Thinking of a game where time can be frozen 100% of the time for aiming and looking 360° as a shooter is a weird idea from my point of view.
There's the "why" and there's the "how", and if the "why" is almost always the same in RPG (there's basically two ways, the western RPG and the japanese one) the "how" actually took so many forms (RPG, A-RPG, T-RPG, MMORPG, and so much hybrid it isn't even funny) that I don't understand why people continue to think about it.
Why Mass Effect 1, 2, &3 are RPGs
Débuté par
SpiffySquee
, août 19 2011 01:49
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#777
Posté 14 septembre 2011 - 12:21
didymos1120
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Phaedon wrote...
Other than your usual self-contradictive cr@p about LARPs, are you seriosly saying that the term "role-playing game" wasn't coined untilDnDADnD?
Yep, you're absoultely correct on this score. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citation (sorry, it does require a subscription) for the term dates from 1954:
1954 H. I. Driver Multiple Counseling vi. 115 The rules of this role-playing game included reversing roles at anytime in the conversation the leader dictated.
Modifié par didymos1120, 14 septembre 2011 - 12:22 .
#778
Posté 14 septembre 2011 - 01:02
Gatt9
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Yeah, as simple as it is to dismiss it like that, that's the entire point.
The kind of elitists who start new topics and posts on this every other week, don't think that. They don't provide any new arguments (as you can see), but stick to their old ones which have been rebutted a dozen times, and that's exactly the problem.
Enjoyment and complexity has nothing to do with genre classification or re-use of generic mechanics. This is the community's problem, and that's exactly why we are debating.
If you are just going to "roger that", then we might as well stop arguing. If someone wants to call ME2 a flight sim because you are in a ship, and you often fly it around, they can go ahead. That's obviously not the issue at hand.
See here's your problem, I don't need new arguements, mainly because I'm correct. I've got decades of data behind me, and a ton of references to support my position.
You've run the gamut from "RPG's are board games!", "Go look up all the Roleplaying rules in first edition D&D!"(Which I really should've linked to other sites for it's sheer entertainment value), and IIRC once you even tried to rationalize ME2 as an RPG through the concept of Inheritance in programming, until you realized you had completely missed the concept of the base class.
Your arguements have to change because they're dead wrong, and the ironic part is you keep at it months after Bioware's press releases quit calling it an RPG.
It's really telling, you have no idea what an RPG is, where it started, what it constitutes, how it's different from Roleplaying, and how LARPS is different from both of them.
But you write page after page after page trying to pretend ME2 is an RPG...after Bioware quit bothering to pretend.
Your quoted post is the most perfect example possible of what I mean, none of us have started one of these threads in a month, this is the most recent one, and it was started by one of the "ME2 Elitists", here you are again telling stories to try and make yourself look like a victim.
The worst part of the whole thing is, I doubt you and any of the other ME2 Elitists would go outside and claim Saw is a comedy, or that Star Trek is a documentary. You'll use the classification system for everything else, but when it comes to ME2, suddenly "classifications don't fit", simply because you have some ulterior motive. It's a TPS with a story.
(Not very fun when people start blindly putting labels on you is it? Perhaps you should quit calling people "Elitists" because they actually know what RPG's are and you don't? Do you call your mechanic an "Elitist" because he knows more than you about your car? Do you call your teachers Elitists? I doubt it. But we're in your way and you can't deal with the arguements, so instead we're Elitists and you make claims about other's making "Stupidest post ever", which is ironic given some of the stuff you've come up with)
#779
Posté 14 septembre 2011 - 01:10
Gatt9
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didymos1120 wrote...
Phaedon wrote...
Other than your usual self-contradictive cr@p about LARPs, are you seriosly saying that the term "role-playing game" wasn't coined untilDnDADnD?
Yep, you're absoultely correct on this score. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citation (sorry, it does require a subscription) for the term dates from 1954:1954 H. I. Driver Multiple Counseling vi. 115 The rules of this role-playing game included reversing roles at anytime in the conversation the leader dictated.
I would want to see a bit more of the references for that, because we could be looking at the same situation as Wikipedia, a paraphrasing made after the advent of RPG's. TBH, without a clear citation from an actual 1954 volume, the possibility exists that someone later rewrote a lengthy description with a more familiar and shorter terminology.
@Phaedon, you really should trouble yourself to learn what the difference between LARPS and RPGs are before spewing nonsense, seriously. I would've thought the fact that they have two different acronyms would've clued you in much sooner...
#780
Posté 14 septembre 2011 - 01:20
Il Divo
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Gatt9 wrote...
The worst part of the whole thing is, I doubt you and any of the other ME2 Elitists would go outside and claim Saw is a comedy, or that Star Trek is a documentary. You'll use the classification system for everything else, but when it comes to ME2, suddenly "classifications don't fit", simply because you have some ulterior motive. It's a TPS with a story.
The only purpose of a classification is that anyone is able to use it consistently. If people hear the term "RPG" and think decisions, dialogue, interaction, etc, then obviously there must be something to the idea, whether the developers agree or not. Baldur's Gate was labeled RPG. I can engage in tactical stat-based combat. And I can engage in an interactive narrative. What does the "RPG" refer to?
(Not very fun when people start blindly putting labels on you is it? Perhaps you should quit calling people "Elitists" because they actually know what RPG's are and you don't? Do you call your mechanic an "Elitist" because he knows more than you about your car? Do you call your teachers Elitists? I doubt it. But we're in your way and you can't deal with the arguements, so instead we're Elitists and you make claims about other's making "Stupidest post ever", which is ironic given some of the stuff you've come up with)
When the arguments claim that tabletop was only about a rules set, and anything diverting isn't an RPG, then there's issues. What happens to action-RPGs? Jade Empire? Deus Ex? Kingdom Hearts? And what about sports/racing games where there actually are stats to deal with? People don't call these games "RPG"s. Language is what the majority makes of it, nothing more, nothing less. If most people say RPG means interactive narrative, that is its meaning.
Modifié par Il Divo, 14 septembre 2011 - 01:22 .
#781
Posté 14 septembre 2011 - 01:30
didymos1120
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Gatt9 wrote...
I would want to see a bit more of the references for that, because we could be looking at the same situation as Wikipedia, a paraphrasing made after the advent of RPG's. TBH, without a clear citation from an actual 1954 volume, the possibility exists that someone later rewrote a lengthy description with a more familiar and shorter terminology.
I take it you don't know how the Oxford English Dictionary works, do you? All the citations for all definitions are taken directly from primary sources. The entire point is to document English as extensively as possible.
Modifié par didymos1120, 14 septembre 2011 - 01:32 .
#782
Posté 14 septembre 2011 - 06:47
InvincibleHero
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Wow Gatt still going on. I am still waiting for responses to several posts.
What do you do when you play D&D? You speak for the character and make every decision based on what the DM gives you. LARP is different but both incorporate roleplaying just differently. A CRPG emulates the same by the writers setting all the scenarios and making algorithms to control everything.
Are you silent Gatt? What you pass notes to the DM saying my hit roll is 10 my character says.... ? Even so you are still roleplaying when you react to the situation the DM provides. Do you make no decisions based on a story the DM gives you? Everything you do establishes your PC and the personailty they possess.
Even a pure dungeon delve means you can spare an orc that talks to you and seems harmless. You might make a deal with bugbears. Even if you decide to just slaughter every encounter that is a RP decision. The numbers are not the roleplaying. The stats are not the roleplaying. The system is not the roleplaying. You are doing the roleplaying period when you play D&D.
You are flat out wrong in clinging to rules systems and supposed RPG elements. All RPGs do not possess the same elements, stats or whatever and if those are mutable they cannot establish what an RPG is. So strength is not a rpg element. It is present in some and is purely used to give real-world backing to a fantasy world. Do you roll to hit when you swing a sword? NO.
It is a game mechanic and that isn't role playing but roll playing. Not having a to hit roll doesn;t make a game not an RPG. many have no such thing.
if you take out what all RPGs have in common then you have what they actually are. They are people making decions about a character they wholly (create your own PC down to background etc) or partly own (established characters of various stripes like Shepard to 100% you had no input whatsoever) and make decisions for them in a cause and effect sequence of events thereby establishing the personality of the character and their repsonse to the environment within the game system used. You can roleplay with an established character if the game allows you. In linear games with storyboard cutscenes all pre-determined by the game company like most JRPGs not a chance of roleplaying. In Mass Effect you decide how each and every conversation goes and get to decide plot points in various ways and if that isn't roleplaing then nothing is.
Here is another post you won't respond to.
What do you do when you play D&D? You speak for the character and make every decision based on what the DM gives you. LARP is different but both incorporate roleplaying just differently. A CRPG emulates the same by the writers setting all the scenarios and making algorithms to control everything.
Are you silent Gatt? What you pass notes to the DM saying my hit roll is 10 my character says.... ? Even so you are still roleplaying when you react to the situation the DM provides. Do you make no decisions based on a story the DM gives you? Everything you do establishes your PC and the personailty they possess.
