3223 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

AlanC9 wrote...

The really fundamental question here, I think, is what the genre definitions are supposed to do for us. Gatt9's definitions are workable, but I don't find them personally useful. A useful definition, to me, would be one that excluded Diablo but did include, say, Wing Commander 4 at the far end.

Be able to look down at the unswashed mases and know that we were chosen at birth to rule over because of our gaming preferences?

I'm with you. I don't care for genre definitions. I care if the game is fun. I would honestly engage Gatt9 on gameplay... except that someone else is already doing a great job on explaining ME2's mechanics. 

I think Bioware would be better off not calling their games RPGs just because of the crowd it attracts, and Bioware never really wanted to design RPGs in the way really major fans of the genre want (apparently).

Simply put, if the ideal RPG is Icewind Dale and it's ilk, then personally I'd never really want to play an RPG.

[JayhartRIC]

SalsaDMA wrote...

JayhartRIC wrote...

SalsaDMA wrote...

Tony Gunslinger wrote...

SalsaDMA wrote...
Regenerating shields and enemies spreading from each other means that picking them off fully one at a time is the most efficient way of dealing with them. Especially when a multitude of the powers aren't usable on shielded enemies.

I've before said that you can use guns and powers at the same time. One whiff of your SMG tears down shields in a second, activate incinerate/pull/throw/NS/CB and they're done.

Engineer, I used incenerate and combat drone. And that's about it. Sure, I used my guns every now and then, but incinerate could curve corners and hit enemies behind obstacles, bullets couldn't.

And what do you after you've launched incinerate? Sit there and look at the burning effect? Or did you get up and rush into his face while you had the chance?

I was hugging the cover cause the friends of my target would tear me a new one if I stayed up.

Maybe your game acted different than mine, but whenever I stayed out of cover longer than it took to fire a few shots or launch a power, I would be toast. And GCD of powers I used often flowed with the 'rythm' of when I could pop up again, so....

I cannot fathom how you can claim GCD added to the game, when all it did was restrict you from using anything but the most optimal powers. It killed diversity while playing, where they should have used a mechanic instead that encouraged diversity of skill usage.

*inserts youtube vid of Engineer owning and tells you to play better*

It was good enough to complete the game on insanity, so I fail to see the need to play in some way that someone else deems 'better' from a subjective point of view regarding aestethics.

From the tone of your post you seemed to not enjoy your style of play.  Maybe you will give it another shot.  Engineeer is my second favorite class after adept, and people make the same complaints about that class as well.

[upsettingshorts]

In Exile wrote...

Simply put, if the ideal RPG is Icewind Dale and it's ilk, then personally I'd never really want to play an RPG.

I'd play Icewind Dale with some friends and dice.  And beer.  Definitely beer. 

The computer game?  Nah.  Well, not again anyway.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 04 juillet 2011 - 05:08 .

[Lumikki]

JayhartRIC wrote...

I think they are referring to the dialogue system when they say "cinematic." Bioware's strength has always been their stories. ME1 had the most cinematic dialogue system, and ME 2 enhanced it with interupts. The only other game I've even seen attempt it is Alpha Protocol, which did that part well. Too bad actually playing the game sucked. I can't go back to Fallout cause the conversations look so lifeless in comparison to Mass Effect.

No it's not just about dialogs, even if how dialogs are used in scenes are part of it. It's the camera use as creating cinematic visual effects by changing camera angles. It's about how the gameplay and scenes are combinated togather to smooth gameplay.

Modifié par Lumikki, 04 juillet 2011 - 05:19 .

[SalsaDMA]

Gatt9 wrote...

Could you do me a favor though,  and start with Wing Commander 3?  It's not even close to an RPG,  yet it featured choices that affected the game's outcome 5 years before Bioware and Black Isle made it popular.

Ah... Memory lane...

WC3 and WC4 were awesome in this regard, and the follow up attempt with WC:Prophecy was ok'ish in trying to bring back the torch.

These games were the first I tried that gave me a feeling that gaming was started to be treated like serious stuff in the production values being applied to the feel the player should get while playing.

I think I completed WC4 half a dozen times or more, although it eventually got abandoned by me for the freespace series.

