1502 réponses à ce sujet

[MrProliferation]

"Gritty" and "dark" I think are about the most unhelpful words out there to describe anything: be it television shows, movies, video games, comic books, or other forms of literature. "Gritty" seems to mean foul language, sex, graphic violence, and amorality. "Dark" seems to mean horror elements. "Low-fantasy" I would think is a little more helpful because that targets a sub-genre. Dragon Age is more a combination of low and high fantasy. There's more magic and more powerful magic in it than a lot of low fantasy, but it's a lot more morally gray and pessimistic than most high fantasy.

[nitefyre410]

DuskWarden wrote...

Persephone wrote...

craigdolphin wrote...

Wozearly and Redcoat...great posts and my opinion matches pretty closely with both of you. I didn't like the change in style subjectively, and I felt it undercut the dark and gritty theme from Origins. 

Out of honest curiosity: What dark and gritty theme is that? The story? Nothing dark there, it's as cliché as they come. The companions? Interesting guys and gals but hardly dark or gritty. Not even Loghain, if you do recruit him, fits those words. The world? Even with the Blight around DAO seemed colorful, downright nonchalant in its prettiness.

Dark and gritty....The Witcher 1 (II much less so, given how sparkly the graphics are) was dark and gritty. Bioware games are loads of things but dark and gritty they are not. Not even BG (Which had exploding bodies ad nauseam as well) was dark and gritty.

The deep roads is pretty dark, especially that but where the dwarven girl is chanting that rhyme...thats just plain creepy. The rhyme where Branka's lover is force fed the dead, tainted bodies of her friends. 

Have you SEEN the  nightmare  creatures in  Catherine... yeah I'll  take creepy chick and broodmother  anyday over  what I have had to run from in that game and I'm only on  floor number 4.

When I think dark I think  Dante Inferno(Despite its faults) that was a pretty damn good  verison  of  hell... I still twitch from thinking about the  Lust Circle of Hell... wrong man, just man.

Modifié par nitefyre410, 08 août 2011 - 08:18 .

[Jamie_edmo]

Strange a lot of people disliked the deep-roads section whereas I didn't mind it. 
Now the Fade thats a different story 

Modifié par Jamie_edmo, 08 août 2011 - 08:17 .

[nitefyre410]

Jamie_edmo wrote...

Strange a lot of people disliked the deep-roads section whereas I didn't mind it. 
Now the Fade thats a different story 

 

Oh  Deep Roads over  Fade any day that part was just borning.

[Sylvianus]

The deep road, are not supposed to be fun, nice to see. They are here to guide us to a world of darkness, harmful to humans. They are dark with decay, they are there to put pressure. Thank you for returning to those of awakening where it was perfect.

I love the deep road everywhere in Awakening and dao, because it is a total different atmosphere in a word where new areas and new atmosphere are important. I didn't feel that at all in DA2.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 08 août 2011 - 08:22 .

[Persephone]

Jamie_edmo wrote...

Strange a lot of people disliked the deep-roads section whereas I didn't mind it. 
Now the Fade thats a different story 

That's what the "Skip the Fade" Mod is here for.

[cursedsei]

Persephone wrote...

DuskWarden wrote...

Persephone wrote...

craigdolphin wrote...

Wozearly and Redcoat...great posts and my opinion matches pretty closely with both of you. I didn't like the change in style subjectively, and I felt it undercut the dark and gritty theme from Origins. 

Out of honest curiosity: What dark and gritty theme is that? The story? Nothing dark there, it's as cliché as they come. The companions? Interesting guys and gals but hardly dark or gritty. Not even Loghain, if you do recruit him, fits those words. The world? Even with the Blight around DAO seemed colorful, downright nonchalant in its prettiness.

Dark and gritty....The Witcher 1 (II much less so, given how sparkly the graphics are) was dark and gritty. Bioware games are loads of things but dark and gritty they are not. Not even BG (Which had exploding bodies ad nauseam as well) was dark and gritty.

The deep roads is pretty dark, especially that but where the dwarven girl is chanting that rhyme...thats just plain creepy. The rhyme where Branka's lover is force fed the dead, tainted bodies of her friends. 

