787 réponses à ce sujet

[labargegrrrl]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

labargegrrrl wrote...

i think i'm going to be the only person who says this, BUT:

i don't want to worry about f*ing micromanaging armor again.

If you can manage the PC's armour, then you can manage the other party members' armors as well.

With regard to ability selections or qequipment choices, there is no relevant different between any one party member and the rest.  As such, they should work the same.

not to be rude, but what part of  "i don't want to" translated to a can/can't scenario?  

i know i can.  i did it in DAO/DAA.  i just didn't like sitting around swapping armor sets in and out, trying to figure out bonuses and max stats for every single person i had with me.  maybe i was just being too picky about it, but it seemed like it cut way too much into my gameplay time.  in DA2, i only had to worry about armor with hawke.  which took a lot of pressure off of me to babysit grown men and women's clothing.  and companion weapons and accessories STILL ate up way too much of my time, truth be told.  i sing high praise for bianca.



and, like i said, no one is going to agree with me on this.  lol.

[hussey 92]

labargegrrrl wrote...

i don't want to worry about f*ing micromanaging armor again.

 
Then maybe RPG's arn't for you:whistle:

Modifié par hussey 92, 25 juin 2012 - 06:58 .

[SerTabris]

hussey 92 wrote...

labargegrrrl wrote...

i don't want to worry about f*ing micromanaging armor again.

 
Then maybe RPG's arn't for you:whistle:

I've played several RPGs with an 'Optimum' or 'Auto-equip' feature where the game picks what it thinks is the best equipment for each character. Personally, while I have no problem fiddling around with equipment setups, I don't exactly find it a big draw to the game or genre. Particularly with armor, as there aren't that many armor pieces I can think of that have very interesting effects anyway (generally the weapons get the neat stuff like '2.5% chance of inflicting Walking Bomb').

[labargegrrrl]

hussey 92 wrote...

labargegrrrl wrote...

i don't want to worry about f*ing micromanaging armor again.

 
Then maybe RPG's arn't for you:whistle:

or maybe i'd rather spend my time focusing on actual RPG elements?  like battles or dialogue or what i think my character should be rescuing kittens from trees or...

[Patchwork]

ianvillan wrote...

Ser Bard wrote...

I like the idea but it seems overly ambitious especially when it seems most people, or perhaps just me, would be happy with a compromise of an evolving custom outfit with the ability put companions in any armour even if means losing a unique body design.

I agree it seems that they are using so much time and resources to do this idea when they could just let you equip followers with armour you find.

If they do go with the idea they are proposing then If they latter come out and say that something couldn't be implenented because of time, they better be prepared to explain why they used so much time implementing this idea when all we wanted was to equip armour that we wanted.

This is exactly my fear. They'll run out of time or decide the money would be better spent elsewhere and we get nothing but the same outfit  with different stats and perhaps a palette change.

[Wivvix]

What’s wrong with the inventory system used in Dragon Age: Origins? Why not just use that?

There’s nothing wrong with that system per se. It was, however, a lot
of resources that led to end results which weren’t ideal… namely that
we had less appearances overall in addition to very little visual
identity for the followers. Morrigan was the only character in
Origins who had a unique appearance, and one which was immediately lost
the moment you put different armor on her. Other followers had little
visual identity at all outside of their faces, and ended up looking like
every other character who wore that armor. Again, that’s not terrible
in and of itself (characters are defined by more than just their
appearance, after all)—but we’d like to do better.

I find this comment about "very little visual identity for followers" quite remarkable. All of my followers looked nothing like my main character or eachother, and none of them ended up looking like visual train-wrecks. I think the simple, honest answer would've been "it was too much work".

In any case it sounds like there's a pretty simple solution for people fixated on "appearances". You have a check box in the settings which disables armour visualisations, and you allow the player to choose from a few generic follower character/armour appearances.

That doesn't mean that you abolish gear customisation and wash your hands of class specialisation because it's too much work, like they did with Dragon Age 2, where every class has one cookie cutter build and very very limited scope for gameplay customisation; ps they totally wrecked the mage healer sub-class in DA2.

Did you do it “better” in DA2? If that was so great, why not just do it again?

We did like the visual direction for follower appearances in Dragon
Age 2—but resource limitations meant that we couldn’t do the number of
variations on those appearances as we would have liked. So you couldn’t
change their armor at all, and that had a negative impact on player
agency… as in the agency one feels by having control over their
gameplay. It also meant you found a lot of armor that you simply
couldn’t use at all, while this proposed system eliminates that problem.
So, ultimately, it was good on one side and very bad on the other.

