70 réponses à ce sujet

[Dauphin2]

Agreed, stats are meaningless and overall detract from the immersion and fun of this or any game. If you want to obsess over stats, go play MathCAD.



If you found a real life piece of magical armor, it wouldn't tell you how much bonus you got. Realism FTW.

[Wolff Laarcen]

Statue wrote...
Has anyone seen the way equipment stat notifications work in Divinity 2 btw? It's really very fast and informative at the same time. When the cursor is hovered over a piece of equipment, not only does the tooltip that pops up list the specific effects of the gear next to those of the currently equipped piece (which is quite standard in such games) , but also at the same time, the character stats shown underneath the inventory update during the hover to show what differences would be made on equipping it (green numbers for ones increased, red for ones reduced). That makes it so simple and fast to compare gear effects it's dreamy. Hover on, hover off. Fast and fluid, and specific.

Reminds me of RatingBuster for WoW...

[Timortis]

Anyone who doesn't like numbers could have turned off the combat log if there was one, just like they can turn off the floating damage text right now. The omission of a combat log is a really strange decision, and really bothers those of us who like tactical combat and want to analyze the outcome of our strategies better.

[wanderon]

After skimming through the posts here I'd have to agree with the OP for the most part as far as my own playstyle goes. I am happy enough to have my character only know the generalalities about how things work and for the most part agree that Bioware has provided enough math data.

Perhaps thats because I mostly want to PLAY the game (engage myself in getting my character and party through the challenges placed in front of me) as opposed to disassembling the mechanics to discover how each one works so that I can easily create and run the most optomized character and group possible utilizing that knowledge and totally wipe everything I face becuase I am Optima the Mighty...

Not saying there is anything wrong with Mr. Optima - just letting the guys at Bioware know - some of us get it and are OK with less mechanics on parade just in case they were wondering.

Modifié par wanderon, 17 novembre 2009 - 08:32 .

[MortalFoil]

"It's not clear that you can pick locks without the lock picking talents, but you can. It's not clear that you can fail at lock picking with a maxed out talent line either,"



Wait, what? How can you pick without the lockpicking skill? And I thought that the locks come in 4 tiers, corresponding to the lockpicking skill. That's the way the game makes it look. How does it really work?

[T0rin3]

MortalFoil wrote...

"It's not clear that you can pick locks without the lock picking talents, but you can. It's not clear that you can fail at lock picking with a maxed out talent line either,"

Wait, what? How can you pick without the lockpicking skill? And I thought that the locks come in 4 tiers, corresponding to the lockpicking skill. That's the way the game makes it look. How does it really work?

Cunning is involved. You can pick a lock with some cunning stats, without any lockpicking skills. Lockpicking skills are seemingly just a buff to your ability to pick locks derived from Cunning.

[T0rin3]

I disagree with a lot of the sentiment in this thread, which I summarize to be something like this: "I want raw information because I don't care to have to experiment and try things to figure out whether or not something is good or bad, on it's own merit or in comparison to something else."

I've played all of the Bioware games, and practically every good tactical RPG game and practically every good RPG game in general. I've experienced both extremes, no information, full information. I've designed games with varying amounts of shared information. If you ask me, there is no one best way to do things, each variant has its merits and flaws.

But, on the topic of the type of gamer that wants all the information they can get to make the most educated decision possible at a glance, I honestly don't see what you have to complain about.

1) Selecting gear is not guesswork or clumsy.. the important information, the armor values, damage values, armor penetration values, bonuses, all are documented. The set bonuses are documented if you examine the item. Sure, they are documented in simple terms, as opposed to raw numbers, but with about 15 seconds of experimentation (read numbers, remove 1 item, read numbers, compare) you can easily figure out exactly what the set bonuses are. If a piece of armor says it gives X amount of armor, and the set bonus is +armor and you remove it and you lose Y amount of defense, then subtract X from Y and you have your set bonus. That was hard... Nothing is immersive about this process, whether they show you little, or a lot. Sure, it could be a little easier, but not much. For a powergamer, how can you honestly complain about having to take 15 seconds to figure something like this out?

