308 réponses à ce sujet

[wright1978]

Trying to blanket label what an RPG is, is a fruitless labour imo. However my issue is that ME3 shows some worrying erosion of player characterisation of the protaganist that for me at least has been at the core of the appeal of Bioware RPG's. Far too much characterising auto-dialogue, forced character alignment(you're now a saluting loyal alliance marine even if you spent all of me2 slagging them off), Forced characterisation(Dreams of the kid etc). If they keep hacking away at the player characterisation of the protaganist they will kill what's special about their games imo.

[Cyberstrike nTo]

rapscallioness wrote...

Well, I don't care what you want to call it. What category it is. All I know is I wanted to do some more exploration type quests.

Like when we had to retrieve those items for the Volus, or Elcor, or whatever. I was really hoping...and yes, expecting, that at least a few of them would be where we had to actually Land on the planet and retrieve the items.

Heck, they even had that in ME2. You're scanning planets, chilling out--then Bam!---it's something down there. You've gotta go down there. And you have no idea what you're walking into.

I liked that.

And the auto dialogue. Which to me means I press one line and the PC rambles on. And on. And on. Dear God, please BW, no more of that. I beg you. And put some more dialogue choices in there.

I mean really.

And I liked being able to find some good armor out in the field and know I could slap it on one of my team mates. I liked that.

I'm not an RPG purist by any means. And I'm not big on the sandbox thing. It's alright. I have some fun with it. But there are certain things I would like to have, or have back, in BW games.

I don't see how exploration simlar to Mass Effect 2 would have worked very well in context to Mass Effect 3 over all "galaxy at war" storyline. I would loved to explore Irune, Dekunna, Thessia, Palinvan, and Sur'Kesh but given that the Reapers are all over the galaxy I really don't think Shepard has a lot of time be see sight seeing.  

[LinksOcarina]

orangesonic wrote...

RPG games are like music... many kinds of it... theres is no hybrid idiotic stuff... there is 3rd person RPG, first person RPG, dungeon crawling RPG, Japanese RPG, strategy RPG... there is no right or wrong... just different kinds inside one genre...

Fair point, but the problem is how they are classified moreso than what the classifications are.

For example, what type of RPG is Betrayal at Krondor? It was a PC game, has turn-based combat and a linear storyline, so it shares a lot of traits of Light RPGs, or "Japanese RPGs" In that regard. It was also an early character driven game with dialouge trees and  a weight-based inventory system. 

So what kind of RPG is it? The answer is really not as clear-cut sometimes as we want to believe, and honestly, Mass Effect is in that very murky area of what type of RPG it is, even though it evolved over time and made that type of RPG more easy to spot. 

[CR121691]

Not this thread again... A RPG is not about statistics or that kind of stuff. It is about you.

[KevTheGamer]

i dont care what genre the game is its a lot of fun and one of my favorite game series of all time

[Martanek]

The term "ME 2.5" is very spot-on. ME3 does a lot of things well, but does almost the same lot wrong. It kind of got stuck halfway to merging the best aspects of ME and ME2 into an ideal ME game, in which many of us had hoped.
ME3's combat is definitely superior to the two previous games, but ME3 lacks the much needed depth in some other key RPG facets, such as exploration, sensible dialog choices with real consequences, character customisation, questing and like. It appears that Bioware was too busy spending their resources on the MP part of the game, thus lessening the importance of those mentioned RPG elements.

[stonbw1]

Martanek wrote...

The term "ME 2.5" is very spot-on. ME3 does a lot of things well, but does almost the same lot wrong. It kind of got stuck halfway to merging the best aspects of ME and ME2 into an ideal ME game, in which many of us had hoped.
ME3's combat is definitely superior to the two previous games, but ME3 lacks the much needed depth in some other key RPG facets, such as exploration, sensible dialog choices with real consequences, character customisation, questing and like. It appears that Bioware was too busy spending their resources on the MP part of the game, thus lessening the importance of those mentioned RPG elements.

Agreed, but I would still consider ME3 more "RPG-ish" than ME2.  The levels are far less linear (though that doesn't say much), much more weapon customization, powers advancement, and there were at least as many if not more key decisions/choices in ME3 than ME2.  [no examples to avoid spoilers]

[LinksOcarina]

stonbw1 wrote...

Martanek wrote...

