167 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

BubbleDncr wrote...

But sure, optional relationshp bar works. But I'll never play without it.

Just as I never play with the plot helpers on, and would always disable the quest categories (Main Quest, Side Quest, etc) if they let me.

[Todd23]

So are we all agreed? Optional relationship bar ftw?

[BubbleDncr]

Todd23 wrote...

So are we all agreed? Optional relationship bar ftw?

Sure, optional. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

scyphozoa wrote...

I think KOTOR 2 did this. They have a pretty good, invisible friend/rivalry system, that prevented the player from maxing out every follower's friendship. A lot of the followers had contradictory opinions and values, which meant you were almost always going to ****** someone off.

Obsidian, though, has an unfortunate habit of not documenting their features.  I don't mind that the influence scores n KotoR2 were hidden from the player, but I do mind that the very existence of influence scores the player had to discover through gameplay, rather than having the system clearly described in the manual.

We should never have to discover mechanics through gameplay.

[KiwiQuiche]

No; then I wouldn't have know how much Fenris packed a spaz when I verbally attacked him over his anti-mage hate bullsh!t.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Does that mean if you mother decides to stick her finger in the electric outlet, you will respect her judgemnt and not warn her?

Seriously.

You often have soem good points in discussions..but this? Dammit man. This is so damn idiotic that I cannot help but think someone hihjacked your account.

I'm doing what I always do.  I'm following the logic.

IS that how you call it?

And I see you didn't answer my question...

Strawman. I care because I do. Love has no contractual conditions.

But it has some sort of basis.  Unless you're claiming that there could be two people who were completely indistinguishable except in that you cared for one of them but not the other.  Are you claiming that?

Completely indestinguishinble? Hardly.
And while love has some basis, it's not up to you to decide what that basis is.

And I trust them...most of the time at least
Love and care do not mean blind trust.

Love and care means respect.  Respect means I don't pretend to know their minds better than they do.

And I'm not talking about their minds, I'm talking about their actions.

And respect also means I respect them enough to tell them what I think...because I believe they can take it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

And I see you didn't answer my question...

Any attempt on my part to stop her would be a selfish act.  To pretend otherwise would be delusion.

Completely indestinguishinble? Hardly.
And while love has some basis, it's not up to you to decide what that basis is.

I didn't claim it was.  But your admission that love has some basis renders you previous statement, "I care because I do," literally meaningless.

[nightscrawl]

Siradix wrote...

Remove the need for maximizing anything, and I don't see a point in having the bar. Why should I be aware through mechanics that my companion is going to betray me, or just up and leave? It's not like the bar is the only clue. We saw hearts with numbers and got cut-scenes about our decisions and their effects on our companions. That should be enough clues for the player. The bar is just a redundancy meter for people who are not paying attention to those details.

Here you have the sticking point. The problem with DA2 was that quests (Questioning Beliefs in Acts 2 and 3 to continue companion development and relationships) took their queues from the F/R levels. If you never got F or R past 50% then you never moved on with that companion. This is not unique to DA2 though, DAO had a similar mechanic wherein certain dialogue options would only appear after having reached a certain amount of approval. The chief difference is that it is a one-sided meter and that you can load them up with gifts to rig approval if you are having issues.

Someone mentioned earlier that it's been said they might go back to the DAO method of approval, which I find very unfortunate. The friend and rival relationships were so different in some cases as to actually be double the number of options, all of which I found refreshing.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

And I see you didn't answer my question...

Any attempt on my part to stop her would be a selfish act.  To pretend otherwise would be delusion.

So it has nothing to do with your concern about her well-being?
Do you even feel concern about her well being?

You should happily sit by and watch your mother get electricuted? Watch your brother take a handfull of sleeping pills?

Oook...

I see there can be no fruitfull discusson between us. Your though proceses are completely alien to me (and most human beings).

Seriously.

Completely indestinguishinble? Hardly.
And while love has some basis, it's not up to you to decide what that basis is.

I didn't claim it was.  But your admission that love has some basis renders you previous statement, "I care because I do," literally meaningless.

No, it doesn't.
I just do care. Sometimes I could try and explain. Sometimes not. It doesn't matter.


End of discussion.
Talking with you weirds me out and is just depressing.

[BubbleDncr]

nightscrawl wrote...

Siradix wrote...

