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[crimzontearz]

David7204 wrote...

I think it's fairly clear the protagonist was outmatched by this guy.

not by much.....literally days later he effortlessly slays both Letho's companions with ease

[GreyLycanTrope]

crimzontearz wrote...
some, not all....gargoyles, nekkers, rotfiends and so on he has to relearn in TW2. he also has to learn his FOOTWORK back and basic witcher training tree is mandatory

That's because as an RPG the game needed a leveling system, it's not brought up as a plot point.

[Leonardo the Magnificent]

Alright, alright. We're getting off topic here, very much so, but I have to ask: what made Letho such a compelling villain? Because I honestly never saw anything particularly compelling about him, and gladly killed him without giving it any real pause. Is there something in the EU or first game that I missed?

[AresKeith]

IMO, Kai Leng would've been a character if Bioware focused on him being a tactical fighter, cunning, and using opportunity and deception over brute force

Maybe even giving him his own unique squad to combat Shepard post-Citadel Coup

And of course giving him better lines

[GreyLycanTrope]

Leonardo the Magnificent wrote...

Alright, alright. We're getting off topic here, very much so, but I have to ask: what made Letho such a compelling villain? Because I honestly never saw anything particularly compelling about him, and gladly killed him without giving it any real pause. Is there something in the EU or first game that I missed?

For me personally it's more of a begrudging respect for the magnificent bastard, as he actually pulls off what set out to do. And as a fellow witcher I could honestly sympathize with the motivations for his actions.

[crimzontearz]

Greylycantrope wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...
some, not all....gargoyles, nekkers, rotfiends and so on he has to relearn in TW2. he also has to learn his FOOTWORK back and basic witcher training tree is mandatory

That's because as an RPG the game needed a leveling system, it's not brought up as a plot point.

he has to relearn arrow parrying which he knew before and all signs mastery, come on man it is pretty much accepted on the cdpr boards too

[Mr.House]

Leonardo the Magnificent wrote...

Alright, alright. We're getting off topic here, very much so, but I have to ask: what made Letho such a compelling villain? Because I honestly never saw anything particularly compelling about him, and gladly killed him without giving it any real pause. Is there something in the EU or first game that I missed?

To understand what made Letho compelling and a great character, one must just play the game fully and pay attention to everything that has to do with Letho. It's all there

Modifié par Mr.House, 27 mai 2013 - 02:31 .

[David7204]

Okay...you say 'tactical, cunning' fighter...what does that actually mean in combat?

[Astartes Marine]

David7204 wrote...
Okay...you say 'tactical, cunning' fighter...what does that actually mean in combat?

I can't speak for others but to me I would expect someone who uses cover smartly, uses their available powers, uses weaponry, uses the environment to their advantage...not run straight at the player and hope to land a sword swipe before the player sends them to hell.

Tela Vasir was an impressive fight; using her abilities, environment and weapons to the best of her abilities.

With a CQC focused character I would expect things like decoys (flashbangs/flares/etc) to misdirect or confuse the player and the use of cloaking systems to allow them to close the distance and/or a biotic charge would have changed things up a bit.  As it stands his AI was rather limited to the level of "above average mook" who relies entirely on other mooks or a gunship to give him most of his "bite".



On top of all of that for the love of God he needed better lines.

[Leonardo the Magnificent]

Mr.House wrote...

Leonardo the Magnificent wrote...

Alright, alright. We're getting off topic here, very much so, but I have to ask: what made Letho such a compelling villain? Because I honestly never saw anything particularly compelling about him, and gladly killed him without giving it any real pause. Is there something in the EU or first game that I missed?

To understand what made Letho compelling and a great character, one must just play the game fully and pay attention to everything that has to do with Letho. It's all there

I've completed two completionist playthroughs and understand Letho's plot, motives, and a decent amount of his backstory. He's just not compelling to me. I don't know if it's because I can't relate to his motives because I don't have an emotional connection to the plight of a Witcher or what. Honestly, the only characters I find compelling are Saskia, Stennis, Radovid, and the mercenary whose name I always forget.

[AresKeith]

Astartes Marine wrote...

David7204 wrote...
Okay...you say 'tactical, cunning' fighter...what does that actually mean in combat?