2) The vague tooltips may not give you numbers, but you can take a general approach to comparing damage spells: Is this tier spell higher than that tier spell? Yeah? Ok, it does more damage. If the spell (i.e. Forcefield) isn't about damage, it does give casting costs, it does give duration, so come to your own conclusion about which is better. If all else fails, experiment! Save games, they are wonderful! If you take a talent and try it a bit and it sucks, well, just reload your save game! The MMO generation is too hell bent on the idea of respeccing, as though it _should_ be a staple of every RPG game. Well, if you ask me, it shouldn't. Here is your respec: Start a new game.

3) The lack of extreme information is a novelty for many, if one thing ruins immersion, it's an over abundance of information. Personally, I couldn't care a bit about immersion, so give me the information, but it is a valid argument for not showing everything. And there is some novelty in having to experiment and learn the effectiveness of skills and spells, rather than just outright knowing before you even try them, which will be better of two skills. It enhances the replability of games like these by forcing you to actually experiment, to play new games, new party configuration, new builds, rather than just sitting down and planning things from beginning to end the first time around. It is possible to come to these conclusions without all the raw data, but it does require you to actually play the game first. Yeah, that's rough, I know.

4) For some people, it is more fun to not know. For some people, immersion is everything, and the numbers you see now can ruin that. There is a line to be drawn. I don't advocate keeping it exactly how it is for everyone, the options to show or not show information should be there for those that wants it, but saying the system is lacking because  it isn't as simple as possible to get at all the raw data is just silly. It may not be optimal for you, but the information is available, you just have to work for it a little bit, is that bad?

To summarize, I do agree that the game needs optional things like a combat log and "advanced tooltips" that show more information for those that like to see it. But even without them, the game is perfectly fine from a standpoint of available information. Yes, it takes a little bit of work to figure that out, but if you are one of those people who are desperate to know that you are making the absolutely optimal min-maxed character growth decisions, then you probably aren't too concerned about breaking the immersion to do a little work and figure it out. Sure, it's not optimal, but it's not bad either.

Edit: Gah, double spacing or no spacing.

Modifié par T0rin3, 17 novembre 2009 - 10:03 .

[Wolff Laarcen]

T0rin3 wrote...
I disagree with a lot of the sentiment in
this thread, which I summarize to be something like this: "I want raw
information because I don't care to have to experiment and try things
to figure out whether or not something is good or bad, on it's own
merit or in comparison to something else."
I've played all of the
Bioware games, and practically every good tactical RPG game and
practically every good RPG game in general. I've experienced both
extremes, no information, full information. I've designed games with
varying amounts of shared information. If you ask me, there is no one
best way to do things, each variant has its merits and flaws.
But,
on the topic of the type of gamer that wants all the information they
can get to make the most educated decision possible at a glance, I
honestly don't see what you have to complain about.
1) Selecting
gear is not guesswork or clumsy.. the important information, the armor
values, damage values, armor penetration values, bonuses, all are
documented. The set bonuses are documented if you examine the item.
Sure, they are documented in simple terms, as opposed to raw numbers,
but with about 15 seconds of experimentation (read numbers, remove 1
item, read numbers, compare) you can easily figure out exactly what the
set bonuses are. If a piece of armor says it gives X amount of armor,
and the set bonus is +armor and you remove it and you lose Y amount of
defense, then subtract X from Y and you have your set bonus. That was
hard... Nothing is immersive about this process, whether they show you
little, or a lot. Sure, it could be a little easier, but not much. For
a powergamer, how can you honestly complain about having to take 15
seconds to figure something like this out?
2) The vague tooltips may
not give you numbers, but you can take a general approach to comparing
damage spells: Is this tier spell higher than that tier spell? Yeah?
Ok, it does more damage. If the spell (i.e. Forcefield) isn't about
damage, it does give casting costs, it does give duration, so come to
your own conclusion about which is better. If all else fails,
experiment! Save games, they are wonderful! If you take a talent and
try it a bit and it sucks, well, just reload your save game! The MMO
generation is too hell bent on the idea of respeccing, as though it
_should_ be a staple of every RPG game. Well, if you ask me, it
shouldn't. Here is your respec: Start a new game.
3) The lack of
extreme information is a novelty for many, if one thing ruins
immersion, it's an over abundance of information. Personally, I
couldn't care a bit about immersion, so give me the information, but it
is a valid argument for not showing everything. And there is some
novelty in having to experiment and learn the effectiveness of skills
and spells, rather than just outright knowing before you even try them,
which will be better of two skills. It enhances the replability of
games like these by forcing you to actually experiment, to play new
games, new party configuration, new builds, rather than just sitting
down and planning things from beginning to end the first time around.
It is possible to come to these conclusions without all the raw data,
but it does require you to actually play the game first. Yeah, that's
rough, I know.
4) For some people, it is more fun to not know. For
some people, immersion is everything, and the numbers you see now can
ruin that. There is a line to be drawn. I don't advocate keeping it
exactly how it is for everyone, the options to show or not show
information should be there for those that wants it, but saying the
system is lacking because  it isn't as simple as possible to get at all
the raw data is just silly. It may not be optimal for you, but the
information is available, you just have to work for it a little bit, is
that bad?
To summarize, I do agree that the game needs optional
things like a combat log and "advanced tooltips" that show more
information for those that like to see it. But even without them, the
game is perfectly fine from a standpoint of available information. Yes,
it takes a little bit of work to figure that out, but if you are one of
those people who are desperate to know that you are making the
absolutely optimal min-maxed character growth decisions, then you
probably aren't too concerned about breaking the immersion to do a
little work and figure it out. Sure, it's not optimal, but it's not bad
either.

