The 'Sidian Tyranny thread

[Hurlshort]

Well being a hardcore RPG and offering lots of ways to lose are two different things.  Did PoE have any other game enders other than the Pit?  

[mindswayer]

Wasnt the "hardcore" solution PoE?

 

Everything must be "hardcore" because one game was crowdfunded?

Not what I said. Personally I don't really have a problem with Tyranny's reduction of party members, and the removal of friendly fire isn't something that makes me drop the game (although I have mixed feelings about it).

My worries are that the designers see something that frustrate some players and then remove it even though it poses no problem to the vast majority, and can create fun situations and challenges - such as the example they gave of fighting some very powerful dude early on. I mean if you're aggressive to an Archon, what would you expect? Him to throw candy at you and play with snowballs?

Tyranny already has level scaling (which I despise - but can understand the choice) - at least use that system you implemented to make the archon manageable if you don't like strong enemies. If the Archons aren't scaled, let people pick fights with them if they wish anyway.

My hyperbole was more to emphasize the snowball effect that some of these design changes have. Today it's "we don't want to frustrate the player, so we won't allow him to fight this guy early on, even if he chooses to." What's coming tomorrow? I have no idea, I just hope it isn't The Elder Scrolls Daggerfall-Skyrim Saga v2.0.

 

I'd just like to stress that my problem isn't with this change in particular, it's with the idea behind it. These types of things kind of irk me and make me draw parallels to other franchises. If from my post you get that this completely makes or breaks the game for me, I'm sorry, that's not my intent. Haven't seen anything so far that made me think "I won't even bother with this."

[Nonek]

Speaking of the Beasts that remarkably use senses to experience the world, what do you think Kyros will decide is their fate? Personally i'm hoping that we recieve the order to exterminate the species as a possible impediment to the lawful day to day running of his tyranny. Nice little bit of genocide for the greater good, hand their hunting grounds over to settlers and farmers who can reinforce our campaign.

 

I wonder what they taste like?

[mindswayer]

Speaking of the Beasts that remarkably use senses to experience the world, what do you think Kyros will decide is their fate? Personally i'm hoping that we recieve the order to exterminate the species as a possible impediment to the lawful day to day running of his tyranny. Nice little bit of genocide for the greater good, hand their hunting grounds over to settlers and farmers who can reinforce our campaign.

 

I wonder what they taste like?

salt chips and marmalade

[Fenixp]

I'd just like to stress that my problem isn't with this change in particular, it's with the idea behind it.

To be fair, I can also imagine the conversation going along these lines:

"Okay, let's insert the option for the player to fight this super-powerful character, at that point, he can't kill him anyway."

"So what if he does?"

"Eh... We'll have to make the game react to it properly, but only like 1% of the player base will see that."

"All right. Let's drop the option."

Which then arrives to a PR person, who says "All right, that's a great idea! We just need to spin it so that it doesn't seem like we're taking away choice because it's not worth implementing."

And voila, "We like our players and don't want to frustrate them!" was born.

[the_dog_days]

Well being a hardcore RPG and offering lots of ways to lose are two different things. Did PoE have any other game enders other than the Pit?

There were a couple that kinda fit. The first to jump to mind was something along the lines of swimming through an underground river and potentially drowning while trying to fetch some bling due to a lack of sufficiently high constitution and athletics. Not a real "push button and die."

[mindswayer]

 

I'd just like to stress that my problem isn't with this change in particular, it's with the idea behind it.

To be fair, I can also imagine the conversation going along these lines:

"Okay, let's insert the option for the player to fight this super-powerful character, at that point, he can't kill him anyway."

"So what if he does?"

"Eh... We'll have to make the game react to it properly, but only like 1% of the player base will see that."

"All right. Let's drop the option."

Which then arrives to a PR person, who says "All right, that's a great idea! We just need to spin it so that it doesn't seem like we're taking away choice because it's not worth implementing."

And voila, "We like our players and don't want to frustrate them!" was born.

 

Entirely possible, although I don't think that's how it went, judging by the way it was said. But dropping content because only 1% of the player base would see it isn't exactly a positive either lol. I think I remember Matt talking about the value of optional content and paths in the panel though, so I don't think that's what they'd do. Some of the coolest stuff ever is when you complete an RPG then go online and talk about it and hear people mention stuff you didn't know was even possible, and entirely different paths you could take. Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex are clear examples in my mind of this.

 

However this all depends on budget and time, of course, and the game hasn't even come out (in fact there's not even a release date, with 3 months left of 2016), so it's just pure speculation at this point.

Edited September 9, 2016 by mindswayer

[213374U]

Don't blame the developer, blame the players.  You don't stay in business by ignoring the people that buy your product.  

 

Funny, that 2010 Bioware have them beat in this regard. In DAO you could try and fight your way through a party that was obviously designed to be, if not unbeatable, certainly overpowering. Defeating the encounter meant missing the jailbreak sequence. Beyond that, the consequences for your choice there weren't that far-reaching, but at least the game allowed for it, mechanically and narratively.

