416 réponses à ce sujet

[Malastare-]

SkullandBonesmember wrote...

For the most part, it gives a gist. And the fact that it gives you a variety of options makes it much more of an RPG over Diablo.

I've never heard anyone seriously argue that Diablo is an RPG. There is no role playing in Diablo.  There are no choices.  There is no story.

It is usually considered the acheatypal adventure hack-n-slash. 

[Daeion]

DocLasty wrote...
If I have an adept, it behooves me to bring along characters that can back me up take the heavy damage, and can use things like Cryo Ammo or Overload and effect certain enemies in different ways. A soldier would benefit from having someone like Tali with him, to hack enemies and deploy the drone, making a good setup for me to come from behind and smash them. If I'm a vanguard, I could sniper help from Garrus or Thane, to help me deal damage at long-range where I'm at a disadvantage. It matters who you bring along.

No it really doens't matter who you bring along, sure it helps, but there's no requirement for having a tank, an adept, and a techie now.  In ME I played through as an adept and used Liara and Kaidan, no meatshield.  I played it on hard and didn't have any issues, same thing when I played through as an engie and just Tali and Garrus.  Now I can just play through as an adept again and just bring suze and samara, pure adept team and no tank.

DocLasty wrote...
On top of that, I have to make decisions about what Shepard wears. If I want to focus on a biotic user, I should equip armor parts that increased power damage. If I want to focus on shooting, I can equip armor that gives me increased damage. If I want to focus on defense, I can equip armor that raises health and defense. As opposed to ME1, where armor was just progressively stronger versions of the same thing.

I'll aggree that armor in ME was boring, just look for the best protection for what you can use.

DocLasty wrote...
On top of that, the skill you develop evolve in one of two ways, so the way you play a certain clas or the way you developed a certain character might be very different from the way someone else does. In ME1, ultimately, every class wound up developing along the same lines.

I really wish someone would link to a post or a specific spot in a video where they talk about these branching skills because I can't remember them ever talking about or mentioning these in the class videos.

[Sylvius the Mad]

SkullandBonesmember wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

YOu completely misseed Vaeliorin's point.

His point (one with which I wholeheartedly agree) is that ME (and to an even greater extent, ME@) prevents roleplayuing by not granting the player control over what his character says or does.

For the most part, it gives a gist. And the fact that it gives you a variety of options makes it much more of an RPG over Diablo.

A gist isn't nearly good enough.  Giving us only a gist prevents us from employing any nuance or subtlety.  And it provides the ever-present risk that Shepard will do or say something that is out of character for him (his character having been defined by his previous behaviour).

And I wouldn't call Diablo an RPG either.  There's not a single meaningful choice to be made (I speak from limited experience - I played D2 for maybe 4 hours before I abandoned it for being pointless and repetitive and altogether not fun).

Bigeyez wrote...

What every RPG DOES have however is an actual narrative, (ie more then in your average game) a cast of characters, putting the player into a role, and some form of choice (choice doesn't always mean dialogue options).

You've over-simplified.  Any game can contain an authored narrative.  Half-Life has one.  What RPGs offer is, in addition to the authored narrative, an emergent narrative.  A story created by the player, even if that story is limited to how the player's character makes decisions, is mandatory in an RPG.

Bigeyez wrote...

So by your definition the only games that are RPGs are games that A) Let you type out EXACTLY what you want your character to say and Then let you select the tone of voice the voice actor says your lines in?

I didn't say that.

A game like KotOR or DAO, by not voicing or acting out the player's chosen lines, leaves that content implicit.  And if it's implicit, then the details (like tone of voice or even specific wording) is left to the player to decide.  The rest of the game doesn't need to know what they are, because it only really matters to the PC's internal development, but that internal development is what makes the game an RPG.
 
