184 réponses à ce sujet

[Wulfram]

If I played BG2 or DA:O while drunk, that'll probably result in the PC becoming a notably less effective combatant too. Unless you automate combat, it'll always depend on the players capabilities in some way or another.

[ScotGaymer]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I bought Jade Empire from the old BioWare online store.   So I'm very lad that I archived the installation files before EA took the BioWare store offline, thus depriving all of the paying customers of their products.

That isn't true...

At least it wasn't for me.

I bought the ME1 crap Holograph DLC (no idea what possessed me) and it transfered into Origin for me automatically.

[MichaelStuart]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

I would love Dragon Age 3 to have a combat system like Assassin Creed.
I just cannot understand the appeal of having your hits and dodges determent by stats and dice rolls.

My hits?  No.  My character's hits.

His hits and dodges should never be determined by physical ability to do anything, because I don't exist in his reality.  Having me exert direct real-time control over his hits and dodges would break the game's setting.

That's the appeal - having a game that makes any logical sense at all.

But it doesn't make any logical sense.
The player character is meant to be my avater in the game world. logically my control over that avater should be absolute.
Combat is not meant to be phyiscal. Combat is always meant to reward quick thinking. If I am quick enough to see that a enemy is going to attack me, I should be rewarded by being able to avoid damage. The same should always apply to enemies as well.
Combat should always be won or lost by the skill of the player vs the skill of the enemy and never by who has the most luck. 


You can buy Jade empire off of Steam for £8.99   

Modifié par MichaelStuart, 15 juillet 2012 - 01:06 .

[Cimeas]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Direwolf0294 wrote...

For many people, myself included, it's the opposite. A game where your character's hits, misses, blocks and dodges is determined by dice rolls feels increadibly unrealistic and world breaking.

How it feels?  Action combat doesn't need to feel world-breaking - it demonstrably is world-breaking.

Why does Shepard get less good at aiming when you're drunk or injured?  Shepard isn't drunk.  Shepard isn't injured?  What reason could there possibly be for Shepard suddenly being less good at aiming, even though nothing that would cause him to be less good at aiming has occured within his reality?

Explain that to me.  Really.  How does action combat make any sense at all in the game world?  If you and I have characters with identical stats, and we undertake identical strategies, for what reason might your character be significantly better or worse at implementing that strategy than mine, even though their realities are identical and they themselves are identical?

I see no possible such explanation.  I await your acquiescence.

jmk1999 wrote...

loved jade empire! my xbox doesn't work anymore, so i'd love to see a new version downloadable, particularly
since i have a ps3. it was because of JE that i even decided to take a chance on dragon age origins. glad i did too since it's become one of my all-time favorite games. i certainly hope JE gets a console-wide re-release as well as a sequel. i really loved the controls. it was so easy to jump between styles.

I bought Jade Empire from the old BioWare online store.   So I'm very lad that I archived the installation files before EA took the BioWare store offline, thus depriving all of the paying customers of their products.

How is rolling imaginary dice in any way like the real world?

You can shoot down what he says, but cannot explain your own reasoning.   BTW, If you're drunk, you will be bad at DA:O too, because you can't think straight. 

[Cimeas]

Also Sylvius, you are the most hypocritical person in a long time on these forums. All the time you say Bioware games should offer more control over this and that, less paraphrases, more imagination/roleplaying etc.. AND YET somehow the control to actually decide which shots/strikes/fireballs hit and which ones miss (more control) is worse that the game deciding for you by using a random number generator.

You're also suggesting that many of the most immersive, critically and publically successful games of all time, from Bioshock to Half Life to Mass Effect, are failures at world building and game design because they use action combat?

Really?

Think about what you say before you say it old chap, because you have to decide whether you want more control or less of it, and then stick by that idea, otherwise you, dear boy, are a hypocrite.

You don't want players to use their minds or hand-eye reaction time to play games?  Howabout making games where you don't use your mind either?   Oh wait that would just be a movie. 

