97 réponses à ce sujet

[Medhia Nox]

@Fast Jimmy: I did "kinda" mention the skip combat button... when I said that the game should just let us win - since we will anyway eventually.

Combat shouldn't be "if" you win - but how you win. Not even sure "exactly" what I mean by that... but I know it shouldn't involve "death". Especially for a game supposedly telling a story.

[CronoDragoon]

What I've found is that I dislike permadeath in games because combat can often be too random, and I don't like being punished for things that were out of my control. The example that comes to mind is a Fire Emblem battle wherein a second wave of enemies appeared at my rear, immediately got a turn and killed my archer in one hit without a chance for me to protect or re-arrangement my formation. Such randomness might reflect real life in some philosophical way, but on a practical level it negatively affects my gameplay and sense of achievement.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Br3ad wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I don't accept your definition of "finish".  The game is finished when your character's story ends - that might be in a different place from character to character.

The game is finished when the plot ends. That's like shutting a book on the last six chapters and saying the book is finished.

You're not an active participant in creating the story in a book.  In this respect, books are not relevantly similar to roleplaying games.

[Fast Jimmy]

keightdee wrote...

Jimmy, you need an editor.

A man who parses his words is one who would sacrifice the truest form of his intent for the sake of brevity. 

I am not that man! 

[Pink Pony]

Regarding the ability to skip combat:

I think it should be accessible after the first death. Primarily because if you had to die more times people would just commit suicide until they die the prescribed number of times.

As for in-game effects where gameplay would determine the outcome, there are various ways of handling it. The two I see as most likely is either having it result in the worst possible outcome that still progresses the plot, or it being randomized.

The main thing which would need to be decided if this would be applicable to all fights or just boss fights. I had initially imagined it solely for boss fights, then I remembered in the Dragon Age games I had quite a bit of trouble with non-boss fights.

Modifié par Pink Pony, 18 octobre 2013 - 11:42 .

[Martyr1777]

I highly recommend people that like permadeath options and just a different way of handling 'death' in general to check out State of Decay.

They've made some really likeable breaks of you usual action/rpg style game and I for one think they are amazingly good. You can play certain characters you make friends with as the main PC (there is no real party) and any one of those characters you play can permadie which doesnt end the game but puts you in control of one of the other survivors. If they are all dead then its game over.

Really innovative if you ask me, however its a different style game and dont know how well it might play out for something like DA.

[Jorji Costava]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You were advancing the position that companions should be viewed as NPCs. I was explaining why I have an incentive never to do that.

Still a little confused here. Why should the issue of whether or not the companions count as NPCs turn on player preferences or incentives? "X gives you something you don't want; therefore X is false" isn't a good argument.

CronoDragoon wrote...

What I've found is that I dislike permadeath in games because combat can often be too random, and I don't like being punished for things that were out of my control.

As much as I loved Jagged Alliance 2, I remember having this issue with that game. In a game where just getting injured was as much of a pain as death is in most other games, having a guy hit you with a .38 revolver from miles outside of that gun's effective range was just not fun times.

[Dr. Doctor]

I'd like an XCOM-like aspect to the Agents we can recruit. If they're characters we get to know over the course of the game integrating a permadeath component would add an element of risk.

If you send an agent on a mission that goes awry you could offer the option for the Inquisitor and the party to intervene, but there would be a time limit (similar to the siege shown in the PAX demo). If you're too far away or don't make it in time you lose that agent, but if you intervene then you run the risk of diverting the Inquisition's attention from other pressing matters.

[KENNY4753]

Jimmy you made another "Let's Talk About...." thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Interesting topic too. I think the current reload screen is fine but some points are pretty interesting.

First...the NPC perma-death

The Redcliffe quest was a great example. It would be interesting to have something similar to that in DAI. For example, one of your bases is under attack and while fighting off the invaders you blacksmith (lets call him Master Wade) gets killed because you took too long rescuing the fort. From that point on that specific castle/fort would not be able to create equiptment for you or the soldiers assigned to the base. You would then have to pay big money for weapon shipments etc.

Second....Combat Retirement perma-death

That would be fun to see but it surely would ****** a lot of people off.

Third....The "Swoon"

While reading that entire section my mind was thinking of Pokemon (childhood memories). When one of your pokemon faints you cannot use them in battle until you return to a Poke-center. In DAI if Cassandra dies she will only be able to limp along and go hide during comat until you return to your camp/castle/fort/etc.

