143 réponses à ce sujet

[tetracycloide]

Apples, oranges, stop comparing them. It just makes you look silly. Maybe you should tell us all about how halo is a better game because, unlike DA:O, it has rocket ships because it would be roughly as relevant.



The large variety in armor, clothing, and weapons line was a particularly good laugh though. The equipment in oblivion, especially for someone that's played morrowind, is as generic as a bag of giant brand frozen peas and roughly as appetizing. Which isn't to say that DA:O is superior in the equipment appearance department, just that people shouldn't act like pots and kettles are different colors.

[RangerSG]

tetracycloide wrote...

Apples, oranges, stop comparing them. It just makes you look silly. Maybe you should tell us all about how halo is a better game because, unlike DA:O, it has rocket ships because it would be roughly as relevant.

The large variety in armor, clothing, and weapons line was a particularly good laugh though. The equipment in oblivion, especially for someone that's played morrowind, is as generic as a bag of giant brand frozen peas and roughly as appetizing. Which isn't to say that DA:O is superior in the equipment appearance department, just that people shouldn't act like pots and kettles are different colors.

Exactly. Anything anyone thinks Oblivion did right, Morrowind did better. And you didn't have to deal with those UGLY character faces or d/l 10 mods to make the rules work.

And I personally don't think the armor in Oblivion was better than DA:O's, unless we're talking about mod-introduced armor. Which is not even apples to oranges, give the DA modding community time to churn out the models. Honestly, remembering how armor looked in Morrowind and then comparing it to Oblivion...meh. Atmospherics is the only thing Oblivion did better. Really, there's nothing enjoyable about Oblivion. I still have Morrowind on my HD. Oblivion is off and I don't miss it. What more is there to say?

[shree420]

Agree with tetracycloide, RangerSG, and Ancalimontar:



Graphically, Oblivion was better and atmospheric. That's it. And I haven't mentioned the cookie-cutter Hell portal worlds.



The most fun I had with Oblivion was a nonsense mod that allowed you to drop horses on people, and more importantly, made a guard steal. Then he'd start sneaking around the place and fight other guards.



If an RPG has you planning & anticipating what party/build you want to do on your next playthrough in your current one, it's done its job, at least from the tactical perspective. BG2 and DA:O got me to do this. Oblivion had me confused first, then annoyed at the level of micromanagement I had to do to get my character to grow a certain way.



Seriously, there's nothing wrong with the standard choose-your-talents dialog box approach in RPGs. It may not be how we learn things in RL, but it's a very useful and workable abstraction that doesn't break immersion. I never liked the "learn talents that you play" approach; it's easy to end up with a gimped build unless you're focused on that. Which, I add, is immersion-breaking.

[knarayan]

Oblivion was beautiful.

But I found combat boring and the dungeons and Oblivion gates repetitive.

Yes, lots of quests - go here, kill that etc but ultimately there was very little wit or intelligence about the way the story was presented

- with maybe the exception of the Shivering Isles

No companions with smart conversations - Mazoga the Orc?

And on the whole, more button mashing than tactics...

Yes - DA could have used some of the beauty and some of the open ended nature of Oblivion - but ultimately - its chalk and cheese

[Bagheeris]

I do enjoy DA:O, although i’m not RPG player and don‘t have any experience with the genre for comparison. I’m now halfway through my 3rd playthrough and the longer i play, the more some details start to annoy me. If i may add few points specifically regarding combat:
 
1) Weapons unsheathing / (sheathing) as already mentioned in the OP
- When entering combat, characters are unresponsive for few fractions of second. Enemy mobs do not seem to suffer this penalty. Sometimes, getting some CC spell / ability off before the enemy is critical for the outcome of the encounter.
- In the Burning man form: i open the door while staying out of LOS and click to cast fireball into the next room. Character walks into the door, gets into combat and (he is DW rogue) unsheathes his weapons first. Then realizes he wants to cast, not to wave his pointy sticks so sheathes both daggers back and starts casting ... BAM i’m hit by enemy fireball and knocked down. I would think with the element of surprise on my side, this should not happen.
- Tell you mage(s) to cast aoe on the room full of enemies while not yet in combat. Walk some of your other companions into the door so that they initiate combat. Mages interrupt casting to unsheath their weapons. Huh?
 
2) Party formation, especially after cinematic, pathfinding
- There is no „loose“ formation option. With free movement, party members often end up on top of one another ... just ideal for being fireball-ed or frozen with Cone of cold.
- After cinematic or when entering new area and getting into combat immediately, PC ends up in the front. Good if he’s a tank or a mage who wants to cast some cone spell, otherwise bad. What can i do, being a squishy picked afar as the first target by half dozen archers whom i can’t reach (other than ... you guessed, with mage aoe)
- Sustained abilities ... i may do something wrong but after leaving the camp or when finally engaging sloth demon in the Fade, characters start with sustained abilities all turned off. Not good if you want to activate Stoneheart and Threaten at the very start so cannot do anything else (plus Shale somehow ended up in the back of the party so i had to move first to get the enemy into Taunt range). Perhaps make them instant with no casting or cooldown time?
- While full party selected, order them to run through the door in the other way they are facing, so that the front-most character has the longest way to run. Watch your back-most character stand at the spot since he has the shortest way to run. And then all colliding in the door. Annoying if you want to run out of the room to use LOS (i hope this is not considered cheesy, i always though this is an important tactical option which may be prevented in specific encounters). Please, add an option to rotate party direction (e.g. click on the target spot and drag left/right to rotate clockwise/anti - i saw this in Total war and it‘s excellent for tactical positioning).
- This is probably connected with the OP complaint about positioning. If the positioning wasn’t that important ...
 
3) Auto-save when entering combat after zoning / at the end of each dialogue
- Please ... add this in all cases when it isn’t yet, such as Jarvia or that Tevinter mage in elven alienage. I need multiple attempts (i want to challenge myself rather than lowering difficulty) and it isn’t fun to mash Esc button for half a minute to get through the same dialogue repeatedly.
- Similarly with encounters initiated right after zoning, including random ambushes. Reloading into party camp and then loading the encounter again is needlessly time-consuming.
 
And few suggestions regarding OP complaints:

One solution, for example, would be to 1) add two more trees to each school to make them a bit more well-rounded, 2) add level requirements to every spell, and then 3) force a mage to have a primary and a secondary school.

What about this – with each ability learned in the school, all abilities in the school become more potent? So that heal from a creation-school-specced mage would be twice as powerful and/or cost half the mana as compared to a mage with just this one spell in the whole school?
 

Standard routine is to run in Shale, taunt everything, and have the mages go to town with resist hexes, paralysis explosion, virulent walking bomb, and possibly entropic death, all while Shale is happily force fielded. There’s just no way to lose.

Turn force field into a shield which breaks after x damage. That way, it is still useful as CC as long as you don’t attack that mob and at the same time it’s not OP when used on party members.
 