Sorry for the derail.. Carry on...

[LexXxich]

There's one important thing a lot of people miss.
And it's: do all those stats affect something other than combat? If not, then I'm pretty sure it's not a roleplaying game, and instead an action game with RPG-elements. Which is what we see in ME2, DA2, and possibly in ME3 from recent Bioware games.

[Lumikki]

LexXxich wrote...

There's one important thing a lot of people miss.
And it's: do all those stats affect something other than combat? If not, then I'm pretty sure it's not a roleplaying game, and instead an action game with RPG-elements. Which is what we see in ME2, DA2, and possibly in ME3 from recent Bioware games.

You mean if game doesn't have stat based non-combat gameplay, it can't have any role-playing?
Did I get this right?

[In Exile]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
I'd play Icewind Dale with some friends and dice.  And beer.  Definitely beer. 

The computer game?  Nah.  Well, not again anyway.

I'd play anything with friends and beer. Big rigs truck racing (or whatever that clearly unfinished worst game ever is called) would go from torture to GoTY with friends and beer.

[In Exile]

LexXxich wrote...

There's one important thing a lot of people miss.
And it's: do all those stats affect something other than combat? If not, then I'm pretty sure it's not a roleplaying game, and instead an action game with RPG-elements. Which is what we see in ME2, DA2, and possibly in ME3 from recent Bioware games.

In ME2, stats affect something other than combat.

[SalsaDMA]

Lumikki wrote...

LexXxich wrote...

There's one important thing a lot of people miss.
And it's: do all those stats affect something other than combat? If not, then I'm pretty sure it's not a roleplaying game, and instead an action game with RPG-elements. Which is what we see in ME2, DA2, and possibly in ME3 from recent Bioware games.

You mean if game doesn't have stat based non-combat gameplay, it can't have any role-playing?
Did I get this right?

Well... you can roleplay in the bedroom too without stats, but I don't think it goes under what people normally consider when talking about roleplaying...

[Tony Gunslinger]

Gatt9 wrote...

Lets see...

1.  Ok
2.  Ok
3.  Not really,  there was no real need to think or focus upon it.  Skill points did nothing outside of combat,  and really didn't do much in combat.  All they did was boost attacks slightly.  There was never any tradeoff,  so you could just blindly click and be just fine.
4.  Not certain what you're refering to there,  if you mean the upgrade history,  that was pretty pointless.
5.  Seriously?  Clicking a button to switch between two suits of clothes is a worthwhile option?
6.  Which once again was pretty pointless,  since the YMIR you killed in the first mission would be what you killed when you were level 30.  The very first mission you show you can kill everything in the game without touching the skills.
7.  Why bother?  For the entire game I went with whatever the game decided was the best weapon,  and did perfectly fine.  So did my companions.  There was never any reason to bother.
8.  As above.
9.  Why bother?  5% is so irrelevant that there's no point in touching the system.  Find a look you like,  and leave it there,  without any reason to ever touch it.
10.  Really?  Picking from one of 3 outfits is an important feature?  Pick one at the begining of the game and leave it,  or go with the default and never notice it.

These are the list of total possible tasks you can do on board the Normandy. Compare that with ME1, about 1/2 of the tasks involved in interacting with the environment, whereas in ME1, the majority of the tasks on the Normandy were not actually on the Normandy but in front of the inventory and character screens. When ME2 was streamlined, that's what it did: more interactions with the environment and people, and tasks that are more meaningful.

I put disrupter bullets in my gun at the begining of the game,  and left them there for the entire game,  without ever changing it.  The only things I ever used was that and Geth Shield Boost.  There was never a reason to bother,  one was the same as the other.

None of the skill tree made a difference,  I never used or needed any of it other than those two skills.

Yes, with your Mattock Soldier, on Normal, I know.

[Lumikki]

SalsaDMA wrote...

Lumikki wrote...

LexXxich wrote...

There's one important thing a lot of people miss.
And it's: do all those stats affect something other than combat? If not, then I'm pretty sure it's not a roleplaying game, and instead an action game with RPG-elements. Which is what we see in ME2, DA2, and possibly in ME3 from recent Bioware games.