I can't speak for others but to me I would expect someone who uses cover smartly, uses their available powers, uses weaponry, uses the environment to their advantage...not run straight at the player and hope to land a sword swipe before the player sends them to hell.

Tela Vasir was an impressive fight; using her abilities, environment and weapons to the best of her abilities.

With a CQC focused character I would expect things like decoys (flashbangs/flares/etc) to misdirect or confuse the player and the use of cloaking systems to allow them to close the distance and/or a biotic charge would have changed things up a bit.  As it stands his AI was rather limited to the level of "above average mook" who relies entirely on other mooks or a gunship to give him most of his "bite".



On top of all of that for the love of God he needed better lines.

Basically this, and I agree that Tela Vasir was a good example of this

The Clone Shepard in the Citadel DLC also showed this kind of skill

[GreyLycanTrope]

crimzontearz wrote...
he has to relearn arrow parrying which he knew before and all signs mastery, come on man it is pretty much accepted on the cdpr boards too

Dude I played both games too, he can counterattack swords and fight groups by default in the first game and has to learn those specific skills again in the second. Unless his amnesia returns partially to obsucure those specific skills they're game mechanics that shouldn't be considered part of the plot or character development. You certainly can justify it that way if you feel the need to but it's not definative of his character arc.

[Astartes Marine]

AresKeith wrote...
The Clone Shepard in the Citadel DLC also showed this kind of skill

Agreed about the clone, that fight was a good challenge.  They even used Medi-Gel along with the rest of their powers!  Medi-Gel!  Brooks even used her cloak.


The Mirror Match at the Armax Arsenal is also a good example, tough fight that was.

[David7204]

I wonder if people would have still considered that a good fight if Shepard lost.

[Astartes Marine]

David7204 wrote...

I wonder if people would have still considered that a good fight if Shepard lost.

Which one?  Vasir or the clone?  I'd consider it a good fight either way, they made me work for it.  If they still won then they'd deserve that win. 

I can respect a good adversary, a little bit of Grunt in me that way.

[AresKeith]

David7204 wrote...

I wonder if people would have still considered that a good fight if Shepard lost.

It wouldn't really matter

If Kai Leng (and his squad) was able to beat Shepard, then they were enough to rival Shep. But if they lost and retreated then they still proved they were competent enough to be a challenge

[Astartes Marine]

AresKeith wrote...

David7204 wrote...

I wonder if people would have still considered that a good fight if Shepard lost.

It wouldn't really matter

If Kai Leng (and his squad) was able to beat Shepard, then they were enough to rival Shep. But if they lost and retreated then they still proved they were competent enough to be a challenge

Basically Kai Leng wasn't worthy of the win.  He didn't earn it, rather it was given to him because the script demanded it.

[KiwiQuiche]

True. I mean, you do have defeats in the previous ME games, but they are generally handled way better.

In ME3 I kept Kai Lame in the gunship area while on Thessia; he didn't even injure Shepard of the squaddies. Suddenly he kicks all of their asses and manages to beat a Vanguard in hand-to-hand? Yeah no.

In ME1 Saren grabs Shepard by the throat on Virmire and nearly throws her off the cliff. She decks him straight in the face and he lets her go. It shows Shepard actually reacting and freeing herself without looking useless like the next two games began to do distressingly frequently.

[AresKeith]

Astartes Marine wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

David7204 wrote...

I wonder if people would have still considered that a good fight if Shepard lost.

It wouldn't really matter

If Kai Leng (and his squad) was able to beat Shepard, then they were enough to rival Shep. But if they lost and retreated then they still proved they were competent enough to be a challenge

Basically Kai Leng wasn't worthy of the win.  He didn't earn it, rather it was given to him because the script demanded it.

I agree and I personally think giving him his own squad would help improve it

I even made a thread about it awhile back

[grey_wind]

Seboist wrote...

Cthulhu42 wrote...

Mr.House wrote...
I wish Bioware could make a great "villian" like Letho.

There was Loghain; certainly no villains of that calibre in ME though, no.

The only decent villains/antagonists in ME are Saren, ME1 Balak and Vasir. The rest are a joke.

While they're all better written than the rest of the ME anatagonists, I think they're still pretty terrible villains judged on their own merits. I'm willing to give Balak and Vasir a pass since they're just glorified henchmen, but I always felt that Saren was incredibly wasted as a character.

