130 réponses à ce sujet

[IanPolaris]

That's still no excuse for essentially no improvement in AI for more than a decade.

[Toasted Llama]

That's still no excuse for essentially no improvement in AI for more than a decade.

 

If programmers can't find a break through, that's just it. They can't find a breakthrough and there is no progress.

 

EDIT: Also find it hard to believe there has been essentialy no improvement in AI for more than a decade.

[Darkly Tranquil]

Interesting, it's easier for me to repeat play throughs for Inquisition than the previous two games. I like them all, though. The larger world feels more alive... certainly more alive than the bland brown version of Thedas presented in Origins.

To each their own, I suppose. Personally graphics means very little to me. If a game is lacking in story and gameplay, aesthetics will not make up for it. I started gaming back when games barely had graphics, so DAOs graphics are more than adequate.

In truth, a lot of my issues with DAI are probably not even specific to the game itself but to open world games in general. I'm not a fan of the whole open world style, as I think they prioritise quantity over quality, and sacrifices strong narrative design in favour of illusory player choice (you can do 1001 different things, but they're all just meaningless filler). As nice as it is to wander around the various open world zones and look at the scenery of Ferelden and Orlais, I don't feel that it added to the story at all. In fact I think the open world design detracted from the story because it left the plot disjointed, with the major story beats being spaced between long periods of irrelevant tooling around the various sandboxes. Given that most people play Bioware games for the story and characters, the decision to sacrifice story and character focus in favour exploration and combat (never Bioware's strength) is a weird design decision and the game is poorer for it.

[IanPolaris]

If programmers can't find a break through, that's just it. They can't find a breakthrough and there is no progress.

 

EDIT: Also find it hard to believe there has been essentialy no improvement in AI for more than a decade.

 

That's just it.  Outside of gaming there have been tremendous strides in AI.  Even older AI techniques (such as the random walk) work much better (often amazingly better) simply due to the vastly increased processing speed and memory available today.  Just as one example, modern drone warfare has benefited tremendously from greatly improved AI up to the point where the removal of physical pilots for air force fighters is definitely on the horizon when just a few years ago it would have been unthinkable.

 

None of that is being applied IN computer RPGs and that is the heart of my complaint.  It's not that the research and advancements in AI aren't there to make a vastly better RPG than we have now in computer games.  It's that the major companies (that can best afford and use cutting edge AI) aren't willing to use it and would rather fritter away the vast improvements in computer technology with frills (and I consider modern graphics to be frills).

[Majestic Jazz]

To each their own, I suppose. Personally graphics means very little to me. If a game is lacking in story and gameplay, aesthetics will not make up for it. I started gaming back when games barely had graphics, so DAOs graphics are more than adequate.

In truth, a lot of my issues with DAI are probably not even specific to the game itself but to open world games in general. I'm not a fan of the whole open world style, as I think they prioritise quantity over quality, and sacrifices strong narrative design in favour of illusory player choice (you can do 1001 different things, but they're all just meaningless filler). As nice as it is to wander around the various open world zones and look at the scenery of Ferelden and Orlais, I don't feel that it added to the story at all. In fact I think the open world design detracted from the story because it left the plot disjointed, with the major story beats being spaced between long periods of irrelevant tooling around the various sandboxes. Given that most people play Bioware games for the story and characters, the decision to sacrifice story and character focus in favour exploration and combat (never Bioware's strength) is a weird design decision and the game is poorer for it.

 

True, but I do not believe that because a game is open world, that it takes away from the narrative. I mean, I hate to bring it up, but look at Witcher 3. It is an open world game and yet the narrative still feels tight. The reason being is becuase unlike in DAI where sidequest are fetchy and mmoish, the sidequest in TW3 actually correlates and connects with the main story in a particular way. I mean, not all of them, but many sidequest in TW3 does a good job at establishing the atmosphere of the world and really immersing you in the experience. So when you do the main story bits, the narrative feels that much more connected.