You mean if game doesn't have stat based non-combat gameplay, it can't have any role-playing?
Did I get this right?

Well... you can roleplay in the bedroom too without stats, but I don't think it goes under what people normally consider when talking about roleplaying...

Hehe.

I was more point out that person thinks that no role-playing can be done in combat at all, if both non-combat and stats are requirement for role-playing. That sounds little funny as most of RPG's are mostly just about combat. Meaning you can role-play out of combat with stats, but no role-playing at all while in combat.

Modifié par Lumikki, 04 juillet 2011 - 05:36 .

[LexXxich]

Lumikki wrote...

LexXxich wrote...

There's one important thing a lot of people miss.
And it's: do all those stats affect something other than combat? If not, then I'm pretty sure it's not a roleplaying game, and instead an action game with RPG-elements. Which is what we see in ME2, DA2, and possibly in ME3 from recent Bioware games.

You mean if game doesn't have stat based non-combat gameplay, it can't have any role-playing?
Did I get this right?

No. What you call roleplaying is irrelevant. It's a question of mechanics. cRPG have your character made of stats. Should these stats only govern combat, game becomes action/adventure with elements. Upgradeable powers/skills, stuff like that.

[Lumikki]

LexXxich wrote...

Lumikki wrote...

LexXxich wrote...

There's one important thing a lot of people miss.
And it's: do all those stats affect something other than combat? If not, then I'm pretty sure it's not a roleplaying game, and instead an action game with RPG-elements. Which is what we see in ME2, DA2, and possibly in ME3 from recent Bioware games.

You mean if game doesn't have stat based non-combat gameplay, it can't have any role-playing?
Did I get this right?

No. What you call roleplaying is irrelevant. It's a question of mechanics. cRPG have your character made of stats. Should these stats only govern combat, game becomes action/adventure with elements. Upgradeable powers/skills, stuff like that.

So, you say no combat only game can EVER have role-playing?
But if we add making coffee skill between combat, now we have full blood cRPG.

RPG comes from words Role-Playing Game. So you say role-playing is irrelevant for cRPG, but stats are what defines cRPG. Eh?

Modifié par Lumikki, 04 juillet 2011 - 05:52 .

[In Exile]

LexXxich wrote...
No. What you call roleplaying is irrelevant. It's a question of mechanics. cRPG have your character made of stats. Should these stats only govern combat, game becomes action/adventure with elements. Upgradeable powers/skills, stuff like that.

You know what? By that standard I don't think stat based combat games are RPGs. Stat-based combat uses player skill instead of character skill.

[Il Divo]

Gatt9 wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Gatt9 wrote..

Or to put it more simply,  if other genres bothered with stories longer than a paragraph,  you'd find choices existing in them as well.

More than a few of them do have stories longer than a paragraph. I'll start linking them for you, if you'd like. RPGs still remain the only games with interactive stories and dialogue. Perhaps because some of us consider it a feature of the RPG?

Go for it.

Could you do me a favor though,  and start with Wing Commander 3?  It's not even close to an RPG,  yet it featured choices that affected the game's outcome 5 years before Bioware and Black Isle made it popular.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Warcraft_III
http://en.wikipedia....i/Soul_Reaver_2
http://en.wikipedia....ssin's_Creed_II

I could probably list a million different games. Point being, games do not implement choice because they choose not to, not because they are 'no longer than a paragraph' which discredits every Bioware game from Baldur's Gate II to Mass Effect 2. Choices/dialogue becomes a significant aspect of gameplay, which you seem content to ignore.

[Tony Gunslinger]

SalsaDMA wrote...

I was hugging the cover cause the friends of my target would tear me a new one if I stayed up.

Maybe your game acted different than mine, but whenever I stayed out of cover longer than it took to fire a few shots or launch a power, I would be toast. And GCD of powers I used often flowed with the 'rythm' of when I could pop up again, so....

You have squadmates to work with. Even 'useless' powers like CS or Shockwave staggers enemies, and that moment is the opening for an attack. In fact lately I've been loving Jack's Shockwave, works really well in conjunction with a Soldier's ARush.

I cannot fathom how you can claim GCD added to the game, when all it did was restrict you from using anything but the most optimal powers. It killed diversity while playing, where they should have used a mechanic instead that encouraged diversity of skill usage.

