360 réponses à ce sujet

[Il Divo]

AlexXIV wrote...

I like the fact that your character has to eat, sleep and repair his stuff. Maybe if you don't want to have debuffs in dungeons etc because your character is tired or your equipment bad, then you should make sure you are well prepared before you go in. That's pretty much the point of the system. It's not to ignore it until the negative effects kick in and then suffer through it. The point is to prepare before adventure/battle. What's wrong with that exactly? I liked that in the older games even your facial expression changed depending on that. So you could easily see in the group window of the UI that something is wrong. Also your companions could complain about you being a bad leader or whatever if such stuff happens. If you can't appreciate that then I am sorry to say that you are not an RPG fan at all.

It's amazing how the desire to avoid food, water, and sleeping mechanis alone suffiices to place someone in the "not an RPG fan" crowd. A wonderful attempt at employing ad hominem, I think.

Modifié par Il Divo, 01 décembre 2011 - 12:59 .

[AmstradHero]

AlexXIV wrote...
I like the fact that your character has to eat, sleep and repair his stuff. Maybe if you don't want to have debuffs in dungeons etc because your character is tired or your equipment bad, then you should make sure you are well prepared before you go in. That's pretty much the point of the system. It's not to ignore it until the negative effects kick in and then suffer through it. The point is to prepare before adventure/battle. What's wrong with that exactly? I liked that in the older games even your facial expression changed depending on that. So you could easily see in the group window of the UI that something is wrong. Also your companions could complain about you being a bad leader or whatever if such stuff happens. If you can't appreciate that then I am sorry to say that you are not an RPG fan at all.

Wow, That's RPG elitism at its best. You're declaring me to be not an RPG fan simply because I disagree with you. Let's just say that you don't know me at all, and in this instance you're dead wrong about me, and leave it at that. That's the most civil response I can give you.

If you had actually played Skyrim and considered what I'd said, you'd realise that in many cases, a lot of the places you visit would take the better part of a day to reach, and thus you'd be tired and have fatigue debuffs upon arriving at the doorstep of your destination (if not before) and there's very few opportunities to rest in the wild to counter that. That's also because in order to sleep, you need a bed, which is a physical entity placed by the game designers; you can't just sleep wherever you want. You could likely alleviate (or potentially fix) this problem with two small tweaks to Skyrim (allow rest anywhere and decreasing the time dilation), but as is, it wouldn't work. Of course, that's ignoring the issue of actually what a fatigure debuff would do to your character, but that's another issue entirely.

Furthermore, you appear to have missed my point. It's not that I don't appreciate the aspects and the realism and the potential effects that things like fatigue or equipment deterioration add to the game. It's simply that I don't feel that they add any meaningful complexity to the game. It's just, "my equipment is beat up, I'll have to backtrack until I reach a location where I can repair my gear". I suppose the argument here is that you have to make a choice between not being at optimal strength by using battered (or second string) equipment or taking the time to go back and repair your equipment. That's not adding complexity, that's adding tedious backtracking. It basically tells the player "if you want to be your best, you have to periodically backtrack and repair, else you're going to be underperforming." That's not heroic. That's "Billy the Blacksmith plays at adventuring."

Or maybe it's a system like Fallout 3 where it's just a matter of me picking up weapons off my fallen enemies and immediately using them to repair my current weapon. It only adds complexity in so much that it makes me perform a straightforward series of mouseclicks in order to continue on my merry way. That's not complexity, that's padding.

The abolishion of vancian casting is a huge boon for game designers to create balanced series of encounters. If you can't understand why that is, then you need to study game design. I still somewhat like the concept of vancian casting in terms of forcing frugal play from players, but the reality is that it's simply less enjoyable when playing spellcasting characters, and that it makes balancing a series of encounters an absolute nightmare for the designer.

