223 réponses à ce sujet

[mickey111]

It's early and we've no specific gameplay info so I'll have to be vague... how many peopl here know what "phase based" combat is? It's where you'd encounter some enemies, you would start the battle out by telling your poeople what to do and then start the battle and they'd do things that best fit your established guidelines. Each phased based game can vary quite a lot in just how vague or how specific you can be when telling people to do ****, but one thing most have in common is that you can just say "nah, **** it" to the people you're ordering about by selecting the autoresolve option. Autoresolve is an absolutee godsend in games which are full of trash encounters. A trash encounter is the kind of combat which you could easily beat with your eyes closed, one hand tied behind your back without breaking a sweat. Both Dragon Age games have had hundreds of instances of trash encounters. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just take the easy way out?


 the ''autoresolve'' acts as an ignore button for **** you don't want to waste time on, the rest of the details can range from fairly minor to quite signifigant. In theory using autoresolve is usually less effective than if you did it yourself. You might get less experience points for victory, your team might use more health potions and magic potions than neccessary, but if it makes the combat less of a chore and more fun then auto resolve is something I'd probably use as often as I can. Now, I don't really care much at all for phase based combat myself, but I
think that this one autoresolve idea could appeal greatly to some of us
in a Bioware game and it'd be nice to borrow that one thing from the
phase based system.

Modifié par mickey111, 19 mars 2013 - 12:09 .

[Wulfram]

Better to not include the "trash" encounter.

[mickey111]

Trash combat that you can blow right through are a major pillar of Biowares power fantasy style of story telling. I think asking Bioware to completely remove on of their major pillars is expecting too much.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Without permadeath and/or mechanics that require strategic management, auto-resolve is essentially skip combat/gameplay.

After viewing things in a different light, I've come to accept that auto-resolve for Dragon Age would not be a bad idea (provided it has the supporting mechanics that auto-resolve implies). That said, wanting to skip gameplay in a linear game is indicative of pretty bad gameplay.

In this case, I feel like lots of it comes down to the sheer mass of trash encounters, combined with an environment with extremely limited interactivity: most levels are narrow, height rarely a factor in gameplay, can't interact with many objects or use them as part of the gameplay, day/night cycles have no gameplay impact, cannot avoid combat through stealth outside of a scripted linear sequence, etc.

Modifié par CrustyBot, 19 mars 2013 - 12:36 .

[mickey111]

Exactly.

DAO combat encounters for me were good enough to be good, but only the first time through. Try replaying it though, and things get too familiar, too fast and way too often.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

I guess it's worked very well for them for how many years through how many games. But if we're talking about auto-resolve and/or skip combat, it only highlights the fact that BioWare games have way too much filler combat that serves no other purpose than to pad out the length of the game.

[Wulfram]

I'd rather they didn't effectively admit defeat, which is what including an auto-resolve would be. They should drive to improve their content so that people don't want to skip it.

People can put the difficulty down to ridiculously easy if they want to skip.

Modifié par Wulfram, 19 mars 2013 - 12:54 .

[Blazomancer]

I like wasting time on enemies, trash or no. Felt that DA2 could have done better with some more encounters. As long as skipping combat is optional, they can introduce anything they want, I'm good.

[Fast Jimmy]

If your combat is so severed and static from the game world that an "auto-win" button is available, then it is not a step in the right direction.

In DA:O and ME1, we had instances where your efficacy and success in combat had real story-based outcomes, not just whether you won or lost. Games need more of these types of encounters, but an "auto-win" button squashes the chances of doing so. After all, if you have an auto-win button for the first fight in Redcliffe, does it assume that every NPC that can die, like Lloyd or the Dwarven merc, would die? If so, that punishes the people who value story over combat, the exact type of person who would be angry for being punished. Yet if you have auto-resolve give the best possible outcomes, what would make anyone want to actually play the combat in these instances?

It becomes a real catch-22.

I have suggested in the past the use of more non-combat skills that create auto-win situations, but which come with some form of price. Sneaking past an enemy may avoid combat, but result in an injury for a companion which lasts through the rest of the dungeon. Using a trap skill may cause a boss-type enemy to be defeated without a fight, but at the cost of a specific item (such as a very powerful trap material) that the player can only use once, essentially a trap skill "Get Out of Jail Free" card. Etc. etc.

