1027 réponses à ce sujet

[Maconbar]

The only solution that probably would satisfy both camps would require BW to fit each piece of armor to the PC and all humanoid companions. Most everyone here knows that BW isn't ever going to take that route.

[ipgd]

Yrkoon wrote...

Enlighten me,

Now exactly does giving a companion  removable  Iconic gear, and even future upgrades/versions to that removable iconic gear, not satisfy the camp that prefers iconic gear?

Here, let me go back and harvest some of the billion posts I've made on the subject earlier in this thread.

rak72 wrote...

You can have Issabella's EEE knockers when she is in her icon outft, but if you choose to put on something else, it would go to the body shape of whatever you put on.  I don't think most people who want the ability to change armors would have an objection to this.  You can also let the PC equip Isabell's Icon armor so that she can get EEE knockers.   If you don't approve of this, just keep the characters in their own outfits.  Whats the big deal???  Why take away feedoms from other player if it doesn't affect you??

Because it does affect us. If the developers have to design the game with possibility of characters not actually using their unique armor models, the game cannot be reactive to the unique armor models. They cannot make any significant divergences from the generic body model or make the game reactive to it for the same reason they can never make a satisfactory conclusion to the DR. These things do not exist in a vacuum. A toggle does not magically solve the problem.

[...]

Morrigan still had a generic body model identical to Wynne and Leliana under the old system. I disliked this system. A system that gave Wynne saggy old lady boobs in one set and the nubile breasts of a twenty year old in every other wouldn't be much better.

[...]

Fandango9641 wrote...

No, no it really doesn’t. Not at all. Not even a little bit. You want your iconic armour and unique body armour models and I’m advocating the extra provision of choice. Extra meaning ancillary....additional...BEYOND! Good grief.

But it won't be a matter of "beyond". It won't exist in a vacuum. It will affect how they design the visual character concepts and the game's reactivity to those designs. They will be constrained entirely to clothing/armor differentials because the character will have to have a generic body model in order to be consistent with the body model they would have to have with even an ancillary equipable armor system. Like, again, Morrigan, whose unique model is built entirely off of the generic body model. And I care way more about unique body models than I do the armor that goes over it.

[...]

Fandango9641 wrote...

Yeah, that sounds like a lot of ol' flannel to me ipgd. Care to try again (and this time explain why the extra provision of choice is impossible)?

... because of what I said? Because they can't make the game substantially reactive to a variable that may not always be true? If there were a state in which Jack and Fenris's tattoos had to magically disappear to conform to a generic body model they would have never been designed with tattoos in the first place. The kind of storytelling that can be done through visual designs and conventions like bodily tattoos is personally important to me.

[...]

This is something they could of fixed a long time ago by allowing differing body types from the get go.

Any change to the default body model at all basically entails turning the companion into his or her very own "race". If they'd done this in DAO, they would have had to make a unique model of every single piece of armor for every single companion, in addition to fitting that armor to each race and sex the player can be. Doing the latter is enough work by itself; I'm sure you could imagine how much time it would take up if they had to add a separate Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana, Zevran, Wynne, Loghain and Oghren pass on top of all of that. Which is not a method I would be opposed to hypothetically, but it's so resource intensive that it isn't really realistic to expect.

[...]

If they are going to have different races as the protagonist, they are going to need to make the armor models for the different races anyway (not that I'm saying there WILL be different races, just speculating).  If you have Isabella take off her iconic armor, she can just use the body model of the generic armor she puts on.  I think most people that want customisation would be more than happy with this.  If you don't want to see her in a normal body type, just keep the iconic armor on.

But, again, vacuum, not in it. If the ability to swap companions into generic body models exist, they will not design companions with body models that significantly diverge from the default. Jack would never have had tattoos at all, Anderps would just have Manhawke's giant buff arms, etc., just like they don't design any characters with capes or very long hair because of how weird the clipping would look. They will design characters that match the default body model (like they did with Morrigan). And I don't want the artists to be constrained in this manner in the character designs.

[...]

rak72 wrote...

If they make a one armed swordsman, then I will conceed that he can stay in his iconic armor for perpetuity (or until they make a mod to change it).

So where do you draw the line? I'd say Fenris's tattoos are just as integral to his story and combat abilities, and I would find it just as jarring to see them disappear into a generic body model as I would to see a one-armed swordsman magically regrow his arm.

