243 réponses à ce sujet

[Zanallen]

Mr. Laidlaw,

Please, if you do bring back non-combat skills, make sure that we can use a companion to solve quests if our PC doesn't have the requisite skills. That is how it was in DA:O and I really appreciated that. I can't tell you how many times I was frustrated in KotOR (I and II, I believe) by not being able to access certain conversation options with T3 or HK because my PC's repair or computer skill wasn't high enough. Why couldn't I just ask one of my companions to repair them for me?

[PsychoBlonde]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

simfamSP wrote...

What I think RPGs lack these days are quests that involve more chit chat and less hack 'n slash.

Would you be offended if I expanded that to say: "more quests that involve non-combat activities, including talking but also other stuff."

And then said "Okay!"

And then remained distressingly vague about when/where and how, because I have to?

Yeah, maybe. Just pretend I didn't say anything. *nodnod*

I'd just like to comment on this--there are some major pitfalls surrounding the "quests with non-combat activities" idea.  Keep in mind that the much-lamented FedEx quests ARE "quests with non-combat activities".  They involve no combat whatsoever.  You find something, pick it up, and shuttle it to its owner.  Quests that just involve going around and talking to people are barely an improvement on this.  If you make quests require particular skills and abilities, then you're going to have quests that people can't do based on their character build.  Some people (me) HATE THIS OMG SO MUCH.  And if you add in a special mechanic for that quest, what do you have? A mini-game.  Some people like them.  Some people hate them.  Some people, for whatever reason, find them impossible even if they're intended to be incredibly easy.  Puzzles are really only interesting the first time you encounter them.  After that, you know what switches to pull and they're just kind of silly.

Now, there are ways to deal with all of these problems.

1. One way to fix FedEx quests is to create a deeper exploration setup.  It's one thing to get a quest that is essentially "find an X" or "deliver this X" when it tells you where to go and what you need to do.  One of the best NwN modules ever created, Tortured Hearts, had an AMAZING way of doing this.  You could wander all over the place getting quests.  Sometimes you even had to talk people *into* giving you a quest.  Sometimes they'd tell you what they needed, but in many of the quests they just tell you what their problem is and you get to go find someone/something that can fix it.  Then the quest becomes less about delivering X item and more about "HAH, I figured out what to do!"  These are even more fun if you leave open multiple avenues for resolving the problem.

2.  There's lots of ways to make the "this activity requires X skill" work better.   One is to let you pick skills for all your party members, so you can get access to everything somehow.  This could be hilarious if it matters WHO you have get WHAT skill, leading to some whacktastic quest resolutions if you decided to give Oghren the cooking skill, for instance.  You can make it so that it's possible to do the quest no matter what, but you get a totally different benefit depending on your skillset.

3.  The mini-game thing can be easily "fixed" by having everything in the game work in exactly the same way.  That works great for free-form games like, say, Skyrim.  No matter what quest you're on, if you shoot people with a fireball, you get pretty much the same result.  Dragon Age thus far has taken a mechanical model where the gameplay and world are pretty much separate.  If you charge in the tavern and start hucking fireballs around, nobody cares.  I personally don't mind periodic mini-games.  However, if you're going to introduce a new mechanic, I want to see that mechanic AT LEAST three times over the course of the game, in AT LEAST three different scenarios.  If it's not worth doing three times or more, it's not worth doing even ONCE.  Extremely unusual boss fights MIGHT be an exception to this.  Also, you can really generate some interesting moments if you occasionally poke holes in the barrier between gameplay and world by allowing things to interact sometimes.  Suppose, for instance, that you're doing the Dragon Age version of Tower Defense--but your archers can still shoot and your mages can still throw some spells.  Now, you have a far more complex mini-game that ties in with the general gameplay.  And it merges with point 2 up above.

4.  The only game I've found where I still keep enjoying the puzzles into the tenth, twentieth, or more encounter is Dungeons and Dragons Online.  The game is just FULL of puzzles.  However, most of the major puzzles are semi-random, so you're actually better off learning how to solve a general CATEGORY of puzzles.  Let's take the Bioware Standby Puzzle here as an example: the Towers of Hanoi.  EVERYBODY knows how to solve this.  You solve it exactly the same way every time.  So what happens when you change the number of discs?  Or the number of poles?  Now you don't have a rote puzzle any more.  Sure, your knowledge of the general category of puzzles will come in handy--it'll help you figure out *what* you need to accomplish.  But the actions will be different each time, and you'll have to think about it.  

[TEWR]

PsychoBlonde wrote...


