65 réponses à ce sujet

[egervari]

Kalcalan wrote...

Once they are unlocked specializations in Dragon Age are available for all your characters and every NPCs. That is just a cheap way to deal what could have been great quest material. In Might and Magic it was rewarding to get titles and stuff because of all the effort it implied (going for a walkthrough made things really easy so there always was that option for those who couldn't be bothered).

But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that point. IMO too much convenience doesn't necessarily makes games better.

Honestly, I don't think we are agreeing to disagree. The titles are a good thing. Finding the expert/master trainers was not so good.

I was actually really pissed in Mass Effect that your class upgrade came from a dumb ass side-quest. There was no indication that this quest was any more relevant compared to any of other planetary side-quest. They were all trash IMHO. Also, the quest itself was boring and not difficult at all - just hitting defenseless computer screens in 3 buildings. Whoopie. And it's the most surprising thing... you do that... and suddenly you get a class upgrade. It comes out of a blue... and it was so unfulfilling.

So I hear what you're saying... a class upgrade should be something to struggle and marvel at. I totally hear you on this.

Kalcalan wrote...
I've played a lot of Fallout 3 (even modded a bit) and Very Hard with a mod to reduce XP was the only way to enjoy the game. I also got rid of bobbleheads and fast travel. Now fast travel is certainly convenient but it really makes the game way easier and diminishes the importance of planning your journeys in the capital wasteland.

Believe me, it's not just nostalgia. In Fallout 2 there was a quest that went so deep that I only find out about it after countless runs through the game.

A little thing really but you could blackmail a doctor in Fallout 2 and if you later asked him to heal you he would poison you. That's the attention to details such as these that you wouldn't expect in a CRPG that made these games so memorable.

Yeah, I knew about that one from long time ago. There are also similar kinds of things in Fallout 3 too. A lot of it is totally optional and one may never see it. I think bethesda did a fantastic job. The only difference is that it is more heavily documented in the GOTY strategy guide, so maybe that ruins it a bit. Once of the few guides I actually bought.

If I ever do play Fallout 3 again, I'll be sure to get the mods to reduce XP gains. The XP you get in that game is way too much... way imbalanced in the favour of the player. Makes me thing... "what were the developers thinking?!" I mean, you can do all the main quests and very little side quests and get to level 20 easily.

Kalcalan wrote...
You can't "screw up" no matter what you do in games nowadays and I don't see that as an improvement. It means that you don't have to think about consequences to your actions. If you know that you need a particular item to finish a major quest then Dragon Age will make sure you pick it up whether you want to or not. At least Dragon Age allows you to screw up sidequests.

That's just it... sometimes in those games you wouldn't really understand what your action was to get such drastic consequences. And I actually like that quest items are marked as such. It is all too easy to not pick an important item up... or sell it off... or throw it away... in some games. With all the other crap you can often pick up, it's really hard to know what it useful/needed from what isn't. So I think this is a win for the newer games. And it's not like some older games didn't do this - Final Fantasy separated quest items from regular items as well. This is a good thing.

Kalcalan wrote...
Knowing that whatever happens you will only face foes that match your level or challenge rating (to use the D&D terminology) is a pain because it means that you can't be surprised, you can't be in danger. That is a reason why I loved the mod that increased the number of spawns in Fallout 3. Knowing that you may run into 20 raiders means you have to be quick on your feet so to speak and that you have to be ready to stand up to the challenge.

Let me clear... presenting such challenges is acceptable only if your character is somewhat prepared for it. A character just entering the wasteland with a freaking BB gun is not going to have the means to deal with it - period. This isn't challenge - this is just plain stupid.

I think challenge should come from gameplay mechanics itself - like chess. In chess, there are the right moves and the wrong moves. All too often in RPGs you can amass so much stuff and xp that decision making is irrelevant. Perhaps scripted chess battles of a whole bunch of different flavours without obvious and/or overly repetitively patterns would add more depth and challenge. I am in total favour of this! DA:O actually presents some of these kinds of challenges. I think Fallout 3 and other games could have benefited more from this sort of thing... and it's a shame that it doesn't.

Fallout 3 is great not because of it's combat depth or challenge... but for everything else it offers. So I agree that challenge is required. Still, I think creating "game over" situations randomly isn't the solution. I think offering interesting gameplay choices in combat is a much better solution - something players can deal with even at low levels. I think it's important for game designers to find ways to always ramp up the challenge while still making character development meaningful.... so you get a sense that your character is more powerful and has more options... and at the same time, you need to get better at tactics and solving combat problems. This is a good approach, and not many games take it.

Kalcalan wrote...
It's all a matter of game balance. In a game world in which a kobold can kill your level one mage with a single arrow (Baldur's Gate) you feel more excitement than in a world in which it takes a mininuke at close range to make you blush (Fallout 3).

Yes and no. I don't mind the arrow problems so much as there is a way to strategically or tactically deal with it. Then if the mage dies because of the arrow, well it's your own damn fault. But to merely present a challenge to the player where luck is required to resolve it... or luck is required to simply not discover the challenge in the first place... well... that's not so good.

Modifié par egervari, 01 décembre 2009 - 02:54 .

[Dalyaria]

To OP: A well-thought and well-written post. Many of your points I can't comment on, as I don't remember how things exactly went in the games you mentioned, or I haven't played them. Here are some of my opinions, though.

egervari wrote...

Most CPRGs were pretty unforgiving too. If you didn't have a "stat" or you said something in the wrong order, there is a good chance those conversation options are lost forever. There's a chance quests will never be completed if you aren't playing perfectly. I found this to be fairly nerve racking now. There's also a great deal of disorganization with the options, by seeing them in different order depending on where you are in the tree... or seeing the same options come up over and over, losing track of where you are.

