184 réponses à ce sujet

[skylr616]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Sidney wrote...

I can guess the armor everyone in your party was in by game's end. Did you have a warrior in Juggernaut and Legion of the Dead? Rogue in Wade's Superior?

No.  As it happens, you're wrong.  Golly.

Did most people do that?  Yes, because the traditional roles for those classes had obvious best choices.  But DAO didn't tie you to those traditional roles.  If you wanted to make Leliana both your Archer and your Tank, and put her in Heavy Armour, you could do that.  Try making Varric your tank in DA2.  How much armour can he wear?

The idea that your party should be a collection of paper dolls always seemed wrong to me. I am the protagonist... not some hive mind that lives in the skin of every party member (what, am I playing an RTS all of a sudden?!). I am the leader of the party and as such they should certainly follow my orders in a battle... but... they are not my personal play things that I get to play dressup with. I would even go so far as to say our ability to train the parties skills is a little over the line if you want to start nit-picking... I think it makes more sense that the parties skills would change based on my choices during the game (twist Anders towards blood magic if I continually take sides with the templar's, for instance). I just don't think some folks could handle it though...

I greatly respect the shift in DA2 towards making party members their own characters (also nice to see they have their own homes/haunts... always felt dumb to just return to my camp to have a chat with them in DAO).

Kudos Bioware.

Modifié par skylr616, 18 mars 2011 - 07:36 .

[ReavousX]

Let me just say, I am incredibly pleased how many people in here are able to discuss their extreme differences of opinion and keep it above the belt at the same time. There's no right or wrong, and I can see both sides of just about every issue. Guess I'm just pleased that my thread turned out to be mostly productive, unlike a lot of what turns up around the forums lately.

Also, do note that I never intended to represent the entire "hardcore" group. Obviously, each person is an individual. Although I fall into that category, I'm hardly set in my ways, as many of those in that group are. I don't judge by what RPG rules were and weren't broken...I go on how much I enjoyed the game. What can I say, I'd rather just enjoy my money's worth and not nitpick. Of course, some people's toes were severely stepped on, and they just can't resist raging. I understand that too. =)

[skylr616]

Beerfish wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...


By forcing specific tones and deliveries on us, they took out miles of depth.  In DAO you could choose any line for any reason that made sense to you.  In DA2 you're told what your character means - that's the very definition of limited choice.

But by not taking 'intent' into account by just choosing a list of options the developer can't use that tool later on in the game.  Once again I think you are blurring the lines of logic, reality and waht makes sense in your world.  When you talk to people in the real world they do use inflection and tone and often that tone means as much if not more than the actual words coming out of their mouths.  If every one talked like a tranquil you may have a point. 

For example in the game I'm playing I used the funny or joking dialogue responses a lot.  Later in the game members of my group were responding to the fact that I was light hearted or that I joked around too much.  I found that to be a nice feature in that they reacted long term to my intents.

^<this.

It is the meaning that matters... not really the words. This is why the dialogue wheel has been such a success for Bioware (so far, at least... lol).

[Sylvius the Mad]

skylr616 wrote...

The idea that your party should be a collection of paper dolls always seemed wrong to me. I am the protagonist... not some hive mind that lives in the skin of every party member. I am the leader of the party and as such they should certainly follow my orders in a battle... but... they are not my personal play things that I get to play dressup with.

Hawke is your personal plaything that you get to play dressup with.  What makes the others different?  They're all just characters in a fictional world.

I want to dress them up.  If you don't want to, don't do it.

[skylr616]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Hawke is your personal plaything that you get to play dressup with.  What makes the others different?  They're all just characters in a fictional world.

I want to dress them up.  If you don't want to, don't do it.

Yes... but in this narrative I am Hawke. The story is told (for the most part) from his perspective (i.e. my perspective) and that perspective is supposed to be shaped by my actions and choices (which it is... although somewhat superficially because the plot is linear).

This is kind of one of the defining characteristics of the RPG genre...

In my life I do certainly play dress up with myself *aghem* but I don't spend time dressing up my friends...