I'd just like to comment on this--there are some major pitfalls surrounding the "quests with non-combat activities" idea.  Keep in mind that the much-lamented FedEx quests ARE "quests with non-combat activities".

People really only hated the FedEx quests not because of the lack of combat, but because Hawke knows who they go to without really doing much exploration.

which I'm fairly certain was your actual point. They were the very literal version of non-combat activities.

I'm almost confident that had they been Chanter's Board quests with a description of both the item, where to find said person, and a general idea of the area it was in; then barely anyone would've had a problem with it.

Quests that just involve going around and talking to people are barely an improvement on this.  If you make quests require particular skills and abilities, then you're going to have quests that people can't do based on their character build.  Some people (me) HATE THIS OMG SO MUCH.

 

I agree. Luckily DAO had a way of making it so that if your companion had a skill point you lacked they could make up for it.

Like the Mabari in Awakening that's really upset. If you didn't have Survival points -- at least 2 -- but a companion did you could still calm the dog down.



 

Puzzles are really only interesting the first time you encounter them.  After that, you know what switches to pull and they're just kind of silly.

Depends really on the puzzle.

I wonder... is it possible to make a puzzle that has various ways of being solved?

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 16 décembre 2011 - 09:39 .

[nightscrawl]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

I'd just like to comment on this...

Great read!

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Depends really on the puzzle.

I wonder... is it possible to make a puzzle that has various ways of being solved?

You could make a puzzle that has a random layout every time you load into the zone. For example the fire-path puzzle in Stone Prisoner, or the stone-light puzzle in the Wending Wood in DAA. You can have a different number of tiles, or the start/end locations are in different places, and so forth.

While I like the concept of this, I am one of those people who wants to do everything possible in a single game play (all quests done, all items looted, all locks picked, all friends recruited). This means that in order to get through some aspects of the game (like puzzles), I have resorted to guides. Unfortunately, having a random puzzle layout every time you load into a zone makes the use of guides impossible, unless it's not really "random" but only a set number (five or so) pre-determined layouts.

About 30 minutes is the maximum time I will allow for trying to solve a puzzle in a game like Dragon Age, where I'm mainly interested in a story. If I'm not really close, as was the case with the stone bridge to get Andraste's Ashes, I'll go look for a guide so I can move on with my life.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 16 décembre 2011 - 09:52 .

[PsychoBlonde]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


I wonder... is it possible to make a puzzle that has various ways of being solved?

Yes.  The Shadow Crypt in DDO is a prime example of this.  It is a bunch of rooms with four doors in them hovering in a shadowed void.  The doors transport you to another room,  but they aren't connected in an obvious linear fashion.  Sometimes rooms will lead back to themselves.  Each room has a gear you need in order to unlock the final room where the boss is.  If you obtain 4 extra gears you also get an extra chest that can drop unique loot.

There are basically an infinite number of ways you could go about solving this puzzle.  The general idea is to visit each room at least once.  However, ideally, you don't want to be visiting rooms any more times than you absolutely have to.

The brute-force method (which always works 100%, but can take a while) is to leave each room the way you came in until you get back to the beginning, then go a different direction off the starting room.  Repeat until you have all the gears and you find the door that leads to the end.  (The devs were kind enough to mark the end door with a glowing tapestry so you're not COMPLETELY wandering in the dark.)  However, if you're smart, you can figure out many much shorter paths.

Or, you could simply take it that any quest which has multiple branching paths IS a puzzle with multiple possible "solutions".

[thats1evildude]

There's always the Gordian Knot solution to puzzles.

Modifié par thats1evildude, 16 décembre 2011 - 10:04 .

[PsychoBlonde]

nightscrawl wrote...

While I like the concept of this, I am one of those people who wants to do everything possible in a single game play (all quests done, all items looted, all locks picked, all friends recruited). This means that in order to get through some aspects of the game (like puzzles), I have resorted to guides. Unfortunately, having a random puzzle layout every time you load into a zone makes the use of guides impossible, unless it's not really "random" but only a set number (five or so) pre-determined layouts.

About 30 minutes is the maximum time I will allow for trying to solve a puzzle in a game like Dragon Age, where I'm mainly interested in a story. If I'm not really close, as was the case with the stone bridge to get Andraste's Ashes, I'll go look for a guide so I can move on with my life.

DDO uses these random puzzles, and instead of creating guides people have written solvers.  One of the puzzles they use, for instance, is basically the Mastermind game, which can be solved using a mathematical algorithm in no more than 5 moves.

