223 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

Developers aren't tying consequences to combat anymore and its making games weaker for it.

You say "anymore." Has that really happened much in the past?

I could maybe see something like Fallout (especially the first, before the timer gets patched out) in that getting heavily wounded means having to rest to recuperate. How common was consequences in combat that wasn't "kill everyone or die yourself?"

[Trikormadenadon]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Developers aren't tying consequences to combat anymore and its making games weaker for it.

You say "anymore." Has that really happened much in the past?

I could maybe see something like Fallout (especially the first, before the timer gets patched out) in that getting heavily wounded means having to rest to recuperate. How common was consequences in combat that wasn't "kill everyone or die yourself?"

I think he meant such as the redcliffe undead battle where npc's can permadie and you only get the helm if everyone lives... etc etc

[philippe willaume]

Trikormadenadon wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Developers aren't tying consequences to combat anymore and its making games weaker for it.

You say "anymore." Has that really happened much in the past?

I could maybe see something like Fallout (especially the first, before the timer gets patched out) in that getting heavily wounded means having to rest to recuperate. How common was consequences in combat that wasn't "kill everyone or die yourself?"

I think he meant such as the redcliffe undead battle where npc's can permadie and you only get the helm if everyone lives... etc etc

or ME1 or ME2 
or campaign mode in flight sim.

phil

[Liamv2]

NO i would rather bioware makes good combat other than giving me the option to skip it

[flyermaria]

I will admit that if this were an option, I would probably use it after my first two or three playthroughs. I get tired of fighting bandits or spiders every time I turn a corner. Of course, that's assuming battles are handled the same way as the first two games.

[Fast Jimmy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Developers aren't tying consequences to combat anymore and its making games weaker for it.

You say "anymore." Has that really happened much in the past?

I could maybe see something like Fallout (especially the first, before the timer gets patched out) in that getting heavily wounded means having to rest to recuperate. How common was consequences in combat that wasn't "kill everyone or die yourself?"

In Fallout and Arcanum, you can wage war with every town, killing everyone there. This can make doing some things in game quite difficult.

But barring instances of mass genocide, in the first Quest for Glory, you wander into a cave and encounter a feral bear. If you engage it in combat, you kill it... and then it turns into the human form of the Baron's son, who you were sent to save. Whoops. Maybe combat wasn't the best outcome there. 

In Final Fantasy 3 (US), during one of the opening sequences, you can lose a fight that will not result in a game over, but will siginificantly delay you obtaining two characters, Mog and Umaro. In addition, you will lose the chance to unlock a certain type of move for Mog (the River Dance) at all in the game.

Point being, games HAVEN'T done this much, it is true. But they have done it. And it led to some really interesting encounters because of it. Instead of pursuing the next level of this type of mechanic, though, games have instead devolved back to the point of "only combat, and no consequences at all to that combat." It is not a matter of every game having this feature and then suddenly not, but rather the halting and reversing of the progress that was already made.

If graphics were better back in the 90's and then stalled or even degraded since that point, people would have cried foul a long time ago. But if certain types of gameplay elements were at their apex then and are less complex/integrated now, people just accept it. I dislike that. 

[Knight of Dane]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Developers aren't tying consequences to combat anymore and its making games weaker for it.

You say "anymore." Has that really happened much in the past?

I could maybe see something like Fallout (especially the first, before the timer gets patched out) in that getting heavily wounded means having to rest to recuperate. How common was consequences in combat that wasn't "kill everyone or die yourself?"

In Final Fantasy 3 (US), during one of the opening sequences, you can lose a fight that will not result in a game over, but will siginificantly delay you obtaining two characters, Mog and Umaro. In addition, you will lose the chance to unlock a certain type of move for Mog (the River Dance) at all in the game.

So Kind alike the fight vs. Cauthrien in Origins?

[Kulyok]

I don't mind auto-resolving and such(good for replaying if you accidentally chose the wrong dialogue option, because - surprise! - the same button worked for choosing a dialogue option AND for skipping dialogue), but I'd much rather have an "easy" combat difficulty(unlike DA2 or ME2; like DAO or ME3) and play through combat myself.

