375 réponses à ce sujet

[Peter Thomas]

Dave of Canada wrote...

I'm not sure if this is gameplay / plot but... I'm a min/maxer that loves building the strongest characters that I possibly can, this is normally possible in a lot of RPGs through gameplay and knowing the good builds that people use all the time. Unfortunately, Origins didn't work this way. My kind-and-thoughtful Warden, if he wanted to have the best possible stats in the game, had to scrounge through the Fade and do things that didn't fit his nature (such as sacrificing the elves for +1 constitution) to make sure he got every single point available.

My question is this. As a min/maxer, will I be able to get through the game just fine using builds and such without having to resort to doing things I would never do otherwise simply to have my character at his / her toughest?

This is kind of a story/plot question. Not every character progression option will be open to you if you don't make specific choices. In DAO, becoming a Blood Mage required you to do certain things. You can min-max within in the constraints of what you want your character to be or become, story-wise. If the specific way you're min-maxing requires you to do that and you don't want to, you can try to min-max in a different way. We're trying to encourage many possible effective builds with each class.

[Peter Thomas]

_Loc_N_lol_ wrote...

I may be wrong but I think the question referred specifically to followers, not just the PC.
Same Answer ? Undecided ? Ask another department ?

Ah, then there are elements to that that haven't been finalized for everyone yet.

[Peter Thomas]

_Loc_N_lol_ wrote...

'nother quick question : you've said multiple times how we get a default weapon in some cases where no item is equipped. Mages get a default staff. What about warriors and rogues ? Can they fight bare-handed ? Do rogues get a default bow or a default set of blades ? Do warriors get a default 2-hander or a default weapon and shield ? :]

If you remove all weapons from a character, they will have default versions equipped, yes. Which weapon style it decides to give you hasn't had a system finalized yet.

[Peter Thomas]

Brockololly wrote...

So when you say that changes in items are reflected in appearance, does that mean that if I were to switch something as small as rings or necklaces  that would be visually apparent on the character model?

Currently the equipment reflected on the character is the same as DAO.

And does that mean that companion characters retain the same level of flexibility in their inventory and customization as the player character?

The follower inventory hasn't been finalized yet.

In Origins, there was a higher enemy count on the PC than the consoles, can you comment if that difference is staying for DA2 or will any eventual enemy count on screen be the same between PC and consoles for DA2?

The game is the same on both systems, so the PC and console versions will have the same number of enemies.

[Peter Thomas]

Brockololly wrote...

So no more punching enemies with your fists when you don't have a weapon equipped?

No, there is no more unarmed combat for players.

[Peter Thomas]

Knight Templar wrote...

Is there any point at which it's better the have the "No Weapon" weapon? As in will the default weapon be better than any other item in any way?

The default weapon will be appropriate to your level. If you have a very basic weapon from a lower level, the default might have higher base damage, but wouldn't have any additional properties your actual item did.

Modifié par Peter Thomas, 12 septembre 2010 - 04:35 .

[Peter Thomas]

falloutseriesfan wrote...

Which classes will be able to use the staff seen in the Destiny trailer?

The only class able to use the Staff weapon style is the Mage.

[Peter Thomas]

uberdowzen wrote...

First off I'd like to whole-heartedly thank you for doing this. It's fantastic. Secondly, I'd like to apologise for what is probably going to be a stupidly long post and once more if any of these questions have already been asked.

1. Is the plan in DA2 to make the combat have the clarity of ME2's?  I found that in that game you always knew what you were meant to do to fight a certain enemy. For example, in ME2 if you're fighting an armoured enemy you
know that you need to use a heavy pistol, warp or similar. I found stuff like that slightly hazy in DAO.

The differences in creature vulnerabilities are to be more pronounced in DA2. I don't know about any UI changes to communicate visually. It may end up being trial and error to discover what works and what doesn't. Each category of enemy is consistent in its strengths and weaknesses though.

2. Are characters in your party going to have fewer abilities to draw on in combat? The way I understand it is that you are going to be upgrading the talents you already have rather than continually getting new ones to avoid that situation you had at the end of Awakening where the quick bar was stretching out across the entire screen.

