Lephys

Yeah. That's 'cause it's a good hybrid. That's like saying Jello sucks because it's neither a good liquid, nor a good solid. *eyeroll* To re-iterate, this isn't about the whole game being entirely good or entirely bad. But "dedicated shooters with no RPG elements have much better purely shooty mechanics" is not an objective argument towards the conclusion that ME3's sheer gameplay was bad, or that the whole game was bad because of that. The only thing I can fault the game for is the actual RPG side, not the function of science-magic in combat, or the existence of mind-boggling cover. I'm with other people. I played the game on Insanity, and if you think the whole game was just "take cover, then keep taking pot shots 'til you win," I don't know what difficulty you played on. *Note: "You" above is being used generally, as in "whomever you are, if you think that," not specifically "you, the last person who posted" or any other particular person.

I think it's reasonable to say that the design of any given situation in an RPG should be approached with the thought: "What are the various actions a person could feasibly take here?" I'm with archangel in that, especially in a situation as significant as that one, you'd think a pretty high-onthe-list option for a given type of person would be "I don't want to let this girl run off in her current state, but I also don't want to kill her," regardless of whether or not you feel any sympathy for the lord, or it might produce some other undesired results (causing a further conflict), etc. I think every RPG team should hire one guy to just look at all the quests and come up with "Wait... why can't you do this in this situation?!" lists. 8P It's a lot less important when you're not in a dire, people's-lives-are-on-the-line situation. If you come upon a squirrel on a path, I don't need 73 options for how to handle that situation.

You could give yourself a break by actually reading and fully processing what it is I'm typing before you respond. I can't stop with the reasoning that getting XP prevents you from roleplaying, since I never started with that reasoning. You misunderstand. You've established that, if you're roleplaying, you don't care about XP, because, as a mechanic, it appeals to the human player at the computer, and not the character in the game world. Basically, your character isn't thinking "Oooh! 25XP!," or you're not roleplaying. Thus, to roleplay, you have to ignore XP rewards. So, if you have to ignore them to roleplay, and it's a roleplaying game by name, then why would the game sprinkle XP rewards all over random tasks throughout the game, if the only purpose they serve is to directly entice/reward the player and not the character? I'm going to go ahead and pre-emptively stop the "So you're saying XP shouldn't exist?" argument that my Spidey Sense is tingling about. XP's existence isn't the problem. You can roleplay your way through a quest, for example, and gain XP for it, and your roleplaying was never at odds with the XP reward. XP represents improvement/progression in your character, as I've already stated. Improvement and progression which actually exists in-character. So, that's not an issue. But, "Hey, for every single one of these bear traps you disarm, you'll get 25xp!" in no way reinforces or supports roleplay, since your character doesn't really have a reason to disarm every single bear trap. In other words, what is the purpose of sprinkling rewards of any kind, really, throughout a role-playing game, that have nothing to do with roleplaying? Your argument has yet to provide any actual reason for that, other than "Well maybe they feel like tossing in some XP rewards for having spent skill points." So, the reason is "because they felt like it"? That's a fantastic reason, when you're objectively designing a video game. Also, reward the player for spending skill points... as opposed to, what... not-spending those points? "Oh, you just hoarded all your points? PSSH! No XP rewards for you!" Also, if they wanted to do that, they could just reward you for the act of spending the skill points. "For every point you put into Mechanics, you get 100XP!". That would be just as purposeful. And how it looks to me is that you're disregarding half of what others are saying, because you've already decided what their motive is -- just to win, instead of to discuss. If you're going to decide I'm not worth responding to, then just don't respond. Responding to half of what I said, and deciding what I mean halfway through reading my post, doesn't get anyone anywhere.

I don't understand. Cover makes a game not a shooter? Do people in reality who shoot at one another not employ cover for the purpose of avoiding death? Also, if you can still miss with abilities, then why does it matter if you can target-lock or not? "Oh, you can shoot bullets, but then that TELEKINESIS your person can use on other people doesn't have to be manually aimed at their face... so it's no longer a good shooter, u_u..." And lastly, I'm sorry, but shooter-RPGs are one of the least-tapped cross-genres I know of. Out of all of them, ME3 did it pretty well, even if it didn't do other stuff very well. I love that there are plenty of action RPGs, but the second you make it a shooter, everyone's got fountains and fountains of negativity for it, like it's inherently a terrible idea.

