300 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Encounters in games do this a lot.  You enter a room, a fight starts, and if you try to flee you discover that all of the doors - even the one you just opened with a key - are now locked and there's nothing you can do about it (though they then do often magically open as soon as the fight is over).

This should never happen.  ME2 did this incessantly.  DAO did it on a number of occasions (Jarvia springs to mind).  It's never okay.

If the door locks behind us, there had better be a good reason for it that isn't just "this is how we want the fight to happen".

It's often true that we cannot leave an area while in combat - that's a consistent restriction doesn't really bother me - but we can generally run wherever we would like within an area during an encounter.  Retreating to a chokepoint was perhaps the most effective tactic available in DA2.  But when we enter a smaller area only to have the door inexplicably lock behind us, even though under normal circumstances the door would be openable, that badly damages the credibility of the game's setting.

If you want an encounter to be difficult, fine, but achieve that difficulty without changing the rules of the game world arbitrarily.  Having an encounter be unexpectedly trivial is better than having an encounter be arbitrarily nonsensical.

[FaWa]

If you open the door, you can make magically appearing enemies come through there too!

[d4eaming]

Always found this annoying too. Unless they can place an ambush behind the door to account for it being locked, and I walk in on them when I finish with the current group. That might be ok as long as it's not overused.

[rapscallioness]

yeah, I do like having the option to flee if I need to. Cuz sometimes you need to flee. There's no shame. There are some quests I think I'm just going to investigate things. Then..omg! And I'm not prepared.

Perhaps that's my fault for not always being prepared. But when that does happen--and I'm locked in--I have no choice but to reload. Let's hope I have a decent save point.

Or...*shudders* lower the difficulty, which is so demoralizing.

I could even see getting some funny party banter outta fleeing.

[Medhia Nox]

Though it doesn't bother me - it's removal would be appreciated. I think I'm just so used to this form of encounter design.

Thinking about it - I agree that being locked in never really adds to the encounter.

[Pedrak]

I agree.

Not as annoying as the "combat-triggering conversations break your party formation in spite of the fact that you wanted your mage to be on the other side of the room", but still a pretty lame design choice.

[iOnlySignIn]

Memory constraints.

If not for this console peasants would have their dilapidated contraptions burnt to ash.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Encounters in games do this a lot.  You enter a room, a fight starts, and if you try to flee you discover that all of the doors - even the one you just opened with a key - are now locked and there's nothing you can do about it (though they then do often magically open as soon as the fight is over).

This should never happen.  ME2 did this incessantly.  DAO did it on a number of occasions (Jarvia springs to mind).  It's never okay.

If the door locks behind us, there had better be a good reason for it that isn't just "this is how we want the fight to happen".

It's often true that we cannot leave an area while in combat - that's a consistent restriction doesn't really bother me - but we can generally run wherever we would like within an area during an encounter.  Retreating to a chokepoint was perhaps the most effective tactic available in DA2.  But when we enter a smaller area only to have the door inexplicably lock behind us, even though under normal circumstances the door would be openable, that badly damages the credibility of the game's setting.

If you want an encounter to be difficult, fine, but achieve that difficulty without changing the rules of the game world arbitrarily.  Having an encounter be unexpectedly trivial is better than having an encounter be arbitrarily nonsensical.

The thing is, I think the basic problem is that (and I'm aware you think this argument is bunk) we essentially play the game "wrong". And by that, I mean we use chokepoints. We're meant to manage enemies using warrior abilities like taunt, and use healing to keep the warrior alive. But we don't. We (rationally) use the environment.

The designers (wrongly) think we wouldn't do this, or that we would play properly. But ignoring whether there should be a "right" way to play, we can both agree that the game being designed to ignore physical geographic is just not fun, because strategy and tactics should be about the geography.

[stormhit]

iOnlySignIn wrote...

Memory constraints.

If not for this console peasants would have their dilapidated contraptions burnt to ash.

That doesn't even begin to make any sense.

[ShaggyWolf]

I don't see what's so wrong with it. Both Dragon age games afford you situations where you can control the fight and use most of the level to your advantage, while also creating situations where you must fight in an area determined by encounter design.

