617 réponses à ce sujet

[Nathan Redgrave]

Terror_K wrote...

Yeah, but the weapons themselves don't even have (visible) stats any more. They're no more proper RPG items than the guns you collect in Doom or Quake are.

"Proper RPG items" never made sense in the first place. Why is this sword over 9,000 times as powerful as that one, literally? It's more gamey than any shooter's weapon ensemble, no matter how outlandish.

Technically, character skill makes more sense. A character's ability to damage with a weapon in RPGs has always been a combination of stats like hit rates, etc. But once you give total control of aim to the player, such stats become meaningless.

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

Terror_K wrote...

Yeah, but the weapons themselves don't even have (visible) stats any more. They're no more proper RPG items than the guns you collect in Doom or Quake are.

Just like it should be.

[Walker White]

Terror_K wrote...

Yeah, but the weapons themselves don't even have (visible) stats any more. They're no more proper RPG items than the guns you collect in Doom or Quake are.

<grumpy-old-dude>
In the old days, players were not supposed to own supplemental books other than the Player's guide.  They were not allowed to know how their magic items worked or how much damage they did.  Heck, no one would even tell you how many charges your wand had left. 

And if players did own these books and bring this knowledge to the game, the GMs would play very, very cruel jokes on them.
</grumpy-old-dude>

[DrunkenMonkey]

Modifié par DrunkenMonkey, 06 mai 2011 - 02:53 .

[PrinceLionheart]

Hopefully this means Armor Customization will actually be effective and not a meaningless "5% increase to Shields."

[Nathan Redgrave]

PrinceLionheart wrote...

Hopefully this means Armor Customization will actually be effective and not a meaningless "5% increase to Shields."

Altogether the bits and pieces of your armor could make a pretty good difference... on Normal Mode. Upper-level difficulties render the entirety of your shields and health so utterly ineffectual that the only armor that's worth a damn anymore is the armor that boosts ammo capacity.

[Embrosil]

AdmiralCheez wrote...

Remember how when you leveled up your powers, swapped your armor around, or got an upgrade, it didn't really feel like it did anything?

That's what they're fixing here, it sounds like. Seems they want leveling up to finally mean something.

No reason to panic... yet.

Umm, are you talking about ME1 or ME2? Because in ME1 I really felt when I was finaly able to hit something with my sniper rifle afre putting points into it.

But if you are talking about ME2, then I must agree with you.

Modifié par Embrosil, 06 mai 2011 - 02:51 .

[didymos1120]

Embrosil wrote...


Umm, are you talking about ME1 or ME2? Because in ME1 I really felt when I was finaly able to hit something with my sniper rifle afre putting points into it.

OK, tell me: can you honestly say you experienced drastic, highly noticeable shifts with skills other than the sniper rifle?
And I'm not talking about stuff like suddenly being able to open the next level of containers. 

Modifié par didymos1120, 06 mai 2011 - 02:55 .

[Embrosil]

Nathan Redgrave wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

Yeah, but the weapons themselves don't even have (visible) stats any more. They're no more proper RPG items than the guns you collect in Doom or Quake are.

"Proper RPG items" never made sense in the first place. Why is this sword over 9,000 times as powerful as that one, literally? It's more gamey than any shooter's weapon ensemble, no matter how outlandish.

Technically, character skill makes more sense. A character's ability to damage with a weapon in RPGs has always been a combination of stats like hit rates, etc. But once you give total control of aim to the player, such stats become meaningless.

Really? So why todays armies do not all use the same weapons? It really does not matter how far or how fast can each weapon fire, right? It always depends on the one who is firing it, right?

Modifié par Embrosil, 06 mai 2011 - 02:54 .

[Embrosil]

didymos1120 wrote...

Embrosil wrote...


Umm, are you talking about ME1 or ME2? Because in ME1 I really felt when I was finaly able to hit something with my sniper rifle afre putting points into it.

OK, tell me: can you honestly say you experienced drastic, highly noticeable shifts with skills other than the sniper rifle? 

Yes, I have. At the begiining I was barely able to keep my aim on the target.

[didymos1120]

Embrosil wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

Embrosil wrote...


Umm, are you talking about ME1 or ME2? Because in ME1 I really felt when I was finaly able to hit something with my sniper rifle afre putting points into it.

OK, tell me: can you honestly say you experienced drastic, highly noticeable shifts with skills other than the sniper rifle? 

Yes, I have. At the begiining I was barely able to keep my aim on the target.

Uh, I said OTHER THAN the sniper rifle.

[Pups_of_war_76]

Balancing passive stat boosts is fun, though.

[JKoopman]

didymos1120 wrote...

lazuli wrote...
There were only two non-combat skills in ME1 (Charm and Intimidate), and those even had the side bonus of making dealing with merchants easier.  And what do merchants sell?  Why, merchants sell combat equipment of course.

