300 réponses à ce sujet

[LPPrince]

Agreed Sylvius.

[thats1evildude]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

We should we presuppose the existence of boss fights at all?

Because it's a video game. a) Bosses are expected in video games and bosses help the flow of a video game.

I know you'd rather not have to play a video game. I know you'd rather play out your own personal drama with finger puppets who only say and do what you want them to say and do. You've said as much ten thousand times before, and you'll say it ten thousand times from now.

Modifié par thats1evildude, 11 décembre 2012 - 06:26 .

[Fredward]

Is it REALLY arbitrary if the doors ONLY lock during boss fights?

[esper]

Whille it would be much better if it was always justified, I think this is just one of these examples where gameplay thrumps story ntegration.

Pathfinding, enemy ai, combat design and so forth have to be taken into consideration and for it to work sometimes it will have to be restricted to a certain area.

[Xewaka]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...
Is it REALLY arbitrary if the doors ONLY lock during boss fights?

It is arbitrary unless an adequate in-game reason (not a metagame reason such as "It's a boss fight") is given.
The Qunari closing the gates to their compound to try and take down Hawke and Aveline? Makes sense. It is justified in-game. Hence, not arbitrary.
The cave you just came out from being suddenly blocked because a Dragon landed on the plateau? Doesn't make sense, as the cave is still "open" over there. Hence, arbitrary.

Modifié par Xewaka, 11 décembre 2012 - 06:22 .

[hoorayforicecream]

esper wrote...

Whille it would be much better if it was always justified, I think this is just one of these examples where gameplay thrumps story ntegration.

Pathfinding, enemy ai, combat design and so forth have to be taken into consideration and for it to work sometimes it will have to be restricted to a certain area.

Not everyone will agree with you, and some of them will start threads into perpetuity because they don't.

[Alexander1136]

 I agree.  unless it's a big boss battle where you have to use the room and find the patterns of the boss which change to his health, then it's okay in my book.

[Realmzmaster]

I am with StM on this matter. There is no reason for a door my party has just opened to lock. The party should have the ability to move back into an area that the party just left. It would be understandable if some one comes behind the party and locks the door like Bertrand did. I can even see breaking the lock on a magically sealed door and it resealing behind the party. There simply has to be a reason for the locking.

I understand the purpose of locking the door to prevent the gamer from using a party member to lure the enemy out one or a small group at a time to make the battle more intense and not allow the party to retreat and regroup. The reasoning is simply wrong. It flies in the face of basic strategy.

Far better to make the enemy AI more "intelligent" so that it does not fall for the ruse. Make it so that the gamer has to change his/her strategy. Or make so that if the party member tries to lure a enemy out that the enemy sounds an alarm alerting the other enemies.
Or have the boss monster order the other enemies to hold and let the party come to them then have a shade or other enemy slip past the party to block retreat, bar the door or shut it and magically seal it.

Give a reason for the door closing.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 11 décembre 2012 - 06:39 .

[Maria Caliban]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Is it REALLY arbitrary if the doors ONLY lock during boss fights?

I laughed.

It's neither arbitrary nor random. Though if I were living in that world, I'd start taking doors off their hinges before entering rooms.

[Sylvius the Mad]

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

So basically, Sylvius, you don't dislike the idea of doors locking in themselves. What you dislike is there being no excuse for it in the setting, right?

Right.  ME2 did this constantly.  I'd move into the next section of corridors only to find that a door I hadn't even known was there (because it was open) had closed behind me, and it happened again and again and again.

It was awful.

Does this mean you were totally fine with the scene in Mark of the Assassin, where your path backward (and forward as well) was stopped by the sudden appearance of portcullis as activated by those you're about to fight?

I didn't play MotA.  I gave up on DA2 well before its release.

[upsettingshorts]

There's a random encounter like that in Denerim in DAO as well.

[Sylvius the Mad]

DragonOfWhiteThunder wrote...