In today's conversation trees, you always know where you are in the tree. I know this might break immersion for some, but it adds predictability and control... and that's better for me. Mass Effect and Dragon Age and Fallout 3 got this right especially.

I have to say I often find DA:Os conversation trees confusing. I worry that I'm going to miss the chance to ask about something, as certain choices in the dialogue tree move you forward and you don't really know what it would be. This depends a lot on the conversation, though. In some, the choice that moves the conversation forward is pretty obvious.

egervari wrote...

I actually had a really, really hard time getting into Might and Magic. The map system and quest system was terrible, even in M&M 8. The older M&M games (4/5) that I tried never really had a sense that you were building towards anything. I honestly never got sucked in with the character development. It's very shallow.

I can readily admit that M&M 6-8 have been some of my favourite RPGs. Oh, the flying spell + the meteor shower. I really felt such a sense of reward...that my mage was really a Master of Magic, capable of raining untold destruction upon her foes. I didn't really mind the lack of character interaction, as I had it all act out in my imagination

egervari wrote...

In many older games, there's a sense of danger and imbalance that isn't present in newer games. In arcanum especially, you can find yourself getting attacked by three level 15's when you are level 5 and just die. And don't let me tell you it takes many, many levels in that game to get your character to come into their own so you really don't stand a chance.

I'm actually glad to see these encounters go, because all this mechanic does is causes unnecessary frustration. So you run into 3 golden bears that are 5x your level? Well, that's pretty much an instant reload. You didn't save recently? Well, good luck re-doing a lot of the game all over again. This actually feels disheartening rather than fun... for me anyway.

This is something I completely disagree about. When you have the monsters always level up to your level, what's the point in getting stronger at all? If you're not able to keep up to speed with your equipment as well, the encounters actually get more difficult as you progress in the game. In DA:O (and in Oblivion), you find progressively better random loot when you level up more, so this really is not an issue. As a result, the only thing that happens is that the numbers get bigger, although the skill + talent system does alleviate this a bit. In games where the loot + the encounters don't level up to your party, the sense of reward is that you can feel like the choices you make have taken you to the spot where you can handle these more difficult encounters and go to places in the world where few dare venture. There's a much greater sense of immersion through the sense of actually being in a realistic world, where there ARE much more powerful people than you, who can kill you in the spot.

Imagine if you had been able to fight Duncan & the King in the early parts of the game, and find that they both have the power equivalent of a level 2 character.

egervari wrote...

I think gaming systems are getting simpler too. Take a look at D&D rules compared to Dragon Age - DA:O is so much simpler. I think it's better for it. When I was 16, I didn't have a problem reading for hours trying to understand the rules so I could do better at the game.... but today? I honestly couldn't be bothered.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is pillar of confusion for me. It would take me days probably to learn all the quirks and prestige classes to get my full enjoyment out of that game. It gets to the point where I can't be bothered. There's just too much to know, and not knowing can easily screw you over. More so, the engine is only a few years older than DA:O... and yet, it's easily 20 times worse in user interface, graphics, overall comfort and feel, etc. This stuff matters to me a lot.

Personally, I like RPGs with complex systems. I feel like there's a much greater amount of possible choices, and this again leads to the greater sense of immersion. Real life is not simple, and in a world with magic, it should be  possible to do almost anything. One of such examples would be the locked chest -problem in DA:O. Every time I see a locked, wooden chest, which I'm unable to open with my huge warrior holding a great axe, I feel like I'm playing a game with limited choices or an unrealistic lack of the obvious choice - to bash the chest and take the loot. Immersion is lost.

egervari wrote...

In today's games, I think we've regressed some for the sack of realism. I don't know why we have inventory limits still. I rather liked how in NES days, your inventory in Final Fantasy was huge. These days, one can spend 30 minutes to hours just sorting and cleaning up their inventory... or deciding what to throw away, and that sort of thing. It becomes a huge pain in the ass honestly. Inventory management just isn't fun (and why I use the toolset to cheat and set my inventory space to 999 in DA:O - makes a WORLD of difference for me).

I completely agree about the inventory limit being annoying. I guess one could argue that it would be unrealistic to have an infinite inventory, but I tend to think of it as an abstract thing. Perhaps the party has a pack mule somewhere on which they have unloaded all of this stuff. Interaction with it just doesn't show in the game, but I can still imagine it. At the moment, without editing the inventory space with the console, managing the inventory becomes a huge chore I have to spend hours and hours on. If I feel like doing something like that, I will just rather find freelancer Excel work.

egervari wrote...

Surprisingly... one thing older games got right was font sizes. In today's games, they are just so damned small. I thought it was because my eye was getting worse and worse (I'm legally blind... but well enough to see a computer screen). But no... they just get smaller. I have no problems with Fallout 3 conversation trees... but I think in just about every other game, they are too small. Older games more or less got this better, although they are too small as well. It's not possible to sit back and relax while playing a CRPG. You have to sit close to the monitor to read stuff. I hate that.

I am sorry to hear that you are losing your eyesight. I hope it doesn't get much worse, and that you might find some way for it to get better in the future. In this light, I completely agree that there should be at least a choice in all the games for an increased font size. Good luck! 

Modifié par Dalyaria, 01 décembre 2009 - 03:36 .

[memtz]

My personal opinion is that RPGs in general have deteriorated. They generally got easier and blander.



WRPGs: The open-endness from Bethesda RPGs and reliance on too much action, less skills has killed it for me. The disadvantage that open-ended RPGs brought is the lack of good stories, unique characters and settings. Elder Scrolls (Morrowind and Oblivion) felt extremely bland and generic to me. A simple comparison of the first 2 Fallouts and Fallout 3 points this out. Action and single-character RPGs removed 2 fundamental mechanics from RPGs which I cherish a lot, strategy and skill-building. I enjoyed the Witcher, but the single-character play and the lack of substantial character growth removed those 2 mechanics. I'm against action RPGs, but enjoy thoroughly real-time RPGs (there's a subtle difference in those 2, like DA offers real-time play but is not action-based). Bioware is doing the right thing with DA:O. I was hoping that they had gone the Kotor route in terms of gameplay with Mass Effect, but it's not that bad.