I hate the Deep Roads in DAO. The DR are the reason why I have several Wardens in limbo....they will never reach the Landsmeet. Yes, that rhyme was creepy. It's a great moment, yes. A great moment during a bloated, dragging on questline I hate. So the effect is still minimal. (On me, mind you) I 'll go as far as saying that having to decide whether to abolish child labor or not in Fable III is much darker than 90% of DAO. (And I adore DAO)

Honestly, that probably seems so dark because we're used to demonizing Child Labor. We are so used to seeing it as a "bad" thing, that we give little room for the choice between it existing or not, little if any chance to exist. Most of Fable 3 though, ends up defaulting to whether or not you abused its craptastic money system, which determines whether or not you abuse or help in the game.

I think maybe a moer appropriate "dark" part of Origins would be the Archetict and Mother. Both clearly darkspawn, one is clearly evil, but the other actually has fair points in their existence and for you to allow them to continue existing. They have connections to Origins that might cloud your judgement, and a large associated risk with them to continue. But the choice between letting them live or not is rather Grey (heheh...).

[Tirfan]

What is wrong with you, the Fade & Deep Roads were AMAZING.
The Fade & Deep Roads

[Persephone]

Sylvianus wrote...

The deep road, are not supposed to be fun, nice to see. Theyre are here to to guide us to a world of darkness, harmful to humans. They are dark with decay, they are there to put pressure. Thank you for returning to those of awakening and it was perfect.

I love the deep road everywhere in Awakening, dao, because it is a total different atmosphere in a word where new areas and atmosphere are important. I didn't feel that at all in DA2.

I get what you mean. But I did not get that feeling from the DR in DAO. Or DAII. (In DAII they weren't dragging on and on though and I am curious about that Lost Thaig...) I did get it reading "The Stolen Throne". In DAO all I felt was frustration at an overly long, bland dungeon.

[esper]

The deep road have been the doom of many of my wardens. I loved the deep roads in awakening, though.

[bEVEsthda]

Tirfan wrote...

What is wrong with you, the Fade & Deep Roads were AMAZING.
The Fade & Deep Roads

Absolutely. Wonderful.

[Sylvianus]

Persephone wrote...

Sylvianus wrote...

The deep road, are not supposed to be fun, nice to see. Theyre are here to to guide us to a world of darkness, harmful to humans. They are dark with decay, they are there to put pressure. Thank you for returning to those of awakening and it was perfect.

I love the deep road everywhere in Awakening, dao, because it is a total different atmosphere in a word where new areas and atmosphere are important. I didn't feel that at all in DA2.

I get what you mean. But I did not get that feeling from the DR in DAO. Or DAII. (In DAII they weren't dragging on and on though and I am curious about that Lost Thaig...) I did get it reading "The Stolen Throne". In DAO all I felt was frustration at an overly long, bland dungeon.

Well I do agree that the deep road in Orzammar were far too long.
I hope we'll keep at least something special.

[TEWR]

bEVEsthda wrote...

It would be somewhat likely that you would like it. Fenris and Flemeth were intentionally styled to appeal to teenagers (by a "scientific" approach) and you're a teenager. Nothing much I can say about it.

There is something you can say about it. You can say what specifically you didn't like about Fenris. It's not just teenagers who like Fenris' and Flemeth's look I'll have you know. Maybe primarily, but not solely

Why is it a different issue? It's not. Yes, Isabela was always a promiscuous person. Obviously she didn't grow up with a heavy baggage of "morals" that resemble certain real life times and cultures. But she was a different person. It would be below her dignity to dress that way. She doesn't need to dress "sexy". She's not a prostitute looking for work. She doesn't need to advertise. She would take sex for pleasure if she can, with those she want. Only then. And she wouldn't abandon herself. DA:O Isabela is always in control, always aloof, always playing for herself

how you were able to pull that out of a five minute conversation is beyond me.

