205 réponses à ce sujet

[MerinTB]

Forget the "action RPG" tag.

We cannot get a general consensus on what RPG means. That "action" tag is seven hundred levels of more meaninglessness.

[MerinTB]

Filament wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
Can you imagine that scene playing out in a movie?

Or that stupid other battle people are calling "the greatest BioWare has done"?

Seriously?

Why would I want to? Video games need not be compared to movies, books or real life. They are their own medium with their own strengths and weaknesses. If comparing videogames to how they'd play out in a movie, conventional RPG combat would also be laughable.

The visuals of the fight in a game series that is priding itself on it's cinematics.  The cinematics are meant to give you that exciting movie visual experience.

The game is meant to, on some level, emulate "reality" - not simulate realism, per se, but represent something.  Unless you are playing some absolute abstract puzzle game, like Tetris, you are meant to be imagining the action and story in front of you.

When you are fighting the Arishock and running around in circles like a chicken with your head cut off, how is that exciting?  How does that look cool or fun or awesome?

That fight is meant to be serious.  The cinematics surrounding the fight are serious.  This is supposed to be dark fantasy, gritty, exciting...

and then you start doing laps with an idiotic, predicatble lumbering ape chasing you all to the theme of yakkity-sax.

Yeah, I guess you are right... why would I want to imagine the combat to be exciting.  Interpretative dance, THAT's what I want combat to look like.

[MerinTB]

EntropicAngel wrote...
Well in that case I would say that I still prefer twitch-less combat, like the DA series has a history of using (outside of auto-attack in DA ][, which bugs me).

As would I.

DA doesn't need to be twitch.  ME was birthed as a shooter, that's fine.  DA:O wasn't.  If BioWare and Mr. Laidlaw wanted to do Jade Empire 2, they should have done Jade Empire 2.  Plenty of fans would have loved that!  Not me, but it isn't just about me.

BioWare SHOULD experiment and try different things.  But IPs should remain largely consistent inside themselves.  Resident Evil shouldn't have tried to become a shooter, Dead Space shouldn't have gone all mutli-player-y, and Dragon Age should not have gone twitch.

[Plaintiff]

MerinTB wrote...

Filament wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
Can you imagine that scene playing out in a movie?

Or that stupid other battle people are calling "the greatest BioWare has done"?

Seriously?

Why would I want to? Video games need not be compared to movies, books or real life. They are their own medium with their own strengths and weaknesses. If comparing videogames to how they'd play out in a movie, conventional RPG combat would also be laughable.

The visuals of the fight in a game series that is priding itself on it's cinematics.  The cinematics are meant to give you that exciting movie visual experience.

The fights are not cinematics, and should not work the same as cinematics.

[MerinTB]

Plaintiff wrote...
The fights are not cinematics, and should not work the same as cinematics.

<_<

...

Yes, the fights are NOT cinematics, and should not WORK like cinematics.

...



Helped you take that straw man down.  Sure was hard.

In case you are seriously misunderstanding me, the point is that the combat looks and plays ridiculously.  Games like Super Mario or Bastion or Zelda work on their cartoony levels with patterns to fighting bosses and creatures moving at prescripted routes, because they are more GAME than STORY.  They are not trying to really represent you fighting a koopa or a octorock or a gasbag.  They are meant to be silly and twitch skill based much more than actually trying to seem like something you'd read in a book or watch in a movie.

That is NOT what BioWare is doing, or (short of Sonic?) ever really has tried to do.

BioWare tries to make things feel more visceral, more story-oriented.  They are not going for gamey abstracts.

BioWare is absolutely going for that movie look and feel.  That's why they add those random combat animations like beheadings and such, and those over-the-top orge-killing animations.

You can not like that.  But it is what BioWare is doing.

On top of that, combat is supposed to be tacitcal, and DA2 may have started a departure of such, but DA2 under the hood is still very Infinity Engine-style combat, with character stats determining to hit and damage and what moves you can do, not timing of your button presses nor combo of button presses (i.e. twitch.)

