337 réponses à ce sujet

[JesterPsychotica]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

I can see the opening of DA3 in my head now: Godbaby, all grown up, comes running up a hill with two companions. They see Morrigan and the Warden having a picnic lunch in a emerald field of mowed grass. Companion one jumps up and begins to wave spastically. Godbaby turns to him and say "Stop doing that."

Then we get an adorable montage of friendship, daisies, rainbows and mabari puppies accompanied by music from Land Before Time.

[Ieldra]

Icy Magebane wrote...
I'm interested in a video game, and that means killing creatures.

You have a very narrow conception of a video game....

As for the topic:
(1) Enemies appearing out of thin air in closed rooms are bad. Unless it's spirits.
(2) Enemy waves are an interesting change if used occasionally, but become tedious if used always.
(3) There is not too much combat as such. I do not mind the *time* spent in combat. But the sheer number of enemies in DA2 is so crazy that it destroys immersion.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 07 avril 2011 - 05:07 .

[bitcloudrzr]

I'm pretty sure we have a consensus of, only use waves when they make sense, not in every fight and have some form of realism relative to the current setting.

[Horus Blackheart]

I'd like to know if the no waves request extends to hand waves (I sure hope it does)

[LightningSamus]

More ninjas parachuting down!

Oh noes my mage is dead!

Killed all ninjas.

More parachute down

Dammit!

[TheRaj]

Sidney wrote...

Waves are not awful, per se. I like that when I'm slaughtering a room of guys that people "march to the sound of the guns". There's nothing worse than butchering a room of guys and then walking into the next room and they act like that had NO IDEA you were there. So that effect of waves works and I like it. What does not in anyway work are:

1. Guys dropping out of thin air or just dropping off walls. That looks stupid and is annoying.
2. People coming from where you've cleared. I'm always methodical even tough it doesn't matter to kill everything between me and "the door" so I in theory have a line of retreat - nevermind you never retreat but still. Makes me feel better. So when you go to free the captured Qunari and you enter and go through a series of rooms and there's nothing in them and then when you start the fight people start swarming you from those room it really bugs me.
3. Every fight. Waves can work if they are unexpected, but when you know that there's another bunch 'o guys coming it is never something that keeps you off balance.

This.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Popping out of thin air includes people appearing in rooms I've already seen when they couldn't have credibly entered from anywhere. Everyone I fight should be in the world somewhere up until the moment I fight him. So while you may well design an encouter such that I will meet the enemies in waves, if I find those extra waves of enemies first I should be able to engage them first.

For any bandit I kill on a map, you should be able to show me exactly where that bandit is the instant I enter the map, regardless of whether combat has begun. Appearing out of nowhere is bad even if I don't see it happen.

[Azzlee]

Sorry Luke, but if "waves" is the way forward for the francise, Mr Laidlaw needs to have a look in the mirror, use the wave hand gesture in front of the mirror, just so he can get used to what that gesture not only looks like, but feels like as well.

You didn't have waves in DA:O, what on earth made you do it this time round? Its a cheap way of adding content I suppose. *shrugs* Say hi to the Westwood Studios guys for me.

[Horus Blackheart]

Azzlee wrote...

Sorry Luke, but if "waves" is the way forward for the francise, Mr Laidlaw needs to have a look in the mirror, use the wave hand gesture in front of the mirror, just so he can get used to what that gesture not only looks like, but feels like as well.

You didn't have waves in DA:O, what on earth made you do it this time round? Its a cheap way of adding content I suppose. *shrugs* Say hi to the Westwood Studios guys for me.

it's like adding veg or rice to bulk up a meal then in da2s case you add aewsome botton sause

cheap and about as filling as a big mac. in the big macs case your hungery again in an hour

Edit removed offencive typo

Modifié par Horus Blackheart, 07 avril 2011 - 06:57 .

[SnowHeart1]

Luke Barrett wrote...

Thanks for the responses everyone! I suspect (and this is purely speculative) that the wave-type system will stay in the franchise going forward but we're certainly always looking for feedback and ways too improve.

