175 réponses à ce sujet

[Iosev]

I always try to go through my first playthrough of a game with as little knowledge about it as possible (i.e., I avoid walkthroughs, FAQs, spoilers, etc.). I also try to avoid reloading my game because I feel that it pulls me out of the experience if I learn all of the different outcomes of a dialogue or situation; the only time I'll reload is when my characters all die in battle.

While my approach often makes me miss some quests, dialogue, and other miscellaneous events during my first playthrough, it ultimately results in a greater appreciation of that first journey of the game.

However, once I've finished the game once, I'll allow myself to meta-game, such as research character builds, as well as explore dialogue and decisions that I didn't select in my first playthrough. With that said, I'm all for playing however you wish, so I wouldn't criticize others for meta-gaming on their first playthrough.

[withneelandi]

Depending on how you define "meta gaming" (and its a term with a lot of meanings way beyond gaming...) its pretty hard not to meta game to some extent when playing something like dragon age.

Its possible to very strictly role play a character and make choices based on only what that character knows at that point and make choices according to the characters moral compas not your own but as someone playing a video game, even playing a gamefor the first time without a guide or wiki, we play with a certain amount of assumed knowledge about the way video games work that its almost impossible to avoid on some level.

If you a play a lot of any type of video games, you get to know the genre conventions, if you find a locked door blocking your progress you know as a player the key will probably be nearby. If you role play the game as strictly as possible then your character wouldn't know that, I mean, in reality how often is the key to a locked door in chest nearby that door. As a gamer we know that the game will be designed in such a way that will let us progress and persevere.

I think almost everyone meta games to some extent, but if you do it conciously you can suck the joy out of a role playing game of any kind.

[philippe willaume]

we could say there are two great type of "bad metagaming" and they all relate to role playing
one is using information that your character could not know.
The second is taking advantage of game mechanic in a way that is not consistent with the role you intended to play.

Akin to what sylvius mentioned using the sun blade in raven loft without you character knowing that Vlad von Zarovitch is a vampire is metagaming.

we could argue that maximizing approval is metagamming but it could equally be argued that you have spend lots of time with the companion and you know them and the way to influence them and present things to them.

Now maximizing paragon/friendship/like point or ultimate build will or will not be metagaming.

It could be argue that it is within character that he tries to help the team members either out of his/her good hart (paragon) or just to make them sweet so that he/she can use them (renegade-ish) and you can justify the action of your char by her/his spending plenty of time with the companion and know hot to sell thing to them.

on the other hand helping Belhen over Harromont to get the epilogue you want when you have been a supporting traditions through the game is meta-gaming.

Phil

[Gtdef]

Provided that you are playing for a "perfect save" there is nothing wrong with "meta-gaming". "Meta" means "after" in greek and a lose definition would be to define the way to play a game with data you received about this game.

And while this is ok for competitive games like rts games (knowing the exact time the opponent can rush/cheese you depending on his civilization/race/whatever, or knowing who has the early game advantage and who can play the macro game better later), or fps (how to maximize your tickets by bringing a lot of medics in a hold the flag gametype, which weapons to use depending on the effective range, recoil, rpm and spread and what routes to take to an objective). But for story driven rpg games, this info is usually a bunch of spoilers and (at least for a first playthrough) exactly the opposite of what the developers had in mind. In short it destroys the authentic experience that the devs wanted to give us.

Personally I like to be efficient so if someone tells me in Dragon Age: Origins that you can get a lot of free attribute points by doing the circle quest, I'd probably adjust my build to make good use of them, and if I want to build a rogue, I'd do a dex build instead of cun cause a dex build can pretty much solo the game while a cun rogue needs a tank and I dont want to depend on Alister. DA2 roles were more refined and I couldnt do it so I made a warrior for my nightmare run cause I knew that Varric and Isabella are fun characters I'd like to bring with me and actually utilize them. For me it's stupid to not get the reaver and blood mage specializations in dao when I can just reload an earlier save to make the choices I'd do anyway and keep the specialization. But everyone is different. Others would think that this is cheating and others would hack the savefile to get all the possible outcomes ;p .

[Rune-Chan]

Maria Caliban wrote...

The more familiar you are with BioWare games and their style of storytelling and combat, the more effort you need to put into not meta-gaming.

The same is true for most RPGs and cRPGs. An intelligent, experienced player learns to anticipate the developer's or game master's structure.

This is true. When playing Bioware games I make sure to do all available sidequests before doing the available mainquest in order to make sure that I do not miss content, as I know that at some point, they will probably cease to be available.