The issue isn't that I can't appreciate what these things add to the game. The realism and the sense that you're really battling against more than simply your enemies can give a sense of accomplishment from every success you experience in your adventures. I've loved old games, and heck, I broke out Death Knights of Krynn less than a year ago and still had a bit of fun playing through it again. I just say that the "complexity" from these mechanics ultimately adds little to the experience. It forces you to engage in pointless interface jockeying at worst, or minor resource management at best,.  The gains here are outweighed by the costs incurred from the extra work to make sure that these mechanics work and that they function in a balanced way.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 01 décembre 2011 - 01:25 .

[FedericoV]

AmstradHero wrote...
I can and I will, because it depends on what you mean by complexity.

I mean mechanical freedom (the ability to solve the same "problem" in different ways), emergent playing (the ability to interact with the game environment without innatural obstacles or driven choices) and strategical depth (the need to formulate a long term plan beside your short term goals). I mean the management of your resources for long term goals (strategy) and its interaction with the short term (tactics) ones.

The singnificance of the various feature you mentioned could be meaningless or not if you take them separately. But as allways a game is more than the sums of its part. Those feature together forced players to formulate a long term plan to solve each problem and generally games tried to give you different options to solve those problems creating an interaction between the players and the dev beside the game.

Now games have some recurring feature in each genre: regenerating powers (health, stamina, mana, how you call it), no permadeath, no strategic element, skills allways at the ready, driven/tunnel gameplay between almost passive cutscenes. Those feature objectively reduces the complexity of the games we play.

Couldn't disagree more. If you think that all those skill trees are purely about damage then you either didn't play DA2 or you weren't paying attention. A lot of skills/abilities do increase damage, certainly, but others help your characters to survive, resist powerful blows or other negative effects, perform crowd control, or manage threat levels within your party. To say that they are "purely about damage" is a fallacy. 

Sorry, I used the wrong term. I wanted to talk about the stats but I used the term skill. My bad. Yep, skills in the game has many effetcs and I think that the skill system is one of the most positive things of DA2 and one of its reedeming feature. I like it a lot but still, I think that the removal of almost all buff/debuff/heal mechanics reduce its potential. So sorry, I was talking about stats and the fact that they are only different factors of the damage stat.

If we're continuing the comparison between gold box games, what abilities could you actually control?

C'mon I could use the same argument against DA2 or DA:O. You have just to handle threat management with passive/active skill and then use the same CCC with the same priority scale in every battle and you won. To put it short, try a dungeon in Wizardry 1 and then a dungeon in DA:O and then return here and say to me with a straight face that the DA:O combat system is more complex or more difficult .

And while I agree than in AD&D the fighter classes were simpler and less complex to handle, the spellcasting system in games like BG 1 & 2 required a lot of knowledge for buffs/debuffs that were the main element of depth for the game. Things like knowing the importance of spells like chaothic commands, negative plain protection, etc. etc. etc. gave a lot of depth to the game experience. I loved the "onion spell system" of BG2.

As for strategy... I really don't see how you can argue gold box games were more complex strategically in their fighting. Fight starts: wizards launch fireballs, warriors close in, thieves try to backstab. Healers attempt to keep people alive (or bash skulls in) while wizards back off and fling stones/darts and maybe use another valuable single target spell. Doesn't sound amazingly more complex than DA2 to me.

The single battle is only a tactical challenge. A series of battles linked together is a strategical challenge. When every power regenerates, you have not to manage resources and there is no permadeath, it's obvious that a game has no strategical depth because it does not ask you to think in advance about any issues.

FedericoV wrote...

DAO has few consequences mechanically, but it has vast consequences from a storytelling standpoint.

Yep, I agree great choices with flavour consequences like DA:O's one (with the remarkable exception of the Dark Ritual) are better than no choices at all. DA:O's choices while being mostly without repercussion of any sort, gave a sense of purpose and valour to the experience. But I would not call them complex or at least, I do not think that those flavour choices (or even more extreme one like in TW2) can make up for the loss of complexity in the gameplay department. IE: mechanical depth is more important than storytelling depth in an interactive media.

