809 réponses à ce sujet

[philippe willaume]

Ieldra2 wrote...

@Philippe:
The description of the "kill all hostiles" cheat in DA2 comes with the caveat that it can circumvent quest triggers. I'd need to know the programming details to judge for certain, but for instance if the cheat circumvents the normal damage-dealing routines and quest events are triggered by a state set by those routines, then it could happen that, for instance after you killed the 5th random bandit group in Hightown using a cheat, the location of the group's HQ will not be shown while it otherwise would.

So, a "kill all hostiles" function would have to be implemented in a way that it doesn't circumvent any quest triggers, unlike the cheat where if you use it and a disaster happens, it's considered to be your own fault.

TBH i did not know that i came with that caveat, (i never used the fucntion personally. regardless it need to be implemented the way you descibed.

phil

[GameHunter]

Hazegurl wrote...

GameHunter wrote...

First reaction to role playing game about all out war with ability to skip combat EPIC LOL.

To explain in simple words lets see your idea on game like DA II.
If all fights in DA II could have been skip able and if you on subsequent play through you skipped
them you would be left with ability to run around same streets and caves and etc. all the time, pick up stuff and choose one of 3 tones of voice and also 1 of 2 sides of conflict which was more obnoxious than combat in some aspects since you couldn't care less if not mage but everyone was getting in your face about it and in the end you would get pretty same results w/e you did. That would have been major roleplaying experience XD.
Not to mention people who want to check all possible outcomes of situation could easily load and try again since combat is skip-able which in the end would greatly reduce replay-ability.
You combat skippers are geniuses .

What is your point? If I could skip combat I would pick up the same quests any other player is picking up, do them the same as any other player is doing them, but when the fighting commences I can skip over it and have it done, cut to the usual cut scenes or leave the area. Head to the next mission the same as everyone else and/or turn in that particular mission to progress the story forward. Focus on romancing my LI, building rep with my Rivals and Friends and enjoying the overall storyline itself. It's not like the cambat in DA 2 is needed to push the story forward, it's ntohing more than a wave fest. Zero brain power required, just stay alive and kill kill kill. Now if I have to use real strategy, position teammates, bring the right teammates, and so on to accomplish the combat or if there was a story being told in the combat itself I wouldn't want to skip it. 

seriously, combat in DA2 could have been skipped and it wouldn't have made a difference overall.

(Laughing) I wondered if there be someone who doesn't get it but obviously I have to explain in manner you explain things to a child. So cut it short to conclusion it's pointless!!! Your reliving of same scenes in ridiculously quick succession while in times that supposed to be tense just out  of combat taken rash decisions 
or joy of victory (you are casually  picking decision for what reason you don't even remember probably
just for sake of doing it)

On what you would do then
1)You invest point in friendship rivalry  ... are you aware ? that this is not friendship / rival  simulator also their preferences are quite obviously thrown in your face so theres not much to it just unlocking few unheard lines.
2)Romancing your LI ...you mean? by pressing the heart button ?.... well done lad ,you did it ,you figured it out on your own I'm proud of you.(You get wardrobe reward  and a romp start sequence)
3)Enjoy the storyline .... (more like what sh*t happen to Hawke this week ? magazine )Enjoying the conflict that you didn't chose to which  your actions doesn't mean a slightest in the end. Two bosses you skip them everything in between them too (basically your story ends with the unexpected bam section you can end it even before that cause bam gonna bam no matter what)HF.

2 sims 1 on its own unable to fill all the gameplay story.

Pushing the story (if the game is designed to be fun ,story is there already you don't need to push anything
to experience the story ) The way you want game to be possible to play is to "push " story  by pushing
one mouse button ,to be precise ...it's your left one and see all possible outcomes then game over. How about this type of zero brain power you do nothing else just press one your left mouse button all the time ,I bet you could do it with eyes closed. 

(And you obviously didn't play nightmare not having formation your literally screwed.)
As much as waves weren't fair ,combat wasn't ground breakingly innovative and combat animations too liberate  use of fast forward and obvious crazy boss fights.

