302 réponses à ce sujet

[Wulfram]

I'm not really fond of NG+. That goes too far for me, and often doesn't make sense if it includes equipment. Plus, I usually want to play a different PC, not the same one all over again.

I just want to be able to start at level 5 or maybe 10, not at level 20+.

While DA3 will likely be somewhat different to DA2, the basic principles are likely the same. Which is all you really need to be able to handle starting out with 5 abilities rather than 1.

[Cultist]

Ah, enemy scaling. the first thing that comes to mind is Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Fallout 3. Bethesda stepped into this scaling trap once.
The first mod for both Oblivion and Fallout 3 (well, apart from obvious nude-mods) was "No scaling" variations. Rats that bitten through Full Ebony Plate armour, raider wildman with plasma rifles. This frustrated people to no end. In fact, that lead to situation when New Vegas used "no scaling" as a feature and stated that this problem was solved in a appropriate way.

The problem comes when people play without scaling. Because along with easy fights comes the hard fights. And they force people to plan. Not something arcade players from "Call of Duty Crowd" will appreciate. In BG2, should you go to certai location right from the start - you will be obliterated. But shoul you think and execute a nice plan - you'll have a reward that will be worth all the effort.

Attributes have no meaning in DA2 and that's sad. I wish to see more complex system that will allow us to create various builds for different protagonists of the SAME class.

For example:
1. Strength warrior - high damage.
2. Cunning warrior - can evade blow and deal crits.
3. Constitunion Warrior - tank.
4. Magic Mage - damage and effects
5. Willpower Mage - buffs for party that consume a lot of magic.
6. Cunning Mage- focus of critical effects of the spells.
and so on. In DA2 you got only one, or two builds at best.

[AkiKishi]

Wulfram wrote...

I'm not really fond of NG+. That goes too far for me, and often doesn't make sense if it includes equipment. Plus, I usually want to play a different PC, not the same one all over again.

I just want to be able to start at level 5 or maybe 10, not at level 20+.

While DA3 will likely be somewhat different to DA2, the basic principles are likely the same. Which is all you really need to be able to handle starting out with 5 abilities rather than 1.

NGP is not really about making sense. It's a shortcut for replaying the game.

As long as you restart on a file flagged as complete there should be no reason why you can't start another character. It's really down to what features they choose to implement. It could have a thread all of it's own.

[Sylvius the Mad]

NG+ needs to be optional. I hated how I couldn't replay ME, for example, without getting some in-game benefits from my previous achievements.

I also don't see why we shouldn't have access to all of the game's features right from the start. NWN was great for this - you could import a character of any level into a campaign, regardless of whether you'd played that campaign before.

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Good questions OP!  Levels and attributes should be more relevant and they should be thrown away.  :D:D

Numbered levels are vestiges of when games were little more than graphics mated to a spreadsheet.  I'm all for getting rid of levels, and replacing them with skill tracking.  The more a character uses a skill, the better the character becomes with a skill.  Skill would all start at "common" or "good" depending on how you created your character.  You would get the opportunity to be worse at two skills to be better at one.  For example, your character would be Poor at archery and shield use, but Good at daggers.  That's all we need to know about a character in order to have an entertaining story, plus you could then present character sheets as paragraphs.  You would open up the character sheet and see "Isabela is good with a dagger, but poor at archery."  Anything she was Common at would be ignored since it goes without saying.  No more boxes and boxes of numbers.  This is how I used to run my diceless White Wolf games and it worked very well.

Attributes should dovetail with equipement.  All equipment should be available to every character at every point in the game...  except with penalties.  So if your character with Poor strength puts on heavy armor right after character creation, they can wear it, but it's not going to be as effective as it would be on a character with Good strength.  The longer the Poor strength character wears heavy armor and swings a heavy weapon, they higher their appropriate skills and attributes get.  As a bonus, attributes should be displayed graphically, like the originally Fable.

As far as enemies leveling up with the characters, that has to stay.  Story is always cupcakes, and combat is always broccoli.  If I'm going to be forced to go through the broccoli to get to the cupcakes, then the broccoli had better be delicious, and I'm talking Archdemon delicious or fight against Meredith delicious or ME3 MP delicious, or I'm going to go someplace else.  And if the broccoli tastes like cupcakes, then I'm going to lose my freaking mind, because someone has clearly divided by zero.