JRPGs: There's a lack of imagination and the clichés are continuously repeated. It's not bad by definition, just that they have been done so often and are poorly executed. I was disappointed with Star Ocean 4 and was surprised to realize that the best JRPG on console this year is Tales of Vesperia, a series well known to have 'kiddy' stories full of anime clichés. There's Demon Soul's of course, but this a unique RPG which _I wouldn't label as a JRPG. The only ones that still hold the banner tall are Atlus with their SMT series. This is mainly the case on consoles, as handhelds have superior ones to offer.

[Riddley313]

Despite the graphics, the one game that I've been playing for many years is X-Com: UFO defense back from 1993.
They really don't make games like these anymore. It's just as entertaining and challenging today as it was back then.

The challenge and difficulty of most newer games is laughably easy...there is so much hand-holding and coddling. Everything is becoming simplified or steamlined. This console influence is very apparent in many new games due to the multiplatform approach. Games like Fallout 3/Boderlands etc in many aspects feel like console - to - PC ports. At least with DA:O, it feels like an actual PC game in most regards.

[memtz]

It's not the consoles fault, PC companies that think that all console gamers are turds are in fault probably or Microsoft who may have pushed PC game makers to move on consoles. I've been playing console RPGs since the mid 90's and played pre-90's afterwards. Same things happened to them as computer RPGs and for similar reasons: to reach a broader audience.

[Dalyaria]

Niten Ryu wrote...

Morrowind and Oblivion are boring settings

How can you say that a game with dark elf wizards lording from huge mushrooms is a boring setting? 

[Statue]

egervari wrote...

Honestly, when one of the bioware developers said it would be too much effort and too much of a stretch for their budget to simply edit skill descriptions to include numeric values and %'s... I just gave up on the patch team at that point.

Aye, that's totally how I received that news. They even agreed that they would prefer specific ones and that they actually intended to have them but scheduling problems got in the way. Normally, that would generally make it a likely candidate for patching, but BW said it's not likely to happen. I take that as a good example of what I referred to earlier as the demotion of some traditional CPRG development values - giving the player fundamental information to inform choices in combat, skill selection, equipment selection, etc. is deemed so unimportant that it was neither implemented properly nor is regarded as something worth addressing in future.

[egervari]

Dalyaria wrote...

I have to say I often find DA:Os conversation trees confusing. I worry that I'm going to miss the chance to ask about something, as certain choices in the dialogue tree move you forward and you don't really know what it would be. This depends a lot on the conversation, though. In some, the choice that moves the conversation forward is pretty obvious.

Well, they are much more confusing in older games. I think DA:O is one of the better implementations. Actually, the best implemenetation is in Mass Effect. For all the faults that game has... the player has a lot of control as to how the conversations play out.

Of course, I am all in favour of more improvement.

Dalyaria wrote...
I can readily admit that M&M 6-8 have been some of my favourite RPGs. Oh, the flying spell + the meteor shower. I really felt such a sense of reward...that my mage was really a Master of Magic, capable of raining untold destruction upon her foes. I didn't really mind the lack of character interaction, as I had it all act out in my imagination

They used to be some of my favourite RPGs. My comments are to how I perceive them today, and not when I played them so long ago. I remember I did Everything in those games... got all the skills, titles... did all the quests... etc. I just think the interface and how one works with the game is very, very dated and some of its mechanics are suspect.

Dalyaria wrote...
This is something I completely disagree about. When you have the monsters always level up to your level, what's the point in getting stronger at all? If you're not able to keep up to speed with your equipment as well, the encounters actually get more difficult as you progress in the game. In DA:O (and in Oblivion), you find progressively better random loot when you level up more, so this really is not an issue. As a result, the only thing that happens is that the numbers get bigger, although the skill + talent system does alleviate this a bit. In games where the loot + the encounters don't level up to your party, the sense of reward is that you can feel like the choices you make have taken you to the spot where you can handle these more difficult encounters and go to places in the world where few dare venture. There's a much greater sense of immersion through the sense of actually being in a realistic world, where there ARE much more powerful people than you, who can kill you in the spot.

Imagine if you had been able to fight Duncan & the King in the
early parts of the game, and find that they both have the power
equivalent of a level 2 character.

As I said before, I don't think level scaling is "the answer". I'm not defending it. But I've said my solution in a post a few posts above.

Dalyaria wrote...

Personally, I like RPGs with complex systems. I feel like there's a much greater amount of possible choices, and this again leads to the greater sense of immersion. Real life is not simple, and in a world with magic, it should be  possible to do almost anything. One of such examples would be the locked chest -problem in DA:O. Every time I see a locked, wooden chest, which I'm unable to open with my huge warrior holding a great axe, I feel like I'm playing a game with limited choices or an unrealistic lack of the obvious choice - to bash the chest and take the loot. Immersion is lost.

I would like them too... if there weren't so time consuming to learn... and moreover, if they didn't require you to learn 90% of it all before you start playing. I don't think any deep rpg system is perfect... and you can absolutely mess up a mage in DA:O... but messing a sorceror build in NWN2 is very, very easy to do. I looked at some of the builds... and most suggested builds say to use 4 classes, some being 1-3 prestige classes. It would takes hours and hours and hours to learn everything to make some intelligent decisions about what character you want to build.

And if the complex system is to be there, then make a way to reset your decisions as you learn more about the game. Unfortunately, everything is so "permanent" and "irreversable"... so you are basically punished for not knowing. The problem is that nobody totally green about a game system is going to make decisions that are even remotely intelligent. And I think that's a bad thing. I think making a system that is deep yet easy to get into is far better than a system that totally caters to a small % of the crowd like NWN2.