Yeah those are inspired by WoW/ WAR but nothing wrong with inspiration i hope. 

[Haplose]

RangerSG wrote...

Why should a stun attack have a damage component? The point is to stun the opponent so you can beat them senseless. Why does pommel strike need additional dmg on top of that?

And why in the world should TALENTS do elemental damage? If you want elemental damage, put a run or coating on your blade. That's simply absurd.

You totally misunderstood Jack-Nader I think.
This may be a bug, but damage runes do not process on active skills.Therefore putting damage runes on two-handed weapons (which heavily rely on active skills) is kinda wastefull. You should be auto-attacking as little as possible.
The same is true for other weapon styles. It's just that 2H Warriors rely the most on active attacks.

Jack Nader:
Like others have written, at level 8 don't use Powerfull Swings! That's a huge waste of Stamina that actually makes you hit less. Use Indomitable and Precise Striking, if you feel like it, but only after you expand some Stamina first.

Ancalimohtar
I love your reviews. Both of DA:O (though I love NWN1) and Oblivion! That was spot on! A game without purpose or meaning. With about the worst character development mechanic I could imagine. Just shiny graphics.

[ezekiel9]

[quote]System Shock wrote...
[quote]Ancalimohtar wrote...
I don't want to get completely off topic here while we wait for Gabochido's or other devs' replies, but for completeness' sake, I'll give my opinion on Oblivion: It sucked donkey testicles, pardon my French.[/quote]sure it did... great review... bravo![/quote]The point wasn't to give a great review--it was to put forward his personal opinions. As we've seen from the OP, Ancalimohtar usually presents his opinions without phrases like "In my opinion" or what-have you--hence why he said he hoped no one would ever have Jade Empire inflicted upon them ever again (which SOUNDS like a statement of fact, even if he didn't intend it as such). This is mostly a matter of speech style, so please don't be so childish about it.[quote]System Shock wrote...[quote]Ancalimohtar wrote...
1. I don't really value sandbox adventuring; as someone else said, it gives you no sense of urgency while completing the main quest. I know I'm probably in the minority on this point, but I always found it tedious to have to do side quests in post-BG2 BioWare/Obsidian games. If the world's going to end, why the hell am I helping someone find her son? Who cares? [/quote]yeah.. because there aren't any sidequests in DA:O that have nothing to do with the story... sure.. and obviously DA:O is all timed... you better have this sense of urgency because the darkspawn is going to destroy everything in a matter of days.. oh, wait, there are no days in DA:O.... wel, at least you need to hurry and get the mages in Recliffe to save... no.. that can wait to.. oh, yeah.. so urgent...[/quote]He wasn't saying that there actually is any sort of timed requiement, System Shock, he was saying that there is a feeling of urgency. With things like Lothering getting destroyed, having random encounters while you trudge to and fro across Ferelden, etc. there is (in his mind, and to a lesser extent mine as well) that there is an urgency to what's happening. There's also the fact that, after each "main section" you complete, say the Circle Tower or Redcliffe, you'll have something happen (like when Zevran gets hired to kill you). I can understand why you might interpret Ancalimohtar's post like this, but your interpretation is inaccurate.
I played Oblivion for about two hours (not counting face-creation time, see below). I downloaded some mods and played another hour or two, and gave up. I wanted a game with an engrossing story, and I've heard Oblivion has one--but I felt like I was just wandering around a HUGETASTIC world with no purpose, no goals, and no direction. It wasn't just that the game lacked urgency, the game lacked direction of any kind. When you add to this the level of micro-management you had to do in order to not make your character suck after levelling up, I just couldn't find joy in playing. I'm sure you did--which is why you're defending it, but I personally didn't. More on the levelling thing later.
One final point--note that Ancalimohtar said, "I always found it tedious to have to do side quests in post-BG2 BioWare/Obsidian games." Note the emphasis I added: having to do side-quests. There's a difference between, "Oh hey, if you like, you can help out these Chantry people with something" and "99% of the game isn't the main story, so you'd better go out and save kittens and rescue Timmy from the well if you want to see any of the game." Now, for some people, they like that; I'd assume you're one of them, System Shock. But Ancalimohtar--and myself--are among those who don't really enjoy HAVING to run all over the world doing (seemingly) pointless things simply because that's where the content is.
[quote]System Shock wrote...[quote]Ancalimohtar wrote...
2. How can you say the graphics in Oblivion were better than DA, using armor meshes as an example, when what was really important--all the faces--looked like a chimpanzee got ahold of 3ds max and hit the "smooth polygons" button over and over?[/quote]Yeah, the faces.. it is all about the vanilla faces... yep, Oblivion doesn't have a Chargen where you can manipulate the face... oh wait, it does.. yeah, but DA:O has more options to configure a face.. oh wait, it doesn't..  yeah, faces is all it takes as far as graphics and  immersion.. little things like the environment, you know, like trees actually looking like trees and moving, nah, that don't help... and armors that all look different because they  use different meshes, nah, don't matter either, being able to grab a rock and toss it, grass moving as you walk pass that, well that **** is just too real.... [/quote]I honestly find it humorous and strange the directions you took with this reply, but because of the many topics you covered in such a short paragraph, I'll need to break it down:
1. Faces: I cannot understand HOW you are defending the vanilla faces of Oblivion. The face-maker had LOTS of options, yes--but you had to work for literally HOURS to get anything that resembled (a) an actual person and ( anything you might actually want to look like. 99.99% of all humans in the game looked hideously ugly, and there is nothing at all that you can do to make their faces look better using the character generator. Hence why there were many mods--not just a few, but multitudes--that modded all NPC faces to make them look like something other than paunch-faced chimpanzees. Faces are NOT the only thing that creates immersion, far fromit; however, in a game that relies heavily on character interaction with LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of NPCs (aka sandbox games like Oblivion) it is simply unforgivable to make 99% of people look wholly unrealistic.
2. The environment only looked massively immersive if you had a computer that could run it--and mine can't, even though I built it more than three years after the initial release of Oblivion with good parts (paid just about $1100 total for the various pieces, and it's still a good gaming machine). Sure, the grass blows in the wind--but I can't see the grass because it crashes my system after more than 30 minutes of play. The textures, even at the highest resolutions, were blocky and blurry and you could easily see the pattern repetition. Even WoW (yes, I play WoW, though I RP far more than I raid) has better control over texture repetition.
There is also the point that every single person here who has commented on Oblivion has said the same thing--its graphics, primarily environmental graphics, were by far the best component of the game and everything else was (in their various opinions) sub-par in one way or another. You are preaching to the choir if you talk about trees and grass and throwable rocks (which...I never personally encountered in Oblivion, though I didn't play all that much of it either).
[quote]System Shock wrote...
[quote]Ancalimohtar wrote...
3. Oblivion is not a pause-and-play, [/quote]yeah, because everyone knows during combat, everyone gets to stop and change their clothes.. "yeah, hold on, you just jumped out at me from the ceiling, yeah, hold on, let me slip into something more comfortable"[/quote]The problem here, System Shock, is that CRPG combat is nothing like the real world regardless of whether you can pause or not. CRPGs are like a simulation of a robot that's under my remote control; I can plug in commands and then watch how they play out. The Elder Scrolls games have constant real-time combat as a feature, it's part of their design paradigm, and it works mostly because you are a single person fighting. You don't need to move around giving orders to several people; you don't need to coordinate several different combatants with often wildly-diverse skill sets.
DA:O is like Mass Effect, the Baldur's Gate games, the NWN games, the KotOR games--this is sometimes called "squad based" play, though in a fantasy setting it's usually referred to as "party management" or something similar. You have to switch around between multiple people who, if they were actual living people participating in combat, they would each be able to think and act simultaneously. That simultaneity is the main reason why combat pausing is essential to these games' design paradigms; it makes no sense at all that four people can be fighting together, but only one of them can make decisions or use abilities at a time.
