809 réponses à ce sujet

[Sjpelke]

Combat is part of playing RPG in bigger or smaller amount.

Experience has to be earned to level your character up. What it boils down to imho is that a lot of experience needed to be earned BY fighting the waves of enemies in most (side) quests that took place in Kirkwall and surroundings.

They were identical and you knew when you reached a certain point in town that they would appear when you did several playthroughs. That made it tedious, especially because of the set up for me. On the first playthrough I only wondered how the enemies just dropped from the sky and started appearing when I thought the battle was over.

As there are overall lots of sidequests; having the option for a 'non violent' outcome for some, which provides the same amount of exp., could be a solution for the players who want lesser combat.

The choice how to earn exp. by either doing battle or choose the pacifist route does not seem like a big thing to implement in the game.

[GithCheater]

someguy1231 wrote...

GithCheater wrote...

Perhaps those who insist that combat be mandatory for everyone should find a new hobby and go play Call of Duty.

Oh, where do I begin...

Secondly, how would you like it if somebody said something like "those who insist combat should be optional should go play Heavy Rain or some other visual novel or interactive movie"?

Several already have mentioned reading a novel or watching a movie or finding a new hobby, and have also insisted that a narrative mode should not be available to anyone.  I thought I could sink to their level and spout nonsense too.

Modifié par GithCheater, 07 juillet 2013 - 02:55 .

[The Red Onion]

This is a dangerous topic... for reasons that many people here have already recounted.

Long story short, a BioWare writer once got spammed with hate mail because she raised a similar suggestion. Some people (presumably fans) committed some vicious cyberbullying on the grounds that they didn't want someone who isn't interested in hardcore gameplay to influence game design. So it goes.

Here's my two cents. In short I am in agreement with the OP, but I think some caveats/details are worth mentioning.

[1] First is the matter of demographics. Some people have suggested that making the game less combat-intensive would make the game more accessible to older gamers, gamers with jobs, gamers with joint pain, gamers who have to feed kids, possibly female gamers, etc etc. However, amongst certain circles/societies/fandoms, a game where you can skip the "essential acrobatics" will immediately lose legitimation, and this is the other side of the debate. If this was a vacuum I would nag the latter, and tell them that having a broader audience access their playground is concurrent with the right course of things. But in some real contexts, a narrative-game with decreased legitimacy will have a decreased power for setting the tone of industry and fandom. Furthermore, the enjoyment of the "elitists" are actually affected, and it's not an anguish that a balanced community can completely ignore. I'd still go out on a limb and side with access, but the caveats are non-negligible.

[2] Is there actually an "essential acrobatic" to a genre of games? Perhaps. This is a common pro-elitist argument. A shooter where you can opt to skip shooting is absurd. A dating sim where you can opt to skip dating is absurd. And so on. But categories such as "dating sim," "shooter," "strategy," "rpg," "MMO," etc are themselves not set in stone. Perhaps the Stone did objectively say that a shooter must have shooting. But who says that the sequel to a shooter has to be a shooter (e.g. Dawn of War II)? Or, for that matter, who says that role-playing has to have shooting in it? You may give the stock rebuttal, and say that it is the buyer who decides. But the buyer's will is not autonomous; it is reflexively shaped by the sellers that came before.

Edit: going through this thread, it seems that this point might actually add something tangible to the convo. I by and large disagree with stances, premises, and Merriam-Webster quotations that assign absolute meanings to words like "game," "gaming," "playing," "watching," "genre X or Y" etc., especially when spoken as if such assignments are natural and self-evident. Such assignments remain opinions, ideally worthy of respect, but nothing more. In my opinion, when the word "play" is placed in a jusxtaposing tone with "watch," the only potential essence to watching is its passivity, if even that. An escape button to get out of combat is not necessarily "passive" by any means. Furthermore, even the canon/kosher/legit genres such as RPG, Shooter, MMO, etc, were invented at some point. The rules that defined them were man-made (dare I say, constructed), and it's a hard sell IMO to say they can't be remade again. Also, in the face of a market that is slow to remake a particular rule (not that this is emprically the case) a franchise can still choose to depart from a static genre. It is downright absurd IMO to suggest that a game is a certain genre even after it has emprically chosen not to be.

[3] Whether we agree with access or not, conflating "complexity" with "difficulty" is a fallacy that should not be propagated. By "difficult" here, I specifically mean "difficult according to the standard of a legitimate acrobatic."  However, a game can be complex (e.g. with many choices, customizations, and endings) without being difficult per se. The genre is roleplay, not "difficult."

