302 réponses à ce sujet

[MichaelStuart]

Am I the only one who felt that levels and attributes where pointless in Dragon age 2.
When ever I leveled, enemys leveled with me, so I never got stronger.
Attributes didnt really seem to do anything except when I put alot of them in willpower or constitution.
When you level, you do get Talents points, but I found I most of the talents useless because they only seem to work on low level enemys.
The only time I felt I got stronger was when I found a powerful piece of equipment with the right runes or when I had a lot of potions and poisons.

So should Dragon age 3
1.Get rid of levels and attributes, and focus on equipment
2.Make levels and attributes feel more relevent

or should I stop complaining, play the game on easy if I'm finding it hard and enjoy the story
     

[Allan Schumacher]

I know we're evaluating stuff like this going forward.  I can't say much more than that though


Although I think the idea is that, as you get more powerful, your versatility opens up.  You unlock abilities deeper into trees which are often quite powerful, and in many cases are direct upgrades to already existing abilities.

Part of the challenge of games with non-essential content is providing balance for those that do every little quest and those that prefer to follow only the main story.  I find myself leaning towards making the more difficult content off the crit path for this reason.

Games like BG and KOTOR used level caps, which I know is a huge disappointment for a lot of players because once you hit the cap you're effectively heavily restricted for any more player progression, and I think a lot of what draws people to RPGs is the idea of player progression.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 23 avril 2012 - 05:29 .

[Sacred_Fantasy]

What's the point of level and attribute?

Level is numerical way to measure character progression.
Attribute is numerical data to build your character that will affect your gameplay.

They are useless in DA 2 because of level scaling. The enemies level up with up you, thus nullifying your character's progression. Blame that on restricted one city location setting.

[Firky]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
Although I think the idea is that, as you get more powerful, your versatility opens up. 

Loved levelling in DA2. Because of that. ^

I was *hanging out* for every level, the first 7 (and spec) in particular. Even just having one more ability meant being able to vary approach. So fun!

(Not saying there isn't room for improvement. Just that DA2 got the balance really well for my playstyle.)

[Maria Caliban]

Levels are there to give you a false sense of accomplishment.

[Jones7602]

Hi Allen. Please let me remark the following. High level abillities being essentially an upgrade to a low level abillity was one of the most annoying things in DA2 and to a certain extent in DA:O. Why? With the upgrade you get what the abillity should have been in the first place, e.g. a fireball doing some damage. From my point of view, either get rid of this system and create unique abillities, or tune the system in way that's enjoyable. One idea could be, besides powering the abillity up, to let the player chose one of several upgrades that really change the abillity. For example, one upgrade could be really powerful against single opponents, while another might do medium damage to several targets, or opening up the way to a CCC, or adding some crowd control.

[the_one_54321]

Level scaling of enemies has always seemed like a bad implementation to me. It makes more sense to create enemies that exist at a certain difficulty and stay that way throughout the game. Some monsters are just tougher than others. And then leveling does more than just give you new flashy stuff to use. The monsters actually gradually become easy.

[Allan Schumacher]

Some monsters are just tougher than others. And then leveling does more than just give you new flashy stuff to use. The monsters actually gradually become easy.

What are your thoughts on determining the challenge of crit path, presuming that there is optional content? Are you thinking along the lines of "Allow that content to be optional (in that you can choose what to do), but some/most of it still must be completed in order to achieve a sufficient level of proficiency with your character?

[seraphymon]

This was another area where i felt DA2 was a step back. The lvling system i nDAO i felt was good, gaining lvls made me feel stronger towards certain enemies, that i had trouble with at the start. Even though enemies lvled with you at some point it stopped, or there was a certtain gap in which the enemies lvled.

Some enemies in DAO took just a few hits eventually to take out. Where as in DA2, it always felt like it took the same number of hits to finish off someone, and eventually because of point caps, takes longer, because of the stupid enemy health system. Not only that but because the protag doesnt have a lvl up armor, like the companions, the best armor in game becomes much much weaker, and is really noticable, if you do the DLCs after the main game, and you get above 25.

it shouldnt be that you actually get weaker as you lvl.

[the_one_54321]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Some monsters are just tougher than others. And then leveling does more than just give you new flashy stuff to use. The monsters actually gradually become easy.

