52 réponses à ce sujet

[Wishpig]

Yrkoon wrote...

relhart wrote...

In NWN2 they were (bioware didn't make that however), maybe my memory is faulty, but I'm pretty sure the expansions for NWN the original were stand alones.

Of course NWN1's expansions added new feats, character classes AND races  that were usable in the original.   With HoTU installed, you can play the OC as a weapon master.... or a pale master  etc.  Which, btw,  literally breathed new life into the Original

 But we don't really have to  look at  NWN.    BG2's expansion ALSO added new classes and spells to the original.  (wild mage, anyone?).  Even BG1's expansion added  a new weapon type (scimitar) and an increased level cap to the original campaign

That's how things are done.  That's what seperates an Expansion from a module.


I cannot imagine the warped thinking behind the decision to make Awakening  a stand alone and then shamelessly call it an expansion.  For gods sakes, they couldn't even be bothered to  add Stamina droughts to Origins.

Pure, undefensable crap.

To be fair, your class and race is frequently mentioned and plays a part of the story in DA:O, it didn't in NWN or NWN2 so you could more or less copy and paste.

But Still, I agree that specs should have carried over. Would have made for yet ANOTHER great reason to play through the OC agian.

I'm hoping a mod will transfer the classes over... and NOT have game-breaking bugs. I'm very curious about the mod listed above. As of yet the creator said it hasn't been tested all that well. So I'm stearing clear for now.

[Grovermancer]

Wishpig wrote...

To be fair, your class and race is frequently mentioned and plays a part of the story in DA:O, it didn't in NWN or NWN2 so you could more or less copy and paste.

It still shouldn't interfere. 

I really only recall race (not so much class) being mentioned frequently in dialogues... which would be unaffected anyhow.  Even your first, starting classes would be uneffected by adding expansion classes. 

Basically, it would work just like NWN, where you have certain requirements before you can specialize... So you'd still have the same race (which is irrelevent, as it's uneffected) and base classes we have now.

I mean hell, as it is now, you can have Wynn be a blood mage, whist referring to other mages being malificarum!!!

[Guilebrush]

Wishpig wrote...
To be fair, your class and race is frequently mentioned and plays a part of the story in DA:O, it didn't in NWN or NWN2 so you could more or less copy and paste.

DA:A didn't add any new base classes or base races to the setting. Wether you're playing a Blood Mage, Spirit Healer, or Battle Mage dialogue scripts would still would still refer to you as "Mage" at least in the case of DA:O, not sure about DA:A.

In the end all DA:A added to the base installation gameplay of DA:O were a bunch of CTDs via patch 1.03, I still content that they should've marketed it as a retail priced alternate campaign module and not as an expansion. That would've cleared up a lot of confusion and given them an instant reason for no added backward functionality. 

[RurouniSaiya-jin]

Side effect of a design choice really. When they decided to make the spells, talents, specs and skills for a level 20+ character, making them available in Origins became an issue of value vs. work. In particular, it became a question of "Is this creating enough value for the amount of work we're going to have to put in it?". In this case, the answer is no. Could the new stuff add new value to Origins? Yes but just how much value? All the new stuff bars characters less than level 20 (And unless my memory is off, the specializations actually bar anyone less than level 21-22) from using them. This means even if you do manage to make it to level 20 and beyond, you'll only get to use the new stuff for the final hours of the game. The overall value of this is very questionable considering to get to this point, you'd need to go through anywhere between 20-60 hours (varies with play style) of an essentially unchanged Origins to experience maybe 5-10 hours of new content. Combine this with the fact that it requires a lot of work (Not necessarily for the devs themselves but for the QA team who essentially has to extensively test both Origins and Awakening across three platforms at the same time) and it's only natural that the devs didn't go this route with new stuff meant for a level 20+ character.

[Grovermancer]

I'm not suggesting taking Awakenings classes AS THEY ARE NOW, and just "forcing" them into Origins...

I'm talking about them being PROPERLY INTEGRATED INTO ORIGINS, FROM THE START.  That means balance, access, integration, would all flow seamlessly.


