178 réponses à ce sujet

[nicethugbert]

Paul Sedgmore wrote...

They could if the game had been designed around them but to be honest with you the cost to payoff for the features you are asking for is too high. 

This sort of thing has been done before and people appreciate it.  So, no, it's not too costly.

[Steppenwolf]

nicethugbert wrote...

It's worth the effort.  Giving the customer satisfaction is always worth the effort.  Otherwise the customer may as well dispose of their disposable income somewhere else.  It's certainly not the most difficult task in the world.  You don't see the inventory tetris crowd telling BW to not put in all their favorite complications because it would be too much trouble.  They want what they want and they don't give a damn how hard it is to make it happen.  What I'm asking for is no more difficult than everything else you see in the game.

You're the only one asking for this. Why is it worth their time and money to do this for a single potential customer? There are more people asking for Sigrun to be a romanceable companion in Inquisition...

nicethugbert wrote...

BasilKarlo wrote...

Bioware games boast choices that effect the story, not choices to assuage your OCD.

I don't have OCD.  That is the problem I'm trying to solve!

You want to give yourself OCD by playing with extraneous sliders?

nicethugbert wrote...

BasilKarlo wrote...

I have played the NWN games and they didn't offer the features you're demanding.

Then
you know of their toolsets.  A player made an XP slider.  No modules
blew up because of it.  I was able to play modules just fine with the
extra XP.  A gold slider would be the same.  You know about the random
spawn scripts created by players in the NWN1/2 toolsets.  You know about
all the modules and PWs and all the variety of content in NWN1/2 and
the years of enjoyment derived from it.  No kittens were harmed in the
making of that content.

You also know that NWN1/2 have a command
line where you can give yourself all the gold, items, and XP you want. 
No harm cam of that.

But, on these forums a little of that is
impossible but even the DA:O inventory is not complicated enough for
some people and no expense can be spared to make it.

Origins has command prompts. I do it all the time to give myself money. And if you want these features that players made in the past why not just make them yourself? Origins and DA2 are moddable and there's no reason at all to think Inquisition won't be.
You're an unreasonable person who lacks self-awareness.

[Steppenwolf]

nicethugbert wrote...

Paul Sedgmore wrote...

They could if the game had been designed around them but to be honest with you the cost to payoff for the features you are asking for is too high. 

This sort of thing has been done before and people appreciate it.  So, no, it's not too costly.

When? When has it been done before? You offered NWN as an example but that's a lie. You're referring to command prompts and user-created mods. And show me your resume with a wealth of game design experience to back up your claims that it wouldn't be too costly.

[Doctoglethorpe]

I remember when RPG's included lots of yummy statistics and inventory/skill managing.  Good times.

Then they went mainstream.

Le sigh...

[Neon Rising Winter]

Doctor Moustache wrote...

I remember when RPG's included lots of yummy statistics and inventory/skill managing.  Good times.

Then they went mainstream.

Le sigh...

Have you considered a career in project management? You could get to produce lots of statistics, juggle resources and even get paid for it too. And certain meetings feel a lot like boss fights.

Wandering back on topic. Customise everything in sight sounds nice in theory, and like a hideous QA nightmare in practice. For something only a small fraction of the player base would ever engage with.

[Paul Sedgmore]

nicethugbert wrote...

Paul Sedgmore wrote...

They could if the game had been designed around them but to be honest with you the cost to payoff for the features you are asking for is too high. 

This sort of thing has been done before and people appreciate it.  So, no, it's not too costly.

Have you ever been involved with a decision like this for a product? because I have and even if the option doesn't completely break the game it does effect stuff outside of that feature and to make sure that doesn't happen takes time and people to re-balance or fix issues caused by that feature which costs money. Not to mention that it is a small amount of people who would use these features in the first place it is just not cost effective to provide those features.

[nicethugbert]

BasilKarlo wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

It's worth the effort.  Giving the customer satisfaction is always worth the effort.  Otherwise the customer may as well dispose of their disposable income somewhere else.  It's certainly not the most difficult task in the world.  You don't see the inventory tetris crowd telling BW to not put in all their favorite complications because it would be too much trouble.  They want what they want and they don't give a damn how hard it is to make it happen.  What I'm asking for is no more difficult than everything else you see in the game.