Even a pure dungeon delve means you can spare an orc that talks to you and seems harmless. You might make a deal with bugbears. Even if you decide to just slaughter every encounter that is a RP decision. The numbers are not the roleplaying. The stats are not the roleplaying. The system is not the roleplaying. You are doing the roleplaying period when you play D&D.
You are flat out wrong in clinging to rules systems and supposed RPG elements. All RPGs do not possess the same elements, stats or whatever and if those are mutable they cannot establish what an RPG is. So strength is not a rpg element. It is present in some and is purely used to give real-world backing to a fantasy world. Do you roll to hit when you swing a sword? NO.
It is a game mechanic and that isn't role playing but roll playing. Not having a to hit roll doesn;t make a game not an RPG. many have no such thing.if you take out what all RPGs have in common then you have what they actually are. They are people making decions about a character they wholly (create your own PC down to background etc) or partly own (established characters of various stripes like Shepard to 100% you had no input whatsoever) and make decisions for them in a cause and effect sequence of events thereby establishing the personality of the character and their repsonse to the environment within the game system used. You can roleplay with an established character if the game allows you. In linear games with storyboard cutscenes all pre-determined by the game company like most JRPGs not a chance of roleplaying. In Mass Effect you decide how each and every conversation goes and get to decide plot points in various ways and if that isn't roleplaing then nothing is.
Here is another post you won't respond to.
#783
Posté 15 septembre 2011 - 06:16
Varen Spectre
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[quote]Phaedon wrote...
Yeah, as simple as it is to dismiss it like that, that's the entire point.
The kind of elitists who start new topics and posts on this every other week, don't think that. They don't provide any new arguments (as you can see), but stick to their old ones which have been rebutted a dozen times, and that's
exactly the problem.
Enjoyment and complexity has nothing to do with genre classification or re-use of generic mechanics. This is the community's problem, and that's exactly why we are debating.
If you are just going to "roger that", then we might as well stop arguing. If someone wants to call ME2 a flight sim because you are in a ship, and you often fly it around, they can go ahead. That's obviously not the issue at hand.[/quote]
I am not sure how you have interpreted my “roger that” but I was not dismissing your proposal to agree that individual attribute (or level) upgrades (changes) are more significant in ME2 than in ME1. To the contrary, I wanted to say, that I hear you, understand you, agree and I am going to apply it in future – I am not going to contest that claim (and honestly I have never wanted because that's IMO obvious, unlike determining which of the Mass Effects has larger differences between minimum and maximum level of weapons, powers, talents, etc.which is much harder and laborious to do). I tend to use “Roger that” in the meaning of “I agree” and “I am on it” at the same time, but I guess it has more different meanings,… so from now on, I’ll avoid phrases.
Why I don’t consider this to be the main indicator of overall "depth" of stats and whether it is a proper approach or
not is discussed in the rest of our posts.
As for bringing the comparison of depth of “stats” again and again… Well, I have never posted about it and I don’t think I ever will… except for situation when somebody will post that he (she) knows which of the Mass Effects has overall deeper stats. Because it’s very likely that I would ask the same questions I asked you – how he (she) found that out and why. Thanks to this discussion however,... I know that I would have to ask what he (she) meant by “deeper“ first...
Also, hopefully, you are not taking this discussion as some kind of argument... It's just a comparison of two different approaches based on different philosophies... No reason to be too serious.
[quote]And we are still using the term deep which only complicates things further.
Either way, the original examples, I'll have to say, don't provide that much in the debate.[/quote]
Well, both you an I have hinted in our previous posts (you: “it doesn’t matter if we agree or disagree…“, me: “I
can see some nitpicking here and there, but I don’t see any big changes in our philosophies...[or something like that]“), that most likely, we are not going to agree in the end. I think that by now, both of us must have a good idea about what the other one considers important in measuring of overall “depth” of stats, why and why we can’t adopt each other’s philosophy...
So of course, very few sentences and points (if any at all) would provide something new and useful for this debate...
The example I provided is just a simple demonstration of what I consider important (overall size of difference between min. and max. levels), what I want to avoid (call a stat system with smaller differences between min. and max. level a “deeper”) and why your approach does not fully addresses my issue (it does not tell us which of the Mass Effects has bigger differences between min. and max. levels).
[quote]The point is moot there, because you are claiming that ME1 allows you to customize around stats more. Does it now? It allows you to fine tune stats mostly irrelevant to the actual game. No matter how much effort you put to them, statistically, you aren't moving nowhere.[/quote]
Come on, please… don’t twist my words... That is unnecessary and would result in devaluation of otherwise decent discussion.
From the start I am claiming, that I don’t know which of the Mass Effects allows to change the stats of individual
powers, weapons, items, etc. to larger degree. The closest thing to your claim might be that I said,… that I only felt like my Shepard at the end of ME1 was more powerful than Shepard at the beginning of ME1 by larger margin than in ME2.
However, at the same time I have admitted, that it was purely my subjective feeling and I am both, not counting on it too much (because it’s too subjective even for me) and I am not willing to present it as fact / from the point of authority. To the contrary, I encourage anyone to measure the effects of stats in practice and I would accept the result as fact.
Besides, the term “customization” is much more complex than how far the individual powers, talents, variables, etc. can be modified (leveled up). So even if I said (which I didn’t) that ME1 allows to upgrade most of the powers, weapons, etc. to larger degree, I would think twice before I would say that it allows better customization.
[quote]Not sure what you mean.[/quote]
I mean for example in ME2, the powers had effects that were more different from each other than the talents were in ME1. The visual and gameplay difference between charge and tactical cloak in ME2 is greater than difference between, I don’t know, tactical armor and barrier in ME1. And this should be taken into account in overall comparison of depth of stats as well.
Personally, I would count the differences between weapons in terms of in how many categories (rate of fire,
damage, accuracy, size of ammo clip) they differ from each other here too. And yes, Mass Effect 2 has greater
variety in effects of powers, weapons, etc.
[quote]That's easy enough.
Weapons had only three active variables in ME1, and even with upgrades, the statistical difference was hardly impressive.[/quote]
Mmm, you are right about number of variables attached to weapons. I agree with that.
As for other elements such as powers, talents, armors, etc. and how far any those elements (including weapons) can be modified (upgraded / leveled up),… I don’t know… But it is not my concern to know that, because I do not claim that I know the answer in one way or another… What I am doing is securing, that you or anyone else would take into account the overall differences between their lowest and highest values.
[quote]Yes, I have yet to understand the logic behind that.
Progression doesn't matter at all if you count it from Point A to Point Z. It can be done so badly that you don't notice the fact that you are progressing in the entire game. It is seamless to a fault. You don't specialize
at all.[/quote]
I am not sure, but is there some kind of rule that states what is and what is not progression? Or how big the difference between state A and state B must be for observers to call it a progression? Aren’t you foisting off your interpretation of progression a little bit here?
Personally, I have never seen any criteria or thresholds which would demark the size of differences between two states of something, which must be met, to call the difference between them a progression.
As for “fast” progression vs “far” progression, imagine pls that we have decided to be bodybuilders and started training. Also imagine pls that you would be able to improve at faster rate than me (you would be able to lift heavier weights and your muscles would be bigger). So basically at any moment of our joint training period you would be stronger – better bodybuilder than me.
But, what would happen if you decide to stop while I’ll keep training. Providing that none of us has reached his limit from which one can’t improve, wouldn’t I surpass you at some point of my further training? Despite the fact that I was improving at slower rate? If that happens and I surpass you, wouldn’t my overall progress be bigger than was yours - wouldn’t I be a better (more muscular, stronger) bodybuilder than you eventually? Is rate of improving (size between individual levels) really more important than how far can one improve overall (max levels) in comparison of overall depths (improvements)?
[quote]And why would staying static in relation to the original character be valid?
It's simple, you don't want to progress and specialize? Good. Don't bother with statistical progression. The enemies properly scale to your level, while you become more experienced with the game.That's the same thing. Heck, when there is more player input the more chance there is to have the minimal specialization you ask for. By the player discovering the tricks of the game.[/quote]
Wait, do you mean that enemies scale according to how developed Shepard’s abilities are instead of how high his (her) level is (regardless of whether the player uses the stats system or not)?
I admit I have never explored that so,… I don’t know… But it does not sound realistic to me and even Wikia says that they scale according to Shepard’s level, not according to his abilities.
So IMO using the stats would be beneficial and advisable for players, if not for anything else, than at least for being able to keep up with enemies. Regardless of how player distributes the skillpoints, the chance of finishing game increases with every invested skillpoint, because any improved ability may turn out to be useful at some point of game.
Yes player's real skill is more important but character's improved skills are always helpful. If not for anything else than for feeling that our characters are improving thanks to us.