Yeah, but only once per rest. MAKE IT COUNT! This isn't a bad idea. I will try to do a better job of posting build status updates for you fine folks. Yeah, we're well aware you guys are extremely busy, but we don't even need any amount of elaboration or fancy full-fledged choreographed and polished update or anything. Just a little "Hey guys, It's What's New Wednesday!, and here's What's New!: Loading taking too long. Stop. Toiling diligently. Stop. New build out ASAP."

In terms of the shared health pools, I think that, in and of itself, doesn't have much bearing on the animal companion going down too easily, etc. That's really up to other factors, and I think those should be tweaked/adjusted before trying to fix or affect such issues with drastic mechanic changes. What I do think might be interesting is some sort of modal toggle with only two settings, one favoring the Ranger, the other favoring the animal. Whenever toggled, the favored would take half damage, while the other would take 1.5x damage or something. It doesn't have to be those numbers, and it doesn't have to be damage mitigation. But, you get the idea... Some kind of yin and yang type options with the Ranger and companion might spice things up a bit. Of course, off the top of my head, the first problem I see with that is that giving your Ranger half incoming damage would be great for melee-oriented Rangers (or even just tactical bouts of melee combat when advantageous), but I believe that the vast majority of all animal companion capabilities are melee, as well. So, the obvious use of that with the current system would be to always toggle it in favor of your companion, while your Ranger lets fly arrows from a distance. *shrug* As for customization... I think there are a lot of areas of the game, at the moment, that could use an extra dose. You don't need to be able to build a bear that's like a hawk or anything, but, ideally, Ranger A's bear could be pretty different from Ranger B's bear. Even if the brunt of customization just comes from a pool of talents/options common to all animal companions, and only a few things specific to each individual animal are branching in nature, that would still be better than just having every animal companion be only like 5-10% different from any other animal companion of that type.

Okay, I feel a clarification is in order. When I said 4GB isn't that much, I was talking about system ram, as in the OP, where the tentative requirements are listed, the 4GB requirement is in system ram. The video card RAM requirement is only 512, which is much more in-line with video card minimum specs for many other games. 4GB isn't unheard of, but that's still pretty darn high for a minimum requirement. I'm not even sure the latest Crysis game required 4GB (maybe 2?). The PS3 had only 256MB of system RAM?! o_O! I knew consoles were compact and efficient, being dedicated (for the most part) gaming machines, but I didn't know they were THAT efficient! I thought for sure it had like... 1GB, maybe 1.5...

Perhaps it's been only temporarily removed, due to optimization/resource issues, etc., and is planned to be back in after some polish and increased application efficiency? *shrug*

It burns my soul every time someone whips that term out of their arse for no reason. All he said was what he thought he meant. If that's incorrect, it's called being mistaken, not constructing a strawman. "I think it's supposed to rain today, but I'm not sure." "No the weather report says it's clear, actually. NICE STRAWMAN!" Gyah... I'm sorry. I just feel a "strawman" intervention is in order, the number of times I see that term tossed around like pizza dough. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

4GB of RAM isn't really a ton, today. For one thing, RAM's ultra cheap now. Of course, you'd still figure a computer could handle an optimized game like this with around 2GB. Again, it really depends on your OS. Of course some system requirementseses will actually say "Windows XP - 2GB, Windows Vista/7/8, 3GB," etc. *shrug*

Where they were going and whether or not they got there are two different things. What the mechanic is "trying" to convey is where they were going, so to speak. So, forgive me, but when multiple people say "I don't even understand why engagement is even a thing, or how it was even thought up in the first place, or why," an scratch their heads at all the discussion about how to get the current mechanic to its actual goal, I can't help but figure people are failing to see the very reason it's even an idea in the first place.

I accept your gratitude. Now, if you had offered your grati-three'd, I would've had to decline. 6_u

I don't understand, Sensuki. Why do the color options need to be balanced?! THIS ISN'T A MULTIPLAYER GAME! /jest

