1109 réponses à ce sujet

[Taleroth]

Wulfram wrote...

The Hierophant wrote...

How is no free health regen pointless when health depletion is the only means of defeat?

Because there's always some means of health regen, it's just about how inconvenient it's going to be.

Unless you're prepared to make every quest/mission into it's own contained thing, like XCom, which is inconsistent with what we've been told about the game.  And make a whole bunch of other gameplay changes, some of which are liable to be drastically unpopular.

There's always some means of health regen, but it's not always free. And how it presents a drain on the resource economy isn't always pointless.

[Fast Jimmy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I think it's important to note that combat difficulty and health regen aren't as related as some think.

Yes, taking the *same* set of encounters and removing health regen will more than likely make those sequence of encounters more difficult. But simply saying "Game X has health regen and Game Y does not" doesn't actually tell you "Game X is easier than game Y." It depends on the encounter design.

Health regen takes into account more of the strategic elements of combat, rather than the tactical. For someone that highly values tactical but is indifferent towards strategic, they'll prefer a game with challenging combat encounters but health regen.

If someone does like no health regen, they see each encounter has managing towards a bigger picture. It's just a different focus/goal out of gaming.

To be clear, I am not suggesting it is one way or the other. I am merely suggesting using the difficulty setting as a means to solve the problem people say they have with a no-regen system. Just like I used the difficulty settings as a means to solve the problems (to some degree) I had with DA2's system, which was strongly biased towards the health regen system. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 14 août 2013 - 05:23 .

[AlanC9]

The Hierophant wrote...

How is no free health regen pointless when health depletion is the only means of defeat? DA's unearned auto regen trivialized resource management outside of the higher difficulties, negated one of the dangers of consecutive combat encounters, while the damage earned from traps in DA2 were redundant.
.

Saying that a game that wasn't designed around resource management in the first place "trivializes" resource management isn't all that meaningful.

[hoorayforicecream]

The Hierophant wrote...

Wulfram wrote...

Well, in this case it's a player who's remembering what a pointless waste of time it was in BG2 and every other game which had it.

How is no free health regen pointless when health depletion is the only means of defeat? DA's unearned auto regen trivialized resource management outside of the higher difficulties, negated one of the dangers of consecutive combat encounters, while the damage earned from traps in DA2 were redundant.

Like i said before, if the devs are introducing environmental hazards, free health regen from the get go could render the dangers moot.

That depends on the goal. Some folks prefer tighter designed combat encounters. If you have to avoid environmental damage during the encounter, it can make the combats more interesting and challenging. When you remove health regen between battles, you emphasize the overall metagame (managing health while dealing with small fights intended to wear you down, rather than challenge). This can make the individual battles boring, since they aren't necessarily intended to really challenge you as a player, they just force you to expend a few resources here and there. Then you'll get a bigger challenge at the end of the dungeon, in which your resource management skills over the course of the dungeon come into play. For some folks, this makes the individual combats a chore to work through.

The problem Wulfram points at is that if you want to maximize your resources and there are recovery abilities available at all, it will then become the optimal strategy to simply rest and wait until your resources are recovered before the next battle. If your health doesn't regen but your mana does, you can spend your mana on heal spells to recover your health, then sit around waiting for your mana to fill back up again. One doesn't have to play this way, but it is the strategy that typically maximizes your chances of successfully completing the mission. You generally don't lose anything standing around for hours waiting for your health or mana to come back, except maybe some boredom. 

One could conceivably do this in the way that the old Final Fantasy games did it - you have no regeneration whatsoever except through the use of consumable items (like a tent, a cabin, or resting at an inn in specified locations), but this puts the onus on players who want to maximize their chances of victory to grind out levels in safer zones.

[Wulfram]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Okay, maybe I should try framing my suggestion in a different light. And get away from saying "Casual" or "narative", as the ideal difficulty may indeed be Easy (or even Normal) depending on how the game is balanced.

Let's say that on the ideal difficulty level for this, you are able to have fairly normal combat - enemies don't drop dead if you breath on them, but who also don't take down huge swaths of your health in each encounter. Then, by the time you reach the end of the dungeon/area, your party is a little worn down (maybe halfway from your total health). Not wanting to be bogged down with a rest or healing of whatever, you take on the boss fight. With your lower health, the fight is difficult (you come close to failing, some party members fall, etc.) but more often than not, you can succeed, all without having to go back to town, or rest before every fight or carry around 100 potions.

Does that not sound like a decent enough compromise to enjoy combat while dealing with a mechanic you don't like?

