457 réponses à ce sujet

[Scars Unseen]

zeejay21 wrote...

andybuiadh wrote...

Why do people use Oblivion as a benchmark? Oblivion was an average run-of-the-mill RPG in my view. Nothing *special* about it.

Hmm.... perhaps it's the first GTA-like RPG with first-person action?

You've obviously never played Morrowind.  Or Daggerfall(which, interestingly enough, predates GTA.  Go figure).

[feroxthegreywarden]

Scars Unseen wrote...

zeejay21 wrote...

andybuiadh wrote...

Why do people use Oblivion as a benchmark? Oblivion was an average run-of-the-mill RPG in my view. Nothing *special* about it.

Hmm.... perhaps it's the first GTA-like RPG with first-person action?

You've obviously never played Morrowind.  Or Daggerfall(which, interestingly enough, predates GTA.  Go figure).

daggerfall= best rpg ever.. period.. end of story.. morrowind and oblivion are POS games compared to daggerfall.. and so is DA:O 

and yes it predates most games lol.

[Sidney]

Kimberly Shaw wrote...

I disagree with you strongly, but can't go into it because of spoilers. A lot of content and areas are not open simply because you haven't done something before, even though if it were not linear you could go to those areas.
I guess what you and I call linear is different, to me DA:O is a fairly typical linear RPG game and could have been easily designed without scaling in my opinion. Side quests do not count, as by definition in almost all RPGs you can do them in any order you choose. Although side quests in Lothering don't really count do they? Can't exactly do those in any order?

I'm baffled as to what you think non-linear means. Does B have predecessor A? Yes but do you want all quests to have no precursor actions? All quests are "Hi, I have a quest now go and do them"? I do like that side quests don't count so you still have the main quest that offers you multiple paths through the game. This isn't on rails like Fable I was for example.

FO2 had no scaling and while that was as non-linear as anything I can think of, although by your critieria even that isn't either, and didn't scale. That meant that while you had freedom you functionally had a pre-designed path because you couldn't go straight to the NCR for example out of the vault w/o getting wasted. You have two options: scaling so you can go anywhere you want or non-scaled encounters which have to be designed for a particular level and then you are really limited in where you can go and succeed.

[Dex1701]

feroxthegreywarden wrote...
anyone who thinks that DA:O is anything but linear in the strongest
sense of the word.. does not have much rpg experience, thats for sure.

Orly?  DA:O is pretty linear compared to games like TES, Might & Magic, Wizardry, etc., but outside of open world RPGs I can think of plenty of RPGs that are more linear than DA:O.  As far as experience goes, I've been playing primarily cRPGs for 25 years, spent years working in a games store playing every game we carried when I was younger, spent a lot of high school and some of college GM'ing for more than a few different PnP RPGs, etc.  I have nearly as much RPG experience as a person in their mid 30's could possibly have.

feroxthegreywarden wrote...
as for level scaling.. its ALWAYs a bad idea in every game.. period.

I have to disagree with this.  Think in more detail about how games are designed, and keep in mind that level scaling can be a more complex algorithm...it doesn't have to be a simple linear progression.  In Fallout 3, for example, if the main quest didn't have some level scaling you'd be forced to grind levels to progress, which some people hate.  Conversely, you could grind levels until you were waaaaay too powerful, making the rest of the main quest a cakewalk (not that Fallout 3 every really gets challenging, but bear with me), which would be pretty anti-climactic to the story.

I agree that a straight, linear level scaling methodology is absolutely terrible and should never be considered in a open-world game, though.  Why?  Because it's really in-your-face and comes nowhere close to feeling organic.  The way Bethesda approached level scaling in Fallout 3 was much better than the trainwreck of a system they used in Oblivion.  Some areas scaled linearly, while others were tethered to a level range.  Most importantly, the first time you enter an area the level was locked so that if you came back later you'd feel more powerful.  Tethered areas could end up being challeging or fairly easy, but never so easy that the area was completely boring.

It's not a black or white issue.  Linear level scaling makes advancement feel pointless, but no level scaling can cause a game to become too static, predictable, and too easily power-gamed.  It's a delicate balance for sure, but I can't agree that all level scaling is always categorically bad.  Few things in something as complex as modern game design are that black and white.

[pokemaughan]

feroxthegreywarden wrote...


daggerfall= best rpg ever.. period.. end of story.. morrowind and oblivion are POS games compared to daggerfall.. and so is DA:O 

and yes it predates most games lol.