 

The problem with DAI was that the main quest and side quest weren't "talking to each other". On one end, I am at the Hinterlands trying to put an end to the Mage/Templar war.....and on the other end I am hunting down a runaway druffalo, looking for shards, and planting flowers on a grave.

 

So a good narrative can be done in an open world setting. Bioware just decided to focus more on fetch quest and MMO-design style of sidequest rather than sidequest that is meaningful to the overall progression and understanding of the story and the world.

[Mari]

God. Da:I is the worst.

 

I had the banter bug the first time and the game was so hollow and dead that it took me a full year (and 75 mods) to even consider giving it a second try. Unfortunately, the banter hits so rarely that I might as well have the banter bug again. I will probably not be buying another DA game after this (unless its on sale) because they seem to have lost everything I enjoyed about the first 2 games in a pathetic attempt to be more like Skyrim.

[Toasted Llama]

That's just it.  Outside of gaming there have been tremendous strides in AI.  Even older AI techniques (such as the random walk) work much better (often amazingly better) simply due to the vastly increased processing speed and memory available today.  Just as one example, modern drone warfare has benefited tremendously from greatly improved AI up to the point where the removal of physical pilots for air force fighters is definitely on the horizon when just a few years ago it would have been unthinkable.

 

None of that is being applied IN computer RPGs and that is the heart of my complaint.  It's not that the research and advancements in AI aren't there to make a vastly better RPG than we have now in computer games.  It's that the major companies (that can best afford and use cutting edge AI) aren't willing to use it and would rather fritter away the vast improvements in computer technology with frills (and I consider modern graphics to be frills).

 

The US alone spends 600 to 700 BILLION YEARLY  on defense , so ofcourse military is going to have super fancy AIs for their drones. (And the code is probably well protected to avoid the wrong people getting their hands on it. Because, you know, hackers exist.)

 

And now compare the 600 to 700 billion YEARLY to the most expensive games, built over several years, ranging from only 90 million to 270 million, where, in most cases, at least half of that is going to marketing. Yes. Marketing. Most games are just a couple of millions for several years, especially a niche market like RPGs. It's utterly ridiculous to compare that to something that gets massive amounts of funding.

 

Developers don't get funding to experiment or create super fancy new AI. They get funding to create a game that sells.

[Majestic Jazz]

Bioware's post support for this game is the REAL Disappointment. CDPR is on 1.11 for their game. They're busy responding to people on the forums as we speak and they actually listen to the fan feedback and have implemented it in patches. They have consistently fixed bugs and cleaned up their game.

Meanwhile, I still can't play as a Qunari archer because Bioware can't into animations or weapon scaling. And don't give me any of that bollocks about "just because they don't respond doesn't mean they aren't listening."

Sorry, that logic just won't fly. I posted a thread on CDPR and about three minutes in I get two posts from ACTUAL CDPR EMPLOYEES helping me out with the game. That is true customer support. Just being some esoteric ear over the internet means jack squat when you never interact. They can listen to me all day but at the end of the day it will probably accomplish little if they don't respond or actually heed anyone's advice or take it to heart. Or better yet, implement it in their game.

I have always said that CDPR today represents what Bioware used to be circa 2003....

[Shechinah]

I have always said that CDPR today represents what Bioware used to be circa 2003....

 

Wait, always? You used to say that about Bioware back in 2003?
 

[Ariella]

Wait, always? You used to say that about Bioware back in 2003?

I don't even understand Jazz's logic here. We're back to comparing patch size? And that the devs are now hands off? Wonder why that is?

I've always believed there's only so much meanspirited crap a health person can take. And it's not like the devs have immured themselves somewhere. There's this thing called Twitter.

Which must be nice because you can't get forty pages of rant.

[Majestic Jazz]

Wait, always? You used to say that about Bioware back in 2003?