Modifié par FedericoV, 01 décembre 2011 - 05:30 .

[xCirdanx]

AmstradHero wrote...
I can and I will, because it depends on what you mean by complexity.  I don't consider things like: requiring food/sleep, random encounters, vancian casting, or weapon damage to add meaningful complexity to a game. Requiring food merely means more inventory items to carry and then periodically consume, which I don't consider particularly complex. Sleep requires you to take a periodic "breaks", which when compounded with random encounters and vancian casting can mean that you have party members that are completely useless at a particular point in time. That's not complex, that's just annoying.

I don´t consider this stuff to add complexity to a game, it adds a bit realism and that isn´t a bad thing. Considering that spells and the time how long you can (effectively) fight is limited in games like BG, also adds a new layer of strategy, because you have to handle your "ressources" well if you don´t want to run out of spells/get a sleep debuff etc.

The setting up the nightcamp moment, can also be a good point to initiat party talks. As it was sometimes used in BG.

I never found it annoying, nor do i think it´s a bad game mechanic and i certainly like it more than a character who seems to never eat/sleep and can go on forever.

AmstradHero wrote...
To say that they are "purely about damage" is a fallacy...The only thing that changes over a gold box game is your HP and your THACO. That's hardly complex.

True that.

AmstradHero wrote...
For spellcasting classes, you get a bit more freedom.  Still, the bulk of the spells in this era are focused on dealing damage, with a few to handle crowd control and protection. There's very little (if any) cross class augmentation or combinations that are effective (or required) in order to succeed.

Not true, because this is about the BG series, i beg to differ. There is no question that there were several useless spells in the D&D system used for BG. But there were many non dmg spells that were needed to get thru the game. To learn what you needed, what group buffs could protect you from certain spells, how to remove buffs on enemies, how to break thru npc resitiances etc etc. was important and obligatory to know on high difficulty. 

This is not the case in a game like DA2. I never paid much attention to the spell describtions, it wasn´t needed at all. Played on Nightmare too, not needed at all, just make sure you have your (only...) healer in your party later on and kite.

AmstradHero wrote...
As for strategy... I really don't see how you can argue gold box games were more complex strategically in their fighting. Fight starts: wizards launch fireballs, warriors close in, thieves try to backstab. Healers attempt to keep people alive (or bash skulls in) while wizards back off and fling stones/darts and maybe use another valuable single target spell. Doesn't sound amazingly more complex than DA2 to me.

I agree that it wasn´t "amazingly more complex" than DA2, whatever that means to you.

But fighting was more like: (assuming hardest difficulty)
(thinking&planing-phase) can i even take on that fight? is my party rested? have i the right spells learned to counter them, make dmg, debuff the enemy? healspells learned? buff party to full extend. position party correctly to avoid nasty aoe/debuffs etc. pull enemy and go ahead with the best strategy to beat specific enemy. (right spells, break resis, debuff make dmg) party member dead? f*ck better have the right spell/scroll or get back to town.

DA2: Buffs? Auras are always on *shrug* activate short duration buffs, target casters...charge..beat the crap out of them, have anders heal, use potions...fight doesn´t go well? run away and kite = win. party member dies? who cares..use pot/rez.

That was my experience, for me, thats a big difference.

AmstradHero wrote...
Sure, DA2 ignored or made a lot of these choices completely irrelevant, but that's a failing of DA2 to deliver a potent cohesive narrative within the series

Absolutly agree with you.

AmstradHero wrote...
The abolishion of vancian casting is a huge boon for game designers to create balanced series of encounters

Well then they don´t do a good job of balancing at all don´t you think? Sure, having hundreds of spells/abilities (where only some are usable at a time) needs way more balancing. But having only a handfull is too much of a limitation for me. Having a big varity of spells to choose from gives you the impression of choice. And choice is something that (naturaly) matters for me in RPG´s.

AmstradHero wrote...
The gains here are outweighed by the costs incurred from the extra work to make sure that these mechanics work and that they function in a balanced way.

