Combat barks--please use responsibly

[PsychoBlonde]

I replayed Dragon Age 2 not long ago, and it was really amazing to me how the combat sounds. Not because of the explosions etc., but because your companions WON'T SHUT UP. It's especially bad because I was playing a blood mage, so the average combat sounded like this:

 

Hawke: Need . . . mana!

Aveline: You're not getting past--

Varric: How many you--

Hawke: I can't keep this up!

Varric: We're keeping--

Sebastian: Maker I'm--

Hawke: Need . . .

Enemy: RRRG--

Aveline: You--

Sebastian: . . . good!

Hawke: . . . mana!

 

You can't tell WHAT's going on, and the chances of you actually hearing something useful like "I'm getting hit!" is basically nil.

 

I loved the combat taunts and battle cries from Baldur's Gate, sure. But please use them responsibly. Don't have every companion in the party attempt to shout their battle cry simultaneously throughout the entire combat. There are sure to be PLENTY of fights, everybody will get their chance even if the only time a battle cry is issued is right at the start of combat. Even this may be too often to prevent undue repetition.

 

And if you're going to have companions bitch about getting hurt and so forth, please try to keep in mind that we have health meters FOR A REASON and keep this to a minimum.

[Tsuga C]

Woof!

 

With a party of up to six characters, I imagine that this would quickly get on my nerves and I'd do as I often did with NWN1: use the slider to lower the volume setting for my party members. Battle cries or battle barks--too much, too often and I'll tune them out, too.

Edited November 1, 2012 by Tsuga C

[Water Rabbit]

NWN2 is just as bad, btw.

[PsychoBlonde]

NWN2 is just as bad, btw.

 

You had fewer possible party members in NwN, and mine would usually wander off because I couldn't control them directly. At least that way, I didn't have to listen to them all the time.

[Grand_Commander13]

Didn't Fallout and Fallout 2 have a slider for how chatty everyone would be in a fight? I liked 'em pretty gabby, I know that.

 

Myron's barks, in and out of combat, really were the best though. I hope as much attention to the companions' barks will be paid in PE as was in Fallout 2.

[Shattered_One]

In BG2 you could turn them off completely... I don't know about DA or NWN

[jivex5k]

Yeah, it's pretty annoying even with a single character.

League of Legends is an example of it happening too often IMO.

I leave it muted.

[SophosTheWise]

NO GAME is as bad as Dragon's Dogma when it comes to chatty battle-mates...

[Few]

Im sorry I couldn't get past the first 5 words or so of your post. You replayed Dragon Age 2! As in voluntarily!?

[Hormalakh]

Urgh Arcanum's is quite annoying as well. If you critical fail, you have Magnus (a companion NPC) going "Oh you're not going to defeat enemies like that...". After the 50th time hearing it, it makes me want to kill Magnus after battle.

[smithereen]

I'll be contrary again - I love hearing combat banter. What's annoying is when it's terribly repetitive. I wouldn't mind if some of it was text-based, though. That way it can be kept fresh, and you won't have to hear it.

 

I'll explicitly disagree with "we have health metres for a reason," though. I like to be reminded I'm running my friends through a meat grinder once in a while.

[Dream]

I enjoyed the borderlands 2 callouts; especially Gaige at high levels of anarchy.

[Jymm]

I learn to pick out the barks that matter (like "I'm dying!") in most games. There definitely is a balancing act though. I wouldn't want there to be zero barks because they give the NPCs a little more personality.

[Sensuki]

I used to play with IE dialogue options always on, but yeah it got annoying after a while, so I changed to Seldom for everything. Some of the voices were good though

 

Icewind Dale probably had the best voice sets

 

"Well, looks like i'm gonna have to go on a killing spree." - always loved that one

[BBMorti]

Im sorry I couldn't get past the first 5 words or so of your post. You replayed Dragon Age 2! As in voluntarily!?

Word.

 

That was rough to read. x.x

[GhostofAnakin]

Battle cries or companions yelling in combat are okay by me:

 

1-On the onset of battle, when each companion is sort of yelling out what they're about to do.

2-Perhaps when they score a critical hit, or take down an opponent.

3-When their health is low.

 

Other than that, it does get really annoying hearing non stop battle cries, often repeating the exact same phrases over and over and over again.

Edited November 2, 2012 by GhostofAnakin

[Sensuki]

Im sorry I couldn't get past the first 5 words or so of your post. You replayed Dragon Age 2! As in voluntarily!?

 

I can't get over the fact that people played Dragon Age 2, hahah. The first one was bad enough.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Sensuki

[LadyCrimson]

"You've left me an opening!" ... ah, Kotor2 memories.

 

...most of the time I eventually learn to tune out combat barking. But agree it is annoying if they overlap/cut each other off too often. Other than that, I'm kinda like GhostofA: bark for the start of combat, critical hits, low health is tolerable, even if it does get repetitive. Also, a menu option to turn only the barks off would be fine with me...because even if I think the barks are funny, at some point I'm going to wish they'd shut up, so....

[AGX-17]

Huh. All I remember in DA2 are the smartass quips and general grunts.

[Monte Carlo]

DA2 LOL.

 

Srsly.

[Brother Pain]

DA2 had a way too linear plot, reused areas, and a too action'y combat system. Other than that though, I actually liked the game quite a lot. The characters were well written especially.

I don't remember it having too many combat barks though.

As someone else mentioned, Dragon's Dogma (with just 3 NPCs) is the absolute worst at this, NWN and NWN2 are bad at it, Arcanum had barks on every single critical hit, and let's not even get into other genres like tactical shooters with their constant "helpful" barks.

 

So I guess my point was that I agree that using combat barks in moderation is a good idea

[JFSOCC]

"You've left me an opening!" ... ah, Kotor2 memories.

came here to say that.

 

If you're going to put them in, at least give us some variety, and we don't need to hear them all the time.

[Acerbissimus]

Combat barks from the party never bothered me much, but some option to turn down their volume or mute them might not be bad.

 

The one thing from these games that always stood out to me (in a bad way), however, were your PC's barks. I didn't like any of the voice packs you selected from, and it sounded weird to have your ordinarily mute PC shout loudly in combat. I'm hoping for an option to disable PC barks.

[Aldereth]

I suppose this is the price we pay for Voice Over. DA 1 & 2 or any cRPG is already quite a bit better when this kind of program driven combat barks go. It is especially annoying in action game. I remember the numerous call for help for wingman from old space sim like Wing Commander Series. These easily scared pilots would scream for help as soon as more than 1 enemies fire at them and their shield got dented a bit. By the time I turn around to check on him/her, he/she would have launch missiles and have already blown the few bogies up and their shield regenerated.

 

In cRPG, the idea for these combat bark VO is add character. But the way it is implemented by firing them with couple of "if" condition has damn firing the same thing over and over again to become very annoying. In the past, dev. has add more barks to mix them up but I think they could do more in two area to make it better. One, make those conditions for firing off a combat bark much rarer. 2nd, put a limit of how many combat bark a character can have per combat.

[Brother Pain]

Perhaps a way to do it is to put a timer or cooldown on each combat bark and it doesn't add sound for that bark again until the timer runs out. The timer setting could even be a user setting