Bigger doesn't mean better. And if the bugs... oh my goodness..

Morrowind does pretty well, but Oblivion felt sterile. Still fun, though.

[Sidney]

Sam -stone- serious wrote...

Now i dont expect the game to be like BG2 (never did) but i did expect it at least to have this kind of freedom. If i wanted to cone of cold someone and then crushing prison him "just because" then for ****s sake LET ME do it. Did i assasin someone important in the game and nobody knew?

This "freedom" is usually just silly - you can't just go psycho and kill everyone?  It is like listening to people gripe about not being able to go into every house and pilfer the silverware and cups like you can in Oblivion. Those things don't add one lick to the game experience. Same as the wandering around the empty space between villages in Morrowwind wasn't any fun after the first time you did it. Think about the "real" world you live in where in the course of playing your role you don't go into every random house in town. You have certain "plot" places in your daily life that you go as well and most of the people and places around you are just background noise.

[Dex1701]

Kimberly Shaw wrote...

I dare you to try to make an RPG with exploration and freedom without level scaling. Without any level scaling at all players are forced to complete areas in a certain order, and people will definitely complain about that....a lot. It's a tradeoff that we have to live with until someone comes up with a better way to handle it.

How can you say that you're not forced to complete areas in a certain order in DA? The ONLY freedom you have is which order to conscript your help from. Games existed without scaling for a long time, and they were great and people didn't complain. DA is linear in my opinion, except for the conscription quest order. So you have scaling and a linear order, which is the worst of both worlds.

I don't think I am saying that you aren't limited to certain sections of the game before being allowed to advance to a new area.  I do think you're exaggerating the lack of freedom a bit, though.  Even allowing freedom to complete the conscription quests and all of the side-quests (there are a lot of them) in the middle of the game is enough to warrant some small amount of level scaling, IMO. 

There is enough content there to allow some of the quests to be easy to the point of being boring.  If you decided to do the Brecilian Forest last and it was designed to be done first you'd end up with a pretty large chunk of content that would be full of battles that were a yawnfest and loot that was barely worth selling. 

There's also little enough content there to end up essentially forcing more linearity on the game by making the player do those quests in a set order.  If you're going to do that you're better off making the game 100% linear and save the player the trial-and-error tedium of figuring out what that order should be.  Older games like the Ultima and Might & Magic series masked this by having large free-roam areas. 

Admittedly, I was also a lot younger when I played those games and had more time on my hands.  I simply don't want to spend 5 of my precious gaming hours (I get maybe 5-15 hours a week to game nowadays) accomplishing nothing but being destroyed and reloading while I'm trying to figure out where I'm powerful enough to go next.  My days of being that "hardcore" ended when I got old enough to have concerns beyond the video game I'm currently playing.

Kimberly Shaw wrote...
I guess their are people that would complain that they are forced to level up before they can enter certain areas or be killed, but to me that is the whole point of RPGs, some areas are very difficult until you're powerful. Some areas are easy if you're powerful. Let me try to go to the difficult places and beat them early if I have mad skills, and reap the rewards for my difficulty. Let me go back to easy places when I'm powerful and flex my muscles a bit by making cannon fodder.

I agree with this, but again, the issue simply isn't as black and white as you're trying to make it.  It's important for the game to make your character(s)'s progression noticeable, and Oblivion failed miserably at this.  Believe me, I had this same argument many times with people after Oblivion was released...only I was on the other (anti-scaling) side of it.  There are ways to keep a game from becoming level-unbalanced without completely removing all scaling and leaving the difficulty of every area and enemy static.

Kimberly Shaw wrote...
I guess that's the kind of RPGer I am. A pity designers are catering to 14 year old console players who cry to mommy that they get killed everytime they play the game and need the game to dumb down to their level so its always the same difficulty no matter if they just start out or are the most powerful person on the planet. Drives me crazy!!!!

Now, this just makes you sound short-sighted and elitist.        I agree with the sentiment, though.  I don't, however, agree that the solution to this problem is to never, ever use level scaling of any kind.  Sometimes scaling is necessary and can be done in a way that doesn't take away the sense of satisfaction that you're worried about losing.

Kimberly Shaw wrote...

Don't get me started on the loot scaling in Oblivion, though...to me that was the worst aspect of the entire game.

