411 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

If MP just had to be in there, how would you go about doing it?

Thats really the thing... I can't picture a scenario of it working. I can't picture a party-based RPG like DA working with MP without it becoming a totally different game. The responses to your question so far seem to want to make it like Diablo, or ME3, or WoW, of Torchlight... the real problem is that all of these games are not party based. Sure, you can have companions and even give orders to them... but the perspective and control never leaves that of the main character. You never control your party, like you do in the DA games. So unless you make the DA3 SP entirely different from DA:O and DA2, then you will need to make a MP that feels drastically different from the SP campaign. Which could be jarring for players and could be resource intensive for the developers.

Sorry, my question was far more open ended than I intended.

You say you can't picture it working, but that's right now.  My question was more specifically looking at your concerns:

How will you handle the party-driven experience of the DA games? Will it require other human players to don support roles? If so, I can see  problems with that. Who would want to build a character that relies on other characters (outside of their control) being built right? In an  MMO, it is easier, since you can Look For Group or even be part of a  guild. With a MP component, it is far trickier to just hop in a match if you can't count on the right support skills.

Also, a large portion of the draw of MP is the action. Sniping enemies,
throw grenades, using biotics... how will that work in a game like DA,
whose auto-attack requires a lot of just standing and swinging? It is
not like you control an archer and aim their bow... you just target the
enemy and hit A. Same for every other class. Unless you are using a
skill or kiting, there is not much else going on for control over one
character at a time.

You've been tasked to solve these questions!  How would you try to address them?  Breaking the problem down is usually a big help, and you've already started to do that by asking various questions.  What are your answers to them?  List some pros and cons for each of your answers, and I will do the same!

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 13 avril 2013 - 05:19 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Rodia Driftwood wrote...

I get the feeling you guys aren't all that enthused about being forced to add MP into the mix just because your overlords demand it. 

I get the feeling you're reading far too much into my question.

[Iakus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

How will you handle the party-driven experience of the DA games? Will it require other human players to don support roles? If so, I can see  problems with that. Who would want to build a character that relies on other characters (outside of their control) being built right? In an  MMO, it is easier, since you can Look For Group or even be part of a  guild. With a MP component, it is far trickier to just hop in a match if you can't count on the right support skills.

Also, a large portion of the draw of MP is the action. Sniping enemies,
throw grenades, using biotics... how will that work in a game like DA,
whose auto-attack requires a lot of just standing and swinging? It is
not like you control an archer and aim their bow... you just target the
enemy and hit A. Same for every other class. Unless you are using a
skill or kiting, there is not much else going on for control over one
character at a time.

You've been tasked to solve these questions!  How would you try to address them?  Breaking the problem down is usually a big help, and you've already started to do that by asking various questions.  What are your answers to them?  List some pros and cons for each of your answers, and I will do the same!

Honestly, you can't.  The closest you could probably come in with something like SWTOR, a game that has no autoattack.  And where everyone has NPC companions that can fufill a role and a RNG for who responds to the questgiver, and votes taken on what plot-critical action gets performed.

This might work in an mmo, where it adds a bit more emphasis on the rpg part of mmorpg (because let's face it, most mmo's are pretty light on the storytelling department anyway).  But attatched to a game series that's already got a history of being a narrative-driven rpg?  No way, that would make it really shallow compared to previous iterations

For one thing, who's story would it be?  The party leader's?  Why would I want to play the sidekick? If we're just a group of adventurers, would we even be addressed by name or title?  Yeah, playing GenericMage_12345 toally adds to a deep rpg experience!

What would happen to the word budget for npc companions when you have to allow for other humans in the roles as well?  I'm sure saving a few dollars here and there would make the bean counters happy, but I'm unwilling to cut lines form Minsc just so there can be some more generic responses available for a player avatar.

 What if a party isn't unified in a playstyle and someone gets angry because they wanted to deal with the demon instead of fight? 