[quote]- 3) Having the ability to have a static character in relation to your original one, certainly contradicts you
there.[/quote]
I am not sure I understand… Does Mass Effect 2 not allow the player to distribute skillpoints in abilities evenly too? IRC, that is what the game does with automatic leveling up. The only difference is that it is done by larger steps. So wouldn't by that logic (providing that I understood your point) be a leveled up character with evenly distributed skillpoints static in comparison to the un-leveled one from the beginning? Especially if we would assume that enemies would scale up properly?
[quote]And that doesn't quite matter. A few shots from an assault rifle, no matter how bad it is, will be able to take down the geth. The same amount of shots (should) take down the enemy some levels later, even though you have progressed and changed your equipment.[/quote]
But does it really take same time to kill that Geth? Does that Geth do the same damage to Shepard on all levels? Can you vouch that it really works that way in any of Mass Effects? Shouldn’t someone who wants to claim that he (she) knows the answer measure it?
[quote]Scaling is there for a reason. It works well. ME is not an open world game, it is a modern game, which means that it has to live up to some balance standards to be enjoyable, and has enough player input for a player skill/learning curve to be crucial to the gameplay.[/quote]
I am not talking about whether level-scaling is good or bad for gameplay here. I am talking about how it would complicate any calculations of effects of “stats“ (both effects of leveling up by 1 level and effects of differences between lowest and highest level) in practice.
But, like I said, I am curious about the stats of which Mass Effect can influence the gameplay to larger degree and I will accept the results of actual measure any day – i.e. how much time doe it take to kill an enemy from particular distance on particular (preferably lowest and highest) level, how much time does it take to kill Shepard, etc.. IRC,
it was you who had objections against measuring the effects of stats in actual game, not me.
[quote]As changes, the comparison numbers can talk about themselves. A change is significant is the leap from Point A to Point B are significant. The problem with applying this to Point A to Point Z is this though, if the leaps from Point A to Point B, and from Point B to Point C were not large enough, then they will not appear large enough for the player in the end. It's like cutting up a big pie in 100 pieces and eating it a bit by a bit throughout a day.[/quote]
But do the 2 pies (effects of Mass Effects' stats) have the same size? That’s what I am asking... Not whether the pieces of one pie are larger than the pieces of the other. If you are allowed to eat the whole pie and not just some pieces, shouldn’t you be more interested in which pie is larger than which pie is cut to larger pieces? At least I would.
Providing that taste of pies is not an issue, of course.
Edit note: - I have removed my replies to your replies () on how I perceive the balance of individual aspects in ME1 because I think that exceeds the scope of our discussion which is off topic already. Most of them were explanations of why is it actually good for gameplay that way or how you perceive the balance of that aspect - so not much to discuss with respect to "depth" of stats anyway...
Yeah, as simple as it is to dismiss it like that, that's the entire point.
The kind of elitists who start new topics and posts on this every other week, don't think that. They don't provide any new arguments (as you can see), but stick to their old ones which have been rebutted a dozen times, and that's
exactly the problem.
Enjoyment and complexity has nothing to do with genre classification or re-use of generic mechanics. This is the community's problem, and that's exactly why we are debating.
If you are just going to "roger that", then we might as well stop arguing. If someone wants to call ME2 a flight sim because you are in a ship, and you often fly it around, they can go ahead. That's obviously not the issue at hand.[/quote]
I am not sure how you have interpreted my “roger that” but I was not dismissing your proposal to agree that individual attribute (or level) upgrades (changes) are more significant in ME2 than in ME1. To the contrary, I wanted to say, that I hear you, understand you, agree and I am going to apply it in future – I am not going to contest that claim (and honestly I have never wanted because that's IMO obvious, unlike determining which of the Mass Effects has larger differences between minimum and maximum level of weapons, powers, talents, etc.which is much harder and laborious to do). I tend to use “Roger that” in the meaning of “I agree” and “I am on it” at the same time, but I guess it has more different meanings,… so from now on, I’ll avoid phrases.
Why I don’t consider this to be the main indicator of overall "depth" of stats and whether it is a proper approach or
not is discussed in the rest of our posts.
As for bringing the comparison of depth of “stats” again and again… Well, I have never posted about it and I don’t think I ever will… except for situation when somebody will post that he (she) knows which of the Mass Effects has overall deeper stats. Because it’s very likely that I would ask the same questions I asked you – how he (she) found that out and why. Thanks to this discussion however,... I know that I would have to ask what he (she) meant by “deeper“ first...
Also, hopefully, you are not taking this discussion as some kind of argument... It's just a comparison of two different approaches based on different philosophies... No reason to be too serious.
[quote]And we are still using the term deep which only complicates things further.
Either way, the original examples, I'll have to say, don't provide that much in the debate.[/quote]
Well, both you an I have hinted in our previous posts (you: “it doesn’t matter if we agree or disagree…“, me: “I
can see some nitpicking here and there, but I don’t see any big changes in our philosophies...[or something like that]“), that most likely, we are not going to agree in the end. I think that by now, both of us must have a good idea about what the other one considers important in measuring of overall “depth” of stats, why and why we can’t adopt each other’s philosophy...
So of course, very few sentences and points (if any at all) would provide something new and useful for this debate...
The example I provided is just a simple demonstration of what I consider important (overall size of difference between min. and max. levels), what I want to avoid (call a stat system with smaller differences between min. and max. level a “deeper”) and why your approach does not fully addresses my issue (it does not tell us which of the Mass Effects has bigger differences between min. and max. levels).
[quote]The point is moot there, because you are claiming that ME1 allows you to customize around stats more. Does it now? It allows you to fine tune stats mostly irrelevant to the actual game. No matter how much effort you put to them, statistically, you aren't moving nowhere.[/quote]
Come on, please… don’t twist my words... That is unnecessary and would result in devaluation of otherwise decent discussion.
From the start I am claiming, that I don’t know which of the Mass Effects allows to change the stats of individual
powers, weapons, items, etc. to larger degree. The closest thing to your claim might be that I said,… that I only felt like my Shepard at the end of ME1 was more powerful than Shepard at the beginning of ME1 by larger margin than in ME2.
However, at the same time I have admitted, that it was purely my subjective feeling and I am both, not counting on it too much (because it’s too subjective even for me) and I am not willing to present it as fact / from the point of authority. To the contrary, I encourage anyone to measure the effects of stats in practice and I would accept the result as fact.
Besides, the term “customization” is much more complex than how far the individual powers, talents, variables, etc. can be modified (leveled up). So even if I said (which I didn’t) that ME1 allows to upgrade most of the powers, weapons, etc. to larger degree, I would think twice before I would say that it allows better customization.
[quote]Not sure what you mean.[/quote]
I mean for example in ME2, the powers had effects that were more different from each other than the talents were in ME1. The visual and gameplay difference between charge and tactical cloak in ME2 is greater than difference between, I don’t know, tactical armor and barrier in ME1. And this should be taken into account in overall comparison of depth of stats as well.
Personally, I would count the differences between weapons in terms of in how many categories (rate of fire,
damage, accuracy, size of ammo clip) they differ from each other here too. And yes, Mass Effect 2 has greater
variety in effects of powers, weapons, etc.
[quote]That's easy enough.
Weapons had only three active variables in ME1, and even with upgrades, the statistical difference was hardly impressive.[/quote]
Mmm, you are right about number of variables attached to weapons. I agree with that.
As for other elements such as powers, talents, armors, etc. and how far any those elements (including weapons) can be modified (upgraded / leveled up),… I don’t know… But it is not my concern to know that, because I do not claim that I know the answer in one way or another… What I am doing is securing, that you or anyone else would take into account the overall differences between their lowest and highest values.
[quote]Yes, I have yet to understand the logic behind that.
Progression doesn't matter at all if you count it from Point A to Point Z. It can be done so badly that you don't notice the fact that you are progressing in the entire game. It is seamless to a fault. You don't specialize
at all.[/quote]
I am not sure, but is there some kind of rule that states what is and what is not progression? Or how big the difference between state A and state B must be for observers to call it a progression? Aren’t you foisting off your interpretation of progression a little bit here?
Personally, I have never seen any criteria or thresholds which would demark the size of differences between two states of something, which must be met, to call the difference between them a progression.
As for “fast” progression vs “far” progression, imagine pls that we have decided to be bodybuilders and started training. Also imagine pls that you would be able to improve at faster rate than me (you would be able to lift heavier weights and your muscles would be bigger). So basically at any moment of our joint training period you would be stronger – better bodybuilder than me.
But, what would happen if you decide to stop while I’ll keep training. Providing that none of us has reached his limit from which one can’t improve, wouldn’t I surpass you at some point of my further training? Despite the fact that I was improving at slower rate? If that happens and I surpass you, wouldn’t my overall progress be bigger than was yours - wouldn’t I be a better (more muscular, stronger) bodybuilder than you eventually? Is rate of improving (size between individual levels) really more important than how far can one improve overall (max levels) in comparison of overall depths (improvements)?
[quote]And why would staying static in relation to the original character be valid?