OP, as a fellow Easy/Casual player, you have every right to complain.  Your $60 is just as $60 as someone who plays the game on the absolute hardest mode.  You have to feel a little bad for BioWare, trying to entertain all these different groups of players, but then again they get paid to make games so it's hard to feel too bad.

;)

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

NG+ needs to be optional. I hated how I couldn't replay ME, for example, without getting some in-game benefits from my previous achievements.

NG+ should be an option, agreed.  If for nothing else, then so that the rougher grind or mini-game edges can be smoothed off in further playthroughs.  That way, after scanning 12,000 planets in my first game, I only need to scan 500 in my second game and I can spend more time on the story.

[Sylvius the Mad]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Good questions OP!  Levels and attributes should be more relevant and they should be thrown away.  :D:D

Numbered levels are vestiges of when games were little more than graphics mated to a spreadsheet.  I'm all for getting rid of levels, and replacing them with skill tracking.  The more a character uses a skill, the better the character becomes with a skill.

I wouldn't object to scrapping levels, but I'm going to have vote a big NO on learn-by-doing.

[Pasquale1234]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I could get behind this idea, if and only if the abilities started out in an "infant" form that could all be grown and advanced with more skill points and become more varied. For instance, it doesn't really make sense that I would have access to the Primal Skill Tree as a mage and know how to cast cold spells on level one, but not know how to cast fire and lightning spells until, say, level 6 just because I didn't choose those skills until later.

Any mage that has undergone any training knows how to cast an ice spell just as much as they woudl know a fire one. Its just a matter of deciding which spell type you'd like to become more adept in.

For instace, I think we should start out with the lowest level skills or spells of every tree as soon as it is unlocked. Then as we spend more skills to unlock things further down that branch, they become more powerful and varied. 

I could go for that, especially given the timers on each spell / talent.  The existence of those timers influence my choices early on, because I felt like I needed to have a wide enough variety of abilities (so I wasn't waiting for a timer to elapse before I could use an ability again) before I would start upgrading them.

I think I might want to limit it to 5-6 basic abilities per class, and might want to allow the player to choose which abilities they would want to start - with pre-selected defaults for those who are new to the game.

[MichaelStuart]

I would like a new game+ option, just because I hate leveling. Really, isn't that what new game+ are for, so I don't have to level again?

[AkiKishi]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

NG+ needs to be optional. I hated how I couldn't replay ME, for example, without getting some in-game benefits from my previous achievements.

I also don't see why we shouldn't have access to all of the game's features right from the start. NWN was great for this - you could import a character of any level into a campaign, regardless of whether you'd played that campaign before.

It is you just start a new game on a save file that is not flagged as complete.

[Vaeliorin]

MichaelStuart wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...
Skill progression is part of the learning curve of the game. Give someone 20 skills and they will have no idea whats going on. Give them 3 or 4 then add the other 16-17 and they learn as the game progresses.

But you don't need 20 skills that do nothing. All you need is about 6 good ones.

I got threw Dragon age 2 using about 5 skills per charater, just that most of the useful skills were unlocked after the useless ones.

This is actually one of the things I hated about DA2.  It got boring quickly because my characters did have only 5 or 6 active abilities.  I couldn't have any variety in gameplay without respeccing my character (and into a less efficient build.)  And since I only had those 5 or 6 abilities, half the time they were all on cooldown, so I couldn't do anything except use basic attacks.

Contrast this with DA, where I had the entire action bar full by the end of the game (playing at 1920X1200.)  I could deal with enemies a myriad of different ways, depending on what type of enemies they were and what I felt like using.

Anyway, I'm not tied to levels.  As long as there's some sort of progression, I don't care if it's level-based, or simply being able to upgrade skills/abilities by directly spending XP, as one does in Shadowrun or White Wolf games.

Modifié par Vaeliorin, 26 avril 2012 - 06:28 .

[Fast Jimmy]

I have never seen a system work in the manner I am about to describe, but I think it would be very interesting, at least as a discussion concept if not an actual game mechanic.