[Neon Rising Winter]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

keightdee wrote...

Jimmy, you need an editor.

A man who parses his words is one who would sacrifice the truest form of his intent for the sake of brevity. 

I am not that man! 

I think Mark Twain was a bit closer - "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead"

However, smart alec one liners aside. I'm not keen on the permadeath thing in games unless it is obviously integrated into the gameplay model from the start. I can't help thinking all the difficulties it would run into if it was just welded onto the existing model, mainly centering around the small, fixed companion roster and the way companions tie into story elements.

What happens if you incapacitate your whole party? Do you abandon the idea of story that requires the presence of certain characters, because that character may now be incapacitated or dead? How do you ensure progression is still viable when your combat ready party now consists entirely of two squishy mages and an archer?

It's fine if you have a characters who are interchangeable plot wise, and easy recruitment of fresh faces to replace the casualties. Or if the a dwindling party is factored into the design. It would for example give a nice feeling of a grueling war of attrition with your group being reduced to the few survivors as you progress.

It's not that I think it's a bad idea for a game, just not this game.

[Ash Wind]

Cigne wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...


.....there could be the option of losing a companion for combat only. If, say, Varric fell to the Giant Spider in the Deep Roads, perhaps he couldn't be used in combat anymore, but he could survive. Laid up by the injury, spending his time in the Hanged Man, enjoying dwarven ladies of companionship... fulfilling every plot role he needs to, but not being able to directly engage in combat. That could be a Permadeath of his combat role, but not a Permadeath of his character.

This is intriguing; I don't recall ever seeing this suggested before. Though I can see problems; lots of zots, most players (imo) would still just reload when a companion fell...

Still, I hope the devs consider the idea worth discussing among themselves. Heh, if they haven't already done that years ago.

Its certainly a creative idea, and one not without merit, however, I don’t think its practical for a game like DAI, for any number of reasons, including:

DAI, as I understand it, will have adversaries with a pre-set strength level, they will not be leveled in relation to the PC. This is a major hole in this style. One wrong turn and you stumble into a nest of Whatever-Is Stronger-Than-You-Are and you could end up losing several combatants very early on.

It could ruin the game-playing experience… what happens if you’re not a rogue, and all of your rogues get knocked out of combat early, you’re screwed with relation to lock-picking, etc… this applies to all classes, you could lose all Warriors, all Mages, etc.

Will the time invested in a game be ruined if you’re stuck with companions you can’t stand because your favs have been knocked out of combat?

A finite number of companions. Seems there will be up to about 10, or less. It sounds like a lot, but if companion I had faced permadeath when they were knocked out during combat, it would not be long before I was soloing the game because I have no companions left.  

Reloading. It creates the annoying mechanic of forcing reloading a save (rather than using an injury kit) to avoid losing a character I like. You know people will do it, so even then the permadeath would only apply if you allow it. Unless they are only going to allow 1 autosave which dictates what happens the first time around is the way it happens. I think this would ****** people off.

While I like the idea in theory, don’t think its very practical. It would be cool, if rather than a permadeath, you have a temporary-unavailable state. Character gets knocked out, they have to go to a healers for an amount of time in relation to the injury they suffered. You could even visit them lol.

Modifié par Ash Wind, 19 octobre 2013 - 05:31 .

[ShallowlLife9871]

the title of this thread reminds me of a movie quote:

" it's a beautiful day outside, most of you will be graduating soon. you all have your whole lives ahead of you. so, Let's talk about death."

[Sylvius the Mad]

osbornep wrote...

Still a little confused here. Why should the issue of whether or not the companions count as NPCs turn on player preferences or incentives? "X gives you something you don't want; therefore X is false" isn't a good argument.

It is if X is a matter of perception.  If my perceiving something in a certain way has negative consequences, then it is in my interests not to perceive it in that way (regardless of whether it actually is).

[Uccio]

Mount & Blade, Warbard has this "your comrades carry you away from the fight" with a pic where couple of dudes carry a unconcious one out of the fight. This happens if you get knocked out in combat. There is also a capture option if you or your forces are being overhelmed. You get captured and at some point you are being released for a price or you ran away from you captors.

[Estelindis]

Ukki wrote...

Mount & Blade, Warbard has this "your comrades carry you away from the fight" with a pic where couple of dudes carry a unconcious one out of the fight. This happens if you get knocked out in combat. There is also a capture option if you or your forces are being overhelmed. You get captured and at some point you are being released for a price or you ran away from you captors.

