255 réponses à ce sujet

[Sidney]

Red Frostraven wrote...

The one character that does not, and my primary roleplaying character, have maxed survival instead of trapmaking, and coercion instead of poison -- and suffers heavily from it.

3: Kind of exactly my point.
Damage or otherwise min-maxing defense or armor to be unhittable or undamagable, is all that seems to matter in this game.
Willpower gets completely IGNORED by most, despite it being a very important roleplay attribute.
They'd have to make it increase mana and stamina regeneration AND cause cooldowns to become shorter for powergamers to even CONSIDER placing 30 points in willpower.
Heck, even when I roleplay, I find it hard to place points into willpower.

I've never used traps on any of my builds and I've finished everything - I've gone entire games without anyone in my party knowing anything about traps. I've had poison as a skill but I never remembered to actually use the stuff before a fight and rarely use the stuff - most poison I find becomes vendor trash. Survival is the best of the skills you mentioned to have IMHO because of the "radar" effect. I always max coercion/persuasion because that opens up a lot of options for you. I don't suiffer for it at all. Plus you have a party of people, if you think those things are so important then you've got a number of NPC's for whom those two skills seem wildly apt.

Willpower isn't ignored. It is used for all classes for their mana/stamina. You like your little special attacks, you'd best use wisdom. Now would I drive it up to level 30? Likely not but then again why should I if I have a brute force warrior? You want to do so and there is nothing that stops you from doing so but the notion that I should HAVE to use a trait seems to be the antithesis of what you claim to want out of a game.

[Red Frostraven]

soteria wrote...

Well, phooey. I was on easy--I had dropped the difficulty so I could rush through some content (I had to do Redcliffe and some random encounters to get there at level 8). I bumped it back up to nightmare and did it again. Same basic strategy, except this time all the refugees died. I've done better, and I've done worse.  I think I actually moved a little too fast this time.  Maybe if I had waited slightly longer he would have tossed another fireball, or maybe I could have tossed a bomb at those guys on the way to the mage.

Like I said, I didn't doubt your ability nor honesty, you didn't NEED to do anything but say it was on easy mode and tell me the rough combat statistics.

But thank you for your thoroughness, none the less.

But I still notice that Alistair is NOT hit by the archer's arrows after killing the emisary -- like I said, in my game he DOES get hit 9/10 times by all attacks with the combat statistics I provided.

I don't ask of you to make a video, you've already done a great deal, I only ask HOW much defense your Alistair has, seeing that he DOESN'T get hit by nine out of ten attacks (merely about 7 out of 10  )... I was absolutely SURE that archer would kill him near the end, but then proceeded to miss.

I didn't have any bombs at the time of the encounter...
My character doesn't have any reason not to use them, but because my character sold them with all the other loot to buy better equipment along the way.
I considered a good defense better than a good offense, especially since there's no indication of damage on the thrown potions' descriptions.

I'm sure throwing various bombs will help a lot should I decide to run without a mage in the future.

I'll give it to you:
You have helped renew my faith in there being some sort of skewed balance, and not merely a black hole between warriors deep down in the pits of despair and the mages in the heavens above with angels on their laps and gods running their errands -- like I imagined before starting this discussion.
... the fighters are just buried with their heads barely above the ground, near an anthill. But it's better than beeing down in the pits of despair.

But you have to (not really, it's just wishful thinking) give it to me:
With 1-2 injuries on each party member sustained from the wolves encounter and drake encounter, on the way there -- at a time I couldn't afford injury kits -- coupled with the strong (roleplaying) incentive to take out the fireball-casting emisary FIRST to protect the refugees -- leading to the refugees dying AND many of the darkspawn not taking damage due to them charging alistair, or even worse -- the fireball harming my entire party because I'm too close to the refugees -- and finally the lack of bombs (AND the lack of knowledge that bombs are more than only remotely useful).
I did overcome the encounter, not as relatively flawlessly as you did, but you like me could not save even one refugee.
Add the 360's controller limitations (you cannot assign people, like archers, to walk anywhere; you have to walk them there manually in real time with the control stick), and you just MAY understand my frustration about that particular encounter...

The wolf encounter seems to be universally loathed by new players, and seems to be bloody random: ONE wolf overpowering the tank WILL surely yield a loss unless you spam bombs.

Modifié par Red Frostraven, 16 février 2010 - 04:54 .

