27740 réponses à ce sujet

[Jos Hendriks]

This reminds me of something I've wanted to ask: Do you guys always turn up the difficulty curve towards the endgame regardless of story? I mean, if, say you had a story where the strongest foe is beaten in the middle of the game, would you then still try to make the enemy encounters harder towards the end?

I know that's a strange question, but it's just to ask whether there's a part of Bioware that dictates where the story can go because of difficulty/gameplay requirements, or if difficulty/gameplay is always based on plot.

Well, hypothetically speaking, you would work your way towards a crescendo towards the end, both in gameplay and narrative. I can't at the top of my henarrative any game that had its peak encounters in the middle of the game (on purpose).

I'm not a writer, so that's a big caveat to my answer, but generally games have narrative build-ups, twists, setbacks, and the like, that provide a great basis to stack gameplay challenge against.
It can be pretty frustrating to have the dissonance of narrative context and gameplay challenge not quite lining up in terms of intensity.
There are of course moment to build up partway through the game, and having a signature encounter that is more difficult, followed by a bit of a ramp down and some slack before it builds up to the next (and hopefully slightly more challenging) signature encounter. It isn't, and shouldn't be, just a straight line going up.

As far as BioWare is concerned, from personal experience, narrative gets established prior to a mission's combat encounters, and the difficulty for encounters is generally directed by the place of the encounter in the overall structure of the game.

ME2's Horizon mission was a guaranteed point in the game's progression, so it could offer a signature encounter that was super tough. The missions prior to Horizon were generally less challenging than the ones after.
I think the benefit of having the structure to have key points of progression in a game is that if is more manageable to scale encounters throughout the game.

TL;DR: Gameplay intensity is dependent on narrative, and generally narrative builds up towards a peak closer to the end of the game.

[JeffZero]

Thanks for answering, Jos.

[Awkward Octopus]

Also, if you think about it from a storytelling perspective, you wouldn't want to drag on the story too much longer than the most dramatic point of it. When you're writing, you want the most satisfying part to mark the end (or near the end, so you have time to wrap things up).

 

I would think from a gameplay perspective, the goal would be to tie the dramatic storytelling high point together with the most intense moment of gameplay (whether that's measured by difficulty, or something else). At the same time, you're going to tell a story that suits your gameplay (or create game mechanics that suit your story). The Stanley Parable's gameplay and storyteling match well, as does Papers, Please, or Psychonauts or Thief: Deadly Shadows.

 

In my opinion, the best games are when the game mechanics and story are tailored so well, you can't imagine experiencing either one separately.

[Lady Sif]

@user: @The1Wynn for Mass Effect Andromeda will the protagonist dance correctly or weird like Shepard #MassEffectAndromeda

Chris Wynn@The1Wynn: @user that's an odd question. Dancing animations have yet to come up for review.



@user: Could we ever see first person multiplayer for mass effect in the future? This was considered before @The1Wynn

Chris Wynn@The1Wynn: @user would be pretty expensive and risky


Blair Brown@blairkerrbrown: Second week making spaceships begins! So many new things to do, like ordering some N7 hoodies from the store...

[BioFan (Official)]

@user: @The1Wynn for Mass Effect Andromeda will the protagonist dance correctly or weird like Shepard #MassEffectAndromeda

Chris Wynn@The1Wynn: @user that's an odd question. Dancing animations have yet to come up for review.



@user: Could we ever see first person multiplayer for mass effect in the future? This was considered before @The1Wynn

Chris Wynn@The1Wynn: @user would be pretty expensive and risky


Blair Brown@blairkerrbrown: Second week making spaceships begins! So many new things to do, like ordering some N7 hoodies from the store...

 

 

Haven't they already let it slip that they're working on a MP? I'm pretty sure... 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Haven't they already let it slip that they're working on a MP? I'm pretty sure... 

The person asked if they are making it possible to play MP in the first person. The MP Bioware has done so far is third person. 

[Malanek]

Well, hypothetically speaking, you would work your way towards a crescendo towards the end, both in gameplay and narrative. I can't at the top of my henarrative any game that had its peak encounters in the middle of the game (on purpose).

