461 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Walker White wrote...

For armor it is a little better: you get a choice between two.  Colossus armor has the best damage protection. Predator L/M/H has best shields and hardening.  All other armors are useless.  There are no tradeoffs that make them remotely acceptable. 

Given the enemy distribution, I'm not at all sure hardening is worth worrying about, which makes the Colossus set look even better.

Assuming I'm right to think that, of course. Recent Bio games have been very bad at documenting their systems. Dragon Age was pretty bad, but at least with the toolset you could find out how stuff worked.

Edit: you should drop by the DA forums the next time we get into one of those "what is an RPG" debates. I'd love to see the result of saying that BG isn't an RPG .

Modifié par AlanC9, 13 février 2011 - 07:40 .

[AlanC9]

Capeo wrote...

I've only played ME2 so I'm speaking only from that experience but the thing it really lacks from an RPG perspective is trade offs. There's so few skills, and even those overlap classes, that everything just feels like a slight variant of everything else. Throw in the ability to take any weapon you want on the Collector Ship and the ability to respec and everything is diluted. Armor is essentially cosmetic. The little bonuses are so small there's no reason not to just go with what you think looks cool. It's the armor and shield upgrades that truly make the difference and you're going to get all of them no matter what.

That's true, but I'm not sure how significant it is. With a traditional equipment system, the differences between the best gear you've got aren't that great either. Sure, there's a big difference between your level 1 gear and your level 30 gear, but the level 1 gear isn't around by the time you've got the level 30 gear.

The real problem with ME1's inventory system is that it made the brain-deadness of traditional RPG loot obvious.

Also, the difference in classes is fairly minimal because there are so few skills. I should say there are so few skills that take down opponents protection. I mean, that's what combat is in this game: stripping defenses, and you can do that with two skills, Overload and Warp. I'm on my first insanity play through right now (still finishing a couple loyalty missions before the derelict reaper) and my Sentinel is unstoppable at level 23 (or so, I forget the level exactly). The beginning was frustrating and tedious. Now it's just tedious. I roll with Garrus, passive and Heavy Overload maxed, Samara, passive and Heavy Warp maxed and myself with passive maxed, Assault Armor, and both Heavy Overload and Heavy Warp, the Locust SMG and the Mattock and we can handle every situation. The only thing that's still a **** is when multiple Krogan are closing on you because it can be hard to strip them all down before they are on top of you. Combat just turns into a battle of attrition. Long, long battles of attrition.

I don't check you on this. I found that the difference between playing a Vanguard and playing an Infiltrator was pretty radical. I haven't tried a Sentinel yet.

But if your tactics are producing a dull game... maybe you should try diferent ones?

[Lunatic LK47]

Zeus_Deus wrote...


1. In the absence of anything better, you would equip an Avenger on yourself or to upgrade a squadmates weapon.

Uh, no. I always had my squadmates equip the same weapon as me (i.e. Ash and Garus with either the Raptor/Tsunami/Thunder rifles.). Avenger collects dust with the vendor or is my jar of hair gel.

[Lunatic LK47]

TekFanX wrote...


Also the number of skills: In ME1 you have many skills with one function each. This gives you the possibility to be really picky about your specialization, but it also renders many skills worthless regarding the number of skill-points needed to be invested.
Especially to unlock a skill you want by leveling a skill you'd never use ingame.

Bolded for truth.

[Lunatic LK47]

Zeus_Deus wrote...


1. That can be solved by firing in very controlled bursts and watching the heat meter and even combining it with the Overkill power.

Only six shots are allowed. I shouldn't have to resort to two Frictionless materials just to add more shots into it.

2. No, it doesn't take anywhere near 30 seconds to cool the sniper. I should know because that's the only thing I install HE rounds on. 2 shots before cooldown (unmodded) vs 1 shot before cooldown is an easy tradeoff decision.

That's how long the damn thing feels like.

3. Frictionless materials decreases the cooldown time. Aiming can be increased by using a higher accuracy rifle with a tigher aiming circle. I don't play on XBox so can't comment on controls.

Assault rifle user here. I know that, but there's no sense of sensitivity in the 360 version. You play on the PC right? The XBox 360 controllers basically have the same aiming speed regardless of you cranking the sensitivity to the max. To put it in PC terms, your mouse cursor will always move at the same speed, regardless of you placing it on the highest settings. That's how bad the 360's version is.