Resource limitations. That's a round-about way of saying the game was rushed. Tell us something we don't already know.
There was no agency over armor in DA2. There was no choice between armour, you got 1 set which pretty much lasted you from around 20% completion through to 100% completion. It wasn't even like you had options to stat stack. Pretty much all the gear was just trash loot or follower crap, much of which you couldn't use for the followers in your party.

This proposed system might address the glaringly obvious faults of the DA2 system, but it's still worse than what was offered in terms of gear and character customisation in DAO. For people complaining about gear (micro) management, honestly, if equipping gear to 8 slots is too much work then you aren't really invested in that role. Go back to playing FPS's. You have only have to equip your gun then.

Modifié par Wivvix, 28 juin 2012 - 11:12 .

[ianvillan]

Wivvix wrote...

What’s wrong with the inventory system used in Dragon Age: Origins? Why not just use that?

There’s nothing wrong with that system per se. It was, however, a lot
of resources that led to end results which weren’t ideal… namely that
we had less appearances overall in addition to very little visual
identity for the followers. Morrigan was the only character in
Origins who had a unique appearance, and one which was immediately lost
the moment you put different armor on her. Other followers had little
visual identity at all outside of their faces, and ended up looking like
every other character who wore that armor. Again, that’s not terrible
in and of itself (characters are defined by more than just their
appearance, after all)—but we’d like to do better.

I find this comment about "very little visual identity for followers" quite remarkable. All of my followers looked nothing like my main character or eachother, and none of them ended up looking like visual train-wrecks. I think the simple, honest answer would've been "it was too much work".

In any case it sounds like there's a pretty simple solution for people fixated on "appearances". You have a check box in the settings which disables armour visualisations, and you allow the player to choose from a few generic follower character/armour appearances.

That doesn't mean that you abolish gear customisation and wash your hands of class specialisation because it's too much work, like they did with Dragon Age 2, where every class has one cookie cutter build and very very limited scope for gameplay customisation; ps they totally wrecked the mage healer sub-class in DA2.

Did you do it “better” in DA2? If that was so great, why not just do it again?

We did like the visual direction for follower appearances in Dragon
Age 2—but resource limitations meant that we couldn’t do the number of
variations on those appearances as we would have liked. So you couldn’t
change their armor at all, and that had a negative impact on player
agency… as in the agency one feels by having control over their
gameplay. It also meant you found a lot of armor that you simply
couldn’t use at all, while this proposed system eliminates that problem.
So, ultimately, it was good on one side and very bad on the other.

Resource limitations. That's a round-about way of saying the game was rushed. Tell us something we don't already know.
There was no agency over armor in DA2. There was no choice between armour, you got 1 set which pretty much lasted you from around 20% completion through to 100% completion. It wasn't even like you had options to stat stack. Pretty much all the gear was just trash loot or follower crap, much of which you couldn't use for the followers in your party.

This proposed system might address the glaringly obvious faults of the DA2 system, but it's still worse than what was offered in terms of gear and character customisation in DAO. For people complaining about gear (micro) management, honestly, if equipping gear to 8 slots is too much work then you aren't really invested in that role. Go back to playing FPS's. You have only have to equip your gun then.

If they wouldn't of scrapped almost every aspect of DAO then they would of had more time and rescources for armour or levels.
Was it lack of resources or was it really the desicion they made to appeal to a different customer base and thought that there wouldn't be such a big fuss about it. because if it was so hard to do how come modders with an incomplete toolset were able to put armour on companions.

[TonberryFeye]

I'm sorry, but I just want to laugh out loud at the idea that "the party all looked the same." Just how many Qunari do any of you remember seeing equipped with the Armour of the Legion? Exactly how many suits of Warden Commander Armour are there? Is there a shop in Antiva that sells golden royal armour?

At no point did I feel that my characters in origins look too much like NPCs, or too much like each other. In fact, one of the goals of my current playthrough is to carry it over to Awakening so I can have the Warden and Oghren both in Armour of the Legion, with Sigrun (sp?) in Legion Scout Armour - what an epic sight that will be!

I think Bioware have forgotten that having a uniform is actually appealing...

[Wulfram]

There was an issue that if you had a lot of light armour users they all looked pretty identical. Though that could have been fixed by having more than two light armour models.

[ianvillan]

I never thought that my companions looked the same, but even if they did I was playing the game and it was I that decided to put them in similar armour so I have to sort out who is who, and it is simple you pause the game and when you click on the companion it shows you who it is.