What are your thoughts on determining the challenge of crit path, presuming that there is optional content? Are you thinking along the lines of "Allow that content to be optional (in that you can choose what to do), but some/most of it still must be completed in order to achieve a sufficient level of proficiency with your character?

My opinion is that it is optimal to determine the order of the critical path for the player. And then enforce it by using monster difficulty in progressive areas. This removes some degree of freedom of choice in "direction" but it opens up quite a bit of freedom for the development team to craft the world. The gain is the perception of being in a real world where your experiences advance along with your character advancement.

Another aspect this affects is travel. Areas that used to take time gradually become a cake walk. Then moving from spot to spot gose from long to quick-and-easy as the player progresses through the critical path.

edit;
Sorry, I didn't mean to skip over part of your question, it just slipped my mind.

In terms of optional content, what you would have to do is determine where that extra content fits within the critical path. Lair of the Shadow Broker would perhaps have a difficulty level suited to End Game, and the Warden's Keep might have a difficulty level suited to after leaving Lothering. As hypothetical examples, I mean.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 23 avril 2012 - 06:48 .

[Cadeym]

Dragon Age 3 should be more like Baldur's Gate 2. The old d&d rules for attributes made each point feel incredibly valuable, it should ofcourse be made much more user friendly.

I also greatly missed having a limited amount of spells at my disposal instead of them just recharging, but i'm not sure that it would work all that well. I suggest that you take a look at how it was done in NWN2 and see if it could somehow be applied to DA3 (it could just be a turn on/off option or be activated on higher difficulty).

More classes would be welcome aswell. How about a priest class that deals in healing, buffing and other non lethal spells. This could also help make mages seem more dangerous to the average citizen as they would only be capable of causing destruction.

5 man groups would be absolutely perfect.

Modifié par Mouseraider, 23 avril 2012 - 06:43 .

[Allan Schumacher]

My opinion is that it is optimal to determine the order of the critical path for the player. And then enforce it by using monster difficulty in progressive areas. This removes some degree of freedom of choice in "direction" but it opens up quite a bit of freedom for the development team to craft the world. The gain is the perception of being in a real world where your experiences advance along with your character advancement.

I understand the idea of gating, but maybe I'm just tired (about to head to bed), but I'm still not 100% sure how your answer relates to the crit path of content that must be completed in order to complete the story and game.

You are talking about limiting the direction, which is gating and is something easily seen in a game like Fallout New Vegas, where giant Deathclaws prevent you from easily walking straight to Vegas. That requires a much more open world than one that exists in DAO or DA2 (or even older BioWare games..... probably the closest thing is the original BG).

Could you maybe think of an example to better illustrate? I am guessing you're thinking along the lines of DAO where maybe going to Redcliffe is the "easy" choice, while checking out Orzammar can be gated to be more challenging and assumed to be content that is tackled after Redcliffe?

Which is fine and I can understand that.  But does that mean you're okay with the game being a total cakewalk if the player does a ton of sidequest content before hitting Orzammar, compared to those that just do the major plot points?

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 23 avril 2012 - 06:53 .

[the_one_54321]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
Could you maybe think of an example to better illustrate? I am guessing you're thinking along the lines of DAO where maybe going to Redcliffe is the "easy" choice, while checking out Orzammar can be gated to be more challenging and assumed to be content that is tackled after Redcliffe?

Which is fine and I can understand that.  But does that mean you're okay with the game being a total cakewalk if the player does a ton of sidequest content before hitting Orzammar, compared to those that just do the major plot points?

Sorry for lacking examples. I added a little bit in an edit.

Yes, I feel it's very appropriate that spending time developing your character (through extra time completing side quests) will affect your ability to finish later portions of the game with less difficulty. The balance issue is resolved in making it so that a player that does zero side quests will still be capable of completing the game. Whereas, the player that does every last extra bit of content is rewarded for the extra time spent by having a character that performs in a "heroic" fasion, come the later portions of the game.

edit;

In the games were gating and farming were used implemented, I felt that, while farming may be tedious at times, I was rewarded for my efforts in taking on extra fights and completing the extra content. Later areas of the game, or in some cases even the areas of the game I was presently in, significantly decreased in difficulty, and thereby I was able to progress through the story much more quickly when I turned to dedicate my time to it. This felt like an accomplishment.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 23 avril 2012 - 07:01 .