((Another way to put the preceding paragraphs: Oblivion, DA:O, and Final Fantasy/D&D [just for example] have three different models for how combat is handled. Oblivion is fully real-time, and it works because you only have one person. DA:O is semi-real time; actions are carried out in real time and have cooldowns, but actual decisions and directions can be given simultaneously while paused. Final Fantasy, in general, has a mostly-turn-based style, where each person gets a "turn" but turns happen at variable times due to different speed stats or what-have-you. The FF/D&D system is a different way of handling "party" combat, one that emphasizes the order of actions rather than the "action-packed" nature of combat.))
[quote]System Shock wrote...
[quote]Ancalimohtar wrote...
4. And finally, and most importantly, as an absolute defense to anything positive anyone could possibly say about Oblivion's game mechanics, every use of a skill (literally, like casting that game's version of "knock" to unlock a door, or jumping--I poo you not) affected what attributes went up during your next level up. If you, say, blocked a lot of melee swings, or ran around a lot, or jumped a lot, your character would gain points in strength or vitality or whatever, rather than magic. You couldn't even CHOOSE how your character distributed his ability scores. If DA were more like Oblivion, it'd decide that, upon hitting level 15, Sten gains one 1 point in strength and 2 in magic because he drank a bunch of potions that level.[/quote]wow, so what you are saying is that, if you do something over and over again, like jumping or blocking, you should NOT get better at it? Man, what a concept. "Practice doesn't make perfect"... you learn something every day..[/quote]Unfortunately, I think Ancalimohtar presented his arguments poorly here, but I agree with the general premise. The problem isn't one of "practice makes perfect"--that sort of thing is fine. The problem, really, is that they tried to make a mix between "Level up!" style experience and "as-you-use-it" style experience.
In most games with an "as-you-use-it" style of improvement, each ability/spell/stat/action/whatever has an "experience bar" or whatever. The more you use Shield Block (to quote Ancalimohtar's example), the more Shield Blocking experience you get, and with time, you'll get better and better. Final Fantasy 2 implemented this exceptionally well (though it DID make it so you could powerlevel your characters early on by simply attacking yourself...and you could make every character good at everything...but still).
Oblivion went about it in a very confusing way. Yes, you learn from doing things--but only the things you do most count for levelling up. And if you learn too many things at once, or not enough things, your character permanently loses the potential to gain something at that level. This problem alone is enormous--but now you have to add to it that (as far as I was aware) YOU CANNOT SEE HOW MUCH 'EXPERIENCE' YOU'VE GAINED IN A GIVEN ACTION! The second big reason why I gave up on Oblivion so early was the complicated nature of levelling "properly": I felt like I was going to permanently damage my chances of having fun and playing successfully if I didn't micromanage every detail of my character, and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to just play and have fun, but if I played Oblivion, it seemed like I had no choice (because really, who wants to play a game just to suck at it? That isn't fun at all!)
[quote]System Shock wrote...[quote]Ancalimohtar wrote...
Do you really want DA to be like Oblivion?[/quote]Now that you explained it to me that way, no I don't
I don't want a large variety in armors, clothing, or weapons. I want to see the same crap for over 50 hours.[/quote]This is a fair point (albeit made rather rudely)--DA could have done more for the various armor materials than to simply make all armor of a specific category the same. (I would like to add at this point that there are more than 5 armor textures--each type of armor, be it clothing or light/medium/heavy/massive armor--has several different specific types within it. All Splintmail armor looks the same, but Splintmail doesn't look anything like Chainmail, for example.)
You have a fair criticism in saying this; I would have liked to see at least different textures, though different shapes (I don't know the specific technical term for that--"morphs" maybe?) would be so much better.[quote]System Shock wrote...
I don't want an environment where things act like real things. I want all static! Phew physics![/quote]So you want a world where apples continue to skitter around the room for five minutes after falling out of a basket you barely nudged?  Yes, I had this happen to me. Yes, it was ****ing annoying. Sure, the physics are more realistic, but I really couldn't care less about whether stones roll down hills properly when I walk over them. Physics has a point, but it's very, very far from being the most important thing in a game, IMO.[quote]System Shock wrote...
I dont' want days or nights or weather.  I love the CSI:Miami effect![/quote]What? When did day/night and weather come into play? No one ever mentioned that. In a game like DA:O, such things are pretty superfluous, especially considering how much time is spent inside buildings and caves. Now, for a sandbox game like Oblivion, they're essential--you are going to spend a lot of time just wandering around a wide-open world; many people would be unnerved, to say the least, if the sun was always shining and the skies always clear.
(I'd also like to remind you that the party camp is always nighttime, and Ostagar has both daytime and nighttime versions, so technically speaking there is day and night...it just doesn't pass while you stand around doing nothing.)[quote]System Shock wrote...
I don't want a system that rewards me for gaining experience on things that I do often. Oh no. [/quote]So you prefer a system that forces your mage to get completely-useless Strength levels if you got punched in the face too many times? A system that forces your Warrior to get Cunning and Magic because he prefers to ask lots of questions and drinks lots of potions?
You're cherry-picking the worst drawbacks of the system DA:O uses and then using that to justify using Oblivion's system instead. Consider the control advantages you have with a system like the one in DA:O, take a more objective viewpoint, and maybe people will listen--otherwise it will simply be you deriding DA:O for not being Oblivion, and other people deriding Oblivion for not being DA:O, and that gets us precisely nowhere.[quote]System Shock wrote...
I don't want a tight story. I want the biggest story they can come up with, even if it totally inconsistent. [/quote]Where on earth are you getting THIS from? No one accused Oblivion of having a bad story; it's just that the sandbox nature of the game causes the "main quest" to be more like a "really big side quest." DA:O is also a very tight story, with lots of detail about all sorts of stuff. And DA:O has the Codex, which Oblivion does not have; the Codex fleshes out so much of the world, things you would never see or hear about normally. Your complaint is suprious at best, and insulting at worst.[quote]System Shock wrote...
.. and so I don't bust your groove here, I am not going to tell you that you could actually CHOOSE how your character distributed his/her abilities. [/quote]You can, but you also can't. You choose by doing. However, it IS possible (unfortunately) to unintentionally choose something you never, ever wanted. Accidentally jumped too many times? Bam, your magic-related stats take a second place to your athletics-related stats, even though you don't want athletics-related stats...and there is absolutely nothing you can do to fix this. I honestly found that kind of system intimidating; I personally have major fears (both IRL and within games) that little mistakes I've made will build up into spectacular failure. Oblivion's system allows for just that sort of thing: if you make a mistake every other level, if you fail to scrupulously "level up" your spells and/or talents correctly, you'll shoot yourself in the foot; you might even need to completely restart (losing the face you worked on for HOURS!) because your character is so gimped by the minor inefficiencies you had during play.
Next will you say that you don't want a game that forces you to build a specific levelling-up system, calculating exactly how many "casting spell" skill-ups and "potion-making" skill ups you need to perfectly maximize your stats? I personally find that exceptionally immersion-breaking, like what Shree420 said. Maybe you like the system; some do, some don't, and there's nothing wrong with that. Just don't tell us that DA:O should have used it--there are reasons for and against it, and the devs decided they didn't want to use it in DA:O.[quote]System Shock wrote...
I am also not going to tell you that Oblivion was released 3 years ago, and still looks better than DA:O.
[/quote]I apologize for the offensive nature of the following statement.
Your sarcasm gets old, very quickly. I personally think DA:O looks better than Oblivion did, and I can actually run DA:O at high settings without crashing my comp, unlike Oblivion. Perhaps I'm just super-unlucky, or I didn't configure Oblivion correctly, but either way I like DA:O's graphics better, just as a matter of personal taste.