Dialogue in RPGs, at least until Mass Effect broke the system, was an abstraction.  This was more obvious in games that didn't have complete sentences for options - the Elder Scrolls games are good examples, or better yet the early text-parsing RPGs like Ultima IV - because no one thought your character was actually wandering through the word shouting single words at people.  I maintain that that never changed - the full sentence dialogue options are simply more detailed examples of that abstraction, but there's no requirement that if you choose an option that says "No" that your character says exactly "No".  The only requirement is that your character says something that means "No" and that you, the player, gets to decide what it is.

Mass Effect doesn't allow that because Mass Effect acts out the dialogue cinematically, thus making all that formerly implicit content explicit.  And thus breaking roleplaying.

Hm guess we've never had a real RPG then.

I hope I've adequately immolated your straw man.

Edit: Seriously though did the dialogue wheels really frustrate you that much? It really wasn't to hard to get the gist of what Shepard was about to say. Do we really have to go back to paragraphs of choices to read through to make you happy?

No.  It's the wheel in combination with the full PC voice-over and cinematic presentation that was the problem.  Eliminating the wheel improves the game, but eliminating the voice-over and cinematic conversations (even while keeping the wheel) solves the problem entirely.

[Daeion]

SkullandBonesmember wrote...

Cactot wrote...

For example: my infiltrator will miss the majority of time with his assault rifle or shotgun at point blank range, which I think is a little excessive. It is frustrating to be relatively harmless with your weapon of choice unless you drop a large amount of skill points into the specialization for that weapon, but once you do, you become a death dealing machine with it. IRL i would imagine that an average person with just a slight amount of training should be able to hit a 15-20" round target at 20m with consistency, where a highly trained sharpshooter could hit a 2-3" round target at that distance with some ease. (Or a far smaller target with a highly accurate weapon with or w/o a scope, like a remington 700 for example)

Erm, saywhaaanow?

Are you sure you're playing the game right?
After reading your post I loaded up my Mass Effect profile to see if my memory was just s***. My infiltrator has no training with assault rifles. Well, I thought that was just because I was an Operative, so I checked out the Mass Effect wiki to see the specs for the Commando, but you can't have assault rifle as a Commando either. And Bioshock is less of an RPG than Mass Effect. Less of an RPG than Fallout 3 as well. And that's saying something.

You can add the AR ability after you got the AR acheivment the next time you created a new char.

[Taiko Roshi]

The problem for me is the watering down of skill sets. This reduces the replayability of the game. In most RPG games I playthrough once for the story then keep playing the game to make different builds. I'm not sure ME 2 will have that replayability value.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Seraphael wrote...

While it seemed that way, it isn't strictly true. You pretty much knew what dialogue options would yield what results at all times.

You can't "pretty much" know anything.  Knowledge is binary.  You either know something (with certainty) or you don't.

And in ME, you don't.

Paragon and Renegade replies were clearly marked.

Even if I accept that meta-game information as useful, Paragon and Renegade were not clearly defined, so marking them doesn't do any good.  Not to mention that neither one is a straight-jacket.

The wheel also forced you choose between different options where one is closer to what you want to say but happens to be at the wrong end of the wheel.  "Keep them away from the ship" was exactly what I wanted to say, but when I chose it Shepard turned into a lunatic and added "Gun them down if you have to."

Though I sometimes was miffed Shepard didn't say exactly what I wanted, I was rarely if ever suprised by the outcome.

This doesn't make any sense at all.  If Shepard didn't say exactly what you thought he was going to say, you must have been surprised by it.  There's no middle ground.

Can you with confidence predict the outcome of split second decisions in real life?

Decisions about what I say or do?  Absolutely.  Do you go around saying things you didn't expect or punching people you had no intention of assaulting?  If you do, you should probably be institutionalised.

You're breaking with the, at times, rather tedious scripted conversations and a feeling of realistic danger even in the middle of a conversation is promoted. How isn't that roleplaying?