Modifié par Cimeas, 15 juillet 2012 - 01:27 .

[Il Divo]

Sylvanpyxie wrote...

I wouldn't.

Don't get me wrong. Jade Empire is a game that i can play regularly and never get bored. It's the only Bioware game i will openly praise for it's sheer brilliance. It's vibrant, colourful, humorous and uplifting enough that you smile when you're playing. It's story is dark and gritty enough to make you seriously consider the repercussions of Man's greed. It's a masterpiece.

My opinion is: Jade Empire is a one of a kind and no sequel would ever do it justice..

Captures my opinion perfectly. Jade Empire stands completely on its own and is Bioware at top form. Really, the only complaint I can say I have with the game is that I didn't get to see Phoenix Gate, which sounded awesome.

[ScotGaymer]

@Cimeas

While I get where you are coming from that kind of control doesn't make sense with Bioware games because they are obstensibly RPGs and RPGs generally don't rely on player control for the character to "be good".

Generally.

[AkiKishi]

MichaelStuart wrote...

But it doesn't make any logical sense.
The player character is meant to be my avater in the game world. logically my control over that avater should be absolute.
Combat is not meant to be phyiscal. Combat is always meant to reward quick thinking. If I am quick enough to see that a enemy is going to attack me, I should be rewarded by being able to avoid damage. The same should always apply to enemies as well.
Combat should always be won or lost by the skill of the player vs the skill of the enemy and never by who has the most luck. 


You can buy Jade empire off of Steam for £8.99   

It's something action RPGs do better. Actually Jade Empire does it. You have different characters some stronger and slower and others quicker and weaker. If everything came down to just how good the player was, then it would be an action game.

[Swordfishtrombone]

Cimeas wrote...

Also Sylvius, you are the most hypocritical person in a long time on these forums. All the time you say Bioware games should offer more control over this and that, less paraphrases, more imagination/roleplaying etc.. AND YET somehow the control to actually decide which shots/strikes/fireballs hit and which ones miss (more control) is worse that the game deciding for you by using a random number generator.

Now not having played the game in question, I can't speak for it's combat system, but garnering from these comments, it apparantly involves controlling the attack movements of characters yourself in battle.

If so, then I am with Sylvius on this - and here's why: such a system would not offer more control FOR ME, because I am not nimble with my fingers. It would result in LESS control over the battle for me, as I flailed about ineffectually. I do not enjoy such experiences - I prefer more strategic and tactical control over a battle, and leave the nitty-gritty of combat movements to someone/something else.

The kind of combat I enjoyed the best was the kind that BG2  had - strategic, where your preparedness for the battle counted, and tactical, where the orders you gave to your companions and PC, the combinations of skills, tactics, and positioning, made the battle either impossible, easy, or anything in between. There the skill was of the tactical kind, not a test of finger dexterity.

If Sylvius is of the same view, then clearly he's displayed no hypocracy, and accusing him of such is unnecessarily combatitive. Maybe tone it down a litte? No need to attack the person you disagree with.

[MichaelStuart]

BobSmith101 wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

But it doesn't make any logical sense.
The player character is meant to be my avater in the game world. logically my control over that avater should be absolute.
Combat is not meant to be phyiscal. Combat is always meant to reward quick thinking. If I am quick enough to see that a enemy is going to attack me, I should be rewarded by being able to avoid damage. The same should always apply to enemies as well.
Combat should always be won or lost by the skill of the player vs the skill of the enemy and never by who has the most luck. 


You can buy Jade empire off of Steam for £8.99   

It's something action RPGs do better. Actually Jade Empire does it. You have different characters some stronger and slower and others quicker and weaker. If everything came down to just how good the player was, then it would be an action game.

I don't have a problem with player characters or the enemies having advantages and disadvantages as these are just obstacles that player skill can negate.
My problem with having an attacks success determind by luck is that it makes player skill redundant.
 

