143 réponses à ce sujet

[tmp7704]

It's necessary if you stop even for a second and imagine how incredibly boring it would be to always fight 4 people at a time, and each group of enemies would have at least one heavily armored warrior (that can use abilities that will Taunt your companions into only being able to attack him, taking control of the action away from the player), one rogue that can insta-kill your mages from stealth, and one mage that can heal all of the others.

Symmetrical system means simply characters having comparable levels of attributes and abilities -- there's wide field to play in between "always 4 people at a time" and "everyone in your party is 10x stronger than typical enemy".

On topic, really not a fan of "your characters are such special snowflakes they even get special game mechanics" but it doesn't look like that is going away, so there's that.

[Enigmatick]

I don't want my enemies to can do everything I can.

I still dread the fight against Letho in TW2 before they adjusted difficulty.

AI is simply better at playing a game if it isn't intentionally made to be dumb.

Eh. Letho's difficulty really just came from the environment.

[leaguer of one]

in DAO speed of the mobs and the characters in some kind of synergy, same speed, same moves.

 

in DA2 there is no synergy between the charactes and mobs. Player is faster, players is making move moves per second, player is making more damage in general. to match this, mobs are nothing more than a health pools, or damage sponges. This is why combat mechanics of DA2 is so lame, and at the end, it's just a button mashing by cooldown.

 

DAI have combat mechanics of DA2, it's a failure right there.

Player speed has nothing to do with synergy of enemies. It would be like saying haste spells ruins rpgs. The issue was that the enemies never had any real variety. Mage enemies did 2 or 3 spells. Worrier enemiesj ust buff and swung at you. Archer enemies just shot at you. And ROGUE enemies just stabbed you in the back. No common or normal enemy were special, just a few of the bosses. And you don't button mash in DA2.

[Gtdef]

The funniest part of the demo is "here we place Iron Bull at the choking point to stop the enemies from reaching us".

And then he proceeds to do a whirlwind skill that kills all the enemies.

 

Good tactic bro ;p . It's like going hunting with a nuclear bomb.

[leaguer of one]

The funniest part of the demo is "here we place Iron Bull at the choking point to stop the enemies from reaching us".

And then he proceeds to do a whirlwind skill that kills all the enemies.

 

Good tactic bro ;p . It's like going hunting with a nuclear bomb.

You don't get that all demos like this are on easy mode. A person would get this when they were watching them take on a dragon with not real tactics with out anyone dying.

[Gtdef]

You again pointing out the obvious ;p .

I do understand it's a demo, but it's funny as ****. Thank you.

[PsychoBlonde]

 

If you like it, why do you like it? If you don't, why? 

 

It depends on the game, but the primary reason why I dislike ACM is Friendly Fire.  If enemies have 30X the amount of health you do, then your attacks are going to be so vicious they will instantly one-shot your party members.  Combine that with Friendly Fire and you're more a danger to your party than the enemies are.  Which is just dumb.

 

From a purely systematic perspective (that is, if I'm doodling around with the system and not so much playing the game) I like to have everyone on the same playing field, basically.  If enemy mages can do something, I want to be able to do it, mechanically.  I want there to be universal rules for how everything in the system works.  But this preference stems from a long history of pen and paper playing and viewing game systems as an effort at simulation.  I detest systems like Storyteller that are literally INFESTED with "this sounds cool but we won't bother to come up with any mechanics so that you can recreate it or adjudicate it in your game".  In a lot of ways DA2 kind of felt like that: too much "this looks cool!" and not enough "this is how this works with the 'physics' of this fantasy world".

 

If you're just making "a video game" then ACM doesn't bother me so much--there's no unifying "physics" because it's a game and this is how the game works.  If you're trying to build a *world* then your gameplay needs to be integrated with your story.  You need a "physics".  Otherwise you have locked game and story in different boxes and you're going to be looking at a lot of absurd disconnects like, say, "I just killed 30 templars with blood magic and nobody noticed" or "I'm supposed to be this scary badass and trash mobs are 30x tougher than I am." 

[leaguer of one]

You again pointing out the obvious ;p .

I do understand it's a demo, but it's funny as ****. Thank you.

But judging tactics are in a game based on a demo on easy has a point?

[Gtdef]

I said "good tactic bro ;p" and you think I'm judging the game?

 

Whatever, lets kill the mood again explaining the obvious. 

 

It is a joke about the "presentation".

It is not a joke about the "gameplay".

 

He explains something to show that it exists in the game, and before we can even see the effect and how enemies respond to that, he just presses a button and something awesome happens.

That's the joke.

[Maria Caliban]

So what do you think about ACM?

I like it.
 

If you like it, why do you like it? If you don't, why?

Because it lets me deal with large groups of enemies in a reasonable time.

Although, isn't knowing that your HP pool is crippled, several times smaller than that of your average enemy, somewhat damaging to this whole power trip, hm?

My HP isn't crippled because *size* of one's health pool is meaningless. What matters is how quickly an enemy can make it drop and what percentage it drops by when they hit me.