Dragon age was a tactical game that I would pause all the time to make decisions not a 100mph non-stop action game which is the only way I could see companions getting confused for each other.

[hero 2]

"They have their own siilhouette, their own shape, their own colourscheme... "
-Mike Laidlaw, here:

Sounds like what the devs were chatting about pre-Warhammer Online. This was one of the many thiings I liked about it.

Modifié par hero 2, 30 juin 2012 - 01:42 .

[rapscallioness]

I really like this idea. Alot. I hope they do this. And if they can do color and material on top of that...I would love it.

[Wivvix]

hero 2 wrote...

"They have their own siilhouette, their own shape, their own colourscheme... "
-Mike Laidlaw, here:

Sounds like what the devs were chatting about pre-Warhammer Online. This was one of the many thiings I liked about it.

All Bioware is doing is more or less copying exactly what they did in Mass Effect 3. It's like trying to fix a failed crankshaft by washing the body of the car.

The problem with itemization was not the appearance of gear on characters or followers.
There were many things wrong with itemization, but the two big ones are:
1) Skill trees and sub-class variation was far too limited to stat-stack or specialize by way of gear optimization.
2) Gear was not effectively utilized as a progression mechanic. In truth it wasn't used as a progression mechanic at all, which really just begs the question, why did they even bother?

The key, primary function of gear in an RPG is to enable the character. You can enable in many ways using gear, but aesthetics are not one of them. That's a design consideration which should be left up to the art team. Bioware have essentially mistaken a criticism of core gameplay mechanics for an issue of aesthetics.

DA3 is destined to fail with that kind of analysis of feedback.

Modifié par Wivvix, 30 juin 2012 - 06:16 .

[panamakira]

I'm cool with them wanting to have each character feel unique with their own style but if we're not entirely going the DA:O route then we should have a lot of options for the clothes of companions as well as a way for each armor piece to feel different.

If I'm going to collect 5 plate chest pieces, not have them only be a color variation or a slight pattern variation, but should be entirely different from each other while keeping true to each character's unique feel.

I don't mind them wanting to keep each character their own style but each piece should look different from each other at least.

[hero 2]

Wivvix wrote...

The key, primary function of gear in an RPG is to enable the character. You can enable in many ways using gear, but aesthetics are not one of them. That's a design consideration which should be left up to the art team. Bioware have essentially mistaken a criticism of core gameplay mechanics for an issue of aesthetics.

DA3 is destined to fail with that kind of analysis of feedback.

Bioware say "Still, it’s where we would like to head.", and I think a lot of the community are wondering why.
What's the point in this fancy new system? It's pretty, sure, and all the characters get a unique look... for... some reason that's not clear (I know, let's you recognise them on the battlefield, gives them some uniqueness etc. but are these things a massive priority?). Anyway, a guy wearing a suit of armour should look like a guy wearing THAT suit of armour, no? 

While I like the idea of morphing armour and unique looks, I think that if someone wants a unique look, they are going to be less powerful than they could be because they wear less than the full suit of armour. So what kind of person would trade better armour for aesthetics? Someone confident? More maneoverable (a new game mechanic tradeoff, perhaps)? Stupid? Poor?

[TonberryFeye]

Okay, the picture's not great, but this is precisely why I don't like the idea of making every character unique in DA3...



I made a Dwarf Noble character just so I could do this. Seriously, I went through all of Origins just so I could get a set of Legion of the Dead armour for my Warden and then import them into Awakening to get a 'full' Legion party.

I like being able to give my party a uniform. I like having everyone wearing something that makes them look like part of the same force. I understand why BioWare want to make every character unique, and sometimes that's good (Morrigan looks wrong in 'normal' mage clothes...) but the key point is that it should be my choice, as the player, whether or not everyone looks the same, or whether everyone just turns up to battle in whatever they felt like wearing.

[hero 2]

TonberryFeye wrote...
it should be my choice, as the player, whether or not everyone looks the same, or whether everyone just turns up to battle in whatever they felt like wearing.

Shouldn't it be the NPC's choice? Or do you want to take away their own personal taste? Would you strip them of their opinion, too? Then why not have three (unintelligent) robot companions?

[Saintthanksgiving]

hero 2 wrote...

TonberryFeye wrote...
it should be my choice, as the player, whether or not everyone looks the same, or whether everyone just turns up to battle in whatever they felt like wearing.

Shouldn't it be the NPC's choice? Or do you want to take away their own personal taste? Would you strip them of their opinion, too? Then why not have three (unintelligent) robot companions?

