17 réponses à ce sujet

[cap and gown]

So, you fire up a game of Mass Effect (or Dragon Age: Inquisition) and you get some general description of what a class does. Not having played before you are clueless as to what this all means in terms of actual gameplay. So what do most players do? In the case of ME1 and ME2, they resort to looking at which weapons the class can use and choose based on that, not on whether the skill tree looks interesting and useful or fits their play style. Then you sit through 1/2 hour or more of cutscenes waiting to actually gain control of your character and examine the skill tree.

 

Are game companies trying to force us to buy a Prima Guide to avoid having to spend 6 hours of the same cut scene over and over examining each class's skill tree? Why can't we examine the various classes' skill tree before choosing a class to play? Yes, it would be some extra work, but so was the shooting range in the Spectre office, and, I believe, it would help players in thinking about which path to try out without forcing them to commit to the class before they knew something about it.

 

[GalacticWolf5]

There's something called Youtube, I don't know if you've heard of it, you should check it out!

 

Jokes aside, they usually post small videos explaining each classes before they release the game. This way people know what to expect when they buy the game.

[Larry-3]

I always read the description before I choose a class. My very first time playing Mass Effect, I was an Adapt. I always go with the least weapons/mostly power based class. Weapons are so uncivilized.

"Precedes to glow in the Force."

[fraggle]

Hm, to be honest, if you're a complete Newbie, I'm not sure if it would help much if they can view the skill tree. Sure, you can read what each skill does in theory, but if you never played anything like that before, I'm not sure I'd know what exactly it means or what it does without ever having seen it.

But of course it's a great idea for players who would like more information beforehand.

 

Maybe that's just me, but I like going in with what sounds good to me and explore from there. Then maybe start some digging into other classes (online sources if there's not enough info in the game).

[Vazgen]

You raise a good point. I don't think that giving us control over the character right after character creation is a good idea. Cutscenes establish the starting point, set up the scene and only then you get control of the character to interact within the scene. Removing cutscenes will probably be quite confusing for a player and you want to draw them in right from the start. 

I do agree about having an ability to view the skill tree prior to finishing the character creation. Not having it results in a slight immersion break when your character is put in an urgent situation (ME2 and ME3) but you spend time leveling up. 

"You don't have time to wait around, Shepard!"

"Sorry Miranda, I need to level up first"

I would even go farther and give players the ability to spend points in the skills and choose their own loadouts. Consider, an Engineer in ME3 starts with a point in Incinerate and Combat Drone (and a bonus power, if applicable)  while the other skills are unlocked when you reach a certain level. If your build does not involve Incinerate or Combat Drone you are still forced to play through the prologue and Mars missions with "wasted" points. Only then you get access to the Normandy and can reset Shepard's powers. It's worse in Mass Effect 2, when you are forced to level those powers regardless if you want to get access to the others. Not to mention that you have to play through the Lazarus station, Freedom's progress and Mordin's recruitment mission to get access to the research lab. In Mass Effect 1 there is no possibility to reset powers altogether

So what do I suggest? The next step after picking a class and bonus power should be the "Squad" screen. Player gets to spend two points (three, if a bonus power is available) to pick the initial powers. Other powers are level-locked afterwards. There will be a "Default values" button that creates the predefined class. After picking the skills, weapon loadout is shown (with at least one weapon available for each slot) and the player chooses his/her equipment. Only after that the cutscenes start.

So, for the Engineer example, here is what it looks like in ME3:

 

Incinerate 1 point

Overload Unlocked at Level 3

Cryo Blast Unlocked at Level 6

Combat Drone 1 point

Sabotage Unlocked at Level 3

Sentry Turret Unlocked at Level 6

Tech Mastery

Fitness Unlocked at Level 3

Bonus Power 1 point

 

Here's my suggestion

 

Initial screen (3 points available)

Incinerate

Overload

Cryo Blast

Combat Drone

Sabotage

Sentry Turret

Tech Mastery

Fitness

Bonus Power

 

After spending points in Overload, Sabotage and Tech Mastery

Incinerate Unlocked at Level 3

Overload 1 point

Cryo Blast Unlocked at Level 6

Combat Drone Unlocked at Level 3

Sabotage 1 point

Sentry Turret Unlocked at Level 6

Tech Mastery 1 point

Fitness Unlocked at Level 3

Bonus Power 

 

Bonus Power is never level-locked.

 

Or you can spend those three points in one power (even a non-combat one, in that case you'll be forced to rely on your weapon instead and level locks will be applied by default).

Incinerate 

Overload Unlocked at Level 3

Cryo Blast Unlocked at Level 6

Combat Drone

Sabotage Unlocked at Level 3

Sentry Turret Unlocked at Level 6

Tech Mastery 3 points

Fitness Unlocked at Level 3

Bonus Power 

[AsheraII]

Skill trees are just a confinement of RPGs, not the core. I think it's actually a good thing they moved away from early and constant level ups, and put the focus on the story and its setting instead of the "stats".

 

Games like WoW and Diablo are very stat-centric. Most people don't care about either the story or the setting, and would be hard pressed if you asked them to give a synopsis of the story arch. The main reason to keep playing, is to improve stats, get more skills, get better toys.

Mass Effect and Dragon Age on the other hand, are story-centric. You don't play these games to improve your equipment or your stats, but instead play to progress through the storylines. Improved stats, new skills and better toys you get along the way are nice extras, but not the drive.

[Oni Changas]

Before you finalize you get a list of powers and a brief description of that power. The same for ME2 (though not sure about ME1). And 30 mins of cutscenes? What game is that? Metal Gear?