This isn't a real life simulator. At some point you have to realize that these are video games, and sometimes, a design choice is going to be made to challenge the player, instead of rolling over and handing you all the loot and story progression.

"I don't like it"=/= Bad game design

To be completely hypocritical though, I will agree with Pedrak's point about conversations breaking party positioning before a fight. I hate that.

[DarkSpiral]

stormhit13 wrote...

iOnlySignIn wrote...

Memory constraints.

If not for this console peasants would have their dilapidated contraptions burnt to ash.

That doesn't even begin to make any sense.

I think (think!) that we have someone looking down their nose at console owning games again. The "contraptions burning to ash" bit means that the poster is saying the Xbox can't do this to hardware limitations, and would crash if it was forced to try.

I could be wrong. I don't believe I am. 

Modifié par DarkSpiral, 11 décembre 2012 - 12:19 .

[Vaeliorin]

I have to admit, I can't recall this happening to me in DA, but in the ME games it drove me crazy, because doors would lock behind you as soon as you went through them, regardless of combat. So if I went the "right" way, I might miss being able to look down a branch of a hallway or something, and I'd have to reload (because I can't stand not exploring every direction.)

[d4eaming]

Vaeliorin wrote...

I have to admit, I can't recall this happening to me in DA, but in the ME games it drove me crazy, because doors would lock behind you as soon as you went through them, regardless of combat. So if I went the "right" way, I might miss being able to look down a branch of a hallway or something, and I'd have to reload (because I can't stand not exploring every direction.)

I try to counter this by ignoring the very obvious "right way path" and going down the other halls, or moving in directions contrary to my objective pointer. It usually works, because sadly, too many games are linear and you can tell when you're nearing the end. I also make a habit of following the right side wall- visit every path starting from the right and working my way left, skipping the one that leads to the encounter, then backtracking once I've covered everything.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

The thing is, I think the basic problem is that (and I'm aware you think this argument is bunk) we essentially play the game "wrong". And by that, I mean we use chokepoints. We're meant to manage enemies using warrior abilities like taunt, and use healing to keep the warrior alive. But we don't. We (rationally) use the environment.

The designers (wrongly) think we wouldn't do this, or that we would play properly. But ignoring whether there should be a "right" way to play, we can both agree that the game being designed to ignore physical geographic is just not fun, because strategy and tactics should be about the geography.

If the designers actually did think that we wouldn't use chokepoints, then they would have no reason to lock the doors behind us.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I wanted to go back in ME2 to get more ammo. It's lunacy that Shepard could have a limited ammo problem, know there's a room full of ammo behind him, and not keep going back to get more.

[Direwolf0294]

I didn't know this happened in any BioWare game, I guess because I never run away from fights. As iOnlySignIn said, it's probably got something to do with memory, though I imagine it helps both console and PC versions of the game. The only other explanation I can think of is the ability to backtrack the entire level while being chased by NPCs would somehow cause those NPCs to glitch. Using DA as an example, maybe if you left a house while in combat and then reentered it the NPCs wouldn't spawn properly or something. I doubt it has anything to do with trying to make the game more difficult.

[d4eaming]

In Exile wrote...

The thing is, I think the basic problem is that (and I'm aware you think this argument is bunk) we essentially play the game "wrong". And by that, I mean we use chokepoints. We're meant to manage enemies using warrior abilities like taunt, and use healing to keep the warrior alive. But we don't. We (rationally) use the environment.

The designers (wrongly) think we wouldn't do this, or that we would play properly. But ignoring whether there should be a "right" way to play, we can both agree that the game being designed to ignore physical geographic is just not fun, because strategy and tactics should be about the geography.

Taunting and healing would work easier if the cooldown wasn't so long. Sure, I can use misdirection (I r hunter!) or draw attention to myself as a rogue, but it's not very efficient. When Isabela does this, she ends up dead before I can save her. There doesn't seem to be much real threat, and if I drop a fireball right after my "tank" (usually Fenris) taunts, I still pull aggro because my magic does so much damage. I usually take force magic though and can handle it, but that's not always the case.

I must be playing wrong, because my party always ends up all over the place, mobs chasing the rogue across the map, three smashing on the mage, one dps knifing another mob in the back, and the tank holding only one enemy to himself, and typically not even the strongest one.

