891 réponses à ce sujet

[Cyonan]

I want the Tali from Leviathan DLC cutscenes where she fires her Wraith like it's an unlimited ammo AT-12 Raider.

 

Which is actually another thing for cutscene vs gameplay mechanics: What happens if the cutscene calls for 3 enemies to be killed by Ryder but you're wielding a gun with only 2 shots in it?

 

ME3's main approach to this was to swap out to a "default" gun for cutscenes most of the times, but with the DLC you could get the scenario above. Both are technically mechanics breaking, but the 3 enemies still need to die.

[straykat]

I want the Tali from Leviathan DLC cutscenes where she fires her Wraith like it's an unlimited ammo AT-12 Raider.

 

Which is actually another thing for cutscene vs gameplay mechanics: What happens if the cutscene calls for 3 enemies to be killed by Ryder but you're wielding a gun with only 2 shots in it?

 

ME3's main approach to this was to swap out to a "default" gun for cutscenes most of the times, but with the DLC you could get the scenario above. Both are technically mechanics breaking, but the 3 enemies still need to die.

 

That's still not as radical as the difference with biotics. Their presentation and animations are superhero like.

[Cyonan]

That's still not as radical as the difference with biotics. Their presentation and animations are superhero like.

 

True but that would be easier to deal with by simply not making characters like Jack so OP during cutscenes. You can show she's a powerful biotic without having her tear apart half a prison ship.

 

Guns on the other hand are going to have this problem as long as we have cutscenes, because it happens due to the sheer variety of weapons in the game. Biotics being different happens because BioWare specifically chooses to make them that way.

[straykat]

True but that would be easier to deal with by simply not making characters like Jack so OP during cutscenes. You can show she's a powerful biotic without having her tear apart half a prison ship.

 

Guns on the other hand are going to have this problem as long as we have cutscenes, because it happens due to the sheer variety of weapons in the game. Biotics being different happens because BioWare specifically chooses to make them that way.

 

That could be alirght, but then it's just not very exciting or cinematic. Her, Samara, etc.. they're fun to watch. Even that Krogan in the novels, who hurled a car or something. The guy was genuinely scary. You'd be taking some of the drama out of things by actually making biotics as boring as the gameplay.

 

The only thing that captures the gist of it is the Vanguard class (and Vasir, as far as NPCs go). Why do you think people like it so much?

 

It doesn't help that environmental dmg went from little to virtually nothing after ME1. Not even a crate was a factor anymore.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I maintain that players breaking the game is bad storytelling.

No. They're just telling a different story.

The story the developers write is just background. The heart of the story has to come from the player, because only the olayer knows the protagonist's mind.

I have no interest in being told a story. I have an interest in playing a character. His actions are the story.

[Sylvius the Mad]

It would cause plot holes like what Capn mentioned. If Nova allowed a single person to solo the entire Reaper fleet how did they manage to take down countless civilizations? Nova is just biotics, which previous civilizations have possessed.

They should have thought of that when they designed the ability.

And franky, if the ability could break the story that badly, they would have noticed that during QA.

But they weren't watching for that, because the story was immutable.

Then the imbalances from the first game would carry over, and you've been opposed to certain balance changes in past discussions with me which would further hamstring the ability to tell a coherent story with good gameplay that improves across multiple iterations.

I don't value balance. I need a better reason to make the change.

The problem with that approach is you can't fix certain bad design choices. The only way to fix the bad gunplay of Mass Effect 1 was to rework some of the mechanics of the game.

Ammo didn't improve the game. Nor did the weapon restrictions by class. The disappearance of stat-based accuracy could be explained as a continuation of Shepard's improving skill. The targeting reticle grew smaller througout ME1. At some point between the games, it grew so small it became a point.

Many changes can be explained in a way that is consistent with established lore.

Players breaking the combat gameplay isn't as bad but should generally be avoided. Players breaking the story so that there are too many plot holes because a single development team couldn't foresee every possible thing a player might exploit is a bad thing.

The story is vastly less important than the gameplay. The story is vastly less important than player agency.

The story adds colour. This is valuable, but we should not sacrifice substance for colour. If we did, what would we be colouring?

[Sylvius the Mad]

That could be alirght, but then it's just not very exciting or cinematic. Her, Samara, etc.. they're fun to watch. Even that Krogan in the novels, who hurled a car or something. The guy was genuinely scary. You'd be taking some of the drama out of things by actually making biotics as boring as the gameplay.