The point being that if you can integrate ways to resolve issues without forcing the player to fight, but also avoid making them skill-based auto-win options in-and-of-themselves, it can create a really dynamic atmosphere. The Quest for Glory games did a really beautiful job at this balancing act between skills, combat and solving problems outside of just killing everything (had to get my weekly promotion of QFG in there).

[Medhia Nox]

I support this - it's the same as fast forwarding through dialogue to me.

You can't lose these games - defeat in battle never actually happens in terms of the story - still, some people like fighting battles for one reason or another. For those who think Combat Obstacle courses are tedious enough - I think skipping conflicts with some form of pre-set "Battle Plan" and a "Level of Success" measurement would be great.

[mickey111]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

If your combat is so severed and static from the game world that an "auto-win" button is available, then it is not a step in the right direction.

In DA:O and ME1, we had instances where your efficacy and success in combat had real story-based outcomes, not just whether you won or lost. Games need more of these types of encounters, but an "auto-win" button squashes the chances of doing so. After all, if you have an auto-win button for the first fight in Redcliffe, does it assume that every NPC that can die, like Lloyd or the Dwarven merc, would die? If so, that punishes the people who value story over combat, the exact type of person who would be angry for being punished. Yet if you have auto-resolve give the best possible outcomes, what would make anyone want to actually play the combat in these instances?

It becomes a real catch-22.
.

Rule consistency? In a game? I haven't kept count of the number of times that gaming in general has broken it's own established rules, but I'm sure it's a 3 digit figure, or maybe even 4 digits (off the top of my head I can think of several in FFVII and the new TOmb Raider as well as all the times in DAO when backtracking was never possible in a boss fight for no practical reason). Easier for the developer to change the rules to suit whatever way they want to take the narrative at the time. We're just so accustomed to inconsistenty and randomness by now that nobody would give a **** either,

Modifié par mickey111, 19 mars 2013 - 02:05 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Medhia Nox wrote...

I support this - it's the same as fast forwarding through dialogue to me.

You can't lose these games - defeat in battle never actually happens in terms of the story - still, some people like fighting battles for one reason or another. For those who think Combat Obstacle courses are tedious enough - I think skipping conflicts with some form of pre-set "Battle Plan" and a "Level of Success" measurement would be great.

This entire argument for the skip button is my entire argument against it.

Because the industry has taken to a method of turning combat into little more than a button mashing mini-game that one can just retry if one fails is precisely why things are so uninteresting. Developers aren't tying consequences to combat anymore and its making games weaker for it. You either kill all of the enemies or you kill all of the enemies. That's your gameplay alternative.

Not think through a plan. Not try different tactics on how to set things up before the fight even starts. Not ways to avoid the fight altogether. And, with the world of constant level-scaling and boring enconter design, God FORBID we give the player a situation which the vast majority of people would die in if they tried to fight. Certain failure if you just run in, sword swung and at the ready? That's an old convention that gamers are apparently too stupid to know how to deal with anymore.

It is insulting to you as a gamer that the industry has turned every single encounter into a boring, button mashing combat situation. ASking them to make combat skippable will only make this worse.

Unless, of course, they decide to skip combat altogether. Just not have it in the game. If you get into a fight, you and your companions will fight, but it will be a pre-determined outcome that has nothing to do with how you handle the encounter, it will just "happen." Where you just watch a movie and occassionally get to interject some input. I actually don't think that would be bad... but it would not be a fantasy role-playing game at that point. It would be an adventure game, very much like how TWD is an adventure game. 

Since we are near-postive that DA is not going to be a game like that (we have seen tweets which, at the very least, confirm a combat system), then we should demand more of it. And more of the game in general - not to just be corridor where we get hassled every ten steps by level scaled mooks that no one should have any problem with since they are designed to be weak enough for the worst player. We should have choices. We should have options.

We should be afraid of combat, not bored by it. 

[Wulfram]

The problem with differing results from combat that aren't just a binary win/lose is that it can be a self-reinforcing cycle.

The good player wins the combat easily, so they go into the next combat in better shape, so they win the next combat even more easily. Then they get to the boss, and they stomp them because they're in much better shape than the encounter was designed for.