Modifié par skylr616, 18 mars 2011 - 07:41 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Meltemph wrote...

If you really want to master the combat and status effects, specially on the harder difficulties, you definitely need to at least partially control everyone a lot. The manipulation on status effects is a major advantage in this game if you have the party work together.

And to do that, I'd like the combat to move more slowly.

Beerfish wrote...

But by not taking 'intent' into account by just choosing a list of options the developer can't use that tool later on in the game.

They never could without denying me agency.  Even if they knew what decision my character had made in that moment, they can't know that some other subsequent event changed his mind.

If he's my character, they don't know anything about him.

Instead, I'd say they should use his words and actions to drive future plot events, not his intent.  And how could his intent even do that anyway?  The other characters don't know his intent.  They might think they know, but nothing requires that they be right.  So we're not limiting BiOWare's design choices there at all.

Once again I think you are blurring the lines of logic, reality and waht makes sense in your world.  When you talk to people in the real world they do use inflection and tone and often that tone means as much if not more than the actual words coming out of their mouths.

But they're not always interpreted correctly.  They're often not.  This game design requires that people never misunderstand each other, and to do it they rob the player of a graet deal of control.

If every one talked like a tranquil you may have a point. 

No one needs to talk like a tranquil.  But we need to accept that Tranquil-like speech contains as much useful information as regular speech.

For example in the game I'm playing I used the funny or joking dialogue responses a lot.  Later in the game members of my group were responding to the fact that I was light hearted or that I joked around too much.  I found that to be a nice feature in that they reacted long term to my intents.

You could do the same thing with DAO-style dialogue as long as you picked options that the NPCs would interpret as joking.  Nothing's changed on that front.  The difference now is that in order to choose an option that the NPCs will interpret as funny, you need to have Hawke intend the line as funny as well.

There's a much finer level of conversational detail available in DAO.  In DAO the PC can say something serious and have the NPCs think it's funny, or the PC can try to be funny and have the NPCs not get the joke.  These things are impossible in DA2.  You can't try to be funny and fail.  DA2 grants Hawke super-human social skills.  They;'re badly personality-breaking.

[Meltemph]

Hawke is your personal plaything that you get to play dressup with. What makes the others different? They're all just characters in a fictional world.

I want to dress them up. If you don't want to, don't do it.

I think his main point is, he doesn't care to do it or want to, therefore why would he want them(BW) to put resources towards it.

Me personally, I was personally completely fine with the restrictions, since it gave the an opertunity to add the the story of the character as to why they use the equipment/combat style they do, but they didn't take advantage of it at all, story wise really, outside of arguably Fenris do to his... Trauma and Carver since he really had no intentions of listening to anyone.

I mean, it didnt really bother me that they were restricted, but the restrictions seemed w/o reason to anything, which really I wish they wouldn't have restricted them. Not because I wanted to customize them so bad, but because there was little to no reason to do it, since they didnt take advantage and the people who like that kind of stuff would have been happy.

It was essentially a restriction for restrictions sake, which was just nonsensical. Makes you wonder how committed they really were to the restrictions.

[skylr616]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Meltemph wrote...

If you really want to master the combat and status effects, specially on the harder difficulties, you definitely need to at least partially control everyone a lot. The manipulation on status effects is a major advantage in this game if you have the party work together.

And to do that, I'd like the combat to move more slowly.

Beerfish wrote...

But by not taking 'intent' into account by just choosing a list of options the developer can't use that tool later on in the game.

They never could without denying me agency.  Even if they knew what decision my character had made in that moment, they can't know that some other subsequent event changed his mind.

If he's my character, they don't know anything about him.

Instead, I'd say they should use his words and actions to drive future plot events, not his intent.  And how could his intent even do that anyway?  The other characters don't know his intent.  They might think they know, but nothing requires that they be right.  So we're not limiting BiOWare's design choices there at all.

Once again I think you are blurring the lines of logic, reality and waht makes sense in your world.  When you talk to people in the real world they do use inflection and tone and often that tone means as much if not more than the actual words coming out of their mouths.