I'm not a writer, so that's a big caveat to my answer, but generally games have narrative build-ups, twists, setbacks, and the like, that provide a great basis to stack gameplay challenge against.
It can be pretty frustrating to have the dissonance of narrative context and gameplay challenge not quite lining up in terms of intensity.
There are of course moment to build up partway through the game, and having a signature encounter that is more difficult, followed by a bit of a ramp down and some slack before it builds up to the next (and hopefully slightly more challenging) signature encounter. It isn't, and shouldn't be, just a straight line going up.

As far as BioWare is concerned, from personal experience, narrative gets established prior to a mission's combat encounters, and the difficulty for encounters is generally directed by the place of the encounter in the overall structure of the game.

ME2's Horizon mission was a guaranteed point in the game's progression, so it could offer a signature encounter that was super tough. The missions prior to Horizon were generally less challenging than the ones after.
I think the benefit of having the structure to have key points of progression in a game is that if is more manageable to scale encounters throughout the game.

TL;DR: Gameplay intensity is dependent on narrative, and generally narrative builds up towards a peak closer to the end of the game.

This might seem the ideal but one of the things you have to be careful of in RPGs, or any game where the player can advance in power along differing paths, is game balance. It's often touted as unimportant in single player games but will completely reverse what you said here. It is probably the thing I think Bioware is generally worst at and I don't think you guys put much effort into balancing different builds. Consider some recent Bioware titles all on the highest difficulty levels... 

 

DAI gets easier and easier after reaching a peak difficulty around the time you become specialized. At the end of the game it is much easier than the start of the game because you have all your powers, powerful weapons, and broken combinations. There was no scaling and with so much side content available I hate to think how easy the game could become if you did it all. Peak difficulty right from the start through to around around 5% - 50% through the game depending on how much side content you do.

 

ME1 was particularly bad. On Insanity there was a difficulty peak shortly after getting off the citadel (it was quite easy before and during the citadel). It was really quite difficult for a time but as soon as you unlocked barrier or immunity, and singularity or lift, and got a decent weapon, the game started to become easier and easier quite quickly as you put more points in the key skills. Peak difficulty around 15%-20% through the game.

 

ME3s best and most challenging levels were early. In particular Grissom academy and some of the early sidequests involving the MPer maps. Because you imported a character from ME2, this already started with quite a challenging and divergent base to try and balance. But it pretty soon got out of hand and the main character got extremely powerful and could upgrade weapons too cheaply. The MPer was excellent and I think the game really did play much, much better at level 20 than levels 40-60.

 

I think ME2 was actually pretty good. If it was guilty of anything it was allowing the player to hide in cover a little easily, but I found it to be a good level of challenge all the way through, and difficulty did ramp up like you mention here.

 

DA2 was also pretty good. Some of the early boss battles were harder than the final one, but generally pretty good, especially the DLC which I thought was brilliant.

 

DAO I never played on the highest level. On the second to top difficulty level the game played best at levels around 6-14, around  20-50% through the game. From then on it became easier and easier.

 

I hope this post doesn't come off as too aggressive, but I really think game balance is something Bioware could pay a lot more attention to to try and improve gameplay.

[CronoDragoon]

@user: @The1Wynn for Mass Effect Andromeda will the protagonist dance correctly or weird like Shepard #MassEffectAndromeda

Chris Wynn@The1Wynn: @user that's an odd question. Dancing animations have yet to come up for review.

 

Can I go the other way and suggest a dedicated button for the Shepard Shuffle?

 

Like, throw a grenade, immediately start Shuffling before it even explodes...it'll make for good GIFs.

[rapscallioness]

Hmm, well, I hope those dancing animations come up for review soon.

 

Otherwise, implications unpleasant. No clubs? Or yes, clubs, but the PC just stands around like a plank?

 

There's more to that odd question than meets the eye. Lets not for get the fun bits:

 

 

**but don't you dare make me dance like Kaidan.

[Hrungr]

Literally Jos ‏@Sjosz

Been in Canada, and at BioWare, for 7 years today. Somehow they still let me work here.