What I'm currently writing as my personal report, given this feedback:
- enemies should not, under any circumstances, appear from thin air - I give exception to Spirits and other enemies which can come from the ground but perhaps some visual cue such as how skeletons are lying in bonepiles on the floor before the encounter starts.
- use a wave dynamic sparingly, it was almost clockwork that every encounter came in waves and this simply was not fun; in relation to that, more fights that consist of harder (and fewer) enemies

does that sound like an accurate assessment of what you would like to see?

(and yes, this is just summarized. My reports are much more long-winded and full of linguistic wizardy )

I confess with some embarassment I was about to prematurely go into nerdrage when I read the second-sentence. Glad I kept reading as the summary actually makes quite a bit of sense. Thank you.

The only thing I would add/ask is that, when used, the spawning locations for the waves actually make sense. At present (with the mid-air dynamic) they can spawn right on top of your party, making it essentially useless to try to stake out a tactical position. I don't know if this means making the spawn-locations more predictible, further away, dynamic, or what... but it was very frustrating.

I can understand occasionally having your archer or mage who is hiding in a "safe" corner surprised by a sneaky rogue who jumps down on him from above, but when it happens every time, I just stopped caring about position and tried to kill things as quickly as possible.

[Kimberly Shaw]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Popping out of thin air includes people appearing in rooms I've already seen when they couldn't have credibly entered from anywhere. Everyone I fight should be in the world somewhere up until the moment I fight him. So while you may well design an encouter such that I will meet the enemies in waves, if I find those extra waves of enemies first I should be able to engage them first.

For any bandit I kill on a map, you should be able to show me exactly where that bandit is the instant I enter the map, regardless of whether combat has begun. Appearing out of nowhere is bad even if I don't see it happen.

I prefer this approach as well, and it was for the most part how it was done in DA:O with a few exceptions. To me, this is the standard and it should be deviated from when it makes sense (demons summoned or undead crawling from the ground, or darkspawn coming from "parts unknown" deep in the Deep Roads) and rarely.

[MingWolf]

Azzlee wrote...

Sorry Luke, but if "waves" is the way forward for the francise, Mr Laidlaw needs to have a look in the mirror, use the wave hand gesture in front of the mirror, just so he can get used to what that gesture not only looks like, but feels like as well.

You didn't have waves in DA:O, what on earth made you do it this time round? Its a cheap way of adding content I suppose. *shrugs* Say hi to the Westwood Studios guys for me.

I agreed with what Luke said up until the mention that the waves is going to continue.  I don't mind if you keep it and use it sparingly, but I do worry if the franchise will continues to use this as one of the core means to encounter spawning. 

The main problem for me is that it utterly breaks immersion and seems relatively cheap.  I like to be surprised, and I like to be ambushed from time to time, and I don't mind if enemies call in reinforcements, but the wave mechanic was way too predictable and repetitive; to the point where it just got annoying.  As many people pointed out in this thread, a mix would be good.

Try to make encounters more believable.  In a world full of gore, battle, lore, and storytelling, the game really shouldn't turn encounters into some comic book battle. Look back at Neverwinter Nights.  Even with such an old game, the encounters worked better than this.  DA:O did okay too.  I'm not suggesting a "180" turn as Mr. Laidlaw had put it, but for the sake of quality, the old tried and tested methods work too.  Don't try to redesign the wheel.

Modifié par MingWolf, 07 avril 2011 - 08:24 .

[Tekman9]

Id just like to say. I don't necessarily mind the waves, OR them coming out of thin air. What does bother me, is that the waves are always designed to flank your party. You have a fight under control and all of a sudden your squishies are dying because you were focusing on something else and 10 adds spawned on them. So basically it just becomes a game of pausing as soon as you see the wave coming and running out a door or something with your party, having people get stuck fighting your dog and stuff. It just gets really old, really fast. Im not saying that adds cant ever pop on your squishies, but it shouldnt be every fight. It just feels cheap.

