277 réponses à ce sujet

[xcorps]

George Zoeller--your posts are full of win, even though I'd like to see a combat log.

[Dream Warden]

You have the right to agree or disagree with that decision, but apart from that, you have very little leverage. If you really wanted us to listen to you, you certainly wouldn't spew stuff like 'corporate pet' in the face of the few people who come here to actually interact with the community and get feedback (which is not the modus operandi for 99% of the entertainment industry). It's counter productive.

Then I exercise my right to disagree with the decision to remove a feature that would have made this game better and prolong its lifespan. I dont know about modus operandi for the entertainment industry, but my most recent experience with bethseda and funcom is that they are very active, attentive and not touchy about the "ad hominem" attacks that upset people tend to use.

While Dragon Age: Origins was a better product from the start, the above mentioned companies quickly corrected problems and listened to communityrequests, and created great products that are still evolving. And as I stated, my faith in Bioware in regards to this, based on the comments from Bioware representatives, are very low.

In an informationtransparent environment the community can really participate in debugging, balance-issues, and making the product better overall. Denying us the tools to do this really increase the responsibility of Bioware to do the above; and I believe in the power of collective intelligence over the intelligence of the few.

Ive said my piece and I will let it rest. Be well. 

[Georg Zoeller]

Well, it's kind of possible, the Missing Manual ability descriptions were partially auto generated. That said, the effects themselves are often in script and nothing short of manual inspection can reveal them.  That's why it's taking me so long too

Dragon Age's abilities follow very few patterns, we made a point of having a lot of unique abilities that behave very differently from each other. That makes templating the description through automation impossible unfortunately.

Statue wrote...

I can understand how manually editing each and every single description would rack up some serious amounts of hours to do it.
Maybe possible to speed things along using a custom-made lil program or a macro tool to do some of the legwork of extracting the target numbers and pasting them in at the end of the existing descriptions in a pre-designated order (with labels like %chance: and damage:). Results would often be sloppier than ones achieved from manual placement of the numbers within the context of the existing descriptions, but would at least add the numbers and would save masses of time. A more immediate though inelegant solution compared to manual edits (and refinements could always come later). I'd be well up for trying it if I had more experience of automating text edits (unfortunately my experience of using macros only just makes it out of Word and into renaming multiple files in directories).

[Georg Zoeller]

**** double posts.

Modifié par Georg Zoeller, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:39 .

[Sakiradesu]

kelsjet wrote...

Just a quick point of clarification (which I might add to the OP as well).

A few people are interpreting my original post from a slightly different angle. Please understand, while I used MMOs and behaviour commonly found in MMOs as a convex point of my original idea, I was in no way trying to imply that min/max behavior, powergaming, theorycrafting, sim modelling were ideas first born in MMO gaming.

Please note and realize, my conversation is actually less about where min/maxin behaviour originated from, and more to do with how DA:O does not require such a playstyle, since the combat complexity is originating from other aspects of the game's combat system. (i.e. it is not necessarily numerical).

In this way, let us please understand that my term "MMO whiplash" as well as my comparison to MMO gaming was but a conduit to explain the core point of this view, nothing more.

You may not have meant it that way, but after rereading your original post, you lean heavily on the fact that DA:O is not an MMO and does not need a combat log. If I may be so bold as to interpret your post further, the opinions of those who have played MMOs are not worth listening to. I might be overstepping my bounds, but you don't exactly come off as unbiased.

So naturally, those who want a combat log will need to defend their desire for a combat log for different reasons than the standard MMO mindset. 

Bioware has always been the proud maker of games that can be enjoyed on multiple levels, other than the one mainstream players will enjoy. Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, etc, can be played and enjoyed on a basic run-through. Simple and casually. They also allow you to play on a more intense level.

A person can zip through Dragon Age without reading the codexes, quests, and such. They can opt to skip side quests and dialogue. You can still enjoy an amazing game.

On the other hand, if you spend the time to read everything in your Journal section, you can also enjoy their thoroughness. The first thing that comes to mind are the love letters you find along the way.

Now, the same went for the combat systems of the other games. You could enjoy them on a shallow level, dabbling in the skills you liked and didn't like. Or you could enjoy them on the more intense, calculating level. That's what I love about Bioware. The quality of their games is just on another level.