 

Fast forward a few years, you have Biower producing a turd of an ending in three different flavors, and an Obsidz that wants to protect its players from "bad choices". DAO isn't spectacularly profound in its C&C, but when it does it better than your game, well, maybe some reflection is warranted.

 

Don't do drugs bad choices, kids.

 

 

(brb just signing up for a KKKodex account real quick)

[Nonek]

I have to admit that the Witcher 2 had two very high points for me: The first was in the prologue, if Geralt tried to escape from the dungeon Ves simply put a crossbow bolt through him and it was game over. The second was when one met the dangerous Scoiatael leader Iorveth, surrounded by bowmen, knowing that Iorveth was a remorseless killer, and told to not bandy words, if the Witcher chose to ignore these warnings and antagonise the killer then his white hide became a quite fetching pin cushion.

 

Made me chuckle and applaud.

[Gfted1]

But either occurance would just result in a reload, right? So beyond the novelty of getting killed, theres no long term affects?

[aluminiumtrioxid]

But either occurance would just result in a reload, right? So beyond the novelty of getting killed, theres no long term affects?

 

Character death tends to preclude events that affect the character's long-term future, yes.

[Gfted1]

Its just a useless gotcha. Or you would die in the prologue and uninstall the game?

[Nonek]

I play in Insane mode. If I was just kept alive illogically because the player can never face any challenge or setback i'd be far more put out than I was having to restart the game as I did, there need to be failure states in games, far more of them in my opinion. However there are few developers who cater to that so I wouldn't worry.

[Gfted1]

Yes, bullet...dodged.

 

Did you mean to say "epilogue"? I woundnt mind my in-game decisions resulting in my death at the end but dying in the beginning is so dumb that I feel like Im misunderstanding you.

[Hurlshort]

 

Don't blame the developer, blame the players.  You don't stay in business by ignoring the people that buy your product.  

 

Funny, that 2010 Bioware have them beat in this regard. In DAO you could try and fight your way through a party that was obviously designed to be, if not unbeatable, certainly overpowering. Defeating the encounter meant missing the jailbreak sequence. Beyond that, the consequences for your choice there weren't that far-reaching, but at least the game allowed for it, mechanically and narratively.

 

Fast forward a few years, you have Biower producing a turd of an ending in three different flavors, and an Obsidz that wants to protect its players from "bad choices". DAO isn't spectacularly profound in its C&C, but when it does it better than your game, well, maybe some reflection is warranted.

 

Don't do drugs bad choices, kids.

 

 

(brb just signing up for a KKKodex account real quick)

 

 

This reinforces my point.  DAIII sold way better than DAO.  It's the players that are pushing this crap.

[mindswayer]

 

 

Don't blame the developer, blame the players.  You don't stay in business by ignoring the people that buy your product.  

 

Funny, that 2010 Bioware have them beat in this regard. In DAO you could try and fight your way through a party that was obviously designed to be, if not unbeatable, certainly overpowering. Defeating the encounter meant missing the jailbreak sequence. Beyond that, the consequences for your choice there weren't that far-reaching, but at least the game allowed for it, mechanically and narratively.

 

Fast forward a few years, you have Biower producing a turd of an ending in three different flavors, and an Obsidz that wants to protect its players from "bad choices". DAO isn't spectacularly profound in its C&C, but when it does it better than your game, well, maybe some reflection is warranted.

 

Don't do drugs bad choices, kids.

 

 

(brb just signing up for a KKKodex account real quick)

 

 

This reinforces my point.  DAIII sold way better than DAO.  It's the players that are pushing this crap.

 

 

I remember seeing some graph some years ago of the evolution of sales in the Dragon Age series and DA:O was still leading by some significant units.

I just checked vgchartz (lol) and Dragon Age Origins and Inquisition have the same number of units sold (despite DA:I being available in FIVE different platforms), but since it doesn't count digital sales, it's kinda hard to know for sure. But I'd bet that the PC version of DA:O outsold the PC version of DA:I by quite a margin.

 

PS: Also, it's worth noting that DA:O and DA:I are completely different games designed for completely different systems. DA:O was an accessible cRPG that got ported to consoles. DA:I is a singleplayer MMO that got ported to PC. When you design your game for an audience 5 times bigger, it'd be very odd if you didn't increase your sale numbers.

Edited September 10, 2016 by mindswayer

[Bartimaeus]

 

Yeah, I don't much like that. It doesn't really help build your world - actions have consequences, and sometimes doing dumb stuff leads to a dumb death. That's the nature of life.

 

I think "this action is considered to be so fundamentally dumb that it doesn't even occur to your character" is a perfectly valid way of worldbuilding by omission.

 

 

Uh, well, I don't, because plenty of people make "fundamentally dumb" decisions all the time in the real world, and while I'm not a fan of being railroaded into certain actions by way of the game providing unrealistic consequences for those certain actions (the aforementioned attacking Irenicus in Spellhold by yourself), I'm even less of a fan of the game railroading you by not providing you the ability to do an obvious (if perhaps unwise) option(s) that occurs to the player, depending on the type of character you're playing. That sort of thing is extremely frustrating and takes me straight out of the game - coming up with an idea/plan that might work, and then the game not even providing it as an option when it makes perfect sense in-universe. It is much better to see such an idea fail than for the game to just refuse to provide you the possibility of even trying it out to begin with.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

 

 

I remember seeing some graph some years ago of the evolution of sales in the Dragon Age series and DA:O was still leading by some significant units.