Her armor is a different issue (to me. since we're talking about her, as you put it, "****tification") because it doesn't appear fit for battle. her upgraded romanced armor is slightly more fit for battle. But the problem isn't what she actually is seen wearing. Rather, it's the lack of change in her armor when you buy upgrades or find them.

• Supportive Corselet
  
  
• Rigid Boning (I'm actually not sure what this really is, but with Isabela I do know one type of rigid boning she gets )
  
  
• Lambswool Insoles
  
  
• Boiled Leather Plates

Boiled Leather plates and a supportive corselet. Had those affected the visuals of her armor, she'd look different. It's not a problem with her looks, but rather with how Bioware handled the armor system.

That is a magazine crossbow, which also happens to be so very weak that it can be drawn with a lever. A very crappy weapon. As you should know well if you have any clue about physics or engineering.While Varric's is still semiautomatic, even full automatic in bursts, with striking energy that throws enemies physically backwards. A weapon purely from the world of cartoon fantasy.

Well I'm not in college, so I'm not reading anything about engineering. Not enough money and all that jazz for college sadly. 

Now, IIRC, Varric doesn't actually send people flying back until he levels up quite a bit. I haven't played DAII for some time, so if I'm wrong, someone please correct me.

Next, while he is firing at a semiautomatic pace, he also takes a break after the fifth shot, which I attribute to him having to reload. While there isn't anything to support it, it's what I like to believe.

Friendly fire doesn't have anything to do with this. It works as an area effect, yes, but swords don't have friendly fire.
And that was just an example. The entire combat gameplay is moved to a symbolic level that doesn't have any pretense of realism. Just as always, it's just gameplay mechanics with animation on top. But it has moved away from representing the world. What remains is just "lets play a level of Mario and see if we advance".

Can I crush a Goomba?

Anyway, that's why I'm asking Bioware to make the talents for Warriors and rogues have a touch of realism. Hopefully they'll listen. Do I like Mighty Blow having Hawke jump 6 feet in the air? No. I'd actually prefer if he just slammed the sword into the ground and created a shockwave. Is it still over the top? Possibly. But it's preferable to having Hawke jump 6 feet in the air and slam his sword into the ground, creating a shockwave.

But I bet people would say "His sword should've broken!" or some other such nonsense. Well, to that I say, this is a game. And Origins had swords that didn't break no matter how long you used them, so that shouldn't be an issue. Then there's the lore given that Dwarven weapons and armor lasts centuries, which a Dwarf Noble can tell Wade and Herren in Denerim.

Invincible weapons exist only in movies and games. Now, that's not to say that Bioware couldn't make generic longswords or other weapons break after a certain amount of time and they need to be fixed. But I certainly wouldn't want that to apply to the very special weapons like Yusaris or the Celebrant. Fire Emblem has this as a core game mechanic. Each weapon is made of different items (In Radiant Dawn, you had bronze, iron, steel, and silver.) Eventually, they broke and you had to buy a new one.

In Radiant Dawn however you had a very well crafted reason for getting invincible weapons. They were blessed by the goddess in the game.

Anyway, I think I've made my point.

In my opinion the only thing that has a right to do a fantastic effect is magic. That's why we have magic. What need is there for magic in DA2? There would be none if it wasn't for the fact that mages are the by far most powerful archers (ranged fighters) . In other regards everything is the same for all. Everybody has melee, ranged and area effects. defensive and offensive.
That doesn't make the gameplay broken. Absolutely not. But it does take it out from context of a "realistic" rpg world.

which is again why I ask Bioware to improve the gameplay.

My point was more that combat is almost the only gameplay that remains in the game. And there's a lot of it, as a heavy emphasis. And both DA:O and DA2 was tactical for that matter. Different. And in some ways DA2 was better. But not the animations, fantastic effects, or the setup of battle problems.

Not to me. Both games were laughably easy to the point that I didn't have to use any real tactics. Hell I beat the Harvester on Nightmare on my first try by just drinking potions and attacking. I don't consider that tactical at all.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 08 août 2011 - 08:33 .

[TEWR]

Tirfan wrote...

