760 réponses à ce sujet

[IVI4RCU5]

...I was just going to ask you to give an example of what exactly "should not be tolerated." Because I still don't see it.

I see no one saying DA gave them cancer or killed their dog. I see people saying it ruins the entire game, and that's the most extreme view I've seen. Are you saying THAT should not be tolerated, or did you find something else more extreme than that?

What I was saying "should not be tolerated" was, more generally, the state of affairs by which all emotion expressed on the internet is exaggerated two- or four-fold, which you described in your post.  Because by that logic, death threats to the devs are okay because we can just mentally downgrade them to "huh, I guess that guy was really pissed off". 

[IVI4RCU5]

Most certainly not. A death threat is more than just emotion, it's an actual threat. I'm referring to people freaking out and saying the game is ruined.

And I was saying that people freaking out and saying the game is ruined CONSTANTLY must make being a game developer an extremely thankless job. And that if we want them to keep doing it, we might want to think about tempering our rage a little bit. 

[seraphymon]

And I was saying that people freaking out and saying the game is ruined CONSTANTLY must make being a game developer an extremely thankless job. And that if we want them to keep doing it, we might want to think about tempering our rage a little bit. 

That's why they have tough skin.

[veeia]

Let the devs take care of themselves. If reading too much negativity is going to be too emotionally difficult for them, then they should avoid it. Not that they shouldn't feel comfortable reading the forums or this thread--we need to keep it civil---but this is a place for fans to discuss things and provide feedback, not a feel good home for them. And I think they're aware of that. They're human, of course, so I'm not saying they shouldn't have feelings, but unfortunately stuff like this is part of the deal of having such a sweet gig.

This thread is negative and sometimes hyperbolic, but it's not baseless and a reaction to this is certainly something they anticipated, at least amongst people on this site. If it goes overboard, it will get locked. If you see someone being a jerk, report it.

[Kage]

IVI4RCU5, I think this is not the place to discuss this.

You obviously have a problem with communication in the internet, how it is done, and how tones are used.

 

And mostly all jobs are thankless. If they werent, you would not get paid for doing them.

 

You can express gratitude to many things, such a good attitude, a good performance, an extra effort, etc. But not for the job itself, since they are being paid for it.

You can thank Cameron for doing that twitch session being so tired, which did nothing for the marketing's success, I think it was all out of love for the fanbase. Or because he answers a lot to twitter with doubts. But for making the game? That does not make sense at all...

 

But hey, you thank whatever you want, mate.

Just do not tell us we are not good persons if we do not thank the people we are paying for the product they are delivering.

[Ferretinabun]

And I was saying that people freaking out and saying the game is ruined CONSTANTLY must make being a game developer an extremely thankless job. And that if we want them to keep doing it, we might want to think about tempering our rage a little bit. 

While I do sympathise with your attitude, I'll have to echo EntropicAngel's point that nothing on this thread really oversteps the mark of 'disappointment' into 'disproportionate rage'. I do not see what you think on here is so unreasonable.

 

For another thing, Bioware devs actually have a very strong record of reacting to user feedback. Almost all the major changes to the games in both the Dragon Age and Mass Effect games can be directly tied to complaints people made to the previous titles in the series. DA:O got a great reaction overall, but among common complaints were that combat was too slow, and the story was too cliche. And so we got DA2. And among the chief complaints of that were the restricted, reused environments, lack of companion customisation, lack of race selection and the reactive (as opposed to proactive) protagonist. And so we get DA:I. The point is that Bioware devs do listen and they do respond to what their customers want (arguably to a fault), so if there is a feature of the game you are unhappy with, it is worth making your voice heard.

 

Criticism is not the same as rage or hate, and concern even less so.

[xkg]

Yes, but I tough I saw that you could do that during the fight.
 
This is the sequence I'm trying to locate.

 
In that Extra Life stream, you can see Mike trying to do that, but his character got killed.
(37:10)

Spoiler

[SolNebula]

To be quite honest aside from basic commands like

 

use potions (health/lyrium) ii HP/mana under 30%

 

I almost never use tactics. I prefer and find fun to micromanage every character individually so I have total control over the situation.

 

I find creating tactics boring and not useful because every fight is different and really when I tried to create tactics sometime that tactic worked other times not (facing the same enemy).