It is okay if you LIKE twitch, or prefer it.  Heck, it's even okay if you WANT DA the series to MOVE IN THAT DIRECTION, if that is your desire.  You can want that.  Your prerogative.

But those "best fights ever for DA" are being called such by people who want a different style of combat than what is DA was and still mostly is.  They want that change.

For those who like what DA combat started as, and has only moved a few steps away from, they are the "worst fights ever."

This is clearly subjective.  But it's subject in the sense that a period piece serious drama, academy award bait, has one scene which is a completely out of place gross-out comedy scene involving explosive diarrhea.  Most people choosing to watch said drama are going to find the comedy bit the worst part of the film, and wonder why it is in there.  People who happened to watch the movie for whatever reason (maybe not quite understanding what it was going to be about) who aren't fans of the drama may find the one comedy scene the best part of the film.

People loving those patterned, twitchy combat battles?  They are enjoying the out of place diarrhea joke.

Modifié par MerinTB, 20 juillet 2013 - 10:03 .

[mikeymoonshine]

I am always in the middle I enjoyed the combat in DA2 somewhat but it got boring fast. Nothing was ever really that challenging or involved anything tactical at all, all the enemies were the same and them appearing from nowhere all the time sucked. It's really a shame though coz the pacing, character control and abilities were all allot better,

[MerinTB]

Filament wrote...
Speaking of straw men, I never said
anything about the Arishok fight being well designed. But I did like the
mazelike nature of Corypheus' spell and I did think it was fun both to
play and to look at. So, whatever.

Did I once say that you DID say the Arishok fight ws well designed?

You have to reexamine what "straw man" means.  It means setting up a false argument for another person, in place of their real one, and knocking it down.

You're argument was that you wouldn't want to have the fight scenes in DA look like fight scenes as you'd see in a movie, that the mediums were different and the two shouldn't be compared.

I responded as to why I was talking about how the fight scenes look / play out, and,  in discussing whether fights should look more "realistic" (that is such a loaded term) vs. gamey, I used the Arishok fight as an example.

Nowhere was that discussing about whether the Arishok fight was well-designed, nor about me saying that you claimed it was.

At worst, if you step back a conversation or so, you can get to the point where I was mocking people calling the ARW or Corwhateverhisstupidnameis "the best fights ever", but that wasn't in direct reference to the Arishok.

So, yeah, not a straw man.  Not even a point of contention in the last response I gave to you.

Filament wrote...
And the idea that DAO had rich cinematic story combat is laughable, or that Bastion or Ys don't have serious stories by comparison because they're "too gamey."

1 - Subjective whether it did or not, so laugh to your hearts content.  The point is that BioWare is TRYING to do cinematic storytelling, whether you think it succeeds or not, and to do cinematic storytelling you break suspension of disbelief by having a Nintendo-era twitch, patterned boss battle.

2 - Never mentioned Y's.  Bastion is a great game, but it's not a deep story game.  It has some atmosphere and a cool, if simple, plot.  Serious - eh, the narrator is very humorous, the names of things are humorous, it has a very Nintendo feel again.  Great game, not knocking it, but it isn't trying to emulate a novel or movie - it's trying to emulate a cartoon.  And you can get away with a lot more in cartoons than in movies.

Filament wrote...Please, check the condescending pretentious BS.

Hypocrisy - that which Filament just engaged in.
Irony - asking someone to stop doing the very thing you are doing as you ask

Modifié par MerinTB, 20 juillet 2013 - 10:49 .

[Plaintiff]

It would've been easier to just type "Corypheus" than it was to tap out that string of gibberish. At this point that's just going out of your way to be juvenile.

[MerinTB]

Filament wrote...
Fair enough, you were referring to the Arishok earlier, but you were also referring to Corypheus (or lulz-I'm-gonna-spell-his-name-wrong-cuz-that's-funny) and apparently trying to counter my preference for more engaging combat overall. But I have no interest in defending the Arishok battle, so if you really meant to address me, you largely wasted your time.

uhm...

I didn't initially address you about how those "best fights ever" would appear in a film.  I was talking to a couple other people.  YOU chose to respond to ME about that.

