2503 réponses à ce sujet

[themikefest]

Whatever 'roles' they prefer need to include a conflict that involves them in a unique way in some form or another. For the primary companions, anyway.

Who would be these primary companions be?

[BabyPuncher]

The characters with the most content and dialogue. Characters who are almost certain to be mandatory and usually introduced early.

[themikefest]

The characters with the most content and dialogue. Characters who are almost certain to be mandatory and usually introduced early.

Are you counting squadmates only or are you including crewmembers as well when you say primary?

[Master Warder Z_]

Are you counting squadmates only or are you including crewmembers as well when you say primary?

Seems a redundant question.

[BabyPuncher]

As of ME 3, it's still squadmates. They've yet to write dramatic arcs for other crewmembers on the same level as the ones for squadmates.

[themikefest]

As of ME 3, it's still squadmates. They've yet to write dramatic arcs for other crewmembers on the same level as the ones for squadmates.

That's your opinion, right? Some of the squadmates were crap. A couple of the crewmembers were better

[Panda]

As of ME 3, it's still squadmates. They've yet to write dramatic arcs for other crewmembers on the same level as the ones for squadmates.

 

What about DAI? I think there all romances there are in equal standings in terms of arcs and content.

[Steelcan]

What about DAI? I think there all romances there are in equal standings in terms of arcs and content.

well he's not a fan of DA:I's squadmate content to begin with....

[Master Warder Z_]

well he's not a fan of DA:I's squadmate content to begin with....

...is anyone?

[SardaukarElite]

Whatever 'roles' they prefer need to include a conflict that involves them in a unique way in some form or another. For the primary companions, anyway. They absolutely should not "have all their personal interaction in down time conversations." That would be completely inane.

 

Okay, the personal interaction in down time conversations bit was referring specifically to story beats we typically get on a companion quest being replaced with conversations between missions.

 

Back in ME1 Wrex straight up tells you his personal conflict (Genophage, father issues, missing armor), his companion quest is just picking up his old armor from a locker. The unique story conflict he gets is in the Virmire confrontation which is tied directly into a main plot thing.

 

Really though I wouldn't mind a companion just being a supportive figure that player character can express their problems to. A way to express our character's thoughts. If you think any deviation from your absolute rules is inane, then well, have fun with that.

[Panda]

I'd personally love to see ME:A move from ME2-3 system where all romances weren't that equal in content, some were more like flings to system where all romances have similar amount of content.

[Hellion Rex]

...is anyone?

Um, *raises hand*

[Master Warder Z_]

Um, *raises hand*

Really?

[Hellion Rex]

Really?

Yup.

[KaiserShep]

...is anyone?

Big fan signing in.

[Master Warder Z_]

Yup.

Well someone has to give them positive feedback I guess.

[Master Warder Z_]

Big fan signing in.

You? I don't really care about, like what you want.

[Tex]

Big fan signing in.

agreed the variety was refreshing especially with Sera and Dorian.

[Hiemoth]

Definitely. We should be able to enter in non-romantic relationships every bit as deep as the romantic ones, with every bit as much content.

 

That's not to say that we should get all the same content from a NPC if you romance or befriend them - it's only reasonable that some people will tell things to lovers that they wouldn't tell to friends and vice-versa - but I don't want the old Bioware crap where NPC's story just stops if you're not shagging them.

 

I felt this was something ME3 stepped up on, probably largely due to the insane way they set up the system in ME2. The Garrus friendship arc in ME3 was a thing of beauty and I still choke up when "There is no Shepard without a Valkarian" comes up and a lot of the other friendships, for me, are really well established in that game. Somewhat amusingly, I also do think that the pacing of the game and structured plot allowed that, as they knew exactly when they needed to fill space or when to have one of those interactions, which would be impossible with something like ME1 or DAO approach to plot, let alone with something that puts the story pacing second to exploration like DAI.

[karushna5]

I also feel we are getting a bit too picky. Like friendship arcs with extra characterization? Bisexual characters have to treat their opposite and same sex partners differently? For every romanceable character do we need 3 scenes for every one? I keep saying, all 4 romances in DA2 say slightly different things at different times that take into account their lover's gender. It is small lines, but it certainly proves they are not playersexual.

 

Bisexuals, even ones with large preferences toward one gender or another doesn't become a different person each time. Heck, you guys are asking for more differences between the MaleProtag/femaleProtag than they have anywhere else in the game. They practically have the same dialogue everywhere, so making every bisexual character somehow not be "player sexual" is making them 2 different romances?

 

Nevermind this is a game and not a book. They have finite resources and they want each person to have 2 options. Bisexual characters fill that nicely. But not if every Bisexual character has to have 2 separate cutscenes that don't even make any sense to have seperately. I still feel that the characters in DA2 were not fleshed out much. They were the same no matter what you did regardless of romance or not, how different do they have to be according to who romances them?

 

I will say this, the characters don't change their sexuality to match yours. Fenris and Anders show interest in women, regardless of what gender you are. Isabela shows interest in everyone. And Merrill shows no interest in any one. So really the issue is if you are a woman romancing Anders and Fenris is their sexuality in any way not clear. But a sexuality does not need to be advertised to be real.

