289 réponses à ce sujet

[Brockololly]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
 I find it interesting when sparing him results in him kicking me in the butt again later. Kind of like the german soldier in Saving Private Ryan.

My only issue with those sorts of consequences in games is that it seems like a kneejerk reaction. Where now anytime you save somebody, they'll only come back to bite you in the ass. Thats fine if some consequence like that happens every once in a while, but if most consequences to perceived "noble" actions end up being negative then it gets tired.

And any such perceived negative consequences to actions need to have at least a little foreshadowing  and a fair setup in information being provided to the player at the time of the decision so they don't feel like GOTCHA! moments when you have the consequence.

Basically, consequences have to make sense based on the info available to the player, otherwise they can end up feeling cheap. The Witcher games do a pretty good job of playing with unforseen consequences to actions that might be harsh, but always feel fair and make sense.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
DAO allowed some pre-planning.  You could cast glyphs or AoE spells in advance of combat to create killing zones.

I liked to cast Glyph of Repusion at a chockpoint, and then draw enemies toward it with a single bowshot.  As they approached, I'd cast Glyph of  Paralysis to trigger a Paralysis Explosion, and then drop an Inferno on  them as they were trapped.

DA2, though, didn't let us cast combat spells outside of combat.  That was a terrible restriction.

Thats one thing I hated in DA2, was how you could never really get the jump on enemies. I n most games I love trying to play stealthy and taking out enemies before they even know whats going on. And its next to impossible to do that in DA2, even if you recognize some upcoming trap or something.

Modifié par Brockololly, 07 juin 2012 - 06:38 .

[Allan Schumacher]

BobSmith101 wrote...
The trick there is to make the consequences appear later rather than as a direct result of the action. JRPG flags are like that.

I'm a big supporter of having consequences reflected at a later point in the game.

i can understand having some negative consequences to being good, but
when it's too much you end up feeling being good is a punishment rather
than a playstyle. or worse, being good and the situation surrounding the
quest stays the same (the mages you could help escape in da2's act 1
just appearing again in act 2 captured)

I don't actually mind if some situations are ultimately not within your control.  Part of making the choices is just about defining your character as making that particular choice.  I do think there's such as thing as excessive player agency, and not just because it can be expensive for a CRPG.  If excessive player agency exists, it starts to hamper the verisimilitude because it starts to overstate the influence the PC has on the game world and effectively makes the NPCs pawns to react to the PC.  At its core games are always going to react to the player, but if you can write it into the narrative that other people are doing things while I'm doing things, it just makes things better.

[Allan Schumacher]

When we talk about consequences, we're talking about consequences for the character, not for the player. The auto-save after conversations in Alpha Protocol forces consequences on the player, which is why it wasn't well-liked.

These are not mutually exclusive. It's impossible to entirely disassociate the player from the character in game since the player is the one driving the character and making decisions on behalf of the character.

Now, what about a typical DA game? "Oh look some hostiles ahead. What plan am I going to come up with to deal with them? Hmmm... I'll charge in, like always, and try to slaughter them on the spot."

Mike's commentary is about a future game though.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

These are not mutually exclusive. It's impossible to entirely disassociate the player from the character in game since the player is the one driving the character and making decisions on behalf of the character.

When I play, I do entirely divorce myself from the character.  The character's personality was established at the start of the game, and that's what drives the decision-making.  I'm just the guy pressing the button, but any choices are his.

Within the game, the player doesn't exist.  Therefore, the player's preferences can't matter.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

These are not mutually exclusive. It's impossible to entirely disassociate the player from the character in game since the player is the one driving the character and making decisions on behalf of the character.

When I play, I do entirely divorce myself from the character.  The character's personality was established at the start of the game, and that's what drives the decision-making.  I'm just the guy pressing the button, but any choices are his.

Within the game, the player doesn't exist.  Therefore, the player's preferences can't matter.

It is impossible for you to divorce yourself from your character.  As the game player, you're the only one qualified to determine the acceptable reaction and decisions based on the framework you've created for your character.

If it was possible for you to entirely divorce yourself from your character, you wouldn't actually need to play the game.  It'd be playing itself and making its own decisions.  There'd be no need to for you to press a button.