Wall of text crits you for 82347234. You die.

Modifié par Wolff Laarcen, 17 novembre 2009 - 09:40 .

[T0rin3]

Johohoho.Ehehehe wrote...

T0rin3 wrote...

The set bonuses are documented if you examine the item.

I tried to examine all armour items and it doesn't show set bonus. If you mean the boosts in green letters aren't they the bonuses the particular piece gives?

I'm pretty sure the boosts in green are the cumulative bonuses from all items, including the set bonuses. So if you had an armor set bonus, an tiem that gave +2 dex (and thus +2 defense), a helmet that gave +4 armor, etc. those would be totalled up together and represented by that green valued.

But if you right click on a set item, and choose to Examine it, it will say something in general like: "This item gives a bonus to defense if used in a set" or something like that. From there, you can derive what the actual bonus is based on equipping the full set, and removing 1 of those items (watching the set bonus icon disappear from your equipment screen) and then doing the minor amount of math to determine what that set bonus is.

Or alternatively, consult a wiki or search google.

[Wolff Laarcen]

How does additional information about the game's system ruin 'immersion'? Every time someone doesn't have any better argument they scream 'IMMERSION'. I don't buy it.

If you really wanted to be immersed in the characters, lore and storyline of a game then NO amount of statistical info would be able to prevent you from doing that.

If actually knowing whether gear X or gear Y will help keep your tank alive longer, if seeing the effect 'moderate damage' has vs different types of resistances or if being able to quantify the 'slight increase' to stat X vs the increase to stat Z ruins your 'immersion' then you're just not very imaginative.

A game is built on systems. When those systems dont have synergy or dont work at all, the game sucks. Sure, a story can prop a game up for a single playthrough, but what about after that?

Modifié par Wolff Laarcen, 17 novembre 2009 - 10:27 .

[Del]

Give me numbers! The more numbers the better. I want more information to weigh the trade offs between items, spells, skills, attributes, etc. This is an essential aspect of traditional role-playing games that is sorely missing in DA.

[T1l]

The absence of specific stats and the absence of a combat log hinders selection of equipment, spells/skills, and player efficacy in combat, without adding much value to compensate for it. It discourages and disables players from making effective choices that are generally a key part of RPGs, or at least forces the player to use clumsy workarounds to disambiguate what could so easily have been transparent in the first place. There'd be no harm done to the hypothetical mass of players with aversions to stats and combat logs for those things to be provided optionally. Patch ftw.

Nothing else need be said.

[Statue]

Debuffing, stripping, and equipping/unequipping the pieces in question simply is clumsy compared to that information being apparent from tooltips that could instantly provide that information. I concede that it isn't overly hard to do and that it doesn't take a huge amount of time, but it's still clumsy in comparison to how it could have been implemented and how it is implemented in numerous other titles within the genre - why would an interface be designed to have a simple and frequent task take lots of clicks and 15 seconds when it could take one hover and 1 second? Designers need a compelling justification to make an interface deliberately slower and less smooth to use (especially when there's so many examples of how smoothly they can work, including ones designed by the same team). The argument that it isn't too hard and/or doesn't take too long for the player to work around the interface to achieve clarity does not exonerate that the interface has to be worked around to achieve clarity in the first place. It's the player jumping through hoops to achieve something that could so easily be achievable without hoopjumping.