[Pasquale1234]

Definitely. We should be able to enter in non-romantic relationships every bit as deep as the romantic ones, with every bit as much content.
 
That's not to say that we should get all the same content from a NPC if you romance or befriend them - it's only reasonable that some people will tell things to lovers that they wouldn't tell to friends and vice-versa - but I don't want the old Bioware crap where NPC's story just stops if you're not shagging them.

As much as I've enjoyed developing relationships with a lot of the characters in Bioware's games, I don't think I've ever experienced a relationship path that had a bigger payoff than the friendship arcs with Morrigan and Shale in DAO. They left a lasting impression on me, and I'd love to have more.
 

I felt this was something ME3 stepped up on, probably largely due to the insane way they set up the system in ME2. The Garrus friendship arc in ME3 was a thing of beauty and I still choke up when "There is no Shepard without a Valkarian" comes up and a lot of the other friendships, for me, are really well established in that game. Somewhat amusingly, I also do think that the pacing of the game and structured plot allowed that, as they knew exactly when they needed to fill space or when to have one of those interactions, which would be impossible with something like ME1 or DAO approach to plot, let alone with something that puts the story pacing second to exploration like DAI.

Yeah, well, the beauty of ME1 or DAO is that they were (somewhat) self-paced. The player had a lot more freedom to choose when to converse with companions, which I vastly prefer.

[Hiemoth]

Yeah, well, the beauty of ME1 or DAO is that they were (somewhat) self-paced. The player had a lot more freedom to choose when to converse with companions, which I vastly prefer.

 

I wouldn't necessarily the beauty since I vehemently disagree with that. First, you could still converse with companions whenever you wished, they were just more likely to talk about things that were relevant to that time being. By the game pacing those discussions, it removes the danger of accidentally burning through the discussions too fast because you didn't realize Sten or Alistair really only have that much to say before they turn in to mute statues just being there at the camp.

 

Second, by having it be self-paced in a disjointed plot the characters could never really react to what was happening in the actual story, instead they are always isolated in that little bubble only talking about themselves and being infodumps. Oh, the infodumps. Something like the discussion after Thessia with Garrus would be utterly impossible in such a system.

[Pasquale1234]

I wouldn't necessarily the beauty since I vehemently disagree with that. First, you could still converse with companions whenever you wished, they were just more likely to talk about things that were relevant to that time being. By the game pacing those discussions, it removes the danger of accidentally burning through the discussions too fast because you didn't realize Sten or Alistair really only have that much to say before they turn in to mute statues just being there at the camp.

I've never quite understood why people want games to enforce pacing instead of the freedom that comes with self-pacing. I guess I just prefer to use games to create my own experience (order from a menu) instead of having the dev's serve up a specific experience (today's special).

There was some degree of pacing in ME2's squadmate conversations, in terms of when the conversations became available - but the player still chose when and whether to speak with them.
 

Second, by having it be self-paced in a disjointed plot the characters could never really react to what was happening in the actual story, instead they are always isolated in that little bubble only talking about themselves and being infodumps. Oh, the infodumps. Something like the discussion after Thessia with Garrus would be utterly impossible in such a system.

They could still include character reactions to events that would queue (become available) after said events.

[Hiemoth]

I've never quite understood why people want games to enforce pacing instead of the freedom that comes with self-pacing. I guess I just prefer to use games to create my own experience (order from a menu) instead of having the dev's serve up a specific experience (today's special).

There was some degree of pacing in ME2's squadmate conversations, in terms of when the conversations became available - but the player still chose when and whether to speak with them.
 

They could still include character reactions to events that would queue (become available) after said events.

 

To try to answer your question, although I'm not certain if you are really interested in it, it is a question of understanding the limitations of the system and what are the consequences of it. As I explained in my initial response, in a player-paced system the devs can't plan the dialogue to take place in any kind of specific circumstances, which forces the dialogue scenes to be as removed from the game as possible in order to avoid conflicting situations in the dialogue. Hence it will almost always lead to what we got in DAO and ME1, massive infodumps about the background cultures and organizations. It essentially forces the companion to be a talking head on wherever they come from or what their background is while not even allowing those character moments to be woven in to the actual story events. To give an example, in ME3 Joker is worried about his family escaping the Reaper threat in a paced dialogue scene that naturally occurs at that moment in the story. In ME1 system, Joker would just mention that he has a family and give ridiculously long and detailed accounting of his family history in a static discussion section.

 

As for your latter point, that is something they tried in DAI and for me it didn't really work. They have limited resources and those gated dialogue scenes cannot really say anything about them or their backgrounds, because those are linked infodump sessions. Hence we cannot learn about Cassandra's brother from her reacting or musing on something that happened in the story itself since it is so important that the player can just wander to Cassandra to shoot the breeze. In comparison, in DA2 we learn about Varric's family and brother in pieces at different parts of the story where the actual context allows him to have an emotional reaction when discussing his family.

 

I'm not saying that people shouldn't argue for player-paced dialogue if that is what they prefer, I am simply stating that it is quite fair to point out that there a lot of things we lose with that approach, both from design and resource point of view. For example, Gaider had mentioned that one of the reasons we didn't have the number of companion missions we had in DA2 was because of that player-paced dialogue approach in DAI.

[FemHawke FTW]

...is anyone?

I am