11 réponses à ce sujet

[Meris]

... what would you improve, not change, in Origins' much acclaimed formula if you could?

I, myself, would:

Look into encounter design. There were interesting battles in Origins but they were on the minority - lost away in a sea of 'filler battles' that posed not challenge or asked creativity on my part. The tricks are there, but they are underused.

Look into character attributes and:

A)make them equally interesting for every class depending on the role you wish to develop your character into. In Origins, the closest I got to fully exploring the attribute system was with a arcane warrior/tank build that required a balance between magic, dexterity and willpower. This would also make the DAO injuries more punishing (or rather, actually so) by making minuses to your mage's dexterity potentially dangerous and, from a story standpoint, actually crippling (see below).

B)make them more useful for non-combat purposes. Primarily by expanding attribute-based dialogue options - allowing the player to craft his story as he chooses to develop his character. Going back to the arcane warrior I talked about, he gained points in dexterity as he levelled up as a Arcane Warrior (after the forest temple) and later on, in Fort Drakon, I could choose to escape from the guard by a dexterity based choice that my character wouldn't be able to do as a plain mage - as I would not have invested any points in it at all.

Look into level scalling and try to make it less obvious. There were worse examples when it comes to level scalling than Origins (thank God), but I could never shake the feeling that I could obviously take that Desire Demon down because he was scaled to my level: completely discarding a perfectly and potentially good reason to parlay with her - to do the best I can while I still can, since I may not survive the encounter.

Provided that filler combat would be diminished, combat in itself would become less central and frequent in gameplay. For this reason, I believe health and mana instant and free regenerations could be removed - making regenerative supplies more important and your ability through the entire adventure more interesting.

There might be more. But these are what came up to me at the moment.

[Maria Caliban]

Can you be a bit more specific about what 'improve, not change' means to you?

Making it a forty hour game would have improved, not changed it in my mind.

[Meris]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Can you be a bit more specific about what 'improve, not change' means to you?

Making it a forty hour game would have improved, not changed it in my mind.

Essentially, expanding on existing mechanics and content without overhauling them or the phylosophy behind them. Not that overhauls aren't perfectly valid, but having some fundaments in your design is as well.

I am puzzled by how you can consider deliberate shortening of the game as a good thing on its own - it can only be good as a consequence of improved design but no one in his sane mind wants less content.

As a example, by cutting 'filler combat' and making more interesting encounters the norm then combat would become less present. It would make the game much shorter so here, in a sense, a shorter game does seem like a worthy sacrifice. But I'd much rather if devs had the vision to complement this change with more out-of-combat gameplay aside from dialogues and cutscenes.

Another, more subjective, example (which I am against) is how BioWare has chosen a more cinematic approach to storytelling which (and here's my problem and according to BioWare itself on multiple occasions), mean a big strain on resources. This, if you actually like it, can be seen as a positive thing and it may be ok to you to sacrifice heaps of content, but the good part certainly wouldn't be the shorter game itself.

[Dave Exclamation Mark Yognaut]

Meris wrote...

Look into encounter design. There were interesting battles in Origins but they were on the minority - lost away in a sea of 'filler battles' that posed not challenge or asked creativity on my part. The tricks are there, but they are underused.

Provided that filler combat would be diminished, combat in itself would become less central and frequent in gameplay. For this reason, I believe health and mana instant and free regenerations could be removed - making regenerative supplies more important and your ability through the entire adventure more interesting.

I agree with these. If they're actually going for a game that plays like a "gritty dark fantasy," it would make sense for injuries to mean something, fights to be quick, lethal, and significant, and for a player to have to play it smart and vary his/her strategies to survive. This also, IMO, means moving away from the tank/heals/dps/aoe paradigm in favor of something more organic.

[Maria Caliban]

Meris wrote...

...no one in his sane mind wants less content.

I found Dragon Age: Origins and Baldur's Gate II to be too long.

I want less content.

[Dave Exclamation Mark Yognaut]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Meris wrote...

...no one in his sane mind wants less content.

I found Dragon Age: Origins and Baldur's Gate II to be too long.

I want less content.

Also, shorter game length doesn't mean less content. Sometimes it just means less recycling.

[Maria Caliban]

Very true, Dave.

Games like Skyrim are like going to a buffet. You can have some of this, some of that, and quit whenever you get full. If I don't do everything or finish the main quest, I don't feel like I've missed anything.

Games like Dragon Age: Origins are being served a thirteen course meal and being told that you can only go to the next course after completely finishing your current one. I enjoy the meal but there are inevitably long stretches of time where I wish I could either skip content or it wasn't there.

BioWare makes story-based RPGs, but I don't believe the story of DA:O or BG 2 can sustain 80-120 hours of playing. I strongly suspect no story can.

[Mmw04014]

Make your characters race mean more.

Even though I think sometimes people exaggerate how little race is acknowledged, there is no doubt it could have had more influence on how you are perceived. There were lots of moments where I felt it would have been appropriate for my character's race to be acknowledged, but it wasn't.

I also would have added to the amount of skills. I found them really useful, not only for their intended gameplay function, but also because they helped shape my character.

[sickpixie]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Meris wrote...

...no one in his sane mind wants less content.

I found Dragon Age: Origins and Baldur's Gate II to be too long.

I want less content.

I wouldn't say BG2 is too long as long as you only do enough side quests to raise 15,000 gold and skip the
City of Caverns by taking the portal in the asylum instead of the ship.

[nightscrawl]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Meris wrote...

...no one in his sane mind wants less content.

I found Dragon Age: Origins and Baldur's Gate II to be too long.

I want less content.

Hmm, it certainly would add to the replayability. On the other hand, the first couple of times playing it, I loved the length.

My full Origins play is DAO (~60 hrs), DAA (~20 hrs), GoA (~1.5 hrs), WH (~1.5 hrs). Around 84 hours for the whole shebang. By comparison, my longest DA2 play ever was 50:33, and as a result I've played DA2 twice as many times. However, I do wish DA2 were a bit longer at times =/.

[Maria Caliban]

sickpixie wrote...

I wouldn't say BG2 is too long as long as you only do enough side quests to raise 15,000 gold and skip the City of Caverns by taking the portal in the asylum instead of the ship.

I didn't know how long the game was until after I played it. Likewise, I didn't know there was a City of Caverns to skip until after I played through it.

Even if I did know these things, I didn't know how difficult the fights I'd face in the future would be, but I did know More XP + More Equipment = Better Chance of Not Dying, and that the game was hard in places.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 11 avril 2012 - 01:30 .

[MagmaSaiyan]

if the story is deep enough sure i could go for a shorter game, but if anything my first playthroughs are usually going to last much longer than others, anyway, cause im getting a hang of things, getting lost, covering every side quest or items, but like Origins after maybe the 3rd time through i practically skipped most of the side quest, because the story is so long, but thats also because of the combat that practically makes me fall asleep, i love longer games but im gonna skip more after a few playthroughs, for some reason DA2 seems to work just right.