 

Direct management is far better

[Biotic Sage]

OK thanks.

 

No need for an intelligent AI then, you can just just revive them easily even if they run around like headless chickens.

 

Simplistic skills, game design uniformised for MP, easy revival, TacCam for those who wants total control, all this make sense now.

 

Good resource management I guess, since scriptable AI would bring 0% mores sales.

 

Story Mode for me, but surely not at full price.

 

Thank you all,  see you maybe spring 2015 when this baby is hafl-priced.

 

I agree with everything you're saying here, although it's not a deal-breaker for me.  I am extremely disappointed, and the game is going to have to exceed my expectations in other areas to make up for it.  But this is exactly what I was talking about when I said at best removing the feature is benign and at worst it loses them a customer: you in this case.  They did only get the standard edition from me partially because of this and partially because of the entire combat system that I'm skeptical of until I play it (due to building it around MP, which I realized months and months ago so that's nothing new).  What is that, a total of $70 lost between the two of us?  How much will be gained by the MP component?  That's the question, and I think I know the answer.

[Biotic Sage]

 

I almost never use tactics. I prefer and find fun to micromanage every character individually so I have total control over the situation.

 

I find creating tactics boring and not useful because every fight is different and really when I tried to create tactics sometime that tactic worked other times not (facing the same enemy).

 

Direct management is far better

 

Combine direct management with tactics and baby, you've got a stew goin'.

[Kage]

I agree with everything you're saying here, although it's not a deal-breaker for me.  I am extremely disappointed, and the game is going to have to exceed my expectations in other areas to make up for it.  But this is exactly what I was talking about when I said at best removing the feature is benign and at worst it loses them a customer: you in this case.  They did only get the standard edition from me partially because of this and partially because of the entire combat system that I'm skeptical of until I play it (due to building it around MP, which I realized months and months ago so that's nothing new).  What is that, a total of $70 lost between the two of us?  How much will be gained by the MP component?  That's the question, and I think I know the answer.

 

I would say MP will net a lot more money... It has a huge potential, there are a lot of people out there that play mostly MP games with some SP from time to time, like myself. Depending on how addictive DAMP is, I might even spend more money in it, than in the game itself!

 

But ofc, I am biased by my preference.

[pdusen]

Bioware could easily dismiss all fears about tactics with one short sentence. They didn't and I assume they don't want to confirm any negative news before the release of DAI.

 

This is a naive belief. History has shown that whenever Bioware writes something to assuage fan fears, there's always an extremely vocal group of fans who not only are not comforted in the least, but also inevitably poke holes in it until they come to the conclusion that, not only are their fears justified, but it's ten times worse than they ever imagined.

 

See Patrick Weekes' post on healing. If I were I Bioware dev, I'd be very hesitant to say practically anything at this point.

[Arvaarad]

The new system could be a vast improvement for party swapping. With explicit scripts, the defaults had to be very generic. They couldn't assume the party contained companion X, Y, or Z, with abilities A, B, and C - they could only be based on the current companion.

Meanwhile, heavily-optimized custom tactics locked the player into a specific party, because they relied on triggers that could only be provided by specific abilities. I used custom tactics for a long time, but I got tired of feeling like I had to take whichever 3 people the tactics were based on (or change up the tactics every single time I switched).

So I turned off the tactics and went full micro. I love the freedom of taking whoever the hell I want with me, and knowing that they'll fight at full effectiveness. Not feeling like I'm restricted to one-third of my total followers.

But if the if-then rules are hidden, they're free to change when the party changes. So players would no longer be penalized for swapping out party members. I might even be able to stop microing from time to time!

[IVI4RCU5]

While I do sympathise with your attitude, I'll have to echo EntropicAngel's point that nothing on this thread really oversteps the mark of 'disappointment' into 'disproportionate rage'. I do not see what you think on here is so unreasonable.

 

For another thing, Bioware devs actually have a very strong record of reacting to user feedback. Almost all the major changes to the games in both the Dragon Age and Mass Effect games can be directly tied to complaints people made to the previous titles in the series. DA:O got a great reaction overall, but among common complaints were that combat was too slow, and the story was too cliche. And so we got DA2. And among the chief complaints of that were the restricted, reused environments, lack of companion customisation, lack of race selection and the reactive (as opposed to proactive) protagonist. And so we get DA:I. The point is that Bioware devs do listen and they do respond to what their customers want (arguably to a fault), so if there is a feature of the game you are unhappy with, it is worth making your voice heard.

