328 réponses à ce sujet

[Ieldra]

Here's my rationale:

Party-based rpgs are usually balanced for combat with a diverse party, meaning that if you don't have, say, a mage, a rogue and a warrior in your party the game becomes signficantly harder. In addition, there are people who already play primarily for the story, i.e. mostly in "casual" mode. Those are usually also the kind of players with the desire to select their party with no regard to the necessities of combat rather than for character interaction and having a specific combination of characters present at key story events.

With combat in DA being traditionally more on the hard side (compared to ME at least), I see the need for a super-easy "narrative" mode like we had in ME3.

This may even be interesting for people who usually play on the "hard" setting, since even they might want to play something different once in a while. For me personally, I sometimes like to semi-cheat my way through specific boss fights because I dislike the way they're set up. One example was Corypheus. While I disliked the arishok battle for having to keep running all the time, I found the Corypheus battle quite a bit more annoying because of its completely unbelievable contrivances. "Too video-gamey" comes to mind.

So for those reasons, I'd like to have a super-easy "narrative" mode. In ME3, I had it but never needed or wanted it, but in DA2, I wanted it and had to download a mod in the end. I certainly hope DAI's combat will be interesting enough to motivate me into the harder difficulties, but even if it does (the ME games did that well) I'd want that super-easy mode for those times when I want to semi-cheat my way into specific story circumstances with no regard for the necessities of combat.

[Andraste_Reborn]

I think this is an excellent idea. I know several people who are interested in the story of Dragon Age, but have been put off because they don't like the combat or aren't good at it. A narrative mode that basically guarantees you'll faceroll the entire game would be perfect for them, as well as players who get bored with the combat long before the narrative.

 

I say this as someone who plays on Nightmare and can't imagine getting any use out of such a mode - I love the combat in the DA series and don't enjoy it if it isn't difficult enough - but I'd like to see it included for all the players that feel differently.

[AlanC9]

I see the point. DA2 was a good deal more restrictive in this aspect than DAO was, thanks to being a more difficult game overall and the CCC mechanic. And the boss fights were gimmicky trash -- I actually burst out laughing when I figured out how we were supposed to fight the Arishok.

[Knight of Dane]

DA2 was more difficult than DA:O?

 

lol

[Xilizhra]

DA2 was more difficult than DA:O?

 

lol

Well, DA2 didn't have Mana Clash or arcane warriors.

 

Perhaps it'd be more fitting to say that DA2 was more balanced than DAO.

[Mockingword]

I have a friend who makes all the story choices while he watches his boyfriend play. He might appreciate a super-easy mode.

 

Although I dunno if he'd play it, regardless. Combat just isn't interesting to him at all.

[Ieldra]

I see the point. DA2 was a good deal more restrictive in this aspect than DAO was, thanks to being a more difficult game overall and the CCC mechanic. And the boss fights were gimmicky trash -- I actually burst out laughing when I figured out how we were supposed to fight the Arishok.

You mean we were supposed to do something else than this:



If so, please enlighten me!

[TurretSyndrome]

Would be nice to include such an option. I am among the people who sometimes wants to only play to progress through the story. Also, I would suggest adding an achievement "You're so kewl" for completing the game on it. 

[Ieldra]

As for general difficulty, I think the DA games are significantly harder overall than the ME games. At least they have situations which are rather hard when you play them first, such as DAO's Dwarf Noble origin with a warrior or the rock wraith at the end of act I in DA2. The things I experienced in my first playthroughs of DAO and DA2 on Normal, combat-wise, only happened at Hardcore and up in ME2 and ME3.

Thus, selecting my party for the needs of character interaction rather than combat is significantly harder in the DA games. Sometimes even legitimate non-wilful story permutations can make things significantly more difficult. For instance, side with the templars in DAO and you'll lose Wynne, then don't do the DR, and you'll end up going into the endgame without a mage (if you aren't one). Given (a) that the kind of Warden who sides with the templars is also the kind of Warden unlikely to do the DR, and (2) how important mages are in dealing with a large number of trash enemies, that is not good. Then if you're already the kind of player who is unable or unwilling to deal with more difficult combat, the super-easy narrative mode becomes a necessity, not a luxury.

[Wulfram]

You mean we were supposed to do something else than this:


If so, please enlighten me!