If the gameplay is boring, that's the thing that needs to be fixed.

I don't agree that small-scale biotics are boring, however. The same is true of magic. It's the world-shattering abilities that are boring, because they either render all the threats trivial, or they require absurd contrivance to offset them.

I would much rather Jack not have those ship-rending abilities. Without them, she would need to be more clever and creative to get ahead.

[Cyonan]

They should have thought of that when they designed the ability.

And franky, if the ability could break the story that badly, they would have noticed that during QA.

But they weren't watching for that, because the story was immutable.

 

Something like nova sure because it's painfully obvious to not allow for damage immunity that can get a 100% up time. Not everything is that obvious, though.

 

In World of Warcraft there was an ability for Paladins called Reckoning. When you were critically hit it would give you an extra attack on your next hit, which sounds harmless enough. Until somebody let another player crit them for about 2 hours and then proceeded to kill a raid boss intended for 40 players with a single swing which amounted to thousands of attacks at once. Blizzard's response was to hotfix this within 24 hours to restrict it to a limit of 5 extra attacks.

 

Now even from a gameplay perspective anybody should be able to see why that shouldn't be allowed to happen, but the developers never thought about it because it required a very specific setup that was impossible to have happen during normal combat. This sort of oversight isn't because Blizzard hires incompetent developers or anything, it's just the sort of thing that can happen in game development.

 

I don't value balance. I need a better reason to make the change.

 

I do value balance, and have gone into why balance is important in every single game on multiple occasions. Clearly BioWare values balance as well because they have made changes as a result of wanting to do so.

 

Balance is non negotiable with me. I feel pretty confident saying there isn't an argument that can be made that would convince me it's not important for a game.

 

Ammo didn't improve the game. Nor did the weapon restrictions by class. The disappearance of stat-based accuracy could be explained as a continuation of Shepard's improving skill. The targeting reticle grew smaller througout ME1. At some point between the games, it grew so small it became a point.

Many changes can be explained in a way that is consistent with established lore.

 

As much as I did like the heat mechanic, switching to normal ammo allowed for a greater variety of guns and a tighter control over the general balance of them(since you now have a resource to manage with ammo). One of the biggest weakness of Mass Effect 1 in my mind is that I only acknowledge the game as having 4 unique weapons. The reason for this is because every assault rifle is functionally the same weapon and the same goes for sniper rifles, shotguns, and pistols.

 

We could have an entire thread on the merits of the 3 different approach to weapons that each game took, regardless of it you think ME2 wasn't an improvement.

 

The story is vastly less important than the gameplay. The story is vastly less important than player agency.

The story adds colour. This is valuable, but we should not sacrifice substance for colour. If we did, what would we be colouring?

 

For Mass Effect I consider story and gameplay to both be very important. More so than player agency, because that's not why I play Mass Effect.

 

The thing here is that unlike you, I don't play games for a singular reason. I can play Baldur's Gate and enjoy the RPing despite horrid and clunky combat mechanics, then turn around and enjoy DOOM for its visceral and fast paced action combat with no RPing, then play a MMO and enjoy the social aspects of it and tackling a dungeon with my friends.

So you can have your little crusade about what it means to be a RPG if it makes you happy but my response to you saying what is or isn't important to being a "RPG in Sylvius' eyes" is going to be "So what? How does that make it a more enjoyable game for me?".

[capn233]

That could be alirght, but then it's just not very exciting or cinematic. Her, Samara, etc.. they're fun to watch. Even that Krogan in the novels, who hurled a car or something. The guy was genuinely scary. You'd be taking some of the drama out of things by actually making biotics as boring as the gameplay.

 

The only thing that captures the gist of it is the Vanguard class (and Vasir, as far as NPCs go). Why do you think people like it so much?

 

It doesn't help that environmental dmg went from little to virtually nothing after ME1. Not even a crate was a factor anymore.

 

It was an APC the Krogan hurled in Revelation wasn't it?

 

Of course various things were portrayed a bit differently in the books and the codex than we see in games.  Fatigue and cooldown were always pretty vague in them IIRC, but if gameplay was exactly like the description you might still be able to lift a colossus, but the cooldown would be 5 minutes.

[Cyonan]

That could be alirght, but then it's just not very exciting or cinematic. Her, Samara, etc.. they're fun to watch. Even that Krogan in the novels, who hurled a car or something. The guy was genuinely scary. You'd be taking some of the drama out of things by actually making biotics as boring as the gameplay.