Thats the point where i disagree at most, as i have said, for me they add a bit of realism and also more to look at and manage then just the next fight.

[Realmzmaster]

The point of many of the conventions of the older games is to add realism and strategic concerns. DAO and DA2 remove the strategic and focus mostly if not all on the tactical. Let give an example of what I mean. The one time that DA2 required strategic thought was when you had to save Saemus Dumar. No break was given between attacks. You had to conserve your resources unless you had a large amount of health, injury, stamina, elfroot or lyrium potions.
You had to think about when you where going to use those potions given the number of foes you would be facing.

In some of the earlier games it would be like that with the added dimension that if you ran out of those potions at the end of the battle you were left with whatever health and mana you had left. In DA2 at the end of the battle there is instant regeneration. The older games made you think should you go back and restock , should you rest before you go (to restock) in case you encounter another foe and be at least than full strength, do you forge ahead to the goal with the party's in a weaken state.

Spells also allowed you to do other actions that just damage dealing. Example in TOEE (Temple of Elemental Evil) aslo works in BG while confronting a demon I was able to run my paladin up to the demon cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on the paladin. The demon likes to cast fear and terror which are useless against a paladin and at the same time the paladin cannot be hurt. I attacked the demon with range weapons while the demon attempted to attack my paladin. The only spell that can remove the sphere before it runs its course is Dispel Magic.
The demon could not cast it without removing its own buffs.The demon figured out that it could not hurt my paladin and turned on the other party members. The demon was down to half its health I then had my wizard cast Dispel magic and the paladin (at full strength) gets to attack.

The sphere could be used in other ways. I could block a door to effect escape or rain death from above. I would have my rogue explore an area in sheath mode. I would find a choke point like a door way. I would have my rogue attract the enemy to the choke point. Summon a cheap creature. Put it in the doorway. Cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on the creature. That would block the doorway. The enemy could not pass and my party could rain death by AOE spells.
Can you do that in DAO or DA2? In fact can you really hold a chokepoint in DAO or DA2?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Realmzmaster wrote...

DAO and DA2 remove the strategic and focus mostly if not all on the tactical.

This was an explicit design objective of DAO, and I think it was a huge mistake.

A game like Skyrim benefits from regenerating health and mana because it is so free-form, but there was no reason ata ll for DAO to have such a thing.

And, let's recall that earlier in DAO's development, the plan was to have health and mana not regenerate quickly at all, and for potions to offer dminishing returns the more often you used them.  All of these strategic elements were removed from the game.  But, knowing that the designers had considered them and possibly even tried to implement them told us that they valued strategic gameplay, even if they couldn't make strategic gameplay work in DAO.

Now they don't announce games until they're almost ready, so we never hear abotu the features that don't make the game, and thus we are left to draw our own conclusions.  Many of us drawn unfounded conclusions, but we wouldn't do that nearly as much if we were given actual data.

Games should be announced earlier so we can have a better idea of the game's overall design direction.  If we'd been able to talk to the developers about DA2 right as soon as they started working on it, we wouldn't have been so surprised by its content.

[standardpack]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

...If we'd been able to talk to the developers about DA2 right as soon as they started working on it, we wouldn't have been as dissapointed by its content.

fixed

[Il Divo]

standardpack wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

...If we'd been able to talk to the developers about DA2 right as soon as they started working on it, we wouldn't have been as disappointed by its content.

fixed

Fixed.

[standardpack]

Il Divo wrote...

standardpack wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

...If we'd been able to talk to the developers about DA2 right as soon as they started working on it, we wouldn't have been as disappointed by its content.

fixed

Fixed.

Crap, I always do that... thanks for spotting that.

[Il Divo]

standardpack wrote...

Crap, I always do that... thanks for spotting that.

No problem. I always make the same bloody mistake trying to spell "installment", thinking it's "instalment". It gets really frustrating.