Not really.  It's making me effectively have to rebalance the game for myself on the fly since I have no way of assessing when making use of potions or resting is appropriate.  It's not very satisfying, because it's tainted by the knowledge that the only thing creating the challenge is my own arbitrary standard.  And it's still liable to encourage less interesting gameplay tactics.

And ultimately even if it's better it's still all just mitigation, it doesn't change that no health regen is making the game worse for me.

[Fast Jimmy]

AlanC9 wrote...

The Hierophant wrote...

How is no free health regen pointless when health depletion is the only means of defeat? DA's unearned auto regen trivialized resource management outside of the higher difficulties, negated one of the dangers of consecutive combat encounters, while the damage earned from traps in DA2 were redundant.
.

Saying that a game that wasn't designed around resource management in the first place "trivializes" resource management isn't all that meaningful.

I'd say DA2 WASN'T resource management, but rather cool down management. It wasn't a matter of how many potions you had in DA2, after all... it was how far apart in combat you needed to drink your potions (or use your skills/spells, etc.). Given that loot was often more powerful than named equipment and how plentiful money was, I'd argue that DA2 had an absolute minimalist resource management challenge. 

[AngryFrozenWater]

I rather have the game would focus on proper AI and drop the health bar tricks. That includes silly long cool downs for potions and spells.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 14 août 2013 - 05:46 .

[AlanC9]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Without health regen (to design I prefer), each encounter needs to be designed with the knowledge that the party might be at full health, but also might not, and also that whatever health level the party has after the encounter needs to be acceptable for the following encounter (unless there's some opportunity to heal between them).

The problem  is that it's difficult to have any single battle actually be tough unless you've given out  a rest opportunity right before it, since the big fights have to accomdate different resource levels too. My "reward" for good performance is therefore getting easier fights later in the sequence. I find myself playing sloppier in resource-management-based games just to keep things interesting. Which I guess is pretty much what Wulfram's saying a few posts up.

Modifié par AlanC9, 14 août 2013 - 05:49 .

[AlanC9]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

The Hierophant wrote...

How is no free health regen pointless when health depletion is the only means of defeat? DA's unearned auto regen trivialized resource management outside of the higher difficulties, negated one of the dangers of consecutive combat encounters, while the damage earned from traps in DA2 were redundant.
.

Saying that a game that wasn't designed around resource management in the first place "trivializes" resource management isn't all that meaningful.

I'd say DA2 WASN'T resource management, but rather cool down management. It wasn't a matter of how many potions you had in DA2, after all... it was how far apart in combat you needed to drink your potions (or use your skills/spells, etc.). Given that loot was often more powerful than named equipment and how plentiful money was, I'd argue that DA2 had an absolute minimalist resource management challenge. 

I wouldn't say either game was about resource management, myself.

[Fast Jimmy]

And ultimately even if it's better it's still all just mitigation, it doesn't change that no health regen is making the game worse for me.

POTENTIALLY. It is POTENTIALLY making it worse for you.

We know nothing about what this mechanic will look like. It may very well be a system we've never seen that resolves concerns for all groups. You are expressing your concerns about how you perceive the system will work, but it won't INNATELY make your game unenjoyable. It is only if the common systems used or employed are mirrored in this game will your perceived concerns be validated.

Again... this is all off a one-line picture caption in a magazine article. Let's not insist the sky is falling just yet.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 14 août 2013 - 05:50 .

[AlanC9]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
POTENTIALLY. It is POTENTIALLY making it worse for you.

We know nothing about what this mechanic will look like. It may very well be a system we've never seen that resolves concerns for all groups. You are expressing your concerns about how you perceive the system will work, but it won't INNATELY make your game unenjoyable. It is only if the common systems used or employed are mirrored in this game will your perceived concerns be validated.

Again... this is all off a one-line picture caption in a magazine article. Let's not insist the sky is falling just yet.

If he's never seen it work in a way he'd like, and none of the proposals sound like they'll make things better, it's hardly unreasonable to think that he won't like it this time around either.

[AlanC9]

krul2k wrote...

still dont see the problem, you adapt its that simple

By this logic there can't ever be a bad design decision, since whatever Bio does we should just adapt to it.

[Fast Jimmy]

However, i'm against it for that same reason--I don't want to have to adjust my difficulty. I leave it at Normal and struggle or steamroll through--I don't change it at a whim when the game is too easy or tough for me.

Well, nothing would force you to change the difficulty. The game would just prompt a simple "Yes/No" question about increasing the difficult (or decreasing it, if you turned it up but are now encountering a lot of damage or companion deaths). You could always say no.

And would it matter to anyone if they labeled the lowest difficulty Normal, with the harder difficulties being renamed as well? I think people are getting way too hung up on names and titles with the difficulty levels... like if you play below normal, you are abnormally bad or something.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 14 août 2013 - 05:56 .