 

The only thing that captures the gist of it is the Vanguard class (and Vasir, as far as NPCs go). Why do you think people like it so much?

 

It doesn't help that environmental dmg went from little to virtually nothing after ME1. Not even a crate was a factor anymore.

 

Well as far as I remember, Samara never really did anything crazy. Jack could still be shown to be powerful without being so overpowered at combat against heavy targets that takes even Shepard 10 times longer to take down.

 

They don't have to be exactly like the gameplay either since in lore biotics is just generating mass effect fields, which means they theoretically have a ton of applications. It's just that the abilities like Warp, Throw, etc. are the "combat uses" of the abilities.

 

Like how they can both generate the biotic field during the suicide mission but that's not an actual combat ability.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Something like nova sure because it's painfully obvious to not allow for damage immunity that can get a 100% up time. Not everything is that obvious, though.

In World of Warcraft there was an ability for Paladins called Reckoning. When you were critically hit it would give you an extra attack on your next hit, which sounds harmless enough. Until somebody let another player crit them for about 2 hours and then proceeded to kill a raid boss intended for 40 players with a single swing which amounted to thousands of attacks at once. Blizzard's response was to hotfix this within 24 hours to restrict it to a limit of 5 extra attacks.

Now even from a gameplay perspective anybody should be able to see why that shouldn't be allowed to happen, but the developers never thought about it because it required a very specific setup that was impossible to have happen during normal combat. This sort of oversight isn't because Blizzard hires incompetent developers or anything, it's just the sort of thing that can happen in game development.

And I'd let them fix that.

But if that was a documented feature of the ability, and it was in the game for months (or even the entire life of the game) and then they decided it was broken, that's a problem. They documented it. They knew what it did. It can't be broken.

And that's what the ME1 heat management system was.

I do value balance, and have gone into why balance is important in every single game on multiple occasions. Clearly BioWare values balance as well because they have made changes as a result of wanting to do so.

Balance is non negotiable with me. I feel pretty confident saying there isn't an argument that can be made that would convince me it's not important for a game.

It probably is important for a game.

As much as I did like the heat mechanic, switching to normal ammo allowed for a greater variety of guns and a tighter control over the general balance of them(since you now have a resource to manage with ammo). One of the biggest weakness of Mass Effect 1 in my mind is that I only acknowledge the game as having 4 unique weapons. The reason for this is because every assault rifle is functionally the same weapon and the same goes for sniper rifles, shotguns, and pistols.

They could have done that without adding ammo, though. Nothing about the heatsink precludes the other things you describe.

They could have added special ammo (actual ammo, like in ME1) that was only available in super limited quantities, so you needed to ration it. They could have made overheating a bigger problem. They could have eliminated the ability to mount two copies of the same weapon mod by adding mod-specific slots.

But the infinite ammo playstyle would have been preserved.

I'm concerned that they added the thermal clips in ME2 for two reasons, neither of which is acceptable:

1. Because they wanted to control how the players played the game.

2. Because having ammo management is typical in shooters, and they knew they wanted to improve the shooter aspect of ME2, so they just dropped in a standard shooter model and tweaked it rather than building something ME appropriate.

Both of those stem from a desire to control our gameplay experience, and I am adamant that they have no reason to care how we play their game.

Controlling our experience is patronizing.

For Mass Effect I consider story and gameplay to both be very important. More so than player agency, because that's not why I play Mass Effect.

The thing here is that unlike you, I don't play games for a singular reason. I can play Baldur's Gate and enjoy the RPing despite horrid and clunky combat mechanics, then turn around and enjoy DOOM for its visceral and fast paced action combat with no RPing, then play a MMO and enjoy the social aspects of it and tackling a dungeon with my friends.
So you can have your little crusade about what it means to be a RPG if it makes you happy but my response to you saying what is or isn't important to being a "RPG in Sylvius' eyes" is going to be "So what? How does that make it a more enjoyable game for me?".

I don't play for only one reason either. But I never play to be told a story, so I'm not willing to give up a single thing to help them do that.

Every time a system takes away something I like, even if it adds something else I like, I will point out the thing we've lost, because I don't want it forgotten. Just because a mechanic disappeared doesn't mean it can't come back. Just look at DAI. That's the biggest throwback design BioWare has ever done.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Like how they can both generate the biotic field during the suicide mission but that's not an actual combat ability.