The bad player wins the first combat OK, but takes few losses, then they go into the next combat weaker and take a real beating, and only scrape through the final combat. Then they get obliterated by the final boss.

I don't think either player would be especially happy , and the bad player will likely be obliged to replay the whole segment if they're to have a real chance of completing the game. And story based games really don't thrive with that sort of enforced repitition of gameplay segments - stuff like XCOM can do it because every game is fairly different, so losing and going back to the beginning can be fun, but the sort of Bioware game could never incorporate that sort of variety.

[philippe willaume]

i would not have a problem with an auto win button.
idealy it should be instantiated in the games setting and take the form of  the kill all enemies switch from the console when you press a key

if there is such a feature could we should have a more sophisticated combat system as people who do not like complex tactical combat have a get out of jail free card.
Phil

Modifié par philippe willaume, 19 mars 2013 - 04:09 .

[RaidenXS]

couldn't you just turn up the difficulty?

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

The problem with differing results from combat that aren't just a binary win/lose is that it can be a self-reinforcing cycle.

The good player wins the combat easily, so they go into the next combat in better shape, so they win the next combat even more easily. Then they get to the boss, and they stomp them because they're in much better shape than the encounter was designed for.

The bad player wins the first combat OK, but takes few losses, then they go into the next combat weaker and take a real beating, and only scrape through the final combat. Then they get obliterated by the final boss.

I don't think either player would be especially happy , and the bad player will likely be obliged to replay the whole segment if they're to have a real chance of completing the game. And story based games really don't thrive with that sort of enforced repitition of gameplay segments - stuff like XCOM can do it because every game is fairly different, so losing and going back to the beginning can be fun, but the sort of Bioware game could never incorporate that sort of variety.

The examples I was thinking gave the player no advantage in future fights.

In Redcliffe, who you recruited could help out with how the combat played out. But if you recruited them and you were fast enough to take down the enemies, these NPCs could face very real permadeath. This resulted in different outcomes (some even can be viewed as more positive, such as taking ownership of the inn if Lloyd died). In ME1, you were given the option of using stun grenades against colonists controlled by the Thorian. If you ran out of grenades/didn't use them to the best effect, you had to kill these NPCs. They would be dead when you defeated the Thorian.

None of these made combat more or less difficult in future encounters... but they were plot variations that happened due to how you performed in combat, aside from a static win/loss.

[Wulfram]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
The examples I was thinking gave the player no advantage in future fights.

In Redcliffe, who you recruited could help out with how the combat played out. But if you recruited them and you were fast enough to take down the enemies, these NPCs could face very real permadeath. This resulted in different outcomes (some even can be viewed as more positive, such as taking ownership of the inn if Lloyd died). In ME1, you were given the option of using stun grenades against colonists controlled by the Thorian. If you ran out of grenades/didn't use them to the best effect, you had to kill these NPCs. They would be dead when you defeated the Thorian.

None of these made combat more or less difficult in future encounters... but they were plot variations that happened due to how you performed in combat, aside from a static win/loss.

You can do that sort of thing for specific instances, but that's still going to leave 95% of combats back at the standard win/loss.  Using grenades on Feros is a nice gimmick for that combat, but it does nothing to address any underlying issues

(I've recently learnt you can safely knock Zhu's hope colonists out using melee too)

I'd also have to say that experience makes me deeply suspicious of any scenario that makes babysitting characters outside my control in combat important.  Suicidal guards charging into the flames to get themselves killed at Redcliffe just makes me wish we had a "tell everyone to hide in the chantry" option - Redcliffe would be a lot less annoying if the NPCs were protected by the same rules as your party members.

[Medhia Nox]

@Fast Jimmy: You've never played a game where you lost. It's impossible.  They don't exist.  Even in older Atari games where the game ends after a handful of lives - you can just start over.  I "eventually" beat the original Castlevania - even though there were no "saves".  The deception is utterly lost on me.

If you enjoy tactical obstacle courses - that's your thing... roleplaying is only about 25% combat (not conflict - actual combt) where I come from (my tabletop game) so it's of MUCH less interest for me no matter how you paint it.

Modifié par Medhia Nox, 19 mars 2013 - 04:33 .

[philippe willaume]

Medhia Nox wrote...