[4] There are many ways to pull this off. You can have a new ending unlocked for clearing each difficulty on a certain class, and then a cinematic NG+ for that class once you clear nightmare. Or, release a DLC smiliar to Mass Effect Genesis, but a little more detailed. My personal favourite though, would be to make your nightmare NG+ companions invulnerable automatons that only follow tactics, like they do in the Last Straw; that way there is still a semi-active component thru tactics, and the speed of combat is still semi-reflective of the player's spec choices. A more cruel design would be to actually force-autospec your toons to reflect your moral choices in a visual novel mode, and a particular class/spec created this way may fail a crisis point.

[5] My doubts about the "earn your reward" argument: When effort spent in the game "fairly" balances out the enjoyment derived from the game, what is left to balance out the 60$ paid to purchase the game? This is a rehash of a commonly occurring argument in gaming communities whenever debates about access arises. But the counter-argument is more salient than it looks. You could say that the enjoyment is earned by playing the game, whereas someone else can say that the enjoyment is already earned by buying the game.

The answer I'd offer is this, and of course no one has to agree: Suppose I subscribe to the first belief of the two (and I do most of the time), that enjoyment is earned by playing. What actually balances out the 60$ is the pleasurable psychological reassurance that effort can equate to reward. But when you and I or anyone else start to insist having things like "legitly hard hardmodes" or "challenging content," what is mentality behind these demands? Perhaps we are seeking to escape an RL where effort is not equating to reward. Or perhaps someone we dislike IRL is insisting that effort isn't equating to reward in the world, and we derive pleasure from engaging in a fantasy where such claims are incorrect. Perhaps... well, something to think about.

Modifié par alexbing88, 07 juillet 2013 - 06:26 .

[thebatmanreborn]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

The Hierophant wrote...

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Know what I've never understood? People who say no to something they do not have to partake in. Like seriously. Get over yourselves.

If combat is rendered optional in future games how much resources,and time would the devs spend in developing a feature that could be ignored?

Dialogue is skippable in Bioware games. Even so, considerable resources go into it. It's actually the most expensive part of games like DA2 or ME3.

The fear I think many are having is that quite a few gamers will use the option to ignore combat and that developers will not put as much effort into combat gameplay in future games. That means their gameplay experience will be diminished.

The autoresolve button did not have this problem because the party still had a chance to lose the encounter or a character. So the gamer still had to put effort into developing the party to have a good chance of winning the encounter. 
The autowin button simply allows complete skipping of any combat and you do not have to level up your party. You can basically finish the game at level one. 

Gamers are objecting because they do not wish to see a trend established and developers start ignoring combat.
That is my take on the situation.
As I stated as long as my enjoyment is not affected I do not care. It is when it is affact that I will have a problem with because the developers is slacking off on refining the combat aspect.

^ this in my opinion. 

[PsychoBlonde]

GithCheater wrote...

It is not real combat unless one plays nightmare. Casual, normal and hard modes should be abolished so that only "real gamers" can play.

Also, the game should release fire ants at regular intervals.  WORK FOR YOUR CUT SCENE!!!! WORK FOR IT!!!!!

I don't think a "skip this combat" button is necessary because there are other viable workarounds such as a "turn off all non-plot encounters" toggle.  That'd allow you to skip all combat that wasn't a plot fight with a named dude/named dude's posse.  No more hordes of random wandering mooks to hack through in order to get to your next objective.  There could be special optionals or research objectives that give you a method to defeat almost all the named fights without actually fighting, but you'd have to do a lot of running around, collecting codex entries, talking to people, investing in conversation skills, that sort of thing.

And you can do all this stuff IN THE SAME GAME without wrecking anybody's experience.  You can do a pacifist run in Fallout and never kill anybody.  There are quests you can do in DDO without ever once landing a blow.  People have leveled characters to cap in World of Warcraft without ever attacking or doing a quest!

Make is so that if you invest enough in certain specific abilities like, say, assassinate, it becomes a one or two-shot boss killer BUT the investment required to do this means that any trash mobs will eat you alive.  Your assassin can then invest heavily in combat-avoidance stuff, quick-kill the very few unavoidable boss fights (maybe put a little risk in so they can enjoy some tension but not TOO much) and you get to enjoy the experience.

Even people who LIKE the combat benefit from having more options.  More ways to play.  DA2 in particularly had EMBARASSINGLY little gameplay to it.  There was NOTHING to do except fight.  No stealth.  No stealing.  No social skills.  No trapmaking.  Minimal puzzling.  I don't blame people who wanted to skip over the combat because there was way too much of it AND it was BORING.

