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Congratulations for getting the whole way through that, I guess? Every time I see it my brain just sort of shuts down and I leave the page.
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Sep 23, 2014 01:06
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The AP dialogue was so easy though. You only really had 3 options that weren't *no poo poo* pick this dossier/veteran option for something good to happen. If you can't decide if you want to be a hyper aggressive rear end in a top hat, a sarcastic tit, or a diplomatic professional during a 15 second period of a guy talking to you, I don't know what to tell you. I never had a problem with it.
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Sep 23, 2014 01:27
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Shugojin posted:Congratulations for getting the whole way through that, I guess? Every time I see it my brain just sort of shuts down and I leave the page. The sheer dedication and thought put into biochemistry was kind of impressive, but the absolutely everything else about it was depressing and disturbing enough to kill that tiny bit of semi-respect off a dozen times over. I do hope that guy got the professional help he so clearly needs.
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Sep 23, 2014 02:45
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Geostomp posted:The sheer dedication and thought put into biochemistry was kind of impressive, but the absolutely everything else about it was depressing and disturbing enough to kill that tiny bit of semi-respect off a dozen times over. I do hope that guy got the professional help he so clearly needs. At least he was directing his obsessive-depressive stalker behavior towards a woman who doesn't actually exist?
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Sep 23, 2014 02:51
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Time to cancel those preorders, guys. 
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Sep 23, 2014 03:10
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Josef bugman posted:Actually come to think about it AP did a remarkably good job of not loving you over no matter what you chose. And I think that's the key to making timed dialogue work- by giving you different outcomes and decisions, not better or worse ones. It's not the kind of thing Bioware can deal with or is used to though, so while it'd definitely work for Obsidian, Bioware should just stick to their usual stuff. COOKIEMONSTER posted:The AP dialogue was so easy though. You only really had 3 options that weren't *no poo poo* pick this dossier/veteran option for something good to happen. If you can't decide if you want to be a hyper aggressive rear end in a top hat, a sarcastic tit, or a diplomatic professional during a 15 second period of a guy talking to you, I don't know what to tell you. I never had a problem with it. Hell, the game made allowances if you did all 3 in the same conversation, and IIRC if you kept it up through the game. Geostomp posted:The sheer dedication and thought put into biochemistry was kind of impressive, but the absolutely everything else about it was depressing and disturbing enough to kill that tiny bit of semi-respect off a dozen times over. I do hope that guy got the professional help he so clearly needs. I have to say that I did fin it impressive, in the same way that a train wreck is.
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Sep 23, 2014 03:58
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Opposing Farce posted:Like, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, and I've done it myself plenty of times, but just because you can powergame everything doesn't mean you're obligated to. It's not about 'power'gaming, though - most often in AP, you're not really choosing between options that are objectively better or worse, so that doesn't apply. It's about having the time to consider the approach you want Mike to take, especially if you're running him as someone who will adapt to the situation rather than taking a consistent tone with everyone. Nor are you necessarily playing Mike as anything like yourself, so a gut reaction can be totally inappropriate and unhelpful. I could deal much more readily with a timed system where you generally had an optimal outcome, and sometimes you hosed up and got something else. Whatever. But when you've got conversation that's all about defining your character's take on things and not about maximising gains, that's when I want the ability to take some time and consider all the options.
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Sep 23, 2014 05:07
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I think some people just read and process more slowly or less effectively than other people. Haha, losers.
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Sep 23, 2014 05:12
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I think I have finally realized what was the event that really soured me on Bioware and DA2. Back in 2011 when DA2 came out, I bought it, got about half way through, got pissed at how boring it was and put it away, never to touch it again. Also about that time, I was a weekly listener of the Gamers With Jobs podcast. They usually had decent discussions and they talked about boardgames a lot. When DA2 came out, everyone on the podcast was over the loving moon for that game, talking about how amazingly deep the characters were and how it was one of the best character games ever. There was this one woman who would be in on the podcast every few weeks and every goddamn time she was on, she'd spend 20 minutes talking about how she was still playing DA2 and she loved making a gay male Hawke and how she was on her eighth playthrough or whatever. They were still talking about that game almost weekly by the end of 2011. I stopped listening to the podcast and it really just soured me on any and all conversation about the Dragon Age franchise.
