Allan Schumacher wrote...
Lets say there are 3 different preconditions that can be met, and each permutation is a unique outcome (so 6 outcomes). If I satisfy the first 2, I have put my influence into the equation. Everything being equal, why would the offscreen actors allow my influence to affect them on time, but in the other time, my exact same influence does NOT affect them?
In that specific example, you're opting not to influence the third precondition and leaving it to chance (presuming that it was possible to influence it at all). As we know all too well from Hawke's storyline, doing all of the things to push for a certain outcome can still leave you cursing as fate dictates something else happens - the difference in this case being that there would at least be a chance that your influence would lead to the unique outcome you (the character) was gunning for, rather than the game determining a specific outcome...assuming that the third precondition is partly randomised.
It could work particularly well if the six unique permutations were tied into three pairs, with one being the successful outcome of what the player was attempting and one being the unsuccessful attempt at achieving it. Preconditions 1 and 2 would be deterministic and outline the player's intentions, precondition three would be influenceable but not necessarily wholly under the player's control.
Introducing it purely for the sake of randomness might not be a good idea, but it could be used to introduce an element of consequence to decisions around prioritisation. For example, recruiting the four armies in DA:O - no matter whether you go to the mages first or last, the tower is in the exact same situation and its no more or less risky to prioritise getting the mages on-side by making them the first group you try to recruit, or leaving them until last.
A deterministic way of adding consequence would be to introduce some kind of automatic failure on whichever army you attempt to recruit last - in the mage instance, dear old Uhtred having had too much time to embed himself into the tower and convert the mages would force an annulment even if the player attempted to rescue the circle, meaning you would 'have' to take the Templars (which presumes that's a failure option in the first place)...or, perhaps, walk away empty-handed because the Templars would now be tied up dealing with abominations that had managed to flee the tower.
Although I'd have quite liked that twist, knowing that the final location you visit is a guaranteed failure is not likely to be a particularly beneficial addition to replaying and wouldn't necessarily add a lot for someone on the first playthrough.
However, a randomised element could allow a different flavour to it. The first two locations (for argument's sake) would result in guaranteed victories, the third location could have a reasonable chance of the failure condition downgrading the complete victory scenario into a partial victory (even if the difference is primarily cosmetic), but the fourth one would be more of a long-shot. You left one of the problems until last, and now there's a much higher chance that it'll fail in some way...
The chance of success might sooth the issue of replay fatigue compared to knowing that the outcome was going to be a guaranteed failure. Provided that the difference between winning and failing doesn't have significant gameplay consequences for the player that would inspire them to reload and have them feel that the game had acquired a grinding element.
A stratified random element might even be better - particularly for less critical areas. For example, some of the quests in a main hub might resolve differently depending on how you prioritise the order of doing them, or depending on your actions in an earlier event. Again, whatever you prioritise might be a guaranteed success, but either the second or the third (but never both, and never neither) would go wrong as a consequence of you putting them further down your list of things to do.
The primary value of this type of mechanic as I see it is to introduce consequence to the player's decisions around priorisiting their time / the order in which they do things. Despite there being a random element, this arguably allows for much greater player agency and influence than determining that one quest will always fail, provided that this mechanic is used appropriately and not on anything too critical that would have people clawing at the walls in protest.
Given the DA series' move towards a greater sense of moral dilemma and consequence, including unexpected consequences, this doesn't seem like such an outlandish idea.
Turning your question back to you, why should the offscreen actors be incapable of influencing anything in the world for themselves without the player's complete control? Why should a couple of related actions that you took as a character always lead to an identical outcome when there are so many other factors at play in the world that could affect it, for better or for worse?
Modifié par Wozearly, 29 octobre 2012 - 08:14 .
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this so very much it's all about the control when playing a RPG it's why auto dilong and paraphrasing will never work we need to know what we're going to say and we need to be in control of it like when and how we say things if something is beyond our control it is no longer any fun