[Lunatic LK47]

Capeo wrote...

I've only played ME2 so I'm speaking only from that experience but the thing it really lacks from an RPG perspective is trade offs. There's so few skills, and even those overlap classes, that everything just feels like a slight variant of everything else. Throw in the ability to take any weapon you want on the Collector Ship and the ability to respec and everything is diluted. Armor is essentially cosmetic. The little bonuses are so small there's no reason not to just go with what you think looks cool. It's the armor and shield upgrades that truly make the difference and you're going to get all of them no matter what.

Also, the difference in classes is fairly minimal because there are so few skills. I should say there are so few skills that take down opponents protection. I mean, that's what combat is in this game: stripping defenses, and you can do that with two skills, Overload and Warp. I'm on my first insanity play through right now (still finishing a couple loyalty missions before the derelict reaper) and my Sentinel is unstoppable at level 23 (or so, I forget the level exactly). The beginning was frustrating and tedious. Now it's just tedious. I roll with Garrus, passive and Heavy Overload maxed, Samara, passive and Heavy Warp maxed and myself with passive maxed, Assault Armor, and both Heavy Overload and Heavy Warp, the Locust SMG and the Mattock and we can handle every situation. The only thing that's still a **** is when multiple Krogan are closing on you because it can be hard to strip them all down before they are on top of you. Combat just turns into a battle of attrition. Long, long battles of attrition.

It just seems odd that there's very little trade off in the classes. If you're going to make classes then force them to stick with the weapons they are stuck with. Or better yet, and more realistically, give us the choice of which weapons we want to invest in by putting skill points into them. I'd love a more open system akin to FO3 where you can craft any type of character you want. Even just break it into three specializations, Soldier, Biotic and Tech, because that's all there really is. Your specialization can cut off certain skills or make the points you put into skills outside of your specialization count for less. Thus if a biotic specialist wants to put points into military weapons they do so at a great cost to their Biotic skills, or if they want to wear heavy military grade armor the same, etc. Also, make armors a trade off, like every other RPG, to where the bonus of wearing light armor is maneuverability while heavy armor is better protection.

As it stands ME2 is in a nebulous place between an RPG and a cover based TPS but it's the master of neither.

Mass Effect 1 is the polar opposite. ME1 relied on stat-based aiming, which I found to be ridiculous for a Special Forces marine (i.e. Cream of the crop soldiers that have hardcore training and spend at least hundreds of hours in the firing range) to have to invest in skill points just to shoot a weapon accurately like a basic soldier. Equipment was nothing more than junk items that you either convert to hair gel or sell for money just to get the best weapons there is, and the skill sets were too numerous that a good majority of them are useless.

Let's look at the Adept for example:

Basic Armor
Pistol*
Throw
Lift*
Warp
Singularity*
Barrier
Stasis
Adept/Nemesis/Bastion
Charm**
Intimidate**
Spectre Training.

*: Requires spending skill points on an item above the highlighted skill.
**: Morality-based, and requires skill points just to progress it.
At max, you can only max out seven trees by the time you hit level 50, and guess what, the skills I marked with one * required that you had to spend points into the skill above them just to UNLOCK the stuff. Alpha Protocol had the right idea in terms of "You can pick any skill you want." Just this alone, I avoided the Adept like the freaking plague. The Charm and Intimidate Persuasion skills, I always end up using the Lorik Qui'nn glitch just to max out the meters so I can play around with whatever persuasion items I wanted.

[Lumikki]

You people are comming to close to notice how pointless attributes and skills are, if they aren't balanced by they usefullness. In RPG where stats has meaning, people allways think like they give players ability customize they character. In base idea this is right. How ever, many games this doesn't really happen, because attributes and skill are so unbalance.

Example DAO mage, skills (spells) where pretty good balanced, while the atributes where not. You only needed like 1-3 attribute and could ignore everyting else. Same happens in most of the game, some of Kotor skill could be ignored. ME1 skills where not balanced and only few of them where really needed in gameplay.

