333 réponses à ce sujet

[Cadaveth]

Darth Executor wrote...

Review tales of woe regarding repetitive caves just bring back horrible nightmares of the ruined temple or the deep roads or ostagar.

Those are the two things that pop to mind when I'm thinking "why haven't I played DAO for awhile. I should play through it again!". Then I just leave the game to gather dust.

[Dorian the Monk of Sune]

AlanC9 wrote...


Day/night cycles ruin pacing. The Tower of Ishal wouldn't have made any sense with day/night cycles unless the cycles were so long that they didn't matter. Chateau irenicus didn't make any sense.

The Tower of Ishal was a timmed event. You can work around day and night cycles with events like that. Chateau Irenicus didnt make sense because you were allowed to rest and Irenicus never returned. That had nothing to do with day and night. Losing day and night cycles is a net loss in depth. If you want something to happen during the day or night you time it, but you cant make up for the depth that could be had from variant guard shifts, avoiding nocturnal creatures, night vision etc etc. 

Stealing and killing civvies is pretty much useless for RP since the game can't respond properly to such actions. The IE Reputation mechanic is feeble and easily spoofed.

It beats the alternative of pick pocket dice roll with no consequence for failure. In BG you had to be careful with AoE spells else you might kill civies and ****** off the populace. DA 2 doesn't even have in party friendly fire unless you are playing on nightmare. One of my most memorable moments in BG was fighting a wizard in the underground brothel. The wizard dropped a fireball and charred some ****s.

Death of party members is only tolerable in a setting that allows for resurrection, which breaks too many things about the world unless you're willing to go all the way to an OOTS world where everyone knows that resurrection is common and takes that into account.

Too much structure. Forget ressurrection. Its not about ressurrection. I dont think I used any ressurrections in BG 1 (cost too much). Didnt have them in Fallout. Bioware throws so much combat at you in DA:O that they know lasting  damage and death would be pain. I wish they would have restructured the encounters or even the difficulty instead of ditching death. Also BG didnt have the D&D standard 0-10 hp system. DA:O could have used something like that and made it harder to die but still possible. 

Skirmishing without enemy health replenishing is a kind of AI exploit, isn't it? I suppose there are enemies who can't do anything about this sort of tactic even if they understood it, though.

It was an exploit in certain situations. You attack and beat up the enemy then run and hide. They look for you and give up then you attack again or lead them into an ambush. It was really nice to cast a charm on them too. They were usally still dangerous. Nothing stopped the spellcasters from casting a hold person spell on you, or the fighters from drilling you with ranged weapons and ranged weapons did real damage. In BG 2 the enemy AI did the same to you. 
There were times when it was an exploit when you could leave the area. Again thats something that they should have just fixed isntead of ditched. 

I wouldn't mind seeing encumbrance and individual inventories back, though since I don't like inventory-based gameplay in the first place this probably wouldn't be worth the zots with the amount of items I'd want in the game.

What do you consider inventory-based gameplay? I don't mind how ME 2 ditched the inventory.  ME is mission based. You don't have week long temple sieges like you do in DA:O. DA:O needs some type of inventory. A shared inventory system is a step backwards in complexity and I would say usability too. 

As for no level scaling -- that really wouldn't work well with DAO's structure. And stuff in BG2 was often scaled, though somewhat less obviously than in DAO.

Ditch the scaling and change DA:O's structure. The structure is more of an issue than the scaling. Level scaling to the point where it goes as far as DA:O is usally justified by stuff I dont like.

Filler Combat- You can extend the game to your 40 or 60 hour mark because all of that combat wont give godly xp doesnt matter. Everything else scales
Static encounters- weaker creatures don't have to surrender, give up, get massacred, or flee because their levels match yours. 

weak ranged weapons- With the high xp an archer might as well shoot tooth picks.

Scaled loot
Massive amounts of hitpoints and fast leveling- I miss the BG 1 and Gold Box system. Beat a game at level 6-9 and take on the sequel. This way the devs dont have to worry about creating high level bosses in one cycle. 