Also
agree with you on that with Oblivion, but I do find item scaling in
DA:O to be its worst feature too. Eg if you do the Shale quest early
on, your helmet of honnleath is Gray Steel (Tier 1). This is one of the
best helmets in the game, and yet its Tier 1 because you did the Shale
quest early. If you waited until level 15 to do it, it would be Tier 7.
There is no way to get the helmet to gear up (vendor tricks don't
work). I cannot STAND being punished for doing a quest early, it drives
me kookoo banana crackers. Items like that should either always drop at
their intended level (Codex items should be Tier 6 or higher IMO
always) or level up with the player. Items in DA:O fall under 3 scaling
methods:
1) Drops at a set level regardless of your level, cannot be increased by vendor sell/buy back (eg warden keep armor).
2) Drops at your level (scaling), can be increased by vendor sell/buy back (most items).
3) Drops at your level (scaling), cannot be increased by vendor sell/buy back (helmets).

Why the game has THREE different codes for item scaling is beyond me, and needs to be fixed.

Would you rather the items in the Stone Prisoner content be Tier 1 (or Tier 2, 3, 4, etc.) and stay that way regardless of you level when you decide to tackle it?  To me that's the only alternative.  They could just make it static, but then if they wanted to set that quest to a lower level so you could have Shale longer you'd get equipment that wouldn't be useful at all if you were over a certain level.  Alternatively, they could make it a high-level quest, but then people would complain that they couldn't get Shale until toward the end of the game.  They could make the enemies scale and the equipment static, but then you'd run the risk of getting uber equipment too early in the game.

I dunno.  I totally understand your frustration, but I also understand why Bioware did what they did.

Modifié par Dex1701, 04 décembre 2009 - 01:28 .

[jkaymartin]

Palathas wrote...

I think this is close to being an apples and oranges discussion. They are two completely different types of games in the same sub-genre. The Elder Scrolls games are, and have always been, open sand box games where you make your own way in the world. The Bioware games have predominantly been story driven games that draw you in like an interactive movie.

I actually like both games equally but for different reasons. If I want to go out and about exploring and doing my own thing I'll play a game like Oblivion. If I want to be drawn along a deep and action packed story line without having to decide too much on where to go and how to get there I'll play something like DA:O.

Just my two bits.

I agree - done a couple different PCs in Oblivion, and enjoy both the freedom and open-endedness, and even the first-person fighting style. There's definitely tactical opportunities in Oblivion (divide-and-conquer, run-back-to-Skingrad), but you don't have the option of directing a squad of NPCs.

I'm enjoying the ability to develop working tactic sets for different classes of characters in DA:O, and there's enough freedom to change sub-quests in mid-stream if you decide to.

And for both Oblivion and Fallout 3, my husband and I like to play together - we developed a technique where one of us plays the mouse and one plays the keyboard. Although we work together extremely well, it does sometimes lead to situations where one of us has to ask "What the *#$% were you thinking?" and a reload

[Robin Hood Of Locksley]

wow lemme say this i haven't played DA but EA has lived up to its standards, soo without anything else guess who beats your guys retarded crap World of Warcraft! Cataclysm....DAMN! can't wait. LOL and review your stupid stuff be4 you submit, you guys dont make any sense at all. My dick makes more sense than you do.

[Robin Hood Of Locksley]

so suck it! and G3T $UM

[Dex1701]

jkaymartin wrote...
And for both Oblivion and Fallout 3, my husband and I like to play together - we developed a technique where one of us plays the mouse and one plays the keyboard. Although we work together extremely well, it does sometimes lead to situations where one of us has to ask "What the *#$% were you thinking?" and a reload

Ok, I'm fascinated by this.  How do you make that work? 

Robin Hood Of Locksley wrote...

wow lemme say this i
haven't played DA but EA has lived up to its standards, soo without
anything else guess who beats your guys retarded crap World of
Warcraft! Cataclysm....DAMN! can't wait. LOL and review your stupid
stuff be4 you submit, you guys dont make any sense at all. My dick
makes more sense than you do.

Wow, where did you come from?  Did a bus full of the mentally ill get stuck in a ditch nearby?  Should we send help?

Modifié par Dex1701, 04 décembre 2009 - 01:42 .

[Dark83]

DA:O is about as linear as Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate. Hm. Mass Effect too, come to think of it. And KotOR. In fact, all of Bioware's games tend to have a similiar path.

You have a common starting point (6 variations in DA:O), which branches off into multiple clusters, which then regroup into the ending. Each path traversed will have the same start and end, there are common points in the center done in different order.

[Dark83]

Kimberly Shaw wrote...