So I hope you can understand how people are feeling a bit disappointed that Bioware's time constraints forced them to push out a combat system that is, dare I say, simpler than people are used to from the other games.

We can't blame them. They have deadlines we're unaware of, and they did make a great game. It's just saddening to not have that extra level of enjoyment that was once a part of the other franchises.

tl;dr

Modifié par Sakiradesu, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:59 .

[Sakiradesu]

I WANT A GIANT CAT. ADD THE GIANT CAT!



Forget combat logs. D:

[Sceptic83]

Ok, thanks for the detailed explanation. So difficulty in missing manual is that many spells are made of complicated scripts? That's bad for your project, but keep it on, I will be one of those who'll look at it constantly:)

[Statue]

Georg Zoeller wrote...
Well, it's kind of possible, the Missing Manual ability descriptions were partially auto generated. That said, the effects themselves are often in script and nothing short of manual inspection can reveal them.  That's why it's taking me so long too

Dragon Age's abilities follow very few patterns, we made a point of having a lot of unique abilities that behave very differently from each other. That makes templating the description through automation impossible unfortunately.

Massive appreciation of the work you're doing on that project btw, it will come in handy in some many ways

[WillieStyle]

I think that two issues are being somewhat conflated in this thread.



One is the issue of design decisions. Given ideal (or close to ideal) circumstances, what things would Bioware put in this game.

The other issue the is about exigent compromises. What things would they have liked to put in the game but had to cut because of problems that cropped up during development.



I think Zoeller is saying that accurate/precise tool-tips or a manual are things he would have liked to put in the game. However, circumstances forced them to compromise that for whatever reason. Fair enough. Hopefully we can get those at a later date.



He also seems to be saying that, even given ideal circumstances, a combat log is something they deem unnecessary for a modern RPG. That is, even if they had the time to put one in, they wouldn't. I think this is a terrible decision. The argument that it would hinder performance flies in the face of the fact that there are games out there right now, just as large as DA:O with combat logs that run on computers less powerful than the minimum requirements of this game.



At this point, there's really nothing more to be said. We may get accurate tool-tips in the future, we probably won't get a combat log. I - and apparently others - feel the latter is a terrible design decision. What will come of it? Who knows.

[Dex1701]

Thanks for the replies, Georg. If the information in the combat log wouldn't be easy for a player to interpret I'd say that's a decent reason to move it down the priority pole. Simply maintaining a list of strings (the log) and displaying it in the UI seems like it would have a negligible impact to performance, but I know little about your software's architecture, so I'll take your word for it on the performance impact issues (still seems odd, though). I understand the argument that things need to be cut due to time constraints, though, as well as the labor involved in maintaining localization data, etc.



Like I said, I'd love a combat log, but I can live without it as well. It's good to see some substantive reasons for its omission. I was getting a little tired of all the "you don't need it unless you're an MMO-obsessed power-gamer" nonsense. That's simply not an argument at all.

[MisterEcted]

Georg Zoeller wrote...
jobs.bioware.com.

Come out and try, we're always interested in hiring people who are smarter than the principal programmers and architects with 8-15 years in the industry we employ. Being able to describe the benefits of LUA along with some sprinkled assembly commands in a forum post is a great plus in the application process too. I'm sure you have a great future ahead of you.

Somebody take this offer QUICK! 5 years in development and this game ships with some of the most trivial bugs like - well memory leaks after 30-60 mins of playing. Did QA not even notice this? How could somebody not spot the dex bug with all these elaborate logs you use? I guess I understand things slip through the cracks, especially when there are significant cracks in your foundation.

I'm a software developer too (though not as 'elite' as you). I've seen guys come and go in our company that had dozens of years of experience that still, well, suck. Years of experience means nothing. I do know that our solutions don't come out nearly as broken as yours.

Does bioware just hire random modders now?

[WillieStyle]

MisterEcted wrote...

Somebody take this offer QUICK! 5 years in development and this game ships with some of the most trivial bugs like - well memory leaks after 30-60 mins of playing. Did QA not even notice this? How could somebody not spot the dex bug with all these elaborate logs you use?

This is an interesting point.  All the programming I do is in an academic/research context so it may not apply to games, but I often have graduate students or technicians test my code.  They often do not have my programming experience (they may not have much programming experience at all) so I make the test interface as informative and easy to use as possible. 