Massive amounts of hitpoints and fast leveling- I miss the BG 1 and Gold Box system. Beat a game at level 6-9 and take on the sequel. This way the devs dont have to worry about creating high level bosses in one cycle. It cheapens leveling and the feeling that you are gaining power. It trades the experiance of the game for XP. 

Modifié par Dorian the Monk of Sune, 03 mars 2011 - 09:46 .

[AlanC9]

Vaeliorin wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...
Let me explain. In traditional, Pen & Paper you didn't sit down and say: "ok, I'm gonna roll myself a Strength-based Barbarian!". No, what you did is you rolled the dice for all your stats, and then when you were done, those stats would determine what class your character can be. So, for example if you rolled up a character with 6 strength, 10 dexterity and 18 Intelligence, you are not going to be a fighter, or a rogue or even a monk. You're gonna be a mage. A bookworm type. Now I don't know about you, but letting the fates decide what my character is... and then me doing my best to role play that character, and striving to make him an overachiever and a hero is what I loved most about the entire system.

I'm familiar with DM's who did it like that, having played PnP for close to two decades now. I hated it, particularly since there are classes I don't enjoy playing (for example, I have never and will never play a pure wizard in a D&D-based game). Instead of playing the character I wanted to play, I was forced to play a character that matched the stats I rolled. I'm sorry, but there's no way I'm ever going to enjoy playing a character with an intelligence of 4 and a constitution of 7. I did once play a character with a wisdom of 3, which was fun...until the character got himself killed from doing something that someone with a wisdom of 10 probably wouldn't have.

You shooldn't have even conceded that much. Even AD&D wasn't always played the way Yrkoon says it is. The DMG itself includes four alternative character rolling procedures.

1: 4d6, drop the lowest die. Player arranges all scores in whatever order he wants. 

2: Roll 3d6 12 times, keep the highest 6 scores, arrange any way you want

3: Roll 3d6 6 times for each ability in order, keep the highest of those 6

4: roll up 12 different characters on 3d6, no rearranging of scores. Player keeps whichever character he likes best

So of these four methods plus the PHB method (3d6, no rearranging), methods 1 and 2 let the player build whatever class he pleases, method 4 gives him a good chance of finding a character of a classs he wants, and method 3 gives a fair chance of having a character who can do several classes well. (Maybe that explains Roy from OOTS?) In my experience method 1 was the most common; as a DM I preferred it.

And of course, almost all later PnP RPG systems completely broke with the 70s concept of playing what you rolled rather than what you wanted to play. The only exception I can think of is Paranoia, and that game was more-or-less about getting randomly screwed, so rolled characters makes sense.

Modifié par AlanC9, 03 mars 2011 - 10:00 .

[Yrkoon]

FellowerOfOdin wrote...

Good post, good article, wrong place to post - you won't see any good discussion that might dare discussing bad sides of Dragon Age: Rise to Power on a forum that's crawling with fanboys.

I can't see how anyone can say  that after reading this thread.

Aside from the occasional  angsty one-liners here and there, this thread has, for the most part) been amazing in its depth of discussion.

[Elvoria]

Destructoid article really?, may aswell just start posting blogger rants.

[Yrkoon]

Rawgrim wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

Shinimas wrote...

Darth Executor wrote...

T3hAnubis wrote...

The TLDR version for the rest Of you: OP likes RPGs with quick kills, like the ones from Japan. Nothing wrong with that, I like them too, but realize DA is a Western RPG.

This is not a TLDR version at all.

I like RPGs who have the decency to make the pointless. endless trash mobs thrown at me easy to kill so playing isn't a chore. You know, like well known japanese RPGs Baldur's Gate 2, Neverwinter nights, Fallout 1-3, Morrowind, Oblivion, the Might and Magic series, etc.

Baldur's Gate 2, NWN?

Those games have far harder "trash" enemies than you typical DA2 Hurlock.

That's not true at all.    The amount of absolutely pointless trash mobs in BG2 was so  frequent, and so intentionally frequent,   That the devs   even   put   spells in  the game   specifically designed to take them all out, instantly so that you wouldn't have to waste your time if you didn't want to.  (Death Spell, Cloud kill, Symbol of Death etc.)

And Neverwinter nights....  Are you kidding me?  about an hour away from the end of the game and you're still exploring caves swarming with  16hp  Orcs....