Any choice that your character makes in the game, is a choice that you, the player, deems an appropriate choice for the character based on how you've imagined it.  As the guy pressing the button, the game requires your input to determine which button to press.

Even the creation of the character's personality is a complete manifestation of the player creating said character.

[Provi-dance]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Mike's commentary is about a future game though.

Hence the speculation about what does "preparation" specifically encompass in Dragon Age 3.



@Sylvius
 
Glyphs are way too powerful. They should tone down the devastating strength of crowd control spells such as stuns.

[nightcobra]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...
The trick there is to make the consequences appear later rather than as a direct result of the action. JRPG flags are like that.

I'm a big supporter of having consequences reflected at a later point in the game.

i can understand having some negative consequences to being good, but
when it's too much you end up feeling being good is a punishment rather
than a playstyle. or worse, being good and the situation surrounding the
quest stays the same (the mages you could help escape in da2's act 1
just appearing again in act 2 captured)

I don't actually mind if some situations are ultimately not within your control.  Part of making the choices is just about defining your character as making that particular choice.  I do think there's such as thing as excessive player agency, and not just because it can be expensive for a CRPG.  If excessive player agency exists, it starts to hamper the verisimilitude because it starts to overstate the influence the PC has on the game world and effectively makes the NPCs pawns to react to the PC.  At its core games are always going to react to the player, but if you can write it into the narrative that other people are doing things while I'm doing things, it just makes things better.

and that's the keyword, some, i'm ok with some, some is good. but it's a fine balance when it comes to player agency.
as for my particular preferences the amount of player agency i best liked was found in origins rather than DA2.

in origins i felt like i was shaping the world as i went on and seeing the world react to those choices, in DA2 i felt the opposite in which i was shaping hawke by choosing his reactions as to what the world put him through. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Provi-dance wrote...

Glyphs are way too powerful. They should tone down the devastating strength of crowd control spells such as stuns.

I disagree.  Tanks should not be mandatory.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

These are not mutually exclusive. It's impossible to entirely disassociate the player from the character in game since the player is the one driving the character and making decisions on behalf of the character.

When I play, I do entirely divorce myself from the character.  The character's personality was established at the start of the game, and that's what drives the decision-making.  I'm just the guy pressing the button, but any choices are his.

Within the game, the player doesn't exist.  Therefore, the player's preferences can't matter.

It is impossible for you to divorce yourself from your character.  As the game player, you're the only one qualified to determine the acceptable reaction and decisions based on the framework you've created for your character.

If it was possible for you to entirely divorce yourself from your character, you wouldn't actually need to play the game.  It'd be playing itself and making its own decisions.  There'd be no need to for you to press a button.

Any choice that your character makes in the game, is a choice that you, the player, deems an appropriate choice for the character based on how you've imagined it.  As the guy pressing the button, the game requires your input to determine which button to press.

Even the creation of the character's personality is a complete manifestation of the player creating said character.

Character creation is, yes, but once that's done I choose options by consulting not my preferences, but that character design.

The player's metagame knowledge is irrelevant.  The player's preferences with regard to outcomes are irrelevant.  All that matters is that character design.

And yes, if I could program that entire character personality into the game, the game wouldn't need me at all, and I could just sit back and watch it.  I would be perfectly content doing that, too.  If you give me a game where I can program in the PC's personality in exhaustive detail, I'll give that a shot.

Remember the original Dungeon Siege and its "click-and-watch" combat system?  I loved that combat system.  Also, Splinter Cell's "Mark and Execute" feature.

[Merlex]

wsandista wrote...

I believe that DA3 should meet these criteria in terms of combat

• Enemies should follow the same rules as the party. Foes should use the same ruleset as the party, instead of behaving like Final Fantasy monsters with huge globs of health but low damage output. All opponents need to attack at the same speed as party members, use the same attack/defense mechanics as the party, draw from the ame Talent/Spell trees as the party, and damage like a party member of the same class.(The only exception are monsters, which have no class)
  
• Combat speed should be closer to the speed in DAO. While I thought that combat in DAO could get a little slow(particularly with a Two-Handed Warrior), DA2 was much too fast for my liking. I think using the DAO combat speeds as a base, then multiplying basic attack speeds by a factor of .8 would be a sufficient pace for combat.
  
