Companion Interaction
Débuté par
DyneEnigma
, déc. 23 2013 02:18
#1
Posté 23 décembre 2013 - 02:18
DyneEnigma
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I miss how you could just go to a companion at any point and talk to them,, like in Origins. I really wasn't a fan of the limited interactions in DA2 and ME3. I really hope you guys at Bioware will bring that back. Though did love all the special mini cutscenes with all the different characters. It just felt like you had more interaction with them in Origins than in DA2. All in all I'm extremely excited for DA:I and I really hope I get accepted for the Dragon Age Keep beta
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#2
Posté 24 décembre 2013 - 12:13
David Gaider
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You will be able to speak with your companions at any time. If they don't have a full, cinematic conversation queued up, then you have access to the same kind of "standard" questions that you could ask companions in DAO (which change over time, depending on context).
You will not be able to talk to them anywhere, however. Those conversations are only available in a "safe zone", such as the equivalent of the party camp. Conversations while out on a mission are restricted to banter and mission-specific dialogue (such as Alistair's conversation that pops up before you enter Redcliffe the first time).
There are also no quests provided to alert you that a companion has a major conversation waiting. While those were intended as a convenience feature, some people evidently interpreted that as them being told to go and talk to the companion--and thus they felt they could only talk to a companion when the companion wanted. Which is perception only, sure, but what else is agency but perception? So the conversations are there for the player to discover, if they wish, short of the companion seeking them out on their own.
You will not be able to talk to them anywhere, however. Those conversations are only available in a "safe zone", such as the equivalent of the party camp. Conversations while out on a mission are restricted to banter and mission-specific dialogue (such as Alistair's conversation that pops up before you enter Redcliffe the first time).
There are also no quests provided to alert you that a companion has a major conversation waiting. While those were intended as a convenience feature, some people evidently interpreted that as them being told to go and talk to the companion--and thus they felt they could only talk to a companion when the companion wanted. Which is perception only, sure, but what else is agency but perception? So the conversations are there for the player to discover, if they wish, short of the companion seeking them out on their own.
#3
Posté 26 décembre 2013 - 01:29
David Gaider
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Just to spare further argument on this point, I'll elaborate regarding the differences between DAO's and DA2's approach to character interaction.
DAO had cinematic conversations that were gated (and by "gated" I mean the requirements to make the conversation trigger) by approval level and certain plot points (if they were important to the character).
By default (meaning if there were no cinematic conversations waiting) they had an "investigate" conversation--which is essentially the series of questions you could ask about their background. Some of those questions were themselves gated by approval level or plot points, so as time went on you might get a few new ones opening up.
Beyond that, DAO had one short personal plot for the companion, generally with a follow-up cinematic conversation.
In comparison, DA2's content was more on the cinematic conversation side. There was no default investigate conversation at all, and those sorts of questions were interspersed throughout their cinematic conversations. The cinematic conversations were, however, forcibly spread throughout the game since they were gated by Act as well as by approval level and plot point-- the purpose being to have the player come to know the follower gradually.
What DA2 had a lot more of was on the personal plot side--of which there were three in the game, and each was larger than the single personal plot in DAO. These were designed to give the player a way to get to know the follower outside of simply asking them questions, and their cinematic conversations were designed to largely work in conjunction with these plots (to represent an ongoing narrative). I'm not certain that everyone (who visits the BSN, anyhow) actually looks on these personal plots as follower interaction, however, and instead sees them as plots like any other plot which just happen to feature the follower. Depends on what they were looking for, probably.
As I mentioned, the cinematic conversations and personal plots in DA2 were alerted to the player through a quest--partly due to convenience, but more because the chore of "checking in" with each follower was more burdensome than in DAO because each follower was behind a separate level load (being spread throughout Kirkwall as they were). That's the only real difference with their mechanical function in comparison to DAO--in DAO, unless the follower initiated dialogue with the player, the player was free to ignore them and would never know they had a new dialogue.
Insofar as which game's approach is better, that's debatable. As I mentioned, some of the differences are largely one of perception. A player that was used to DAO's approach might have missed being able to go to a follower in the camp and run through all their dialogues at once, feeling like they "got to know" a follower after an hour of talking to them in the investigate conversation. They may have gotten the initial cinematic conversation, clicked on the follower again and received their "I have nothing else to tell you right now" bark, and thought "is that it?" There's also the perception of agency, such as being told when it was okay to talk to the follower again rather than being left to discover that on one's own. The experience likely varied depending on what you went in expecting.
Ultimately, the content for followers is being re-shuffled once again--the default investigate dialogue is re-appearing, so there is conversation to be had with a follower even when they don't have a big cinematic scene awaiting, and that comes at the expense of the extra personal plots as was in DA2. Also gone are the alerts, in part because we felt the agency comment was fair and in part because it's no longer necessary (for mechanical reasons)...and also because the player will likely be getting more than enough quests anyhow, they don't need more added onto their list just to go talk to someone (who they may not even wish to talk to, for all we know).
The total amount of content, as in the actual amount of writing that goes into an individual follower and the amount of interaction you have with them over the course of the game, is the same in DAO as in DA2 as it will be in DAI.
DAO had cinematic conversations that were gated (and by "gated" I mean the requirements to make the conversation trigger) by approval level and certain plot points (if they were important to the character).