The term "ME 2.5" is very spot-on. ME3 does a lot of things well, but does almost the same lot wrong. It kind of got stuck halfway to merging the best aspects of ME and ME2 into an ideal ME game, in which many of us had hoped.
ME3's combat is definitely superior to the two previous games, but ME3 lacks the much needed depth in some other key RPG facets, such as exploration, sensible dialog choices with real consequences, character customisation, questing and like. It appears that Bioware was too busy spending their resources on the MP part of the game, thus lessening the importance of those mentioned RPG elements.

Agreed, but I would still consider ME3 more "RPG-ish" than ME2.  The levels are far less linear (though that doesn't say much), much more weapon customization, powers advancement, and there were at least as many if not more key decisions/choices in ME3 than ME2.  [no examples to avoid spoilers]

So quick question.

Have you ever played a story-based RPG that is not linear?

[JaegerBane]

LinksOcarina wrote...

So quick question.

Have you ever played a story-based RPG that is not linear?

I think his point was that since ME3 had more player choice than ME2, it felt more like an 'RPG'. That's not the same as implying linear games are not RPGs.

[FoggyFishburne]

Well good morning *insult removed*. Do you think Grand Theft Auto is a RTS. Is Diablo a first person shooter? *insult removed*

Modifié par Selene Moonsong, 23 juillet 2012 - 11:18 .

[LinksOcarina]

JaegerBane wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

So quick question.

Have you ever played a story-based RPG that is not linear?

I think his point was that since ME3 had more player choice than ME2, it felt more like an 'RPG'. That's not the same as implying linear games are not RPGs.

Honestly I was not sure what he was trying to say, I just a lot on linearity. I know it's not the same to imply that, but that seems to be a point of contention, especially when a majority here have cited exploration as an aspect of a pure RPG. 

[JaegerBane]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Honestly I was not sure what he was trying to say, I just a lot on linearity. I know it's not the same to imply that, but that seems to be a point of contention, especially when a majority here have cited exploration as an aspect of a pure RPG. 

That's just how I read his point. I wouldn't read too much into the exploration aspect - as with everything in this particular debate, different players are talking about different things when they say they wanted more of a given aspect - in this case, exploration can mean anything from the 'style' of ME1 to physically exploring more planets a la ME2.

Linearity is an entirely different can of worms. There is an assumption that being linear stops a game from being a 'true' RPG but, frankly, that falls squarely into the category of what the self-appointed RPG experts are getting bent out of shape about.

[Fawx9]

Ok maybe its just me, but other than your the sniper at first, what was wrong with the combat system in ME1?

After playing 3 and now 1 again, I miss a lot of the control I had with regards to having different buttons do different things, whoever came up with the magic spacebar can run their head through a wall.

Also did people really have that much of a problem with the overheat? Other than your weapon being locked out by enemy skills when did this become an issue? Was it deemed to hard to pay attention to or something?

Also powers haring the same cooldown. Why god why?

Modifié par Fawx9, 23 juillet 2012 - 07:51 .

[LinksOcarina]

JaegerBane wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Honestly I was not sure what he was trying to say, I just a lot on linearity. I know it's not the same to imply that, but that seems to be a point of contention, especially when a majority here have cited exploration as an aspect of a pure RPG. 

That's just how I read his point. I wouldn't read too much into the exploration aspect - as with everything in this particular debate, different players are talking about different things when they say they wanted more of a given aspect - in this case, exploration can mean anything from the 'style' of ME1 to physically exploring more planets a la ME2.

Linearity is an entirely different can of worms. There is an assumption that being linear stops a game from being a 'true' RPG but, frankly, that falls squarely into the category of what the self-appointed RPG experts are getting bent out of shape about.

Ah crap...I guess i'm not an RPG expert since I like linearity in RPGs when appropriate. 

[Zeroth Angel]

LinksOcarina wrote...

stonbw1 wrote...

Martanek wrote...

The term "ME 2.5" is very spot-on. ME3 does a lot of things well, but does almost the same lot wrong. It kind of got stuck halfway to merging the best aspects of ME and ME2 into an ideal ME game, in which many of us had hoped.
ME3's combat is definitely superior to the two previous games, but ME3 lacks the much needed depth in some other key RPG facets, such as exploration, sensible dialog choices with real consequences, character customisation, questing and like. It appears that Bioware was too busy spending their resources on the MP part of the game, thus lessening the importance of those mentioned RPG elements.

Agreed, but I would still consider ME3 more "RPG-ish" than ME2.  The levels are far less linear (though that doesn't say much), much more weapon customization, powers advancement, and there were at least as many if not more key decisions/choices in ME3 than ME2.  [no examples to avoid spoilers]

So quick question.