It's simple, you don't want to progress and specialize? Good. Don't bother with statistical progression. The enemies properly scale to your level, while you become more experienced with the game.That's the same thing. Heck, when there is more player input the more chance there is to have the minimal specialization you ask for. By the player discovering the tricks of the game.[/quote]
Wait, do you mean that enemies scale according to how developed Shepard’s abilities are instead of how high his (her) level is (regardless of whether the player uses the stats system or not)?
I admit I have never explored that so,… I don’t know… But it does not sound realistic to me and even Wikia says that they scale according to Shepard’s level, not according to his abilities.So IMO using the stats would be beneficial and advisable for players, if not for anything else, than at least for being able to keep up with enemies. Regardless of how player distributes the skillpoints, the chance of finishing game increases with every invested skillpoint, because any improved ability may turn out to be useful at some point of game.
Yes player's real skill is more important but character's improved skills are always helpful. If not for anything else than for feeling that our characters are improving thanks to us.
[quote]- 3) Having the ability to have a static character in relation to your original one, certainly contradicts you
there.[/quote]
I am not sure I understand… Does Mass Effect 2 not allow the player to distribute skillpoints in abilities evenly too? IRC, that is what the game does with automatic leveling up. The only difference is that it is done by larger steps. So wouldn't by that logic (providing that I understood your point) be a leveled up character with evenly distributed skillpoints static in comparison to the un-leveled one from the beginning? Especially if we would assume that enemies would scale up properly?
[quote]And that doesn't quite matter. A few shots from an assault rifle, no matter how bad it is, will be able to take down the geth. The same amount of shots (should) take down the enemy some levels later, even though you have progressed and changed your equipment.[/quote]
But does it really take same time to kill that Geth? Does that Geth do the same damage to Shepard on all levels? Can you vouch that it really works that way in any of Mass Effects? Shouldn’t someone who wants to claim that he (she) knows the answer measure it?
[quote]Scaling is there for a reason. It works well. ME is not an open world game, it is a modern game, which means that it has to live up to some balance standards to be enjoyable, and has enough player input for a player skill/learning curve to be crucial to the gameplay.[/quote]
I am not talking about whether level-scaling is good or bad for gameplay here. I am talking about how it would complicate any calculations of effects of “stats“ (both effects of leveling up by 1 level and effects of differences between lowest and highest level) in practice.
But, like I said, I am curious about the stats of which Mass Effect can influence the gameplay to larger degree and I will accept the results of actual measure any day – i.e. how much time doe it take to kill an enemy from particular distance on particular (preferably lowest and highest) level, how much time does it take to kill Shepard, etc.. IRC,
it was you who had objections against measuring the effects of stats in actual game, not me.
[quote]As changes, the comparison numbers can talk about themselves. A change is significant is the leap from Point A to Point B are significant. The problem with applying this to Point A to Point Z is this though, if the leaps from Point A to Point B, and from Point B to Point C were not large enough, then they will not appear large enough for the player in the end. It's like cutting up a big pie in 100 pieces and eating it a bit by a bit throughout a day.[/quote]
But do the 2 pies (effects of Mass Effects' stats) have the same size? That’s what I am asking... Not whether the pieces of one pie are larger than the pieces of the other. If you are allowed to eat the whole pie and not just some pieces, shouldn’t you be more interested in which pie is larger than which pie is cut to larger pieces? At least I would.
Providing that taste of pies is not an issue, of course.
Edit note: - I have removed my replies to your replies (
) on how I perceive the balance of individual aspects in ME1 because I think that exceeds the scope of our discussion which is off topic already. Most of them were explanations of why is it actually good for gameplay that way or how you perceive the balance of that aspect - so not much to discuss with respect to "depth" of stats anyway...
Modifié par Varen Spectre, 16 septembre 2011 - 11:01 .
#784
Posté 17 septembre 2011 - 08:44
Phaedon
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[quote]Varen Spectre wrote...
I am not sure how you have interpreted my “roger that” but I was not dismissing your proposal to agree that individual attribute (or level) upgrades (changes) are more significant in ME2 than in ME1. To the contrary, I wanted to say, that I hear you, understand you, agree and I am going to apply it in future – I am not going to contest that claim (and honestly I have never wanted because that's IMO obvious, unlike determining which of the Mass Effects has larger differences between minimum and maximum level of weapons, powers, talents, etc.which is much harder and laborious to do). I tend to use “Roger that” in the meaning of “I agree” and “I am on it” at the same time, but I guess it has more different meanings,… so from now on, I’ll avoid phrases.
Why I don’t consider this to be the main indicator of overall "depth" of stats and whether it is a proper approach or
not is discussed in the rest of our posts.
As for bringing the comparison of depth of “stats” again and again… Well, I have never posted about it and I don’t think I ever will… except for situation when somebody will post that he (she) knows which of the Mass Effects has overall deeper stats. Because it’s very likely that I would ask the same questions I asked you – how he (she) found that out and why. Thanks to this discussion however,... I know that I would have to ask what he (she) meant by “deeper“ first...
Also, hopefully, you are not taking this discussion as some kind of argument... It's just a comparison of two different approaches based on different philosophies... No reason to be too serious.
[/quote]
The colored part is exactly what I have been saying in my previous post.
The "depth", other than used as a compliment in very specific posts by very specific users, has no real debate value for me, sorry. That's why I participated in this debate in the first place, this is why the debate exists in the first place, anyway.
I don't think that there is going to be an actually serious debate about ME2 being an RPG or not. These debates are clearly the product of unconstructive criticism.
Now why does "depth" have no other debate value for me?
Well, that's just it. We have yet to define depth, and we will probably not do so for several pages, and definitions of such vague concepts don't really interest me.
If you want to debate on "fine-tuning" vs "specialization", I'd argue that both are perfectly valid. In fact, most game mechanics are essentially valid as vague concepts. However, when you promote "growth" instead of "specialization" in a game where you have scaled items and enemies, err, it sort of misses the point. I can't think of many examples where that worked well.
[quote]Well, both you an I have hinted in our previous posts (you: “it doesn’t matter if we agree or disagree…“, me: “I
can see some nitpicking here and there, but I don’t see any big changes in our philosophies...[or something like that]“), that most likely, we are not going to agree in the end. I think that by now, both of us must have a good idea about what the other one considers important in measuring of overall “depth” of stats, why and why we can’t adopt each other’s philosophy...
So of course, very few sentences and points (if any at all) would provide something new and useful for this debate...
The example I provided is just a simple demonstration of what I consider important (overall size of difference between min. and max. levels), what I want to avoid (call a stat system with smaller differences between min. and max. level a “deeper”) and why your approach does not fully addresses my issue (it does not tell us which of the Mass Effects has bigger differences between min. and max. levels).[/quote]
We can, as I said earlier, under the right circumstances debate a bit further into what "depth" means, but I maintain that your examples are flawed because they are not really representative of both games. Therefore, debating on two hypothetical concepts that are far from reality isn't something very relevant to Mass Effect. Yes, they do share some features with the two Mass Effects. But, and the but is very important here, there are a lot of other features, which in combination of these features, they have other results, etc. I think I have made that clear and more specific a few pages ago.
[quote]Come on, please… don’t twist my words... That is unnecessary and would result in devaluation of otherwise decent discussion.[/quote]Not my intention. I am either not reading what you post properly, or you don't word it properly. Either way, it doesn't matter as far as the misunderstanding is resolved.
[quote]From the start I am claiming, that I don’t know which of the Mass Effects allows to change the stats of individual
powers, weapons, items, etc. to larger degree. The closest thing to your claim might be that I said,… that I only felt like my Shepard at the end of ME1 was more powerful than Shepard at the beginning of ME1 by larger margin than in ME2. [/quote]
And even in the case that that is true for Mass Effect 1, it's not really a result restricted to statistical progression. Take a look at the Collector Ship weapons in ME2 and the sudden sense of (fake, in fact) growth they gave you. But even so, you are arguing about "growth", when the system is clearly created for "specialization". Therefore, you are adding a byproduct of a system as a good think, although the fact that that byproduct exists, or that you enjoy that system due to the byproduct renders the very system that produces it as flawed. What does "flawed" mean? For the developers to not deliver what they wanted from the system originally. And we are not talking about a development overlook that turns out to actually add to the game (I believe that a feature in the ol' game "War Hogs" where you can land a commando pig in the very beginning of the game and kill the enemy within seconds is often used to describe a "good" exploit, though to be honest I don't see that, either) but we are talking about something that takes the focus of the game's real "product". The thing is, the "product" aka the "specialization" is still there, it just doesn't work as well.
[quote]However, at the same time I have admitted, that it was purely my subjective feeling and I am both, not counting on it too much (because it’s too subjective even for me) and I am not willing to present it as fact / from the point of authority. To the contrary, I encourage anyone to measure the effects of stats in practice and I would accept the result as fact.