It didn't made combats role in the game less than in any other game (the game brings no ultimate value
,no weight worth emotions)You could say that you have all emotional baggage in your dialogues.  
Lets see GAME with skip combat options ( Impending doom you say? ... NEVER fear!!! I have my skip combat button proceed ... EPIC ANIMATED ACTION SEQUENCE gg )

That you need such an option can mean one of 2 things 
a) you didn't enjoy the game itself as it was designed and you want to skip that whole chunk or section of the game so you don't want  to play this game or you want to pretend that you play the game (in latest case you're just seeking for some kind of activities with social flavour so you can feel like you're awesome (nothing wrong with that but there are simpler noncombat games for that as an option).
you just finished the game and want to figure out all possible outcomes and your too lazy to do anything ,then you don't want to play the game so quickly again and what your trying to achieve doesn't require you to play the game ,you tube or wiki would suffice, if your  impatient sort ( if you did get that option and tried in the end you would found gameplay disjointed and meaningless and with time leaps in the game it would just not give the same feeling of  actually living through any of it ,roleplaying value 5/10 ).

Harsh truth to you without combat its just animated action sequences with running to golden exclamation marks
with some random story segment in between. Games are developed to be played not to be skipped through
 
( If you can actually enjoy such type of playing , hats of to you. Your imagination is gloriously powerful and you should write novels or make movies and make money from it or something and not waste time in these forums with us "zero brain power people".)

Modifié par GameHunter, 11 juillet 2013 - 03:12 .

[Ieldra]

GameHunter wrote...
That you need such an option can mean one of 2 things 
a) you didn't enjoy the game itself as it was designed and you want to skip that whole chunk or section of the game so you don't want  to play this game or you want to pretend that you play the game (in latest case you're just seeking for some kind of activities with social flavour so you can feel like you're awesome (nothing wrong with that but there are simpler noncombat games for that as an option).
you just finished the game and want to figure out all possible outcomes and your too lazy to do anything ,then you don't want to play the game so quickly again and what your trying to achieve doesn't require you to play the game ,you tube or wiki would suffice, if your  impatient sort ( if you did get that option and tried in the end you would found gameplay disjointed and meaningless and with time leaps in the game it would just not give the same feeling of  actually living through any of it ,roleplaying value 5/10 ).

It can mean a lot of other things. Among others:
(1) Combat is so boring that it's as much fun as chopping onions.
(2) I've played the game enough times that I don't want to do all the fights again just to see what's different in the story this time.
As for being "lazy", indeed. Playing a game shouldn't feel like work, and when it does, I want to remove those parts because I play games to have fun, not for working. If you're different then I'd question your attitude, since you obviously pay money to do things you don't find enjoyment in. 

Harsh truth to you without combat its just animated action sequences with running to golden exclamation marks with some random story segment in between. Games are developed to be played not to be skipped through

Why the double standard? Why be able to skip through dialogue but not through combat? Also, stop attacking strawmen. What we're asking for is an option to get combat over with ultra-fast on a case-by-case basis, not an option to remove it altogether.

And lastly, why do you care how others play their games? It seems to me that you don't want others to enjoy the game on their terms and force them to play like you want them to. I guess you wouldn't take it well if I recommended that the option (!) to skip dialogue was removed, right? Because you'd miss the complete story if you skipped all dialogue, and obviously the story is there for a purpose and shouldn't be skipped because only meaningless combat sequences would be left. That's your line of reasoning so far.

Harsh truth to you: if you want to prescribe how others play their games then you have an attitude problem. You know what we call those people: fundamentalists. 

Modifié par Ieldra2, 11 juillet 2013 - 04:32 .

[jtav]

I'm in the midst of playing through all three games. If I want to skip dialogue, I can do that. If I want to skip the collection quests in the Wending Wood (and believe me I will in future) nothing is stopping me. But I can do nothing about wave after wave of pointless mooks that add nothing to the story. I'm almost through act 1 and there's a heck of a lot of combat that seems to exist just for padding. That should be skippable.

[dekkerd]

jtav wrote...