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Sep 23, 2014 07:15
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I found DA2 mediocre all the way through, but the last straw was when at the end they took Anders, my healer, away from me. I was playing on whatever the highest difficulty was, and as I recall you couldn't even find a potion vendor or a replacement healer. I just couldn't finish the game without healing. Most of my spite for this game comes from this.
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Sep 23, 2014 07:33
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Opposing Farce posted:If you're replaying sections of the game because you'd rather do that and get your perfect playthrough than roll with the consequences of your decisions, that's kind of on you. Like, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, and I've done it myself plenty of times, but just because you can powergame everything doesn't mean you're obligated to. I don't really consider it "powergaming", getting the story to go the way you'd like isn't the same as maximizing your stats. Clever gimmicks like putting dialogue on a timer or obfusticating choices and consequences in an effort to make games more organic are all well and good, and I respect what they're trying to do, but it can be annoying if you're forced to abide by them or else go well out of your way to circumvent them. Some games have already shown ways to handle this. Let a player pause during a dialogue timer, if they want. Have an option to show more information about choices - if your game has an alignment system, being able to turn on and off telling the player which are the good and evil choices. Autosaves for points of no return, and the option of turning on hardcore or iron man playthroughs if that's what you want. I wouldn't call this obsessive, it's pretty much the opposite since it's about having the option of making story stuff more casual instead of obsessing about difficult choices and living with consequences. Dolash fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 07:50
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Dolash posted:I wouldn't call this obsessive, it's pretty much the opposite since it's about having the option of making story stuff more casual instead of obsessing about difficult choices and living with consequences. You're obsessing about non-difficult choices and not living with the consequences. That sounds even worse.
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Sep 23, 2014 08:09
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Furism posted:I found DA2 mediocre all the way through, but the last straw was when at the end they took Anders, my healer, away from me. I was playing on whatever the highest difficulty was, and as I recall you couldn't even find a potion vendor or a replacement healer. I just couldn't finish the game without healing. What are you talking about? Taking Anders from you should be a happy occasion! 
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Sep 23, 2014 08:21
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It's not really taking Anders away from me when I'm pressing the "Murder Anders" button as hard and as quickly as I am able, is it?
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Sep 23, 2014 08:25
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Disco Infiva posted:What are you talking about? Taking Anders from you should be a happy occasion! That says a lot about my experience of the end of the game if I was sad to see Anders go, yeah.
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Sep 23, 2014 08:33
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Furism posted:That says a lot about my experience of the end of the game if I was sad to see Anders go, yeah. You have a lot of "that must say a lot about me" experiences, apparently.
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Sep 23, 2014 08:42
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Drifter posted:You're obsessing about non-difficult choices and not living with the consequences. That sounds even worse. Now I wish I didn't have to live with the consequences of my posting. Edit - in the interest of turning back toward discussing DA:I, is the Keep the only part of the game that's getting a public beta of any kind? Will reviewers get a chance to play and comment on the game before release, or is it all going to be official previews and demos until November 18th? Dolash fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 08:59
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To be fair, I think AP's system would be better suited to a game with a more obvious 'player insert' character, as without preexisting knowledge of the plot it's basically impossible for Mike Thorton to be anything else.
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Sep 23, 2014 09:20
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Drifter posted:You're obsessing about non-difficult choices and not living with the consequences. That sounds even worse. "Fear" of living with the consequences has nothing to do with my annoyance with timed dialogues. If it's just picking snarky/friendly/agrressive one-liner for this moment, then fine. But conversations in RPGs affect something down the line (or they should, even if the 'something' is minor). That's the whole point of giving people choices on how to respond. It's also part of why you might replay a game, to take a different path. Putting that timer in the design forces a choice on the player from the beginning of the game: Either pick a response option for everything regardless of what happens so at least you'll be consistent, or have your outcome be semi-random based on your gut reaction and thus invalidate two of the points of the choice: deciding which consequence you want and allowing replayability (unless you write down what you said every step of the way). That is poor dialogue design in my book, even if AP manages to make the story and game work despite of it. Why does this need to be a forced design? If you want to pick dialogues off the cuff, then do so. Set your own limit of picking within 5 seconds or whatever and live gloriously with your screwups. Thankfully the point is somewhat moot here, because we know DA:I is going in practically the opposite route, not using timers and even giving you expanded mouse-over text on some of the major choices to further let you mull over what the likely consequences of picking them may be (like which faction may be pissed off at you if you do something).