 How are companion personal quests, romances, and other peripherals going to be handled if the party is filled with humans?  Do the other party members just stand around and watch while one of them starts going at it with Isabela, or Anders?
Or if everyone's romancing Isabela, do they take turns? 

This is of course, assuming MP wouldn't be a repeat of ME3's "survive eleven waves then leave" method.

[lil yonce]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

If MP just had to be in there, how would you go about doing it?

I would do it the same way Uncharted 2 did co-op objective mode and add a heavier emphasis on the character interaction. I love all of the characters in DA games but I usually stick to a certain party while playing. Most characters never get used and I never hear their banter or see anything else cool they do unless I go look it up. 

Co-op objective mode could be a simple storyline mode that focuses on your companions. In Uncharted you play as either Drake, Chole, Elena, Sully, or Tenzin-- the main characters. Who you can play as is based on the map and storyline and then randomized expcept the host player always gets Drake. And you can modify perks you earn, character skins, weapon upgrades, taunts, etc. Their goal is to do something that wasn't part of the main game like take out a comm tower or help the villigers or find a secret treasure. Its really simple but the characters still interact and it has the main story Uncharted feel.

I think Dragon Age could work from that base and really emphasize character interaction beyond what even Uncharted does because that's its thing. But you don't play as the Inquisitor, you're a companion character. Maybe playing as Hawke or the Warden in MP would be cool. If a cameo is too hard to pull off you could use them as a PC in MP. The host player plays their Hawke or Warden like the host player is always Drake in Uncharted and the others are someone else. It doesn't affect the main campaign and is optional for insight and fun.

Gameplay wise just do it the same way ME3 did it. No pause and map abilities. You only control your character so you only worry about your character.

Modifié par Youth4Ever, 13 avril 2013 - 06:06 .

[twilekaoi]

Has it even been confirmed if multiplayer is even being considered? I'd rather Dragon Age be a single player experience; don't waste any resources on MP.

[Il Divo]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

You've been tasked to solve these questions!  How would you try to address them?  Breaking the problem down is usually a big help, and you've already started to do that by asking various questions.  What are your answers to them?  List some pros and cons for each of your answers, and I will do the same!

Best luck I think would be to blend the Diablo and Mass Effect 3 approach, assuming we're really going down this road. Remove the ability to pause and give players the ability to map six abilities max, similar to how ME3 lets you map 3 abilities total with a low level cap.

[Il Divo]

iakus wrote...
Or if everyone's romancing Isabela, do they take turns? 

I think with this, you may have inadvertently cemented the introduction of multiplayer to Dragon Age.

Modifié par Il Divo, 13 avril 2013 - 05:55 .

[Iakus]

Il Divo wrote...

iakus wrote...
Or if everyone's romancing Isabela, do they take turns? 

I think with this, you may have inadvertently cemented the introduction of multiplayer to Dragon Age.

[Allan Schumacher]

I remember one RTS (either C&C:Generals or an Age of Empires game) that allowed either (any) player to pause the game at any time. We never really used it, but I think in a Dragon Age game it would be necessary. Dragon Age is built on strategic use of abilities--something that requires pausing, or very slow gameplay.

Yes? No?

Could be. Is it an issue if each player is controlling only one character? Pause could still be a solution as well.

I don't know if the pace necessarily needs to be that different, however. But since we're looking at the Pause system, I'll break it down the way I see it.

This is a pretty binary decision IMO. It'd either exist or not (you can have some timers or other things, but lets keep it simple).

With pause
Pros: Enables finer strategic/tactical flexibility by allowing the group to suspend play and adjust their tactics on the fly at a less frantic pace

Cons: Could be tech issues with replicating the pause. I see a big risk of potential griefing (assuming you're not playing with only friends) through excessive use - this would lead me to think that the system would need to be implemented in a way to try to minimize that.


Without pause is pretty much the mirror for pros and cons (I stayed away from any sort of "gamers may not like it" for the con, since one can rationalize that for any feature). The big issue I would need to see with pausing is whether or not it's as big of a requirement if you're only controlling one player. Does it significantly undermine the strategic aspects? Can the player continue to drive the action and maintain control without it when only worrying about a single actor?


