160 réponses à ce sujet

[Vena_86]

Ok so if ME2 was the real vision for Mass Effect (science fantasy with linear, predicatable level design and very little progression and customization) then they must have gone the wrong way at the start with Mass Effect1.
That's wierd, since judging from early interviews for ME1 it appeared like they actually had a different vision at first, one that was more like the first game.

[Sidney]

JKoopman wrote...

with virtually every RPG mainstay (like inventory, loot, stat development, party customization, experience, etc) either reduced to the point of nigh-invisibility or eliminated altogether.

There is loot - hacking, safes, scanning new items. There's just not looting crap off of dead bodies after you've shot them to pieces. You seriously are going to complain about that? You like that heroic feel of stripping boots off dead bodies and rifling their pockets for spare change after every battle?

There is also an inventory. It is limited and forces you to *gasp* make a choice. You can't carry 4 suits of armor, and 21 guns so you have to pick the armor mix and weapon mix that will be suit your needs based on the mission profile. It is called planning and it makes things better unlike the dumbed down inventories that RPG's have tradtionally had where you could carry everything around like a pack mule.

XP - yeah you missed XP being assigned...oh wait only the kind of XP that floats up over dead bodies is REALLY RPG is that what you want to say? Oblivion doesn't even have XP assigned so does that make it "not an RPG". You actually don't even have to level up in the game - and it is frankly better not to.

Party Customization. I can control stats and weapons so apparently w/o armor customization there's nothing. FNV allowed only armor to be under your control and not all armor was allowed. Is that an RPG?

Finally, all those things other than XP are ,usually bad, gameplay mechanisms that have zip, zero, zilch, nada and nul to do with actually role playing.

[Sidney]

Vena_86 wrote...

Ok so if ME2 was the real vision for Mass Effect (science fantasy with linear, predicatable level design a

Seriously, do you people even think before you say stuff like this.

Tell me how ME1 didn't have linear maps? You've got a long winding trail on Eden Prime. Ferros is a long one way trip that is "enlivened" by being able to go into the basement one way before you can take the skyway, one way, before entering the Exo-Geni building one way and then you walk up to the throian creeper, one way.  Virmire is a long one way trek. Same thing with Noveria where the one way treek in the MAKO was followed by a one way trip into the building. Virrmire is a long linear run into a building that is a long linear run. Illos, well what can i say a one way trek to the door controls, one way back and then a one way drive. The final battle, hey, look you walk in a straight line from the bottom of the tower to the top.  Toss in all the "pre-fab" UCW buildings that defined re-usable content and ME1 wasn't a paragon of open world design with big living maps.

[Rekkampum]

g54 wrote...

GR: Like planet scanning?

CN: I can’t comment on anything specifically, but there will be elements that are in ME2 that are not in ME3.


For some reason I like this statement...

Actually, I think it was Hudson who said that mining would not be complettely dropped in ME3, but they would make it more integral to the story somehow.

[JKoopman]

Sidney wrote...

JKoopman wrote...

with virtually every RPG mainstay (like inventory, loot, stat development, party customization, experience, etc) either reduced to the point of nigh-invisibility or eliminated altogether.

There is loot - hacking, safes, scanning new items. There's just not looting crap off of dead bodies after you've shot them to pieces. You seriously are going to complain about that? You like that heroic feel of stripping boots off dead bodies and rifling their pockets for spare change after every battle?

That depends. Do you currently feel "heroic" rifling through the pockets of dead bodies looking for spare ammo?

No, there is no loot in ME2. There's Medi-Gel, which simply adds a number to your current Medi-Gel count in your abilities menu, and there's credits. That's the extent of what you can find in safes and from hacking terminals. And no, I don't consider research to be "loot". There's not a menu where I can see what research I've collected or view schematics; all it does is flip a switch back on the Normandy that tells the computer that "Ok, now you can research this previously greyed-out upgrade in the list and auto-apply it to everything." I can't even choose what individual upgrades to apply to my equipment or squadmates, it's just a 100% linear upgrade path with no choice or trade-off involved.

Do I necessarily want to go rummaging through every corpse I pass for spare change? No. Do I miss the gambling-like high of checking a downed oponent knowing that I might possibly find an upgraded chestpiece or better weapon? Most certainly.

Sidney wrote...

There is also an inventory. It is limited and forces you to *gasp* make a choice. You can't carry 4 suits of armor, and 21 guns so you have to pick the armor mix and weapon mix that will be suit your needs based on the mission profile. It is called planning and it makes things better unlike the dumbed down inventories that RPG's have tradtionally had where you could carry everything around like a pack mule.

