Codex Interview Brent Knowles Interview: An Insider's Look at BioWare, 2000-2009

[tuluse]

I must be a strange player because I never found the DAO camera that bad (and nothing is near as bad as NWN2). I paused about the same frequency in DAO as I did in BG2.


Edit: I just noticed you switched to DAI.

 

[Lilura]

Infinitron:

The automation is only gonna be as intelligent as the player tailors it, though.

It's also part of char-building.. you can play without it, but it'll be awkward and humans can't really keep up with all the commands - at least on Nightmare RAVAge.

Plus DA:O employs that framework not to take decisions away from the player, but to take away tedium and repetitious commands like inane micro-management that we see in BG2, and which Ease-of-Use party AI and other scripts over the years have tried (and failed) to address.

I think of the conditional tactics framework combat as conducting the orchestra from a podium, instead of running around telling each musician what to do.

There is also a sense of satisfaction watching your configs do the hard yards, while you make the crucial decisions as combat unfolds/evolves...

I personally don't see a slippery slope to popamole in DA:O combat and systems..

 

[Roguey]

lolz, source?

http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/354/?

Cone of Cold - Fixed a vanilla bug causing enemies to never resist the frozen effect, and reduced chance to freeze by 20%.

http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/2053/?

Cone of cold gets proper resistance check like other elemental spells.

As Sawyer says, you have to be very careful when it comes to nerfing stuff once a game is out. In DAII cone of cold works as it should and they removed shattering entirely.

 

[Sensuki]

inane micro-management that we see in BG2

Now it all makes sense.

 

[Infinitron]

I personally don't see a slippery slope to popamole in DA:O combat and systems..

Don't the sequels speak for themselves?

I can sort of imagine how you could do something interesting with a conditional framework if you made a game that truly revolved around it (and where it would be used in ALL battles), but Dragon Age wanted to have it both ways.

The idea of "I'll let the game play itself automatically for the easy/trash battles and only take control in the tough ones" is kind of bad, I think. It sounds logical to veteran RPG players, but the newbies, they never get a chance to learn how to play the game, because they never get to play a basic fight. It's all automatic!

It may also subtly encourage designers to add more trash fights because "hey, it's automatic, right?"

 

[Lilura]

Don't the sequels speak for themselves?

Meh, I knew you'd say that.. but a standard was set and Bioware chose to devolve it to make more money or whatevs. My opinion.

The idea of "I'll let the game play itself automatically for the easy/trash battles and only take control in the tough ones" is kind of bad, I think. It sounds logical to veteran RPG players, but the newbies, they never get a chance to learn how to play the game, because they never get to play a basic fight. It's all automatic!

And lazy players, I suppose..

I'll have to play DA2 and DAI one of these days, some people have said the former still offers decent combat and tactics.. I guess I'll see

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Twisted Rune, Kangaxx, Demogorgan and the random Athkatla lich fights all come to mind. Even if you used the cheesy protection from undead scrolls, you had to know the rules!

What Rake said about Kangaxx, first time I beat BG2 was with a berserker with mastery in staves (I was larping that since my char was born in Candlekeep, the watchers there trained him to fight) which means I had access to a +4 weapon early (staff of Rynn), vanilla Demogorgon fell under the onslaught of greater whirlwinds from Korgan, Sarevok and my char, the liches I usually survived long enough for their protections to wear off and then hack them to pieces.

Twisted Rune I stumbled onto after I returned from the boat trip and already had cloak of cheese (which even deflected magic back at the caster back then, heh) and other goodies. It's not like vanilla Twisted Rune was all that hard, as far as I remember (it was ages since I played unmodded BG2) the human fighter dude wasn't even armed and the mage wasn't using the Staff of Magi properly (wasn't turning invisible) which left the lich, beholder and a vampire which were all the creatures I already faced before.

 

[Roguey]

some people have said the former still offers decent combat and tactics.. I guess I'll see

With my playstyle, there were about ~10 in the entire game. It's almost (but not quite) kotor-level dumb.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Infinitron:
It's also part of char-building.. you can play without it, but it'll be awkward and humans can't really keep up with all the commands - at least on Nightmare RAVAge.

Bullshit. I had 3 casters and a tank. No need for automation.

Plus DA:O employs that framework not to take decisions away from the player, but to take away tedium and repetitious commands like inane micro-management that we see in BG2, and which Ease-of-Use party AI and other scripts over the years have tried (and failed) to address.