So, right, see, you can't engage someone on a topic they are talking about and then expect them to stop talking abou that topic you engaged them on.  Your reasoning is insane.

Order of events:

1. StM mentioned how he fought the Arishok, and I said that I was ashamed to admit that I kited that battle - that the Arishok fight was all about kiting.
2. EA responds to me that, yup, that fight was kiting and horrible.
3. I respond to EA, asking can you imagine that battle play out in a movie?

With me so far, Filament?  Conversation didn't include you yet.  Arishok battle was kinda the focus of that thread of conversation.  But here's where you join.

4. Filament joins the conversation, answering an unasked question (why would he want to? no one asked him), but that's fine, really, this is a forum and an open thread so he's free to throw in his two cents.  That said, he joined an ongoing conversation about how stupid that Arishok was, and how bad it looked, to the point of trying to imagine it in a film.

Got it, Filament?  You joined the discussion there about the Arishok battle... I didn't try and impose it on you, nor did I tell you that you said it was well done.

5 . I respond to Filament, trying to explain what I meant by the comparison to film battles - about DA series, and BioWare games in general, wanting to be cinematic storytelling (points more fully fleshed out in other posts.)  My direct response to Filament, about why I was bringing in the movie battle scene comparison, continuing to use the ridiculous looking Arishok batle as the focal point of how silly such a scene would look in a film, never once said that Filament said the scene was well done - it asked a rhetorical question or two about how those scenes of running in circles around a room would look neat. (which was established before Filament joined this thread of discussion)

6. Filament accuses me of setting up a straw man about saying he was claiming the Arishok scene was well done.  Lagely because I had called out someone else setting up a straw man on me.

7. I respond about how I wasn't setting up a straw man for Filament, I state explicitly what I believe his point to be - he wouldn't want to have the fight scenes in DA look like fight scenes as
you'd see in a movie, that the mediums were different and the two
shouldn't be compared - and then answered other points he made.  At the end I call out his poisoning of the well - "Please, check the condescending pretentious BS" - which is both ironic and hypocritical of him.

8. Filament again engage in tu quoque, trying to turn the "hypocrite" label on me, as if I had been the one trying to accuse him of doing things (setting up straw men, addressing him first about points he wasn't interested in, etc.) that I was doing.  Filament fails to see the irony and hypocrisy and engages in it again, telling me to not address him about things he didn't bring up...

Which leads to this response.

Plaintiff wrote...
It would've been easier to just type
"Corypheus" than it was to tap out that string of gibberish. At this
point that's just going out of your way to be juvenile.

More name-calling.  Attacking the person and not the argument.  Nitpicking at side things, trying to poison the well, etc.

Discredit the opponent - always a sign of last resort.

Misspelling that characters name, or humorously screwing with the stupid name because I found the character annoying, disproves ANY argument of mine HOW?

Ad hominem all the way.  I could be thirteen or sixty, snarky or dry, and it wouldn't matter one whit to the point I was making.  But the point isn't what you want to target- you want to bully.

How many points did that win you?

Modifié par MerinTB, 21 juillet 2013 - 12:27 .

[CronoDragoon]

MerinTB wrote...

People loving those patterned, twitchy combat battles?  They are enjoying the out of place diarrhea joke.

This isn't really a good analogy. People don't consider separate games in a series a single work the way that they will a movie. Moreover, different battle systems and tones is actually more the paradigm in video game series than the exception. See: Final Fantasy, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Shadow Hearts, etc.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 21 juillet 2013 - 01:54 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Filament wrote...

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.

The flames aren't that deadly in the alcoves, I had no trouble keeping Hawke and Aveline alive with no healer and killing all the demons personally.

There was no way to know the alcoves were safe without metagame information.  It was clear that staying ahead of the rotating fan was safe, and that could be done fairly by moving all of the characters simultaneously (I selected all four at once and made a series of short-range move orders for the whole party).  While doing this, I discovered that the dog was killing the demons.  So I let that keep happening.

I suppose if you play a coward/extremely cautious/control freak character it might not be fun, but if you really played that mindset consistently I don't think any combat scenario would be "fun."