[Time Spiral]

@OP,

Truthfully when I logged on to this forum originally, I was overwhelmed by the "lingo". I felt like I was learning a new language: dps, dw, tank, AoE, min-maxing ... The only thing I understood right off the bat was "metagaming" which is a BIG buzzkill (forbidden in my games) when playing table-top RPG (which is my fave, for sure.)

I reached out to my brother, and asked, "What the F is all this lingo?"

"Oh, ha!," he responds with a boistrous laugh. "That's WOW talk right there."

"Ahhhh ..." I said in a long winded, drawn out way. It all made sense after that.

Capturing the FEEL of Roleplaying in a video game
I'm sure it is possible, but geez is it tough. It's funny, because the more I think about it, the more I see a fundemental difference in my expectations, and the capabilities when it comes to a table-top RPG and a video game RPG. They're both called RPGs, but they are almost so different as to be distant cousins at best ...

[booke63]

Godeshus wrote...

 The game should be playable no matter how your character is built. If I wanted to play a mage that had 20 magic, 16 willpower, and 40 constitution, it should still be possible. If I want to play a sword and board warrior with 14 str, 20 dex, and 40 willpower, I should still be able to. That, in my opinion, is the point of a rollplaying game. Remove the ability to roll play, and all you have is a game.

Unfortunately, DAO is built up from a core that doesn't allow this. The devs have funneled us into a specific gameplay style. While there are a few testimonials of players finishing the game solo nightmare with a few specific builds, one is still quite limited in how they build their character.

I don't agree that any build should be as successful a Grey Warden as any other build.   A warrior with huge willpower and average str and dex should be a lessor warrior than one built on huge dex or huge str.  It's a bit like training yourself to run a marathon very fast and then joining the weightlifting contest.  It seems to me that if you're not striving to be the best Grey Warden you can be, then you'll have a more difficult time being a Grey Warden.  Similarly if you're a mage and you don't strive to become strong in magic.... Why study Latin when you're striving to be a tennis star.

That said, I do think virtually every build even one that might be contrary to being the best Grey Warden you can be or even the best Warrior-Mage-Rogue you can be.  If you decided to be a mage with minimal magic, you could succeed quite likely with Alistair as tank, Morrigan as DSP, Wynn as Healer/Arcane warrior for example, and in this way you can succeed at the game and roleplay a, shall we say, unusual mage.  Granted you can't solo the game with any build you like, but I think the game is primarily designed around a party, and with a party, I think you can build any character you like and succeed at the Grey Warden's tasks.  If you're asking the game to work well for a party on normal but also allow a person to build any build and still solo the game on nightmare....well I think you will be disappointed.  Should not one person alone simply HAVE to be more powerful ( and therefore less open to just any build) than four individuals who make up a team?

Thanks

Modifié par booke63, 16 février 2010 - 02:54 .

[soteria]

Like I said, I didn't doubt your ability nor honesty, you didn't NEED to do anything but say it was on easy mode and tell me the rough combat statistics.



But thank you for your thoroughness, none the less.



But I still notice that Alistair is NOT hit by the archer's arrows after killing the emisary -- like I said, in my game he DOES get hit 9/10 times by all attacks with the combat statistics I provided.



I don't ask of you to make a video, you've already done a great deal, I only ask HOW much defense your Alistair has, seeing that he DOESN'T get hit by nine out of ten attacks (merely about 7 out of 10 /images/forum/emoticons/whistling.png )... I was absolutely SURE that archer would kill him near the end, but then proceeded to miss.

He has 64 defense and 79 missile deflection before activating Shield Defense, which gives him another 5 defense and 10 missile deflection. 28 Strength, 25 Dexterity, 20 Constitution.

But you have to (not really, it's just wishful thinking) give it to me:

With 1-2 injuries on each party member sustained from the wolves encounter and drake encounter, on the way there -- at a time I couldn't afford injury kits -- coupled with the strong (roleplaying) incentive to take out the fireball-casting emisary FIRST to protect the refugees -- leading to the refugees dying AND many of the darkspawn not taking damage due to them charging alistair, or even worse -- the fireball harming my entire party because I'm too close to the refugees -- and finally the lack of bombs (AND the lack of knowledge that bombs are more than only remotely useful).