[Hrungr]

Nick Sadler ‏@Zenderquai

Gonna be at the BioWare booth this Saturday evening, at the 2015 @EdmontonExpo !

Can. Not. Wait.

[SomberXIII]

Dancing in games has been generally disappointing. Look at these dancing animations in the upcoming The Sims 4 expansion.

 

I have been thinking of a better solution. Hiring professional dancers and put them in motion capture.  

[Lady Sif]

Mandy Jacek@WaywardHumanoid: Hey folks! I will be at @EdmontonExpo with the @BioWare booth on Sunday morning! You should stop by!

[Inalt]

I don't want to read the entire thread but did anyone confirmed Andromeda is going to be open world? (please not, please not, please not, please no Mass Effect Inquisition)

[dreamgazer]

I don't want to read the entire thread but did anyone confirmed Andromeda is going to be open world? (please not, please not, please not, please no Mass Effect Inquisition)

No direct news yet, but given their clear inspirations and emphasis on exploration, it'll probably be close to the open-world scale in ME1 (which is very, very similar to Inquisition).

[pdusen]

I don't want to read the entire thread but did anyone confirmed Andromeda is going to be open world? (please not, please not, please not, please no Mass Effect Inquisition)

 

Well, do you want to know if it's going to be open world, or do you want to know if it will be exactly like Inquisition?

 

They are not the same thing.

[JeffZero]

I don't want to read the entire thread but did anyone confirmed Andromeda is going to be open world? (please not, please not, please not, please no Mass Effect Inquisition)

Exploration is a focal point in everything we have seen thus far, and linear games do not have much place in the current AAA sphere, it seems. You can probably expect a fair bit of open-esque engagement, especially if you choose to take the leak (which is so incredibly likely to be true it isn't even funny) at face value.

[Beerfish]

Literally Jos ‏@Sjosz

Been in Canada, and at BioWare, for 7 years today. Somehow they still let me work here.

[JeffZero]

Literally Jos ‏@Sjosz
Been in Canada, and at BioWare, for 7 years today. Somehow they still let me work here.

"You ever read Machiavelli? He believed it was better to be feared than loved." -Commander Shepard



Jos, they let you work there out of fear, man. Fear.

[Wulfram]

Exploration is a focal point in everything we have seen thus far, and linear games do not have much place in the current AAA sphere, it seems. You can probably expect a fair bit of open-esque engagement, especially if you choose to take the leak (which is so incredibly likely to be true it isn't even funny) at face value.

Though the open worldness may not be all that much more than, say, ME1's open worldness. At least, that's my hope.

[Sartoz]

I don't want to read the entire thread but did anyone confirmed Andromeda is going to be open world? (please not, please not, please not, please no Mass Effect Inquisition)

 

                                                                                                    <<<<<<<<<<()>>>>>>>>>>

 

If you mean "open world" as in visiting many, many, many planets... sure. If you mean will we be able to explore each planet with the Mako...I assume so.. though it will be only a map area... perhaps of considerable size.... but remember, it will be only a small area, when compared to the whole planet.

 

Anticipate visiting and exploring Remnant ruins in water , mountainous, volcanic, desert, forest and  earth type worlds.  Forest / jungle-ish worlds might present a problem using the Mako, however.  Nevertheless, I'm sure the whole custom map can be explored.... there might be deserted outposts in small planetoids or asteroids to explore and even to outright "capture". Effectively expanding your territorial influence.

[The Arbiter]

Dancing in games has been generally disappointing. Look at these dancing animations in the upcoming The Sims 4 expansion.

 

I have been thinking of a better solution. Hiring professional dancers and put them in motion capture.  

Disappointing? I don't think so

 

[NKnight7]

Disappointing? I don't think so

 

 

Tali brought back twerking...almost.

[SomberXIII]

Disappointing? I don't think so

 

[Lady Sif]

Blair Brown@blairkerrbrown: Week 2, have yet to go to the correct floor on the first try in the elevator...