[Swordfishtrombone]

MichaelStuart wrote...

I don't have a problem with player characters or the enemies having advantages and disadvantages as these are just obstacles that player skill can negate.
My problem with having an attacks success determind by luck is that it makes player skill redundant.
 

It's not a black or white situation - either randomness or no randomness - there are degrees to which a random element can be utilized.

If I know that a I have an X% chance of hitting, and doing Y damage, with a character, I can plan how to use that character, based on reasonable expectation. It's not TOTALLY random, it's propabilistic randomness.

For example, in BG2, I may plan to try and take out a particularly difficult enemy out of the battle by having a priest cast "slay living", knowing that that priest will have to hit the enemy on the following attack for the spell to succeed - so I increase that hit chance with various other spells and buffs. But I ALSO have to take into account the contingency that the spell fails, and that effort was wasted - how to proceed then?

This kind of battle isn't just random, letting the computer make your decisions - it is tactical and strategic. The only thing it's not, is a test of finger dexterity - which is the primary skill needed to play action games.

It is a choise of preference - I do not enjoy tests of finger dexterity, I enjoy tactical and strategic challenges. I bet many traditional cRPG fans are precicely this way, and given that there are so many action games, why not let at least SOME cater to this traditional cRPG crowd?

[MichaelStuart]

Swordfishtrombone wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

I don't have a problem with player characters or the enemies having advantages and disadvantages as these are just obstacles that player skill can negate.
My problem with having an attacks success determind by luck is that it makes player skill redundant.
 

It's not a black or white situation - either randomness or no randomness - there are degrees to which a random element can be utilized.

If I know that a I have an X% chance of hitting, and doing Y damage, with a character, I can plan how to use that character, based on reasonable expectation. It's not TOTALLY random, it's propabilistic randomness.

For example, in BG2, I may plan to try and take out a particularly difficult enemy out of the battle by having a priest cast "slay living", knowing that that priest will have to hit the enemy on the following attack for the spell to succeed - so I increase that hit chance with various other spells and buffs. But I ALSO have to take into account the contingency that the spell fails, and that effort was wasted - how to proceed then?

This kind of battle isn't just random, letting the computer make your decisions - it is tactical and strategic. The only thing it's not, is a test of finger dexterity - which is the primary skill needed to play action games.

It is a choise of preference - I do not enjoy tests of finger dexterity, I enjoy tactical and strategic challenges. I bet many traditional cRPG fans are precicely this way, and given that there are so many action games, why not let at least SOME cater to this traditional cRPG crowd?

Did the priest fail because the game fail a dice roll or because the enemy outsmarted you? either one would require you plan for failure.

If you believe that action games is just a test of finger dexterity, than I only surmise that you have not played many action games.
Any descent action game requires you out think your enemy. If you just stand there hitting the attack button, you are going to get killed quickly. You have move around the battlefield, force your enemy to drop there guard, all while defending your self and making sure enemies don't suround you.
You will be doing all this will giving orders to your companions.

[Sylvius the Mad]

MichaelStuart wrote...

But it doesn't make any logical sense.

The player character is meant to be my avater in the game world.

No, he isn't.  He's a person is his own right.

If he were an avatar of the player (as you see in shooters and many other games), then your reasoning would apply, but the PC in a roleplaying game is not merely an avatar.  He's a person within a (hopefully) coherent setting.

In most games, theg ame environment is never anything more than simply a game environment.  It exists to entertain you, the player.  You move through it using your avatar, and the game environment responds to you.

That's not something I have any interest in doing.

In a roleplaying game (which I have argued many times before are not strictly games at all), the world exists not to entertain the player, but as a place for the characters to live their lives.  The player's input involves controlling the mind of his character.  The character's decisions and thought processes are where the player plays.

Combat is not meant to be phyiscal. Combat is always meant to reward quick thinking. If I am quick enough to see that a enemy is going to attack me, I should be rewarded by being able to avoid damage. The same should always apply to enemies as well.

