74 réponses à ce sujet

[Phaedon]

I didn't play Dead Rising, and I don't even remember how I felt in FO.

Bottom line, is, yes, a very good designer can make a clock good. But it's risky.

[Dominus]

Personally I believe the longer you take your time to get army, more casualties you'll have on Earth.

2 Million dead on the first mission - another 3 million because you kept dying at that one part.

[Endurium]

If ME3 has such a clock (time limit), I will either find a way to disable it or I will, sadly, avoid purchasing the game. I researched ME2 before playing and noted how things get rushed toward the end-game, so I will avoid progressing the main plot until I've finished exploring and having fun.

I prefer urgency to be implied rather than enforced. These are games, after all, and are meant to be fun. If they feel like a second job then the developers have failed.

I can't think of a recent game I played where any concept of a clock (aka time limit) was a fun experience. The games I still have, which originally had time limits, have had them removed through modding, and I enjoy them so much more.

If the OP ever gets into game design, I will steer clear of any products his company produces. Ugh, I despise time limits in games.

[CroGamer002]

DominusVita wrote...

Personally I believe the longer you take your time to get army, more casualties you'll have on Earth.

2 Million dead on the first mission - another 3 million because you kept dying at that one part.

lol

[Gentleman Moogle]

See here's the problem; yes, putting a Death Clock into the game would enhance the pressure and all that... But some people (like myself) just don't want it. Now, you can argue all day how it makes the RP better, and how it draws you into the game, and how there's really nothing different from doing one complete run-through and several smaller less-complete run-throughs in order to see everything... But at the end of the day, I hate the clock. Literally, hate it. I hated it in Dead Rising and Dead Rising 2, I hate it when it's implemented in RTS games, I hated it in ME2 after you get Legion, and I'd hate it in ME3.

I don't play games for 'pressure'. I don't like games that force me to rush through them, and then make me feel inadequate if I don't. I play RPGs because they're NOT frantic rush-through-to-the-end games, but rather are about exploration, story, characters, and the growing process.

Now, again, you're probably right that it would enhance certain elements of the game, and that it would make the overall game feel more 'realistic'.

But f*ck realism. I'm here to enjoy my game at my pace, not be pressured into blasting through each and every level because some arbitrary countdown is demanding I hurry or people are going to die.

[Gethrian]

It's funny how it's sounds great idea but when I actually play anything with timers I hate them to no end.

[MrGone]

Gentleman Moogle wrote...

See here's the problem; yes, putting a Death Clock into the game would enhance the pressure and all that... But some people (like myself) just don't want it. Now, you can argue all day how it makes the RP better, and how it draws you into the game, and how there's really nothing different from doing one complete run-through and several smaller less-complete run-throughs in order to see everything... But at the end of the day, I hate the clock. Literally, hate it. I hated it in Dead Rising and Dead Rising 2, I hate it when it's implemented in RTS games, I hated it in ME2 after you get Legion, and I'd hate it in ME3.

I don't play games for 'pressure'. I don't like games that force me to rush through them, and then make me feel inadequate if I don't. I play RPGs because they're NOT frantic rush-through-to-the-end games, but rather are about exploration, story, characters, and the growing process.

Now, again, you're probably right that it would enhance certain elements of the game, and that it would make the overall game feel more 'realistic'.

But f*ck realism. I'm here to enjoy my game at my pace, not be pressured into blasting through each and every level because some arbitrary countdown is demanding I hurry or people are going to die.

Reading this post I realize that perhaps I've been poorly stating my case.

I definitely wouldn't want every mission, every encounter, to be timed, Sonic the Hedgehog style, with Shepard trying to get through levels as quickly as possible. Aside from the occasional "deactivate the bomb" moment, this isn't necessary, and yeah it would be needless pressure.

I'm more arguing for some of the sillyness of having a plot that wants to race along and sidequests that want to plod being in direct opposition to each other to either get justified or have a cost.  That's hardly arbitrary, that's keeping with the core themes of Mass Effect (and Bioware Games in general to a degree).

Mass Effect seems to be about cost. How many lives are worth sacrificing in order to stop evil? What's the true cost of genocide? Where do you draw the line on leniency?

Right now, in both ME 1 and 2 the main plot (chase Saren/Stop Collectors) is presented in such as fashion that the characters involved all pretty much are rushing from location to location in a race against time. Hell, after you two of the main missions in ME1, it actually changes the main objective to "Race against Time: Stop Saren".