In NWN, you could appropriately access the expansion classes in the original campaign in a balanced, intelligent manner.  That's what one would expect with the Awakenings 'expansion' classes. 

That's what I'm talking about.

[Nikatjef]

Greetings,

Wishpig wrote...
To be fair, your class and race is frequently mentioned and plays a part of the story in DA:O, it didn't in NWN or NWN2 so you could more or less copy and paste.

   While I can't speak for NWN2, I can speak for NWN when I say hogwash.

   Many of the conversations in the OC, SoTU, and HoTU refer to your race or character class.  Now, like in DA:O, these references were using the more generic titles like Elf, Mage, or Rogue just like in DA:O.

   To the people who comment on how much work it would have been, I disagree.  Bioware has stated multiple times that DA:A was in development for over a year, and many of the new "features" should have been fairly trivial to implement and balance.  Let's take my personal favorite overpowered talent / spell...  Repulsion Field.   All of the code to do that was already in DA and would have taken no more than about 30 minutes to code and test* it and maybe another one to two hours to QA it. Instead it appears that they decided to write it from scratch, which probably took a couple hours to write and test and a couple days to QA.   I would go so far as to say that they could have reused code for 70% of the new talents / spells.

   *Note:  I use these numbers because I am not a programmer and I still managed to write my own version of Repulsion Field by reusing code that is already in the game and then test it.  Total time taken 35 minutes.

[RurouniSaiya-jin]

Grovermancer wrote...



I'm not suggesting taking Awakenings classes AS THEY ARE NOW, and just "forcing" them into Origins...

I'm talking about them being PROPERLY INTEGRATED INTO ORIGINS, FROM THE START.  That means balance, access, integration, would all flow seamlessly.


In NWN, you could appropriately access the expansion classes in the original campaign in a balanced, intelligent manner.  That's what one would expect with the Awakenings 'expansion' classes. 

That's what I'm talking about.

Oh I see. My mistake. Still, there's a big trade off in going this route as well. Balance is a touchy thing. It requires a lot of time to get right. How does one rebalance abiltiies like the Battlemage's Draining Aura and the many abiltiies that function by draining stamina/mana over time for an Origins character that has very little of this to begin with for most of the game? There's also the issue of the more time the devs spend creating balance for it in Origins, the less time they have to work on content for Awakening. This issue brings up a new issue of deciding what has more worth: Creating more value for Origins itself or creating more value for Awakening? In the end, it would most likely be decided that adding more value for Awakening has more worth in this case. With no New Game+, adding value to Origins is limited to new characters. Existing characters can only enjoy the new value if it's in the form of a new quest(s). On the other hand, all characters can equally enjoy the value of more value in Awakening.

Nikatjef wrote...

   To the people who comment on how much
work it would have been, I disagree.  Bioware has stated multiple times
that DA:A was in development for over a year, and many of the new
"features" should have been fairly trivial to implement and balance. 
Let's take my personal favorite overpowered talent / spell...  Repulsion
Field.   All of the code to do that was already in DA and would have
taken no more than about 30 minutes to code and test* it and maybe
another one to two hours to QA it. Instead it appears that they decided
to write it from scratch, which probably took a couple hours to write
and test and a couple days to QA.   I would go so far as to say that
they could have reused code for 70% of the new talents / spells.

  
*Note:  I use these numbers because I am not a programmer and I
still managed to write my own version of Repulsion Field by reusing code
that is already in the game and then test it.  Total time taken 35
minutes.

There seems to be a difference between doing QA for a mod and professional QA. Just to take repulsion field as an example, to QA this properly you would need to test it on every possible enemy, scaled at every possible level, scaled at every possible rank with a mage with varying builds of stats, spells, race and gender. Combine this with the fact that it has to be done naturally without the help of the console or creating scenarios specifically for testing it, both in Awakening and Origins and for each new build of the game and this is easily a very big timesink on the QA side of things.

