46 réponses à ce sujet

[Lazengan]

So you all remember how Dragon Age Origins combat animations were. Slow, sluggish, but looked physically realistic and feasible to perform.

 

Then in the later games we have rogues who literally disappear into a vacuum and blink 20 meters out of nowhere behind their targets or out of danger.

 

Smashing a chemical concoction, and freezing time.

 

Throwing one dagger summons 4 apparitions to strike the target from all angles. 

 

Slamming your shield into the ground summons 4 spirits armed with shields on your flanks 

 

Some warriors are strong enough to smash the ground and leave a crater of mantle magma escaping the cracks. 

 

Is this meant to be taken at face value and related to lore? These are specifically NOT mages, though I suppose templars and reavers have some sort of limited magic abilities. 

 

How do people do this in-universe without magic and by that I mean pure non-magic using warriors and rogues?

 

Or do I just disregard this because game mechanics. These animations are of course common in the universe mechanics of a JRPG, but this is a WRPG with a clearly defined system of magic involved. 

[LightningPoodle]

I think they (BioWare) decided to do away with the slow but realistic animations in favour of the new crap to look more appealing to the action oriented fan.

[thats1evildude]

I wouldn't say the combat animations in DAO were plausible so much as they were boring as s**t, especially if you were a warrior or an archer rogue. Mages also had that stupid "pew pew" attack with their staff where it looked like they were ejaculating balls of white sperm at the enemy. And I absolutely despised how sustained abilities would cause you to be enveloped in pink glowing mist or little red arrows or constantly have little pebbles dropping off of you. Thank the Maker that ended with Dragon Age 2.

[Duelist]

The teleporting rogue was introduced in Awakening not later installments.

Other than that, it was possible to summon a bear while inside a castle in Denerim, sing a song that somehow stunned enemies (not to mention looked ridiculous), fire an arrow that hits multiple enemies and let out a war cry that knocked enemies off their feet.

If being flashier and less plausible looking is the price to pay for skills that are far more effective, then it's one I'll happily pay.
If we could get both though, even better.

[Dai Grepher]

That isn't magma. It's your rage made manifest.

 

But I agree that certain abilities should be based on magic within the weapon or the runes in the weapon. But then you would need to change the animation to fit the element type, and certain weapons logically shouldn't have that ability.

 

Best to just ignore it.

[Lazengan]

The teleporting rogue was introduced in Awakening not later installments.

Other than that, it was possible to summon a bear while inside a castle in Denerim, sing a song that somehow stunned enemies (not to mention looked ridiculous), fire an arrow that hits multiple enemies and let out a war cry that knocked enemies off their feet.

If being flashier and less plausible looking is the price to pay for skills that are far more effective, then it's one I'll happily pay.
If we could get both though, even better.

 

There are small things taken with a grain of salt in certain abilities for sure in DAO, and honestly the physics don't exactly have to make exact sense

 

But literally TELEPORTING as a non magic user? Why did my character even try to climb ladders or run out of a danger zone in cutscenes when he had the ability to teleport. 

[thats1evildude]

They're not teleporting; that's the Ninja Smoke Bomb/Flash Step trick used in every martial arts movie/film ever.

[Shechinah]

And I absolutely despised how sustained abilities would cause you to be enveloped in pink glowing mist or little red arrows or constantly have little pebbles dropping off of you. Thank the Maker that ended with Dragon Age 2.

 

Don't forget how the sustained abilities sometimes added a sound effect that would repeat itself from time to time. It did not benefit immersion, in my opinion, and I think I remember it having the opposite effect.
 

[Cute Nug]

I guess it's like anime with it's flashy nonsense animations for emotions. They don't make sense but they are a part of anime so whatever as long as the story or art is good.

 

Story games can get away with flashy gamey abilities that don't make sense if they tell their story well enough our brains can ignore or just laugh at the gamey abilities that don't make sense.

 

A game has to be really good at being flashy gamey, telling a story, or both. Otherwise my brain is more likely to be annoyed at things. Same with movies I guess.