[xCirdanx]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Games should be announced earlier so we can have a better idea of the game's overall design direction.  If we'd been able to talk to the developers about DA2 right as soon as they started working on it, we wouldn't have been so surprised by its content.

That doesn´t help if the marketing, of even the person in charge of the game isn´t honest.

I remember an interview..a certain DA2 "dev" said something like "if you like DA:O you will like DA2 blabla" and "you can play it the same way"

Well, the first part is subjectiv (bull**** we are talking about the 2nd! part of a series) and the second part works but is significantly inferior than pluging in a gamepad, which i did on my 3rd run and just smash buttons....*clap..clap..clap*

Now this might the point were people zoom out when i say, here, there you have allmost a JRPG. I enjoyed a lot of JRPG´s...and they are not very different, choice? WHAT choice? doesn´t matter, over the top fighting and weapons? action based combat with pots or ONE healer? wannabe cinematic approach? stereotype characters the whole time?

Nothing to add.

[AmstradHero]

FedericoV wrote...
The single battle is only a tactical challenge. A series of battles linked together is a strategical challenge. When every power regenerates, you have not to manage resources and there is no permadeath, it's obvious that a game has no strategical depth because it does not ask you to think in advance about any issues.

Realmzmaster wrote...
The point of many of the conventions of the older games is to add realism and strategic concerns. DAO and
DA2 remove the strategic and focus mostly if not all on the tactical. Let give an example of what I mean. The one time that DA2 required strategic thought was when you had to save Saemus Dumar. No break was given between attacks. You had to conserve your resources unless you had a large amount of health, injury, stamina, elfroot or lyrium potions. You had to think about when you where going to use those potions given the number of foes you would be facing.

By this definition, you're saying that what makes the switch from tactical to strategic challenge is the need to judge usage of your limited resources. In this way, any lengthy fight that can see you deplete your "regular" reserves and force to utilise resources that come in a (periodically) limited amount, it becomes strategic.

In this case, any lengthy (and typically phased) boss fight is both tactical and strategic, such as boss fights like the Rock Wraith, High Dragon or the major demons. You don't get respite between the individual phases of battle during these fights, but have to space out how you utilise your resources to succeed.

To be perfectly honest, I actually prefer this approach both as a designer and player for one key reason: You can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There's no intelligent strategic element in conserving your resources when you have no idea how long before you can replenish them.

I'll illustrate using Eye of the Beholder 2. Fairly early on in the game, you're placed in a rather tough section where you're fighting against giant ants that spawn quite regularly. There are a few puzzles to solve before you can advance, and each individual group you fight can be quite tough. Furthermore, as you get to the end of this section, you have to deal with a series of traps that can decimate your party. To make things even more difficult, you can't rest throughout this entire section in order to regain health/spells.  Nearly all of my friends stopped playing the game at this point because it was just too damned hard. Now, individually, the fights were manageable, but the problem was that you had no idea how many of them your were going to face, and you were very given any indication that you wouldn't be able to sleep.

In essence, the player was plunged into a segment of the game that provided no indication of how long it would last, and therefore how frugal you could/should be with the limited resources you had at your disposal. This is the key flaw that games with resting/food/vancian casting systems (or their ilk) present to the player. They have no idea how to conserve their resources, because there's nothing to indicate when they'll get a chance to refresh them.

As a designer, this also makes balance horrendously difficult, because you have no clue when the player is going to blow their big spells, and thus no means to balance later fights to provide a potent difficulty curve and a climactic final battle in a sequence. The alternative is to expect the player to keep some big guns in reserve, and thus effectively mandating the playstyle they must adopt in order to succeed. Weak final battles in a sequence or forcing the player's to use a particular playstyle are both very undesirable traits from a design perspective.

Compare with big boss fights in DA2 (excluding where your reserves are magically replenished which I'd agree is just bad design), where you have an idea of how to manage your resources. You can see the health bar on the boss, letting you know whether you should keep healing and consumables in reserve because you're only at the start of the fight, or whether to blow everything you've got because the enemy is almost dead.

