MassMffect Q & A @ Gamespy

[Cantousent]

"shoulda' seen what happened when we suggested that not all crpg battles should be winable."

 

Or that the characters should only get objective/quest experience and none for creature kills.

 

I agree whole-heartedly as regards the devil v deep blue sea thing. Well, as much as I can. I didn't really get the reference, but I take it from context that you mean that not every decision should evoke a grand internal struggle. If every decision did, then the net effect would be to inure the player to the struggle in the first place. I don't think the aim should be baby steps in the long run, although baby steps might be the only way to move forward as of now. But I don

[Maria Caliban]

"Between the Devil and the deep blue sea" means to be caught between two equally unpleasant dangers.

[Cantousent]

"Between the Devil and the deep blue sea" means to be caught between two equally unpleasant dangers.

 

I never knew that. I learn the damnedest thing on this message board.

[Gromnir]

"Between the Devil and the deep blue sea" means to be caught between two equally unpleasant dangers.

 

I never knew that. I learn the damnedest thing on this message board.

 

don't feels bad... 'cause it maybe not mean what it means. the devil ain't The Devil. devil is some colorful sailor name for a beam in oldie ships that were particularly hard to reach and seal, and there were not but a bit o' nothing 'tween the devil (the beam) and the ocean. caught in a tight jam? face a difficult task? somewhere along way, the origin gets lost and devil becomes Devil and meaning o' phrase changes.

 

'course, we coulds be wrong. some pretentious know-it-all informed us o' origin. can't vouch for veracity, but the jerk were more often right than wrong. and so it goes, from one pretentious bastard, to the next, and to the next.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[blue]

OED concurs, as does The Sailor's Word-Book (1867): "The seam which margins the water-ways was called the "devil," why only caulkers can tell, who perhaps found it sometimes difficult for their tools"

 

Pass it along.

[Tel Aviv]

Volo, you managed to take a gander at new Gamespot screenies yet? They've caused quite a commotion over at the BW boards.

[Volourn]

Meh. i checked them out. I'm not worried about. Whetehr or not 4 screenshots ar ebetter or worse than other screenshots mean so little to me. I skimmed those threads though, and I laugh hilariously at the panic.

 

Those four pics are proof that ME is being dumbed down. L0LLERZ!

 

It's a paradoxical climax of epic proportions, didn't you know? R00fles!

 

 

New Blog: http://blogs.ign.com/BioWare_Games/2007/04...51145/#comments

 

Interesting stuff...

Edited April 3, 2007 by Volourn

[Cantousent]

I've become more and more intrigued with the idea of the hopeless battle. What I see as the biggest obstacle is that the majority of players would not catch the idea that it is impossible to win the battle and therefore would end the game at that spot because they could not finish it.

 

However, we do have something of a precedent in PS:T. There are areas that the player cannot access unless he allows tNO to die. In fact, if I recall correctly, access one such area is necessary to finish the game.

 

PS:T had a disclaimer saying that the PC would die during the game and not to be freaked out by it. If the design team could do something similar, then it might actually work. Moreover, lost battles might make for more interesting games.

 

I'd prepared a longer statement, but I'm starting to feel a bit guilty about taking up the space in a thread ostensibly dedicated to MassEffect. It looks to be a charming game, but I'm more interested in talking about the design aspect in general. If the mods feel it's necessary, they can split the thread. If someone else wants to create a new thread dedicated to yet another discussion of freedom, meaningful choices, and lost battles, I'd be thrilled. In any event, I'll stop cluttering this thread.

[Tale]

I think I'm in a minority with the way I look at things, but here's my perspective in regards to unwinnable battles and RPGS:

 

I prefer to think of RPGs as nothing other than a storytelling medium. No different than a novel or movie in that regard, but with interactivity and choices. That said, I don't feel that expecting a player to reload or rely on out of character information maintains that medium. I believe in exceptions, such as if the player is exceptionally poor or the player is attempting to go somewhere that is reasonably out of bounds. All of this leads to me disliking the concept of unwinnable battles based on assumptions I'm making of the concept. Basically, for me to be okay with unwinnable/hopeless battles, you'd either have to make it so they don't force the player to reload or they exist to punish the player for behaving in a manner you, as a designer, don't want them to behave.

[kirottu]

Unwinnable battle is okay for me if I still make a difference in it. I mean I could really lose it very badly or lose it, but survive to fight another day. Winning is just an one outcome and if there

[Slowtrain]

I think I'm in a minority with the way I look at things, but here's my perspective in regards to unwinnable battles and RPGS:

 

I prefer to think of RPGs as nothing other than a storytelling medium. No different than a novel or movie in that regard, but with interactivity and choices. That said, I don't feel that expecting a player to reload or rely on out of character information maintains that medium. I believe in exceptions, such as if the player is exceptionally poor or the player is attempting to go somewhere that is reasonably out of bounds. All of this leads to me disliking the concept of unwinnable battles based on assumptions I'm making of the concept. Basically, for me to be okay with unwinnable/hopeless battles, you'd either have to make it so they don't force the player to reload or they exist to punish the player for behaving in a manner you, as a designer, don't want them to behave.

 

 

I think what Cant is referring to is an unwinnable battle that is part of the narrative. For example, if the opening battle of IWD2 turned out to be an unwinnable for the purpose of advancing the narrative rather than having the pc and party triumph.