[Wulfram]

Because it lets me deal with large groups of enemies in a reasonable time.
 

 

You could kill large groups of enemies quickly in a symmetrical system.  Just a question of balancing.

 

(Unless you're interpreting symettrical as meaning that both sides must be identical, like chess of something.  Which I don't think is the intent - rather that enemies should be built on more or less the same scale)

[Wulfram]

There's no need to be a jerk

[tmp7704]

Because it lets me deal with large groups of enemies in a reasonable time.

That is a result of difference between your group's damage output and the size of targets' health bars, not of asymmetrical combat per se. If your group deals 100 damage worth of burst and enemy health pool is 10 each, then they will drop just as fast as they would drop if your damage output was 10000 and enemies had 1000 hp each to match.

It's not like it was hard to drop heaps of enemies in DA:O after all, and that game was using considerably more even field between the party and the enemies, compared to DA2.

[Maria Caliban]

You could kill large groups of enemies quickly in a symmetrical system.  Just a question of balancing.
 
(Unless you're interpreting symettrical as meaning that both sides must be identical, like chess of something.  Which I don't think is the intent - rather that enemies should be built on more or less the same scale)

If my group of five is facing a group of twenty enemies that have the same HP/damage mit, damage, speed, and abilities* as I do, then my best bet of surviving is playing in a very conservative and tactical manner. This slows things down.

If that group of twenty doesn't have the same HP/damage mit, damage, speed, and abilities that I have, then that is asymmetrical.

*Not meaning 'exactly the same powers' but powers that perform the same functions. Example: if I can heal and 95% of my enemies cannot, I don't consider that symmetrical at all.
 

That is a result of difference between your group's damage output and the size of targets' health bars, not of asymmetrical combat per se. If your group deals 100 damage worth of burst and enemy health pool is 10 each, then they will drop just as fast as they would drop if your damage output was 10000 and enemies had 1000 hp each to match

In which case, the enemies should do 100 damage and I should have 10 HP if you want symmetry.

To survive that, I have to approach the encounter in a very deliberate manner, pausing constantly to heal/buff/maneuver or setting up alpha strikes.

Combat becomes tedious and crawls along.

[Schreckstoff]

There's really no need to continue being a jerk.

We don't know that maybe he's being bullied and let's off steam that way.

[In Exile]

Assymetrical combat is unavoidable in an RPG, unless you want to resort to either the player relying on cheap tactics to beat numerically superior encounters or the rock-paper-scissors combat of D&D (or the completely random combat of low-level D&D).

The real problem is the way Bioware is doing the combat - nerfing attack speed and messing around with dmg #s. It should be done by giving different abilities to enemies and the PC. 

[tmp7704]

In which case, the enemies should do 100 damage and I should have 10 HP if you want symmetry.

As long as they coordinate as well as you do, striking as a team and luring your group into fields of aoe damage and such, yes. This may indeed call for some intelligent play, use of CC spells/abilities, making use of the pause and whatnot.

However, if that is a problem for a player who would rather quickly mow down groups of enemies without having to put a thought into it, I'd argue that's what the "Easy" difficulty setting is for. As in, having option of introducing some asymmetry into the game, as opposed to starting from such arrangement.

[Provi-dance]

There's really no need to continue being a jerk.

 

 

*hugs Maria, tmp and Wulfram*

There isn't. Also, I hope there's something I can do to make you stop flooding this topic with tears. In case there isn't... *hugs again*  

[Maria Caliban]

As long as they coordinate as well as you do, striking as a team and luring your group into fields of aoe damage and such, yes. This may indeed call for some intelligent play, use of CC spells/abilities, making use of the pause and whatnot.

Which slows down combat.

As I stated, the main reason I like ASC is that it lets me deal with large groups of enemies in a reasonable time.
 

However, if that is a problem for a player who would rather quickly mow down groups of enemies without having to put a thought into it, I'd argue that's what the "Easy" difficulty setting is for. As in, having option of introducing some asymmetry into the game, as opposed to starting from such arrangement.

Are you still disagreeing with me? I can't tell.

[tmp7704]

Also, I hope there's something I can do to make you stop flooding this topic with tears.

You were already told twice what you could do. It doesn't look like that's getting through, though, so there's little point in telling you yet again.

[Maria Caliban]

I'm not keen on the slow enemy attack animations because it encourages kiting over real tactics.  And I doubt that they'll be radically changed before release, or that they depend on difficulty levels, unlike hit-points and so on.

Kiting is interesting.

I consider it a valid tactic, but it can quickly become the one tactic you use over and over because even though it's not that fun, you always win with little loss of health/resources. I recall the original BGs where I'd set out with hundreds of arrows and return with none because a couple bad hits could easily kill a companion, and I didn't have any resurrection spells.

At the same time, in a semi-open world game, it's important that the PC be able to disengage. Mike Laidlaw has said a couple of times that you can wander into an encounter far above the PC and they've made sure you can run away if that happens.

[tmp7704]

As I stated, the main reason I like ASC is that it lets me deal with large groups of enemies in a reasonable time.