[Nomen Mendax]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Developers aren't tying consequences to combat anymore and its making games weaker for it.

You say "anymore." Has that really happened much in the past?

I could maybe see something like Fallout (especially the first, before the timer gets patched out) in that getting heavily wounded means having to rest to recuperate. How common was consequences in combat that wasn't "kill everyone or die yourself?"

Actually there are quite a few examples -- any game where your companions can die, of which there are quite a few examples.  I really don't like that combat has been reduced to a mini-game, which I find reduces my immersion in the game and makes combat more and more of a chore.  At the very least I would like to see encounters that relate to the plot.  I felt that DAO did a much better job of having encounters that seemed to fit in (such as fighting darkspawn).  I found the endless supply of muggers in Kirkwall irritating and immersion breaking (seeing I must have put a sizeable dent in the population given the number of people I slaughtered).  I also didn't feel that me cleaning up the city really related to the major themes in the game (the Qnari and the Mage conflict).

One of my pet peeves about the way that Bioware makes games these days is that the only important consequences occur as a result of your choices in the conversation interface.  For me, this reached its nadir in ME2 where in the endgame the only thing that wouldn't kill one of your companions was the actual combat itself.

[Fast Jimmy]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

One of my pet peeves about the way that Bioware makes games these days is that the only important consequences occur as a result of your choices in the conversation interface.  For me, this reached its nadir in ME2 where in the endgame the only thing that wouldn't kill one of your companions was the actual combat itself.

While I do love the variety present in ME2's final mission outcomes due to your choices, this is an excellent point. I'm not going to stand here and say permadeath was the greatest thing in RPGs or even that I would like to see it come back in every game, but it did add a sense of finality. The problem is that perma-death is TOO permanent in many cases, and that all it really resulted in was a behavior of saving a lot and then reloading if someone did die. That's not really a solid consequence interface, but rather just an exercise in tedium.

I thought the injury system in DA:O was a good middle ground, with room for expansion. Like possibly some injuries being permanent (if, for example, you let multiple temp injuries stack without using an injury kit, or there are certain Plot Injuries that could happen to you or your companions if you make certain choices, just like there are certain stat bonuses if you make certain choices). Instead, DA2 did away with the system entirely and just went to an atuo-heal system.

An auto-heal system, with no consequence to anything if anyone/everyone dying in combat, especially when combat is the response/solution to 99% of the game's problems... well, it is no wonder to me that people are begging to have a button to skip it. My solution is instead of taking the easy way out (keeping the same bland encounter designs and always-combat solutions and just allowing players who are bored of it to skip), it instead should be a challenge to not only make combat more engaging, but going back to exploring the idea of gameplay OUTSIDE of combat. Give players a way to skip combat in game, not just a "I despise button mashing, so let me just press one button once instead of another button a dozen times," but true alternatives that have upsides and downsides, truly unique outcomes to avoiding combat. Then if you make combat actually hard or have actual consequences, people will think "maybe I shouldn't just go in and kill everyone." 

I realize it may seem like I am over-nostalgalizing the past, as many games, then and now, don't offer truly the level of choice or variablity I am asking for... but games in the past have attempted it. Games have reached towards that as a goal. It is only when that idea, the idea that RPGs can be more than choose your own adventures with combat minigames, STOPS being a goal is when progress in the genre stops. Graphics may improve, more dialogue may be included, your companions may look nicer... but is the gameplay truly something we haven't seen before, or is just new veneer on something that has been going on for nigh-on two decades?

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 19 mars 2013 - 07:42 .

[Wulfram]

@fast Jimmy:
DA2 has injuries. Actually, they're probably more relevant than in DA:O. Though in both cases the game goes out of it's way to make sure you have some injury kits on hand, so they're not very important.

I'm really not sure why you're connecting auto-heal after combat and non-combat options. They have nothing to do with each other.

[Trikormadenadon]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

One of my pet peeves about the way that Bioware makes games these days is that the only important consequences occur as a result of your choices in the conversation interface.  For me, this reached its nadir in ME2 where in the endgame the only thing that wouldn't kill one of your companions was the actual combat itself.