It should be.

And there shouldn't be combat abilities at all. There should just be abilities that we can use at any time. There's no basis for this metaphysical divide between combat and non-combat.

[Cyonan]

And I'd let them fix that.

But if that was a documented feature of the ability, and it was in the game for months (or even the entire life of the game) and then they decided it was broken, that's a problem. They documented it. They knew what it did. It can't be broken.

And that's what the ME1 heat management system was.

 

It had been in the game for about 6 months, which at the time was the entire lifespan of the game. It's just that nobody thought of exploiting it in that fashion.

 

The wording of the ability was "Gives you a 100% chance to gain an extra attack after being the victim of a critical hit", but letting Paladins instantly kill any target in the game is an incredibly moronic design choice for a MMO. It was a good choice to fix it and their fix kept the spirit of the ability the same which was saving up charges to unleash a big attack.

 

It probably is important for a game.

 

and I consider RPGs to be a game, thus balance is important for RPGs as well.

 

They could have added special ammo (actual ammo, like in ME1) that was only available in super limited quantities, so you needed to ration it. They could have made overheating a bigger problem. They could have eliminated the ability to mount two copies of the same weapon mod by adding mod-specific slots.

But the infinite ammo playstyle would have been preserved.

I'm concerned that they added the thermal clips in ME2 for two reasons, neither of which is acceptable:

1. Because they wanted to control how the players played the game.

2. Because having ammo management is typical in shooters, and they knew they wanted to improve the shooter aspect of ME2, so they just dropped in a standard shooter model and tweaked it rather than building something ME appropriate.

Both of those stem from a desire to control our gameplay experience, and I am adamant that they have no reason to care how we play their game.

Controlling our experience is patronizing.

 

A consumable and a persistent resource are different things. In ME2 ammo is something I actively have to manage and be aware of, while limited consumable ammo types is something I would activate for a short term damage boost against hardened targets.

 

A lot of design decisions can be said were made because they wanted to control how players played the game. Not giving Soldiers strong CC abilities in ME1 was done to control how I play the game. The class system by nature in Mass Effect is trying to control how I play the game.

 

Pretty much every single time they don't let me do whatever I damn well please, I can claim "they did it to control how I play the game", which makes it a pretty meaningless argument on its own because it can be applied to so much of any game.

 

I don't play for only one reason either. But I never play to be told a story, so I'm not willing to give up a single thing to help them do that.

Every time a system takes away something I like, even if it adds something else I like, I will point out the thing we've lost, because I don't want it forgotten. Just because a mechanic disappeared doesn't mean it can't come back. Just look at DAI. That's the biggest throwback design BioWare has ever done.

 

My point is that if you want anything to actually come out of your little crusade, you have to convince others that your way is going to result in a more enjoyable game for them like I mentioned in another thread a while ago.

 

BioWare is in the business of telling story heavy games these days, which is naturally going to draw in people who play to be told a story who are going to say "So what? If they focus on the story that's good, because that's what I want" when you point things out.

 

Unless you're fine just sitting here pointing things out you don't like while Mass Effect games are constantly shifting away from what you like.

 

It should be.

And there shouldn't be combat abilities at all. There should just be abilities that we can use at any time. There's no basis for this metaphysical divide between combat and non-combat.

 

If you understand what biotics are in lore, you should understand why allowing the player to have every possible application of them available at all times is impossible to do.

 

Or why restricting them to only active ability during cutscenes would be lore breaking.

[straykat]

Well as far as I remember, Samara never really did anything crazy. Jack could still be shown to be powerful without being so overpowered at combat against heavy targets that takes even Shepard 10 times longer to take down.

 

They don't have to be exactly like the gameplay either since in lore biotics is just generating mass effect fields, which means they theoretically have a ton of applications. It's just that the abilities like Warp, Throw, etc. are the "combat uses" of the abilities.

 

Like how they can both generate the biotic field during the suicide mission but that's not an actual combat ability.

 

Samara grabbed car in midair in one of the Shadow broker vids (while Jack did some badass acrobatic move where she levitated in the air while running and pulled some dudes, during a flip). 

[straykat]

It had been in the game for about 6 months, which at the time was the entire lifespan of the game. It's just that nobody thought of exploiting it in that fashion.