But they're not always interpreted correctly.  They're often not.  This game design requires that people never misunderstand each other, and to do it they rob the player of a graet deal of control.

If every one talked like a tranquil you may have a point. 

No one needs to talk like a tranquil.  But we need to accept that Tranquil-like speech contains as much useful information as regular speech.

For example in the game I'm playing I used the funny or joking dialogue responses a lot.  Later in the game members of my group were responding to the fact that I was light hearted or that I joked around too much.  I found that to be a nice feature in that they reacted long term to my intents.

You could do the same thing with DAO-style dialogue as long as you picked options that the NPCs would interpret as joking.  Nothing's changed on that front.  The difference now is that in order to choose an option that the NPCs will interpret as funny, you need to have Hawke intend the line as funny as well.

There's a much finer level of conversational detail available in DAO.  In DAO the PC can say something serious and have the NPCs think it's funny, or the PC can try to be funny and have the NPCs not get the joke.  These things are impossible in DA2.  You can't try to be funny and fail.  DA2 grants Hawke super-human social skills.  They;'re badly personality-breaking.

You do realize that these are all subjective opinion... we can disagree with all of these points without being "wrong".

There are many cases in DA2 where I choose the "funny" option and it ends up not being funny to the person I'm talking to... the chance for err is just as present as it was in DAO only now its labled the "funny" option instead of just being a statement that appears to obviously be funny.

[Sylvius the Mad]

skylr616 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Hawke is your personal plaything that you get to play dressup with.  What makes the others different?  They're all just characters in a fictional world.

I want to dress them up.  If you don't want to, don't do it.

Yes... but in this narrative I am Hawke.

You are not Hawke  You're a person sitting at a computer.  Hawke is a character of your design, yes, but he's not you.  He can be whatever sort of person you'd like him to be (ostensibly - I'm not sure this works with DA2's dialogue system).

The story is told (for the most part) from his perspective (i.e. my perspective) and that perspective is supposed to be shaped by my actions and choices (which it is... although somewhat superficially because the plot is linear).

In DA2 the plot is explicitly shaped from Varric's perspective.  What game are you playing?

This is kind of one of the defining characteristics of the RPG genre...

One of the best things about DA2 is that it doesn't do that.  You're right that this has become exceedingly common on the genre over the past 10 years or so, but it's unnecessary.

In my life I do certainly play dress up with myself *aghem* but I don't spend time dressing up my friends...

Here's why I think this analoguy is terrible.

Yes, you don't dress up your friends, but neither would Hawke be dressing up his companions.  You (the player) would be the one outfitting his companions, just as you outfit Hawke.  In the real world, there is no equivalent of "the player" (as far as I know), so you can't draw a credible real-world comparison.

[Sylvius the Mad]

skylr616 wrote...

There are many cases in DA2 where I choose the "funny" option and it ends up not being funny to the person I'm talking to... the chance for err is just as present as it was in DAO only now its labled the "funny" option instead of just being a statement that appears to obviously be funny.

But in DAO you could choose options that your character thought would be funny even when you (the player) didn't agree.  The character could try to make a joke, and he'd fail.

But in DA2, if you pick one of the other options, you end up having Hawke threatening people when you wanted him to try to make a joke.  You don;t know what he's going to say, and you're restricted to specific deliveries of each line.

[NvVanity]

First off I want to say I took the time to read through this entire thread.

Second I'm impressed with the OP and all the long thought out posts people have made in this thread. Great stuff. Keep it up!

[Valus]

While they are your opinions so I certainly can't say you are wrong I would have to disagree on almost every positive point you put forth for DA2 is greater than/equal to DAO EXCEPT the act 2 storyline and the combat. Act 2 did a fine job in and of itself. If the rest of the game could have run along at that pace I would have been pleased and far less critical of the overall story.

I do find the combat to be more responsive. However I do get where Sylvius is coming from when stating the opposite. I think in cases like spells (especially is respects to channeled AOE spells) they almost front loaded the graphic for the spell so I'm sitting there slamming buttons long after the desired effect occurs. In DAO we saw the channel as it was in progress and as soon as the desired spell was cast we were ready to move on to our next action. I play 2 handed or sword/board so I'm certainly enjoying the revamped play style for that. A nice happy medium would be appreciated.

