188 réponses à ce sujet

[thats1evildude]

Karsciyin wrote...

What bothered me most was the white lilies. You can talk to your mother and she ACTUALLY SAYS she received white lilies from a suitor ("nice to now I can still be courted, teehee") and yet DESPITE KNOWING THIS is a murderer's CALLING CARD you can do nothing but say "oh that's nice mum".

You're remembering it incorrectly. Leandra does mention a possible suitor, but nothing about receiving any lillies. The flowers only arrive after she goes missing (the same morning, actually) and that's what clues Hawke into the fact that she may have been taken.

Modifié par thats1evildude, 02 août 2013 - 06:22 .

[NRieh]

but Hawke also does the same [stands and does nothing] when Huon kills his wife.

I always thought that it's one of those cases where player sees something that character sees not. Like alll those typical Loghain cuts in DAO. I really dislike that sort of thing in games, and I hope DAI won't do it much. Player percieves the world via his character, knowing or seeing something that charactor can not know or see is sort of built-in meta-gaming.

Anyway, as I see it - Hawke arrives too late and sees him over her dead body. Why did they not arrive earlier? Hard to say, but that's how it happened.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Nrieh wrote...

but Hawke also does the same [stands and does nothing] when Huon kills his wife.

I always thought that it's one of those cases where player sees something that character sees not.  

Entirely possible, but considering they knew Huon was a mage, might be a maleficar, and the party was there specifically to protect the wife, you'd think they'd be nearby and prepared for the worst. I mean, it's friggen' Kirkwall.

Your point's still valid though. If Hawke was indeed nowhere nearby (*cringe*), it would have been interesting to truly see/hear things from the actual vantage point. Huon's a blood mage and it would have been difficult, from a distance, to decide if something bad was happening when he began to use magic on  his wife. The cinematic could have come down to the Player deciding whether Hawke charges in immediately or waits the scene out.

Since Hawke was there to protect Nyssa, there should have been some way to succeed at that--though not necessarily by charging straight in.

[NRieh]

there should have been some way to succeed at that--though not necessarily by charging straight in.

Well, DA2 has quite a lot of moments, where 'perefect timing' and 'last-second-rescue' do not happen. And I don't thik it's necessarily a bad thing, to be honest. The less overused tropes - the better, imo.

Like, 'Nothing you can save, that can't be saved', you know...
(Damn now I just NEED to see a DA2 vid with this track.. 8P)

[Wulfram]

Nrieh wrote...

Well, DA2 has quite a lot of moments, where 'perefect timing' and 'last-second-rescue' do not happen. And I don't thik it's necessarily a bad thing, to be honest. The less overused tropes - the better, imo.

Thing is that arriving just too late, as you tended to in DA2, is no less contrived than arriving at the traditionally heroic just in time, but much more annoying.

(and in this case Hawke really should have been waiting for Huon, so there's not much excuse for arriving late.)

Modifié par Wulfram, 02 août 2013 - 11:52 .

[esper]

John Epler wrote...

Inprea wrote...

I'd have to agree. I really hate forced defeats or moments of incompetence. I believe Dragon Age Origins did it right whenever Loghain's men come to arrest you. If you are defeated you're locked up if you kill them all you walk out the door. It becomes especially annoying whenever it's a group of people that your character could have easily defeated and at times even defeats later on. I can't help but think of Mark of the Assassin whenever Hawke is forced to surrender.

Considering my Hawke was an end game spirit healer who had been very careful to disarm every trap possible, open every chest possible and kill every enemy she could I'm pretty darn sure she had the level to take them.

To be fair, I had a good twenty archers in that cutscene, and you were there without your party.

The Grace/Thrask example is totally fair, though. But I made a point of making the MOTA trap absurdly over-the-top so that it at least felt like 'okay, maybe this one's gonna be tough to fight your way out of.

That said, we're aware of the cutscene incompetence issue in a grander sense. We'll be taking special care to avoid situations where it feels as though even a minimum amount of effort would completely change the course of events - see, Grace/Thrask once again.

The problem with the 20 plus archers is that you take out 20 + enemies in normal combat almost every fight (or at least it feels such), thus it doesn't feels as danger. (Also you were still 2 persons, generally speaking having too many enemies to slaughter make it hard for the player to percieve danger). That said I still bought that scene mostly because at this point my Hawke had pretty much reach F' it regarding Tallis, so I think that the fact that Tallis loyalty is thrown into doubt at least make some case of why it is a smart idea to postpone the fight.