Besides, the term “customization” is much more complex than how far the individual powers, talents, variables, etc. can be modified (leveled up). So even if I said (which I didn’t) that ME1 allows to upgrade most of the powers, weapons, etc. to larger degree, I would think twice before I would say that it allows better customization.[/quote]
The reason customization is a term to be used as a hot potato (as in, throw it away immediatelly and pick up a much cooler and easier to peel, potato) is because statistical and aesthetical customization are two very different things which appeal to different kinds of people, and are actually not definitive to a genre. A custom aeshetic feature can add as much depth to a character as a statistical one. As in, Shepard isn't just a good sniper, he also has a scar from a bar fight with a batarian, two weeks before the beginning of ME1. Where did I come with the second one? Imagination. The buzz word used to describe RPGs, no?
[quote]I mean for example in ME2, the powers had effects that were more different from each other than the talents were in ME1. The visual and gameplay difference between charge and tactical cloak in ME2 is greater than difference between, I don’t know, tactical armor and barrier in ME1. And this should be taken into account in overall comparison of depth of stats as well.[/quote]Not necessarily. You may be entering into a different subject altogether. This has more to do with game design rather than player choice. It doesn't really matter how many variables you are customizing (since as I said, that's just an illusion), but it's about quantity and diversity of powers. Yeah, sure, you can use tactical armor and barrier. There are some differences, but does the developer believe that the choice you are being given actually matters? Of course this is just a matter of design philosophy, not genre distinctions, and probably not "depth".
[quote]Personally, I would count the differences between weapons in terms of in how many categories (rate of fire,
damage, accuracy, size of ammo clip) they differ from each other here too. And yes, Mass Effect 2 has greater
variety in effects of powers, weapons, etc. [/quote]
That would probably not work, since if ME1 weapons have such variables, all but three of them do not matter in-game, because no matter which weapon you choose, they will be identical. Not just better or worse, literally identical.
So, what you are saying is that diversity=depth?
[quote]Mmm, you are right about number of variables attached to weapons. I agree with that.
As for other elements such as powers, talents, armors, etc. and how far any those elements (including weapons) can be modified (upgraded / leveled up),… I don’t know… But it is not my concern to know that, because I do not claim that I know the answer in one way or another… What I am doing is securing, that you or anyone else would take into account the overall differences between their lowest and highest values.[/quote]
Considering that "levelling-up" weapons is a byproduct and done 100% "passively", I don't see much point into comparing them between ME1 and 2. In ME2 every weapon has different stats, there is choice, even with the Collector Ship weapon acquired. In ME1, you will choose the weapon with the higher value, that's just it. There are no (ATK):Better, (ACC):Worse, (COO): Better settings (I should know, I had to convert every statistic into a per cent value for Mass Effect Chronicles), the settings are just those: (ATK):Better, (ACC):Better, (COO):Better.
[quote]I am not sure, but is there some kind of rule that states what is and what is not progression? Or how big the difference between state A and state B must be for observers to call it a progression? Aren’t you foisting off your interpretation of progression a little bit here?[/quote]
There are two different kinds of progression as I can tell.
You either go higher, which is a feature JRPGs are well known for, or you go deeper, which is generally what you will see in WRPGs.
Now, let me stop you there. Yes, you can grow in "WRPGs", but only if the enemies and items don't scale. Which they do, in ME1, so there isn't much point.
Again, I couldn't care less about sub-genre restrictions. They are all made up, and are so problematic for classifying even rather generic games that it's not even funny. What I am saying is that both systems are valid. It's just that, you will have to pick one of the two. You want to grow? Good. Make your abilities overall better and maintain the enemies where they are, or introduce new enemies every few levels. You want to specialize at the same time? That's easy to do, but, you say that you want to grow and specialize while your enemies are scaled? Yeah, there are inherent issues with that which are very visible, I am afraid.
[quote]Personally, I have never seen any criteria or thresholds which would demark the size of differences between two states of something, which must be met, to call the difference between them a progression.[/quote]
That's...rather impossible. I am sure you can tell that "Wow, a lot of time has passed", when you wake up after sleeping for 8 hours and seeing that it's actually day when it used to be night, rather than waiting for 8 hours in a chair and suddenly remark "Wait, my clock says that 8 hours have passed! I couldn't tell that from the sky at all, the color didn't seem to change drastically!"
Bad example, but you know what I mean.
[quote]As for “fast” progression vs “far” progression, imagine pls that we have decided to be bodybuilders and started training. Also imagine pls that you would be able to improve at faster rate than me (you would be able to lift heavier weights and your muscles would be bigger). So basically at any moment of our joint training period you would be stronger – better bodybuilder than me.
But, what would happen if you decide to stop while I’ll keep training. Providing that none of us has reached his limit from which one can’t improve, wouldn’t I surpass you at some point of my further training? Despite the fact that I was improving at slower rate? If that happens and I surpass you, wouldn’t my overall progress be bigger than was yours - wouldn’t I be a better (more muscular, stronger) bodybuilder than you eventually? Is rate of improving (size between individual levels) really more important than how far can one improve overall (max levels) in comparison of overall depths (improvements)?[/quote]
And if our coach had planned us to have relative capabilities, this would have been very bad.
But should one of us specialize in Skill B, instead of Skill A, then our capabilities would have been different, but that would be okay, because they were intended to not be relative or the same.
[quote]Wait, do you mean that enemies scale according to how developed Shepard’s abilities are instead of how high his (her) level is (regardless of whether the player uses the stats system or not)? I admit I have never explored that so,… I don’t know… But it does not sound realistic to me and even Wikia says that they scale according to Shepard’s level, not according to his abilities.[/quote]
Of course not, they scale to your level and your level alone. If anything, a very interesting feature would be your enemies becoming progressively weaker in the specific ability you are advancing through, but becoming stronger on the opposite ability of that.
[quote]So IMO using the stats would be beneficial and advisable for players, if not for anything else, than at least for being able to keep up with enemies. Regardless of how player distributes the skillpoints, the chance of finishing game increases with every invested skillpoint, because any improved ability may turn out to be useful at some point of game.[/quote]
Nope. Not when your enemies scale with you. You need to specialize into a good build, if you waste your skill points here and there (or even go fine-tune to have a balanced character), you are going to have some difficulty later on in the game.
[quote]Yes player's real skill is more important but character's improved skills are always helpful. If not for anything else than for feeling that our characters are improving thanks to us.[/quote]
And yet, the very existance of player input renders some definitions of RPG I have seen here wrong. Not arguing, just thought it was rather interesting.
[quote]I am not sure I understand… Does Mass Effect 2 not allow the player to distribute skillpoints in abilities evenly too? IRC, that is what the game does with automatic leveling up. The only difference is that it is done by larger steps. So wouldn't by that logic (providing that I understood your point) be a leveled up character with evenly distributed skillpoints static in comparison to the un-leveled one from the beginning? Especially if we would assume that enemies would scale up properly?[/quote]
Overall? Not unless you max out your character, no.
In a specific part of the game? Definitely not. The fact that you are investing in the big...er "packets" or ME2 instead of the small ones of ME1 ensures that. You are going to drastically change, statistically, into something else. You can try spreading your points evenly, but seeing as you can't spend only a single point past level 1 of each attribute, no. Unless you mod your save to have a lot of points.
[quote]But does it really take same time to kill that Geth? Does that Geth do the same damage to Shepard on all levels? Can you vouch that it really works that way in any of Mass Effects? Shouldn’t someone who wants to claim that he (she) knows the answer measure it?[/quote]I think I lost you somewhere there. Weapons will always have the same kind of statistics, no matter what. When you pick a new weapon, you are picking the undeniably best one at the time, and because exactly, the geth scale with you, it won't matter at all.
[quote]I am not talking about whether level-scaling is good or bad for gameplay here. I am talking about how it would complicate any calculations of effects of “stats“ (both effects of leveling up by 1 level and effects of differences between lowest and highest level) in practice.[/quote]I am not sure it complicates the calculations, I'd say it does the exact opposite.
The very concept of the scaling system is to always provide a challenge. When you grow in general and specifically grow to the point that you are too powerful for the poor enemies, you know that the scaling system has done pretty badly.
It is obvious to me that the scaling system wants to ensure a generally fair fight. One that encourages you to find loopholes through, and specialize in attributes and create new tactics to the difference between the various stats. When a scaling system fails to give you a fair fight that requires to some decent extent the use of tactics and abilities, I'd say that system has failed. Completely.
[quote]But, like I said, I am curious about the stats of which Mass Effect can influence the gameplay to larger degree and I will accept the results of actual measure any day – i.e. how much time doe it take to kill an enemy from particular distance on particular (preferably lowest and highest) level, how much time does it take to kill Shepard, etc.. IRC,
it was you who had objections against measuring the effects of stats in actual game, not me. [/quote]
Probably not, seeing as I pointed out that ME2 makes "huge leaps" rather than ME1's "baby steps" when it comes to progression.