I still can't get around the corners that were cut with this game like the poor overall storyline. Ludicrous, just insulting amounts of recycled content and the amount of bugs existing at launch just make it difficult to rate this game any higher than 'mediocre'. It's hard to enjoy a story, no matter how good, if it involves me spelunking down the same cave 40 times in a row.

[Meltemph]

I always took the "funny" option as sarcastic/witty/cleaver not funny. I also, thought the game dialog made that quite clear /shrug.

[Mooh Bear]

Meltemph wrote...

Hawke is your personal plaything that you get to play dressup with. What makes the others different? They're all just characters in a fictional world.

I want to dress them up. If you don't want to, don't do it.

I think his main point is, he doesn't care to do it or want to, therefore why would he want them(BW) to put resources towards it.

Me personally, I was personally completely fine with the restrictions, since it gave the an opertunity to add the the story of the character as to why they use the equipment/combat style they do, but they didn't take advantage of it at all, story wise really, outside of arguably Fenris do to his... Trauma and Carver since he really had no intentions of listening to anyone.

I mean, it didnt really bother me that they were restricted, but the restrictions seemed w/o reason to anything, which really I wish they wouldn't have restricted them. Not because I wanted to customize them so bad, but because there was little to no reason to do it, since they didnt take advantage and the people who like that kind of stuff would have been happy.

It was essentially a restriction for restrictions sake, which was just nonsensical. Makes you wonder how committed they really were to the restrictions.

There really are 2 schools of thoughts on this matter. You could consider NPCs as "independent" companions, with their own tastes, story and agenda. They would then equip whatever they feel like, level-up the way they feel like. That would be great, except you might like the personality or the look of a companion, but not its capabilities. RPGs generally limit severely the party size. You have to make choices, you can't bring everyone. If gameplay considerations dictate the need of a particular skill set, you're going to have to pick whatever character possessing that skill set, regardless of whether you like them or not. That's the reason it's not that bad to be able to customize companions, so characters you like do not stay on the bench.

[skylr616]

Hawke is your personal plaything that you get to play dressup with.  What makes the others different?  They're all just characters in a fictional world.

There is a difference between the main character and NPCs... Hawke is me in the game. The story is told by Varrick but I perceive the game through Hawke (and the story Varrick tells will change based on how I play Hawke).

You are not Hawke  You're a person sitting at a computer.  Hawke is a character of your design, yes, but he's not you.  He can be whatever sort of person you'd like him to be (ostensibly - I'm not sure this works with DA2's dialogue system).

Wrong... see above.

In DA2 the plot is explicitly shaped from Varric's perspective.  What game are you playing?

See above...

I see DA2 as an RPG... "my" character in the RPG is Hawke and the rest of the characters are NPCs. Some NPCs are more relevant than others but I would not expect to play dressup with Varrick any more than I would expect to play dress up with any of the random characters walking around town.

You see things differently... but as I said... there is no accounting for taste.

Modifié par skylr616, 18 mars 2011 - 07:59 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Valus wrote...

In DAO we saw the channel as it was in progress and as soon as the desired spell was cast we were ready to move on to our next action.

Also, in DAO you could stop the animation half-way through.  If you were winding up for an attack, or casting Inferno, or whatever, and some urgent tactical need to do something else arose, you could immediately go do that other thing.  You could immediately stop what you were doing and move, or drink a potion, or start some other ability instead of the one you were already doing. 

But DA2 has all the extra animation after the effect occurs, so you're stuck on some follow-through for a second while the battle rages around you and there's nothing you can do about it.

DAO was much more responsive.

[skylr616]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

DAO was much more responsive.

...and less realistic and/or easier... depending on how you want to look at "less responsive".

I am not saying games should go 100% for realism but adding challenges (like spell *fizzles*) is no different really from having to wait a second on some longer animations (and a fizzle or misfire is a staple of the more challenging RPG).

Perspective... Perspective... Perspective...