You can't have a race against time if time doesn't exist.

I'm tired of perpetually encountering "in-the middle of crashing into a populated zone, but don't worry I'll wait for you to play some quasar and chase down pyjacks carrying MacGuffins - no rush" situations. It just seems counter intuitive in a game based around making hard descisions and ensuring that you know the consequences of those desicions. The consequence of faffing about too much in ME3 should be (considering the premise): people die.I don't think it's unfair to say, "Well, you decided to spend 4 months
mining planets for more minerals than you could ever actually use, and
now England is gone - oh but you fish are alive so you know, that evens
out."

With that being said, having "limited time" still doesn't mean having a "time limit" which is what I'm getting most people assume. It's all in how you handle it. I used "clock" as the title only because conceptually, everyone gets it. I didn't mean that there would necessarily need to be an ACTUAL countdown clock on screen all the time.

Personally I was thinking more like a calendar, or just a number of Days (Fallout one again) till The reapers win earth. Certain missions can add days (like sending supplies, or extra troops, or hiring mercenaries), other actions subtract days ( maybe you stop a bunch of pirates who were attacking colonists, but they were heading back to earth to join the fight), traveling around eats up days (every four relay jumps = one day, each MAJOR mission ala a ME2 Recruitment or loyalty mission, takes up one day). Again, if for some reason "days" or any unit of time measurement is such an anethema, "lives lost" can substitute, keep everything still timeless, and yet add appropriate pressure.

Oh and EVERYONE plays games for pressure, or at least sci-fi
action games like ME. If you wanted to play a low pressure game, you'd
be playing Endless Ocean on the Wii. ME has gunfights galore, giant
bosses, space battles, romance, and moral quandry: all of that is pressure! It's just a good kind of pressure.

Even then,  personal preference comes into play with stuff like this. If you don't like Dead Rising's clock, then yeah you probably wouldn't like this "calendar", but here's the thing: why can't we both get satisfied?

Seriously, adding a "death toll" cost feature as a difficulty modifier (as opposed to a straight up setting) ala Fallout New Vegas' "Hardcore" mode isn't hard (conceptually anyway). It's a little extra scripting on missions that already have plenty and perhaps a bonus ending variable or two as a reward for those that partake in the challenge. That's it  On a game this big, that's not much.

[Pani Mauser]

I have enough timed deadlines in my job to keep me under stress constantly. I play the games to blow of stress (shooting waves of enemies is fun and relaxing, and even if you fail, you just start over with no consequences at all). And 'do this before it's too late' in games just kills all the fun for me. I don't want stress, I want fun!

I wouldn't mind if developers add death clock on the Hardcore or Insanity. I think most of people who want extra tension with that death clock play on such difficulties anyways. But keep this **** away from my usual 'normal'!

[JustinTR]

Haha no... think of it this way... imagine using the conduit to get back to the citadel and all of a sudden, your time runs out? You didn't leave yourself enough time. Critical mission failure. Hours of your life wasted...

[Akizora]

It's not always so simple as to have a "toggle", it's not a "hide helmet" feature you're talking about here. It's a programmed feature that needs to be scripted into every single mission in the game and every variable to be accounted for whatever events may be played out during, after or before the clock.

I don't want a Ragnarok countdown, I want to enjoy the game at my own pace, explore at my own leisure and chat to random people for as long as I desire and however many times I want without risking my entire game and having to reload a very old save just because I wasn't fast enough.

[Terror_K]

I still think the best way to do this is not have a clock at all, but have contextual and situational moments where you're put on the spot and have to deal with the situation ASAP if you really want to "beat the clock" as it were. Mass Effect has already had this in both games in a way, with the classic example being the difference between going to get your captured crew straight away or holding off for longer. There wasn't a clock there, but there was a counter that noted how many (if any) other places you went before responding and going to rescue them. A case in ME1 that was somewhat similar but not as urgent was if you delayed getting Liara and she was all cuckoo bananas. They should just do more things like this: where a few events just count the places you go between the time you get the mission and the time you go to actually do it.

[Silmane]

MrGone, i'm with ya on this.

[vx SmOkEy xv]

a timer would only work on certain missions.
a bomb will go off in 5 minutes, get out of there or defuse it.
*SPOILER*
Theres a ship taken over by geth, and it will crash land on a planet, you only have a few minutes to regain control of the ship.

[cedgedc]

I see where the OP is going with this. In many ways I agree. Most of us here know that the one thing pretty much every RPG has in comon is the general structure.

