273 réponses à ce sujet

[Martanek]

Harid wrote...

People still blame EA.

Fantastic naivety.

And you are here just to praise them, right?

[Realmzmaster]

Mad Method wrote...

With Legacy out it seems Bioware has been adding a lot more puzzles into their game, so what are everyone's opinions on puzzle mechanics?

I think there are three things to consider to puzzles:

• Puzzles as breathers. Meaning, using a puzzle every now and then to keep the game from being monotonous.
• Puzzles as brain-teasers. In other words, puzzles for the fun of puzzles. Making them interesting, engaging, challenging, and fun.
• Puzzles as a vehicle for interactivity. So if you had a player repair a device, instead of having them just collect the ingredients and throwing a cutscene, you have them play a mini-game trying to fix it.

A lot of old-school games used puzzles, and personally, I'm fine with puzzles as long as they're good enough, so the important bit for me is usually #2. A Towers of Hanoi puzzle might be fun the first time you do it, but after that it usually becomes busywork. Personally, the Bioware puzzles haven't impressed me, but I didn't mind them either. What about everyone else?

I like puzzles when they make sense within the context of the game. The puzzles in DAO and DA2: Legacy made sense. The bridge puzzle and sliding puzzle in DAO added to the game. The fact you had to solve the puzzle to reach an area in the Temple of Sacred Ashes or free "Kitty" from Shale's masters lab had a purpose.

The puzzles in Legacy make sense and had a purpose. So I am fine with puzzles..

[Realmzmaster]

Mad Method wrote...

Realmzmaster,

That's not really an answer to what Ringo12 said. Ringo12 commented that spell memorization added tactical considerations in selecting spells and using them. Your response is that it's an unnecessary limitation because that is an unrealistic way to do magic, which is rather absurd. To me, that just means that some people don't enjoy that kind of spell-casting system. I think the real problem is that spell memorization encourages making blind decisions with a nasty tendency to punish you at the very end.

On the other hand, a memorization system also allows for mages which are tactically played and believably much more powerful beings, but nevertheless do not overshadow the rest of your party.

At any rate, I think DA's combat system has its problems too. Personally, I really don't like the way Dragon Age has an out of combat full recovery system. Or the absurd amounts of potions and heals with amazingly low cooldowns. Or the aggro system which essentially revolves around giving enemies bad AI which reduces tactical complexity. The first two factors combine to punish you as little as possible for making bad decisions since there is no difference between surviving a fight at 5% hp and oom and trouncing enemies at 90% hp with some good mana left. To top it off even if you allow a character to get utterly overwhelmed in combat, a series of potions and heals will keep up a character which by rights really should have died for being put in such a bad position. The end result of both of these changes is that Dragon Age demands less tactical consideration from players since players can make bad decisions repeatedly but will recover regardless. Then we have the aggro system which further reduces tactical complexity because the AI instead of intelligently choosing how to fight will attack the one character who is built to withstand punishment for no other reason than because he is doing a Taunt - an ability which has does nothing in and of itself but instead serves to read "Make the enemy AI perform a really bad tactical decision." Have you ever played a game of chess and come up with a cool strategy to defeat your opponent if only they move in bad ways designed to allow you to do so? Now did you consider how bad chess would be if people actually willfully played into your hands like that?

I suppose the folks at Bioware may have been worried about new players being overwhelmed by complexity or somesuch, but they took the wrong approach to make the game accessible. Instead of making a combat system where careful decision-making adds to the fun of combat and adding tutorial segments to help get folks up to speed, they chose to assume that new players wouldn't want to learn these things and believed just reducing the complexity and effort to play the game would make it more fun - as opposed to mind-numbingly tedious.

Maybe it's just my tendencies to want to think things through, but DA's combat is rather firmly in the "tedious" department for me. Not all the time, but far too often.

For me Spell memorization is in the tedious department along with having to rest to memorize the spells. I see no problem with regaining mana or stamina especially stamina because that is what the body does once you stop exerting yourself. So as a mage I see no problem with the body regaining mana.

The regaining of Health points immediately is a compromise from having to find a safe spot and resting for any amount of time until you party is fully healed which is what gamers do in the D & D games Potion spamming can be done in all the Bioware games and some of those based on the Infinity Engine by other companies..