Googling or wiki-ing or toolsetting the information is also clumsy compared to that information being apparent from tooltips in the game. Alt-tabbing out of the game and using a different tool to be informed as to what a spell or piece of equipment does and then alt-tabbing back in is less intuitive, slower, places a bizarre and unnecessary demand on a gamer, and certainly doesn't contribute to preserving immersive or fluid gameplay.

Game interfaces should be as quick to use and useful as they possibly can be. The challenge of the game should come from deliberate and meaningful challenges presented to the player in the gameworld - players shouldn't have to fight with the interface.

Modifié par Statue, 18 novembre 2009 - 08:51 .

[Sibelius1]

To me, it seems that omitting the combat log was an easy way to cut corners and save some money. I don't buy the "Its confusing for people new to the genre" line, because as has already been pointed out there could be an option to turn it On/Off as per the current floating numbers system. I have also seen excuses that the tooltips are vague because the skills and talents were still being finalised after the localisation had been locked down. That is no excuse, that is a mistake that was made in the scheduling of tasks and should have been fixed. The fact that it hasn't been again suggests minimising costs.



I love Bioware games and have bought them all (bar Sonic Chronicles). but the amount of fanboyism in these forums is disturbing.



People willing to defend every design decision and aspect of this game are not doing Bioware any favours. They need constructive criticism as well as all the slavering praise provided by the fanboys.

For example, can you imagine they took from this experience that the majority of players are satisfied with ambiguous tooltips and lack of a combat log and implemented a similar cost cutting design to The Old Republic MMO? There would be a huge outcry and it would end up costing them more money to corect the issue than it would to roll it out in the original design.

[Chezdon]

I agree with the OP and Archie.

I couldn't really give a crap what the exact numbers for everything are. I just do what I think works and have fun doing it.

A combat log would be nice so I can look back and see what damage certain moves actually did, and so would seeing what armour sets do.

That's all I'd want though.

Edit: Also, BioWare should have a lot more activity on these forums to actually explain their decisions. Frankly, it's disgraceful that there's all these topics and not 1 employee has the time to type out a simple message.

Modifié par Chezdon, 18 novembre 2009 - 11:21 .

[Grovermancer]

Agree with OP and others.  There should be an optional combat log for when you want to access it.

Don't want it?  Don't use it.

And to the "immersion-zealots"-- having to do trial and error guess work, having to exit your game and come on these forums and search or wait for responses, having to go to a damn website and search for answers....  yeah, that hurts immersion too.

[F-C]

i have to agree with the OP.

i think its kind of fun to try out different things and see how they work and make my own opinion of which thing is better than another.

having everything set out like one big spread sheet where you just pick out the best option detracts from the game in my opinion. it removes the enjoyment of figuring things out for myself.

though it seems that a large section of players these days just want everything handed to them with no real thought or effort put into it, then they turn around and complain about things like lack of options because the best choices are always so obvious... its just silly.

Modifié par F-C, 19 novembre 2009 - 08:20 .

[Wolff Laarcen]

Grovermancer wrote...
And to the "immersion-zealots"-- having to do trial and error guess work, having to exit your game and come on these forums and search or wait for responses, having to go to a damn website and search for answers....  yeah, that hurts immersion too.

PREACH IT brother.

I dont think some people realize that 'immersion' can go farther than watching mediocre voice acting over a half-baked recycled fantasy storyline.  Setting up your characters to be as effective, efficient and powerful as possible can be quite immersive as well.

[Seifz]

Wolff Laarcen wrote...

Statue wrote...
Has anyone seen the way equipment stat notifications work in Divinity 2 btw? It's really very fast and informative at the same time. When the cursor is hovered over a piece of equipment, not only does the tooltip that pops up list the specific effects of the gear next to those of the currently equipped piece (which is quite standard in such games) , but also at the same time, the character stats shown underneath the inventory update during the hover to show what differences would be made on equipping it (green numbers for ones increased, red for ones reduced). That makes it so simple and fast to compare gear effects it's dreamy. Hover on, hover off. Fast and fluid, and specific.

Reminds me of RatingBuster for WoW...

That's actually built into WoW, now.  You don't need RatingBuster unless you want the Rating->% conversions. 