[Statue]

Riddley313 wrote...
Despite the graphics, the one game that I've been playing for many years is X-Com: UFO defense back from 1993..

Loved those X-Com games myself. Tactical challenge with expanding lore database, feeling of meaningful upgrades throughout, great longevity of experience, tactical decisions were massively important on outcomes. There's a project somewhere on the internet developing a new updated-visuals version while retaining the play mechanics if I recall correctly.

[KraghZyl]

Kalcalan wrote...

There is also something that is quite irritating about this tendency to rely too much on level scaling. In the old days the game worlds didn't change because your character was getting better. In Might and Magic VI for instance you could go anywhere on the map and you'd only know that the area was too dangerous for your party because a monster could kill one of your characters with one hit. In Fallout 1 there was no level scaling either, you ran into a group of supermutants with a low level character who didn't even have a gun... well it was better luck next time vault dweller.

I agree, it reduces the feeling of you getting more powerfull. I still remember fondly the first time i played BG1 and came to Beregost and went to the templemap east of it and came upon the vampiric wolf and his little helpers. You didnt even stand the slightest chanceand that just outside a town, but it felt damn good when you came back later and killed them all.

And as I said it reduces the feeling of you getting more powerfull. Now in DA:O i'm near the end, lvl 20, but i certainly don't feel als powerfull as i would at the end of BG1/BG2 relative to the start.

[KraghZyl]

double post

Modifié par KraghZyl, 01 décembre 2009 - 03:41 .

[Elvhen Veluthil]

Dramonium wrote...

Elvhen Veluthil wrote...

The dialogs in BG1 & 2 felt much more alive. They didn't had the VO restrictions so they could write long dialogs, which were fun most of the time. For most parts in DAO I wished I could just skipped the long period that hearing a dialog take, I can read much faster. You have a point about people with eye problems, hadn't think about that. I have played BG 1 & 2 many times, even recently, and I think that DAO cannot reach their beauty.

You know you can just enable subtitles and 'escape' your way through dialogs, right?

Yes I know, but that's not the best way to play a game.Although I like reading long dialogs, sometimes the pace of it was too slow.

[Bluto Blutarskyx]

jrpgs have muddled in the same crap as they have been doing (with a select few exceptions) since the 90's,

the advances in technology allow true rpgs to be created like this, fallout 3, and mass effect types-

SOME jrpgs have in fact gone beyond the "play the story and press x/a/spacebar" to move the game along but the vast majority have muddled the same cliche crap weve seen since final fantasy and the only thing about those early games (phantasy star, lunar, etc.) that resembles an rpg is that it takes rpg combat mechanics, and computerizes them (levels, hit points based on numbers, exp points, etc.).

then throw in some level grinding with typical rpg enemies and ridiculous grunts (giant rats, living deadly flowers, etc.), and we have on its face a "play the story game- with rpg elements" no true role playing going on here because you are not only forced to assume the role of the pre-chosen protagonist, but you must play that protagonist according to pre-set dialogue which you have no control over to even make your own mark on the character- so you can't even play the role akin to an actor who at least is enabled to act thier read on the character and bring thier own interpretation and flair of the basic character they are portraying.

basically games today- are closer to the gary gygax dungeons and dragons model- the grandfather of all rpgs.
(ok- i was a gamma world player not d & d, but i pay my respects).

the closer to that "open world" you get, which is todays games, the more you have-

"play the story" japanese games, should have a different name, and games where you can decide your characters actions, and development do exist and are not solely the realm of western developers- even if western devs do seem to rack up the majority of games that are true rpgs.

just the "paint by numbers" seems to sell well in japan- they have no incentive to change it- and if you were the ceo of square-enix, pulling in the benjamins for selling "play the story" games- neither would you- neither would I.

just- what is is.

i'm not saying play the story games are bad by nature- i'm a HUGE suikoden fan. and will by 6 if it ever comes out, but just because you dress a pig in a wedding gown doesn't make it a human bride, it makes it a pig in a wedding gown.

which is fine- nogs are cute (more badass than oghren and annoying in camp screen), but lets call it like it is-

lets start seperating based upon what is and what isn't and not on traditional labels given because of the less powerfull and limited technology of yesteryear.

[egervari]

KraghZyl wrote...

Kalcalan wrote...

There is also something that is quite irritating about this tendency to rely too much on level scaling. In the old days the game worlds didn't change because your character was getting better. In Might and Magic VI for instance you could go anywhere on the map and you'd only know that the area was too dangerous for your party because a monster could kill one of your characters with one hit. In Fallout 1 there was no level scaling either, you ran into a group of supermutants with a low level character who didn't even have a gun... well it was better luck next time vault dweller.

I agree, it reduces the feeling of you getting more powerfull. I still remember fondly the first time i played BG1 and came to Beregost and went to the templemap east of it and came upon the vampiric wolf and his little helpers. You didnt even stand the slightest chanceand that just outside a town, but it felt damn good when you came back later and killed them all.

And as I said it reduces the feeling of you getting more powerfull. Now in DA:O i'm near the end, lvl 20, but i certainly don't feel als powerfull as i would at the end of BG1/BG2 relative to the start.

It depends what classes you are playing and how you are playing. A rogue definitely feels more powerful once you get the assassination spec, get lethality, and all the trimmings. The backstabs are just too damn impressive.

Also, getting a wider access to good mage spells will make you feel more powerful... but if you aim for this stuff at the beginning, ideally starting as a mage yourself... then yeah... you basically get all the best abilities in the first 8-10 levels between you and morrigan.

Like I said before, I think level scaling is not the answer to the automatic "game over" random encounter. I think a system that expands your abilities and makes you more powerful while still not making strategy and tactics irrelevant would be the best kind of system.

