61 réponses à ce sujet

[mickey111]

RPGs with few exceptions (dark souls) try too hard to make sure every character build can be useful. this means people cant be stung for making bad choices, which is not good imo. game play is about challenging a persons skills, so why should character building be exempt from this?

[Torgette]

RPGs with few exceptions (dark souls) try too hard to make sure every character build can be useful. this means people cant be stung for making bad choices, which is not good imo. game play is about challenging a persons skills, so why should character building be exempt from this?

 

Only as long as it's not a barrier to finishing the story.

[pdusen]

RPGs with few exceptions (dark souls) try too hard to make sure every character build can be useful. this means people cant be stung for making bad choices, which is not good imo. game play is about challenging a persons skills, so why should character building be exempt from this?

 

Because when builds are unbalanced that means that there is an inherently "correct" build, and guessing or googling for the correct build to use isn't fun.

[PhroXenGold]

RPGs with few exceptions (dark souls) try too hard to make sure every character build can be useful. this means people cant be stung for making bad choices, which is not good imo. game play is about challenging a persons skills, so why should character building be exempt from this?

 

The problem is, if you aren't given full information about where and when each skill is useful, and thus what skills are bad, building a good character is not about "testing your skill", it's about being lucky with the abilities you guessed would be good.

 

And should you be provided with such information, then it will be obvious which skills are good and which aren't, in which case what's the point in putting the bad skills in the game, as people will just skip them for the good ones?

[mickey111]

Because when builds are unbalanced that means that there is an inherently "correct" build, and guessing or googling for the correct build to use isn't fun.

 or you can just read the informatio provided by the game, telling you which skills a rogue, warrior and caster of dark souls are useful or not.

[Ashevajak]

 or you can just read the informatio provided by the game, telling you which skills a rogue, warrior and caster of dark souls are useful or not.

 

Hah.  It's cute how you think Bioware will provide useful information to the player.  "+100% damage to lifted targets", anyone?

[Sylvius the Mad]

RPGs with few exceptions (dark souls) try too hard to make sure every character build can be useful. this means people cant be stung for making bad choices, which is not good imo. game play is about challenging a persons skills, so why should character building be exempt from this?

I agree that it should be possible to build a character badly. I'm just about the last person left who thinks that Monte Cook's "traps" were good game design.

I disagree as to why, however. I don’t think building a character the way you want should be challenging. I want all of the mechanics thoroughly documented so you can know exactly what every ability can do (and how they will interact) without ever playing the game.

That way, there's no challenge in building a character properly (as there wasn't with Cook's rules - just read the book and everything becomes clear), but there are choices available.

With a sufficiently robust ruleset and good encounter design, there should be ways for a wide variety of character builds to succeed (much as a non-combat protagonist in KotOR could still defeat Malak).

But we should absolutely be able to build ineffective characters. My favourite DAO playthrough had an ineffective character.

I would also like to see the game not coddle these ineffective characters. Some characters should fail.

[Golden_Persona]

I strongly disagree. Having every build be viable, as well as giving every kind of playstyle a build to accommodate it not only makes everyone happy, and ensures you can succeed even when you're still learning the game, but it also drastically increases replay value. What's the point of spending time to design useless abilities just to hinder one's experience. Games should be fun, and if I'm going to be designing an ability I'm going to want people to use it pure and simple.

 

All of the classes in all ME games are viable and can be deadly. There's no real wrong choice that will hinder you. ME:A just needs a little more variety, which I hope the focus on exploration will give us. Giving each class a combat role and an exploration role would make me happy.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The problem is, if you aren't given full information about where and when each skill is useful, and thus what skills are bad, building a good character is not about "testing your skill", it's about being lucky with the abilities you guessed would be good.

And should you be provided with such information, then it will be obvious which skills are good and which aren't, in which case what's the point in putting the bad skills in the game, as people will just skip them for the good ones?

Hopefully the interactions between the abilities will be somewhat more complex than that.

Look at Inquisition. Combining abilities in ways that are not explicitly documented (but become clear if you read about all the abilities) is vastly more effective that using those abilities in isolation.

Also, you're assuming that all players are always pursuing effectiveness as their primary character-design goal. That's not necessarily true. My cowardly Warden specifically avoided being effective.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I strongly disagree. Having every build be viable, as well as giving every kind of playstyle a build to accommodate it not only makes everyone happy,

It doesn't make me happy.

If every choice I make ultimately leads me to the same place, why am I bothering to make them at all?

Where's the payoff?

[PhroXenGold]

It doesn't make me happy.

If every choice I make ultimately leads me to the same place, why am I bothering to make them at all?

Where's the payoff?

 

It's about the journey, not the destination.

[In Exile]

RPGs with few exceptions (dark souls) try too hard to make sure every character build can be useful. this means people cant be stung for making bad choices, which is not good imo. game play is about challenging a persons skills, so why should character building be exempt from this?