I just checked vgchartz (lol) and Dragon Age Origins and Inquisition have the same number of units sold (despite DA:I being available in FIVE different platforms), but since it doesn't count digital sales, it's kinda hard to know for sure. But I'd bet that the PC version of DA:O outsold the PC version of DA:I by quite a margin.

 

PS: Also, it's worth noting that DA:O and DA:I are completely different games designed for completely different systems. DA:O was an accessible cRPG that got ported to consoles. DA:I is a singleplayer MMO that got ported to PC. When you design your game for an audience 5 times bigger, it'd be very odd if you didn't increase your sale numbers.

 

 

Huh, well I guess I may be buying into the whole EA propaganda that DA:I sold like hotcakes.  They got me!

 

I do remember there being a lot more issues in development with DA:O.  I would guess that is what had them veer off the development model.

[213374U]

This reinforces my point.  DAIII sold way better than DAO.  It's the players that are pushing this crap.

I'm not sure it reinforces your point, though I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you. Evidently it's players gobbling this **** up. That doesn't mean DAO players demanded further consolization and, uh... the rest of the changes that DA2 and DAI brought.

 

It's like saying that fans of Ciudade de Deus would rather have more movies in the vein of Transformers 2 made.

 

It's all part of EA's business strategy, and they've been doing it across the board. Aim for the absolute widest possible audience for all your product lines, and if that upsets long time fans of <IP>, well, tough. If you sell more copies than if you didn't, claim "SUCCESS!!1". If you don't, do it anyway, but can any sequel plans and dismantle the corresponding studio.

 

Edited September 10, 2016 by 213374U

[quidproquo]

Hate to say it, but why would any company do anything but try to get the largest return off of their investment?  Don't mistake me.  I hate the consolization trend as much as the next bloke, but it's the way of things.  It would be irresponsible for EA to do anything but what's best for the investors.  That's why there're niche companies like Obsidian to put out great games like Pathfinder for the rest of us.  As long as someone can make good money making a game I like, I don't care how much money someone else brings in by making games I don't.

[213374U]

Hate to say it, but why would any company do anything but try to get the largest return off of their investment?  Don't mistake me.  I hate the consolization trend as much as the next bloke, but it's the way of things.  It would be irresponsible for EA to do anything but what's best for the investors.  That's why there're niche companies like Obsidian to put out great games like Pathfinder for the rest of us.  As long as someone can make good money making a game I like, I don't care how much money someone else brings in by making games I don't.

 

Sure. It makes perfect sense from a financial standpoint to protect your investment as much as possible, and play it safe. I wasn't suggesting they should act differently or that it's not a sound business strategy, because their success attests to the fact that it very much is.

 

Problem is this means financial reasons are dictating design decisions, which then are going to be passed off as "improvements", when in reality they can be anything but. That's where marketing comes in, and at it's usually at this point that I go into anaphylactic shock from all the PR talk.

 

In the particular case of EA, success also means they tend to buy up studios that I personally like, to turn them into soulless Madden-churning machines, and finally close them down when all the juice has been sucked up.

 

It's the way of things, maybe, but that doesn't really help with the butthurt. I also shake my fist at clouds FYI.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

Yeah, I don't much like that. It doesn't really help build your world - actions have consequences, and sometimes doing dumb stuff leads to a dumb death. That's the nature of life.

 

I think "this action is considered to be so fundamentally dumb that it doesn't even occur to your character" is a perfectly valid way of worldbuilding by omission.

 

 

Uh, well, I don't, because plenty of people make "fundamentally dumb" decisions all the time in the real world

 

In all fairness, they tend not to be placed in positions comparable to that of the Fatebinder.

 

I mean, when you're working on a limited budget, and have to make a choice between spending resources on creating options that, at best, result in a chuckle and a quickload, or creating options that have more far-reaching consequences, "let's just assume the Fatebinder is aware of how stupid it would be for them to attack an Archon and their sense of self-preservation is developed enough that they'd like to avoid that fight regardless of what the player thinks they should be doing" is hardly an unreasonable position to arrive at.

Edited September 10, 2016 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Labadal]

The latest short story wasn't very good. I don't want to insult the writer, ut it was very bad, even.

[Infinitron]

 

Being able to jump into the pit in PoE was basically a one-off gimmick. Weird thing to get attached to, but I doubt it's what they have in mind here anyway.

In the recent Obsidian PAX panel, they specifically mentioned putting in the option to start a fight against an enemy who was just too powerful to beat (I'm guessing one of the Archons), which had QA ask them why they put the option in. After that, they decided to remove the option or at least made taking the option not result into death.

 

 

Watch again, they didn't say it was removed. They added a warning and an option to back off.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Infinitron

[ShadySands]

Did we ever get some final numbers for DA:I? I know they said it was the best launch they've ever had but I've not been able to find anything else beyond that.