 

Criticism is not the same as rage or hate, and concern even less so.

I agree that the kind of dialogue between developers and fans that you describe here is positive.  But it can only continue to occur if criticism is delivered constructively, which I see too little of. 

I can tell I'm neither changing anyone's mind nor earning myself any friends making this argument here, though, so I think I'll back out.  Peace.  I apologize if anyone felt I personally attacked them. 

[Wulfsten]

I would just like to say I find it extraordinarily depressing that this thread has gone on for 19 pages and the thread where people congratulated Bioware for the game going gold, thanked them for their hard work, and talked about being excited to play it currently only has 8 pages. 

Sometimes I don't understand why they bother making games for us at all...

I didn’t feel like you personally attacked anyone, but I was a little saddened by your default brown-nosing attitude towards people working in a business creating products that they will sell for profit. There seems to be a dispiriting strain in gamer culture where game developers are either heaped with abuse or treated as noble saints who are graciously bestowing their gifts unto us.

 

“We should just be grateful we’re getting a game at all!” these people say. “You ingrates! Those poor devs, having to deal with demanding customers!”. I just don’t get it. These people are not giving the games out for free. That attitude would be appropriate with a free indie game, but not with a triple-A EA title.

 

I don’t even really understand what you think should be happening on a thread for people congratulating the Bioware devs for completing the game. Just hundreds of people discussing in detail how happy they are for the devs? Did you call up Ford headquarters and thank them for the car you bought from them?

 

The reason this thread is longer is that this is an issue that actually merits discussion and concern. And as far as negativity and “hate”, this thread has actually been extremely civil. The worst anyone has said is that this will make them cancel their purchase of the game, which to me seems like overreacting, but I can certainly conceive of people being that upset about it.  No one has made personal attacks against the devs. Or against anyone else, really. Stop taking umbrage without pretext.

 

To get back on topic, I’d add in a couple of points:

 

1.      Even if AI was perfect in its execution of tactics and chose the optimal team dynamics every time, this would STILL be a worse outcome than allowing player-customisable tactics. It would reduce player agency, and that’s quite evidently a bad thing, especially when the tactics system is pretty much the only thing that was universally lauded in DA2.
 

2.      Ironically, it would almost be better if the AI was poor, because at least that would force player engagement with how combat plays out.
 

3.      I agree that Bioware’s silence on this matter is becoming damning. As in, I think they’ve noticed this thread, noticed its prominence and the fact that people are arguing in circles and clearly hungry for more information. Dropping in a screenshot of the tactics screen or a quick note would be simple, cause no story spoilers, and would assuage everyone’s worries. The fact that they haven’t done so strongly suggests that they have nothing reassuring to say to these specific concerns.

If this is the case, then I’d politely ask that Bioware just pull the trigger and confirm the bad news. That way we can get over it and move on. 

[Tielis]

Can somebody help by locating sequence where you see:

"You can walk up to a fallen companion and revive them by pressing "A". What's up with that ?

 

At first I tough (politely) that this was a nice feature to greet new / casual players, since it's a skill only a specialized mage can do and/or by crafting potions (obtained as a reward for exploration / collecting components) in previous games.

 

Now I'm starting to wander if this feature is actually mandatory since the AI is much more intelligent since we're in 2014.

 

This is because the AI is incredibly stupid.  We've seen in countless streams now Solas and Varric going down because they can't figure out that they're supposed to be ranged attackers.

 

Ugh, the headaches this game is giving me already.  I think it's time to write it off and go dark.

[Paul E Dangerously]

This is because the AI is incredibly stupid.  We've seen in countless streams now Solas and Varric going down because they can't figure out that they're supposed to be ranged attackers.

 

Ugh, the headaches this game is giving me already.  I think it's time to write it off and go dark.

 

I have never gone wrong in figuring the AI in every single game will be inept. If it's decent I'm pleasantly surprised, if not..

 

I agree that the kind of dialogue between developers and fans that you describe here is positive.  But it can only continue to occur if criticism is delivered constructively, which I see too little of. 