What is wrong with you, the Fade & Deep Roads were AMAZING.
The Fade & Deep Roads

I hated the Fade sequence in Origins. I would like something longer than Night Terrors but shorter than Broken Circle's Fade sequence though.

I loved the Deep Roads though. But I'd like to see more of the actual Deep Roads and less "Darkspawn carved tunnels", if you catch my drift.

For me, DAII got the look of the Deep Roads down great, but the length goes to Origins any day.

[Jamie_edmo]

esper wrote...

The deep road have been the doom of many of my wardens. I loved the deep roads in awakening, though.

The entrance to the deep roads (the part were you see sigrun being dragged by darkspawn) in Awakening is one of my favourite locations

Modifié par Jamie_edmo, 08 août 2011 - 08:31 .

[Jamie_edmo]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

I hated the Fade sequence in Origins. I would like something longer than Night Terrors but shorter than Broken Circle's Fade sequence though.

I loved the Deep Roads though. But I'd like to see more of the actual Deep Roads and less "Darkspawn carved tunnels", if you catch my drift.

For me, DAII got the look of the Deep Roads down great, but the length goes to Origins any day.

The fade in DA2 was better but i would have liked a new location rather than the Templar Hall, but re-used maps and all that.

I too prefered the design of DA2's deep roads and also would like them to have been longer, or be longer for DA3, but i didnt like the red and purple colour tone and would have prefered a more brown and grey (boring i know) colour scheme, with orange lava and blue lyrium contrasting it 

Modifié par Jamie_edmo, 08 août 2011 - 08:38 .

[Reznore57]

The deep road to me is like the wounded coast and some other map , Long and boring walk .I don't think making smaller map is the solution , but walking to point A to B killing stuff with nothing much going on isn't adventure.Random event , ruin with lore , something that make you feel like you have to hurry to save the day ("All that remain" was really good for this , great sense of tention) you need something on those bare map to make them attractive..

[Wulfram]

The Deep Roads aren't all that long once you know where you're going. As long as you don't insist on chasing down the sidequests.

[Sylvius the Mad]

On art direction, put me down as someone who preferred DAO's.  As for weapon animations, I'd suggest making everything work just the same as it did in DAO, but speeding up 2H auto-attacks a bit.

DA2's combat moves too quickly to be able to follow all of the action.  If I'm playing just one character, or focusing on one small group, DA2's combat works, but if I have characters spread out over a large area it is very difficult to manage them all simultaneously (particularly because they have the same problem that the NWN2 party did in that they'll run to the currently controlled character if they're too far away, even if they were busy fighting something already somewhere else).

Luke Barrett wrote...

Personally I agree but as PC gamers we're raised on a platform where you have to constantly upgrade to keep up. Not everyone is used to - and okay with - that.

I don't even think constant upgrading is necessary.  I generally just replace my whole machine every 4 years or so, and since I already own a monitor it's hardly more expensive than a new-release console.

Yuqi wrote...

Well with consoles, they have to take into account a majority of people cant afford to throw $2000+ on the latest T.V. I'm on  a tight budget,and still use the old analouge T.V to play my games. My P.C is not vamped up as the model was made five years ago.

My monitor is 1920*1200 (that's a higher resolution than an HD television), and I paid $360 for it in 2007.

It replaced a 21" CRT (1600*1200) I'd had since 1999.

It's hardly a constant cycle of upgrading, and it's far from as expensive as people say it is.

hoorayforicecream wrote...

Traps aren't a real big problem. They just need cooldowns like every other ability, and a limited lifespan to avoid setting a hojillion traps to instakill some big bad monster.

I disagree.  If you plan ahead and have that many traps (a decent inventory system that limits how much you can carry would help with that), and have designed your character to be that good at paying traps, I think the game should let you use non-traditional tactics.

In KotOR, you could kill Darth Malak without ever attacking him.  Laying mines was all that was necessary.  That was a great feature.  Most of the rest of KotOR didn't do a great job of supporting a non-combat build, but the final boss certainly did.