Now that I've finished my (probably VERY overly-long) dissertation on System Shock's replies...time for some comments on the OP.

Overall, I definitely agree with the "kudos" post: Bioware has made another highly polished game. I'm definitely hoping that some of the advances made in DA:O are carried over to Mass Effect 2; while ME was a good game, it still had places that could be worked on, and I have a great deal of faith that Bioware will implement DA:O's improvements in ME2, possibly even things they learned from DA:O too! 

As for criticisms:

1. Camera definitely has more room for improvement. It is exceptionally annoying to have to send Morrigan or Wynne *into* a room because I cannot target something even though I can see it through the bloody doorway. And speaking of doorways...if it's possible to fix the already-mentioned bug of enemies brushing past party members standing in a doorway...I'd love the devs forever and ever amen. 

2. Encounters: I think you've very much refined your criticism of this through the thread discussion. Really, it's all one big problem of encounters being repetitive and boring. I'd even go so far as to say that the repetition and boringness of the encounters is the major reason why Mages are as problematic as they are--mages blast the hell out of the minions, then coordinate with the melee members to whittle the bosses to nothing. If we had a few more "small number of potent non-bosses" fights, it might be a lot more fun. As an example of a fight that comes closer (and which was pretty interesting for me): the "abandoned building" sidequest in Denerim, where you root out the blood mages. In the last fight against the blood mage leader, you had a couple decent mages, a single powerful mage, and few decent fighters. Sure, it's not on par with the kinds of fights seen in the BG games, but it's the closest thing I've seen thus far.

3. Mages: They are and aren't, as has been discussed to death. Something to remember, I think, is that Lyrium potions were (apparently?) supposed to be a rare and valuable commodity, something you would use sparingly. Mana pools are supposed to be used sparingly and with care--which is probably why staves are as strong as they are. Throwing spells around is supposed to be *meaningful*. Unfortunately, it's ended up being a situation where mages are able to melt face with impunity, and if you've got three (two DPS mages and a healer) the effect is compounded. By that same token, the power of three mages is *supposed* to be offset by their fragility and the ease at which they steal aggro--a group with three mages and a tank *should* work out to be a four-man glass cannon, able to blast the hell out of things but not able to take too much damage (especially AOE damage). I know for a fact I've had encounters where Wynne would get knocked out really early, and there was *nothing* I could do because the enemy mage was *always* taking her down first.
So...in conclusion on the Mage subject...they need attention, but not necessarily 'rebalancing.' Unfortunately, I'm afraid that without a major overhaul to the fun and interest of the melee talent groups, there isn't a whole lot that can be done on this end.

4. Setting--Honestly I think you're being much, much too picky here (particularly given that you said you like the game overall). I'm especially nonplussed by the criticism of the accents, and here's why:

(a) The accents criticism is somewhat spurious. Fereldans having many accents actually makes a fair bit of sense in-universe. According to the Codex, Fereldans are still the most "factioned" nation in Thedas; they take a great deal of pride in the clans of their descent and such, much like the Scottish Gaelic clans, a trait they still share with the Avvars and the Chasind (the other descendants of the Alamarri who came to the Ferelden area from the east). Unlike Orlais, which is generally seen as a tightly-knit, monocultural country controlled by an absolute monarch, Ferelden is still supposedly "wild and untamed"--the game specifically has quotes about it being "one bad day away from barbarism." We also have little chance to interact with Orlesians--only five appear in the current game, and two are permanent Ferelden residents now. Perhaps if we ever go to Orlais, we'll see more variation in their accents.

( "Ser"--if you're going to complain about this, you'll need to complain about every single title used in Ferelden. They're all based off real ones, either from Saxon, Gaelic, or Old English. Bann is either Baron or a direct reference to a Hungarian/Slavic title that meant "lord/master." Arl is obviously a variant of Earl (and may have been the 'original' spelling/pronunciation of Earl). Teyrn is Welsh for "petty king" or "tyrant." They may not necessarily be very good alterations/corruptions, but at least they have decent justifications.

© Dwarves & Elves -- Again, I think this is just an overly harsh criticism. Yes, dwarves and elves are commonplace fantasy elements, but at least these elves are something other/more than, "Elves are basically higher-quality, immortal humans, that are fading from the world, and they have pointy ears." Dwarves are also more interesting here because, if you notice, all of them have American accents, not British or French--Dwarves may be famous smiths, but they're also famous for being merchants and fighters.

(d) Deep Roads/Caverns/etc: I'm pretty sure this criticism *kind of* kills itself, simply by starting with the phrase, "I hate." I understand that you're just giving out every piece of critique you can, but (to borrow from TVTropes.org) Complaining About Shows You Don't Like doesn't really have much merit. Sure, maybe *you* don't like long, winding caverns that run on without end, but perhaps other people really enjoy them. I haven't seen them myself so I'm unable to criticize your position, and unable to criticize/defend the caves themselves, but this is 100% opinion and not really appropriate for a review that was (by and large) more a matter of cleaning up objective flaws.