One of the aims of DA2 is to make the abilities more distinct and unique. This, combined with upgrades and investment requirements within individual trees (you must have spent X points in this tree before getting the highest level abilities), characters will generally be more focused and have less overall active abilities. Balancing is still ongoing with requirements.

3. Are you going to be allowed to fight with just a sword anymore or is a default shield going to fill in if you only equip a sword? Also will the default weapon change based on what weapon set a character is better with or is it based on class?

In that example, a default shield will appear in your off hand. Currently it's based on class only, but we're looking into the default default (when nothing at all is equipped) being whichever style you have the most points invested in.

4. As the talent system is being changed are similar plans in place for the skill system?

I can't comment on the skill system.

5. Will there be separate quick bars for alternate weapons?

Currently you cannot switch weapon sets.

6. Will it be more practical to build a character with talents for more than one type of weapon than in DAO? E.g. a two handed weapon user who also uses a bow.

In DA2, those two weapon styles aren't available to the same character, but I'll take it to mean Dual Weapon and Archery. It can be practical to use both if you don't want to specialize in one particular style. Each weapon style is only a single tree. The vast majority of class abilities are more general, and can be used no matter what weapon style you're currently using.

7. Having presumably played it a fair bit, is DA2 as awesome as it sounds/looks?

Out there somewhere is an EA marketing guy dying to answer this question...

[Peter Thomas]

falloutseriesfan wrote...

So what you're saying, Mr. Thomas, is that mages will be able to fight like Hawke did?

The trailer is a prerendered cinematic by Digic Pictures. The real game can't behave exactly like that. The combats aren't choreographed (except stuff like deathblows) and, while everything in it was based on DA2 abilities and stuff, there will be differences in the actual final game. At some point we will release more videos of what the game actually looks like (besides what's been seen in demos), but I don't know when that will be.

[Peter Thomas]

falloutseriesfan wrote...

I'm sorry, I should've worded my question better. What my actual question was that will mages be able to fight in melee combat with their staffs?

Yes they can, but the exact nature of their animations is an animation direction question.

[Peter Thomas]

distinguetraces wrote...

If the warrior's default attack is an 120-degree-arc AoE, how is it targeted? Do you select a target and then automatically swing your weapon in an arc extending sixty degrees to the left and right of the target?

Or does the arc begin at the target, or end at it, or what?

Or ... wait, though ... you said before that AoEs could only target the ground, not an enemy. If that's the case, and if all warrior attacks are AoE, is it going to be impossible for warriors to ever target enemies directly?

Thank you for staying up for us, and I really don't mean to be a naysayer, but I just have to say that an AoE auto-attack seems to me to be very very strange.

You attack an enemy and swing your sword. Enemies are hit from 60 degrees to the left of him to 60 degrees to the right. There are a couple other games that do this sort of thing, but some of them restrict it to later moves in a combo. When playing it, it feels pretty good. It also requires you to manage the battlefield to get the most use out of your Warrior, clustering enemies near him to take advantage of his attacks.

[Peter Thomas]

Alias Oddvar wrote...

does displacement/magic resistance still use the 1-(displacement/magic resistance persentage) when considering if a spell/ability hits or not? Meaning player stats are irrelevant?
or does it use attack(a flat number)-MR(flat number)=persentage for spell to land?

Displacement has a 100-X percent chance of ignoring any hit result, where X is the value of that attribute.

Magic Resistance is slightly different. It reduces magical damage and effect durations by that percentage. This will be subject to balancing and we may need to rework that once more testing has been done.

Is spirit the best way to hit very magic resistant enemies for mages?

Yes, since it halves the resistance they'd get from that stat. It is also the best way to hit extremely damage resistant enemies. This is a specific damage resistance property, not physical/fire/cold/electricity/nature/spirit damage resistance. Something that seems to be immune to most everything will likely be more vulnerable to Spirit damage.

is it still possible to get 100% magic resistance/displacement  by stacking displacement/magic resistance items?