It's something that is very difficult to really know without some level of prototyping and play testing, I would find. But all we have is a forum so we make do with what we got!

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 13 avril 2013 - 06:04 .

[Fast Jimmy]

You've been tasked to solve these questions! How would you try to address them? Breaking the problem down is usually a big help, and you've already started to do that by asking various questions. What are your answers to them? List some pros and cons for each of your answers, and I will do the same.

Alright, fair enough. Let's begin!

How will you handle the party-driven experience of the DA games? Will it require other human players to don support roles?

I will tackle this one first.

If MP is definitely not co-op, then it will definitely not be party based. Losing the ability to pause-and-play, coupled with the resource/server limitations of having dozens of player-controlled characters on screen if everyone gets a party of four is nearly insurmountable to properly address. So, it would need to be individually controlled players.

So, in light of that, you will need to keep support roles, otherwise you slant the overall mechanics to constant, twitch combat. This means that you would, instead, need to focus on MP gameplay not directly tied to combat. There must be objectives to be accomplished that are more complicate than "survive X number of waves." Warrior classes should be wading out in the middle of the action, while support roles are in protected areas, guiding the flow of the encounter, while rogue classes are either performing long range attacks through archers or infiltrating areas stealthily to reach said objectives, or possibly laying traps, so that enemy characters entering areas where objectives are would be blocked/harmed. Essentially, just like non-combat skills and class-specifc skills are strongly valued in an RPG SP experience, they would have a similar ability to enrich the MP.

There should be a good player matching system for sessions, where players who choose to make builds that are not classic DPS max/min-ers are the only ones joining up and the only ones other players needs. A healer/buff Mage that could know how to protect themselves and control the flow of the battle would be an invaluable, while a rogue that can actually steal the Golden Snitch (or the objective equivalent) would be similarly indispensable.

How will you handle the party-driven experience of the DA games? Will it require other human players to don support roles? If so, I can see problems with that. Who would want to build a character that relies on other characters (outside of their control) being built right? In an MMO, it is easier, since you can Look For Group or even be part of a guild. With a MP component, it is far trickier to just hop in a match if you can't count on the right support skills.

Also, a large portion of the draw of MP is the action. Sniping enemies,
throw grenades, using biotics... how will that work in a game like DA,
whose auto-attack requires a lot of just standing and swinging? It is
not like you control an archer and aim their bow... you just target the
enemy and hit A. Same for every other class. Unless you are using a
skill or kiting, there is not much else going on for control over one
character at a time.

In terms of this, I use the same answer as a above - make the MP sections not about (solely) combat. If you do this, and give rogues a task to sneak of scout, or give Mages a spell form to disrupt, etc., this could provide an incentive to make more diverse builds, not focus on just DPS-maximization and gives very different gameplay feels based on class and/or setup. It also avoids the "everyone uses medigel to revive and other "one-size-fits-all" types of gameplay mechanics. In addition, one does not need to "jazz-up" things like the Auto-Attack or the pace of combat, as you can instead have combat focused builds, non-combat builds, versatile builds that can handle both, etc.

Slide in some unlockable kits that allow for different builds, multi-classing, different races, different equipment types, various level up/bonuses and suddenly you have a viable MP system that can also result in revenue generation. You can use various plot setups to do this, like great battles of the past, Mage vs. Templar, Arena, Darkspawn Hordes, etc. (all suggested by others in this thread) and it can deliver a decent enough story. However...

Again... not impossible things to do, but it very quickly becomes a different game than what the DA series has been.

This is the concern. The MP becomes, in nearly all aspects, a different game. And where does the line begin between "making the MP and SP components more similar to share alike resources" and "turning the entire experience into something that is not DA?"

I'm not saying it is impossible to do a MP component... I am simply saying it is not wise to do so. It will turn the series into something fundamental different, something it is not. Though I do appreciate the excuse to do some armchair development, fixing the problem presented isn't impossible... it is seeing the current situation as a problem at all that is what may prove to her harmful.