It's like a two sided funnel. It starts out very narrow and linnear, then broadens out to where you can go explore side content, and then narrows back down, ushering you toward the last big event.

While I like the ability to progress laterally in a game, I have never liked the sense of 'timelessness' that occurs during this middle stage. You can go do 50 side quests, and yet you don't have the slightest sensation of forward progress in the plot.

You're in the lost time section of the game, which is dominated by frustrating dialogue loops. You lose the sense of urgency, knowing full well that you can take as much time as you want to do everything, but you also know that anything you do during that stage of the game, typically falls into the 'bonus' category, and doesn't really impact the overall ending.

That said, Bioware has done a terrific job in their RPG's of making you feel like that sidetime does count toward the grand scheme of things. But there's still this timelessness. You talk to the npc's on your ship and they respond as though you just spoke to them 5 mins ago when you've been playing  for 5 hours and travelled around the galaxy 10 times.

Problem is, that just sortof goes with the territory. The designers made this game, with all the side content, all the decisions and varieties of play-throughs because they want you to play it as long as possible (or atleast until the next title is released!).

It seems basically like the time concept you're describing is a turnbased rpg, where you can accomplish a certain number of 'moves' within a turn (say 6 month period). Then you end the turn and move onto the next stage and are exposed to the events that occured as a result of your actions during that turn.

(You also see this in the Rome Total War series and any number of strategy games.)

Thus you aren't pressed for time. You can sit and make decisions for as long as you like, but you do have to decide 'Do I help Tali, or do I help Jacob?' There is no active timer when you're in any-one place, but it does give a sense of time. This could work, but plenty of people wouldn't like it.

A happier compromise might be something to the effect of what was done with Dragon Age 2, where the game is essentially a series of stages you progress through, and you can do as much or as little as you like within each. You are then faced with the results of your decisions throughout the game, and not just once at the 'final event'.

Modifié par cedgedc, 05 avril 2011 - 02:36 .

[Elvis_Mazur]

I hate any type of clock. Be it in just one part of the game or in the entire game.

I never played Dead Rising because of the stupid clock.

[Kaiser Shepard]

Megaman X5, 2000/2001 (PSX)

The game begins with the series' main enemy, Sigma, attacking the Eurasia space coolony orbiting Earth, with the intention of being killed. X or Zero, as usual, manage to 'stop' Sigma in time, but not before he has set the colony on a crash course to Earth. The duo has 16 hours to try and destroy the colony, or it will bring significant destruction to the planet AND spread Sigma's Maverick Virus (known as the Sigma Virus at this point in the series). The only hope the Maverick Hunters have is to activate the Enigma laser cannon, although - as you might guess - its main components are missing...

Each stage you enter causes 1 of the 16 hours you originally have to tick away, as I recall it regardless of whether you actually manage to beat it or not. And to make matters worse: you don't know which of the eight bosses hold the 4 pieces needed to increase the laser's chances of destroying the colony. If the laser fails, the only remaining option is to send Zero operating a space shuttle to - ahem - intercept the colony. Of course, the parts needed to increase the shuttle's chances of succeeding are located in the other 4 stages.

From this point, the story diverges into different subplots based on the success or failure of these missions. Still, whatever the results of the two (or just one) colony destruction missions, gameplay-wise the resulting events remain the same: the endgame triggers, allowing you to enter the final few levels. Storywise, however, the events that take place there differ greatly depending on the outcome, although I will not tell you how because of possible spoilers (my apologies to the poster below).

Probably this is how most choices in Mass Effect will also work out: the way the story evolves will be different, but gameplay wise we'll still enter the same stages at one point or another. If BioWare were to implement a similar time system (but with days/weeks, obviously), it could work in a similar fashion. Although, I still have one complaint about the way the colony actually got destroyed or not in MMX5 was based on chance, each item only increasing the chances of success. While it did make almost every playthrough different from another, you'd want the game to reward you actually 'going the extra mile' in collecting all items (or characters and their loyalties, for a Mass Effect analogue). Then again, you don't emotionally invest the same way in a Megaman game as you would in a BioWare title.

Modifié par Kaiser Shepard, 06 avril 2011 - 02:17 .

[cedgedc]

Awe dude! I was gonna play that! Well now that you spoiled the ending...

[G00N3R7883]

MrGone wrote...