I'll call the idea the "Whatever Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger" XP model.



My idea for an XP model would be that those fights that result in the most HP damage being done to you, where you have the most Companions come close to falling in battle, etc., would be the fights you receive the most experience from. A scale of how much damage you received would then be applied to the base experience of an enemy, so that if you fought a golem and got pummeled within an inch of your life, it would give you 200% of the golem's base experience. Conversely, if you sustained no damage during the fight, you would be given 50% of the golem's base experience.

There would need to be a caveat to this XP system, however, in that there is no "magic heal" that restores all HP within two seconds of a fight ending (although MP/SP replenishing to full after every fight would still be okay). This would mean if you took a beating to within an inch of your life, you'd need to use a potion (or three) to have any chance of making it through another fight. Also, if a companion were to fall in a fight, they would be "awoken" from the fight with an injury like what we saw in DAO. However, in addition to the injury penalties seen in DA:O (affecting attack speed, perception, etc.) this would ALSO have a damage modifier - meaning you'd take much more damage in a subsequent fight if you were injured. And before people get the idea that you can just keep three injured companions who all die in the fight, guaranteed, and then have one super character that mops up the enemies for maximum experience, you'd also get no XP if a companion is knocked unconscious.

Example:

Four members of your party fight a golem. It is an average fight, with a normal level of damage received.

        100 base XP X 4 (for each companion who was not knocked down when the golem was killed) = 400 XP.

Similarly, you fight the golem with a different party and take next to no damage - your party was so powerful and built so well, the golem did next to no damage, you power-leveler, you.

        100 base XP X 50% X 4 Companions = 200 XP

Now, this time, you have been paying no attention to your Skill trees or Attributes, or equipment upgrades and just start fighting all willy-nilly, getting your butt handed to you. You struggled, but kept all your companions alive.

        100 Base XP X 200% X 4 Companions = 800 XP

Now, for the fun stuff... you have a party where three characters are knocked out and have one character who takes enormous damage, but lives

         100 Base XP X 1 Companion X 200% = 200 XP

You have two companions who take TONS of damage, but survive, and two companions who don't hardly take a scratch.

         (100 Base XP X 200% X2 = 400 XP) + (100 Base XP X 50% X 2) = 100 XP) = 500 XP


Notice that having two gimped characters barely survive and two uber-powerful characters only nets you 500 XP, while having your entire party get hurt gets you 800 XP, 300 XP more. This makes purposefully failing costly (in terms of potions and injury kits) and also less than worth it, given that you would get 400 XP just for playing the enemy at a normal level.

Also, the base XP is important, that way you do not have the ability to level up incredibly fast fighting giant rats or something similarly low-level. You can purposefully get ground down to nothing against enemies you know you can beat easily, but that will not get you that much XP and will also cost you gold (which would also need to be more of a factor that in previous DA games, since it is a main limiting factor).


This could be applied to non-combat skills or quests as well, where if you persuade someone who only needs a level 2 skill in Persuasion with a level 10 skill, it will reduce the XP gained proportionally.


Just a thought. Like I said, I have never dealt with a system like this (that I know of, granted if it was done behind the scenes, it wouldn't have been apparent) and would be curious to see if it would be feasible.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 26 avril 2012 - 10:16 .

[Realmzmaster]

@Fast Jimmy,

An interesting concept, but are you not basically punishing the party for being good and getting better at combat and non-combat skills? Why should the experience you get change? You are still battling the same creature. The creature has not changed the party has gotten stronger (which is the point). Your method would punish the party for now being able to beat it.

I can see the companions who get knocked out not receiving any points and the points divided among the ones left standing .

With non-combat skills you have no way of knowing if a person requires a level 2 check or level 10 check so you would punish the party for achieving the higher level to pass the check.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Realmzmaster wrote...

@Fast Jimmy,

An interesting concept, but are you not basically punishing the party for being good and getting better at combat and non-combat skills? Why should the experience you get change? You are still battling the same creature. The creature has not changed the party has gotten stronger (which is the point). Your method would punish the party for now being able to beat it.

You'd reward the party less because the relative challenge was lower.  That seems to be the idea.  Jimmy's system seems gameable, but I'd have to play it to find out.