Plus, the morality meters both gave a variety of purely combat-oriented boosts at the 25%, 50%, and 75% marks. Hell, the achievements gave you a bunch of combat boosts.  And the Hacking/Bypass stuff that people like to cite as "non-combat skills" were largely there to allow you to open more containers....which contained guns, armor, and armor and weapon mods. Oh, and grenades, credits (only good for buying more combat-oriented stuff), medi-gel (for healing...in combat) and omni-gel (mostly useful for...opening loot containers even more easily! Also, repairing the Mako from damage received....during combat!) Secondarily, they let you hack terminals which got you new assignments which in turn led to more combat which in turn led to more loot and XP which ultimately were about...COMBAT.

You can play 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon and link pretty much anything with anything.

By your, erm... unique definition, the original Baldur's Gate would be a hack'n'slash action game. Simply because a skill or ability has some utilitarian or auxiliary combat use doesn't make it a "combat skill". Persuasion skills, by and large, were used primarily to avoid combat situations. And Hack/Bypass leading to loot or credits which pertain to combat no more makes them "combat" skills than Lockpicking was in any traditional D&D RPG. Neither is something like First Aid a "combat skill". It can facilitate combat in the same way that a Priest in WoW can facilitate combat, but neither would be considered "combat-oriented".

Modifié par JKoopman, 06 mai 2011 - 03:25 .

[Embrosil]

didymos1120 wrote...

Embrosil wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

Embrosil wrote...


Umm, are you talking about ME1 or ME2? Because in ME1 I really felt when I was finaly able to hit something with my sniper rifle afre putting points into it.

OK, tell me: can you honestly say you experienced drastic, highly noticeable shifts with skills other than the sniper rifle? 

Yes, I have. At the begiining I was barely able to keep my aim on the target.

Uh, I said OTHER THAN the sniper rifle.

Oh, sorry. But the answer is stil yes. At the beginning my assault rifle would score hit with the firs two or three bullets before firing all around the target. At the end, I even do not have to crouch to hit anything.

[Nathan Redgrave]

Embrosil wrote...

Really? So why todays armies do not all use the same weapons? It really does not matter how far or how fast can each weapon fire, right? It always depends on the one who is firing it, right?

Point... missing it. Ah, well.

Look, one handgun that fires 9mm rounds is going to be just about as powerful as another 9mm handgun, regardless of model. There may be quality differences on the whole, but that 9mm round is going to pack just about the same good ol' 9mm punch.

Modifié par Nathan Redgrave, 06 mai 2011 - 03:09 .

[Severyx]

I know I already posted this in another thread, but I think this is just as appropriate a place to post it:

[JKoopman]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Drasill wrote...

Chris Priestly wrote...

So directly saying that were enriching the role-playing mechanics and making stats meaningful in combat somehow also means we're making them worse?

I do not understand people sometimes.

Could you clarify how removing role-playing mechanics is enriching them?

Removing old mechanics enriches a game in the same way that taking out the garbage cleans up a room.

The problem is, as the old saying goes, "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

[Nathan Redgrave]

Embrosil wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

Embrosil wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

Embrosil wrote...


Umm, are you talking about ME1 or ME2? Because in ME1 I really felt when I was finaly able to hit something with my sniper rifle afre putting points into it.

OK, tell me: can you honestly say you experienced drastic, highly noticeable shifts with skills other than the sniper rifle? 

Yes, I have. At the begiining I was barely able to keep my aim on the target.

Uh, I said OTHER THAN the sniper rifle.

Oh, sorry. But the answer is stil yes. At the beginning my assault rifle would score hit with the firs two or three bullets before firing all around the target. At the end, I even do not have to crouch to hit anything.

I can vouch for this: low-level weapon skills and low-level weapons have very low accuracy retention, and the assault rifle suffers greatly for it--see that circle that is your aiming reticule? See how it grows as you continue to fire? That's your accuracy going down the crapper. Stick to short bursts until you've leveled up some and make good use of the left trigger. Late-game with high weapon skill, better weapons, and good upgrades, an assault rifle can be ridiculously useful. I've set myself up so that neither accuracy nor overheating are ever a problem. Absolutely glorious.

[Tony_Knightcrawler]

I didn't mind the transition of how Renegade/Paragon worked in ME2 from ME1. Charm was always the first thing I invested points in in ME1, so for me personally, it's like I'm getting free points.

Still, something I *DID* like in ME1, and something that IMO would be nice to make a return was how the different skills ACTED as both skills AND stats. Decryption increased the size of tech mine explosions, Hacking increased duration, Electronics increased damage. Okay I might have gotten some of those mixed up, but that's how it worked. So investing in these skills gave you more powers AND altered your existing powers AND worked for situations outside of combat. It'd be nice if that made a return.

Like, what if for every point you put into Flame Tech, all your tech powers got 5% stronger? And for every point you put into Ice Tech, the "casting time" on all your techs got 10% faster. For every point you put into Overload, the AOE of your techs increases by 0.33 meters.

Also, I want to make it clear that part of the *strengths* of the Engineer classes in ME1 was the fact that you had more leeway in who you could take with you on missions. The class directly was probably a little inferior in combat, but the ability to safely take both Ashley and Wrex evened it out.

I'm talking about Engineer abilities, so a lot of people won't relate to this post, but I think it'd be a nice compromise between ME1 and ME2. Some of the nuance and customizability of ME1, but the ease of use of ME2.