If you want ME to be the dumbed down, then ICD will do it. You can use Overload + Incinerate to instantly kill enemies without ever thinking about it. It may look awesome, but after doing that 10000 times it gets old, no different than playing God of War in Space. And in order for a game like that to be challenging, it needs to either bump up the number of goons, which makes the whole action look like a cartoon, or beef up the enemies, which takes killing one longer, but at the end of the day, it's still power > power > power > guns > power > power > power > guns (repeat).

In ME2, enemies can only spam one power at a time, same as you. Enemies use the same gun as you. Enemies need to reload their guns, same as you. If you were to look at the enemies' skill tree, they're roughly the same as you. If you wanted individual cooldowns and become really powerful, then a regular enemy skill tree is completely different, with a ridiculously amount of health and/or defense. That is not how an RPG system works. The more even the playing field, the more you rely on tactics, and as I've pointed out before, GCD makes you combine powers with squadmates and guns.

Otherwise, it's just powers > powers > powers. There is nothing deep or challenging about that.

[SalsaDMA]

Il Divo wrote...

Gatt9 wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Gatt9 wrote..

Or to put it more simply,  if other genres bothered with stories longer than a paragraph,  you'd find choices existing in them as well.

More than a few of them do have stories longer than a paragraph. I'll start linking them for you, if you'd like. RPGs still remain the only games with interactive stories and dialogue. Perhaps because some of us consider it a feature of the RPG?

Go for it.

Could you do me a favor though,  and start with Wing Commander 3?  It's not even close to an RPG,  yet it featured choices that affected the game's outcome 5 years before Bioware and Black Isle made it popular.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Warcraft_III
http://en.wikipedia....i/Soul_Reaver_2
http://en.wikipedia....ssin's_Creed_II

I could probably list a million different games. Point being, games do not implement choice because they choose not to, not because they are 'no longer than a paragraph' which discredits every Bioware game from Baldur's Gate II to Mass Effect 2. Choices/dialogue becomes a significant aspect of gameplay, which you seem content to ignore.

You missed his point.

By listing Wingcommander series he outright put a hole in your claim that only rpgs had choices, dialogue or branching storylines as that series sports it all in some of the games.

[SalsaDMA]

Tony Gunslinger wrote...

SalsaDMA wrote...

I was hugging the cover cause the friends of my target would tear me a new one if I stayed up.

Maybe your game acted different than mine, but whenever I stayed out of cover longer than it took to fire a few shots or launch a power, I would be toast. And GCD of powers I used often flowed with the 'rythm' of when I could pop up again, so....

You have squadmates to work with. Even 'useless' powers like CS or Shockwave staggers enemies, and that moment is the opening for an attack. In fact lately I've been loving Jack's Shockwave, works really well in conjunction with a Soldier's ARush.

I cannot fathom how you can claim GCD added to the game, when all it did was restrict you from using anything but the most optimal powers. It killed diversity while playing, where they should have used a mechanic instead that encouraged diversity of skill usage.

If you want ME to be the dumbed down, then ICD will do it. You can use Overload + Incinerate to instantly kill enemies without ever thinking about it. It may look awesome, but after doing that 10000 times it gets old, no different than playing God of War in Space. And in order for a game like that to be challenging, it needs to either bump up the number of goons, which makes the whole action look like a cartoon, or beef up the enemies, which takes killing one longer, but at the end of the day, it's still power > power > power > guns > power > power > power > guns (repeat).

In ME2, enemies can only spam one power at a time, same as you. Enemies use the same gun as you. Enemies need to reload their guns, same as you. If you were to look at the enemies' skill tree, they're roughly the same as you. If you wanted individual cooldowns and become really powerful, then a regular enemy skill tree is completely different, with a ridiculously amount of health and/or defense. That is not how an RPG system works. The more even the playing field, the more you rely on tactics, and as I've pointed out before, GCD makes you combine powers with squadmates and guns.

Otherwise, it's just powers > powers > powers. There is nothing deep or challenging about that.

Heavens forbid a gamedesigner should spend more than a few seconds to come up with ways to design himself out of borderline problems any random jock could come up with, right?

