200 réponses à ce sujet

[devSin]

Things I want to see:

1) Visual combat. I want to hit and actually look like I'm hitting something. DA2 is flipping and spinning and swinging, and there's damage going on somewhere, but damn if I can actually see anything getting hit. (Origins was terrible because the hit and the visuals were so divorced from each other that they may as well have been entirely unrelated; although they've been sped up for DA2, I still rarely get the feeling that the visuals correspond to what you're saying is going on, that I'm a-swingin' and my target is a-bleedin' because of it.) I don't want to see an actual impact system, but I think it needs more fine-tuning so that I'm visually at the correct range from the correct target facing the correct direction and playing the correct animation at the correct time (vs. just doing something that looks vaguely combaty in the general vicinity of some people that look mean).

2) Central party management. Holy God. I mean, cheese and crackers. Did nobody do the party shuffle before release and say, "HEY, THIS ISN'T GOING TO WORK"? Nobody at all? Not one single person? In the entire EA family? I refuse to believe that each one of you can be so off as to not be able to smell crap when it's rubbed all over your face. Which means that you knew and you inflicted it on us anyway. No excuses!

3) More and (much) better environments. I can appreciate that maybe because you tried to utilize vertical space (is that what it is?) in the caves you ended up with not enough generic assets to create customized variants, but your cave isn't even that nice. Nor are your "sewers" (no, they're not sewers, you're not fooling me). Nor that Deep Roads dungeon ("Hey, we have one dungeon, we're all set now!") that is used everywhere but the Deep Roads. These things are unacceptable. I can appreciate some of the improvements, and there are definitely some pretty scenes and some good lighting effects, but on the whole, I don't think many of the support maps are all that better than average (in looks and in layout); certainly not improved enough from Origins to really be preferable to anything used there.

Things I don't want to see:

1) Reduction of scripting. I don't want to see AI move into hardcode (unless it already did in DA2, but I don't want to investigate). I guess you have to do what you have to do to run good on consoles, but it'd be a shame to see generic behaviors roost in the engine just to save a few cycles to maybe add a few more full NPCs to an area. Represent! At least until you change engines, I guess.

2) Origins or Dragon Age II style crafting. I've never found any use for any of this at less than hard difficulty (and never had any fun with it at any difficulty). Throw the enchantment system in there while you're changing these (why do I even have to buy runes anymore? just charge me at the enchanting window and let me get on my business).

3) Horri-bad plots. Like Warden's Keep or Sebastian's personal quest. Stab me in the face, you're in such a hurry to inflict grievous injury on me. Sometimes, the best option between Ship, DLC, and Cut, really is Cut. Cut off its head and drive a stake through its heart and burn the remains.

Modifié par devSin, 11 août 2011 - 05:18 .

[broncos1123]

1. Choice/consequences that matter.

2. More companion interaction through talking and quests, especially with romances.

3. More unique items and customization of characters.

[Iakus]

Three things I'd like to see worked on:

1) Choices with consequences. Adds replayability.
2) Strengthened central narrative. Something that ties the events of the game together.
3) Customization. Particularly in regards to companions.

[John Epler]

LPPrince wrote...

A John Epler Commentary Track for the next DA project.

That's all I need.

Listen to this man's ideas. He speaks the truth.

@craigdolphin, specifically your fourth point about sandbox.

I actually prefer the middle ground between sandbox and load screens. I don't know if you've ever played STALKER (any of them, really), but in their current iteration, they have a series of 4-15 set pieces that are connected via loading zones. Within those set pieces, however, you have quite a lot of freedom of exploration, and there are a number of missions that will take you from one end of the Zone to the other. It feels rather large, and while you don't see everything, you get a fair sense of scale by the end of the game.

Contrast that with FO:NV. And let me preface this by saying that I adored the game, to the point where I own two copies and bought a third for a friend. It was a blast. But while it certainly felt big and epic while I was running around at the start - as soon as I found the boundaries of the map, that sense of scale suddenly vanished for me.  It still felt big, but it no longer felt like this giant world.