Have you ever played a story-based RPG that is not linear?

TW2.

[LinksOcarina]

Wimbini wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

stonbw1 wrote...

Martanek wrote...

The term "ME 2.5" is very spot-on. ME3 does a lot of things well, but does almost the same lot wrong. It kind of got stuck halfway to merging the best aspects of ME and ME2 into an ideal ME game, in which many of us had hoped.
ME3's combat is definitely superior to the two previous games, but ME3 lacks the much needed depth in some other key RPG facets, such as exploration, sensible dialog choices with real consequences, character customisation, questing and like. It appears that Bioware was too busy spending their resources on the MP part of the game, thus lessening the importance of those mentioned RPG elements.

Agreed, but I would still consider ME3 more "RPG-ish" than ME2.  The levels are far less linear (though that doesn't say much), much more weapon customization, powers advancement, and there were at least as many if not more key decisions/choices in ME3 than ME2.  [no examples to avoid spoilers]

So quick question.

Have you ever played a story-based RPG that is not linear?

TW2.

Isen't the Witcher 2 linear in its overall plot, but the details are changed based on actions? 

I tend to liken The Witcher  to Dragon Age in that regard, where the devil is int he details over the main story beats.

[wizardryforever]

Fawx9 wrote...

Ok maybe its just me, but other than your the sniper at first, what was wrong with the combat system in ME1?

After playing 3 and now 1 again, I miss a lot of the control I had with regards to having different buttons do different things, whoever came up with the magic spacebar can run their head through a wall.

Also did people really have that much of a problem with the overheat? Other than your weapon being locked out by enemy skills when did this become an issue? Was it deemed to hard to pay attention to or something?

Also powers haring the same cooldown. Why god why?

Well for one, the AI sucked pretty badly, both friendly and enemy.  Enemies and squadmates would run around willy nilly and rarely tried to coordinate their attacks or act as a team in any way.  Squadmates would spam all powers immediately if you set powers to active, and so on.

The control that you had was because ME1 was ported to the PC by a third party, not by Bioware or Microsoft.  This led to pretty radical differences between the two versions of the game, since the PC gamers got the tweaked and optimized version, while the Xbox gamers got the vanilla.  Since ME2 and 3 were developed in house, all versions play more or less the same now, no more PC superiority.  Blame the popularity of the PC version for that, since Bioware (and now EA) thought that it would be a good idea to develop it for PC on release.

The overheat system was overly forgiving.  It's not that people had a problem with it, it's that it made combat too easy, especially once you got the Spectre weapons.  Even without mods that reduce heat, it was pretty damn easy to simply spray and pray.  The bad thing was that spraying and praying actually worked fairly well.  The thermal clip mechanic was added to make combat more tactical.  Now you actually do have to pay attention to how much you're shooting, and possibly brave enemy fire to get more clips.

Ditto with the cooldowns.  Global cooldown was added in order to make it more difficult to spam all of your powers at once.  The upside was that since it reduced cooldowns across the board, you can use your powers more often, but you have to cooldown before being able to use another power.  They tweaked it in ME3, though, so that certain powers have their own cooldown (or even no cooldown).  Ammo powers, medi-gel, and Nova, to name a few.

[Fawx9]

wizardryforever wrote...

Fawx9 wrote...

Ok maybe its just me, but other than your the sniper at first, what was wrong with the combat system in ME1?

After playing 3 and now 1 again, I miss a lot of the control I had with regards to having different buttons do different things, whoever came up with the magic spacebar can run their head through a wall.

Also did people really have that much of a problem with the overheat? Other than your weapon being locked out by enemy skills when did this become an issue? Was it deemed to hard to pay attention to or something?

Also powers haring the same cooldown. Why god why?

Well for one, the AI sucked pretty badly, both friendly and enemy.  Enemies and squadmates would run around willy nilly and rarely tried to coordinate their attacks or act as a team in any way.  Squadmates would spam all powers immediately if you set powers to active, and so on.

The control that you had was because ME1 was ported to the PC by a third party, not by Bioware or Microsoft.  This led to pretty radical differences between the two versions of the game, since the PC gamers got the tweaked and optimized version, while the Xbox gamers got the vanilla.  Since ME2 and 3 were developed in house, all versions play more or less the same now, no more PC superiority.  Blame the popularity of the PC version for that, since Bioware (and now EA) thought that it would be a good idea to develop it for PC on release.

