114 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvianus]

John Epler wrote...

Sylvianus wrote...

So, maybe no finishing moves either ? * sigh *

Me pointing out the costs associated with finishing moves is not me saying 'HAHA SUCKERS NO FINISHING MOVES FOR YOU', it's attempting to give folks all the relevant background information so, whatever our eventual decision is (and I really have no idea, as this falls under the auspice of combat), you'll have some background as to why we arrived at that particular decision.

Do I like finishing moves? Yes, I do - they're neat, and they add a little extra to the game. Do I know the costs associated with them? Yes, I do - they're expensive, particularly if you want them to sync up and look good (see - the invisible ogre problem). Do I have anything to do with the decision to include them or not? I don't - but, you know, if you'd like to argue that every time we bring up the costs associated with any feature request or content request we're clearly sacrificing everything to turn the game into an on-rails cinematic masterpiece, like Yrkoon, that is entirely up to you.

I don't. I have nothing against cinematics and I never said anything about them since I am on this forum. I love cinematic focus in Bioware's games. I'm just pessimistic after reading your comments and how finishing moves were expensive. I am not sure that the development team will consider the question.

Thank you for the information, my comment was not against you, it was just a feeling transmitted about something that I loved probably not in the next game. Something from DAO again.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 27 septembre 2012 - 01:57 .

[cindercatz]

John Epler wrote...

I'm confused. Are you suggesting that 'killing blows' are anything other than cinematic? They serve no gameplay purpose, they aren't controlled or initiated by the player, they don't advance the plot - all they really are is eye candy to say 'look how awesome your character is!'. Literally the only difference between that and a cutscene is that we only take away control of a single character and it's usually poorly framed.

If you want to use us saying 'well, cinematic killing blows are very expensive and they pull you out of gameplay - those are marks against it, as much as they are pretty neat' as ammunition for your anti-cinematic crusade, I suppose I can't prevent you from doing so. But you seem to be barking up the wrong tree entirely.

You're completely wrong about what the in game finishers do for me as a player, at least. They add momentum and intensity for me as the player. I don't think "Wow, my character's a badass!" at all. I feel envigorated and a little bit extra happy. That's what I mean when I say visceral. It's not anything I'm doing. It's the emotions I'm experiencing. The cut scenes on the other hand, are visually spectacular, but since they're totally removed from gameplay, I don't feel anything at all. Well, I feel relief, because usually it means I've finished off a boss's giant life bar, but that's it.

I don't have a problem with cutscene kills, but IF we have those, I want cutscene kills for every party member, not always my character, whoever actually gets the last kill, and for every basic enemy as well, so that we see them more often. The in game finishers drive the momentum of combat. If we're not going to have that, then the cutscene finishers need to simulate that as best as possible.

[Yrkoon]

John Epler wrote...
I'm confused. Are you suggesting that 'killing blows' are anything other than cinematic? They serve no gameplay purpose, they aren't controlled or initiated by the player, they don't advance the plot - all they really are is eye candy to say 'look how awesome your character is!'. Literally the only difference between that and a cutscene is that we only take away control of a single character and it's usually poorly framed.

They're equal to blood and gore in game play importance.  You can dismiss them away as nothing more than eye candy if you wish, but if done well,  they play a HUGE factor in  a combat system's visceral feel  (about as much as instant reaction times, and faster  combat speed.... two major selling points of DA2).So yes. I place them in the gameplay category.
 
I'd even suggest that you add them to the talent list on the  weapon style trees  to make them a more frequent occurance for  high level weapon specialists.  But I suppose that's utterly out of the question, yes? 

If you want to use us saying 'well, cinematic killing blows are very expensive and they pull you out of gameplay - those are marks against it, as much as they are pretty neat' as ammunition for your anti-cinematic crusade, I suppose I can't prevent you from doing so. But you seem to be barking up the wrong tree entirely.

Do they?  They never pulled me out of the game play so much as draw me in to the combat.  I see them as a hard earned reward after a tough fight, or a lucky occurrance during one.  And really, I'm surprized you guys aren't chomping at the bit to add  more Zots to such visually appealing  combat specific cinematics.  It Seems like the logical next step in the 'evolution" process.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 27 septembre 2012 - 02:00 .

[Vandicus]

Yrkoon wrote...

If you want to use us saying 'well, cinematic killing blows are very expensive and they pull you out of gameplay - those are marks against it, as much as they are pretty neat' as ammunition for your anti-cinematic crusade, I suppose I can't prevent you from doing so. But you seem to be barking up the wrong tree entirely.

Hrrmmm. Sort've unrelated but I've never actually heard anyone associate gorn with gameplay before. Usually that's in the graphics/aesthetics section, which the average person views as distinct from gameplay.

Modifié par Vandicus, 27 septembre 2012 - 01:31 .

[cindercatz]

Yrkoon wrote...

They're equal to blood and gore in game play importance.  You can dismiss them away as nothing more than eye candy if you wish, but if done well,  they play a HUGE factor in  a combat system's visceral feel  (about as much as instant reaction times, and faster  combat speed).So yes. I place them in the gameplay category.
 