You're the only one asking for this.  Why is it worth their time and money to do this for a single potential
customer? There are more people asking for Sigrun to be a romanceable
companion in Inquisition...

I may be the only one asking for this right here right now but it is not the first time I have asked for it nor is it the first time I have seen others ask for it.  There was a thread in the ME3 MP asking for this sort of thing not too long ago.  and, one of the Biowarians answered that he would like to do something even more involved than this but it was too late in the development of the game for it on account of how much he wanted to do.

So, this is not as singular a request as you might prefer to think it is.

BasilKarlo wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

BasilKarlo wrote...

Bioware games boast choices that effect the story, not choices to assuage your OCD.

I don't have OCD.  That is the problem I'm trying to solve!

You want to give yourself OCD by playing with extraneous sliders?

4 sliders and 2 check boxes?  Have you ever adjusted your graphics card settings?  It's not difficult.

BasilKarlo wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

BasilKarlo wrote...

I have played the NWN games and they didn't offer the features you're demanding.

Then
you know of their toolsets.  A player made an XP slider.  No modules
blew up because of it.  I was able to play modules just fine with the
extra XP.  A gold slider would be the same.  You know about the random
spawn scripts created by players in the NWN1/2 toolsets.  You know about
all the modules and PWs and all the variety of content in NWN1/2 and
the years of enjoyment derived from it.  No kittens were harmed in the
making of that content.

You also know that NWN1/2 have a command
line where you can give yourself all the gold, items, and XP you want. 
No harm cam of that.

But, on these forums a little of that is
impossible but even the DA:O inventory is not complicated enough for
some people and no expense can be spared to make it.

Origins has command prompts. I do it all the time to give myself money. And if you want these features that players made in the past why not just make them yourself? Origins and DA2 are moddable and there's no reason at all to think Inquisition won't be.
You're an unreasonable person who lacks self-awareness.

I can apply that to all your favorite features.  Why don't you go work for Bioware for free?

[nicethugbert]

BasilKarlo wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

Paul Sedgmore wrote...

They could if the game had been designed around them but to be honest with you the cost to payoff for the features you are asking for is too high. 

This sort of thing has been done before and people appreciate it.  So, no, it's not too costly.

When? When has it been done before? You offered NWN as an example but that's a lie. You're referring to command prompts and user-created mods. And show me your resume with a wealth of game design experience to back up your claims that it wouldn't be too costly.

It's been done in DAO, DA2, ME1, ME2, ME3, and nearly every computer game since the first computer game.  It's called a difficulty setting.  Look at what the settings do.  I want the same thing in discreet form rather than a package.

[nicethugbert]

Paul Sedgmore wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

Paul Sedgmore wrote...

They could if the game had been designed around them but to be honest with you the cost to payoff for the features you are asking for is too high. 

This sort of thing has been done before and people appreciate it.  So, no, it's not too costly.

Have you ever been involved with a decision like this for a product? because I have and even if the option doesn't completely break the game it does effect stuff outside of that feature and to make sure that doesn't happen takes time and people to re-balance or fix issues caused by that feature which costs money. Not to mention that it is a small amount of people who would use these features in the first place it is just not cost effective to provide those features.

The features I propose address common differences in gaming audiences so no, it can't be just a few people who would use it.  The proposed features are the components of difficulty settings and peole adjust those al lthe time so, again, it's not somethig only a few people would use.

The balance argument is false because the purpose of the sliders is for players to determine for themselves what is balanced for themselves to play with.  It is not a mechanism for someone to tell you how to play the game.  Your prefereances will not be affected by someone else's preferances.

[Paul Sedgmore]

nicethugbert wrote...

Paul Sedgmore wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

Paul Sedgmore wrote...

They could if the game had been designed around them but to be honest with you the cost to payoff for the features you are asking for is too high. 

This sort of thing has been done before and people appreciate it.  So, no, it's not too costly.

Have you ever been involved with a decision like this for a product? because I have and even if the option doesn't completely break the game it does effect stuff outside of that feature and to make sure that doesn't happen takes time and people to re-balance or fix issues caused by that feature which costs money. Not to mention that it is a small amount of people who would use these features in the first place it is just not cost effective to provide those features.

The features I propose address common differences in gaming audiences so no, it can't be just a few people who would use it.  The proposed features are the components of difficulty settings and peole adjust those al lthe time so, again, it's not somethig only a few people would use.

