126 réponses à ce sujet

[DEUGH Man]

It does okay in stand alone games, but they try too hard when they try to connect two games to each other.

[Fast Jimmy]

Turn-based, then. But it's not true turn combat.

 

If I sit there in Final Fantasy VII and try to find the exact enemy skill I want Cloud to use, that enemy is going to attack me multiple times, until I kill it. There is no "it's my turn now, you have to wait!"

 

Sure there is. There's an option in the menu to not have any enemies attack while you are pondering your move. It's called "Wait." It was a staple of the final fantasy series for over a decade (until 12, I believe, when they moved to full 3-D combat).

[Fast Jimmy]

 
Why would an actual deity be problematic? A deity in human form.
 
Or...humanoid form. Yeah.

 

It's just not something I would tackle. You run into certain molds and storylines when using gods as your main characters, especially for a video game. 

Not saying its not possible, just that I don't think its advisable in most cases.

[leighzard]

There are no developers (that I personally know of), but a few games here and there.

 

Final Fantasy has always been a party-based game, and in the later games it functions as a real-time system (from at least VII on--the ATB system is real-time). The Bureau XCOM Declassified does it (though I've found it to be a pretty bland game thus far). A game I'm playing now called Mars War Logs does it, and I've actually heard that its developer (a company named Spiders) actually does that type of thing though I've yet to find out.

 

And those are just the real-time games. If you're looking for turn-based, then gee, 2014 was your year. Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Dragonfall, Divinity Original Sin. Plus the older FF games, a great tactical RPG called Hammer & Sickle, Child of Light by Ubisoft (though this is sort of an ATB real-time system, and everyone should play this game), Jagged Alliance 2, Silent Storm (though Hammer & Sickle is better than either of the two preceding), King's Bounty, and probably more I'm forgetting.

Thanks EA!  This is great!

I've followed FF since I was in grad school.  Probably why I like that style in the first place.  Didn't love XIII though.  I guess I should go back and finish it.

I've been considering Child of Light, so good to hear the endorsement, and I'll check out the others.

Thanks so much for the recs!

[Cainhurst Crow]

Well, I wasn't actually implying gods themselves, per se. The Warden, Hawke, Quizzy... at end game, they are powerful enough to be some of the strongest people on the planet, both in combat and in their influence of major events. Reverse engineer that - the Inquisitor slowly watches the Inquisition fall apart, slowly losses their companions one by one, slowly have their equipment stripped away and their strength sapped, until they are faced with a challenge that would have been laughable now practically fatal, yet still give the player a reason to fight, to hold onto one last thing (or one NEW thing, which the hero values now due to all of the rest of the loss), against all odds.


Playing an actual deity would be... problematic.

 

That sounds like a terrible idea tbh. Make the player hate leveling up, progressing the story, building any sort of relationships, exploring any part of the world for fear of getting weaker, and eventually tossing the game aside with a disappointed "What was even the point" attitude. If any, it incentives less roleplaying and less immersion in the story, because while the current formula may make you question "what was the point" some of the time, there is 0 way to escape that question at all times if playing the game is literally making your character suck and get less good at playing.

 

Mainly because I can't see any choices or ending mattering, nor conflict nor see any reason you could give the player other than the sweet promise of ending the game and getting the credits over with. Like, how the hell you going to have a story about fighting someone when ****** slime can kill you? When level 0 tutorial baddies are now dark souls level skeletons, how you gonna have branching endings that aren't all the same? "Main character died alone, weak, and inept, while the villian won the game without even trying. The end".

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

How about playing for the story?

 

 

I only play for the story if at least 1/2 of it is voice acted and it's not too stupid!

[Cainhurst Crow]

How about playing for the story?

 

And you know, there are a lot of people who play games for a challenge. I don't think they'd mind too much the game getting actually harder.

 

Do those players who play for challenge outwiegh players who want to enjoy a story of their character that follows every other game convention out there? IE, you progress the story and get stronger until the end comes, where you use your enhanced skills and abilities against the bad guy?

 

And honestly, what possible story could you have that would be worth the pain of seeing your character degrade before your eyes without any ability to stop it no matter how you play? Like, what kind of depressed nihilist would enjoy this sort of stuff?

[Cainhurst Crow]

It's not a matter of "outweighing" one or the other. We have plenty of niche games, niche stories.

