares down the opposition*

[AlanC9]

Wicked 702 wrote...
But presumably and in a very significant way, they have also limited "stat" customization. In DA:O you had the helmet, gloves, armor, and boots slots to mix and match stats to your liking. Assuming static outfits also means the removal of the player's ability to augment the stats of the NPCs vis-a-vis those four slots, is the trade-off still worth it?

I believe that such customization is handled on other , "accessory" slots. IIRC one of the podcasts mentioned earrings for Isabela, for instance. Plus rune slots, of course.

[Ortaya Alevli]

Enchanted earrings.

Okay.

I don't need any more proof. I'm convinced that Sandal is back in DA2.

[wwwwowwww]

Sharn01 wrote...

wwwwowwww wrote...

Sharn01 wrote...

wwwwowwww wrote...

I guess this all makes sense if you've played ME, which I have not but I swear I know most everything about the game from reading the DA2 forums.

Outfits that are personable to the characters give them character, go with their personality and make them seem more like companions rather than an extra group of people I control. When it comes to customization I want care about my Hawke and nobody else, so I like the fact that they have "static" outfits.

Unfortunately Hawke is going to be stuck in whatever horrible looking and probably clipping outfits you can find while everyone else gets a thematic look.  I still would love to design Hawke's outfit myself or at least be given several options to choose from.  I still want to find upgrades, I just dont feel they should unfluence appearance, at least competely influence it.  Warriors should have plate options for instance, you shouldnt be able to have Hawke running around in her underwear but equiped with plate armor.

Sorry but I'm not understanding what you mean.

you shouldnt be able to have Hawke running around in her underwear but equiped with plate armor?

I am saying I would like to design Hawke's armor so long as it would be kept reasonable, plate is plate, leather is leather and robes are robes.   I still want to find upgrades to equip, I just think that Hawke should be able to have a thematic custom look that the player chooses, just like the NPC's have a thematic custom look that the Devs chose from them.

Ah, I think that might be difficult given everyones different tastes lol, but I agree that would be cool

[Wicked 702]

AlanC9 wrote...

Wicked 702 wrote...
But presumably and in a very significant way, they have also limited "stat" customization. In DA:O you had the helmet, gloves, armor, and boots slots to mix and match stats to your liking. Assuming static outfits also means the removal of the player's ability to augment the stats of the NPCs vis-a-vis those four slots, is the trade-off still worth it?

I believe that such customization is handled on other , "accessory" slots. IIRC one of the podcasts mentioned earrings for Isabela, for instance. Plus rune slots, of course.

The question is intended to be subjective of course. Both of us are going to have a different opinion on what constitutes "different but equal" in this sense. The only true form of equal in all respects is to have the exact same number and composition of slots (available item choices) for all characters. Otherwise, it's an issue of artificial balance.

Are the earrings equivalent to the gloves she would have worn? In all respects? We could argue that all day...

[AlanC9]

Wicked 702 wrote...

OHHH OHHH! Can I jump into the semantics argument too???

From my perspective he was the using the term to describe simplification, which is one of the definitions (to simplify). In that context, I think he was using the term correctly.

*stares down the opposition*

No problem with that.

But we got into this mess back on page four with this move by Pwnsaur:

That to me is not a step-forward at all, it's definetely more of a streamlining shift. Streamlining (or watering down) is basically a function of trying to appeal to a wider target demographic with the risk of alienating your core to some degree, which is how I feel. Less micro-managing = easier/less complicated gameplay = less dedicated/casual audience = more money/less features. 

It isn't just simplification he's talking about. Hell, he even knew that his usage was questionable, since he qualified it with the parenthetical.

[In Exile]

TheMadCat wrote...
I don't think the HP system is the problem there, I think it's the incredibly simplistic combat mechanics (A flaw in almost all RPG's unfortunatly).

No, HP is the problem. So long as 1 hit does not dramatically incapacitate you, we've thrown realism out the window.

Mount & Blade is HP based but it handles combat fairly realisticly (Though this can be attributed to it's FP perspective and combat). If you're not wearing any head gear and someone shoots you in the face with an arrow 10 feet away you're going to die with one shot and on the flip side if you're wearing iron greeves and someone shoots you in the shin from 50 yards away you'll hardly feel it. 

That's unrealistic. Longbows are designed to penetrate armour. That's part of the reason why the French chivarly got trounced by the English. If you're wearing iron greaves, the arrow will go through your shin and cripple you. Aside from the incredible risk of dying from gangrene, you've got to deal with your blinding limp while people are rushing to kill you.

ETA:

An arrow from far away is actually worse than one close-up because it has time go gain momentum while it is up in the air. An arrow from close up has less time, comparatively. That's why archers fire up and not straight, to work with gravity instead of against.

Dragon Age, and really all BioWare games, almost completley ignore range and hit location. Smashing someone in the head with the hammer is the same as smashing their big toe and people live as you said take a dozen blows before finially succumbing.  

All RPGs severely underpower arrows.