((I'd like to apologize profusely for the enormity of this post--I tend to ramble, a lot. Also, I've edited it a few times to cut down on unnecessary spaces, for one, and to add spaces for clarity where they were needed.))

Modifié par ezekiel9, 12 janvier 2010 - 02:10 .

[kayapo]

@ezekiel9 - Your patience and elegance is comendable. I'm not sure everyone in this thread deserves that kind of attention though. That said, very fair points all around.

@Ancalimohtar - Amazing thread. Thank you. Posts like this one surelly give the Devs things to think about. I see lots of threads with some good points being made but possibly getting lost in the middle of all the rudeness and overeacting that normally goes on forums.

Looking forward to seeing a good debate with a dev here.

Modifié par kayapo, 12 janvier 2010 - 03:07 .

[tetracycloide]

What about this – with each ability learned in the school, all abilities in the school become more potent? So that heal from a creation-school-specced mage would be twice as powerful and/or cost half the mana as compared to a mage with just this one spell in the whole school? 

Turn force field into a shield which breaks after x damage. That way, it is still useful as CC as long as you don’t attack that mob and at the same time it’s not OP when used on party members.
 
Yeah those are inspired by WoW/ WAR but nothing wrong with inspiration i hope. 

I'm not sure I like either of the proposed 'soultions' to mage talents.  Either way the character is essentially shoehorned into taking spells they don't want to make the spells they do want stronger.  Why should I have to spec flying swarm just to add 5% damage to heal?  Diablo II had synergies like this and all they really did was force characters, mages most of all, into being one hit wonders.

My personal preference?  Seperate white mage gear from black or red mage gear.  There's already a mechanic for this in the % damage items, already the best equipment for DPS mages.  Similar % healing items would help.  More gearing options in general would be nice as well.  I often dream of RPGs where I can allocate stat points on every item I pick up at will thus enabling that every character get the stats they need and the look I want for them.  Some kind of tiered customization system, maybe requiring a merchant or smith, to allocate a fixed number of  'points' based on the tier and quality level of the item between one of any number of attribute/statistic options each with a unique cost per unit and, at a minimum, a linear increase in allocation costs.  Dare to dream.

Force field's mechanic is fine as is, it's a great defensive option.  It's the threat mechanics that are broken.  If you forcefield a mob and have your charaters attack it you get wonderful anacdotes like 'this isn't working!' or 'this weapno is ineffective!'  So the AI knows when it's not dealing any damage, why not have it react intelligently to this information and switch to the next highest target on the threat list?  This seems more in line with what the spell is for, an 'oh ****' button for squishy party members that just drew too much hate with the major drawback of putting a DPS, presumably the best DPS given that they just pulled agro, out of commission for a good long while.  Could also produce some interesting mechanics with friendly fire AoE dispells as well.

[shree420]

ezekiel9 wrote...

*snip

(d) Deep Roads/Caverns/etc: I'm pretty sure this criticism *kind of* kills itself, simply by starting with the phrase, "I hate." I understand that you're just giving out every piece of critique you can, but (to borrow from TVTropes.org) Complaining About Shows You Don't Like doesn't really have much merit. Sure, maybe *you* don't like long, winding caverns that run on without end, but perhaps other people really enjoy them. I haven't seen them myself so I'm unable to criticize your position, and unable to criticize/defend the caves themselves, but this is 100% opinion and not really appropriate for a review that was (by and large) more a matter of cleaning up objective flaws.

Great post.

Re: the Orzammar caves, I've played them, and I'd say they were long, winding, and unending. It was a typical clear all the monsters from the area quest, though the plot element was strong. Only Aeducan Thaig is optional, the rest is a long linear trawl killing darkspawn and spiders, with the two last areas having boss fights at the end.

I'm not saying I hated it, but it felt somehow like I was floating from encounter to encounter. I like my questing broken up by other elements. So I loved the *spoiler* darkspawn horde + archdemon fly-by cutscene in the Dead Trenches, and finally met the Legion of the Dead, read about in the codex entries before you enter the Deep Roads - but wait. They don't have an outpost there - it's just five dwarves facing off against a rivulet of darkspawn. Hardly the Legion. Would've loved to have seen a base there, or some such.

It's not *bad*, it's just that it felt underdone in gameplay terms. Not plotwise, though - the storyline thread there is one of the best in the game.

[System Shock]

tetracycloide wrote...

Apples, oranges, stop comparing them. It just makes you look silly. Maybe you should tell us all about how halo is a better game because, unlike DA:O, it has rocket ships because it would be roughly as relevant.

The large variety in armor, clothing, and weapons line was a particularly good laugh though. The equipment in oblivion, especially for someone that's played morrowind, is as generic as a bag of giant brand frozen peas and roughly as appetizing. Which isn't to say that DA:O is superior in the equipment appearance department, just that people shouldn't act like pots and kettles are different colors.

... when I see a game rated M I expect adults to buy it, and expect  adult responses. Silly, unimaginative put downs are the last resort of someone who cannot prove his point in a coherent manner and has basically conceded.

It's not about which game has the better armor or better faces, or one game being better than the other.  It is about a game that is released 1 month shy of 2010 and yet it lacks the immersion and interaction elements of games much older than it. It is about a game that is released 1 month shy of 2010 and plays like games that were released in the 1990s.  You bring up Morrowind. Morrowind is 8 years old, yet the environment in Morrowind has more immersion value  than DA:O because of the way the player can interact with that environment , the way the environment around the player acts and varies and moves and is alive.  DA:O is just a series of static dungeon after dungeon. Even the outside places are nothing but dungeons, because you only can go one narrow way either back or forth, and nothing moves.

DA:O is basically a maged-out Lord of the Rings sprinkled with werewolves and a couple wrinkles here and there, so the story is not that original to begin with.  Even as a fan of the genre, I may like to hear twists on the story, but if you are going to marry it with technology, i.e., a video game, you have to give me more than dialog.

That the game looks nothing like the trailer released by Bioware or plays nothing like it seems in the trailer released by Bioware didn't help either.

[tetracycloide]

System Shock wrote...

... when I see a game rated M I expect adults to buy it, and expect  adult responses. Silly, unimaginative put downs are the last resort of someone who cannot prove his point in a coherent manner and has basically conceded.

I take it this is sarcasm given your other responses and the fact that you elected to RE my post and not the handful of others who were more than happy to elaborate on the valid point that a sandbox RPG and  CRPG cannot be directly compared in any sensible way.  Furthermore, there is no 'put down' in my post, not anywhere.  Not a single word in that post speaks to you or your character, only your points.  It stands in stark contrast to your post which implies I'm immature simply for pointing out the logical fallacy of directly comparing two things that are not directly comparable.

