[quote]Phaedon wrote...
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.
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.[/quote]
Mmm, I see. Allright then, I guess that for better or for worse, means that the end of this long but interesting discussion is near. Only few more details such as what we should measure (see the part about diversity of weapons and powers) and maybe what was the intention of developers (just out of curiosity) and we (or at least I) can leave room to other guys and maybe focus on threads that would be more beneficial for developers (I love "brainstorm" threads:wizard:).
Anyway,
thank you for patience and composure despite the fact that we were/are, kind of moving in circles…
[quote]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.[/quote]
I agree. Debating whether Mass Effects are or aren’t RPGs is
not useful. It, in itself, doesn’t say anything about
whether somebody likes the game or not, it isn’t useful for developers because they themselves do not insist on calling Mass Effects RPGs and it doesn’t say what features players actually liked, didn’t like or missed.
But sometimes,… sometimess people do useless things:lol:… and as long as it would be discussed politely, no harm would be done and people would be willing to spend their time on comparing their opinions about it… Why not? ¯\\_
_/¯
[quote]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]
IMO, the opinions whether it worked somewhere or didn’t (and how well) would again be very subjective and could vary from player to player. I for example think that Fallout 3 (where I think that certain type of enemies were replaced by another type every time player reached particular level) and even Mass Effect 1 on lower difficulties (because the enemies
did not level up as fast as Shepard, well at least according to Wikia, many threads on various forums and my experience with normal difficulty) combined level scaling and option to “grow“ (providing that by grow you mean being able to improve a lot of abilities without feeling the results of not investing all skillpoints into one or few key abilities) quite well… But there might be a lot of people who would say otherwise.
Of course, the discussion about specialization, level scaling, “overpowered” items, etc. would have a meaning only if I agree with you that “depth“ is something more than just size (scale) of changes between two marginal states of particular ability, item, weapon, etc...
… and I am not sure if I want to do that... because that would be another situation in which words “deep” and “depth“ would start to have somewhat subjective (especially since you said that you use term deep as compliment which kind of implies that somebody else might find the thing you consider deep even “deeper” or to the contrary much more “shallow”) meanings instead of objective and measurable ones (e.g. if one game allows to upgrade damage up to 50% and another up to 80%, there’s no room for arguing which game allows to upgrade damage to larger degree).
And in general, I am trying to
avoid bringing my subjective perceptions (in this case it would mean stating what I consider deep) on public forums as much as possible.
[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]
Well, I just imagined what kind of
implications your approach (measuring the depth of stats by measuring solely
the differences between individual levels and not also difference between minimum and maximum level) could potentially have in general (regardless of how it would work with Mass Effects’ systems).
And that is, that we could call a statistical system in the game that could have, let’s say only two (2) and only slightly larger levels than the levels in statistical system of the other game, which could have literally thousands of them and their total (combined) effect could thousand times
exceed the effects of difference between the two (individually) slightly larger levels in the 1st game, deeper. I just have problem to accept it as method of determining “depth”.
Of course, if I agreed that depth means something more than just size of differences between two marginal states, that it also (or better said,
mostly) means how
practical and meaningful the differences between those two states are and how many and how useful levels between them are, I could come to different conclusion...
Probably not to the same as yours, because I like smaller levels little bit more:blush: (though those in ME1 were too small for me too), but similar. And if somebody else came here, he (she) could have another opinion on what is better and as a result, his (her) perception of
depth would be different from both of us… And if there was 4th, 5th, etc. guy, all of them could have different perceptions of what is good, bad, practical and what deserves a compliment for its depth…
… And that for change, is a type of discussion
I don't want to participate in.
[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.[/quote]
And that’s why I have always promoted the detailed and thorough calculations or measurements. I do not trust my own, or anyone else’s, subjective perceptions.
As for whether hypothetically “stronger” Shepard at the end of ME1 (in comparison to enemies) than at the end
ME2 would be a result of ME1’s statistical progression or result of exception that is with respect to other game elements out of place (“overpowered“ weapon, item, upgrade) and whether it should be taken into account by us...
... I guess it would again come down to how we interpret the word “deep/er”. If I wanted to see in “deep” something more than just measurable size of something as you do, when you say that “deep” is a compliment then yes I could speculate if the “overpowered” items were intention or mistake and whether I should take them into account or not.
As of now, I prefer to count everything that has “stats” and is in the game. Otherwise I would make a subjective selection of what
I think that should or should not have been there.
[quote]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]
Very interesting approach... I have to admit, but IMO it implies at least three things:
- that developers wanted to promote purely “specialization” and not to give player a chance to choose between “specialization” and developing more skills, which given that not all enemies leveled up at the same pace as Shepard on majority of difficulties and therefore there was a room for investing skillpoints in other than “specialized” abilities, may IMO not be completely true (but you are here longer and probably have more information so if you know more about their intentions and ideas from interviews, tweets, posts, etc. I would gladly learn more about the mindset of one of my favorite studios:wizard:).
- that what developers wanted to accomplish should be a main indicator for our methods of measuring “depth”. But that could make comparisons of stats of two games completely impossible if their developers had different intentions in mind, so I am not big fan of this idea.