It's not that DA2 is lacking entirely in strategic elements, it's just that they're confined to particular events for the reasons I've outlined above.  I appreciate the challenge of having to conserve resources in old games, but I couldn't count the number of times when I first went through a game and got to a section still having a multitude of spells in reserve because I thought "I can't use that spell now because I might need it later before I can rest again." If I played through a game again, then I got a lot more value from my spellcasters, because I had good sense of how long it would be before I could get those spells back. That knowledge actually made my play strategic, because I could make an informed decision on how to utilise my resources rather than just blind guessing.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 02 décembre 2011 - 06:13 .

[Realmzmaster]

Lengthy battles and conserving resources is not the only point. Also in my previous post I talk about using the environment to the party's advantage. Like blocking a door way or chokepoint. The potential to do that in DAO or DA2 is extremely limited (if at all). I use my rogue in stealth mode to find a chokepoint to lure the enemy. In BG, IWD and earlier games you could control the chokepoint, not so in DAO or DA2. I can understand the fire demon sinking into the earth and appearing behind me, but not the cultist, bandit or raider getting pass my tank at the doorway without literally moving him. Or if I have my two hander holding a group of narrow stairs, nobody should be able to get by unless it can sink below or fly above.

Why cannot weapons break in battle? That's realistic. If threads on this forum can complain about missing bowstrings why not have weapons that break and need to be maintained. Even if it is just mentioned.
Hawke is about to leave the mansion he ask Bohan did you have the armor repaired and the sword sharpen. Maybe seeing Hawke repairing the armor or weapon in Gamlen's shack.
If the weapon breaks in battle Hawke goes "Shoots that was my favorite weapon now I have to rely on my backup". Or if no backup Hawke says I need to find a sword on the battlefield, fight bare handed or I'm dead.

I mean if you are banging your sword on a stone or steel golem it should have a chance of breaking which means you may have to retreat or withdraw from the battle until the character finds a replacement weapon.

How is possible to have an endless supply of regular arrows?
When I talk about resources I also mean arrows. In BG, IWD or earlier games if you were an archer you made every shot count because all arrows were bought or found. In DAO no need to buy regular arrows (you get an endless supply) only magical ones are bought or found. In DAO at least you missed. In DA2 the archer is like a mage the archer never misses and does not buy any arrows (regular or magical).

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 02 décembre 2011 - 07:13 .

[FedericoV]

AmstradHero wrote...

By this definition, you're saying that what makes the switch from tactical to strategic challenge is the need to judge usage of your limited resources. In this way, any lengthy fight that can see you deplete your "regular" reserves and force to utilise resources that come in a (periodically) limited amount, it becomes strategic.

Don't want to sound rude but it's not my definition of strategy. It's what the terms means. Strategy is linked to long term plans and tactics is linked to short term goals.  Yes, the management of resources normally is a strategic element.

In this case, any lengthy (and typically phased) boss fight is both tactical and strategic, such as boss fights like the Rock Wraith, High Dragon or the major demons. You don't get respite between the individual phases of battle during these fights, but have to space out how you utilise your resources to succeed.

Yep, off course. And that's why I defended even the wave combat design: the feature was used in a rough and abstract way in DA2 but it introduced a strategic element that DA:O missed entirely. Having said that, there are problems with that kind of solution in DA2: a) the strategic element has no sense of scope... it feels flatt in normal fights the strategic element is not that much as soon as you have learned how to priorize your targets and learned how CCC works... you have just to learn a routine and repeat it every time c) in multiphased boss fights you are forced to find the devs solution to the "problem": strategy comes in to play only laterally and it's more a question of trials and errors.

Btw, that's because they have designed bosses as MMO "stone wall" who have not any big weakness, who are immune to most form of damage and resistant to the too few debuff options. You have not to play smart: you just need potions, a little bit of kiting and a good dose of patience, untill you find the escamotage the devs have studied to win the fight.