I am going to agree with the Bioware plan on this one. I was one of the loudest voices complaining about the lack of follower customization in DA 2, but I understand the character integrity issues at stake.   This new plan seems like a good balance. 

[TonberryFeye]

hero 2 wrote...

TonberryFeye wrote...
it should be my choice, as the player, whether or not everyone looks the same, or whether everyone just turns up to battle in whatever they felt like wearing.

Shouldn't it be the NPC's choice? Or do you want to take away their own personal taste? Would you strip them of their opinion, too? Then why not have three (unintelligent) robot companions?

What does clothing have to do with personality? It's not about making the NPCs silent sword-swinging mooks; this is akin to being told by your boss "you have to come into work in a suit."

Look at the example given; three of my four party members are equipped as Legion of the Dead, and if I could I'd have a four-Dwarf party all with Legion armour.

Yet of the three I have, let's look at the companions: Oghren is a surly, heavy-drinking berserker who enjoys fighting, drinking, drinking while fighting and fighting over drink. Oh, and he's so politically incorrect he was once arrested for sexual harassment for saying "good morning."

Then there's Sigrun; the stoic scout who takes her death oath very seriously, yet also has a curiously peppy outlook and a love of surface things. She's also a bit of a magpie, ever drawn toward 'shiny' things and haunted (or perhaps 'teased') by her old stealing habits.

Do these characters become any less unique because they both wear the same uniform? Of course not. The same is true of movies; from Men in Black to Saving Private Ryan we've seen men (and women) whose personality shines through despite being in identical or near-identical outfits to everyone else in the group.

So yes, if your goal is to create a random assortment of totally-not-related heroes who met in a pub and all decided to go save a magical chair from the Orcs, then having everyone look totally unique is fine. On the other hand, it's a terrible idea if you want to press home the idea of "these guys are part of a well-drilled, highly disciplined military unit." You know, like the Templars, or the Seekers, or the Grey Wardens...

Modifié par TonberryFeye, 10 juillet 2012 - 11:14 .

[ianvillan]

hero 2 wrote...

TonberryFeye wrote...
it should be my choice, as the player, whether or not everyone looks the same, or whether everyone just turns up to battle in whatever they felt like wearing.

Shouldn't it be the NPC's choice? Or do you want to take away their own personal taste? Would you strip them of their opinion, too? Then why not have three (unintelligent) robot companions?

So when you played DA2 did you just let companions keep their starting weapons and use no other weapon in the course of the game, How about picking ablitites did you have every companion on auto level up and never once choose what talents or atribute they had.

Why is armour any different than weapons or talents. I can pick followers for any mission (apart from once with sebastion in the fade) and I can force my companions to go against there beliefs, And I end up choosing the main decisions in there quests.

So why take away armour for no other reason then it encourages cosplayers, What did Anders wearing feather paulderns add to his character, or Fenris wearing a leotard add to his personality. What sain person would wear a leotard in to battle when he has a choice of quality armours to wear.

[hero 2]

TonberryFeye wrote...

hero 2 wrote...

TonberryFeye wrote...
it should be my choice, as the player, whether or not everyone looks the same, or whether everyone just turns up to battle in whatever they felt like wearing.

Shouldn't it be the NPC's choice? Or do you want to take away their own personal taste? Would you strip them of their opinion, too? Then why not have three (unintelligent) robot companions?

What does clothing have to do with personality?

You're not a woman. Or a teenager.

TonberryFeye wrote...

It's not about making the NPCs silent sword-swinging mooks; this is akin to being told by your boss "you have to come into work in a suit."

That makes sense, except ... these guys aren't hanging around with you because you're paying them. They aren't in thrall to you.

TonberryFeye wrote...
Do these characters become any less unique because they both wear the same uniform?

I think you will be surprised to hear, they do. They have a less unique look because they wear a uniform. That's the whole purpose of a uniform. UNI-one FORM-form. One form. One look = not unique.


If characters lost no uniqueness when wearing the same clothes, why do the helms disappear in conversation? Why not just leave them on. There's just as much character as when they are removed, right?

TonberryFeye wrote...
So yes, if your goal is to create a random assortment of totally-not-related heroes who met in a pub and all decided to go save a magical chair from the Orcs, then having everyone look totally unique is fine. On the other hand, it's a terrible idea if you want to press home the idea of "these guys are part of a well-drilled, highly disciplined military unit." You know, like the Templars, or the Seekers, or the Grey Wardens...

I'm glad you came around to my way of thinking at the end.

ianvillan wrote...

hero 2 wrote...