Selecting what weapon(s) to equip prior to the mission is not an "inventory", unless you consider the original DOOM and every subsequent FPS released since then to have an inventory as well insofar as having a weapon selection. And I find it particularly ironic that you would call an actual inventory that forces you to manage carrying capacity and choose what to keep and what to discard to be "dumbed down" as opposed to the complete lack of an inventory system entirely.

Sidney wrote...

XP - yeah you missed XP being assigned...oh wait only the kind of XP that floats up over dead bodies is REALLY RPG is that what you want to say? Oblivion doesn't even have XP assigned so does that make it "not an RPG". You actually don't even have to level up in the game - and it is frankly better not to.

The only time that you're aware of how much EXP you've acquired--or even that you've acquired EXP at all--is at the Mission Complete screen. During play, it's completely invisible and you're not even given a notification when you Level Up, hence why I said "either nigh-invisible or eliminated".

Sidney wrote...

Party Customization. I can control stats and weapons so apparently w/o armor customization there's nothing. FNV allowed only armor to be under your control and not all armor was allowed. Is that an RPG?

Squadmate stats, armor, omnitools, implants, weapons, mods and upgrades were all able to be customized in ME1. In ME2, only stats and weapons can be modified; unless you consider being able to pallet-swap Loyalty outfits to be 'armor customization'? Are you prepared to argue that the one isn't significantly less than the other?

Sidney wrote...

Finally, all those things other than XP are ,usually bad, gameplay mechanisms that have zip, zero, zilch, nada and nul to do with actually role playing.

Every game is a "Role-Playing Game" insofar as you Play the Role of a fictional Game character. What differentiates a game in the RPG genre from, say, Contra, or Mario Bros, or Halo are the aforementioned "gameplay mechanisms" that include inventory, loot, stat development, party customization, experience, etc. Saying that you're an RPG fan but you don't like traditional RPG game mechanics is like saying you're an RTS fan but you don't like having to micromanage troop movements or supply lines.

If you don't like those gameplay mechanisms, then go play the aforementioned other games and stop trying to turn RPGs into generic action-adventure games (but with Level Ups!).

Modifié par JKoopman, 08 mars 2011 - 05:27 .

[Bluko]

Just a few of my thoughts on the interview.

CN: There were a lot of themes that emerged that seemed really consistent
and resulted in kind of like a critical, hardcore gamer feedback and
there were also people who would just say things like, “I find this game
confusing,” “I try to play it and my gun isn’t hitting anybody and I
don’t know what’s going on,” and other sort of things. So there were
certain aspects of the gameplay that were making the game inaccessable
to players.

Umm who exactly were they listening to? No offense, but it sounds like some especially "special" people. I thought ME1 was pretty simple. You aim at things and hold the trigger til they die. It's not like weapons in ME1 were that inaccurate. Well okay assault rifles and sniper rifles really sucked when you first started using them. I dunno who thought it was a good idea to give early assault rifles an accuracy rating of 1. Still it's not like you couldn't kill anything with an assault rifle at Level 1. It seemed pretty obvious to me that you needed to "burst fire" you're weapons. Even shooter kids should know that.

Also I suppose this is why they made every gun in ME2 fired slow moving bullets, all of which are apparently tracer rounds. Of course most games get this wrong so I'll let it slide. But I believe someone said "tracer rounds work both ways." I really liked how guns fired in ME1, in that they left faint trails, instead of being bright glowy bullets!


CN: Sure. This is the metaphor you can think of it in. I can tell you the
overall arcing design for 1, 2, and 3. With ME1, we wanted to build Mass
Effect and we did our best to do that and we succeeded in a lot of
areas, but we didn’t reach where we wanted to do in some areas. Mass
Effect 2 was like, “OK, now we have time to take what we did and fully
sort of realize the vision we had for Mass Effect.” And we’ve done that,
but now what we can do is add another layer on top of that in terms of
“now that we have something that we think really represents the Mass
Effect experience, let’s build on that.

So the vision for Mass Effect was to make it like Gears of War? Could have fooled me.

This is what bothers me. ME1 was unique, and besides a few things, which could have been easily fixed, they felt the need to remake half the game. I get the feeling that because ME1 didn't sell like crazy they decided to go ahead and blatantly copy other shooters to be more "successful".

Stupid is all I can say. True ME2 has received a lot more praise, but it really hasn't outsold ME1 that much.

It's one thing to create an entirely new series, but drastically changing a game mid-series Bioware is a really bad move. It may pay off in that you can attract more new players, but doing so at the expense of fans of the previous game... yeah that's a pretty big risk. And without a longterm fanbase you aren't going to be ultimately succesful.