They could have designed Fenris without tattoos, sure -- which is exactly why I don't want them to have equipable armor. Given the choice between having a unique body model and a wildly mismatched body model for the generic armors, and designing characters so that there is no incongruency to begin with, they're going to do the latter (lest they invent an entirely new group of disgruntled people complaining about their immersion being ruined by unexplained shapeshifters). And that is effectively an entire dimension of character design and visual narrative removed from the table that I would find very unfortunate.

They could go so much further than what they've already done with the unique body models (and I will say they haven't very done much with it yet, beyond characters like Jack and Fenris, but they could). They could do something like a one-armed swordsman. I'd personally be disappointed if they let the technological constraints of equipable armor stop them from really pushing their visual character designs.

Given the fact I am part of the camp who "prefers iconic gear", I would say that I am something of an authority of what my opinions are. Because I have them, and they're mine. Because you do not share my opinions, I feel that it is evident that I would have a better idea of what does or does not satisfy me.

[Zanallen]

DuskWarden wrote...

Eh? The robes of posession are great for a cold spell focussed Morrigan? Combine with Winters Breath and the Ashen Gloves (or whatever the +20% cold ones were) and that was a pretty great end game set up. How could you not just do the same thing with warriors? Heck, I basically used Cailan's Armour set as an 'iconic' armour set for Alistair.

Is it great for a blood mage Morrigan? How about a shapeshifter Morrigan? Would the proposed warrior armor be just as good for a tank as it is for a two-hander warrior? Beserker? Reaver? Templar? How is one set of armor going to be really good for all of these different builds?

[Fallstar]

Zanallen wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

Have you played DA:O?

Morrigan has two aesthetically identical robes.  One she comes with when you pick her up, and another, vastly more powerful, robe  you find later.

Are you telling me they can't do that with a warrior?  That they can't do that 5 times with a warrior?

So, you want them to make five different suits of armor for each companion spread throughout the game that maintain the unique looks with progressively better stats? Yeah, that is stupid. And it still offers absolutely no stat customization.

Again, what? There is stat customisation, that was the point of the whole '5 different suits of armour' thing. Am I under the complete wrong impression here when I say that Mike is allowing us to customise companion armour slots whilst maintaining a variety of iconic looks? Cuz unless that's wrong, I really don't see the problem.

[TEWR]

Maconbar wrote...

The only solution that probably would satisfy both camps would require BW to fit each piece of armor to the PC and all humanoid companions. Most everyone here knows that BW isn't ever going to take that route.

I don't see why Bioware couldn't do largely what Mike Laidlaw proposed, but also do what I proposed on the previous page.

[Yrkoon]

Nerevar-as wrote...

Is it that hard to do skins for each body type and armor? I´m asking because I don´t know if cinematic approach makes things that harder or BW is just taking the easy route with things such as this or not allowing any alteration to body types as in NWN2.

Apparently its really hard.   And refusing to do it will apparently ****** everyone off  (Isabela's breasts will shrink to the same size as Bethany's if you put mage armor on her (for example)

Although, strangely,  I remember putting Cailan's plate on Oghren and it magically  resized itself to fit his dwarf height.  Then I took it off him and put it on sten and it grew to fit him too.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 30 août 2011 - 03:45 .

[willholt]

Zanallen wrote...

willholt wrote...

... and I end up with the gimped gameplay function of not being able to have my companions looking like I want them to.

See how this gimping thing works?

But you aren't gimped from a gameplay function. Visual customization is not a function of gameplay. What your companions look like has absolutely no effect on how the game is played. Meanwhile, having to use crap gear or gear that doesn't match the current build of my characters absolutely effects gameplay.

What might not be a gameplay function to you is to me... and apparently to a lot of other people too.

I have very little interest in 'iconic' looks, at least within videogames ... The fact that an iconic look can make a character come to mind whenever you see (or think of) it adds nothing (or very little) to my enjoyment of a computer game. Being able to change my companions' look to how I want them, however, does... It adds greatly to my enjoyment while playing the game, hence it's an important GAMEPLAY function for me.

Anyway... whatever! <_<

[esper]

Yrkoon wrote...

Nerevar-as wrote...

Is it that hard to do skins for each body type and armor? I´m asking because I don´t know if cinematic approach makes things that harder or BW is just taking the easy route with things such as this or not allowing any alteration to body types as in NWN2.

