237 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

But it's not about a couple of hours. It's about having, say, 12-14 hours straight, and then a 6 day gap in your schedule. If something takes 4 hours, I either have to basically schedule it so that I only trigger it late, or otherwise I'm locked out of certain content for the week. It's really annoying. 

 

 

Oh, wait... are you assuming that the system is balanced around many short sessions, with the timers expiring during the overnight? My understanding of the system from the posts here is that the player is meant to experience the delays while playing.

[AlanC9]

I think the idea is that if one plays the game naturally then it's one and the same: mission time will advance alongside the story timeline. However, having it based on real time instead of missions completed allows OCD players the opportunity to make sure they've done all the side advisors missions before advancing to the next section of the game, which will then unlock more. So I do think it supports different styles of play a little better.

 

Meaning that without the timer the adviser missions would only complete after, say, another critical path mission? So if you failed to launch the adviser missions in the right order you'd be in trouble?

 

Mechanically, this reminds me a bit of ME3. You've got a bunch of galaxy map stuff available --side missions, fetch quests and scanning -- which pay off in cash, upgrades, XP, Rep points, and WA points. Most of the payoff from the map is in WA points, but it doesn't really matter if you get all of those right away since they don't do anything until the endgame. The other stuff is nice, but not unbalancing. If most of your upgrades came from the map, I can see how pacing it out would be a good idea.

 

(Possible exception for Rep points, since in a non-import game I don't believe you can pass the important dialogue skill checks without the galaxy map points. But hopefully ME3's persuasion system is not relevant to DAI. )

[BadgerladDK]

You guys are *way* overthinking this. I'll call it right now: Any wartable mission with a completion time measured in hours will be completed by "an agent", aka a random footsoldier mook, not your spymaster or head diplomat. It even says right in one of the screenshots that you should send an agent to have a word with the Nevarrans about that scumbag mage advisor, not that Josie will hop on her pony and hand deliver a sternly written letter.

[Maeshone]

You guys are *way* overthinking this. I'll call it right now: Any wartable mission with a completion time measured in hours will be completed by "an agent", aka a random footsoldier mook, not your spymaster or head diplomat. It even says right in one of the screenshots that you should send an agent to have a word with the Nevarrans about that scumbag mage advisor, not that Josie will hop on her pony and hand deliver a sternly written letter.

Pretty much this is the way I'm thinking it will go as well. Any timed missions will be just like in AC Brotherhood/Black Flag, where the people you send are just random mooks working for you. Not the head honchos of the respective departments of the Inquisition. They'll probably be saved for the really big things, like the Redcliffe thing with Leliana, which will probably not be timed.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Without spoiling too much, you'll never be in a spot where you're waiting 4 hours to continue playing the game, and you'd have to actively avoid making decisions on the war table to even get yourself into a spot where you'd have to wait 10-15 minutes to get access to new content.

But will I ever be in a position where I'm waiting a few hours for a quest to finish so I can get whatever rare reward that comes out of it? 

 

Sorry if this has been explained before, but I'm unsure of the extent these kinds of quests have on the collective 'readiness' of my character/team? ME3 had a similar system that directly influenced Shepard and co's strength (and by extension, the final mission).

[In Exile]

Oh, wait... are you assuming that the system is balanced around many short sessions, with the timers expiring during the overnight? My understanding of the system from the posts here is that the player is meant to experience the delays while playing.

 

My understanding was that the timer ran anyway, whether the game was being played or not (presumably off the console/PC's clock)? There was a post referencing a tweet by Mike Laidlaw... 

[In Exile]

Pretty much this is the way I'm thinking it will go as well. Any timed missions will be just like in AC Brotherhood/Black Flag, where the people you send are just random mooks working for you. Not the head honchos of the respective departments of the Inquisition. They'll probably be saved for the really big things, like the Redcliffe thing with Leliana, which will probably not be timed.

 

If this is right, then perhaps this is the MP/SP integration. MP gives more agents, which prevents the need to actually ever have to wait for something to run out, whereas not playing MP means waiting around. 

[Maeshone]

If this is right, then perhaps this is the MP/SP integration. MP gives more agents, which prevents the need to actually ever have to wait for something to run out, whereas not playing MP means waiting around. 

