134 réponses à ce sujet

[csfteeeer]

Sepewrath wrote...

A fleshed out personality vs being an archetype. That is where Origins comes up short, the archetype supercedes the character personality. Its like Morrigan, she is cold and calculating, if the Warden did something calculating, but it was also good, she didn't like it. That didn't happen as much in DA2, Isabela is selfish but at the same time, there are things she wont just look the other way on. The "selfish character" type didn't dictate her entire character. I want to see more of that.

i won't comment on the Flesh out thing cause i don't care, but this bothered me.
This Happens in DA2 and you know it.

Like Fenris, who always gives you rivalry points for doing something mage friendly, and on very rare occasions will he give you points for anything that isn't against mages.

While in DAO, characters such as Alistair, will approve and disapprove of what they believe and not what their steriotype says.
he won't, for example, disapprove of you killing the Mages or Werewolfs, even though his steriotype is the goody good guy who wants peace and all.

EDIT: wait, looking back, i realise i'm wrong, Characters in DA2 almost ALWAYS approve and disapprove based on their archetype(Isabela is a Sarcastic Pirate W***e, and how do you get full friendship with her? well make tons of jokes and be suggestive, with a few variations here and there, and let's not Forget Anders, he is a crazy guy who loves mages, what does he approve of? everything mage friendly, rarely anything else, except being nice to him obviously, like anybody else)

my point what you said in your comment about Isabela happens in Both games and you make it sound as if it didn't happen in DAO, when it did.

You're looking at DA2 with a happy glasses, and hey, i don't blame you, after DA2 getting so much S**t, someone needs defend it, but when you're posting feedback, it doesn't help.

Modifié par csfteeeer, 07 novembre 2011 - 07:24 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Sepewrath wrote...
It kind of brings me to an interesting point on the view of stat systems in RPG's. Ultimately, you don't need them.

I'm sorry, I can't respond to this in depth without nerdraging but simply put:

You take away the framework for building characters based on statistical and numerical manipulation and you remove the element that differentiates RPGs from other genres.

For example, GTA IV is not an RPG. Why would GTA IV with Niko being able to respond angrily or politely in conversation make it an RPG?

Might be a good game, but it's no RPG. Period.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 07 novembre 2011 - 08:59 .

[Sepewrath]

^And there lies the problem. That train of thought that stats make the character, when like I said, you make the stats match the character. You can put all the points you want into speech check, but it has no bearing on your character, you don't have to do a single speech check for the entire game. So being in all they have no actual bearing on player action, their only around, because people wont let them go.

And no giving Niko dialogue choices wouldn't make it an RPG, but you'll notice throughout this tread I haven't simply said that dialogue choices would be the bread and butter of the RPG. Its a moot point though, because I know I am by far in the minority and developers will continue to play it safe, so its a empty gesture on my part, but something I wanted to say nonetheless.

csfteeeer wrote...
i won't comment on the Flesh out thing cause i don't care, but this bothered me.
This Happens in DA2 and you know it.

Like Fenris, who always gives you rivalry points for doing something mage friendly, and on very rare occasions will he give you points for anything that isn't against mages.

That's because Fenris hates mages, that's not an archetype, that's a personality. Its analogous to someone being a racist, not a good personality trait, but a personality nonetheless. Anders is the same, here's the difference between an archetype and a personality. A person can have a black and white view of the world, they can  believe only in one thing, like a racist. Lets say some dbag in the KKK, their all for violence towards a minority, but against violence towards a white person.

The archetype of that would be the person who loves violence, they would be for violence, regardless of who it was against. Their suppose to be a racist, but they would give you the thumbs down, if you chose a non violent approach to a white person. That's the archetype superceding the personality and that happened a lot in Origins. Re-read my post, I didn't say it never happened in DA2, it just happened less than it did in Origins. It really doesn't matter though, the take home message is for DA3, the personality should be the sole factor in how the party responds to your actions.