While I do love the variety present in ME2's final mission outcomes due to your choices, this is an excellent point. I'm not going to stand here and say permadeath was the greatest thing in RPGs or even that I would like to see it come back in every game, but it did add a sense of finality. The problem is that perma-death is TOO permanent in many cases, and that all it really resulted in was a behavior of saving a lot and then reloading if someone did die. That's not really a solid consequence interface, but rather just an exercise in tedium.

I thought the injury system in DA:O was a good middle ground, with room for expansion. Like possibly some injuries being permanent (if, for example, you let multiple temp injuries stack without using an injury kit, or there are certain Plot Injuries that could happen to you or your companions if you make certain choices, just like there are certain stat bonuses if you make certain choices). Instead, DA2 did away with the system entirely and just went to an atuo-heal system.

An auto-heal system, with no consequence to anything if anyone/everyone dying in combat, especially when combat is the response/solution to 99% of the game's problems... well, it is no wonder to me that people are begging to have a button to skip it. My solution is instead of taking the easy way out (keeping the same bland encounter designs and always-combat solutions and just allowing players who are bored of it to skip), it instead should be a challenge to not only make combat more engaging, but going back to exploring the idea of gameplay OUTSIDE of combat. Give players a way to skip combat in game, not just a "I despise button mashing, so let me just press one button once instead of another button a dozen times," but true alternatives that have upsides and downsides, truly unique outcomes to avoiding combat. Then if you make combat actually hard or have actual consequences, people will think "maybe I shouldn't just go in and kill everyone." 

I realize it may seem like I am over-nostalgalizing the past, as many games, then and now, don't offer truly the level of choice or variablity I am asking for... but games in the past have attempted it. Games have reached towards that as a goal. It is only when that idea, the idea that RPGs can be more than choose your own adventures with combat minigames, STOPS being a goal is when progress in the genre stops. Graphics may improve, more dialogue may be included, your companions may look nicer... but is the gameplay truly something we haven't seen before, or is just new veneer on something that has been going on for nigh-on two decades?

i agree completely with you however I just wanted to point oput that as an RPG, the content of character interaction and story are the most important things, not the combat or gameplay. Those are secondary to an RPG experience in my opinion.

[Allan Schumacher]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

In Fallout and Arcanum, you can wage war with every town, killing everyone there. This can make doing some things in game quite difficult.

But barring instances of mass genocide, in the first Quest for Glory, you wander into a cave and encounter a feral bear. If you engage it in combat, you kill it... and then it turns into the human form of the Baron's son, who you were sent to save. Whoops. Maybe combat wasn't the best outcome there.

True.  But Quest for Glory is as much "Sierra Adventure Game" as it is an RPG.  After you do that, the game pops up saying "Maybe you shouldn't have done that" and suggests reloading the game.  At least it doesn't go "Space Quest" on us and let us know hours later we mucked up.

In Final Fantasy 3 (US), during one of the opening sequences, you can lose a fight that will not result in a game over, but will siginificantly delay you obtaining two characters, Mog and Umaro. In addition, you will lose the chance to unlock a certain type of move for Mog (the River Dance) at all in the game.

Interesting example.

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

@fast Jimmy:
DA2 has injuries. Actually, they're probably more relevant than in DA:O. Though in both cases the game goes out of it's way to make sure you have some injury kits on hand, so they're not very important.

I'm really not sure why you're connecting auto-heal after combat and non-combat options. They have nothing to do with each other.

I must have never had a companion fall in combat, then. Because I don't recall using an injury kit in DA2 once.

Auto-heal means that no matter how bad you are in combat, nor how strong your opposition is, if the player can just survive long enough to take down all the enemies, then there is no downside to falling combat. It is not just auto-heal alone, but a concerted arrangement of features which strongly discourage any non-combat skills.