[Nikatjef]

RurouniSaiya-jin wrote...
There seems to be a difference
between doing QA for a mod and professional QA. Just to take repulsion
field as an example, to QA this properly you would need to test it on
every possible enemy, scaled at every possible level, scaled at every
possible rank with a mage with varying builds of stats, spells, race
and gender.

   Yes and no.  As I stated in the note at the bottom, I did this using code that already exists and has already been extensively QA'd and balanced, as such the only QA that really needs to be done is regression testing, the built-in unit testing can cover everything else.

Modifié par Nikatjef, 09 avril 2010 - 04:26 .

[RurouniSaiya-jin]

Nikatjef wrote...

RurouniSaiya-jin wrote...
There seems to be a difference
between doing QA for a mod and professional QA. Just to take repulsion
field as an example, to QA this properly you would need to test it on
every possible enemy, scaled at every possible level, scaled at every
possible rank with a mage with varying builds of stats, spells, race
and gender.

   Yes and no.  As I stated in the note at the bottom, I did this using code that already exists and has already been extensively QA'd and balanced, as such the only QA that really needs to be done is regression testing, the built-in unit testing can cover everything else.

Hmmmmm, you make a good point. I guess it depends on how Bioware has their QA set up. For example, if the QA team didn't know about the specifics of the implementation, they'd be forced to test it fully.

[Haexpane]

Because classes in DAO A are already way overpowered. In DAO it would make every combat encounter last a KOTOR like 30 seconds

[FieryDove]

Haexpane wrote...

Because classes in DAO A are already way overpowered. In DAO it would make every combat encounter last a KOTOR like 30 seconds

They already last less than that now so I don't see the problem. A skilled modder could make a difficulty pack to go with it.

If anything I would like to see the reason(s) this was left out from a Dev. I have a feeling the consoles are to blame. (Not console player, more like MS/Sony don't like bandwidth and servers used for support as opposed to things they get a cut of $$ from.) imho

[Nikatjef]

FieryDove wrote...
They already last less than that now so I don't see the problem. A skilled modder could make a difficulty pack to go with it.

   Actually Combat Tweaks and Nightmare Plus are two packages designed to resolve that issue.  Unfortunately, until the devs release the toolset code for DA:A, those two mods are not quite as efficient at it as they were before the 1.03 patch.

[ladydesire]

Grovermancer wrote...



I'm not suggesting taking Awakenings classes AS THEY ARE NOW, and just "forcing" them into Origins...

I'm talking about them being PROPERLY INTEGRATED INTO ORIGINS, FROM THE START.  That means balance, access, integration, would all flow seamlessly.


In NWN, you could appropriately access the expansion classes in the original campaign in a balanced, intelligent manner.  That's what one would expect with the Awakenings 'expansion' classes. 

That's what I'm talking about.

The expansion classes are more along the lines of Epic Prestige classes in D&D, which were not accessible for anyone under level 20; the plain fact is that the Bioware developers didn't expect most players to reach more than level 21 or 22 anyway, so adding  these in Origins wouldn't have been worth the time and effort to rebalance them (if they are truly unbalanced to begin with). Also, since Epic levels weren't normally reachable in NWN, only the new D&D base classes, feats and spells would be added to it; since there were no such changes planned for Awakening, using M2DAs like the community does to add or alter content was the easiest way for them to do it and not repeat the mistakes the M2DA system was intended to avoid in the first place.

[Grovermancer]

ladydesire wrote...

The expansion classes are more along the lines of Epic Prestige classes in D&D, which were not accessible for anyone under level 20; the plain fact is that the Bioware developers didn't expect most players to reach more than level 21 or 22 anyway, so adding  these in Origins wouldn't have been worth the time and effort to rebalance them (if they are truly unbalanced to begin with). Also, since Epic levels weren't normally reachable in NWN, only the new D&D base classes, feats and spells would be added to it; since there were no such changes planned for Awakening, using M2DAs like the community does to add or alter content was the easiest way for them to do it and not repeat the mistakes the M2DA system was intended to avoid in the first place.

