125 réponses à ce sujet

[canarius]

Inquisition couldn't balance this very well. The story was good but too short compared to the open world. If open world will mean short story for Mass Effect 4, please don't do it. If you will give us a big open world, it's crucial to make it part of the main story. If you can't make it part of the main story, give us some interesting side missions there and not fetch quests. I hope Mass Effect 4 will be more like the previous Mass Effect games or DA:O and not like DA:I in this regard.

[Revan Reborn]

It's doubtful the next Mass Effect will be like DAI, unless the alleged "leak" is true. However, it's also known that this new installment will not resemble the Shepard trilogy or anything else BioWare has done as BioWare Montreal is overhauling the gameplay and philosophy of Mass Effect.

 

For better or for worse, the next game will have a huge focus on exploration and traveling via the Mako. It hasn't been established whether or not worlds will be open world, but it's likely they will be large. I believe you can make a compelling story in an open world environment. I just believe DAI was a poor execution of that being BioWare's first open world game in a long time and the entire project being too ambitious to execute.

[JeffZero]

I haven't played more than a few open world games, but thus far I've felt the weight of making each of them open world hurting the narrative potential of the game each time. I hope you're right about it being possible to do it right, Revan, because as a believer in the leak, that's a huge source of concern in my mind.

[Malanek]

Yeah, it concerns me as well and I'm pretty sure the leak was genuine. On one hand I think basic combat in ME3 will be more enjoyable to me than DAI combat was, so the meaningless go to the nearest quest marker and kill any enemies in your way, could be more fun. But on the other hand this may be replaced by drive to the nearest quest marker in the mako, in which case I think I'll cry.

 

I don't want driving in the mako to be more than 5-10% of the gameplay time. Preferably less. On the other hand hand I guess it is possible that I would be pleasantly surprised, I thought the vehicle sequences in Half Life 2 were brilliant and a real good change of pace. But they are all specifically designed whereas I am guessing ME4 planet surfaces will have much less attention to how they play.

[StealthGamer92]

HELL NO! I will not buy MEN if exploring isn't open like ME1, because you can't explore a path like you can a decent open area.

[DirkJake]

Story should be the main focus. Exploration and open world(s) can complement that but without diluting the story too much.

 

I like DAI open worlds, but I do not wish to see another game, especially ME games, similar to it. 

[Steppenwolf]

If ME4 is about exploring a new galaxy then obviously exploration should be a well-integrated aspect the game's design. In Inquisition it was just a feature they wanted to introduce, separate from the narrative and unnecessary. There was no legitimate reason for the Inquisitor to be traipsing through a bunch of deserts and plains but a "Pathfinder" should be exploring new things every chance s/he gets.

[MrFob]

HELL NO! I will not buy MEN if exploring isn't open like ME1, because you can't explore a path like you can a decent open area.

 

I would not consider ME1 to be very open. It is fairly well structured and I would not have a problem with something like that (just with better map design for the planets). However, I do share the OPs concern. Structuring the game to tell a good story must take priority. If they do manage to make a (semi-)open worlds around all of that, that's perfect but I would definitely put the story first in any design decision.

[Malanek]

Well I'll be happy to set my strike teams to do all the mako/exploration/resource collection/fetch quest work and I'll handle all the strike team missions manually

[Sanunes]

Because they are bringing back the Mako, I just can't see the problems with Dragon Age: Inquisition being there unless they go for a single large world which they didn't even do with Inquisition.

 

Unless they are to the point of no return with the world design, they probably heard about the design complaints towards Inquisition because of how story lacking the zones became.

[Sanunes]

I agree. But gameplay is a part of the storytelling, It enriches it, Makes it stronger. So, Why can't we have both?

 

I think it just can't be done to excess for that is when it hurts the story, for I liked the smaller zones in Inquisition for the story worked there but fell apart in the larger zones.

[theflyingzamboni]

For better or for worse, the next game will have a huge focus on exploration and traveling via the Mako. It hasn't been established whether or not worlds will be open world, but it's likely they will be large. I believe you can make a compelling story in an open world environment. I just believe DAI was a poor execution of that being BioWare's first open world game in a long time and the entire project being too ambitious to execute.

I'm hoping that Witcher 3 will prove me wrong in a few weeks, but I have yet to see evidence that you can. Open world exploration always seems to diltute narrative drive too much, and weakens the story. I have yet to play an open world game that has a fantastic and constantly engaging story. There might be a good story in there, but it gets broken up by exploration and loses any semblance of pacing. It basically becomes multiple games, one with a big story, and one with a bunch of unrelated mini-stories. It's definitely given me a strong preference for more limited, focused exploration in my RPGs.

[wolfhowwl]

Exploring exotic locales in space is cool. ME1's Uncharted Worlds were ****. Sure there can be a discussion about wherever they could have been improved instead of being cut with ME2 but that still doesn't make them any less of a dumpster fire of design.

