334 réponses à ce sujet

[Rawgrim]

The main difference is that those stats are perfectly intuitive to someone who's played sports before. Their effect on the pitch is pretty obvious and intuitive as well. This is about the opposite from RPGs, and actually anathema to the design of most venerated isometric RPGs. 

 

Stats and skills in a character used to enhance his performance on "the pitch" too. This isn't te case in a button mashing action game like DA:I.

[Auztin]

I think no game should do a drop you into the middle of something & not knowing what is going on(gameplay wise)& end up dying.Tutorials are there to teach players how to play.If you are playing a game like Dragon age & does not tell you the controls at all then throws you into combat not telling you how to play or how to use the game then it's an utterly stupid game.I don't think someone wants to waste 30 mins figuring out how to play.Two Worlds ll was horrible because you were not told how to use the controls & throws you into combat from the get go.It is like "the ****?".
What makes a game complex.DA:O wasn't complex.You crap abilities & good abilities.DA:I you have no crap abilities but are limited a few abilities because all are great & useful.What's wrong with that.DA:O's way sounds like every other MMORPG.

[Sunbrow]

For one cut the toon porn in half and give me a decent character origin story (Green hand ain't cuttin it).  I have about as much attachment to this character as I do to a mortal combat character in a an arcade (play style is arcade).  8 fast keys and no key mapping or mouse programming built in WTF.  Companions are like pole dancers...strut a lot but mindless. Skill trees and magic spells are butchered.  I have a PC so I'm not subjected to this simple cave man approach to gaming that playstations have.  

[Rawgrim]

I think no game should do a drop you into the middle of something & not knowing what is going on(gameplay wise)& end up dying.Tutorials are there to teach players how to play.If you are playing a game like Dragon age & does not tell you the controls at all then throws you into combat not telling you how to play or how to use the game then it's an utterly stupid game.I don't think someone wants to waste 30 mins figuring out how to play.Two Worlds ll was horrible because you were not told how to use the controls & throws you into combat from the get go.It is like "the ****?".
What makes a game complex.DA:O wasn't complex.You crap abilities & good abilities.DA:I you have no crap abilities but are limited a few abilities because all are great & useful.What's wrong with that.DA:O's way sounds like every other MMORPG.

 

Ever heard about actually looking at the manual? The control layout is right there. Takes 5 seconds to look at it. If that takes you 30 minutes you are having some problems.

[Wulfram]

I think the BG ruleset was both simpler and more intuitive than DA:I. Overall, I mean, it had little patches of weirdness like warrior strength, and some of the spells could get complex.

But it's system was built to be run by some teenager with pen and paper, and that kept it basically simpler than more modern CRPG systems are.

[Rawgrim]

I think the BG ruleset was both simpler and more intuitive than DA:I. Overall, I mean, it had little patches of weirdness like warrior strength, and some of the spells could get complex.

But it's system was built to be run by some teenager with pen and paper, and that kept it basically simpler than more modern CRPG systems are.

 

TSR made that system. Bioware just rented it to make a d&d title. Worked out great.

[aliastasia]

It's ironic, really - Other consumer goods get marketed as "for the discerning customer" if it's got more than four buttons or a quality, functional design that was years in the making. (Think Samsung vs Bang Olufsen soundsystems) They become status-symbols.

Games get dumbed down for potential new users, and the existing user base gets called out for being entitled if we'd like to receive the product we were promised, and a little less... cretinised.

I think EA is making mistakes. Frostbite was clearly not designed for RPGs and I think a lot of the clusterf**kery we're seeing in-game is because of workarounds and hacks - which in turn affected everything from in-game content to the UI. There's probably a really good technical reason we're not seeing the stuff we got in the 2013 demo.
Despite this, I do still think the Lead Designer is tone-deaf and EA are *tanking* BioWare by forcing them to change their pipelines and core values in the name of "streamlining".

 

Maybe we should - instead of getting pissed - call ourselves discerning customers, and buy extra copies of TW3 and distribute them to friends and family to flex our RPG-buying  commercial muscles so they can fund their next game without too many worries, to show we care, and if we care, we buy.. 

/A

[Sidney]

One of best things anyone can do that thinks reading the manual or shut up and learn is the answer is listen to developer commentary to portal a game that defines a lack of complexity with a lot of depth. You realize how much thought they put into teaching players how to play the game during the game without anyone realizing it. Sure there was orange portal and blue portal, two commands in the whole game, but a lot o ways to use them that the game taught you over the early levels in a way you didn't realize. Bioware for example did a suck job of explaining guard which is a really key mechanic but is new to anyone even veteran players but players are basically left to stumble about and learn it on their own.