I'm in the midst of playing through all three games. If I want to skip dialogue, I can do that. If I want to skip the collection quests in the Wending Wood (and believe me I will in future) nothing is stopping me. But I can do nothing about wave after wave of pointless mooks that add nothing to the story. I'm almost through act 1 and there's a heck of a lot of combat that seems to exist just for padding. That should be skippable.

I'll disagree on entirely skippable. But a casual mode that works would be roughly the same thing.  Da2 combat was buggy in that way. Me3 story mode got it right IMO.

now we wait for someone to insultingly explain to us how we should play the game. 

[Plaintiff]

dekkerd wrote...

jtav wrote...

I'm in the midst of playing through all three games. If I want to skip dialogue, I can do that. If I want to skip the collection quests in the Wending Wood (and believe me I will in future) nothing is stopping me. But I can do nothing about wave after wave of pointless mooks that add nothing to the story. I'm almost through act 1 and there's a heck of a lot of combat that seems to exist just for padding. That should be skippable.

I'll disagree on entirely skippable. But a casual mode that works would be roughly the same thing.  Da2 combat was buggy in that way. Me3 story mode got it right IMO.

now we wait for someone to insultingly explain to us how we should play the game.

Well first, you should put the game disc in the disc tray of your console or PC.

Do not use the disc as a coaster, do not eat the disc, do not throw the disc like a frisbee or attempt to have sex with the disc.

[K_Tabris]

You know, text-based adventure games were considered video games in their day. Since this is an rpg, it's not a stretch to ask for a true story mode for gamers who prefer not to be stuck on combat scenarios. Bioware is great at making stories, excepting ME3, and consequently some of us play becausof those awesome stories.

This is a good feature to employ for those reasons.

[Sylvius the Mad]

GameHunter wrote...

Harsh truth to you without combat its just animated action sequences with running to golden exclamation marks
with some random story segment in between.

We're allowed to skip cutscenes.  We're even allowed to disable those golden exclamation marks.  How is combat different?

Or are you arguing that we shouldn't be allowed to change how we play the game at all?  Should we all be forced to see those golden exclamation marks?

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

GameHunter wrote...
Harsh truth to you without combat its just animated action sequences with running to golden exclamation marks
with some random story segment in between.

We're allowed to skip cutscenes.  We're even allowed to disable those golden exclamation marks.  How is combat different?

Or are you arguing that we shouldn't be allowed to change how we play the game at all?  Should we all be forced to see those golden exclamation marks?

Both L.A. Noire and Total War are examples of combat skipping.

It's been done in games.  And, with a game like Total War, you could argue it's skipping the "key" part of the game's genre (RTS where you have the computer auto-resolve the battle?)

I don't think the option to skip random encounters is a bad idea.  I think it's a brilliant idea.  It's an option, and you can still fight the battle.

Many games have systems where you can try to avoid random encounters - why not another system to auto-resolve them?  I'm drawing a blank, but I can't imagine that this HASN'T been done in an RPG somewhere.

[GameHunter]

Ieldra2 wrote...

GameHunter wrote...
That you need such an option can mean one of 2 things 
a) you didn't enjoy the game itself as it was designed and you want to skip that whole chunk or section of the game so you don't want  to play this game or you want to pretend that you play the game (in latest case you're just seeking for some kind of activities with social flavour so you can feel like you're awesome (nothing wrong with that but there are simpler noncombat games for that as an option).
you just finished the game and want to figure out all possible outcomes and your too lazy to do anything ,then you don't want to play the game so quickly again and what your trying to achieve doesn't require you to play the game ,you tube or wiki would suffice, if your  impatient sort ( if you did get that option and tried in the end you would found gameplay disjointed and meaningless and with time leaps in the game it would just not give the same feeling of  actually living through any of it ,roleplaying value 5/10 ).

It can mean a lot of other things. Among others:
(1) Combat is so boring that it's as much fun as chopping onions.
(2) I've played the game enough times that I don't want to do all the fights again just to see what's different in the story this time.
As for being "lazy", indeed. Playing a game shouldn't feel like work, and when it does, I want to remove those parts because I play games to have fun, not for working. If you're different then I'd question your attitude, since you obviously pay money to do things you don't find enjoyment in. 