After all, we NEED to use systems without proper time spent on design as the only substitute, right?

We couldn't think up linked cooldowns with variety, or enabling resources outside of time to use on powers, or something entirely else. It absolutely HAS to be 'spam all your powers instantly in an alphastrike' that is the ONLY alternative, right?

If this is the level we have to debate at, it's pointless.

[Cainne Chapel]

LexXxich wrote...

There's one important thing a lot of people miss.
And it's: do all those stats affect something other than combat? If not, then I'm pretty sure it's not a roleplaying game, and instead an action game with RPG-elements. Which is what we see in ME2, DA2, and possibly in ME3 from recent Bioware games.

To be honest there are very few games listed as "RPGs" that i've played at all that have stats that dont relate to combat or conflic solving (which is another form of combat really) In some way.

So by that definition neither ME1 or ME2 are RPGs.  Nor are most Video games I've played.

[Tony Gunslinger]

SalsaDMA wrote...

Heavens forbid a gamedesigner should spend more than a few seconds to come up with ways to design himself out of borderline problems any random jock could come up with, right?

After all, we NEED to use systems without proper time spent on design as the only substitute, right?

We couldn't think up linked cooldowns with variety, or enabling resources outside of time to use on powers, or something entirely else

Yes, they're called 'squad members', 'guns', and 'brains'. They do a bunch of stuff such as: damage, crowd control, and tactics, from what I hear.

[Il Divo]

SalsaDMA wrote...

You missed his point.

By listing Wingcommander series he outright put a hole in your claim that only rpgs had choices, dialogue or branching storylines as that series sports it all in some of the games.

I think I already addressed this in my response to your post: there is no foolproof definition for RPG. It's like arguing for a perfect political system (of which there are none). This is because there will always be exceptions. Ex: Character-based vs. player based skills.

I personally base definitions on what is popular (which means that Gatt's immutable definitions do nothing for me). The meaning of a word today and its origins are not always the same. If people suddenly switched the meaning of the words 'dog' and 'cat', their definitions are not suddenly incorrect. They are correct given their context.

[SalsaDMA]

Il Divo wrote...

SalsaDMA wrote...

You missed his point.

By listing Wingcommander series he outright put a hole in your claim that only rpgs had choices, dialogue or branching storylines as that series sports it all in some of the games.

I think I already addressed this in my response to your post: there is no foolproof definition for RPG. It's like arguing for a perfect political system (of which there are none). This is because there will always be exceptions. Ex: Character-based vs. player based skills.

I personally base definitions on what is popular (which means that Gatt's immutable definitions do nothing for me). The meaning of a word today and its origins are not always the same. If people suddenly switched the meaning of the words 'dog' and 'cat', their definitions are not suddenly incorrect. They are correct given their context.

I see...

So now you're arguing that words can end up meaning anything so discussions are effectually pointless in the first place,right?

With such a viewpoint, why does it even matter to you participate in debates on the discussion forum if the debate, topics or anything else in that regard is pointless according to your argument?

[In Exile]

SalsaDMA wrote..
You missed his point.

By listing Wingcommander series he outright put a hole in your claim that only rpgs had choices, dialogue or branching storylines as that series sports it all in some of the games.

Or it means Wing Commander 3 was an RPG. It's all just semantics.

[SalsaDMA]

Tony Gunslinger wrote...

SalsaDMA wrote...

Heavens forbid a gamedesigner should spend more than a few seconds to come up with ways to design himself out of borderline problems any random jock could come up with, right?

After all, we NEED to use systems without proper time spent on design as the only substitute, right?

We couldn't think up linked cooldowns with variety, or enabling resources outside of time to use on powers, or something entirely else

Yes, they're called 'squad members', 'guns', and 'brains'. They do a bunch of stuff such as: damage, crowd control, and tactics, from what I hear.

You can try without the hidden insults, and when you start thinking about a decent reply instead of resorting to knee-jerks you will hopefully see that you neither adressed the point, nor does your so called 'mechanics' impact on cooldowns of abilities. They can be used irregardless of which system is used for managing power use, even one that doesn't force users into a single GCD affecting everything a user can do.