[eroeru]

Well, that's not the point at all - stats that really affect something are rather a way to make the whole RPG world more "deep", "complex", and thus make you, the player, more involved. A main attribute solely for dialogue is of course a stupid and quite pointless idea - no-one suggested that beside damage-attributes there'd be a dialogoe-one. It was simply that the player should be more involved with dialogue, especially its tone. Skill-checks are essential for this. Lest you come up with another idea.

Modifié par eroeru, 08 novembre 2011 - 10:09 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Lmao, I try to go for a "concise" summary, and the freaking thing is massive.

Oh well.

It's here if people want a single spot for the main ideas. Some of them have been tweaked and the like, but it's still basically what's here. On a positive note, lots of pictures. On a negative one... still too much text.

[csfteeeer]

Sepewrath wrote...

That's because Fenris hates mages, that's not an archetype, that's a personality. Its analogous to someone being a racist, not a good personality trait, but a personality nonetheless. Anders is the same, here's the difference between an archetype and a personality. A person can have a black and white view of the world, they can  believe only in one thing, like a racist. Lets say some dbag in the KKK, their all for violence towards a minority, but against violence towards a white person.

The archetype of that would be the person who loves violence, they would be for violence, regardless of who it was against. Their suppose to be a racist, but they would give you the thumbs down, if you chose a non violent approach to a white person. That's the archetype superceding the personality and that happened a lot in Origins. Re-read my post, I didn't say it never happened in DA2, it just happened less than it did in Origins. It really doesn't matter though, the take home message is for DA3, the personality should be the sole factor in how the party responds to your actions.

The Characters in Origins approved and Disapproved depending on their Personalities as well, like, example, Leliana approving of you accepting a Deal with Demons,( Because said Demon would give you happiness, Fake, But Happiness nonetheless) even though her Archetype is that of someone who always votes for the best and most noble thing.

It Often happened to be that the Archetype superceed the Personality, but not as much as you say, using your Morrigan example, she is cold and calculating cause that's what she was raised to believe in, she says so in one of her stories, always approving something that can benefit the party over all, UNLESS, it hurts apostates.

But yeah, no point in arguing, the fact is that DA3 Characters must never have an Archetype that superceeds the personality.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

In regards to companions and this talk about archetypes and personalities (lol), the problem lies in the systems that the companions uses.

There needs to be two axes: one for Respect and one for Disposition. Or ideally there should be these two.

Respect measures how a companion views your beliefs and moral stance. Disposition measures how a companion views your personality. For example, being an angry dickwad pisses off Aveline to no need, but she respects you because when push comes to shove, you make righteous decisions. In Dragon Age 2, that'd either funnel to Rivalry or you'd get some weird in the middle stance, same with Origins. Which is not exactly accurate.

Neither DA:O or DA 2 were able to capture that subtlety, because they tried to integrate the two concepts into one system. Granted, my system for NPCs does too, but having like 30+ NPCs with their own Disposition Meters is big enough as it is without adding another dimension to the equation.

I think all in all, that Dragon Age 2 did a better job in distinguishing the two concepts, but I didn't like the characterization for many of the NPCs, companion or otherwise. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 09 novembre 2011 - 12:48 .

[KilrB]

Ideally I believe such a system would have three axes: one for your beliefs and morals, one for your personality, and one for your actions and deeds.

[grregg]

mrcrusty wrote...

Lmao, I try to go for a "concise" summary, and the freaking thing is massive.

Oh well.

It's here if people want a single spot for the main ideas. Some of them have been tweaked and the like, but it's still basically what's here. On a positive note, lots of pictures. On a negative one... still too much text.

I read the post on your blog. Interesting, but as usual the devil is in the details. Care to flesh it out a bit more?

Couple of remarks:

1. Seems like for any melee fighter dexterity is way more useful than strength. It is pretty realistic (Str won't count for much is you're not fast enough), but are you fine with that?

2. I second what AngryForzenWater wrote about small percentages. +2% or +5% is not going to change anything, unless they stack with something else and/or you have an extremely well-balanced combat system. And even then they are very likely to get lost in the random generator variance causing the player to simply replay an encounter instead of tweaking the stats.