Harsh truth to you without combat its just animated action sequences with running to golden exclamation marks with some random story segment in between. Games are developed to be played not to be skipped through

Why the double standard? Why be able to skip through dialogue but not through combat? Also, stop attacking strawmen. What we're asking for is an option to get combat over with ultra-fast on a case-by-case basis, not an option to remove it altogether.

And lastly, why do you care how others play their games? It seems to me that you don't want others to enjoy the game on their terms and force them to play like you want them to. I guess you wouldn't take it well if I recommended that the option (!) to skip dialogue was removed, right? Because you'd miss the complete story if you skipped all dialogue, and obviously the story is there for a purpose and shouldn't be skipped because only meaningless combat sequences would be left. That's your line of reasoning so far.

Harsh truth to you: if you want to prescribe how others play their games then you have an attitude problem. You know what we call those people: fundamentalists. 

I couldn't give the slightest how you play the game you could do w/e you wanted to play the game
killed how many companion ,persons play backwards idk conquer the world ...go at it , its totally none of my business HOW you play your game(Question is do you play it ?) .What you ask is for developers to make for your preference a feature to skip big part of their game at will which is kinda insulting to do "hey we want to be able to skip that cause your battle isn't satyisfying enough" (that's very nice of you....).

And ability to skip any type of dialogue was created so if crashed ,died or your electricity popped off for a minute
you wouldn't have to listen to scripted speech you JUST heard again and could jump back to moment


While combat isn't all scripted events (only things are waves and boss battles) all other things can get sideways multiple ways and you can actually lose. Which might be other thing people are afraid of losing their awesomeness so they want to not risk and skip combat .

And you probably don't know that I basically don't skip dialogue unless I pressed the same investigate option
on mistake as I don't have any problem with story being told with descriptive dialogues and grasp more hidden meaning playing second or third time.

And who is "WE" some kind of underground "lets skip combat!!!" gang ?

As for double standards your prescribing developers how to make a game (revelation for you I guess) as otherwise it's unsuccessful or tiresome by your standard.

World wide people call that act in a way such as yourself  :  Hippocrates

As I really don't plan to make you change your mind as obviously your mind won't change any time soon
and I already wrote all there was significant about this I won't bother to write anything more on this topic as 
there are much more fun things to do till new Dragon Age comes out than participate in flame wars that forums are known for . 

[Joy Divison]

This topic again?

Can we please not encourage the developers to separate combat from the story as if they ought to be two unrelated entities, each independent of and thus unimportant to the other.

Combat should serve a purpose and provide story exposition, not be seen as an inconvenient interruption that can be skipped.

Modifié par Joy Divison, 11 juillet 2013 - 06:16 .

[Ieldra]

GameHunter wrote...
What you ask is for developers to make for your preference a feature to skip big part of their game at will which is kinda insulting to do "hey we want to be able to skip that cause your battle isn't satyisfying enough" (that's very nice of you....).

And the function to skip dialogue was added for the sake of the people who wanted to skip the dialogue because it's not interesting to them or they've heard it already too often. Where's the difference?

And ability to skip any type of dialogue was created so if crashed ,died or your electricity popped off for a minute you wouldn't have to listen to scripted speech you JUST heard again and could jump back to moment

ROFL. Are you serious? Well....see below.

While combat isn't all scripted events (only things are waves and boss battles) all other things can get sideways multiple ways and you can actually lose. Which might be other thing people are afraid of losing their awesomeness so they want to not risk and skip combat .

I don't care one bit about my own "awesomeness" in playing games. I just want to have fun with the world and the story and the characters, occasionally with fighting enemies as well but not always, without being bogged down by pointless combat every few steps. In the end, you're just trying to obfuscate the fact that there is no reason why the same reasoning which applies to skipping dialogue shouldn't also apply to skipping combat.