[Xerxes52]

I enjoy leveling in RPGs and unlocking more abilities.

As for attributes, they seemed to be less meaningful in DA2, and I wouldn't care if they were trimmed out and replaced with something else.

[Sharn01]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Some monsters are just tougher than others. And then leveling does more than just give you new flashy stuff to use. The monsters actually gradually become easy.

What are your thoughts on determining the challenge of crit path, presuming that there is optional content? Are you thinking along the lines of "Allow that content to be optional (in that you can choose what to do), but some/most of it still must be completed in order to achieve a sufficient level of proficiency with your character?

Make bosses scale, but not generic trash, why would every bandit and thug suddenly be level 20 just because your character is?  Besides the bosses, implement a leveling system where a creature doesnt have to be the same level as you to actually be a threat. 

Sure, some players are going to min/max everything and find the game less challenging then others, but that is their problem, not yours.  If you really want to limit min max builds make abilities other then those that maximise combat builds useful, either in storytelling or optional game routes.  Optional content  for those who make characters that can actually understand something besides which end of the sword goes into the enemy not only makes people try different things, it adds a lot of replayability.

I would have preferred a level cap on DA2 simply because you you stop getting better equipment, a warrior Hawke with a tank build will eventually take more damage then Merril or Anders with no defensive spells cast while wearing the best armor in the game because she outleveled it.  If you make any one change, change how armor and weapons get worse as you gain levels.

Modifié par Sharn01, 23 avril 2012 - 08:15 .

[AmstradHero]

Interesting discussion. Personally, I found attributes felt largely useless. They "felt" as though they had little overall impact on the combat effectiveness of characters, although I'll be happy to admit that the numbers may not necessarily back that up. I think there's an issue in terms of the payoff for things like block and dodge, in that you need to make a significant investment for them to be useful, but at the same time, there's significantly diminshing returns beyond a certain point. It demands commitment from the player to invest heavily in a statistic, but doesn't provide them with a commensurable benefit for doing so.

Talents, on the other hand, were very refreshing. Having a variety of useful abilities to use on a regular basis for all characters and classes is a nice change from many games in the genre, including DAO. The necessity for fighters and rogues to conserve stamina except for specific reactionary behaviours was one of my biggest concerns with the DAO combat mechanics. The one area that I would change is the cross-class combos, or specifically, the need to obtain upgrades in order to provide these in many cases.  Make the cross-class combo available from the default ability, and then have the upgrade boost the combo or other effects. Only providing cross-class combos from upgraded talents makes the combat less free-form by reducing the amount of flexibility players have in the character development choices. This is particularly noticable on higher difficulties, where it is almost essential to develop certain skills and cross-class combos in order to perform adequately in combat.

The scaling/gating issue is particularly interesting. This is potentially in part due to the power gradient appearing quite steep in terms of player damage output. A few levels can make a huge difference to a party's damage output, particular across talent "level unlock" boundaries. This means it is quite challenging to create encounters that are difficult for the player when these boundaries are crossed. The reason this causes a problem is becauase health/mana/stamina regenerates between battles. This means that every battle must be challenging to the player, because otherwise it just feels like a "trash mob" that the player has to grind through in order to prevail. If the player has levelled up past the "expected" level, then every battle is easy and the player feels like the combat is a chore rather than a source of excitement.

The "simple" solution would be remove the regeneration between battles, and hence force players to maintain sufficient potions to replenish themselves. This, of course, opens up a whole bunch of new potential game design and balancing issues that can be much harder for the designer to manage, particularly when it comes to pushing the player forward in the narrative, areas where resupply of limited healing/replenishment sources is not possible, and boss fights. This becomes even more difficult when these three issues are considered together. Of course, this idea is not popular in modern AAA titles because of these problems, and I don't see DA pursuing such a significant change in combat design at the third title in the series. I just thought I should point out how this is largely responsible for this problem with modern encounter design, particularly for ones with levelling systems. Both systems present (different) problems for designers.

The other alternative is to make the scaling of the enemies more visible to the player, either graphically or through gameplay context. Going back to the aforemention Baldur's Gate (2 in this case), raiding the lair of Firkraag could see face juvenile vampires, vampires, or greater vampires, depending on your level. While this was not obvious to the player on a single playthrough, that simple aspect of changing the name of the enemy made the difference seem more important, and players noticed if they played the game more than once. These enemies had different abilities, but I'm assuming a level 5 enemy thief has different abilities to a level 15 enemy thief. So if scaling has to be retained, make the player feel like they're making process as they proceed.