Modifié par Tekman9, 07 avril 2011 - 08:58 .

[Luke Barrett]

To reiterate: when I said they will still use waves in the future I meant that they will not be removed outright. We're going to take all this information in to account going forward and hopefully that will encourage design to greatly lessen the use of this type of encounter in favor of something else.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Luke Barrett wrote...

To reiterate: when I said they will still use waves in the future I meant that they will not be removed outright. We're going to take all this information in to account going forward and hopefully that will encourage design to greatly lessen the use of this type of encounter in favor of something else.

Waves aren't the problem.  Damaging the credibility of the setting is the problem.  As implemented in DA2, waves do that.  But that's by no means a necessary consequence of waves.

DAO has waves.  The Broodmother encounter has waves.  I don't recall anyone complaining about it.

And, in answer to your initial question, one of the problems with the way waves work in DA2 is that you can't implement a tactical plan.  You can make moment-to-moment tactical decisions, but planning doesn't work because the disposition of your opposition isn't known to you (and you can't learn it even by scouting extensively).

Scouting worked wonderfully in DAO.  You could scout ahead, see what was there, and plan for it.  DA2 doesn't allow this at all.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 07 avril 2011 - 09:10 .

[MingWolf]

Luke Barrett wrote...

To reiterate: when I said they will still use waves in the future I meant that they will not be removed outright. We're going to take all this information in to account going forward and hopefully that will encourage design to greatly lessen the use of this type of encounter in favor of something else.

Thanks for the clarification

[Kimberly Shaw]

Luke Barrett wrote...

To reiterate: when I said they will still use waves in the future I meant that they will not be removed outright. We're going to take all this information in to account going forward and hopefully that will encourage design to greatly lessen the use of this type of encounter in favor of something else.

Thank you for clarifying.  Great news.

The question that comes to mind though is why this "feature" made it into DA:2 in the first place? I'm not sure I could find a focus group of 10 players that loved the waves every battle if I tried by selection, never mind if I chose randomly from DA:O enthusiasts. 

I mean It's almost like you chose your focus groups from a bunch of console playing GoW / CoD / WoW playing teenage Mountain Dew swillers who love to spam their buttons and kill anything that randomly spawns out of thin air..oh...wait...

[Tekman9]

i play(ed) all those games and im drinking a diet mtn dew right now. but im 27 and holding a good job =P well except for gears. Never got into the multiplayer, and i prefer halo to cod.

and i dont like the waves either. These sterotypes that are thrown out im getting more and more conviced are for a type of gamer that hardly exists. And if they do exist in droves, you better believe they arent playing a game with any sort of reading or conversations. Theyre leaving your precious RPGs alone.

On the halo boards they insult CoD gamers. On here they insult console gamers. Everyone just passes the buck down the line to some fictional set of idiot gamers.

[Chromie]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

AustinKain wrote...

Um first off i have been playing RPG's for 20 years and i can assure that add ons have been in a TON of them. Some popular mmo's even have add ons and waves in them.  So your End of story comment just proved you know nothing of what you are talking about.

Second i never said all rpgs use them i just said they have been in rpgs for years.



third add on waves are still using a set number of enemies just not forcing you to fight them all at one time like say Dynasty Warriors. 

fourth most of the waves i ever faced i had enough time to kill them and rest/reset my team before the next one so no big deal.

I have been playing games and RPG's for 30 years.. Whats your point? if you want to go down the experience route I suggest you don't. I responded to your implication in your first post which states they have always been in RPG's, which was untrue because the fact some RPGs do not have them. There was no such waves in Shining Force as one example out of many to serve the purpose of debate I could probably list a hundred or more if cba to sit down and make such a list. You didn't originally say for years, you said always.

Yawn my epeen is bigger. I been playing RPG since  1600's.

[jaikss]

I think the feature itself isnt bad,in fact I felt it gave the combat a much needed difficulty boost,which made it overall more fun.Obviously difficulty in the form of more complex Ai would be superior,but I dont think thats really a realistic thing to hope for for several reasons.