The devs didn`t create any spells designed to kill mobs. all of the spells are from the pen and paper Forgotten Realms setting. They were developed for high level spellcasters, wanting to kill a whole bunch in one go. Not to make sure players dont waste their time, in a potential computer game based on the settingrule-set.

I didn't say they created them did I?  I said they put them in the game.  Sheesh.

Edit: but if you really want to get technical, they did INDEED  create their own effects  for a couple of those spells in the game that differed from how they were in the AD&D players handbook.  Death Spell For example.  In Bg2, Death Spell flat out kills every single creature in the area of effect that has 9 hit dice or less.      in Pen and paper it doesn't do that.  It only kills a set amount of hit dice of creatures total, starting with the weakest.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 03 mars 2011 - 10:32 .

[AlanC9]

Dorian the Monk of Sune wrote...
The Tower of Ishal was a timmed event. You can work around day and night cycles with events like that.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. Just turn off the clock while you're in the tower? OK, I guess, if the system actually lets you do it. The IE games and NWN1 couldn't - - you could build a duplicate of the map that was always day or always night, sure, but the clock would still be running. The player would know he'd been in the tower for a couple of days even if the sun didn't come up.

Chateau Irenicus didnt make sense because you were allowed to rest and Irenicus never returned. That had nothing to do with day and night.

I wasn't explicit. The underlying problem is that the AD&D system takes time seriously. But, yeah, I guess you can have day/night cycles without using time in the game system.

Losing day and night cycles is a net loss in depth. If you want something to happen during the day or night you time it, but you cant make up for the depth that could be had from variant guard shifts, avoiding nocturnal creatures, night vision etc etc.

You don't need cycles for that. Just alternate area versions. Like DA2, you know, has.

it beats the alternative of pick pocket dice roll with no consequence for failure.

Agreed. That should be removed too.

In BG you had to be careful with AoE spells else you might kill civies and ****** off the populace.

And what if you do? Drop a little gold at the nearest temple and everyone you didn't slaughter forgives you.

What do you consider inventory-based gameplay?

Gameplay where I'm often thinking about or fiddling with items. I'd prefer thinking about items to happen maybe once every four or five hours of gameplay.

Modifié par AlanC9, 03 mars 2011 - 09:56 .

[Yrkoon]

Vaeliorin wrote...
I'm familiar with DM's who did it like that, having played PnP for close to two decades now. I hated it, particularly since there are classes I don't enjoy playing (for example, I have never and will never play a pure wizard in a D&D-based game). Instead of playing the character I wanted to play, I was forced to play a character that matched the stats I rolled. I'm sorry, but there's no way I'm ever going to enjoy playing a character with an intelligence of 4 and a constitution of 7. I did once play a character with a wisdom of 3, which was fun...until the character got himself killed from doing something that someone with a wisdom of 10 probably wouldn't have.

Well, I had a different experience than you.

My DM was a sadistic bastard and incredibly creative.   I had a character who was cursed with 4 intelligence and 8 wisdom.   But after seeing everyone else mock my character, my DM decided to "teach" us that anyone can achieve greatness.  I can't even describe how much fun I had playing him.  (yes, there were those times when  a member of his party would come up with some ingenious solution to  a problem, and still fail, only to have my retard brute solve that problem the simple way,  by doing something really stupid... like  SMASHING IT, with his head.    But overall, I found it fun, and refreshing, to role play a character who, against all conceivable odds, manages to stumble his way to demigod status.

And my DM used to love to reward us for playing in Character.    When playing my Retard Brute, I got bonus EXP every time I came up with an exceptionally air-headed comment, or solution to a situation.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 03 mars 2011 - 10:28 .

[Bryy_Miller]

Elvoria wrote...

Destructoid article really?, may aswell just start posting blogger rants.

I was going to make a Kotaku joke here, but either works.

[Yrkoon]

Bryy_Miller wrote...

Elvoria wrote...

Destructoid article really?, may aswell just start posting blogger rants.

I was going to make a Kotaku joke here, but either works.

Did you guys even read the article?  Its an  interview with Mike Laidlaw.  it's not an "opinionated blog"

[moilami]

AlanC9 wrote...