Why would you, the player, need to feel danger (or anything)?  It's the character in the game who should feel danger, and he does (you even get to decide that yourself if you're roleplaying him).

[casedawgz]

Taiko Roshi wrote...

The problem for me is the watering down of skill sets. This reduces the replayability of the game. In most RPG games I playthrough once for the story then keep playing the game to make different builds. I'm not sure ME 2 will have that replayability value.

The ability to evolve each skill in a different direction when you max it out creates a lot of permutations and customisation for your final character build.

[Taiko Roshi]

Malastare- wrote...

SkullandBonesmember wrote...

For the most part, it gives a gist. And the fact that it gives you a variety of options makes it much more of an RPG over Diablo.

I've never heard anyone seriously argue that Diablo is an RPG. There is no role playing in Diablo.  There are no choices.  There is no story.

It is usually considered the acheatypal adventure hack-n-slash. 

The last time I played the Diablo series there was a story. Something about a demon rising etc...

[Daeion]

Taiko Roshi wrote...

The problem for me is the watering down of skill sets. This reduces the replayability of the game. In most RPG games I playthrough once for the story then keep playing the game to make different builds. I'm not sure ME 2 will have that replayability value.

Supposedly you can branh out a skill at some point, at least that's what people keep saying but no one will reference where I can find this info.

[Daeion]

casedawgz wrote...

Taiko Roshi wrote...

The problem for me is the watering down of skill sets. This reduces the replayability of the game. In most RPG games I playthrough once for the story then keep playing the game to make different builds. I'm not sure ME 2 will have that replayability value.

The ability to evolve each skill in a different direction when you max it out creates a lot of permutations and customisation for your final character build.

And I can find said info on branching of skills where?  The only thing I've heard them mention about a skill was the skill itself. nothing to do with it branching in different directions.

[Schneidend]

Malastare- wrote...

SkullandBonesmember wrote...

For the most part, it gives a gist. And the fact that it gives you a variety of options makes it much more of an RPG over Diablo.

I've never heard anyone seriously argue that Diablo is an RPG. There is no role playing in Diablo.  There are no choices.  There is no story.

It is usually considered the acheatypal adventure hack-n-slash. 

Story and plot choices don't make an RPG an RPG. By your definition, Army of Two: The 40th Day is an RPG, and a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl adventure in D&D is not an RPG. Therefore, you're all kinds of wrong on this.

Diablo I & II are RPGs. They have an epic story but not player-made plot choices, and they have character building through stats and skills.

Anyway, on-topic, Mass Effect 2 hasn't had any RPG elements removed or diminished. In fact, it's clearly a more complex RPG than the original game ever was.

[SidNitzerglobin]

There's all different kinds of flavors of games the have RPG in their genre title now a days.



For me a "real" RPG (or what I'd usually call hard RPG) is the western, complex character skill rather than player skill based combat/ability mechanics variety with a good deal of opportunity for customization of the player character in their physical attributes and appearance, equipment, skills, abilities, etc. and a wide variety of choices in how your character is going to react to a given situation in dialog choices/the manner in which you resolve situations.



I would put ME1 pretty firmly in the realm of Action RPG. ME2 seems like it will go further toward the action end of the continuum. I still have my CE pre-ordered and think it will most likely be a good/great game that I will enjoy in its own rite, but a good bit further from a pure RPG experience than the first installment to be certain. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

[Cactot]

SkullandBonesmember wrote...


Erm, saywhaaanow?

Are you sure you're playing the game right?
After reading your post I loaded up my Mass Effect profile to see if my memory was just s***. My infiltrator has no training with assault rifles. Well, I thought that was just because I was an Operative, so I checked out the Mass Effect wiki to see the specs for the Commando, but you can't have assault rifle as a Commando either. And Bioshock is less of an RPG than Mass Effect. Less of an RPG than Fallout 3 as well. And that's saying something.