It's been years since I've played NWN, but I'm pretty sure Prestiege and Epic classes were two different things.
And you could reach the Prestiege expansion classes/skills/abilities long before end-game.  In other words, they were usable in the original campaign.  And it worked great, and added much more re-playability of the OC.

Does that address what you're getting at?  I'm too buzzed to interpret your post.

[FieryDove]

Grovermancer wrote...

It's been years since I've played NWN, but I'm pretty sure Prestiege and Epic classes were two different things.
And you could reach the Prestiege expansion classes/skills/abilities long before end-game.  In other words, they were usable in the original campaign.  And it worked great, and added much more re-playability of the OC.

You are correct. Also, I fondly remember playing the new classes (lvl 1 new characters) in NWN2 after the expansions which thankfully added to the base game. (Yes I know NWN2 was not Bioware)

A long sucessful RPG is expected to have expansions and expansions are expected to add to the base game. It would be such a shame to create a great game like DAO and abandon it in favor of new shiny's. But that is the EA way...bleh

[Grovermancer]

FieryDove wrote...

You are correct. Also, I fondly remember playing the new classes (lvl 1 new characters) in NWN2 after the expansions which thankfully added to the base game. (Yes I know NWN2 was not Bioware)

A long sucessful RPG is expected to have expansions and expansions are expected to add to the base game. It would be such a shame to create a great game like DAO and abandon it in favor of new shiny's. But that is the EA way...bleh

There was recently a thread about Fallout 3's DLC, and how superior it is to DA's DLC...  While that premise is debatable, it is a fact that (as this thread explores), Awakening is not backwards compatable in regards to items, classes, or locations.

Fallout 3's DLC is backwards compatable in every respect, greatly expanding the original game.

[ladydesire]

FieryDove wrote...

Grovermancer wrote...

It's been years since I've played NWN, but I'm pretty sure Prestiege and Epic classes were two different things.
And you could reach the Prestiege expansion classes/skills/abilities long before end-game.  In other words, they were usable in the original campaign.  And it worked great, and added much more re-playability of the OC.

You are correct. Also, I fondly remember playing the new classes (lvl 1 new characters) in NWN2 after the expansions which thankfully added to the base game. (Yes I know NWN2 was not Bioware)

A long sucessful RPG is expected to have expansions and expansions are expected to add to the base game. It would be such a shame to create a great game like DAO and abandon it in favor of new shiny's. But that is the EA way...bleh

What does EA have to do with a decision by Bioware to not add the equivlent of Epic Prestige classes to Origins? What I was saying is that if Bioware had wanted to have them usable in Origins, they would have done so.

[Grovermancer]

ladydesire wrote...

What does EA have to do with a decision by Bioware to not add the equivlent of Epic Prestige classes to Origins? What I was saying is that if Bioware had wanted to have them usable in Origins, they would have done so.

I assume they're implying that 'corporate pressures' (ie, money = time) kept BW from doing what would have been best for us, best for the long-term health of the game, and what they've done before... make expansion elements backwards compatable.


So either BW consciously and intentionally decided not to do it this time... or some 'other' variable factored in.  IE, EA.

[FieryDove]

Grovermancer wrote...

ladydesire wrote...

What does EA have to do with a decision by Bioware to not add the equivlent of Epic Prestige classes to Origins? What I was saying is that if Bioware had wanted to have them usable in Origins, they would have done so.

I assume they're implying that 'corporate pressures' (ie, money = time) kept BW from doing what would have been best for us, best for the long-term health of the game, and what they've done before... make expansion elements backwards compatable.


So either BW consciously and intentionally decided not to do it this time... or some 'other' variable factored in.  IE, EA.

Exactly so.

Most people have no idea that the majority of DA was created before EA came into the picture. If EA was I am almost 100% it would not have seen light of day at all, or be a 15-20hr hack and slash fest game at best. imho (I'm glad it wasn't DA:O is my all time fav game.)

[CybAnt1]

Dunno. On this issue, I think there's no need to be conspiratorial.