The AI in all of Bioware games is not that good. In BG2 and other D & D games bulit on the Infinity Engine you can use summon creatures and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to clog up any doorway.  The AI will continue to focus on the creature in the sphere while you fireball. cloudkill or kill the enemy in a hail of arrows. The strategy works because your summoned creature always fails it saving throw against Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. If you do not have the ability to summon a creature a Paladin works even better, since certain spells do not work on the paladin, like Fear. 
And if a enemy spell caster is not present the doorway is clogged until the spell ends by that time the enemy is dead. The combination can easy be defeated with a Dispel Magic, but the AI rarely uses it.. So yes I have developed strategies based on the fact I know what the AI will do. If I want a challenge I have to not use that combination. But there are other combinations that are equally broken.

[Il Divo]

JaegerBane wrote...

Yeah, I'm glad Vancian casting went out of fashion. I never could understand why all the RPG old guard used to love it. If I'm playing a spellcaster, I want to cast spells, not mess around 'memorising' spells I already know.

God, I hated DnD wizards. They basically felt like scroll dispensers.

I know it's been a good 27 days since this post was made, but seconded. The Vancian casting system has always been terrible and does not make for a good spell-casting system.

[Mad Method]

Realmzmaster wrote...

I like puzzles when they make sense within the context of the game. The puzzles in DAO and DA2: Legacy made sense. The bridge puzzle and sliding puzzle in DAO added to the game. The fact you had to solve the puzzle to reach an area in the Temple of Sacred Ashes or free "Kitty" from Shale's masters lab had a purpose.

The puzzles in Legacy make sense and had a purpose. So I am fine with puzzles..

I agree, but in that respect I think the Shale puzzle and Legacy puzzles were too puzzle-like to properly make sense in-universe.

For me Spell memorization is in the tedious department along with having to rest to memorize the spells. I see no problem with regaining mana or stamina especially stamina because that is what the body does once you stop exerting yourself. So as a mage I see no problem with the body regaining mana.

I'm curious. What makes spell memorization tedious to you? And I don't see a problem with recovering magic by resting. In DAO, you could even explain that away by saying magic comes from the fade, mages enter the fade only while asleep, and therefore mages must sleep to recover mana.

The regaining of Health points immediately is a compromise from having to find a safe spot and resting for any amount of time until you party is fully healed which is what gamers do in the D & D games Potion spamming can be done in all the Bioware games and some of those based on the Infinity Engine by other companies..

Potion spamming is bad combat design imo. It was one of the big problems of DAO and is still overused in DA2. I think using a potion in combat should penalize you because you have to lower your guard to fumble around with a potion, and I think potions should just be rarer, especially instant-restore ones.

The AI in all of Bioware games is not that good. In BG2 and other D & D games bulit on the Infinity Engine you can use summon creatures and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to clog up any doorway.  The AI will continue to focus on the creature in the sphere while you fireball. cloudkill or kill the enemy in a hail of arrows. The strategy works because your summoned creature always fails it saving throw against Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. If you do not have the ability to summon a creature a Paladin works even better, since certain spells do not work on the paladin, like Fear.

I wish they'd actually put some proper effort into AI. That would make the game a lot more challenging and fun.

And if a enemy spell caster is not present the doorway is clogged until the spell ends by that time the enemy is dead. The combination can easy be defeated with a Dispel Magic, but the AI rarely uses it.. So yes I have developed strategies based on the fact I know what the AI will do. If I want a challenge I have to not use that combination. But there are other combinations that are equally broken.

Yeah, I do that sort of thing too. Good play revolves around taking advantage of your enemies' weaknesses. But the trouble is that Dragon Age doesn't really reward good play. If you play better, rather than getting a kick out of challenge, the combat becomes trivial instead.

Modifié par Mad Method, 10 septembre 2011 - 05:52 .

[erichtho]

Just came by to say that this is a fantastic thread with a whole lot of truth to it.

Threads intelligent like this one need to be "necro'd" once in a while.
(just hoping it doesn't get locked - in which case I'd be more than angered)

[Mad Method]

Thank you, I start these threads for intelligent discussions. But I'm afraid that my other thread has gotten locked. Can't say I like it.

Modifié par Mad Method, 23 août 2011 - 07:16 .

[Mad Method]

adlocutio wrote...

Also re:roleplaying through tonal ambiguity in dialogue: An example of what I mean exactly might be in order, and I refer you to start with the situation Sylvius pointed out in this thread: http://social.biowar...1/index/7774236

So he's pointing out the inaccurate paraphrase, but the result is that he's unable to roleplay a character who has no problem with slavery; the accept paraphrase is "yes" but the response is "get out of my sight!". So, if the response was "yes" just like the paraphrase(or OK, fine or whatever), AND if there were no voice actor delivering the line, then ambiguity allows for both possible responses, and thus both types of characters, to be equally valid.