And you probably don't know that I basically don't skip dialogue unless I pressed the same investigate option on mistake as I don't have any problem with story being told with descriptive dialogues and grasp more hidden meaning playing second or third time.

Good for you. Unfortunately, as opposed to dialogue, combat doesn't reveal any hidden meaning the third or fourth time you play, so it's actually more desirable to have the option to skip it.

As for double standards your prescribing developers how to make a game (revelation for you I guess) as otherwise it's unsuccessful or tiresome by your standard.

I'm asking (not prescribing - that's your domain) for an option you are free to ignore and whose presence will have no impact at all on your enjoyment of the game. You want to deny me that option because of a dogmatic insistence on how games should work not just for you, but for everyone.

[Ieldra]

Joy Divison wrote...
This topic again?

Can we please not encourage the developers to separate combat from the story as if they ought to be two unrelated entities, each independent of and thus unimportant to the other.

Combat should serve a purpose and provide story exposition, not be seen as an inconvenient interruption that can be skipped.

To be precise, I was asking for an option to get combat over with ultra-fast, not precisely to skip it. That came up specifically as an extension, applied to things like DA2's often pointless combat.

It may surprise you, but I agree with you. Combat should be meaningful and so well integrated into the story that nobody would want to skip it. However, in all CRPG's I've played so far (and almost 30 years is enough time to play very many), combat is so far in excess of what can reasonably be called meaningful that to reduce it to the meaningful would mean to reduce it by 80-90%. It would be a totally different kind of game. While I would like that, it's not likely to happen, so I'm asking for the next best thing which really shouldn't get the combat addicts riled up - an option to get it over with ultra-fast and possibly skip the pointless fights.

With such an option, everyone should be happy. Those with a competitive mindset can have their achievements telling them how awesome they are for having finished the game on Nightmare, while those who play for the story can reduce the combat they want to play to the 10-20% which are actually meaningful for the story.  I can't see how this couldn't be the best of both worlds.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 11 juillet 2013 - 08:12 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Isn't everything the PC does necessarily part of the story?

But different players enjoy different parts of the story to different degrees. Forcing them all to experience the story in the same way serves them poorly.

[Ieldra]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Isn't everything the PC does necessarily part of the story?

I think you underestimate how much combat is added to games just because developers feel there isn't enough to do for the player in an area. Also, if I had to take every fight as part of the story, then I'd have to take the number of enemies I killed in DA2 seriously - and wonder why there are still living people in Kirkwall. Most combat is a gameplay contrivance. It may be a little less in well-designed games and more in cheaply-designed ones, but almost always the greater part by far of all combat in a game could be removed with no impact at all on the story.

Nonetheless, that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking to be able to get past the pointless combat ultra-fast.

[TK514]

Ieldra2 wrote...

With such an option, everyone should be happy. Those with a competitive mindset can have their achievements telling them how awesome they are for having finished the game on Nightmare, while those who play for the story can reduce the combat they want to play to the 10-20% which are actually meaningful for the story.  I can't see how this couldn't be the best of both worlds.

The subsequent complaints about how games are now too short would be epic.

[TheRealJayDee]

TK514 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

With such an option, everyone should be happy. Those with a competitive mindset can have their achievements telling them how awesome they are for having finished the game on Nightmare, while those who play for the story can reduce the combat they want to play to the 10-20% which are actually meaningful for the story.  I can't see how this couldn't be the best of both worlds.

The subsequent complaints about how games are now too short would be epic.

Maybe, but I would definitely prefer games that aren't "longer" only because they throw meaningless (and sometimes/often nonsensical) combat encounters at the player every other minute, like Dragon Age 2 did. I would've actually been a lot more positive about the game if they had cut, idk, half of the encounters, as they did nothing but tire me and disconnect me from the story that was being told.

I want great combat, and I want it to be meaningful and in harmony with the game's world and story (not every encounter is going to be that, though, but a certain amount of filler combat is fine). Anyways, I don't see how it would hurt anyone if those who don't want to sit through certain parts of certain aspects of the game were able to get through with it super-fast.