And what if you do? Drop a little gold at the nearest temple and everyone you didn't slaughter forgives you.

Gameplay where I'm often thinking about or fiddling with items. I'd prefer thinking about items to happen maybe once every four or five hours of gameplay.

They might not forgive you but they might stop trying to kill you. I heard people behave like that in real world too.

These things "I prefer" and "not fun" are things what leave me almost speechless. But now that I thought about it, I think the best RPG for masses would be a game where "if you press a button something awesome happens".

Inventory management with a kobold sorcerer in NWN MP server is big part of the immersion. You will have to make choises what crap you take with you and what loot you pick up, and you just can't be a walking mule carrying everything you find. It very much makes kobold a kobold instead of hummie with looks of kobold. It is not "fun", but huh, what the hell.....it is at least interesting, immersive, and realistical. Besides when I see those level 30 kobolds and I know what hardship they have gone through, I feel respect at them. They are freaking awesome lol.

I wonder if it will be so that NWN will be the last multiplayer commercial cRPG where you can enjoy of hardship and realistical immersion. There is no markets for that kind of game anymore?

[AkiKishi]

Cadaveth wrote...

Darth Executor wrote...

Review tales of woe regarding repetitive caves just bring back horrible nightmares of the ruined temple or the deep roads or ostagar.

Those are the two things that pop to mind when I'm thinking "why haven't I played DAO for awhile. I should play through it again!". Then I just leave the game to gather dust.

DA2 follows a similiar model to Mana-Khemia by the look of it. That's a game set in a school where time passes between terms and years and the school changes depending on what you do and don't do.

Around the school are areas which you could call "dungeons" these don't change at all but sometimes an event will occur that makes more of the area explorable.

That would account for the "City" based game with the repetative caves etc.

[Saibh]

Dorian the Monk of Sune wrote...

It beats the alternative of pick pocket dice roll with no consequence for failure. In BG you had to be careful with AoE spells else you might kill civies and ****** off the populace. DA 2 doesn't even have in party friendly fire unless you are playing on nightmare. One of my most memorable moments in BG was fighting a wizard in the underground brothel. The wizard dropped a fireball and charred some ****s.

That doesn't change the fact it doesn't make sense for the Champion of Kirkwall to be able to partake in rampant slaughter and get away with it. If you want that sort of game, fine, but this isn't that sort of game. Stealing from someone isn't nearly as egregious as walking through town and blowing people up.

[AkiKishi]

moilami wrote...

They might not forgive you but they might stop trying to kill you. I heard people behave like that in real world too.

These things "I prefer" and "not fun" are things what leave me almost speechless. But now that I thought about it, I think the best RPG for masses would be a game where "if you press a button something awesome happens".

Inventory management with a kobold sorcerer in NWN MP server is big part of the immersion. You will have to make choises what crap you take with you and what loot you pick up, and you just can't be a walking mule carrying everything you find. It very much makes kobold a kobold instead of hummie with looks of kobold. It is not "fun", but huh, what the hell.....it is at least interesting, immersive, and realistical. Besides when I see those level 30 kobolds and I know what hardship they have gone through, I feel respect at them. They are freaking awesome lol.

I wonder if it will be so that NWN will be the last multiplayer commercial cRPG where you can enjoy of hardship and realistical immersion. There is no markets for that kind of game anymore?

Everquest was like that, things had weight, I remember this because as a Druid I was the one who was always doing shuttle runs to the bank to convert coins.
WoW kind of did away with all that stuff. EverQuest was a game that hated you so actually "winning" felt like something. WoW is all well and good , but it's more about numbers at the high end where everything takes an age to get done.

[moilami]

BobSmith101 wrote...

moilami wrote...

They might not forgive you but they might stop trying to kill you. I heard people behave like that in real world too.

These things "I prefer" and "not fun" are things what leave me almost speechless. But now that I thought about it, I think the best RPG for masses would be a game where "if you press a button something awesome happens".