Negatory, Ghost Rider. The XP is a mechanic that directly represents the improvement/progression of your characters, which occurs in-character (unless you roleplay people who adventure for years and never ever acquire new knowledge or skills or hone anything, ever?) I understand what it is you're getting at, but it's not a binary thing. It's not as if, at character creation, you either just don't care about any of the numbers and their mechanical impact upon your gameplay with that character, OR you just want to min-max. There's an in-between range. You can care about XP and the like without caring ONLY about that, and you can roleplay aplenty. Furthermore, if roleplaying were not giving a crap at all about any of the "behind-the-scenes mechanics," and roll-playing is so preposterous, then why even have XP rewards in the game for anything, as it would only support roll-playing? That's what I'm getting at. Why have mechanics in a roleplaying game that you have to fight against or ignore in order to roleplay? Even furthermore... if they're so piddly, then why does it matter if they're there or not? That's like saying "Oh, hey, I hear they're going to have 1/1000ths of a copper penny lying around all over the place! Oh, don't worry, we shouldn't remove them from the game, because they'll have absolutely no significance, whatsoever! 8D!" It's not about "upsetting the balance of the game for someone else." It's just a simple question: Why the hell is something in the game, if not for an actual reason? If "Well, because it's something we could give you XP for" is reason enough, then why isn't everything worthy of some piddly XP reward? I seriously want an answer to that question. It's not rhetorical. "Talk to an NPC? XP! Find another tree in the woods? XP! Steal that fuzzy robe from your room at the inn? XP! Oh, but don't worry... it's all horrendously insignificant amounts of XP. If you do all these things in the entire game, you'll only have 200 more XP at the end, u_u..."

All this about making up for ranged attacks, etc.... The way I see it, it's quite simple: The purpose of engagement is to make sure that things can't just "Ha-HAH!" at your front line of fighters and slip past to murder your Mages and archers. I think that's valid, since, if the game just makes it a game of chance whether or not your "Front" line ever gets to actually be in the front, then that's no fun for anyone. When you put your mage 73-feet behind everyone else, what more can you possibly do to keep him safe? Running straight past another person standing there with a sword and shield, trained to fight, and ready to murder you, SHOULD be a significant choice. Not just a dice roll of "Oh no, might I get a little hit, maybe?" So, what is the purpose of engagement? To represent the fact that melee combatants can't simply be shirked (doesn't mean they can't be shirked. Just not simply). What that means is, however it's achieved, being engaged by a foe in melee combat should not be easily ignored, and it should be quite difficult to simply charge the rear line of your enemy purely with simple movement commands. That's exactly why I've said I think AoO's should be guaranteed crits. That's just one example of the idea, not the only way to do it. But, if you could move freely past melee combatants, then you should take a free hit for doing so. That's not counting stopping to daze them or knock them down, etc. Limited-use tactical options are going to be present, no matter what. Otherwise, you could just make a party of 4 Fighters and 2 Mages, and no one would ever, ever get to your Mages. Which would be silly. As for the "why the sticky mechanic?!" question, the sticky mechanic is a method of managing the actual act of ignoring that melee combatant or not. You're "stuck" to that person, unless you wish to say "ahh, screw this" and just turn your back on them without trying to defend yourself or anything. So, the thing that seems to make the most sense is a guaranteed hit if you voluntarily disengage via non-evasive means. The more other effects you involve with engagement, the less important the AoO disengagement attack is. Hence my example of slowed movement speed while engaged. If you move extra slow while engaged, then it's not as bad if you still can dodge the AoO, because, at the very least, you're slowed significantly when trying to simply jog past a Fighter to beat a Mage or archer to a pulp. What we need to do is start with the goal, there, and work our way up. What factors can we play with (move speed, AoO damage, etc.), and how can we best make melee combatants scary yet not inescapable fortresses? If parts of the current system are useful, then so be it. If not, then we could always come up with something entirely different. But, I really don't understand how the significance of melee combatants actively engaging you (hence the name of the mechanic) whilst you passively just jog past them is puzzling to anyone, and would spark "Hmmm? Why on earth would that even make any sense to try to implement in any way, shape or fashion?".

... What? o_O I don't recall ever locking targets in ME3, and I played it a lot. And yeah, for the record, I could complain about a lot of things in that game, but raw gameplay is not one of them. I enjoyed the crap out of actually playing that game, even if I didn't enjoy all the stuff in-between, etc. The parabolic ability-aiming was deceptively simple, yet elegant. I really think they could've done a whole lot more with that (and with ability upgrade trees/branching, etc.). But, still, at its core, 'twas quite fun. Especially cooperatively with other people. I'm actually really looking forward to DA:I multiplayer.

I actually never said anything specifically about the IE games, Groupy McGrouperpants. If you'd like to raise an issue with something I've said, make sure it's something I've actually said. I have yet to argue that grinding was required in IE games.