It's odd, because in reality, none of the STALKER games cover as much ground as FO:NV. Not even close. Yet they felt bigger to me - probably because I never really saw the edges of the world. They were implied, of course, but since I couldn't actually get to them, the illusion that the Zone covered a massive amount of ground stuck. And thinking back on it, this is particularly strange as it was always implied that the zone-out point was the exact same place, geographically, as the zone-in point for the next area.

And I've started rambling. But my point was, I guess, that I personally feel that a set of a few large areas connected by zone triggers is more effective at creating a sense of sheer scale than one -very large- area. As to why that is? I'm not sure. Again, I think it comes down to implied versus explicit.

[LPPrince]

Well, I'd say I have a mighty fine new signature.

[Brockololly]

JohnEpler wrote...
@craigdolphin, specifically your fourth point about sandbox.

I actually prefer the middle ground between sandbox and load screens. I don't know if you've ever played STALKER (any of them, really), but in their current iteration, they have a series of 4-15 set pieces that are connected via loading zones.

Yeah, STALKER does a good job of that. Even just finding a way to trim down the loading screens would be nice, even if it was done The Witcher 2 style with everything streaming in. The areas in TW2 were pretty open in this regard too- in so far as most of the big areas were fairly wide open and gave a sense of scale. And in Act 2, there is a nifty transition area of sorts that connects one area to another geographically- again, making the landscape feel like one whole thing and not disparate levels connected by loading screens.

[axl99]

1) More locales would be great, but more importantly - tighter environments with enough assets we can see at the default camera angle to get a sense of greater detail. More decals if possible. Love the wall reliefs at the Gallows. Maybe make some for the ground tiles to add more focus to certain locations on screen. DA2 had some nice set pieces, but a lot of the good stuff was hidden way above us. This next thing is more of a storytelling element but if more people can be streamed into an area at once, it'd be great to see them move around and "do stuff" like street performances, cooking stews, banging away at an anvil. For instance at the Gallows where most of the Ferelden refugees were hanging out, you could have a bunch of them act like hobos. And the best part? John Epler won't have to cry man tears for hooking up characters that need to touch, because there will be none!!

Oh and please please lose the expensive god rays. They drive me crazy. CRAZY I TELLS YOU.

2) More opportunities for character interaction that can tie into the main story. The followers are great but I'd also love to see some more memorable NPCs. Does more wonders for the lore as well. This includes animals. The only other domesticated animals we see are nugs, mabaris and Brontos. If there was a way to domesticate dragons, I'D LOVE TO SEE IT.

3) Stronger visual storytelling via unique character animation. Nuff said. Banter is wonderful as always, but of course we don't need to put words in a characters' mouth to see what they're like when they interact with the world around them.

Modifié par axl99, 11 août 2011 - 05:54 .

[Serpieri Nei]

1. Customization – Races/Specializations/Companions/Skills – Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Quanari – Specs from Origins and Awakenings / Full Control of Companions Gear, Weapons, and Specs / Pickpocketing, Survival, and other skills, Meaningful Crafting – Armor, Weapons, Runes, Potions, Magical Items

2. Choice/Consequences – Cause and Effect – Branching Quests/Story – actual gameplay changes – different options other than just combat to resolve a situation. Tons of Replayability.

3. Exploration – Dungeon Delving, Wilderness Areas, Cities, Ruins, - NEVER just ONE Location and NEVER EVER recycle the maps.


All this is just a start.

Modifié par Serpieri Nei, 14 août 2011 - 03:28 .

[Out to Lunch]

I think most of the important ones have been covered so I'd like to mention a few that are issues for me, not sure if they are a major problem for others.

1. The writing. Between the font and letter size, I can't read the letters and codex information very well. Part of the problem might be that my ps3 is hooked up to a regular tv and not a flat panel HD. Maybe a way to go full screen?

2. If we get to play another apostate mage can we have a cross over class available? A rogue/warrior with a few magic spells like heal, shields and elemental weapons or the arcane warrior/battle mage type specializations? This might not be something everyone would be interested in but I just think an apostate would hide their magic in things that could be dismissed.