[Sejborg]

David Gaider wrote...

We don't "frown upon" meta-gaming. Meta-gaming is just something people will do. What we frown upon is when people make suggestions based on meta-gaming, as in things they do in-game which can only come about as a result of subsequent plays or by reading about the game before-hand... such as the "all companions are bisexual" complaint.

That's not how we make the game. We make it for your first playthrough, as if you're making decisions based on the moment. If that's not how you play the game, that's your call, but we're not going to make the game on the assumption that you're someone who's going to play the game repeatedly (in-game choices certainly help with repeated play, though I'll point out that's not really why we put them in there) or someone who's researched everything in the game prior to playing it.

But, again, if that's what you intend to do then knock yourself out. There are some folks who utterly panic at the idea they might play the game "wrong"... you'll see that evident before any game comes out, with people wanting spoilers and other information to make sure they have the most "perfect" playthrough possible, and why not if that's what's important to you? We are just not going to help you do it.

I don't know if this is your "department" or not, since I guess you are mostly doing story related stuff. But I ended up being severely punished in DA2 gameplay wise because I wasn't meta gaming. I had leveled my mages up in a certain way to fit my playstyle. Then when Bethany was taken from me, I lost an integral asset. She filled a role in my group that the other two mages couldn't fill - at least not before being levelled up many times.

It was frustrating for me because it was something I didn't have a hand in. I have lost important people in X-COM: Enemy Unknown, but that is mostly my own fault. In DA2 it was forced upon me, and that leaves an unfair imprint on me. As if the computer is cheating me. The loss of Bethany utterly destroyed all my work and planning. It was actually such a loss that I ended up having to go to the options and select a lower difficulty. 

I guess losing Bethany was supposed to feel frustrating and unfair from a story point of view. But was it also supposed to feel frustrating and unfair from a gameplay point of view? Had I known Bethany would die in the deep roads, then I wouldn't have made her an integral part of my party. I felt I was being punished gameplay wise because I wasn't metagaming, and that seems wrong to me. 

Modifié par Sejborg, 12 novembre 2012 - 03:07 .

[Gtdef]

I 100% agree on the gameplay aspect. Like in DAO, if you wanted to play a dagger rogue or if you leveled your mage wrong (not picking heal for example) especially in higher difficulties, was totally gamebreaking. You had to lower difficulty to get past origin story and ostagar. Of course bioware then introduced dlc items that made your character way stronger, but the point is that just picking and playing can be extremely frustrating. I'm not even gonna mention what happens if you go to redcliffe unprepared.

In DA2 it was impossible to win some encounters without Aveline if Hawke wasnt a warrior on nightmare, or even normal without the dlc content. I dislike Aveline, tried to do the expedition without her. When the profanes spawned, someone would die, and the party was lvl 16 with items from legacy and mark of the assassin.

[Little Princess Peach]

People these days just don't care, all they want to do is blow stuff up and bed any pixle that moves thats it, the art of storytelling will always change the worst because of those people

[Brockololly]

David Gaider wrote...

We don't "frown upon" meta-gaming. Meta-gaming is just something people will do. What we frown upon is when people make suggestions based on meta-gaming, as in things they do in-game which can only come about as a result of subsequent plays or by reading about the game before-hand... such as the "all companions are bisexual" complaint.

Well, "meta-gaming" can certainly be used to enhance the narrative too. Such as the big point of divergence in The Witcher 2, it effectively locks you out of seeing a massive chunk of content in the game. But those people and places and events that you don't see in a single playthrough still exist and you might still interact with some of those people, just not to the extent you would have otherwise.

But you have a ton of added value to playing the game again and possibly "meta-gaming" since the characters are written in a consistent manner across both possible playthroughs, and you find out more about them that way. What is so interesting about that is how certain events might play out regardless in both playthroughs but your knowledge of a certain NPC might be totally different and thus affect your actions based on that knowledge. To me, that can make the characters far more interesting than the "hero-sexual" type interactions with NPCs in DA2 where they're changing based on the player character. TW2's NPCs are more fixed, but you're able to uncover different sides of them based on the choices you make- but they're written in a more consistent way.

[Bryy_Miller]

Mary Kirby wrote...

JasonPogo wrote...

Like In DA2 supposedly you were supposed to be able to save your mom but because all the play testers just reset to an early save if she died they took the option out.  

This is actually a misconception. There was never, at any time in development, an ending to the quest All That Remains that allowed Leandra to survive. 