3. Commerce bonuses would require a working economy to be useful. In most games you end up with more money than you can spend, so even 20% bonus to prices is not going to be worth it. I'd even go as far as to say that in any game with loot, commerce skills are void, as you can simply make some more grinding trips and loot some more stuff.

[Addai]

I don't have much to add except a thumbs up. I'm a big fan of crafting and non-combat skills, these also tie in to exploration, so their almost complete abandonment is a big reason that DA2 left me cold.

[Joy Divison]

In general I agree with system of RP you have laid out here. I have the feeling because of the supposed appeal "streamling" has, something that just looks complex won't ever get past a company exec who thinks they know how to sell computer games even though he doesn't play them just because he got a BA.

I'm not sure about your proposed combat mechanics. You've got warriors needing to invest in Dex to hit and Str for damage whereas rogues only need to invest in Dex. I think the solution is to steal from D&D's "weapon finesse" rationalization. If you use a dagger or other light weapon, its dex for hit and damage. If you use a big sword, it's strength. This would allow for more personalization of a class (one could play a dextrous warrior), but from what understand Bioware frowns upon options and would prefer to compel its audience to accepting its visions of what NPCs should look like and how classes should play out.  So I won't hold my breathe.

Modifié par Joy Divison, 09 novembre 2011 - 06:04 .

[freche]

Some very nice ideas
Personally I have never been a fan of increasing Attributes though, why would two-handed swords all of a sudden require you to be twice as strong as you once where, did they become heavier, did they evolve from regular 2h swords to the one Guts uses in Berserk?

Increasing attributes the way it's done in modern RPG games is just an illusion that you are improving your character, while in fact you are standing still.
I'd rather see Attributes chosen at the beginning of the game to define your character, then let them be.

[eroeru]

grregg wrote...
 I'd even go as far as to say that in any game with loot, commerce skills are void, as you can simply make some more grinding trips and loot some more stuff.

I for one think that it's fairly simple to make DA money deflate - grinding would be impossible if there are no monsters left in the areas you've cleaned. And It is really important that there'd be useful but expensive things in the stores of the game (think BG).

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

 

Modifié par CrustyBot, 14 novembre 2012 - 05:59 .

[AngryFrozenWater]

I think this is one of the best threads I have read in a long time, mrcrusty. In general I agree with most of what you said.

[Joy Divison]

freche wrote...

Some very nice ideas
Personally I have never been a fan of increasing Attributes though, why would two-handed swords all of a sudden require you to be twice as strong as you once where, did they become heavier, did they evolve from regular 2h swords to the one Guts uses in Berserk?

Increasing attributes the way it's done in modern RPG games is just an illusion that you are improving your character, while in fact you are standing still.
I'd rather see Attributes chosen at the beginning of the game to define your character, then let them be.

That's old school D&D

Increasing attributes should do just that, increase your relative power - not be a requirement to maintain a baseline.  3E D&D was the only system with attribute increases I've played that did it right.

Bioware, or should I say Dragon Age, does it wrong for the reasons you state.  Unfortunately that seems to be the trend.  Even 4E DnD uses this idiotic mechanic

Modifié par Joy Divison, 10 novembre 2011 - 02:00 .

[Morroian]

mrcrusty wrote...

Dragon Age's stance to points-on-level-up Attributes and how they handle gear is essentially based on the Diablo model (albeit toned down) instead of say, the Fallout (SPECIAL) model

I like the SPECIAL model in FO3 and FNV. I agree it makes more sense to model the characters attributes at the start and not change except in exceptional circumstances.

[Joy Divison]

mrcrusty wrote...

That's something I actually didn't consider. I did consider how to encourage Warriors to pump STR, but not necessarily on how it might cause an imbalance because Warriors need both DEX and STR. That would be a pretty good way to get around it (the Finesse Feat from D&D), although that raises new problems on how to implement it - should there be Finesse Talents in every Weapon oriented Tree, or should it be combined into one Talent and put into say, Leadership or something?