For example, utilizing certain formations for some enemies would make them easier... but if you didn't figure out the right formation, even your godly gear and levels would still make the battle more difficult. And maybe not just formations and unit placements... but the usage of specific spells, elemental damage types, timing, using the environment in a specific way, and a variety of other things that are more or less mandatory to succeeding at the encounter.

Modifié par egervari, 01 décembre 2009 - 03:56 .

[Bluto Blutarskyx]

as for the difficulty,

i LIKE the direction bioware is going with this-

fine- have a casual level that your average gamer today who likes easy difficulty (or likes to play while intoxicated), can play on-

then make normal- the "normal" of yesteryear, and then have harder levels- hard and nightmare- but at least incorporate the "nightmare" level properly (like this game- well its better) so that its not mass effect ridiculous where it takes crazy shooting to kill the most basic of enemies and thats it-

IMO- i would rather see the damage amounts remain the same or slightly elevated, but the system overall becomes more unforgiving and/or the enemy ai VASTLY improves.

thats just me though-

i think the "play the story" games lend themselves mroe to easier difficulty since its basically just you hitting a button to move the "movie" along.

[Bluto Blutarskyx]

as for the difficulty,

i LIKE the direction bioware is going with this-

fine- have a casual level that your average gamer today who likes easy difficulty (or likes to play while intoxicated), can play on-

then make normal- the "normal" of yesteryear, and then have harder levels- hard and nightmare- but at least incorporate the "nightmare" level properly (like this game- well its better) so that its not mass effect ridiculous where it takes crazy shooting to kill the most basic of enemies and thats it-

IMO- i would rather see the damage amounts remain the same or slightly elevated, but the system overall becomes more unforgiving and/or the enemy ai VASTLY improves.

thats just me though-

i think the "play the story" games lend themselves mroe to easier difficulty since its basically just you hitting a button to move the "movie" along.

[Kalcalan]

Egervari I don't agree with your definition of "game over" situations. I'm not advocating that you should be incredibly lucky to survive, I'm just pointing out that such situations make you feel as if there is something at stake. It's the same feeling when going for an ironman game and knowing that some enemy can score a critical hit on your character... It's fun (at least to some of us).

Thanks to mods I've been able to enjoy Fallout 3 without obsessing too much on what it was lacking compared to its predecessors. I tend to agree with Memtz. Fallout 3 doesn't require you to think about a build, it's really hard to make up a character that won't work and stats don't have much relevance. That may be a good thing for players who don't want to bother about rules but for the ones who have played countless times through the previous Fallouts planning different builds specializing in different skills it all becomes rather pointless. Ultimately all Fallout 3 characters end up being almost the same characters.

This is a valid concern and one I had about Dragon Age when I first tried the Character Creator. If you play a Human Warrior going for Sword and Shield style what separates this character from Alistair? A few stats and maybe some points placed in Coercion... That's not such a big deal.

I can totally relate to what Memtz posted about the Witcher. It's not that it wasn't a good game but to me it was more of an adventure game (and a good one at that) than a true CRPG (for not being to create a character and having so few possibilities to develop the character).

Dalyaria makes a good point about the absurdity of level scaling. I have to say that few games are as bad as Oblivion when it comes to level scaling. The first time I played Oblivion I completed a big chunk of the main quest before my character got to level 4, it was rather stupid to face puny foes when closing a gate of Oblivion because my character was low level...
In that respect Dragon Age has a much better balance.

By the way, there is a mod for larger conversation text at the nexus:
http://www.dragonage.../file.php?id=73
It may help you if you find the fonts too small.

EDIT: I've just noticed KraghZyl's post, Baldur's Gate could be rather hardcore at times (especially if you consider it is based on D&D and that in that game the enemies you face must match your level).

Modifié par Kalcalan, 01 décembre 2009 - 04:07 .

[LunSei Sleidee]

Well, I think new rpgs, if they're as good as this Dragon Age or the old Neverwinter Nights 2, are just like those epic old rpgs such as Baldur's Gate 2.... plus the better graphics.

So, no, to me there's not that much of a difference. My only question is: are rpgs as popular as they were in the past? With videogames becoming more and more a mainstream product, the majority of the public may not want to spend their time with a game dedicated on complex plot and developed characters, and may be more attracted to the shooting or to the pretty graphics.... And I always worry that this may cause the downfall of rpgs. I mean, it has been YEARS since I played a good new rpg. The last one before this Dragon Age, was the above mentioned Neverwinter Nights 2. I don't want to wait more years to play another one of these.....

Oh, and I did notice one thing in which new rpgs tend to often be better than the old ones. New rpgs have much more consideration for female players, wherein as I played old rpgs sometimes I had this impression that the game was really meant to have a male protagonist, or at the very least a male player.

Modifié par LunSei Sleidee, 01 décembre 2009 - 04:11 .

[egervari]

Kalcalan wrote...

Egervari I don't agree with your definition of "game over" situations. I'm not advocating that you should be incredibly lucky to survive, I'm just pointing out that such situations make you feel as if there is something at stake. It's the same feeling when going for an ironman game and knowing that some enemy can score a critical hit on your character... It's fun (at least to some of us).

I guess it's cool that you disgaree. The prime reason for hating these so much is that players often forget to save... so they go on the merry way for 2 hours, totally immerse and engrossed into the game... and then this kind of situation happens... they die... and have to do 2 hours of exactly the same kind of effort all over again.

Knowing that 2 hours of your game is stake... it makes you really want to survive the encounter... but if your character doesn't have the weapons or the levels or the skills to survive it... what is the player to do? Is it their fault that they die?