@Fast Jimmy: You've never played a game where you lost. It's impossible.  They don't exist.  Even in older Atari games where the game ends after a handful of lives - you can just start over.  I "eventually" beat the original Castlevania - even though there were no "saves".  The deception is utterly lost on me.

If you enjoy tactical obstacle courses - that's your thing... roleplaying is only about 25% combat (not conflict - actual combt) where I come from (my tabletop game) so it's of MUCH less interest for me no matter how you paint it.

well, one aspect of combat and RPG is that you can spare your oppoenent.
i think FJ is saying that if you have a kill switch/fast combat, te ability to spare an oppoenent is defacto gone.
unless the kill switch give you the option to murder knife the NPC or the quick combat comes with a spare as much option/kill'em all option.

now i would tend to agree that only people who care about combat would care about that  but still.
phil

[HolyAvenger]

They aren't making a movie or a choose-your-own-adventure book...just play on easiest difficulty setting.

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
The examples I was thinking gave the player no advantage in future fights.

In Redcliffe, who you recruited could help out with how the combat played out. But if you recruited them and you were fast enough to take down the enemies, these NPCs could face very real permadeath. This resulted in different outcomes (some even can be viewed as more positive, such as taking ownership of the inn if Lloyd died). In ME1, you were given the option of using stun grenades against colonists controlled by the Thorian. If you ran out of grenades/didn't use them to the best effect, you had to kill these NPCs. They would be dead when you defeated the Thorian.

None of these made combat more or less difficult in future encounters... but they were plot variations that happened due to how you performed in combat, aside from a static win/loss.

I'd also have to say that experience makes me deeply suspicious of any scenario that makes babysitting characters outside my control in combat important.  Suicidal guards charging into the flames to get themselves killed at Redcliffe just makes me wish we had a "tell everyone to hide in the chantry" option - Redcliffe would be a lot less annoying if the NPCs were protected by the same rules as your party members.

It is just one more reason why there should be more than one option. If you know that getting into combat will likely get people killed, wouldn't you work to achieve a diplomatic victory? Wouldn't you sacrifice some things just to keep those people alive? Or maybe you wouldn't - it is your call. 

Having the ability to tell everyone to hide in the Chantry would have been a great choice... if the combat was hard and having the NPCs would be less like baby sitting and more like "needed to survive."

Would it have seem like a chore to have NPCs running around that can be killed if they were acting as meat shields to you actually surviving a fight? Or, to keep them alive and resolve the conflict, would you have sacrificed some notable piece of gear? Or gold? Or the plot outcome that all of Redcliffe was burnt to the ground aside from the Chantry, so that it's people lived, but ultimately the village was forced to migrate?

These are the types of variances and outcomes that can occur in a game that gives players choices and really runs with them. That doesn't just default to "kill the Xth wave of mooks because you are the chosen one."

Medhia Nox wrote...

@Fast Jimmy: You've never played a game where you lost. It's impossible.  They don't exist.   

Actually, I have. I've played games where the ending was that all life on the planet was put under tyranical rule, or doomed the entire world to a cataclysm. I've seen games where you can summon an evil to devour the world, destroying everthing in it and games where the hero makes a choice that makes the game 100% unwinnable, that unless you had a save made prior to that choice, there is absolutely no way to win, no matter what.

Please don't tell me what games I have played or what I have experienced. I KNOW what I have experienced. You speak about tabletop games, but forget the best thing about PnP games... the ability for a player to say "I want to do this" and the "this" the player is talking about is something outside of what the DM had planned for the scenario/story to tell. With video games it is impossible to do this, truly, but with hundreds of employees working on a game instead of just one DM, you would think following the concept of "what is every option for a player to think of doing here and can we accomodate that?" Instead, we often see "okay, here is our combat system, here is our dialogue system and never shall the two meet, ever."

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 19 mars 2013 - 05:20 .

[Oberkaiser]

Wulfram wrote...

I'd rather they didn't effectively admit defeat,

You mean like ME3's "Story mode"?

[Trikormadenadon]

I have played through both DA games and all 3 ME games more than 10 times each and have never been bored with the combat. I have no problem with how Bioware does their combat in their games and thus I feel for me this option is unnecessary. I can't speak for everyone, but can you not just set the game to narrative or easy setting and then the combat will still be there but will be so easy it will take less time to do the combat than to have it auto play on normal difficulty?