Game News Dragon Age forum updates: non-violent solutions

[Sarvis]

Point is that if you REQUIRE multiple solutions to every obstacle you limit the obstacles you can have.

Not really. I have a lot of very different quests in my game, can't say that I was ever limited in what I could have there.

Then you must have come up with some pretty simplistic situations with fairly contrived solutions. Apparently no one ever actually wants to kill the main character in your game!

I don't. If you refer to our prev discussion, some examples didn't fit very well, but I don't believe I've referred to them as stupid.

Actually...

"they (Sarvis' examples) are always somehow deficinet..." Yes, they are. That's what earned you the dumbfuck rank, and it wasn't even me who did that, btw. Understand, Sarvis, your examples are stupid. Literally. It's not a flame. - http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic ... c&start=50

One can inspire without fighting and provide better support by watching the field. For example, the bomb could have been spotted earlier and some defenses mounted thus preventing the breach of the walls, etc.

As I remember they did spot the bomb with time to react, in fact he was out of range when they first spotted him. Legolas just suddenly became a very bad shot somehow... seriously I don't understand how he could miss those shots considering how accurate he was with every other shot in the movies.

Like I said a book is one thing, a game is another. I didn't want to go into too much details and make shit up creating layers around that situiation that could be used by non-fighting folks. The book is good enough without me fucking it up.

Ok, then let's take a "different" situation. Some guys are fleeing enemies and have to make camp somewhere. They think they have eluded pursuit but are being magically tracked and are attacked in the night.

What's the pacifist solution here?

Either there isn't one and you have to not use this scenario in your game, or you have to come up with something silly and contrived like a passing ally comes to the rescue while the player hides in a corner.

 

[AlanC9]

You can sneak past random encounters and usual monsters, and use speech and hired muscle to solve sticky situations.

If that's your standard, then DA would certainly allow it. Hell, you could do that in the BG games. Have your protagonist not do any fighting, and let the rest of the party be the hired muscle.

 

[Sarkile]

Then you must have come up with some pretty simplistic situations with fairly contrived solutions. Apparently no one ever actually wants to kill the main character in your game!

I doubt it would be all that difficult to stay away from people wanting to kill you as long as you aren't acting like a dumbass. I can walk down the street without anyone wanting to kill me. Granted I'm not willing to drive down to Detroit to test this though.

 

[Sol Invictus]

If you have a bounty on your head, you are bound to be found sooner or later, and when that happens there will be no way to talk yourself out of the situation, especially if the person hunting you is some kind of highly trained and disciplined assassin with a code of honor and a sealed agreement with his benefactors.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Many people beat the NWN OC with a rogue. If you try to steath instead of fight wherever possible, it's somewhat difficult - missing all the kill XP means you finish the game at something like level 9 - but quite doable.

Yeah, I shouldn't have dragged this up, but I can't resist it when people advertise their own poor tactics.

I don't doubt some die hard out there, or several die hards, beat the game with Rogue. Yet, judging from the way you said it you yourself have not had the pleasure, hmmm? I tried the sneaking, which meant I couldn't take a big strong barbarian with me to aid the combat. Also, the game inevitably pits you against Balor Lords, Dragons, and powerful enemies at times. As a level 18 wizard I had trouble with the end game sequence, a 9 level rogue it would be really tough. I think my criticism remains valid. The only way I can see somebody ultimately prevailing as such is exploiting the stone of recall for umpteen times to beat some bad boss. I was a halfing rogue, if that makes any difference.

 

[AlanC9]

I doubt it would be all that difficult to stay away from people wanting to kill you as long as you aren't acting like a dumbass. I can walk down the street without anyone wanting to kill me. Granted I'm not willing to drive down to Detroit to test this though.

Sure, you can stay away from peop[le who want to kill you. Thing is, that pretty much gives them veto power over all your actions, doesn't it? The hard part is keeping them from shooting you while still letting you finish the game.

 

[ElastiZombie]

Hmm, must be my bad english for misunderstanding. I thought I was awnsering his "Or am I being too unreasonable?" sentence. Still, calling forth a few great looking shitty selling games doesn't deter from the fact that the industry seems opbsessed with wanting games more shinier and prettier at every turn. Ever had yourself a games console that didn't become obsolete in about 2-3 years?