[quote]But do the 2 pies (effects of Mass Effects' stats) have the same size? That’s what I am asking... Not whether the pieces of one pie are larger than the pieces of the other. If you are allowed to eat the whole pie and not just some pieces, shouldn’t you be more interested in which pie is larger than which pie is cut to larger pieces? At least I would.[/quote]Actually, as much as ME1 tried to be balanced with all the scaled enemies and items, etc, there are still OP weapons and powers. With player input, hilariously being one of the features that leads to this. Even if ME1's pie was bigger than ME2's, and it's actually how big the pie is that causes all these balance problems...yeah. You definitely do NOT want to eat the whole pie. Your tummy will hurt after that.
Perhaps it would be better to say that your tummy will hurt less when you eat the entire pie. But you do want it to hurt because it...provides a challenge? I don't know, this example has went pretty badly. When you eat all of the pie, you end up having no challenge at all and...guess what. You have no use of your specialization. Every progression of that kind that you made in the game (mind you, the system is based on specialization) is now useless.
[quote]Providing that taste of pies is not an issue, of course.[/quote]
The taste is quite different. But that's not necessarily the big issue here.
I am not sure how you have interpreted my “roger that” but I was not dismissing your proposal to agree that individual attribute (or level) upgrades (changes) are more significant in ME2 than in ME1. To the contrary, I wanted to say, that I hear you, understand you, agree and I am going to apply it in future – I am not going to contest that claim (and honestly I have never wanted because that's IMO obvious, unlike determining which of the Mass Effects has larger differences between minimum and maximum level of weapons, powers, talents, etc.which is much harder and laborious to do). I tend to use “Roger that” in the meaning of “I agree” and “I am on it” at the same time, but I guess it has more different meanings,… so from now on, I’ll avoid phrases.
Why I don’t consider this to be the main indicator of overall "depth" of stats and whether it is a proper approach or
not is discussed in the rest of our posts.
As for bringing the comparison of depth of “stats” again and again… Well, I have never posted about it and I don’t think I ever will… except for situation when somebody will post that he (she) knows which of the Mass Effects has overall deeper stats. Because it’s very likely that I would ask the same questions I asked you – how he (she) found that out and why. Thanks to this discussion however,... I know that I would have to ask what he (she) meant by “deeper“ first...
Also, hopefully, you are not taking this discussion as some kind of argument... It's just a comparison of two different approaches based on different philosophies... No reason to be too serious.
[/quote]
The colored part is exactly what I have been saying in my previous post.
The "depth", other than used as a compliment in very specific posts by very specific users, has no real debate value for me, sorry. That's why I participated in this debate in the first place, this is why the debate exists in the first place, anyway.
I don't think that there is going to be an actually serious debate about ME2 being an RPG or not. These debates are clearly the product of unconstructive criticism.
Now why does "depth" have no other debate value for me?
Well, that's just it. We have yet to define depth, and we will probably not do so for several pages, and definitions of such vague concepts don't really interest me.
If you want to debate on "fine-tuning" vs "specialization", I'd argue that both are perfectly valid. In fact, most game mechanics are essentially valid as vague concepts. However, when you promote "growth" instead of "specialization" in a game where you have scaled items and enemies, err, it sort of misses the point. I can't think of many examples where that worked well.
[quote]Well, both you an I have hinted in our previous posts (you: “it doesn’t matter if we agree or disagree…“, me: “I
can see some nitpicking here and there, but I don’t see any big changes in our philosophies...[or something like that]“), that most likely, we are not going to agree in the end. I think that by now, both of us must have a good idea about what the other one considers important in measuring of overall “depth” of stats, why and why we can’t adopt each other’s philosophy...
So of course, very few sentences and points (if any at all) would provide something new and useful for this debate...
The example I provided is just a simple demonstration of what I consider important (overall size of difference between min. and max. levels), what I want to avoid (call a stat system with smaller differences between min. and max. level a “deeper”) and why your approach does not fully addresses my issue (it does not tell us which of the Mass Effects has bigger differences between min. and max. levels).[/quote]
We can, as I said earlier, under the right circumstances debate a bit further into what "depth" means, but I maintain that your examples are flawed because they are not really representative of both games. Therefore, debating on two hypothetical concepts that are far from reality isn't something very relevant to Mass Effect. Yes, they do share some features with the two Mass Effects. But, and the but is very important here, there are a lot of other features, which in combination of these features, they have other results, etc. I think I have made that clear and more specific a few pages ago.
[quote]Come on, please… don’t twist my words... That is unnecessary and would result in devaluation of otherwise decent discussion.
[/quote]Not my intention. I am either not reading what you post properly, or you don't word it properly. Either way, it doesn't matter as far as the misunderstanding is resolved.[quote]From the start I am claiming, that I don’t know which of the Mass Effects allows to change the stats of individual
powers, weapons, items, etc. to larger degree. The closest thing to your claim might be that I said,… that I only felt like my Shepard at the end of ME1 was more powerful than Shepard at the beginning of ME1 by larger margin than in ME2. [/quote]
And even in the case that that is true for Mass Effect 1, it's not really a result restricted to statistical progression. Take a look at the Collector Ship weapons in ME2 and the sudden sense of (fake, in fact) growth they gave you. But even so, you are arguing about "growth", when the system is clearly created for "specialization". Therefore, you are adding a byproduct of a system as a good think, although the fact that that byproduct exists, or that you enjoy that system due to the byproduct renders the very system that produces it as flawed. What does "flawed" mean? For the developers to not deliver what they wanted from the system originally. And we are not talking about a development overlook that turns out to actually add to the game (I believe that a feature in the ol' game "War Hogs" where you can land a commando pig in the very beginning of the game and kill the enemy within seconds is often used to describe a "good" exploit, though to be honest I don't see that, either) but we are talking about something that takes the focus of the game's real "product". The thing is, the "product" aka the "specialization" is still there, it just doesn't work as well.
[quote]However, at the same time I have admitted, that it was purely my subjective feeling and I am both, not counting on it too much (because it’s too subjective even for me) and I am not willing to present it as fact / from the point of authority. To the contrary, I encourage anyone to measure the effects of stats in practice and I would accept the result as fact.
Besides, the term “customization” is much more complex than how far the individual powers, talents, variables, etc. can be modified (leveled up). So even if I said (which I didn’t) that ME1 allows to upgrade most of the powers, weapons, etc. to larger degree, I would think twice before I would say that it allows better customization.[/quote]
The reason customization is a term to be used as a hot potato (as in, throw it away immediatelly and pick up a much cooler and easier to peel, potato) is because statistical and aesthetical customization are two very different things which appeal to different kinds of people, and are actually not definitive to a genre. A custom aeshetic feature can add as much depth to a character as a statistical one. As in, Shepard isn't just a good sniper, he also has a scar from a bar fight with a batarian, two weeks before the beginning of ME1. Where did I come with the second one? Imagination. The buzz word used to describe RPGs, no?
[quote]I mean for example in ME2, the powers had effects that were more different from each other than the talents were in ME1. The visual and gameplay difference between charge and tactical cloak in ME2 is greater than difference between, I don’t know, tactical armor and barrier in ME1. And this should be taken into account in overall comparison of depth of stats as well.[/quote]Not necessarily. You may be entering into a different subject altogether. This has more to do with game design rather than player choice. It doesn't really matter how many variables you are customizing (since as I said, that's just an illusion), but it's about quantity and diversity of powers. Yeah, sure, you can use tactical armor and barrier. There are some differences, but does the developer believe that the choice you are being given actually matters? Of course this is just a matter of design philosophy, not genre distinctions, and probably not "depth".
[quote]Personally, I would count the differences between weapons in terms of in how many categories (rate of fire,
damage, accuracy, size of ammo clip) they differ from each other here too. And yes, Mass Effect 2 has greater
variety in effects of powers, weapons, etc. [/quote]
That would probably not work, since if ME1 weapons have such variables, all but three of them do not matter in-game, because no matter which weapon you choose, they will be identical. Not just better or worse, literally identical.
So, what you are saying is that diversity=depth?
[quote]Mmm, you are right about number of variables attached to weapons. I agree with that.
As for other elements such as powers, talents, armors, etc. and how far any those elements (including weapons) can be modified (upgraded / leveled up),… I don’t know… But it is not my concern to know that, because I do not claim that I know the answer in one way or another… What I am doing is securing, that you or anyone else would take into account the overall differences between their lowest and highest values.[/quote]
Considering that "levelling-up" weapons is a byproduct and done 100% "passively", I don't see much point into comparing them between ME1 and 2. In ME2 every weapon has different stats, there is choice, even with the Collector Ship weapon acquired. In ME1, you will choose the weapon with the higher value, that's just it. There are no (ATK):Better, (ACC):Worse, (COO): Better settings (I should know, I had to convert every statistic into a per cent value for Mass Effect Chronicles), the settings are just those: (ATK):Better, (ACC):Better, (COO):Better.
[quote]I am not sure, but is there some kind of rule that states what is and what is not progression? Or how big the difference between state A and state B must be for observers to call it a progression? Aren’t you foisting off your interpretation of progression a little bit here?[/quote]
There are two different kinds of progression as I can tell.