The stealth part gets weird though, because of limitations on how to trigger certain cutscenes. If you're stealthed and you trigger a cutscene, your entire party gets teleported to the cutscene location, everything plays, and then the battle begins. Immersion is broken, because your stealthy person is no longer stealthy, the big battle begins, and you didn't have any time to make preparations. How does one solve this problem? It certainly isn't a trivial one.

But it is.

In ME, we all saw how cutscenes would cause Shepard to move about and appear places the player hadn't intended, and it destroyed a lot of pre-planning before combat encounters.  Seeing that, a bunch of us asked the DAO devs whether cutscenes in DAO would do that.  The answer we were given was an unequivocal "No."  DAO's cutscenes would not move our characters in such a way that at the end of the scenes they were somewhere different from where we had left them.

Sadly, DAO did do that, despite the assurances from the dev team.

But such a thing isn't mandatory.  Yes, as you point out, a cutscene that moves the characters around will do some very strange things with stealthed characters, but the simple answer is that cutscenes shouldn't ever do that.

Also, the designers sould make a cutscene by cutscene determination of whether the scenes could be triggered by stealthed characters based on what effect that would have.

Generally, though, I think that cutscenes create far more problems than they solve, and we'd be better off without most of them.

[Reznore57]

I don't think it's about the size of the map , it's that feeling of "when the hell am i going out of here"
Because it's not fun , it's a pain .I don't mind walking a lot on Kirkwall since there's some life going on , you can stop and look at thing etc.. On the wounded coast you walk , you kill some qunari ,highwayman , you walk .And when you're like me , you get lost on the map and you have to walk some more

[Melca36]

For $60 I would appreciate something longer than a 30 minute jaunt in the Deep Roads.

When it comes to Origin's Deep Roads, it was fun...it was creepy and they made it so you could have stopped and gone back to it anytime you wanted to.

So when I see people whining about it, it makes think how a lot of gamers just want things handed to them. We have become a lazy society and now that attitude has become entrenched in our games.

With the exception of the Ancient Rock Wraith, DA 2's Deeproads were a disappointment.

Now Legacy did it right. It was creepy and fun.

[bEVEsthda]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

how you were able to pull that out of a five minute conversation is beyond me.

Well, I could. To a degree. But I also add in to the equation the fact that she's a ship captain that has the respect, trust and loyalty of her crew.

Do I know all about Isabela? Of course not. Do I really know for absolute proven facts? No, but I don't have to. I can still reject DA2 Isabela. Pirates of the Caribbean seem to have spread around the perception that ship captain on a sailing vessel is some kind of comedy act. Pity.
 

I don't have to use any real tactics. Hell I beat the Harvester on Nightmare on my first try by just drinking potions and attacking. I don't consider that tactical at all.

No, but it is a tactic nevertheless. That's one weakness with the battle setups in DA2. The one great thing that mostly works is to be very forceful and quick about it. Aggressive and preemptive. It's still a tactic though.
 
Well, did you have the opportunity to play DA:O, PC-version, before the 1.01 patch?

[hoorayforicecream]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But such a thing isn't mandatory.  Yes, as you point out, a cutscene that moves the characters around will do some very strange things with stealthed characters, but the simple answer is that cutscenes shouldn't ever do that.

Also, the designers sould make a cutscene by cutscene determination of whether the scenes could be triggered by stealthed characters based on what effect that would have.

Generally, though, I think that cutscenes create far more problems than they solve, and we'd be better off without most of them.

You could do that, and that would just mean that the game is shorter because you now have to have a 'stealthed' cutscene and a 'not stealthed' cutscene, which could potentially get extrapolated to 'stealthed', 'unstealthed', and 'partially stealthed'. But that's not necessarily feasible from a gameplay perspective when stealth isn't the core focus of the game (e.g. Splinter Cell, Thief, Metal Gear). Generally, there's only time and budget for X cutscenes. If you double or triple up, that means others get cut. I'm not sure that  others would agree with that tradeoff. I know I certainly wouldn't.