 

The wording of the ability was "Gives you a 100% chance to gain an extra attack after being the victim of a critical hit", but letting Paladins instantly kill any target in the game is an incredibly moronic design choice for a MMO. It was a good choice to fix it and their fix kept the spirit of the ability the same which was saving up charges to unleash a big attack.

 

 

and I consider RPGs to be a game, thus balance is important for RPGs as well.

 

 

A consumable and a persistent resource are different things. In ME2 ammo is something I actively have to manage and be aware of, while limited consumable ammo types is something I would activate for a short term damage boost against hardened targets.

 

A lot of design decisions can be said were made because they wanted to control how players played the game. Not giving Soldiers strong CC abilities in ME1 was done to control how I play the game. The class system by nature in Mass Effect is trying to control how I play the game.

 

Pretty much every single time they don't let me do whatever I damn well please, I can claim "they did it to control how I play the game", which makes it a pretty meaningless argument on its own because it can be applied to so much of any game.

 

 

My point is that if you want anything to actually come out of your little crusade, you have to convince others that your way is going to result in a more enjoyable game for them like I mentioned in another thread a while ago.

 

BioWare is in the business of telling story heavy games these days, which is naturally going to draw in people who play to be told a story who are going to say "So what? If they focus on the story that's good, because that's what I want" when you point things out.

 

Unless you're fine just sitting here pointing things out you don't like while Mass Effect games are constantly shifting away from what you like.

 

 

If you understand what biotics are in lore, you should understand why allowing the player to have every possible application of them available at all times is impossible to do.

 

Or why restricting them to only active ability during cutscenes would be lore breaking.

 

It's not impossible. Bioware just sucks at action. There are other games that do similar things.

 

They have good animators though. That's one part of the equation.

[Cyonan]

Samara grabbed car in midair in one of the Shadow broker vids (while Jack did some badass acrobatic move where she levitated in the air while running and pulled some dudes, during a flip). 

 

I wouldn't really call that overly crazy since biotics regularly levitate all sorts of objects. If I remember right once a YMIR mech is down to its health bar, you can Pull it and I doubt a car is harder to lift than one of those things.

 

It's not impossible. Bioware just sucks at action. There are other games that do similar things.

 

They have good animators though. That's one part of the equation.

 

The reason I say it's impossible is because biotics is just mass effect fields.

 

Since 90% of the game's technology works "because mass effect fields" there is very little limit as to what a biotic could actually do with that.

[UpUpAway]

No. They're just telling a different story.

The story the developers write is just background. The heart of the story has to come from the player, because only the olayer knows the protagonist's mind.

I have no interest in being told a story. I have an interest in playing a character. His actions are the story.

 

Yet, you expect the developer to be able to write flawless dialogue that very specifically suits both the situation and your player's mind as you privately envision it to be.  They can't read your mind and they DO write ALL the dialogue and set up all the situations your character will encounter.  They can't do that without knowing all the ranges of the protagonist's mind that they have built into the game.  They are, in fact, telling several stories... but they are the ones still telling the story. 

 

So you are at an impasse here with the developers.  You say you don't want to write your own story but you also say above you're not interested in being told a story either.  So, stop blaming them for not being able to read your mind.

 

Typing the dialogue out in full still would not let you know all the other potential dialogue in remainder of the game... what future dialogue paths your selection blocks and what future dialogue path it enables.  If the developer goes the other route and leaves absolutely every dialogue and action option open to the player throughout the game... then the protagonist's selections can have no consequences since any player, no matter how they've played the entire game, could then just select the "I win" bomb at the end.

 

The only difference between having the dialogue typed out in full and using the "paraphrase" wheel is the precise moment you get "surprised" by what your protagonist can say.  With typed dialogue, it comes a moment sooner when you see that the dialogue option you would have liked just isn't there.  With the paraphrase wheel, it can come at the same time when they don't list any paraphrases that fit how you figure your protagonist is feeling at that moment or a second later when you find that the developer has a different opinion than you about what a person feeling that way in that particular moment might actually say.

 

In either case... the control over what the protagonist's options are remains with the developer... not the player... because it is the developer telling us the story (or rather telling us several possible stories wrapped into one).

[straykat]

I wouldn't really call that overly crazy since biotics regularly levitate all sorts of objects. If I remember right once a YMIR mech is down to its health bar, you can Pull it and I doubt a car is harder to lift than one of those things.

 

 

Yeah, there's hints of it in the games. I just think it needs improvement (and the engine just needs to involve the environment more in general). ME1 might've had more going on too. I seem to remember more things flying.