[Fast Jimmy]

I would say that depends on what number of skills and spells we have, to a degree. In DA:O a mage could have dozens of spells. There were less in DA ][, but I do not know how many there were offhand--I know my latest rogue had about 10 counting sustained abilities.

Is that more than there is room for on console controllers?

Sustained abilities could come with an "equipable" skill that could be unlocked by SP, MP or microtransactions. After all, how often was having a sustainable ability NOT on ever a good thing? This would leave only action skills to be used.

Furthermore, I would argue instrinsically against a system that requires you to "think on your feet," but that's personal.

To be fair, I think the more "appropriate" term here may be ACT on one's feet. Thinking actively shouldn't be discouraged, but encouraging actions without thought (since appropriate time to deliberate would not be available without the pause) is the definition of twitch mechanics and really has no place in a DA game (IMHO).

[philippe willaume]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
How will you handle the party-driven experience of the DA games? Will it require other human players to don support roles? If so, I can see  problems with that. Who would want to build a character that relies on other characters (outside of their control) being built right? In an  MMO, it is easier, since you can Look For Group or even be part of a  guild. With a MP component, it is far trickier to just hop in a match if you can't count on the right support skills.

Also, a large portion of the draw of MP is the action. Sniping enemies, throw grenades, using biotics... how will that work in a game like DA, whose auto-attack requires a lot of just standing and swinging? It is not like you control an archer and aim their bow... you just target the enemy and hit A. Same for every other class. Unless you are using a skill or kiting, there is not much else going on for control over one character at a time.


You've been tasked to solve these questions!  How would you try to address them?  Breaking the problem down is usually a big help, and you've already started to do that by asking various questions.  What are your answers to them?  List some pros and cons for each of your answers, and I will do the same!

Since we are talking party based, i think the "action" need to be placed in a more tactical context.
So it not so much a question of simply striking  but  more manipulating the situation through what attack or defense you are choosing
Basically using attack or defense to create a "condition" on the target and that condtion can be exploited by either yourself or an other team members.

ideally 
You would need a means to commuicate between players and if possible plan in advance.

The terrain should be manipulable.
There should be skills to take advantage of the terrain, steath  and detection.
there should be "action of opportunities" ie a quick action buttons that enable the use of special abilities.
ie like fining moves or instant kill or permanet (well end of the party or being cured )cripling effect.
All classe should be able to take advantage of all condition.
char "level up" through skills, special abilities, % of a special ability occuring.
Phil

Modifié par philippe willaume, 13 avril 2013 - 06:35 .

[Allan Schumacher]

If MP is definitely not co-op, then it will definitely not be party based. Losing the ability to pause-and-play, coupled with the resource/server limitations of having dozens of player-controlled characters on screen if everyone gets a party of four is nearly insurmountable to properly address. So, it would need to be individually controlled players.

I think individually controlled players does make the system a lot more easier to manage.

So, in light of that, you will need to keep support roles, otherwise you slant the overall mechanics to constant, twitch combat. This means that you would, instead, need to focus on MP gameplay not directly tied to combat. There must be objectives to be accomplished that are more complicate than "survive X number of waves." Warrior classes should be wading out in the middle of the action, while support roles are in protected areas, guiding the flow of the encounter, while rogue classes are either performing long range attacks through archers or infiltrating areas stealthily to reach said objectives, or possibly laying traps, so that enemy characters entering areas where objectives are would be blocked/harmed. Essentially, just like non-combat skills and class-specifc skills are strongly valued in an RPG SP experience, they would have a similar ability to enrich the MP.

I like what I am seeing here. We could go in a lot of different directions I think. A situation where Fast Jimmy the rogue could have stealth and some other sort of roguish abilities, while Allan the warrior tank groups the enemies under an environmental hazard. Jimmy slips past, uses an ability and the enemies are killed. If SP systems exist to leverage environments in this way, it could be done.