The balance argument is false because the purpose of the sliders is for players to determine for themselves what is balanced for themselves to play with.  It is not a mechanism for someone to tell you how to play the game.  Your prefereances will not be affected by someone else's preferances.

Lets just look at one of the things you want a slider for:

Wealth:
you want a slider to increase or decrease how much money you can get so lets look at the extremes of this:
Get loads of money: after one encounter you have enough money to purchase the best armour and weapons, this de-values the weapons and makes the encounters easier than they should be <- not balanced

Get a really small amount of money: this makes buying even bog standard weapons and armour nearly impossible and can make encounters with even a basic enemy impossible <- not balanced

To make these options balanced would take a lot of work 

Balance isn't just a multiplayer thing

[nicethugbert]

Paul Sedgmore wrote...
Lets just look at one of the things you want a slider for:

Wealth:
you want a slider to increase or decrease how much money you can get so lets look at the extremes of this:
Get loads of money: after one encounter you have enough money to purchase the best armour and weapons, this de-values the weapons and makes the encounters easier than they should be <- not balanced

Get a really small amount of money: this makes buying even bog standard weapons and armour nearly impossible and can make encounters with even a basic enemy impossible <- not balanced

To make these options balanced would take a lot of work 

Balance isn't just a multiplayer thing

In other words, you are bothered by how other people play in the privacy of their own computer.  Why is it that so many people can not mind their own business?

[Paul Sedgmore]

nicethugbert wrote...

Paul Sedgmore wrote...
Lets just look at one of the things you want a slider for:

Wealth:
you want a slider to increase or decrease how much money you can get so lets look at the extremes of this:
Get loads of money: after one encounter you have enough money to purchase the best armour and weapons, this de-values the weapons and makes the encounters easier than they should be <- not balanced

Get a really small amount of money: this makes buying even bog standard weapons and armour nearly impossible and can make encounters with even a basic enemy impossible <- not balanced

To make these options balanced would take a lot of work 

Balance isn't just a multiplayer thing

In other words, you are bothered by how other people play in the privacy of their own computer.  Why is it that so many people can not mind their own business?

I'm not bothered how you play the game in the slightest, you can cheat or otherwise change how the game is played using console commands or mods all you want but the game has been designed with certain things in mind and to give a player the option to change that at will lessens the quality of the product in general.

And before you start saying it won't effect anything, putting in a feature like that would take at least 4-5 days to get working correctly when you take into account programming, art and QA. That is a lot of resources that could be spent on the core game.

Remember that Bioware only have finite time and resources to create the game 

[AmstradHero]

Okay, so a few points to the OP:
Firstly, your topic title is misleading and doesn't match the premise of your original post. What you're actually asking for is a bunch of gameplay sliders, and has basically nothing to do with inventory management. This is a bad start.

Secondly, regarding your post about how you took *a* programming class and aced it, either you're being facetious and doing it badly, or you're completely oblivious as to how much you really don't know about programming. The fact that you've done ONE programming class does not make you a programmer, and you have absolutely ZERO understanding of the full complexities involved in a game engine and the multitude of subsystems involved in a commercial game. I don't go around telling formula one drivers how to do their job because I watched a documentary on it, so don't presume to tell programmers how to do their job because you did one class. It's just plain ignorant.

As for the sliders you're asking for, it would potentially be feasible to do this from a technical perspective, but to be honest, the only one I could potentially see a benefit or value from is friendly fire.

Considering the other options you've suggested -
Critical hits: Nowadays, critical hits are typically designed as an integral part of combat mechanics, and frequently have special abilities associated with them. As such, removing them would almost certainly result in a significant skew in how combat plays out such that it would dramatically affect the value of particular skills, abilities and items. In short, removing this would, without question, render some of these completely useless. That is completely undesirable from a game design perspective. A designer should not add something to a game that is unequivocally less useful in all situations than another equivalent choice.

Wealth: This skews the item balance or resource management of the game. If the player can simply buy their way out of trouble, then the challenge of the game is lost.  If people really hate this aspect, they'll cheat or grind to get around it.

XP: This is of negligible worth when dealing with scaled enemies. The enemies are made more powerful, so all you're doing is a number scale to make the player feel like they're progressing without actually adding anything of value. You'll also potentially run into level cap issues. If enemies are not scaled, then the difficulty curve of the game will be completely wrecked, and the game could either become completely trivial or utterly impossible.