 

I was terribly vague, what I meant to say was that your character losing power was PART of the story. And you don't have to be a depressed nihilist, there are plenty of games with depressing ends that people love. Shadow of the Colossus is hailed as a great game.

 

But those are endings, some of which occur as twists, all of them not having to do with the player characters actual power and abilities being tampered with for the sake of just driving home that point.

 

I'll be honest here, the game you describe, I feel like I've seen it before. Games like Exoptable Money, Presentable Liberty, One Chance, who offer the player little to no choices, because telling the story of this doom and gloom narrative was more important. I don't see how making the player character degrade, with no way of stopping such a degrade, would be fun. Would it be emotional? Yes, especially as the player loses companions, battles, and strength. It'd be emotional in the same vein as watching someone slowly lose their strength to cancer or some horrible neural disease.

 

But I ask you, does that actually make a game, that you would enjoy playing, where no matter what you do or choose, the result is you being alone, weak, and failing whatever goal your character was set to do?

[Cainhurst Crow]

Well, as I mentioned, if you enjoy a challenge, you might enjoy the gameplay getting more difficult as you go on. And on the other side of the coin, there are probably things you can do with that story framework that haven't been done too much before, in games at least. And Jimmy said this: "(or one NEW thing, which the hero values now due to all of the rest of the loss)." You might incorporate this, so that even as the character loses everything they used to have, that one thing is preserved. It would be bittersweet if done right--terribly bitter, but some sweet to it.

 

And it's entirely possible to enjoy sad things.

 

I just don't see it, and I doubt I ever will. Like I said, look up Exoptable Money, Presentable Liberty, and One Chance. Easy to find someone's lets play of it on youtube.

 

I personally detest that sort of thing. Giving the player a consolation prize, while simultaneously ****** them up the butt, doesn't do my sense of reward and punishment a lot of good. Especially since, again, no choice in whether we take it up the butt in the first place.
 

But that's just me, and I don't think we're gonna see eye to eye on that front.

[Cainhurst Crow]

I believe that rather than step away from their formula for good, they should instead get away from telling the same story, over and over, and less about the same framework.

 

Dragon age ][ as some have stated departed from the formula in a good way. Only, it didn't really. You gather a party, you build your strength up slowly, fight other creatures and characters as you slowly amass power and influence, as well as getting better abilities and gear, and eventually have a big old climax where your whole party fights a big bad and saves the day. What they changed was the story, removing the hero going out across the land to fight an ancient evil aspect, and made it more focused on a persons rags to riches story with a, admittedly unclear, but still contained and focused plot. The goal wasn't "rise up and fight evil" as much as it was "help your friends and family" in the end, which helped save what was an otherwise not-so-good game.

 

I think many people don't want a story of a hero rising to defeat evil type of story, but they don't want to get rid of companions, combat, dialogue options, leveling, and a rich environment to explore.

 

They don't want a different formula, they just don't want the exact same formula over and over. They want to play a character who isn't a chosen one, a destined hero, or a rising super power who shapes the worlds events with their whims and has to fight some thousand year old baddie.

 

To put it in laymens terms. A Inquisiton without Corypheus or a Mass Effect without Sovereign, but keeping the other elements of the story like stopping the mage/templar war and investigating a high-profile murder, or stopping a rogue spectre from endangering the galaxy, would be awesome.

[B.A. Broska]

Well I mean, you can get them to leave the group.  It's been done.  Some people desperately want to be able kill off party members.

 

I also think the companions should stick around because of the party combat.  For me, it's way more fun than running around fighting solo, and I don't know of any developers other than BW doing this right now.  If anyone does, I'd love some recommendations.

 

 

Yeah you can but it is usually only by player choice, you can get party members to leave but the only reason you would do this is if you have no intention of using them, companions rarely leave of their own accord and even when they do (as is the case with Blackwall) you can get them back straight away if you choose to do their mission so there is no risk of losing one of your heavy hitters, because of the way the system is set up there is little room for these characters to do things outside the player's permission, there is little room for these characters to betray the player or die an unavoidable death because of the integral part they play in the player's party. Of course you can have other characters in the game perform these things but because all the focus is on the companions they are nowhere near as fleshed out as the companions and have nowhere near the presence and you don't really care.

 

Also what is it about running around with a party you find more enjoyable? Is it the banter or do you find the combat more interesting when you have people fighting by your side?