It's not about which game has the better armor or better faces

  It's not?  Then you'll forgive those of us gathered here for interpreting your numerous posts on oblivions superior armor and faces for getting that impression, I hope.

You bring up Morrowind. Morrowind is 8 years old, yet the environment in Morrowind has more immersion value  than DA:O because of the way the player can interact with that environment , the way the environment around the player acts and varies and moves and is alive.

That's because it's a different kind of game.  Again, this is apple and oranges.  Morrowind and Oblivion are sandbox games, interacting with the environment is how the game is played.  DA:O is not a sandbox game, it's a progressive CRPG.  It's not about expansive environments and exploration, any more than Oblivion is about carefully planning out a talent build.

DA:O is basically a maged-out Lord of the Rings sprinkled with werewolves and a couple wrinkles here and there, so the story is not that original to begin with.

  By that standard nothing in the fantasy genre has been original since Lord of the Rings.  Is Oblivion or Morrowind free of Tolkien influnces?  No, elves are still a lithe, pointy-eared people with an affinity for magic or archery depending on which kind of elf; a carbon copy of elves from Lord of the Rings.  To be a new creative work everything need not be created from scratch, there plenty of artistic value in derivative works that borrow heavily from pre-existing lore or paradigms.  Is Oblivion better or worse for existing within the lore of The Elder Scrolls universe as a whole?  I'd say far better, as a gamer I can hear about things from other cotenants worlds away from where my character is now and think 'Hey! I know that place!  I've stood in that temple!'  That's a pretty heavy level of borrowing too.  DA:O's borrowed elements are much more limited in scope and the world it exists in much more unique relative to what came before.  Yet neither title is hurt by this borrowing, not meaningfully anyway.  The dwarves are the most directly copied race of any in DA:O and yet the dwarf treaty quest is one of the most interesting in the game.  Does it suffer from operating with the preconceived notions of what gamers think dwarves should be or does it gain by not having to explain every little detail of a wholly new thing in a game already pressed for time and space just to cover all the back-story it does cover?

Even as a fan of the genre, I may like to hear twists on the story, but if you are going to marry it with technology, i.e., a video game, you have to give me more than dialog.

That the game looks nothing like the trailer released by Bioware or plays nothing like it seems in the trailer released by Bioware didn't help either.

We get it, you like pretty things and you think DA:O is ugly.  Frankly a game could give me nothing but good dialog and, even if it had nothing else to offer, be better than many titles today that cannot even provide engaging conversations.  To each their own.

Modifié par tetracycloide, 12 janvier 2010 - 05:21 .

[Haplose]

System Shock wrote...

It's not about which game has the better armor or better faces, or one game being better than the other.  It is about a game that is released 1 month shy of 2010 and yet it lacks the immersion and interaction elements of games much older than it.

Immersion? I noticed no trace of such a thing in Oblivion. Even though I persisted and finished that game.

Meanwhile DA:O has tons.

[Decho the Dolphin]

One thing which I always think could be better is definition of direction - in DA when you look at an enemy you see them and a circle at their feet, so all you really have to go on is their character model - most of the time the tiny indicative arrow on the circle is obscured by the melee. This could easily be improved by simply changing the circle to a square - this would make it much more obvious as to which direction the character is facing.

[cephasjames]

I think mages are overpowered... and I think that's a good thing. Its nice to finally play a fantasy rpg where mages kick butt and takes names. I've always thought that mages were supposed to be overpowered and have never really enjoyed playing as a mage until this game.



imo, of course.

[Jack-Nader]

The only immersion I got out of Oblivion was staring at the backside of the HGEC body models Ahh good times

I agree heavily with what has been said about oblivion by various other posters.
a) It was a huge system hog and the constant stuttering generated by all the texture loads was a bit much.
The NPC faces all looked like smashed crabs.
c) The armor was ugly as hell prior to all the cannibalizing brought forth by mods
d) The leveling system which I would consider to be the core of any game was an absolute joke. It fought the player and railroaded those who understood the game mechanics into employing truly odd leveling tactics so as to make the most of the poorly implemented system.
d) Telepathic guards who brought new definition to the phrase "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU"

"STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!"

e) The custom spell system broke the game. I have never seen such blatant imbalance.

I could say a lot more, the one thing oblivion did have was an awesome modding community. I first bought Oblivion about 4 years after it's release. I can honestly say without the mods it would have been shelved within the first week.

Credit where credit is due.

On a seperate note, DA:O has been out for aprox 7 weeks and IMO is in better shape than Oblivion is today.
What DA:O needs to correct:

a) Graphic bugs/glitches.
Fix AI scripting so as to have hostiles ignore force fielded targets and deploy spell shield.
c) Add rune triggers to all talents, flaming weapons/cold weapons to staff damage.
d) Elevate Archery, sword and shield and the two hand weapon style to be on par with dual wielding.

Secondary changes I would like to see:

a) remove staff damage component from staffs.
add staff modes to replace the arcane line.
c) removal of redundant spells - arcane shield, rock armor, staff focus, arcane mastery, mana cleanse, mana drain, glyph of neutralization, anti-magic burst.)
d) condense the healing and enhancements spell lines into a single spell line.  Shift haste to a different spell line.
e) condense vulnerability hex and affliction hex into a single spell, increase aggression with no chance to resist.
f) remove spell wisp and spell might and replace with a staff mode equivalent.
g) rework spell shield to be 100% magic resistence but take mana damage when hit by spells.
h) introduce a spell strike ability to nullify spell shield.
i) replace critical strike with a passive AOE.
j) remove attack penalty from powerful blows.
k) merge lock pick line into talents or give rogues the talent line for free.
l) give electricity a stun effect.
m) make shapeshifting instant and have stats scale to magic and not attributes.  Reapply previous selected talents when changing back to human form.
n) smarter AI, enabled in nightmare mode.
o) add the kickass mage robe and staff from the launcher to the game

Modifié par Jack-Nader, 12 janvier 2010 - 07:50 .

[Ancalimohtar]

kayapo wrote...

@Ancalimohtar - Amazing thread. Thank
you. Posts like this one surelly give the Devs things to think about. I
see lots of threads with some good points being made but possibly
getting lost in the middle of all the rudeness and overeacting that
normally goes on forums.

Thanks, I'm glad others are enjoying this thread.

And on that note, let's move off the topic of Oblivion. The underlying issue is that DA and Oblivion are not in the same genre of games. They have mutually exclusive elements, and criticisms on these elements amount to nothing than a criticism of the genre, which is far beyond the scope of this discussion. This has been yet another case of one poster arguing all by his lonesome with everybody, and everybody being aggroed onto him. nerf Forum Taunt pl0x.

