176 réponses à ce sujet

[Seival]

It became quite annoying to swim in the river of predictability in almost each and every game nowadays. You meet some enemy, you fight him, but also you know that eventually the enemy will die. There are no borders for the protagonist, he is stronger than anyone, smarter than anyone, faster than anyone, and more lucky than anyone.

I believe this "cult of protagonist" is a standard that has to be reconsidered in order to make the story better.

No matter how good you are, there is always someone better. I think this RL principle should be used in DA:I. There should be several very dangerous enemies protagonist can engage in combat but can't win by design no matter how good he is, and how good help/support he has.

You may ask, what benefits would a player have from attacking such enemies at all? Several benefits, in fact:
 - Fight for your survival and escape from invincible enemy to receive an achievement.
 - Get some sort of reward for that escaping (like gold or a valuable item).
 - Get the feeling that you are not an unstoppable killing machine, but just a regular living being.



Predictability is boring. Please, do not make too standard stories, BioWare.

[agonis]

Why engage a fight, if you are going to flee it? It seems rather pointless. If they keep their promise DA:I will have some enemies that are too strong at the beginning. With some time and preparation you may succeed in killing them.

But an enemy just lurking around the corner for the entire game and you cannot do anything about except waiting for it to die a natural death?

[Plaintiff]

If the whole point of an encounter is to escape, then you still "win" by doing that, so whatever.

I don't care if the goal of an encounter is to simply "survive", or even to "flee". Plenty of games do that already. As long as the game makes it explicitly clear that this is what I am meant to be doing, then fine.

[Garrett]

How about not having to flee? Like the Cauthrien fight in Origins after rescuing Anora from Howe. You could survive that, but it was virtually impossible, at least on hard/nightmare. You died, but it was meant to happen as you were transported to fort drakon then.

[Seival]

agonis wrote...

Why engage a fight, if you are going to flee it? It seems rather pointless. If they keep their promise DA:I will have some enemies that are too strong at the beginning. With some time and preparation you may succeed in killing them.

But an enemy just lurking around the corner for the entire game and you cannot do anything about except waiting for it to die a natural death?

Initially you had a feeling that you can kill the enemy. In standard games you know the enemy will eventually die. And that's boring... But when you came to kill a boss then barely escaped with your life, and eventually didn't manage to kill the boss through the entire game because it was designed to be unstoppable - things become much more interesting.

[Daissran]

Exquelior wrote...

How about not having to flee? Like the Cauthrien fight in Origins after rescuing Anora from Howe. You could survive that, but it was virtually impossible, at least on hard/nightmare. You died, but it was meant to happen as you were transported to fort drakon then.

Yeah I liked that mechanic, it offered a unique way to resolve conflict.

It's a good idea to have battles that can't be won. Alternative methods to resolving the battle like fleeing, being captured/imprisoned or having a cutscene instead can be equally rewarding, and open up more storytelling avenues.

[Wulfram]

Well, one question I'd ask is how you make escaping fun in a party based CRPG context. Because it if just amounts to making all your character run away that's just going to be boring.

[Han Shot First]

This was actually done before in Silent Hill 2. Spoilers Ahead. Don't read if you ever plan on playing that game.




Pyramid Head, the demonic boss of that Silent Hill 2, was invincible for most of the game. When you encountered him the objective was just to survive and get away from him. It wasn't till the end of the game that he could be 'defeated,' after the protagonist realizes that the demon is a manifestation of his own subconscious desire to be punished for murdering his wife. (It is slowly revealed over the course of the game that the wife of the protagonist had been terminally ill, and that out of a desire both to end her misery and to get on with his life, he smothered her with a pillow)

Without a similarly powerful emotional hook, an invincible boss fight would not work IMO. There has to be more to it than just making the protagonist seem human.

[Seival]

Wulfram wrote...

Well, one question I'd ask is how you make escaping fun in a party based CRPG context. Because it if just amounts to making all your character run away that's just going to be boring.