Inventory management with a kobold sorcerer in NWN MP server is big part of the immersion. You will have to make choises what crap you take with you and what loot you pick up, and you just can't be a walking mule carrying everything you find. It very much makes kobold a kobold instead of hummie with looks of kobold. It is not "fun", but huh, what the hell.....it is at least interesting, immersive, and realistical. Besides when I see those level 30 kobolds and I know what hardship they have gone through, I feel respect at them. They are freaking awesome lol.

I wonder if it will be so that NWN will be the last multiplayer commercial cRPG where you can enjoy of hardship and realistical immersion. There is no markets for that kind of game anymore?

Everquest was like that, things had weight, I remember this because as a Druid I was the one who was always doing shuttle runs to the bank to convert coins.
WoW kind of did away with all that stuff. EverQuest was a game that hated you so actually "winning" felt like something. WoW is all well and good , but it's more about numbers at the high end where everything takes an age to get done.

Argh, should had jumped on EQ train.

[AkiKishi]

moilami wrote...
Argh, should had jumped on EQ train.

They put level 34-36 mobs in the second zone you would visit. Either you would be sitting looking at your spell book and "SPLAT" as a Giant stepped on you , or you would be clawed appart by a Griffon. You would be about 12 tops at the time. But boy did I have a great time once I got high enough level for payback. My Druid hit 35-50 exclusively on various kinds of Giants.

Whoever made those levels was one sadistic SOB.

Don't even get me started on naked corpse runs.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 03 mars 2011 - 10:56 .

[FlintlockJazz]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
IIRC BG did not scale, but I've never really tried to verify this. It didn't really need to, since there really wan't a very large level range for when a party would hit any of the critical path encounters. It's an advantage of only having 7 or so levels in the whole game, I think.
This is one of the reasons I think a shallower power curve makes for a better game.  It solves all manner of design problems.

I'd like to see a game like DAO where through the whole game (a game just as big as DAO is) the party advances only to level 10.  That would be a fun game.

I agree 100%, would make levelling more meaningful too.  Plus I just like low-powered campaigns, there aren't enough of them.

[moilami]

BobSmith101 wrote...

moilami wrote...
Argh, should had jumped on EQ train.

They put level 34-36 mobs in the second zone you would visit. Either you would be sitting looking at your spell book and "SPLAT" as a Giant stepped on you , or you would be clawed appart by a Griffon. You would be about 12 tops at the time. But boy did I have a great time once I got high enough level for payback. My Druid hit 35-50 exclusively on various kinds of Giants.

Whoever made those levels was one sadistic SOB.

Don't even get me started on naked corpse runs.

Sounds good. I would had paid of the game just to enjoy of /common chat channel rage.

Thinking about that made me think there should be NWN servers where would be Troll Face DMs working for lulz xD Now every server is boring and predictable MMORPG server in practise.

[Dorian the Monk of Sune]

AlanC9 wrote...

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. Just turn off the clock while you're in the tower? OK, I guess, if the system actually lets you do it. The IE games and NWN1 couldn't - - you could build a duplicate of the map that was always day or always night, sure, but the clock would still be running. The player would know he'd been in the tower for a couple of days even if the sun didn't come up.

Its timed. You have a cut scene for the evening, the attack occurs then you cut to the night when you face the Ogre and you are saved. 

I wasn't explicit. The underlying problem is that the AD&D system takes time seriously. But, yeah, I guess you can have day/night cycles without using time in the game system.

The only major difference between DA:O and D&D in this respect is that  you have auto healing. 4th ed D&D has something like this now too. The best solution for me isn’t auto healing. If someone has to rest constantly to heal and memorize spells then  you have to change the encounter otherwise it has to last more than  one night. If it has to take place at night then simply make a realistic encounter. Instead of having a low level party fight 5 to 10 packs of Darkspawn and an Ogre who’s hp bar moves like he is made out of steel, you could have them fight 3 packs of Darkspawn and an Ogre that is made of flesh and blood.  You would not need auto healing, and you could still have it occur in one night. 

You don't need cycles for that. Just alternate area versions. Like DA2, you know, has.

Which for anyone that cares anything about sandbox stuff or immersion is not an answer. I would be ok with it if they were cutting the day and night cycles out to save time where they could develop something else but this was in Bioware’s games 10 years ago. 