Peronally, I'd like static monsters to give static XP, with XP requirements increasing dramatically as the party grew stronger.  But Jimmy's proposal does do something very important.  It recognises that the combat prowess of a character is not based on his level.

I'm a bit concerned that, as Realmzmaster says, you're punishing success.  But I'm not concerned about punishing the party for growing stronger.  I'm concerned about punishing the player for being more skilled.  Two players with the same party facing the same fight will get different XP rewards based on the player's chosen tactics.  If one player is less good at tactical combat, his characeters will earn more XP (effectively bootstrapping them to make them more powerful, offsetting the player's deficiencies).  It reminds me of progressive taxation.

I can see the companions who get knocked out not receiving any points and the points divided among the ones left standing .

We were promised something like this in DAO.  I don't know if we got it.

[Fast Jimmy]

Realmz...

While there is reduced XP payout for those who dominate in battle, it's not meant to 'punish' the player, per se. It simply gives an easy way for those players who are behind on levels to catch up and those advanced in levels a chance to slow down their progression do that future enemies aren't similarly easy to 'plow through' so to speak.

After all, is it realistic that an enemy who possess no challenge to you should give you the same XP as back when they were impossible to beat? This would also be solution to level scaling, where the same rogue at level 5 is the exact same difficulty at level 25.

In regards to the non-combat skills, what I have often seen done when using a particular skill, such as persuasion or lock picking, is a grade of strength or a percentage. Example:

Locked Chest (Hard)

Or "How about you let me and my friends through for free before things get ugly? (Persuade 35%)"

The higher the displayed levels of difficulty, the higher the XP expectation.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 26 avril 2012 - 10:52 .

[Curlain]

I could see such a system exploited though, as players let their party take damage from lower level enemies and 'grunts' until they are low in health be still retain enough to realistically get through such an encounter with such low-threat enemies/monsters, and then kill them. This could be 'rinsed and repeated' potentially to allow a must faster sky-rocketing in levels and power.

On the other hand though, this is in the hands of the player themselves to decide to exploit the system or not, and in an SP game, more options is always good, as what one player does doesn't affect another wanting to play the game 'straight' as it were.

[TEWR]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Realmz...

While there is reduced XP payout for those who dominate in battle, it's not meant to 'punish' the player, per se. It simply gives an easy way for those players who are behind on levels to catch up and those advanced in levels a chance to slow down their progression do that future enemies aren't similarly easy to 'plow through' so to speak.

After all, is it realistic that an enemy who possess no challenge to you should give you the same XP as back when they were impossible to beat? This would also be solution to level scaling, where the same rogue at level 5 is the exact same difficulty at level 25.

I've only done a cursory read of just this page, so I may not have the entire situation's facts at hand, but FFXII has a system that is kinda similar to the one you proposed -- again, based on my cursory read of this page -- where if you go and kill a level 3 wolf and you're level 36, instead of getting 33 points of XP you get 6.

At the time you originally faced the wolf, 33 was a great deal of XP. Now at level 36, 6 points barely does anything.

FFXII -- and X and XIII, probably others as well -- also does the "No automatic replenishing of health/mana" thing too.

However, I'm going to read this entire page to make sure that what I think is being said is in fact being said.

Reading the thread in its entirety, I believe I do understand the proposed system. More or less anyway.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

We were promised something like this in DAO.  I don't know if we got it.

I think it was there.

FFXII had a similar mechanic IIRC. I know it had a mechanic where party members that didn't fight in battle at all didn't receive any XP.

So you could have a party that consisted of people in their 60s if they were the only ones you used, while the rest were stuck in their 30s.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 26 avril 2012 - 11:29 .

[Maria Caliban]

If you have an open world, RPG, it makes sense that Killer McBloodAxe gets no XP for killing a rat while Sally McPigFarmer can level from rat exterminating.

[Fast Jimmy]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...


You'd reward the party less because the relative challenge was lower.  That seems to be the idea.  Jimmy's system seems gameable, but I'd have to play it to find out.

Peronally, I'd like static monsters to give static XP, with XP requirements increasing dramatically as the party grew stronger.  But Jimmy's proposal does do something very important.  It recognises that the combat prowess of a character is not based on his level.