For players? Not in any sort of permanent fashion, though I can't comment on specific abilities. Also for enemies it's unlikely except under special circumstances.

you mention diminishing returns on stacking attack or defence, which ways are you useing to get that result?
in dao it encourages stacking of attack and defence, and only a few points are useless.

I'm going to pull numbers out of thin air to give an example.

Suppose you are a level 1 Warrior and have an attack score of 20. That gives you a 50% chance of hitting an equal level enemy. If you get another +20, you now might have a 70% chance of hitting. Another +20 would bring it up to 80%. Another +20 would bring it to 85%, with a total attack score of 80.

Now let's consider a level 2 Warrior. He, too has an attack score of 20. For a level 2 character, though, 20 is kinda low. His chance to hit is only 35% against an equal level enemy. The other Warrior with the score of 80 moves up to level 2, and his attack score is above average, even for level 2. He has a 75% chance to hit an enemy because he already had a high attack score. This second Warrior gets another +20, bringing his attack score up to 100. Unfortunately, at level 2, 20 attack doesn't mean as much as it used to, and it only bumps his percentage up to 80%.

Our UI has not been finalized, but we are planning on letting you see how much attack score an individual item property or attribute point would give you, but for readability reasons the display of the attack score on the character sheet will be the resulting percentage (with all other factors folded into it). This will tell you absolutely how effective your character is, while clearly showing which properties give more benefit than others. This is a byproduct of the diminishing returns and showing how effective your character is against an enemy of your current level. This UI has not been finalized, though, so I can't really say more about it.

[Peter Thomas]

BlackVader wrote...

1. Will there be any way to respecialize Hawke and/or her companions? I'm not asking about the specific way it is done. Even simple yes or no would be great.

That hasn't been determined yet.

2. Since you said a melee-weapon is either sword and shild or dual-wield style: Will dual wield still allow us to use two individual (dual wield style) weapons or will one such "item" automatically fill both slots? (Like the double-bladed swords in Nevewinter Nights)

In the case of Dual Weapon and Sword and Shield styles, each hand will have a different item equipped. No 'pair of daggers' type item. Each weapon can have different stats and properties which will be reflected in the damage it deals and the bonuses it gives you.

3. Will the AI be able to cancel an action when a condition with a higher priority is met before the action is completed? The AI couldn't handle this in DAO and made the game feel ... "clumsy" quite often, especially if you happen to have played with FFXII's gambit-system for a few hundred hours.

Currently the AI and tactics function in the same way as DAO.

4. On a similar note, is the awful AI-reset at the beginning of a combat gone? You know what I mean. The whole "Pause the game and issue commands to the party right when an enemy appears - just to have the commands forgotten by the time your party draws their weapons"-thing.
I can't even count the times that my whole party suffered some huge AoE damage (scatter shot, fireball, etc.) just because of this.

This would be a bug in DA2.

[Peter Thomas]

1varangian wrote...

I know the logic behind that and I guess I should have asked if there will be plot related "non-combat" companions? Finn should have been one, definitely.

Heh, well if it's plot related, then I can't comment on it anyway. It is a story/plot related question, though.

But wouldn't it make it possible for lower level companions to catch up if XP gains were adjusted by the recipient's level? An enemy that is worth 50xp to a level 10 character could be worth 100xp to a level 5 companion. Different level characters would really help establish a scope of power in the game, something that was absent in DA:O.

This would still end up with a level 1 follower joining a level 20 party. Sure he'd gain XP, but every single fight he'd die in 1 shot and be useless the entire time.

Also, will the number of enemies scale at all or just their levels? Encountering more enemies is more believable than having to fight some level 16 wolves.

There have been discussions on this, but I can't comment on the exact layouts of encounters in DA2.

To clarify, I meant the scope of it. In Origins, a 1st level warrior had 20 str at best while a high level warrior would easily have 60+. The question was more RP related than mechanics related. How strong is a character compared to an ogre or a dragon? How can a level 10 Leliana be stronger than a level 1 Sten? Wouldn't a more patient ability score progression help create a system where the stats would better indicate certain level of strength or cunning etc? The stats in DnD do a very good job of portraying the character while the stats in Origins mostly just correlate to experience.