You either go higher, which is a feature JRPGs are well known for, or you go deeper, which is generally what you will see in WRPGs.
Now, let me stop you there. Yes, you can grow in "WRPGs", but only if the enemies and items don't scale. Which they do, in ME1, so there isn't much point.
Again, I couldn't care less about sub-genre restrictions. They are all made up, and are so problematic for classifying even rather generic games that it's not even funny. What I am saying is that both systems are valid. It's just that, you will have to pick one of the two. You want to grow? Good. Make your abilities overall better and maintain the enemies where they are, or introduce new enemies every few levels. You want to specialize at the same time? That's easy to do, but, you say that you want to grow and specialize while your enemies are scaled? Yeah, there are inherent issues with that which are very visible, I am afraid.
[quote]Personally, I have never seen any criteria or thresholds which would demark the size of differences between two states of something, which must be met, to call the difference between them a progression.[/quote]
That's...rather impossible. I am sure you can tell that "Wow, a lot of time has passed", when you wake up after sleeping for 8 hours and seeing that it's actually day when it used to be night, rather than waiting for 8 hours in a chair and suddenly remark "Wait, my clock says that 8 hours have passed! I couldn't tell that from the sky at all, the color didn't seem to change drastically!"
Bad example, but you know what I mean.
[quote]As for “fast” progression vs “far” progression, imagine pls that we have decided to be bodybuilders and started training. Also imagine pls that you would be able to improve at faster rate than me (you would be able to lift heavier weights and your muscles would be bigger). So basically at any moment of our joint training period you would be stronger – better bodybuilder than me.
But, what would happen if you decide to stop while I’ll keep training. Providing that none of us has reached his limit from which one can’t improve, wouldn’t I surpass you at some point of my further training? Despite the fact that I was improving at slower rate? If that happens and I surpass you, wouldn’t my overall progress be bigger than was yours - wouldn’t I be a better (more muscular, stronger) bodybuilder than you eventually? Is rate of improving (size between individual levels) really more important than how far can one improve overall (max levels) in comparison of overall depths (improvements)?[/quote]
And if our coach had planned us to have relative capabilities, this would have been very bad.
But should one of us specialize in Skill B, instead of Skill A, then our capabilities would have been different, but that would be okay, because they were intended to not be relative or the same.
[quote]Wait, do you mean that enemies scale according to how developed Shepard’s abilities are instead of how high his (her) level is (regardless of whether the player uses the stats system or not)?
I admit I have never explored that so,… I don’t know… But it does not sound realistic to me and even Wikia says that they scale according to Shepard’s level, not according to his abilities.[/quote]Of course not, they scale to your level and your level alone. If anything, a very interesting feature would be your enemies becoming progressively weaker in the specific ability you are advancing through, but becoming stronger on the opposite ability of that.
[quote]So IMO using the stats would be beneficial and advisable for players, if not for anything else, than at least for being able to keep up with enemies. Regardless of how player distributes the skillpoints, the chance of finishing game increases with every invested skillpoint, because any improved ability may turn out to be useful at some point of game.[/quote]
Nope. Not when your enemies scale with you. You need to specialize into a good build, if you waste your skill points here and there (or even go fine-tune to have a balanced character), you are going to have some difficulty later on in the game.
[quote]Yes player's real skill is more important but character's improved skills are always helpful. If not for anything else than for feeling that our characters are improving thanks to us.
[/quote]And yet, the very existance of player input renders some definitions of RPG I have seen here wrong. Not arguing, just thought it was rather interesting.
[quote]I am not sure I understand… Does Mass Effect 2 not allow the player to distribute skillpoints in abilities evenly too? IRC, that is what the game does with automatic leveling up. The only difference is that it is done by larger steps. So wouldn't by that logic (providing that I understood your point) be a leveled up character with evenly distributed skillpoints static in comparison to the un-leveled one from the beginning? Especially if we would assume that enemies would scale up properly?[/quote]
Overall? Not unless you max out your character, no.
In a specific part of the game? Definitely not. The fact that you are investing in the big...er "packets" or ME2 instead of the small ones of ME1 ensures that. You are going to drastically change, statistically, into something else. You can try spreading your points evenly, but seeing as you can't spend only a single point past level 1 of each attribute, no. Unless you mod your save to have a lot of points.
[quote]But does it really take same time to kill that Geth? Does that Geth do the same damage to Shepard on all levels? Can you vouch that it really works that way in any of Mass Effects? Shouldn’t someone who wants to claim that he (she) knows the answer measure it?
[/quote]I think I lost you somewhere there. Weapons will always have the same kind of statistics, no matter what. When you pick a new weapon, you are picking the undeniably best one at the time, and because exactly, the geth scale with you, it won't matter at all. [quote]I am not talking about whether level-scaling is good or bad for gameplay here. I am talking about how it would complicate any calculations of effects of “stats“ (both effects of leveling up by 1 level and effects of differences between lowest and highest level) in practice.[/quote]I am not sure it complicates the calculations, I'd say it does the exact opposite.
The very concept of the scaling system is to always provide a challenge. When you grow in general and specifically grow to the point that you are too powerful for the poor enemies, you know that the scaling system has done pretty badly.
It is obvious to me that the scaling system wants to ensure a generally fair fight. One that encourages you to find loopholes through, and specialize in attributes and create new tactics to the difference between the various stats. When a scaling system fails to give you a fair fight that requires to some decent extent the use of tactics and abilities, I'd say that system has failed. Completely.
[quote]But, like I said, I am curious about the stats of which Mass Effect can influence the gameplay to larger degree and I will accept the results of actual measure any day – i.e. how much time doe it take to kill an enemy from particular distance on particular (preferably lowest and highest) level, how much time does it take to kill Shepard, etc.. IRC,
it was you who had objections against measuring the effects of stats in actual game, not me. [/quote]
Probably not, seeing as I pointed out that ME2 makes "huge leaps" rather than ME1's "baby steps" when it comes to progression.
[quote]But do the 2 pies (effects of Mass Effects' stats) have the same size? That’s what I am asking... Not whether the pieces of one pie are larger than the pieces of the other. If you are allowed to eat the whole pie and not just some pieces, shouldn’t you be more interested in which pie is larger than which pie is cut to larger pieces? At least I would.
[/quote]Actually, as much as ME1 tried to be balanced with all the scaled enemies and items, etc, there are still OP weapons and powers. With player input, hilariously being one of the features that leads to this. Even if ME1's pie was bigger than ME2's, and it's actually how big the pie is that causes all these balance problems...yeah. You definitely do NOT want to eat the whole pie. Your tummy will hurt after that.Perhaps it would be better to say that your tummy will hurt less when you eat the entire pie. But you do want it to hurt because it...provides a challenge? I don't know, this example has went pretty badly. When you eat all of the pie, you end up having no challenge at all and...guess what. You have no use of your specialization. Every progression of that kind that you made in the game (mind you, the system is based on specialization) is now useless.
[quote]Providing that taste of pies is not an issue, of course.
[/quote]The taste is quite different. But that's not necessarily the big issue here.
Modifié par Phaedon, 18 septembre 2011 - 11:13 .
#785
Posté 17 septembre 2011 - 08:45
Phaedon
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Wee bit off-topic, but I always admired how you generally don't take sides on debates. Although you clearly have your own opinions. You must be very patient.didymos1120 wrote...
Yep, you're absoultely correct on this score. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citation (sorry, it does require a subscription) for the term dates from 1954:
I know, right.InvincibleHero wrote...
Wow Gatt still going on. I am still waiting for responses to several posts.
Are you deliberately attempting to miss the fact that I linked to a page which talks about very early forms of role-playing games as RPGs? And I could probably dig deeper than that. Victorian England deeper.Gatt9 wrote...
@Phaedon, you really should trouble yourself to learn what the difference between LARPS and RPGs are before spewing nonsense, seriously. I would've thought the fact that they have two different acronyms would've clued you in much sooner...
Modifié par Phaedon, 17 septembre 2011 - 09:10 .
#786
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 08:18
Bigdoser
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I am reading some of the post's in this topic and going off what they are saying Call of duty should be a amazing rpg right?
#787
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 09:43
SpiffySquee
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Bigdoser wrote...
I am reading some of the post's in this topic and going off what they are saying Call of duty should be a amazing rpg right?
How so?
#788
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 09:47
CroGamer002
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SpiffySquee wrote...
Bigdoser wrote...
I am reading some of the post's in this topic and going off what they are saying Call of duty should be a amazing rpg right?
How so?
Stats and mods?
#789
Guest_Catch This Fade_*
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 09:52
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Not enough to make COD an RPGMesina2 wrote...
SpiffySquee wrote...
Bigdoser wrote...
I am reading some of the post's in this topic and going off what they are saying Call of duty should be a amazing rpg right?
How so?
Stats and mods?
#790
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 09:53
Chewin
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SpiffySquee wrote...
How so?
I actually posted this before:
- You play as a fictional character.
- You kill fake people.