 

Dodge his attacks by moving behind him, I think

[Jorji Costava]

There's no reason why a 'narrative' mode has to be super-easy; it just has to have super-easy combat. If it's possible to fail conversations or get suboptimal results during non-combat encounters, then a playthrough with little to no combat could be rather challenging, depending upon what mechanics are used in order to determine whether or not the results of a conversation count as optimal or successful (but don't ask me what those would be, as I haven't the faintest idea). DA:O's approval system was arguably a gesture in this direction, although I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of losing approval as automatically being a form of failure. The point is to reinforce the sense that dialogue and other non-combat mechanics are just as legitimate a part of gameplay as fighting is, something RPG's have struggled with (heck, AD&D's use of the term "non-weapon proficiencies" for skills gives you a sense of where the priorities were).

[Mes]

What's the difference between just easy mode and "narrative" easy?

[Ieldra]

There's no reason why a 'narrative' mode has to be super-easy; it just has to have super-easy combat. If it's possible to fail conversations or get suboptimal results during non-combat encounters, then a playthrough with little to no combat could be rather challenging, depending upon what mechanics are used in order to determine whether or not the results of a conversation count as optimal or successful (but don't ask me what those would be, as I haven't the faintest idea). DA:O's approval system was arguably a gesture in this direction, although I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of losing approval as automatically being a form of failure. The point is to reinforce the sense that dialogue and other non-combat mechanics are just as legitimate a part of gameplay as fighting is, something RPG's have struggled with (heck, AD&D's use of the term "non-weapon proficiencies" for skills gives you a sense of where the priorities were).

Was it ever possible in a Bioware game to "fail" a conversation? I would actually like that, and yes, of course in that case combat difficulty is a separate matter, but the only recent games I know which did something like that were Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex:Human Revolution.

I would very much like to see the non-combat mechanics treated as just as legitimate to solve a problem as combat, with non-violent problem solutions becoming a standard method rather than the rare exception, but that's a separate matter. Here I was only proposing something related to combat difficulty.

[SwobyJ]

What's the difference between just easy mode and "narrative" easy?

 

Easy = You can still die if you don't may minimal attention and keep moving

"Narrative" = Lol next to God Mode, where you'll have to stand right in the open for a while and do little, to have any real chance of losing

 

At least that's how it was for the (more shooter) ME3. If I was playing on Casual, I still had to be an 'active player'. On Narrative, I only had to point and shoot..in any way..with anything.

In fact, squadmates easily took down all minor enemies if I let them.

 

Don't mistake it for God Mode though. You can still lose, but you have to be doing veryyyy little in order for that to happen.

 

I normally play on Veteran (when it exists), Hardcore (my default), Insanity (only NG+) in Mass Effect games, but for Dragon Age, I'm just not as interested. I once tried Nightmare for DA:O but eventually got stuck. I'm more interested in Easy to Medium difficulty for this series instead

 

 

EDIT: I can find a Narrative mode to be particularly useful in recording game/cutscene footage too. One could replay sections of the games over and over without having to put more thought into the combat than they have to.

 

It's troubling when I see someone like Jennifer Hepler, technically a developer for a video game and not just a writer, outright saying that she wishes she could skip all combat, but I at least understand the sentiment. Some people really do buy and play roleplaying/cinematic video games just to have a movie/visual book/tv show/etc that they can interact with, and I don't begrudge them for it.

[Wulfram]

You can "fail" the Landsmeet.  Of course it just means you have to win a fight, but still.

 

And you can not pick the Paragon/Renegade option

[Ieldra]

I'd like to add one more thing. The example I used above about siding with the templars in DAO and not doing the DR, thus ending up without a mage in your team, that makes perfect sense story-wise in several ways. As I see it, it's a thematically most fitting decision pattern. While story-wise, it does make sense that your task gets more difficult because of it, there should be a way to get around the combat gameplay effect for those whose main interest lies in the story. At the same time, I think the story should actually enforce things like losing (some of) your mages because you side with the templars, and the way DA2 resolved this - leaving everyone in the party regardless of your decisions - makes the story weaker and is undesirable. The "narrative difficulty" setting would make it possible to continue the story plausibly while not being affected by adverse effects on combat gameplay.

[AlanC9]

DA2 was more difficult than DA:O?

lol

Sure. DAO's a snooze on any difficulty level. And it's a lot harder to build a bad character than it is in DA2.

What, you had trouble with DAO?