The sad thing about Grace/Trask was that it could have work.

They had a hostage, which was knocked out and thus couldn't have fought back or made any escape move. I wish it had been made more clear that if Hawke moved a muscle before the group started its infighting, then the hostage would have been death. I am not entirely sure why, but it just didn't feel like that.

Modifié par esper, 02 août 2013 - 11:57 .

[KiwiQuiche]

Yup, I hated the "Durr stupid for stupid sake" crap that happens a lot in Bioware games. DA2 was bad, ME3 was friggin' atrocious. But hopefully they won't use it in DAI.

As others have pointed out, some bloody options would be nice, like in Rescue the Queen, rather than standing around like a ****** while Grace kills Thrask, Orisino does "Transforming is totally free" garbage at the end and Tallis skips off after you gave her a death threat with crippling intel.

[Ziggeh]

Isn't this just part of the general disparity between "story" and "combat"? Like "Why can't I cast the ogre tearing spell at the start of the fight?", "How is that knife doing so much damage?" and "I cut Zevran's head off, how am I now accidentally romancing him?"

[ShaggyWolf]

That Kai Leng fight on Thessia. That's probably the first time a video game had made me shout at the screen during a cutscene. I was that disgusted with the game at that point (And ofc, the pathetically bad TIM dialogue+plot wasn't helping).

Anyway, I've no wish to rant about ME3, I'm just posting to say thank you to John Epler for posting about the issue. It's good to know that you guys are at least aware that we don't like it when our characters are turned into morons. And to be clear, I don't hold the DA team responsible for ME3's failures, and I don't think DA2 was even a big offender in this regard. I guess there were a couple instances of 'cutscene incompetence' but I don't think it was ever too bad and at least the other 99.9% of the game had plenty to appreciate and enjoy. For me, anyway. Not like ME3 where Shepard and/or the rest of the cast did something to make me facepalm almost every other cutscene.

[Vapaa]

Valadras21 wrote...

That Kai Leng fight on Thessia. That's probably the first time a video game had made me shout at the screen during a cutscene. I was that disgusted with the game at that point (And ofc, the pathetically bad TIM dialogue+plot wasn't helping).

People keep talking about Kai Leng, but that was the same with Saren in ME1: you empty his life bar and then...he jumps from his saucer and grabs helpless Shepard <_<

[Zobo]

In RPGs I usually really want to role-play a honorable samurai kind of a character never to retreat, never to surrender, someone who, should (s)he be knocked off unconscious and captured, would rather perform a seppuku to avoid shame. Capturing someone like this in-conscious should be absolutely impossible of cause.
Too bad it goes out of the window every time with those forced plot captivity situations I really do not appreciate at all. Really, what has happened to good old "Aut ****** scuto, aut in scuto" this days? Looks like modern heroes are all too softcore for this.

Modifié par Zobo, 02 août 2013 - 02:11 .

[Ieldra]

Zobo wrote...
In RPGs I usually really want to role-play a honorable samurai kind of a character never to retreat, never to surrender, someone who, should (s)he be knocked off unconscious and captured, would rather perform a seppuku to avoid shame. Capturing someone like this in-conscious should be absolutely impossible of cause.
Too bad it goes out of the window every time with those forced plot captivity situations I really do not appreciate at all. Really, what has happened to good old "Aut ****** scuto, aut in scuto" this days? Looks like modern heroes are all too softcore for this.

Perhaps they're just less stupid.

[Zobo]

Ieldra2 wrote...
Perhaps they're just less stupid.

Well, if you are captured, enemies can pretty much do whatever they want to you, all the more so in medieval times. During war the most probable scenario for you will be to get tortured or/and raped and not to get some lucky escape because the plot say so as well. I'm pretty sure there are no Geneva Conventions in Thedas, no to mention in some modern conflicts those agreements do not work even today. Victory or death mentality has perfectly logical grounds behind it.

[NRieh]

Thing is that arriving just too late, as you tended to in DA2, is no less contrived than arriving at the traditionally heroic just in time, but much more annoying.

I dunno, I think Hawke had a good mix of both. Which is rare, because usually it's only 'perfect timing' (and 'jumping away from the explosion'). That's a start. ))

[JCAP]

This is actually a good thread, well, at least it's better than those "can we romance everyone?"

Modifié par JCAP, 02 août 2013 - 02:34 .

[Leo]

Karsciyin wrote...