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Sep 23, 2014 09:24
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Dolash posted:I wouldn't call this obsessive, it's pretty much the opposite since it's about having the option of making story stuff more casual instead of obsessing about difficult choices and living with consequences. I think part of the problem a lot of people have with AP's timed dialogue is that they're used to Bioware-style choices where there's pretty much always a "best choice". Forced to choose between killing a possessed child or saving the child via killing the mother? Why would you ever pick either of those two when you can just go get the mages and save everyone? Faced with the choice between getting Tali exiled from her home and family or revealing her father's crimes? Well screw having to make a choice! Just yell at the judges with enough paragon/renegade points and everything will work out fine. And if there's a "best choice" picking any other option can feel a failure state - because you either lost access to content, or there's the knowledge that if you picked the "best choice" you could have saved everyone floating around in the back of your head, so people start obsessing over getting the best outcome. Alpha Protocol didn't really have any "best choice" like this. Did you annoy Marburg instead of charming his pants off? You have not entered a failure state. You didn't loose access to content, you instead got access to different content. Raygereio fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 09:27
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Drifter posted:You have a lot of "that must say a lot about me" experiences, apparently. I don't understand.
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Sep 23, 2014 09:59
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Raygereio posted:Either you really didn't get what Alpha Protocol was going for, or it simply wasn't the game for you. The dialogues in AP are supposed to put pressure on the player and make conversations feel like tense situations. There is some amount of feeling like a wrong choice is a failed choice for me, but not necessarily in the sense of getting the "best outcome" based on what is mechanically superior or arrives at a "everything is solved without losses" state, if these exist. A "best outcome" in any RPG is the outcome I want for that playthrough. AP does allow you enter a perceived failure state there, if you have decided your Mike likes Marburg and you want to see the content that happens when they are best buds, not the content where you annoy each other. The game doesn't end, you have not handicapped yourself and you can likely make up for it later, but it was, ultimately, the game that picked something for me, for having the audacity to sit back and say "Hmmm... how do I smooze him best here... Professional or... whoops, too late". Without the timer, the same content and paths and story and all the rest is still there, and to APs credit pretty much all of it is worth seeing and makes an enjoyable experience. That doesn't mean that it isn't annoying to pick something you didn't want for a particular playthrough. GhostBoy fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 10:47
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Furism posted:I don't understand. I think he's confusing you and me and the last time I said "says something about me/my experience."
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Sep 23, 2014 13:30
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Lotish posted:Time to cancel those preorders, guys. Yeah. I think someone mentioned it earlier in the thread. Regardless, it saddens me.
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Sep 23, 2014 14:41
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Bored posted:Yeah. I think someone mentioned it earlier in the thread. Regardless, it saddens me. I never used the mabari so it doesn't bother me, but I'm surprised they cut it out considering how much some of the fans used and like the mutts. I mean, look at all of the fans service they cater to in bringing back minor characters like Cullen that get similar fan support. Is it because you can't pretend to gently caress the mabari? Is it possible for BSN folks to find something they won't gently caress?
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Sep 23, 2014 14:46
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Byers2142 posted:Is it because you can't pretend to gently caress the mabari? 
Generic American fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 14:56
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Bored posted:Yeah. I think someone mentioned it earlier in the thread. Regardless, it saddens me. We get mounts now, so I have to say the Inquisition seems to have better pets than just one (super-intelligent) dog.
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Sep 23, 2014 14:59
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Mounts don't really do anything though besides run beneath you, do they? Can I pet a mount?  Lotish posted:I think he's confusing you and me and the last time I said "says something about me/my experience." You're both purple. It's an easy mistake to make, albeit a messy one. Apologies.
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Sep 23, 2014 15:21
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Generic American posted:Oh, look at you with your hesitant optimism when you already know the answer. You're so precious. Hope springs eternal.
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Sep 23, 2014 15:22
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Raygereio posted:
That's a terrible example, since bringing down Marburg early was an obviously better outcome than letting him get away and something a player might want to know how to do beforehand. You don't enter a failure state if you don't manage it, but it's the best choice if you can do it, the same as with your Redcliffe example. Another good example of a best choice in Alpha Protocol is Konstantin and Surkov, where if you don't do things right then you don't realize that Surkov is the actual culprit and Konstantin is just a fall-guy. Again, you don't get a game over for doing things wrong, but there's an obvious better answer. It doesn't really matter to the point about timed dialogues, though. They're just another game mechanic where it's nice to offer the player a way to opt out if they want. The Walking Dead had timed dialogues but gave you the option to pause and there's a game with very little in the way of "best choices", but nobody complained that being able to pause the timer ruined the game for them.