1) Drops at a set level regardless of your level, cannot be increased by vendor sell/buy back (eg warden keep armor).
2) Drops at your level (scaling), can be increased by vendor sell/buy back (most items).
3) Drops at your level (scaling), cannot be increased by vendor sell/buy back (helmets).

Why the game has THREE different codes for item scaling is beyond me, and needs to be fixed.

Uh.
This is incorrect, roughly 60% so.

ALL items scale. The Commander Armor from Warden's Keep drops at your level (scaling). It goes from Steel to at least Silverite. It can be upgraded. I've had a Templer Helm at Steel upgrade to Silverite as well, if I recall correctly. Helmets in general do upgrade.
Merchants scale. Their inventory is static, with certain events adding inventory. This combined effect means if you sell them a tier 1 dagger when you should be at tier 7, the next time their inventory is refreshed/reloaded it will be at tier 7.
There is however an exception - certain items only exist in certain ranges. If a Shoddy Dagger exists only at tier 1, then it'll always stay at tier 1.

So your conclusion is pretty much completely wrong - there is one set algorithim for item scaling. Upgrading is a side effect of how merchant inventories interact with item scaling. If an item doesn't exist at a higher tier, it obviously won't upgrade.

[Kaosgirl]

Veracruz wrote...

Zygax wrote...
They are both good games. I think Oblivion is the better RPG, and DA is the better action game.

 I'm sorry but I don't see how Oblivion can be better RPG than DA. Is it because it's a sandbox game? Because the freedom to move it supposes would be the only advantage. I didn't feel the "role" in Oblivion.

I had no problem "feeling the role" in Oblivion, in fact I find it somewhat easier than I do in DA:O.  For all the faults in the henchman AI, I found NWN easier to get into the role with as well.  I mostly blame the party mechanics and top-down viewpoint for that - pausing ability aside, DA:O strays towards more of a heroes-based RTS feel than an RPG feel.  For me, at least.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.  It's just a distinction between the gameplay styles of the games, and which is preferable is obviously a subjective call.  But for me, that distinction between the gameplay styles does make it harder to 'get into the role.'  (Not impossible, mind.)

Scars Unseen wrote...

You've obviously never played Morrowind.  Or Daggerfall(which, interestingly enough, predates GTA.  Go figure).

I admit that I haven't.  If they really are  "Oblivion done better" as they've been portrayed as, then I'm torn between regretting having missed them and being thankful my enjoyment of Oblivion wasn't ruined by comparison to them.

[Rexxean]

Lunarionsilver wrote...

Oblivion is a sandbox RPG with little to no compelling story.
Dragon Age is a story driven RPG with less freedom.

I find sandbox RPGs to be boring. There's no party, no character development or interacton. Nothing to keep me going.

Games like Dragon Age, NWN II, Kotor/II, BG/II, and the like are the ones I considered true RPGs. The best part of the game is character development between your 'party' members. Learning their stories, their personalities, what makes them tick. How the story unfolds between your character and them is the most interesting part. That's what keeps me going in a game.

TL;DR - Dragon Age > Oblivion

Umm what are you talking about have you followed oblvion main quest line and secondary main quests,?? Quite a good story, what makes it seem like less of a story is that there is not party to interact with. The story in OBlivion is not weak. Id think we will see a New ELder scrolls befrore a mew DAO!

[Rexxean]

Anduin335 wrote...

Oblivion felt too much to me like it was trying to be an MMORPG. The problem is that an MMO without other people isn't any fun to me. I prefer dragon age much more. Oblivion was a game that will keep me from ever playing that type of game single player again. The sort of FPS with role playing stats type game. I just feel that formula works better as an online game otherwise it feels empty to me.

Oblivion was so huge it just overwhelmed ppl , and bt there was plenty of quest, doing the main story line and then tryping to get faction to become guildmasters of each house plus all the individuals quests and the DLC /expansions buyable at  the store,  end up equal to a 200+ quaility hour game, I love them both but DAO is shot by the standard of Oblivion.

Modifié par Rexxean, 04 décembre 2009 - 02:24 .

[Kaosgirl]

Dex1701 wrote...

Would you rather the items in the Stone Prisoner content be Tier 1 (or Tier 2, 3, 4, etc.) and stay that way regardless of you level when you decide to tackle it?  To me that's the only alternative.  They could just make it static, but then if they wanted to set that quest to a lower level so you could have Shale longer you'd get equipment that wouldn't be useful at all if you were over a certain level.  Alternatively, they could make it a high-level quest, but then people would complain that they couldn't get Shale until toward the end of the game.  They could make the enemies scale and the equipment static, but then you'd run the risk of getting uber equipment too early in the game.