We need true threat management, or just dispense with the whole holy trinity tank/dps/heals idea.

[Direwolf0294]

d4eaming wrote...
or just dispense with the whole holy trinity tank/dps/heals idea.

This one, please. The holy trinity is horrible in MMOs, but it's even worse in single player RPGs. It doesn't even work that well in DA. My playstyle consists of letting my characters do whatever the hell they want, sometimes focus firing one specific NPC, and if it's a really hard fight, like a boss fight, the character with the most aggro, be it warrior, rogue or mage, kites the enemy NPC/s around the room while the rest of the group nuke it. If one of the other characters in the group gets aggro I just switch to them and use them to kite the enemy/s around the room. It's the only way I've found to beat the Ogre at the end of the Light the Tower quests in DA:O and the only way I've found to beat the dragon in the Deep Roads in DA2.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Direwolf0294 wrote...

I didn't know this happened in any BioWare game, I guess because I never run away from fights. As iOnlySignIn said, it's probably got something to do with memory, though I imagine it helps both console and PC versions of the game. The only other explanation I can think of is the ability to backtrack the entire level while being chased by NPCs would somehow cause those NPCs to glitch. Using DA as an example, maybe if you left a house while in combat and then reentered it the NPCs wouldn't spawn properly or something. I doubt it has anything to do with trying to make the game more difficult.

I'm not suggesting we should be allowed to leave areas (like a discrete house), but imagine a fight in Darktown where doors closed behind you and couldn't be opened.  That would be dreadful.

A case like the gates to the Qunari compound closing might work, because there's someone there to close the gates and it makes sense that someone would under some circumstances.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Direwolf0294 wrote...

d4eaming wrote...
or just dispense with the whole holy trinity tank/dps/heals idea.

This one, please. The holy trinity is horrible in MMOs, but it's even worse in single player RPGs. It doesn't even work that well in DA. My playstyle consists of letting my characters do whatever the hell they want, sometimes focus firing one specific NPC, and if it's a really hard fight, like a boss fight, the character with the most aggro, be it warrior, rogue or mage, kites the enemy NPC/s around the room while the rest of the group nuke it. If one of the other characters in the group gets aggro I just switch to them and use them to kite the enemy/s around the room. It's the only way I've found to beat the Ogre at the end of the Light the Tower quests in DA:O and the only way I've found to beat the dragon in the Deep Roads in DA2.

I simply don't enjoy playing with the holy trinity, so I don't.  I really enjoyed the 3 Mages + Archer party in DAO, and was endlessly annoyed that such a party didn't work particularly well (when it was even available) in DA2.

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I simply don't enjoy playing with the holy trinity, so I don't.

Ah, a Unitarian.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 11 décembre 2012 - 01:04 .

[Withidread]

I'm a bit confused here... hasn't this mechanic been used by game designers of all varieties since about the beginning of time?

[Kileyan]

I don't like the door closing behind you for every combat, but I didn't find it was overused much in DA2.

What I don't want to see it how ME( ME2 especially) handled a lot of maps. Simply walking through a door often made it impossible to ever return to that previous area in the game, ever again. Too bad if a weapon, upgrade or side quest item were there. You walked a step too far, blah.

As long as I can turn around after the staged battle to explore that long coordor I never got around to, it doesn't kill me to have the little arena type battles, but they should make sense when its used.

[Wulfram]

There are potentially plot issues related to letting the player run away. If you've arrived just in time to stop the dragon from eating the princess, then if you run away, does the princess get eaten? And more generally the game may not be set up for the situation where you've fought this guy but not actually defeated them.

It also I guess may create issues with cutscenes if you're in the wrong area. At best, you'll have to deal with a bit of teleporting going on.

Also, the advantage you gain in DA2 by avoiding the inconvenient spawns behind you is something of an exploit IMO. There's no good reason why the enemies would choose to jump down from the rooftops at the same place even though you're not fighting there any more.

[TheRealJayDee]

Pedrak wrote...

I agree.

Not as annoying as the "combat-triggering conversations break your party formation in spite of the fact that you wanted your mage to be on the other side of the room", but still a pretty lame design choice.