3. I am addicted to video game looting. It's a real problem but I don't think there's a twelve step program for it. There were times in DA2 where we would have a battle which created a nice array of sparkly piles but before I could get to them a cut screen would occur that would end by taking me to another location. This is just plain cruel. Could you keep an eye out for these kinds of things? If it sparkles, I'd like to be given a few moments to attempt to grab what I can. I have a sickness, ya know. Be kind.
 

Modifié par Out to Lunch, 11 août 2011 - 07:34 .

[Firky]

1. Tactical camera/overhead view.
2. Pantaloons.
3. Sten (but I'd settle for a qunari/kossith/saarebas companion instead).

(Might sound silly, but not joking.)

[G00N3R7883]

1) Story - needs to be more epic, and have a more traditional format (drop the Varric style narrative and drop the missing years)

2) More intelligent use of waves in combat - don't cut them out altogether, use them every so often as a change of pace, and only when it makes sense (no Humans appearing out of thin air).

3) Companion customisation - but I'm not just talking about armours, I'm talking about weapons as well - for example if I want to tell Avelline to use a ranged weapon in one fight, I should be able to.

[Dubya75]

G00N3R7883 wrote...

1) Story - needs to be more epic, and have a more traditional format (drop the Varric style narrative and drop the missing years)

2) More intelligent use of waves in combat - don't cut them out altogether, use them every so often as a change of pace, and only when it makes sense (no Humans appearing out of thin air).

3) Companion customisation - but I'm not just talking about armours, I'm talking about weapons as well - for example if I want to tell Avelline to use a ranged weapon in one fight, I should be able to.

More intellegent waves? Have you played Legacy? Fixed.

Telling Aveline to use a ranged weapon - with no ranged weapon skills? Fail.

[nitefyre410]

1.) Open up the map let me travel around the world that has been created - more locals, etc etc etc. example Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas

2.) Attention to detail in the Story telling and Art style this world is still very bland and needs some life.

3.) More class combinations,more active skills, More weapon skill sets - Pole arms , fist weapons, etc.

[aries1001]

Ok, I'll bite.

1) Please bring back the tactical camera for PC. It is almost impossible for me to get a good, clear overview on what is going on in combat - at least when I'm battling 20-40 enemies or groups of 10 at a time, then another group of tens at a time.

2) Follower customization need to be back - to a degree.

3) The spells & talents cool downs need to be shorter.
(I play with a mod that reduces e.g. the healing spell's cooldown to 20 seconds from its original 40 seconds).

I

[Dragoonlordz]

@Dubya75

I asked people to not belittle other peoples choices when made this thread and is why I structured it (or tried too which doesn't seem to have worked as others just doing what they want regardless) then to just list own three choices and leave it at that, there was no need for you to make fun of another persons preference. I'm thankful to those who did structure and stick to the format I intended from the offset. Those ones have my thanks.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 11 août 2011 - 01:16 .

[Dubya75]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

@Dubya75

I asked people to not belittle other peoples choices when made this thread and is why I structured it (or tried too which doesn't seem to have worked as others just doing what they want regardless) then to just list own three choices and leave it at that, there was no need for you to make fun of another persons preference. I'm thankful to those who did structure and stick to the format I intended from the offset. Those ones have my thanks.

I've not made fun of anyone, I simply commented on their choices. Is that not permitted? My bad!

[nuclearpengu1nn]

Story, companions, LIs, sex scenes, character customization, and combat

[JediHealerCosmin]

Serpieri Nei wrote...

1. Customization – Races/Specializations/Companions/Skills – Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Quanari – Specs from Origins and Awakenings / Full Control of Companions Gear, Weapons, and Specs / Pickpocketing, Survial, Meaningful Crafting – Armor, Weapons, Runes, Potions, Magical Items

2. Choice/Consequences – Cause and Effect – Branching Quests/Story – actual gameplay changes – different options other than just combat to resolve a situation. Tons of Replayability.

3. Exploration – Dungeon Delving, Wilderness Areas, Cities, Ruins, - NEVER just ONE Location and NEVER EVER recycle the maps.