Just in case, lets assume there is no environmental type of stuff we can use directly (or if there is, it's very complicated to set up and can't really be used much anyway). Level design can still help facilitate this by how it creates levels. Various types of choke points, high ground and the like can be exploited by the group to help manage the fight. I think a lot of this aspect depends on what level design can do. If we restrict ourselves to primarily only using abilities that exist in the single player, it may give them a framework to work within for designing interesting encounters without requiring too much work from a combat designer/programmer to create new abilities.

There should be a good player matching system for sessions, where players who choose to make builds that are not classic DPS max/min-ers are the only ones joining up and the only ones other players needs. A healer/buff Mage that could know how to protect themselves and control the flow of the battle would be an invaluable, while a rogue that can actually steal the Golden Snitch (or the objective equivalent) would be similarly indispensable.

I like the lack of dependence purely on combat. I think that those types of things can help vary up the gameplay, and can help the party feel like they are savvy problem solvers that can take advantage of what the game gives them.

Party matching is always an interesting problem. It's also one I have the most limited experience in actually using (I used LFG a lot in WoW, but in most of my multiplayer experiences I typically only play with actual friends). Ideally I think I'd like virtually any build to be viable with any group of party members, and let the group recognize how they have to play based on group composition (easier said than done). Match making will always run into some level of "You're a rogue but can't do X. No thank you" so it's on design to balance classes and abilities being unique and interesting without having clear cut superior/inferior builds.

Slide in some unlockable kits that allow for different builds, multi-classing, different races, different equipment types, various level up/bonuses and suddenly you have a viable MP system that can also result in revenue generation. You can use various plot setups to do this, like great battles of the past, Mage vs. Templar, Arena, Darkspawn Hordes, etc. (all suggested by others in this thread) and it can deliver a decent enough story.

Historical battles is interesting. What about ancillary stories similar to what Splinter Cell did with their MP (both in Pandora Tomrorow and Chaos Theory). The general principle behind Pandora Tomorrow (a 2v2 versus mode) was a spin off of the story where various biological devices had been planted around the US. Chaos Theory also had a co-op mode, which existed in other parts of the world the same time Sam Fisher was running around doing his thing. I thought it was interesting and added a lot of flavour to the experience.

This is the concern. The MP becomes, in nearly all aspects, a different game. And where does the line begin between "making the MP and SP components more similar to share alike resources" and "turning the entire experience into something that is not DA?"

Does it really become a different game? The big difference I see is that you're controlling only one character. But control for one character still exists in the SP. Do you think that the skills, abilities, encounter designs, and so forth, could not be done using only the abilities that DAO had? You make a good case for non-combat skills, and would you be upset if by "making the MP and SP components more similar" resulted in wanting non-combat skills and encounter design to support that also spilling over into single player?

I suppose it comes down to what you mean by "fundamentally" different. I don't find it a stretch to imagine the situations you described as being possible wholly with what we have in DAO. You don't seem to think so. Do you not think you could do a lot of what you suggested using only abilities and skills that exist in DAO?

[philippe willaume]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I remember one RTS (either C&C:Generals or an Age of Empires game) that allowed either (any) player to pause the game at any time. We never really used it, but I think in a Dragon Age game it would be necessary. Dragon Age is built on strategic use of abilities--something that requires pausing, or very slow gameplay.

Yes? No?

Could be. Is it an issue if each player is controlling only one character? Pause could still be a solution as well.

I don't know if the pace necessarily needs to be that different, however. But since we're looking at the Pause system, I'll break it down the way I see it.

This is a pretty binary decision IMO. It'd either exist or not (you can have some timers or other things, but lets keep it simple).

With pause
Pros: Enables finer strategic/tactical flexibility by allowing the group to suspend play and adjust their tactics on the fly at a less frantic pace

Cons: Could be tech issues with replicating the pause. I see a big risk of potential griefing (assuming you're not playing with only friends) through excessive use - this would lead me to think that the system would need to be implemented in a way to try to minimize that.