Yes, i realize that infiltrators have no assault weapon training, does that mean that the assault rifle and shotgun should both be completely ineffective?  If i gave you (assuming you are untrained) an assault rifle or a shotgun, would you be fairly confident that you could hit a man sized target at 10 or 20m?  Shep sure cant unless he has training in it, but I know that i can, and i am most certianlly not a vetran space marine.   The difference between "trained" and "untrained" is far too great IMHO, and is immersion breaking, just as someone else on this thread mentioned.   And the difference between "trained" and "specialized" (aka full points into it) is likewise far too great.  You can say "x is more/less of an rpg than y" and thats your perogitive, but you havent really explained or justified your reasoning, so pardon me if I disagree with you.  You may not consider action rpg games like Deus Ex and the above mentioned games "true rpgs", and that is fine, but I have yet to hear a coherent explanation as to why.  If you believe that no FPS can be a RPG, thats okay, and I will grant you that, if that is the criteria you are basing it upon.  Barring that specific criteria I am not seeing it, and moreover, I am not seeing how making you wildly inaccurate makes it more "rpg ish".

[Seraphael]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Seraphael wrote...

While it seemed that way, it isn't strictly true. You pretty much knew what dialogue options would yield what results at all times.

You can't "pretty much" know anything.  Knowledge is binary.  You either know something (with certainty) or you don't.

That is quite the statement. Is there truly something as infallible knowledge? Or does everything we know, and will ever know, have be subject to an inherent probability, no matter how small, of being incorrect or proven wrong one day?

Though I sometimes was miffed Shepard didn't say exactly what I wanted, I was rarely if ever suprised by the outcome.

This doesn't make any sense at all.  If Shepard didn't say exactly what you thought he was going to say, you must have been surprised by it.  There's no middle ground.

If you were less preoccupied conducting your little warfare with words rather than actually communicating, you might have conceded that what I said makes sense. I didn't say I wasn't suprised by Shepard failing to say exactly what I expected every time, I said I was rarely, if ever, suprised by the outcome. Appreciate the subtlety. There are obviously many ways to say the same thing. The many dialogue options were partly illusory to give the impression of more choice then what was the case.

Besides, after I grew accustomed with how the system worked, I stopped fretting about it and wasn't suprised even in the slightest.

Can you with confidence predict the outcome of split second decisions in real life?

Decisions about what I say or do?  Absolutely.  Do you go around saying things you didn't expect or punching people you had no intention of assaulting?  If you do, you should probably be institutionalised.

Spoken like someone who has never been in a truly pressured situation. In a split second decision you do not have the luxury of time to consider the best possible resolution. You're more prone to do or say unintentional things or trigger an unintentional outcome. Your absolute control is a self-deception.

Either way you're making a mountain out of a molehill, neither of us knows how intuitively the system will play out. The reviews I've seen so far all rave about the implementation though. But then again, neither the developers nor the reviewers can possibly benefit from your level of enlightenment, so what do they know?

You're breaking with the, at times, rather tedious scripted conversations and a feeling of realistic danger even in the middle of a conversation is promoted. How isn't that roleplaying?

Why would you, the player, need to feel danger (or anything)?  It's the character in the game who should feel danger, and he does (you even get to decide that yourself if you're roleplaying him).

If you're immersed in the game (if it's any good you probably will be), you identify with the protagonist. I naturally assume people play roleplaying games (MMORPGs need not apply) to actually roleplay. My mistake.

Modifié par Seraphael, 21 janvier 2010 - 12:47 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Seraphael wrote...

That is quite the statement. Is there truly something as infallible knowledge?

Yes.  We can know with certainty the truth value of things relative to the truth value of other things.

Or does everything we know, and will ever know, have be subject to an inherent probability, no matter how small, of being incorrect or proven wrong one day?

Your question presupposes the result.  If there's a possibility you're wrong, then you don't know it.

If you were less preoccupied conducting your little warfare with words rather than actually communicating

There's no such thing as communication.