Wave combat, where enemies fall from the sky or jump out of walls, eliminates the need to sneak or scout and also eliminates the usefullness of traps in the more original sense (not just dropping a bomb as a move in combat, that is hardly a trap). Having no skill based ability to talk someone out of combat, meaning you would have to sacrifice skill points that would have been allocated to combat to, instead, a persuasion type skill, means you can have the best of all worlds, being a super-man that can kill anything and also being able to talk past anything when the game gives you the option (I'll give you a hint, it basically means the number of times you can talk your way past anything drops to less than I can count on my hand). Level scaling so that combat can always be won means that combat will always be the easiest option. Why worry about choosing the right dialogue, or meticulously sneaking or laying traps? You can just run in and kill everyone. I mean, you've got the math skills of a fourth grader, you know how to level up your character to get the highest DPS (another thing, simplified leveling that consists of dumping all your stat points into two stats, chalk that up to this list as well). So you can make every character an absolute terror in combat with minimal effort. Why should you spend more time doing something that makes your character feel less bad ****?

All of that is terrible design to allow anything other than combat as a problem solver. DA:O had many of these aspects, although not to the level of DA2. That's why its non-combat skills were less than stellar. But, instead of understanding why they weren't as useful and why everyone put skill points in Combat Mastery and Tactics, they just scrapped the whole system. That's not a wise move, in my book. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 19 mars 2013 - 08:17 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

In Fallout and Arcanum, you can wage war with every town, killing everyone there. This can make doing some things in game quite difficult.

But barring instances of mass genocide, in the first Quest for Glory, you wander into a cave and encounter a feral bear. If you engage it in combat, you kill it... and then it turns into the human form of the Baron's son, who you were sent to save. Whoops. Maybe combat wasn't the best outcome there.

True.  But Quest for Glory is as much "Sierra Adventure Game" as it is an RPG.  After you do that, the game pops up saying "Maybe you shouldn't have done that" and suggests reloading the game.  At least it doesn't go "Space Quest" on us and let us know hours later we mucked up.

In Final Fantasy 3 (US), during one of the opening sequences, you can lose a fight that will not result in a game over, but will siginificantly delay you obtaining two characters, Mog and Umaro. In addition, you will lose the chance to unlock a certain type of move for Mog (the River Dance) at all in the game.

Interesting example.

Thank you.

Also, in regards to QFG, one of the main goals is to havea  potion made that can dispel an evil spell. If you have that potion made and accidentally click the ground with it, your character will pour the potion on the ground and waste it. No getting a second potion, no having it rebrewed. That's it. If you get to the point in the game where you have to use the dispel potion? You will die. Over and over and over again. Because you don't have any other option.

The exact Space Quest dilema you outlined happened to me in one of my QFG playthroughs doing exactly this. I accidentally dumped out the potion and hit Quick Save and then, in frustration, quit for the day. I loaded it back up completing forgetting I had made this bone head mistake and got to the end of the game and had zero recourse. I had to start all the way over (because I am not one of those smart people who kept multiple saves).

I realize that QFG was a Sierra adventure game more than a true RPG, but Arena was a dungeon crawler more than a true RPG, just like Fallout was more of a IE turn based shooter game than a true RPG... it becomes difficult to peg what exactly IS a true RPG, honestly. I'm just saying games in the past have done it, they WERE doing it... but it now seems like a lost art. The ideal that making an RPG was about trying to think and solve problems instead of maxing DPS and killing as many mooks as possible. I think people get enough of that in WoW, honestly.


EDIT: And I'm not trying to say that Bioware or the DA team doesn't try hard in this department. I know their level designers do amazing work. And I can't wait to see what situations they have cooked up for us with DA3, because I know they have said they are working on making combat truly insane. 

So it may seem like I'm throwing them under the bus. But this is true of many developers for many RPGs. That's why DA:O was so well received amongst many of my kind... it was like someone had dug up the playbook to making games with lots of options all over again, that it had been lost to the ravages of time, but rediscovered. Sure, it wasn't perfect. It took many elements which were used in other games and did them admirably, if not perfectly. But they attempted it. 

But then it seems like most of those things that really made DA:O stick out, that really were callbacks to a different time in gaming, where the idea was to press the boundaries as far as possible in what a player could do and what the game would allow... it seems like most of those took a backseat in DA2. I'd love to see them return. 