I don't know how Bioware does internal QA but is it possible that they have playtesters who aren't programmers themselves?  If so, it may be that their elaborate "VM export log data to a seperate screen" solution wasn't amenable to playtesting by folks who aren't sophisticated programmers.  That would limit the effective man-hours Bioware could put into play-testing prior to release and might explain some of the rather obvious bugs that went live.  

Amusing annecdote:
I think Chris Priestly is a playtester right?  Prior to release he linked to a charcter of his that had finished the game.  A dwarven rogue with 20 strength and tons of dexterity who dual-wielded daggers.  I always wondered why he didn't notice that his weapons weren't doing very much damage. 

Modifié par WillieStyle, 20 novembre 2009 - 08:46 .

[Dauphin2]

I have to agree with some, any sane system for tooltips and spell powers should use some sort of string replacement. "Spell damages for %d points." And these values should be fetched from the place they are stored. Certainly spell damage values are not scattered all over the source, but are all tidy in one centralized table? Surely?

Then localization be damned, the number gets inserted no matter what the language.

Modifié par Dauphin2, 20 novembre 2009 - 08:50 .

[WillieStyle]

WillieStyle wrote...
I don't know how Bioware does internal QA but is it possible that they have playtesters who aren't programmers themselves?  If so, it may be that their elaborate "VM export log data to a seperate screen" solution wasn't amenable to playtesting by folks who aren't sophisticated programmers.  That would limit the effective man-hours Bioware could put into play-testing prior to release and might explain some of the rather obvious bugs that went live. 

This was a poor choice of words on my part.  Given the millions of man-hours we players have put into what is a very fun game, the bugs the community has found may seem obvious now.  However, given the finite resources available to Bioware during developement, some bugs were bound to make it live.  I appologize for implying your testers were less than competent.

My real point is that having a true-combat log may have aided them in their job.

[Aether99]

Id still like to know durations and damage of spells. Or say...how much weaken actually weakens, and for how long. How long winters grasp or CoC freezes a target. How long pinning shot pins a enemy to the ground, etc.



In a battle where Im watching for threats as well as taking care of my party members...I dont really have time to watch the little ticking of my buffs/debuffs...but if I knew how long they were supposed to last, I could get accustomed to it easier through memorization.



Thats what I want

[Pocketgb]

I can understand a combat log "not being needed", but claiming that everyone who does care about them are MMO players is just completely baseless.



That said, we need *some* in-game indication of what our abilities do.

[Schyzm]

WillieStyle wrote...

I think that two issues are being somewhat conflated in this thread.

One is the issue of design decisions. Given ideal (or close to ideal) circumstances, what things would Bioware put in this game.
The other issue the is about exigent compromises. What things would they have liked to put in the game but had to cut because of problems that cropped up during development.

I think Zoeller is saying that accurate/precise tool-tips or a manual are things he would have liked to put in the game. However, circumstances forced them to compromise that for whatever reason. Fair enough. Hopefully we can get those at a later date.

He also seems to be saying that, even given ideal circumstances, a combat log is something they deem unnecessary for a modern RPG. That is, even if they had the time to put one in, they wouldn't. I think this is a terrible decision. The argument that it would hinder performance flies in the face of the fact that there are games out there right now, just as large as DA:O with combat logs that run on computers less powerful than the minimum requirements of this game.

At this point, there's really nothing more to be said. We may get accurate tool-tips in the future, we probably won't get a combat log. I - and apparently others - feel the latter is a terrible design decision. What will come of it? Who knows.

damn accurate tooltips would be nice.

[bjdbwea]

I don't believe for a second that performance concerns are responsible for not implementing these features. Remember, BG 2 ten years ago did it with not problems. NWN as well, with 3D graphics and all. I do believe that it's not a trivial task to add this feature now that the game's as it is. But the whole system should've been designed from the beginning to provide a combat log, and more importanty the exact numbers and statistics of any talent and spell. If BioWare wanted to create a substitute for DnD, a system that could be used in future games, these considerations should have been a matter of course. As it is, the combat system succeeds at being fun, though for how long is remains to be seen. At any rate, in this form it's no competitor to DnD at all. And by the way, I don't care for any MMO.