Tip: going to camp cures all your injuries--it's analogous to resting. I *guess* I could see going after the emissary first to save the refugees, but this is the way I've always done it. I don't think I even saw the emissary the first time I did it until after I killed the darkspawn on the right. I saw those right off attacking the refugees, and went to save them. And for bombs, I didn't see the point in them till like my 4th playthrough, so you're already ahead of me.

[Fluffykeith]

It's perfectly possible to play, and complete, the game without using bombs, poisons, traps, AOE crowd control or min-maxing your characters....it's just a bit harder.



I played most of the game using Wynne as a healbot, I gave her no AOE spells at all, just heals and single target CC spells. I had Leliana as an archer, Alistair as my Tank andm

my 2-hander warrior as a DPS/utility spec (lots of willpower for Stamina, and balanced Str and Con). I'm not into sneaking about so I didn't use traps or bombs.



The wolf fight was a bit of a pain, but I had twohanded sweep by that point and was very comfy with pausing and carefully setting commands every time it so much as looked like I might get overpowered.

[Magic Zarim]

Some food for thought:



Wouldn't the guys you are roleplaying, under those circumstances they are put (even more so for DA since you're put in the shoes of a blank combat hero), try to hone their skill and finetune their equipment for the best possible performance in their task, which is, in DA:O, slaying darkspawn and eventually Archdaemons? Ofcourse they bloody will. Ofcourse they are going to min-max themselves by nature of the task at hand! Min-max'ing is just that -> increasing the efficiency to perform tasks.



"I am a RP'er. I hate min-maxing. So my hero is going to be a slouch that doesn't care about personal skill and efficient equipment to help him defeat that bad dragon better." In reality you just like playing pansies and I am amazed that you manage to let pansies become the ultimate hero

[soteria]

Mlai00 wrote...

soteria wrote...
Glad you liked it!  I do have a couple "generic" ones, "Chokepoints" and "Spell Combos." I think the narration quality is a little off for the Chokepoints video, but it goes into more depth on using the landscape to your advantage. Other people have pointed out that it's not really necessary to try so hard to play tactically, but I think it's more fun.
I'm sorry you're annoying him now. The irony is, you're the RPer, and I'm the dirty powergamer.
This thread reminds me of this discussion.

You spoiled THE ENDING for me with that link.  Thanks a ****g lot.
I'm reading this thread because I'm well past Ostagar.  Spoilers of the early-game is expected for ppl reading this thread is excusable.  But why the F did you just put up a link that spoils the ENDING??  I'm easygoing on the "non-spoiler" aspect of this non-spoiler subforum.  I don't really stress if I accidentally read about the solution to some quest.  But you crossed the line.
RF (and anyone else who hasn't finished the game yet), don't read that link.

...?  I'm confused.  What spoilers?

[Feraele]

By all means, undead and demons are obviously exceptions as they're wrong, not people.

Ethics apply to people, not objects, but my character is not yet sure what to consider darkspawn, and they're considered people for the moment: Some of them MAY be innocent and willing to switch sides.

That impression seems to be changing, soon enough, if I know the plot right.



--------end quote----------



Darkspawn are not people...they are described as "empty soulless husks"...they are spawned by broodmothers..en masse. They are part of the Archdemon's evil army. They are set to take over the world, by killing everything in their path, and eating some of that "everything" as they go.



They can't switch sides, maybe they could if they had souls and were able to reason, but they don't and can't.

The exception to that "may" be the Architect up and coming in the Awakening expansion.





Darkspawn have no possibility to be good..its not in their capacity. They are inherently evil.



Perhaps your roleplay needs to accomodate that idea.



Thats about all I can advise.

[kosarev]

This game is quite easy, and doable in all the difficulty settings (except nightmare probably) with any build combinations without minmaxing. You will suffer wounds, and have to reload some times without crowd control, but take it easy.



-The wolf encounter is viewed as one of the hardest combats in al the game. If you fail many times there, think many have done the same.



-RPing with a character that wants to play fair with enemies, you shouldnt do that against darkspawn. They are not people, they are beasts, savages. You shall have no mercy against them, nor fair game. Against humans yes (random bandit and so). When RPing you also have to think about the world where your character setting is. NO ONE on ferelden would have mercy with darkspawn. They have been terrorizing the world for thousand years. If you dont take advantage, they will. Kick 'em in the balls form behind, its fair against them.