Horde size and strength: Again, if you consider this from a game design perspective, it can ruin any designer created difficulty curve, which in turn affects game pacing and hence overall player enjoyment. Furthermore, it likely will also create skill utility imbalances just like critical hits would. For example, what if you tweaked the slider to maximum number of enemies, but minimum strength. Suddenly single target spells/effects are useless, and only AoE abilities are useful. Vice versa if you do it the other way around.


The problem is that you're thinking about this ONLY from the perspective of "I WANT THIS". You actually need to consider the effect of these from a holistic game design perspective rather than just "wouldn't it be cool if I could do this". Else you end up with a level with five hundred traps and zero enemies - I've seen exactly this problem in a mod. It was utterly boring and zero challenge, but the designer was (falsely) convinced it was fun because "more traps/enemies/loot = more fun."

If you allowed people to adjust these parameters once at the beginning of the game to create a difficulty level, then it would potentially be possible for someone to create a user experience that was too hard or too easy, which would make the player think the game is an inferior product. If alternatively you allowed the player to adjust them on the fly as well, then you've effectively got an in-built cheating mechanism within the game, which again, lessens the quality and/or enjoyment of the experience for a significant percentage of players.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 12 janvier 2013 - 10:51 .

[daft inquisitor]

krul2k wrote...

ok im stupid in a really stupid way, but whats the problem with the inventory? i have actually never in all my years of playing games had a problem with any inventory system, now call my real stupid or real clever but wat in hell is the problem? i do not understand any problem, DA2 made it soooooooo damn simple to understand my neice who is now in jail for 4 years understood it when she was 14 an errrr she damn stupid

What exactly do you want??

IN Inventory = A SWORD = ICON points to sword = description = THATS a damn sword = wtf CAN BE MORE SIMPLER

Krul, please just quit the boards. The more I see of you, the more I weep for humanity. 

Seriously, you're obviously never played a game that had "Inventory Tetris", or you'd know what we're talking about. How Inventory Tetris relates to the OP is tangential, so it really doesn't matter overall.

Basically, what I'm saying is, just move along, there's nothing for you here. 

[Orian Tabris]

ShadowDragoonFTW wrote...

To put this as bluntly as possible, Bioware already have a pretty good idea in mind for the game. At this point, what you "want" doesn't matter so much. If what the game has is what you "want", then good for you. If it doesn't? There are other games out there to accommodate you.

If you want to add suggestions, there's a thread blatantly for that, stickied at the top of the page.

Topics like this just sound like entitled whining to me, I'm sorry to say. And the "customised difficulty settings" that you're suggesting -- most of them just aren't possible to do the way you want. And that's a fact, whether you like that answer or not.

I should add, I'm not saying this to ****** anybody off, and I'm not just being negative to be negative. I'm trying to put this as plainly and evenly as possible.

This person understands.

We need more people like him. And I too, believe the OP's thread just sounds like "entitled whining." Complaining about what he wants, because he has the ability (access to internet and this site) to do it. Expecting to actually make a difference, in spite of how far along the development process of DAIII, BioWare is.

[nicethugbert]

Paul Sedgmore wrote...
I'm not bothered how you play the game in the slightest, you can cheat or otherwise change how the game is played using console commands or mods all you want but the game has been designed with certain things in mind and to give a player the option to change that at will lessens the quality of the product in general.

And before you start saying it won't effect anything, putting in a feature like that would take at least 4-5 days to get working correctly when you take into account programming, art and QA. That is a lot of resources that could be spent on the core game.

Remember that Bioware only have finite time and resources to create the game 

Yes, you are bothered because you have this notion of something outside the player's preferences that is more important.  This external quality, which is just someone elses subjective opinion is more important than the players opinion.  You think that the players opinion must be subjugated to the developer's opinion.  You can call it some objective sounding term such as quality of the product.  But, it's just another way of saying some else's opinion is more important than yours so you can't choose to play as you wish.

But, if I'm happy with my settings then the quality of the product is not lessened at all.  Quality is a matter of opinion.  Quality is a matter of satisfaction.  So, you cannot say in all seriousness that someone is experiencing low quality when they are satisfied.

Yes, I'm aware that time is finite when you have a deadline.  And, I'd rather have a persistant feature that impacts the game throught out and makes all the differenace between loving the game and hating it than yet another scarf.