I don't think it is. And the real problem is that it really does amount to luck. Play Arcanum (I'm playing it now). You can go from 1 end of the map to the other, and run into kite creatures or wolves and come out of the random encounters okay. Or... you can run into 3 gold bears, and 1 or 2 hits will destroy your characters instantly. Black bears are the weakest... then grizzly... then golds. Running into 2-3 grizzly's will totally annihilate your party too. The chance of these encounters is actually pretty good, especially after getting out of tarant once having visited it. Yet... you are level 6 or 7 by then and have no real spells to deal with it to speak of... or haven't found any good armour to protect yourself from the 1-2 shot kills.

So... whether you survive the long treaks on the overworld map is totally dependant on luck. I don't think this is the player's fault, and that's why I am against this sort of thing. BG2 had random encounters, but they were scripted to be at your level while not using level scaling. I personally felt this approach was fair and balanced, and not the least frustrating... even if an ancounter happened to be pretty hard. It was never beyond your capabilities.

The gold bear problem is just ludicrous. There isn't a damn thing a player can do to survive. Nothing. And even if you CAN survive it, your stupid party members that you get at that time won't survive it.

I do recall in fallout you can run off the map. I didn't play it enough to have a need for this, but I do remember the insane random encounters... and my obsessant use of saves as I travelled the overworld map.

Kalcalan wrote...
Thanks to mods I've been able to enjoy Fallout 3 without obsessing too much on what it was lacking compared to its predecessors. I tend to agree with Memtz. Fallout 3 doesn't require you to think about a build, it's really hard to make up a character that won't work and stats don't have much relevance. That may be a good thing for players who don't want to bother about rules but for the ones who have played countless times through the previous Fallouts planning different builds specializing in different skills it all becomes rather pointless. Ultimately all Fallout 3 characters end up being almost the same characters.

I agree with all of this. When I say I think it's better that systems are not overly complex, I'm not saying to dumb it down to make it irrelevant. So I hardly see that we are in disagreement here. As I've said in other posts, the main flaw with Fallout is totally it's lack of variety and it's overly easy leveling and combat.

Kalcalan wrote...
This is a valid concern and one I had about Dragon Age when I first tried the Character Creator. If you play a Human Warrior going for Sword and Shield style what separates this character from Alistair? A few stats and maybe some points placed in Coercion... That's not such a big deal.

Yeah, some classes offer no variety. If you check out my posts, I ramble on and on about how Bioware pushes you to making your classes into a single direction. Hell, the game pushes players to take a mage above any other class. Warriors in this game are particularly useless. So I agree. I do think it got many things right though, compared to something like NWN2. I'd take DA:O rules over NWN2 any day of the week.

Kalcalan wrote...
I can totally relate to what Memtz posted about the Witcher. It's not that it wasn't a good game but to me it was more of an adventure game (and a good one at that) than a true CRPG (for not being to create a character and having so few possibilities to develop the character).

Dalyaria makes a good point about the absurdity of level scaling. I have to say that few games are as bad as Oblivion when it comes to level scaling. The first time I played Oblivion I completed a big chunk of the main quest before my character got to level 4, it was rather stupid to face puny foes when closing a gate of Oblivion because my character was low level...
In that respect Dragon Age has a much better balance.

Oblivion is another problem entirely. The level scaling in that game is awful. Simply terrible. The character development system is just plain terrible too... as it's so easy to have 0 control over what attributes are developed and encouraging gamers to play very unnaturally to get better stats.

Even then, if you don't abuse tricks like using the infinite soul gem item and stuff like that, it's very possible to gimp your character where the level of your enemies are actually stronger than you. And I never thought it made much sense when every thug in the game was wearing daedric armor. Totally non-sensicle.

As I said, I don't think level scaling is the answer, although it's implemented better in Dragon Age by far.

Kalcalan wrote...
By the way, there is a mod for larger conversation text at the nexus:
http://www.dragonage.../file.php?id=73
It may help you if you find the fonts too small.

I'll check it out, thanks!

[bjdbwea]

I love ME because it has the best story and presentation ever. But overall, the RPG genre has changed to the worse. I want a "complicated" inventory system. I want a "complex" rule set that needs you to think. What good does it to have different classes, abilities, feats and whatnot, if in the end it doesn't matter anyway? There need to be differences, and they need to matter. Like they did in the BG and IWD games. Like they indeed do in Fallout 3 (though not nearly as much as in its predecessors). But there's no way around the fact that games these days need to appeal to the mass market and the console audience, and that unfortunately means we'll never get back to the old ways. Might as well enjoy that which we get.

[Dalyaria]

egervari wrote...

The titles are a good thing. Finding the expert/master trainers was not so good.

I was actually really pissed in Mass Effect that your class upgrade came from a dumb ass side-quest. There was no indication that this quest was any more relevant compared to any of other planetary side-quest. They were all trash IMHO. Also, the quest itself was boring and not difficult at all - just hitting defenseless computer screens in 3 buildings. Whoopie. And it's the most surprising thing... you do that... and suddenly you get a class upgrade. It comes out of a blue... and it was so unfulfilling.

So I hear what you're saying... a class upgrade should be something to struggle and marvel at. I totally hear you on this.

I agree about nearly everything here, including the Mass Effect class specialization quest. However, if I remember right...didn't the tier 2 trainers in M&M -series give you a clue about where to find the final class specialization trainer ?

egervari wrote...

If I ever do play Fallout 3 again, I'll be sure to get the mods to reduce XP gains. The XP you get in that game is way too much... way imbalanced in the favour of the player. Makes me thing... "what were the developers thinking?!" I mean, you can do all the main quests and very little side quests and get to level 20 easily.

I find it really hard to install a mod that reduces EXP gain. I feel like I'm shooting myself in the leg :| However, I agree that it might solve a lot of things. The best part of a game is often the early-middle -part, when you're not very strong yet at all, but neither a complete noob.

egervari wrote...