Personally I'm not too particular on whether you have tonal ambiguity or pre-defined behavior, as long as it's well done. Bioware's problem in DA2 is that they seem to have wanted to let the player decide who Hawke is but couldn't help but want the game to work out their linear way and wound up predefining a lot of Hawke's behavior anyway. The end result was a frustrating main character for some because they were given a load of decisions which the game was happy to skew around to the point of meaninglessness.

Tonal ambiguity also denies the writer the ability to put in strong writing. If we make up for a lack of tonal ambiguity by instead providing a bigger variety of flavor options, we can also run a risk of the player not being able to distinguish between which options are flavorful and which options have serious consequences. To go back to Age of Decadence which was discusing these problems, here's some dialogue I like you'd never see if you were going for tonal ambiguity "[Disguise] Son, we’re the fucking army. We aren’t in business of satisfying curiosities and being good neighbors. Someone stole your gold? Guard it better next time. Now, we both know that if you set your apes on us, they will be hunted down and nailed to trees before the month is over, so do yourself a favor and stand aside."

Actually, this reminds me of an issue I had with Dragon Age: Origins' coercion checks, where the persuade text was such a generic "I want you to believe [x]!" instead of something that actually struck me as persuasive, that successful persuasions really just felt quite absurd. Anyone else have that feeling?

Aside from that, the bad paraphrase is a problem in and of itself, and there's a question of whether or not we really need paraphrases. I'm rather firmly of the opinion we don't, but I'm also a fast reader. Personally, I don't know why Bioware is pushing for paraphrases.

Modifié par Mad Method, 27 novembre 2011 - 10:42 .

[Zigzaggy]

it's less work..simple enough for any spartan to understand

[Kothoses Rothenkisal]

csfteeeer wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

Question: What happened to "spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate"?
Answer: It was developed by german based studio Radon Labs, and its name is Drakensang.

Drakensang? are you kidding?

Sorry but I have to agree, while Drakensang is a nice game its no where near BG, playing Drakensang is like playing DA 2 but with complicated mechanics.  The storyline progress becomes chase the yellow arrow, short bursts of single player MMO style questing.  

Origins really was the successor to Baldues Gate and an amazing game that did not quite reach the high level of depth BG 2 had, did not quite engage me with the same level of emotion but came closer than any game has since the hey day of BG 2 and Planescape Torment.

Drakensang was not in the same league, its comparable to DA 2 in that sense its not bad, but its not a great, its above games such as Farewell to the Dragons, but only because the translation is done better.

[Kothoses Rothenkisal]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Mad Method wrote...

With Legacy out it seems Bioware has been adding a lot more puzzles into their game, so what are everyone's opinions on puzzle mechanics?

I think there are three things to consider to puzzles:

• Puzzles as breathers. Meaning, using a puzzle every now and then to keep the game from being monotonous.
• Puzzles as brain-teasers. In other words, puzzles for the fun of puzzles. Making them interesting, engaging, challenging, and fun.
• Puzzles as a vehicle for interactivity. So if you had a player repair a device, instead of having them just collect the ingredients and throwing a cutscene, you have them play a mini-game trying to fix it.

A lot of old-school games used puzzles, and personally, I'm fine with puzzles as long as they're good enough, so the important bit for me is usually #2. A Towers of Hanoi puzzle might be fun the first time you do it, but after that it usually becomes busywork. Personally, the Bioware puzzles haven't impressed me, but I didn't mind them either. What about everyone else?

I like puzzles when they make sense within the context of the game. The puzzles in DAO and DA2: Legacy made sense. The bridge puzzle and sliding puzzle in DAO added to the game. The fact you had to solve the puzzle to reach an area in the Temple of Sacred Ashes or free "Kitty" from Shale's masters lab had a purpose.

The puzzles in Legacy make sense and had a purpose. So I am fine with puzzles..

A good puzzle or a logical query can really stand out if done right, the Andrastes Ashes puzzle was a fantastic change of pace and actually got me reaching for some pen and paper and having to apply logic to the situation and trial and error.  It was not frustrating at all, and I got a sense of satisfaction from solving it.