Gaming should be about finding your own reward, not jumping through the predefined hoops to get the predefined treat.  I personally often enjoy the straightforward hoops and treat, but I always love it when I hear about people who find unique ways to play like that one person who did the Hamlet-esque runthrough on Origins where they killed absolutely everyone it was possible to kill.  Turned out to be a surprisingly large number of people.  Or run-throughs where people don't do any of the optional quests.  Or they play a mage with no offensive spells.

I have yet to play a game where the developers decided to include an OPTIONAL mechanic (like, say, combat) and then IGNORE it.  They might even put MORE effort into it to try and make it more enticing so people DON'T skip it.  In my experience, it's the stuff that you CAN'T avoid in life that tends to be lackluster as all hell.  Not much incentive to provide stellar service when you're the only game in town.

[The Red Onion]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

I have yet to play a game where the developers decided to include an OPTIONAL mechanic (like, say, combat) and then IGNORE it.  They might even put MORE effort into it to try and make it more enticing so people DON'T skip it.  In my experience, it's the stuff that you CAN'T avoid in life that tends to be lackluster as all hell.  Not much incentive to provide stellar service when you're the only game in town.

This is a legit counterargument to my point about having a franchise striking out and make a genre of its own; being the only game in town "negates service." Whether I agree is of secondary importance.

[PsychoBlonde]

alexbing88 wrote...

This is a legit counterargument to my point about having a franchise striking out and make a genre of its own; being the only game in town "negates service." Whether I agree is of secondary importance.

More gameplay options allows for more dialog options, too, because they can give you different setups and sets of choices based on whether you decided to sneak or argue or hack or magic your way through.  Everybody wins.  The people who don't want to do combat (or don't want to do much combat) can enjoy the game their way.  The people who enjoy combat but get bored of it on their 5th playthrough can try something different if they feel like it.

It might be more expensive but it also might NOT be to make your game this way, because there's more incentive to code up some kind of robust random encounter system that can do most of the combat heavy lifting instead of hand-placing every single encounter.  The complex scripted encounters get better because the combat designers and scriptors aren't exhausted from spending all day laying out 347 totally inconsequential bandit fights.  People who REALLY love combat benefit because now there's an ability to put in an endless arena fight system or outdoor areas where you can go hunt for trophies or other progressive-but-potentially-endless overland objectives.  Systems like that radically reduce your incremental costs so it's TONS easier to put out mods and bonus packs and DLC which in turn prolong the life of your game and bring in more revenue.  But if all you're building for is static one-time events, it's really hard to come up with a rationale to spend the time and money to create an actual FRAMEWORK.  Moving your home furnishings around is a lot of work but you don't invest in a forklift because you don't do it that often.

[Fredward]

How many of you actually read the OP? She (I'm assuming) isn't asking for the removal or even lessening of combat she's asking for the option to get it over with faster. And then proceeded to mention previous Bioware games where this was possible. This isn't asking for anything new or a lessening of resources contributed towards combat it's asking for an easy easy-mode.

As for the argument that people will suddenly skip combat and Bioware will start making visual novels... Please. I'm going to go ahead and assume not everyone listens to every single piece of dialogue through every playthrough like I do but this doesn't make the feature less important. Combat has been a pretty important part of every Bioware game since ever, adding the option to get it over with faster (especially if you've finished the game a number of times before) is not devaluing combat. Not even touching the fact that liking the story over combat is evidently a minority opinion.

[Rusty Sandusky]

If you don't like the combat the game should at least allow you to apply the FIAR (f*** it and run) technique

[someguy1231]

Anyone in this thread who supports an "auto-resolve" option for combat but has complained about Bioware's RPGs being "streamlined" or "dumbed down" is a complete and utter hypocrite.

[Gileadan]

someguy1231 wrote...

Anyone in this thread who supports an "auto-resolve" option for combat but has complained about Bioware's RPGs being "streamlined" or "dumbed down" is a complete and utter hypocrite.

Well, the difference would probably be that auto-resolve is an option you can take or leave, while streamlining affects your gaming experience whether you want it or not. Nothing wrong with the former.

[MisanthropePrime]

Games are an incredibly complex artistic medium, made up of a variety of interconnected systems: one could argue that the degree to which these systems interact is a key part of what a game is. To remove a system from a game is to deliberately hobble it. Earlier in the thread I made a comparison to closing one's eyes during a film, and I believe someone rebutted with the notion that films are "all story" and games aren't, and that's false. Films are just as much design and spectacle and directing as it is scripting. Likewise, a game, if it's designed with a combat system in mind, excising it does a disservice to the final product as a work of art. If players are unsatisfied with combat, retool it, but to not excise it.