And what if you do? Drop a little gold at the nearest temple and everyone you didn't slaughter forgives you.

Or you reload. That gold starts to add up so while it isnt a realistic system it creates some intensity and strategy because you dont want to pay 500 gp to keep the guards off of you. These might be little things. A little depth here and there starts to add. 

Gameplay where I'm often thinking about or fiddling with items. I'd prefer thinking about items to happen maybe once every four or five hours of gameplay.

I kinda agree though I find the fiddling more manageable and at times interesting with individual inventories.  

[moilami]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Lockkaliber wrote...

I guess it didn't strike any of you hardcore bioware-fans that some people actually like RPG mechanics in their RPG's, not because of tradition, but you know, because we enjoy the genre.

You know what? I've been on the Dragon Age II board for a while now and there's one complaint I've never seen.

No one has *ever* asked that point allocation at character creation be replaced by dice rolling.

All these people who love Baldur's Gate II and love RPG mechanics seem to never advocate for one of the oldest of those mechanics. Which is strange, because when BioWare made Neverwinter Night, I recall many people wanting to know if the 3d6 method or the 4d6 and drop the lowest would be used.

And what about wound penalties? In many games, the lower your HP, the worse you are at fighting. I know when I play World of Darkness, PC can't fight or cast spells as well when half her health is gone.

Or what about item weight? Encumbrance slowing how fast your character runs and walks? Needing to eat and drink? An attack penalty when fighting in darkness? Heck, even Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition has that.

All these wonderful RPG mechanics are neglected by those who claim to love RPG mechanics just because they're part of the genre.

I would take all those mechanics anytime, and gladly. But complaining about lack of them does not make sense because do you really want to see 10 picture spams of Sten saying "No."

Some things has been lost cause a long time ago.


Edit: All detailed rules in Pen&Paper RPGs were optional, in case you did not know. And I am very sure the law of gaming bell curve said that only a minority even tried to use all rules in complex Pen&Paper games.

For some reason devs of computer games does not make that much optional complexity, if we don't count some NWN server devs who has implemented stuff like food and drink, resting, and item degration.

Modifié par moilami, 04 mars 2011 - 01:50 .

[MightySword]

AlanC9 wrote...
As for no level scaling -- that really wouldn't work well with DAO's structure. And stuff in BG2 was often scaled, though somewhat less obviously than in DAO.

If I have to name the two worst thing had happened to gaming in the last ten years, they are regenerable health and level scaling. While I can type an essay for while I hate both of them, I''ll just gonna talk about the level scaling here.

First, it takes out the sense of progression in the game, and not only that in some case it also takes out the risk and reward of sense of a RPG. For example, in Morrowind I usually try to fight a deadra cult under one of the Vivec quarter earlier in the game, a fight that I'm completely outlevel, I can say the difference in power make it even harder than a fight against the last boss. That's the risk, however the reason I fight that battle is to loot the Katana that gonna last me for a while. And this is an early example, Morrowind was a steady progression experience not only in term of stat, but it also gives you a sense of achievement via exploration and reward. This is pretty much completely devoid in Oblivion, there is no risk to early battle, neither there is reward.

And I dare say while it is to a lesser decree, DA:O suffered the same kind of thing with item scaling. Like I said reward and item is a big part of RPG, and I don't mean just the stat. For example, getting the Silver Sword, the Gersen Bow or the Equalizer in BGII are minestone that can serve you in different way and magniture. Am I to risk an uphill battle against Firkraag, but is rewarded with the Avenger and the Red Dragon Armor that can help me through the underdark, or should I wait until my return when I can evenly wipe the floor with him? Should I save as much quest as possible so when I get Imoen she won't be underlevel? These kind of decision making process are more or less devoid in DA:O and for better or worse, they're what I like in my RPG. You do the quest early, you get a crap set of armor, you do the quest later, you get a better version of it, what's the point?


Secondly, encounter. And it's something I find really tedicious as well. The problem is level scaling doesn't "change" an encounter like poeple tend to say, all it does is "lenghthen" it with buffed enemies. One particular painful thing about DA:O for example if you save the Earl Edmon quest line for last (or the samething for the quest when you broke in to the thief den in the Dwaft cities). You encounter an impossible large amount of enemy and basically fighting from room to room. It's long, tedicious, and not fun, not to mention immersion breaking. By the end of these quests, I feel like I killed more brigand then the number of soldier in the army, or there are more thief in the city then there are citizens.