All this is just a start.

All of the above. And please change the art style. Everything it too pointy

[Dianjabla]

Ok, assuming that reuse of areas & constant waves of airborne ninjas in plate etc are gone forever.

1. Choices that make a difference and result in plot branching, both minor and major. ie More than one ending to the game based on your decisions, conversations  and outcomes of quests etc. Not just two paths with the same boss fight at the end. The option to fail quests - even main ones - if you've made all the wrong moves, insulted people you'll later need or even trusted all the wrong people. Have paths that are mutually exclusive. Ideally if you have 3 chapters, there should be at least 3 entirely different versions of chapter 3 to play. Though I can imagine that being hard to implement.

Bring back character choice of multiple races & play through their origins. Have this be a choice that affects you through the whole game. Based on race & class completion of some quests will be harder, some easier, some impossible, some unaffected and others will never be offered. Have this affect how the main quests play out. For example: If you're an elf, there's never going to be the option to get that  nobles position, and there'll be some conflicts with bigots you'll never talk your way out of. In the context of the aftermath of DA2, if you're a mage, you're never going to rise high in the Templar side of affairs. Trying to may lead to failure.

Edit: It's... a big ask. I know. I can only imagine the nightmarish task of trying to keep track of all of that, let alone implementing it. I guess I've just really enjoyed those aspects of Bioware games in the past and want more. More, more more more.

2. If voice acting and the dialogue wheel are here to stay, then have the paraphrase text actually match what's going to be said. Please Mike, seriously consider having the option to see what's going to be said in full. Despite any previous posts i've made elsewhere, I'm not against the wheel or VA as such. The wheel has advantages and I'd love a character voiced by Claudia Black. Being surprised (and sometimes taken aback) by what my character says when so contrary to what I thought I was chosing - that I am against.

3. Bring back the tactical camera. Moving around DA2 was painful without it.

Modifié par Dianjabla, 11 août 2011 - 02:44 .

[Pzykozis]

1. Try and open the world up some, pretty broad wish, but essentially boils down to making areas feel like an area, a sense of space and scale to the environments, Kirkwall felt small, not just because of imposing tightly woven architecture but because the areas were small and didn't particular push Kirkwall as a city. Another point in regards to this is having more.. incidental dungeons and the like within the newly expanded zones.

2. More ambient 'ness' / atmosphere, NPCs having behaviour, use of Pathetic fallacy (if it started raining and the like during all that remains sort of thing) during certain scenes, direction of art, pallete and asset placement in support of thematics of a zone, (darktown for me lacked any real thematic details that set it as downtrodden and full of despair, fit in with lowtown sure but lacked feeling). More ambient storytelling in general. The perhaps lookng into and implementing of day/night cycles and weather patterns would be something I'd love to see.

3. I actually enjoy the new combat, perhaps it could be slowed down somewhat, but.. (and I hate to use buzzwords but,) it's not visceral or gritty (getting the noose to hang myself right now) the combat is very floaty, lack of impact or weight in blows, aside from that it can also be too reliant on auto-attack (partially a problem to do with combat speed I suspect since you can hit four or so times in the same space as a backstab as a rogue) the lack of active engagement and taking over of the computer is... not so fun.

Hmm, guess it mostly comes down to aesthetics for me (I am a 3d artist so... thats a suprise). Ahh well that's my unrealistic tuppence.

[grregg]

Hmm...

1. Combat system: Scale down the wave mechanic, not that I mind the waves horribly, they are a useful approximation of unexpected reinforcements arriving, but they should be unexpected. In DA2, it was unexpected if the next wave did not show up.

2. Loot/party customization system: Seems to me that DA2 inhabits some kind of unhappy middle here. It is not the classic "lots of loot, spend 50% of your playing time sorting out what pants Alistair is going to wear for 0.45% better combat performance against enemies wearing funny hats" system, and it's not the streamlined "hands off my uniquely looking combat gear you $%@#!" system. As a result you still get a lot of loot, but most of it unusable. Annoying to the classic camp guys "That helmet would work great for Aveline, but it somehow only fits Hawke. Argh!" AND to the streamlined camp guys "Why am I getting all the useless items? Am I supposed to play the Champion of Kirkwall or a scrap metal collector?"