For example:
 - First you have to actually fight the boss, damage him a little.
 - The fight has to be long and hard.
 - At some point barely damaged boss recovers all health and becomes even more dangerous.
 - A little later cut-scene starts where protagonist tells/shows that he and his group can't survive this, and they have to flee.
 - Finally we have a little part of gameplay where boss pursuits the fleeing group (maybe even kill someone, but not the protagonist). So, eventually the best outcome of this encounter is to escape the boss and lose no one in the process. The worst outcome - your party dies, game over.

...And very important point of all of this is to make the boss invincible, so player will never be able to kill him. Not at beginning of the game, not in the end of the game. Even through player might encounter the boss and try to fight him several times, thinking he can win.

[MisterMonkeyBanana]

Daissran wrote...

Exquelior wrote...

How about not having to flee? Like the Cauthrien fight in Origins after rescuing Anora from Howe. You could survive that, but it was virtually impossible, at least on hard/nightmare. You died, but it was meant to happen as you were transported to fort drakon then.

Yeah I liked that mechanic, it offered a unique way to resolve conflict.

It's a good idea to have battles that can't be won. Alternative methods to resolving the battle like fleeing, being captured/imprisoned or having a cutscene instead can be equally rewarding, and open up more storytelling avenues.

I didn't like that fight, why was Ser Cauthrein so hard and co. harder to fight than the Archdemon and it's army? I know it was because they got the drop on us and such, but that never really stopped anyone else before.

With the changes in game design, no level scaling and no health regen, I think impossible/hard fights are now more possible than they were before, but I hope such fights are a result of player's resource management and not because of a script uber-boss fight which is meant to be unbeatable. Have a very hard fight sure, but if it is near impossible I hope it is because I decided to save the stronghold and the village and used up all my resources.

[Huntress]

Seival wrote...

It became quite annoying to swim in the river of predictability in almost each and every game nowadays. You meet some enemy, you fight him, but also you know that eventually the enemy will die. There are no borders for the protagonist, he is stronger than anyone, smarter than anyone, faster than anyone, and more lucky than anyone.

I believe this "cult of protagonist" is a standard that has to be reconsidered in order to make the story better.

No matter how good you are, there is always someone better. I think this RL principle should be used in DA:I. There should be several very dangerous enemies protagonist can engage in combat but can't win by design no matter how good he is, and how good help/support he has.

You may ask, what benefits would a player have from attacking such enemies at all? Several benefits, in fact:
 - Fight for your survival and escape from invincible enemy to receive an achievement.
 - Get some sort of reward for that escaping (like gold or a valuable item).
 - Get the feeling that you are not an unstoppable killing machine, but just a regular living being.



Predictability is boring. Please, do not make too standard stories, BioWare.

I wouldn't call it predicable more of evolving, outsmarting it.

Lets say early humans couldnt protect themselves from big cat's because: No long theeth, no claws, cant move fast enough or outrun them and compare to a buffalo alot smaller... so we created...
SPEARS, BOWS made them our long tooth or long arm, domesticate elephants to get out of reach from the cat's claws and hunted the cats to extinction. am I correct?

If an enemy seem to powerful we always try to outsmart it by studying them and by using a powerful objects againt them.

In games the hero uses a sword/shield/spells/potions...all this items are created for the Hero to succeed.

if you have the tools and don't use them ...                                   

Fill in the blank.

[Reofeir]

All depends on the game...though for an RPG i'd rather have the, like someone mentioned, choice between extremely hard fight or losing and have a penalty like being captured. A unbeatable fight might just be annoying in DA:I's "Enemies will be stronger then you, so comeback later when you're more prepared" premise only to come back later only to lose no matter what.

[Steelcan]

BioWare already makes generic save the world stories

[Star fury]

Something not that cheap as Kai Leng would be nice.

[Deflagratio]

Setting a failure state as the only outcome of a battle is stupid in my opinion. Cauthrein's encounter handled the issue well... though because of the ingrained nature of Death = Reload, I never realized failure in that battle actually opened up a different part of the game.