Good mechanics can not be under estimated.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 12 janvier 2013 - 01:34 .

[daft inquisitor]

I'll put it to you in a straight way that will hopefully end this discussion.

Even if all your sliders WERE possible, were easily-implemented, and existed in Dragon Age III -- actually, that would never happen, and here's why.

Game balance is just that, balanced, for a reason. The game creators want to make it possible for you to FINISH the game, no matter how hard certain encounters are. There's always a way to overcome them.

However, with your sliders, it would be completely possible -- and entirely too easy -- to make the game un-playable, un-winnable, completely un-finishable, and Bioware will never do that.

How, you may ask? Let's say we have you going pretty well. All the sliders are on the 100% mark, but you're feeling good, and decide to turn the EXP slider down a tad for challenge. You do well, but after about an hour or two of play, you're still the same level, but the enemies start to get a little too tough for you. So, you nudge down the stats slider a little. Maybe the spawn size slider. Really, whichever slider doesn't matter.

Again, you're going fine with slightly lowered EXP, and slightly weaker monsters... yet, a little later on, you realize they're staring to kick your butt again. So, you slide your mob spawner down again.

Eventually, this could cascade down to a point where, even with your monster stats down as far as they will go, the game could be un-winnable because you turned the EXP slider down so low that it's impossible for you to level up, impossible for you to get stronger, and because of how weak you've let yourself be, impossible to beat any of the monsters in the game, even on their lowest slider settings.

Congratulations. You have an un-winnable game. And NO developer wants that. Ever. Period. A game can be ludicrously challenging, but it could still be winnable in some insane chance (ex., I Wanna Be The Guy), but despite the challenge, the game is still designed to be winnable at some point.

If your slider system was ever implemented, it would completely throw game balance out the window. And don't you dare say, "Well, I would never be stupid enough to bone up my game like that!" because it's not just about you, it's about everyone, because this feature would be AVAILABLE to everyone. Even if you never would, there are enough people out there that would do just that, and **** up their game. Then, who's the one getting the blame for it?

The player who foolishly dorked their own game to the point where it was un-winnable? Of course not! It would be EA/Bioware to blame, for even allowing it to begin with!!

And there's the rub. It will never happen. No matter how much you want it, no matter how great of an idea you think it is, no matter how you may argue how easy it is to do, the fact is -- that's right, the FACT is -- that Bioware will never, ever, ever implement the slider system. Period.

EDITING: Grammar fixes 

Modifié par ShadowDragoonFTW, 12 janvier 2013 - 02:06 .

[nightscrawl]

Although I don't really care about the OP's sliders, to bring this thread away from the pissing contest it has become, I thought I'd post an example of something similar done in another game. With the 1.05 patch Diablo 3 recently added something similar: Monster Power. You can read about it in detail here, although I will summarize below.


"Monster Power gives Diablo III players the option to increase the health and damage of monsters according to different 'power levels' -- and in return, they'll receive scaling bonuses to their adventure stats (including experience, Magic Find, and Gold Find) as well as more drops."

Once you enable Monster Power, an additional dropdown box appears next to the difficulty selection setting. The monsters scale from MP1 to MP10, and I assume work together with the difficulty settings, so if you play at Inferno difficulty (highest) with a MP10 setting, it would be the most challenging. You can also choose to play at Normal difficulty (lowest) with MP1 for only a slight increase.

Monster Power 1
* Health 130%
* Damage 110%
* +XP 20%
* +Magic Find (gear drops) 10%
* +Gold Find 10%

All the way to...
Monster Power 10
* Health 400%
* Damage 200%
* +XP 200%
* +Magic Find 100%
* +Gold Find 100%


Keep in mind that D3 is not a cinematic game as Dragon Age is. You go out into maps, the mobs are standing around, and you engage them. Even if they are difficult, the boss fights aren't really scripted events, especially compared with the multi-phase extravaganzas of WoW boss encounters, so I assume having difficulty scaling of this nature is probably easier, and more appropriate for the type of game, than it would be for Dragon Age.

[nicethugbert]

[quote]AmstradHero wrote...