I'm a bit concerned that, as Realmzmaster says, you're punishing success.  But I'm not concerned about punishing the party for growing stronger.  I'm concerned about punishing the player for being more skilled.  Two players with the same party facing the same fight will get different XP rewards based on the player's chosen tactics.  If one player is less good at tactical combat, his characeters will earn more XP (effectively bootstrapping them to make them more powerful, offsetting the player's deficiencies).  It reminds me of progressive taxation.

I think you touched on a core reason why I thought of the concept in the first place - it gives those who don't play the combat section well to gain an advantage, almost like a handicap in bowling. If you are Level 10 and are still having trouble with combat, this will tilt the scales a little in your favor without actually changing the difficulty of the enemies. 

Also, I think before the thought of "penalizing gamers" who do well is taken a litle too far with this theoretical model, I would like to point out the concept of scale. Meaning, if a player likes to take on every side quest and fight every enemy, the numbers will still be in his favor.

For instance, if a high level player is doing three side quests with, say, 30 golems each (with still a base XP of 100) and a main plot quest with, say, 50 golems and is getting the 50% penalty because the player is powerful and skilled, it is 140 X 50% X 100 = 7,000 XP. SImilarly, if a person is lagging and having trouble and only wants to do the main quest, they will be fighting 50 golems, making the math look like 50 X 200% X 100 = 10,000 XP. 

This is still more experience for the player who is getting devastated, which slowly slides the difficulty scale up for the elite player, and slowly lowers the difficulty for the player who is doing poorly.

As the elite player's level progression slows down, they shift more towards taking normal damage levels. Now let's see the same situation with a player who does the side quests and the main quest, but without the penalty.

140 X 100% X 100 = 14,000 XP. 

So if a player is focused on being a completionist (like myself), the difficulty will return back to normal (or, at least, the level progression will slow down while your enemy's will increase through gating techniques) and then they will still be gaining more levels and experience than players who are only doing the main quest.


Also, I imagined this not as a truly static 50%/100%/200% number, but rather a sliding scale that can vary from fight to fight, with most fights resulting in a swing of 75% to 150%, depending on the damage taken. So a player will not fall into the 50% over the course of entering one area, but will likely see a gradual decline, which will slow their level, which will increase the difficulty, which will then result in more damage taken and a return to equilibrium. Same for players who are encountering some difficulty - they will not go from taking normal amounts of damage to catastrophic levels, but rather will experience an ebb and flow of experience as they encounter fights that are challenging for them.

Again, I thought it might be an interesting and possible novel way of handling combat difficulty. Instead of making the enemies harder/faster/smarter/more resistant, why not instead increase or decrease the rate at which the player becomes more powerful? This allows enemies to be the same, but only the sliding scale of how good the player has previously done be the determiner of the combat difficulty.

[Fast Jimmy]

Curlain wrote...

I could see such a system exploited though, as players let their party take damage from lower level enemies and 'grunts' until they are low in health be still retain enough to realistically get through such an encounter with such low-threat enemies/monsters, and then kill them. This could be 'rinsed and repeated' potentially to allow a must faster sky-rocketing in levels and power.

On the other hand though, this is in the hands of the player themselves to decide to exploit the system or not, and in an SP game, more options is always good, as what one player does doesn't affect another wanting to play the game 'straight' as it were.

This is a possibility, but again - with the base level experience of "grunt" enemies being low, even if a player lets themselves get beat up, they will still only have twice as much of a low-level enemy experience. Two times bumpkiss is still bumpkiss.

Also, my suggestion to make money much more of a controlled/in-demand concept would limit the number of potions and injury kits a player could have at any given time, which could deter players from flirting with death just to exploit the XP gains. Although this could be done (and, ultimately, would be fun to try!) as you risk losing the fight just to possibly gain more from a big boss fight's XP, which would be its own form of metagaming.

[Fast Jimmy]

Filament wrote...

I'm pretty sure the NWN games did that. The amount of XP given was modified by the Challenge Rating of the enemy, which was determined by their level relative to your own. All the other stuff about how much health you have or whether you passed out or not seems a bit half-baked and overly convoluted to me.