To have choise all choises has to be ABOUT equal usefull, other ways it's not really anymore choise. So attributes and skills in RPG, they need to also have gameplay meaning, what is also balanced, so that no skill or attribute become alot better choise than others. Other ways what's the point of have stats and skills if we anyway end in same kind of builds. Only usefullness what they would have is gimp you character.

Meaning there is teorical and hopefull idea what stats and skills do and then there is reality what really happen.

Modifié par Lumikki, 13 février 2011 - 10:39 .

[Terror_K]

A good RPG should have the ability for you to gimp your character though. ME2 has too few skills, and it's pretty much impossible to gimp your character (respec ability aside). In ME1 you also actually felt progression and felt yourself gradually getting better and stronger as you went. ME2 lacks this entirely, as it really just feels like you're merely unlocking new abilities that take sudden jumps in ability four times rather than any smooth progression, while your character just feels pretty much the same throughout beyond that. You may as well be playing a side-scrolling shooter and just buying powerups because that's about the extent of depth that ME2's so-called "progression" system has. It's all just combat powers and skills that all focus on the same basic thing and they feel so disconnected from your actual character and never really feel like they're defining them.

[Lumikki]

No, good RPG isn't about gimping you character, it's about give balanced choises what allows something different in player gameplay. Ahh, you are looking Rat to God complex, so that you can feel the progression. This is fine if story would support it, like in DAO happen, but Mass Effect story doesn't support it and you know it.

PS: I don't disgree that ME2 progression system was limited and not well done.

Modifié par Lumikki, 13 février 2011 - 11:02 .

[Terror_K]

Mass Effect may not support the "Rat to God" model, no, but that doesn't mean that it has to have such a linear and narrow focus on its powers and limit things too much. There aren't really enough proper builds for variation and varied class builds in ME2, especially when you add in the factor that all powers are combat ones and that it encourages you to switch your weapons around all the time rather than just sticking with one. I always thought that while halving the level to 30 in ME2 was a good move, they shouldn't have halved the skills as well.

[AlanC9]

Terror_K, this isn't the first time you've made a pronouncement as to what a "good RPG" should do. Could you explain why a good RPG should let you gimp your character?



And while you're at it, do you mean that a good RPG should do this because it will be a better game, or because it will be more of an RPG as you define RPG? And if it's the latter, why should Lumikki, or I, or anyone else care?

[Lunatic LK47]

Terror_K wrote...

A good RPG should have the ability for you to gimp your character though. ME2 has too few skills, and it's pretty much impossible to gimp your character (respec ability aside). In ME1 you also actually felt progression and felt yourself gradually getting better and stronger as you went.

Uh, not really. I felt that the difficulties at the beginning of the game just felt like bad design because everything from the weapon stats to skill sets are crap, making the game artificially harder than it needed to be. I shouldn't have to be railroaded to playing missions in a certain order just to do work-arounds around the game's limitations (i.e.I'm screwed if I bothered with the side-planets after getting command of the Normandy unless I saved Liara first thing.)

ME2 lacks this entirely, as it really just feels like you're merely unlocking new abilities that take sudden jumps in ability four times rather than any smooth progression, while your character just feels pretty much the same throughout beyond that.

Uh, I'm happy with ME2's system because it actually accurately depicts Shepard's skills as a soldier. I found it jarring that for a Special Forces marine, he/she has ****ty shooting skills just because the gameplay mechanics say so. Special Forces marine= Cream of the crop soldier that fires their weapons with more or less Thane's precision (i.e. Read rigorous training+ hundreds of hours in the firing range. Selection in Special Forces is not a "Anyone can join" club.

[The_Biotic_God]

I'm sorry, but why should RPG be related with level and equipment? I always though it was about roleplay, and ME2 sure has a lot of roleplay. Anyway, I hope there'll be more options and multiple endings =D.

[Capeo]

Lunatic LK47 wrote...

Mass Effect 1 is the polar opposite. ME1 relied on stat-based aiming, which I found to be ridiculous for a Special Forces marine (i.e. Cream of the crop soldiers that have hardcore training and spend at least hundreds of hours in the firing range) to have to invest in skill points just to shoot a weapon accurately like a basic soldier. Equipment was nothing more than junk items that you either convert to hair gel or sell for money just to get the best weapons there is, and the skill sets were too numerous that a good majority of them are useless.