Your actual attribute values are an abstraction to facilitate gameplay and character progression. The number ranges will be approximately the same as DAO.

Need to clarify again, heh. Will a mage's melee capability be determined by both Str and Magic, or Magic alone like with Origin's Arcane Warriors? Will there be a reason for a Mage to invest in Str / Dex / Con / Cunning

A Mage would invest in those other attributes for the benefits they give like Impact Resistance (to not be knocked around by enemy attacks), Critical Chance (you can get spell criticals too), Health (to be more survivable). Not every stat will be necessary for every character, depending on your playstyle.

[Peter Thomas]

Nighteye2 wrote...

So, to get this clear, there is no more distinction between piercing, cutting and blunt physical damage?

There is no distinction. There aren't subtypes of damage like that.

Won't that be awkward during the sex scenes, if characters who stripped themselves naked are forced to keep holding on to their default weapons?

There are too many jokes I could make about that...

[Peter Thomas]

Shinian2 wrote...

You've said many times that you can't talk about skills. Is this because they aren't your area or that they are still being designed? Will it be a matter of weeks or months before you can answer questions about them?

That depends on when decisions here get made, and what the release schedule for certain pieces of information is.

[Peter Thomas]

filetemo wrote...

can we combine two handed weapons and sword and shield with our character or do we have to choose one weapon specialization and stick with it?
I mean, when you choose your first sword and shield ability for example, does the two handed skill tree become unavailable for the rest of the game or can we have a warrior capable of using both skillsets and use sword and shield and two handed depending on what suits for our next battle?
it would be cool to be able to tank with a shield large groups of mobs and then use two handers for a big boss

Ability choices don't get locked off like that. Just because you pick abilities in Two Handed Weapon doesn't make you lose the ability to wield a Weapon and Shield.

[Peter Thomas]

Kriz_Light wrote...

Greetings to all people from Bioware.

I have a few questions regarding Dragon Age 2:

1. During character creation, apart from changing the gender, appeareance, class and name of Hawke, will it be also possible (like in Dragon Age: Origins) to select starting skills, talents and abilities or will those be set? In Gamescom demo it wasn't possible.

The Gamescom was a specific press demo. There is full character creation, though the extent of what you can change and when I can't comment on right now.

2. Are skills (i.e. crafting, coercion and such) in the game and do they work differently from DA:O?

I can't comment on skills right now.

3. In one of the previous questions in this thread you said that it's not possible to entirely switch off AI like in DA:O. Could you elaborate more on that?

I don't believe there is a way to turn off basic autoattack functionality for followers.

[Peter Thomas]

svendigo wrote...

How different will the mage's resources (mana) would be compared to the physical classes' one (stamina)? In DA:O they feel like exactly the same thing, with different colors.

The function of mana and stamina is to restrict how often you can use abilities and force you to make tactical decisions on which ability to use and when. Giving yourself a larger pool gives you more flexibility, but in that respect, both are the same.

One way we're hoping to differentiate them is by altering the primary way that classes regain their depletable resource. Warriors use abilities to regain stamina. Rogues attack to regain stamina. Mages have a constantly regenerating mana pool.

Will healing be restricted to mages and potion spamming (ie, will there be any warrior/rogue skills that reverses damage that's dealt)? Back in DA:O, having no mage in the party is a recipe for going broke relatively quickly, and sometimes causes impossibly difficult battles unless you're extremely, extremely prepared. Is there anything being done to try to rectify this?

Potion spamming is something we're trying to eliminate from the game. It removes a lot of tactical and party choices that otherwise would be significant.

Mages are the class with the ability to heal others. Both Warriors and Rogues do have abilities (though I can't go into specifics) that are capable of healing themselves (in addition to potions). A Mage that focuses on healing, though, won't be as much good for other things.

[Peter Thomas]

Atmosfear3 wrote...
Allow me to rephrase my question in the form of an example:

If my character was a warrior then I have access to both sword'n'board and two-hander abilities. Obviously you cannot do both as 2H abilities are restricted to 2H weapons and vice versa for shield abilities.