That could very well be. If this is the way it works, agents will basically just be another form of currency as well. And I think it's likely you'll be able to get agents in SP as well (provided this is the way it would be for MP, that is)

[Iakus]

If this is right, then perhaps this is the MP/SP integration. MP gives more agents, which prevents the need to actually ever have to wait for something to run out, whereas not playing MP means waiting around. 

"Play or wait"?

 

Maker I hope not  

[In Exile]

"Play or wait"?

 

Maker I hope not  

 

It's the candycrush approach to gaming. 

[BadgerladDK]

If this is right, then perhaps this is the MP/SP integration. MP gives more agents, which prevents the need to actually ever have to wait for something to run out, whereas not playing MP means waiting around. 

 

I honestly don't see them having any overlap other than maybe cosmetic stuff between SP and any potential MP. I think the fact that ME3 MP was actually a quite fun diversion softened a lot of the blow for the people who didn't want MP included in the first place, but that it impacted the SP experience if you didn't play it (no matter how significant or insignificant you judge that impact to be) was not well recieved. And I think they learned that, as seen by them making it possible post-release to get the higher number of war assets without MP, leaving it as an enjoyable stand alone experience for those who wanted it (and those like me who didn't, but ended up enjoying a casual match here and there).

[Allan Schumacher]

but I am guessing you also miss out on all sorts of dialogue options if you return back from a cool mission while people are "away..."

 

Actually you don't.  It's in large part flavour.  I'll dump a bit more info as I learned about the system a bit more today.  But the advisors are still around to talk.  The goal was to not punish the player from in game discovery.  See my soon to be follow up post.

 

 

So My thinking is if josephine is off on a four hour mission, she is unavailable for other missions, meaning if you want to do a second one, a "Diplomatic" option would not be available, since Josephine is curently busy.  So if you don't want to wait for her to return, you would have to go with either a "Military" option with Cullen or  "Espionage" with Leliana?

 

Yes, Josephine is busy with the other task and cannot be allocated to another one.

[Allan Schumacher]

Okay, so a programmer saw me talking in this thread and helped get me some info.

 

• It's completely offline, and just uses system clock.
• Some of the times I mentioned may not be accurate as they're being tweaked.  Really short stuff might not exist.
• Anything that opens up a new piece of content to be experienced in the game is done instantly
• Your advisors are still available to talk despite being "on mission." In context, this often makes sense because many of these missions describe a larger scale organizing event rather than, for example, Cullen stating "i'm definitely going to go there myself, specifically, to spend the next X hours talking to the person."
• Some of them are done to help with resource acquisition (Mike hinted at this), be it gold, crafting materials, and so forth.  There may be flavour differences between advisors, and some advisors may be better than others at certain tasks (usually shorter time, but hey, if Josie is on something else it may be worth sending Cullen instead even if it takes 30 minutes longer)
• Most interestingly (to me), is that some of them have story narratives to them.  Some missions are only available to certain PCs, and how you choose to proceed with the missions (or rather, how the advisor you send deals with it) can lead to different consequences/paths for these more story heavy missions.  Upon completion of these missions, a new mission will be unlocked if appropriate to continue that story arc.*

 

 

* Note that the last point I haven't seen in game, so hopefully I didn't recall that wrong.  i.e. safety language in case I made a mistake but I'm pretty certain I didn't.

[LPPrince]

Reminds me of Assassins Creed's missions you can send your assassin brotherhood on to get you money and supplies.

[Iakus]

Okay, so a programmer saw me talking in this thread and helped get me some info.

 

• Your advisors are still available to talk despite being "on mission." In context, this often makes sense because many of these missions describe a larger scale organizing event rather than, for example, Cullen stating "i'm definitely going to go there myself, specifically, to spend the next X hours talking to the person." 

Aww, so we don't get to hear Cullen in a full helm go "No, leave it to me. I'll deal with them myself" in a Darth Vader-y voice?

[Vaan]

Okay, so a programmer saw me talking in this thread and helped get me some info.