[hangmans tree]

MightySword wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
As for no level scaling -- that really wouldn't work well with DAO's structure. And stuff in BG2 was often scaled, though somewhat less obviously than in DAO.

If I have to name the two worst thing had happened to gaming in the last ten years, they are regenerable health and level scaling. While I can type an essay for while I hate both of them, I''ll just gonna talk about the level scaling here.

First, it takes out the sense of progression in the game, and not only that in some case it also takes out the risk and reward of sense of a RPG. For example, in Morrowind I usually try to fight a deadra cult under one of the Vivec quarter earlier in the game, a fight that I'm completely outlevel, I can say the difference in power make it even harder than a fight against the last boss. That's the risk, however the reason I fight that battle is to loot the Katana that gonna last me for a while. And this is an early example, Morrowind was a steady progression experience not only in term of stat, but it also gives you a sense of achievement via exploration and reward. This is pretty much completely devoid in Oblivion, there is no risk to early battle, neither there is reward.

And I dare say while it is to a lesser decree, DA:O suffered the same kind of thing with item scaling. Like I said reward and item is a big part of RPG, and I don't mean just the stat. For example, getting the Silver Sword, the Gersen Bow or the Equalizer in BGII are minestone that can serve you in different way and magniture. Am I to risk an uphill battle against Firkraag, but is rewarded with the Avenger and the Red Dragon Armor that can help me through the underdark, or should I wait until my return when I can evenly wipe the floor with him? Should I save as much quest as possible so when I get Imoen she won't be underlevel? These kind of decision making process are more or less devoid in DA:O and for better or worse, they're what I like in my RPG. You do the quest early, you get a crap set of armor, you do the quest later, you get a better version of it, what's the point?


Secondly, encounter. And it's something I find really tedicious as well. The problem is level scaling doesn't "change" an encounter like poeple tend to say, all it does is "lenghthen" it with buffed enemies. One particular painful thing about DA:O for example if you save the Earl Edmon quest line for last (or the samething for the quest when you broke in to the thief den in the Dwaft cities). You encounter an impossible large amount of enemy and basically fighting from room to room. It's long, tedicious, and not fun, not to mention immersion breaking. By the end of these quests, I feel like I killed more brigand then the number of soldier in the army, or there are more thief in the city then there are citizens.

I think this should be stickied somewhere. Or printed out and pinned to every tavern's door and bartable

Accomplishent, a rewarding one, and satisfaction - joy taken out of rpgs by level scaling.
Besides DAO was realy BORING in that regard. If I wasnt such a junkie when it comes to rpgs I would tire of the game, I was persistent enought to last through Deep Roads, Mages Tower and The Fade which should/could be done way better. Battling waves of mobs time after time was tedious and annoying (for me).

[Blablabla79]

tmp7704 wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

I can't even properly grasp what the OP said...

Basically -- the early part of DAO was boring because your character has just 1-2 abilities that don't damage the mobs much, which leads to very repetitive experience, one which can easily make someone give up and quit few hours into the game.

What he points out is that BioWare tried to address that issue (people quitting early) by adding the "legendary intro" ... but that they failed completely to grasp what made people quit early in the first place. And as result, the experience after these early "legendary" first few minutes is just as repetitive and boring as it was in DAO. Which is likely to lead to exactly the same result.

This is fair point to make but it looks people are in full defense mode at the moment and dead set to refuse to listen.

You good sir or madame are awesome and we need more people like you in the world. 

Kileyan wrote...

JrayM16 wrote...

You know, a lot of people say that the stats aren't that complicated, but let me tell you this. I had a friend who bought Origins and stopped after about 10-15 minutes cause he just didn't wanna deal with the stats. ANd he was a pretty hardcore gamer. Loves games, play them all the time.

There is some credence to Bioware's claims.

True, but how far do you lower the bar to attact that friend?

My friend abandoned pc's 10 years ago, he only has a cheap laptop to do keep up with facebook and download free music and movies via illegal ways.