Apparently its really hard.   And refusing to do it will apparently ****** everyone off  (Isabela's breasts will shrink to the same size as Bethany's if you put mage armor on her (for example)

Although, strangely,  I remember putting Cailan's plate on Oghren and it magically  resized itself to fit his dwarf height.  Then I took it off him and put it on sten and it grew to fit him too.

That is because there were five body types in da:o. Male/female human male/female dwarf and male/female elf and male Kossith.
That meant that each type of armour should have those fice variants. 

Modifié par esper, 30 août 2011 - 03:47 .

[Fallstar]

Zanallen wrote...

DuskWarden wrote...

Eh? The robes of posession are great for a cold spell focussed Morrigan? Combine with Winters Breath and the Ashen Gloves (or whatever the +20% cold ones were) and that was a pretty great end game set up. How could you not just do the same thing with warriors? Heck, I basically used Cailan's Armour set as an 'iconic' armour set for Alistair.

Is it great for a blood mage Morrigan? How about a shapeshifter Morrigan? Would the proposed warrior armor be just as good for a tank as it is for a two-hander warrior? Beserker? Reaver? Templar? How is one set of armor going to be really good for all of these different builds?

There is no blood magic enhancing armour in Origins, so I don't know where you got that from, there's only an amulet and a belt. And there is definitely nothing in the game to enhance the Shapeshifter spec, so again, whats the problem there? 

Quote from Mike:

Followers will have their equipment slots restored and armor you equip in those slots will have the expected statistical impact on the follower, including enchantments, bonuses and base armor stats, along with requirements to wear the armor applying. As per above, adding armor pieces to these slots will not impact the follower's appearance directly, only their statistics.

So you'll be able to customise the companion to your liking based on their role as a tank, damage dealer, healer, cc, etc.

[Zanallen]

DuskWarden wrote...

Again, what? There is stat customisation, that was the point of the whole '5 different suits of armour' thing. Am I under the complete wrong impression here when I say that Mike is allowing us to customise companion armour slots whilst maintaining a variety of iconic looks? Cuz unless that's wrong, I really don't see the problem.

No, that is exactly what Mike wants. That isn't what Yrkoon wants. He wants the Origins system with a few Morrigianesque armors thrown in per companion. Morrigan's armor offered no stat customization. You used whatever stats Bioware wanted you to use and hoped it worked well enough for your build. The five suits of armor under Yrkoon's plan would have the same stats, but each suit would be slightly better than the last.

[Zanallen]

willholt wrote...

What might not be a gameplay function to you is to me... and apparently to a lot of other people too.

I have very little interest in 'iconic' looks, at least within videogames ... The fact that an iconic look can make a character come to mind whenever you see (or think of) it adds nothing (or very little) to my enjoyment of a computer game. Being able to change my companions' look to how I want them, however, does... It adds greatly to my enjoyment while playing the game, hence it's an important GAMEPLAY function for me.

Anyway... whatever! <_<

But iconic looks provide more enjoyment for a lot of people as well. So, we'll just have to disagree. Of course, statistical customization is far more important to a video game than visual customization.

[Yrkoon]

Zanallen wrote...

DuskWarden wrote...

Eh? The robes of posession are great for a cold spell focussed Morrigan? Combine with Winters Breath and the Ashen Gloves (or whatever the +20% cold ones were) and that was a pretty great end game set up. How could you not just do the same thing with warriors? Heck, I basically used Cailan's Armour set as an 'iconic' armour set for Alistair.

Is it great for a blood mage Morrigan?

It's awesome for a blood mage morrigan.  And a shapeshifter morrigan, and even a spirit healer morrigan.

The only thing it's not so great for is an Arcane warrior Morrigan.  But we don't have to worry about that, since Bioware decided  to scrap the  Arcane warrior specialization outright.    problem solved, I guess.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 30 août 2011 - 03:53 .

[Zanallen]

DuskWarden wrote...

There is no blood magic enhancing armour in Origins, so I don't know where you got that from, there's only an amulet and a belt. And there is definitely nothing in the game to enhance the Shapeshifter spec, so again, whats the problem there? 

Quote from Mike:

Followers will have their equipment slots restored and armor you equip in those slots will have the expected statistical impact on the follower, including enchantments, bonuses and base armor stats, along with requirements to wear the armor applying. As per above, adding armor pieces to these slots will not impact the follower's appearance directly, only their statistics.