[F-C]

Wolff Laarcen wrote...

PREACH IT brother.

I dont think some people realize that 'immersion' can go farther than watching mediocre voice acting over a half-baked recycled fantasy storyline.  Setting up your characters to be as effective, efficient and powerful as possible can be quite immersive as well.

about as immersive as looking at a spread-sheet and picking out the best option.

oh yeah, thats fun baby.

[WebShaman]

This is a no-brainer.



We are talking about new IP here.



And therefore it NEEDS TO BE DOCUMENTED! That includes how the combat system works, all the numbers, etc, etc, ETC!



There is just one tiny, little point to be raised here in Bioware's defense. And that is one of zots, my fellow DAers! For documentation and implementation of combat logs, how combat works mechanically and all that jazz costs zots.



And we all know what that means - it means that those zots would have been taken from somewhere else. Which means that something would not have made it into the game that did, that consisted of these zots.



In consideration of that, I feel that although it pains me not to have this information right here, right now, that Bioware made a shrew decision here - I am sure that the DA Wiki or something similar will be updated/created by the Community eventually with all this information and more.



I say this with confidence, because I experienced this before with NWN in such things as the NWN Wiki, and the Lexicon (of course, Bioware did not have to provide all that much information on the combat system and the numbers, because it was largely based on the PnP version of 3.0 D&D).



Still, many things remained a mystery for a long time, before they were revealed, or discovered.



And I rather suspect that DA will go a similar route.

[Pseudo310]

How come everyone who is immersion-obsessed has no problem with their being character sheets where you choose which stats to upgrade and which skills to select? That's not very immersive. What about being able to control other party member's actions? Not immersive. Do you guys never use those? Do you auto level and use party tactics for everything? For immersion?

[wanderon]

Sibelius1 wrote...

To me, it seems that omitting the combat log was an easy way to cut corners and save some money. I don't buy the "Its confusing for people new to the genre" line, because as has already been pointed out there could be an option to turn it On/Off as per the current floating numbers system. I have also seen excuses that the tooltips are vague because the skills and talents were still being finalised after the localisation had been locked down. That is no excuse, that is a mistake that was made in the scheduling of tasks and should have been fixed. The fact that it hasn't been again suggests minimising costs.

I love Bioware games and have bought them all (bar Sonic Chronicles). but the amount of fanboyism in these forums is disturbing.

People willing to defend every design decision and aspect of this game are not doing Bioware any favours. They need constructive criticism as well as all the slavering praise provided by the fanboys.
For example, can you imagine they took from this experience that the majority of players are satisfied with ambiguous tooltips and lack of a combat log and implemented a similar cost cutting design to The Old Republic MMO? There would be a huge outcry and it would end up costing them more money to corect the issue than it would to roll it out in the original design.

Did it ever even occur to you that perhaps some of these so called fanboys might just be on the same page as Bioware when they applaud some of their gameplay decisions?

That perhaps the possibilty exists that YOUR WAY is not the only way to look at a decision?

That perhaps the decsions Bioware made were the result of long and comprehensive study and debate on the pro's and cons of the choices in front of them including issues that may not be apparent to some gamer standing on the outside criticizing a game they have had in their hands a matter of days while Bioware has had the game in THEIR hands for several YEARS?

They don't need slavering, bellowing rants about how this game is not the same as every other game and thus it's flawed and needs to be fixed immediately either - this isn't your MMO where he who shouts the loudest gets what he wants - this is Bioware - the BG folks and you can count me among the fans who think this game is in fact great and doesn't need a rework two weeks out of the box.

[Wolff Laarcen]

F-C wrote...
i
think its kind of fun to try out different things and see how they work
and make my own opinion of which thing is better than another.

I dont understand how you can NOT want more information if you really want to know which choice is better in a given situation.

What if broken game mechanics, bugs or incorrect tooltips - you know, like the ones in DAO - prevent you from forming that opinion on an informed basis?  What if your opinion is based on things that arent WAI in the first place?  Having more actual data available ingame would only help you to form those opinions.

F-C wrote...
though it seems that a large section of players these days just want everything handed to them with no real thought or effort put into it...

That's absurd.  Effective theorycraft requires both thought and effort far beyond the scope of what most people are willing to expend for a game, as well as a knack for statistics that not everyone has or can even learn.