To be perfectly honest, I actually prefer this approach both as a designer and player for one key reason: You can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There's no intelligent strategic element in conserving your resources when you have no idea how long before you can replenish them.

I'm not game designer and I respect your expertise but as a player who have played too much CRPGs for its own good, I think that DA2 boss design is the contrary of fun for the reason expressed above ("stone wall" MMO-like boss design, lack of meaningfull debuff option, lack of mechanical freedom, general unbalance toward certain classes and party builds). They are just long battle of attriction where you are forced to repeat the same task untill the devs think that it's time for something awesome to happen.

For me the perfect CRPG boss design with the best balance between strategcal depth, tactical sawy, mechanical freedom and fun/reward are still Firkraag and Sarevok in BG1 and 2. 

But yes, there is a something to save in the general concept and an element of strategy is still better than none.    

I'll illustrate using Eye of the Beholder 2. Fairly early on in the game [snip].  They have no idea how to conserve their resources, because there's nothing to indicate when they'll get a chance to refresh them.

I agree. Mind, I've just said that the golden/black box games are more complex and have more depth in terms of gameplay, I've never claimed that those games are the pinnacle of gaming. My  "landmark" in the thread has allways been the BG series (where the problems you mentioned had allready been solved) and I understand why CRPGs today need more accessibility and less mechanical chaos. I would just like a game that achieve the sweet spot between depth and accessibility, easy of use and complexity.

As a designer, this also makes balance horrendously difficult.

I understand what you are saying. But, you know, any version of D&D is more balanced than anything Bioware has done in the DA franchise. So, I understand why strategical elements makes things more difficult to balance, but it does not seem to me that they have put a lot of effort on game balance anyway, especially in DA:O. Just to say, they have not removed strategic/long term elements for balance sake, but just to make life easier for the players and because they wanted a more immediate and visceral experience. The result is that you have a game that is not BG2 and it's not Diablo II and it's not GoW and where most features feels a little bit akward and disconnected.

It's not that DA2 is lacking entirely in strategic elements, it's just that they're confined to particular events for the reasons I've outlined above.  I appreciate the challenge of having to conserve resources in old games, but I couldn't count the number of times when I first went through a game and got to a section still having a multitude of spells in reserve because I thought "I can't use that spell now because I might need it later before I can rest again." If I played through a game again, then I got a lot more value from my spellcasters, because I had good sense of how long it would be before I could get those spells back. That knowledge actually made my play strategic, because I could make an informed decision on how to utilise my resources rather than just blind guessing.

Well, those games were ment to be played that way. You try, you die and you start again with a new party. Then you die again and you start again. And so on. In The Bard's Tale you could find the dead bodies of your former parties in the dungeoun and then resurrect them. I know, it's not the best kind of design but that was the idea of longevity at the time: it all originated with Roguelike games. The difficulty was brutal. As I said before, the BG trilogy allready addressed most of those problems. They were even more balanced games than anything Bioware has done after (even with D&D mechanical chaos and all).

Modifié par FedericoV, 02 décembre 2011 - 08:57 .

[Stanley Woo]

I'm seeing shades of a "what is an RPG?" discussion lurking around here. Let's please remember that our game experiences are different from other people's and not necessarily the best, only, or "right" ones.

[esper]

Mr. Woo, if I might just derail the topic for a second. I have always wondered, why is it that we are not allowed to discuss what an rpg is?

Modifié par esper, 02 décembre 2011 - 06:03 .

[Il Divo]

esper wrote...

Mr. Woo, if I might just derail the topic for a second. I have always wondered, why is it that we are not allowed to discuss what an rpg is?

To put it bluntly, have you not seen what happens whenever the "what is an RPG" question gets asked? The only image I think that can describe it is the Ouroboros. It's just not a pretty sight.

[FedericoV]

Stanley Woo wrote...

I'm seeing shades of a "what is an RPG?" discussion lurking around here. Let's please remember that our game experiences are different from other people's and not necessarily the best, only, or "right" ones.