I don't play a control freak character.  I am a control freak.  I control y character, and his companions, moment-to-moment, because that's how I like to play.  What sort of character I'm playing right then in immaterial.

[muy_thaiguy]

I prefered DA2 combat over DAO.

DAO just felt clunky. It did not feel like "every attack had power behind it", it felt more like they were barely holding onto their weapons because they were so heavy and almost slide right out of your hands. Also, the mage doing the same movement for EVERY spell was annoying.

For DA2, the combat felt smoother, like the characters actually had control of their weapons. The mage did more than punch the air for every spell, the rogue had it's own skill tree, and the warrior could actually jump into the thick of combat and go blow for blow against heavy hitters.

That said, the enemies popping out of nowhere was annoying in DA2, but overall, the combat felt smoother.

[Realmzmaster]

The alcoves in the Corypheus are not entirely safe. The party could still take some damage. It was a matter of avoiding the flame. The best way to do that is from the side and furthest you can get from the tip of the flame.

No metagame information is necessary to know that the further you are from the source of the flame the better. The furthest place to be was in the upper right or left corners of the alcove. Hawke touches the griffon statues and fights the guardians. The party retreats to the upper right or left corner of the alcove.

You simply had to wait for one section of the line of flames to pass and then move your party altogether to the next alcove. Sometimes Corypheus will transport to the party while the party is in the corner. The party can simply pound on him. Rinse and repeat for all stages of the fight.

There are different ways to kill Corypheus. I would like to see more fights of this type. I also would like to be able to win fights by other means than combat.

[addiction21]

MerinTB wrote...

"It's over, Anakin.  I have the higher ground."

Alrighty then...

I liked the dual. The Dialogue is crap and if I could it would be muted. It also has to do with seeing that portrayal of Anakin Skywalker getting mutilated that made it all worth it. No fan in their worst nightmare could imagine Anakin would be done so horribly.

MerinTB wrote...


For the first part - no, I'd take the boss battles of DA:O ("standing around and hitting them, I guess") to the twitchy / pattern-memorization that is those other battles.  I'd even take *shudder* kiting over "he flashes, then he spins, you block, then he twirls, you hide behind the crates, then he yawns, you have to shoot him in the mouth - rinse, repeat."

That said, yes, I absolutley agree with the latter part.  DA:O High Dragon fights (and Archdemon fight) are far superior to the borefest, time-consuming Dragon fights in DA2 (that last bone-pit dragon fight isn't hard, even on Nightmare, it just takes FOREVER... the difficulty is in not slashing your wrists to just relieve the boredom!)

But its all pattern memorization. Even the DAO fights. That Ogre is going to charge so you move out the way. That HIgh Dragon has a nasty tail attack so you don't stand there.

The Bone Pit fight. For me the fix would be for the dragon to not go out of range and hide on a cliff. Keep it the same but instead of the dragon perching out of range its flying above spitting the fire. Then I have to decide how to manage that fight. Do I keep my ranged on the High Dragon to speed it up or do I focus on the adds so they don't overwhelm my team.

Like the AIrshock fight if he could do such damage then his health and resistances should not of been to that point. That fight was stupid top to bottom. His health and resistances to slows, stuns, mezzes and everything else should of been dropped. I can understand a High Dragon having a lot of health but him no.

[L. Han]

I found Dragon Age 2 rather entertaining and amusing (seeing a regular looking guy swinging a massive sword like it's made of nothing) 

Unfortunately, it got repetitive fast. With large chunks of enemies spawning out of no where and constantly becoming invulnerable and teleporting around makes the game rahter tedious and unchallenging. Dragon Age 2 also pretty much only gives the AI increased health and damage in order to give a challenge on higher dificulties (or boss fights). This only makes the AI become more spongy and boring to fight, as they got no tricks at all. 

I found Dragon Age: Origins to be incomplete. It felt like Baldur's Gate but with slightly less flexibility. (Reduced party members, stats, etc.) But the combat flow was not a big issue for me. I spent most of my time playing a dual-wielding warrior.


Edit: Typos

Modifié par Rickets, 21 juillet 2013 - 10:06 .