59 réponses à ce sujet

[The Night Haunter]

I've been thinking about making a thread on this subject, myself. 

 

I think one of the questions we need to answer is what does a "larger role" really mean? Is it having them perform key functions in the plot that no one else can do? Can you do that for seven people in a way that makes it still feel organic? And after one's function in the plot is served, how do you keep them relevant after that instead of just having them hang out?

 

Or is it as simple as just having them hang out, but with more conversations tied to the main plot instead of just shooting the breeze and talking about their history and culture? Just having them be present for more plot relevant cut scenes and interacting in those scenes more, even if they aren't really doing anything other than contributing to conversation?

My personal preference on this is to go the KotOR route.

 

You have 2-3 key members of your party who are absolutely critical to the plot (Bastilla & Carth). Everyone else can be less tied in, but I think a story benefits greatly by adding that personal interaction. Without Bastilla KotOR would be a much weaker story, her journey is a key part of the main plot, and its one of the reasons KotOR is my favorite BW game.

 

Jade Empire did a fair job of this as well with Sagacious Zu and Silk Fox. 

 

Sadly since then companions have grown adrift from the main plot, because people felt the game would be better with more 'choice', and then we end up with ME where throughout the entire game only Liara has a noticable impact on the main story, everyone else can be thrown away with minor differences (Alright Tali has some purpose as a Liason in the Qunari arc). Then comes DAI where the only companion to have any interaction with the main plot is Cassandra (in the base game), and that interaction ends 1/5 of the way through the game. Trespasser had more companion involvement (in the form of Solas), and look at how much better received it was.

 

Being forced a few companions for the sake of the story is a small price (imo of course) for a connected and personal story.

[Killroy]

I disagree.
 
It depends on the circumstances, also depends on whether or not all of your people are alienated. Note how I set it up as two side-quest factions; they are not part of the bulk of the force, but they would represent the bigger problems.

How could you possibly know that this Andromedan rabblerouser is such a good guy that you should throw your own people under the bus to support him? Same goes for supporting his cause. It would be pure metagaming.

[LinksOcarina]

How could you possibly know that this Andromedan rabblerouser is such a good guy that you should throw your own people under the bus to support him? Same goes for supporting his cause. It would be pure metagaming.

 

Actions on screen.

 

Maybe you see the military shooting first. Or threatening to raze a village. Maybe they approach first and make their intentions clear?

 

There are a lot of ways to play it out, is more or less my point. And it can highlight how you can interchange two possible characters with differing stories. You, as the player, don't need all the information to make a decision in the end either, you are simply presented both sides of the argument. Kind of like Iroveth and Roache in Witcher 2, really. 

[Matthias King]

This is one of the main problems with crafting a narrative where the audience has agency, and it's made even worse with the way Bioware does games, Mass Effect in particular.

 

You can take any of your recruited squad-mates on any mission, and some of them you don't even have to recruit at all. With all that agency, crafting a narrative around it is extremely challenging.

 

The agency is fun for players, but narrative suffers because they can't write anything concrete.

 

This is a problem that videos games as a storytelling medium suffer, but doubly so at least for RPGs, especially those with so much choice. Even if the choice is only superficial at the deepest, it's still a variable that negates a lot of 'author' choice regarding the narrative.

 

I know it's essentially sacrilege, but I'd be interested to see a Mass Effect game with no player choices. Craft a cast of characters and a concrete narrative, then throw us into it and let us play through it. The agency would be far diminished, but the narrative might be much improved.

 

Maybe.

[Former_Fiend]

My personal preference on this is to go the KotOR route.

 

You have 2-3 key members of your party who are absolutely critical to the plot (Bastilla & Carth). Everyone else can be less tied in, but I think a story benefits greatly by adding that personal interaction. Without Bastilla KotOR would be a much weaker story, her journey is a key part of the main plot, and its one of the reasons KotOR is my favorite BW game.

 

Jade Empire did a fair job of this as well with Sagacious Zu and Silk Fox. 

 

Sadly since then companions have grown adrift from the main plot, because people felt the game would be better with more 'choice', and then we end up with ME where throughout the entire game only Liara has a noticable impact on the main story, everyone else can be thrown away with minor differences (Alright Tali has some purpose as a Liason in the Qunari arc). Then comes DAI where the only companion to have any interaction with the main plot is Cassandra (in the base game), and that interaction ends 1/5 of the way through the game. Trespasser had more companion involvement (in the form of Solas), and look at how much better received it was.

 

Being forced a few companions for the sake of the story is a small price (imo of course) for a connected and personal story.

 

To be fair, DAO had Alistair and Morrigan as being heavily tied to the main plot and Oghren and Wynne being tied to major arcs. DA2 also had different companions being plot critical for it's different arcs. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

This is one of the main problems with crafting a narrative where the audience has agency, and it's made even worse with the way Bioware does games, Mass Effect in particular.

You can take any of your recruited squad-mates on any mission, and some of them you don't even have to recruit at all. With all that agency, crafting a narrative around it is extremely challenging.

The agency is fun for players, but narrative suffers because they can't write anything concrete.

This is a problem that videos games as a storytelling medium suffer, but doubly so at least for RPGs, especially those with so much choice. Even if the choice is only superficial at the deepest, it's still a variable that negates a lot of 'author' choice regarding the narrative.

I know it's essentially sacrilege, but I'd be interested to see a Mass Effect game with no player choices. Craft a cast of characters and a concrete narrative, then throw us into it and let us play through it. The agency would be far diminished, but the narrative might be much improved.

Maybe.

