111 réponses à ce sujet

[nicethugbert]

Solmanian wrote...

Can we atleast agree that the real problem is that the inventory in BOTH DA games is a convulted beast? You end up carrying dozens of items with very poorly organized. I'd much prefer a Mass effect style of inventory:
Not picking up hundreds of weapons, all of which act exactly like all the other weapons in their (one of five) niche, only with slightly different stats. Instead have a couple of dozens of specialized weapons that act VERY diferently from eachother and can be upgraded and customised for your game style.

THIS!

[Endurium]

Ugh I hated this in Baldur's Gate, and apparently so did a lot of people, so Bioware allowed inventory pausing in Baldur's Gate 2.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Orian Tabris wrote...

I'm not saying it's what you're asking for, just that it may as well be, because that's what it will come down to if the idea is implemented.

That would only happen if the inventory lacked the necessary organisational tools, or if the game somehow discouraged strategic planning generally.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Masha Potato wrote...

A hurlock wouldn't wait for you to rummage through inventory, but he wouldn't wait for you to plan your decisions either.

He's not waiting for me to plan.  Time stops there so the player can think things through - that doesn't mean the PC has time to think things through.  The PC makes his decision instantaneously, but the player doesn't have to.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Endurium wrote...

Ugh I hated this in Baldur's Gate, and apparently so did a lot of people, so Bioware allowed inventory pausing in Baldur's Gate 2.

This change negatively impacted my enjoyment of BG2, as I had gotten used to selecting a far away point to which to walk (particularly in towns), and then using that walking time to arrange my inventory.  By forcing the game to pause when the inventory was open, I was then forced to endure the walking separately from the inventory management.

[The Teyrn of Whatever]

Faust1979 wrote...

That would suck and I hate games that do that, I hope they don't go that route. I hated that game Dark Souls from what I remember that game went the same route and it sucked

I second this motion. Why should realism be a factor for menus anyway? It's not like the fact that we're carrying a tonne or so of armor and another tonne of weaponry effects gameplay. Where do we keep a hundred potions Where's our wagon and pack animals carrying all of this stuff? Who cares...

Dragon Age games are RPGs not realistic simulators.

So yeah, this feature suggested by OP is something I...

Modifié par The Teryn of Whatever, 19 janvier 2013 - 07:05 .

[JimboGee]

So let me get this straight... it's perfectly plausible for the enemy to wait while you aim or give orders but not when sorting through your inventory? Utter nonsense.

[Sylvius the Mad]

JimboGee wrote...

So let me get this straight... it's perfectly plausible for the enemy to wait while you aim or give orders but not when sorting through your inventory?

Did you just not read my explanation of this?

Pausing to make decisions during combat allows the player to roleplay a character who makes decisions faster than he can.  What's the inventory analogy?  Pausing to browse your inventory during combat allows you to roleplay a character who is more organised than you?

And there's still the tedium angle.  Sorting inventory while walking saves time.

[Cimeas]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Masha Potato wrote...

A hurlock wouldn't wait for you to rummage through inventory, but he wouldn't wait for you to plan your decisions either.

He's not waiting for me to plan.  Time stops there so the player can think things through - that doesn't mean the PC has time to think things through.  The PC makes his decision instantaneously, but the player doesn't have to.

I think there's just a very convoluted style to the EXACT form of role-playing that you want Dragon Age to support.   The game's going to have a voiced, reasonably set protagonist ANYWAY, so why do you care about a feature in a product you're probably not going to play?


I just don't understand.  There are clearly SO SO SO many things that you dislike in the game, it's obviously not going to be for you, so why do you care?

Modifié par Cimeas, 19 janvier 2013 - 10:19 .

[Fredvdp]

Solmanian wrote...

Can we atleast agree that the real problem is that the inventory in BOTH DA games is a convulted beast? You end up carrying dozens of items with very poorly organized. I'd much prefer a Mass effect style of inventory:
Not picking up hundreds of weapons, all of which act exactly like all the other weapons in their (one of five) niche, only with slightly different stats. Instead have a couple of dozens of specialized weapons that act VERY diferently from eachother and can be upgraded and customised for your game style.

I think the organization of weapons is not really confusing, neither in Dragon Age nor the original Mass Effect. But I agree that I want weapons to feel vastly different from one another. In neither of the Dragon Age games, nor the original Mass Effect, picking up a new weapon requires a strategy shift. I think that's something the Mass Effect sequels handled quite well, although ME2 could have used a couple of extra weapons.

[BouncyFrag]

How about slowing down the game when you bring up your inventory? Other games have been doing this more of late and it works well. You can switch out a few items, but you can't go whole-hog and make a complete costume change without at least the possibility that the enemy will make you pay for being so careless.

[esper]

nicethugbert wrote...

Solmanian wrote...

Can we atleast agree that the real problem is that the inventory in BOTH DA games is a convulted beast? You end up carrying dozens of items with very poorly organized. I'd much prefer a Mass effect style of inventory:
Not picking up hundreds of weapons, all of which act exactly like all the other weapons in their (one of five) niche, only with slightly different stats. Instead have a couple of dozens of specialized weapons that act VERY diferently from eachother and can be upgraded and customised for your game style.