I'd love to see them make it so that skills actually target specific body parts and allow you and the AI to exploit openings; speeding up battles and adding an entire layer to the combat system which is what the game really needed in my opinion rather then a ton of random flipping and rolling. Nothing but a pipe dream from a BioWare game though.

That wouldn't help. It would have to be 1-hit crippling, and that would make numbers relevant (like in the real world) making any kind of heroic fantasy impossible, since being outnumbered 2-1 would mean death for anyone except mobile artillery mages.

Pwnsaur wrote...
You proved nothing except there are more than
one definition for the word streamlining. Gratz on that.

i.e.more than one accept use for the word, which is context appropriate.

I
wanted to talk about customization (and the lack thereof) as well, but
when someone tries to 'correct' me on a word definition it gets to me a
bit. This may have something to do with my masters degree in English, or
the fact that my college aptitude in english puts me in the top 1% in
the country. But..yea.. If you feel a moral victory for quoting an
online dictionary to prove you are right....power to ya bro..

Are you talking about a GRE? Who cares? What does that have to do with anything?

In this context, what we are debating is whether there is anything to gain from unique apperance. Since we have been told we can customize statistics and that the armour upgrades statistically and we have no idea what this means, we actually don't know if we lost any meaningful statistical or otherwise tactical feature from DA:O. We know wecan equip rings, necklaces and belts just like in DA:O.

So even if you're right about the usage of the word streamlining  (which you're not), you're still trying to poison the well with it since it's arguable that this is what Bioware is doing.

It's no different than the ME2 debates, where Bioware shifted the statistical bonuses from gear to upgrades, and spaced them out across levels to match the power-curve from ME1 in terms of loot drops. The raw % increases aren't much different form ME1 to ME2 at least in terms of shield %s, which suggests that the overall power-curve is about the same.

Modifié par In Exile, 28 décembre 2010 - 06:19 .

[AlanC9]

Wicked 702 wrote...

The question is intended to be subjective of course. Both of us are going to have a different opinion on what constitutes "different but equal" in this sense. The only true form of equal in all respects is to have the exact same number and composition of slots (available item choices) for all characters. Otherwise, it's an issue of artificial balance.

Are the earrings equivalent to the gloves she would have worn? In all respects? We could argue that all day...

True that. Though since I'm something of a radical in not wanting item-based gameplay in the first place, I suppose we wouldn't have a very enlightening debate anyway.

[In Exile]

Wicked 702 wrote...

The question is intended to be subjective of course. Both of us are going to have a different opinion on what constitutes "different but equal" in this sense. The only true form of equal in all respects is to have the exact same number and composition of slots (available item choices) for all characters. Otherwise, it's an issue of artificial balance.

Are the earrings equivalent to the gloves she would have worn? In all respects? We could argue that all day...

She has all four equipment slots unless something changed.

You can see that the armour slots have been compressed into one single slot, and we have no idea how the game will handle statistical upgrades (which can happen and we might purchase; I can't recall) to the armour, but the other slots are the same as in DA:O.

So the issue will be what bonuses we get.

My bet is that each character has an armour class (light/medium/heavy/massive) and they get the base armour bonus from their particualr tier for that armour up to the maximum level at maximum level and we can modify the stat bonuses the armour gets.

So my guess is that it should be like Origins, with the difference being that each character is now stuck at a particular level of armour (so Zevran would be light only, instead of being able to pump STR and get massive armour).

[AlanC9]

Now I'm wondering where those earrings would go. Or am I misremembering the podcast?

Edit: I'm pretty sure the armor won't just have the tier abilities. It's also going to have stuff beyond that, more or less the same way the gear Hawke finds will have various bonuses.

Modifié par AlanC9, 28 décembre 2010 - 06:33 .

[In Exile]

AlanC9 wrote...

Now I'm wondering where those earrings would go. Or am I misremembering the podcast?

The necklace slot? I wouldn't be surprised.

ETA:

That might also be how the armour is customized. You buy "earings" for Isabella, and that leads to +2 willpower or whatever.

Modifié par In Exile, 28 décembre 2010 - 06:34 .

[wwwwowwww]

You know I've always been bothered by this 2 ring rule, I think it's so silly personally

[AlanC9]

wwwwowwww wrote...

You know I've always been bothered by this 2 ring rule, I think it's so silly personally

Blame Gygax.

[TheMadCat]

In Exile wrote...

No, HP is the problem. So long as 1 hit does not dramatically incapacitate you, we've thrown realism out the window.

We don't need to hit realism on the head here and I'm not implying we do, just strides that bring us closer rather then take us further away which 2 seems to be doing.

That's unrealistic. Longbows are designed to penetrate armour. That's part of the reason why the French chivarly got trounced by the English. If you're wearing iron greaves, the arrow will go through your shin and cripple you. Aside from the incredible risk of dying from gangrene, you've got to deal with your blinding limp while people are rushing to kill you.

No string bow was ever able to penetrate plate at over 50 yards, no clue where you got your information from.

www.youtube.com/watch

That was at 20 and got almost zero penetration.

All RPGs severely underpower arrows.

Most, not all. There have been a few where archery is a dominating dealer. Typically it does get brushed to the side as a support role though.