I was too young to fully grasp all the nuances and such of the mechanics. But man... I just loved exploring around in it, and replaying it like 10 times until I finally beat it.

OMG! THAT GAME! MEMORIES!

I don't just formulate views of what things are. Tactics are tactics. The word was devised to represent a specific idea. So if you want to represent not-that-idea, you use a different word. I don't consider anything heresy. I just think that we might as well not ever use any specific words at all if all we're going to do is reverse-nitpick about how broad terms' meanings can be. If strategy is what you do before you know exactly what enemy you're going to face, tactics are what you do once you see your enemy. If not, then nothing separates the two. If deciding "Hey, we should probably bring various types of armor, in preparation for whatever we go up against" is a tactical choice, then what isn't a tactical choice? I'm simply observing the difference in the terms. It's one thing to say "tactics" and mean something not quite accurate for that term, and then just explain what you mean. I'm not gonna go "OH WELL YOU STILL LOSE OR SOMETHING 'CAUSE YOU SAID THE WRONG WORD!" I don't care what word you said. I only care that you are aware of the difference between tactics and strategy, so long as you care to know such things. I can only assume you do, until you tell me otherwise. If you're just going to consider whatever you want to be tactics and ignore the meaning, and pretend I'm just throwing "my view" out there (like I somehow invented the definition of the two terms, and they weren't what they were long before I was born), then we have nothing else to discuss, really. -___- *sigh*. I just explained how it's folly. That's why my response didn't end with that claim. Regardless of whether or not components are mundane things (which IS terrible design, indeed), collecting them just to be able to cast some spells can easily become a rigorous chore. I've already explained that I feel that some certain spells could have components, but that I take issue with a bunch of spells of all types, in general, simply requiring components (however un-mundane) to cast. D&D had an awful lot of spells that required components, many with mundane components, and others with not-so-mundane, which is why this came up at all. Also, YOU never said anything about this being limited to casters. Spell components are limited to casters, because only casters cast spells. So Fighters don't need to go collect components to use Power Attack. So, my point was, you claimed I just hated preparation, purely because I take issue with slapping a bunch of material components on spells, but I must only hate preparation with casters. So, repeating myself, that's how it was folly to conclude I hate preparation and expect to win every engagement without thought, for one thing. And no, it doesn't make sense for the component requirement to somehow balance out spell power, because all you have to do is essentially grind for 4 or 5 of those Wail of the Banshee components, then you CAN spam it 5 times in a row. And if the goal is to limit the use of such powerful spells, there are already umpteen other limitation mechanics in place on spells in any of the common spell systems, so slapping another one on that requires a scavenger hunt isn't incredible design. "Don't worry, guys! If we go out of our way to procure a dragon heart, I can kill everything in the world at once! 8D!"

I remember playing the Hugo adventure games. They were graphical, and you moved Hugo around with the directional keys. But all the commands were still text-based. So you got to have fun puzzling out how to get Hugo to procure the item on the ground. "Take Cup... Grasp Cup... Retrieve Cup! PLACE HAND UPON CUP, THEN DEFTLY MANEUVER CUP INTO POCKET!!! AGGHHHHHH! *punches screen*" I know, I know. I'm a young'un, and games used to be fully text-based, and played with punch cards, and I don't know how easy I had it.

Okay okay, it was my mistake to simply say "Demolitions" and not "certain applications of demolitions." However, I find it a bit strange that I cited a specific example (blowing a door open using explosives, rather than kicking/bodying the door open), and received two responses back telling me how using Brute Force on a land mine wouldn't work, as if my example in no way conveyed the idea I was getting at (that force is force). In other words, what's the difference between intelligently using the force of a battering ram, or explosives, or a robot suit, or mentally controlling someone else's body, or telekinesis, etc.... and using the force of one's own body. Other than that one's own strength factor's in in the latter, and doesn't in all the formers? That's my point. And yeah, I don't think it's stupid, because it makes sense in the context of a game. And it does make sense that more knowledge and experience with Brute Forcing things would increase your effectiveness at it, without any raw increase in or abundance of Strength. But, that doesn't really change the fact that you wouldn't become the world's Brute Force master with the least amount of Strength, even amid a tier of badass folk. So, no, it's not entirely ridiculous. It's just not much of a simulation, is all, while other things in the same game are a bit more accurate. Nothing more, nothing less.