3. Locations: If you really want to spend the entire game in one location, this location better be really, really good. Kirkwall wasn't. To be honest, it wasn't worse than other cities BioWare created, but in BioWare games, the party usually hikes all over the creation and doesn't stay for long. So it was easier to accept a static, sparsely populated Citadel, Taris or Denerim, then the static, empty-ish Kirkwall. The Witcher's Vizima was better, GTA4 Liberty City was really good.

Modifié par grregg, 11 août 2011 - 04:05 .

[Gosuchobo]

1. Tactical combat as it was in DAO but with better but not over the top (DA2) animations. Bring back a hint of realism in combat (and graphics, loose the comic book style). And most importantly bring back the finishers like in DAO but more often. Damn I loved those.

2. Bigger, non recylcled, open areas. I wanna feel "progression" also in terms of getting to new areas.

3. Epic maybe "unknown" threat. My favorite scene in DA2 was when you meet a warden and he is like "I have no time for meesely politics". Yea... I felt the same...

[G00N3R7883]

Dubya75 wrote...

G00N3R7883 wrote...

1) Story - needs to be more epic, and have a more traditional format (drop the Varric style narrative and drop the missing years)

2) More intelligent use of waves in combat - don't cut them out altogether, use them every so often as a change of pace, and only when it makes sense (no Humans appearing out of thin air).

3) Companion customisation - but I'm not just talking about armours, I'm talking about weapons as well - for example if I want to tell Avelline to use a ranged weapon in one fight, I should be able to.

More intellegent waves? Have you played Legacy? Fixed.

Telling Aveline to use a ranged weapon - with no ranged weapon skills? Fail.

At the risk of spoiling the structure of the thread, a couple of clarifications ...

No I haven't played Legacy yet. I tend to wait and play several DLCs together instead of spending 2 hours here, 2 hours there. If its already been fixed, awesome, please keep it fixed in DA3.

About the weapons, I perhaps didn't give the best example, but I just think its better tactically if you can have secondary weapons (so a melee user can switch to a ranged weapon, and a ranged user can switch to a melee weapon - not ALL the time, just in a certain situation). Its certainly better than "this companion must use melee in every single fight with no exceptions while this other companion must use ranged in every single fight with no exceptions".

Okay, a better example is the broodmother in DA:O. She has powerful close range attacks that can damage multiple party members simultaneously. My best tactic to defeat it is to have everybody switch to ranged, and then I space them out so that the broodmother's ranged attack, which does some splash damage, only ends up hurting one party member at a time. Every so often she summons a(n intelligent) wave of darkspawn, so I switch everyone back to their normal weapon, focus on clearing out the darkspawn, then resume ranged attacks on the broodmother. I also did something similar with the archdemon, and the Awakenings end boss.

I would have liked to use this tactic on the DA2 deep roads boss, and probably a variation of it on the High dragon fight at the mines. And having Varric in my party would have been easier if I could have told him to stop running away and just switch to melee. (of course this will be less of an issue with fewer waves spawning in the face of a ranged user).

Modifié par G00N3R7883, 11 août 2011 - 03:50 .

[dheer]

Had to think about this one over my lunch break.

1. Isometric / Tactical / Unlocked camera. I spent a lot of my time with DA2 fighting with the camera. Having a third person view is fine for running around town but in combat, I found it frustrating to try to aim my aoe attacks and place my party where I wanted. Having a couple buildings that were tall, that you don't see during normal play, was NOT an improvement or a tradeoff worth losing it.

2. The return of stealth and scouting gameplay. Trying to differentiate between classes is all fine and good but nothing made the DA2 rogue feel more like a light armored fighter/warrior than removing these features. I really enjoy scouting ahead, disarming and setting up traps, picking which enemy would be the best to ambush at the start of the fight, seeing the layout of the rooms ahead, etc.