Yes games change, and I don't expect a sequel to be exactly like the original. But you're taking it too far.

I imagine DA2 won't do much better as a result either, since a lot of fans seem upset with the changes made in that series now as well. True I'd probably enjoy DA2 more DA:O (seeing as I haven't even finished the game), but tread carefully Bioware.


CN: There really is infinite possibilities now that we have that really,
really solid Mass Effect 2 core. What you’ll probably not see in Mass
Effect 3 is a lot of major, complete reinventions, because we don’t have
those things where we’ll shift it and all that. That is not actually
what we wanted to do. There will still be things that are in ME2 that
won’t be in ME3 and that’s just because we’re looking at the overall
play experience of “does this make sense to have in both games?”
Sometimes there’s something and we’ll say “this is great for one game,
but we don’t want to do it again in another game, because once was
enough.” And instead we want to put in something new to replace it.

I suppose that's good. Hopefully this means you'll make ME3 a better game by improving upon on what you did in ME2, instead of trying to redo half the game again. Now I just have to hope you actually listened feedback and will add some more depth to ME3's combat and bring back some more classical RPG elements. Even most Reviewers made a critical note of ME2's lack of things such as an inventory, upgrades, etc.[/b]

GR: Like planet scanning?



I really hope planet scanning is gone in ME3. Not only is it tedious, but it totally ruined planet exploration for me in that every planet was now a marble with grid lines over it.

David:"Please! Make it stop!"

Modifié par Bluko, 08 mars 2011 - 06:48 .

[Lunatic LK47]

Bluko wrote...

Umm who exactly were they listening to? No offense, but it sounds like some especially "special" people. I thought ME1 was pretty simple. You aim at things and hold the trigger til they die. It's not like weapons in ME1 were that inaccurate. Well okay assault rifles and sniper rifles really sucked when you first started using them. I dunno who thought it was a good idea to give early assault rifles an accuracy rating of 1. Still it's not like you couldn't kill anything with an assault rifle at Level 1. It seemed pretty obvious to me that you needed to "burst fire" you're weapons. Even shooter kids should know that.

Except it's not really all that feasible when you have to deal with enemies that have thicker armor than you, making it somewhat moot. On top of this, being hit with Sabotage would often accelerate the weapon overheating within one second, screwing you over faster, regardless of what weapon you have equipped. Adepts, Engineers, and Sentinels are screwed over the worst considering they can only specialize with pistols, not to mention that being hit by damping will turn off their powers for at least two full minutes. Not fun.

[Ahriman]

@Bluko
Well said. Still I think they'll get rid not only from planet scanning but also from this recruting stuff.

Lunatic LK47 wrote...

Adepts, Engineers, and Sentinels are screwed over the worst considering they can only specialize with pistols, not to mention that being hit by damping will turn off their powers for at least two full minutes. Not fun.

Adepts screwed in ME1? You must be kidding me.

[Vena_86]

Sidney wrote...

Vena_86 wrote...

Ok so if ME2 was the real vision for Mass Effect (science fantasy with linear, predicatable level design a

Seriously, do you people even think before you say stuff like this.

Tell me how ME1 didn't have linear maps? You've got a long winding trail on Eden Prime. Ferros is a long one way trip that is "enlivened" by being able to go into the basement one way before you can take the skyway, one way, before entering the Exo-Geni building one way and then you walk up to the throian creeper, one way.  Virmire is a long one way trek. Same thing with Noveria where the one way treek in the MAKO was followed by a one way trip into the building. Virrmire is a long linear run into a building that is a long linear run. Illos, well what can i say a one way trek to the door controls, one way back and then a one way drive. The final battle, hey, look you walk in a straight line from the bottom of the tower to the top.  Toss in all the "pre-fab" UCW buildings that defined re-usable content and ME1 wasn't a paragon of open world design with big living maps.

You had the citadel and you would board the Normandy through the hatch and not just by teleporting there with a loading screen. There is this kind of thought process "Where do I have to go next? The Normandy. Where is the Normandy? It's over there..."  and you usually wouldn't have to go a long way to go back. Stuff like this engages the player because he thinks of the levels as environments and not just backgrounds for the action.
You had open planet surfaces with points of interest you find your self rather than beeing bottlenecked from A to B. Same concept. I hear Hudson saying things like "explore the galaxy" in early interviews, but there is no more exploration in ME2 if you just follow predetermined paths. You don't explore, the game does it for you.
Although there was a lot of linear level design too in ME1 it was still far more open, thus giving the player a better sense of immersion and purpose.
In ME2 every mission was going a linear path until you reach the end and get teleportet back. Compare that to Noveria for example where you have areas you return to frequently with other areas branching of from there. It felt more complex and thought out and like actual environments rather than attractive looking level corridors. I liked the look (mazing) and layout of Illium and Omega but the problem was that there wasn't enough things going on to return to those places.