I can tell I'm neither changing anyone's mind nor earning myself any friends making this argument here, though, so I think I'll back out.  Peace.  I apologize if anyone felt I personally attacked them. 

 

Dialogue implies both sides are talking. We've had input from Bioware on one change - the health system, and I thank Patrick Weekes for taking the time to give us an in-depth reasoning an explanation to what they're thinking, even if I don't personally think it was necessary.

 

Everything else is just vague as hell. Even when we get answers, they're rarely "yes" or "no" or "you can do this and this but not this" but instead this weird dancing around the issue and using PR-speak to confuse people.

[Chari]

So, basically this game now has two modes:

1) Action-packed close-camera button smashing mode with constant "revive-these-idiots" moments

2) Micromanagement Hell tactical-camera mode with "I'm-done-I-guess-I'll-use-easier-difficulty" moments

[Pancreatic Beta Cell]

Another option would be to heavily use macros (AutoHotKey etc.) for switching to 'X' member and have it click on the character portraits and then cast and switch back.  It won't be as good as the tactics system though.

 

I am really curios, Mike talked about being able to switch off re-centering of the camera in tactical mode when you switch party members, can this also be done in action mode?  That would greatly help in casting ground targeted spells using macros.         

[Itkovian]

This is because the AI is incredibly stupid.  We've seen in countless streams now Solas and Varric going down because they can't figure out that they're supposed to be ranged attackers.

 

Ugh, the headaches this game is giving me already.  I think it's time to write it off and go dark.

 

Tactics have very little to do with positioning, however. All tactics did was given us good control on when to use certain abilities. Positioning was entirely controlled by some very generic AI settings (ranged, aggressive, passive), which are no doubt replicated in DAI (perhaps not explicitely, but the game AI probably recognizes that a given character has a ranged weapon, and so behaves accordingly).

 

Concerning the issue of thanking the devs, I think people are missing something here: game devs are not your average joe laborer who work 9 to 5 and then go home. Due to how the industry works, game devs are basically REQUIRED to put in ungodly hours for months on end to release their game on time, with no real compensation (you can bet the vast majority are salaried and make no overtime). Because of this, game developers would almost certainly make far more money in any other field, likely for less effort.

 

So why do they do it? Because it's a labor of love, it's something they CARE about, and they work their arses off so that we can enjoy a quality product. There's no "phoning it in" in the gaming industry, and they bust their arses for every release, working at rates where many would simply burn out (and I'm sure burnouts occur regularly in the industry).

 

So yes, they deserve thanks for delivering their products, because of the demented amount of work required to get it done. Work that is woefully undercompensated. They don't do it for riches, they do it for making a good product and giving something to the gaming community.

 

Thank you, Devs, for laying your lives to waste for the last year so that we could enjoy DAI in a couple of weeks. Thank you.

[Ferretinabun]

@Itkovian Geeze, chill your boots already.

 

Yes, the devs work hard, and we're all grateful for that. Some of us are just concerned and disappointed because a key feature of the game appears to be missing, which will limit how we like to play.

 

Please don't paint us all as entitled ingrates with a rage problem just because we think a particular design choice (if true - it's still not confirmed) is a bad one.

[Heimdall]

I didn’t feel like you personally attacked anyone, but I was a little saddened by your default brown-nosing attitude towards people working in a business creating products that they will sell for profit. There seems to be a dispiriting strain in gamer culture where game developers are either heaped with abuse or treated as noble saints who are graciously bestowing their gifts unto us.
 
“We should just be grateful we’re getting a game at all!” these people say. “You ingrates! Those poor devs, having to deal with demanding customers!”. I just don’t get it. These people are not giving the games out for free. That attitude would be appropriate with a free indie game, but not with a triple-A EA title.

Honestly, I think quite a lot of people that spring to the developer's defense do so because they genuinely disagree with the criticism leveled against them or they feel the grievance is subjective, or based on half formed conclusions of incomplete information.

Of particular annoyance to me, and I'm not say I've seen it on this thread because I haven't, is an unfortunate tendency on these forums for some posters to take any change to game design that doesn't cater to their personal preference as some sort of personal snub against them in some attempt to ruin their fun, rather than an experiment with a new design that might actually have a good reason behind it.