That's just it... sometimes in those games you wouldn't really understand what your action was to get such drastic consequences. And I actually like that quest items are marked as such. It is all too easy to not pick an important item up... or sell it off... or throw it away... in some games. With all the other crap you can often pick up, it's really hard to know what it useful/needed from what isn't. So I think this is a win for the newer games. And it's not like some older games didn't do this - Final Fantasy separated quest items from regular items as well. This is a good thing.

I agree about separating important quest items from the normal ones. Often I collect every item in the game exactly because I think they might have some obscure purpose in a quest at some point in the future. When the quest items are separated, I don't feel like worrying about that so much. It does hurt immersion a bit, but not enough that it would become a real problem. Without them being separate, it's possible to just randomly drop a quest item in the wilderness for the lack of inventory space and not understanding its purpose. If it is required for an important quest, such an action can "break the game".

egervari wrote...

Let me clear... presenting such challenges is acceptable only if your character is somewhat prepared for it. A character just entering the wasteland with a freaking BB gun is not going to have the means to deal with it - period. This isn't challenge - this is just plain stupid.

I think challenge should come from gameplay mechanics itself - like chess. In chess, there are the right moves and the wrong moves. All too often in RPGs you can amass so much stuff and xp that decision making is irrelevant. Perhaps scripted chess battles of a whole bunch of different flavours without obvious and/or overly repetitively patterns would add more depth and challenge. I am in total favour of this! DA:O actually presents some of these kinds of challenges. I think Fallout 3 and other games could have benefited more from this sort of thing... and it's a shame that it doesn't.

Fallout 3 is great not because of it's combat depth or challenge... but for everything else it offers. So I agree that challenge is required. Still, I think creating "game over" situations randomly isn't the solution. I think offering interesting gameplay choices in combat is a much better solution - something players can deal with even at low levels. I think it's important for game designers to find ways to always ramp up the challenge while still making character development meaningful.... so you get a sense that your character is more powerful and has more options... and at the same time, you need to get better at tactics and solving combat problems. This is a good approach, and not many games take it.

I think what you find problematic are the random encounters consisting of much stronger opponents. However, usually such random encounters don't happen in areas which you know to be relatively safe. To take an example from Morrowind, the strongest random encounters happen around daedric ruins. You know this so as a result, you avoid the daedric ruins like a plague, especially when your character is still relatively weak. The random encounters around a daedric ruin add to the sense of growing dread when approaching them. The same effect is in place in Fallout 3, where you know that you have absolutely no business in Super Mutant Territory with a new character. Of course, it IS still possible to go to these places, trying to beat a lot stronger opponents via much superiour tactics and in return reap far greater benefits in the form of high level items. All in all, this results is an added sense of immersion - that the world is a diverse place with believable consequences and many strategies for survival, some of them high-risk, while others are low-risk. Just like in real life.

There are some games where the idea of scripted encounters is handled well, with relatively few random encounters. A prime example would be BG2, where nearly all of the battles were scripted.

egervari wrote...

Well, they are much more confusing in older games. I think DA:O is one of the better implementations. Actually, the best implemenetation is in Mass Effect. For all the faults that game has... the player has a lot of control as to how the conversations play out.

Of course, I am all in favour of more improvement.

Agreed. Mass Effect has had one of the best implementations of the dialogue system that I have seen. I didn't feel like I was missing out, but neither did I feel that the conversation was predictable. The protagonist felt like a believable character I could roleplay as I saw best. I often didn't feel like I was being penalized by the system for choosing "wrong" dialogue choices.

egervari wrote...

They used to be some of my favourite RPGs. My comments are to how I perceive them today, and not when I played them so long ago. I remember I did Everything in those games... got all the skills, titles... did all the quests... etc. I just think the interface and how one works with the game is very, very dated and some of its mechanics are suspect.

This I agree with. The interface / graphics of the M&M -games do feel very dated, at least when compared to the games that come out now. I think the games that have aged best are probably the ones with a lot of artistic 2D landscapes, like the Icewind Dale -series. Sometimes I still play those games just to look at the scenery It feels so cold and dark that I can almost feel it when playing it. The sense of immersion is absolutely great - far more so, actually, than what I have experienced with the DA:O graphics.

egervari wrote...

I would like them too... if there weren't so time consuming to learn... and moreover, if they didn't require you to learn 90% of it all before you start playing. I don't think any deep rpg system is perfect... and you can absolutely mess up a mage in DA:O... but messing a sorceror build in NWN2 is very, very easy to do. I looked at some of the builds... and most suggested builds say to use 4 classes, some being 1-3 prestige classes. It would takes hours and hours and hours to learn everything to make some intelligent decisions about what character you want to build.

And if the complex system is to be there, then make a way to reset your decisions as you learn more about the game. Unfortunately, everything is so "permanent" and "irreversable"... so you are basically punished for not knowing. The problem is that nobody totally green about a game system is going to make decisions that are even remotely intelligent. And I think that's a bad thing. I think making a system that is deep yet easy to get into is far better than a system that totally caters to a small % of the crowd like NWN2.

Personally, I have spent probably many days just thinking of the potential solutions in character creation in NWN 1. I feel that there's a sense of being overwhelmed at first, but that is later rewarded with the sense of becoming proficient in something difficult and using your knowledge for the betterment of your character(s). I have yet to play NWN 2, even though I own it and all the expansion packs. The main quest of NWN 1 is so boring...yet I feel obligated to finish it before I'm able to move on to NWN 2, or even the expansion packs of NWN 1.

[egervari]

Dalyaria wrote...
I agree about nearly everything here, including the Mass Effect class specialization quest. However, if I remember right...didn't the tier 2 trainers in M&M -series give you a clue about where to find the final class specialization trainer ?