No, I said that CDPR represents what Bioware used to be like during the time before Bioware got mainstream. Back in around 2003 and even prior to that, Bioware was very engaging with their online forums and always had devs come in and reply to topics, even complaints. I remember Casey Hudson answering a question of mine in a thread created about KOTOR in late 2002.

Today you dont see much of that. After the DA2 and ME3 fallout, Bioware decided to address concerns by leaving these forums all together.

Part of being a product/service company is desling with complaints. Bioware does not even have a community manager anymore.

[badboy64]

I also enjoyed this game so much I have over 2000 hours of game play aleady but will take a break from it when FallOut 4 comes out the 10th. Much more that I did playing W3 which I finished in June and never touched it since because the game doesn't have any replay value what so ever just like the first 2 witchers. I tend to play games more and do alot less complaining that some of these players around here do.

[Aren]

DAI neither as bad as the haters say, or as good as the fanboys say. Its a decent, generally well made game marred by some weird design choices and a fairly undercooked plot. However, expecting it to be as good as Origins is just silly; we'll not see its like again.

Both DAO and DAI plots felt monstrously contrived to be honest,since it require to me a lot of mental gymnastic to understand the intro of Inquisition on how contrived it is ,this was already discussed

http://forum.bioware...usly-contrived/

Not that DAO ending is any less contrived,the death sentence that came out of nowhere and Duncan who never mentioned anything to AListair for 6 months just to create that "supence of the Dark ritual/Promise" or Riordan who do no create other Wardens despite having the resources to do it 

( if he can make Loghain into one of them,he can make others Warden too)

Why?

Isn't the tale of John the unknown GW who killed the archdemon 1 week after his joining not beautiful enough?

oh  please DAO isn't any less contrived than Inquisition..

[giveamanafish...]

I'm noticing that if you get past the horrible voice acting for the inquisitor the ending is truly a delightful plot twist...

Just wondering if you are aware that there are two options for either sex for the Inquisitors's voice. I think the default for the quanari and the dwarf are American or at least US accented vVOs; while the elf and humans are British.

 

 

Majestic Jazz, on 01 Nov 2015 - 2:21 PM, said:
No, I said that CDPR represents what Bioware used to be like during the time before Bioware got mainstream. Back in around 2003 and even prior to that, Bioware was very engaging with their online forums and always had devs come in and reply to topics, even complaints. I remember Casey Hudson answering a question of mine in a thread created about KOTOR in late 2002.

Today you dont see much of that. After the DA2 and ME3 fallout, Bioware decided to address concerns by leaving these forums all together.

Part of being a product/service company is desling with complaints. Bioware does not even have a community manager anymore.

 

CDPR is based in Poland, a country with a gdp per person about a third to half of Canada (where Bioware is hqed).  Poland has some of the lowest wages in the European Union. I tried explaining this to people but they don't seem to understand: for a company hqed in Poland, even if they paid their development people the same as North American companies, they would still benefit from the lower fixed costs (rent, utilities, contracted outside labour) typical of a lower income country. 

 

If you want to make a fair comparison you should try using countries with comparable income levels. The ones I can think of: Bethasda in the US (Fallout, Skyrim) and Square Enix in Japan (Tomb Raider reboot), don' really come off that well compared to Bioware. Skyrim, I seriously spent a whole fing day off work trying to get rid of the bard you can hire for the mansion near Riverview(?). The only way to get rid of her after all these years, is to kill her. You can fire her, but she just signs and walks away and keeps sticking around.

 

This woman:

[SentinelMacDeath]

No, I said that CDPR represents what Bioware used to be like during the time before Bioware got mainstream. Back in around 2003 and even prior to that, Bioware was very engaging with their online forums and always had devs come in and reply to topics, even complaints. I remember Casey Hudson answering a question of mine in a thread created about KOTOR in late 2002.

Today you dont see much of that. After the DA2 and ME3 fallout, Bioware decided to address concerns by leaving these forums all together.

Part of being a product/service company is desling with complaints. Bioware does not even have a community manager anymore.