-Played my first playtrough with 3 melee and a non damage caster (healer/buffer, wanted something like cleric, but they arent ingame). I had problems with a few encounters, but nothing impossible, and i didnt use any traps/poisons/buffing potions, and i havent used them since them (game too easy on nightmare, so i nerf some mechanics).



-From a rp view, first time you encounter a revenant (one of the most fearsome warriors in all the world), you might have to kill him. But i assure you, next time your character would avoid a encounter he KNOWS he wont prevail in without large dosis of luck.



-Last, play BG with any build? LOLOLOLOL. How many times have you gone trough BG? By now, i know where each enemy spawns, speel combinations, dialog options to avoid combat, places with better loot to steal... On my first game trough it, some encounters with a normal (not subpar, like your build here) party, rping a little, were nearly impossible. As i recall, had to kite Sarevok while i used explosive arrows with imoen to be able to kill him. I wouldnt imagine trying to do so with a bad build, who doesnt use some of the best tools of the class (not judging you for choosing not to use them, but understand that your build is extremly subpar, and the game in hard difficulties doesnt expect you to play with a hand in your back and eyes blinfolded) if i had problems using normal builds.

[Destrier77]

Is this the wolf encounter with the big bear at the end, because that was so easy if its the one near the forest with the refugees.



"-Played my first playtrough with 3 melee and a non damage caster (healer/buffer, wanted something like cleric, but they arent ingame). I had problems with a few encounters, but nothing impossible, and i didnt use any traps/poisons/buffing potions, and i havent used them since them (game too easy on nightmare, so i nerf some mechanics)."



You can be a cleric, put some points into strength. Choose the healing tree, cleric no? I havent tried it but i dont see why you cant do it.



The hardest fight i found (i skipped it) was





***** SPOILER*****



The fight in the wizard tower with the ravenent which comes from smashing the vial. It was impossible, i guess maybe i had done something wrong. Whatever it mashed me and i barely scratched it. Going to go back there later on when im more powerful.



Also the fight with the guy at the top of the wizards tower was very difficult and took me a few attempts, in the end he seemed to die with half health unless i missed something in the panic. Maybe he dies once he is out of wizards to kill or i got lucky with something.

[Magic Zarim]

That slothdeamon can take on appearances of daemons. Each time you kill one form he will move to a different form. He has about 3 or 4 forms he will use, each of which you have to kill untill the last form, his real form. It's nothing random, it's a fight with set stages.

[kosarev]

Nah, its not a cleric. At least a pure cleric. Mayb an AW/spirit may do it, but as i said, it was my first play and i didnt know about the aw spec (and now i wouldnt use it neither, too op).



Its not the fight with wolves and bear the one im talking about, its the one with 8 wolves and traps all around you. The fight goes along the lines of overwhelm, overwhelm, overwhelm... if your tank is low lvl and doesnt have enough resists/shield wall.



And the fight you describe in your spoiler, its the same revenant in all the black vials, simply you were probably too low lvl to do it easily (mages circle first destination?).

[Sidney]

IIRC the Rev fights don't scale or at least don't scale down so unlike most everything else the first Rev you run into might well be way too tough for you and if your first encounter with them is one where they bring friends - the ones in the eastern Brecilian then it'll be much, much worse.

[dj1917]

I have been a roleplayer since about 1983 and still have fond memories of Skyrealms of Jorune (to prove my nerd status) and have played the electronic versions for almost as long. So, OP, realise that when I tell you that you are taking it too seriously, it's just a computer game, and that you cannot seriously expect to have the full range of RP possibliities available in trad RPGs in a game like DAO, I know what I'm talking about. You ARE taking it too seriously, and you ARE letting your real-world experiences intrude on your gaming. Let it be a fantasy and stop letting real tragedies destroy what should be ESCAPIST FUN. A guy tried to stab me once (he failed) but you don't find my gaming characters having an aversion to knives. It annoys me, as an atheist and a socialist, to have to play religious characters who swear loyalty to Kings, but it doesn't matter, because it's just a game. Stop worrying and obsessing and just enjoy the game for what it is, not what you wish it was.

[Red Frostraven]

Fluffykeith wrote...

It's perfectly possible to play, and complete, the game without using bombs, poisons, traps, AOE crowd control or min-maxing your characters....it's just a bit harder.

The wolf fight was a bit of a pain, but I had twohanded sweep by that point and was very comfy with pausing and carefully setting commands every time it so much as looked like I might get overpowered.