 

Getting trolled by a garbage ruleset is stupid. Everything should be exempt from getting trolled by a game because of inexperience. School is about academic skills, but no one advocates for every third test to be written in wingdings, which is the equivalent of what you're asking. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

It's about the journey, not the destination.

A journey anyone could take.

Why am I bothering to do it when anyone could? What am I bringing to the table?

[PhroXenGold]

A journey anyone could take.

Why am I bothering to do it when anyone could? What am I bringing to the table?

 

It's not about what you bring to the table. It's about what the game offers to you. By ensuring that all builds are equally capable, even if the end result is the same, the experience of playing them will be different yet still balanced, thus making the game more enjoyable and increasing replayablitiy.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

I'd argue it can and, perhaps, should be about both.

 

Don't be silly. Journey has to 1v1 Destination in Thundadumb to determine an all-time victor. Those who supported the losing side will be forever mocked.

[pdusen]

 or you can just read the informatio provided by the game, telling you which skills a rogue, warrior and caster of dark souls are useful or not.

 

Even if that information were usable, someone shouldn't be required to be math-oriented or rules-oriented in order to have fun playing a video game.

[sjsharp2011]

Hah.  It's cute how you think Bioware will provide useful information to the player.  "+100% damage to lifted targets", anyone?

Agreed I never really understood DA Origin's systems until recently after I got the strategy guide. Thereby it made it diffic8ult to really understand the game and i couldn't complete it so ended up leaving he game in the end. Now that I understand the game and the mechanics of it. I now really quite enjoy the game more and have done a couple of successful playthroughs since then now i understand it more. Fortunately ME is  easier to master in that area but DA is definetely a nightmare at first especially as I'm not really an expreienced RPG player really. I only really got into DA through being a fan of ME and decidfing to give DA a go.

[LinksOcarina]

RPGs with few exceptions (dark souls) try too hard to make sure every character build can be useful. this means people cant be stung for making bad choices, which is not good imo. game play is about challenging a persons skills, so why should character building be exempt from this?

 

God no.

 

That is one of the worst design choices in tabletop games, right up their with alignments. This is especially true when players want to create non-power gaming characters, or have unconventional ideas regarding builds as well, it is antithetical to tabletop and role-playing because all it does is make such games more insular; either you play by the rules of the game, as bullshit or crazy as they are, or you die. Systems like that, which are incredibly specific, are extremely outdated for a reason.

 

Here is a story. I once did an all-talking rakish rogue who got out of situations by lying to everyone and never getting caught, for example. 

 

In combat the character was terrible, but he never entered combat in a straight up fight, or took on the role of support from the shadows with his menial dagger throwing abilities. The point is, I built a rogue that had no combat ability, and all of his points were in talking abilities or forgeries and appraisal. Nothing in the conventional thieving skills either, and he would survive, even against bigger monsters and demons and stuff like that.

 

I then had a player once say to me when comparing characters, how did I even function correctly because I didn't have X amount of points in one skill or a minimum in a specific stat? I told him because I play correctly.

 

Having a character fail should not be due to choices in their build, it should be due to the skill of the player. If I didn't talk my way out of situations with reasonable enemies, I would likely be killed quickly. If I didn't hold back and let other characters do my dirty work, id be dead. The challenge shouldn't be that the build is wrong, or sub-par or not up to the standards the game expects because of arbitrary numbers, the challenge should be I didn't fight my opponent correctly, and how do I work around it by playing to my strengths.

[mickey111]

Even if that information were usable, someone shouldn't be required to be math-oriented or rules-oriented in order to have fun playing a video game.

 

 

they have a narrative mode.

[pdusen]

they have a narrative mode.

 

That's more like watching a movie, not playing the game. The solution to "Playing this game is not fun" is not "Watch it like a movie."

[LinksOcarina]

That's more like watching a movie, not playing the game. The solution to "Playing this game is not fun" is not "Watch it like a movie."

 

For some people it is...

 

Although if the game is not fun, stop playing it. I do it all the time with games. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

It's not about what you bring to the table.

And I would disgree. If I'm not a contributing partner, I don't want to do it.

[Quarian Master Race]

Leveling up a power should actually make it less effective. An example would be the current Adrenaline Rush with a shotgun or sniper rifle, where longer duration resulting from going past rank 2 means less free reloads and thus less effectiveness. That's an example of great gameplay design.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Even if that information were usable, someone shouldn't be required to be math-oriented or rules-oriented in order to have fun playing a video game.

That's what easier difficultiea are for.

And I have argued many timss before that roleplaying games aren't games. Lumping together with "video games" (incidentally, I remember when video games and computer games were seen as different types of things, and when that was true I always prefered computer games) does them a disservice.

And what does rules-oriented even mean? Everyone can understand rules. All games have rules.