So you'll be able to customise the companion to your liking based on their role as a tank, damage dealer, healer, cc, etc.

You really shouldn't jump into an argument already in progress without reading the whole of it. You get all turned around that way, buddy.

[Zanallen]

Yrkoon wrote...

It's awesome for a blood mage morrigan.  And a shapeshifter morrigan, and even a spirit healer morrigan.

The only thing it's not so great for is an Arcane warrior Morrigan.  But we don't have to worry about that, since Bioware decided  to scrap the  Arcane warrior specialization outright.  (not 'iconic' enough, I suppose)

It was overpowered, actually. That is why it was scrapped. And no, the robes of possession are not awesome for a blood mage Morrigan. It has no stats that really benefit a blood mage. At best, it is serviceable for a blood mage.

[ipgd]

Yrkoon wrote...

Apparently its really hard.   And refusing to do it will apparently ****** everyone off  (Isabela's breasts will shrink to the same size as Bethany's if you put mage armor on her (for example)

Although, strangely,  I remember putting Cailan's plate on Oghren and it magically  resized itself to fit his dwarf height.  Then I took it off him and put it on sten and it grew to fit him too.

They don't magically resize.

For each armor model in the game, the artists have to individually resize it for every body model. That means for each mesh, they have to do X number of passes to make it fit for every sex and race. DAO had human females, human males, elf females, elf males, dwarf females, dwarf males and qunari males, which means each armor model created is effectively 7 models in itself. This resizing doesn't happen automatically, an actual person had to go in and fit the mesh manually for each and every race/sex combination.

Completely possible to do, but incredibly time and resource consuming. This is why DAO only had about six armor meshes in the entire game, with most of the armor sets being simple retextures of those six. DA2, by comparison, only had two "races" (human male and female), which is why there are so many more actual meshes than DAO.

[Maconbar]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Maconbar wrote...

The only solution that probably would satisfy both camps would require BW to fit each piece of armor to the PC and all humanoid companions. Most everyone here knows that BW isn't ever going to take that route.

I don't see why Bioware couldn't do largely what Mike Laidlaw proposed, but also do what I proposed on the previous page.

I would like that but I don't think that it would satisy the people that are strongly in favor of a DA:O style approach.

[Yrkoon]

So for DA:O they managed 5 body  variants.

Question:  how many companions did DA2 have?  8?  So the issue here is that creating an extra 3 variants is too expensive/unfeasable, therefore  they have to eliminate the player's ability to customize  the armor their companions wear.

Do I have the gist of things, so far?

Modifié par Yrkoon, 30 août 2011 - 04:00 .

[esper]

Yrkoon wrote...

esper wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

Nerevar-as wrote...

Is it that hard to do skins for each body type and armor? I´m asking because I don´t know if cinematic approach makes things that harder or BW is just taking the easy route with things such as this or not allowing any alteration to body types as in NWN2.

Apparently its really hard.   And refusing to do it will apparently ****** everyone off  (Isabela's breasts will shrink to the same size as Bethany's if you put mage armor on her (for example)

Although, strangely,  I remember putting Cailan's plate on Oghren and it magically  resized itself to fit his dwarf height.  Then I took it off him and put it on sten and it grew to fit him too.

That is because there were five body types in da:o. Male/female human male/female dwarf and male/female elf and male Kossith.
That meant that each type of armour should have those fice variants. 

So for DA:O they managed 5 body  variants.

Question:  how many companions did DA2 have?  8?  So the issue here is that creating an extra 3 variants is too expensive/unfeasable, therefore  they have to eliminate the player's ability to customize  the armor their companions wear.

Do I have the gist of things, so far?

8 is more than 5.

[Yrkoon]

right... so that extra 3 they'd have to make was enough to break the budget, therefore, we can't swap out companion gear...

[vania z]

Actually, in DA2 they had to do some armors for all races since there were NPCs with armor

[Maconbar]

So maybe the compromise is to use unique body models and interchangeable armor but reduce the number of companions. I'm guessing that many would be unhappy with that approach including BW.

[alex90c]

Zanallen wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

It's awesome for a blood mage morrigan.  And a shapeshifter morrigan, and even a spirit healer morrigan.