[Lazengan]

I guess it's like anime with it's flashy nonsense animations for emotions. They don't make sense but they are a part of anime so whatever as long as the story or art is good.

 

Story games can get away with flashy gamey abilities that don't make sense if they tell their story well enough our brains can ignore or just laugh at the gamey abilities that don't make sense.

 

A game has to be really good at being flashy gamey, telling a story, or both. Otherwise my brain is more likely to be annoyed at things. Same with movies I guess.

 

yes and it would make sense in a JRPG where no one cares

 

but WRPGs base their setting on "realism"

 

yet these actions defy all their set physical rules regarding magic and people who are clearly non-magic users.

 

so its either, the combat is "just a game" and not an actual representation of the plot, or some random reason.

[Addictress]

I wouldn't say the combat animations in DAO were plausible so much as they were boring as s**t, especially if you were a warrior or an archer rogue. Mages also had that stupid "pew pew" attack with their staff where it looked like they were ejaculating balls of white sperm at the enemy. And I absolutely despised how sustained abilities would cause you to be enveloped in pink glowing mist or little red arrows or constantly have little pebbles dropping off of you. Thank the Maker that ended with Dragon Age 2.

   

[robertmarilyn]

In DA2, I'd get obsessively fixated on watching Anders do his mage thing. It was like he was a dancer!   

[nightscrawl]

So you all remember how Dragon Age Origins combat animations were. Slow, sluggish, but looked physically realistic and feasible to perform.
 
Then in the later games we have rogues who literally disappear into a vacuum and blink 20 meters out of nowhere behind their targets or out of danger.
 
Smashing a chemical concoction, and freezing time.
 
Throwing one dagger summons 4 apparitions to strike the target from all angles. 
 
Slamming your shield into the ground summons 4 spirits armed with shields on your flanks 
 
Some warriors are strong enough to smash the ground and leave a crater of mantle magma escaping the cracks. 
 
Is this meant to be taken at face value and related to lore? These are specifically NOT mages, though I suppose templars and reavers have some sort of limited magic abilities. 
 
How do people do this in-universe without magic and by that I mean pure non-magic using warriors and rogues?
 
Or do I just disregard this because game mechanics. These animations are of course common in the universe mechanics of a JRPG, but this is a WRPG with a clearly defined system of magic involved.

 
I really don't think we are meant to take the combat visuals as anything other than gamey special effects. There are always going to be gamey elements that don't or can't take into account some of the more complicated lore aspects of the universe. We've seen very limited use of the blood magic mind control, they have NEVER had in-game lyrium use (that is, requiring the player to take lyrium potions) as part of the templar spec, even though the idea of it was incorporated into the DAI templar spec, and other things.
 
Some aspects of the game and story don't mesh well, and I honestly don't think we should expect everything to be perfectly in sync; this is a game.
 
 

I wouldn't say the combat animations in DAO were plausible so much as they were boring as s**t, especially if you were a warrior or an archer rogue. Mages also had that stupid "pew pew" attack with their staff where it looked like they were ejaculating balls of white sperm at the enemy. And I absolutely despised how sustained abilities would cause you to be enveloped in pink glowing mist or little red arrows or constantly have little pebbles dropping off of you. Thank the Maker that ended with Dragon Age 2.

 
I love everything about this post. XD

[fhs33721]

but WRPGs base their setting on "realism"

What? Hahahahahahahaha

They do? Since when?

[CardButton]

I wouldn't say the combat animations in DAO were plausible so much as they were boring as s**t, especially if you were a warrior or an archer rogue. Mages also had that stupid "pew pew" attack with their staff where it looked like they were ejaculating balls of white sperm at the enemy. And I absolutely despised how sustained abilities would cause you to be enveloped in pink glowing mist or little red arrows or constantly have little pebbles dropping off of you. Thank the Maker that ended with Dragon Age 2.

OMG THIS!  My main was an Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage that specced for Buffs.  By end game I had 8 to 9 self buffs applied at any given time and boy was that an awful mess to look at (despite the build working remarkably).  