The trick is that in most of the cases when you have one of these simple but random puzzles is that very frequently you're on a TIMER.   Now I wouldn't necessarily suggest this for a single-player game, but it is *one* way to add interest to what would otherwise be a very straightforward puzzle.

[PsychoBlonde]

thats1evildude wrote...

There's always the Gordian Knot solution to puzzles.

This can be a fun thing to incorporate into a game on some level.  It's not uncommon for games that use skills to have times when you can either, say, pick someone's pocket to get a key--OR, if you're not a pickpocket, you get to travel to the ends of the earth solving problems for every hick and yahoo for three hours until you finally get whatever the dude wanted in order to give you the key.  However, then you run into the problem where either having that particular skill or ability becomes basically a requirement for enjoying the game (which is no fun), or you never really want to use those abilities because you'd wind up missing out on quests and lootz.

One way to deal with this conundrum may be to have the skills switch up the ORDER in which you do things (and maybe some details about how things play out), but you still have a chance to fiddle around with everything.  Then it comes down more to what type of character do you like to play than how much free time do you have to go on wild goose chases.

[Fylimar]

I would love to have more quest without combat. The combat orientation made the end of DA2 bad for me, because they obviously needed another endboss and came up with the most unlikely person out of the blue (I guess spoilers aren't allowed here, so I stay vague - most people will probably know, what I mean).

Modifié par Fylimar, 20 décembre 2011 - 06:58 .

[Bayz]

Depends on how are done they could be great. Despite the blood knigth in me, i enjoyed playing a social Ventrue in Bloodlines, problem is that many of said quests end up being typical Fedex and that's usually not cool.

Now now, a revamped combat system that make it less tedious and more well planned intelligent encounters and combat situations that make you bleed out your brain to overcome (even not only combat, puzzles are fine too) That I would love to see.

[Il Divo]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

People really only hated the FedEx quests not because of the lack of combat, but because Hawke knows who they go to without really doing much exploration.

which I'm fairly certain was your actual point. They were the very literal version of non-combat activities.

I'm almost confident that had they been Chanter's Board quests with a description of both the item, where to find said person, and a general idea of the area it was in; then barely anyone would've had a problem with it.

Even there, I'm not certain the Fed-Ex quests would have had the best reception. I fully support non-combat side quests, but I think they need to focus more on delivering a substantial motivation on why the player is doing what he is doing. The more involved the side quest, the more "natural" it feels. Personally, that was my problem with the Chanter's Board, FedEx quests, etc.

[Bayz]

Thing is, levelling system right? all the perks and stuff when you level up are combat orientated in DA2 so...what? are you going to make the levelling system useless?

if you revamped it giving more stats based on social interaction like in Origins well...that might do...just might.

[twincast]

There should be side quests solvable only through combat, there should be side quests solvable only through stealth, there should be side quests solvable only by mean talking, there should be quests solvable only through nice talking, there should be side quests solvable through two or more of the above or a combination thereof and almost every step of the main quest should be solvable through at least three distinct ways and while more sophisticated approaches should yield higher XP the difference shouldn't be so high to force anyone into any particular playstyle.

And one should be able to open every closed chest and door (bar maybe some that are über-important to the plot) through lockpicking, brute force and magic spells of either kind. If chests and doors having stronger locks are generally also made out of stronger materials and breaking them open risks breaking their contents, balancing shouldn't be that hard. The current system just feels too game-y to me.

And there should be puzzles:
I loved everything about the Gauntlet in DA:O to no end. And you'd get major brownie points if you (re-)introduced classics like the Tower of Hanoi, the eight (or n) queens puzzle, the river-crossing puzzle, some kind of sliding puzzle or even Mastermind. Of course (other than sliding puzzles due to their infinite amount of possible variations) they're no actual challenge once you've figured them out once or got the solution explained well (especially the Tower), but I just love geeking out at them. I suppose they (and other puzzles) should be optional (as in restricted to side quests and/or solvable for less XP by a party member without giving away the solution), but I really, really want them back in.

And keeps! Baldur's Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dragon Age: Awakening, I love me some keeps! Of course implementation is key, though. Having a home base or two by itself is cool and all, but if there's no actual choice in upgrading it feels a bit lacking. And if the only choice is between cheaper or better, it's no real choice. For walls that's fine (although they should be split into sections instead of being all or nothing), but for actual expansions of the infrastructure one should be given the choice between at least two equally valid but different options as often as possible. And the better in quality and the better suited to your playstyle your choices are the easier defending the the keep should be and the better your results, the less casualties your loyal forces should suffer.

