205 réponses à ce sujet

[Plaintiff]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
How were the characters supposed to know how to deal with something that violates the rules of the world in which they live?

They aren't supposed to know. That's the entire point.

What do the characters know about the rules of their world anyway? Practically nothing. Prior to their encountering it, the Rock Waith was a creature that only existed in legend. And then they killed it. It is a mystery, it's powers are a mystery, and that's likely how it will remain.

Anyway, you're not talking about the rules of the world, you're talking about the rules of the game. Any picture they provide of "how things work" in Thedas is, at best, incomplete, and at worst wholly inaccurate (I don't believe the characters perceive the golden circle outlines that designate the target area of AOE abilities, for instance). Indeed, it can't be any other way, since the narrative itself makes it clear that Thedas is a land replete with mysteries.

I must have fought that thing 8 times before I accidentally stumbled into the area where the attack didn't hit me. And once I did, the fight was trivial. How is that fun? There was a gimmick - a world-breaking gimmick - and once that gimmick was discovered the fight was laughably easy.

What's fun about having every fight work exactly the same way? The occasional gimmick breaks up the monotony.

[Blazomancer]

I tend to agree with Sylvius regarding the effect of speed on tactical decisions. From what I felt, the basic tactical options available in both games seemed kind of same. But the increased speed in DA2 made it harder to notice how the team mates are responding to the tactics I have set. For me, it also reduced the basic predictability required for making split second decisions. The battles used to get over so fast, that even though I used a tactical setup for each party member, it felt like I didn't use tactics at all. The speed made it hard for me to get a feel of the battle.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Plaintiff wrote...

They aren't supposed to know. That's the entire point.

Then they die.  A lot.  BioWare's explicit goal is that we shouldn't require foreknowledge in order to defeat opponents, but that's exactly what the ARW required.  Without metagame information, that fight was basically impossible.

What's fun about having every fight work exactly the same way?

World coherence.  Every aspect of the game should fit within the world in a way that makes sense.

Like those three golems in Legacy who attack in sequence.  One's immune to magic, and another is immune to physical damage.  Remember those?  Why did not all attack at once?  They would have been far more difficult to kill if they'd attacked all at once.  So, given that, whoever put the golems there should have wanted them to be more effective rather than less.  So why do they employ such sub-optimal tactics?

It was gamey.

The occasional gimmick breaks up the monotony.

If you need to break up the monotony, then the core combat mechanics are bad.

I didn't find DAO's combat was boring, basically ever.  I did think the final sequence fighting the darkspawn in Denerim was too easy (it shouldn't have been possible to defeat the various groups of darkspawn throughout the city without calling on reinforcements, but it was, and doing so wasn't even particularly challenging), but aside from that I really like DAO's combat.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 19 juillet 2013 - 07:25 .

[Plaintiff]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Then they die.  A lot.  BioWare's explicit goal is that we shouldn't require foreknowledge in order to defeat opponents, but that's exactly what the ARW required.  Without metagame information, that fight was basically impossible.

All that it required was that you make even a slight effort to observe its attack pattern. Just like a tactician would in real life. That's not metagaming at all.

World coherence.  Every aspect of the game should fit within the world in a way that makes sense.

Given the fraction of the world that's actually been shown to us so far, what makes you think you're in any place to judge its coherence?

Like those three golems in Legacy who attack in sequence.  One's immune to magic, and another is immune to physical damage.  Remember those?  Why did not all attack at once?  They would have been far more difficult to kill if they'd attacked all at once.  So, given that, whoever put the golems there should have wanted them to be more effective rather than less.  So why do they employ such sub-optimal tactics?

I can think of any number of reasons, ranging from "The designer thought a series of battles would delay intruders more" all the way to "battle was not their primary function, so the designer did not give much thought to it".

If you need to break up the monotony, then the core combat mechanics are bad.

Nonsense, anyone who's studied basic human behaviour knows that enjoyment of an activity decreases with repetition.

Chocolate cake is delicious. I don't want to eat it for every meal.

I didn't find DAO's combat was boring, basically ever.  I did think the final sequence fighting the darkspawn in Denerim was too easy (it shouldn't have been possible to defeat the various groups of darkspawn throughout the city without calling on reinforcements, but it was, and doing so wasn't even particularly challenging), but aside from that I really like DAO's combat.

Good for you?

[Upinurmomshole]

Plaintiff wrote...

Nonsense, anyone who's studied basic human behaviour knows that enjoyment of an activity decreases with repetition.

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
How were the characters supposed to know how to deal with something that violates the rules of the world in which they live?

They wouldn't.  And, without some kind of spoiler walkthrough, the player wouldn't either.  The game didn't care about world, or game mechanic, consistency because they wanted a boss battle.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I must have fought that thing 8 times before I accidentally stumbled into the area where the attack didn't hit me. And once I did, the fight was trivial. How is that fun? There was a gimmick - a world-breaking gimmick - and once that gimmick was discovered the fight was laughably easy.

This is the kind of gameplay that I personally hate.  I dislike games where failure is how you learn.  You keep trying to jump those platforms until you, the player, develop the hand-eye coordination to succeed.  You keep fighting that boss until, through trial-and-error, you notice that the boss blinks twice then holds up his right hand before stepping to the left, and after that he's vulnerable for a few shots if you stand in the shadow of the third pillar, with your back to the east, using the pattern of holy bullet / freezing bullet / fire bullet,  while singing Creep by Radiohead.