[filetemo]

MisanthropePrime wrote...

Games are an incredibly complex artistic medium, made up of a variety of interconnected systems: one could argue that the degree to which these systems interact is a key part of what a game is. To remove a system from a game is to deliberately hobble it. 

Then are you ok with skippable dialogue and cutscenes? Isn' t the interactive dialogue system with dialogue wheel a game mechanic that shouldn't be skipped? Isn't in a Bioware game , at least, 50% of the experience?

[filetemo]

someguy1231 wrote...

Anyone in this thread who supports an "auto-resolve" option for combat but has complained about Bioware's RPGs being "streamlined" or "dumbed down" is a complete and utter hypocrite.

how so? the combat's been dumbed down, therefore I don't want to play it.

[FedericoV]

Is there too much filler combat and violence in RPGs and videogames in general? Hell, yes. Is it negative for the growth of the medium? Yes, it is, in most cases even if it's going better lately. Does it hurts the enjoyment of the story a game has to offer? Yes, off course.

But honestly I think that the ME3 model wih its "story mode/action mode/rpg mode" solution is wrong. Why? Because those modes challenge the artistic and authorial integrity of a videogame. Games are a whole composed in equal parts by what we can call story, gameplay and art. You can't just remove one part of the equation only because a part of your audience is not interested in it.

That solution turns a game in to a product of mass consuption and it cheapens the experience. I want a sense of value from my games.The interactivity of the medium should be used to enhance the holistic relations between gameplay, art and story and to strenghten the feedback betwenn players and gaming systems. It should not be a justification for a more restrictive and commercial approach.

Dev should take responsibility for the system they propose to players and not turn them in optional feature to sterilize criticism. Because criticism is the only tool we have to grow.

So, what's the solution? Simple: make combat interesting and offer a wider set of legit gameplay options beside combat. Have less filler combat and more meaningful combat. Return to the good old days when level design and encounter design was a central part of every RPG.

Modifié par FedericoV, 07 juillet 2013 - 11:17 .

[MisanthropePrime]

filetemo wrote...

MisanthropePrime wrote...

Games are an incredibly complex artistic medium, made up of a variety of interconnected systems: one could argue that the degree to which these systems interact is a key part of what a game is. To remove a system from a game is to deliberately hobble it. 

Then are you ok with skippable dialogue and cutscenes? Isn' t the interactive dialogue system with dialogue wheel a game mechanic that shouldn't be skipped? Isn't in a Bioware game , at least, 50% of the experience?

I'm not, but I'm also not of the opinion that the dialogue is necessarily integral to a bioware game. Then again my first experience with Bioware was MDK2.

[Sjpelke]

FedericoV wrote...

Is there too much filler combat and violence in RPGs and videogames in general? Hell, yes. Is it negative for the growth of the medium? Yes, it is, in most cases even if it's going better lately. Does it hurts the enjoyment of the story a game has to offer? Yes, off course.

But honestly I think that the ME3 model wih its "story mode/action mode/rpg mode" solution is wrong. Why? Because those modes challenge the artistic and authorial integrity of a videogame. Games are a whole composed in equal parts by what we can call story, gameplay and art. You can't just remove one part of the equation only because a part of your audience is not interested in it.

That solution turns a game in to a product of mass consuption and it cheapens the experience. I want a sense of value from my games.The interactivity of the medium should be used to enhance the holistic relations between gameplay, art and story and to strenghten the feedback betwenn players and gaming systems. It should not be a justification for a more restrictive and commercial approach.

Dev should take responsibility for the system they propose to players and not turn them in optional feature to sterilize criticism. Because criticism is the only tool we have to grow.

So, what's the solution? Simple: make combat interesting and offer a wider set of legit gameplay options beside combat. Have less filler combat and more meaningful combat. Return to the good old days when level design and encounter design was a central part of every RPG.

All of the above.

Although the term RPG is wide and there are lots of different deffinitions to give to the genre, a lot of games that are labeled RPG have become more a shooter game.

[PinkysPain]

Just buy it on the PC and download a trainer ... problem solved (except for the QTE sudden death parts).

Modifié par PinkysPain, 07 juillet 2013 - 01:14 .

[Shaigunjoe]

MisanthropePrime wrote...

To everyone who wants to "skip" the gameplay for the story, I've gotta ask: when you go to the movies, do you close your eyes or plug your ears?

At what theater do you not have the option to close your eyes or plug your ears?

