277 réponses à ce sujet

[Statue]

MrFish wrote...
I don't think NwN would have got alot of the post patch support that it did without the strong community and builders backing it.  Some features wanted by the community were too big to patch and had to be expansion-patched in.  Even though this has no multiplayer it still has the strong community.  I guess we can just be vocal and hope now

Well, feel free to add your vote in my poll. It already has sufficient votes in favour compared to against to reach statistical significance at the p<0.01 level though (http://social.biowar...205210/3#246229), so any more statistical significance would be a bit wtfpwn overkill lol



I'll be awarding -1 to responsiveness to customer needs if ... well, if customer needs aren't responded to.

Modifié par Statue, 20 novembre 2009 - 02:59 .

[Seifz]

Statue, you can't just dictate what the developers do and don't do. This is their game; you pay to play it.



Should I make a poll that asks whether or not we should be able to ride motorcycles and then demand that the developers implement motorcycles when I get a positive result? Of course not.

[Statue]

I'm not trying to dictate or demand anything. I set up a poll to ask what people's preferences were on an issue that's being heavily debated and presented the results of analysis of that data. There were hundreds of posts on the issue and strong feeling on the issue before I created the polls. I wouldn't make a poll for something random that nobody seemed remotely interested in and that had no compelling reasoning behind it.

If it's folly to imagine that a company might care about pleasing an overwhelming majority of its customers, then I'm guilty of folly, and probably now have a folly rating of 230 (that's moderate to high).

Modifié par Statue, 20 novembre 2009 - 03:22 .

[dirtywick]

F-C wrote...

dirtywick wrote...

I call it a start, but not informative enough as I'd like.  I enjoy the game as is but see merit in a combat log.  I'd prefer more detailed information in general though, especially in spell descriptions and descriptions of active effects.

the way i see it is if you are focused on one character and you see that a group member is taking damage then you would hit pause, switch to that character and survey what is attacking them and make adjustments accordingly from what you see there.

it doesnt really matter if he threw a grenade at you or shot you with an arrow, you should notice the enemy attacking him and realize what you need to. use a potion, cast a heal, run out of line of sight, crowd control the target, or whatever your tactical plan may be for that situation.

having a combat log tell you that X mob hit wynn with Y attack wont really change that, and it wont fix tunnel vision either.

Thanks for your point of view but I disagree.  I realize there's more than one way to do things, but there's a way I prefer and I'd prefer to monitor the combat log for more precise information about who/how many targets are attacking a character to assess the threat instead.  Obviously I have to make to due with this way and I have and will continue to do so.  Doesn't diminish my want for a combat log though.

[FinchyHoha]

The upshot is just go back and play your favorite Infinity Engine game. Enjoy the fact that the camera control won't wonk out on you and that the gameplay mechanics are transparent instead of being designed completely obtusely.

[Aether99]

I think the OP's analasys while interesting, is ultimately false.  At least false for certain people.  Sure there are some who want the combat logs, damage stats etc because of what you said.  But most, are because that is how the old games that DA:O is supposedly the successor of did it.

I never used combat logs for a competitive edge in a singleplayer game.  Im not actually sure how you can.  What I did do is used it to see exactly how I died in a chaotic fight.  I used it to determine, well, lots of things.  It essentially gave a breakdown of your fight.  I found this usefull as I progressed through the game.

Damage stats I think are important.  I want to know the theoretical dps id do on a target with my weapons...why?  Because that way I know for sure, which weapons are better all around, which ones are better for certain fights etc.  Nothing to do with competitition, rather it has to do with me preparing for those hard fights.

That is a big reason for the want for combat logs and damage stats, older games like this could be EXTREMELY hard at times.  As such the combat logs and damage stats served as tools to help you adjust your characters so you stood a better chance of winning.  There is something satisfying about having one attempt fail, studying a bit, trying again and succeeding whether it be by the skin of yoru teeth or with flying colors.

Further, some people like different things.  Many people like combat logs and damage stats, why? same reason some people hate the pause mechanics of this game.  Its just personal preference.

Trying to narrow this preference down to MMO's is simply untrue.

