Wulfram wrote...
It's a safe presumption, when you're playing a Bioware game. And when you're companions aren't giving you any actualy indication that you should hurry. And as soon as you're guessing whether Bioware have departed from their habit and might spring some consequences on you, the idea that you're making any sort of in character decision departs.
Companions in Awakening/DA2 routinely prompt you to hurry with their barks if you click on them, so that isn't really any good indication. As far as the general concept of second-guessing BioWare habits go -- no one forces you to perform such guessing in the first place. You
can make it purely "character decision" and just let the chips fall wherever they're going to fall, instead. If you choose not to, well, that's your own choice.
But i think we got sidetracked into something quite pointless. The argument started with your statement a game could be better if it removed some mechanics, like ability to loot things while supposedly in a hurry. I disagreed, because i find some value in leaving such decision (whether to loot or not) in the player's hands. Currently you're presenting arguments behind why you personally don't see the value of having such choice, but i'm afraid it's just something we view differently, and you'll have to accept it's something where our opinions differ. As such, what you've suggested as a way for game to get better isn't universal, and for some it would make the experience worse, instead. And that's really all there is to it.
Well, I'm obviously not arguing for the scrapping of things I like. But I do believe the game would be better, for almost everyone, if it didn't not constantly distract from the plot, and make the world seem less real, by adding loot to every single location with no regard to common sense or the atmosphere of the game.
What to you is a distraction and makes the world seem less real, to someone else can be an element making the game world
more believable -- as to them it may be immersion breaking to see there's nothing of value to be taken from a great mansion or from a fallen enemy, or that the game features no width beyond focus on the plot.
Note how in a way it's something DA2 did with its graphics redesign (the environments are cleared from world-building clutter and featuring little else but the "plot focus" i.e. the characters) ... and it definitely wasn't met with "almost universal" praise.
If you reward the player for engaging in certain behaviour, they'll do more of it because that is in effect what the game is telling them to do. If they find this tedious, then they're as likely to conclude that the game is boring as they are to stop doing the boring thing and focus on other parts of the game..
The games tend to reward the player for everything, because there's no real way for game to foresee which particular behaviours the individual player is bound to find boring. I don't think it's something you can really resolve in a better way -- because removing either a reward for activity you may consider tedious (or even the activity itself) runs into risk you're punishing someone who happens to enjoy that particular behaviour.
Of course, if you can find bits that gets deemed tedious by 90% of your intended playerbase then you're golden, but i honestly doubt there's any parts of the RPG design which are anywhere near that.
The current design does not adequately accomodate multiple routes.
Certainly, after all if it was perfect we wouldn't need to have this discussion in the first place. Still, improving this aspect is an alternative approach to improving the game overall, imo.
Not obsessively looting inevitably leads not only to a character with less cash and less potions, but missing out on key components of item sets and, most importantly, gifts which unlock interaction with party members. In other words, if you don't obsessively loot you are punished with an inferior product.
I've skipped numerous barrels and chests in my playthrough, didn't bother to purchase a number of gifts from the vendors. I'm perfectly satisfied with how my game turned out, and in no way consider it inferior.
Don't make a mistake of thinking that "less stuff collected = inferior game" is an universal mindset. Completionists/achievers are only one of four major player archetypes.
Modifié par tmp7704, 03 octobre 2011 - 12:31 .
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