  
• Multipliers for weapons need to be more diverse than in DA2, but more uniform than in DAO. Attribute multipliers should depend on the weapon style like in DAO, while unlike DAO, most weapons shouldn't have speed or attribute modifiers(the speed modifier on maces made them unusable)
  
• Bosses should just be extremely powerful enemies with high resistances(or immunities), not actiony fights that require the PC to move around into awkward positions while some attack is charging. Many of the boss fights in DA2 seems like they would fit in more in a Zelda game than an RPG.
  
  
• Traps should have much more of an impact. In both DAO and DA2, traps were more of an annoyance than a danger, I believe this should change. Traps need to have disastrous effects when triggered that can result in characters getting killed.

[*]I kind of agree. Same talent pool and lower health bars. Better AI, but not the same tactics, for reasons stated above.

[*]While i'm not a button masher, i did enjoy DA2 combat. It is a little too fast though. Using Silence was worthless, and trying to target AOLs was difficult. By the time you fired off Gravitic Ring, the enemies had all moved. I ended up using it on chock points or enemies that were knocked down or stunned. DAO combat could be very boring, with how slow it was. Something between would be best, but closer to DA2.

[*]Agreed.

[*]Disagree. I acually like the Boss Fights.

[*]I'd like some different kinds of traps. Pits, poison arrows, stun grenades, ect.

Modifié par Merlex, 07 juin 2012 - 10:58 .

[Direwolf0294]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

It ties in with a critique that I have had of RPGs for sometime where in almost every case, being the noble hero comes with little to not cost (often additional benefit) to being more selfish or even evil. I dislike when sparing the guy gets me the same reward as killing him, for example.

I don't know if I'd say being the noble hero comes with no cost. I've found the cost is that the good guy normally gets less of a reward in terms of experience, ingame money or powerful items than the bag guy.

The good guy will spare a character and earn that characters thanks and maybe a small amount of gold or an item as a reward (which the good guy will turn down because they're a good guy). The bad guy will kill a character, loot his corpse for all the money and items he would have otherwised offered, loot his house for all the items in there and then not have to worry that the character will come back and stab him in the back later on.

Of course I consider the more pleasing narrative and story that comes with being a good guy a much greater reward then any sort of experience boost or item a bad guy might receive. I just thought that I'd point out that from a pure gameplay perspective in terms of building a powerful character it's often a lot better to go the bad guy route.

[Allan Schumacher]

Provi-dance wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Mike's commentary is about a future game though.

Hence the speculation about what does "preparation" specifically encompass in Dragon Age 3.

Then I'm doubly confused.  You concluded that it might be tactical resting, but seemed dismissive of the idea that preparation may also include simply the fact that the player may plan the fight before hand.

I'm curious why you made this assessment, unless I'm just misunderstanding you.

[Allan Schumacher]

Character creation is, yes, but once that's done I choose options by consulting not my preferences, but that character design.

The only way the character can make appropriate decisions for the character's design, is if YOU deem it to be an appropriate choice for the character. They are by your preferences. The fact that the character may make choices that you yourself may not make if you found yourself actually in that position is irrelevant. The character can only make the choices you choose for it. There's a reason why you pick the choices that you do when playing those characters.

The player's metagame knowledge is irrelevant. The player's preferences with regard to outcomes are irrelevant. All that matters is that character design.

If it was irrelevant, it'd be impossible for you to make any choices on behalf of the character. You make the choices that you do because you have a preference based on the type of character design you have come up with. This is actually fundamental about roleplay from a psychological perspective. It is a fact that a person can never truly remove themselves when making any decisions. When playing an RPG, you're making decisions on behalf of your character. Ergo, it's impossible for you to completely divorce yourself from your character. You actually concede this when you say this: "I choose options by consulting not my preferences, but that character design."

You're choosing options. Ergo, it's impossible for you not be impacting the character. You make the choices that you make because you feel that those are the choices that best suit the design of the character you created.

And yes, if I could program that entire character personality into the game, the game wouldn't need me at all, and I could just sit back and watch it. I would be perfectly content doing that, too. If you give me a game where I can program in the PC's personality in exhaustive detail, I'll give that a shot.