[dekkerd]

I have no problem with OP's idea. DA2's wave system and momentarily unkillable mook(always the one I cast walking bomb on) made combat tedious at times, even on casual. Remove those elements and it would be workable. Boss fights would remain as they are of course.
One button resolve though? Not so much. Should have at least the illusion of combat.

[o Ventus]

Star fury wrote...

Nope, it looks a lot like a situation in cinema with the advent of sound films, when silent film proponents argued that you don't need sound in movies. 

Except a video game without gameplay is just a collection of cutscenes (if the game includes them). That's why it's a video "game". It has to be at least minutely active on the part of the player to be a game. A film is a series of images recorded by a camera which is viewed by people for entertainment. Sound is not necessary for it to be enjoyed. Having gameplay in a video game IS (it's in the name of the medium).

Hell, Heavy Rain at least has quick time events.

[o Ventus]

AlanC9 wrote...

Adventure games don't have combat. They are still games.

The Walking Dead.

[Ieldra]

PinkysPain wrote...
Just buy it on the PC and download a trainer ... problem solved (except for the QTE sudden death parts).

Not so. The problem is not really difficulty, it is about drastically reducing the time you spend with combat. I most games, a super-easy difficulty like ME3's "Narrative" does it, but not so in DA2. In any game with an enemy setup like DA2 - meaning an extremely high number of weak enemies - reducing the difficulty of a single enemy won't do much. You need to reduce the numbers.

There are various options to reduce the time spend in combat, regardless of difficulty. The best I can think of is to implement a way to resolve encounters with antagonists without combat, using intimidation, diplomacy etc.. as a standard that applies to normal combats instead of only using it in specific plot-related encounters. That would be where an "intimidation/persuasion" skill could come in. Non-violent resolutions don't always make sense, but that's ok, I don't need it strictly everywhere, and for those who care less about combat and more about story, spending a few character points in non-combat skills rather than elsewhere makes perfect sense.

Another option is an autoresolve button. Even if characters can't die, they can accumulate injuries, and going through injury kits fast should be enough of a cost to make players think about it.

There may be more, but there should be such options. I insist that dialogue and actual roleplaying are as integral to the type of game we're talking about as combat, and to justify being able to go fast through one but not the other is hypocritical.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 07 juillet 2013 - 04:03 .

[Shaigunjoe]

Ieldra2 wrote...

PinkysPain wrote...
Just buy it on the PC and download a trainer ... problem solved (except for the QTE sudden death parts).

Not so. The problem is not really difficulty, it is about drastically reducing the time you spend with combat. I most games, a super-easy difficulty like ME3's "Narrative" does it, but not so in DA2. In any game with an enemy setup like DA2 - meaning an extremely high number of weak enemies - reducing the difficulty of a single enemy won't do much. You need to reduce the numbers.

There are various options to reduce the time spend in combat, regardless of difficulty. The best I can think of is to implement a way to resolve encounters with antagonists without combat, using intimidation, diplomacy etc.. as a standard that applies to normal combats instead of only using it in specific plot-related encounters. That would be where an "intimidation/persuasion" skill could come in. Non-violent resolutions don't always make sense, but that's ok, I don't need it strictly everywhere, and for those who care less about combat and more about story, spending a few character points in non-combat skills rather than elsewhere makes perfect sense.

Another option is an autoresolve button. Even if characters can't die, they can accumulate injuries, and going through injury kits fast should be enough of a cost to make players think about it.

There may be more, but there should be such options. I insist that dialogue and actual roleplaying are as integral to the type of game we're talking about as combat, and to justify being able to go fast through one but not the other is hypocritical.

I think Planescape Torment did a decent job, it wasn't until the last couple dungeons that I felt like I really had to slog through combat.  They also had optional repopulating dungeons where you can go and fight to your hearts content for loot, which I thought was a smart move.

[GithCheater]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

How many of you actually read the OP? She (I'm assuming) isn't asking for the removal or even lessening of combat she's asking for the option to get it over with faster. And then proceeded to mention previous Bioware games where this was possible. This isn't asking for anything new or a lessening of resources contributed towards combat it's asking for an easy easy-mode.

As for the argument that people will suddenly skip combat and Bioware will start making visual novels... Please. I'm going to go ahead and assume not everyone listens to every single piece of dialogue through every playthrough like I do but this doesn't make the feature less important. Combat has been a pretty important part of every Bioware game since ever, adding the option to get it over with faster (especially if you've finished the game a number of times before) is not devaluing combat. Not even touching the fact that liking the story over combat is evidently a minority opinion.

Why read the OP, when one can simply state that the sky will fall, if an OPTIONAL feature is added to the game?