4 réponses à ce sujet

[Dalyaria]

Please disregard this. I'll post this instead to general discussion.


First, I want to say that I do generally like the Bioware RPGs. It is the influence system that I find lacking. I mostly always play with an evil group, so this is the perspective here as well.

The three problems are:

1) The system penalizes you for roleplaying your character as you want

In roleplaying games, I want to be able to choose the dialogue choices I want. However, if I do that here, I often get disapproval from the party members. This leads to being unable to get the bonus scores to various stats you get for having high approval scores. Also, you have to compensate by spending money on gifts, which you could spend on equipment otherwise.


2) The system penalizes you for wanting to play as much of the content of the game as possible

Often, the "evil" party members are unhappy for doing "good" quests. Still, there often isn't an alternative evil quest. With an evil party, I feel like I am being forced to refuse many of the quests and thus miss out a lot of the content of the game. Going according to their wishes, I miss the potential equipment and the experience rewards gained from these quests.

What should be understood is that evil and good are not functions of what you do, but instead why. There are often no options at all to talk your choices through with the companions, even with a maximized persuasion score. I should be able to tell the "evil" party members that the good quest is worth doing - not because it's the right thing to do - but because there are potential material / social rewards, which you can use for your own ends. This would set well with both the pragmatic and the "left-hand philosophy" -party members.


3) The apparent lack of consistency

One of the things I hear the evil characters being portrayed is as pragmatists. Their goal is to save the world from the darkspawn, not to help villagers with their minor troubles. I find that by this philosophy, they are dedicating themselves to a higher - immaterial - purpose. Their motive is essentially "good", at least so far as "good" is generally thought out to be. Still, they often like it when I e.g. threaten various villagers. What higher goal does this serve? I guess it could be thought that they dedicate themselves to a "left-hand" philosophy. Might makes right, and others should be able to stand punishment and grow stronger for it. But how does this serve with their goal of saving a falling world from the darkspawn, if they really are pragmatists? Why not try to join with the winning side in the first place? Also, it's worth considering - if the characters really are pragmatists - why are they very happy for receiving material trinkets without any practical use as gifts?

Also, I've understood that once various characters dislike you enough, they are going to attack you. I find that they should first make a realistic assessment of their chances. The survival instinct is the most basic trait for nearly all things alive - do they really feel they have a good chance against you at this point? Considering all what the main character has accomplished, I find this hard to believe. During the course of the main quest, it should become apparent to the various characters that the current path is the right one, especially resulting from various discussions to the motives why you do what you do. If a quest to save the world doesn't make a person to greatly think more of the deeper questions of life, I don't know what will.

I understand that at the moment, various characters are greatly affected if you have sex with them. While I agree that this can be a major occasion for a person, it should not in any case be the way to change the given character's entire moral system.


In conclusion:

I find that all this constantly leads to the lack of suspension of disbelief. I feel like I'm playing a diplomatic meta-game, without consistent solutions (or solutions at all) to the problems. Without a deeper, motive-based influence system, I wish I could just turn the entire thing off and concentrate on actually playing the game and roleplaying my character as I see fit. Currently I see myself trying to find the best dialogue choices for my party members in different conversations, and loading if I get disapproval. This should not be the way the game should be played, but it is indeed what the game encourages you to do.

Modifié par Dalyaria, 30 novembre 2009 - 06:31 .

[wepeel_]

Having everyone agree with your decisions and admire you no matter what you decide to do seems to be even more lack of suspension of disbelief though. Few leaders are popular with everyone they lead, and no matter how thought-through your decisions seem to you, there's always someone thinking it's a foolish call. To make a decision, and then live with it - in spite of some people being grumpy about it - seems pretty realistic to me.

[telephasic]

I don't understand your first point at all. Dialog options leading to disapproval makes sense from a roleplay perspective. Do you expect insulting your comrades, or saying something which offends their basic morality, will endear them to you? Also, gifts are dirt cheap - I'm sure I have never paid gold for one, I think most actually top out at 2 or 3 silver.



Your second point makes some sense. However, there's no reason to assume that Sten or Morrigan, for example have good strategic sense. And you can persuade Sten to not disapprove of several sidequests, so Morrigan is really the only irredeemable one. In the end, you shouldn't assume you can have it all...that's not roleplaying, that's powergaming.



As to your third point, again, don't assume your NPCs have sense - they aren't the protagonist for a reason. Morrigan is very immature, and Sten is highly (for lack of a better term) ideological. Also, I think certain characters just leave rather than attack (Liliana, IIRC).

[Enoch VG]

I don't like the gift-giving minigame. Consequences for in-game actions are good additions to RPGs, providing character depth, increasing replayability, etc. Undoing these consequences via gift giving undercuts the consistency and believability of the characters-- they feel less like characters and more like faceless approval meters with arbitrary tastes.



Also, the quicksave-quickload guesswork that is often necessary to determine NPC wants some bit of loot most is most decidedly Not Fun.

[SirValeq]

I must agree. The whole approval system only led to a different branch of power-gaming. Lots of people began to play the game in a way which is only calculated to squeeze that few extra stats from party members by raising their approval. That's really bad for the role-playing aspect of the game.

I know it's quite realistic that people tend to disagree with your actions and like you less if you do things totally unlike they would do them. The problem is that in the age of MMOs the vast majority of players move towards power-gaming more than towards role-playing. And if they try to role-play, the game mechanic penalizes them. I mean, come on, switching party members for different dialogues just so they don't like you for your actions and then switching them right back? (like saving Redcliffe with Morrigan/Sten in your party) Is that really helping the game aspire to being a good roleplaying game rather than just an action game with an interaction meta-game addon?