And it all comes falling down if YOU feel that the choices that this AI makes don't make sense with the design you've created. Even if the logic behind the choices makes sense. Even if some other person feels it's a perfectly valid decision.


If you aren't the one making the decisions based upon your preferences, then you wouldn't be upset at things like the dialogue wheel or anything else that you feel artificially restricts your character.  The only reason it's a restriction is because you don't feel the choices are satisfying enough for you, the game player.  If you were truly divorced from the character, such things wouldn't bother you because you've no investment in the character.


EDIT:  Realizing my absurdity, I'll be stopping this discussion here.  Clearly we don't agree on the issue and there's no point in continuing it any further.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 08 juin 2012 - 02:30 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Direwolf0294 wrote...

I don't know if I'd say being the noble hero comes with no cost. I've found the cost is that the good guy normally gets less of a reward in terms of experience, ingame money or powerful items than the bag guy.

The good guy will spare a character and earn that characters thanks and maybe a small amount of gold or an item as a reward (which the good guy will turn down because they're a good guy). The bad guy will kill a character, loot his corpse for all the money and items he would have otherwised offered, loot his house for all the items in there and then not have to worry that the character will come back and stab him in the back later on.

Of course I consider the more pleasing narrative and story that comes with being a good guy a much greater reward then any sort of experience boost or item a bad guy might receive. I just thought that I'd point out that from a pure gameplay perspective in terms of building a powerful character it's often a lot better to go the bad guy route.

I find games often present this as being a potential outcome, but it is in fact not actually the case.  As in, often regardless of what the game tells you, you often come away with similar rewards regardless of the choice that you make.

As in "You can kill the guy and get his loot" or "You can help the guy, and he ends up giving you equivalent loot as a reward."

To be fair, I'm thinking back to earlier gaming days (KOTOR in particular has a good example with the bullied merchant on Taris) so maybe it is a bit less prevalent today.  THere are some good examples of games that do much better (Alpha Protocol is the one that comes to mind for me).

[wsandista]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Provi-dance wrote...

Glyphs are way too powerful. They should tone down the devastating strength of crowd control spells such as stuns.

I disagree.  Tanks should not be mandatory.

No specific party-role should be mandatory.

Modifié par wsandista, 08 juin 2012 - 03:59 .

[wsandista]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Direwolf0294 wrote...

I don't know if I'd say being the noble hero comes with no cost. I've found the cost is that the good guy normally gets less of a reward in terms of experience, ingame money or powerful items than the bag guy.

The good guy will spare a character and earn that characters thanks and maybe a small amount of gold or an item as a reward (which the good guy will turn down because they're a good guy). The bad guy will kill a character, loot his corpse for all the money and items he would have otherwised offered, loot his house for all the items in there and then not have to worry that the character will come back and stab him in the back later on.

Of course I consider the more pleasing narrative and story that comes with being a good guy a much greater reward then any sort of experience boost or item a bad guy might receive. I just thought that I'd point out that from a pure gameplay perspective in terms of building a powerful character it's often a lot better to go the bad guy route.

I find games often present this as being a potential outcome, but it is in fact not actually the case.  As in, often regardless of what the game tells you, you often come away with similar rewards regardless of the choice that you make.

As in "You can kill the guy and get his loot" or "You can help the guy, and he ends up giving you equivalent loot as a reward."

To be fair, I'm thinking back to earlier gaming days (KOTOR in particular has a good example with the bullied merchant on Taris) so maybe it is a bit less prevalent today.  THere are some good examples of games that do much better (Alpha Protocol is the one that comes to mind for me).

It really is hard to balance things like this, since while I think it's important to have different outcomes and rewards for different actions, I also don't want it to seem like someone is shafted for RPing a character like they think the character should be RP. The best solution I can think of is have divergent quest paths that give roughly equal XP awards and have different but relatively close in power Items as rewards. Not exactly perfect, but better than some of the situations that have happened before.

[sunnydxmen]

Combat for dao was way too slow it was boring da2 combat is better stick with that and ,add rolls and jumping to roll out of the enemy way and stuff to jump over stuff.

