69 réponses à ce sujet

[Kane-Corr]

Excellent read...thanks OP.

[Aesieru]

I feel like he ignored some major problems that should have been changed, specifically the enemies, their spawn techniques, and the way they made their difficulty apparent (huge health bars)...

I can't agree and that makes me feel he doesn't feel it's a problem, and I can't play a game like that again... too tedious and annoying.

[Lukertin]

Il Divo wrote...
The big issue I would say is that in 'flipping out' Orsino claims to do this to spite Meredith....yet, all he managed to accomplish was give us an extra boss battle, without even taking out Meredith. This certainly had me go 'wtf' for a moment.

If there had been like an unending group of Templar coming in that entire fight it would have at least made sense...instead there are like 5 cannon fodder Templar that get one-shotted each

[TwistedComplex]

At least they know how pissed people are about the re-used areas

[Insom]

Il Divo wrote...

The big issue I would say is that in 'flipping out' Orsino claims to do this to spite Meredith....yet, all he managed to accomplish was give us an extra boss battle, without even taking out Meredith. This certainly had me go 'wtf' for a moment.

He really should have done it at the final battle if anything in front of Meredith. It would have at least added something more to it. It felt like an excuse to add another boss battle because Meredith isn't as good as the archdemon.

[Il Divo]

Insom wrote...

He really should have done it at the final battle if anything in front of Meredith. It would have at least added something more to it. It felt like an excuse to add another boss battle because Meredith isn't as good as the archdemon.

Exactly. They had a great opportunity to make that battle truly epic. Orsino goes outside, uses blood magic, while Meredith goes insane...suddenly you have a three way battle going on between Hawke, Orsino, and Meredith.

Bioware gets there extra boss battle, except it makes more sense in that context.

[Siduri]

That was a really good interview, thanks for posting! I actually come away from it satisfied that the devs are really listening to feedback, and excited for what comes next.

[PuppetSoul]

Lukertin wrote...
Stat/Rule systems should be simple and easy to understand so people don't have to reroll their character 5 times at the start because they did the wrong things due to a lack of understanding.

Or you could look at it from the logical perspective: stat/rule system should be complex and malleable, so you WANT to reroll five times due to abundance of understanding.

In DA:O, you had a dozen builds for each class, each which had a handful of viable stat builds.  Take Rogue for example: you could roll Str, Dex or Cun as your damage stat.  In DA:CC, you get Dex.  Period.  There's no reason to reroll at the beginning because there's no reason to reroll EVER: even after you finish the game, why would you do it again?  You'd end up with the exact same stat build because there are no other options.

[R-F]

I thought he defended the accusations well, and fielded the question about the assets well too. The assets were honestly the only thing that bothered me. I'm almost done my second play through and going through the caves is getting a bit tiresome...but I still really enjoy the experience. Can't wait to play as a rogue next.

Also I'm totally with his comments about needing to reinvent or at least evolve the genre. Just look at the Final Fantasy games. They went back more or less to the 'classic' ff formula, and the new game sucked worse than anything they made before. That series is a continual testament to why I support Bioware and their ideas about evolving the genre.

[Jackel159357]

I just dont see how making the game very similar to mass effect is reinventing the genre.The only real original aspect of DA2 was the narrative structure which was interesting but needs polish/work as at times the pacing of the game was weird.

[cotheer]

Not every evolutionary process ends up for the better.
This one mutated beyond recognition.
And, plz no more "artistic" changes in terms of reusing assets. You've tried, and you've failed.
Next time, take some time and do it right or don't do it at all.
As expected, no q/a on ridiculous enemy waves.

What bothers me is that they've had "balls" to slap a $60 on a product even they knew wasn't as complete as it's predecessor.

[Lukertin]

PuppetSoul wrote...
Or you could look at it from the logical perspective: stat/rule system should be complex and malleable, so you WANT to reroll five times due to abundance of understanding.

You have a game.  You want to play it, not study it like it's a computer model for quantum entanglement.  Plus, you're playing a SINGLE PLAYER game.  There is no advantage to having an 'optimized build'.

In DA:O, you had a dozen builds for each class, each which had a handful of viable stat builds.  Take Rogue for example: you could roll Str, Dex or Cun as your damage stat.  In DA:CC, you get Dex.  Period.  There's no reason to reroll at the beginning because there's no reason to reroll EVER: even after you finish the game, why would you do it again?  You'd end up with the exact same stat build because there are no other options.