I didn't say I wasn't suprised by Shepard failing to say exactly what I expected every time, I said I was rarely, if ever, suprised by the outcome.

What Shepard says is the outcome of your dialogue wheel selection.  Anything beyond that is just wishcasting.

In a conversation, you speak, and then I interpret what I hear.  Just as I have no direct control over what you say, you have no direct control over how I understand what you say.  This is why communication isn't a thing.

So when you make a selection on the dialogue wheel, the outcome is Shepard's words and actions.  Describing the game's reaction to that behaviour as a predictable outcome of your selection is absurd - even if the game told you in advance exactly what Shepard was going to do or say you couldn't claim to know what was going to happen after that, so you would therefore still be surprised by it.  Necessarily.

Do you honestly believe that when you speak you're somehow controlling the minds of your listeners and producing a specific result?  Because that's what you're saying.

Spoken like someone who has never been in a truly pressured situation.

It's called planning and forethought.

In a split second decision you do not have the luxury of time to consider the best possible resolution.

I don't consider the resolution at all.  I consider my reaction, and I take the time I need to do that.

You're more prone to do or say unintentional things or make it so that the outcome is unintentional.

Having that happen more than once in your life is idiocy.  Learn from it.  Adapt. 

Either way you're making a mountain out of a molehill, neither of us knows how intuitively the system will play out.

There's no such thing as intuitive knowledge.

The reviews I've seen so far all rave about the implementation though.

There were rave reviews of the implementation of the dialogue wheel in ME, as well, but it was still a travesty.

If you're immersed in the game (if it's any good you probably will), you identify with the protagonist.

What does "immersed" even mean in this context?  The word is horribly overused.

I couldn't identify with Shepard in ME because he did stupid things - things I never told him to do, and never would have told him to do.  Whereas, in an RPG there's no need to identify with the protagonist because the protagonists whole mind was populated entirely by me.  I am the protagonist's consciousness.

That's roleplaying, and it was impossible in Mass Effect.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 21 janvier 2010 - 12:54 .

[Bryy_Miller]

It's funny because RPG purists love JRPGs and don't even know it. For the longest time, I thought the Squaresoft model of RPGs was simply the model for RPGs.

[Schneidend]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

That's roleplaying, and it was impossible in Mass Effect.

I'm inclined to disagree with your definition of roleplaying. In Mass Effect, you assumed a role and made decisions within that role, you played that role. That the role was not solely authored by you does not make it somehow not roleplaying. There are some things about Shepard you don't control, but the vast majority of it you do.

[hawat333]

Schneidend wrote...

I'm inclined to disagree with your definition of roleplaying. In Mass Effect, you assumed a role and made decisions within that role, you played that role. That the role was not solely authored by you does not make it somehow not roleplaying. There are some things about Shepard you don't control, but the vast majority of it you do.

Agreed. And it's actually true for pen'n'paper RPG's too. I played a lot of it in my youth (well, sometimes girls said no, so on those evening we were stuck with letting gore and blood to spill out ), and when you are the teller or dm or qm or whatever you'd like to call it, you have to keep the characters the players somewhere near to story. And the hardest part is to do it without them noticing it.
The same is true for cRPG's however you can easily notice how you're guided towards the storyline. But it's the same just with different scopes.

[Sylvius the Mad]

That's my complaint with the dialogue wheel.  You, the player, control almost none of it. Almost everything that happens in Mass Effect is a result of "choices" presented to you through the wheel, a device which does nothing other than hide your own character's actions from you. It is a mechanic that forces actions on you you didn't intend and puts words in your mouth you don't believe.

How can it be roleplaying when you're not the one making decisions?

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 21 janvier 2010 - 01:18 .