THIS!

I am reallty not sure that this isn't a pc problem.

On the consoles their is a 'potion' and a 'bomb and poison' submenu on the radial wheel that neatly organized it for you. And in the main menu in da2 things where catagorized in:
Weapon
Armour
Accessories
- Other (Can't remember the name, but it was here potions, runes and the like was in the main menu)
junk

It is really easy to sort through, and for the equipment you simply shift between characters with the press of a bottom.

[Ponendus]

BouncyFrag wrote...

How about slowing down the game when you bring up your inventory? Other games have been doing this more of late and it works well. You can switch out a few items, but you can't go whole-hog and make a complete costume change without at least the possibility that the enemy will make you pay for being so careless.

I actually think this is a good idea, I think the Witcher 2 did this didn't it? I haven't played it in a while...

I think it makes sense for the world to not pause as Sylvius says, but at the same time, in reality we wouldn't access our inventory by sorting through menus etc, it would be much more likely that before we barged into battle, we would ensure that we had the essentials we needed directly on hand. The fact we have to rifle through a technological menu means that there should at least be some slowing to compensate for that.

I love the idea of the lack of pause though, it would add some fun urgency. Kind of feeling like you have to rip the lid off that potion quickly and take a swig before that sword hits you...

Fun!

[Sutekh]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Pausing to make decisions during combat allows the player to roleplay a character who makes decisions faster than he can.  What's the inventory analogy?  Pausing to browse your inventory during combat allows you to roleplay a character who is more organised than you?

Would you be ok with something that would allow the character to quickly reach for something in their pocket / belt - even if it involves a tiny bit of re-organisation and goes further than clicking on a preset taskbar - but would lock more time consuming tasks (thus irrealistic) such as changing armor mid-combat?

So we could pause the inventory, but part of it would be locked during combat?

And there's still the tedium angle.  Sorting inventory while walking saves time.

<- wouldn't solve this, though. But just as no Hurlock will patiently wait for the PC to re-organize their inventory, doing so while walking seems a bit... impractical. Both reasons are good reasons, but they seem a bit antinomic, IMO.

[Vanilka]

I wouldn't want to see that in my game again. I've been trying to play through Baldur's Gate for the first time and I find the unpausing incredibly frustrating and stressful. My biggest problem with it is that in BG, you have six characters to control; in DA, it's four, and that's only when I don't count summons. Of course, it is unrealistic to pick through your bag in a fight. BUT! In real life, you could also give a bunch of commands in seconds just by using your voice, not to even mention that real fighters have a mind of their own and know what to do. In DA, you have to take care of everything yourself, especially if you, like me, prefer to disable the tactics almost completely. I think it's unfair to automatically unpause if you have to think and perform actions for more than one character. Therefore if, in a difficult fight, you suddenly remember you haven't put your warmth balms or poison bombs into your quickbar, you're not using the right kind of arrows or whatever, you shouldn't be punished for it, in my humble opinion.

However, what about simply leaving it up to the player? If you left your game unpaused while entering the inventory, it would stay unpaused. If you paused the game, it would simply stay paused. Would that be acceptable?

[Wulfram]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

And there's still the tedium angle.  Sorting inventory while walking saves time.

Well, that requires that opening the inventory shouldn't auto-pause the game.  It doesn't require that opening the inventory should un-pause it. 

I think an "auto-pause when inventory is opened" could work as a toggle, maybe.  I know Bioware doesn't like toggles for everything, but there are quite often a bunch of auto-pause options so maybe adding one more wouldn't be a probelm

Though for sorting inventory while walking to work you'd also need to either have the inventory open as a window rather than a whole new screen, or untether the camera from the player.  Because otherwise you wouldn't be able to order the sort of long range moves that would make it worthwhile.

Modifié par Wulfram, 19 janvier 2013 - 02:00 .

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

JimboGee wrote...

So let me get this straight... it's perfectly plausible for the enemy to wait while you aim or give orders but not when sorting through your inventory?

Did you just not read my explanation of this?

Pausing to make decisions during combat allows the player to roleplay a character who makes decisions faster than he can.  What's the inventory analogy?  Pausing to browse your inventory during combat allows you to roleplay a character who is more organised than you?

And there's still the tedium angle.  Sorting inventory while walking saves time.

Sorting inventory repeatedly AND walking places BOTH are tedium.  Just combining the tedium doesn't make either any less tedious, though it does cut down on the amount of time spent on tedium.