He hates any game that lasts more than 15 hours, any game that has level up choices or more than one activated skill. He played the entire game of Mass Effect 1 as a biotic but wouldn't use the skills because he thought they should be auto used. The only reason he upgraded him armor and weapons via inventory is i did it for him. I kid you not, he played the entire game with a pistol, and complained the game was stupid, too hard and too long.

He is a hardcore gamer, he is exceptionally good at platformers, and shooters. That doesn't mean every game should be made to attact him.

Do we really want games to be designed to attact that sort of player? Seriously, I don't want to play a game that is designed to attract someone who, within 15 minutes was overwhelmed by spending 3 stat points and one talent point.

C'mon, think hard about what that game would be, if it was designed to essentially attact someone who has zero interest in rpgs?

Why design a game like that, I could ask where is my base bulding, resource gathering and army units building. I want Dragon Ages the real time strategy game! I only half kid, I think that or even an ME spin off into another genre would be kind of cool

What happened where are all those intelligent people coming from?

Dara O'Briain has a very funny routine about video games, which fits to the last comment: Videogames are the only entertainment system that people can be bad at. And currently Bioware and other developers are doing everything to change that and to kill the specialty of videogames.

Modifié par Blablabla79, 04 mars 2011 - 11:32 .

[AkiKishi]

hangmans tree wrote...
I think this should be stickied somewhere. Or printed out and pinned to every tavern's door and bartable

Accomplishent, a rewarding one, and satisfaction - joy taken out of rpgs by level scaling.
Besides DAO was realy BORING in that regard. If I wasnt such a junkie when it comes to rpgs I would tire of the game, I was persistent enought to last through Deep Roads, Mages Tower and The Fade which should/could be done way better. Battling waves of mobs time after time was tedious and annoying (for me).

It's one of the things I have to re-adjust for when I play JRPGs. It not uncommon to walk over a bridge or land on an island and get your ass handed to you by something 20 levels above you. Of course there is no feeling in the world sweeter than beating one of those encounters (then running very fast in the other direction).

Level scaling totally removes that accomplishment. It's also the reason people can rush through games. If you have scaling, you don't need levels to progress.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 04 mars 2011 - 11:33 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

The big problem with level scaling...is that that the gulf between levels gets huge..and the difference betwen fights get huge. And thus developers feel a need to make battles amore challening by brining opponents to your level. Or throw enldess hordes of lesser enemies at you.

But neither of it is really necessary.

Take a look at games and notice a pattern. Take a note of :
- number of levels a player can have (max level)
- difference in pwoer between levels
- difference in HP between levels.

Mybe the devs feel they have to make the palyer feel more powerfull? So they ramp up the number of levels and the difference. So you end up with the garbage that is WoW leveling, where lvl 1 has 100 HP and lvl 80 has 90,000!

Relly, when you think about other games...is such an huge boost even necessary? There certanly are games that don't constantly make the PC tougher, faster nad infinately more durable..do they flop because of that?

Of course, this does't mean that the player character should 't improve with elvel. But in what ways should he improve? And by how much?

HP inflation is not necessary. Frankly, I'd tie HP to constitutions score only, and nothing else - your level or class wouldn't affect it at all. I'd also reduce attribute point closer to D&D range.
What woudl that accomplish?

1) No HP inflation. No need to beef up enemies. A low-level enemy doesn't become utterly insignificant later. A high-level enemy isn't completley impossible.
The challange remain, the scaling tedium is gone.

2) Experience focuses on skills. Knowledge. What experience really is. The Character becomes better trough skills, not HP inflation.

3) Creating the character you really want. In D&D you could create a really strong character to start with. DA:O and DA2 - you can't do that. Because of the way attributes and item scaling works, you'll enver be able to equip that steel armor early.

4) More believable experience. People with swords don't suddenly become inconsequential just because you've been training. They can still kill you. They are still dangerous.
But in a typcial RPG.
A whole army of lvl1 bandits that plauged you early aren't even worth your attention now. You can read a newspaper and not even bother defending yourself.


This is jsut off the top of my head on this one subject. I could write essays on other things too..like prema-death, money and other things....