Let's look at the Adept for example:

Basic Armor
Pistol*
Throw
Lift*
Warp
Singularity*
Barrier
Stasis
Adept/Nemesis/Bastion
Charm**
Intimidate**
Spectre Training.

*: Requires spending skill points on an item above the highlighted skill.
**: Morality-based, and requires skill points just to progress it.
At max, you can only max out seven trees by the time you hit level 50, and guess what, the skills I marked with one * required that you had to spend points into the skill above them just to UNLOCK the stuff. Alpha Protocol had the right idea in terms of "You can pick any skill you want." Just this alone, I avoided the Adept like the freaking plague. The Charm and Intimidate Persuasion skills, I always end up using the Lorik Qui'nn glitch just to max out the meters so I can play around with whatever persuasion items I wanted.

So where exactly do you stand then on skill progession and how it should be implemented?  What I'm getting is that neither ME1 (which I have no experience with ) and ME2 (my opinion of which has been stated) handled it very well.

One point that you bring up is rather important to the whole RPG /TPS problem.  In RPGs you're likelyhood to hit or do damage to something is based on your skill with the weapon/power/spell you're wielding.  In a shooter, if I have the skill, I want to be bombing with that.  Playing a good shooter is a skill to learn.  I want the bullets to be landing where I aim them no matter my characters skill at "aiming".  If I'm ripping off head shot after head shot that's because I did it.  And that's true for SOCOM, Rainbow Six, Uncharted, Gears, Killzone, all the CODs or any any other pure shooter.

Back in the day it was easy to balance guns just like a spell or a sword because it was all isometric views and it was a mouse click and the roll of the dice to see if you hit.  You were just watching it happen.  You hit or you didn't based on your skill, whether it was a ray gun, a spell or a sword.  That changes drastically when you give the aiming control to the player.  The only option the devs have at that point is to gimp the damage hits do or ignore hits due to lack of "accuracy" as a skill.  That's the inherent problem with a modern shooter RPGs.

Of all the modern RPGs, with a shooting mechanic at its base, I think Fallout faired best at moving from an isometric view to a FPS while still keeping its RPG roots.  Of course it did so with VATS which paused the action and essentially turned it into a standard RPG by doing so.  It gave visual percentages to what was normally behind the scenes.  Once your skill was high enough in a particular weapon set though you could pretty much treat it like an FPS.   Those skills were your choice though.  Out of 25 or so.  People have actually made no kill runs of the main story of both FO3 and New Vegas.  Something that blows my mind because I can think of a million situations in those games where I have no choice but to shoot my way out.  

Anyway, I digress, both Bethesda Fallouts start with a player that is a clean slate.  No classes in those games.  No history.  The very point is to craft a character and the world is wide open.  That's not Shepard in the ME universe.  ME can't be quite that open and either way it's going run up against the RPG/Shooter dichotomy because in BW games you're either talking or you're in a shooting gallery.  That's the case in both their main titles: DA or ME.  In DA though, nightmare is fun, and challenging and there's a bunch of ways to come at that difficulty because there are a bunch of different party builds that work.  There's a million skills.  You can choose very different approaches in your spells and how to deal damage and how to deal with weaknesses and strengths of a foe and you can make them work.  In ME2 it's strip, strip, strip rinse and repeat.  You can get away with two powers and a gun.  Nightmare in DAO was a raging ****.  Not to mention, like many RPGs, you could gimp your character, making it even worse due to bad choices but every time I was killed I'd take a different approach.  In ME2, on Insanity, it's just tedium.  And that's because of the limited tools at your disposal.  As a shooter it's clunky at best, and as a skill based RPG it allows two skills to do every job in combat.  That's it's nebulousness.  

So, I don't know the solution to that.  Too much has already been established to change a whole lot.  Plus I've just got back from the bar with some friends, are a good bit tipsy, went on for too long already and am going to play some ME2 to get a bit more of this Insanity run out of the way.  So apparently the game ain't all bad.  Still:  MORE CHOICE!  

G'night.

Edit:  Addendum: In DAO if I lose a party member on Nightmare it's basically game over.  In ME2 that just means the fight is that much longer.  There's something wrong there.