What bothered me most was the white lilies. You can talk to your mother and she ACTUALLY SAYS she received white lilies from a suitor ("nice to now I can still be courted, teehee") and yet DESPITE KNOWING THIS is a murderer's CALLING CARD you can do nothing but say "oh that's nice mum".

And then she disappears and you're just "oh she probably went shopping" until Bodahn mentions the flowers again, then Hawke acts like they JUST HEARD ABOUT IT

Yeah, but I always figured Hawke forgot about the lilies during the 3-year timeskip or that (s)he didn't put two-and-two together and just figured that the lilies were just from a suitor. Also, I don't think Leandra mentioned recieving white lilies at all.

[dgcatanisiri]

Wulfram wrote...

Nrieh wrote...

Well, DA2 has quite a lot of moments, where 'perefect timing' and 'last-second-rescue' do not happen. And I don't thik it's necessarily a bad thing, to be honest. The less overused tropes - the better, imo.

Thing is that arriving just too late, as you tended to in DA2, is no less contrived than arriving at the traditionally heroic just in time, but much more annoying.

(and in this case Hawke really should have been waiting for Huon, so there's not much excuse for arriving late.)

Especially when you can transition from the chat with Nyssa to Huon's arrival by going into Merrill's house, which has a clear view of the alienage where he appears and kills her.

[PsychoBlonde]

John Epler wrote...

To be fair, I had a good twenty archers in that cutscene, and you were there without your party.

Sadly, my rogue Hawke has taken down groups that size by herself.  Groups of DRAGONS.  Because my dang party members could NOT stay out of the fireballs.  Bleh.  Did for Corypheus that way, too.

If you want a suggestion, instead of trying to bully us with large groups of enemies (which won't work even if there are hundreds), have them actually hit the PC with something.  Knock-out toxin.  Magic taser.  Goo trap.  Blood magic dominate.  Something.  There are one-shot takedowns in the game, so this isn't divorced from the gameplay.  But murdering tons of dudes is nothing as far as the gameplay goes so archers pointing bows at you, far from being impressive, is practically mundane.

This worked well in Origins at the Circle tower when you encountered the Sloth Demon, for instance.  Or in the Orzammar wrap-up scene when you got shot full of arrows.  It didn't work quite as well when the Arishok ordered his men to attack, but that was okay--it made tactical sense to retreat, plus it didn't really seem like the Arishok was trying particularly hard to kill you at that time.  A couple of fireballs in that enclosed space could have done some real damage, though.

It wouldn't hurt to bring back the "Meanwhile, in Denerim . . ." cutscenes where the PC just is not present.  *Then* you can have it play out however you like.  I quite liked those--we do that sort of thing in my pen and paper games.  It gives information that is hard to fit inside of a session and also helps avoid the confusion that results when the GM sees the whole situation but the players are clueless because they see only a tiny part of it.

[Spaghetti_Ninja]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

It wouldn't hurt to bring back the "Meanwhile, in Denerim . . ." cutscenes where the PC just is not present.  *Then* you can have it play out however you like.

Ditto. Few movies focus on the protagonist 100% of the time anyway.

They did that right in ME2 as well, when the Collectors attack Horizon and Kaidan/Ashley gets overwhelmed.

[Maverick827]

Valadras21 wrote...

And to be clear, I don't hold the DA team responsible for ME3's failures

"To be clear, I don't think you guys are horrible at your jobs and produced a turd of a game, just all of your friends."

Somehow your reassurances to the DA team feel backhanded.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

I like that a member of BW has actually come in here and acknowledged the issue. This is how you make credibility for yourselves.

Never really focused on the cutscenes in DA too much. They always worked for, and I probably didn't really care much one way or the other.

In ME3 however, I was left practically screaming at the stupidity of dialogue, actions, events, everything under the sun pretty much.

One last thing: Inb4David7204 claims there was no cutscene incompetence. If he does show up, just remember that a member of BW just publicly acknowledged the issue...

[Sylvius the Mad]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

There's a point where you have to separate gameplay from the story, this is that point.

No, there absolutely is not.  There is no point where this is necessary.  Games should literally never do this.

[o Ventus]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

There's a point where you have to separate gameplay from the story, this is that point.

No, there absolutely is not.  There is no point where this is necessary.  Games should literally never do this.

Yet almost 100% of them do.

[Sylvius the Mad]

o Ventus wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

There's a point where you have to separate gameplay from the story, this is that point.

No, there absolutely is not.  There is no point where this is necessary.  Games should literally never do this.

Yet almost 100% of them do.

Even that, were it true, would not make the practice acceptable.