 

Yeah the combat may look absurd atm, but it still beats its appearance in DA:O.  Yeah its "unrealistic", but thats certainly better than boring to look at.

[Lazengan]

What? Hahahahahahahaha

They do? Since when?

 

sorry I meant to say consistency to their own rules

 

realism as in realistic to the laws in-universe

[PapaCharlie9]

 

Or do I just disregard this because game mechanics. These animations are of course common in the universe mechanics of a JRPG, but this is a WRPG with a clearly defined system of magic involved. 

 

Disregard for a number of reasons, mechanics being one. Add: because they had to out-Skyrim Skyrim. Add: because Witcher 3/CD Projekt owns the lore-based game mechanics trophy, who can compete with that? Add: because the game design team doesn't talk to the writing team enough.

 

Add: because ...

 

 of the new crap to look more appealing to the action oriented fan.

[Midnight Bliss]

I thought DA2 struck a pretty good balance between realism and rule of cool.

[Cyrus Amell]

Things started to get weird in Dragon Age: Awakening what with the ability for warriors to cause fissures and rogues of the  Shadow specialization to make a decoy enemies will attack. Then we got to DA2's frenetic combat and it all went down the flashy hill from there. 

 

It's possible that the player character and company are perhaps using magic runes of some sort in their attacks that we don't know about, but I would never give the developers that much credit. I rarely use the more outlandish abilities among my non-magic fighters, so the odd acrobatic antics by rogues is somewhat ameliorated.

 

Perhaps when the next Dragon Age game appears, the developers will have settled down and nudged out some of the more outlandish elements. Then again, the combat system in this game has more problems than being "believable." 

[AlanC9]

Honestly, I stopped taking the mechanics seriously as a representation of reality after learning how Threat worked. So, the bad guys decide to attack the least-damaging and best-armored enemy because... he taunted them?

Dragon Age combat was always nonsense. DA:I's just a little more in-your-face with it.

[KaiserShep]

I wouldn't say the combat animations in DAO were plausible so much as they were boring as s**t, especially if you were a warrior or an archer rogue. Mages also had that stupid "pew pew" attack with their staff where it looked like they were ejaculating balls of white sperm at the enemy. And I absolutely despised how sustained abilities would cause you to be enveloped in pink glowing mist or little red arrows or constantly have little pebbles dropping off of you. Thank the Maker that ended with Dragon Age 2.

 

 

Yeah, I thoroughly hated how sustained abilities stayed active in actual cut scenes. Awakening easily wins the trophy for most annoying sustained ability ever in its introduction of Air of Insolence. It took me a while to figure out that this was responsible for Mhairi and Justice's rhythmic super flatulence of doom.

[nightscrawl]

Honestly, I stopped taking the mechanics seriously as a representation of reality after learning how Threat worked. So, the bad guys decide to attack the least-damaging and best-armored enemy because... he taunted them?

Dragon Age combat was always nonsense. DA:I's just a little more in-your-face with it.

 

To be fair, threat works in a similar way in most games with the triad model of classes: tank, support (usually heals), and damage.

 

In World of Warcraft, for some years their tank design became a competing arms race between damage classes and tanks, with tanks gaining the ability to pump out more damage in proportion to the damage they were taking. This was necessary, particularly in high-end raiding, because the damage classes were putting out such insane damage that the tanks wouldn't be able to actually tank and hold targets if the damage classes pulled threat. This lead to the devs having absurd encounter mechanics that got worse and worse over time, involving huge damage spikes that were difficult to heal through [I played a healer], and tanks putting out insane damage numbers as a result. This in turn led guilds to adapt their strategies so that their main tank could still put out the insane numbers, while the off tank took some of the heavier damage, and so on. After the previous expansion, they basically rejiggered their whole tanking model to do away with this and tanking became more about actual threat mechanics, like taunts, than relying on superior damage.