Remove the need for maximizing anything, and I don't see a point in having the bar. Why should I be aware through mechanics that my companion is going to betray me, or just up and leave? It's not like the bar is the only clue. We saw hearts with numbers and got cut-scenes about our decisions and their effects on our companions. That should be enough clues for the player. The bar is just a redundancy meter for people who are not paying attention to those details.

Here you have the sticking point. The problem with DA2 was that quests (Questioning Beliefs in Acts 2 and 3 to continue companion development and relationships) took their queues from the F/R levels. If you never got F or R past 50% then you never moved on with that companion. This is not unique to DA2 though, DAO had a similar mechanic wherein certain dialogue options would only appear after having reached a certain amount of approval. The chief difference is that it is a one-sided meter and that you can load them up with gifts to rig approval if you are having issues.

Someone mentioned earlier that it's been said they might go back to the DAO method of approval, which I find very unfortunate. The friend and rival relationships were so different in some cases as to actually be double the number of options, all of which I found refreshing.

I vaguely remember the forum post where the devs said something about this. I got the impression that they wanted to get rid of the friendship/rivalry scale, and just do two scales instead - like how ME3 did with paragon and renegade. That way, if you did some thing that fenris approved of, and some that he disagreed with, that you wouldn't end up in neutral land. Or something like that.

But I agree - the Friendship/Revialry system was a lot cooler than Origins approval/disapproval system. Its actually the main reason I've replayed DA2 as often as I ahve, so that I can see all the different paths.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

And I see you didn't answer my question...

Any attempt on my part to stop her would be a selfish act.  To pretend otherwise would be delusion.

So it has nothing to do with your concern about her well-being?

Of course it would, but it would be my concern driving my actions, not her well-being.  If I save her, it would be because I want her saved, not because she wants to be saved.  She clearly doesn't.

I see there can be no fruitfull discusson between us. Your though proceses are completely alien to me (and most human beings).

-snip-

End of discussion.
Talking with you weirds me out and is just depressing.

An unexamined life is not worth living.

[Sir JK]

The problem I feel with removing the relationshipmeter would be that the information it does provide needs to be presented otherwise. Having social cues (verbal, tonal physical, facial expression and so on) sounds allright, but there's quite a few of them and for the most part every person got their own set. I for one frequently cross my arms when idle or attentive, but I know plenty of people that only crosses their arms when upset.
What makes it worse is that science isn't entirely certain just how many social cues we do have nor what all of them mean. Some recent studies suggest that even something so subtle as how many times you blink when listening is a social cue, but of what they're not sure. We read most of these subconciously, so the risk with trying to create such extensive body language is that you might in fact hit the uncanny valley.

What makes it worse is that the meter in it's simplified way not only tells us what they think of the actions we do, but also how they feel about you as a person. Replacing that with social cues means that not only do we need to be shown sufficient reaction to every action, these also needs to account for how they currently feel about you. Is this an action they have come to expect from you? Is this an action that they thought you would be better than to do? Even if we just account for positive or negative approval (let alone rivalry&friendship) that's quadrouple the amount of lines needed to be recorded for each npc.
There's -a lot- of information that the meter implicitely conveys.

Changing all that to social cues is, as far as current technology goes, non-trivial. I doubt we're quite there yet.

[Sylvius the Mad]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Sir JK wrote...

The problem I feel with removing the relationshipmeter would be that the information it does provide needs to be presented otherwise. Having social cues (verbal, tonal physical, facial expression and so on) sounds allright, but there's quite a few of them and for the most part every person got their own set. I for one frequently cross my arms when idle or attentive, but I know plenty of people that only crosses their arms when upset.
What makes it worse is that science isn't entirely certain just how many social cues we do have nor what all of them mean. Some recent studies suggest that even something so subtle as how many times you blink when listening is a social cue, but of what they're not sure. We read most of these subconciously, so the risk with trying to create such extensive body language is that you might in fact hit the uncanny valley.

What makes it worse is that the meter in it's simplified way not only tells us what they think of the actions we do, but also how they feel about you as a person. Replacing that with social cues means that not only do we need to be shown sufficient reaction to every action, these also needs to account for how they currently feel about you. Is this an action they have come to expect from you? Is this an action that they thought you would be better than to do? Even if we just account for positive or negative approval (let alone rivalry&friendship) that's quadrouple the amount of lines needed to be recorded for each npc.
There's -a lot- of information that the meter implicitely conveys.

Changing all that to social cues is, as far as current technology goes, non-trivial. I doubt we're quite there yet.

