295 réponses à ce sujet

[Gotholhorakh]

Yes yes, DA2 was great and NwN was crap. I see RPG fans have been almost completely eradicated from the ninth circle of the internet. Oh well, there should be games for everyone to enjoy, that's a good thing.

 

 

I know everyone is entitled to their opinion, but do you ever feel frustrated that you're looking at a black and blue dress and people are saying it's white and gold?

Wtf

 

Presumably that dress comment is a reference to some matter of high culture that I haven't come across, but seriously the user you were responding to is correct.

[Catastrophy]

Yes yes, DA2 was great and NwN was crap. I see RPG fans have been almost completely eradicated from the ninth circle of the internet. Oh well, there should be games for everyone to enjoy, that's a good thing.

 

 

 

[...]

Meh, both were crap in my book. Never finished any of them. Also - it's fantasy with stupid elves. I'd rather have stupide Quarian in space.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Regardless of all else being equal or not, having a small handful of abilities be overpowered as hell is just poor game design.

Even if gameplay isn't the main draw of your game, balance is still important.

I don’t think balance is particularly important, especially if those abilities comport with lore (which should be our primary concern when designing abilities).

[Sylvius the Mad]

Meh, both were crap in my book. Never finished any of them. Also - it's fantasy with stupid elves. I'd rather have stupide Quarian in space.

RPGs are about playing them, not finishing them. It took years before I "finished" NWN. Didn't stop me from thinking it was great.

[Catastrophy]

RPGs are about playing them, not finishing them. It took years before I "finished" NWN. Didn't stop me from thinking it was great.

The good ones are finished once by me (at least). When I enjoy them I start again. And then it's often just the beginning part when the character develops until I start anew. "Crap" usually comes with mechanics I don't like. DA2 and NWN suffered heavily from not being able to get the story going. And Godess - did I dislike the camera in NWN! Might have been NWN II - I don't really remember.

[Cyonan]

I don’t think balance is particularly important, especially if those abilities comport with lore (which should be our primary concern when designing abilities).

 

Balance is important to keep the gameplay interesting, which is something that every game should be doing even if it's a RPG.

 

If you're the one writing the lore, then you can make sure that no usable ability is too powerful without some kind of a drawback.

[pdusen]

Balance is important to keep the gameplay interesting, which is something that every game should be doing even if it's a RPG.

If you're the one writing the lore, then you can make sure that no usable ability is too powerful without some kind of a drawback.

The difficulty with balance is that not all players are created equal. An ability may merely be useful when an average player uses it, but in the hands of an incredibly skilled player who uses it optimally it becomes insanely overpowered. So where along the spectrum do you attempt to balance?

[Sylvius the Mad]

The good ones are finished once by me (at least). When I enjoy them I start again. And then it's often just the beginning part when the character develops until I start anew. "Crap" usually comes with mechanics I don't like. DA2 and NWN suffered heavily from not being able to get the story going. And Godess - did I dislike the camera in NWN! Might have been NWN II - I don't really remember.

NWN2's camera was awful. And Obsidian changed how it worked with each expansion. What it really needed was NWN's camera.

A good RPG for me, is one I have trouble finishing because I keep restarting it to try different characters. I started DAO 8 times before I finished it the first time (I just finished it for the second time yesterday).

[Sylvius the Mad]

The difficulty with balance is that not all players are created equal. An ability may merely be useful when an average player uses it, but in the hands of an incredibly skilled player who uses it optimally it becomes insanely overpowered. So where along the spectrum do you attempt to balance?

You should design the game to minimize the effect of player skill. No action mechanics.

DAI has this problem. In action mode, a Rogue who uses Parry optimally can avoid all melee damage. But the AI won't use Parry optimally.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Balance is important to keep the gameplay interesting, which is something that every game should be doing even if it's a RPG.

If you're the one writing the lore, then you can make sure that no usable ability is too powerful without some kind of a drawback.

I agree about the drawback, but the drawback could be how difficult it is to learn, or how unlikely it is that a character who could learn it would survive that long.

[Catastrophy]

NWN2's camera was awful. And Obsidian changed how it worked with each expansion. What it really needed was NWN's camera.

A good RPG for me, is one I have trouble finishing because I keep restarting it to try different characters. I started DAO 8 times before I finished it the first time (I just finished it for the second time yesterday).