By default (meaning if there were no cinematic conversations waiting) they had an "investigate" conversation--which is essentially the series of questions you could ask about their background. Some of those questions were themselves gated by approval level or plot points, so as time went on you might get a few new ones opening up.
Beyond that, DAO had one short personal plot for the companion, generally with a follow-up cinematic conversation.
In comparison, DA2's content was more on the cinematic conversation side. There was no default investigate conversation at all, and those sorts of questions were interspersed throughout their cinematic conversations. The cinematic conversations were, however, forcibly spread throughout the game since they were gated by Act as well as by approval level and plot point-- the purpose being to have the player come to know the follower gradually.
What DA2 had a lot more of was on the personal plot side--of which there were three in the game, and each was larger than the single personal plot in DAO. These were designed to give the player a way to get to know the follower outside of simply asking them questions, and their cinematic conversations were designed to largely work in conjunction with these plots (to represent an ongoing narrative). I'm not certain that everyone (who visits the BSN, anyhow) actually looks on these personal plots as follower interaction, however, and instead sees them as plots like any other plot which just happen to feature the follower. Depends on what they were looking for, probably.
As I mentioned, the cinematic conversations and personal plots in DA2 were alerted to the player through a quest--partly due to convenience, but more because the chore of "checking in" with each follower was more burdensome than in DAO because each follower was behind a separate level load (being spread throughout Kirkwall as they were). That's the only real difference with their mechanical function in comparison to DAO--in DAO, unless the follower initiated dialogue with the player, the player was free to ignore them and would never know they had a new dialogue.
Insofar as which game's approach is better, that's debatable. As I mentioned, some of the differences are largely one of perception. A player that was used to DAO's approach might have missed being able to go to a follower in the camp and run through all their dialogues at once, feeling like they "got to know" a follower after an hour of talking to them in the investigate conversation. They may have gotten the initial cinematic conversation, clicked on the follower again and received their "I have nothing else to tell you right now" bark, and thought "is that it?" There's also the perception of agency, such as being told when it was okay to talk to the follower again rather than being left to discover that on one's own. The experience likely varied depending on what you went in expecting.
Ultimately, the content for followers is being re-shuffled once again--the default investigate dialogue is re-appearing, so there is conversation to be had with a follower even when they don't have a big cinematic scene awaiting, and that comes at the expense of the extra personal plots as was in DA2. Also gone are the alerts, in part because we felt the agency comment was fair and in part because it's no longer necessary (for mechanical reasons)...and also because the player will likely be getting more than enough quests anyhow, they don't need more added onto their list just to go talk to someone (who they may not even wish to talk to, for all we know).
The total amount of content, as in the actual amount of writing that goes into an individual follower and the amount of interaction you have with them over the course of the game, is the same in DAO as in DA2 as it will be in DAI.
Modifié par David Gaider, 26 décembre 2013 - 01:36 .
#4
Posté 26 décembre 2013 - 01:59
David Gaider
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Hrungr wrote...
Thanks for chiming in on this. This last little bit is interesting though - by "total amount of content", I assume that means companion banter as well. In a game as large as DAI appears to be I'm kinda surprised the companion content wasn't upped as well.
That's probably due to my developer terminology--which isn't always the same as fan terminology (hence why I defined a few things in my response above, as I wasn't sure). From our perspective, the banter between followers that you hear throughout the game isn't part of the same batch of content as the follower interactions. That's considered "exploration writing", and comes from the budget assigned to levels (as the more levels there are, the more banter we'll need).
#5
Posté 26 décembre 2013 - 02:11
David Gaider
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tiktac wrote...
although i'll never understand people who complain about how origins' content was gated and "omg you're CUTTING US OFF FROM CONTENT i actually have to TALK TO THESE PEOPLE to get to access it" and then subsequently ask for realism. even less so people who make a fuss over how "you can exhaust all those options in ten minutes if you use some gifts"
like alrighty then you deliberately exploited a game mechanic to blast through content you could have just as easily spaced out by not asking it all at once and then complained about it, cool
It boils down to the amount of hand-holding we engage in. It's always going to be a discussion on our part as to where on the spectrum we should fall--should we allow the player to gorge themselves if they wish, at the expense of pacing and lack of content further down the road, or forcibly gate the content to get better pacing, at the expense of agency? For DAI, we're pulling back the throttle a little to let the player have more content up-front (should they so desire) while still gating things further down the line as it makes sense. Meaning it won't be possible to "blast through" a follower's entire relationship when you first meet them, but neither are you restricted to one short conversation. Ideally this should feel more natural to the player (particularly since there's far more reason to return to the base than just to talk to followers), but that's a balance we'll need to work out over the next year.
Modifié par David Gaider, 26 décembre 2013 - 02:13 .
#6
Posté 26 décembre 2013 - 02:38
David Gaider
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sandellniklas wrote...
I think the way you are doing it in DA:I will be a happy middle that will suit me fine.
It always seems that way when we're working on it. We are. after all, always addressing problems as we see them--and, at the same time, inevitably creating a few new ones. The new approach won't make everyone happy, but it feels pretty good right now...and if, at the end of the day, the biggest complaint will be "I wanted more" that's not a terrible place to be.