3. The replacement / removal of paraphrases. When I roleplay in a game, I want to pick the response that most closely matches what my character would say. The combonation of personality tones and misleading paraphrases led to, most of the time, frustration. Every time it looked like there was going to be a conversation, I had to save, so that I could test the conversation options until I found something that would actually work. It felt more like dialogue roulette than a chat system.

[RosaAquafire]

Sure, why not. I loved DA2 but I can easily come up with three things to change for the better, here:

1. More transparency in companion relationships. It was immensely easy in DA:O to tell if you were in a romance, what number your score was at, how much someone liked you, etc etc. DA2 has a LOT of guesswork and it was the thing I hated the most. You see your numeric score for your relationship increases/decreases, but can't actually check the current number -- harrowing when you're trying to pursue one path and it's not working out. It's easy to just totally brick a romance by picking one wrong dialogue option with someone else, and the game never tells you that you did it. I don't know, I just found that dealing with relationships in DA2 required a lot of guesswork and a lot of reloading, and it was a big damn pain. Return to a numeric score and named levels, romances that have "him or me" dialogues that aren't perilously easy to bork, etc, etc.

2. Choices that affect things. They don't need to affect things much. They barely need to affect things at all. But it's really hard to make each of your Hawkes tell a different story, whereas I've never had a Warden make all the same choices. I want to defend this aspect of DA2, but there isn't much to DEFEND. There's exactly one/one and a half outcomes to most quests. Some offer as many as three, but very, very few. And even the different ones don't FEEL different. DA2 should have been the most reactive game to date, with the long timeline ... instead, it felt the least. I LOVED DA2, loved it, but replays have been universally unsatisfying because the narrative never really changes.

3. More stuff to explore. You know, I liked Kirkwall. I did. I thought that it was a great stylistic choice, making the city a character and having Hawke stay in Kirkwall for most of the game. I get what you were doing and I like it. But couldn't you have made there more countryside to explore? And reward us for taking the time to do so? I know, you've heard people whining that everything is samey for a long time, but: everything is samey. It's impossible to feel like an explorer in DA2. To be fair, DA:O was actually arse about this, too, in my opinion, but at least because the story takes you a lot of places, it disguises being arse by giving everything different colours and variations of arse.

Also, just saying -- I realize that Sebastian's personal quest cave was the same damn cave, but the reskin made a world of different. No one minds you reusing assets -- it's a neccessary evil of the industry. But at least try and conceal it.



While you have me on the hook, bonus: things that were huge improvements from DA:O to DA2 and you shouldn't take away:

1. Friendship and Rivalry paths. They need some refining but oh my god, it was amazing being able to have contentious relationships and not feel punished for it. The negative track in DA:O had very few dialogues and the only reason to pursue it was RP -- and it took the character in question out of the running completely as a viable party member, compared to one you had a pleasant relationship with. DA2 not only fixed the under the hood stuff, there, friendships/rivalries are one of the only things you can explore differently in different playthroughts in DA2. This needs to stay and be expanded.

2. Crafting. DA:O's crafting was so infuriating and asinine. It's like a twenty step process to make stuff, and it basically just boils down to sitting at a vendor buying mats and hitting the "yes" button over and over again. DA2 made crafting fun, at least to me. The scavenger hunt feeling for both materials and recipes, and how materials were infinite once found was awesome. Crafting was more USEFUL in DA2, too. I really enjoyed this. I'd make the rarer pots cost more GOLD to make, but yes. Hurray! This, paired with the "more exploration" I requested earlier, could be just amazing in DA3.

3. Fast-paced, fun, punchy, dramatic combat. Endless waves of dudes make me cry tears of blood, and it's too easy to get stunlocked (partially because of waves ...) but damn, everything else about DA2's combat, pace, visuals, everything, was criminal amounts of fun. I even liked the dudes exploding into pieces and was sad you took it out. Please no return to slow, tedious, lumbering combat. I liked feeling fast and responsive and impressive, and I loved pressing a button and having something happen. Even, yes, something awesome.

Modifié par RosaAquafire, 11 août 2011 - 07:00 .