And I wouldn't even consider playing it.

[RoboticWater]

This is one of the main problems with crafting a narrative where the audience has agency, and it's made even worse with the way Bioware does games, Mass Effect in particular.

 

You can take any of your recruited squad-mates on any mission, and some of them you don't even have to recruit at all. With all that agency, crafting a narrative around it is extremely challenging.

 

The agency is fun for players, but narrative suffers because they can't write anything concrete.

 

This is a problem that videos games as a storytelling medium suffer, but doubly so at least for RPGs, especially those with so much choice. Even if the choice is only superficial at the deepest, it's still a variable that negates a lot of 'author' choice regarding the narrative.

 

I know it's essentially sacrilege, but I'd be interested to see a Mass Effect game with no player choices. Craft a cast of characters and a concrete narrative, then throw us into it and let us play through it. The agency would be far diminished, but the narrative might be much improved.

 

Maybe.

That's always the struggle: choice versus craft.

 

I don't think BIoWare should give up on choices entirely. Clearly, it's something the writers and directors are interested in doing, and I don't think they let go of that dream because it hasn't turned out quite perfectly yet. However, I think they should come to terms with reality, and accept that they (as well as the rest of the industry) aren't yet equipped to craft a compelling narrative with a great level of player agency.

 

I've always been an advocate for a more defined protagonist with less variance in personality choices, but there are other areas that could be restricted without great losses in player expression. I don't particularly mind where BioWare cuts on choice so long as it's consistent, doesn't undermine the heart of the game, and their advertising follows suit.

 

I might recommend cutting the number of team mates we have down to the player and two others, but BioWare continue to succeed almost exclusively on the quality and variety of their followers. Of course, the thought of a very limited set of permanent members augmented by a somewhat larger set of temporary characters (somewhat like ME3, but more restricted) could work.

[Sylvius the Mad]

That's always the struggle: choice versus craft.

I don't think BIoWare should give up on choices entirely. Clearly, it's something the writers and directors are interested in doing, and I don't think they let go of that dream because it hasn't turned out quite perfectly yet. However, I think they should come to terms with reality, and accept that they (as well as the rest of the industry) aren't yet equipped to craft a compelling narrative with a great level of player agency.

I don't think such a thibg is even possible. No matter what the developers do, if the players are doing anything other than watching passively, it's going to mess with the pacing of the story. If the player struggles with combat, his experience won't match the narrative that says his character is a skilled combatant. If the player breezes through combat, his experience won't match the narrative that says the mission is dangerous.

The only solution is to have the gameplay be the narrative. If you struggle with combat, then your character's difficulties become part of the story. If you breeze through combat, then the weakness of your enemies becomes part of the story.

There's no way to tell as good a story as other media can manage as long as you let the player do things. So game developers should stop trying to tell stories, and instead create worlds in which we can play.

Remember the slogan of legendary RPG developer Origin -- "We create worlds." That's what BioWare should be doing.

[Madrict]

I would like squad mates to have a larger role yes. In particular the romance arc

[Matthias King]

That's always the struggle: choice versus craft.

 

I don't think BIoWare should give up on choices entirely. Clearly, it's something the writers and directors are interested in doing, and I don't think they let go of that dream because it hasn't turned out quite perfectly yet. However, I think they should come to terms with reality, and accept that they (as well as the rest of the industry) aren't yet equipped to craft a compelling narrative with a great level of player agency.

 

I've always been an advocate for a more defined protagonist with less variance in personality choices, but there are other areas that could be restricted without great losses in player expression. I don't particularly mind where BioWare cuts on choice so long as it's consistent, doesn't undermine the heart of the game, and their advertising follows suit.

 

I might recommend cutting the number of team mates we have down to the player and two others, but BioWare continue to succeed almost exclusively on the quality and variety of their followers. Of course, the thought of a very limited set of permanent members augmented by a somewhat larger set of temporary characters (somewhat like ME3, but more restricted) could work.

 

I wasn't suggesting that they should give up on choices. I was only saying that the choices are at odds with a lot of what goes into a traditional narrative, so crafting a great narrative is at the mercy of those choices, oftentimes for the worse.

 

I agree that they tend to create good squad mates, which makes the idea of paring the number down to two rather unpalatable. The thing I think would help, and I'm sure some people will strongly disagree with this, but for the sake of a strong narrative, they should go the route they did in ME3 more often, where certain characters are not optional and are what they are. The scene with Liara and the time capsule. That was done really well, and I think part of the reason for that is because it was written with one and only one character in mind.

 

They could continue to have a variety of squad mates, but give them more defined roles in the narrative, including certain missions that may be important to them, where they are an obligatory part of the mission, such as with Liara and Thessia, again in ME3. That mission simply wouldn't have worked if Liara hadn't been required. Granted, it went down the toilet once Kai Lame showed up, but everything leading up to that was pretty strong, and it's because Liara and Thessia were linked narratively, and taking her made perfect sense.

 

I know people resent when those kinds of choices are made for them, but really it's a choice, once again, between narrative and player agency.

 

I wouldn't suggest that Bioware abandon all choice, I was only making a point when I said that, though I really would like to see what that game would be like. With that said, I wouldn't mind giving up some agency in exchange for a stronger narrative.

 

For instance, if there were an entire sub-plot arc where a certain squadmate were required, I wouldn't mind that at all, as long as it was to serve the narrative. There could even be several of those kinds of sub-plots where certain characters are required. I wouldn't mind.

 

It's a balancing act. People complain about lack of choice, but in the same breath, they complain about the quality of the story.

 

Something's gotta give.