Without pause is pretty much the mirror for pros and cons (I stayed away from any sort of "gamers may not like it" for the con, since one can rationalize that for any feature). The big issue I would need to see with pausing is whether or not it's as big of a requirement if you're only controlling one player. Does it significantly undermine the strategic aspects? Can the player continue to drive the action and maintain control without it when only worrying about a single actor?


It's something that is very difficult to really know without some level of prototyping and play testing, I would find. But all we have is a forum so we make do with what we got!

you could have a temporary pause system. like in Space hulk. ie you can only pause for x seconds and the more you use it, the longer it would take to recharge.

phil

Modifié par philippe willaume, 13 avril 2013 - 06:41 .

[Xerxes52]

While I'm against having MP in Dragon Age, I would probably play it if there were two things:

1. Customizable (i.e. name, gender, race, appearance, skills, items, tactics, etc) AI bots for offline and private matches. Doubly so if there are PvP game modes. I would suggest taking the SP party AI and tweaking it to fit the MP maps and objectives.

2. Traditional item shop. I didn't like the random lottery system of ME3, I prefer knowing what items I'm going to buy before I spend the in-game gold. Item tiers would most certainly be priced differently, and that's acceptable.

[philippe willaume]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
To be fair, I think the more "appropriate" term here may be ACT on one's feet. Thinking actively shouldn't be discouraged, but encouraging actions without thought (since appropriate time to deliberate would not be available without the pause) is the definition of twitch mechanics and really has no place in a DA game (IMHO).

But we as a player can act in such way that that deliberated reflection is composed by the sum of our action.
In RL that is really what Ringeck fencing system is. a method for beraking the distance and each subsequent phase is broken down in a simple binary question with two predetermined answer.

Whilst we are not talking about a mortal kombat combo button mashing sequence, as the MP should really ought to have auto attack, there is still a level of selecting the right talent/pressing the right button in time to get the combo, even in single play.
in MP this could be mitigated by having the possibility to level up si that you have more time to select the right talent.

phil

Modifié par philippe willaume, 13 avril 2013 - 07:11 .

[Ziegrif]

I'm a tad sceptical on MP.
I wasn't a big fan of the combat in DAO And DA2 due to having the strategic knowhow of a small rock. I play DA for the story anyway.

So if I like MP will mostly be tied to how hack and slash the combat will be. The less brain power I need to use for the combat the more I will like it.

Have we had any information on what the combat will be like?

Modifié par Ziegrif, 13 avril 2013 - 07:17 .

[Iakus]

EntropicAngel wrote...

I will say this: Though I do also oppose MP vehemently, if it was available in an offline mode (like say the Citadel DLC did for ME3, in a sense), My position on it would turn...eh, 150 degrees.

I would only change my mind if I was assured that nothing in SP was cut to make room for MP.  Not one line.  Not one quest.  Not one NPC.  And of course, no reduction in its budget.  Disks only hold x amount of information, and I do not want one moment of single player triaged out to make way for a muiltiplayer mission.

If Bioware is still taking suggestions, and stil insists on shoehorning in multiplayer, I say:  make it a free downloadable dlc.  

[HolyAvenger]

iakus wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

I will say this: Though I do also oppose MP vehemently, if it was available in an offline mode (like say the Citadel DLC did for ME3, in a sense), My position on it would turn...eh, 150 degrees.

I would only change my mind if I was assured that nothing in SP was cut to make room for MP.  Not one line.  Not one quest.  Not one NPC.  And of course, no reduction in its budget.  Disks only hold x amount of information, and I do not want one moment of single player triaged out to make way for a muiltiplayer mission.

If Bioware is still taking suggestions, and stil insists on shoehorning in multiplayer, I say:  make it a free downloadable dlc.  

 

They can't make MP downloadable, it will be too big and have too many assets. 

I think they will include MP if they think it will sell more units. Lose 1 SP-fanatic to gain 3-4 new players who want a MP experience is a strong tradeoff.