Caring about how your players overcome your challenges, however, is an integral part of challenge design. Good challenge design will allow a player to overcome any given challenge in multiple ways, particularly with permutations along any given avenue, but ultimately, it is on the designer to anticipate how a player might go about overcoming the challenge to appropriately gauge the difficulty of that challenge.

Why should the difficulty be consistent across all playthroughs?  All this does is produce a contrived game world.

This also ties into ensuring that the player learns the critical skills necessary to complete further challenges.

They shouldn't need to ensure that.  They should allow that, but spoodfeeding us lessons doesn't make for a believable game world.

Using choke points is an easy method to trivialize encounters that permit it in both Dragon Age games, but does nothing to prepare the player for the vast majority of encounters they will face. However, proper threat management is intended to be a critical player skill, so an encounter that breaks versimilitude but forces the player to develop that skill is better designed than an encounter that preserves the verisimilitude of the environment but allows the player to abuse a tactic that will not serve them in further gameplay.

I would like to point out the threat management isn't necessary in DAO at all.  Crowd Control alone was sufficient to defeat the vast majority of encounters.  Paralysis Explosion the Ogre at the top of the Tower of Ishal, and that fight is easily defeated.  The same is true for nearly ever major encounter.

Honestly, the only big fight I can think of where that doesn't work is Jarvia, but Jarvia isn't defeated through threat management either (given the prevalance of hidden assassins).

And I completely disagree with your point about verisimilitude.  Nothing in the game is ever more important that verisimilitude.

That being said, an encounter that both requires the development of critical player skills and preserves the versimilitude of the environment is a much, much better designed encounter, and certainly possible. And the aforementioned Ancient Rock Wraith encounter fails to do either - it encloses you in an arbitrarily defined arena, and the primary skill necessary is to be able to identify safe havens during its AoE attack, which is never used again.

Or before.  As I mentioned, eveey AoE attack in Thedas, up to that point, ignores the environment in determining its area of effect.

I also think it's a poor encounter in that, once you have identified those safe havens, the fight becomes trivial.  Finding one trick shouldn't be enough.  Action-adventure games (like God of War) do this all the time.  I do not play Action-Adventure games.

[Sylvius the Mad]

nightscrawl wrote...

Let's take the Deep Roads final boss, the Ancient Rock Wraith.  That fight is specifically designed so that you make use of the pillars to block his huge AOE ability. They want you to fight in that room so that you use those pillars, and so the boss can be manipulated by the game to go to specific areas and do his stuff. In that fight the
entrance/exist are blocked off by a force field. Now, imagine that it wasn't there and we were able to kite the boss to wherever. There would be pathing issues, the boss might get stuck in a wall, and so on.

Is it a good encounter?  Do all of these restrictions and controls make this a good encounter?

No, they do not.

Yes, in order to make the encounter work as it does, these restrictions are necessary.  But why is that valuable?

esper wrote...

Whille it would be much better if it was always justified, I think this is just one of these examples where gameplay thrumps story ntegration.

Gameplay/story segregation is never acceptable.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 11 décembre 2012 - 07:21 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

thats1evildude wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

We should we presuppose the existence of boss fights at all?

Because it's a video game. a) Bosses are expected in video games and bosses help the flow of a video game.

It is a roleplaying game.  The medium is irrelevant.

a) Why do our expectations matter?
Why should the developers be at all concerned with flow?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Maria Caliban wrote...

It's neither arbitrary nor random. Though if I were living in that world, I'd start taking doors off their hinges before entering rooms.

Your character does live in that world.  These encounters should drive her mental.

[In Exile]

DragonOfWhiteThunder wrote...
This also ties into ensuring that the player learns the critical skills necessary to complete further challenges. Using choke points is an easy method to trivialize encounters that permit it in both Dragon Age games, but does nothing to prepare the player for the vast majority of encounters they will face.

That's just false. All of DA:A  and DA:O can be dealt with via chokepoints (or equivalents), including even the archdemon battle. It's just about putting your back against the wall and then having enemies run to your killzone. Threat management is useless, because you can massacree everything withi heartbeats.