Have the enemies upgrade. For example:
<faction> footpad
<faction> cutpurse
<faction> scoundrel
<faction> ruffian
<faction> pickpocket
<faction> thief
<faction> assassin

You get the idea. If the art department can manage it, each other these having a slight difference in appearance would make it so much more powerful. Again, the point is making it so that players will notice. If possible, occasionally throw in an encounter involving a large number of "lower ranked" enemies and let the player carve through them like warm butter. It gives them a sense of achievement and make them thing "Yeah! I'm so much more powerful than before." This has to be done sparingly though.

While this is a counter-intuitive idea, I would argue that if developers must do scaling, then it needs to be done in a manner that is obvious to the player. If it is not, then it partially robs the player of the sense of achievement and advancement they get from levelling up.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 23 avril 2012 - 08:31 .

[AkiKishi]

Levels have a number of functions, but variable attributes not so much. You can't really get rid of levels without a ground up redesign, you can however have fixed level up attributes or do away with them completely and have everything based on the skill values.

Rather than needing X number of points. You simply need X number of appropriate skills.Lets say something like Dagger of slaying - 3 rogue skills 1 assasin skill.
That should make the whole equipment progression a lot easier to manage and balance.

[taine]

I personally despise level scaling, even if I can sort of understand it from a design perspective. I *like* running into areas I am too weak for, and having to leave and come back later. It makes more sense. Why should all the enemies be at a relatively similar level of power to my characters?

Meat gates work well enough for side quests and optional areas, while the main quest should progress in difficulty at the expected rate of progression for characters that do very few or no side-quests. This means you're rewarded in the main quest line for doing challenging side-missions.

RE: Attributes, I have to agree that they were kind of redundant in DA. There was no reason to level anything but your class' primary attributes, so they could have just been stripped out altogether. If you want to make them more meaningful, do something more like 99% of PnP systems and don't throw tons of stat points at the player every level. There's a reason D&D makes it very challenging to increase your stats: each point gives great benefit.

[Firky]

AmstradHero wrote...

Interesting discussion. Personally, I found attributes felt largely useless. They "felt" as though they had little overall impact on the combat effectiveness of characters, although I'll be happy to admit that the numbers may not necessarily back that up. I think there's an issue in terms of the payoff for things like block and dodge, in that you need to make a significant investment for them to be useful, but at the same time, there's significantly diminshing returns beyond a certain point. It demands commitment from the player to invest heavily in a statistic, but doesn't provide them with a commensurable benefit for doing so.

This is an interesting one. I experimented shamelessly with Maker's Sigh (?) on my 2nd playthru and found combat a lot easier once I started investing in 3-4 stats for each character. But they seemed to be undermined by objects later in the game. Like, whichever stat helped with knockbacks, but then there were 2-3 (?) anti-knockback items.

I did like how each stat should have been highly relevant, regardless of class, but it didn't quite pan out that way. When you say "diminishing returns," maybe that's it, too.

Still, I was running nearly everyone with hardly any HP and bolstering everything else, to pretty fun effect. (But that's how I play, too. Minimising damage taken.)

[AkiKishi]

They both had their plus minus points. The thing with level scaling though is it tends to break once you start adding in skills. ME3 was a complete joke because you started with your go to skills already maxed out, and only got easier as you added more skills.
Non scaling has it's own set of issues. If you happen to clear an area you were not supposed to be ready for, then you break the curve. Of course a bit of gamer discipline goes a long way, but it's not something you can take for granted. I recall playing FFI and doing the bit across the bridge without realising. It was hard but doable, as a consequence I made the first section of the game far too easy and started to get bored.

In a non-linear game, it's even more difficult to keep things on track without scaling of some sort. In DA for example you can't have the same enemies when you can visit areas in a different order.

[caradoc2000]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Games like BG and KOTOR used level caps, which I know is a huge disappointment for a lot of players because once you hit the cap you're effectively heavily restricted for any more player progression, and I think a lot of what draws people to RPGs is the idea of player progression.