[Georg Zoeller]

I'm not a fan of polls. Game development decisions are rarely 'should we add feature x'. They're almost always 'do we add feature X or feature Y'

Polls, just like petitions or boycotts (http://i.imgur.com/17vKk.png) usually don't help, because if you ask people 'do you want a cookie', most of them will say yes, even if they don't really feel they need a cookie.

So, a better question would be 'Combat Log' or 'Weapon and Armor Crafting*'? or 'Combat Log' but also an increase in minimum machine spec?

Sounds odd? It isn't - ombat logging is quite performance expensive - pushing a high volume of strings through the scripting VM into the engine and then into the UI is a major performance concern - one of the reasons all the log statements are #ifdef'd out so they don't generate instructinos on the VM.

Does that mean we don't care for the community? No, we're always listening and interested in feedback - but polls, petitions or high volume posting on our forums has/have no more impact that a single well thought out post, a well written review or or a mod that turns out to be very popular, indicating interest for a feature.

And just in general, I'm really absolutely immune to the 'if you don't do what I want your company is bad because it doesn't listen to me about how the game should be made and what features it should have'  school of thought.

Believe me - we've discussed features like the combat log before cutting it. We understoodnd that some people would feel it is absolutely vital - and we made a concious choice, after weighting benefits and drawbacks, to say 'not happening - people who feel it is absolutely vital will have to look elsewhere or resort to modding'. That has nothing to do with not listening to the customer and everything to do with defining the target audience for the game.

I'm not taking joy or pleasure in telling people their favourite feature was cut, deemed legacy or otherwise rejected - but I also feel it is important to be honest and not give people BS about how we're 'thinking about it' and 'maybe gonna add it in the future'.

I feel it makes more sense to give you an indiciation when you're fighting a lost cause or what your options are instead of letting you waste time running against windmills that you won't fell, regardless how often you try.

Granted, it is foolish for me to say 'will never happen', because I know quite well that we can sneak all kinds of things into our game (like cloaks) that we categorically rejected before - but at this point it serves to make a point - chances of getting a combat log of the type like in Baldur's Gate anytime soon are nil. Way too many factors (string performance, UI design considerations, cost vs. benefit analysis, game accessibility) are aligned against it. Some kind of debug output to file or screen is much more likely.


I hope this explanation makes sense to you.

* Used for example purposes only, no upcoming feature implied.

Modifié par Georg Zoeller, 20 novembre 2009 - 03:54 .

[MrFish]

Oh what it is to be in the firing line...

[FinchyHoha]

I'm just surprised that this is considered a strange request by the devs. At the very least, I wish your "saves" or the equivalent were indicated in the UI. Same with "to-hit" percentages. Without those basic pieces of information, battles can seem random. I often found myself asking, did I just miss that save by a little (and was just unlucky) or was that effect something I had little chance to resist? Well there's no easy way to tell. Obviously the same goes for enemies. Is my melee character's "to-hit" keeping up with enemy chances to dodge (well in this system I guess it would be, is my damage output keeping up with enemy armor)? You can tell that your damage is decreasing/increasing, but because those numbers appear and fade so quickly, it's tough to tease out patterns. This is really frustrating.

[Georg Zoeller]

It is not a strange request at all. The decision to nuke the combat log from the featurelist of the game was not made easily.



But there are other solutions to some of your concerns as well - what if pause would also pause the floaty system for example...

[dirtywick]

Georg, any way it'd be considered to add something to the UI for making an overview of the battlefield easier? For instance, a simple symbol next to a character's portrait for each monster targetting them would be helpful. I'm not sure about PC but the Xbox view is pretty limited and it's hard to know what's going on from that view.



Another alternative would be a tab, similar to the conversation log, for logging in the last combat and deleting and replacing with each new battle.



If performance is the issue I'm sure there's some middle ground.

[FinchyHoha]

Georg Zoeller wrote...

But there are other solutions to some of your concerns as well - what if pause would also pause the floaty system for example...

This would be a big improvement in my book. I am not so much bound and determined to see a little bounded box at the bottom of the screen with "Finch 20+2 vs AC 24 MISS" as I am to have some way to dig out what just happened. If I could have damage "floaties" that paused, as well as perhaps a way to display additional "floaties" for spell effects (though I don't necessarily like the idea of cluttering up the battle area more with all of the particle effects already flying around) that does it for me.