A good maze can do the same if its done right, let me take some wrong turns and let me make some bad choices.

[Boiny Bunny]

I think of DA2 as more of a spiritual successor to JE than BG. I believe that JE was Mike Laidlaw's other baby, so it's perhaps not that much of a surprise.

When you look at the differences between KOTOR and JE, then DA:O and DA2, I find there to be a few similarities with respect to what was changed.

[AlexXIV]

DA:O is the spiritual successor of the BG series, and DA2 is the spiritual successor of DA:O. That's what happened.

[Mad Method]

Kothoses Rothenkisal wrote...

A good puzzle or a logical query can really stand out if done right, the Andrastes Ashes puzzle was a fantastic change of pace and actually got me reaching for some pen and paper and having to apply logic to the situation and trial and error.  It was not frustrating at all, and I got a sense of satisfaction from solving it.

The Andraste's Ashes puzzle mostly felt like simple trial and error to me, but it was alright I guess. I think there was another problem with that puzzle, though: Many new players were simply caught off-guard by the puzzle and didn't know how they were supposed to progress. Since the average modern RPG treats a puzzle either utterly brainlessly or offers a few too many hints to steer them in the right direction, the Urn of Ashes could form a dead end to players who were just wondering if they needed to find some special item/switch or were waiting to have some kind of hint fall into their laps. It would have helped if the game prepared them for that sort of thing, but it didn't.

DAO actually failed a lot by lacking proper tutorial segments for gameplay. The only thing it offered was a haphazard introduction to the interface.

A good maze can do the same if its done right, let me take some wrong turns and let me make some bad choices.

The fade levels, on the other hand, have the rather dubious distinction of being a linear maze that demands backtracking. And then more backtracking if you want the attribute bonuses. And the art design was rather bland. I'm not sure how those levels went through Bioware QA. The level design was plain bad. I think most players would agree the Mage tower questline would have been improved if you skip the fade.

Modifié par Mad Method, 04 octobre 2011 - 12:42 .

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

AlexXIV wrote...

DA:O is the spiritual successor of the BG series, and DA2 is the spiritual successor of DA:O. That's what happened.

It's such a shame that DA 2 is a "spiritual successor" instead of a sequel. It seemed to disappoint alot of people, myself being one of them. Bioware should of made a sequel.

[Lotion Soronarr]

csfteeeer wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

Question: What happened to "spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate"?
Answer: It was developed by german based studio Radon Labs, and its name is Drakensang.

Drakensang? are you kidding?

No, he's not. Great game.
The sequel (River of Time) is even better.

[xkg]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

csfteeeer wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

Question: What happened to "spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate"?
Answer: It was developed by german based studio Radon Labs, and its name is Drakensang.

Drakensang? are you kidding?

No, he's not. Great game.
The sequel (River of Time) is even better.

yep. Great game. Shame we wont see Drakensang 3 - Radon Labs was bought and the new owner decided to turn this game into another bs online game - and it looks like it is going to be a diablo clone. ehhhhh

[Lotion Soronarr]

Twas a sad day for old-school RPG lovers.



The attention to detail and art style were lovely.
Twas a true labor of lvoe and it showed.

I wish there were more game like it

[Lotion Soronarr]

What happened to "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate"?

Awesome bottun?

[Chromie]

Drakensang is awesome. Origins wasn't much of a spiritual succesor either. And whatever happened to the dark fantasy Bioware said we'd get? I'm still waiting on that in the mean time I have Witcher 2 and Drakensang.

[FedericoV]

I love the BG series. They are still my favourite RPGs of all time and it's a shame that in the last 5 years there wasn't a single D&D game that tried to capture that kind of gameplay. Having said that, it's quite simple to explain what happened to the "spiritual successor thing". BG2 is not the kind of game Bioware wants to make anymore.

DA:O was an exception in the history of Bioware. If you look at the games Bioware have developed after NWN, you'll see that ME2 is the prototype of their "dream game": cinematic and storydriven action games for consolle with light rpg elements (the rpg element is only in the "interactive dialogues" part and not so much in the classic gameplay part or in the interaction with the story itself). There is a clear "evolution" in that direction that started in BG2 too if you look at that game from that point of view.

DA:O was a compromise between their old school games and their relatively new "cinematic storytelling" sensibility. The result was quite good (at least on PC) and the game sold really well but do not forget that DA:O received a lot of criticism too, probably from the fans that liked the "new" Bioware more and mostly from consolle oriented critics.

