3223 réponses à ce sujet

[littlezack]

If I were him, I'd start purposely dropping comments that I know would set people off.

"Call of Duty 4 is the greatest RPG ever made!"
"In ME3, you can press one button and win the whole game!"
"ME4 is going to be a Dragon Age crossover!"

[SalsaDMA]

littlezack wrote...

 
The key difference being you could choose not to hack those terminals and crates in ME1 and still get plenty of credits from looting enemies and selling junk without feeling like you're robbing people (and in fact the amount of credits you got from containers, etc was negligible). In ME2, the ONLY way to earn enough income to get all uprades, buy all the equipment you want, etc is to pick every area clean and the VAST majority (as in 90%) of your credits come from the aforementioned safes as you can no longer sell useless equipment in shops.

90% is pushing it. Maybe 50%. And quite a few of those wall safes belong to people who weren't going to do good things with it, anyway. And really, how is hacking a merc's safe worse than stealing stuff off his dead body?

I found the plague quarter incident ironic where you have the option to tell Scavengers to take a hike because it's immoral to scavenge... Yet Shepard did it all the time...

[Rovay]

Someone With Mass wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

Rovay wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

I wonder if Casey Hudsen gets off on threads like this.

Personally, I think he just stares in disbelief and facepalms the further he gets into the thread... Well, at least that's what I do.

The content of this thread is more complex than the game will ever be.

If I were in Casey shoes and saw this, I'd laugh my ass off at the amount of butthurt in this thread instead.

Well, I guess that's possible too.

Modifié par Rovay, 17 juillet 2011 - 07:32 .

[Someone With Mass]

Gatt9 wrote...

You're leaving out the part where it's sufficient only because there's nothing in the game to buy...nothing you need anyways.

Because that's a really good design if the game forces you to grind out the side-missions just to be able to buy a weapon that doesn't have 1% accuracy instead of focusing on the story and characters. You know. Things that aren't agonizingly dull.

Or jump out of the Mako all the goddamn time just to kill that one guy to get more XP, because you want to get to a high level in order to be effective with powers and/or weapons.

[Il Divo]

Gatt9 wrote...


1.  That's due to the limitations of the extremely outdated console hardware.  Seriously,  cell phones have nearly as much memory as these things.  Some Droids have 256 megs on them,  The 360 only has 512.  My computer has 8 gigs,  so does my laptop.  The solution isn't to elminate gameplay mechanics,  it's to get out of the outdated hardware.

2.  This is maybe 8 hours of dev time at worst.

3.  Design failure,  make designers produce better design.

4.  That's because guns do fire the same way,  within their type.  The differences are very minor between guns of the same type,  in terms of how they fire.  Edit:  Before someone tries it,  note the comment is how they fire,  not how accurate they are,  or their stopping power.

5.  Design failure,  make desingers produce better design.

6.  About 8 hours of dev time to dump all the objects into sortable lists,  maybe a week at most for a redesign UI,  assuming insufficient mountain dew for artists.  This is old,  well explored tech,  sorting and displaying lists of items has been thrashed out for decades.

And yet, none of this is a defense of the system, excluding #4. Stating that this is "design failure" indicates that the inventory systems failed. For these reasons, Mass Effect's inventory actively decreased my enjoyment of the product.

It's irrelevant to me if it would take Bioware ten or twenty hours to fix the problem; the game I purchased had all those issues intact. Mass Effect 2, by removing most of the inventory system, took care of the problem. I will gladly take no inventory over a bad inventory any day.

Modifié par Il Divo, 17 juillet 2011 - 07:37 .

[Il Divo]

Gatt9 wrote...

Most of those wall safes belonged to innocent people,  not at all involved with the problems,  as did the PDA's.  Shepherd was an unprecedented vulture in modern gaming. 

The wall safes in Omega belonged to innocent people,  not only could you loot them,  in one case in front of the owners,  you then got to take a paragon action of lecturing someone about the evils of looting...right after you just looted 4 apartments.

Looting the migrant fleet's ship?  Looting the factory in Miranda's mission?  Looting the innocent people's belongings in the first real mission and the mission where you meet the collectors?  More than a few other places.

Right now the Alliance really should be hunting Shepherd,  he's a theif easily on the level of Katsumi,  he'll rob you blind right in front of you.

Because no Bioware game has ever let the player loot random locations without consequence? BG? KotOR? Dragon Age?

[Arppis]

littlezack wrote...

 I think ME1's inventory could have been fixed by just having less stuff laying around all over the place. Maybe have one or two nice things as a reward at the end of certain levels, give ample credit bonuses, leave the rest of everything in stores, and let the player pick and choose what he wants and doesn't want.

Yes, and would have removed the armor sets from inventory. Who really carries that stuff around!? The ME2 inventory system was more realistic in a way.

[Bnol]

In terms of immersion, for me one of ME2's biggest weakness was scale in terms of the level/hub world design.

