AlanC9 wrote...
The one thing I want from an XP system is that it stays the hell out of my way. I don't want XP awards or a lack thereof to have any influence whatsoever on my decision-making, and the best way to accomplish that is to make my decisions have no influence on the awards.
So you see bug, and I see feature.
Which just says to me that you don't even
want an RPG: you want an action game mixed with a "Choose your own adventure" style game. An RPG hinges on the basic concept of you earning rewards based on effort, and if you get rid of that, then you get rid of the point of XP entirely. Even systems that don't use traditional XP just Vampire: The Masquerade reward players for their contributions. What you want is contradictory to an RPG system: like attending an exam and everybody getting an A+ at the end no matter how they answered the questions, so long as they answered them.
Upgrades have drawbacks? Going from a +1item to a +2 NSA item is just an improvement, full stop. I'm guessing that you're trying to say that the equipment system didn't give tradeoffs. I was only talking about the upgrading.
What I liked about that was that it managed to make the exploration make a kind of sense (as long as you don't think too much about it), and that it made the whole business go away. (Abolish credits and shops and it would have been really great) More than a couple of item tiers are just silly in a technological setting -- I'm not sure they make sense in fantasy either --and anything that keeps me from dealing with the silliness is great.
What you're talking about is upgrades when they're linear anyway. Most decent RPG systems with any depth to them aren't that shallow, though they still incorporate this. For example, you'll often get an item that has some stats better, but others not, so you have to choose what you feel suits you better. Or perhaps while you may get an item with more damage on it compared to the one you have, the weapon you have has a more useful effect on it too, such as bonus damage to a certain enemy type for example. Even if the new item has better damage on a base level, if you're fighting a lot of the enemy that your current weapon has a bonus for, you might be better sticking with it.
Simply put, it's not just always a case of "next tier up = always better" in a good system. Where this factors more into Mass Effect is with the mods for the items, rather than the items themselves. In ME1 and ME3 players had to pick and choose which mods were better, while ME2 eliminated that entirely because all you did was upgrade absolutely everything linearly. That's not a good system. It's fine if it's just upgrading one aspect of an item, but it's not good at making a player have to think and weigh up options.
LinksOcarina wrote...
Terror_K wrote...
Again, moments such as the crew interacting with each other and moments with them on The Citadel were great additions, but why did they have to come at the expense of stuff that was the norm in ME1 and ME2: proper conversations on the ship between missions, plenty of dialogue choices, plenty of charm/intimidate chances, etc.
To make them more life like and give them character.
Hell, it made me give a damn about the crew, even guys like Adams who was missing from game 2. That is a power way of making characters believable.
How exactly does eliminating proper conversasions, dialogue and charm/indimidate options make these characters better, and why do those factors have to be removed or reduced in order to facilitate that. Your argument makes no sense to me, because I can't see how these factors are linked or why characters are suddenly more "life like" or have more character because of the removal of these other aspects.
SNAKEATEN wrote...
Mass Effect has been an Action-RPG since day one. I don't see how it's unreasonable for Bioware to want to improve on the action part of their Action-RPG.
Why does "improving the action" have to mean making the other aspects worse? That makes no sense. Just like with ME2: why does improving the TPS elements
have to mean the reduction and sometimes elimination of the RPG ones?
That's what I don't get with the way BioWare makes their games lately. There seems to be this silly notion that in order to make one aspect good, you have to suck the goodness and depth away from another aspect.
I remember a saying from Homer Simpson: "We always have one good kid, and one lousy kid. Why can't both our kids be good?"
Same thing applies here: why can't both sides of Mass Effect be good? More action doesn't have to mean less depth.
Rikketik wrote...
Terror_K wrote...
Finally, I don't see how autodialogue, reducing dialogue choices, giving you not only linear quests but an overall linear structure, and overall restricting the ability to roleplay your character is "evolving as a story-telling medium" at all. Players should be given more freedom to play a character, not less.
I disagree. I always regarded auto-dialogue as BioWare giving me a coloring page: they've already drawn the lines but leave the coloring to me. So when I see Garrus and Liara chilling in the lounge after a mission and provide me with some auto-dialogue, for example, I envision the same scene in my head as Shepard getting a drink herself and joining in and expanding on the conversation. So I guess you could say the auto-dialogue actually makes it easier for me to roleplay, since it gives me something to work with when I have no or little inspiration myself.
Well, for one thing, autodialogue isn't autodialogue when it's going on between other characters, only when Shepard comes into things. I have no problem with wandering into the lounge and seeing Garrus and Liara having a chat already... in fact, I really like that. I have a problem with it when I try to get involved and "my" Shepard either just stands there prodding them and looking on like an idiot, or suddenly says something without my input that may not even suit them, depending on which Shepard it is. When Shepard speaks automatically and says the same thing as my other Shepard's, it stops making them different and just turns them into the same character, while also invalidating the way they were characterised up to that point.
If Liara and Garrus want to have a chat at the table by themselves, then that's fine. I'll hang around and listen. If Shepard is going to get involved though, I expect some cinematic camera angles and some dialogue options. If Mass Effect 3 was a colouring book like you say, then it's one that the developers have already coloured-in for you.
Of course, I realize that this approach doesn't work for everybody. Still... I know that there are many things possible in videogames nowadays in terms of storytelling and such, but I think your own imagination should still play a big role. It can make such a big difference! I mean, I remember my first time playing Morrowind. The game was hardly perfect, but the way it transcended it's technological limits by drawing on the imagination of the player... It's a shame that people have become unable (or just unwilling) to do that anymore. And a little bit ironic, too. The people who rag on Mass Effect 3 because it's not a true RPG anymore are asking BioWare to threat them the same way as the Call of Duty crowd: to do everything for them, because god forbid they'd have to put in a little effort themselves.
That might all be very well if you were talking about nothing, but autodialogue and a complete lack of varied options doesn't give you that window. At all. The same with your choices having no real varied outcomes at all and being stuck on the rails.
With the likes of Gianna Parasini and Shiala not showing up in ME3, I can be annoyed at their lack of closure and cameos, but I can at least, as you said, imagine what happened and that my Shepard did meet both of them again before the end. But I
can't do that when the game wrestles control away from me and tells me that my Shepard is doing and saying things that I feel contradict their character and feel that I should have had more input with. Why would a Shepard I've designed to be an anti-alien racist say "this is for Thane!" when I played that Shepard in a manner that showed he never even liked Thane? In real life I don't wander around with another person who acts like a pushy defense attorney every second or third time somebody speaks to me and butts in and speaks for me. Why when I'm playing a game that's supposed to be me controlling a character I'm supposed to define myself do I get the same treatment. How would you feel if every three conversations you had with another person, you didn't get to say what you wanted and words just came out your mouth automatically, sometimes contradicting your own thoughts, beliefs and opinions entirely?
I find it ironic that you speak as if Mass Effect 3 is about player freedom, when my very complaint is that it isn't: player freedom is taken away with ME3, because you aren't given the freedom and variety you once were.
Modifié par Terror_K, 23 juillet 2012 - 07:23 .
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