If you didn't put a single point into Cunning in DA2, you wouldn't be able to equip a single piece of rogue equipment.

[Gatt9]

ML: It
presents an intriguing thought experiment: is it viable to have a game that's
closer to Baldur's Gate 2 in terms of the raw mechanics and execution? I don't
think there's anything preventing it. However, I do think that, as a genre, if
RPGs can't evolve and can't change -- and I know people yell at me for daring
to use the word "evolve" -- but if they can't change or experiment,
then the genre itself is going to stagnate. Not only in terms of mechanics,
like in rehashes and stuff, which I think we mostly manage to avoid, but the
bigger problem is that if we don't have RPGs that present a different type of
experience, then we kind of encapsulate our potential audience to people who
enjoy just that experience, and we drive others away.

In of itself, that runs the
risk of genre death -- it becomes too referential or too reliant on people
understanding that STR means strength which feeds into accuracy which results
in damage done, and so on. You end up in a case where, the genre eventually
burns out, or falls flat, or becomes too risky to take any risks in
development, and so on and so forth, and that's not something I want to see
happen.

This is just so amazingly wrong on so many levels.

First his commentary about "Evolving", which would be fine if he had implemented some new form of gameplay. He didn't, the gameplay is approaching identical to that found in numerous other games. It's not evolving, it's shifting into some other form of game.

It can only "Evolve" when it implements something new. Such as the transition from personality-less NPC's to NPC's with personality that Baldur's Gate introduced.

Second, his whole bull about STR. If you're playing RPGs you know what that is, if you don't, you'll learn like everyone else did. If you're not interested, then you shouldn't be playing RPGs, they're not your kind of game. Taking out the mechanics that define a genre isn't improving it, it's just turning it into some other genre because you think it makes you more money.

Genre-death only occurs when a genre is abandoned, such as turning all of it's games into something else like Bioware is doing. RPG players will always know what the mechanics are, FPS player won't. Just like neither group is going to have a clue how to play a flightsim. Genre-death does not occur because of the Strength attribute.

Regardless, at least the article settles one portion of the debate. The decision to turn DAO into an action game was made long before there was feedback, so it had absolutely nothing to do with "Players not getting it".

[Merced652]

Lukertin wrote...

PuppetSoul wrote...
Or you could look at it from the logical perspective: stat/rule system should be complex and malleable, so you WANT to reroll five times due to abundance of understanding.

You have a game.  You want to play it, not study it like it's a computer model for quantum entanglement.  Plus, you're playing a SINGLE PLAYER game.  There is no advantage to having an 'optimized build'.

In DA:O, you had a dozen builds for each class, each which had a handful of viable stat builds.  Take Rogue for example: you could roll Str, Dex or Cun as your damage stat.  In DA:CC, you get Dex.  Period.  There's no reason to reroll at the beginning because there's no reason to reroll EVER: even after you finish the game, why would you do it again?  You'd end up with the exact same stat build because there are no other options.

If you didn't put a single point into Cunning in DA2, you wouldn't be able to equip a single piece of rogue equipment.

Personal sense of satisfactino and enjoyment aren't reason enough to optimize if a person is so inclined? And your argument about cunning actually works against you there. It basically means stat priority and allocation remains identical between a melee rogue and a ranged rogue. Which falls back to the whole lack of complexity. Basically having the story on rails isn't enough these days. How to advance your character is also on rails.

[Karazax]

Il Divo wrote...

Insom wrote...

The way it was handled was odd though. Hawke just takes out like 30 Templars easily and then it switches to this scene where Orsino flips out. If he waited a little longer everything would have been okay.

The big issue I would say is that in 'flipping out' Orsino claims to do this to spite Meredith....yet, all he managed to accomplish was give us an extra boss battle, without even taking out Meredith. This certainly had me go 'wtf' for a moment.

Exactly, we just destroyed a wave of templars, are for all effective purposes winning (in fact your party goes on to kill him, in addition to defeating the templars), so it kind of felt like a very illogical and forced event.  