Sorry, you're right. The discussion has dereailed a bit in tecnhicalities and dry details. Let's get back on topic: BG trilogy is the best CRPG series ever.

Btw, can you tell to Mr. Silverman that everytime I speak with Minsc&Boo something awesome happens ?

Modifié par FedericoV, 02 décembre 2011 - 06:10 .

[esper]

Il Divo wrote...

esper wrote...

Mr. Woo, if I might just derail the topic for a second. I have always wondered, why is it that we are not allowed to discuss what an rpg is?

To put it bluntly, have you not seen what happens whenever the "what is an RPG" question gets asked? The only image I think that can describe it is the Ouroboros. It's just not a pretty sight.

So basically it is because we can't discuss in a civil manner? That is actually sad.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Il Divo wrote...

esper wrote...

Mr. Woo, if I might just derail the topic for a second. I have always wondered, why is it that we are not allowed to discuss what an rpg is?

To put it bluntly, have you not seen what happens whenever the "what is an RPG" question gets asked? The only image I think that can describe it is the Ouroboros. It's just not a pretty sight.

And we are allowed to discuss it, just not on the game-specific fora.

If we go to Off-Topic, we can argue definitions all we want.

[Il Divo]

esper wrote...

So basically it is because we can't discuss in a civil manner? That is actually sad.

That's a huge part of it. The other factor is that there rarely is any resolution to the discussion, since everyone has such a diverse conception of the RPG genre. Or if resolution is even possible, there's usually not enough time because someone gets the thread locked via trolling.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

And we are allowed to discuss it, just not on the game-specific fora.

If we go to Off-Topic, we can argue definitions all we want.

I stand corrected.

Modifié par Il Divo, 02 décembre 2011 - 06:15 .

[esper]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

esper wrote...

Mr. Woo, if I might just derail the topic for a second. I have always wondered, why is it that we are not allowed to discuss what an rpg is?

To put it bluntly, have you not seen what happens whenever the "what is an RPG" question gets asked? The only image I think that can describe it is the Ouroboros. It's just not a pretty sight.

And we are allowed to discuss it, just not on the game-specific fora.

If we go to Off-Topic, we can argue definitions all we want.

Okay. That is fair. Consider my question answered. Please go back to the topic in the thread.

[FedericoV]

esper wrote...

So basically it is because we can't discuss in a civil manner? That is actually sad.

No, just because it's a discussion without a solution. So, it's not relevant for the DA franchise.

[ozmiz]

That vote is not surprising to me at all. I still play through the series off and on for nostalgia.

A timeless, true classic that was responsible for bringing a lot of new blood into the RPG world of gaming (that still benefits rpg game developers even today).

[Realmzmaster]

DAO and DA2 are most definitely cRPGs. The definition of a cRPG is changing and broadening to encompass more diversity. What can be debated is what features are present in the older titles verus the newer titles and what has changed over the years. What can be discussed is the definition of complexity and how that complexity differs in different series.

Since the title of the thread deals with another Bioware series (BG) and DA series was touted as the spiritual successor to that series comparisons will be made and the differences noted.

This does not mean that DA is not a cRPG. The gameplay and certain mechanics are different in both series. Part of that is due to the system that each was built.

The D & D system has been around for decades with it origins in Chainmail (a medieval miniatures wargame). The system used for DA is simpler than D & D.
That is not saying the DA system is not good. The system is good, but it is different for a gamer who played the D & D based games. I have different expectations based on my experience.

When I use the term lightweight it is not to disparage DA. I could have used a better term. but that is what came to mind at the time.

FedericoV notes that some of us started playing with Rogue and Roguelike games which are brutal in terms of difficulty. You needed both strategy and tactics to survive. The BG series found the sweet spot (in my opinion) in terms of strategy and tactics.

Is BG the best series that is opinion. It is a great series. I think there are other great series like Ultima, Wizardry, and Bards Tale. I do not know if the developers who voted played those series. YMMV.