 

So everything was better 12, almost 13 years ago? Boo-effing-hoo.

 

I haven't been long on this forum but you have to sift through a lot of BS repetitive whining to get to well written, polite, and thought out improvement suggestions. The rest is all "THIS GAME SUCKS F U BW NEED MORE DAO"

 

People on forums are the vast minority of the actual gamer base and it wouldn't be the first time that the loud minority ruined a game and/or drove a CM into quitting/getting fired. 

 

I remember when Tseric snapped on the WoW forums and that was 8 years ago and it hasn't gotten any better.

[Darkly Tranquil]

Both DAO and DAI plots felt monstrously contrived to be honest,since it require to me a lot of mental gymnastic to understand the intro of Inquisition on how contrived it is ,this was already discussed
http://forum.bioware...usly-contrived/
Not that DAO ending is any less contrived,the death sentence that came out of nowhere and Duncan who never mentioned anything to AListair for 6 months just to create that "supence of the Dark ritual/Promise" or Riordan who do no create other Wardens despite having the resources to do it 
( if he can make Loghain into one of them,he can make others Warden too)

Why?
Isn't the tale of John the unknown GW who killed the archdemon 1 week after his joining not beautiful enough?

oh  please DAO isn't any less contrived than Inquisition..

When did I say it was or wasn't contrived (I happen to agree; Bioware plots tend to require a lot of suspension of disbelief)? What I meant was that it was not adequately fleshed out, with major plot points (Mage/Templar War, Orlesian Civil War) getting resolved in perfunctory fashion and the various story elements poorly linked together. This was made worse by an open world design that spread out the main story beats between long periods of plot irrelevant busywork, making an already thin plot even harder to follow. DAO's plot had its problems for sure, buts its linear design kept you moving from one story beat to the next at a steady pace.

[sjsharp2011]

I enjoy playing DAI. I've already completed many playthroughs.

 

 

yeah I've done 4 and I'l be starting a 5th one in a few days once I've finished playing through Act 3 of DA2

[Addictress]

Just wondering if you are aware that there are two options for either sex for the Inquisitors's voice. I think the default for the quanari and the dwarf are American or at least US accented vVOs; while the elf and humans are British.


v=G8vW_f1tjGQ

I'm on my third play through now and the first two voices sucked but this this one is much better

[Majestic Jazz]

So everything was better 12, almost 13 years ago? Boo-effing-hoo.

I haven't been long on this forum but you have to sift through a lot of BS repetitive whining to get to well written, polite, and thought out improvement suggestions. The rest is all "THIS GAME SUCKS F U BW NEED MORE DAO"

People on forums are the vast minority of the actual gamer base and it wouldn't be the first time that the loud minority ruined a game and/or drove a CM into quitting/getting fired.

I remember when Tseric snapped on the WoW forums and that was 8 years ago and it hasn't gotten any better.

Welcome to the product/service industry. We the consumers drives demand. Without us, they would not have a job. We essentially sign their paychecks. If a company is too sensitive to take negative feedback then that isnt our fault. Instead to having a backbone and ignoring the insults and focusing on the constructive feedback, Bioware jumped ship.

[Heimdall]

Welcome to the product/service industry. We the consumers drives demand. Without us, they would not have a job. We essentially sign their paychecks. If a company is too sensitive to take negative feedback then that isnt our fault. Instead to having a backbone and ignoring the insults and focusing on the constructive feedback, Bioware jumped ship.

Have they? It's not like the forums are their only source for criticism (Though to be fair, some Devs still respond, David Gaider responded to one of my posts just two days ago). And just because they don't post doesn't mean they don't monitor the forums, they've just realized the futility of engaging with the type of fans who are determined to hate very basic design elements of a title. It's not like they can change it once the game is released and there's no benefit to getting dragged into an argument (It's not like anyone ever changes their mind on a position based on a forum argument). That doesn't mean they aren't paying attention to the general trends in response to the game, on their forums as well as elsewhere.