Modifié par Vena_86, 08 mars 2011 - 07:52 .

[AlanC9]

Vena_86 wrote...
You had the citadel and you would board the Normandy through the hatch and not just by teleporting there with a loading screen. There is this kind of thought process "Where do I have to go next? The Normandy. Where is the Normandy? It's over there..."  and you usually wouldn't have to go a long way to go back. Stuff like this engages the player because he thinks of the levels as environments and not just backgrounds for the action.

It didn't engage me. Maybe that's because I come from PnP RPGs:

GM: "You guys heading back to the ship?"
Player: "Sure. We're done here."

You had open planet surfaces with points of interest you find your self rather than beeing bottlenecked from A to B. Same concept. I hear Hudson saying things like "explore the galaxy" in early interviews, but there is no more exploration in ME2 if you just follow predetermined paths. You don't explore, the game does it for you.
Although there was a lot of linear level design too in ME1 it was still far more open, thus giving the player a better sense of immersion and purpose.

If anything, most of the ME1 exploration content actually broke immersion for me. Shepard's going around hunting up mineral deposits on unknown worlds? Really?

And double that for the inventory system and weapon skills, which were obviously in there because they thought some folks would need traditional RPG elements, not because they fit the story.

Modifié par AlanC9, 08 mars 2011 - 08:13 .

[Lunatic LK47]

Wizz wrote...

Adepts screwed in ME1? You must be kidding me.

Uh, hello, McFly, anyone home? Sabotage and and Damping spams by Engineer-class enemies?

[Goofy McCoy]

Bluko wrote...

It's one thing to create an entirely new series, but drastically changing a game mid-series Bioware is a really bad move. It may pay off in that you can attract more new players, but doing so at the expense of fans of the previous game... yeah that's a pretty big risk.

But the priiiiiize....

[JKoopman]

Goofy McCoy wrote...

Bluko wrote...

It's one thing to create an entirely new series, but drastically changing a game mid-series Bioware is a really bad move. It may pay off in that you can attract more new players, but doing so at the expense of fans of the previous game... yeah that's a pretty big risk.

But the priiiiiize....

It was inevitable.

[Goofy McCoy]

JKoopman wrote...

It was inevitable.

For the record, I sicken myself for resorting to that. <_<

Modifié par Goofy McCoy, 08 mars 2011 - 09:15 .

[didymos1120]

Goofy McCoy wrote...

Bluko wrote...

It's one thing to create an entirely new series, but drastically changing a game mid-series Bioware is a really bad move. It may pay off in that you can attract more new players, but doing so at the expense of fans of the previous game... yeah that's a pretty big risk.

But the priiiiiize....

Priiiiiizes.  Over 160 of the things.

[Ahriman]

Lunatic LK47 wrote...
Uh, hello, McFly, anyone home? Sabotage and and Damping spams by Engineer-class enemies?

Enemies dont want you to use sungularity. That's disaster, they must just lie and die.

[Goofy McCoy]

didymos1120 wrote...

Priiiiiizes.  Over 160 of the things.

Shiney baubles that I'm sure allows EA to feed money into Bioware's productions all the faster, but I really begin to question how seriously I, or anyone else for that matter, am supposed to take some the groups that are handing these things out.

[FDrage]

not really much to say about that interview ... to be honest. Slight disappointing as it seems more of a generic interview with answers we'll hear for the next few month at least a couple of times.

[didymos1120]

Goofy McCoy wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

Priiiiiizes.  Over 160 of the things.

Shiney baubles that I'm sure allows EA to feed money into Bioware's productions all the faster, but I really begin to question how seriously I, or anyone else for that matter, am supposed to take some the groups that are handing these things out.

Probably not very, in many cases.  But the sheer volume alone still counts for something, and some of them definitely are worth taking seriously.

[Greatsultan]

I want Hammerhead with Mako Armour and Shield.......

[Sidney]

JKoopman wrote...

Do I necessarily want to go rummaging through every corpse I pass for spare change? No. Do I miss the gambling-like high of checking a downed oponent knowing that I might possibly find an upgraded chestpiece or better weapon? Most certainly.

Every game is a "Role-Playing Game" insofar as you Play the Role of a fictional Game character. What differentiates a game in the RPG genre from, say, Contra, or Mario Bros, or Halo are the aforementioned "gameplay mechanisms" that include inventory, loot, stat development, party customization, experience, etc.

