YogSo on 15/6/2010 at 12:25
Quote Posted by negativeliberty
I'm
very curious as to what exactly you point is here. TDS had bad blackjack mechanics, which was a direct result of accommodating third-person view, yet you're arguing that third-person doesn't break immersion?
I didn't know the <b>bad</b> blackjack mechanic in TDS had anything to do with the game being or not TPP. So, because yo can play in third-person now you can't use the blackjack as a melee weapon? Seriously, what's the connection? If anything, I would say the 'restricted' blackjack use was in direct answer to the designers' misguided desire to streamline (i.e. dumb down) the game mechanics.
And regarding Bloodlines:
Quote Posted by negativeliberty
First person gameplay is fun, although the stat-based shooting takes getting used to as with DX, however third-person mucked it up good. Third-person melee combat is utterly boring, feels clumsy and inaccurate, animations are jerky, it's unsatisfying and to be honest if gunplay wasn't so underpowered by comparison I wouldn't have bothered with it at all.
I barely used any gun in the game, so it was melee all the way for me. I really didn't have much trouble, but maybe it was because I spent 90 % of the time stealth-killing the enemies IIRR. Notable exceptions were the infamous sewer levels and the boss-kind encounters. In any case, you state that "melee combat is utterly boring, feels clumsy and inaccurate, animations are jerky, it's unsatisfying" in Bloodlines, as if that was a direct consequence of the third-person perspective. And that is utter nonsense. Melee combat can be enjoyable in TPP (Severance - The Blade of Darkness, Jedi Outcast/Jedi Academy) or less than stellar in FPP (Morrowind, Arx Fatalis). And vice versa (Dark Messiah>Gothic I-II-III in terms of melee combat). The programmers' and animators' skills and how much time/budget they had to implement and improve the combat system is the key, not the camera perspective.
SubJeff on 16/6/2010 at 08:56
One could argue that the auto-raise when-in-range blackjack was there because it's too hard to judge distance in 3rd person mode.
The only reason for being in TPP, imho, is for sustained melee combat and even then Dark Messiah did it in FPP without problems.
Having the option to play the game in FPP throughout should be a no-brainer. If you want to switch or have the option to allow auto-switching or any combination of that's fine by me. Just give me FPP if I want it.
Thirith on 16/6/2010 at 13:25
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
One could argue that the auto-raise when-in-range blackjack was there because it's too hard to judge distance in 3rd person mode.
While I prefer first-person especially for stealth gameplay, judging distances is something I tend to find easier in third person mode. Especially when a first person game gives me the feeling I'm just a pair of eyes, I find it difficult to judge how far I am from edges etc. Somehow I also get more of a sense of a virtual space as three-dimensional if I see my character in relation to it.
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine is by no means a visually attractive game, but I got more of a sense of space from it than from many better-looking (and simply better) FPP games I've played.
What games are there that gave the player the option to choose between FPP and TPP? I could imagine that it's difficult to balance things and scale environments so it works best for both perspectives. (I seem to remember dev interviews and postmortems that mentioned them having to use different scales for the two modes.)
Matthew on 16/6/2010 at 13:31
The Dark Forces sequels all allow you to switch between FPP and TPP, as I recall; Morrowind is likewise.
Ostriig on 17/6/2010 at 00:50
Chris, obviously I disagree with you on the general issue, as I think you're getting hung up on minutiae possibly at the expense of the greater picture. But if I haven't swayed you from your stance yet, that's fair enough, I think it now comes down to a difference in expectations and that we've taken this particular debate as far as it can go constructively.
Moving on, though, I have messaged René at Eidos and gotten an answer to one of your earlier questions:
Quote Posted by chris the cynic
Do we know what that means yet? Last I knew we still didn't know what that meant on the spectrum from "You can put tranq bullets in your gun and it's just like killing people except your conscience is clear," to "You can pass though the game like a ghost, unnoticed by all," to, "You can bribe, blackmail or otherwise manipulate everyone into not fighting."
Quote Posted by René
Yes, in many cases you can just go around guards without needing to engage them at all. I mean, it depends, but since everything is designed in a non-linear fashion, just sneaking around people should be possible in most cases!
So it looks like ghosting should be possible, good news.
Also, meant to point something out here earlier, but had forgotten:
Quote Posted by chris the cynic
Also note that, according to the quoted text, the idea you don't need to kill anyone to complete the game is explicitly false. You do need to kill "a few bosses."
You're right, but I wouldn't really get worked up over that. I mean, you could've said the same about Deus Ex's design back in the day - unless I'm forgetting something, it's apparent that ISA did intend to force eventual decisive confrontations with a couple of key characters, Gunther and Anna, and
possibly Simons as well.
Chade on 17/6/2010 at 00:57
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
One could argue that the auto-raise when-in-range blackjack was there because it's too hard to judge distance in 3rd person mode ... The only reason for being in TPP, imho, is for sustained melee combat ...
Thank god they didn't use top down perspective, huh? Then it would have been
really hard to judge distances!
van HellSing on 17/6/2010 at 04:53
Yeah, tpp is actually much better for judging distances. That's why first-person platform jumping usually sucks.
Koki on 17/6/2010 at 05:27
Jumping puzzles don't suck in FPP, you're just bad.
Matthew on 17/6/2010 at 10:40
Oh Koki, you're so cute when you bark.
chris the cynic on 17/6/2010 at 14:50
Quote Posted by Ostriig
Chris, obviously I disagree with you on the general issue, as I think you're getting hung up on minutiae possibly at the expense of the greater picture.
And I, obviously, think you're dismissing giant chunks of the greater picture by pretending they are minutiae.
The example we've been talking about is the MiBs, they are not something I would consider minutiae, so changing the setting so that they would never be created is likewise not something I'd consider minutiae.
I understand that you consider their origin (not their existence) to minutia, but if you start dividing big things into little sections and saying that the little sections are minutiae I'm not sure what
couldn't be dismissed as minutiae. Anything can be broken up into a bunch of little pieces. If we don't judge the importance of those pieces on the impact they have on the larger picture, how do we judge them?
Obviously however you judge them is not the same way I do, and if you think no good can come from continuing to discuss this, that is fine.
Quote:
I mean, you could've said the same about Deus Ex's design back in the day - unless I'm forgetting something, it's apparent that ISA did intend to force eventual decisive confrontations with a couple of key characters, Gunther and Anna, and
possibly Simons as well.
First, my point was that, given it is untrue to say that that you can play through the game without killing anyone, we should be aware of that fact and not act as if it is true. This is something that has nothing to do with Deus Ex. If Deus Ex never existed and Human Revolution were a stand alone game I would still think people shouldn't be saying false things about Human Revolution.
Second, your overall point is accurate, but your examples are lacking. There is no need to kill Gunther and there is no need to kill Simons (and technically the same is true of Anna.)
I wouldn't say ISA was trying to force a decisive confrontation in the case of either Simons or Gunther case given that the final confrontation with Simons (at Area 51) is no less skippable than the first confrontation (at the ocean lab) and the confrontation with Gunther no more requires a lethal outcome than either of the ones with Simons. Now it is definitely true you couldn't really stealth your way around these characters, but you certainly didn't have to kill them. (You didn't even have to attack them, running away worked fine.)
Anna is probably a better example. You can finish the game without killing her, and the game will react with slightly different dialogue if you do (though by slight I mean
very slight) but based on what I have heard the developers did intend for that confrontation to be the end of agent Navarre.
The only character I know of that has to die is Howard Strong. He often kills himself, but the result is still a lethal outcome.
So if you're going to make that argument in the future, I'd recommend dropping Gunther and Simons and adding in Howard Strong.