I think they made a conscious design decision that some of the abilities would require stat or level requirements that would make them unattainable in Origins, plus some would be unbalanced (not like they aren't already even in the supposedly higher challenge Awakening), therefore, there was no point to making them retroactive. Sure, they could make the ones with lower requirements retroactive, but that would still be sorta ... half-assed.



Mod makers are making them retroactive as an option for some (like I thought they would); and if you're on console, well what can I tell you, you made the choice to play on a tightly controlled platform ... gotta live with it.

[hexaligned]

Yrkoon wrote...

relhart wrote...

In NWN2 they were (bioware didn't make that however), maybe my memory is faulty, but I'm pretty sure the expansions for NWN the original were stand alones.

Of course NWN1's expansions added new feats, character classes AND races  that were usable in the original.   With HoTU installed, you can play the OC as a weapon master.... or a pale master  etc.  Which, btw,  literally breathed new life into the Original

 But we don't really have to  look at  NWN.    BG2's expansion ALSO added new classes and spells to the original.  (wild mage, anyone?).  Even BG1's expansion added  a new weapon type (scimitar) and an increased level cap to the original campaign

That's how things are done.  That's what seperates an Expansion from a module.


I cannot imagine the warped thinking behind the decision to make Awakening  a stand alone and then shamelessly call it an expansion.  For gods sakes, they couldn't even be bothered to  add Stamina droughts to Origins.

Pure, undefensable crap.

Ah, ok, I was wrong then,been awhile since I played those games.  I agree it seems like an odd desicion though, a little backwards compatibility to breath some life into the OC would have been nothing but positive.   It's not like Origins was balanced to begin with.

Modifié par relhart, 11 avril 2010 - 03:02 .

[Grovermancer]

CybAnt1 wrote...
I think they made a conscious design decision that some of the abilities would require stat or level requirements that would make them unattainable in Origins, plus some would be unbalanced (not like they aren't already even in the supposedly higher challenge Awakening), therefore, there was no point to making them retroactive. Sure, they could make the ones with lower requirements retroactive, but that would still be sorta ... half-assed.

The "unbalanced" aspect needn't apply.

As I posted earlier, I'm not talking about taking the Awakening classes/skills as they are, then "forcing" them into Origins.

I'm talking about doing it like they did with NWN-SoU-HoTU.  All of those expansion classes/skills/items, all were retroactive, and accessible in the OC of NWN.  Balance, requirements, etc., were all intelligently and appropriately adjusted right from the start. 

The "unbalanced" arguement simply isn't valid.

[Rolenka]

So basically, it would have been too hard to do for the consoles, so they skipped it.

Why lower yourself to the limitations of an inferior platform? If developers get in the habit of taking advantage of the flexibility of the PC, gamers will take notice and return to it. That would free the developers from having to deal with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo every time they want to make a game. They'd have more leverage.

[Emerald Melios]

Grovermancer wrote...

CybAnt1 wrote...
I think they made a conscious design decision that some of the abilities would require stat or level requirements that would make them unattainable in Origins, plus some would be unbalanced (not like they aren't already even in the supposedly higher challenge Awakening), therefore, there was no point to making them retroactive. Sure, they could make the ones with lower requirements retroactive, but that would still be sorta ... half-assed.

The "unbalanced" aspect needn't apply.

As I posted earlier, I'm not talking about taking the Awakening classes/skills as they are, then "forcing" them into Origins.

I'm talking about doing it like they did with NWN-SoU-HoTU.  All of those expansion classes/skills/items, all were retroactive, and accessible in the OC of NWN.  Balance, requirements, etc., were all intelligently and appropriately adjusted right from the start. 

The "unbalanced" arguement simply isn't valid.

You must realize that NWN was based on D&D tabletop rules, which were already designed that way. Dragon Age on the other hand was built in-house from scratch.

[ladydesire]

Rolenka wrote...

So basically, it would have been too hard to do for the consoles, so they skipped it.

No. If they had wanted to put those abilities into Origins, they would have done so; since they didn't, it's evident that they wanted them to only be available in Awakening.