15883 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

You can't have an RPG without a hypercompetent murder machine. A mook just can't be an RPG protagonist.

I would disagree.

Everyone is the protagonist of his own story.

[Medhia_Nox]

@SnakeCode:  Are you really trying to say that Geralt is NOT a special snowflake? 

 

From what I hear of TW3 - he walks around deciding the fate of people wherever he goes.  

[Sylvius the Mad]

Level progression is also done better in TW3. In DAI you can out level alot of the zones before you realize it{ example Exalted Plains. }

How does TW3 avoid that?

I can think of 4 different ways, but only 2 are good.

1. The game could have a fairly shallow posr curve overall. So nothing would ever significant out level anything else.

2. The game could have lots of high level content.

3. Progression through the game could be linear.

4. Content could scale to match the protagonist's level.

The first two options are acceptable solutions. The second two are not. Assuming we even need a solution. I'm not convinced we do.

[SnakeCode]

@SnakeCode:  Are you really trying to say that Geralt is NOT a special snowflake? 

 

From what I hear of TW3 - he walks around deciding the fate of people wherever he goes.  

 

Not to be rude, but can you read? I never mentioned Geralt. Not even once.

[KBomb]

To everyone whining that Geralt's only agenda is to plough other women or that the entire Witcher is only about sex.

It always makes me laugh when people complain about Geralt sleeping with everyone. I always know one of two things:

1. They've never touched the game and are just making judgements based on Youtube.

2. They make their Geralt sleep with everyone and then complains that he sleeps around too much.

[In Exile]

To me "super special unique chosen one of prophesy" is a different thing than having gameplay/story segregation (although I think games are definitely too reliant on the player easily killing hundreds of enemies especially when it's a creature that would be difficult to impossible for a real person). I'd personally rather have fewer enemies that are much more difficult to fight than thousands of easy ones. What I hate is the "you're the only one that can save the world!" You're the magical blooded princess, the child of legend, the Dragonborn, the religious icon with the magical glowing hand who is the only one capable of sealing the hell-hole in the sky. It just doesn't make for an interesting story IMO. Give me a smaller scale story any day. I do also like games that give you the options of stealth and persuasion when dealing with an enemy and not just combat all the time. You don't have to like the same things but it's very possible to have a good game without relying on the "magical chosen one" thing.

 

But DA:I is all about a deconstruction of that idea. The whole point of the anchor being totally a fluke, and the equivalent of an elven skeleton key for the Fade, is to show that this idea of "chosen one" is, firstly, all about how much people believe in you and, secondly, mostly a product of your own competence and a string of impressive feats. 

 

You're the random person who was in the wrong place at the right time, and some religion - in a crisis of faith - built up a (completely incorrect) narrative that you're chosen. 

 

Not to mention that TW3 doesn't have a smaller scale story. 

 

 

You're the epitome of a special snowflake in Inquisition. You have that whole "you're the only one who can save us" thing going on. You're the one with the Anchor, you're the first since the Magisters of old to walk physicaly in the fade, and everybody loves you and elects you to be the head of a religious military organisation. No matter what your race and religious beliefs are (or lack of them.) 

 

Oh, so your issue isn't with being a special snowflake in the sense of clearly actually being the only person who's competent in the story and who does a series of legendary feats, but people recognizing it and venerating you for it? 

[In Exile]

How does TW3 avoid that?

I can think of 4 different ways, but only 2 are good.

1. The game could have a fairly shallow posr curve overall. So nothing would ever significant out level anything else.

2. The game could have lots of high level content.

3. Progression through the game could be linear.

4. Content could scale to match the protagonist's level.

The first two options are acceptable solutions. The second two are not. Assuming we even need a solution. I'm not convinced we do.

 

The post you're replying to is wrong, but TW2 does have lots of incoherently placed high level content. The content also effectively scales by location, but not in a way that really makes sense, because levels are clearly meant to be gameplay/story segregation. 

[SnakeCode]

I don't have an issue with being a special snowflake, at all. I think you kind of have to be one as a videogame protagonist (there are exceptions, but they're few and far between.) I was just disagreeing with the idea that the Inquisitor isn't a special snowflake. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

An RPG cannot work without you being a chosen one. Otherwise it's just an absurd parody of itself, where you have to close your eyes to the fact that you kill more people in months that most armies - yes, entire armies - in the world IRL kill in years.