In addition, the argument that this is "not immersive" is kind of silly. Who doesn't research their career? Why wouldn't a mage know all of his options before picking one? Or at the very least, it would be more immersive to really understand the effect of your actions instead of just knowing the basic "enemy fell down and died." This is more true in DA:O than it was in the Infinity/Aurora games because there is no prior knowledge of the engine. I really have no idea how some stats affect my character on the level of the game engine. This sounds like a metagame-y concern, but it's really the same as wanting to have as much information about your chosen university or career before setting out wantonly into it. In real life, you sets yourself up for failure by making their life decisions by chance or by what "seems right for your character."

EDIT: On reflection, I think some of the rage at "console-ization" comes from not having the access to info that a lot of PC gamers are used to. Just to take another long-running PC series and compare to Infinity/Aurora engine games, one of the greatest frustrations of Diablo 2 was the so-called "lying character sheet" where the stats displayed in-game don't match the actual stats used by the engine. This frustrates the player.

Modifié par FinchyHoha, 20 novembre 2009 - 04:09 .

[marshalleck]

I don't really care about getting a combat log or not. I'd love more informative tooltips though. Adjectives are simply not helpful at all when trying to decide which spell or ability to take next.

Modifié par marshalleck, 20 novembre 2009 - 04:04 .

[r3cca]

Awesome thanks for the info Georg. I guess the question now would be, how difficult, if at all possible, would it be to develop a combat log feature using the current toolset application provided to us?

[Zenocrate]

Georg Zoeller wrote...
In short: The combat log was a holdover from pen and paper and we decided it was not necessary for the game experience we wanted. EoS.

So what about the modding experience?  You guys made such a huge deal about how amazing the toolset that came with the game is and how you really hope the mod community will utilize it...and you don't even give those same people one of the most basic utilities in the main game?

I would absolutely love to be getting a feel for what you were trying to do with combat while playing casually.  I turned on the DICE ROLLS in baldur's gate and co (not just damage and effects, but what the game was rolling as I was playing).  The very first thing I noticed when I started combat for the first time was the lack of the combat log.  It really, really sucks that I don't have the option to at least turn it on.

[Statue]

Any predictions on whether developments will encompass clarifications of the in-game tooltips/descriptions? ("chance to paralyze" becoming "x% chance to paralyze", "low to moderate" becoming "40-50", "character is getting a bonus to armour for wearing a set" becoming "character is getting a bonus of x to armour for wearing a set" etc.)?

[F-C]

Georg Zoeller wrote...

I'm not taking joy or pleasure in telling people their favourite feature was cut, deemed legacy or otherwise rejected - but I also feel it is important to be honest and not give people BS about how we're 'thinking about it' and 'maybe gonna add it in the future'.

I feel it makes more sense to give you an indiciation when you're fighting a lost cause or what your options are instead of letting you waste time running against windmills that you won't fell, regardless how often you try.

i do sort of wish you would do this for all the mage complaints that are on this forum and the people who complain day in and day out about them. we all know its the same handful of people, but just settling the arguement would reduce a lot of the trolling about it in my opinion.

i know you did on the other forums and made it clear, but you havent done it here and most people missed your posts over there as it was on the morning of the forums closing.

just my 2 cents anyways.

[Georg Zoeller]

Given the massive undertaking it would be to redo and retranslate nearly a thousand ability and descriptions in all languages (not to mention the costs associated with that), this is unlikely as far an official patch goes.

Statue wrote...

Any predictions on whether developments will encompass clarifications of the in-game tooltips/descriptions? ("chance to paralyze" becoming "x% chance to paralyze", "low to moderate" becoming "40-50", "character is getting a bonus to armour for wearing a set" becoming "character is getting a bonus of x to armour for wearing a set" etc.)?

[marshalleck]

Hmm. Well I can certainly accept that it's very unlikely to happen from a cost-benefit standpoint...I also really appreciate the communication from developers even if they do have to crush our dreams.

[Statue]

marshalleck wrote...

Hmm. Well I can certainly accept that it's very unlikely to happen from a cost-benefit standpoint...I also really appreciate the communication from developers even if they do have to crush our dreams.

Seconded, appreciate the comms.

[Leetabix]

The game would not need a combat log if the tooltips for spells and abilitys were not so darn vague!