Which fails to work even as well as the SCS scripts for BG/BG2.

I think of the conditional tactics framework combat as conducting the orchestra from a podium, instead of running around telling each musician what to do.

4-char party stumbling over each other in corridors doesn't exactly fit my image of an orchestra, but perhaps things are different over in Retardoland where you hail from.

There is also a sense of satisfaction watching your configs do the hard yards, while you make the crucial decisions as combat unfolds/evolves...

What hard fights? Oh, the ones that required Wynne to cast a healing spell? Or the handful of fights where the casters had to drink a mana potion?

I personally don't see a slippery slope to popamole in DA:O combat and systems..

Because you're a retarded dumbfuck.



"Oh oh, I'm super awesome yet I struggled with DA:O on Nightmare - this means that the game is SUPEDUPER-COMPLEX-CHALLENGE woop woop!"

No, you're a moron.

 

[tuluse]

I can sort of imagine how you could do something interesting with a conditional framework if you made a game that truly revolved around it (and where it would be used in ALL battles), but Dragon Age wanted to have it both ways.

I believe this is the core gameplay for gratuitous space battles. Although you're expected to create new AI subroutines uniquely for each battles.

 

[Lilura]

Stay classy, GarfunkeL.

Oh, and you'll never reach Liluran heights of RPG mastery , so stop tryin' so hard.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah, the guy who thinks BG2 requires too much micromanagement is an RPG master.

 

[visions]

Regarding DA:O and Cone of Cold, I never viewed it as the solution for every fight. The short range and the teardrop template often made it awkward to use.

Sleep and Waking Nightmare were what I used to trivialize most of the fights. Granted, I only had one mage, Cone of Cold would probably have seemed much more useful if I would have been able to spam it with three casters at once.

 

[tuluse]

Regarding DA:O and Cone of Cold, I never viewed it as the solution for every fight. The short range and the teardrop template often made it awkward to use.

I was exaggerating.

Sleep and Waking Nightmare were what I used to trivialize most of the fights. Granted, I only had one mage, Cone of Cold would probably have seemed much more useful if I would have been able to spam it with three casters at once.

????

You don't cast them at once. The cooldown for cone of cold is less that 3x how long it lasts. You can literally keep enemies frozen forever with it. The cooldown is actually only a little over 2x as long. With just 2 mages you can nearly keep them frozen all the time.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yeah. With 3 casters I could pretty much immobilize most fights. And no, the opponents weren't always frozen so that bug that wasn't all pervasive - it was quite common for enemies to only be chilled, ie slowed down. Then a second CoC usually froze them. But sure, I used Sleep occasionally as well, just to have some variety.

In BG2, high-level enemies usually cast Freedom or have a magic item equipped that makes Web useless, just like Sleep becomes useless as enemy HD goes up. Some enemies are completely immune as well. Same with stinking cloud.

 

[Gurkog]

Fights against any magic using entities in BG series was cake. Walk in room and engage - entity casts spells and shit - walk out of room and let the game run for a few minutes until all the spells wore off - walk in and obliterate the defenseless magic user.

EDIT: Yes, it is cheap... but I didn't really know DnD rules and such back in the day.

 

[roshan]

This was my opinion until i played ToEE and learned that Homlet is not the only place you visit. It is small game though compared to other games and which is probably known by now best combat out of them because it is actually TB game and didn't need to refiddle 3rd edition with all those options into real time combat with pause.

Best combat system, certainly. Actual combat? Utter shit.

 

[GloomFrost]

Best combat system, certainly. Actual combat? Utter shit.

Whaaaaaaaat?? could you explain?

 

[FeelTheRads]

He means the combat encounters are generally boring. It has a couple of nice ones, but mostly the combat system is just wasted.
Although the system itself makes even shitty encounters better than similar ones in RTwP games.

 

[eremita]

re: conditional frameworks, etc

I think it's rather weird when a game provides you with tools that literally make it play itself.

In fact, I'm coming around to the idea that any tactical game that provides "AI scripts", or anything else other than pure player-controlled "puppet mode", is actually actively sabotaging its player base and design integrity in the long term. It's teaching them that they don't have to actually play the game, that they don't have to learn the rules and the nitty gritty. With every sequel you'll have to make things more automated, with fewer and fewer fights that require manual control. And your designers will begin to forget how to make combat that's actually fun to play when it's not automated. It's a popamole slope.