Modifié par Capeo, 14 février 2011 - 02:25 .

[Whatever42]

This is such a silly debate. Should a game developer be limited to what's the traditional mechanics of a particular genre? Seriously. If you don't like the mechanics they use then don't play it. You guys need to relax; Bioware is not abandoning traditional RPGs and are even going to tweak ME3 to try to put back some of that traditional RPG feel to make you happy. But I applaud Bioware for trying to mix up the mechanics.



One of the reasons I don't play FPS or TPS games is that I find mindlessly shooting zombies is dull. The cutscenes and stories of these games do make them a bit more fun but they are too short and not immersive enough. Bioware is mixing the RPG with the TPS mechanics, and suddenly I enjoy such games. Call them action-RPGs if you want, try to expel them from your elite RPG club if you want, but the only reason I enjoy the ME series is because of the RPG element. So to me they are RPGs.

[Lunatic LK47]

Capeo wrote...

So where exactly do you stand then on skill progession and how it should be implemented?  What I'm getting is that neither ME1 (which I have no experience with ) and ME2 (my opinion of which has been stated) handled it very well.

If it was one or the other, I found ME2 to be the lesser of two evils. In Mass Effect 1, everything was reliant on your gun usage up to the point you might as well play as a soldier every single time, while Biotics and Tech were little more than overglorified de-buffs. At least ME2 *ATTEMPTED* to switch it around.

One point that you bring up is rather important to the whole RPG /TPS problem.  In RPGs you're likelyhood to hit or do damage to something is based on your skill with the weapon/power/spell you're wielding.  In a shooter, if I have the skill, I want to be bombing with that.  Playing a good shooter is a skill to learn.  I want the bullets to be landing where I aim them no matter my characters skill at "aiming".  If I'm ripping off head shot after head shot that's because I did it.  And that's true for SOCOM, Rainbow Six, Uncharted, Gears, Killzone, all the CODs or any any other pure shooter.

More or less this. I would have been perfectly fine with ME1 if you're playing the game as a marine who just came out of basic training, which is not the case with Shepard.

In ME2 it's strip, strip, strip rinse and repeat.  You can get away with two powers and a gun.  Nightmare in DAO was a raging ****.  Not to mention, like many RPGs, you could gimp your character, making it even worse due to bad choices but every time I was killed I'd take a different approach.  In ME2, on Insanity, it's just tedium.  And that's because of the limited tools at your disposal.  As a shooter it's clunky at best, and as a skill based RPG it allows two skills to do every job in combat.  That's it's nebulousness.

ME1 Insanity was completely bad. Every single person would have a million HP (yes, as in Final Fantasy territory) and spam immunity every five seconds, forcing you to rely on Chemical/Polonium rounds just to halt health regeneration. At least ME2's insanity is more bearable.

[RyuGuitarFreak]

I think we will have deeper "RPG elements", whatever people consider it.

Seriously, I couldn't care about so called "RPG elements" as long as we have dialogue options, choices and non-linear story. That's what people should consider important in an RPG game IMO and why I headbutt myself on the wall at some posts here sometimes. But that's just my opinion anyway.

If this is untouched and the rest of the game remains fun, I don't care.

Modifié par RyuGuitarFreak, 14 février 2011 - 03:42 .

[Terror_K]

AlanC9 wrote...

Terror_K, this isn't the first time you've made a pronouncement as to what a "good RPG" should do. Could you explain why a good RPG should let you gimp your character?

And while you're at it, do you mean that a good RPG should do this because it will be a better game, or because it will be more of an RPG as you define RPG? And if it's the latter, why should Lumikki, or I, or anyone else care?

Because character building in an RPG is completely pointless if there's no way to fail in it and no matter how you construct them it's automatic success. Players should be rewarded for building a character well and thinking things out and punished if they make bad choices and don't invest points wisely. Players should try to be a master at something and not be able to just be a master of everything, and Jack of All Trades characters should be weaker at specific things even if they're stronger all-round. If you can just build your character willy-nilly without any thought and fully benefit from it, then it completely defeats the purpose of character building at all.