At no point in ME1 or 2 are you truly pressured for time in a way that would affect your descision making other than the occasional race to stop a bomb. I can ignore major events which compel me to do important plot stuff in favor of sidequests in both games at every turn.

ME2 did have something like this. You may recall the Suicide mission at the end of ME2 can play out differently depending on how many missions you do between the Collector attack and going through the Omega relay. Alright that's only one situation. It might be tough to pull off over the course of a whole game, especially with everything else we hope they will include

I like the concept of doing more recruitment missions and resource gathering, equals better chance to save Earth overall, but with the tradeoff of more lives lost. I think it might be best to keep it as a behind the scenes mechanic instead of an on screen display. Then in the same way as ME2, we'll all come on this forum after we complete the game and find out how it could have played out differently, but without feeling that pressure in every single moment of gameplay.

Modifié par G00N3R7883, 05 avril 2011 - 03:53 .

[psychocandy]

legion999 wrote...

The original Fallout had a timelimit of 500 days to find a waterchip and defeat a mutant army. It worked for that but I don't see it working in ME3 too many variables. Eg mass relays, ftl time, missions etc.

it was actually a lot more severe than that

150 to find the chip, increased by 100 if you sent caravans

500 days to defeat the mutants, reduced to 400 if you sent the caravans

but that was all muted by the 1.1 patch which increases the time to defeat the master to 13 years

ME3 seems to need a timer as such, or are the reapers in stasis waiting for me to get my army

[cedgedc]

I think everyone has agreed that an overt time limit wouldn't work. For starters, it closes the door to a lot of dlc potential which we all know Bioware loves to do.

You can't implement a feature which essentially shuts the door on half of what the player can accomplish.

Again I think the OP is refering more to the possibility of having a turn-based system where you accomplish a certain number of things within say a 1 month window.

Each side quest requires 1-2 weeks by default, including travel, prep, and execution, thus you have to choose which of your crew members you will help, and when you have used up all the weeks available, the turn ends and you are ushered on to the next stage of the story.

Now of course you could play with all of that, giving players more than a month, or making things take less time, etc. I'm not advocating this, I just think that people are assuming he is referring to ticking clock in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

[Raizo]

PetrySilva wrote...

I hate any type of clock. Be it in just one part of the game or in the entire game.

I never played Dead Rising because of the stupid clock.

Same here.

I tend to avoid games with time limits/clocks after my bad expereince with Shen Mue. I hated the fact that it would take me whole entire day to walk into town in that game and the game would automatiacllly send me back to my house and back to bed just because the game wanted to be realitstic. I play mostly rpg's, years and years of playing nothing but rpg's has made me the type of person who wants to talk to everyone and interact with everything that that I see in an rpg game.Adding a time limist will just dilute all of teh role playing possibilities that ME3 will have since it will force gamers to rush through the game.

[Alithinos]

I hate when games have time limits.

[Lvl20DM]

Having missions change based on which order in which you perform them could work. The trailer you to which you are referring has Shep choosing between Caleston and Noveria. This obviously wasn't a factor in the final game. It would be interesting if choosing to go to Noveria first would have meant more colonists died on Feros, for example. Mass Effect 1 implied a time limit, so much so that I stopped doing side quests entirely when the journal started referring to a "Race against Time". On subsequent playthroughs I knew better.

[RyuGuitarFreak]

If anyone besides me find this is any relevant to the discussion at all I'll just leave the cover to my favorite JRPG of all time...



PS1: I wouldn't mind some "clock" in ME3 at all to raise tension IF theres is time to do every side quest if the player plays smart with the time. "RP" and immersion>>>>exploration
PS2: If anyone ever find this game is bad, horrible, sucks, etc, leave it to yourself of shove your opinion up your *** for all I care, k?

Bye

Modifié par RyuGuitarFreak, 05 avril 2011 - 08:18 .

[cedgedc]

Lvl20DM wrote...

Having missions change based on which order in which you perform them could work. The trailer you to which you are referring has Shep choosing between Caleston and Noveria. This obviously wasn't a factor in the final game. It would be interesting if choosing to go to Noveria first would have meant more colonists died on Feros, for example. Mass Effect 1 implied a time limit, so much so that I stopped doing side quests entirely when the journal started referring to a "Race against Time". On subsequent playthroughs I knew better.

Having more choices along the lines of 'Save one or save the other' in the next game would be fun. Like the Ashely vs Kaiden dilema in ME1. That added a great deal of intensity. Your Caleston vs Noveria idea made me think of this.