 

I'd prefer tech overloads to be more violent too, but that's just me.

[Sylvius the Mad]

It had been in the game for about 6 months, which at the time was the entire lifespan of the game. It's just that nobody thought of exploiting it in that fashion.

The wording of the ability was "Gives you a 100% chance to gain an extra attack after being the victim of a critical hit", but letting Paladins instantly kill any target in the game is an incredibly moronic design choice for a MMO. It was a good choice to fix it and their fix kept the spirit of the ability the same which was saving up charges to unleash a big attack.

It's not clear from the documentation that they're stackable, and certainly not infinitely stackable.

Again, this example doesn't fit my example, because people weren't using it and didn't know about it. They can fix that.

I applaud the guy who figured it out, though.

A consumable and a persistent resource are different things. In ME2 ammo is something I actively have to manage and be aware of, while limited consumable ammo types is something I would activate for a short term damage boost against hardened targets.

On higher difficulties (which you prefer), it cpuld be that all targets require that ammo.

It's a difference in degree, not in kind. And it doesn't change each player's gameplay unless he or she wants it to.

A lot of design decisions can be said were made because they wanted to control how players played the game. Not giving Soldiers strong CC abilities in ME1 was done to control how I play the game. The class system by nature in Mass Effect is trying to control how I play the game.

Yes it is. Yet another reason why I favour a classless system.

Pretty much every single time they don't let me do whatever I damn well please, I can claim "they did it to control how I play the game", which makes it a pretty meaningless argument on its own because it can be applied to so much of any game.

It can be applied less in sandboxes.

My point is that if you want anything to actually come out of your little crusade, you have to convince others that your way is going to result in a more enjoyable game for them like I mentioned in another thread a while ago.

That I don't convince you is not evidence that I don't convince "others".

Stop projecting.

BioWare is in the business of telling story heavy games these days, which is naturally going to draw in people who play to be told a story who are going to say "So what? If they focus on the story that's good, because that's what I want" when you point things out.

Yes, if you isolate the population which already disagrees with me, we can see how I'm not going to make much progress with them.

They are not the entire population.

Unless you're fine just sitting here pointing things out you don't like while Mass Effect games are constantly shifting away from what you like.

Do you honestly not see that huge leap you just took? Those two statements aren't related. One does not establish the other.

If you understand what biotics are in lore, you should understand why allowing the player to have every possible application of them available at all times is impossible to do.

Once again, they should have written the lore around the mechanics then.

But no, I don't see why we can't have access to all of the in-game abilities at any given time, no.

Or why restricting them to only active ability during cutscenes would be lore breaking.

I don't understand what this means.

But why are you suddenly so concerned with what's lore-breaking?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Yet, you expect the developer to be able to write flawless dialogue that very specifically suits both the situation and your player's mind as you privately envision it to be. They can't read your mind and they DO write ALL the dialogue and set up all the situations your character will encounter. They can't do that without knowing all the ranges of the protagonist's mind that they have built into the game. They are, in fact, telling several stories... but they are the ones still telling the story.

They don't need to be able to read the player's mind, not do they need to know the protagonists' possible states of mind. A line of dialogue can be spoken for a wide variety of reasons. The protagonist could be earnest, helpful, hopeful, non-confrontational, deceptive, honest, humble, sarcastic, sardonic, wry, dismissive, resentful, or any number of other things. Or the protagonist couldbe affecting one of those things while in fact feeling something else entirely.

The written line doesn't have to tie directly to any of those.

So you are at an impasse here with the developers. You say you don't want to write your own story but you also say above you're not interested in being told a story either. So, stop blaming them for not being able to read your mind.

You wstablished your own premise, and then used it as the basis for your argument. So you're basically still just advancing a premise, which I refute (above).

Typing the dialogue out in full still would not let you know all the other potential dialogue in remainder of the game... what future dialogue paths your selection blocks and what future dialogue path it enables.

None of the future dialogue options shoild be affected, but the NPC behaviour should absolutely be affected. In-game events should be affected. There should be consequences, but future dialogue options should not be one of them.

If the developer goes the other route and leaves absolutely every dialogue and action option open to the player throughout the game... then the protagonist's selections can have no consequences since any player, no matter how they've played the entire game, could then just select the "I win" bomb at the end.

If the game is so simple that victory is simply a latter of choosing a dialogue option, then yes.