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Sep 23, 2014 17:02
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Dolash posted:That's a terrible example, since bringing down Marburg early was an obviously better outcome than letting him get away Raygereio fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 17:29
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The Redcliffe "get the mages" option is irritating because you're dealing with a demonic force that conjured an army out of loving nowhere that wiped out the entire castle's population and sieged the town repeatedly. Even if you wiped all of the guys he had out and left some knights to hold the fort, the demon should have tried something while you were away, like, say, mind-controlling the knights like he did Teagan. The demonic possession should have been a pressing issue and slagging off for a few weeks to get the mages should have had consequences. In horror movies, when someone (successfully) goes to get help, the monster doesn't just wait patiently for them to come back before it continues its depredations. In other news, Wasteland 2 is out and it's pretty fun!
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Sep 23, 2014 19:06
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Lotish posted:The Redcliffe "get the mages" option is irritating because you're dealing with a demonic force that conjured an army out of loving nowhere that wiped out the entire castle's population and sieged the town repeatedly. Even if you wiped all of the guys he had out and left some knights to hold the fort, the demon should have tried something while you were away, like, say, mind-controlling the knights like he did Teagan. The demonic possession should have been a pressing issue and slagging off for a few weeks to get the mages should have had consequences. In horror movies, when someone (successfully) goes to get help, the monster doesn't just wait patiently for them to come back before it continues its depredations. Speaking of Wasteland 2, can you actually play as a bad guy outside of just killing everyone? Doesn't seem like you can join opposing factions or do "evil" quests. Not that this is bad, just curious if the option is there and I'm missing it.
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Sep 23, 2014 19:12
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Yeah, as far as I can tell you are a Ranger and that's that. You can definitely finish quests in such a way as to either be an rear end in a top hat or a gently caress-up, though. In fact, with the choice at the start of the game you're an rear end in a top hat either way (sorry, Kathy  ).
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Sep 23, 2014 19:16
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Lotish posted:Yeah, as far as I can tell you are a Ranger and that's that. You can definitely finish quests in such a way as to either be an rear end in a top hat or a gently caress-up, though. In fact, with the choice at the start of the game you're an rear end in a top hat either way (sorry, Kathy You can even be a double rear end in a top hat in that specific instance and help no body.
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Sep 23, 2014 19:51
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Spikeguy posted:Speaking of Wasteland 2, can you actually play as a bad guy outside of just killing everyone? Doesn't seem like you can join opposing factions or do "evil" quests. Not that this is bad, just curious if the option is there and I'm missing it. I suspect you can screw the Rangers over though. It's hinted in High Pool where I think you can have the Security Guy become mayor instead of the lady. Also Vargas tells you once in the Citadel that our actions impact the Desert Rangers, that you shouldn't break your word etc. Sounds to me like the game hinting on how to be bad. No idea if that's just flavor text or a Thing.
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Sep 24, 2014 09:53
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Dolash posted:Another good example of a best choice in Alpha Protocol is Konstantin and Surkov, where if you don't do things right then you don't realize that Surkov is the actual culprit and Konstantin is just a fall-guy. Again, you don't get a game over for doing things wrong, but there's an obvious better answer. You get that by hacking a computer, though, not a dialogue choice. Not looting poo poo is objectively worse than looting poo poo; that's something that holds true for the rest of the game, as well.
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Sep 24, 2014 10:22
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Kajeesus posted:You get that by hacking a computer, though, not a dialogue choice. Not looting poo poo is objectively worse than looting poo poo; that's something that holds true for the rest of the game, as well. Are you sure? Because as I remember it, you get a choice to kill Konstantin immediately after the boss fight or talk to him. If you talk to him, you can team up to go after Surkov. That's how it worked in one of my playthroughs, anyway.
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Sep 24, 2014 13:23
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There are two requirements for getting the Prevent Surkov's Escape mission. You need to use Surkov's laptop during the US embassy mission and you need to interrogate Brayko after the boss battle.
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Sep 24, 2014 13:30
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Raygereio posted:There are two requirements for getting the Prevent Surkov's Escape mission. You need to use Surkov's laptop during the US embassy mission and you need to interrogate Brayko after the boss battle. I think you have to mock him for his
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