[marshalleck]

It just seems all too often devs are willing to foist a game off to their audience and then go completely silent when it comes to feedback...it's nice to see developers engaging in civil dialogue with the community. Makes the "will never happen" easier to swallow.

[geisljapoa]

Ya know, I was just reading the thread on how the first bard song provides almost no meaningful benefit. But, you'd only know that if you ferreted out the numbers on that power. And someone did. And the power sucks. But, people will like the power because of its description. The power of positive thinking and all that stuff.....



Seems like providing detailed numbers to the community may conflict with providing fertile ground for the positive thinking school of game development. Why give a working, balanced, meaningful power if you can give the effect of one with less resources (less QA, less balancing effort, streamlined UI, etc.)



Don't get me wrong. DA is a great game. I love Bioware games. Bought almost every one of 'em. But Bioware has always been sloppy about the balancing and implementation of powers and spells. Very sloppy, even back to Baldur's Gate. The absence of a combat log makes that shortcoming less easy to see.

[Schyzm]

Leetabix wrote...

The game would not need a combat log if the tooltips for spells and abilitys were not so darn vague!

what you don't like doing adjective level damage?!?!?  who'd have thot that!  

[Nomad_Wanderer]

Like the good old memory Band.. It sounds great! More XP!  But someone eventually looked a little closer, and did the math.. You would be hard pressed to find a worse magical ring.

More detailed information about what is happening in the game is never a bad thing.  How can QA be done properly without these sort of logging statements? Yeah.. that resist is working properly.. or that set bonus is increasing the right attribute.

Opening this level of detail up to the community allows the community to quickly tell you that this ability isn't working as the tooltip describes, or allows you to quantitatively say that ability x isn't really worth 3 points.. ability y is much better.

The same people who don't want more detail in the game are also the same people who aren't concerned with class balance.  I know that's going to immediately bring the people this thread crying "THIS ISN"T AN MMO! WE DON"T NEED class BALANCE!". Well, you're wrong. These details suddenly give bioware a legion of people to crunch numbers around the fact that some of their concepts might need a look at. Like 2H warriors.. or mages.  (Which will bring another bunch of people to this thread crying "THERE"S NOTHING WRONG WITH MAGES".  Well there is. Have your main character be a mage. Get Wynn first. Spec wynn into a little healing + combat, Morrigan and your Main character combat. Head over to the Dalish, and get Arcane Warrior, and Play on nightmare with no problem from their on in.

Now try to play on nightmare with a different party.. fewer mages.. keep wynn for healing. but drop morrigan, and have your main character be a 2H warrior. You'll notice a big difference.

I'm not talking about how '1 class has a different style gameplay then another class'. It's just that without having these numbers available, it's pretty difficult to see how a class performs anywhere but by playing the game.

Balance is important because balance is what gives us choices. Without balance, there are fewer choices. That's not a min/maxing statement. It's player experience one. The fact that the game can vary so widely in challenge based solely on whether or not you bring certain classes/specializations isn't good for the players. It's even more difficult for content authors/modders, trying to make content/adventures to share. I want people to have a challenge when they run the module I created.. Do I tell them upfront they better just bring 2 mages? Do I not tell them, and half of my players tell me my content is too easy on nightmare, with the others (that didn't bring 2 mages) tell me it's too hard?

I don't see how Bioware can balance this large game themselves.. they need some help. Adding more detail to the game via a combat log, would definitely allow people to help.

Georg said it's never a "Do you want X?" it's always "Do you want X or Y?"

Do you want a new specialization? Barbarian?  or even some horse armor? or do you want this game to have a best in class tactical battle engine with balanced classes/abilities.

Where content authors spend less time trying to make encounters that are 'doable and challenging' by diverse parties, and more time on creating fun stories/adventures. (If you're following along, they can spend less time, encounter testing because the classes are more equal in combat terms).

I'm sure given enough time and effort, Bioware could balance some of these issues out. But to bring up a theme already mentioned.. I'd rather Bioware doesn't waste time 'finding skills/items that need balance'... I'd rather the community does it. Then Bioware can concentrate on the big issues found by the community, and more DLC.

Modifié par Nomad_Wanderer, 20 novembre 2009 - 06:05 .