[Ieldra]

@SwobyJ:
I think if combat weren't regarded like "what you do" in a crpg, comments like Hepler's wouldn't exist. In my tabletop rpg campaigns, a physical fight to the death is always an exceptional event, because people actually act sensibly and only go into physical combat once all other options are exhausted. My players go to extreme lengths to find ways around having to fight, because it's usually the riskier path. I find that very realistic, and scenarios like DA2's, where you kill enough people over the course of the game to depopulate Kirkwall twice over, have always bothered me. I think evolving beyond combat as the standard way to resolve things is long overdue for crpgs, and as long as we don't have that, we'll see comments like Hepler's, and justifiedly so. Until that evolution takes place, the "narrative difficulty" is, among other things, one way to reduce the adverse effect this nonsensical overabundance of combat has on how we experience the story.

@AlanC9:
I do not agree. Play the DN origin as a warrior, or the endgame without a mage. It's all doable, but it's definitely no "snooze". DAO has a chance of becoming easy, but that depends 100% on the presence of a mage (preferably two or three). Which is in part what triggered this topic.

[AlanC9]

You mean we were supposed to do something else than this:If so, please enlighten me!

No, that's pretty much the standard method. Then you wait for the Arishok to charge into a wall.

But as with a lot of DA2 boss fights, strafing is your friend. One thing that keeps DA2 a bit hard for me is that I haven't played a tank Hawke yet, and I prefer not to directly control the companions except in exceptional circumstances. (So Nightmare is pretty much a nonstarter for me unless I run a very specialized party.)

[AlanC9]

@AlanC9:I do not agree. Play the DN origin as a warrior, or the endgame without a mage. It's all doable, but it's definitely no "snooze". DAO has a chance of becoming easy, but that depends 100% on the presence of a mage (preferably two or three). Which is in part what triggered this topic.

I was assuming that the player wasn't gimping himself, yes. So snooze was a bit much, right.

Was DN really that tough? It's been years.

[Knight of Dane]

Sure. DAO's a snooze on any difficulty level. And it's a lot harder to build a bad character than it is in DA2.

What, you had trouble with DAO?

You're assuming I had trouble with DA:O why?

[AlanC9]

Because you thought that the idea that DA2 was harder was laughable?

I suppose it would make sense to talk about how difficult the games were in detail. Put another way, what were you laughing about?

[SwobyJ]

@SwobyJ:
I think if combat weren't regarded like "what you do" in a crpg, comments like Hepler's wouldn't exist. In my tabletop rpg campaigns, a physical fight to the death is always an exceptional event, because people actually act sensibly and only go into physical combat once all other options are exhausted. My players go to extreme lengths to find ways around having to fight, because it's usually the riskier path. I find that very realistic, and scenarios like DA2's, where you kill enough people over the course of the game to depopulate Kirkwall twice over, have always bothered me. I think evolving beyond combat as the standard way to resolve things is long overdue for crpgs, and as long as we don't have that, we'll see comments like Hepler's, and justifiedly so. Until that evolution takes place, the "narrative difficulty" is, among other things, one way to reduce the adverse effect this nonsensical overabundance of combat has on how we experience the story.

@AlanC9:
I do not agree. Play the DN origin as a warrior, or the endgame without a mage. It's all doable, but it's definitely no "snooze". DAO has a chance of becoming easy, but that depends 100% on the presence of a mage (preferably two or three). Which is in part what triggered this topic.

 

I've had a hypothesis I've been developing over the last several months. That Bioware is, broadly speaking, progressing in 'generations' for their owned IPs.

 

Red:

-Dragon Age: Origins

-Mass Effect

-Dragon Age II (would have been 3 of them if DAII didn't flop)

-Mass Effect 2

-Mass Effect 3

 

Blue:

-Dragon Age: Inquisition

-Mass Effect: ___

-'DA4'?

-'ME5'?

-New IP?

-More?

 

Green:

-?

 

Okay, its rough and might not work at all We'll have to see in the coming years this decade.

 

But part of what I see it as, is how much it relies on combat/conflict/confining, mediation/conversation/exploration, simulation/peace/creation elements.

 

So I can very much see the next DA game(s) have combat that is less often and more optional in how to deal with it (or even avoid it). I don't think it'll be unavoidable as a feature, but hopefully with better tech (including VR headsets if they actually catch on) and game development, it can be more weaved into the RP world, instead of running the risk of alienating those who thrive on more frequent and exciting combat (yes, some people really are there for the pew pew and button awesome).

 

It's mostly just a general idea though.