But what if it isn't? You can't activate a bomb that doesn't exist. Perhaps you offended your allies enough that they didn't build the bomb.

Your assumption here seems to be that the story will have all the narrative complexity of ME3, which is a shockingly low standard.

But yes, in ME3, we should have been able to choose among the pptions presented by the Catalyst. If the Catalyst doesn't offer some of those options (I still don't understand why this would be the case), then we can't choose them, but if the Catalyst does then we should be able to choose any of them.

The only difference between having the dialogue typed out in full and using the "paraphrase" wheel is the precise moment you get "surprised" by what your protagonist can say.

No, it's the difference between being surprised by what your protagonist can say versus being surprised by what your protagonist did say.

The former can be annoying, but it's managable, because it allows is to find the reading and intent behind those lines that work best with the character we're playing before having to deal with the immediate consequences of having chosen it. In that moment, we can safely remain in-character. Also, I can only remember a handful of instances imof it ever occuring across multiple BioWare games.

The latter rips us from any in-character perspective we might have had and reduces us to mere passengers. We become the audience rather than the players. And this happens constantly in BioWare's voiced games.

Even if these two failures were equivalent (I don't think they are), I would favour the design thst produces the failures less often.

With typed dialogue, it comes a moment sooner when you see that the dialogue option you would have liked just isn't there.

Wait, what? No. Why would I be writing dialogue options in my head before seeing the available options? That virtually guarantees that I would have the same problem.

No, I would never do that. I'm not an idiot.

With the paraphrase wheel, it can come at the same time when they don't list any paraphrases that fit how you figure your protagonist is feeling at that moment or a second later when you find that the developer has a different opinion than you about what a person feeling that way in that particular moment might actually say.

Am I supposed to be choose wheel options based on feelings alone? What's the point of the paraphrase then?

I've been trying to choose based on what the line says, which is of course hidden from me. So that never works.

How am I supposed to use the wheel? Paragon and Renegade are so poorly defined that relying on them alone works even less well than reading the paraphrases (the beginning of ME2 was a disaster in this respect). In DA2, the tone icons were so unhelpful that DAI gave us the option to turn them off (which I did, and it helped).

The full lines serve as alternative things the character can say. That's all they are. There's no intent or feeling inherent in them. In an extra option were added wherein the character could rant about how frightening bananas were, that wouldn't change anything unless you chose it.

How am I supposed to choose among the options on the dialogue wheel?

Incidentally, I asked BioWare this very question when DA2 came out (because I'd struggled so much with the wheel in DA2), and their responses were entirely unhelpful.

[Laughing_Man]

Guns on the other hand are going to have this problem as long as we have cutscenes, because it happens due to the sheer variety of weapons in the game. Biotics being different happens because BioWare specifically chooses to make them that way.

 

One solution to this problem could be by adding a sort of backup sidearm (or simply remove the ability to change pistol type at all, only upgrade)

that is always on the player and can't be replaced.

[capn233]

The stated reasons for going away from overheat to thermal clips were these:

 

 

 

-"Encouraged using different weapons"
-"We could make weapons more powerful with limited ammo"
-"Stopped bullet spraying"

 

That was from a presentation Norman made way back when.

 

One of the overall design goals was "better balance," as was "better inventory" with "less junk."

 

An example was "Assault Rifle Accuracy" showing a clip from Eden Prime in ME1.

[Laughing_Man]

The stated reasons for going away from overheat to thermal clips were these:

 

 

 

 

That was from a presentation Norman made way back when.

 

One of the overall design goals was "better balance," as was "better inventory" with "less junk."

 

An example was "Assault Rifle Accuracy" showing a clip from Eden Prime in ME1.

 

They can handle those problems just fine by playing with some interesting overheat mechanics like Battlefront, and by making various weapons actually distinctly better in different situations and against different enemies.

[Iakus]

The stated reasons for going away from overheat to thermal clips were these:

 

 

 

 

That was from a presentation Norman made way back when.

 

One of the overall design goals was "better balance," as was "better inventory" with "less junk."

 

An example was "Assault Rifle Accuracy" showing a clip from Eden Prime in ME1.

Yeah I remember how the "better inventory" was received in ME2...

[straykat]

Yeah I remember how the "better inventory" was received in ME2...

 

Mostly fine. I thought. ME1 inventory is tedious after awhile.

 

Same with ME3 when all is said and done, despite you not thinking so.