I'd like to point out that Jade Empire is the only BioWare roleplaying game where that is true.  The BG games, KotOR, NWN, the DA games, and the ME games all have fully pausable combat where the player can make
decisions, give orders, and select targets with no time pressures at all.

Combat should always be won or lost by the skill of the player vs the skill of the enemy and never by who has the most luck.

I think that would make combat boring.  Having some randomness allows the player to create better stories by attempting high-risk high-reward strategies or tactics.  If there were no randomness, then the player would always know what was going to work and what wouldn't.

If you build a better character and make better tactical decisions, you'll have vastly better odds, and that's a good
thing, but a game where all of the outcomes were effectively pre-determined would make for a very boring gameplay experience (remember, I'm assuming this combat doesn't happen in real-time, because the player's reflexes shouldn't matter).

Cimeas wrote...

How is rolling imaginary dice in any way like the real world?

It approximates the unredictability of the real world.

The goal here is to eliminate metagame factors from influencing combat outcomes, and the player's physical skill with a mouse or a controller is a metagame factor.

You can shoot down what he says, but cannot explain your own reasoning.

I just did that.  The character's success or failure at implementing tactics should be determined by the character's skills, because those are the skills that exist within the game world.

Cimeas wrote...

Also Sylvius, you are the most hypocritical person in a long time on these forums.

Before I address the queston of whether I'm hypocritical, I need to point out that my alleged hypocracy has no bearing on the quality or relevance of my arguments.  If a heroin user tells you not to use heroin, is that bad advice just because he's a hypocrite?

All the time you say Bioware games should offer more control over this and that, less paraphrases, more imagination/roleplaying etc.. AND YET somehow the control to actually decide which shots/strikes/fireballs hit and which ones miss (more control) is worse that the game deciding for you by using a random number generator.

I don't decide how skilled I am with a mouse.  That's the difference.

In a stat-driven game, I can decide that my character is fast and accurate, and then assign him stats that make him fast and accuracte.  But in an action game, my deciding that my character is fast and accurate makes no difference at all if I am not fast and accurate.

You're also suggesting that many of the most immersive, critically and publically successful games of all time, from Bioshock to Half Life to Mass Effect, are failures at world building and game design because they use action combat?

Really?

Yes.  By allowing play skill to determine outcomes, they fail a fundamental test of roleplaying games.

I'm not denying that those are great games.  I'm denying that those are even vaguely adequate as roleplaying games.  But they also don't claim to be roleplaying games.  No one cares that Half-Life is a lousy roleplaying game, because no one is playing it specifically for the roleplaying.

You don't want players to use their minds or hand-eye reaction time to play games?

Where do you get the idea that I don't want the player to use his mind?  His mind populates the mind of his character.  Decision-making should be the player's primary (or even sole) input into a roleplaying game.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 15 juillet 2012 - 04:56 .

[Cimeas]

Exactly. Even Mass Effect can be tactical. In fact, some kind of soft-targeting action game could easily be mixed with a pause-and-play game like Dragon Age for maximum tactical effect. Not only would you be pausing, applying buffs and controlling the team, but you would have to aim individual attacks for your character as well.


Also, Swordfish, I don't have great hand-eye coordination either, Jade Empire or Mass Effect are hardly pro-level Battlefield of Starcraft. If you can navigate Windows or the BSN without stopping and slowly moving your mouse with great effort to another side of the screen every time you want to leave the forum, then you would be fine. Many people who supposedly hate action games (as I did) find that they are much easier than you would think. The aiming is rarely a problem, especially since you can pause anyway. The difficulty comes from executing many of the same tactics you see in older RPGs, but with the added 'awesomeness' that success is up to YOU, not the random number machine.

[Sylvius the Mad]

MichaelStuart wrote...

My problem with having an attacks success determind by luck is that it makes player skill redundant.