Ultimately, what I was trying to say, but not very effectively, was that you will only have a finite amount of time to develop a game and that that time has to be planned out carefully from the beginning. If you are going to focus on one thing then it will take away time to develop something else. A fancy graphics engine will take resources away from developing tools to implement more complex character interactions, etc. Indepth combat systems will eat up time that could be spent developing non-linear quest capabilities. And so on.

To make it more relevant: Bioware are focusing on their combat engine, therefore non-combat solutions will take a back seat. To quote Dave Gaider, "Why would we focus so much on combat just to allow you to avoid it all the time?"

I hope I'm making more sense now...

 

[Sarvis]

Then you must have come up with some pretty simplistic situations with fairly contrived solutions. Apparently no one ever actually wants to kill the main character in your game!

I doubt it would be all that difficult to stay away from people wanting to kill you as long as you aren't acting like a dumbass. I can walk down the street without anyone wanting to kill me. Granted I'm not willing to drive down to Detroit to test this though.

Right, but no one probably wants you dead. You, I'm assuming, aren't playing any major role in life that would make people want to eliminate you.

By comparison, do you think Pres. Bush could walk down a city street unmolested if he didn't have the secret service around him at all times? Hell even Clinton probably couldn't have!

Hell, even being unimportant is no gaurantee. Back in high school some kid just grabbed my hair at the end of study hall and started beating on my face, later on he apologized and said he was just in the mood for a fight or something...

Wonder what the pacifist solution was for that fight?

 

[Sol Invictus]

I have to add that there is nothing wrong with a good combat engine. I'm tired of how so many RPGs have the worst combat, and inspite of that fact, developers still insist on putting too much combat in the game. Gothic 1 and the latter part of Bloodlines, for examples.

 

[obediah]

Point is that if you REQUIRE multiple solutions to every obstacle you limit the obstacles you can have.

Not really. I have a lot of very different quests in my game, can't say that I was ever limited in what I could have there.

If you have finite time/budget than every alternative solution you add for an obstacle is another obstacle you can't add. The perfect cRPG is currently intractable. The work on providing multiple solutions to obstacles is important, but current methods are labor intensive ,more often than not have unsatisfying results (the classic kill the guards, or find the vent example), and extremely difficult to debug, and for this and other reasons just don't scale.

Rather than blast bioware for making the descision to spend their time elsewhere, we should be working on ways to make these decisions cleaner to implement and more meaningful. Personally, I think the best chance is shooting for phsyics and ai systems that support emergent options. As long as we have to think of and iterate options, we are doomed to mediocracy.
[

 

[Sarvis]

Point is that if you REQUIRE multiple solutions to every obstacle you limit the obstacles you can have.

Not really. I have a lot of very different quests in my game, can't say that I was ever limited in what I could have there.

If you have finite time/budget than every alternative solution you add for an obstacle is another obstacle you can't add. The perfect cRPG is currently intractable. The work on providing multiple solutions to obstacles is important, but current methods are labor intensive ,more often than not have unsatisfying results (the classic kill the guards, or find the vent example), and extremely difficult to debug, and for this and other reasons just don't scale.

Rather than blast bioware for making the descision to spend their time elsewhere, we should be working on ways to make these decisions cleaner to implement and more meaningful. Personally, I think the best chance is shooting for phsyics and ai systems that support emergent options. As long as we have to think of and iterate options, we are doomed to mediocracy.
[

Heh... good luck with that. I tried suggesting that shortly after DA was announced and almost no one thought it was a good idea.

 

[Volourn]

"To make it more relevant: Bioware are focusing on their combat engine, therefore non-combat solutions will take a back seat. To quote Dave Gaider, "Why would we focus so much on combat just to allow you to avoid it all the time?"

WOW! Talk about taking someone's contents way out of context and twisting them into spaghetti chopsticks.

 

[Greatatlantic]

WOW! Talk about taking someone's contents way out of context and twisting them into spaghetti chopsticks.

I don't think anybody has taken what they said out of content, per say. Rather, I view it as admission that DA is going to be another Dungeon Crawler with "epic story" as an excuse to crawl in dungeons. There might be an occasional opportunity to use your dialogue options to avoid a fight, whatever. I think thats a bad type of RPG. Others are saying their opinions of such an RPG in general, not necessarily whether or not DA will make or break anyone's impression of Bioware's games.