Modifié par TheRealJayDee, 12 juillet 2013 - 12:27 .

[Jere85]

runscript killallhostiles.

[Joy Divison]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Joy Divison wrote...
This topic again?

Can we please not encourage the developers to separate combat from the story as if they ought to be two unrelated entities, each independent of and thus unimportant to the other.

Combat should serve a purpose and provide story exposition, not be seen as an inconvenient interruption that can be skipped.

To be precise, I was asking for an option to get combat over with ultra-fast, not precisely to skip it. That came up specifically as an extension, applied to things like DA2's often pointless combat.

It may surprise you, but I agree with you. Combat should be meaningful and so well integrated into the story that nobody would want to skip it. However, in all CRPG's I've played so far (and almost 30 years is enough time to play very many), combat is so far in excess of what can reasonably be called meaningful that to reduce it to the meaningful would mean to reduce it by 80-90%. It would be a totally different kind of game. While I would like that, it's not likely to happen, so I'm asking for the next best thing which really shouldn't get the combat addicts riled up - an option to get it over with ultra-fast and possibly skip the pointless fights.

With such an option, everyone should be happy. Those with a competitive mindset can have their achievements telling them how awesome they are for having finished the game on Nightmare, while those who play for the story can reduce the combat they want to play to the 10-20% which are actually meaningful for the story.  I can't see how this couldn't be the best of both worlds.

I don't think I agree.

If we go with your proposed "ultra-fast" button, how would you apply it?  Would it be available to all combats (which would mean missing the exposition on the important ones) or just the "meaningless" ones (which would create other problems such as metagaming - you'd know an encounter is pointless/important before it began).  How do resources get managed?  Resource management is supposed to be a core element of RPGs.  What, you'd arbitraily lose 10% of your resources by hitting that button?  And you don't anticipate problems with "boss" fights?  In an ideal world, these fights are supposed to challenge players and force them to use all of the tools at their disposal and work their party as an effective and coordinated team.  How are players who continually use the "ultra-fast" button going to know of, let alone know how to synergize, the abilities each of their party members have in that climatic battle against the archdemon they can't skip?  I think there are opportunity costs that you are not considering.

Also I still see this as a design problem inherent in the way DA2 handled combat.  Enemies were just piles out hit points that took forever to dispose of - even mooks had 1000s of health - and the looooooong cooldown timers meant too often you used boring basic attacks (hence the button mashing complaint), which meant waiting for the combos and made combat unneccessarily longer.  Even in the Legacy DLC where they allegedly fixed the combat problems, it was still too long, too repetitive, too often, and too much mindlessly pressing the attack button.

You argue that this is an issue with CRPGs, but is that so?  Right now I playing BG1 and just about every combat, even the ones against named opponents, is over in less than 60 seconds.  If there were "pointless" encounters against a bear or something, it was over in 15 seconds.  Certain gameplay mechanics tend to drag out encounters.  The two most egregious off the top of my head are the silly cooldown mechanic (which means you are arbitrarily fighting inefficiently for most of the time and it also encourages kiting) and the silly asymmetic combat system where the PCs and NPCs play by different rules (which meant in DA2 90% of the bad guys had tons of health but posed no threat).

The way I am seeing it is the "ultra-fast" button creates thorny problems and does not address the underlying issue, namely that combat should *not* be so loooooong in the first place where such a button is needed.

Modifié par Joy Divison, 12 juillet 2013 - 05:18 .

[Realmzmaster]

MerinTB wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

GameHunter wrote...
Harsh truth to you without combat its just animated action sequences with running to golden exclamation marks
with some random story segment in between.

We're allowed to skip cutscenes.  We're even allowed to disable those golden exclamation marks.  How is combat different?

Or are you arguing that we shouldn't be allowed to change how we play the game at all?  Should we all be forced to see those golden exclamation marks?

Both L.A. Noire and Total War are examples of combat skipping.

It's been done in games.  And, with a game like Total War, you could argue it's skipping the "key" part of the game's genre (RTS where you have the computer auto-resolve the battle?)