You know what they say... the best way to get a baby to cry is to give them candy and then take it away. Call me a baby, because I want my candy back.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 19 mars 2013 - 08:34 .

[Wulfram]

If you want to make combat harder, you can make combat harder without getting rid of auto-heal. All scrapping auto-heal does is either move the "win" requirements a bit (from kill the bad guy, to kill the bad guy and don't use too many spells), or, if the game is like all the RPGs I recall, forces the player to do something tedious and probably immersion breaking to get themselves healed up for the next battle.

Modifié par Wulfram, 19 mars 2013 - 08:24 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

If you want to make combat harder, you can make combat harder without getting rid of auto-heal. All scrapping auto-heal does is either move the "win" requirements a bit (from kill the bad guy, to kill the bad guy and don't use too many spells), or, if the game is like all the RPGs I recall, forces the player to do something tedious and probably immersion breaking to get themselves healed up for the next battle.

Not harder, that's not the goal. Just more punishing. 

Harder means the player dies a lot and has to reload. That's annoying.

Punishing means that if you have taken damage in battle, you are scarred and ugly. Maybe making approval needing to be higher for a romance to trigger. Maybe it means NPCs die if you aren't good enough at taking enemies down. Maybe it means if you get hit a lot, your potions break in your backpack or your gear takes damage and becomes less effective. Maybe it means you lose morale, as battle weariness sets in your character's bones and they just want to stop fighting.

Pick your poison. The idea, though, that getting into combat and winning has you coming out the other side smelling like roses every single time means that, WAY more often that not? Combat is going to be the preferred problem solver. 

Dark Souls had hard combat. Its load areas were far apart, meaning you had to drag your butt through an entire area or two if you died, and its enemies had very specific tactics that caused you to evaluate how you approached each target.

Dishonored had punishing combat. If you killed too many people, you got the "bad" ending. Same with DE:HR. In that light, combat is viewed as being "bad." Granted, those were stealth games. And stealth like those games have is NOT what I'm asking for. 

But there is a huge impact in making combat the no-cost, easiest approach to everything in your game. The difference is that you begin to say "well, why are we offering these other options, anyway?" Which leads to an entire combat-only game, at which times we may as well be playing Devil May Cry instead of a party RPG. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 19 mars 2013 - 08:32 .

[Wulfram]

If people are roleplaying, then I think a lot of them will take non-violent solutions if it's appropriate to the character, without feeling the need to add a punishment mechanic to tell them that they're doing it wrong.

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

If people are roleplaying, then I think a lot of them will take non-violent solutions if it's appropriate to the character, without feeling the need to add a punishment mechanic to tell them that they're doing it wrong.

It is not to make them feel like they are doing it "wrong." 

After all, having a non-combat solution that the player always uses isn't much better. If you level up Speech and can talk you way past anyone with the click of a button, what does that accomplish for you? It basically gives you a "skip combat" button. If you spend thirty minutes laying traps so that a fight that would normally take you two minutes suddenly takes you ten seconds... well, that's cool for you. But that is going to be more of a novelty type playthrough than a real "gameplay style" that is embraced than a few hardcore players and regarded as worthless to the vast majority. 

If a player can objectively measure up a situation and say "okay, there is a group of goblins down there who we can get the drop on and we have high elevation, so our ranged attackers will be able to make quick work of these guys" then, by all means, kill the buggers. But if you have a rescued princess with you and you walk into a Pride Demon's lair, then maybe let's think for a second "hey, rushing in and trying to stab this thing to death with a dagger might not be the wisest course of action."

Having your skills be tools that you can use as the situation fits, not just having one way you go about things in a certain playthrough, is the ideal goal. Again, solving problems, not leaving the biggest trail of bodies behind you. 

[Medhia Nox]

@Fast Jimmy: I wasn't talking about RP choices - I was talking about any individual combat obstacle course - which was what you were talking about it seemed until you decided to switch gears to appear outraged by my claim of knowledge about what you have and have not done.

