885 réponses à ce sujet

[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.

[OriginsIsBest]

When can you talk about specializations?

[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.

[Peter Thomas]

distinguetraces wrote...

I'm trying to get a clear understanding of the differences between stamina generation for warriors and rogues. Your prior description made their different ways of generating stamina sound a little like Rage and Combo Points for warriors and rogues in WoW.

Were those systems an inspiration, and can you clarify the similarities and differences? (or, if the parallel makes no sense, just further clarify how stamina works without using WoW as a reference?)

Thank you!

I haven't played WoW in a while, so I'm not sure they work the same way. It's more that we looked at expected behaviour for the class and thought of how we wanted it to play and how to keep the player active. If they were an inspiration, it wasn't direct.

The specifics of methods to regain stamina aren't something I can detail more than what I've already said, at this time.

[Peter Thomas]

Spartansfan8888 wrote...

Mr. Thomas,
Thank you for taking the time to answer questions about the new combat system; I have a few myself.

You said warriors are Aoe melee oriented; does this pertain to their auto attacks as well as activated abilities?

Yes, except for very specific abilities, everything the warrior does is an AoE, including basic attacks.

Will rogues have disabling abilities such as throwing sand in the enemies' eyes or cutting an achilles tendon?

While I can't discuss specifics, the Rogue does have a lot of abilities that do things other than damage, and are the most flexible class in terms of cross class combo effects.

Will mages have close-range grappling sort of spells; to clarify similar to Morrigan's walking bomb in the sacred ashes trailer and Hawke using the glyph in the destiny trailer?

I can't discuss specific abilities right now.

[Peter Thomas]

Tempest wrote...

I have been very curious about how Crowd Control will work in DA2 in a specific way.
[*]Will they work the same way as in DA:O?

They'll work how they did in DAO... mostly. This is getting into ability specifics. Some apply all the time. Some apply based on a flat chance. Some apply based on a chance dictated by the rank of the opponent (critters a lot, bosses very little). It varies.

[Peter Thomas]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Speaking of all those default weapons....does that mean that even if I have no weapon ro shield in my inventory, a "default" weapon or shield will appear? I hope I'm misunderstanding this.

Correct, an unselectable default will appear in your hands.

[Peter Thomas]

Dark_Ansem wrote...

will we be able to import the DA2 mechanics in Dragon Age 1?

Er... so back importing? Reverse importing?

There are no plans for DAO reimplemented with DA2 systems if that's what you mean.

[Peter Thomas]

0rz0 wrote...

- Shield warriors as tanks - will they be based on absorbing damage, blocking or evading? (err actually is the function to tank still in?)

I can't comment on specific abilities. Being a good tank would require either the ability to avoid damage (Defense), or mitigate is (Armor or equivalent). The heavier the armor, the better it is at reducing damage. So the most Warrior-like armor will be the one that best lets them tank using it.

[Peter Thomas]

Amaror wrote...

I don't really know if this is the kind of question you can answer but what ever:

In an Interview, Bioware mentioned that the Darkspawn are redesigned to make them look more like they are discribed in the books.
Well, in the books the skin is discribed as "rotten".
But on the first released screenshots the skin of the darkspawn look just like normal human skin.
why that?

This is an art direction question.

[Peter Thomas]

JemyM wrote...

Is the "Tactician" a viable character build in DA2?

The Tactician achievement in DA:O was earned by defeating 250 enemies without the player dealing the damage. Similar to a Cleric in classic D&D, the tactician contribute strategically to a party by buffing or healing allies, or debuff or hamper foes. The party, in this case the AI, deals the damage.

Every class has enough abilities that allow it to take a more supporting role. I don't have a list in front of me right now, but it should never force you to deal damage to enemies if you really don't want. It may not be the most efficient build, but it's possible.

[Peter Thomas]

Balder84 wrote...

Thanks for the answer peter. I was just thinking regarding the rune system, for example equipping a fire, ice and electricity rune to a bow would result in the bow cycling through three different attacks - could that be a possibility? - sorry not much of a question I know as rune system not finalized and all but thought I'd share my idea :-)

This would be the difference between the base damage type of a weapon and damage added through additional properties. The weapon itself would determine the projectile, then when that projectile hits, it does its basic damage, plus additional damage from each of the extra damage properties on it (like the damage runes in DAO).

[Peter Thomas]

Mubar wrote...

Will there be interogation sequences

This is a story/plot related question.

[Peter Thomas]

AbounI wrote...

About the Displacement Score (DS) and the formula "100-X% chance of ignoring any hit result, where X is the value of that attribute".


Not sure to understand it very well.