Okay, so a few points to the OP:
Firstly, your topic title is misleading and doesn't match the premise of your original post. What you're actually asking for is a bunch of gameplay sliders, and has basically nothing to do with inventory management. This is a bad start.
[/quote]

The title is not misleading at all if you understand the implied point.  The player base does not consist of clones.  There will be wildly disparate views in the player base as to what is enjoyable and what is not.  This is a fact I should not have to mention.  Everything in the game is connected and related even though categorically they seem to not be.  So, for instance, if you have more XP, then the player does not have to engage in combat as much.  Some players do not want a lot of combat.  Letting them increase the XP means they can focus less on combat and more on something else that they prefer without being too low level to enjoy the game.

More gold means less trading is neccessary, and less crafting for gold.  Less of what the player does not want to do means less interuption from what the player does want to do.  Which means less frustration with the game.

[quote]AmstradHero wrote...
Secondly, regarding your post about how you took *a* programming class and aced it, either you're being facetious and doing it badly, or you're completely oblivious as to how much you really don't know about programming. The fact that you've done ONE programming class does not make you a programmer, and you have absolutely ZERO understanding of the full complexities involved in a game engine and the multitude of subsystems involved in a commercial game. I don't go around telling formula one drivers how to do their job because I watched a documentary on it, so don't presume to tell programmers how to do their job because you did one class. It's just plain ignorant.
[/quote]

Wrong on both counts.  I did take ace that class and I am not a programmer.  But, that is irrelevant.  I am a customer.   And I can compare features.  And I know that everything takes time and as long as the time is spent on something that people want, no one complaisn about the time.  The only time people compain about the time it takes to implement a feature is when they don't want the feature or someone else can do it faster or they need it now.

No one here is saying that is takes time to implement an inventory system therefore the game should not have one.  Why?  Becuase they want an inventory system.  If they did not want an inventory system, they would rant about how many more side quests or dialog or choices or ... they could have instead.

So, stop pretending to be objective with all this talk of time.  Admit it,  you just want something else because you just want it.

[quote]AmstradHero wrote...
As for the sliders you're asking for, it would potentially be feasible to do this from a technical perspective, but to be honest, the only one I could potentially see a benefit or value from is friendly fire.

Considering the other options you've suggested -
Critical hits: Nowadays, critical hits are typically designed as an integral part of combat mechanics, and frequently have special abilities associated with them. As such, removing them would almost certainly result in a significant skew in how combat plays out such that it would dramatically affect the value of particular skills, abilities and items. In short, removing this would, without question, render some of these completely useless. That is completely undesirable from a game design perspective. A designer should not add something to a game that is unequivocally less useful in all situations than another equivalent choice.
[/quote]

I meant critical hits on the player by the enemy, not the other way around.  For some reason some people don't like this.  I'd rather control other aspects of the spawns.

[quote]AmstradHero wrote...
Wealth: This skews the item balance or resource management of the game. If the player can simply buy their way out of trouble, then the challenge of the game is lost.  If people really hate this aspect, they'll cheat or grind to get around it.

XP: This is of negligible worth when dealing with scaled enemies. The enemies are made more powerful, so all you're doing is a number scale to make the player feel like they're progressing without actually adding anything of value. You'll also potentially run into level cap issues. If enemies are not scaled, then the difficulty curve of the game will be completely wrecked, and the game could either become completely trivial or utterly impossible.

Horde size and strength: Again, if you consider this from a game design perspective, it can ruin any designer created difficulty curve, which in turn affects game pacing and hence overall player enjoyment. Furthermore, it likely will also create skill utility imbalances just like critical hits would. For example, what if you tweaked the slider to maximum number of enemies, but minimum strength. Suddenly single target spells/effects are useless, and only AoE abilities are useful. Vice versa if you do it the other way around.

The problem is that you're thinking about this ONLY from the perspective of "I WANT THIS". You actually need to consider the effect of these from a holistic game design perspective rather than just "wouldn't it be cool if I could do this". Else you end up with a level with five hundred traps and zero enemies - I've seen exactly this problem in a mod. It was utterly boring and zero challenge, but the designer was (falsely) convinced it was fun because "more traps/enemies/loot = more fun."

If you allowed people to adjust these parameters once at the beginning of the game to create a difficulty level, then it would potentially be possible for someone to create a user experience that was too hard or too easy, which would make the player think the game is an inferior product. If alternatively you allowed the player to adjust them on the fly as well, then you've effectively got an in-built cheating mechanism within the game, which again, lessens the quality and/or enjoyment of the experience for a significant percentage of players.
[/quote]

[/quote]

All your individual points here are based on false objectivity.