Re: my criticisms on the setting, it really does surprise me how many people are okay with references to the real world. When I talk to an NPC and I'm learning about a fantasy kingdom in a fantasy land, and all of a sudden I realize it's supposed to be France, I immediately think about being on the elevator on the Eiffel Tower, being in that traffic jam on the Champs Elysees with the yellow, almost orange lights; I think about the paintings in the Louvre, about Louis 16 and Versailles and the red rope they put there so you can't touch the paintings; I think about the shops in Paris, about my friends who are French; in short, I think about the real world, and the real stuff in the real world. What's so hard about building a fantasy kingdom that's not based on a real one? The Forgotten Realms kingdoms have much, much weaker links to historical ones. I don't know, it just doesn't seem necessary to borrow even something like the accent, whose sole addition to the fictitious culture is a direct reference to a real culture. It doesn't add anything but a reminder of the real world, which is basically subtraction by addition.

Re: "Ser" and the other titles: Arl, arlessa, and arling don't make me think earl/count, countess, or county. I can't
imagine very many people recognize the word teyrn, and feel teyrn/teyrna/teyrnir are too close to duke/duchess/dukedom. And the bann is a ruler of a bannorn, which I guess I just never connected with a baron ruling a barony.

But a ser is just a sir. A knight is exactly just a knight. If you kept lady, why not just keep sir? I don't know, maybe I'm alone on this criticism, but this, added to the copycat foreign kingdoms and their copycat accents, made it seem like too many things taken from the real world that did not bring anything unique to the homebrew setting. All of a sudden the culture just felt more fake than fictitious. It would have been much better to copy the word straight instead of adding the artificial difference, like we're supposed to be fooled by Ser/Sir.

Anyway, just my personal critique of the setting, again.

Modifié par Ancalimohtar, 12 janvier 2010 - 10:04 .

[phordicus]

is there no specific Oblivion vs DAO debate thread anywhere? it keeps encroaching upon so many otherwise good threads.

[shree420]

Ancalimohtar wrote...

Re: my criticisms on the setting, it really does surprise me how many people are okay with references to the real world. When I talk to an NPC and I'm learning about a fantasy kingdom in a fantasy land, and all of a sudden I realize it's supposed to be France, I immediately think about being on the elevator on the Eiffel Tower, being in that traffic jam on the Champs Elysees with the yellow, almost orange lights; I think about the paintings in the Louvre, about Louis 16 and Versailles and the red rope they put there so you can't touch the paintings; I think about the shops in Paris, about my friends who are French; in short, I think about the real world, and the real stuff in the real world. What's so hard about building a fantasy kingdom that's not based on a real one? The Forgotten Realms kingdoms have much, much weaker links to historical ones. I don't know, it just doesn't seem necessary to borrow even something like the accent, whose sole addition to the fictitious culture is a direct reference to a real culture. It doesn't add anything but a reminder of the real world, which is basically subtraction by addition.

Re: "Ser" and the other titles: Arl, arlessa, and arling don't make me think earl/count, countess, or county. I can't
imagine very many people recognize the word teyrn, and feel teyrn/teyrna/teyrnir are too close to duke/duchess/dukedom. And the bann is a ruler of a bannorn, which I guess I just never connected with a baron ruling a barony.

But a ser is just a sir. A knight is exactly just a knight. If you kept lady, why not just keep sir? I don't know, maybe I'm alone on this criticism, but this, added to the copycat foreign kingdoms and their copycat accents, made it seem like too many things taken from the real world that did not bring anything unique to the homebrew setting. All of a sudden the culture just felt more fake than fictitious. It would have been much better to copy the word straight instead of adding the artificial difference, like we're supposed to be fooled by Ser/Sir.

Anyway, just my personal critique of the setting, again.

You seem to have a strong French connection

That may be why it annoys you, IMO. Me, I didn't mind it in the least, given the few characters there are. Would be interesting to hear if French players thought the same.

I would add that if DA 2 were to have Orlais as a place to go, having to hear the faux French accent from everyone you meet would drive me nuts. Unless DA:2 does a "Ok, Orlais was invaded and annihilated by Qunari. Now everyone there talks Sten-style, in grunts." Would save a lot on VO.

The Ser/Sir didn't bother me as well. Besides, I thought they pronounce it Sair instead of Suhr?

[Ancalimohtar]

Bump.

[Macadami]

So glad you bumped this, read the first 3 pages and skimmed the rest and I mostly agree with everything you mentioned. Playing DA:O made me really miss BG2, the epic scope and challenge just isn't there. The game has it's harder moments in nightmare mode, but the 'danger' and the need to 'prepare' via buffs or potions just never presents itself....After replaying DA:O a few times it's flaws have become quite obvious and the initial lust factor has started to wear off. The game, to me atleast, -plays- like it should be a MMO instead of a RPG(which is probably exactly what they're aiming for given the 3 DLCs already available). In BG2 and NWN2 (never played nwn1) the replayability urge was to try new tactics, new builds, and to some extent new gear. In The Witcher it was all about different choices and seeing how every little decision changed the shape of the game's world, and the truely fun and interesting boss fights.  This brings me to the first seemingly unmentioned flaw I think this game has. Loot...

The flaw isn't in designated drops, poorly rewarding Boss's, nor in the lack of good random gear (not that all of them couldn't in fact be better); I think it's a combination of a lack of diversity, ease of acquiring, and generalized gear that's good for every character. Blame it on the lack of classes or complexity in them, but i find it boring going for the same swords, same armor, same rings, and sticking to the most streamlined quickest way to get each of them. There is 1 great weapon for every role, and all of them are easily attainable near the beginning of the game. There is no gear progression so to say. Even on nightmare I never find myself 'needing' better gear before i get to my classes best. Like i said earlier, perhaps it's due in large to the generic talents and skill trees in each class, zero linearity except to the 'style' of weapon and not the weapon itself, but as Jack-Nader briefly mentioned in a post on page 2, complexity and variety are no longer seen as good things in a culture that pushes rewarding ignorance simplicity. Give me a 2h axe that deals aoe damage on normal swings, a staff that provides armor and reduces fatigue, a 1h mace that weakens, a bow that slows, and a shield with +attack and damage. If they're not going to give us lots of options in character building, atleast give us gear that can break the molds.

Now onto the topic of DA:O mages....once upon a time before Burning Crusade I was a smite crit spec priest on Illidan in the clan Blood Legion(back then basically the number 1 PvE and PVP guild in the US) My character could do massive 1 hit kill smite crits when self buffed and kept up in the healing meters fairly well thanks to crit heals.  Was it overpowered to deal massive damage and heal? Damn right it was....right until i was stunlocked, charged, or kited to death. Getting my character to perform like that also took months of raiding and pissing off lots of mages. DA:O gives you all you could ever ask for by level 14, which to me atleast, turns the game into easy mode even on nightmare. I like playing mages, hell i even like playing fighter/mage dual classes, but i -do not- like waltzing over content while doing so. You could say 'well pick different spells, play as a tank' but I enjoy fighting in the frontline and still casting spells, why should i have to purposely weaken my character and change my playstyle just to get a challenge. Some would say the Eldritch Knights were broken, or the Kensai Mages were overpowered.....but the game was still challenging, you still had to plan most fights and were never really a hair away from invincibility. They just provided damage and armor at an almost perfect equilibrium, or at least the best in their respective game. DA:O mages can debuff, CC, mass aoe, take a beating while doing it, and then mop up with a sword of equal or greater damage to a comparitive level warrior.  How to fix it? I don't know...but I do hope they figure it out.