 

• It's completely offline, and just uses system clock.
• Some of the times I mentioned may not be accurate as they're being tweaked.  Really short stuff might not exist.
• Anything that opens up a new piece of content to be experienced in the game is done instantly
• Your advisors are still available to talk despite being "on mission." In context, this often makes sense because many of these missions describe a larger scale organizing event rather than, for example, Cullen stating "i'm definitely going to go there myself, specifically, to spend the next X hours talking to the person."
• Some of them are done to help with resource acquisition (Mike hinted at this), be it gold, crafting materials, and so forth.  There may be flavour differences between advisors, and some advisors may be better than others at certain tasks (usually shorter time, but hey, if Josie is on something else it may be worth sending Cullen instead even if it takes 30 minutes longer)
• Most interestingly (to me), is that some of them have story narratives to them.  Some missions are only available to certain PCs, and how you choose to proceed with the missions (or rather, how the advisor you send deals with it) can lead to different consequences/paths for these more story heavy missions.  Upon completion of these missions, a new mission will be unlocked if appropriate to continue that story arc.*

 

 

* Note that the last point I haven't seen in game, so hopefully I didn't recall that wrong.  i.e. safety language in case I made a mistake but I'm pretty certain I didn't.

 

Thank you for clarifying that matter.

[Ferretinabun]

 

• Most interestingly (to me), is that some of them have story narratives to them.  Some missions are only available to certain PCs, and how you choose to proceed with the missions (or rather, how the advisor you send deals with it) can lead to different consequences/paths for these more story heavy missions.  Upon completion of these missions, a new mission will be unlocked if appropriate to continue that story arc.*

 

 

This is very good news. I'm glad the choice of advisor to complete the missions has story consequences.

 

On a related note, is it possible for some advisors to fail certain quests (ie, Mission X can only be successfully completed By Josie or Leli, but if you send Cullen then he will fail)?

[AlanC9]

My understanding was that the timer ran anyway, whether the game was being played or not (presumably off the console/PC's clock)? There was a post referencing a tweet by Mike Laidlaw... 

 

 

Sure, that'll work, but I don't think the expectation is that we'll plan missions around our sleep cycles, work schedules, etc. I thought that using them this way is something of an exploit -- the whole point of the timer is to not have Josie (or whoever) available, and if you're not playing anyway there might as well be no timer.

[Vilegrim]

You guys are *way* overthinking this. I'll call it right now: Any wartable mission with a completion time measured in hours will be completed by "an agent", aka a random footsoldier mook, not your spymaster or head diplomat. It even says right in one of the screenshots that you should send an agent to have a word with the Nevarrans about that scumbag mage advisor, not that Josie will hop on her pony and hand deliver a sternly written letter.

 

I was thinking it would run like the mission system in SWTOR.  Send an advisor/comapnion to do the mission, the clock ticks down in real time.

[Sylvius the Mad]

1) It reduces save scumming.
2) It paces out the content.

Neither of these is valuable.

Especially reducing save scumming. There's no reason at all for the developers to care whether we ever do that.

Why attack a playstyle? Who benefits from attacking a playstyle.

[Iakus]

Sure, that'll work, but I don't think the expectation is that we'll plan missions around our sleep cycles, work schedules, etc. I thought that using them this way is something of an exploit -- the whole point of the timer is to not have Josie (or whoever) available, and if you're not playing anyway there might as well be no timer.

But you'd only be able to do that with three missions at a time, max (and that's assuming you want to handle each one differently).

 

 I don't know how many of these missions there will be total, but it strikes me as maybe a small exploit at worst.

[AlanC9]

Agreed. But that's why I think LPPrince is overreacting a bit. Playing in infrequent long sessions means that you skip a small exploit, not that you're penalized

[Vandicus]

Neither of these is valuable.

Especially reducing save scumming. There's no reason at all for the developers to care whether we ever do that.

Why attack a playstyle? Who benefits from attacking a playstyle.

In a singleplayer game, an incentive to save scum generally reflects poor design. Most commonly RNG either screwing or ludicrously rewarding the player.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Oh, wait... are you assuming that the system is balanced around many short sessions, with the timers expiring during the overnight? My understanding of the system from the posts here is that the player is meant to experience the delays while playing.

 

That's the impression I got from Allan's posts too. The game should support and not penalize the player regardless of how much time they have to play each day though. If I have only 2 hours to play and start a 4 hour mission, I should be able to have the same experience someone who played all 4 hours did, as far as the mission goes.

 

If they really want you to experience that 4 hours in game, they should stop the timer when the game turns off.

[Allan Schumacher]

If I have only 2 hours to play and start a 4 hour mission, I should be able to have the same experience someone who played all 4 hours did, as far as the mission goes.

 

What "experience" do people think they're missing, here?