Scimal wrote...

While it's fun to think of that in theory, the very nature of stats is to limit possibilities. Think of ME1; I didn't put many points into repair. So, instead of spending more time experiencing the story and the world around me, I spent countless hours repairing the Mako after stumbling into an occupied area for the first time. That's not fun.

But really, who gets damaged in the Mako? Maybe 1-shotted by a Thresher Maw if you don't realize how much EXP they give on-foot, but damage? :-P

[Vena_86]

What about non-combat stats....Oh right it's a shooter. There is on ly combat.

[Severyx]

There is no combat. There is no role play. There is only... Cake. Reaper cake. Or reapers making your planet into cake.

Or Role Playing a reaper baking a combat cake.

Or combating a reaper role playing as a cake.

[kalwren]

I'm seeing the same old arguments in this thread, just because one person doesn’t want to use it, then others shouldn’t be able to.

A little selfish no?

Makes me wonder if anybody actually knew about the auto-levelling feature and casual difficulty setting from the previous games. Those systems were specifically designed for gamers that wanted a more hands-off approach.

IMO, rather than designing for the lowest common denominator, I think developer resources would be better focussed on providing more player aids for those that want them. Keep the subtle granularity that certain RPG gamers require, but allow those that find those aspects too challenging to tailor the complexity of it by switching on “auto-pilot” modes.

More development time devoted to Auto-levelling, Auto-inventory management, Skip-able exploration, Scalable difficulty etc. That’s what accessibility should mean in my book.

Right now, it feels like we just get auto-pilot modes by default without a switch for off.

[JKoopman]

Tony_Knightcrawler wrote...

I didn't mind the transition of how Renegade/Paragon worked in ME2 from ME1. Charm was always the first thing I invested points in in ME1, so for me personally, it's like I'm getting free points.

It's really not though. All tying your "Charm/Intimidate" to your morality did is limit your ability to role-play. Now you either play 100% Paragon/Renegade or you gimp yourself and get locked out of dialog/narrative options.

[didymos1120]

Embrosil wrote...

Oh, sorry. But the answer is stil yes. At the beginning my assault rifle would score hit with the firs two or three bullets before firing all around the target. At the end, I even do not have to crouch to hit anything.

But do you actually consider that as dramatic a difference as the SR?  I mean, yeah, I agree: improvements were noticeable with the skills, but they largely crept up on you over a long period of time as I see it (with some exceptions. Largely, the biotics: they had those ranks which acted as a hard limit such that stuff like Lift would just suddenly work on, say, an armature, despite the fact that, according to the stats, you really hadn't improved that much).  The SR was an anomaly because it went from just plain crazy-unusable initially to something you could cope with in fairly short order, due largely to the fact that the scope-view was quite literally in your face and, as a consequence, made the decreasing sway impossible to not notice.

[Epic777]

Terror_K wrote...

Epic777 wrote...

This is not directed at you personally, but why? Why do we accept crappy to medicore shooting mechanics in a Shooter-RPG? Why must everything be saracficed in the name of RPG? Why can't we demand the same quality of shooter mechanics as we do RPG mechanics. ~agent smith tone~ WHY! WHY!? WHY?

A counter question: why does it have to be the other way around? Because that's how it went with ME2: almost all the RPG mechanics were sacrificed in the name of "improving" the shooter ones. The ME2 team were suddenly so concerned about making it "compete with the best shooters out there" that they seemed to just not give a rat's ass about the RPG elements beyond the narrative. Beyond that, ME2 simply overcompensated for ME1's issues, making everything so simple that it wasn't broken due to the simple fact that it didn't have enough moving parts or complexity to break any more. Instead of being a broken game it became a dull, shallow one in the RPG department, and was so simple, lacking and automated that it was just unsatisfactory as an RPG.

The thing is, in order to improve the combat and the TPS elements the RPG ones didn't need to go. Had the basic combat been altered from stat-based to skill based, the AI tweaked and the cover and basic shooter mechanics been refined then that's all it would have needed. Skills didn't need to be cut in half and reduced to offensive combat powers only now, the inventory system didn't need to be gutted, modding didn't need to go the way of the dodo, we didn't need to automate the entire upgrade system to the point of linear shallowness, etc. Simply put, the RPG stuff doesn't need to take a massive hit in order for the TPS elements to be strengthened. But the team chooses to do it because the RPG elements are "scary and boring" to most modern gamers who just want to get to the action.

I agree that the TPS elements need to be strengthened in ME3 if they really want the combat to be more than just basic TPS genericism. They need to look at the games that do TPS combat better like Gears of War and learn from them what works and what doesn't. But that doesn't mean the whole focus of the game has to be "Combat! Combat! Combat!" and that what tiny strands of RPG are left need to be pushed into the narrow focus of just being about combat and the TPS elements too. The combat and shooter stuff should serve the story and RPG elements, not the other way around.

This forum has been ablaze since ME2 reduced some RPG mechanics while strengthing the TPS. Why point is this: why aren't we demanding both be strengthen?