An element of randomness doesn't completely negate player skill.  Look at ME's cone of death.  Yes, Shepard wouldn't always hit the centre of his targetting reticle, but he was more likely to hit things in the centre of his targetting reticle.  If you elected to play ME in real time (I never did - I aimed while paused) then play skill still mattered.

[Sylvius the Mad]

MichaelStuart wrote...

If you believe that action games is just a test of finger dexterity, than I only surmise that you have not played many action games.

they're not only a test of finger dexterity, btu they are a test a finger dexterity, and that's the problem.

They're also a test of quick thinking, which is another problem.  If my character can make tactical decisions faster than I can make tactical decisions, then real-time action control is character breaking.

Any descent action game requires you out think your enemy.

I'm more concerned with how my character out thinks his enemies.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Cimeas wrote...

Exactly. Even Mass Effect can be tactical. In fact, some kind of soft-targeting action game could easily be mixed with a pause-and-play game like Dragon Age for maximum tactical effect. Not only would you be pausing, applying buffs and controlling the team, but you would have to aim individual attacks for your character as well.

Mass Effect already does this.

[Cimeas]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

snip

So you say that the player's mind should be the thing deciding success in an RPG, not the player's skill, because skill is a real world thing (some are better at coordination than others).   But surely the same could be said for mental capacity.   Some will be better at multitasking, combat tactics, planning ahead.   Natural mental skill is the same as natural physical skill.  

At the core, difficulty settings solve this.   If I cannot aim very well, I turn on aim-assistance, or auto-target.  If in a driving/flying game I can't be asked, or find it too hard to control all 56 advanced settings of my car, I can still have fun playing on easy-mode or whatever.    If in an RPG, I don't like tactically controlling all my party members, well I'll just turn on party-AI.

Mental strength, just like Physical strength, can be trained, and you can get better at co-ordination just like you can get better at tactics.   

TL;DR

I understand your argument, but I just don't know where in the title 'Role-Playing Game' does it say that a game has to be specifically what you WANT an RPG to be?   If the majority of developers, reviewers, gamers and game-stores call Jade Empire, The Witcher or Mass Effect RPGs, then that is what they are.  The definition is no longer your strict and rigid idea of the genre.  

If '90%' of people consider these games RPGs, then that is precisely what they are.   The people have decided.   






Also, Jade Empire is a fantastic game, I want to explore more of that universe, I'm just replaying it now actually and the world, stories and lore are just phenomenal. 

[Cimeas]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Cimeas wrote...

Exactly. Even Mass Effect can be tactical. In fact, some kind of soft-targeting action game could easily be mixed with a pause-and-play game like Dragon Age for maximum tactical effect. Not only would you be pausing, applying buffs and controlling the team, but you would have to aim individual attacks for your character as well.

Mass Effect already does this.

OK, well if you can compromise at Mass Effect, surely the same could be done with Jade Empire?  In fact, if you press 'P' the same CAN be done in Jade Empire, you can even switch between targets using the 'TAB' key. 

Also, Mass Effects tests finger dexterity, unless you're seriously telling me you paused to line up and aim EVERY SINGLE shot in the game?

[Iakus]

Il Divo wrote...

Sylvanpyxie wrote...

I wouldn't.

Don't get me wrong. Jade Empire is a game that i can play regularly and never get bored. It's the only Bioware game i will openly praise for it's sheer brilliance. It's vibrant, colourful, humorous and uplifting enough that you smile when you're playing. It's story is dark and gritty enough to make you seriously consider the repercussions of Man's greed. It's a masterpiece.

My opinion is: Jade Empire is a one of a kind and no sequel would ever do it justice..

Captures my opinion perfectly. Jade Empire stands completely on its own and is Bioware at top form. Really, the only complaint I can say I have with the game is that I didn't get to see Phoenix Gate, which sounded awesome.

I wouldn't mind another game set in the Jade Empire universe, much like the Dragon Age series is composed of different stories set on Thedas.  But yeah the Spirit Monk's story is done and should be left alone.  

