Comes DA2 and the dev team try to change the formula. Cinematic storytelling and an actiony combat that relied less on party-based mechanics, stats and loot changed the formula radically for many players. The game positioned somewhere in between classic RPGs based on D&D and contemporary aRPGs like ME, failing in many ways to please both parts of the potential fans. We will never agree if DA2 has been a failure or not, but for sure is less of a success than DA:O.
I've read many interesting topics about what Bioware should do with the franchise. Bioware has already a plan in motion and for sure they do not read the forums to search for pearl of wisdom. It's their work afterall and we are just players. But that fact do not stop our discussions fortunately.
Someone suggests to return to the DA:O's model (and I would like that direction). Some would just like a more polished and refined version of DA2 and that's probably the direction of the dev team too (I respect them and I could be wrong off course, but imho it won't be a successfull direction for the series). Others, considering that Bioware wants to continue in the "cinematic storytelling" direction, suggests to leave the RPG/D&D model for good and turn the series in to an action/adventure game with branching dialogues and branching storylines. The third position makes a lot of sense but in my opinion is a little bit too radical.
PnP RPGs have gone through a similar transition during the 90's when storydriven games begun to rival with D&D in terms of popularity and appeal. Maybe it's not necessary to throw out the baby with the bath water, the baby being the RPG element off course. There are a lot of lessions that could be learned from storydriven pnp rpgs (World of Darkness games, Legend of the 5 Rings, Ars Magica, Amber, Nobilis, etc.) in term of design that could improve DA3 as an RPG in a progressive way. I'll try to list some of them:
- Combat should not be the only focus of the gameplay and the only way to interact with the world in a significant way.
- The "charachter sheet" should reflect that with a lot of skills and perks that apply outside combat (diplomacy, sneaking, survival, knowledge, etc.).
- The class system should be ditched in favour of a "faction" system.
- The level system should be ditched in favour of a skill upgrades system.
- Each upgrade to skills/stats/attributes/whatever should have a dramatic effect in terms of gameplay. No minute and linear upgrades (made pointless by level scaling).
- The fat-loot system should be ditched in favour of a system with very few but very powerfull items.
- A lot less encounters but more significative and dramatic ones.
- The party should not be based on the distinction of "roles" during combat (the holy trinity of rogue/fighter/mage). The party should be a group of realistic individuals with different agendas united by necessity and a common goal.
- The party based combat should be entirely discarded in favour of a system like the ME one (PC in charge with support from companions).
- The storyline should not be linear and the choices you make should really matter and affect your experience in a visible way.
- Less focus on exploration/adventuring. More focus on politics and inter-personal interactions.
- Less customization and more charachterization.
I could continue the list but those are the most important "progressive" elements that storydriven RPGs brought to the table in PnP games. You could like the idea or not but in my opinion those changes would improve DA3 if the game is going to be another storydriven game with a cinematic feel. The actual gameplay is at odds with the storydriven, cinematic and more intimate/dramatic direction of the series. D&Desque gameplay is great for high fantasy epic stories. But it's a very poor tool to tell stories like DA2. I don't know if Thedas is the right setting to go in that direction since it was created as a classic rpg setting and probably it would need a lot of changes, fixes and retcon to work. But I guess that I could live with those changes if the end result is a good gaming experience.
Sorry for the wall of text and for my poor english
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Modifié par FedericoV, 30 juin 2012 - 01:48 .
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. What I mean is that the presence of an attribute should be justified by the gameplay. If I raise an attribute, I should see a direct effect on the gameplay. And more importantly it's pointless to have six attributes that are just a break-up of the damage.