 

[ElastiZombie]

"To make it more relevant: Bioware are focusing on their combat engine, therefore non-combat solutions will take a back seat. To quote Dave Gaider, "Why would we focus so much on combat just to allow you to avoid it all the time?"

WOW! Talk about taking someone's contents way out of context and twisting them into spaghetti chopsticks.

I didn't think that I was twisting his meaning. I thought that he was implying that combat was an important enough part of the game that focusing on non-combat solutions would be a secondary consideration. I'm not saying that he said non-combat options will not be there or that they will suck eggs or anything.

 

[Volourn]

"I didn't think that I was twisting his meaning. I thought that he was implying that combat was an important enough part of the game that focusing on non-combat solutions would be a secondary consideration. I'm not saying that he said non-combat options will not be there or that they will suck eggs or anything."

Hmm.. Ok.. Maybe I was twisting your words.. Oops.

P.S. As for the guy aboveyour post; he's a goofball. I won' reply to such a foolish post.

 

[ElastiZombie]

I do like Dave G's idea for a non-violent game:

"Not that you couldn't have a fantasy game where the entire theme was "seeking nonviolent solutions", I guess. You put them invading gnolls into re-education camps and teach them the error of their violent ways and turn them into productive citizens, earning spirituality points in the process. I'm sure there's at least several parenting groups out there that would heartily endorse such an endeavour."

I equip my Slideshow of Harmony +3.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Then you must have come up with some pretty simplistic situations with fairly contrived solutions. Apparently no one ever actually wants to kill the main character in your game!

It depends on how it's handled, doesn't it? Similarly you can say that about any game from Fallout to BG. What, they sent only 2 noob assassins after you? Why didn't they send an army or at least someone really good at killing people? Why didn't they poison you, killed you in your sleep, framed you and let you rot in prison, etc? Well, I guess they didn't really wanted you dead.

Actually...

"they (Sarvis' examples) are always somehow deficinet..." Yes, they are. That's what earned you the dumbfuck rank, and it wasn't even me who did that, btw. Understand, Sarvis, your examples are stupid. Literally. It's not a flame. - http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic ... c&start=50

lol, you've got me then. I completely forgot about that.

One can inspire...

As I remember they did spot the bomb with time to react, in fact he was out of range when they first spotted him. Legolas just suddenly became a very bad shot somehow...

I guess he wasn't properly inspired

Ok, then let's take a "different" situation. Some guys are fleeing enemies and have to make camp somewhere. They think they have eluded pursuit but are being magically tracked and are attacked in the night.

What's the pacifist solution here?

Not enough information, but to give you something:

1) an option to leave a guard to avoid an ambush and thus have a chance to continue fleeing somewhere where I assume they can get help
2) Not sure about the nature of magic tracking, but a character who doesn't want to fight should be good at avoiding fights and being tracked, and thus could have previosuly acquired shielding device
3) Not sure if they want to kill or need anything, but a character may choose to be captured hoping to escape later on (that was in Fallout actually)
4) Lead enemies into an ambush (rival gand/bandits/competition/etc) - requires knowledge of the area, obviously. In Fallout terms, if a bunch of raiders were following you, you could lead them into the rival raiders camp, creating confusion, and while both sides are killing each other or trying to defuse the situation, you could continue your journey.

 

[Sarvis]

It depends on how it's handled, doesn't it? Similarly you can say that about any game from Fallout to BG. What, they sent only 2 noob assassins after you? Why didn't they send an army or at least someone really good at killing people? Why didn't they poison you, killed you in your sleep, framed you and let you rot in prison, etc? Well, I guess they didn't really wanted you dead.

Just because the assassins are less skilled than the PC does not mean they are noobs. Presumably they were quite skilled assassins who jst weren't as skilled as the player happened to be, but there would be no way of knowing that until after the fact.

It would be pretty hard to poising a character or kill him in his sleep since you tend to not eat and do very little sleeping. Framing you and letting you rot in prison is a lot different than wanting you dead.

lol, you've got me then. I completely forgot about that.

:bow:

I guess he wasn't properly inspired

:snicker:

Not enough information, but to give you something:

1) an option to leave a guard to avoid an ambush and thus have a chance to continue fleeing somewhere where I assume they can get help

The guard would have to be some distance away to give escape time, and have to be able to move faster than the soldiers chasing them for the same reason. Sounds kind of contrived to me, since the normal setting of guards in a camp is just to prevent a total ambush rather than to allow escape. It gives you time to prepare for combat basically.