[DaemionMoadrin]

One of best things anyone can do that thinks reading the manual or shut up and learn is the answer is listen to developer commentary to portal a game that defines a lack of complexity with a lot of depth. You realize how much thought they put into teaching players how to play the game during the game without anyone realizing it. Sure there was orange portal and blue portal, two commands in the whole game, but a lot o ways to use them that the game taught you over the early levels in a way you didn't realize. Bioware for example did a suck job of explaining guard which is a really key mechanic but is new to anyone even veteran players but players are basically left to stumble about and learn it on their own.

 

Please, please add some commas and use uppercase where appropriate. I had to read your post three times to understand what you're talking about.

[Bioware-Critic]

This is really silly, assuming that you're replying to me rather than just randomly ranting. What I did in the post you replied to was point out that Nefla's suggestion has nothing to do with what the EA guy was talking about. If he wants to say that the EA guy was wrong and his problem doesn't actually exist, that's fine. But then there's no point in proposing a fix for that nonexistent problem.

 

Why can't someone want a long game without a steep learning curve? There was this little thing called Skyrim that I hear didn't do too badly.

Incidentally, I think you're being a little hysterical here. The EA guy was talking in general terms. Interpreting those couple of lines to mean that he thinks all EA games should therefore be extremely simple would be very, very stupid.

What's with all the colors and centering, anyway? Your posts are starting to look like a 90s webpage.

 

Hm ... okay.

 

Well, if you felt offended by my posting than it must have struck you as kind of histerical and I apologize to you for that.

I did not mean to offend you! Tell, you what, I will edit your name out of this posting ... Because it is and was ment as a general comment towards the whole discussion about that article. I adressed you by name because I quoted your posting and I thought I should include you somehow. Again, if I chose my words poorly - I apologize! No hard feelings

 

 

And regarding your other comments about my posting ...

 

I really mean what I state there and stand by it.

 

Let's just agree to disagree there ...

We are 7 billion people - we are bound to be different ...

 

And when it comes to Skyrim and it's simplistic design, well ... if I want to play Skyrim - I play Skrim. I played it for over 400 hours and was not impressed. Kind of weird to play a title for that long without being impressed - I know! But I was curious and I was scrutinizing it ...

I had the "Legendary Edition" together with the official book, the "Legendary Game Guide".

If I want to play a full blown RPG that is capable of more than just the simplest of things I look towards titles like DA and others. I do not believe that there are benefits to leveling the playingfield in that regard. If EA morphs the DA series into a Skyrim clone they will have effectively killed the DA series! And with that statement I am comfortable in the majority on this forum and among RPG-fans!

You can believe that! If you believe me nothing else ... that ... you can believe!

 

And for the colors ...

Man, I have fun playing around with them    If you don't like it - fine by me! But I think the editor is great and I always try to use it a little more every time I post. I think it makes for better reading and some variety that's all ...

[JaneLunaC]

So that's why they took the complexity out of skills, stats, and tactics. It seems most new games these days from big companies are being dumbed down.

So sad.

 

Does he really think gamers spend two hours learning how to play something? Really? Comon that's ridiculous.

I have no idea what he's thinking, because both casual and hardcore gamers don't spend two hours figuring a game out,

theory-crafting for the hardcore maybe, but that's different.

Then, most casual gamers I know, just take their character, and 'go'. They just wanna play, they don't actually spend that amount of time figuring out how to play something, they just do it.

I'm the kind of person that spends several minutes (that's right just minutes, not hours) looking at skills, option settings, and other stuff before I play something to make sure I know my way around everything,

but it doesn't mean I think it's 'difficult', and I certainly don't spend two hours doing it.

 

I don't think anyone likes having their 'hand held', for games.

Most people just wanna start playing, and it certainly doesn't take 2 hours to figure something out.

[uzivatel]

Maybe we should - instead of getting pissed - call ourselves discerning customers, and buy extra copies of TW3 and distribute them to friends and family to flex our RPG-buying  commercial muscles so they can fund their next game without too many worries, to show we care, and if we care, we buy.. 

Yeah, because Witcher is oh-so-deep with learning curve going through the roof. Its absolutely not a RPG-lite aimed at console gamers and fans of the books.

[aliastasia]

Unlike the ME and DA retcons, Witcher stays true to the canon in the books.
Also - for those who want an easier time (well, I found the respecs easier, personally), one of the game's developers realised he could've done things differently and made combat respecs for both games.
For free.
Not sure I'd ever see BW do that.