[Tigranes]

Of course, those 'unwinnable' battles we have seen so far in CRPGs have actually been winnable. For example, you are fighting waves and waves of goblins, and you defeat all of them. A cutscene starts, where sixty more turn up, and everyone decides to retreat. You have no choice in the matter. You are not retreating because you and your character feel it an impossible task to fight them; you are forced to do so because the narrator has decided so. Crucially, the parts where you DID Have control, you were still fighting a 'winnable' battle, and 'won' that conflict. This is done so that the story contains a defeat for the party, but people don't get frustrated rusing headlong into the fray, not realising that there is another option. Sadly, this perpetuates the belief that inv ideo games, every battle is there to be won, every container is there to be opened and every area is there to be explored.

 

Tentative steps were taken towards remedying this linearity when some games decided to give in-game 'hints': for example, a cutscene begins when you approach a band of heavily armed soldiers, and one of your party members speak up: "They look too strong. Perhaps there is another way." The problem is that these messages are often extremely unambiguous (to avoid the confusion / frustration above), and often the player once again has no way to do things differently than one, prescripted, prepared way (i.e. a specific path to sneak through, a specific lever to pull; a specific boulder to drop down a cliff, a specific thing to set on fire.)

 

That said, I don't think it too difficult int he current system to create "unwinnable battles". Firstly, the premise needs to clearly be set that the upcoming battle will be "extremely difficult" (not "impossible". Perhaps some party members arguing; Elanee says, "there are too many, perhaps there is another way". Khelgar says "Nah, we can take them on." etc) , and perhaps objectives are set as to what the player could do. (i.e. The player's primary objective is to kill the mage and drive back as many as he can; failing that he must try to evacuate the townies by sea, burn down the granary and ensure the safety of the local medicine man.) Today's players recognise 'bonus' actions when they see them, and thus they will realise that the aim is to achieve the primary objective and as many of the side-ones as they can in a set time, as the invasion tide washes over them. Some might take Khelgar's advice and try to fight them all, but the overwhelming difficulty of the task would soon make them draw connections between the objectives and the nature of the invasion.

 

In the execution itself, people should be given some hints but should always have freedom to act. Remember NWN2's mission where you are helping the thieves smuggle stuff in that long winding path, and Qara suggests setting things on fire and saying "FIRE!" to distract the mercenaries? Well the problem with that was that you HAD to do it (you just decided who would do it), and it was done in a cutscene. A much better way would be to have, say, a pile of wood off to the side; examined by player, it says "this appears highly flammable." If the player set it on fire, the script would have the soldiers check out what is going on with some float-text (or even a cutscene THEN). If a number of such 'tricks' are prepared either in the nromal game engine or as specific scripted events, combined with the player's freedom to go around doing as much as he can before he is overwhelmed by waves of invaders, the gameplay becomes a lot more emergent, a lot more frantic, and there is definitely a sense of beign run over, and of multiple solutions.

 

That is of course a limited example, inspired from the comment about the initial attack on IWD2. But you see wher eI'm going.

[Schazzwozzer]

Forced failures are just crummy no matter what.

 

Presenting players with scenarios which can't be "won" by simply conquering all opponents is another matter, but in the end, it all depends on the rules a game has established for the player and the behavior it has encouraged. If a game has been telling the player to fight and win every single battle for 20 hours, and then throws out an enemy they can't defeat, that's crappy game design and the player is gonna be pissed. A game has to play by the same rules that it's been forcing the player to abide by.

[Sand]

Kind of like that werewolf scenerio in Bloodlines.

[Slowtrain]

where's the "beating a dead werewolf" smilie?

[kirottu]

[Maria Caliban]

Kind of like that werewolf scenerio in Bloodlines.

 

I like the werewolf attack in Bloodlines, and I wouldn't consider that a forced failure. A forced failure would be if I was trying to escape from the beasties and couldn't.

Edited April 4, 2007 by Maria Caliban

[theslug]

I'm not sure I'd like unwinnable battles in a game. It would definitely have to be done right. Like in fable when you go to jacks jail place on the way out a cut scene comes up and jack with like 4-5 of these high level minions surround you. I think if they would of let you actually fight them and you lose fair and square or beat them with a large amount of skill then jack would still cut you down or something that would of been better instead of just a cut scene in which you don't even fight back. The unwinnable battle should also only be used in certain scenarios, such as preventing you from getting past a certain point you shouldn't be able to get into until later or to further the story.

[Maria Caliban]

Cutscene defeats suck.

 

The PC should be mercilessly slaughtered in game until they get the hint. If there's any cutscene, it should be of a monster snacking down on their viscera afterwards.

 

I hope there's a scene like that in ME.

[Llyranor]

The 'unwinnable' battle against Darth Malak was hilarious.

[Sand]

It was poorly designed piece of rubbish. Hilarity had nothing to do with it.

[Tigranes]

Well, I guess I"ll just wait for Cantousent to reply then.

[Maria Caliban]

Well, I guess I"ll just wait for Cantousent to reply then.

 

Am I to infer that you'd like one of us to respond to your previous post?

[Cantousent]

I thought you made some excellent points, Tigranes. I just didn't want to keep derailing the thread. A bunch of you have made great points for and against unwinnable battles and how we they might be implemented in a game. In fact, I'm afraid that some of the other members won't have seen the larger discussiong because of the Mass Effect title. That's too bad, because some folks would undoubtedly have additional views we haven't yet expressed.

[Maria Caliban]

I have created a separate thread for this discussion. I hope I am not being presumptuous.

 

Unwinnable Battles

Edited April 5, 2007 by Maria Caliban