Problem is not really that it's hard, per se, but that the difficulty makes it tedious.
It's not like you can lose your companions in combat by having them critically hit when low on health, petrified and cracked or disintegrated, like in the Baldur's Gate series, for instance -- or Oblivion, where you could permanently die.

Every encounter ends with a (flawless) victory OR a reload:

You never lose anything but health poultices or materials.
In some previous (heavy) roleplaying games made by Bioware's and the company's brother, Black Isle, among others..:
-Baldur's Gate
-Baldur's Gate 2
-Fallout
-Fallout 2
-Fallout Tactics
-Elder Scrolls III:  Morrowind
-Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
-Freaking Icewind Dale
-Freaking Icewind Dale II
-Planescape: Torment

nothing but a reload, after a victory, could rectify the loss of companions, in very many cases.

Not winning lead to a loss, but NOT winning flawlessly also led in some losses -- real (ingame) loss.
When roleplaying, that allowed us to continue playing, and come to terms with our losses.

In Dragon Age, there's no such thing as loss: Despite the dark setting, it's kittens and rainbows compared to Baldur's Gate, Fallout and Oblivion, where companions and other important (but not plot-related) people's deaths' matter.
(Sure, None Playing Characters (non-companion NPC-s) can die and ruin your day, but a freaking whole lot of NPCs come alive after a fight despite falling)

The game is not hard, you either win, or you lose and reload: 
You never have to compromise between winning and losing, and encounters CANNOT have negative consequences for your party unless the event is a scripted part of the story.

It's balanced for that fact: It's balanced after the fact that nothing that happens to your party will cause permanent damage should your party survive.

Modifié par Red Frostraven, 17 février 2010 - 04:52 .

[Red Frostraven]

soteria wrote...

...?  I'm confused.  What spoilers?

Well... The front DID fall, didn't it?... off?

In any case, he MAY actually have been refering to my spoilerish link to a blog, to which I did put up a spoiler warning without quoting anything in the blog in my post; 'twas a fanfic short story about how dead D COULD have saved the the entire kingdom from needless slaughter by simply NOT keeping his mouth tightly shut while hiding in a corner of the plot like a freaking virgin in a medieval bar the eve of valentine's day.

Modifié par Red Frostraven, 17 février 2010 - 05:11 .

[Sidney]

Red Frostraven wrote...


nothing but a reload, after a victory, could rectify the loss of companions, in very many cases.

Not winning lead to a loss, but NOT winning flawlessly also led in some losses -- real (ingame) loss.
When roleplaying, that allowed us to continue playing, and come to terms with our losses.

Again, this is a case of developers living with reality. If people get a companion killed, in most cases, they reload -- or they roam off to a temple and get them resurrected. That is a hoop to jump through and it punishes the player and not the character.

Now, you might be the better role player thn the rest of us - and given your schtick I'm sure you think you are-  and when X NPC fell in combat you licked your wounds and moved on but that isn't the way most people played.

[bzombo]

Red Frostraven wrote...

soteria wrote...

I'll just say that even on Nightmare, I did pretty well using a warrior archer built with strength and dexterity, with no mages. You definitely don't have to use stealth or backstab to play a rogue successfully (although why you would want to play a rogue that doesn't stealth, backstab, use poisons, or traps is beyond me). Wouldn't the warrior class fit your character better? They can be archers, too.

I'd suggest that people who have a hard time are struggling not because of their talent choices, but because of their attribute selection and tactics.

Rogues are not warriors, rogues are engineers of the battlefield.
I'm a combat engineer, who focus on striking from afar and setting up traps (not anti-personell bombs!) and taking out tanks through ranged combat

Besides... is playing a rogue for ROLEPLAYING reasons a good enough reason to play a rogue??
I did take the coup de grace talent; as long as it happens from the front, it's ethically correct -- so it's hardly a WASTE to go rogue -- besides, I need the SKILLS.
For roleplaying reasons...

You lot DO know what roleplaying is, don't you?

And NONE of you have seemed to read the bottom lines... which explains the rant

1. you're coming off extremely arrogant and condescending.
2. metagaming has been around forever. it's not some new thing that just popped up with the current generation of games.
3. this game is easier than every other game you cited.
4. difficulty levels are there for a reason. if you feel the need to roleplay like crazy, then knock down the difficulty and play away.  i find it hard to believe you could roleplay in bg2 but not in da. dragon age is a lot easier.
5. your entire complaint comes on the heels of bioware nerfing some items/spells after people complained it was too easy.
6. relax. you're way to fired up about this.