In ME2 you're a super-badass no matter where you invest your points and no matter what order you do it. You never have to really plan your character or think ahead, with the only real exception being the wish to not have leftover points thanks to the silly way points are spent in ME2, which often can lead to things like you being short of maxing out a skill by one point or having one or two points leftover that you can never spend. And that's not really a manner of gimping yourself accidentally so much as bad progression design.

Diablo 2 is a classic case of how to do it right: build your character wrong in that and/or go for a jack of all trades and you'll have a massively hard time surviving in later Nightmare and Hell difficulty later on. Even Dragon Age Origins has this as well: try and change Allister halfway into the game from a Defender into a Two-Handed DPS Fighter like Sten and Ogren and he just doesn't work given his initial build.

The whole reason to take pride in a character and make it your own in an RPG is to build it really well and choose the right skills and abilities that play off each other and often even off your other companions (or in PnP cases other players). The reward is a really strong character to be proud of because you took the effort to design it so well. Similarly you are punished --and rightly so-- for choosing inappropriate skills and abilities. When you can't fail at building a character, there's no pride in making one right because you can never make one wrong, and no reason to really care about how they're built.

[Lunatic LK47]

Terror_K wrote...
Because character building in an RPG is completely pointless if there's no way to fail in it and no matter how you construct them it's automatic success. Players should be rewarded for building a character well and thinking things out and punished if they make bad choices and don't invest points wisely. Players should try to be a master at something and not be able to just be a master of everything, and Jack of All Trades characters should be weaker at specific things even if they're stronger all-round. If you can just build your character willy-nilly without any thought and fully benefit from it, then it completely defeats the purpose of character building at all.

Problem is a game like Alpha Protocol tries to break away from the mold, but suffers from very bad game design in the process, making character building pointless. Oh yeah, I managed to max out martial arts, but I still have problems with boss fights. That is not good design. Same thing goes for gun skills where only SMGs and pistols are semi-useful.

In ME2 you're a super-badass no matter where you invest your points and no matter what order you do it. You never have to really plan your character or think ahead, with the only real exception being the wish to not have leftover points thanks to the silly way points are spent in ME2, which often can lead to things like you being short of maxing out a skill by one point or having one or two points leftover that you can never spend. And that's not really a manner of gimping yourself accidentally so much as bad progression design.

No one should have to be forced to play a game for ten to twenty hours only to find out that they leveled up the wrong skills and start over. Not everyone is an RPG savant like you are

The whole reason to take pride in a character and make it your own in an RPG is to build it really well and choose the right skills and abilities that play off each other and often even off your other companions (or in PnP cases other players). The reward is a really strong character to be proud of because you took the effort to design it so well. Similarly you are punished --and rightly so-- for choosing inappropriate skills and abilities. When you can't fail at building a character, there's no pride in making one right because you can never make one wrong, and no reason to really care about how they're built.

For an RPG about choice, everything gets reduced to "Play the game my way, or it's the highway if you want to 100% the game." That is bad design no matter how you spin it. I always end up playing Scout/Sentinel in KOTOR 1 just because it's the only way I can complete everything, avoid getting paralyzed period, and include repairing HK-47 without feeling too screwed over.

Modifié par Lunatic LK47, 14 février 2011 - 04:38 .

[Lumikki]

@Terror_K

Yes, but what you talk isn't really role-playing, it's called powerplaying as trying to find optimal build and best gears.

Role-playing is more like have different choises as role to take. Like classes are in games. It's not ment to be so that one class is better, it's more like choise for player, so that player can feel the different kind of role or gameplay style. Game should support different kind of roles as gameplay, but not so that one is better than other, but about equal ways, just different. So, when you choose skill it's about creating differences in your gameplay, not to make you more powerfull or gimped. So, when you advance in game, you character gets more variety for gameplay with addional skills and player can deside what direction that variety as role goes.

Modifié par Lumikki, 14 février 2011 - 04:58 .

[Kakistos_]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

This is such a silly debate. Should a game developer be limited to what's the traditional mechanics of a particular genre? Seriously. If you don't like the mechanics they use then don't play it. You guys need to relax; Bioware is not abandoning traditional RPGs and are even going to tweak ME3 to try to put back some of that traditional RPG feel to make you happy. But I applaud Bioware for trying to mix up the mechanics.