Once again, I completely disagree.

Simply having symmetrical mechanics goes a long way toward stopping special snowflake syndrome. Many tabletop games manage it pretty well. There's no reason why CRPGs can't, too.

[KaiserShep]

I don't have an issue with being a special snowflake, at all. I think you kind of have to be one as a videogame protagonist (there are exceptions, but they're few and far between.) I was just disagreeing with the idea that the Inquisitor isn't a special snowflake. 

 

The only thing that truly makes the Inquisitor special is the same thing that makes the Warden and Hawke special: the ability to kill hundreds if not thousands of people and live to tell the tale. The anchor itself doesn't make the Inquisitor special, because any rube could have wielded it if they stumbled upon Cory's little private party and picked up the orb of doom. It just so happens that the person that picked it up can also kill people with serious efficiency. 

 

 

[AresKeith]

I don't have an issue with being a special snowflake, at all. I think you kind of have to be one as a videogame protagonist (there are exceptions, but they're few and far between.) I was just disagreeing with the idea that the Inquisitor isn't a special snowflake. 

 

The mark alone gave them that status

[In Exile]

I don't have an issue with being a special snowflake, at all. I think you kind of have to be one as a videogame protagonist (there are exceptions, but they're few and far between.) I was just disagreeing with the idea that the Inquisitor isn't a special snowflake. 

 

Oh, the Inquisitor is totally a special snowflake. Like every Bioware protagonist.

 

Once again, I completely disagree.

Simply having symmetrical mechanics goes a long way toward stopping special snowflake syndrome. Many tabletop games manage it pretty well. There's no reason why CRPGs can't, too.

 

Symmetrical mechanics don't really work, as D&D proves. You're still very much an unyielding machine of murder relative to your non-adventurer peers. That the degree to which you are reduced to a superlative varies isn't really undermining the hypercompetency point.

 

I can't speak to P&P, but for a cRPG to make this work it has to go further than just a completely nerfed character that's useless in combat - the game would have to be prepared to have, and show, a character that's just universally dead weight.  

[Medhia_Nox]

@In Exile:  Old cRPGs (and some excellent new ones) allow you to play an entire group - none of which were "special chosen ones".

 

In Shadowrun: Dragonfall you're not a special chosen one - you're just "team leader" - and for a good portion of the game your team questions you about that. 

 

I hope for the day when the single protagonist cRPG is destroyed in a volcano.

 

Also - I can get through HUGE portions of that game avoiding combat - and, my mage in that game is totally centered around CC so "technically" not combat oriented.  ((though certainly my heavy weapons companion blows some **** up)) 

 

Not saying you're wrong - just saying that it "can be done MORE" and it should be done a LOT more. 

 

The current combat obstacle course model is antiquated and should be thrown into the same fiery pit as the single protag.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Symmetrical mechanics don't really work, as D&D proves.

D&D is a terrible example of a symmetrical game, because adventurers and non-adventurers are governed by different rules. Also, in every edition after the first, the survivability of player characters was far too high.

If you're a special snowflake by virtue of things you have actually done (so you weren't special at level 1, but you are by level 5 simply by not being dead), that's different in kind from being a special snowflake by design. If what you're doing is something anyone could have done, then you're not a special snowflake.

[Ennai and 54 others]

@SnakeCode: Are you really trying to say that Geralt is NOT a special snowflake?

From what I hear of TW3 - he walks around deciding the fate of people wherever he goes.

Anyone whose full time job it is to find and/or kill things is likely to "decide" the fate of people around them.

The Witcher 3 tends to actually show us the impact we have made on individual lives.


Geralt is no snowflake in that regard.Regular people in this world decide the fate of others simply by doing or not doing their job (e.g Lawyers,Police,Doctors,IT specialists)

[Medhia_Nox]

@Ennai and 54 Others:  All those people you mentioned do not do what you're suggesting in a vacuum... and your suggestion that Geralt is somehow unlike every other RPG character designed for cRPGs since their invention is not something I find believable.  

 

Also - real life doesn't work like video games... so the changes a protag makes should be washed away with time... not exalted for time immemorial as they are. 

[Morty Smith]

I´d rather play a fun snowflake than a boring trope-avoider.

[dlux]

Bioware should just go back to being Bioware.