I think I'd still prefer to move to an objective-only experience payout, though. Not that it doesn't make sense to get experience through combat -- it certainly does IMO -- but the effect of that in an RPG where experience = power is to discourage approaching a situation in any way but combat.

My idea was not to base the scale by which experience is determined soleyl by level, but by how much damage you received (and therefore, how close you came to losing). Two players could be level 10. One could be struggling due to not understanding game mechnaics or because they wanted to be experimental and try out an unconventional build, another could be a power-leveler and be strong enough to take on enemies multiple times their level without much of a struggle. 

Level alone is not a determiner of how well someone can/should do in combat. That's why I tied in the damage rating, since it is a good reflection of how much punishment you are taking in fights before you are able to bring a foe or a set of foes down, essentially, how much they are hurting you before you get done hurting them.

And this could still be tied into obejctive play, as I mentioned with my non-combat examples. If you accomplish an objective of sneaking into a castle whose guards won't usually detect someone over Sneak Level 2 and you have Sneak Level 10, the objective will reward a sliding scale of XP. If the reverse is true (you succeed with a Level 2 for enemies who can usually detect anything below a 10) then you are also rewarded accordingly.


Not trying to hammer this as a perfect system, but honestly, the more I disucss it and counter-point it, the more appealing it becomes to me.

[Realmzmaster]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Realmz...

While there is reduced XP payout for those who dominate in battle, it's not meant to 'punish' the player, per se. It simply gives an easy way for those players who are behind on levels to catch up and those advanced in levels a chance to slow down their progression do that future enemies aren't similarly easy to 'plow through' so to speak.

After all, is it realistic that an enemy who possess no challenge to you should give you the same XP as back when they were impossible to beat? This would also be solution to level scaling, where the same rogue at level 5 is the exact same difficulty at level 25.

In regards to the non-combat skills, what I have often seen done when using a particular skill, such as persuasion or lock picking, is a grade of strength or a percentage. Example:

Locked Chest (Hard)

Or "How about you let me and my friends through for free before things get ugly? (Persuade 35%)"

The higher the displayed levels of difficulty, the higher the XP expectation.

I understand what you are trying to achieve, but as Filament said it would be better to give each enemy a challenge rating. The higher the level of the party or main PC is above the challenge rating the less experience you receive. The converse should also be true if the party kills a creature whose challenge rating is greater than the party level or main PC level then more experience is rewarded. 
The experience of the creature would remain static and would be modified by the difference in the ratings. 

With the Persuade example are you saying that at the present skill level the character has a 35% chance of making the check? If so how would experience be rewarded? Would the party get 65% of the experience? If the Persuade is 90% with a 10% chance of failure will the party only get 10% of the experience? 

With the locked chest example does it depend on the relative difference between the stregth of the character verus the strength of the box? What does Hard translate to in strength terms?

Let's say Hard translates to a strength of 50 and the character breaking the box has a strength of 70, do you substract the difference from the percentage of experience awarded? The difference here is 20, so the party receives 80% of the experience. If the character strength is 50 the party receives all the experience?

Would there be a percentage chance of breaking the box at lower strength levels? Thereby the party recieves more experience?

Edited for spelling

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 27 avril 2012 - 02:27 .

[Anaeme]

I would say BOTH.


In NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer, there is a cave where the Paragon Beast of Malar resides.


You do NOT have to do this content, It however is designed to seriously challenge players who choose to enter without hindering progression.


Conversly, along the critical path there is a mandatory gating encounter with multiple Death Knights in a temple which will hinder your progression if you do not complete it.


Both scenarios were effective and enhanced the game.

Modifié par Anaeme, 27 avril 2012 - 10:00 .

[Cyberarmy]

MichaelStuart wrote...

What about having all basic skills, then picking a upgrade when leveled.

Well, Vampire Masquarade: Bloodlines have something similar.
You get some basic skills at start, dependin on your stats and just upgrading themYou get XP from only for completing missions.
no levelling up, no XP from killing enemies.
And you also some of  the passive skills if you havent picked them, like Firearms skilli you can use any weapon but without skills you are jusy shooting empty air.


Even Skyrim has something like that you want(minus levelling up), you can use what ever you want.Your character knows everything a little and you upgrade them by using them.