One of the reasons I don't play FPS or TPS games is that I find mindlessly shooting zombies is dull. The cutscenes and stories of these games do make them a bit more fun but they are too short and not immersive enough. Bioware is mixing the RPG with the TPS mechanics, and suddenly I enjoy such games. Call them action-RPGs if you want, try to expel them from your elite RPG club if you want, but the only reason I enjoy the ME series is because of the RPG element. So to me they are RPGs.

I think that we can all agree that ME2 was in fact an RPG. The issue or debate is that the RPG elements that many people loved about ME were mauled in favor of more shooter elements in ME2.

[Terror_K]

Lunatic LK47 wrote...

For an RPG
about choice, everything gets reduced to "Play the game my way, or it's
the highway if you want to 100% the game." That is bad design no matter
how you spin it. I always end up playing Scout/Sentinel in KOTOR 1 just
because it's the only way I can complete everything, avoid getting
paralyzed period, and include repairing HK-47 without feeling too
screwed over.

You should never be able to 100% an RPG in one playthrough, IMO. It should always take several to see all the content and experience everything.

Lumikki wrote...

@Terror_K

Yes, but what you talk isn't really role-playing, it's called powerplaying as trying to find optimal build and best gears.

Role-playing is more like have different choises as role to take. Like classes are in games. It's not ment to be so that one class is better, it's more like choise for player, so that player can feel the different kind of role or gameplay style. Game should support different kind of roles as gameplay, but not so that one is better than other, but about equal ways, just different. So, when you choose skill it's about creating differences in your gameplay, not to make you more powerfull or gimped. So, when you advance in game, you character gets more variety for gameplay with addional skills and player can deside what direction that variety as role goes.

You're partly right, but not entirely. There are two different aspects to roleplaying a character: roleplaying them in the game world, and building their stats and skills that determine their abilities. Preferably these gel together, but that depends on how one wants to go about it.

There should always be better builds than others, otherwise the entire point of having builds at all is pointless. It shouldn't be rocket science, but it should always take at least some thought from the player. The whole point is that every class should be able to have multiple builds with slight variations on them. Each of these builds should be fairly equal when you balance things out (ones strength makes up for a weakness and visa versa, etc.) but said builds should still have to be built right. For a fantasy example, with a Fighter if you want to make a Defender you should focus on defense related skills, and if you want to make an DPS Attacker then you focus on that. If you go for the middle ground you should be alright as long as you build smart, but you should always accept that you're not going to be as hardy as a full-on Defender or as damaging as a full-on Attacker.

The overall point is that one still needs to build their character smart to succeed, or succeed to the best they can. There should always be different choices within a class, and even different choices within those, but it should still depend on a player to build their characters smart and well. You shouldn't just be able to go into the level-up screen and just choose anything that's available to you without paying attention and do just as well later on as somebody who has build their character carefully.

[Lunatic LK47]

Terror_K wrote...


You should never be able to 100% an RPG in one playthrough, IMO. It should always take several to see all the content and experience everything.

I may play certain games multiple times, but I don't have all the time in the world just to try out the other paths (as far as I'm concerned, Mass Effect at least made me inclined to try out the other playthroughs). I avoid darkside/closed fist playthroughs just because it's the "stupid evil" route.

There should always be better builds than others, otherwise the entire point of having builds at all is pointless. It shouldn't be rocket science, but it should always take at least some thought from the player. The whole point is that every class should be able to have multiple builds with slight variations on them. Each of these builds should be fairly equal when you balance things out (ones strength makes up for a weakness and visa versa, etc.) but said builds should still have to be built right. For a fantasy example, with a Fighter if you want to make a Defender you should focus on defense related skills, and if you want to make an DPS Attacker then you focus on that. If you go for the middle ground you should be alright as long as you build smart, but you should always accept that you're not going to be as hardy as a full-on Defender or as damaging as a full-on Attacker.

The overall point is that one still needs to build their character smart to succeed, or succeed to the best they can. There should always be different choices within a class, and even different choices within those, but it should still depend on a player to build their characters smart and well. You shouldn't just be able to go into the level-up screen and just choose anything that's available to you without paying attention and do just as well later on as somebody who has build their character carefully.