Now if they had say a hundred templars attacking and the odds looked more hopeless, so he used blood magic to transform and kill them, and then we had to fight him, it might have come across better.  As it turned out, it just made the game feel like your decisions really didn't matter because either way you were lead to the same point.  That was the biggest problem I have with the way the game's story turned out.  Every act ends the same regardless of what path you take to get there.

[djackson75]

Merced652 wrote...

Lukertin wrote...

PuppetSoul wrote...
Or you could look at it from the logical perspective: stat/rule system should be complex and malleable, so you WANT to reroll five times due to abundance of understanding.

You have a game.  You want to play it, not study it like it's a computer model for quantum entanglement.  Plus, you're playing a SINGLE PLAYER game.  There is no advantage to having an 'optimized build'.

In DA:O, you had a dozen builds for each class, each which had a handful of viable stat builds.  Take Rogue for example: you could roll Str, Dex or Cun as your damage stat.  In DA:CC, you get Dex.  Period.  There's no reason to reroll at the beginning because there's no reason to reroll EVER: even after you finish the game, why would you do it again?  You'd end up with the exact same stat build because there are no other options.

If you didn't put a single point into Cunning in DA2, you wouldn't be able to equip a single piece of rogue equipment.

Personal sense of satisfactino and enjoyment aren't reason enough to optimize if a person is so inclined? And your argument about cunning actually works against you there. It basically means stat priority and allocation remains identical between a melee rogue and a ranged rogue. Which falls back to the whole lack of complexity. Basically having the story on rails isn't enough these days. How to advance your character is also on rails.

A melee rogue would be str and cun... a ranged rogue would be dex and cun... you still need to allocate points so you have health and stamina, so you still get, do you want a ranged rogue that can fire off skills forever, but can't take a hit, or do you want a melee rogue that can last a long time in battle, but has a low stamina pool... there's still plenty of wiggle room. You make it sound like you would roll a warrior with all of his points in magic because you could... okay, that's why you're re-rolling six times then.

[djackson75]

Karazax wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Insom wrote...

The way it was handled was odd though. Hawke just takes out like 30 Templars easily and then it switches to this scene where Orsino flips out. If he waited a little longer everything would have been okay.

The big issue I would say is that in 'flipping out' Orsino claims to do this to spite Meredith....yet, all he managed to accomplish was give us an extra boss battle, without even taking out Meredith. This certainly had me go 'wtf' for a moment.

Exactly, we just destroyed a wave of templars, are for all effective purposes winning (in fact your party goes on to kill him, in addition to defeating the templars), so it kind of felt like a very illogical and forced event.  

Now if they had say a hundred templars attacking and the odds looked more hopeless, so he used blood magic to transform and kill them, and then we had to fight him, it might have come across better.  As it turned out, it just made the game feel like your decisions really didn't matter because either way you were lead to the same point.  That was the biggest problem I have with the way the game's story turned out.  Every act ends the same regardless of what path you take to get there.

I took it as, at the end of the day, when he used Blood Magic to turn into that huge abomination, he was doing it to prepare to go fight Merideth... but at that point, Hawke realized that the Mage leader was just as crazy as the Templar leader, and therefore they couldn't let him go out there and do his thing. It was either stop him right there, or let him loose and the slaughter gets even worse than it ended up being. Plus, when Hawke walks out into the courtyard, Merideth started the fight with him, so he didn't really have a choice at that point to avoid fighting her.

[Sidney]

PuppetSoul wrote...

Or you could look at it from the logical perspective: stat/rule system should be complex and malleable, so you WANT to reroll five times due to abundance of understanding.

No, that is the stand of people who want to play spreadsheets not a game.  The ruleset should be easy enough to underastand and optimize from the get go. It ain't like the AD&D system was hard to understand - INT for wizards, WIS for Clerics, STR for Fighters. SPECIAL isn't arcane and hard to fathom other than the ambiguous effects of Luck. Don't forget most people don't replay a game 3-4 times so you want them to enjoy the only time they play it not make one playthrough to "test" the game rules.

[Merced652]

djackson75 wrote...

Merced652 wrote...

Lukertin wrote...

PuppetSoul wrote...
Or you could look at it from the logical perspective: stat/rule system should be complex and malleable, so you WANT to reroll five times due to abundance of understanding.

You have a game.  You want to play it, not study it like it's a computer model for quantum entanglement.  Plus, you're playing a SINGLE PLAYER game.  There is no advantage to having an 'optimized build'.