It all really just comes down to how you "feel" about the game... I feel good about it and some others don't. Both parties will reach for excuses to rationalize their feelings...

Modifié par skylr616, 18 mars 2011 - 08:03 .

[jds1bio]

Add me to the list of those who skim long-form posts due to embedded comments bashing people, but read yours in its entirety (except where I thought I saw spoilers). Good read, thanks!

[Sylvius the Mad]

skylr616 wrote...

Hawke is your personal plaything that you get to play dressup with.  What makes the others different?  They're all just characters in a fictional world.

There is a difference between the main character and NPCs... Hawke is me in the game.

You're just re-stating your position.  What is the basis for this difference?

You are not Hawke  You're a person sitting at a computer.  Hawke is a character of your design, yes, but he's not you.  He can be whatever sort of person you'd like him to be (ostensibly - I'm not sure this works with DA2's dialogue system).

Wrong... see above.

If Hawke is you, then you should have less control over his personality.  After all, you don't have that much control over your personality.  You are who you are, and you didn't really get to decide that.

That you do get to decide how Hawke feels about things makes him different from you.  Unless you always just play as if Hawke is an avatar of your rather than a character in his own right, but where's the fun in that?

[moilami]

Unless you played both games with friendly fire on your opinions of combat doesn't matter and are not worth to read.

Edit: This was reply to the OP.

Modifié par moilami, 18 mars 2011 - 08:06 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

skylr616 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

DAO was much more responsive.

...and less realistic and/or easier... depending on how you want to look at "less responsive".

I am not saying games should go 100% for realism but adding challenges (like spell *fizzles*) is no different really from having to wait a second on some longer animations (and a fizzle or misfire is a staple of the more challenging RPG).

I like fizzles.  DAO effectively had them, and you could even trigger them voluntarily if you thought you could gain tactical advantage by doing so.

DA2's combat (which I'm finding quite a bit easier than DAO's combat - I play both on Hard) does not allow your characters to react to new threats right away.

Also, the way the moves flow into each other it makes it harder to stop after a specific attack (I'm forever watching mages fire off a final auto-attack bolt - and always that extra-slow one at the end - at opponents who are already dead).

It all really just comes down to how you "feel" about the game... I feel good about it and some others don't. Both parties will reach for excuses to rationalize their feelings...

I don't think I'd be as annoyed about DA2's lack of responsiveness if they hadn't gone on so much about how responsive it is.  And that's the one thing (in combat) that it does so much less well than DAO.

[skylr616]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

If Hawke is you, then you should have less control over his personality.  After all, you don't have that much control over your personality.  You are who you are, and you didn't really get to decide that.

That you do get to decide how Hawke feels about things makes him different from you.  Unless you always just play as if Hawke is an avatar of your rather than a character in his own right, but where's the fun in that?

I get to impose my personality upon Hawke... thats the whole point of being able to choose my emotional response to questions and dialog (I don't, afterall, get to make these decision on behalf of anyone else).

You pointed out the defining difference between the main character (me) and everyone else in the game at the same moment you asked what the difference is. ;P

I can choose to impose a superficial personality on Hawke if I feel like it but I find that I prefer playing as myself at least the first time through so I have a more visceral emotional connection to the story. I doubt I am the only one that does this ;P

Modifié par skylr616, 18 mars 2011 - 08:13 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

moilami wrote...

Unless you played both games with friendly fire on your opinions of combat doesn't matter and are not worth to read.

DA2's nonsensical ruleset badly damages friendly fire.

Why do my characters hit so much harder than everyone else in the world?  Why do we have so many fewer hit points?

[Lord_Saulot]

moilami wrote...

Unless you played both games with friendly fire on your opinions of combat doesn't matter and are not worth to read.

Edit: This was reply to the OP.

Considering that in DA2, friendly fire is limited to Nightmare difficulty and only intended to ever be used by a tiny subset of players, this is just wrong.

[Meltemph]

I think the combat in DA2 is very responsive. Much more so then DAO anyways and this time around you actually have to pay attention beyond the 1st pause.