One thing that's cool about PoE is that by all accounts it's been designed with zero automated gameplay in mind. Something that more than a few casuals are worried about.

This is bullshit. You do have to know the rules to set AI scripts right.

And it's not playing itself, when you're the brain behind the tactic. It's basically the same like watching someone playing the game and telling them what to do. The one who's instructing "the hands" is actually the player now, isn't he?

We'll se how cool PoE's gonna be on higher levels. If there's a lot of micromanaging, it will become become tedious...

 

[eremita]

Don't the sequels speak for themselves?

I can sort of imagine how you could do something interesting with a conditional framework if you made a game that truly revolved around it (and where it would be used in ALL battles), but Dragon Age wanted to have it both ways.

The idea of "I'll let the game play itself automatically for the easy/trash battles and only take control in the tough ones" is kind of bad, I think. It sounds logical to veteran RPG players, but the newbies, they never get a chance to learn how to play the game, because they never get to play a basic fight. It's all automatic!

It may also subtly encourage designers to add more trash fights because "hey, it's automatic, right?"

Since when do you give a shit about newbies? Also, this is about being smart, not inexperienced. So, I'll adjust the question. Since when do you give a shit about dummies?

The assumption about encouragement is for real, man?! So what, the designers is a dumbfuck and he's probably gonna fuck up something else.

 

[Infinitron]

This is bullshit. You do have to know the rules to set AI scripts right.

First of all, who said anything about setting? They always provide you with defaults.

Second, you don't - not fully, at least.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation in one of these games, where you realized you had a bunch of abilities that you have no idea what they actually do, or where they're really effective? Stuff that just kinda automatically fired in combat occasionally, had some kind of effect, and then the enemies died?

When you're not doing things "hands-on" by yourself, it's much more difficult to truly grasp what different abilities and spells do and where they're useful. And RTwP with automated combat conditions players into playing games like that. It sucks.

 

[eremita]

First of all, who said anything about setting? They always provide you with defaults.

Ok, I had DA:O in mind when I reacted to your post. What exactly are you talking about then? Anything else then puppet mode? I'm gonna assume you're talking about the puppet mode.

When you're not doing things "hands-on", it's much more difficult to really grasp what they do and where they're useful. And RTwP with automated combat conditions players into playing games like this.

I see you're being consistent with your previous post. So what you're basically saying is that the games with conditional framework are somewhat misleading to less bright players? And the game without it is what? Implicitly telling the player that he should probably read the description of skills/abilities before engaging in combat? Or it's saying nothing at all about this matter and that's better then indicating anything? I think your logic is flawed. Conditional framework itself does not imply to its players that they should only rely on stuff that is automated. If some players think so, they indeed are not very bright. Throw in some notification in the game then - problem solved.

 

[Infinitron]

I see you're being consistent with your previous post. So what you're basically saying is that the games with conditional framework are somewhat misleading to less bright players?

It's "misleading" to new players, including bright ones. Again, if this:

Have you ever found yourself in a situation in one of these games, where you realized you had a bunch of abilities that you have no idea what they actually do, or where they're really effective? Stuff that just kinda automatically fired in combat occasionally, had some kind of effect, and then the enemies died?

...has ever happened to you, then something is wrong. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person on the Codex who has had this feeling.

 

[eremita]

Okay, so let's assume I'm finding myself in this situation. I haven't set any scripts myself yet, we're talking about defaults, which means puppet mode. There's a fight and I'm watching my characters do what exactly? Running away from melee oriented enemies if they're ranged oriented? Drinking potions when their HP drops? Because if so, then you're not making any sense...

If defaults consist of more complex scripts than puppet mode and you witness stuff being thrown, shit dying etc., how exactly would you call a person who deduce following: I should rely on these scripts, they're gonna work all the time (false conclusion); I don't have to learn the rules, the game implies this with its preset scripts (false conclusion); The Idea of conditional framework, which is preset imply that I don't have to/shouldn't change its scripts (false conclusion) ?? I would certainly called this person not bright (I would actually call them a fucking idiot, who should go back to playing Call of Duty and Facebook games.)

And again, this could be fixed with big-ass sign preventing any possible misunderstanding. Problem solved.