The problem of uber-equipment could be (sort of) dealt with by having "uber" requirements before it can be used.  

Though I also liked the BG2 approach to some of the uber-gear:  you never found all of it at once, but the bits you did find were level-appropriate (mostly) for when you found them.

[Zarenthar]

Morrowind was better than Dragon age, but Dragon age is better than Oblivion.

[Dex1701]

Rexxean wrote...

Anduin335 wrote...

Oblivion felt too much to me like it was trying to be an MMORPG. The problem is that an MMO without other people isn't any fun to me. I prefer dragon age much more. Oblivion was a game that will keep me from ever playing that type of game single player again. The sort of FPS with role playing stats type game. I just feel that formula works better as an online game otherwise it feels empty to me.

Oblivion was so huge it just overwhelmed ppl , and bt there was plenty of quest, doing the main story line and then tryping to get faction to become guildmasters of each house plus all the individuals quests and the DLC /expansions buyable at  the store,  end up equal to a 200+ quaility hour game, I love them both but DAO is shot by the standard of Oblivion.

Not really.  I played Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind before Oblivion, and they were all larger than Oblivion.  Daggerfall and Morrowind were just far superior games to Oblivion, although Oblivion did manage to correct some of the gameplay annoyances that Morrowind had.  I don't agree that those 200+ hours were quality...in fact, I didn't find anything past the first 40 or so even remotely enjoyable.  I also have to agree with others that the story was nothing special...very predictable and cliche.

As far as the factions go, what's the point?  I could do a bunch of fetch quests for a guild leader and become the leader of the guild (I lol'd at the Mage's Guild questline when I killed the infamous King of Worms at level 5), but it does absolutely nothing.  Most people don't even acknowledge it.  It's just a box to check off, and the quests leading up to it were barely interesting enough to hold my attention.  Now, there were moments in Oblivion that I really enjoyed, but overall the game was watered down by blandness, tedium, and two-dimentional characters.

Modifié par Dex1701, 04 décembre 2009 - 02:37 .

[SaintlPatrick]

I can't really compare. They're both vastly different games, in my opinion.



That said, I've logged over 1000 hours total play time in Oblivion, and am still going strong.



Dragon Age, I can see the same thing, eventually. I still play KoTOR.

[Gidzen]

tinfish wrote...

I Valente I wrote...

Keep in mind that Dragon Age can and will be modded also.

The thing is DA does not need to be modded,

Modding is the only way to make thievery and lock chest talents usefull.   Runes on armor would have been nice.  Interesting side quests comes to mind.  The best feature is the plot, sub-plots SUCK.  But I guess your right DA doesn't need modding............... just a complete overhaul!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ThatsSaucey]

I've played and own both games, in comparison, i think oblivion has more freedom and items to choose from, but as the story it lacks, while DA has extensive story that makes me actually want to watch it..



i also dislike the fact how in oblivion the game levels up with you.

[Vince B]

I had always thought of BioWare as the good guys.  Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 are among my favorite RPG's of all time and I've played most of them.  That and the enthusiasm Bioware had for the toolset made me look forward to Dragon Age.

I was glad to see that the leveling of opponents was much better than Oblivion, but immediately began looking for a place to store my loot.  In the Baldur's Gate games, I could store loot in containers throughout the realm.  In DA:O I can't.  I then learned that with Warden's Keep I would get a new camp with a storage chest--if I was willing to pay for the DLC.  So, I must pay extra for what was part of the game in the Baldur's Gate games.  To me, that smells of greed and deception.  I've stopped playing the game and will not recommend it to others.  I will also think twice before I purchase another BioWare game.  They'er not the good guys any more.

So, it's back to playing and modding Oblivion, warts and all.

Modifié par Vince B, 04 décembre 2009 - 02:53 .

[Rexxean]

Bioware puts it best foot forward because of Bethseda and Bethseda does because of Bioware...They make each other better because of each other imho

[SarEnyaDor]

I personally love both games, in different ways. I never swooned in Oblivion, but I had alot more freedom and consequences there.



I don't know if it is possible to have the great story telling and the freedom combined into an uber-RPG, just because there would have to be so much of everything it probably wouldn't be practical, but I can hope and dream.



And until that day comes when the game-of-all-games is created in a freak Bioware-Bethesda mating ritual I will just continue to buy both types and enjoy them for what they are enthusiastically.