My problem is the time to find them. To me, there's nothing special about traversing the world just to locate a character and pay them some gold for training. There's nothing fun or challenging about it, and it's just time-consuming with little payoff. The gold itself is so plentiful it is a non-issue as well. It's just more a pain than anything, especially finding all the trainers at once for all of your characters. One can probably spend hours just getting them all as the trainers are not located in the higher level areas - but rather, everywhere. If I recall, there was expert, master and grandmaster... ugh. I often wished that once you put the 4th, 7th and 10th point, you got the bonuses automatically... kind of like mass effect where certain skill levels granted "more" than a regular skill point.

Dalyaria wrote...
I find it really hard to install a mod that reduces EXP gain. I feel like I'm shooting myself in the leg :| However, I agree that it might solve a lot of things. The best part of a game is often the early-middle -part, when you're not very strong yet at all, but neither a complete noob.

I think so too... but with Fallout, one gets powerful way too quickly. With addons, you can wear power armor and get one of the best ones immediately. With guns, you can get a xuolong chinese assault rifle extremely quickly and easily - and it's on the main quest path. Barring that, you can get the a3-21 plasma rifle very easily too. Both of these weapons are essentially some of the best found in the game. Barring a few high level perks for increasing %'s in vats or critical chances/damage, there isn't much more for your character to build towards :/

Dalyaria wrote...
I agree about separating important quest items from the normal ones. Often I collect every item in the game exactly because I think they might have some obscure purpose in a quest at some point in the future. When the quest items are separated, I don't feel like worrying about that so much. It does hurt immersion a bit, but not enough that it would become a real problem. Without them being separate, it's possible to just randomly drop a quest item in the wilderness for the lack of inventory space and not understanding its purpose. If it is required for an important quest, such an action can "break the game".

Yeah, breaking the game is not fun. I can't even imagine having to hunt down a random quest item on the ground and retrace my steps to locate it. Ugh.... This is clearly a good thing about DA:O.

Dalyaria wrote...
I think what you find problematic are the random encounters consisting of much stronger opponents. However, usually such random encounters don't happen in areas which you know to be relatively safe. To take an example from Morrowind, the strongest random encounters happen around daedric ruins. You know this so as a result, you avoid the daedric ruins like a plague, especially when your character is still relatively weak. The random encounters around a daedric ruin add to the sense of growing dread when approaching them. The same effect is in place in Fallout 3, where you know that you have absolutely no business in Super Mutant Territory with a new character. Of course, it IS still possible to go to these places, trying to beat a lot stronger opponents via much superiour tactics and in return reap far greater benefits in the form of high level items. All in all, this results is an added sense of immersion - that the world is a diverse place with believable consequences and many strategies for survival, some of them high-risk, while others are low-risk. Just like in real life.

Let me clear, I don't think any of the encounters in Fallout 3 were "game over" encounters. I'm talking about the random super mutant encounters in earlier fallout games, or the golden bear encounters in arcanum, etc. Read my post above to hear more about the stupid gold bear encounter.

Dalyaria wrote...
There are some games where the idea of scripted encounters is handled well, with relatively few random encounters. A prime example would be BG2, where nearly all of the battles were scripted.

Totally agree, BG2 encounters were the RIGHT way to do it. They really were. I actually mention this in more detail in a post above, so glad to see we are thinking alike

Dalyaria wrote...
Agreed. Mass Effect has had one of the best implementations of the dialogue system that I have seen. I didn't feel like I was missing out, but neither did I feel that the conversation was predictable. The protagonist felt like a believable character I could roleplay as I saw best. I often didn't feel like I was being penalized by the system for choosing "wrong" dialogue choices.

Yeah, I liked that too. Anything that allows the player to be focused on the game and not on a strategy guide is a great thing. A+ from me!

Having said that, Dragon Age is pretty forgiving as well, although on a first playthrough, it would be difficult to know that in advance. I've played it twice... and realized that it really is a lot more like mass effect than it appears to be.

I still like the conversation wheel though, for two main reasons.

1) The locations on the wheel gave information about the structure of the conversation tree.

2) The choices gave you the "sense" or "thought" of the response and not the exact words. Someone posted above that they didn't like this... but for someone that can't see very well... I thought this was fantastic. The less I have to read to communicate to the game what I want to do... the better.

Dalyaria wrote...
This I agree with. The interface / graphics of the M&M -games do feel very dated, at least when compared to the games that come out now. I think the games that have aged best are probably the ones with a lot of artistic 2D landscapes, like the Icewind Dale -series. Sometimes I still play those games just to look at the scenery It feels so cold and dark that I can almost feel it when playing it. The sense of immersion is absolutely great - far more so, actually, than what I have experienced with the DA:O graphics.

Yeah, IWD is a fantastic game. I own both as well and even wrote a guy on IWD2 many years ago The art in IWD was perhaps the best out of any of the IE games.

Dalyaria wrote...
Personally, I have spent probably many days just thinking of the potential solutions in character creation in NWN 1. I feel that there's a sense of being overwhelmed at first, but that is later rewarded with the sense of becoming proficient in something difficult and using your knowledge for the betterment of your character(s). I have yet to play NWN 2, even though I own it and all the expansion packs. The main quest of NWN 1 is so boring...yet I feel obligated to finish it before I'm able to move on to NWN 2, or even the expansion packs of NWN 1.

NWN2 is even more complicated than NWN. NWN is somewhat manageable. Now imagine all of NWN1's choices with double the races, 3x the prestige classes and even 3 or so more official classes. Ugh... decisions decisions! Not to mention that you need to plan out to a level 30 character, which is too much for me to do just wanting to play the game :/

Don't get me wrong - I'm not faulting the game for it entirely. It is what it is, and some people are going to like that. But I think it would be better if they polished it up more and presented various levels of choices/depth... and even allowed respecing or something to save time.

Modifié par egervari, 01 décembre 2009 - 05:04 .