Edited to add links:

 

Combat Rebalance W1 - Wikia Links

Combat Rebalance W2 - Nexus

 

I like RPGs because they're a different pace from shooters. This is the exact reason I buy RPGs - Dragon Age to Witcher to Divinity to Pillars of Eternity - and part of that pace is stats and figuring your build. To me, personally, crafting is pointless without stats.

So - back to the debate - the two hr thing is just... not for this member of the game-buying demographic

/A

[TevinterSupremacist]

 

If they pandered only to the tiny minority who are fanatical gamers posting on sites like this, the profits would be so low that there would be no games of this type at all.

 

This isn't such an easy question. Yes, the non-hardcore-gamer audience is obviously larger than the hardcore-gamer audience, but it's less "safe" as a customer. A casual player might or might not by a game of a genre interests him/her, a hardcore fan will buy it, more often than not. Also, the majority of "buzz" around a game that generates interest and acts as free advertising, which might attract someone who wasn't sure is usually made by more dedicated people (streamers, let's players, etc), then shared on social media which is where the "casual" audience gets informed about it.

 

Ignoring the core and expanding outwards isn't an absolute tactic, there's a need for balance.

[turuzzusapatuttu]

Oh, nothing new, just random people throwing **** at EA. I'll join you.

[Sartoz]

So, here it is, folks: The reason why we see increasingly dumbed down Dragon Age games (among others);

 

It is because the big chief at EA thinks games are STILL too hard to learn - apparently, he lacks the mental capacity to play intelligent games. But alas, we all have to suffer for it.

 

http://www.pcgamer.c...-hard-to-learn/

 

So from now on, whenever you see a game posing as as RPG, with the EA logo on it, it's really not and RPG. And that goes for DAI as well.

 

(At least now we know why DAI was so dumbed down).

 

 Well at least someone else thinks game controls should be consistent across the board.

[Kroepoek]

I played Battlefield Hardline beta yesterday, and seeing that article it seems they have taken steps to implent this into their games already. After every friggin' respawn I got a pop-up with some random tutorial message.

[Nefla]

That is a solution for a different problem, one that I'm not sure actually exists (Edit: for Bio games, anyway)). The problem the EA guy mentioned isn't stupid players, it's players with not much time and lots of other options for their time, who don't want to spend two hours getting proficient enough in a game for it to be fun. A skippable tutorial leaves such a player just where he was before, except now he can't even engage with the plot while learning the game.

I don't think it would take very long for a tutorial to show them how to play since it holds their hand every step, and there's no saying it can't be fun too. I think it takes them a long time to figure it out on their own because they have never played a similar game and don't know what to do. I also think the kind of players they're trying to get, that massive casual market...wouldn't be that into rpgs. I've known a lot of impatient, new players like that who have never played an rpg and even if it's easy to learn (DA2) they don't play it for very long, don't learn the characters names, don't know what's going on, and don't finish the game. I loaned my coworker DA2 and she was talking about how she liked her "badass rogue" (who's name she forgot) cartwheeling all over the battlefield but she got bored after having it for only a few days and in that time she didn't pay attention to any story or character elements. They're changing their games to suit players like my coworker and I wonder if DA:I is a result of this as well.

 

-No detailed companion tactics

-No complex plots or mysteries

-No hard puzzles

-Nothing gruesome, dark, or offensive

-Lack of fleshed out NPCs, especially outside the inquisition

-No consequences for your actions or choices outside of some wartable missions

-No ability to fail, no good vs bad choices

-No long and detailed side quests

-No moral quandries

 

etc...I can only imagine what the next game will be like. Maybe Fable style combat where you never get a game over, as well as a glowing trail leading you to where you should go.

[line_genrou]

I am absolutely gobsmacked.

 

I generally don't like the 'omg it's all dumbed down' train of thought because I find it too unspecific to make much sense, but now I have to ask: What does Mr. Creative Director want us to play in the future? Dragon Age: Candycrush Invasion? And is the concept of getting three or more identical symbols in a row easy enough, or does that also require simplifying to appeal to more 'potential customers'?

 

Seriously. A triple-facepalm wouldn't be enough.

These big companies don't care about the artistic side of gaming, they want money and fast

Why do you think so many devs left these corporate owned studios and are indie developers now?

 

devs: "The game is not done yet!"

EA: "You had your time. I don't give a ****, just the ship the ****** thing. We need money!"