The best example of this distinction is the Citadel. The Citadel in ME1 felt like a massive space station and felt more like the seat of galactic government. This was because of the open expanse of the presidium, the ability to more freely walk between locations. It also had more diversity in having places like Chora's Den being grittier, with a back alley near it for shady dealings and then places like Flux that are cleaner and more upstanding. Obviously with the larger scale there were problems with elevators/load times and the limitations of processing power forced the location not to be as busier with more people than it could have been. Having a side quest like the Keeper scanning didn't help much with the wandering around aimlessly through a big area. But, on the first play-through it was nice to have that scale to capture what the Citadel is.

The ME2 Citadel felt like a box. You were restricted to a very small portion of the Citadel and it lost its scale for me because of it. It no longer felt like the seat of galactic power, but rather just a small space station. The Citadel also felt the same everywhere, there was no diversity which took away from the character of the location. Omega felt larger than the Citadel, and did a better job of capturing what Omega was, in terms of being a seedy space station controlled by mercs, with crime/corruption as the standard.

The main missions in ME1 also felt like they were on an actual planet as the Mako helped break up a lot of the on rails corridor shooting. Yes the Mako gameplay was just corridor driving, but still the rapid player based horizontal movement gives the location more size. ME2 didn't have that same break from the corridor shooting within missions, and most changes in location were cut-scene fade to black, not giving that truer sense of player movement provided by a player controlled vehicle.

I think ME3 is improving on that by opening up the levels more, giving more vista shots, having more things happen in the background to give a better appearance of a living world outside the corridor you are placed in. Obviously we have not seen hub worlds but with what they have done to improve the scale within the missions it will probably carry over to the worlds as well.

[Mecha Tengu]

ME3 needs ME1 citadel

ME2 Citadel was like a bunch of rooms

[Someone With Mass]

Il Divo wrote...

It's irrelevant to me if it would take Bioware ten or twenty hours to fix the problem; the game I purchased had all those issues intact. Mass Effect 2, by removing most of the inventory system, took care of the problem. I will gladly take no inventory over a bad inventory any day.

Same here. 

It can still be a good RPG, even if it doesn't give you a direct interaction with some inventory.

[Someone With Mass]

Mecha Tengu wrote...

ME3 needs ME1 citadel

ME2 Citadel was like a bunch of rooms

ME1's Citadel was just the same. The pond at the Presidium just gave you the illusion of scale with a good background. Beyond that, it was just as cramped as ME2's Citadel.

[littlezack]

Bnol wrote...

In terms of immersion, for me one of ME2's biggest weakness was scale in terms of the level/hub world design.

The best example of this distinction is the Citadel. The Citadel in ME1 felt like a massive space station and felt more like the seat of galactic government. This was because of the open expanse of the presidium, the ability to more freely walk between locations. It also had more diversity in having places like Chora's Den being grittier, with a back alley near it for shady dealings and then places like Flux that are cleaner and more upstanding. Obviously with the larger scale there were problems with elevators/load times and the limitations of processing power forced the location not to be as busier with more people than it could have been. Having a side quest like the Keeper scanning didn't help much with the wandering around aimlessly through a big area. But, on the first play-through it was nice to have that scale to capture what the Citadel is.

True enough, but the problem, for me, is that while having the Citadel be so wide-open was nice the first time around, the problem comes with subsequent playthroughs once the luster wears off. The transport system helps, but even with that, there were quite a few minutes I spent just running from one place to the next.

I think Illium was a good balance. Nice, wide open area, good view, gives you a sense of how big the place is, but it doesn't take more than a minute or so to get to any given point.

[Bnol]

Someone With Mass wrote...

Mecha Tengu wrote...

ME3 needs ME1 citadel

ME2 Citadel was like a bunch of rooms

ME1's Citadel was just the same. The pond at the Presidium just gave you the illusion of scale with a good background. Beyond that, it was just as cramped as ME2's Citadel.

The illusion of scale is all you will ever get in a game.  They are never going to create the whole Citadel to explore, so they must make the scale on the places you will have acess to.

[didymos1120]

littlezack wrote...

90% is pushing it. Maybe 50%.

In fact, even if every cred in the game came from some poor civvie's wall safe (they don't: most of it's actually from stuff like salvaging wrecked geth hubs or Collector tech.  That stuff tends to pay off way more than what's found in the various safes and PDAs) this would be true.  Cerberus provides matching funds for every mission, and a number of times, it is the sole source of funding (for instance, Cerberus ponies up 60,000 in total for Thane and Samara's loyalty missions).  If you add it up, you actually get slightly more than half of your money that way (excluding things like blackmailing the Pitne For, for instance).

[Bnol]

littlezack wrote...
True enough, but the problem, for me, is that while having the Citadel be so wide-open was nice the first time around, the problem comes with subsequent playthroughs once the luster wears off. The transport system helps, but even with that, there were quite a few minutes I spent just running from one place to the next.

I think Illium was a good balance. Nice, wide open area, good view, gives you a sense of how big the place is, but it doesn't take more than a minute or so to get to any given point.