The implementation however could use some improvements.For one,some form of entrance animation for the reinforcements would be needed to avoid the current out of thin air entrance,which needless to say can be a bit jarring.Secondly,even though I actually did enjoy the waves overall,I thought the four to five waves in random encounters with no context other than ambush! did feel a bit like going through pointless filler at times.

[RPGmom28]

Now that I've played through the game several times, I begin counting waves. Here's one. Wait for two. Three coming about... now. Just for fun I also downloaded a mod from Nexus where the spiders all turn into mabari and darkspawn, alternately. Seeing mabari pop out of walls from nowhere is very funny. I did remove the mod after a while, because they tumble around at weird angles. Anyway, waves are just as silly whether with dogs or with bandits that crawl out of the walls of a sealed room with no windows.

[Shirosaki17]

Luke Barrett wrote...

Thanks for the responses everyone! I suspect (and this is purely speculative) that the wave-type system will stay in the franchise going forward but we're certainly always looking for feedback and ways too improve.

What I'm currently writing as my personal report, given this feedback:
- enemies should not, under any circumstances, appear from thin air - I give exception to Spirits and other enemies which can come from the ground but perhaps some visual cue such as how skeletons are lying in bonepiles on the floor before the encounter starts.
- use a wave dynamic sparingly, it was almost clockwork that every encounter came in waves and this simply was not fun; in relation to that, more fights that consist of harder (and fewer) enemies

does that sound like an accurate assessment of what you would like to see?

(and yes, this is just summarized. My reports are much more long-winded and full of linguistic wizardy )

People have been complaining about this for a month and you're just now asking about it? Maybe you didn't know or you weren't taking anyone's negative opinion serious, but it's a big problem. It isn't only the waves, it's the combat isn't fun. There are plenty of games where you're just fighting the same 5 enemies in game over and over and are fine because the gameplay is fun. Mostly FPS games or hack and slash games, though.

You may need to go with a little more diversity (more different mobs). I echo the sentiment quality over quantity with mobs. The assassin who steals your potions and then uses them and cloaks and backstabs was good. There were some problems with abilities that stun or disable being used and not working. Not sure if that was intended or not. Your ability would then go to waste ruining the combat, because you'd have to wait a long time to reuse it. I think it was a problem with being casted during certain animations.

Also, I don't want to say make it easier, but make battles shorter. This can be done making higher quality mobs. You shouldn't be running into 20 (2-3 waves of 8-10 mobs) trash mobs at night and be spending about 10 minutes trying to kill them. Because it gets to the point where you've won the battle and you're just waiting for them to die due to auto attack, or for abilities to refresh so you can use them again. It's stupid. Same with boss fights, I don't think they should take 15-20 minutes, because eventually you are just sitting there auto attacking and waiting for it to die, like it's an mmorpg or something. But even in those games there is more going on because you have 5 players instead of 1 player controlling 4 characters in game. (Also yeah I played on Nightmare. I wanted a challenge. I didn't get one because it seemed to be more hack and slash and there wasn't anything tactical.) It doesn't seem you can make a game that is both hack and slash on lower difficulties and tactical on Nightmare. Just doesn't seem to work. Also, friendly fire should be on the lower difficulties. It just makes it look like you guys didn't balance the game properly when you restrict it to Nightmare. Like the extra challenge is in friendly fire and higher hp mobs in Nightmare. Not in better A.I. or something.

Modifié par Shirosaki17, 07 avril 2011 - 10:16 .

[Dragoonlordz]

Luke Barrett wrote...

Just out of curiosity, is the wave issue more problematic due to the enemies appearing from thin air or simply because you don't know how many more are coming and can't properly position yourself?