My question is, similar to how WoW has dual-specs that allows a class to switch say from Tank to DPS by switching all their talents on the fly, will DA2 also have a similar feature?

One of the issues I had with both DAO and Awakening was that based on whatever class my Warden was, it made certain party members completely redundant. When I played as a tank, Alistair/Justice was useless. When I played as a DPS mage, Morrigan/Velanna was useless.  I admit, this was made less of an issue with Awakening and the respec tome, however it was tedious in that we had to completely redistribute all the points and attributes each time. It would be much more convenient to simply allow a character to hit a button and swap all their attributes/talents/skills (at a cost or free).

There won't be a respec between 2 different character builds button. I don't know if there will be a button to flip between quickbar layouts either. That's a UI question.

The question about the player being the same sort of build as a follower is important, though. We're trying to make enough distinction in the abilities that even if you have two Weapon and Shield Warriors, their other abilities could make their use in battle vastly different. It is also useful to have two of the same kind of character. There isn't anything wrong with it, though that may depend on your playstyle.

Also, while I can't get into specifics, followers aren't just players with a different appearance.

[Peter Thomas]

MomoJamo wrote...

Will there be as much content in dragon age 2 on the initial release, Compared to Dragon age Origins initial Release?

And i know its way to early but I'm guessing its already being discussed within the company will there be an expansion and much DLC ?

Unfortunately, I can't comment on these.

[Peter Thomas]

Everwarden wrote...
Will there be a tree for rogues to specialize in using one one-handed weapon like Knights of the Old Republic's dueling spec?

I can't talk about specializations right now.

[Peter Thomas]

tmp7704 wrote...

Hmm, in this case what's (roughly) the percentage of creatures with such property? Would guesstimate DAO had ~1/4th of enemies in heavy+ armours or equivalents, is it comparable in DA2?

This hasn't been finalized yet, but in balancing we're going to try to make sure that all enemies feel like they have distinct advantages/disadvantages.

Also personal view question i suppose, doesn't this new system make it feel rather silly if all weapons are identically effective against given armour type? I mean, DAO didn't have explicit slash/crush/pierce mechanics but the armour penetration was a rather elegant approximation of that, and allowed for system where certain classes could be either more effective against others or set up as specific counter. Does uniform weapon damage provide some benefit which outweights the simplification... or do you consider the simplification itself the benefit for some reason?

Originally DAO did have slashing, piercing and blunt type damages, but that was removed. Armor penetration was useful in distinguishing different weapon types, but also served as a balance against how the armor stat was implemented. It was a fixed number and if that number was higher than your damage, you were out of luck. Armor penetration could counter that. Unfortunately for armor penetration, the bonuses give were usually 1 for 1, so it was always better to take the equivalent damage bonus instead.

With armor now being a percentage reduction of damage, armor penetration doesn't matter so much since you'll still always be doing some amount of damage. We're also trying to emphasize the different types of damage (physical, fire, cold, etc), so having a de-emphasis on armor (physical damage resistance) helps with that.

[Peter Thomas]

Cigne wrote...

Does this mean that weapon attributes and appearance will be decided by other departments (say, Art)? Whether the weapon is described ingame as a shortsword, dagger, longsword, and whatever the models sizes are, the underlying code will determine which class (Warrior of Rogue) can use them?

Art decides the physical appearance of the weapon. Animation decides how the character will animate wielding it. All other stats are in the Design department, namely the Gameplay group.

So in your specific examples, attributes and which class can wield them are done by Gameplay Design.

[Peter Thomas]

Arllekin wrote...

Hello Mr. Peter Thomas, i would like to ask about the enemy's AI's, they will hit primarily the heaviest armor guy and then who builds more aggro, or in some boss battle, high level foes or Nightmare they will have a strategy, like the rogues taking down your mages first?

The exact AI tables haven't been finalized yet, so I can't say if there will be alternate behaviour on higher difficulties. Otherwise, except for the archetype behaviours, it will be similar to DAO.