We considered adding an alternate ending because of our QA feedback. But we decided against it because the purpose the quest serves in the story is to give Hawke (regardless of their own class) a personal reason to fear the misuse of magic.

And actually, we never seriously considered any ending where Leandra survived. The ending we might have chosen to add would have been a blood magic sacrifice to keep Leandra around as an undead.

And for me, personally, it worked. It made me question every step I had taken thus far.

[FaWa]

Hanz54321 wrote...

Machines Are Us wrote...

Regarding Hanz54321 wrote...

Oh great, an apologist. It is not our jobs to pretend characters are worth caring about. It is the writers jobs to create characters worth caring about.

Oh great, an absolutist.  Yes, I totally think it is 100% the players job to pretend they like a game. 

When I said, "The writers/devs can only do so much," that statement implies that I expect some effort on the game designers' part too.  As in I can see BOTH sides of the matter because I actually think.  As in I agree that good writing is necessary AND I think a lot of players are lazy and complain because they have non-existant imaginations.

What you have to understand is that DA2 and DAO have both had complete one dimensional characters. Oghren, Varric, Fenris,  Wynne, Isabella, and Zevran are flat. I would include Sten too but his whole purpose was to be like that. 

Morrigan, Alistair, Lelliana, Merill and Anders are great characters because they are absolutely not sane people. You have a bloodmage, a terrorist blood mage, a woman who claims she has seen god, a man who's whole life existence is centered around getting revenge on Loghain. Morrigan doesn't need an explanation. 

[Dubya75]

David Gaider wrote...

...but we're not going to make the game on the assumption that you're someone who's going to play the game repeatedly (in-game choices certainly help with repeated play, though I'll point out that's not really why we put them in there) or someone who's researched everything in the game prior to playing it.

Mr G, I have the utmost respect for you, but this here statement I find rather alarming!

Are you really saying that you care nothing for replay value of your games? And that you blatantly create the illusion of choice, instead of creating real situations in which the story may take a different turn?

This is not role playing at all, is it? Or am I misunderstanding? 

Modifié par Dubya75, 12 novembre 2012 - 08:52 .

[StarcloudSWG]

Varric isn't a 'flat' character. If you pay attention to him, you realize he's as fully dimensioned as the 'not sane' ones. Fenris, too, has depths beyond his storyline. You need to pay attention and maybe take conversation options that are different each time. Isabella, too, has character beyond her storyline.

Don't mistake messianic quirks as being necessary to have an 'interesting' character.

Don't mistake a dull affect in the character's acting as making the character 'uninteresting' either. Sten was one of the more interesting characters once you got his friendship high enough. He doesn't think like everyone else, he doesn't act like everyone else. The things that drive him are not the things that drive the others.

In fact, my list of 'flat' characters would be rather shorter than yours. Wynne, Zevran, Alistair.

Yes, Alistair is a 'flat' character. His 'one dimension' is that he's a puppy dog, a follower in all things, who wants revenge on Loghain. That's it. That's all. There's nothing more to him. He has no other ambitions until you beat him over the head with it. Repeatedly.

Modifié par StarcloudSWG, 12 novembre 2012 - 09:03 .

[AlanC9]

FaWa wrote...
What you have to understand is that DA2 and DAO have both had complete one dimensional characters. Oghren, Varric, Fenris,  Wynne, Isabella, and Zevran are flat. I would include Sten too but his whole purpose was to be like that. 

Sten's whole purpose was to be like that, but Zevran's wasn't? How are you determining "purpose" here?

Modifié par AlanC9, 12 novembre 2012 - 08:58 .

[Major Crackhead]

FaWa wrote...

I never metagame. I purposely didn't care what I chose in ME2 because I wanted people to die, just for the sake of the story. Metagaming is just not a fun experience, ESPECIALLY on the first play through, where I like to have everything be unpredictable

Pretty much this. I only metagame in future playthroughs, and generally never reload etc on my first. Grunt, Mordin and Tali died on my 1st playthrough in ME2 and I still imported that save to ME3. On first playthroughs, I live with my consequences, good or bad.

If DA2 allowed you to save your mother, and I didn't do the neccesary things to save her, I wouldn't have reloaded. In fact, it would have made her death MUCH more powerful if there was a chance I could have saved her. Kind of like how you can save Cid in Final Fantasy VI if you feed him the proper fish, and he dies otherwise.

Modifié par Major Crackhead, 12 novembre 2012 - 09:05 .

[ScarMK]

Major Crackhead wrote...