This is a good point. I know that in real life I'm very very attuned to social cues, and in games like L.A. Noire where it's heavily based on that it's difficult because it's never real, never natural so I can't understand it. I would have the same problem if they dropped the meter.

But some of us (*raises hand*) don't think social cues contain information at all, so all the relationship meter is doing is providing us with information that wouldn't otherwise be available.  That makes it purely metagame content, and as such we'd like to turn it off.

[philippe willaume]

hello
i like the idea of not having a meter.

The problem I see is that less colloquial you are to the developers social envelope, the more likely you are to misinterpret the cues. as well all companion can't be as vocal as Morrigan.
so i am not too sure with what we can replace it.

phil

[eroeru]

I find myself saying this more than I'd like, to more things than reasonable:

make a turn off switch.

For voiced protagonist, for relationship meters, for the dialogue wheel, for... all that would give extra value if turned off.

Modifié par eroeru, 11 septembre 2012 - 09:10 .

[xxBabyMonkeyxx]

It would definitely help with getting you more immersed into the game, however I would like to keep track of how much friendship/rivalry I have with a companion.

[BubbleDncr]

eroeru wrote...

I find myself saying this more than I'd like, to more things than reasonable:

make a turn off switch.

For voiced protagonist, for relationship meters, for the dialogue wheel, for... all that would give extra value if turned off.

Meters should be easy enough for them to make a "hide" switch.

Voiced protagonist and dialog wheel would require them to have 2 different ways they set up their conversations, which would be a gigantic toll on both programming and cinematics. So unless you want them to split their resources in half to make 2 versions of the game, you can pretty much forget about making those optional.

[brushyourteeth]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

esper wrote...
It doesn't have to mean that they are right. It is arrogant to simply think that you know better.

By that logic, isn't it arrogant to think that you know better than me?

The world runs on arrogance to a degree.
Unless you are sure of yourself and your convictions, you wont' get anything done.

I have to agree with this. Well said.

scyphozoa wrote...

Going back to my KOTOR 2 example, I never needed a bar to tell me if Kreia was pissed off or happy with my behavior. She was very vocal about telling me what she thought. So I think if the characters are able to directly express approval or dissent, that would effectively replace the need for a bar with a more natural way of characters expressing their reactions to player behavior.

Also agree with this. I'd be content with that kind of system for DAIII as long as your companions did have a telling response instead of a silent fume or approval over your dialogue/actions.   

[Big I]

scyphozoa wrote...
I think KOTOR 2 did this. They have a pretty good, invisible friend/rivalry system, that prevented the player from maxing out every follower's friendship. A lot of the followers had contradictory opinions and values, which meant you were almost always going to ****** someone off.

Even in KOTOR you could max out everyone's rep simply by swapping in and out which companions you bring to which conversation. Say something Bao-Dur dislikes? Swap him out for HK-47, repeat the conversation from a save and enjoy your boost with the droid; alternatively just repeat the conversation but choose different options.


If people want to max their relationships with their companions they will find a way to do it. If there's no bar they'll use a guide, if there's no guide they'll ask on forums. Removing the bar simply adds a layer of frustration for people who want to do it, whereas people who want to play regardless of whether Anders likes a decision you made or whatever can easily do so by ignoring the bar.


On the point of rivalry/friendship, I hated the system because a) it was applied inconsistenly and   made little difference to how companions developed (in contrast to the "hardening" system from DA:O). Rivalry worked great for Merril and Isabella, ultimately leading to those characters changing their perspective, but failed with Anders and Fenris. Anders would prattle on about Hawke hating mages despite choosing to help them at every opportunity, and as for Fenris, rivalling him seemed to be the same as hating him and vice versa. I thought the DA:O approval system represented a much better pay-off in terms of emotional investment.

[elessarz]

The way the relationship meters have existed thus far has always been vastly simplistic because you could always rely on the mechanic of figuring out what the NPC wanted to hear and telling them that as often as possible. If you have different opinions or attitudes you can never be friends with anyone and you certainly won't be able to seduce them either.

This kind of system forces players into paying lip service.

Friends are born out of some sort of common ground, but they are still fundamentally different individuals. Conversely, enemies are opposed on the basis of actions or ideologies which cannot be easily reconciled. It's not a question of Sten being Qunari-centric, but one of his discovering cookies are delicious. Cookies bring you together, Qunari culture is irrelevant during the Blight. If Sten were a companion in Dragon Age 2, however, the reverse might be true instead.