Not to mention the enemy can't be cunning enough to surround the encampment before approaching.

2) Not sure about the nature of magic tracking, but a character who doesn't want to fight should be good at avoiding fights and being tracked, and thus could have previosuly acquired shielding device

So you're going to give pacifist characters a way to completely avoid the situation? Why have the situation at all then, you're basically just avoiding it.

Not to mention the balance issue of having a character completely immune from several possible scenarios in the game when other buildsmight not be.

3) Not sure if they want to kill or need anything, but a character may choose to be captured hoping to escape later on (that was in Fallout actually)

I guess I should have been more specific, but here we see a design limitation. For this alternate solution to work the enemies <i>cannot</i> want you dead.

4) Lead enemies into an ambush (rival gand/bandits/competition/etc) - requires knowledge of the area, obviously. In Fallout terms, if a bunch of raiders were following you, you could lead them into the rival raiders camp, creating confusion, and while both sides are killing each other or trying to defuse the situation, you could continue your journey.

Remember you had to camp, presumably that means you aren't going much further for various reasons (too tired, too dark) so you would need the enemy camp to be pretty close by. It's a little contrived to just happen to have a rival army nearby.


So in all cases you are adding constraints to the design (not wanting you dead, ensuring a way to escape) or using some contrived solution (happens to have a mystical artifact, nearby allies.)

 

[almondblight]

Yo, Dumb McFlys, do you all happen to miss the fact he quite clearly stated that DA will likely have more ways to solve quests non vilioently than other BIo games or did you conviently miss the part so how exactly are they dumbing it down?

Idiots.

Yeah, but depending on how they do it, requiring combat could mean no one wants to play a diplomatic character. If you always can play the game using combat, and you can only somtimes play using diplomacy, you're going to want as high a combat skill as you can get and then diplomatic or sneaking skills only afterwards (again, this depends on how they set it up).

By comparison, do you think Pres. Bush could walk down a city street unmolested if he didn't have the secret service around him at all times? Hell even Clinton probably couldn't have!

How about this. Which is more likely, that bin Laden can hide in the caves in afghanistan avoiding the US army or that bin Laden can single handedly wipe out the US army, travel to the US, and defeat Bush in hand to hand combat? Trust me, having the ability to avoid combat is much more realistic than having a 15 year old farmboy single handedly demolishing armies.

I think most people would be pretty pissed if there was an rpg which halfway through required you to succeed diplomatically. You made a combat character? Sorry boyo. Now depending on the type of game, there's nothing wrong with requiring combat. Rogue games require it. But recognize that forcing a player to kill someone not only eliminates player choice, but it also pulls the player out of the game. You become nothing more than a hired gun, fighting another man's battle. Which can be fun, but is hardly "epic."

 

[Vault Dweller]

Just because the assassins are less skilled than the PC does not mean they are noobs.

Remember those 2 "assassins" from BG's beginning? They couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Well, suffice to say, that if someone wanted you to dead properly, they should have sent a force ensuring your cooperation in that matter. Killing PC in games is like trying to kill James Bond in movies - should never be taken too seriously.

So in all cases you are adding constraints to the design (not wanting you dead, ensuring a way to escape) or using some contrived solution (happens to have a mystical artifact, nearby allies.)

It's hard to be more specific without knowing more details, locations, motivations, backstory, etc. As for the adding constraint to the design, I assume that a fighter must be able to kills them all just like that or it's a game over screen. Seems a bit too forced to me.

 

[Sarvis]

Remember those 2 "assassins" from BG's beginning? They couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Well, suffice to say, that if someone wanted you to dead properly, they should have sent a force ensuring your cooperation in that matter. Killing PC in games is like trying to kill James Bond in movies - should never be taken too seriously.

I don't, but it seems like two assassins of any level should be more than enough to take care of one kid who's spent his entire life in a monastary!

It's hard to be more specific without knowing more details, locations, motivations, backstory, etc. As for the adding constraint to the design, I assume that a fighter must be able to kills them all just like that or it's a game over screen. Seems a bit too forced to me.

I wonder how Custer feels about it, or Caesar? Sure, maybe it does seem forced... but reality can force people into a lot of things. That's the point in a way, you want to provide all these alternate solutions in a scenario which should be forcing you to fight.