You are pretending that there is some objective standard that
trumps personal preferances in a private setting.  When a person is
playing by themselves or with a consensual group, outside preferances do
not matter.  There are no universal standards.

The fact that you
complete the game faster or slower than me or at a higher or lower
difficulty level or in anyway different than how I play in private is
entirely not important in the least bit.  If you want to compare your
performance to others than you can do so with those willing to do the
same.  I should not have to be subjected to your preferances at all in
the privacy of my computer.  If I am to be ranked or compared to in
anyway then it should only be done with my voluntary consent.

A very common complaint about BW games is the lack of choice, meaningful or impactful choice in particular, as trivial choices abound.

Yet, when a mechnism for choice is proposed, the very same people clamoring for choice are the most vocal against choice.  The fact that they may have mispoke and instead only prefer choice in some particular is irrelevant.  Becuase you cannot have a successful game without broad appeal.  You cannot have broad appeal without broad choices.  All player bases will have opposites, the broader the base the more intense the diametrical oppositions, the less group cohesion.  the only way to manage that scenario is to give the player base the mechnism to tailor the game to their expectations.

Yet, players insist on narrowly tailoring the game to their preferances at the expense of others thereby narrowing the player base which narrows the resources the game colects which means less content for them.

You're all ruining the game for yourselves with your selfishness.

[nicethugbert]

ShadowDragoonFTW wrote...

I'll put it to you in a straight way that will hopefully end this discussion.

Even if all your sliders WERE possible, were easily-implemented, and existed in Dragon Age III -- actually, that would never happen, and here's why.

Game balance is just that, balanced, for a reason. The game creators want to make it possible for you to FINISH the game, no matter how hard certain encounters are. There's always a way to overcome them.

However, with your sliders, it would be completely possible -- and entirely too easy -- to make the game un-playable, un-winnable, completely un-finishable, and Bioware will never do that.

How, you may ask? Let's say we have you going pretty well. All the sliders are on the 100% mark, but you're feeling good, and decide to turn the EXP slider down a tad for challenge. You do well, but after about an hour or two of play, you're still the same level, but the enemies start to get a little too tough for you. So, you nudge down the stats slider a little. Maybe the spawn size slider. Really, whichever slider doesn't matter.

Again, you're going fine with slightly lowered EXP, and slightly weaker monsters... yet, a little later on, you realize they're staring to kick your butt again. So, you slide your mob spawner down again.

Eventually, this could cascade down to a point where, even with your monster stats down as far as they will go, the game could be un-winnable because you turned the EXP slider down so low that it's impossible for you to level up, impossible for you to get stronger, and because of how weak you've let yourself be, impossible to beat any of the monsters in the game, even on their lowest slider settings.

Congratulations. You have an un-winnable game. And NO developer wants that. Ever. Period. A game can be ludicrously challenging, but it could still be winnable in some insane chance (ex., I Wanna Be The Guy), but despite the challenge, the game is still designed to be winnable at some point.

If your slider system was ever implemented, it would completely throw game balance out the window. And don't you dare say, "Well, I would never be stupid enough to bone up my game like that!" because it's not just about you, it's about everyone, because this feature would be AVAILABLE to everyone. Even if you never would, there are enough people out there that would do just that, and **** up their game. Then, who's the one getting the blame for it?

The player who foolishly dorked their own game to the point where it was un-winnable? Of course not! It would be EA/Bioware to blame, for even allowing it to begin with!!

And there's the rub. It will never happen. No matter how much you want it, no matter how great of an idea you think it is, no matter how you may argue how easy it is to do, the fact is -- that's right, the FACT is -- that Bioware will never, ever, ever implement the slider system. Period.

EDITING: Grammar fixes 

All of that can be fixed via command line.  The only neccessity would be to make it easier to fix than having to use a command line.  Instead, it would be better to have a button to grant yourself XP or gold.  You could also design the limits on the slider intelligently to eliminate the worst cases.  Clearly, staying within the bounds of the set difficulty settings would not produce impassible points in the game.  The question is how far to go outside the bounds of the set difficulty settings.