As for you trying to answer this JimboGee's question, it seems to me that it again comes down to different people playing the game in different ways--

--a lot of people play as if THEY ARE THE CHARACTER, and that can mean so many different things, but for this I mean that their reaction times are part of the game, especially in timed situations like combat (or dialog in Alpha Protocol) that the limited time to react is supposed to simulate YOU in the moment having to make snap decisions, and this is the real time and timer aspect of games trying to emulate this

--a lot of other people play, and specifically play cRPGs, as if THEY ARE STILL THE PLAYER and therefore THE CHARACTER ISN'T THEM, and again this can mean many things, but for this I mean that the characters abilities and decision making is NOT connected to the player's, as in the character stats represent the character's chances and such and the player can take all the time in the world to make decisions as he isn't the character--he's just trying to decide what the character would do

I'm not setting up a false dichotomy here--clearly there are people who don't think about this stuff on any conscious level and mix the above ways to various degress--but I'm outline the disconnect.

Player actions and whether they should represent character actions.  Real time supports that notion, turn based doesn't, and pause-and-play is the muddy-middle that tries to allow both and just helps to lead to these bouts of confusion.

[Endurium]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Endurium wrote...

Ugh I hated this in Baldur's Gate, and apparently so did a lot of people, so Bioware allowed inventory pausing in Baldur's Gate 2.

This change negatively impacted my enjoyment of BG2, as I had gotten used to selecting a far away point to which to walk (particularly in towns), and then using that walking time to arrange my inventory.  By forcing the game to pause when the inventory was open, I was then forced to endure the walking separately from the inventory management.

Inventory pausing negatively impacted my enjoyment of BG1, as I, being human and subject to Murphy's Law, would often forget to equip something until I was in the heat of battle, sometimes leading to a wipe. If I hadn't remembered to save recently, I'd most likely lose hours of play - a situation that never happens when inventory pauses the game.

If the game world was real, we'd be able to hide or take cover and sort inventory or equip a weapon. Games don't usually give us these opportunities, but a pausing inventory makes up for it.

Really, it's such a small thing. I would think that a compelling story, good writing, character customization, transparent scripts, and fluid, responsive combat would be more important than the game pausing or not pausing while certain UI panels are in use.

[GithCheater]

It would be easy for Bioware to add a toggle for this. 

Modifié par GithCheater, 19 janvier 2013 - 06:52 .

[Sir JK]

There's one huge problem with the realism argument in this topic. Okay, so stopping time when looking through what we bring with us isn't realistic. Fair enough.

But just how are we carrying this stuff in the first place?

Regardless of whether you have a list or a grid for the inventory we hit the little snag that there's no form of transportation in the world that corresponds to either. Tings do not neatly arrange themselves into grids (unless you lay them out on one which you drew on a large flat space... which tend to be difficult to carry with you) and lists generally only point you where in your storage to look.

Where exactly are we storing these twohanded swords, plate cuirasses, delicate glass vials filled with expensive liquids, grenades, loose jewelry, hamsters and whatnot.
Two things I listed will not fit in a backpack, one needs to be carefully cushioned, another should not under any circumstances experience shock of any kind while being transported, one category tends to just... find itself moved to the most inconvenient locations and one thing needs to breathe.

The only thing unpausing when opening the inventory for the sake of realism would accomplish is point out just how ludicrously unrealistic the inventory (andf especially a well organised and structured one) is in the first place.

I don't know about you guys, but I've yet to see a backpack come with a neat tetris-esque grid.

[XX-Pyro]

I don't inherently dislike the suggestion, but I don't like it either. I would like this only if opening up the radial menu didn't pause the game (which everyone would complain about.) Since it does, I'd rather maintain that standard and have the inventory also pause the game.

[philippe willaume]

I like the idea with proviso
of swap able weapons and bandelier/pouch of potion for quick access.

that could a toggle for difficulty, if difficulty is presented like flight sim.

[MerinTB]

More on topic --

I wish pausing the game was the player's choice. You paused by space bar (or start button on a controller), and then you can do whatever you want paused (aim, inventory, etc.)...

But if you don't pause, the game doesn't auto-pause when you do something--i.e. if you open your inventory in battle, the battle continues on just the same as if you aim. Unless you manually pause.

All that is, of course, assuming a real-time or pause-and-play combat model, and not a turn-based one, of course. Which is what DA has... pause-and-play LITE.

[Talonfire]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
And there's still the tedium angle.  Sorting inventory while walking saves time.

This is most certainly true, but I find that in any game with an unpaused inventory I end up forgetting to equip a specific weapon or quick slot item more than I find myself looking at the inventory screen when traveling. Now that's more my fault than anything, but it's also something you have to take into consideration as I'm hardly alone here. A lot of people approach gaming casually and tend to be more absent minded about something as mundane as inventory management, especially when you have to manage the inventories of four or more characters.

Another major issue with an inventory screen that unpauses the game is that it often leads to trial and error combat situations. Baldur's Gate was especially bad in this regard because if you took the time to open your inventory system during combat because your current strategy wasn't working, you ended up getting steamrolled.

I do think there's a potential compromise, though. I wouldn't be against an unpaused inventory in an optional "hardcore mode", or something similar. I can certainly see the appeal of the system to a more hardcore RPG player.

Modifié par Talonfire, 19 janvier 2013 - 07:39 .