The way to do it right would require an overhaul of the system.  Neither strength nor dexterity determine if warriors hit something.  Their level of training does.  AD&D simulated this the best by increasing your ability to hit things with your XP and merely granted you small bonuses for exceptional ability scores.  Then someone thought THACO was a good idea which streamlines the system and then...well we wound up here where the ability to perform well in combat is tied to a player's dependence on a statistic they must always increase to maintain their combat skill.

Most RPG system want all the abilities to "matter" somehow.  But by in effect forcing player to pump only 1 or 2 attributes to maintain a relative baseline of power, the other 4 or 5 become meaningless.  The best way to encourage diversity or to have cunning warriors say, is to automatically grant them the ability to hit and damage things based on their level and have the attributes simply provide bonuses to whatever they want (str = damage, Dex = defense, Cunning = criticals, WP = stamina, etc)

Modifié par Joy Divison, 10 novembre 2011 - 02:16 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Joy Divison wrote...

The way to do it right would require an overhaul of the system.  Neither strength nor dexterity determine if warriors hit something.  Their level of training does.  AD&D simulated this the best by increasing your ability to hit things with your XP and merely granted you small bonuses for exceptional ability scores.  Then someone thought THACO was a good idea which streamlines the system and then...well we wound up here where the ability to perform well in combat is tied to a player's dependence on a statistic they must always increase to maintain their combat skill.

Most RPG system want all the abilities to "matter" somehow.  But by in effect forcing player to pump only 1 or 2 attributes to maintain a relative baseline of power, the other 4 or 5 become meaningless.  The best way to encourage diversity or to have cunning warriors say, is to automatically grant them the ability to hit and damage things based on their level and have the attributes simply provide bonuses to whatever they want (str = damage, Dex = defense, Cunning = criticals, WP = stamina, etc)

We could also get over this problem by reducing the growth of Attributes, minimising their requirements and shifting more of the effects to Innate Talents and the Proficiencies/Expertise/Mastery Tree that increase at learning every new Talent instead of 3 predetermined intervals. So learning Talents and utilising them in particular ways earning becomes the primary aspects. Moving the system from an Attribute based one, to a Talent (or Skills) based one instead of a levels based one.

The problem then becomes that Attributes are rendered useless unless they give other, tangible advances for the character. The SPECIAL system handles this quite well and the newer Fallout games especially are Skill, not Attribute based.

Like I said, Dragon Age's system in how they handled Attributes is modeled on Diablo more than most other RPGs (PnP or otherwise) and I don't think you could completely shift from that mindset unless you create a new system from the ground up. Which is pretty much what you said in the first sentence.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 10 novembre 2011 - 02:39 .

[AngryFrozenWater]

To the OP: Also think about what it means for the classic BW level design. Think about what I have said several times: The BW main story merely connects points of interests, puzzles, events and bosses on the world map which you *have* to visit. That line of thought needs to go to allow the freedom you propose. Level design then starts to look more like that of DE:HR. And that's a serious difference which goes hand in hand with your proposed system. Not only need the environments to be designed with that line of thought, the story dialogue has to allow that freedom as well.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 10 novembre 2011 - 02:36 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

To the OP: Also think about what it means for the classic BW level design. Think about what I have said several times: The BW main story merely connects points of interests, puzzles, events and bosses on the world map which you *have* to visit. That line of thought needs to go to allow the freedom you propose. Level design then starts to look more like that of DE:HR. And that's a serious difference which goes hand in hand with your proposed system. Not only need the environments to be designed with that line of thought, the story dialogue has to allow that freedom as well.

Ideally, yes. Though personally, level design for most things can stay relatively linear, as long as the hubs themselves are large and open while having enough randomization in mechanics, interactions and design to allow for an open approach in most quests. For the most part, the Elder Scrolls games follow this approach (the dungeons).

Specifically scripted approaches in level design and approach ala Deus Ex HR and VtMB are fun and probably ideal for a story oriented game though, so I do hope that level design is something looked at for future games, too.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 10 novembre 2011 - 03:11 .

[philippe willaume]

mrcrusty wrote...