It's just that they seem to move their responses over to Twitter now, which makes sense. The forums monitor Twitter anyway and Twitter reaches a larger number of people. The idea that Bioware isn't paying attention to feedback is simply wrong.

[Al Foley]

Have they? It's not like the forums are their only source for criticism (Though to be fair, some Devi still respond, David Gaider responded to one of my posts just two days ago). And just because they don't post doesn't mean they don't monitor the forums, they've just realized the futility of engaging with the type of fans who are determined to hate very basic design elements of a title. It's not like they can change it once the game is released and there's no benefit to getting dragged into an argument (It's not like anyone ever changes their mind on a position based on a forum argument). That doesn't mean they aren't paying attention to the general trends in response to the game, on their forums as well as elsewhere.

It's just that they seem to move their responses over to Twitter now, which makes sense. The forums monitor Twitter anyway and Twitter reaches a larger number of people. The idea that Bioware isn't paying attention to feedback is simply wrong.

Quite silly actually given how much they added to the game that fans wanted in the patces.  

[Cobra's_back]

yeah I've done 4 and I'l be starting a 5th one in a few days once I've finished playing through Act 3 of DA2

I love this game as well. I have heard complaints about optional quest which I really didn't understand since they were optional. I thought the beauty of the optional quest was do them if you needed approval, agents or power points. I know I never do all, and change it up depending on my playthroughs. 

[correctamundo]

Have they? It's not like the forums are their only source for criticism (Though to be fair, some Devs still respond, David Gaider responded to one of my posts just two days ago). And just because they don't post doesn't mean they don't monitor the forums, they've just realized the futility of engaging with the type of fans who are determined to hate very basic design elements of a title. It's not like they can change it once the game is released and there's no benefit to getting dragged into an argument (It's not like anyone ever changes their mind on a position based on a forum argument). That doesn't mean they aren't paying attention to the general trends in response to the game, on their forums as well as elsewhere.

It's just that they seem to move their responses over to Twitter now, which makes sense. The forums monitor Twitter anyway and Twitter reaches a larger number of people. The idea that Bioware isn't paying attention to feedback is simply wrong.

 

Twitch is another venue where we can interact with some, totally informal and away from work, but still it is there.

[vbibbi]

Quite silly actually given how much they added to the game that fans wanted in the patces.  

True enough, and this gives me hope. But I will never understand how long it took for them to implement the pajama fix in the final patch. The emphasis for many of the patches seemed to be multiplayer fixes rather than what seems to me some basic things (I can understand golden nug being time consuming to implement). I would think it would be in Bio's best interests to address the most hated features soonest, to encourage players to continue playing the game. How many players had already forgotten their copies and moved on to new games by the time the last patch came out with these features.

 

I love this game as well. I have heard complaints about optional quest which I really didn't understand since they were optional. I thought the beauty of the optional quest was do them if you needed approval, agents or power points. I know I never do all, and change it up depending on my playthroughs. 

Well, to me, I don't buy the argument of "it's optional, so it doesn't have to be high quality," which seems to be the reasoning. I have always enjoyed playing Bioware games for all of their content, not just parts of it. I have always played all of their game content in previous games, why shouldn't I expect to play and enjoy the majority of side content in DAI? That also seems to force me to metagame and consciously only choose quests that I know I enjoy, which also takes me out of the roleplaying experience.

[sjsharp2011]

I love this game as well. I have heard complaints about optional quest which I really didn't understand since they were optional. I thought the beauty of the optional quest was do them if you needed approval, agents or power points. I know I never do all, and change it up depending on my playthroughs. 

yeah so do I. I change things up and mix things up on all my playthroughs. Not just on DAI but on all the Mass Effect and DA games. More often than not I tend to do completionist runs but I do sometimes skip things and respond in different ways deliberately to mix things up. It largely depends on the kind of character I'm roleplaying though each time.