There is no video game in creation that you cannot achieve the best possible ending provided in that game if you want to. There is no video game created where every level, board, puzzle or combat will not be eventually succeeded in (if required) given enough time.

Video games cannot be "failed" without imposing your own rules.

They are exactly like a choose your own adventure - and only like tabletop RPing on the surface.

[Allan Schumacher]

So it may seem like I'm throwing them under the bus.

I didn't get this impression. I was more asking for clarification because going through my rolodex of history, the occurrence of "combat with consequences besides kill or be killed" wasn't coming up too often. In other words, I was curious how influenced it was by a nostalgic reference to "the good old days."

The exact Space Quest dilema you outlined happened to me in one of my QFG playthroughs doing exactly this. I accidentally dumped out the potion and hit Quick Save and then, in frustration, quit for the day. I loaded it back up completing forgetting I had made this bone head mistake and got to the end of the game and had zero recourse. I had to start all the way over (because I am not one of those smart people who kept multiple saves).

I have mixed feelings about stuff like this. I know some use an example like this and go "see, the game didn't hold your hand back then." But at the same time, outright sabotaging one's game experience (especially through an accident) isn't necessarily a pleasant thing. Although the Sierra games were often reasonably fair for this sort of thing (it'd be clearly a stupid thing to do. Ooops you just dumped the potion, that was probably dumb of you), it wasn't always (what do you mean I needed to pick up that coin on the spaceship at the start of the game to ensure I wouldn't be blocked several hours later in the game!). Though Space Quest kind of takes some level of pride in killing the gamer haha.

Ideally, the game would probably allow you to create another potion (in some way, at some cost). Alternatively, suboptimal conclusions can still happen (rather than game over), but then things can get pretty divergent.

[Fast Jimmy]

Medhia Nox wrote...

@Fast Jimmy: I wasn't talking about RP choices - I was talking about any individual combat obstacle course - which was what you were talking about it seemed until you decided to switch gears to appear outraged by my claim of knowledge about what you have and have not done.

There is no video game in creation that you cannot achieve the best possible ending provided in that game if you want to. There is no video game created where every level, board, puzzle or combat will not be eventually succeeded in (if required) given enough time.

Video games cannot be "failed" without imposing your own rules.

They are exactly like a choose your own adventure - and only like tabletop RPing on the surface.

I am not saying anything about combat. A "skip combat" button, ironically, has nothing to do with combat. 

It is a concede that there can be no engaging gameplay at all. That is patently untrue. When we assume that combat is always going to be boring, no matter what type of character you play, what type of tactics you take, what type of enemies you encounter, what type of equipment you have, then we have conceded that combat can never be fun. Which is a fair enough assumption, I suppose... but to then say that there is no gameplay way at all to do something outside of combat, that combat must be the only way to handle every encounter and that a "skip combat" button is for all of those who aren't some type of masochistic power gamers is to flat out admit defeat. 

Also, the ability to replay/reload a game does not mean you cannot fail. There is nothing in the rulebook of an tabletop that says if the entire party dies, that the DM can't magically find a way to bring everyone back to life through some DM slight of hand. Nor does it prevent you starting a brand new campaign with the same characters in the same setting going through the same quests. Or starting over the same campaign from the last time you were in a town. So there is nothing preventing you from doing the exact same thing in a tabletop as you do in a video game. To say any differently is you imposing YOUR own rules on how you are playing.

Regardless, it is all trivial. A skip combat button will likely not be on the table. A narrative mode difficulty may be, like it was in ME3. That doesn't bother me. It may seem like a minor detail, but a game difficulty that makes it basically impossible to achieve anything but the best combat outcomes is infinitely better than one that just skips the entire interaction by the press of a button. 

[Il Divo]

While combat may become reptitive after a while (DA:O's dungeons often ran far too long), I don't think a skip combat button is a great idea, from a marketing perspective. It might be regarded as a confession from the developers that their gameplay is not worth engaging in.