I'd even suggest that you add them to the talent list on the  weapon style trees  to make them a more frequent occurance for  high level weapon specialists.  But I suppose that's utterly out of the question, yes? 

To me, they're a lot more important than blood and gore. Blood spray is so common as to not elicit a response, really, unless it's tied to some particular move that draws me in, improves immersion. I'm glad it's there, but it's literally every slice, and if it wasn't there, that would be more jarring (in a bad way). Blood is like dirt. It's an immersive environmental factor.

The finishers in DA:O provide the visceral oomph, the emotional component to the combat system. I sorely missed them in DA2, which as far as I was concerned, was practically a T game with red spray, like a blood spray dynasty warriors (in terms of it's emotional effect while playing). I hated the blood geysers, though. Those I thought actually were distracting in a bad way.

[cindercatz]

Nyoka wrote...

Speaking of dragons, I'm a bit concerned about fighting them. Stabbing their legs repeatedly isn't good enough anymore imo.

I think it's either that or a bunch of QTEs. I still want the combat to play like Dragon Age, not become an action game like Dragon's Dogma, as nice as the combat is there for a while. (gets old to me, but it's very good for an action game) So if the dragon fights are going to be ultra dynamic, I don't know how you marry that with the DA party based tactics system, unless maybe you have set QTEs for the nearest available party member whenever the dragon hits certain HP thresholds. That could work I think, and it would still be gameplay.

It'd be kind of like Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 or Shen-Mue. It'd be a little special break in the middle of combat at certain intervals.

[darthnick427]

I just want to be able to kill people in a special badass way like in DA:O when your character would tackle an ogre and stab him in the face,cut a hurlock's head off after stabbing him in the gut, and jumping on a dragon's head and stabbing the hell out of it

[TEWR]

Here's what I'd like to see:

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Rogue: Grabs the enemy, turns them around so they're facing the other enemies, and slits their throat
Archer: Fires an automatic critical hit at the eye of the enemy, which you can see protruding
S&S: Dismemberment of a limb or decapitation. Maybe another one where you slam the shield into their heads?
Mage: Dependant on the element of the staff: Immolation, Electrocution, Poison, Freezing, GoW3 Hades style soul steal (for spirit staves)
2H: Improve a few of the Origins animations. One that comes to mind is Sten's where he turns around and stabs the enemy through the stomach with Asala.

[Ramus Quaritch]

John Epler wrote...

In an ideal world, we could put absolutely everything that could make the game absolutely completely perfect into the game. The world we live in and work in, however, means that games have budgets and constraints, both in terms of money and in terms of time.

And, to me, that is the problem.  From Dragon Age to Mass effect, the resources going into them, particularly the development time, are getting less and less.  Each subsequent game in each series is shorter than the last in terms of hours of gameply by dozens of hours each.  Dragon Age: Origins had those finishing moves.  DA: O gave you the ability to equip your companions with a variety of armors and weapons.  Then in the DA2 development cycle, such things are viewed as too expensive and cut out.  I'm positive the fans would be willing to wait a bit longer to get a more fleshed out game.  My question is, why are the development cycles getting shorter and shorter?

Modifié par Ramus Quaritch, 27 septembre 2012 - 02:49 .

[cindercatz]

At least developement of DA3 is being given more time than DA2 (I believe). They've already been working on parts of this for a year and half, two years, right? DA2 was more or less complete in 2 years flat, seems like. I honestly expect to see a lot of this, more of everything they mentioned in the announcement, and some new combat features (seems inevitable) in DA3 when all's said and done. I'm convinced it won't really be like DA2 redux. It should be much more expansive, much better. I hope, very much.

(..I never get any dev response to questions or suggestions.. Fellow posters? Do they hate me? Do I just have terrible timing? j/k   )
^I know, woe is me^
It's ok. I can take the silent treatment. lol

Modifié par cindercatz, 27 septembre 2012 - 03:14 .

[Yrkoon]

We have no idea what they've been specifically working on since they began production. In light of the revelation that they're going to be using the Frostbite 2 engine, it's completely rational to think that the last 12 months has been spent tweaking/changing/altering/modifying  it to fit Dragon Age's party-based identity.   But that's not a fact either.  Which means we're back to square one: We don't have enough info to simply conclude that DA3 will feel Oh-so-much-more fleshed out than DA2 simply because they're taking longer on it.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 27 septembre 2012 - 03:25 .

[cindercatz]

No, but we do know it hasn't been rushed out the door on the same level. There are still core things up in the air. DA2, the whole thing was pretty much in the can, even rebuilding the old engine considered.

[Palipride47]

thats1evildude wrote...

Palipride47 wrote...
And they have to be good. The Orsino one was awful, imho.

What? The cutscene kill of Orsino was the best one in the whole game.
If you can't see what's awesome about tearing off the head of a giant flesh golem and stomping it to death, then … well, I don't know what to say.

At the point where Hawke is grabbing the tougue, it looked like this....Alreay posted my picture, but the point why I didn't like it was that cheesy shot.


 

Modifié par Palipride47, 27 septembre 2012 - 03:38 .

[nightscrawl]

Yrkoon wrote...