- that a person who does the comparison has the similar interpretation of depth as you. While I
understand it and
respect it… I guess I’ll stick with something less subjective for now.
[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]
Well, I looked at how many variables are influenced by using and leveling up particular power, weapon, item, etc. If for example charge affects how fast Shepard moves, how much damage he (she) does with that impact, how much shield he (she) has after the attack and how slow the ingame time goes… than why not give credit Mass Effect 2 for being able to have such unique power which is completely different from others. Also the changes of all those variables can dramatically affect gameplay, their activation is at players disposal and some of them are
modifiable by player… so I thought it would be a good idea to take that into account.
If there were 2 games and one had only several types of fireballs, while the other had options to fly, teleport, move faster, become invisible, regenerate health, become indestructible, slow down time, etc. in addition to one or two
types of fireballs, I would definitely want to take that into account in assessing the depth of their stat systems.
[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]
If I wanted to measure the depth of stats (variables) and one game allowed me to do so only with few variables (e.g. damage and accuracy) and the other allowed me to do that with much more (+ rate of fire, size of ammo clip / shots before overheating, weapon’s stability, etc.) shouldn’t I give an extra credit to the 2nd one for that?
But,
I don’t insist on taking the diversity of weapons or powers (number and diversity of variables) into account. I just thought it would be fairer to consider even this aspect. After all, they are in the game, they are taken
into account by game (they have stats), they change gameplay and they are at players disposal to be activated. Maybe I could disregard those that can not be upgraded / leveled up at all (speed of charge, invisibility of cloak, etc.) however like I said, I don’t mind disregarding this aspect completely if you or anyone else would insist / object too much.
[quote]Considering that "levelling-up" weapons is a byproduct and done 100% "passively", I don't see much point into comparing them between ME1and 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]
Well comparing or measuring the depth of “stats” would be very tricky… if not downright impossible sometimes. And of course, I am open other peoples’ ideas …
I am not sure if I would do it correctly but, if I really wanted to see how influential on gameplay weapons’ stat system can be, I would look at how many variables are related to weapons and how much they can be changed (by changed I mean the difference between the best and worst weapon with respect to that variable, or alternatively the difference between the best fully upgraded weapon and worst un-upgraded one). Then,
I would compare the differences between the best and worst weapon in ME1 with differences between the best and worst weapon in ME2 individually with respect to all variables (such as accuracy, damage, rate of fire, shots before reload / cooldown, etc.) and all weapons. This way, I would know the size of thresholds for all variables in both games.
I presume that Mass Effect 2 would win in most of those comparisons. Maybe not in damage or accuracy.
However, this would not be enough because weapons, unlike talents / powers, are not fully customizable and games do not allow the player to achieve all states within those thresholds. The variables for weapons are set. So I would have to compare the weapons individually as well.
After this thorough comparison I would know, the variables of which game can be leveled up to larger degree (e.g.
in which game is the difference between the most and the least accurate rifle larger) and in which game the differences between weapons vary more. With such knowledge, I would be able to answer which game has “deeper” stats when it comes to weapons according to whatever the one who is asking would mean by “deeper”.
[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.[/quote]
IMO, it depends on whether they scale at the same pace as player’s character. When it comes to Mass Effect 1, only on insanity all enemies have the same level as Shepard or higher. That means on other difficulties, there is some room (the size of which depends on difficulty level) for picking skills other than the ones that are related to Shepard’s specialization.
I would not be surprised if on casual it was possible to “grow” (improve, majority or at least a lot of abilities at
faster rate than enemies do) and “specialize” (improve some abilities faster than others) at the same time.
Of course, the ratio between Shepard’s abilities and enemies’ strength on casual is most likely not representative, but neither is insanity’s 1 : 1 ratio.
[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]
I am not sure how to interpret this with respect to my example of “fast” progression vs “far” progression.
[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]
Honestly, I don’t think that my own “definition” of RPGs makes much sense from logical or semantic perspective...
But, even guys at Gamespot have somewhat similar opinion so I am fine with it that way.
[quote]I am not sure it complicates the calculations, I'd say it does the exact opposite.[/quote]
It makes it much harder to calculate the real effect of stats on gameplay because their effect (the effect of increased level of powers, items, weapons, etc. of main character) is diminshed by the effect of level-scaling of enemies (the effect of their increased health, damage, etc.) and if we did not know its exact mechanism (percenatage of level of main character or some kind of function [the level of main character +/- something]) , we would have to measure it in the game and calculate retrospectively.
Not to mention that if enemies leveled up at faster rate than the main character, there could potentially be a situation in which the real effect of leveling up would be negative. In that case the only thing we would know is the effect of main character's improved ability at particular moment (the difference between investing and not investing skillpoints into particular ability at particular moment) and not throughout the whole game (because as the character would level up, he [she] would become weaker and weaker with respect to enemies [I am not sure but that might be the case of bosses on insanity in ME1]).
So I think that it definitely makes calculations harder. Of course, gameplay-wise it might not be a bad thing if somebody wants a challenge.
[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]
Well, than… maybe one day we can do that… but, it’s probably not worth the effort. Like you said, all that matters in the end is how enjoyable the game is...
Modifié par Varen Spectre, 19 septembre 2011 - 06:05 .
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