I guess you could say the same about how dialogue is skippable in a Bioware game, but that isn't quite as outlandish in the Video Game world, where players often have the ability to skip cut-scenes. A skip combat button would probably be setting a precedent. Can anyone remember any game that has ever given the ability to skip combat altogether? I'm drawing nothing.  

[Fast Jimmy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The exact Space Quest dilema you outlined happened to me in one of my QFG playthroughs doing exactly this. I accidentally dumped out the potion and hit Quick Save and then, in frustration, quit for the day. I loaded it back up completing forgetting I had made this bone head mistake and got to the end of the game and had zero recourse. I had to start all the way over (because I am not one of those smart people who kept multiple saves).

I have mixed feelings about stuff like this. I know some use an example like this and go "see, the game didn't hold your hand back then." But at the same time, outright sabotaging one's game experience (especially through an accident) isn't necessarily a pleasant thing. Although the Sierra games were often reasonably fair for this sort of thing (it'd be clearly a stupid thing to do. Ooops you just dumped the potion, that was probably dumb of you), it wasn't always (what do you mean I needed to pick up that coin on the spaceship at the start of the game to ensure I wouldn't be blocked several hours later in the game!). Though Space Quest kind of takes some level of pride in killing the gamer haha.

Ideally, the game would probably allow you to create another potion (in some way, at some cost). Alternatively, suboptimal conclusions can still happen (rather than game over), but then things can get pretty divergent.

I agree. I didn't like the outcome I gave, nor the Space Quest reference (not sure which one you are exactly refering to, but I do remember how Space Quest loved to thwart the player at every turn). But the fact that the developers weren't afraid to give the player a slice of humble pie is the key thing I am focusing on. Instead of saying "well, we were going for THIS, but what we actually did felt like a big kick in the naughty bits for the player" it seems like developers only learned the lesson of "angering gamers is bad, we should prevent that at any cost." 

I'd argue that TWD game was one of the most refreshing in a long time, mostly because it didn't involve you slaying 10,001 zombies in the course of playing it. Just like the show, going toe to toe with a zombie is really avoided at any cost and death is around every corner - not for the player, but for the people you travel with, the people you grow to care about. Combat was never really a "solution" for any of the problems that was presented, as you hardly ever got to jump in and save the day by blowing through every single zombie in the room. 

Anyway, I think I've been up on my soapbox on this issue for a little too long, so I just want to restate my concern consisely. The concept of a "skip combat" button isn't inherently bad - people don't like combat and I get that. But having a button tied to skipping combat leads to A) the inability to tie gameplay into the story without addressing some very thorny questions/concerns and it admits that combat is neccessary, ever-present and boring in RPGs. Which really shouldn't be something we are ready to admit at this point. We've had very interesting progress/attempts in the past for us to learn from... why say combat is the only way to tackle the problems that get thrown our way? If you give players options, maybe they find that playing a wise cracking speech-driven character is infinitely more fun to them than fighting everything that crosses their path. Less skipping with buttons and more options to engage different types of players.

[Fast Jimmy]

Il Divo wrote...

While combat may become reptitive after a while (DA:O's dungeons often ran far too long), I don't think a skip combat button is a great idea, from a marketing perspective. It might be regarded as a confession from the developers that their gameplay is not worth engaging in.

I guess you could say the same about how dialogue is skippable in a Bioware game, but that isn't quite as outlandish in the Video Game world, where players often have the ability to skip cut-scenes. A skip combat button would probably be setting a precedent. Can anyone remember any game that has ever given the ability to skip combat altogether? I'm drawing nothing.  

I know of a few. Though these games weren't combat focused, but rather had them as mini-games almost. One that pops into my head, Rise of the Dragon (from Sierra subsidiary Dynamix), assumed the worst possible consequence if you skipped their poorly design action/platform scenes. Your buddy would get his head chopped off, your girlfriend would die, etc. I'm not sure that's the best assumption, but it would be the call of whoever was making said button to decide if the best, worst or "other" outcomes are the result. Or there could be zero choices where combat makes a difference. I'd say removing that off the table entirely closes a door, possibly forever, that may not be easy to open again.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 20 mars 2013 - 12:22 .