Waves are fine for fights that are on a large scale, a war for example on the battlefield etc, but spawning out of nowhere in little alleyways or corridors or houses/warehouses every single time is way too much. You could use waves but if do so wouldn't it be better to use them only on large scale fights and maybe boss fights not every single little scuffle in the game. A combination of placed mobs for small fights/scuffles and spawning mobs/waves akin to reinforcements on larger fights or boss battles. Thats how I would go.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 07 avril 2011 - 11:49 .

[Mangeduvet]

The waves was a step towards something, so hopefully they will evolve it and make a more realistic approach on how the enemy enters the battlefield. No more dropping from the sky kind of thing please.

As someone here stated, every battle does not need to be wave based, mix it up. Ambushes are great, seeing the enemy at a greater distance and choosing to either engage them in ranged combat/charging them or flanking them, large groups of enemies with and without waves, small groups with and without new waves of enemies, all depending on the surrounding area where you are fighting. For example, if you're fighting in... let's say a castle with a lot of soldier quarters then they come from every door because you just attacked the sentry guards and making a lot of noise. But choose to assasinate the sentries and you might just sneak you're way to the other soldiers. Choices of combat style's are important, atleast they are to me. I do not always want to be in the middle of some brawl in the middle of the street. Once again mix it up!

Modifié par Mangeduvet, 08 avril 2011 - 12:15 .

[taine]

Icy Magebane wrote...

taine wrote...

Luke Barrett wrote...
- use a wave dynamic sparingly, it was almost clockwork that every encounter came in waves and this simply was not fun; in relation to that, more fights that consist of harder (and fewer) enemies

This I think should be the main point of emphasis. For one, there was too much combat in DA2. Secondly, most of that combat was pointless filler (random thugs in the streets, waves of spiders or corpses, etc.). Most of them were not particularly challenging -- particularly as the game progressed. -- and began to feel repetitive.  In general, smaller set battles, less HP for everyone, and the reintroduction of being able to miss would be a good start I think. Waves are not inherently bad, but they are an artificial challenge and strip any strategy from the combat.

If devs are reading this, please do not reduce the amount of combat.  There wasn't enough combat, especially in Act 3!!!  I'm not paying money to watch an interactive movie, I'm interested in a video game, and that means killing creatures.

You seem like you already know what you're going to do with waves, so I'll just skip that part... just... don't listen to this guy.  Combat is a good thing.

And no offense to the guy that posted this...   just had to make my voice heard that I totally disagree.

Don't worry, I'm not offended, I just totally disagree with you right back. And from peoples' responses it seems than I am not entirely alone in this sentiment.

The point I was trying to make is that the extreme glut of combat in DA2 means that there is really no chance to role play a situation beyond "RAARRRRGH I KILL YOU" or "I shall kill you now with great righteousness" or "Snark snark, prepare to die!". There's absolutely nothing wrong with having combat in a game, and a good fight is a critical part of any RPG. But am I the only person who still remembers Fallout, where you could actually *talk your way out of* the final boss fight or -- even better -- just nuke the whole damned place?

All the endless combat (I can think of one situation in the entire game where you can avoid a fight) just makes the game more linear, one-dimensional, and sometimes repetitive. I'm not saying take out all combat, I'm saying make it more impactful, and allow for some choice.

Also, Act III was almost entirely combat. I'm beginning to think you're somehow being ironic. Or at least I kind of hope so.

Luke Barrett wrote...
To reiterate: when I said they will still use waves in the future I meant that they will not be removed outright. We're going to take all this information in to account going forward and hopefully that will encourage design to greatly lessen the use of this type of encounter in favor of something else.

To shift gears a bit, I would like to clarify that I'm not dogmatically against waves of enemies. I just think you should only have them where they make sense, and in places where you can plan for them. Other people have already explained this better than I could.

One further nitpick concerning design: I think it would be better if cues were not taken from MMOs in terms of combat design. A lot of the mechanics in those games rely on every PC being a living, thinking person able to react quickly. It's just not realistic to expect the same level of control from the AI, no matter how advanced, and the controls/camera of DA2 are just not good enough to allow for micromanagement without excessive frustration.

Modifié par taine, 08 avril 2011 - 12:46 .