I don't think the option to skip random encounters is a bad idea.  I think it's a brilliant idea.  It's an option, and you can still fight the battle.

Many games have systems where you can try to avoid random encounters - why not another system to auto-resolve them?  I'm drawing a blank, but I can't imagine that this HASN'T been done in an RPG somewhere.

Actually back in 1985 and 1986 SSI (Strategic Simulations Inc)  put out two games that had auto resolve Wizard's Crown and  its sequel Eternal Dagger. There are others but those are the two that come to mind right away.

[Ieldra]

Joy Divison wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Joy Divison wrote...
This topic again?

Can we please not encourage the developers to separate combat from the story as if they ought to be two unrelated entities, each independent of and thus unimportant to the other.

Combat should serve a purpose and provide story exposition, not be seen as an inconvenient interruption that can be skipped.

To be precise, I was asking for an option to get combat over with ultra-fast, not precisely to skip it. That came up specifically as an extension, applied to things like DA2's often pointless combat.

It may surprise you, but I agree with you. Combat should be meaningful and so well integrated into the story that nobody would want to skip it. However, in all CRPG's I've played so far (and almost 30 years is enough time to play very many), combat is so far in excess of what can reasonably be called meaningful that to reduce it to the meaningful would mean to reduce it by 80-90%. It would be a totally different kind of game. While I would like that, it's not likely to happen, so I'm asking for the next best thing which really shouldn't get the combat addicts riled up - an option to get it over with ultra-fast and possibly skip the pointless fights.

With such an option, everyone should be happy. Those with a competitive mindset can have their achievements telling them how awesome they are for having finished the game on Nightmare, while those who play for the story can reduce the combat they want to play to the 10-20% which are actually meaningful for the story.  I can't see how this couldn't be the best of both worlds.

I don't think I agree.

If we go with your proposed "ultra-fast" button, how would you apply it?  Would it be available to all combats (which would mean missing the exposition on the important ones) or just the "meaningless" ones (which would create other problems such as metagaming - you'd know an encounter is pointless/important before it began).  How do resources get managed?  Resource management is supposed to be a core element of RPGs.  What, you'd arbitraily lose 10% of your resources by hitting that button?  And you don't anticipate problems with "boss" fights?  In an ideal world, these fights are supposed to challenge players and force them to use all of the tools at their disposal and work their party as an effective and coordinated team.  How are players who continually use the "ultra-fast" button going to know of, let alone know how to synergize, the abilities each of their party members have in that climatic battle against the archdemon they can't skip?  I think there are opportunity costs that you are not considering.

If you play on "Casual" or ME3's "Narrative", the fights are already so easy that you don't need much tactics or coordination. Some players just don't care for being challenged that way, and the games already accomodate them. I usually play games on normal first, try higher difficulties until I reach my limit and play all subsequent games on Casual. I'll take the challenge, but not more than once. It's all about accommodating different play styles and not to force a challenge on players who don't want it. All I propose in addition to easy difficulty settings which already exist is an option to reduce the time I spend fighting as well as the difficulty.

As for the "missing" exposition, most fights in games erupt out of nothing with no exposition. Also, I'm not proposing to skip combat encounters, but only to skip the combat itself. Take, for instance, the encounter in DAO's Dead Trenches with that darkspawn smith. Its presence alone provides some exposition, and I wouldn't propose to remove the encounter. The combat should start as usual, but a button killing all active enemies wouldn't hurt the exposition. You could activate/deactivate that button in the options screen and disable certain achievements if you have it activated so that taking the challenge is still rewarded in some way. 

Also I still see this as a design problem inherent in the way DA2 handled combat.  Enemies were just piles out hit points that took forever to dispose of - even mooks had 1000s of health - and the looooooong cooldown timers meant too often you used boring basic attacks (hence the button mashing complaint), which meant waiting for the combos and made combat unneccessarily longer.  Even in the Legacy DLC where they allegedly fixed the combat problems, it was still too long, too repetitive, too often, and too much mindlessly pressing the attack button.