[cindercatz]

I try not to use taunts (other than an Isabela type because swashbuckling) or build characters into tanks or pretty much anything that doesn't make sense just as pure abstraction, so rogues flipping ten feet high is fine, but I won't use the ground smash ability unless I had something like a golem to equip it, things like that. But the dashes and launches and things, fine. It's absurd, but no more than a wushu flick. I wish they were more consistent and the actual swordplay looked like swordplay instead of these repeating thin air swing cycles, but most of it doesn't really matter as a lore thing. You know, the holograms are just an abstacted distraction, the dashes are just a quick movement, the stuns are just taking somebody off guard, etc. Whatever. I just wish it looked meatier, less light effects flashy, and more complex. More interesting, less shallow.

But yeah, I mostly ignore it. That's not a representation of how the actual battles are playing out to me, just the game mechanics. Unless they improve, then I'd be thrilled.

As far as mages go, I think they looked the best in 2 so far, including sustained abilities. But basic combat was best in DA:O-A. It wasn't Arkham great or even Mark of Kri or something, wasn't even KoTOR, but it had a great feel for me and had the ground laid to become much better with iteration. Mainly just a question of improving the animation, then the absurd stuff wouldn't be an issue. Slow or clunky wouldn't be a thing. The problem now for me is that they went entirely off in another direction aimed at interruptability with those endless repeating chains and an mp centered hard class system. :-/

Edit: If I were to make a DA movie, just saying, the action would look probably like a cross between Spartacus without the comicbook blood and Ong Bak 3. That's my ideal visual to aim for in the games, with the contextual flow of the Arkham games, and take some of the party combat ideas from Dragon's Dogma. So I wouldn't go totally real, but I would do something entirely different from what we've got, which is a lot closer to DA:O than 2 or Inq.

[Cute Nug]

yes and it would make sense in a JRPG where no one cares

 

but WRPGs base their setting on "realism"

 

yet these actions defy all their set physical rules regarding magic and people who are clearly non-magic users.

 

so its either, the combat is "just a game" and not an actual representation of the plot, or some random reason.

 

Developers must still also think "no one cares" about reasonable "realism" if gamey mechanics that contradict the represented plot are the norm in even story driven RPGs (JRPG, WRPG, etc.). 

 

RPGs have based their setting on "realism" extremely loosely. With increasingly realistic graphics my brain starts to also expect reasonable story realism too. 

 

Perhaps actions that defy all their set physical rules regarding magic is probably getting more noticeable especially with influence/competition from higher selling flashy RPGs, RTS, and MMOs. Probably developers always wanting to create something "bigger and better" and managers wanting to stretch their market with units sold.

 

IMO games have always been games first and just play with plot, stories, and character development some with better success than others. 

 

As games use more acting talent and employ actual writers they should definitely consider putting reasonable priority on the story they are trying to tell and consider when they are detracting from it with gamey mechanics. Hopefully they can improve their craft with a balance that works for the fans.

 

As you stated, we first need to voice our desire for story rich game "realism" (oxymoron?).

 

Online there is a classification of story driven games but not a classification for something like story first games. 

 

If story realism is important to enough fans we will need to start and continue to voice that opinion.

 

DAI is a story driven game. It is not a story first game. The combat is "just a game" and not an actual representation of the plot just like time and distance in DAI don't work realistically with the plot. In their defense, they did put a lot of actual random cheese throughout DAI Thedas. They just should have made it more apparent in the game trailer and game description.

 

Maybe DA4 will focus more on plot realism or maybe they will continue the DAI trend. IMO it's useful for fans to voice their preferences and see what devs create. 

 

Personally gamey mechanics are tolerable for me but do get more and more annoying in story driven games when they contradict the plot.

[AlanC9]

To be fair, threat works in a similar way in most games with the triad model of classes: tank, support (usually heals), and damage.
 

Agreed. And it can work if you get the balance right. But it works as a game, rather than as any sort of model of how the game-world could actually work. In any sort of realistic universe, the enemies would do what a human player does -- put down the glass cannons as hard and fast as possible.

My point was that the difference between Earthshaking Strike and Taunt is only cosmetic. Both are preposterous, but only one has preposterous VFX to match.