I like this.  In some situations, it would make sense for the main character to be taken prisoner rather than killed.  Fort Drakon in DA:O was amazing.  I get the impression that it took a looooot of hard work to account for all the variables there, so if a game wanted capture to be an option on more than one occasion then they'd need to make each occasion less complex than that.  So, perhaps, with certain kinds of enemy (e.g. bandits), simple ransom would make sense.  There might be a few occasions when a particular enemy wants to keep the main character alive but isn't interested in financial incentives.  Those could get the bulk of attention in terms of making them properly detailed.

[Arllekin]

The problems with Permadeath tends to be that the companions are not just pawns that can be easily replaced, they have background, dialogue, convey the plot and have voice over.

But if one of your rogues dies and you can recruit a randomly generated new one with a bland background you can create different stories and maybe even be more attach to them, but the plot and context needs to be pass to the player in a different way.
I think the Inquisition could creates some opportunites because you are building an organization from the ground up and are actively ( guessing ) recruiting new people.

About the player permadeath, the game could to create a way to continue playing with a different protagonist, the inquisition is also a good place because if the leader dies someone else steps up.

About the player actually dying and coming back to life, needs to have a in game lore explaning the why, could works but the game possibly needs to be build around this feature.

All the things i said here creates other problems that i can and can't forsee and needs to be balanced and measure to see if they are worth implementing

Concerning the other topics i just don't know.

Modifié par Arllekin, 19 octobre 2013 - 02:21 .

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
It is if X is a matter of perception.  If my perceiving something in a certain way has negative consequences, then it is in my interests not to perceive it in that way (regardless of whether it actually is).

Unless it also happens to be in your interest to perceive reality. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

It is if X is a matter of perception.  If my perceiving something in a certain way has negative consequences, then it is in my interests not to perceive it in that way (regardless of whether it actually is).

Unless it also happens to be in your interest to perceive reality.

Is this case, it's debatable which is reality, or even whether there is an actual reality to perceive.

We're talking about a fictional world we can examine only to a limited degree.  There's only so much we can know about it.  I would argue that knowing the actual truth of the world might be impossible, assuming such a truth even exists beyond that which we explicitly see (which I also don't concede).

[fdgvdddvdfdfbdfb]

I'm not really familiar with your terms but I'd really like to see an organic death due to gameplay, I don't know why no one's done this before.

Take Mass Effect 2 right? They gave us the ability to let people die left and right anyway, but it was done in such an artificial, and some would say nonsensical way with the loyalty mission and tickboxes, that it really took away all the effect and unpredictability. "OH wow sorry I didn't help your sister Miri I guess that deflated your bubble butt and that's why you got crushed".

Imagine if it was actually a proper suicide mission instead of one of the easiest, and how much more powerful it would be if someone died to save the player, completely unscripted. They can still play a cutscene when that happens or after the area is cleared or something.

[Thomas Andresen]

But, those instances aside, I would think a true "skip combat button" would only work best of it was offered after the player has fallen a couple of times against the same fight or area. Adding it to the base game would be quite problematic in terms of creating an experience that would feel genuine to many players.

Skipping "trash encounters" would certainly be appreciated. Of course, there would be the question of how to handle the XP you would otherwise get from those encounters. Do you miss out on it entirely? Or could XP from trash encounters be made negligible? To be honest, I'm not sure I like either option.

[Heimdall]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

In Exile wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

It is if X is a matter of perception.  If my perceiving something in a certain way has negative consequences, then it is in my interests not to perceive it in that way (regardless of whether it actually is).

Unless it also happens to be in your interest to perceive reality.

Is this case, it's debatable which is reality, or even whether there is an actual reality to perceive.

We're talking about a fictional world we can examine only to a limited degree.  There's only so much we can know about it.  I would argue that knowing the actual truth of the world might be impossible, assuming such a truth even exists beyond that which we explicitly see (which I also don't concede).

This conversation is getting a tad too metaphysical...

[crimzontearz]

As a side note, the concept of losing a companion for combat temporarily because they fell during a mission is nothing new

Starfox 64 did it and Brute Force did it too but the companions were never gone for good. Downtime was imposed as they repaired their ship or they were cloned and implanted again

An old PS1 action beat em up game (I for get the name) had it too

4 characters and after each died you would pick up with the next

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lord Aesir wrote...

This conversation is getting a tad too metaphysical...

That's why I was trying to push it toward the epistemological.