If DA2 allowed you to save your mother, and I didn't do the neccesary things to save her, I wouldn't have reloaded. In fact, it would have made her death MUCH more powerful if there was a chance I could have saved her. Kind of like how you can save Cid in Final Fantasy VI if you feed him the proper fish, and he dies otherwise.

    Agreed.  I was much more annoyed by her death over the fact that Hawke does nothing about or the player doesn't even get the chance to try and stop it. 

"Oh you're looking for a suitor?  Be careful there's a killer, who targets women, prowling around." 

"Hey Aveline, my mom is out looking for a suitor and I'm not comfortable with her doing that.  What with the killer and everything.  So if you could help me keep an eye on her, I'd owe you one.

*Upon learning of the white liles* 
"Hey, update on that killer.  He sends white lillies to his victims.  So if you ever get any, come to Aveline or me ASAP!" 

The fact that you couldn't even try to stop it is what really bothers me.

[Fishy]

Meta gaming is a subspecies of the completionist attitude a lot of gamer have and it's quite a a valid motivation to do it. You don't want to miss on thing. On my first DA:O playthrough I missed out so many stuff in the game and possible scenario.. On my next playthrough I meta gamed to see what I wanted to see. I`m not a control freak in life though.. Doing something like this felt shallow. If I'm just playing to see what I want to see better to simply stop playing RPG..

It's a weird topic I think. Because meta gaming can be positive. It's give you more different choice and let's you decide what you want to be.. But also when you meta game ... You stop roleplaying.. You stop being surprised with what the dev worked on. You stop being the character.... You also stop taking your time because each time you make a mistake you just reload...

So it's actually 50/50.

But in the end it's a choice. It's really only bad when you're forced to meta game. When the choice you make ... make no sense at all and you just shake your head in disbelief. One good exemple it's Allistair reaction after the Connor incident. The dev pushed the Banana too deep here.


You answer something you feel adequate for the situation and lose 50 point in friendship .. The friendship bar was one of the biggest reason a lot of people would meta game in DA:O. That probably why they changed it for DA2.

Modifié par Suprez30, 12 novembre 2012 - 09:52 .

[AlanC9]

Sejborg wrote...
I don't know if this is your "department" or not, since I guess you are mostly doing story related stuff. But I ended up being severely punished in DA2 gameplay wise because I wasn't meta gaming. I had leveled my mages up in a certain way to fit my playstyle. Then when Bethany was taken from me, I lost an integral asset. She filled a role in my group that the other two mages couldn't fill - at least not before being levelled up many times.

It was frustrating for me because it was something I didn't have a hand in. I have lost important people in X-COM: Enemy Unknown, but that is mostly my own fault. In DA2 it was forced upon me, and that leaves an unfair imprint on me. As if the computer is cheating me. The loss of Bethany utterly destroyed all my work and planning. It was actually such a loss that I ended up having to go to the options and select a lower difficulty. 

I guess losing Bethany was supposed to feel frustrating and unfair from a story point of view. But was it also supposed to feel frustrating and unfair from a gameplay point of view? Had I known Bethany would die in the deep roads, then I wouldn't have made her an integral part of my party. I felt I was being punished gameplay wise because I wasn't metagaming, and that seems wrong to me. 

I'm just fine with this sort of thing happening in gameplay. You now have to fight with the party you have, not the party you wish you had? Well, let's see if you're actually any good. This sort of thing happens in PnP all the time.

Though it depends on how big a hole you dug yourself, I suppose. Obviously, the game still has to be winnable.

[TheRealJayDee]

Major Crackhead wrote...

If DA2 allowed you to save your mother, and I didn't do the neccesary things to save her, I wouldn't have reloaded. In fact, it would have made her death MUCH more powerful if there was a chance I could have saved her.

I agree with this, and I can't really understand the people who think that such an option would immeadiatly ruin the impact of such an arc. Didn't understand it with the Connor/Redcliffe choice, don't get it with this. I get it that some gamers aren't happy with anything less than a perfect outcome of anything, and would base their character's actions on their intent as the player, reloading and metagaming like crazy, instead of their charcter's logical choices. It's fine. I don't play that way mostly, and would wish for more diverse outcomes.

The Leandra quest was actually one of the few in DA2 that had me on the edge of my seat for most of the time. I was thinking things like "Will I find her in time?", "Maker, what if I get there too late and find out the killer WAS the guy I let go years ago because I had no proof of his guilt?", "What could I have done to prevent this?" etc.