In DA:O, you had a dozen builds for each class, each which had a handful of viable stat builds.  Take Rogue for example: you could roll Str, Dex or Cun as your damage stat.  In DA:CC, you get Dex.  Period.  There's no reason to reroll at the beginning because there's no reason to reroll EVER: even after you finish the game, why would you do it again?  You'd end up with the exact same stat build because there are no other options.

If you didn't put a single point into Cunning in DA2, you wouldn't be able to equip a single piece of rogue equipment.

Personal sense of satisfactino and enjoyment aren't reason enough to optimize if a person is so inclined? And your argument about cunning actually works against you there. It basically means stat priority and allocation remains identical between a melee rogue and a ranged rogue. Which falls back to the whole lack of complexity. Basically having the story on rails isn't enough these days. How to advance your character is also on rails.

A melee rogue would be str and cun... a ranged rogue would be dex and cun... you still need to allocate points so you have health and stamina, so you still get, do you want a ranged rogue that can fire off skills forever, but can't take a hit, or do you want a melee rogue that can last a long time in battle, but has a low stamina pool... there's still plenty of wiggle room. You make it sound like you would roll a warrior with all of his points in magic because you could... okay, that's why you're re-rolling six times then.

No, but i would've liked more free points for cunning as a warrior, or even dex since base crit is fairly low without rolling heroic aura and other buffs. The point is there isn't a lot of wiggle room. You have to meet strict reqs to equip your armor, and as a melee rogue your daggers require even more dex than that. So i would actually be interested to see just how much wiggle room you have to put points in str after of course you hit a "sweet" spot with stamina. Luckily as a warrior i had no need for stamina after getting second wind.

[Lukertin]

Merced652 wrote...
No, but i would've liked more free points for cunning as a warrior, or even dex since base crit is fairly low without rolling heroic aura and other buffs. The point is there isn't a lot of wiggle room. You have to meet strict reqs to equip your armor, and as a melee rogue your daggers require even more dex than that. So i would actually be interested to see just how much wiggle room you have to put points in str after of course you hit a "sweet" spot with stamina. Luckily as a warrior i had no need for stamina after getting second wind.

I would fault that with the item generation system rather than character progression.

[DarkSpider88]

OP thanks for posting this. I like his answer about DLC being about Hawke and Companions (please include siblings). Overall I am happy with what he said in the interview.

[Sidney]

Lukertin wrote...

I would fault that with the item generation system rather than character progression.

This. Items have really oddly high requirements for item use.

[AlanC9]

PuppetSoul wrote...
Or you could look at it from the logical perspective: stat/rule system should be complex and malleable, so you WANT to reroll five times due to abundance of understanding.

In DA:O, you had a dozen builds for each class, each which had a handful of viable stat builds.  Take Rogue for example: you could roll Str, Dex or Cun as your damage stat.  In DA:CC, you get Dex.  Period.  There's no reason to reroll at the beginning because there's no reason to reroll EVER: even after you finish the game, why would you do it again?  You'd end up with the exact same stat build because there are no other options.

How come you keep saying "roll"? There's no dice involved.

[lsdiskewl]

I wonder if more flailing and rationalization for an blatantly unfinished product can be crammed into an interview.

Yeah, 2 hours of art assets repeated for 40 hrs of incomprehensibly paced and plotted tedium was an attempt to "Experiment". You straight face LIED about DRM, LIED about auto-attack, blatantly PAID for reviews (The escapist, PC gamer) that reiterated the LIES about auto-attack and DRM. Why would such a great developer squander their reputation like this. You have used up the good will of all of your long term fans, its really sad.

[TheMadCat]

AlanC9 wrote...

PuppetSoul wrote...
Or you could look at it from the logical perspective: stat/rule system should be complex and malleable, so you WANT to reroll five times due to abundance of understanding.

In DA:O, you had a dozen builds for each class, each which had a handful of viable stat builds.  Take Rogue for example: you could roll Str, Dex or Cun as your damage stat.  In DA:CC, you get Dex.  Period.  There's no reason to reroll at the beginning because there's no reason to reroll EVER: even after you finish the game, why would you do it again?  You'd end up with the exact same stat build because there are no other options.

How come you keep saying "roll"? There's no dice involved.

He's saying reroll, meaning redoing your character build.