Joy Divison wrote...

The way to do it right would require an overhaul of the system.  Neither strength nor dexterity determine if warriors hit something.  Their level of training does.  AD&D simulated this the best by increasing your ability to hit things with your XP and merely granted you small bonuses for exceptional ability scores.  Then someone thought THACO was a good idea which streamlines the system and then...well we wound up here where the ability to perform well in combat is tied to a player's dependence on a statistic they must always increase to maintain their combat skill.

Most RPG system want all the abilities to "matter" somehow.  But by in effect forcing player to pump only 1 or 2 attributes to maintain a relative baseline of power, the other 4 or 5 become meaningless.  The best way to encourage diversity or to have cunning warriors say, is to automatically grant them the ability to hit and damage things based on their level and have the attributes simply provide bonuses to whatever they want (str = damage, Dex = defense, Cunning = criticals, WP = stamina, etc)

We could also get over this problem by reducing the growth of Attributes, minimising their requirements and shifting more of the effects to Innate Talents and the Proficiencies/Expertise/Mastery Tree that increase at learning every new Talent instead of 3 predetermined intervals. So learning Talents and utilising them in particular ways earning becomes the primary aspects. Moving the system from an Attribute based one, to a Talent (or Skills) based one instead of a levels based one.

The problem then becomes that Attributes are rendered useless unless they give other, tangible advances for the character. The SPECIAL system handles this quite well and the newer Fallout games especially are Skill, not Attribute based.

Like I said, Dragon Age's system in how they handled Attributes is modeled on Diablo more than most other RPGs (PnP or otherwise) and I don't think you could completely shift from that mindset unless you create a new system from the ground up. Which is pretty much what you said in the first sentence.

Hello
The system is not that much of an issue, It think it is the implication of how the system works that is really the bug bear. for me this is what impiges the diversity from character achetype or a game standpoint.

If you have a game that uses a direct influence from the attribute to the end performaces. It kills diversity and promote optimal build focusing on 2 attributes.
a warrior with all in strengh and const will be much more efficient that a warrior with strength, dex and cunning.

The way around that would be use talents/skill that trumps class main attribute.
(ie like talent that increase the % of critical and % of critical damage for a warrior typically based on strengh const where as the aforementioned % are derived from other attributes that are not in the build)

like in ME or the TW2 you can almost ignore attribute all together and base every thing on tallent and leveling in a given profession.

May be the solution is to have talent and skill based on attribute score.
but the derived stats (damage hit point and stamina/mana on the level and the profession provided that you have selected.

That is you need x strengh and z in conts tobe able to chose Heavy armour skills/talent

It not really related to DA2 system, by if you have a game that has quite large creature or quite small creature.
you can not really us a direct function of char into critical game mechanic values.
like damage, critical damage or critical chance.
otherwise it is suboptimal or even detrimental not to play a big race if you want to be barbarian or warrior.

for DA you could still have skill/talents that increase the the game mechanical values but the actual value should be bases on the character level, and if you want on diminishing return function of the char.
a little bit like muzzle velocity and barrel length in automatic pistol.

Phil

Modifié par philippe willaume, 10 novembre 2011 - 11:47 .

[eroeru]

 @Phil

What does making every attribute meaningful have to do with the skill/talent system? I can't link the first two paragraphs with the rest of the text...

[Wulfram]

Crafting is always tedious and/or overpowered - usually and. It also makes very little sense in the context of most video game plots - you've got too many urgent things to do to sit around making things, and in any case you'd expect specialist craftsmen to be better at this sort of thing than someone who fits it in between slaying dragons.

Making people buy combat and non-combat skills with the same resources is bad.

Making conversations more artificial and gamey is bad. Those sort of systems make it too clear that you're interacting with a computer rather than a person.

Thievery really requires a game be specially designed for it if it's not to be stupid. Otherwise you end up with either it being a case of the player reloading every time they fluff a roll or the game just letting them get away with it in defiance of all sense.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Modifié par CrustyBot, 14 novembre 2012 - 06:00 .