Most of the problems of DA:O were caused by the fact that those kind of game design philosophy are so different and conflicting that it's really hard to reach a good balance between them. Still, in terms of compromise, it was really hard to do better than DA:O.

With DA2 they tried to please the fans of the "new" Bioware more and they moved closer to the ME2 design style. DA2 is really in the middle of the BG and ME2 "prototypes" and fans of both sub-genres have not get it. Probably, when you try to please everybody there is a large chance that you won't be able to please anyone. Coupled with the lack of time (and resources) and the result was quite bad in terms of sales, critical reception and fans feedback.

What's for the future? Hard to say. Probably, we won't see another DA:O (there is not even the slightest chance of another BG2). If it wasn't for the lack of success of DA2, Bioware would have gone even further in the Mass-Effectization of the franchise. I seem to remember that Laidlaw in an interview hinted that maybe DA3 was not even going to have party based combat... I could be wrong but if I'm not, it speaks volumes. Fortunately, they changed plans.

So, I don't really know what to expect from DA3. For sure, it won't be a BG spiritual successor. Probably, it will be a more polished and "bigger" version of DA2 (in terms of content and so on) with some bones thrown to DA:O's fans here and there (Origins, party camp and so on). BG legacy? It's over... at least for Bioware. We will have to wait for some other dev for the return of the golden age of RPG gaming. Maybe, with the end of the feud between Atari and Hasbro, it won't be too long before we see another good D&D based RPG.

Modifié par FedericoV, 04 octobre 2011 - 08:27 .

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

Ringo12 wrote...

Drakensang is awesome. Origins wasn't much of a spiritual succesor either. And whatever happened to the dark fantasy Bioware said we'd get? I'm still waiting on that in the mean time I have Witcher 2 and Drakensang.

Yeah, that's the truth. DA:O had it's dark moments though some were ruined by comments by Alistair making some goofy joke that often straddled the fourth wall.

I think the idea of a gritty, dark low fantasy game was tossed out with alot of other concepts such as art direction, play style and codex lore when DA 2 was being planned.

[Jarcander]

In Exile wrote...

I did the math in another thread. DA:O sold something like 700,000 more units than ME2 and about 1,000,000 more units than ME1.

But DA:O took as much as ME1 and ME2 combined to develop, which could very well have but the budget of the game along the same level as the entire ME series (because the same salary, lease, etc. costs had to be paid either for both games, on top of the actual dev. budget).

DA:O 3,737,419 according to VGChartz and ME1+ME2 sold 5,774,750.

DA:O was announced at E3 2004, and was ready for released in Nov. 2009. That's about 4 1/2 years (for the multiplatform release, which is why DA:O was delayed, and it sold many times more on consoles than PC).

ME1 was announced in Oct 2005, and ME2 was released Jan. 2010. That's around the same 4 1/2 year mark.

The ME series like had the same dev. time as DA:O alone.

Although DA:O had the biggest raw sales for any Bioware game, ME outpaced it heavily as a product in sales. At 25$ profit per game over the lifespan of each product, Mass Effect had $51,000,000 more in profit, hypothetically.

DA:O was not neccesarily the most profitable model, and I would put good money on the changes in DA2 (to be closer to ME) a way for EA to get at the same Dev cycle.

To give you a comparison, Oblivion developed started in 2002 and was released in 2006 for the 360 and 2007 for the PC (so let's say it had a 4 1/2 year dev. time if we count the PC port) which was comparable to DA:O, and sold 5,376,042 year-to-date. That's a dev. time comparable to the ME series, with similar sales.

The longer development cycle for a game like Oblivion actually still makes it comparable to the ME series, and has Oblivion selling 1,638,623 more copies than DA:O (though obviously Oblivion was out longer).

tl;dr:

DA:O sold more units, but is not as profitable as the ME series. So the model had to change.

That's a very well thought out and insightful post, but I absolutely despise that sort of thinking from the devs.

It is that sort of thinking that does well for the corporations, but sucks out the soul from video games that could be an experience unlike no other.

[Lotion Soronarr]

In Exile wrote...

Although DA:O had the biggest raw sales for any Bioware game, ME outpaced it heavily as a product in sales. At 25$ profit per game over the lifespan of each product, Mass Effect had $51,000,000 more in profit, hypothetically.

Curious how you came by this number......

Modifié par Lotion Soronnar, 05 octobre 2011 - 06:12 .