- Certain weapons deals set amounts of damage. And hitting on certain parts on the enemies body deals certain amount of damage, which adds role playing experience.
- There are maps.
- The enviroment is fictional andgrounded in a story
But I'm not being serious, and this doesn't make COD a RPG.
Modifié par Chewin3, 18 septembre 2011 - 09:54 .
#791
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 10:20
CroGamer002
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jreezy wrote...
Not enough to make COD an RPGMesina2 wrote...
SpiffySquee wrote...
Bigdoser wrote...
I am reading some of the post's in this topic and going off what they are saying Call of duty should be a amazing rpg right?
How so?
Stats and mods?
I was ironic there.
#792
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 11:10
SkittlesKat96
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The problem is there still isn't a clear majority opinion on what defines an Rpg (or at least I don't think so.)
I mean we can all say that Mass Effect is more of an Rpg than COD but we can't all say that we agree that ME is still an Rpg considering you play an already mostly defined character.
Personally I can't decide myself what I think, I want to say that ME is an Rpg but I have nothing to back that up really, either way though I don't think its a big deal.
EDIT: I think this is almost similar to asking whether Portal is a First person shooter.
In Portal its in first person and you technically have a gun, but at the same time its not quite the same to your typical Fps.
Same with Mass Effect. You control and role play a character and make choices, BUT you have a lot of restrictions compared to your typical Role playing game.
I know its not the greatest analogy/comparison/similar situation but still I thought I'd just put it out there.
The whole argument seems silly to me. If there isn't a resolution/consensus about this in the next few years then we should just forget about the whole argument before a vicious cycle begins (just like with the Christians Vs. atheists arguments)
I mean we can all say that Mass Effect is more of an Rpg than COD but we can't all say that we agree that ME is still an Rpg considering you play an already mostly defined character.
Personally I can't decide myself what I think, I want to say that ME is an Rpg but I have nothing to back that up really, either way though I don't think its a big deal.
EDIT: I think this is almost similar to asking whether Portal is a First person shooter.
In Portal its in first person and you technically have a gun, but at the same time its not quite the same to your typical Fps.
Same with Mass Effect. You control and role play a character and make choices, BUT you have a lot of restrictions compared to your typical Role playing game.
I know its not the greatest analogy/comparison/similar situation but still I thought I'd just put it out there.
The whole argument seems silly to me. If there isn't a resolution/consensus about this in the next few years then we should just forget about the whole argument before a vicious cycle begins (just like with the Christians Vs. atheists arguments)
Modifié par SkittlesKat96, 18 septembre 2011 - 11:16 .
#793
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 11:10
Phaedon
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I'd argue that the Rainbow Six Vegas spin-off games are the best examples of pure shooters with a lot of statistical and visual customization.
There are three, (I think?), modifiable stats attached to your character, and that's without taking the variety of weapons AND mods into account. In fact, the pieces of armor that ends up customizing your character statistically, are unlocked according to your in-game performance and progression, so talking about statistical progression is rather valid.
Say what you will about Vegas 1 and 2 in comparison to the much more tactical (and enjoyable, imo) Rainbow games, but you have to give this to them.
Then again, the Sims series has so much statistical progression that it isn't funny, and they are generally classified as simulation games.
There are three, (I think?), modifiable stats attached to your character, and that's without taking the variety of weapons AND mods into account. In fact, the pieces of armor that ends up customizing your character statistically, are unlocked according to your in-game performance and progression, so talking about statistical progression is rather valid.
Say what you will about Vegas 1 and 2 in comparison to the much more tactical (and enjoyable, imo) Rainbow games, but you have to give this to them.
Then again, the Sims series has so much statistical progression that it isn't funny, and they are generally classified as simulation games.
Under which definition are the ME games not RPGs?SkittlesKat96 wrote...
The problem is there still isn't a clear majority opinion on what defines an Rpg (or at least I don't think so.)
I mean we can all say that Mass Effect is more of an Rpg than COD but we can't all say that we agree that ME is still an Rpg considering you play an already mostly defined character.
Personally I can't decide myself what I think, I want to say that ME is an Rpg but I have nothing to back that up really, either way though I don't think its a big deal.
Modifié par Phaedon, 18 septembre 2011 - 11:12 .
#794
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 11:14
CroGamer002
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SkittlesKat96 wrote...
The problem is there still isn't a clear majority opinion on what defines an Rpg (or at least I don't think so.)
I mean we can all say that Mass Effect is more of an Rpg than COD but we can't all say that we agree that ME is still an Rpg considering you play an already mostly defined character.
Personally I can't decide myself what I think, I want to say that ME is an Rpg but I have nothing to back that up really, either way though I don't think its a big deal.
Ignoring that's a false statement, does that mean The Witcher and Deus Ex are not an RPG?
#795
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 11:18
SkittlesKat96
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Phaedon wrote...
Under which definition are the ME games not RPGs?SkittlesKat96 wrote...
The problem is there still isn't a clear majority opinion on what defines an Rpg (or at least I don't think so.)
I mean we can all say that Mass Effect is more of an Rpg than COD but we can't all say that we agree that ME is still an Rpg considering you play an already mostly defined character.
Personally I can't decide myself what I think, I want to say that ME is an Rpg but I have nothing to back that up really, either way though I don't think its a big deal.
I didn't really phrase that right, what I meant to say was that deep down I think that ME is an Rpg and I'm pretty sure that it should be defined as an Rpg but I don't really want to say it because there are still so many people out there who disagree so I'm a little bit unsure.
#796
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 11:20
Phaedon
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The "pre-defined character" statement is rather flawed.
It's a computer game. It's played with a computer. That computer can't possibly imagine with all of the trillions of various characters one can come up with. You will always be restricted to some specific species, appearances or combination of appearance features, to be the hero in plot-driven games, and have limited choices.
I have yet, for example, to play a CRPG as a fully blind, mute, quadriplegic pirate who used a time travel machine to travel from the 1400s to our present time, and can only think of parrots doing very specific types of stunts.
This is why player imagination is crucial to all RPGs.
It's a computer game. It's played with a computer. That computer can't possibly imagine with all of the trillions of various characters one can come up with. You will always be restricted to some specific species, appearances or combination of appearance features, to be the hero in plot-driven games, and have limited choices.
I have yet, for example, to play a CRPG as a fully blind, mute, quadriplegic pirate who used a time travel machine to travel from the 1400s to our present time, and can only think of parrots doing very specific types of stunts.
This is why player imagination is crucial to all RPGs.
#797
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 11:21
SkittlesKat96
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Mesina2 wrote...
SkittlesKat96 wrote...
The problem is there still isn't a clear majority opinion on what defines an Rpg (or at least I don't think so.)
I mean we can all say that Mass Effect is more of an Rpg than COD but we can't all say that we agree that ME is still an Rpg considering you play an already mostly defined character.
Personally I can't decide myself what I think, I want to say that ME is an Rpg but I have nothing to back that up really, either way though I don't think its a big deal.
Ignoring that's a false statement, does that mean The Witcher and Deus Ex are not an RPG?
I think they are Rpgs, but as I said, not everyone seems to agree for some reason. I think Deus Ex only gets off free from the disagree-ers is because they like the in-depth Rpg gameplay which sets it aside from non-Rpgs (or something like that)
As for The Witcher, well I think that is an Rpg myself but still, people for some reason disagree (and I don't know why)
#798
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 11:24
CroGamer002
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^People call the Witcher is not an RPG?
Are you sure they didn't troll?
I mean, I dislike the Witcher franchise, but they are definitely an RPG.
Are you sure they didn't troll?
I mean, I dislike the Witcher franchise, but they are definitely an RPG.
#799
Posté 18 septembre 2011 - 11:25
Phaedon
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I can't really argue why I think that ME1/2 are RPGs in a single post, because I have been doing that for dozens of pages, and the videos partially sum up my thoughts.SkittlesKat96 wrote...
I didn't really phrase that right, what I meant to say was that deep down I think that ME is an Rpg and I'm pretty sure that it should be defined as an Rpg but I don't really want to say it because there are still so many people out there who disagree so I'm a little bit unsure.
But since you seem to be rather moderate, I want to ask you, why do you care about the Mass Effect games being RPGs or not?
EDIT:
I do care, mostly because people state that ME1 was an RPG but ME2 was not, and do so in a negative manner, but I am not exactly moderate.
The lack of actual character creation does contribute to "naysayers", although the fact that you can choose what you want to say means that you develop your character and his personality.Mesina2 wrote...
^People call the Witcher is not an RPG?
Are you sure they didn't troll?
I mean, I dislike the Witcher franchise, but they are definitely an RPG.
Modifié par Phaedon, 18 septembre 2011 - 11:27 .
#800
Posté 19 septembre 2011 - 03:14
Bigdoser
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SpiffySquee wrote...
Bigdoser wrote...
I am reading some of the post's in this topic and going off what they are saying Call of duty should be a amazing rpg right?
How so?
I was being sarcastic
btw I enjoy your videos and lp's keep up the good work.