That's not tactics.  That's not fun.  That's choreography.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...
The occasional gimmick breaks up the monotony.

If you need to break up the monotony, then the core combat mechanics are bad.

If you need gimmicks to make your game fun, you've failed at making a game.

"Let's add 3D to movies again!  And to TVs!  That'll sell more!" 

Modifié par MerinTB, 19 juillet 2013 - 08:42 .

[MerinTB]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...
As long as our characters can avoid them automatically with their tactics, sure.

Don't put twitch mechanics into the game (like that fight was--the characters won't avoid the blasts unless you pull them out behind the posts).

The reliance on the AI's ability to navigate and respond is probably one reason a lot of encounters are as environmentally simplistic as they are.  The fight with Corypheus comes to mind.  If I didn't take babysteps through the rock maze while peering over my shoulder all my party members would constantly die because A) they absolutely can't navigate the maze on their own and the inability to control two characters at once and the inefficiency of the "hold position" command forbade me from taking them through it one at a time.  

Inside the core combat mechanics of DA2, that fight was POORLY DESIGNED.  It was a fight for a more God of War type action game, or at least a Marvel Ultimate Alliance game (thinking party members) and not a party-based, issue commands, tactical RPG.

Don't ever reference that battle as anything but an atrocity of poor decision making and genre/mechanics amnesia.

[MerinTB]

Filament wrote...
Corypheus fight was one of the best designed fights in the DA series. They should keep doing things like that.

And improve party AI if possible, because of the whiners who had a giant problem with that, even though I didn't.

Holy Shatner, we want different things from our games.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Filament wrote...

I would hope dynamically shaped areas-of-effect become a thing somewhere down the road.

That would be great.  But that change would need to be documented, and then applied without exception.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Plaintiff wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Then they die.  A lot.  BioWare's explicit goal is that we shouldn't require foreknowledge in order to defeat opponents, but that's exactly what the ARW required.  Without metagame information, that fight was basically impossible.

All that it required was that you make even a slight effort to observe its attack pattern. Just like a tactician would in real life. That's not metagaming at all.

That it attacked in a predictable pattern was irrelevant unless you knew there was some way to avoid that attack.  And there was no way to know that without metagaming.

Given the fraction of the world that's actually been shown to us so far, what makes you think you're in any place to judge its coherence?

I'm not in a position to judge its consistency (unles it directly contradicts itself), but coherence isn't coherence unless it is evident.

I can think of any number of reasons, ranging from "The designer thought a series of battles would delay intruders more" all the way to "battle was not their primary function, so the designer did not give much thought to it".

It was gamey.

Nonsense, anyone who's studied basic human behaviour knows that enjoyment of an activity decreases with repetition.

Not all battles are the same, but they should all follow the same rules.  To do otherwise damages the setting.

Just because the rules don't change doesn't mean the activity doesn't.

Chocolate cake is delicious.  I don't want to eat it for every meal

But you do want to eat for every meal.  That's the standard of consistency I would like.

Filament wrote...

Corypheus fight was one of the best designed fights in the DA series. They should keep doing things like that.

What?  Walking slowly and carefully in a circle for 20 minutes while my infinitely respawning dog kills all the demons was the antithesis of fun.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 19 juillet 2013 - 09:52 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'd like it to work like old AD&D fireballs, which deformed to fit the available space, but had a fixed volume. So, casting it in a 10'x10' corridor made for a very long-range weapon (that would almost certainly hit the caster).

[Ziggeh]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

What?  Walking slowly and carefully in a circle for 20 minutes while my infinitely respawning dog kills all the demons was the antithesis of fun.

I'm actually sort of surprised you use the dog. How do you make the decision to set your dead dog on someone from the character's perspective?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Filament wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Filament wrote...

Corypheus fight was one of the best designed fights in the DA series. They should keep doing things like that.

What? 
Walking slowly and carefully in a circle for 20 minutes while my infinitely respawning dog kills all the demons was the antithesis of fun.

If you tie your hands behind your back and put on a blindfold and control the game with your tongue while reciting the greek alphabet backwards it's probably not very fun either.

If I didn't want to get hit by the rotating fan of flames, I needed to keep everyone moving.  And since the dog is the only party member who doesn't take injuries and doesn't stay dead, it made sense to leave him to kill everything.

Ziggeh wrote...

I'm actually sort of surprised you use the dog. How do you make the decision to set your dead dog on someone from the character's perspective?

He's not dead for long.  The spectral dog never seems to die for long.

I don't claim to understand the spectral dog, but he's handy.

I used similar tactics to kill the Arishok.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 19 juillet 2013 - 11:23 .

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If I didn't want to get hit by the rotating fan of flames, I needed to keep everyone moving.  And since the dog is the only party member who doesn't take injuries and doesn't stay dead, it made sense to leave him to kill everything.

I don't remeber how I ended up beating this... I just remember that the only time I played this DLC was on my Nightmare Rogue / Isabela / Varric / Aveline playthrough - luckily I let Bethany replace Isabela for this adventure, since I could.  Doing that battle for the first time on Nightmare...

I haven't hated a game battle so much since I stopped playing console action games back in the early 00's. <_<

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
He's not dead for long.  The spectral dog never seems to die for long.

I don't claim to understand the spectral dog, but he's handy.

I used similar tactics to kill the Arishok.

Kiting.  I'm ashamed to have to admit to resorting to it, but that fight was all about kiting.

[Ziggeh]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I don't claim to understand the spectral dog, but he's handy.

Haha, awesome