A level cap is not a problem if it is done right. Kingdoms of Amalur (while a fun game) went terribly wrong with this. You can easily max your level halfway throught the game. I've played the last 30+ hours without a single XP and there are loads of side quests I haven't done yet. Thankfully you can just run by most enemies.

[Momiji.mii]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Which is fine and I can understand that.  But does that mean you're okay with the game being a total cakewalk if the player does a ton of sidequest content before hitting Orzammar, compared to those that just do the major plot points?

I think ME also did this? On my first playthrough (new to RPG and all that), I did all the sidequests and planet explorations possible and actually hit lvl 50 before entering the crit path, doing Noveria last because I'd been told it was difficult. But the third time I played ME, I wanted a challenge so I pretty much headed straight to Noveria and that was fun as well, though a little difficult.

I think that I personally prefer the way DAII did it though. It just felt more fun and I could chose my path through the quests more freely.

[fchopin]

I thought the levelling in DA2 was about the worst i have ever played.

I felt stronger in the beginning than the end of the game, the more i levelled up the weaker i became.

Modifié par fchopin, 23 avril 2012 - 10:42 .

[Dragoonlordz]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I know we're evaluating stuff like this going forward.  I can't say much more than that though


Although I think the idea is that, as you get more powerful, your versatility opens up.  You unlock abilities deeper into trees which are often quite powerful, and in many cases are direct upgrades to already existing abilities.

Part of the challenge of games with non-essential content is providing balance for those that do every little quest and those that prefer to follow only the main story.  I find myself leaning towards making the more difficult content off the crit path for this reason.

Games like BG and KOTOR used level caps, which I know is a huge disappointment for a lot of players because once you hit the cap you're effectively heavily restricted for any more player progression, and I think a lot of what draws people to RPGs is the idea of player progression.

Actually what draws me into RPGs is customisation, choices which include such things as attributes, skills, armour, loot, levels and more such as dialogue choices, branching paths, companion selection, appearence and race. Those sort of gameplay elements are what differentiates it from generic action games. As I have said before the difference between genres is those very sort of elements. Those elements are what define the genre both in quantity and quality. They are all equally as important wich unfortuantly over the years Bioware has for lack of better term dumbed them down, streamlined them.

As I have also said before I do not consider Bioware's stories to be that amazing or great, some are good but none have ever dazzled me, no more so than many other games from other publishers and many of which have better stories. The stories themselves is not why I buy Biowares titles.

I only buy RPG's and sometimes TBS, if you wish to switch to generic action game with some dialogue choice then I have no interest. Any game you play a role, all have main characters you play the role of even sim games you play the role of overlord or god, the role playing 'genre' requires additional role playing elements. I do not buy action games, I buy RPGs. The reason I bought Skyrim, DEHR, Witcher 2 and three decades of RPGs plus all of Bioware's titles that I purchased is because they contain role playing elements and not just playing a role.

So in essense the point in having such is it gets me to give Bioware money.

With regard to the element of critical path through game meaning just main quests or need to take part in additional side quests, it's merely a quality issue resolved by producing better more entertaining side quests. I killed Flemmeth in DAO at level 7 likewise I have killed her at 14, it is never as critical level wise as some people try to make out. It scales up the difficulty taking on something at lower level but that is the choice of the player. The more effort you put into something the more you get out of it both in terms of levels and additional optional content and should be no excuse to strip out or remove something just because some people want a cake without having to wait, bake or buy any.

Most people like things being difficult in games, reward for putting forth some actual effort in trying to progress, remove that and what your left with is merely interactive movie. While some people like that, it defeats the point as far as I am concerned in buying a 'game' as opposed to a book or movie where you just require no more effort than looking at a screen or words on a page. Your stories from my own perspective are not sufficient quality to reduce it to that format for reasons I listed above being why I even buy your titles.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 23 avril 2012 - 11:58 .

[AkiKishi]

fchopin wrote...

I thought the levelling in DA2 was about the worst i have ever played.

I felt stronger in the beginning than the end of the game, the more i levelled up the weaker i became.

No offence, but you were probably doing it wrong. But it is another flaw in scaling system, especially in regards to non-optimal builds.
Not all skills are created equal, and not all parties are either. One of the upsides of not having scaling is no matter how weak you might be, you can always level yourself out of it. While one party might be able to win at level 30 and another at level 40 , you won't come to a situation where you become gimped by your build.