TonberryFeye wrote...
it should be my choice, as the player, whether or not everyone looks the same, or whether everyone just turns up to battle in whatever they felt like wearing.

Shouldn't it be the NPC's choice? Or do you want to take away their own personal taste? Would you strip them of their opinion, too? Then why not have three (unintelligent) robot companions?

So when you played DA2 did you just let companions keep their starting weapons and use no other weapon in the course of the game, How about picking ablitites did you have every companion on auto level up and never once choose what talents or atribute they had.
[..]

So why take away armour for no other reason then it encourages cosplayers, What did Anders wearing feather paulderns add to his character, or Fenris wearing a leotard add to his personality. What sain person would wear a leotard in to battle when he has a choice of quality armours to wear.

That would make sense if it weren't for the fact that Bioware want to give them unique looks. Which is a great idea. It gives them more personality.

Modifié par hero 2, 10 juillet 2012 - 03:56 .

[TonberryFeye]

If the only way Bioware can give a character personality is their clothing, they've failed spectacularly.

Hell, maybe that's why Origins is such a better game; all their characters need to shine regardless of what they are wearing!

[ianvillan]

[quote]hero 2 wrote...

That makes sense, except ... these guys aren't hanging around with you because you're paying them. They aren't in thrall to you.

[quote]

This is where I believe you are totally wrong. You dont pay your companions anything in the whole 10 years of the game.
Even the characters you took with you in to the deep roads get nothing of the massive wealth you aquire or they would be able to aquire different clothes.

Also they are thralls to you because you could take Anders on the mission to rescue the escaped mages, and kill them in front of him and he does nothing to stop you. Same with Fenris you can let mages go and he wont fight you to stop them.

hero 2 you never answered my question, did you change your companion weapons from the starter ones, and did you pick which talents to give you companions?  Because you meet Fenris who has a sword and you can say well that sword is useless get rid of it and use this giant hammer instead.

You can also say to your companions all those talents you have learnt dont suit me, drink this potion that will make you forget how to fight and learn what I tell you.

It just seems everyone brings up how it is immersion breaking for companions to wear what you tell them but have no problems with picking talents or changing weapons.

[MrCrabby]

Mr. Laidlaw, while I'm sure many get giddy over hearing about superficial things like armour I am far more interested in game play.

Considering your earlier statement: " I think the big key is to not adjust 180 degrees again, because we've done this." says pretty much everything. They key is not to give your customers what they want but to stubbornly cling to your poor design choices.

I am a film director, (another creative industry) and we firmly believe you don't crap where you eat. It seems to me Bioware and EA have been crapping on their plates for a few years now. You deliberately put out a product with changes no one asked for, and then acted surprised, (along with the rest of Bioware and EA) when the fans revolted. Even when many of us told you prior to release we hated them, and defended them long after your sales plummeted and the overwhelming negative reaction from everyone who is not a paid video game reviewer.

I do not know if you made these changes because you genuinely thought they made the game better or in a cynical attempt to appeal to twitch gamers.

I myself, and I know I am far from the only one, wants to hear about game play and story and how much it is going to offer the experience the first game provided.

Modifié par MrCrabby, 13 juillet 2012 - 04:52 .

[ianvillan]

MrCrabby wrote...

Mr. Laidlaw, while I'm sure many get giddy over hearing about superficial things like armour I am far more interested in game play.

Considering your earlier statement: " I think the big key is to not adjust 180 degrees again, because we've done this." says pretty much everything. They key is not to give your customers what they want but to stubbornly cling to your poor design choices.

I am a film director, (another creative industry) and we firmly believe you don't crap where you eat. It seems to me Bioware and EA have been crapping on their plates for a few years now. You deliberately put out a product with changes no one asked for, and then acted surprised, (along with the rest of Bioware and EA) when the fans revolted. Even when many of us told you prior to release we hated them, and defended them long after your sales plummeted and the overwhelming negative reaction from everyone who is not a paid video game reviewer.

I do not know if you made these changes because you genuinely thought they made the game better or in a cynical attempt to appeal to twitch gamers.

I myself, and I know I am far from the only one, wants to hear about game play and story and how much it is going to offer the experience the first game provided.

I agree with what you said and would add how before DA2 was released they went out of there way to say how bad Origins was at almost everything, now they have said they will have the best of both games, but all I keep hearing is that they will be keeping what was in DA2, like voice, dialogue wheel, paraphrasing, iconic looks, faster combat and distinct classes i.e. no dual wield warriors.

I have said this on another thread but will say it again here I would like a Bioware Blog that actually says what if anything the devs actually liked about Origins and are planning to keep.