Or that fight I had in high school, I asked what the pacifist way out of that was and oddly enough no one answered. I guess your game has to have no possible random violence. Monsters must not be very vicious, for instance, if they always stop and talk before a fight and not very dangerous if they can't sniff your trail or sneak up on you.

 

[dojoteef]

I like the idea of having lots of non-violent solutions, but I can understand not having them if you are trying to make more action oriented game. That's fine. That leads into my biggest pet peeve. If you aren't going to have an equal amount of solutions for a non-violent character DON'T INCLUDE THE CHARACTER BUILD! If you are going to have a diplomatic character, but then have combat only solutions 90% the time then I'm going to be pissed. It is always so annoying that you increase stats expecting that maybe further down the line you'll get to use them yet you only get the rare occasion to use them.

That was what was so nice about the beginning of Bloodlines. Each skill was useful. Of course that's also what made the later parts extremely frustrating... the fact that you had to use combat or stealth which screwed over hackers, diplomats, etc.

 

[MarFish]

I like the idea of having lots of non-violent solutions, but I can understand not having them if you are trying to make more action oriented game. That's fine. That leads into my biggest pet peeve. If you aren't going to have an equal amount of solutions for a non-violent character DON'T INCLUDE THE CHARACTER BUILD!

But nobody forces you to play it ... maybe there is people out there who like to be able to roleplay the occasionally diplomatic character?

 

[RGE]

I had forgotten all about those two assassins inside Candlekeep, and thought that you people were talking about those dangerous assassins at the castle inn and the mining town. Because I had serious problems with those due to their fear effects, and I'm pretty sure that they both managed to kill my entire party the first time I stumbled upon them. I had to prepare every time I met those awesome assassins.

When it comes to unavoidable fights there is a difference between a fight that you couldn't avoid and a fight that is and always was impossible to avoid. In real life shit happens, and so shit can happen in games as well. But in a game where there is a completely non-violent path from start to end, there is obviously some chance that shit does not happen. Unlike a game that has scripted fights that are impossible to avoid. In those games the shit that can happen in real life will apparently always happen, no matter what.

Personally I think that it's a good idea to not force the player to go through events that doesn't suit the character, but if BioWare is just going to decide that the player is going to play some kind of combat character, they don't really have to allow alternatives to combat. Sure, it would be nice if they could make a broader game which didn't reward XP for killing, but that's what toolsets are for. Oh...wait...99% of the modders keep the 'XP for killing' system, either because they like it or because they really can't be bothered to change it. Or perhaps because prospective players like it that way. They'd have to, since they bought the game in the first place, right? And Fallout did it too, offered XP for killing stuff. Personally I've never bothered with playing a pacifist either. I prefer pragmatists, because they get to make choices based on circumstances, rather than making choices based on their desire to see blood or their desire to avoid blood. But based on most of the other players (including my RL friends), "killing evil" is always a solid choice. Cursed capitalist democracy that caters to the masses and their lust for simple solutions.

Yeah, I never made it through Chapter 2 of NWN either, not because I couldn't kill all those undead things, but because what was supposed to be towers were actually yet another couple of fricken dungeon levels filled with pointless opposition. Maybe I'll muster some "repetition is fun"-spirit some day and get to it, but right now it looks more like work and less like fun. Hell is all about repetition.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Yeah, I never made it through Chapter 2 of NWN either, not because I couldn't kill all those undead things, but because what was supposed to be towers were actually yet another couple of fricken dungeon levels filled with pointless opposition. Maybe I'll muster some "repetition is fun"-spirit some day and get to it, but right now it looks more like work and less like fun. Hell is all about repetition.

Yeah, that is exactly how I felt about the NWN OC and KotOR. Personally, it wasn't just that the games required combat, it was the fact the games were combat. Maybe there was a chance to talk somebody out of a fight here and there, but thats it. If you removed all the combat slogs from the OC I think you'd have a 4 hour game. I'd also put KotOR at about 5. I would then look at a game like Bloodlines and put 20-25 hours with out combat. Planescape: Torment, I'm thinking 30 hours. Obviously, I haven't timed these things, but I hope to get my point accross. Necessary combat? Sure, fine, whatever. Just don't make your game combat, even if it is Turn Based or Real Time w/ Pause!