The overheat system was overly forgiving.  It's not that people had a problem with it, it's that it made combat too easy, especially once you got the Spectre weapons.  Even without mods that reduce heat, it was pretty damn easy to simply spray and pray.  The bad thing was that spraying and praying actually worked fairly well.  The thermal clip mechanic was added to make combat more tactical.  Now you actually do have to pay attention to how much you're shooting, and possibly brave enemy fire to get more clips.

Ditto with the cooldowns.  Global cooldown was added in order to make it more difficult to spam all of your powers at once.  The upside was that since it reduced cooldowns across the board, you can use your powers more often, but you have to cooldown before being able to use another power.  They tweaked it in ME3, though, so that certain powers have their own cooldown (or even no cooldown).  Ammo powers, medi-gel, and Nova, to name a few.

Oh so that was the reason for the magic spacebar. I still don't see how that makes any sense but whatever.

I can see your points with the overheat/cooldowns. Especially as I work my way through on insanity towards 60 my pistol is starting to act more like a machine gun with infinite ammo. Though still I don't think the cooldowns needed to be limited as well. I always found it more fun when you weren't waiting on something and could keep pressing buttons.

As for the AI, I've actually found them more useful in this ME1 playthrough than the ME3 one I did. I couldn't even tell if they were doing damage in ME3, at least giving them a good weapon in 1 allows them to kill things even if they do want to walk infront of you sometimes.

Overall I can live with the overheat/cooldown thing, but that spacebar just annoys me to no end for some reason.

[o Ventus]

Rikketik wrote...

It is true that there is more auto-dialogue in ME3, but then again, it's the final part of the trilogy. It's about the war with the Reapers and finally ending it; the bulk of the character development took place in ME1 and ME2 when there was time for that. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I don't need to tell you how idiotic this is, do I? Surely you see it yourself.

[Rikketik]

o Ventus wrote...

Rikketik wrote...

It is true that there is more auto-dialogue in ME3, but then again, it's the final part of the trilogy. It's about the war with the Reapers and finally ending it; the bulk of the character development took place in ME1 and ME2 when there was time for that. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I don't need to tell you how idiotic this is, do I? Surely you see it yourself.

Yes, you do. No, I don't.

[XEternalXDreamsX]

It's come to the point that RPGs aren't just RPGs anymore.

Role-playing game.

You take the role of a character in a plot, and move to the end of the plot with that character. Everything else is basically the sub-genre.

Almost like the democracy going on, there are different parties trying to control you. Only difference is the details in which they control you.

Like Mass Effect 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

One lets you take a role and define it for yourself, while another decides most of it for you. Both of the games let you take a role of a character and bring it to end of the plot. I could be wrong, but eh. ;p

[Terror_K]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

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.

Because now the characters have a life of their own. Instead of you initating a conversation with them to give out exposition or information or even to get missions from them, the characters characters interact outside of the Shepard bubble. 

Proper dialouge with Shepard is good, and we had plenty of it in-game, but they also made room for character interaction with each other outside of Shepard. Joker and Garrus telling jokes at the cockpit, James and Kaiden playing poker in the rec-room, Garrus and Tali talking about just missing Wrex. Hell, even non-squad mates in Mass Effect 3 were part of the act. I can't say who due to spoilers, but it was all there. 

Plus the idea that dialogue was cut is a misnomer, as someone else pointed out you have about the same amount, if not more, conversations with characters than Mass Effect 1 and 2. Mass Effect 1 the characters were sort of there, but had a problem I like to call codex syndrome: Tali, Kaiden, and Garrus were the worst offenders of this. Mass Effect 2 had the same problem outside of loyalty missions which made interactions personal, but it was for just one mission with an epilouge conversation. After that, you get nothing for most of the cast, with the exception of romance options and Mordin, who is always awesome. 

To be honest, I think you missed the point due to tunnel vision; the characters are life-like because they actually live lives without you interacting with them. They talk to each other, and not just to Shepard now, so we get more character interactions instead of waiting to talk to them. they move around the ship, shout things at each other, joke around, laugh at people, tell stories and argue over philosophy.

The only difference is Shepard is not a part of it fully, he is just listening in. If that, to you, limits character development, then you have no clue what you are talking about since it broadens the characters and their relationships with each other off the battlefield. You may not be a part of it, but you shouldn't be a part of it, is the point. that is why those interactions made them more life-like. 