If you don't like those gameplay mechanisms, then go play the aforementioned other games and stop trying to turn RPGs into generic action-adventure games (but with Level Ups!).

Ahhh the usual raft of repsonses from the RPG Luddites.

I find the first bit particularly funny. The "high" you get from finding Assault Rifle III or the BIG thrill of finding IV and getting teeny, tiny bits more whatever stat. wow, that was a thrill, gosh it it soooooooooooo worth the rest of the loosy gameplay mechanic to feel that marginal rush that allows me to swap a bunch of upgrades into a gun that does imperceptably better damage,

If you think playing a role is playing Mario I see where your confusion lies. All of those elements you listed as going to be found in a host of other games  - XCOM and Jagged Alliance series both do all those things and aren't role playing games. Bioshock does everything but party customization, AC Brotherhood has looting, party management, inventory and what not. What makes an RPG an RPG is the fact that you play as a player character. That abstraction that I don't do things my: Shep, Warden, Bhallspawn, Vault Dweller does things for me is what makes an RPG an RPG. Toss in the ability to influence the story line in a meaningful way and THAT is what makes an RPG. My biggest gripe with ME2 isn't doing away with a lot of fringe RPG mechanics but that in so many places they got rid of the really important one of the player character.

Your "rules" limit the genre.  I love RPG's but RPG's have loaded themselves up with a ton of ****** poor game mechanics because they are burdned under the dead weight of people like you. Your "rules" make no sense outside the narrow world of overused fantasy genres and sci-fi settings. Armor is meaningless if you do a game in the old west, 1920's, modern spy thrillers or the 18th centruy. No magical items from those same eras means you don't need all that dumb paper doll stuff so if you don't have magic or sci-fi "technology" you don't need all that inventory crap. If you want to have mission based XP or usage based stat progression that is verboten to folks like you. Focus on what matters: the PC and player choice and you get to the core of what matters and don't sweat all the ancilary gameplay elements because those will vary from one RPG to the next.

[FDrage]

Sidney wrote...

Your "rules" limit the genre.

and yours don't ?

[Bloggers99]

This thread has become hilarious. Waah there's no loot. I just happened to find a new sniper rifle, assault rifle, shotgun and smg in the last five levels, but that's not loot because a dead guy didn't drop it. Waah.

OMGWTH, you have to use the cover system that served no purpose in ME1. I'd rather steamroll everything with my shotgun of doom.

The enemies haz hax, I can't beat them if I don't have access to my bag of holding and all of my armor within it.

Get over it. The game is very much so a RPG. The Elder Scrolls games don't have experience systems post Morrowind, guess they're not RPGs. Final Fantasy VII doesn't have massive skill trees, guess it's not a RPG. You can't customize your allies in Legend of Mana, guess it's not a RPG. Some campaigns in Saga Frontier are based around building a team to beat a big bad guy, guess that's not a RPG either.

Just quit while you're behind.

Edit: Bored rant of nerd thumping+5 is over. I'm psyched that combat will be further refined in ME3. I can't wait to see how they improve upon the foundation made with ME2. With the possible inclusion of planetary exploration (hopefully akin to Overlord) and the conclusion of the great story they've got so far, I have no reason to not buy this "ultimate collector's edition" they keep hinting at.

Modifié par Bloggers99, 08 mars 2011 - 02:04 .

[Goofy McCoy]

Bloggers99 wrote...

I'm psyched that combat will be further refined in ME3. I can't wait to see how they improve upon the foundation made with ME2.

Here's a hint: You'll start with a gun, and you'll shoot it from behind some conveniant half-walls, and it'll seem okay.

Then, about halfway down some dark alley later on in the game, you will run across a slightly better gun that is handily left out for you to find on a desk, probably by some poor mook waiting behind a half wall in the next room.

You will probably never find or need another gun after this second one, unless you ante up for the inevitable dlc weapon pack.

...

If you're lucky, they'll drop that absurd bar that's supposed to represents the bad guy's remaining health, since that's dodgy old-hat RPG stuff. Heck, go straight to a 1-shot-kill headshot system, and you won't even need to pick up the arbitrary linear "upgrades" that plink the stupid bar away slightly faster.

Also, could I interest you in a little something titled Duty Calls?

Modifié par Goofy McCoy, 08 mars 2011 - 02:30 .

[Bloggers99]

Clever. Because I like the direction of combat in ME2 it means I'm a tool? Good to know. I also like how you can't pick apart the rest of the argument so you go after the one thing you can. I have no reason to explain myself as you've contributed nothing to the debate. Apparently wanting RPGs to progress makes me a fan of Call of Duty?

Interesting lack of logic, chief.