[In Exile]

@In Exile:  Old cRPGs (and some excellent new ones) allow you to play an entire group - none of which were "special chosen ones".

 

In Shadowrun: Dragonfall you're not a special chosen one - you're just "team leader" - and for a good portion of the game your team questions you about that. 

 

I hope for the day when the single protagonist cRPG is destroyed in a volcano.

 

Also - I can get through HUGE portions of that game avoiding combat - and, my mage in that game is totally centered around CC so "technically" not combat oriented.  ((though certainly my heavy weapons companion blows some **** up)) 

 

Not saying you're wrong - just saying that it "can be done MORE" and it should be done a LOT more. 

 

The current combat obstacle course model is antiquated and should be thrown into the same fiery pit as the single protag.

 

A create-your-own party RPG is an automatic "DO NOT BU1" for me, unless there are serious assurances in place the feature is superfluous and meaningless (BG, POE). The pitch of this feature is why I didn't back POE. 

 

I do, however, agree with you on combat design. And I recognize that I was a bit hyperbolic on the murder-machine point because of how it can work in a party based game, but at the core of what I'm getting at is this:

 

The protagonist(s) of an RPG are exceptional people. They are so far removed from the realm of the ordinary in their potential and feats that to say that they aren't "special" is silly. They're "special" in the way a superlative genius like Einsten is special. Certainly not chosen by god, or fate, or the flying sphagetti monster (jury's out on the last one), but endowed with a measure of ability that they're not really comparable to the "average person" archetype.

 

D&D is a terrible example of a symmetrical game, because adventurers and non-adventurers are governed by different rules. Also, in every edition after the first, the survivability of player characters was far too high.

If you're a special snowflake by virtue of things you have actually done (so you weren't special at level 1, but you are by level 5 simply by not being dead), that's different in kind from being a special snowflake by design. If what you're doing is something anyone could have done, then you're not a special snowflake.

 

Where we disagree, I think, is in the notion of potential. Capacity is something that - to a large degree - is inborn. Not everyone might well reach their potential (cf. many athletes), or they might be missing some key quality to being successful, but just in virtue of having some (or all) of the qualities necessary for that kind of superlative success they are "special" in the literal meaning of the word: better, greater, or otherwise different from what is usual.

[Ennai and 54 others]

@Ennai and 54 Others: All those people you mentioned do not do what you're suggesting in a vacuum... and your suggestion that Geralt is somehow unlike every other RPG character designed for cRPGs since their invention is not something I find believable.

Also - real life doesn't work like video games... so the changes a protag makes should be washed away with time... not exalted for time immemorial as they are.

You are right

They do not exist in a vacuum and neither does Geralt's actions,which is what I'm saying.lol.Just because he has a hand in the fate of many people,it doesn't mean he is a special snowflake.

Geralt wasn't designed for cRPGs.However, his amnesiac storyline seems to have been an attempt to modify him to be such a character.

He lost his memory,this doesn't really make him a special snowflake unless he was a god-mode character(or a very important person) before he got pitchforked.

The most notable triumph he has in the games was when he fought Saskia the dragon slayer.Even then,no one really remembers him for it.

[Zjarcal]

Be more like TW3 where the major choices of the previous game are handwaived and ignored altogether!

 

*still salty over Iorveth*

[KBomb]

Be more like TW3 where the major choices of the previous game are handwaived and ignored altogether!

*still salty over Iorveth*

Unfortunately, Bioware already ignores a lot of choices. I wish both companies would do better in that respect.

[chrstnmonks]

The post you're replying to is wrong, but TW2 does have lots of incoherently placed high level content. The content also effectively scales by location, but not in a way that really makes sense, because levels are clearly meant to be gameplay/story segreg

How is my opinion wrong? I think TW3 does level progression better than DAI it is just what I think.I have not manage to outlevel most things. They are either on the par with me or higher level. Also, it doesn't seem to hand out a ton of experience at every turn.

[caradoc2000]

I've completed DAI four times, and I've been playing Witcher for a while now, and I've enjoyed both games quite a bit. I see no reason why either game should try to be like the other.

[MoonDrummer]

Be more like TW3 where the major choices of the previous game are handwaived and ignored altogether!

*still salty over Iorveth*

There isn't really much reason why iorveth would be in Velen though.