 

Star Trek managed to avoid having episodes about driving a dune buggy across empty, lifeless worlds collecting space garbage, Mass Effect should too.

 

Hearing things about procedurally generated planets numbering close to a hundred just makes me apprehensive that we will get another mile wide, inch deep approach.

[StealthGamer92]

I would not consider ME1 to be very open. It is fairly well structured and I would not have a problem with something like that (just with better map design for the planets). However, I do share the OPs concern. Structuring the game to tell a good story must take priority. If they do manage to make a (semi-)open worlds around all of that, that's perfect but I would definitely put the story first in any design decision.

I see the Unchated Worlds as open worlds so I'm fine as long as we have a decent amount of worlds like them, I agree they'd need more tlc for the new ME though.

[JeffZero]

I'm hoping that Witcher 3 will prove me wrong in a few weeks, but I have yet to see evidence that you can. Open world exploration always seems to diltute narrative drive too much, and weakens the story. I have yet to play an open world game that has a fantastic and constantly engaging story. There might be a good story in there, but it gets broken up by exploration and loses any semblance of pacing. It basically becomes multiple games, one with a big story, and one with a bunch of unrelated mini-stories. It's definitely given me a strong preference for more limited, focused exploration in my RPGs.

Preach.

"Linear" forever. Too bad hardly anyone agrees with us right now.

[Sanunes]

Exploring exotic locales in space is cool. ME1's Uncharted Worlds were ****. Sure there can be a discussion about wherever they could have been improved instead of being cut with ME2 but that still doesn't make them any less of a dumpster fire of design.

 

Star Trek managed to avoid having episodes about driving a dune buggy across empty, lifeless worlds collecting space garbage, Mass Effect should too.

 

Hearing things about procedurally generated planets numbering close to a hundred just makes me apprehensive that we will get another mile wide, inch deep approach.

 

I agree, the planets you landed on just to explore were bad in Mass Effect 1, but I don't think pure linear is good either.  One of the zones I liked in was The Fallow Mire, it was big enough you could look for non-mission items, but it was small enough that it contained a reasonable story.

 

As far as Star Trek, I remember in Nemesis when Picard was driving a dune buggy looking for the pieces of an android that was spread around a large desert.

[JeffZero]

I was going to make the Nemesis reference eventually if no one else did!

[wright1978]

Yep agree i felt the balance was completely off in regards story content and open world exploration in DAI. Hope ME Next does a lot better in terms of its story content and less barren open world.

[Han Shot First]

Why can I only give the OP one like?

 

ME:Next should be like Mass Effect, not like Skyrim. Unfortunately Skyrim being as massive a hit as it was probably means that ME:Next will show obvious signs of Skyrim influence, just as DA:I did. 

[Cheviot]

There's loads of story-based side content in Inquisition. It seems, reading between the lines, that what you guys want is a more restrictive critical path, one that forces all players to play the majority of story side missions to get to the end.

[Han Shot First]

There's loads of story-based side content in Inquisition. It seems, reading between the lines, that what you guys want is a more restrictive critical path, one that forces all players to play the majority of story side missions to get to the end.

 

DA:I had as much story content as previous Bioware titles. The issue is that the main missions tended to be spaced out between long slogs of open world exploration and side content that was often light on story and heavy on filler. The narrative suffered for it.

 

In my opinion sometimes less is more. I'd rather have a smaller game world to explore but have that space filled with meaningful story content and character development. The problem with large open world games is that it is impossible to have that. There's just too much space to fill, which results in a fair amount of lifeless quests and dull characters.

[Guanxii]

People pick up BioWare games for compelling stories and memorable characters above all else and a dev should always play to their core strengths, however exploration is what first drew me to this particular series and it has been sadly neglected for years.

 

A main quest is all well and good for 12-20 hours, then what? It's all in the execution... it's what's in the sandbox, not how big it is. In an RPG you need to fill the sandbox with story because that's what the audience came to see. An empty sandbox is a desert, not a play-set.

 

If the main quest was 10 hours long but I could get a further 40+ hours worth of side-quests and emergent gameplay derived from planetary exploration I would be over the moon. Better still if I could do that with a friend or two.

 

If you neglect everything else to focus on a lengthy story campaign but the main quest feels padded/stretched out/repetitive, completely linear and there is nothing to do else like GTA IV or Mass Effect 3 then after a couple of hours most people will just switch off figuratively and literally. It's all about finding the right balance.

[wright1978]

There's loads of story-based side content in Inquisition. It seems, reading between the lines, that what you guys want is a more restrictive critical path, one that forces all players to play the majority of story side missions to get to the end.

 

Disagree about there being loads of story based side content in DAI. It's full of grind and fetch.