Are you still disagreeing with me? I can't tell.

I think it depends. If your idea of "reasonable time" requires "any time spent on pausing, tactics or coordination of my team makes the combat unreasonably long" then I'd have to agree, you'll need the asymmetry for that. If that's not required then I think symmetrical system allows the combat to still be 'reasonable enough' in terms of killing speed, just much riskier because mistakes will much more likely get you killed.

edit: also, I don't think having to deal with large groups of enemies should be constant occurrence in the RPG, but more of a special cases where you need to put all you have into it, to come out on top. When every encounter involves casually exploding 20+ mooks, it quickly turns into parody of 90's action movie and little more than a joke.

[Boss Fog]

Also, DAO's combat was made of utter fail, and was actually asymmetrical as well, with the enemies having better controls than the player did over their characters. For example, archers in DAO didn't need to shuffle up to the front lines to shot their weapons at you, but you as the player would have your character automatically march itself right up to their face, no matter what you did, whenever you tried to shoot the enemy in a place the combat mechanic didn't like you shooting from, like say 20 feet while standing on a hill.

All I see here is your inability to set your ranged characters to a ranged tactic setting.

[Boss Fog]

I think it depends. If your idea of "reasonable time" requires "any time spent on pausing, tactics or coordination of my team makes the combat unreasonably long" then I'd have to agree, you'll need the asymmetry for that. If that's not required then I think symmetrical system allows the combat to still be 'reasonable enough' in terms of killing speed, just much riskier because mistakes will much more likely get you killed.

edit: also, I don't think having to deal with large groups of enemies should be constant occurrence in the RPG, but more of a special cases where you need to put all you have into it, to come out on top. When every encounter involves casually exploding 20+ mooks, it quickly turns into parody of 90's action movie and little more than a joke.

 

I think it's fine to deal with large amounts of enemies as long as those enemies are of a lower rank than you and your companions.  Not every single enemy needs to be on the same playing field as you and your companions.  The rank system Bioware typically uses seems to work well enough; but IMO there's no need for such a huge discrepancy between player HP/dmg and enemy HP/dmg.

[Wulfram]

If my group of five is facing a group of twenty enemies that have the same HP/damage mit, damage, speed, and abilities* as I do, then my best bet of surviving is playing in a very conservative and tactical manner. This slows things down.

If that group of twenty doesn't have the same HP/damage mit, damage, speed, and abilities that I have, then that is asymmetrical.

*Not meaning 'exactly the same powers' but powers that perform the same functions. Example: if I can heal and 95% of my enemies cannot, I don't consider that symmetrical at all.
 

In which case, the enemies should do 100 damage and I should have 10 HP if you want symmetry.

To survive that, I have to approach the encounter in a very deliberate manner, pausing constantly to heal/buff/maneuver or setting up alpha strikes.

Combat becomes tedious and crawls along.

 

 

Your definition of symmetric is literally correct, but it's not what people (well, me at least) are meaning when they're asking for symmetric combats.  It's not about the two sides being equivalent, but about them running on the same rules

 

In a "symmetric" system, maybe a Goblin has 50 hitpoints and does 10 damage per turn, while the PC is a lot more skilled and tough than a goblin, and thus has 200 hitpoints and does 30 damage per turn.  So the PC kills the goblin in two turns, losing 10% of their health.

 

In an "asymmetric" system like DA2 had, maybe the Goblin has 500 hitpoint and does 10 damage per turn, while the PC has 200 hitpoints while doing 300 damage per turn.  Which of course has the same outcome - until you bring in friendly fire, because now the player's attack will instantly kill themselves or an equivalent team mate.

 

DA2's designers seemed to choose to be asymmetrical in order to allow the player to have a sense of progression by letting their damage numbers get huge, while keeping the players hitpoints relatively small, which helps Constitution remain relevant at high levels.  But they could achieve the same objectives by having the hitpoint bonus from constitution scale along with level.  Or they could keep the player damage levels from scaling so dramatically.

 

In addition, DA2's hitting mechanics were asymmetrical because the players' attacks delivered damage immediately and thus could not be dodged by moving out of the way, while the enemy attacks did damage at the end of the (often lengthy) animations, often allowing the player to avoid damage entirely with a little attention.  Except for enemy archers, which IIRC were undodgeable and thus needed to be killed quick.

 

 

Kiting is interesting.

I consider it a valid tactic, but it can quickly become the one tactic you use over and over because even though it's not that fun, you always win with little loss of health/resources. I recall the original BGs where I'd set out with hundreds of arrows and return with none because a couple bad hits could easily kill a companion, and I didn't have any resurrection spells.

At the same time, in a semi-open world game, it's important that the PC be able to disengage. Mike Laidlaw has said a couple of times that you can wander into an encounter far above the PC and they've made sure you can run away if that happens.

 

Kiting can be a good part of a system if it's challenging, and if it's not a one size fits all solution .  But slow, avoidable attacks make it a simple, one size fits all solution.