Modifié par twincast, 16 décembre 2011 - 02:23 .

[Realmzmaster]

One point to consider is not having puzzles or riddles on the main quest line. Leave the puzzles and riddles for sidequests or companion quests. Example the bridge puzzle and riddles were on the Urn of Scared Ashes questline which was required to save Arl Eamon.

The riddles were straight forward and if you missed on your party fought a shade and got experience. No big problem. The bridge problem on the other hand drove some gamers bananas and reaching for a guide or on the forum looking for help, because the party could not advance beyond that point. You had to solve the bridge puzzle.

The way it was done in MotA is better. If you want to get the extra loot and The Take achievement you go to the vaults and solve the puzzles, but it does not prevent the party from carrying on with the main quest.

Non-combat skills like diplomacy could be used on the main quest to talk the party out of situations. If diplomacy fails then combat ensues. If you have a rogue in the party and are trying to retrieve a particular item sheath should be an option. If no rogue in the party then you do it the old fashion way.

Also allow for bashing or chests and doors, but with the possibility of breaking what is in the chest. If your warrior bashes a door there is great possibility of alerting everyone in that room and an attack occurs.

Also there should be a possibility of not disarming a trap or opening a chest if you are a rogue. The method now ensures that if you have enough cunning you automatically succeed. I would like to see the more cunning you have a greater possibility you have of opening a chest. I would still allow for a 1% or 5% failure rate much like resistances cannot reach 100%.

Now that may or may not be popular. Just some thoughts and my humble opinions.

[FedericoV]

Brockololly wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Would you be offended if I expanded that to say: "more quests that involve non-combat activities, including talking but also other stuff."

Well, in order to have quests which involve non combat activities maybe then we need non combat skills which we can actively progress in and level up as the game goes along? Or are those still "vestigial" ?

Well, in some way DA2 featured dialogue skills with the icon/personality system. And honestly it's a more interesting system than DA:O's persuasion check.

It's just that in DA2 they were not used to full potential and were not fully understood by the players (just like most invisible skills).

Modifié par FedericoV, 16 décembre 2011 - 04:59 .

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm going to add something that occurred to me: one of the problems that keeps Dragon Age's gameplay and world in completely different rooms is the fact that the designers have literally NO IDEA how you're going to build your character. It's quite possible that your mage, for instance, will have no fireball and no heal spell, so putting in quests and world elements that involve those generally combat-related abilities means potentially locking the player out of stuff on a given playthrough.

They partly compensated for this in The Fade in Origins by giving you a set of temporary abilities, but why not take it further? Why not start all characters with a set of basic abilities? You can then choose which ones to put on your hotbar and which abilities to improve. This means that you can plan around people using certain abilities at certain points--and also have a more variable and interesting game because it may be easier or harder to do certain things depending on how you leveled up your abilities.

I also like the idea of companions having assigned skills/specialties, just due to the opportunities for craziness there. It could also mean that if you chase off or kill one of your companions, you lose access to a skill set. This could even be seen as a desirable thing, if, for instance, your significantly amoral companion with the Poisoning skill keeps secretly killing people you would rather deal with in other ways.

You might consider incorporating this with crafting, so instead of giving materials to NPC vendors and then ordering stuff from them, you give materials to your companions and then order things from THEM. Additional layers could even be added to this: companions can craft different items depending on what abilities you pick for them or how you assign their stats. They may consider certain materials to be gifts (and it may be part of their companion quest, which would add more companion interaction), which would affect their friendship/rivalry or whatever system they decide to go with in DA3. It'll also potentially make the companion dialog options a little more transparent, because instead of an implied skillset for certain companions (like Varric knowing about the underworld), there will be a real, explicit skillset that may help prompt you to take certain people to certain places. You could even do things like having certain companions give bonuses to gather certain materials, so if you're heading for the mines, you might be better off taking the Miner, or if you're heading to the woods, maybe you'll take the Tracker.

[Firky]

twincast wrote...

And keeps! Baldur's Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dragon Age: Awakening, I love me some keeps! Of course implementation is key, though. Having a home base or two by itself is cool and all, but if there's no actual choice in upgrading it feels a bit lacking. And if the only choice is between cheaper or better, it's no real choice. For walls that's fine (although they should be split into sections instead of being all or nothing), but for actual expansions of the infrastructure one should be given the choice between at least two equally valid but different options as often as possible. And the better in quality and the better suited to your playstyle your choices are the easier defending the the keep should be and the better your results, the less casualties your loyal forces should suffer.