[Giltspur]

Hey two discussions.

1) Jade Empire Sequel
I really wish someone would make another RPG in an Asian-inspired fantasy setting.  Ideally though it wouldn't be a "traditional" RPG and would be something more like Mass Effect with fists and swords instead of guns.  (And that's heading into Witcher 2 territory.)

2) Character Control in Party-Based RPG's
One reason it helps to have stats control combat effectivess in a real-time, party-based game is that one person controlling a game can't control four characters as well as he could one.  So you've got to 'outsource' some of the combat.  Stats are a way to do that.  That way you can focus on spells, targeting and positioning, which is still enough work that you're likely to pause a lot.  Adding in aiming and dodging might just end up being too much work for a party.  In JE, it worked becase you didn't really have a party.  You had a companion that mostly just was there to provide you a combat bonus.

[Tigerman123]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Some official quotes describing the new Ultima game:

"It plays fast, it's clicky, but the combat's fluid and fun rather than tactical and mind-numbing."

"You can do the entire thing on your own if you want. If you're mildly anti-social."

And the one that really drives home the lunacy:

Kotaku reported...

"It's like when someone tells you to read Chaucer," Barnett (Bioware/Mythic Creative Director) commented. "I know it's supposed to be brilliant, but it's incomprehensible!" Shifting from literature to film, he compared it to Battleship Potemkin, a 1925 Soviet film that pioneered many techniques that nearly all movies have used since. "I mean, I'm aware that Battleship Potemkin defined modern cinema, but it's not a great view. You watch it and go, 'it's black and white and a bit crap, I'd rather watch something else.'"

Reads like satire

What's the point of this game if not to attract interest from fans of previous titles un the series?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Cimeas wrote...

So you say that the player's mind should be the thing deciding success in an RPG, not the player's skill, because skill is a real world thing (some are better at coordination than others).   But surely the same could be said for mental capacity.   Some will be better at multitasking, combat tactics, planning ahead.   Natural mental skill is the same as natural physical skill. 

Right.  That's why the player shouldn't have to make decisions in real-time, either.  Taking more time to make decisions corrects for the player's deficiencies.

Mental strength, just like Physical strength, can be trained, and you can get better at co-ordination just like you can get better at tactics. 

Yes it can.  But the character's skills should be distinct from mine.  What if I'm better at aiming than he is?  Should he now not miss just because I don't?  Of course not.

I understand your argument, but I just don't know where in the title 'Role-Playing Game' does it say that a game has to be specifically what you WANT an RPG to be?   If the majority of developers, reviewers, gamers and game-stores call Jade Empire, The Witcher or Mass Effect RPGs, then that is what they are.  The definition is no longer your strict and rigid idea of the genre.  

If '90%' of people consider these games RPGs, then that is precisely what they are.   The people have decided. 

Definitions are not governed by popular opinion.

Is that really all you need?  If peopel say something is true, then it's true?  I'm defining roleplaying as in-character decision-making, and then pointng out where games fail to offer that.  If my physical skill becomes relevant, then my actions are no longer "in-character".

I've said many times before that a roleplaying game should be playable by a quadriplegic.  Playable slowly, but playable.

And for the record, I enjoyed Jade Empire.  I found the physical barriers low enough that they were not disruptive, though I still find them logically disquieting.

Cimeas wrote...

Also, Mass Effects tests finger dexterity, unless you're seriously telling me you paused to line up and aim EVERY SINGLE shot in the game?

Any time I needed to select a new target, or if my target moved significantly, yes.  Of course I did.  I don't like action games, so I didn't play it like an action game.

Interestingly, this trivialised the final fight with Saren, as his difficulty seems to rest primarily in his erratic movements.  But the game allows the player to pause, look around to find where Saren went, target him, and then unpause to fire.  My only complaints with ME's combat were that I couldn't scope while paised, nor could I actually trigger my weapons while paused (though I could trigger special abilities like Sabotage).