That wouldn't help. It would have to be 1-hit crippling, and that would make numbers relevant (like in the real world) making any kind of heroic fantasy impossible, since being outnumbered 2-1 would mean death for anyone except mobile artillery mages.

I don't understand why you're driving my comments towards strict realism, I'm quite aware this is a fantasy game and leanincies need to be taken. But that doesn't mean the game can't take strides to realism and praticality. The game actually accounting for hit selection, range, better armor values, lowered HP, etc, brings the game to that level while still allowing you to create that "heroic fantasy" feel. It doesn't need to be one hit your dead, but I don't believe the only other alternative is the model we've seen in Dragon Age. There is an inbetween area.

[Tamyn]

ShadyKat wrote...

TJPags wrote...

You do remember that she was wearing leather armor in Origins, right?

I honestly can't believe that you think it's normal, acceptable, practical, or in any way advantageous NOT to wear armor in a swordfight.  But so be it.

She's also a pirate, and they did indeed have sword fights, and did not wear armor.

But they did wear pants.

[Dave of Canada]

wwwwowwww wrote...

You know I've always been bothered by this 2 ring rule, I think it's so silly personally

It's to limit stats, either rings are limited to two slots and have decent bonuses (enough for you to use them and hunt them down) or you have bajillion / unlimited slots and they can't be too strong or you'd be overpowered by equipping all rings on a single character.

Personally I'd prefer limiting it, less of a technical hassle and you won't hoard rings for yourself and you'd be able to use them on companions too.

[Dave of Canada]

Tamyn wrote...

But they did wear pants.

They couldn't read, they didn't realize the "no shirts, no shoes, no service" rule didn't apply to pants.

[IrishSpectre257]

I would rather have a unique looking party member, than a party member that you can customize, but will always look generic. I kept Morrigan's original robes on her the entire game, and when I found unique looking armor, I gave it to a party member I thought it looked good on, regardless of stats.

[Ortaya Alevli]

I always thought magical jewelry should have been restricted to magic classes.

Ring under plate gauntlets isn't such a good idea anyway.

Ring over gauntlets? Like a butterfly on horse dung.

[errant_knight]

Maria Caliban wrote...

In general, streamlining something is good design. It has connotations of sleekness and efficiency.

I wouldn't use it as a synonym for 'watered-down.' To water something down suggests adding something lesser to dilute the experience.

I'm thinking 'gutted' works.

[In Exile]

TheMadCat wrote...
We don't need to hit realism on the head here and I'm not implying we do, just strides that bring us closer rather then take us further away which 2 seems to be doing.

I think we do. Anything short of actual realism is just BS to me, a way to make combat unelegant and uninteresting while retaining all the undesirable features of RPG combat.

If we are going for realism, we ought to actually simulate realism. So long as we introduce wish fullfilment (i.e. 4 people constantly defeating teams of 8+ without any casualties) then we've broken realism.

That's not even dealing with stuff like ogres, which as the Cailan cutscene at Ostagar proves, ought to be able to kill a single person they grab just by closing their hand.

No string bow was ever able to penetrate plate at over 50 yards, no clue where you got your information from.

www.youtube.com/watch

That was at 20 and got almost zero penetration.

Again - the closer you are, the less force the arrow has.

Low grade iron plate, the kind that you'd find in medieval tech, can be penetrated by bodkin arrows (the arrow tip). As metalurgy evolves and you get steel plate, plate is no longer penetrated by arrows, but can still deal blunt damage (like a warhammer would, which can be every bit as deadly).

That looks like they're using steel. Do they comment on the kind of bodkin they used? I don't have the sound on so I can't comment further.

It doesn't look like DA:O has that kind of metalurgy available, though.

Most, not all. There have been a few where archery is a dominating dealer. Typically it does get brushed to the side as a support role though.

The other thing is that the kind of comba RPGs handle is pretty uncommon. Most wars, as far as I know, involve much larger numbers and many fodder troops, so shock & awe mattered more than killing. So long as you hit hard enough and the other side broke, that's what you needed.

I don't understand why you're driving my comments towards strict realism, I'm quite aware this is a fantasy game and leanincies need to be taken. But that doesn't mean the game can't take strides to realism and praticality. 

But it's completely arbitrary if you're willing to compromise. You're saying we should have some amount of totally unrealistic stuff in, just the amount of you're comfortable with. Why is your perspective here any better than any other person that wants to put the line either further along or less along?

Put another way: why is your take on where the point should be any better than mine?

The game actually accounting for hit selection, range, better armor values, lowered HP, etc, brings the game to that level while still allowing you to create that "heroic fantasy" feel. It doesn't need to be one hit your dead, but I don't believe the only other alternative is the model we've seen in Dragon Age. There is an inbetween area.

Not really. So long as hits don't absolutely cripple you, it's just fake. The in-between area isn't any less unrealistic for me, and equally aesthetically displeasing. So I'm advocating for something that is more aesthetically pleasing, since the only realistic alternative I'm happy with is simulation.

Modifié par In Exile, 28 décembre 2010 - 06:52 .