[Vormaerin]

wsandista wrote...

No specific party-role should be mandatory.

Yeah, somehow the devs should totally balance the encounters to be challenging for everyone,whether they use a balanced party or some mad fetishist's concoction of random characters. 


No party role has ever been mandatory in a Bioware game, so I don't know why you bring this up like its a real danger.   Its harder to complete the games without specific abilities.  But you don't need a tank or a healer or a crowd control guy if you want to put up with the extra hassle.  (Not that you'll convince a lot of folks, what with how they screamed bloody murder over Merrill not having healing spells).

[wsandista]

Vormaerin wrote...

wsandista wrote...

No specific party-role should be mandatory.

Yeah, somehow the devs should totally balance the encounters to be challenging for everyone,whether they use a balanced party or some mad fetishist's concoction of random characters. 

No, they should just create an encounter and let the player handle it as they see fit. Only worry about balancing with the rough level of the party.

No party role has ever been mandatory in a Bioware game, so I don't know why you bring this up like its a real danger.   Its harder to complete the games without specific abilities.  But you don't need a tank or a healer or a crowd control guy if you want to put up with the extra hassle.  (Not that you'll convince a lot of folks, what with how they screamed bloody murder over Merrill not having healing spells).

I added a corollary to Sylvius the Mad's statement. I never stated that any party role has ever been mandatory in a Bioware game or that there is a danger of that happening. Please take the quote in the proper context.

[Provi-dance]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Then I'm doubly confused.  You concluded that it might be tactical resting, but seemed dismissive of the idea that preparation may also include simply the fact that the player may plan the fight before hand.

I'm curious why you made this assessment, unless I'm just misunderstanding you.

I didn't dismiss it.

You stated the obvious (that preparation involves a thought process also known as planning future actions) so I pointed out I was specifically commenting what kind of actions we could expect. As in... actual in-game actions before the battle begins.
We'll have the option to pause the game, so if I don't need to use any spells, abilities, potions or simply rest before the battle starts, why wouldn't I just enter the fight, pause and evaluate the situation? Would you call that preparation? In this situation is there a need to plan beforehand at all, since the pause feature doesn't have a time limit?
Is it positioning you're thinking about? He's mentioned "preparation" and "positioning" as separate topics.
I hope I explained it better now.

[Vormaerin]

wsandista wrote...


No, they should just create an encounter and let the player handle it as they see fit. Only worry about balancing with the rough level of the party.

I guess I don't get it.  Is this just more truisms apropos of nothing?  "Don't start doing something you've never done?"   The changes from DAO to DA2, if anything, went the opposite direction.   Any conceivable party combination could pull off the cross class combos because you couldn't have four of the same class.

Its the players, not the devs, who are worrying about this stuff.   "OMG, I don't have a healer without Anders.  The Devs are forcing Anders on me."   .

[Allan Schumacher]

Provi-dance wrote...

I didn't dismiss it.

You stated the obvious (that preparation involves a thought process also known as planning future actions) so I pointed out I was specifically commenting what kind of actions we could expect. As in... actual in-game actions before the battle begins.
We'll have the option to pause the game, so if I don't need to use any spells, abilities, potions or simply rest before the battle starts, why wouldn't I just enter the fight, pause and evaluate the situation? Would you call that preparation? In this situation is there a need to plan beforehand at all, since the pause feature doesn't have a time limit?
Is it positioning you're thinking about? He's mentioned "preparation" and "positioning" as separate topics.
I hope I explained it better now.

Preparation would include positioning.  But while buffs and whatnot are one means of preparing, other things I prefer to do are things like threat assessment.  Do any look like mages?  Can I get to them and burn them down.  Are there ways that I can manage the fight to isolate the bigger threats?  Stuff like that.

You mentioned that DA2 (and maybe DAO?) the preparation was "charge in and fight."  Wouldn't you rather that the idea was to actually have a plan of attack (whether paused) that you felt was necessary in order to maximize your chances of success during the encounter?

[AngryFrozenWater]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

@ Allan why are you still up? Must be pretty late over there.

It must be promising for DA3's combat when customers are sending the employees to bed.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 08 juin 2012 - 07:54 .