[Fast Jimmy]

AlanC9 wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
POTENTIALLY. It is POTENTIALLY making it worse for you.

We know nothing about what this mechanic will look like. It may very well be a system we've never seen that resolves concerns for all groups. You are expressing your concerns about how you perceive the system will work, but it won't INNATELY make your game unenjoyable. It is only if the common systems used or employed are mirrored in this game will your perceived concerns be validated.

Again... this is all off a one-line picture caption in a magazine article. Let's not insist the sky is falling just yet.

If he's never seen it work in a way he'd like, and none of the proposals sound like they'll make things better, it's hardly unreasonable to think that he won't like it this time around either.

That may be so, but it's still an assumption, not a fact. 

[Wulfram]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

POTENTIALLY. It is POTENTIALLY making it worse for you.

We know nothing about what this mechanic will look like. It may very well be a system we've never seen that resolves concerns for all groups. You are expressing your concerns about how you perceive the system will work, but it won't INNATELY make your game unenjoyable. It is only if the common systems used or employed are mirrored in this game will your perceived concerns be validated.

Again... this is all off a one-line picture caption in a magazine article. Let's not insist the sky is falling just yet.

I've played enough games with this mechanic to know my opinion of it.  It's possible Bioware might achieve a games design revolution, I suppose, but I hardly think it's likely.

And it's funny how this line of argument is only directed at complaints, despite it being just as valid for positive reactions, or virtually every comment on anything said about an unreleased game ever.  "Why are you happy about getting multiple origins?  They might be rubbish."

[Wulfram]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

And would it matter to anyone if they labeled the lowest difficulty Normal, with the harder difficulties being renamed as well? I think people are getting way too hung up on names and titles with the difficulty levels... like if you play below normal, you are abnormally bad or something.

Frankly, they've already renamed "easy" as normal.

And you risk the opposite problem - people see "normal" as the intended difficulty level, stick to that, and complain the game is way too easy.

Maybe the way the Civ games name their difficulties are best - calling them things like "Warlord", "Prince", "King" and "Emperor" rather picking one as "normal".  Maybe the DA levels should run from "Bandit" to "Grey Warden" to "Old God", or something - with a secret unlockable "Sandal" difficulty. 

[AlanC9]

krul2k wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

krul2k wrote...

still dont see the problem, you adapt its that simple

By this logic there can't ever be a bad design decision, since whatever Bio does we should just adapt to it.

nope theres always bad game design decisions, there in every game ive ever played an most likely will be for well ever, you either accept them an adapt or you dont an dont play the game

So it's not that there aren't bad decisions, it's that bad decisions don't cause problems?

[AlanC9]

Wulfram wrote...
And it's funny how this line of argument is only directed at complaints, despite it being just as valid for positive reactions, or virtually every comment on anything said about an unreleased game ever.  "Why are you happy about getting multiple origins?  They might be rubbish."

Well, it's not like it's an actual argument. It's just rhetoric.

I don't really have any skin in this game. Bio games are always easy, and DAI won't be much different. And as far as pointless tedium goes, I imagine the inventory and loot will introduce enough of that to make managing health look like a rounding error.

Modifié par AlanC9, 14 août 2013 - 06:10 .

[Fast Jimmy]

And it's funny how this line of argument is only directed at complaints, despite it being just as valid for positive reactions, or virtually every comment on anything said about an unreleased game ever. "Why are you happy about getting multiple origins? They might be rubbish."

They might be. Which is why I haven't expressed any excitement for them.

On the flip side, I can be excited about health regen, because even in the "tedious" system people in this thread seem to dislike, I enjoy. So if they don't improve it, I'm fine. If they do, even better. And if it winds up being no health regen in name only, resulting in health regen through other means, we'll have exactly what is already in the DA series as is, which I wouldn't lose tons of sleep over, either.

But saying "I'm going to hate combat because of this" when, again, we know nothing about it, may be a little premature.

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

And would it matter to anyone if they labeled the lowest difficulty Normal, with the harder difficulties being renamed as well? I think people are getting way too hung up on names and titles with the difficulty levels... like if you play below normal, you are abnormally bad or something.

Frankly, they've already renamed "easy" as normal.

And you risk the opposite problem - people see "normal" as the intended difficulty level, stick to that, and complain the game is way too easy.

Maybe the way the Civ games name their difficulties are best - calling them things like "Warlord", "Prince", "King" and "Emperor" rather picking one as "normal".  Maybe the DA levels should run from "Bandit" to "Grey Warden" to "Old God", or something - with a secret unlockable "Sandal" difficulty. 

There you go. Easy piecey.