Then in the end I realized that it was just some random insane dude with uber-necromancy, nothing I ever did had any impact on anything and there never had been a way for me to change anything about the outcome of things (also what the killer had done was just too over the top grotesque for me to take seriously). There wasn't even a Connor/Isolde choice of any kind, just a straight linear "you lose" scenario. This didn't make me feel angry about Quentin, or mages in gerneral, or got me thinking about the dangers of the abuse of power granted by magic. It didn't make feel sad about losing Leandra, though it did profoundly shock and depress my Hawke (altough he didn't like her a lot either).

What the whole quest really gave me was the feeling "Oh come on, Bioware, I get it, you really want to ruin my character's happiness and sanity by all means, and get a strong emotional response from me, the player, as well...", which wasn't really satisfying. I can accept failure, I even like my characters to fail. But if it happens without my (character's) actions even being considered it gets into frustration territory fast.




Also, as I said before Leandra's death also marked the point at which my Hawke's last compelling reason to remain in Kirkwall was gone. If I was as determined a player as Sylvius the Mad I might have never gotten to see Act 3.

[cindercatz]

TheRealJayDee wrote...

Major Crackhead wrote...

If DA2 allowed you to save your mother, and I didn't do the neccesary things to save her, I wouldn't have reloaded. In fact, it would have made her death MUCH more powerful if there was a chance I could have saved her.

I agree with this, and I can't really understand the people who think that such an option would immeadiatly ruin the impact of such an arc.

What I wish they would have done here (besides developing the relationship and the mourning story afterwards) is give you divergent results. If I had been able to save my mother, and I had succeeded in a second playthrough and lost her in another, etc., that would make the initial story more powerful, and it would remain powerful in later playthroughs. If saving her meant losing someone else (say a party member or another major npc), then there all of a sudden isn't a win/win scenario, the loss remains substantial, but I'm then allowed to weigh my character's personal priorities against the options in the quest line. If protecting my Hawke's family is his only real priority like it was in my first playthrough, then I'm allowed to save his mother, but the loss of another important character would still have a strong impact on me and my Hawke. If the npc in question is my LI that playthrough and I save them instead, then I'm left with having lost my character's mother in trade. That's a lot stronger than simply knowing I'm going to lose that quest outright every time I play. That's more what I want out of BioWare's games.

Obviously, with that line of thought, anyone can see how metagame knowledge is going to unavoidably effect my replays, but if it were handled in that way instead of how it was in the game, then the metagame aspect wouldn't be a negative to my experience like it is now.

Modifié par cindercatz, 14 novembre 2012 - 09:48 .

[Wolfspawn]

A lot of times, I meta-game on ACCIDENT. I look some information up for a part I'm stuck on, and BAM! A WILD SPOILER APPEARED! I then think to myself, "Well, I might as well use this to my advantage." And so Carver became a Grey Warden. AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. The end.

[Reznore57]

I don't metagame on first playthrough , with DA I can say the first time I play the games is always a painful experience.
Always end up with companions that don't like me (sten , shale , oghren , Morrigan , Fenris, Carver etc..) , die (Alistair sacrifice himself ,Fenris and Zevran I had to kill them),romance ruined (both Li dead) ,companions who run away (Isabella).
Let's just say I'm pretty miserable by the end.

Never had that kind of "problem" in Me,first time I completed the suicide mission everyone survived.Didn't make it on purpose , I was kind of proud.

So after my first playthrought , I metagame everything about companions.Because with DA, there's always a bunch who are very hard to "please".
Sometimes it's a bit annoying , you have to take x companions for x quest and leave them behind for the next...
But what i do appreciate is how from a playthrought to another you can discover a whole new character and you just grow fond of them with each new game.

I rarely metagame the rest because it's often not very tricky to get what i want.
One thing i did is metagaming the Arishok respect , it's not very hard neither .But it was a cool feature.
Too bad it didn't work so well with Mereduth and Orsino , where I felt like i lose some content if they didn't approve of me .And not just a change in attitude.

[labargegrrrl]

just thought i might point this out...

it's been my experience that my first playthrough of a game is the only one i can truly avoid metagaming with. i know what at least one set of consequences for major quests will look like and how to maxamize companion character's perceptions of me in at least one direction.

that will always lead me to approach or even alter choice and consequence in a second playthrough based on what i know from the first one. even if i don't meta-game by seeking info from another source, i become my own source for at least one set of outcomes. i can avoid that set of outcomes via simple process of freaking elimination. (or discover some outcomes are unavoidable.)

in short, metagaming is unavoidable in the replay, even if it doesn't occur in an extreme fashion.

don't know if saying that was particularly relevant, but...just sayin'