They're equal to blood and gore in game play importance.  You can dismiss them away as nothing more than eye candy if you wish, but if done well,  they play a HUGE factor in  a combat system's visceral feel...

To YOU.

I thought they were neat to look at in DAO, especially the dragon one. I didn't bemoan their loss in DA2 (the bone pit high dragon does have a finisher btw). I don't give a damn whether they are in DA3 or not.

[panamakira]

Didn't really care for finishing moves and just reading the thread you can see most people don't care for them at all or want them to be very few and scarce throughout the game so they become meaningful (maybe just on big NPC bosses).

I want them to focus on other things to be honest. Also the "gameplay being sacrificed over cinematics" arguments got old really really fast a while ago.

[WahookaTheGreat]

[quote]John Epler wrote...
 Honestly, the less often a player ends up in a conversation or cutscene, the better. [/quote]

[/quote]


I have a little problem with this. I think conversations don't take you out of the game play the same way than cutscenes, where player doesn't participate. For me the more conversations the player enter the better. I don't want always to be ambushed by mobs who just start swinging swords. Bring back coersion and more situations to use good coersion skill! You know, avoiding fights and that kind of rpg things...

[Palipride47]

WahookaTheGreat wrote...

John Epler wrote...
 Honestly, the less often a player ends up in a conversation or cutscene, the better.

I have a little problem with this. I think conversations don't take you out of the game play the same way than cutscenes, where player doesn't participate. For me the more conversations the player enter the better. I don't want always to be ambushed by mobs who just start swinging swords. Bring back coersion and more situations to use good coersion skill! You know, avoiding fights and that kind of rpg things...

Yeah, I actually want conversations. Conversations are what make RPGs...RPGs.Though I am worried that this team, again, doesn't even like RPGs and will try to "jazz it up" with bandits constantly leaping from rooftops. 

I personally attirbuted the over-the-top aspets to Varric telling the story, but no more. 

Modifié par Palipride47, 27 septembre 2012 - 07:09 .

[John Epler]

WahookaTheGreat wrote...

John Epler wrote...
 Honestly, the less often a player ends up in a conversation or cutscene, the better.

I have a little problem with this. I think conversations don't take you out of the game play the same way than cutscenes, where player doesn't participate. For me the more conversations the player enter the better. I don't want always to be ambushed by mobs who just start swinging swords. Bring back coersion and more situations to use good coersion skill! You know, avoiding fights and that kind of rpg things...

Yeah, I misspoke. Better way of putting it would be - the less the player loses control (and you're correct in that a conversation is user-controlled), the better.

Modifié par John Epler, 27 septembre 2012 - 08:45 .

[thats1evildude]

Palipride47 wrote...

At the point where Hawke is grabbing the tougue, it looked like this....Alreay posted my picture, but the point why I didn't like it was that cheesy shot.


 

Hawke grips the Harvester by its arms, actually.

I'm not seeing what's wrong with that image from Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.

[deatharmonic]

I liked the finishing blows in DAO, for me they spiced up the combat. For DA2 I remember seeing the line 'think like a general, fight like a Spartan' from which I expected to see something amazing rather than DAO sped up with some minor changes. Personally, I think combat should be more intuitive than merely one button to attack and pre-assigned moves, for me this limits the variation and amount of satisfaction I gain from combat.

The most enjoyable combat I've experienced is that of Assassins creed, simply because of the freedom and variation it gives you. Of course I know it's not realistic to pull of something like that in DA3, but my point is that as much variation as possible is appreciated. Interestingly enough this is why I LOVED playing as an arcane warrior because it added another dimension to playing as a mage, it added variation. Also, having recently played Dragons dogma, to see what they did there was pretty cool, being able to climb on monsters was certainly a new experience. What I also like about the combat in that game was it wasn't just hack n' slash - press one button to attack. You can wait for your opponent to make the first move, parry his attack then strike back which gave me a greater sense that the fight was 'real' compared to how DA2 handled things.

[Shadow Fox]

I want to be able to set people on fire as a mage please.

[Palipride47]

thats1evildude wrote...

Palipride47 wrote...

At the point where Hawke is grabbing the tougue, it looked like this....Alreay posted my picture, but the point why I didn't like it was that cheesy shot.

*pic*

Hawke grips the Harvester by its arms, actually.

I'm not seeing what's wrong with that image from Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.

It just looked kind 10 year old slapstick to me (emphasis on TO ME). *will post pic when I go kill him to compare*


And also.....you know what this show was, I love you <3

Modifié par Palipride47, 28 septembre 2012 - 02:16 .

[LPPrince]

John Epler wrote...

WahookaTheGreat wrote...

John Epler wrote...
 Honestly, the less often a player ends up in a conversation or cutscene, the better.

I have a little problem with this. I think conversations don't take you out of the game play the same way than cutscenes, where player doesn't participate. For me the more conversations the player enter the better. I don't want always to be ambushed by mobs who just start swinging swords. Bring back coersion and more situations to use good coersion skill! You know, avoiding fights and that kind of rpg things...

Yeah, I misspoke. Better way of putting it would be - the less the player loses control (and you're correct in that a conversation is user-controlled), the better.

Sounds MUCH better.