Much more i would like to comment on but it's late here...does the DA:O formula work? Am i eager to purchase their next DLC? Yes. Would I have much perferred a rehash and refresh of BG2? Most definately.

Easy does not equal fun, variety enchances replayability, and sometimes spiritual successors with even the best of intentions cannot beat an already proven win. Buttered Popcorn Jelly Belly's may be sweet and tasty, but it just isn't the same as a bowl of movie theater butter covered goodness, but perhaps it does appeal to a different crowd.

[Ancalimohtar]

Macadami wrote...

This brings me to the first seemingly unmentioned flaw I think this game has. Loot...

The flaw isn't in designated drops, poorly rewarding Boss's, nor in the lack of good random gear (not that all of them couldn't in fact be better); I think it's a combination of a lack of diversity, ease of acquiring, and generalized gear that's good for every character. Blame it on the lack of classes or complexity in them, but i find it boring going for the same swords, same armor, same rings, and sticking to the most streamlined quickest way to get each of them. There is 1 great weapon for every role, and all of them are easily attainable near the beginning of the game. There is no gear progression so to say. Even on nightmare I never find myself 'needing' better gear before i get to my classes best. Like i said earlier, perhaps it's due in large to the generic talents and skill trees in each class, zero linearity except to the 'style' of weapon and not the weapon itself, but as Jack-Nader briefly mentioned in a post on page 2, complexity and variety are no longer seen as good things in a culture that pushes rewarding ignorance simplicity. Give me a 2h axe that deals aoe damage on normal swings, a staff that provides armor and reduces fatigue, a 1h mace that weakens, a bow that slows, and a shield with +attack and damage. If they're not going to give us lots of options in character building, atleast give us gear that can break the molds.

I agree with you about the lack of gear progression. I'm not a fan of having most of the best gear in the game as purchasable items rather than loot rewards for completing quests or killing bosses. I just don't like gold being important in this type of game; you should want to do quests for the unique rewards they offer, rather than for generic currency. Otherwise it just feels like grinding--oh I have to do X number of quests to get Y amount of gold so I can buy Z best-in-slot item.

As far as special abilities on gear, I think that might just be the reality of being the first game on this engine. When the expansion comes out, and when DA2 comes out, hopefully all those development resources can be shifted toward designing content rather than engine.

[Zecele]

I agree with you about the lack of gear progression. I'm not a fan of having most of the best gear in the game as purchasable items rather than loot rewards for completing quests or killing bosses. I just don't like gold being important in this type of game; you should want to do quests for the unique rewards they offer, rather than for generic currency. Otherwise it just feels like grinding--oh I have to do X number of quests to get Y amount of gold so I can buy Z best-in-slot item..

If i had to place a bet on it I would imagine the reasoning behind having most of the Uber items be buyable is it boils down to the non-linearity of the main campaign. Regardless of what order you do the quests in the Dev's can (somewhat) approximate what level you can acquire a X item and tune the leveled encounters around that. So for example they can tune the high dragon's level 10 incarnation knowing that you (probably) won't have X item due to funds while tuning it's level 14 incarnation knowing that you probably will.

Conversely, adding loot with stats on it to mobs when they have no idea what order you're going to do the areas introduces a quandary. Do those items get better or worse stats depending on when the boss dies? If yes how much does having that weaker/stronger item affect gameplay? If no would that be overpowered to be able to get X item at level 10 as opposed to level X?

KOTOR had this issue where you could cherry pick drops with static stats and then go to other areas. For example you could do Kasshyk for the Circlet of Saresh, or run to Korriban just to pick up the Quel Droma robes before going to your first area. It made the main story a lot easier.

If I'm being honest here I think the option to do the areas in any order you want, with scaling difficulty, doesn't do the game any favors. The "flavor" in the game for me comes mostly from playing as a different PC and/or party. Playing good, playing evil, exploring different romance options etc....is where the varience for me comes in.  Which order I do the areas in hardly varies and from what I gather from most players I'm not unusual. Note I'm not saying that most players all do it in the same order as each other, simply that most players once they have a preferred order tend to repeat that order.

It seems like "linear" has become a dirty word lately in story driven CRPG's and frankly I don't get it. I find the origin sequence and Ostagar/Tower of Ishal to be one of my favorite sequences of the game despite being 100% linear. The non-linear progression of the game does zip for me in the flavor/variance department. Especially considering the fact that you must do each area at some point so in a small aspect it is, ironically, linear. Then you switch back to an almost 100% linear format for the end game.

Biting the bullet and just making you do mage tower, forest, Redcliffe, Denerim, and Orzamar in a set order (while keeping side quests intact that can be done any time) would go a long way to solving a few issues.

a) It would make encounters easier to tune for a better challenge because most people will be approaching the fights at the same level and with the same gear.

Make's it easier to implement gear drops/rewards for main quest completion that are appropriate to the level you would receive them.

c)  It may actually enhance the story for some.  It seemed a little stupid to me as a player to say "Oh Arl Eamon is on his deathbed?  Hrm, let me go do a bunch of other stuff first before I take care of that".  

All while losing an aspect that I think many people wouldn't really care if it went away anyway.

Modifié par Zecele, 25 janvier 2010 - 05:49 .

[Upper_Krust]

Hi there Ancalimohtar!

Easily the best post I have read on these forums, kudos.

I will surely have some specific comments on your opener a little later, until then consider this a bump for others who may have missed this thread.

Modifié par Upper_Krust, 25 janvier 2010 - 06:39 .

[Bozorgmehr]

Ancalimohtar wrote...

I agree with you about the lack of gear progression. I'm not a fan of having most of the best gear in the game as purchasable items rather than loot rewards for completing quests or killing bosses. I just don't like gold being important in this type of game; you should want to do quests for the unique rewards they offer, rather than for generic currency. Otherwise it just feels like grinding--oh I have to do X number of quests to get Y amount of gold so I can buy Z best-in-slot item.

I don't see the real difference. Isn't doing a particular quest to acquire a particular item as a reward the same as doing a certain quest to get enough money to buy a particular item? I'm content with the way the devs have implemented the money system. As it is, it doesn't really matter in what order you complete the (main) quests. After completing one (of the main quests), you should have enough money to buy one legendary item.

Modifié par Bozorgmehr, 25 janvier 2010 - 10:42 .