But, I know you will not accept this because you have false notions of objectivity that you are too fond of and the commandline is something shameful, it's cheating when it is actually not cheatign all.  The command line is a mechnism designed and implemented by the developer, not a hack.  DA:O's commandline just happens to be poorly designed because you can't even see what you are doing.  The commands are held in secret.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 12 janvier 2013 - 03:22 .

[daft inquisitor]

You shouldn't NEED the command line to fix a game, because it should never have gotten that broken! What about all the "casual" players that don't understand the command line? Sliders they understand, command-codes they may not. You'd be ruining it for them, just because you want some stupid broken advanced difficulty options.

I posit that YOU are the one trying to ruin the game with your selfishness!

Oh, and what you're suggesting is adding a "trainer" in-game. Yes, there is a term for it. "Click this button, and give yourself enough XP and gold to go max level and buy everything ten minutes into the game!!" Yes, that DOES sound like a brilliant idea! [/sarcasm]

That's it. I'm done. You are a FUC*ING MORON, and I wash my hands of you. Fact is, you will never see this come into the game, and I hope you wallow in misery for the next year awaiting a feature that will never be. I truly do.

God, I feel awful saying that...

Modifié par ShadowDragoonFTW, 12 janvier 2013 - 03:27 .

[nicethugbert]

nightscrawl wrote...

Although I don't really care about the OP's sliders, to bring this thread away from the pissing contest it has become, I thought I'd post an example of something similar done in another game. With the 1.05 patch Diablo 3 recently added something similar: Monster Power. You can read about it in detail here, although I will summarize below.


"Monster Power gives Diablo III players the option to increase the health and damage of monsters according to different 'power levels' -- and in return, they'll receive scaling bonuses to their adventure stats (including experience, Magic Find, and Gold Find) as well as more drops."

Once you enable Monster Power, an additional dropdown box appears next to the difficulty selection setting. The monsters scale from MP1 to MP10, and I assume work together with the difficulty settings, so if you play at Inferno difficulty (highest) with a MP10 setting, it would be the most challenging. You can also choose to play at Normal difficulty (lowest) with MP1 for only a slight increase.

Monster Power 1
* Health 130%
* Damage 110%
* +XP 20%
* +Magic Find (gear drops) 10%
* +Gold Find 10%

All the way to...
Monster Power 10
* Health 400%
* Damage 200%
* +XP 200%
* +Magic Find 100%
* +Gold Find 100%


Keep in mind that D3 is not a cinematic game as Dragon Age is. You go out into maps, the mobs are standing around, and you engage them. Even if they are difficult, the boss fights aren't really scripted events, especially compared with the multi-phase extravaganzas of WoW boss encounters, so I assume having difficulty scaling of this nature is probably easier, and more appropriate for the type of game, than it would be for Dragon Age.

That is actually, very interesting.  But, what is missing is the ability to mix and match different aspects.  It's tied to one notion of difficulty arbitrarily chosen by the developer which constrains the player for no good reason at all.

The cinematics have no bearing on this.  In between cinematics both games are practically the same.  You run around and hit  stuff.   In exchange you get their stuff.  Looting and pillaging is looting and pillaging even when it is punctuated by cinematics or dialog.

[nicethugbert]

ShadowDragoonFTW wrote...

You shouldn't NEED the command line to fix a game, because it should never have gotten that broken!

Wrong attitude, such perfectionism is worthless.  You can't make prgress with such ideas.  The fact is that games need correction more by far more often than they do not.  so a command line is a necessity, not a burden.  May as well make it useful rather then obscuring it in shame.

ShadowDragoonFTW wrote...
What about all the "casual" players that don't understand the command line? Sliders they understand, command-codes they may not. You'd be ruining it for them, just because you want some stupid broken advanced difficulty options.

I posit that YOU are the one trying to ruin the game with your selfishness!

Oh, and what you're suggesting is adding a "trainer" in-game. Yes, there is a term for it. "Click this button, and give yourself enough XP and gold to go max level and buy everything ten minutes into the game!!" Yes, that DOES sound like a brilliant idea! [/sarcasm]

That's it. I'm done. You are a FUC*ING MORON, and I wash my hands of you. Fact is, you will never see this come into the game, and I hope you wallow in misery for the next year awaiting a feature that will never be. I truly do.

God, I feel awful saying that...

And trainers are bad becaue you said so.  How selfish is that?  It's entirely selfish and self absorbed.