Well, DAO was worth playing just for the sole reason of seeing the different prologue storylines. It kept me playing because of Morrigan and the Mabari. But, yea, In Skyrim I know every fricken stone around the starting area.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Well, DAO was worth playing just for the sole reason of seeing the different prologue storylines. It kept me playing because of Morrigan and the Mabari. But, yea, In Skyrim I know every fricken stone around the starting area.

Running through Helgen and the tunnel beneath takes all of 3 minutes if you already know what's there. I generally spend longer in character creation.

And if even that is too much for you, you could use a save game after leaving the cave and then trigger the character creation interface with the dev console.

[LinksOcarina]

Running through Helgen and the tunnel beneath takes all of 3 minutes if you already know what's there. I generally spend longer in character creation.

And if even that is too much for you, you could use a save game after leaving the cave and then trigger the character creation interface with the dev console.

 

After a while I just made a slew of characters with save games already after the Helgen sequence.

 

Makes it easier.

[Cyonan]

The difficulty with balance is that not all players are created equal. An ability may merely be useful when an average player uses it, but in the hands of an incredibly skilled player who uses it optimally it becomes insanely overpowered. So where along the spectrum do you attempt to balance?

 

This is the reason why difficulty levels exist in a game.

 

Plus difficulty in using a skill can be a drawback, and you don't exactly have to balance your game around the top 1% of skilled players in a single player RPG.

 

However in Dragon Age Inquisition for example, I wanted to play a melee mage so I went Knight Enchanter. Unfortunately it was so overpowered I could only die if I chose to, because Spirit Blade could be spammed to have a near infinite barrier. Using the specialization I was most excited for ultimately made the game less fun for me because it wasn't balanced and the most effective way of using it was spamming 1 button.

 

The same thing happened with my assassin in Skyrim. Bethesda didn't catch multiplicatively stacking modifiers so I can sneak attack with insane damage bonuses to effectively 1 shot almost anything in the game, even on higher difficulties.

 

I agree about the drawback, but the drawback could be how difficult it is to learn, or how unlikely it is that a character who could learn it would survive that long.

 

Difficulty of use, or a high damage ability only being accessible by a squishy characters can be drawbacks of it.

 

If you're gonna make your mages very squishy then they should be doing high damage anyway, as you need a reason to take them over the more durable front line fighters.

[AlanC9]

Presumably that dress comment is a reference to some matter of high culture that I haven't come across, but seriously the user you were responding to is correct.

Low culture, actually. It was a photograph that went viral; easy enough to look up if you're interested. I was on the wrong side of that one myself.

[AlanC9]

If you're gonna make your mages very squishy then they should be doing high damage anyway, as you need a reason to take them over the more durable front line fighters.

Not necessarily; mages could be vital for, say, crowd control. But yeah, a squishy class has to have some advantage to keep it viable.

[pdusen]

This is the reason why difficulty levels exist in a game.

Difficulty levels, if done correctly, affect the strength of your enemies and your challenges, and don't affect the usability of your own abilities, so that has no bearing on my point about balance.

[pdusen]

You should design the game to minimize the effect of player skill. No action mechanics.

This can be a problem even without action mechanics. Knowing the optimal character placement and ability choices would still count as player skill. Knowing how to spec your character correctly is also player skill.

[Sylvius the Mad]

This can be a problem even without action mechanics. Knowing the optimal character placement and ability choices would still count as player skill. Knowing how to spec your character correctly is also player skill.

That's just reading the manual. The game should expect people to do that.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Not necessarily; mages could be vital for, say, crowd control. But yeah, a squishy class has to have some advantage to keep it viable.

Though I would prefer no class be vital, and no combat tactic be mandatory.

There should be alternatives to crowd control, or tanking, or whatever else. I'd rather not be forced into playing a certain way. In fact, finding new ways to play is part of the fun. Sure, I could tank this boss, but what happens if I don’t? Finding creative ways to overcome challenges is one of the best parts of a good RPG.

[Cyonan]

Difficulty levels, if done correctly, affect the strength of your enemies and your challenges, and don't affect the usability of your own abilities, so that has no bearing on my point about balance.

 

I also said literally in the next line that difficulty of use of an ability is a valid drawback for an ability that is otherwise strong and is in fact part of the balance =P

 

Sure the top 1% of players will be OP with it but this is a single player RPG we're talking about. It doesn't need tight balance like a high end competitive PvP title does.