I see it as a general design problem in story-driven CRPGs, showcased by DA2 in an especially annoying manner, and I didn't even have the button mashing problem since the PC version has an auto-attack function.

You argue that this is an issue with CRPGs, but is that so?  Right now I playing BG1 and just about every combat, even the ones against named opponents, is over in less than 60 seconds.  If there were "pointless" encounters against a bear or something, it was over in 15 seconds.  Certain gameplay mechanics tend to drag out encounters.  The two most egregious off the top of my head are the silly cooldown mechanic (which means you are arbitrarily fighting inefficiently for most of the time and it also encourages kiting) and the silly asymmetic combat system where the PCs and NPCs play by different rules (which meant in DA2 90% of the bad guys had tons of health but posed no threat).

I'm not saying the problem can't be mitigated by other mechanisms, but if you have a story-driven game where dialogue and interaction is a significant part of the gameplay, and also combat far in excess of what's needed for the story to work (which is the standard for CRPGs), you will inevitably have people who love the story but hate the excessive amount of combat. It makes sense to accommodate them. Everyone wins. The "combat players" still have their challenge if they want, the "story players" are happy, and the game will sell better.  

As a sidenote:
As for cooldown mechanics, you need some way to control the balance of special abilities. In the BG games you had your "x times per day" limit and had to sleep to reactivate them. Cooldowns are a different way of doing the same. Hmm...I wonder if it's possible to create an "x times per combat encounter" mechanism. Add special ability slots at level up like in the older games, but make them reload automatically after a combat encounter has ended, similar to the way health and mana/stamina is restored.

[BellaStrega]

I'm not really interested in a "skip combat" option, but I can see the appeal of such.

One issue I have with some games is that the sheer number of combats drag me out of the game. They can break up the narrative flow the developers otherwise intended. I remember this was particularly bad in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II where you could be waylaid while trying to travel, by breaking the game up with combat that was not really a part of the story or even a part of any of the subplots. The game just decided to throw monsters at you right then (well, "decided" is a strong word as they were typically random).

One of the reasons I end up not finishing most of my KOTOR playthroughs is the sheer number of dark jedi during the final sequence, meaning you walk five feet, have a battle, walk five more feet, have a battle. There has to be a better way to do this than liberally sprinkling mobs everywhere to make players pay for every single inch in blood. It's an RPG, not a forced march.

[IC-07]

Well, if it's optional, then I guess there is no problem with your idea, OP. Knowing how dreadfully painful combat in DA2 was, I'm only preparing myself for the worst.
I can see only a couple of problems:
1) Leveling. By skipping combat you will get no xp and it might ruin your gaming experience, if you don't plan on skipping constantly.
2) Difficulty. People might come up, claiming they finished the game on Insanity (for example), how it wasn't really hard and some might accuse you of just skipping hard battles. It will be unpleasant. Besides, if BioWare, somehow, runs statistics on which difficulty people played most, the results won't be very accurate.

Modifié par IC-07, 12 juillet 2013 - 01:55 .

[Ieldra]

IC-07 wrote...
Well, if it's optional, then I guess there is no problem with your idea, OP. Knowing how dreadfully painful combat in DA2 was, I'm only preparing myself for the worst.
I can see only a couple of problems:
1) Leveling. By skipping combat you will get no xp and it might ruin your gaming experience, if you don't plan on skipping constantly.
2) Difficulty. People might come up, claiming they finished the game on Insanity (for example), how it wasn't really hard and some might accuse you of just skipping hard battles. It will be unpleasant. Besides, if BioWare, somehow, runs statistics on which difficulty people played most, the results won't be very accurate.

(1) I'd rather get more xp for finished quests, regardless of how I finished them, and less for random combat. Then, if the latter costs me some xp, I'm ok with it. Another possibility is to give an amount of xp regardless. 
(2) I think the proposed functionality should only be avaiable on lower difficulties. It makes no sense in the higher ones anyway. If you want to get past the combat fast, you don't set the difficulty to Nightmare. 

[IC-07]

@Ieldra2 - If on lower difficulties, then XP from quests will be enough.
Ok then, go for it!