Again, this doesn't answer my question. I'm not arguing against the character interaction going on between your crew, I'm talking about eliminating proper conversasions, dialogue and charm/indimidate options. I'm not saying that Shepard has to partake in every conversation, but when they do they should be given options by the player, rather than spouting stuff automatically. And again, there's no reason everything you said can't exist without proper conversasions, dialogue and charm/indimidate options. You could, for example, have easily added the whole "character interacting on the Normandy" thing to ME1 and ME2 in the same manner without cutting what we already had in those games as far as conversations, choices, etc. went. Characters feeling more alive and interacting more doesn't have to mean your Shepard speaks half the time without you or only gets given two dialogue choices most of the time. And Charm/Intimidate chances have pretty much nothing to do with it.

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

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.

It's pretty far from a silly notion. Resources are limited. It's nice to think a developer can succeed at everything, but that's not always going to hapen. This was the case with Mass Effect 1 as well, except there both the RPG and TPS elements were lackluster.

If resources are limited, then why are they developing new ways of doing things that will just cost them time, effort and resources instead of sticking with what already works? Keeping things status quo shouldn't cost anything, because that's already in place. The only extra costs would be in voice actors having to say a bit more dialogue. And considering how much superflous, time-wasting stuff was put into ME3 that didn't really matter (i.e. Diana Allers, the Blasto Ad stuff (funny though it is), even James Vega who seemed a waste of space) it's not exactly like BioWare didn't waste money, time and resources when they could have been giving us more where it actually mattered.

ME3's way of approaching dialogue was a huge case of "fixing" something that wasn't even broken. Being the final part is no excuse at all for such a lack of choice and options. In fact, the final part should have given players the most choice, the most freedom and the biggest range of variations and consequences because there was nowhere else to go after this. And that's what Casey Hudson and others at BioWare told us ME3 was going to be, only for it to be lies and the game to be the most linear and restrictive of the three. I forgave ME2 for some of it because I knew the game had to stay on the tracks to some degree because there was still one part left, and it essentually had to at least end in the same place to kick things off for ME3. ME3 has no excuse, especially when it wasted so much on things that didn't matter just for the sake of broadening its appeal.

Modifié par Terror_K, 24 juillet 2012 - 11:32 .

[incinerator950]

Wimbini wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

stonbw1 wrote...

Martanek wrote...

The term "ME 2.5" is very spot-on. ME3 does a lot of things well, but does almost the same lot wrong. It kind of got stuck halfway to merging the best aspects of ME and ME2 into an ideal ME game, in which many of us had hoped.
ME3's combat is definitely superior to the two previous games, but ME3 lacks the much needed depth in some other key RPG facets, such as exploration, sensible dialog choices with real consequences, character customisation, questing and like. It appears that Bioware was too busy spending their resources on the MP part of the game, thus lessening the importance of those mentioned RPG elements.

Agreed, but I would still consider ME3 more "RPG-ish" than ME2.  The levels are far less linear (though that doesn't say much), much more weapon customization, powers advancement, and there were at least as many if not more key decisions/choices in ME3 than ME2.  [no examples to avoid spoilers]

So quick question.

Have you ever played a story-based RPG that is not linear?

TW2.

Last I checked, TW2 follows a set point of paths that eventually lead to an ending.  If you don't see that, then I think you're focusing way too much on the toilet paper choices and looking at bland sex scenes.

[tichard]

They removed ME1 inventory and mako exploration because those elements were not very well made. OK but the combat was not that great, following the same logic they should have remove it as well.
And dialogue options were great, I think everybody was ok with that, so why did they choose to go almost full auto-dialogue ?

[iamweaver]

If this is going to be a "true Scotsman" argument, then I posit that there never has been an actual computer-based RPG, and there won't be for a long time, if ever. In a real RPG, your decisions actually matter, and the GM will often need to morph the world and the potential plot line to keep up with player character decisions. This has never happened in a computer game, ever - and certainly not in a series like ME. It would require creating hundreds of potential plot lines revolving around even the limited choices available on a dialogue wheel.

This even applies to the more open-ended games, like the Elder Scrolls series. Sure, you can do whatever you want - but the only actions that actually have far-reaching consequences outside of your own character still follow a linear track, as they always have for a PC game.

Admittedly, in ME3, regardless of your choices, you are faced with the same final decisions based on gathered resources. But this is hardly surprising, IMO. Your job as a Spectre/whatever is to stop the Reapers - and whether you gather the Galaxy together by coercion or cooperation really doesn't matter.