[Kataphrut94]

It's difficult to do 'defeat' well in video-games, since gameplay demands by necessity that the player is constantly succeeding. I find the best solution is to present players with a situation that would be impossible (or extremely difficult) to deal with in gameplay, then they won't resent you as much for failing them. The betrayal at the end of the Virtuous Mission in Metal Gear Solid 3 springs to mind.

I was never that bothered by the Kai Leng thing. It's certainly fitting in the classic hero's journey storyline; the hero has been steadily succeeding and achieving their goals until right before the climax when things suddenly take a turn for the worse. Having done well so far on Tuchanka, the Citadel & Rannoch, Thessia was the perfect moment for the rug to be pulled out from under Shepard.

The execution is obviously where it falls apart, but there are games that have done worse. I'd consider Saren's escape on Virmire to be more railroady, since he just incapacitates you in a way that could easily have been avoided outside of a cutscene. At least Leng's gunship was a legitimate threat in the boss battle. And of course, the pre-Broken Steel ending of Fallout 3 is far, far worse at scripted garbage failures than anything Mass Effect has ever done.

[SeptimusMagistos]

Speaking personally, I found that one of the differences between Letho and Kai Leng was that Letho's win was halfway believable. The fight against him was tough enough and complicated enough that I could believe him getting in a lucky shot. Kai Leng was too busy eating dirt to be belieavable as a victor and the idea that a gunship constitutes an unbeatable advantage had been thoroughly demolished back in ME2.

Honestly, Bioware just does not handle those things well. From Kai Leng to the sith lord in KOTOR to the animated armor in Jade Empire, there hasn't been a single time when I wasn't cursing my allies and demanding to get back to the fight so I can finish the opponent off.

Long story short? If I don't feel defeated, having my character get defeated breaks all suspension of disbelief. From that moment forth the villain stops being a villain and becomes a cheap plot device. Any genuine hatred I might feel for the villain is replaced with a strong annoyance towards the writers.

So, three guidelines I'd propose:

1. Don't let us fight a villain and then ignore the results of the fight. Nothing rings more hollow than being told to escape the guy whose butt you were just kicking or to have him use a spell from which you were clearly protected.

2. Don't try to make our characters afraid. It's one thing to have our character be beaten. It's another to watch them run while knowing that if the controls weren't disabled we'd be running in the exact opposite direction.

3. Whatever you do, don't try to intimidate us with mobs. If I routinely kill twenty people at a time, seeing a hundred people raising their arms against me is cause not for alarm but for healing potions.


On that note I'd like to nominate Chrono Trigger and Dalton's 'turn around' trick for non-infuriating defeat. It was so silly it was impossible to get mad.

But to be honest, I enjoy the boss fights where it's possible to either win or lose much more than the predetermined loss ones. Whether the win is merely difficult like against Ser Katherine in Dragon Age or impossible without a New Game+ like against Lavos in Chrono Trigger, knowing you were beaten fair and square is far more satisfying than losing in a cutscene.

[Fixers0]

 The primary objective is to make it as non-contrived as possible, you can't avoid all contrivance of course, after all it's a written story, but the way the scene's are animated  matters a great deal, and unfortunatly it's where Mass Effect 3 commonly falls flat. It seems that in Bioware's aim to increase the cinematic quantity have led to reduce in quality, one of the best examples is the Wrex confrontation on the citadel, whiche while I like in it's context, is animated in a shockingly shoddy,  way, as is Kai Leng on Thessia, were control is wrestled from the player's hands to establish in a poorly animated scene that the bad guy has to win.

If The Bad guy has to win because the script demands it, make it believabe, either make the bad guy do something really smart (easier) or have the player character screw something up,( harder) in a believable manner, like thinking that that he's doing a good job, only to find out he's helping the enemy.

Modifié par Fixers0, 27 mai 2013 - 07:06 .

[Erez Kristal]

Letho tells geralt he was better than him once. but since then geralt got old and all. hes just trash talking..

[IanPolaris]

The Mad Hanar wrote...

"I've forgotten everything! Well, except for my years in sword training."

This is actually very believable.  There have been a number of studies done with regard to learning and human memory, and the sort of memory that involves physical skills like swimming, driving, or sword fighting involves a very different part of the brain than the parts that involve academenic knowledge/lore like names, faces, mathematics, etc.

-Polaris