I agree that the subsequent playthroughs are a problem.  I would either have the rapid transit open from the start or have it trigger to be open for all subsequent playthroughs.  I think Illium is a good example in terms of giving that scale within a compact playing environment.  My only problem with Illium was the whole place felt the same, even though it was supposed to be this major cultural/economic center as being the boarder planet between the Terminus and Asari space. 

[Someone With Mass]

Nyoka wrote...

It's okay. Bioware has already said there will be more big places in ME3.

Unfortunately, some people won't just take their word for it, and whine constantly about it.

Me? I believe in BioWare's ability to make a good game, since I'm not always thinking what a game could have been or should have learned from another game. I'm just accepting and taking it for what it is.

[littlezack]

Bnol wrote...

littlezack wrote...
True enough, but the problem, for me, is that while having the Citadel be so wide-open was nice the first time around, the problem comes with subsequent playthroughs once the luster wears off. The transport system helps, but even with that, there were quite a few minutes I spent just running from one place to the next.

I think Illium was a good balance. Nice, wide open area, good view, gives you a sense of how big the place is, but it doesn't take more than a minute or so to get to any given point.

I agree that the subsequent playthroughs are a problem.  I would either have the rapid transit open from the start or have it trigger to be open for all subsequent playthroughs.  I think Illium is a good example in terms of giving that scale within a compact playing environment.  My only problem with Illium was the whole place felt the same, even though it was supposed to be this major cultural/economic center as being the boarder planet between the Terminus and Asari space. 

Now that I think abou it, that's really how I could define most of ME's problems - fine the first time you play, but exponentially annoying with every subsequent playthrough.

[didymos1120]

Gatt9 wrote...
Shepherd was an unprecedented vulture in modern gaming. 

Bullsh*t.  The kleptomaniac hero is about as precedented as it gets in gaming and especially in RPGs.  Or, as Conrad puts it:

Shepard: So...you just wander the galaxy, righting wrongs?

Conrad: Hey, don't say it like that! I talk to people, y'know? Ask them if they have big problems that only I can solve. You'd be surprised how many people are just waiting for someone to talk to them. *beat* Sometimes I poke through crates. You know, for extra credits.

Why, it's practically part of the definition of the genre at this point.

Modifié par didymos1120, 17 juillet 2011 - 08:47 .

[Mister Mida]

RPG heroes have always been jerks

[littlezack]

didymos1120 wrote...

Gatt9 wrote...
Shepherd was an unprecedented vulture in modern gaming. 

Bullsh*t.  The kleptomaniac hero is about as precedented as it gets in gaming and especially in RPGs.  Or, as Conrad puts it:

Shepard: So...you just wander the galaxy, righting wrongs?

Conrad: Hey, don't say it like that! I talk to people, y'know? Ask them if they have big problems that only I can solve. You'd be surprised how many people are just waiting for someone to talk to them. *beat* Sometimes I poke through crates. You know, for extra credits.

Why, it's practically part of the definition of the genre at this point.

And Castlevania II, for some odd reason.

[didymos1120]

littlezack wrote...

And Castlevania II, for some odd reason.

The reason there would be because Simon's Quest had a number of RPG elements: towns w/ NPCs, merchants, character levels, a plot coupon collection quest, rampant kleptomania...

[JKoopman]

So wait, lemme get this straight. We shouldn't have an inventory and loot - standard RPG conventions - in Mass Effect because it's unrealistic for Shepard to run around scavenging equipment from the dead and lugging around an extra suit of armor and a small armory with him on missions, but its perfectly okay for Shepard to break into a house and pilfer someone's life savings right in front of them before going 2 doors down and lecturing some scavengers about the evils of looting because it's a standard RPG convention?

Hypocrisy much?

Modifié par JKoopman, 17 juillet 2011 - 09:31 .

[Lumikki]

JKoopman wrote...

So wait, lemme get this straight. We shouldn't have an inventory and loot - standard RPG conventions - in Mass Effect because it's unrealistic for Shepard to run around scavenging equipment from the dead and lugging around an extra suit of armor and a small armory with him on missions, but its perfectly okay for Shepard to break into a house and pilfer someone's life savings right in front of them before going 2 doors down and lecturing some scavengers about the evils of looting because it's a standard RPG convention?

Hypocrisy much?

In thief perspective both are same.
Gameplay perspective big difference.

[didymos1120]

JKoopman wrote...

Hypocrisy much?

Well, yes, but not in the way you mean. See, some of us were just pointing out the irony of certain people demanding strict adherence to some RPG conventions while complaining about ME2's adherence to other RPG conventions.  And some of us have never said there shouldn't be loot or inventory (many in fact dispute the whole notion that ME2 didn't have either), or said that the whole "kleptomaniac hero" deal is necessarily a good thing, but merely that it exists, has existed for a long time, and is very, very common.

Modifié par didymos1120, 17 juillet 2011 - 09:47 .