[Georg Zoeller]

And I don't believe for a second that you actually read any of the posts dealing with exactly that question in this thread.

I think this thread has run past the point where a useful discussion can happen, as people can't be bothered to read anything even two pages back.

bjdbwea wrote...

I don't believe for a second that performance concerns are responsible for not implementing these features. Remember, BG 2 ten years ago did it with not problems. NWN as well, with 3D graphics and all. I do believe that it's not a trivial task to add this feature now that the game's as it is. But the whole system should've been designed from the beginning to provide a combat log, and more importanty the exact numbers and statistics of any talent and spell. If BioWare wanted to create a substitute for DnD, a system that could be used in future games, these considerations should have been a matter of course. As it is, the combat system succeeds at being fun, though for how long is remains to be seen. At any rate, in this form it's no competitor to DnD at all. And by the way, I don't care for any MMO.

[MisterEcted]

bjdbwea wrote...

I don't believe for a second that performance concerns are responsible for not implementing these features. Remember, BG 2 ten years ago did it with not problems. NWN as well, with 3D graphics and all. I do believe that it's not a trivial task to add this feature now that the game's as it is. But the whole system should've been designed from the beginning to provide a combat log, and more importanty the exact numbers and statistics of any talent and spell. If BioWare wanted to create a substitute for DnD, a system that could be used in future games, these considerations should have been a matter of course. As it is, the combat system succeeds at being fun, though for how long is remains to be seen. At any rate, in this form it's no competitor to DnD at all. And by the way, I don't care for any MMO.

I think Zoeller pointed out earlier that it wasn't the basis of the decision. They are just trying to dumb the game down to a retarded level so your little 6 year old sister can play it - they no longer care about what the 'hardcore' gamers want. They go where the money is at, not the passion.

[nicodeemus327]

Redundant question removed.

Modifié par nicodeemus327, 20 novembre 2009 - 09:25 .

[Georg Zoeller]

Great summary, I'm proud of you.

Everything that could be said about this topic has apparently been said. 

MisterEcted wrote...

bjdbwea wrote...

I don't believe for a second that performance concerns are responsible for not implementing these features. Remember, BG 2 ten years ago did it with not problems. NWN as well, with 3D graphics and all. I do believe that it's not a trivial task to add this feature now that the game's as it is. But the whole system should've been designed from the beginning to provide a combat log, and more importanty the exact numbers and statistics of any talent and spell. If BioWare wanted to create a substitute for DnD, a system that could be used in future games, these considerations should have been a matter of course. As it is, the combat system succeeds at being fun, though for how long is remains to be seen. At any rate, in this form it's no competitor to DnD at all. And by the way, I don't care for any MMO.

I think Zoeller pointed out earlier that it wasn't the basis of the decision. They are just trying to dumb the game down to a retarded level so your little 6 year old sister can play it - they no longer care about what the 'hardcore' gamers want. They go where the money is at, not the passion.

[Aether99]

Dont be too upset with MisterEcted Zoeller Hes simply giving his feelings outlet (admittedly in the wrong way). Its probably how a lot of players who liked your baldurs gate 2 and nwn games feel. They expected the combat log, and detailed tooltips (me the tooltips specifically, quite frustrating at times when the spells are so vague). Still a great game, just would be even better with those little things added someday (or in some other game you make)

[SheffSteel]

As some have pointed out, the OP's original thesis, associating combat logs with MMOs, was faulty. A more accurate observation would be that multiplayer RPGs (not MMOs) have a strong need for combat logs.



We've been told repeatedly that DAO was designed from an early stage to be the best single player experience it could be. Therefore (as mentioned earlier on) development effort was diverted away from some features (e.g. combat log) and into others that were seen as more important for a single-player game.



Certainly there could have been a combat log. There could have been an intelligent tooltip system that took localised text and inserted numbers from a spreadsheet to provide you, the gamer, with up-to-date accurate figures about exactly what a spell would do if cast right now by your current character. programmers can do pretty much anything... given time...

[nicodeemus327]

New question even though it might be better asked else where. Can modders change these description strings and insert accurate numbers? This could be a pretty fun project.

I've only briefly looked at the toolset.

Modifié par nicodeemus327, 20 novembre 2009 - 09:36 .