[LoriaLie]

Sadly this has a lot more to do with Deus ex then many of us will probably want to admit. Me and dues ex where bolth a lot of fun that did a good job of blending the elements. Dues ex had a sequel called invisible war that simplified not just the rpg elements many aspects of the game and was largely disliked. When we see that mass effect 2 is simplifying the rpg elements and cutting an aspect from the world (even as bland as driving around in the mako got) we can't help but draw parallels and fear the out come.

[Kimarous]

I think the term "RPG" is so watered-down these days that it can mean virtually anything. I agree with Yahtzee in his latest "Extra Punctuation" article, wherein he said that Mass Effect is one of the few true roleplaying games out there because you do just that... play a role. You don't simply follow a linear path or participate in such-and-such a way because you were forced into it; you, the player, choose what kind of role you want to be.



...and for the record, I really, REALLY hate those RPG "purists" out there who think RPGs should be all about the dice and numbers. It isn't about the mechanics; it's about the experience. That's my stance on the matter.

[Schneidend]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

That's my complaint with the dialogue wheel.  You, the player, control almost none of it. Almost everything that happens in Mass Effect is a result of "choices" presented to you through the wheel, a device which does nothing other than hide your own character's actions from you. It is a mechanic that forces actions on you you didn't intend and puts words in your mouth you don't believe.

How can it be roleplaying when you're not the one making decisions?

You do make the decisions. The dialogue wheel only conveys the gist of what Shepard does and says, because to have every dialogue choice fully voiced and also write it on the dialogue wheel would be incredibly redundant and cumbersome. Claiming that this is fundamentally different from choosing from a list of responses a la Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age, a list which is also not authored by you, the player, is ridiculous. The dialogue wheel does nothing but make having a fully-voiced RPG player-character actually worth doing.

[Memengwa]

I can see in a lot of comments here, that most people confuse concepts of "Roleplaying" with "Roleplaying Games". It's like squares and rectangle - all squares are rectangles, but a rectangle isn't necessarily a square.

Which means - all Roleplaying Games inclue Roleplaying. But Roleplaying doesn't necessarily make a Roleplaying Game.

Does Monkey Island, Halo and what not make you play a role? Yes, but that doesn't make them a Roleplaying Game.

These are taken from Wikipedia:

Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behavior to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the Oxford English Dictionary defines roleplaying as "the changing of one's behavior to fulfill a social role",[1] the term is used more loosely in three senses:

• To refer to the playing of roles generally such as in a theater, or educational setting;
• To refer to a wide range of games including computer role-playing games, play-by-mail games and more;
• To refer specifically to role-playing games.[2]

A Role-playing game (RPG; often roleplaying game) is a broad family of games in which players assume the roles of characters, or take control of one or more avatars, in a fictional setting. Actions taken within the game succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.[1]

.....

While simple forms of role-playing exist in traditional children's games such as "cops and robbers" and "cowboys and Indians",
role-playing games add a level of sophistication and persistence to
this basic idea with the addition of numeric rule sets and the
participation of a referee. Participants in a role-playing game will
generate specific characters and an ongoing plot. A consistent system of rules and a more or less realistic campaign setting in games aids suspension of disbelief. The level of realism in games ranges from just enough internal consistency to set up a believable story or credible challenge up to full-blown simulations of real-world processes.

As you see, the important part here is roleplaying and formal system. So what is that "formal system"?

A role-playing game system is a set of game mechanics used in a role-playing game (RPG) to determine the outcome of a character's
in-game actions. While early role-playing games relied heavily on
either group consensus or the judgement of a single player (the
"Dungeon Master" or Game Master) or on randomizers such as dice, later generations of narrativist
games allow role-playing to influence the creative input and output of
the players, so both acting out roles and employing rules take part in
shaping the outcome of the game.

This means, that without a system, you only have roleplaying, but you're without a roleplaying-game (as with my square and rectangle - if you remove the effect of all the sides being equally long, you no longer have a square)

I hope this explains a lot to you?

Modifié par Memengwa, 21 janvier 2010 - 09:42 .