[katamuro]

As the second post says after OP, bioware had done videos explaining each class so its not like there is a complete mystery of what you can and can't do. And ME descriptions were always quite good. 

[General TSAR]

I always read the description before I choose a class. My very first time playing Mass Effect, I wad an Adapt. I always go with the least weapons/mostly power based class. Weapons are so uncivilized.

"Precedes to glow in the Force."

But that one blaster saved Obi-Wan's Kenobi from General Grievance. 

[MrFob]

What Vazgen said pretty much nails it.

I also think the best way to go would be to give the player access to the skill tree during character creation, so you don't have to level/familiarize yourself with the stats and skills right after the intro.

The worst instance of immersion break happened when importing an ME1 Shep into ME2 though. There you have this wake-up scene, the only one in the entire trilogy to my knowladge, where we actually see through Shepard's eyes. You know, the scene where Miranda and Wilson are putting you under again. This is supposed to be a very immersive scene to show your tough road back to the living. You can' even do anything but the first thing that pops up is the message to please level up. I always wanted to turn this stupid message box off. IMO, ME2/3 have too many huge message boxes as it is. ME1 was much better with just small text notifications. I don't need a quarter screen picture of a notepad, every time I get a new journal entry.

They don't have to take it all the way to dead space (though I wouldn't mind that either) but less GUI, more in universe info, I say.

[Dunmer of Redoran]

I have no experience with JRPGs in this context but as far as non-MMO WRPGs go, it's a common feature.

 

It's more of a convention of very recent RPGs, but you can go back to the early 2000s and see this going on. Morrowind, for example, has a fairly long opening sequence and there's no effective distinction between classes until after you play for a while and can feel the nuances for yourself. All in all, stats of skill trees and feats/powers/perks/whatever are meaningless until you test them out and see exactly how they work. ME3 has some powers with arbitrary descriptions and stats. It's far from the only one.

[Vazgen]

What Vazgen said pretty much nails it.

I also think the best way to go would be to give the player access to the skill tree during character creation, so you don't have to level/familiarize yourself with the stats and skills right after the intro.

The worst instance of immersion break happened when importing an ME1 Shep into ME2 though. There you have this wake-up scene, the only one in the entire trilogy to my knowladge, where we actually see through Shepard's eyes. You know, the scene where Miranda and Wilson are putting you under again. This is supposed to be a very immersive scene to show your tough road back to the living. You can' even do anything but the first thing that pops up is the message to please level up. I always wanted to turn this stupid message box off. IMO, ME2/3 have too many huge message boxes as it is. ME1 was much better with just small text notifications. I don't need a quarter screen picture of a notepad, every time I get a new journal entry.

They don't have to take it all the way to dead space (though I wouldn't mind that either) but less GUI, more in universe info, I say.

Oh, that level-up message... Don't remind me...

Another instance of a similar immersion break is the Paramour achievement in ME3. You confess your love for a character, they are about to kiss when pop - Paramour achievement unlocked

[Larry-3]

But that one blaster saved Obi-Wan's Kenobi from General Grievance.

Me: (Pwned!)

[RedCaesar97]

@Vazgen: While I agree that having the ability to choose where you want your initial points would be good, I still do not like the level lock system, particularly if I want to use more than 2/3 powers right away.

 

As to the original question: I do not play many RPGs (and some do not consider the Mass Effect games RPGs) so I could not tell you how many games follow the whole cutscenes-before-skill-tree thing. It is probably pretty common in more story-focused/story-driven RPGs.  

[goishen]

If you just want to shoot things in the face, then I'd suggest you go with a soldier.  Not my cup of tea, but I'm in the minority in a lot of things.  The entire point of having that there, both the two (maybe?) short paragraphs explaining what each class does and the ten minute cut scene, is to avoid all of that, "Oh no, I picked the wrong class!  I'll just go back and start over!"

 

Because once you have that, you have people that'll never finish the game.  

[Sanunes]

My suggestion is look at what happened with Dragon Age 2, they got slack for not having character generation before the opening sequence and how it didn't fit into the game, so we got what they did with Inquisition, at least with Dragon Age: Inquisition you can skip the cinematics.

[Vazgen]

@Vazgen: While I agree that having the ability to choose where you want your initial points would be good, I still do not like the level lock system, particularly if I want to use more than 2/3 powers right away.

 

As to the original question: I do not play many RPGs (and some do not consider the Mass Effect games RPGs) so I could not tell you how many games follow the whole cutscenes-before-skill-tree thing. It is probably pretty common in more story-focused/story-driven RPGs.  

I added level locks purely because they were present in ME3. They make no sense anyway, by the time you finish the Mars mission you are already at level 8 and can unlock every power. I'm not sure why they bothered with locking skills away in all three games, it's not like having them all available somehow makes the game unbalanced. And with the system in my post, you can pick three activatable powers right from the start, bonus and class powers are not level-locked.

[RedCaesar97]

I added level locks purely because they were present in ME3. They make no sense anyway, by the time you finish the Mars mission you are already at level 8 and can unlock every power.

 

Well it also depends on how or when you can level up. In all three games, you levelled up whenever you got enough XP, but each game gave you XP in different ways.

In Mass Effect 1, you got XP for killing enemies and completing quests (or parts of quests, like scanning a mineral).

In Mass Effect 2, you got XP only for completing a quest.

In Mass Effect 3, you got XP for completing certain objectives, like completing a quest, picking up Medi-Gel, or reacing a certain point in a mission.

 

You levelled up fairly quickly early in ME1 and ME3 before slowing down later. In Mass Effect 2 you levelled up at a fairly steady rate throughout the game. Level locks would be somewhat okay in a system like ME1 and ME3, but terrible in a system like ME2.