Except not single gamer is in *YOUR* age range. I got into KOTOR 1 at the age of 17 (yes, I bought the game in Summer 2004), and even then, I found the whole system confusing up to the point I had to rely on Gamefaqs just to know which skills I should bother investing in. I play games for fun, not tedious busy work just because the game says so. If a game is too complicated for someone to play, they are not going to be inclined to play it. Expecting someone to conform to *YOUR* definition of RPGs is the equivalent of expecting school-age children to understand nuclear physics, not realistic. This isn't the 1980s.

Modifié par Lunatic LK47, 14 février 2011 - 05:44 .

[Whatever42]

Lunatic LK47 wrote...
Except not single gamer is in *YOUR* age range. I got into KOTOR 1 at the age of 17 (yes, I bought the game in Summer 2004), and even then, I found the whole system confusing up to the point I had to rely on Gamefaqs just to know which skills I should bother investing in. I play games for fun, not tedious busy work just because the game says so. If a game is too complicated for someone to play, they are not going to be inclined to play it. Expecting someone to conform to *YOUR* definition of RPGs is the equivalent of expecting school-age children to understand nuclear physics, not realistic. This isn't the 1980s.

In WoW, the hardcore nerds develop the 1 or 2 decent builds per spec, per class and then all the semi-hardcore nerds just find the builds on on elitistjerks or the forums and copy it and the really casual gamers just suffer along with a gimped build. Except Blizzard found there were too many really casual gamers and trimmed down the trees, eliminating useless talents so they couldn't really gimp themselves.

Why they even put in useless talents to allow you to gimp your character is beyond me.

The trend is to create games that you can't dedicate many hours into to just find out that you screwed up and have to start over. Go figure. As an old-time RPGer, I say let the RPG nerds rage.

[Terror_K]

Lunatic LK47 wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

The overall point is that one still needs to build their character smart to succeed, or succeed to the best they can. There should always be different choices within a class, and even different choices within those, but it should still depend on a player to build their characters smart and well. You shouldn't just be able to go into the level-up screen and just choose anything that's available to you without paying attention and do just as well later on as somebody who has build their character carefully.

Except not single gamer is in *YOUR* age range. I got into KOTOR 1 at the age of 17 (yes, I bought the game in Summer 2004), and even then, I found the whole system confusing up to the point I had to rely on Gamefaqs just to know which skills I should bother investing in. I play games for fun, not tedious busy work just because the game says so. If a game is too complicated for someone to play, they are not going to be inclined to play it. Expecting someone to conform to *YOUR* definition of RPGs is the equivalent of expecting school-age children to understand nuclear physics, not realistic. This isn't the 1980s.

This is the kind of modern BS attitude I'm sick of today. There are plenty of games out there for those who find RPGs too complex. In fact, the market is saturated with them. Why should RPGs have to keep suffering for those of us who enjoy the RPG aspects that others find too complicated just because some of the mainstream gamers of today find it so? Why must all the games these days be shifted to conform to the one majority audience instead of having some variation and diversity to suit different audiences? If you're going to jump into our sandbox you should have to play by our rules, and not just change the rules of the game to suit you better because things are too complex for you.

You like the look of the game? Fine, then come on in and play, but don't start whining that it should be made to suit you just because it wasn't quite what you came in for. Don't just in the deep end and start flailing about because you can't swim and start expecting those of us that like a deep pool to accept your wishes that it be shallower for you. Or for your own example, there's plenty of schools out there for you, so don't enter the nuclear physics class and expect it to lower itself just so you can understand it.

The worst thing is, the industry (including BioWare) seem to want to conform to the mainstream and oversimplify their titles these days, not because they have to, but because they feel they have to to make lots of money. I'm sick of the entire gaming industry just pandering to the XBox Generation these days for the sake of profits. That's why ME2 suffered, and that's why it looks like Dragon Age 2 is going to suffer too.

You play games for fun? Fine. So do I. So do a lot of us. And I don't find shallow, linear, overautomated dumbed down crap in RPGs fun at all: I find it tedious. And the things I found fun about the original Mass Effect were things that were mostly gone from the second game or were simply made so shallow as to take away their fun aspects. There are plenty of games out there for you to find fun, so is it too much to ask that I get just a small handful of games every few years to satisfy my own tastes?

Modifié par Terror_K, 14 février 2011 - 06:19 .