I didn't really dig the upgrading quests in Awakening, but I'm not sure why. It's like the Redcliffe battle in Origins, I guess. No matter how hard I bolstered troops, I didn't get a sense that they were helping much in battle. (But maybe I missed something.)

I loved the strongholds in BG2, though, because they made you feel special, based on your class. And they had very radically different, class-specific quests that came along with them. There's only 3 classes in DA. There were 8 strongholds in BG2. Obviously, they'd have to create discrete content for each class in DA, which (vaguelly) 2/3 of people wouldn't play, but I don't think it'd have to be hefty. Just a room and 3-4 quests?


PS. Not even strongholds as home bases, even. Just discrete, class based content.

Modifié par Firky, 16 décembre 2011 - 10:55 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Firky wrote...

I didn't particularly like it, personally. But stealth in MotA did make me really question which fantasy RPGs do it well. I don't think anyone's nailed it yet. But I'm seeing some potential in MotA's approach.

'Thief' nailed it. But Thief was *designed* to be a stealth game. DA shouldn't strive to be, though allowing the stealth mechanic to do more than grant bonuses to backstabs would be nice (which is why I appreciated the experimentation of MotA).

That said though, allowing any skills to do stuff outside of combat would be nice.

[kazuya246]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

simfamSP wrote...

What I think RPGs lack these days are quests that involve more chit chat and less hack 'n slash.

Would you be offended if I expanded that to say: "more quests that involve non-combat activities, including talking but also other stuff."

And then said "Okay!"

And then remained distressingly vague about when/where and how, because I have to?

Yeah, maybe. Just pretend I didn't say anything. *nodnod*

That is one of the best things about the Elder Scrolls. Everytime I have to crawl through a dungeon in Skyrim, to look for an artifact, I groan. But then there are quests with interesting plots that require no combat at all. I will always remember the Daedric quest in Oblivion for Molag Bal. It required you to corrupt a righteous man, by insulting his dead wife and enticing him to kill you with a cursed weapon. Thus condemning his soul. That was unforgettable. I'd love to see dragon age implement things like that.

[KennethAFTopp]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

simfamSP wrote...

What I think RPGs lack these days are quests that involve more chit chat and less hack 'n slash.

Would you be offended if I expanded that to say: "more quests that involve non-combat activities, including talking but also other stuff."

And then said "Okay!"

And then remained distressingly vague about when/where and how, because I have to?

Yeah, maybe. Just pretend I didn't say anything. *nodnod*

I am not sure a skill like persuade would work with a dialogue wheel, not the way you did it in Dragon Age 1 anyhow. Buut if you look at how There were certain quests in Deus Ex: Human Revolution could have have exciting possibilities for your future games. Jus' saying.

[Bayz]

To the hells with the dialogue wheel, gods I hate that ting. I'm going to rant on the internet, then cry until I fall asleep.

It can with different checks done with different type of choices. I mean if you had been "paragon" all way long your check will count as "persuade" if you have been mostly "renegade" it will do with "intimidate". If you've been "funny" nobody liked you anyway and means you are adopted.

Obviously as in Origins you will use the same skill for both.

Modifié par Bayz, 17 décembre 2011 - 02:14 .

[Dubya75]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Filament wrote...

Sounds good. But, I hope you guys are taking into account the issues people had with the stealth feature in MotA. It was nice, but not exactly perfect.

Yea the stealth in MotA was a nice experiment, but there's a lot that needs to be done to it to make it better imo.

Like getting caught should make the stealth part cease, at least until the enemies in the immediate area are dead.

I forget what other stuff I've said should be done to the stealth. Have to do some digging in some old threads.

We're well aware. Limitations of what you can do without core executable changes (which a DLC cannot do). A worthwhile experiment, though, I think.

Skyrim does stealth right. MotA did it wrong.

[Bayz]

Skyrim sometimes does it right, when you have it high enough.

Other times is just silly when it decided not to aknowledge you are in stealth mode >< just because (not in the remaining invisible from enemies which almost always works, but in the counting the attakc as sneak attack)

[Atakuma]

Dubya75 wrote...

Skyrim does stealth right. MotA did it wrong.

I disagree completely. The stealth in MotA wasn't perfect, but I found it a hell of a lot more entertaining than slowly croutching around for no reason in Skyrim.

Modifié par Atakuma, 17 décembre 2011 - 10:39 .

[Bayz]

Demon Stone did Stealth right Skyrim and MotA did it wrong...

Actually, now being serious, thw only game I've seen that did it right (haven't played Thief) are the Commandos series...at least before you started bombing stuff...