[Feraele]

Destrier77 wrote...

Is this the wolf encounter with the big bear at the end, because that was so easy if its the one near the forest with the refugees.

"-Played my first playtrough with 3 melee and a non damage caster (healer/buffer, wanted something like cleric, but they arent ingame). I had problems with a few encounters, but nothing impossible, and i didnt use any traps/poisons/buffing potions, and i havent used them since them (game too easy on nightmare, so i nerf some mechanics)."

You can be a cleric, put some points into strength. Choose the healing tree, cleric no? I havent tried it but i dont see why you cant do it.

The hardest fight i found (i skipped it) was


***** SPOILER*****

The fight in the wizard tower with the ravenent which comes from smashing the vial. It was impossible, i guess maybe i had done something wrong. Whatever it mashed me and i barely scratched it. Going to go back there later on when im more powerful.

Also the fight with the guy at the top of the wizards tower was very difficult and took me a few attempts, in the end he seemed to die with half health unless i missed something in the panic. Maybe he dies once he is out of wizards to kill or i got lucky with something.

In the magi tower? Not sure if I have the one you mean, but is possible to kill that one with strategic placing of your group members.    I always kill it in real time (meaning no pausing)   just make sure your ranged people are well away from him.

[Fluffykeith]

Strangly enough...I HAVE played most of those games you listed there...



Here's a thing. I reckon I have a fairly decent idea of what roleplaying is...I've played a LOT of crpgs, I've been playing PnP RPGs for at least 15 years, including GMing, and I've done a fair amount of LARP...



And I'm not sure I agree with this idea that having your party members die permanently is more "rpg" than the system DA:O uses. In the BG games, whenever it happened, it seemed sort of arbittrary (sp?). Oh look, I lost a party member to disintigration...that's about as fun as being kicked in the nuts...and here's the thing, there wasn't much I could do, oh well.

Sure that kind of thing is hardcore, but it's not neccesarily "dark" or neccesarily fun.



Nor is it necessarily more "RP".

DA:Os system reminds me a lot of a heroic PnP game called 7th Sea. In that game, Characters, henchmen and Villains can only be killed by a specific, dramatic action. Random combat can't kill them, it can only knock them unconscious. So the death of a character (not a mook) is a dramatic thing, part of the story. That's what DA:Os system seems like to me. It's a focus on the story, and the stories of the characters, rather than the fear of suddenly losing a party member to a random monster.



Both to me are equaly valid RP styles.

[Realmzmaster]

The basic point here is that the DA:O IP is being compared to AD&D. The idea of permanent character or companion death started in D & D. But even in AD&D companions had to fall to or below -10 hp to be considered dead. If the companion was between 0 and -9 the companions was unconcious and another companion had the chance to stablize the fallen companion or if a healer heal him above 0 hp.

In DA:O your companions fall unconcious, if the whole party falls unconcious then your journey ends, because there is no one to protect the fallen companions. The enemy simply kills any one left alive.

Just as viable a roleplaying option as the one in the old BioWare games.

Comparing DA:O a party based game to single character Crpgs is not as fair because you have no companions most of the time to help you. If your character dies it is game over time to reload.



Also the one criticism (among others) I had with previous BioWare and Black Isle party based games was if the main character fell unconcious or died it was game over. What happen to the rest of the party? Did they not try to get the main character revived, healed or resurrected at a temple? That was simply unrealistic even in a fantasy setting.

Some may see that as hardcore but it made no sense. All other members can be resurrected, or revived, but not the main character? Even AD&D did not work that way. If the a party member died in the p n p game the other party members had a chance to get him resurrected especially if one of the members was a cleric who knew resurrection or had the scroll.

So BioWare decided to do it a different way borrowing from other rpgs that did not use permadeath unless the whole party dies.

That is a design choice. DA:O does not use the D & D ruleset. It did not license it from Hasbro.

Probably because Atari already has an exclusive right to the ruleset or the cost was prohibitive.

It may have been built as the spiritual successor to BG1 (marketing hype), but in spirit only not in game mechanics or design. In spirit because it continues BioWare's good storytelling.