[Amberion]

A better example is in Chrono Trigger, where you encounter Lavos in 12,000 BC. In a typical playthrough, he oneshots the party. The game continues after the 'defeat.' However, if you're playing a New Game +, you've got the levels to beat Lavos right there, and you get a special ending for beating him there.

Which leads to my personal opinion about 'unkillable' enemies. I hate them. If you are going to make an enemy unkillable, if you ABSOLUTELY MUST do this, do it within the boundaries of the established rules for play. If you're fighting a dragon and all you have are fire abilities, and the dragon is immune to fire, you're screwed. That dragon is unkillable by you, but it's within the boundaries of the rules(that said, situations like that are bad; you shouldn't ****block the player like that in design).

Modifié par Amberion, 15 septembre 2013 - 03:47 .

[Steelcan]

Although this would twist David's pants into a knot so tight...

Despite my own personal objections to forced defeats, I endorse this simply to rile up Mr. Heroism.

[Knight of Dane]

Something like the "rolling boulder from behind" levels in Crash Bandicoot, just with a boss, sure.

Escape, this dragon is too stronk!

[The Six Path of Pain]

Something like this kind of happens in Final Fantasy III. You fight The Cloud of Darkness in a boss fight but the first battle is unwinable and it ends up killing all the Warriors of Light.

[Huntress]

MisterMonkeyBanana wrote...

Daissran wrote...

Exquelior wrote...

How about not having to flee? Like the Cauthrien fight in Origins after rescuing Anora from Howe. You could survive that, but it was virtually impossible, at least on hard/nightmare. You died, but it was meant to happen as you were transported to fort drakon then.

Yeah I liked that mechanic, it offered a unique way to resolve conflict.

It's a good idea to have battles that can't be won. Alternative methods to resolving the battle like fleeing, being captured/imprisoned or having a cutscene instead can be equally rewarding, and open up more storytelling avenues.

I didn't like that fight, why was Ser Cauthrein so hard and co. harder to fight than the Archdemon and it's army? I know it was because they got the drop on us and such, but that never really stopped anyone else before.

With the changes in game design, no level scaling and no health regen, I think impossible/hard fights are now more possible than they were before, but I hope such fights are a result of player's resource management and not because of a script uber-boss fight which is meant to be unbeatable. Have a very hard fight sure, but if it is near impossible I hope it is because I decided to save the stronghold and the village and used up all my resources.

Is not imposible.. look around, use everything to you're advantage.
This goes for games and real life:
Always check a place where you go, if is a new place try to see where windows+doors are, why? because thats an exit rute if it need it to be one, use wall,table, bathtub for protection.

Ser Cauthrein fight is so easy.. just use the corridor! now the archers has to come to you instead of you trying to kill them one by one in the open. Duh!

[Drasanil]

I don't mind hard fights, even fights where you practically have to cheat to win, but I hate boss fights where you by design cannot win at all. It feels too much like railroading and is generally the sort of thing that should be avoided in RPGs. Not to mention there comes the inevitable aggravation of finding out you were supposed to lose after having dumped half your stock of potions into the fight. Which is basically an instant ticket to re-loading and throwing the fight.

While what you propose may sound good in theory, in practice there just too many ways it ends up sucking. If it's there and you can fight it, you should be able to kill it, even if doing so is incredibly arduous.

[Reofeir]

Like I said, for something like DA:O or DAII which had enemy scaling, this would be no problem.
DA:I however supports the new non-scaling enemies meaning that it conveys the idea that any fight can be won, given time and equipment with leveling up your guys and use of tactics. A fight like this would not work well in DA:I's new scheme. It goes against the idea of it.

[Aaleel]

I don't like this idea. Having a boss be too strong at one point and then able to be defeated later I like. But just to have an enemy that you can never defeat. How would you know this was the case. You would think it was too strong at that point of the game, go back, and then go back later after that.

You would just be wasting time and supplies never knowing this monster couldn't be defeated.

[In Exile]

It would just be lame to make the boss indestructible and it would amount to a pathfinding battle against the companion AI to run away.

[PinkShoes]

Why would you get anything for running away?