The same applies to DA2. Put your back to wall, and suddenly, enemies are a joke. There's one MoTA fight in particular - the side quest were you're locked behind a flaming wall with a Revenant equivalent - where all you need to to do is just find the right corner, and then all the mooks become rather easy to defeat. The only issue remains the boss, which is an HP sponge.

Basically, name a DA:O and DA:A or DA2 encounter and I will give you a chokepoint or equivaelnt you can use against it.

However, proper threat management is intended to be a critical player skill, so an encounter that breaks versimilitude but forces the player to develop that skill is better designed than an encounter that preserves the verisimilitude of the environment but allows the player to abuse a tactic that will not serve them in further gameplay.

Threat management, like I said above, is just about creating a boss that's an HP sponge and forcing you to have an equialvent HP sponge.

[In Exile]

Wulfram wrote...
It's an unintended strategy that the game can't handle probably and therefore makes the combat much easier than is intended.  That's a reason for it not to be possible.

It also may not make sense in the story.  It's kind of silly if the heroes burst through the door to stop the villains villainous villainy, and then, after exchanging a few barbs, they immediately run out of the room again.  The AI, being dumb, will just charge after the PC into the convenient chokepoint, but the villains should really just shrug and get back on with villaining.

But my point is that you don't need to go to another room. You can just pick the corner of one room. And then have the enemies come at you. As long as you've basically got your back in one of the four corners of the room, you have a choke-point/killzone.

[AtreiyaN7]

I do find the instantaneous door-locking illogical and silly, unless your enemy has a mage with some sort of door-locking spell. I realize that they're doing it because the fights are supposed to be do or die, so even though I do find it a smidge annoying, it's something I can mostly live with. Wouldn't be against them adding an option to escape from a fight, however.

Modifié par AtreiyaN7, 11 décembre 2012 - 08:08 .

[Dave of Canada]

Fully agree with this, perhaps have enemies with anti-doorway mechanics too. Such as rogues throwing grenades into the doorway to try and force you out.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 11 décembre 2012 - 07:54 .

[Fredward]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Is it REALLY arbitrary if the doors ONLY lock during boss fights?

I laughed.

It's neither arbitrary nor random. Though if I were living in that world, I'd start taking doors off their hinges before entering rooms.

She gets me. xp


Sylvius does it bother you if there are suddenly magical barriers instead of doors blocking retreat? I mean then there is an "in game" explanation for it, yes?

[mutombomania]

Its nice, when games at least try to explain, why doors are closing, bridges crumble and the teleporter stops working
Thats part of good storytelling, just using this mechanics, without an explanation is lame.

On the other hand, there plenty cool ways to integrate something like locked doors in the game.
Like an enemy mage locking all doors, kill him fast and you have an advantage.
there are already ways to use traps to your advantage, why not build on that?

[thats1evildude]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

It is a roleplaying game.  The medium is irrelevant.

a) Why do our expectations matter?
Why should the developers be at all concerned with flow?

Sometimes your movements are so lifelike I forget you're not a real boy.

a) The medium is very relevant. If this was a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, boss battles are unimportant because there's no mechanism for defeating bosses. But this is a video game. Boss battles are used in video games to "cap" a portion of the game — or the entire game itself — because we're accustomed in fiction to facing a major villain at the conclusion of the story.

Because it's a story and flow, or "pacing," is important to the story. When you play a game like this, you're agreeing to participate in a narrative. I know you'd rather have the finger puppets, but your desires are not possible and irrelevant.

[Fredward]

thats1evildude wrote...
Sometimes your movements are so lifelike I forget you're not a real boy.

Tut, tut. Manners. Sylvius might be bizzarely set in his views but he's never rude.

[thats1evildude]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Tut, tut. Manners. Sylvius might be bizzarely set in his views but he's never rude.

If I really wanted to injure Sylvius, I'd present him with a logical paradox and watch his head explode.

He's not a child. You don't need to hold his hand. If he's offended, he can report me or even try insulting me back.