I understand that your personal goal seems to be trying to emulate a pen and paper experience as closely as possible without the necessity of other people, but as far as I can tell, that's not the goal Bioware has in mind. I don't think that the things you want are congruent with those the developers want. The developers have made it pretty clear what sort of feedback they are looking for, and the constraints that they are operating under. No amount of complaining, suggestions, or death threats are going to change those constraints. Offer the best constructive feedback you can within the provided constraints. If you can't do that, most of your feedback will likely fall under "Well that would be nice if we were doing that" category and you'll most likely continue to be disappointed.

[bEVEsthda]

Reznore57 wrote...

I don't think it's about the size of the map , it's that feeling of "when the hell am i going out of here"
Because it's not fun , it's a pain

But that's precisely the point. It's fun because it's real pain. A real struggle. Almost a sense of claustrophoby and definitely a feeling of being trapped and wanting out.
And that's GREAT!

[craigdolphin]

Persephone wrote...

craigdolphin wrote...

Wozearly and Redcoat...great posts and my opinion matches pretty closely with both of you. I didn't like the change in style subjectively, and I felt it undercut the dark and gritty theme from Origins. 

Out of honest curiosity: What dark and gritty theme is that? The story? Nothing dark there, it's as cliché as they come. The companions? Interesting guys and gals but hardly dark or gritty. Not even Loghain, if you do recruit him, fits those words. The world? Even with the Blight around DAO seemed colorful, downright nonchalant in its prettiness.

Dark and gritty....The Witcher 1 (II much less so, given how sparkly the graphics are) was dark and gritty. Bioware games are loads of things but dark and gritty they are not. Not even BG (Which had exploding bodies ad nauseam as well) was dark and gritty.

Well, I'd argue that aspects of the story plot were dark and gritty in both DAO and DA2. Though more so in DAO than DA2 to be honest.

For example: in DAO there was the creepy broodmother storyline, which paragon to kill, choosing between weres and dalish, ritual of annulment or not, save or kill Connor (and if you save him do you then kill his mother?), which dwarven house rules? (both badly flawed), kill or recruit Loghain, the joining, the dark ritual, etc.

Versus DA2's endlessly repetitive theme of mages vs templars. I thought for a while the mass murderer storyline was a refreshing change from that: and I was really peeved it turned out to be more of the same old same old. People complain a lot about re-use of the areas, I'm more irritated by endless re-use of the templar-mage theme! About the only other major choice that deviated from this was Merril's storyline, and that outcome left me completely baffled. And it too featured blood magic so it really wasn't all that far different.

In DAO Thedas was full of conflicts with difficult and morally ambiguous major choices to make. In DA2, the only morally ambiguous major choice was which side to support, and the net result was that your choice really made no difference.

But all of that is not what I was referring to.

The feel of the world, Thedas, in DAO evoked a semi-realistic setting. Gravity worked about how you'd expect. People looked like people do. There was trash on the streets and much maligned cheese wheels on every counter. There was dirt on the walls, and broken-down wagons, and plants and clutter, just like in the real world today. People in heavy armor did not leap about like ninjas on speed. No-one did cartwheels in-place, as if an invisible treadmill was present. Combat encounters had fewer opponents each time, but each opponent was stronger and if felt like darkspawn and other humans were serious, tangible opposition. In DA2 there was a marked shift towards larger groups (and waves of reinforcements too) of much-wimpier opponents. This had the effect of making those opponents seem pretty trivial fare. If one human can take down 30 hurlocks, how the heck did the deep roads fall to such puny enemies in the first place?

The UI in DAO suited a medieval setting perfectly: someone here once described it as 'antique baroque'. It was consistent with the setting of the game. The UI in DA2 was an anachronism: a modern minimalist layer that belied the medieval setting.

DA2's new minimalist art style and combat changes worked to effectively undercut the sense of solidity, of weight, of ... gravitas that I thought was present in spades in DAO. When I say I want dark and gritty in DA, it's gravitas and mature themes I'm wanting: think of the HBO Game of Thrones or the original SOIAF books. And the changes to art style, combat balance and combat animations, and UI all interacted to reduce any sense of gravitas in DA2 IMO.

That's just my opinion of course. But you asked what I meant, and that's what I think.YMMV