[Red Frostraven]

Fluffykeith wrote...

Strangly enough...I HAVE played most of those games you listed there...

Here's a thing. I reckon I have a fairly decent idea of what roleplaying is...I've played a LOT of crpgs, I've been playing PnP RPGs for at least 15 years, including GMing, and I've done a fair amount of LARP...

And I'm not sure I agree with this idea that having your party members die permanently is more "rpg" than the system DA:O uses. In the BG games, whenever it happened, it seemed sort of arbittrary (sp?). Oh look, I lost a party member to disintigration...that's about as fun as being kicked in the nuts...and here's the thing, there wasn't much I could do, oh well.

So you found losing companions merely annoying and arbitary, and never felt a sense of loss when your romance character dies and you continue without that person, and without the gear?

How did your PnP players take it when one of their characters died?

I've always respected death in games, as a natural foundation changing hazard rather than something arbitary and annoying: Permanent death is more NATURAL (even in most fantasy settings) than temporary "whoops I died " death systems.
I don't find it annoying, I find it gamechanging and challenging, and strive even more to keep my remaining companions alive.
When I don't want anyone to die (permanently) in none-roleplaying playthroughs, I turn the rules down to Normal -- the same as Hardcore D&D rules, without permanent death.

...
So.
I'll turn a table right now: I've been told to change the difficulty setting to easy, or normal...
But now I would like to say: 
I want the game to have permanent deaths on the highest difficulty setting, WHILE making that highest difficulty setting more reasonable.
THEN non-roleplayers can turn the difficulty down if they don't want to abide with their own decisions and take their own losses.

Realmzmaster wrote...

The basic point here is that the
DA:O IP is being compared to AD&D. The idea of permanent character
or companion death started in D & D.

On the contrary: The idea of permanent character or companion death STOPPED in CRPGs like Neverwinter Nights, World of Warcraft.

They have ALWAYS EXISTED, from chess and onwards to Oblivion.

The game ends in Oblivion, if your character dies. BUT the game doesn't end when anyone else dies, other than plot specific characters who are vital for the quest, but you could STILL play with the main quest broken!

In Baldur's Gate, the main character's soul is tainted by his father, Bhaal.
Upon
death, all of his father's powers entwined with the character's soul
will return to the Throne of Bhaal, to be a part of the next god of
murder -- destroying the character in the process: Disintegrating his body.
The power of the main character is the strongest of all Bhaalspawn; he has the power of the Slayer in him.
There was an explaination, in the manual, for the main character not beeing raiseable.

Wheter or not the developers intended for the permanent death to be a part of the plot and ingame lore for bhaalspawn, thus incorporating permanent death in the character because of the story --- or incorporated the permanent death into the story because of the design decision to not let the game continue without the child of bhaal in the party...

Either way, that was their reason... and while it's a long time ago and I understand it's easy to forget even a large part of the PLOT, it was a huge part of the main character's very story, and it was explained.

Modifié par Red Frostraven, 17 février 2010 - 10:35 .

[Andari_Surana]

Just get rid of the mage's I win buttons, so i can try 20x like the OP to beat an encounter. Seriously, i want mage's I win buttons removed --- not for any role play reasons, i just want the game to setup so descent challenges so i don't have to figure out how to handicap myself to make the counter challenging, and yes mages got a few too many I win buttons (e.g. mana clash, entropic death, to name a few). And if that makes the OP happy, that's just a bonus.

[Fluffykeith]

To answer, I found it annoying and arbritary when my romance character died if it happened during a random fight with a random monster, rather than there being a good story based reason for it...sort of like if Eowyn were to be killed by a random arrow fired by an unnamed Orc, before she got to face the Witch King. It sort of robs the death of drama or pathos, for me. I'd rather that the death of a companion be driven by the story, be an event that has meaning beyond merely "this monster succeeded in it's petrification check"



the group that I PnP with has pretty similar views. We'd rather our characters deaths were treated as important events in the story...we spend a lot of time creating the characters, they're personalities and historys and so on, so no matter which of us is GMing we try not to perma kill a player character unless the actual player is ok with it or wants to start a new character. So non "drama" events that would, by the game rules" cause the character to die, instead ends up with them being knocked out and captured by the enemy or suffering an injury that gets incorporated into their storyline.



Not everyones idea of how it should be done, but it's a style I've encountered quite a lot.