The only thing it's not so great for is an Arcane warrior Morrigan.  But we don't have to worry about that, since Bioware decided  to scrap the  Arcane warrior specialization outright.  (not 'iconic' enough, I suppose)

It was overpowered, actually. That is why it was scrapped. And no, the robes of possession are not awesome for a blood mage Morrigan. It has no stats that really benefit a blood mage. At best, it is serviceable for a blood mage.

Then maybe Bioware could make armour stats customisable like the Hawke key was?  It would be something purely reserved for the "iconic" outfits where perhaps if you visited an armourer/smith/whatever in a city in DA3 you could pay a little bit of money to add traits to armour. Of course it wouldn't be "yeah, I want to add 23968236236 DPS to this sword k thx" it would be "increase critical chance" and then the bonus scales to your level.

Of course whether Bioware could just centralise this by making it possible to just go to one guy or maybe you need to go to certain characters (tranquil mage for mage robe stat bonuses, armourer for medium/heavy/massive armour bonuses,  tanner for light armour bonuses etc. etc.) is their choice, but I could imagine it would work.

Modifié par alex90c, 30 août 2011 - 04:04 .

[ipgd]

Yrkoon wrote...

esper wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

Nerevar-as wrote...

Is it that hard to do skins for each body type and armor? I´m asking because I don´t know if cinematic approach makes things that harder or BW is just taking the easy route with things such as this or not allowing any alteration to body types as in NWN2.

Apparently its really hard.   And refusing to do it will apparently ****** everyone off  (Isabela's breasts will shrink to the same size as Bethany's if you put mage armor on her (for example)

Although, strangely,  I remember putting Cailan's plate on Oghren and it magically  resized itself to fit his dwarf height.  Then I took it off him and put it on sten and it grew to fit him too.

That is because there were five body types in da:o. Male/female human male/female dwarf and male/female elf and male Kossith.
That meant that each type of armour should have those fice variants. 

So for DA:O they managed 5 body  variants.

Question:  how many companions did DA2 have?  8?  So the issue here is that creating an extra 3 variants is too expensive/unfeasable, therefore  they have to eliminate the player's ability to customize  the armor their companions wear.

Do I have the gist of things, so far?

No.

Let's say they bring back human, elf and dwarf races for DA3 and have 9 humanoid companions, each with his or her own "unique body shape" (technically completely equivalent to having an entirely new race/sex).

That means that for every armor mesh, they would have to do a pass for human males, human females, elf males, elf females, dwarf males, dwarf females, companion 1, companion 2, companion 3, companion 4, companion 5, companion 6, companion 7, companion 8, and companion 9. That is 15 passes for every 1 armor mesh. That is why companions have generic bodies under the DAO method.

If you are using the DAO method, that necessarily means (unless you are expending a gigantic amount of resources on this) that all companions will have the same generic body model when outside of their "iconic gear". This also means that unless you want to have shapeshifting shenanigans going on every time you move a companion out of their iconic set into a generic armor set, their bodies have to be built around the generic body model for their sex/race (like Morrigan's gear was). This means no skinny characters, no tattooed characters, no characters with missing limbs, etc..

This is where I have my problem. I do not want the artists to be constrained by having to design around the generic body model. I want that dimension of visual character design to be open to them and I want them to take it much further than what they've already done in ME2 and DA2. If generic body models come back, the only design liberties they will be able to take are facial designs and clothing designs, which I'm sure you don't care about, but I and the people who actually care about this broader subject do.

[vania z]

That means that for every armor mesh, they would have to do a pass for human males, human females, elf males, elf females, dwarf males, dwarf females, companion 1, companion 2, companion 3, companion 4, companion 5, companion 6, companion 7, companion 8, and companion 9. That is 15 passes for every 1 armor mesh. That is why companions have generic bodies under the DAO method.

Not 15. It would be 15 if every companion is warrior. Also, it can be done partially automatically(and with good algorithm absolutely automatically).
"no tattooed characters" - since when tattoos require special mesh?

[errant_knight]

Disappointing. Unless I misunderstand this, it still means that most of what we find in the game outside a few items from specialized quests will only be usable the the PC or invisible--far more DA2 than DA:O. I'm not surprised, though. My expectations are that while changes made to DA:3 to placate those who preferred Origins gameplay will be as minimal as possible and largely a veneer rather than substantive. This stilll removes most of the fun of the inventory.