The whole idea behind the game is that you shouldn't ever have to roleplay a character who doesn't get XP. That's the whole reason XP and level-ups abstractly represent improvement in any potential area of your character. You can gain XP purely through talking, until you level up, then improve your longsword proficiency. So, this point makes no sense in this context. What you're getting at would make perfect sense, if the person who didn't go out of their way to kill everything simply missed out on combat prowess advancement, but they don't. They miss out on advancement, period. That's the thing. XP is a universal currency. So, the person who doesn't sit down in the middle of a dungeon and weave 73 baskets shouldn't get "paid less" in this currency just because. The person who doesn't seek to make 20 animal species extinct in the forest doesn't need to become rich for that, while the person who quite-feasibly doesn't do that is poor. Who you decide to roleplay (besides roleplaying against the very narrative itself) shouldn't conflict with the gameplay mechanics. So, if you want to roleplay an OCD trap-disarmer, then go ahead. The benefit of that shouldn't be universal advancement. It should just be the joy of getting to play your character how you'd like to. Disarming 100 traps in a cave gains you nothing when improvement isn't simulated, so it sure as hell shouldn't improve you, while being an actual sane person still gains you nothing.

Gyah, I JUST posted in another thread, before I saw this one, heh. I'm with Hormalakh. I really think making sure you manually stay within a dynamic radius on the battlefield shouldn't be the responsibility of the player... with six different party members, potentially. However, it should be easy to banish that restriction, voluntarily, at the cost of an AoO. Also, I think an AoO should be guaranteed to hit. Because, simply jogging past a Fighter shouldn't be easy. And happening to get lucky as your opponent still rolls a miss or graze, even with significantly boosted Accuracy, is easy. I mean, you're either taking on that person about to swing a sword at your whole body, or you aren't. If you opt to ignore him, what's stopping him from hitting you? Is it that hard to hit someone who's simply jogging past you without even focusing on you at all? Finally, I think movement should be slowed while engaged. So that, even if you do decide to take a free hit and jog past, you still don't get to sprint, full-speed, to the enemy's back line, and simply eat some damage as your only cost. As for options for engagement avoidance, I'm not really sure what to do. It seems like it should be easier, for lack of a better word. Not in the sense that the opportunity to avoid engagement should always be readily available. But that actually performing the act of staying out of that circle should be easier. Basically, some kind of "try and avoid engagement circles" AI/command would be nice, as separate from a "just run straight here" command. It's just silly that you could send someone across the battlefield, accidentally set one foot within someone's engagement radius, and be stickied to that person, when the opportunity to get around them happened to be readily available, but the player simply couldn't easily-enough ensure that their character didn't cross a specific line of pixels. *shrug*. I don't think anything should automatically stop you from entering engagement circles or anything. It'd be different if engagement circles were always stationary, like a lot of traps. Then, you could simply look at where they are, and walk around them. But, when they're moving along with your character (because opponents are moving about), it becomes a lot more difficult to simply manually avoid them, shy of constantly pausing and updating your movement command until your character gets around the threat.

Okay, I can't figure out certain things, but... if the idea is to make sure people can't just run past everyone all willy-nilly (specifically front-line melee-ers like Fighters), then what if: A) Engagement simply slowed you way, way down (to walking-ish speed), until you successfully broke engagement (either via an ability like Escape or Grimoire Slam, or possibly via some kind of successful combat roll on each attack or something?), and... B) Forcefully breaking engagement (simply running away, even at your slow pace -- leaving your foe's engagement radius or whathaveyou) incurred a guaranteed critical hit, or something similar? Basically, at the very least, a Fighter's going to slow you down a lot, and get a lot of free hits on you if you're just planning on slow-mo jogging past him. If you're the only person your foe is engaging, then you wouldn't ever get to simply flee engagement, because of your slow speed. But, if you DO just waltz past him, (if he's occupied by other combatants, or however you do it), then you're still going to eat a significant bit of damage. So, it's a pretty good trade-off. However, it's still possible to get past/get away from engagement, using limited means of doing so. *shrug* Obviously, engagement zones would still have to be shown clearly, either via a press-and-hold-to-display hotkey (probably along with other tactical data that you don't want floating about on the battlefield all the time), and/or during pause. That, and I still don't know how to handle the "ownership" of engagement. Seems like if two people are melee-engaged, it should be a two-way street. I guess "whoever's moving" works for disengagement AoO determinance, but... I dunno, that still feels really crude.