Let's take an exemple:
If DS = 20, so it means there's 80% chance of ignoring any hit result.
But if DS = 60, so it means there's 40% chance of ignoring any hit result.

My conclusion is the higher is DS and the less there's chance of ignoring hit result.So, a DS is better when this attribute is as low as possible?

How is calculate this DS, what depends on its value?
And if ennemies got such this attribute, do we got it in return?

And how does it work for a rogue with a bow?Does this system work in the same way?

Aw crap. Yeah, I wrote it one way, then rewrote it, but didn't do the whole line. The displacement is the chance it gets ignored. 20% displacement means a 20% chance to ignore any hit. 100%-DS is the chance that a hit goes through.

I can't comment on any specifics about who has this property and at what strength.

[Peter Thomas]

Ramante wrote...

I know you can't tell anything about possible animal compagnions and/or ranger-like specializations so I have a general question about animals we will encounter.
In DA:O they only had 'animal attacks' like Overwhelm, Slam/Shred, Howl/Rage etc.. In the Witch Hunt DLC Dog could also use Warrior talents like Precise Striking. So my question is will the (wild) animals we encounter have more talents than the DA:O creatures?

I can't comment on specific creature abilities or specific creatures.

And a question about the Warrior attacks, you said that it will hit multiple opponents on the same time. I was wondering, will all enemies take the same amount of damage from the attack or will they take less damage than the main target?

The damage is based on the Warrior's base damage, modified by the hit result against that creature and any damage resistances it may have. 2 creatures right next to each other may take different amount of damage because one has better resistance, or higher Defense. There is no inherent bias between main vs secondary targets, though. If they're all easy to hit, they all get hit for the same amount.

[Peter Thomas]

nikihap wrote...

Hey Peter Thomas
many thanks for answering questions for os.

I've been wondering about skill and ability cooldowns in DA2, when you used the pickpocket ability in DA:O it had a 10s cooldown and this was annoying when you were in town ( a non-combat area) it was just to time consuming
I can see why it should have a cooldown in combat but not in a non-combat area. is this though of in DA2, just answer with a yes or no will be fine

I can't discuss specific cooldowns of different abilities. One reason not to have that in DAO would have been that someone would go and create 20 Infernos at once in a crowded town and dance among the flames. Not good for the engine.

[Peter Thomas]

FedericoV wrote...

Another question to Mr. Peter Thomas.

I would like to know if the pause and play system is changed and if the answer is yes, then how. I mean, playing DA:O I allways felt that I was caught between two extremes: micromanaging to death each charachter of the party (loosing the flow of the game and pausing every second) or using tactics (then loosing situational control over the members of my party wich was the point of combat at the end).

In that respect, games like BG, IWD or NWN 2 worked better for me since they used a turn system and were a little bit slower than DA:O. Moreover, those games had action queue wich was very usefull in that regard.

So, how you would describe the new system of DA2 compared to those pause and play games? What has changed?

DA2 is essentially the same as DAO in terms of pause and play. The main differences between DA and games like BG was that it gave you the option of autopausing when a turn was up, and that characters' attacks were roughly synchronous (i.e. a creature would attack once per 6 second turn, or similar), whereas the DA ones are asynchronous (you attack every 2.3 seconds, I attack every 3.7, etc) with no real autopause (since there is no defined 'turn' time to pause at).

Talking about the micromanagement, one of the intentions of the Tactics system was to enable the player to assign automatic micromanagement tasks so he wouldn't have to concentrate to much on each individual character.

How much micromanagement is required at each difficulty level is part of our balancing pass.

[Peter Thomas]

_Loc_N_lol_ wrote...

I just remember that there's one thing I've asked a while ago and I might get an answer here.

In Origins, there were a few abilities ad items that drained depletables. This wasn't very practical though, because you had no way to know how much of an impact it actually had, since you didn't know how much mana or stamina your opponents had.
Would you consider putting a stamina/mana bar on enemies for the same reason there is a visible health bar on them, or some other sort of visual cue ?

The fact that a creature uses magic is significant, but how much exactly it has no longer is. How this impacts player abilities I can't really go into, but I can say that creatures don't have a displayed mana bar.

[Peter Thomas]

kaiki01 wrote...

Thank you so much for answering our questions Peter Thomas =D

1) Will NPCs with ranged attacks recognize if their attacks are being blocked by terrain? In Origins my mages + archers will be on the other side of a wall or blockade and endlessly auto attack but will never connect. Will this be changed in DA2?

This would be an AI bug in DA2 (and possibly a level design one too).

2) Will auto-looting be an option in DA2? Such that when getting loot from a chest or fallen enemy, we can one click, get everything?

This is a GUI related issue that I can't comment on right now.

[Peter Thomas]

lunarknightmage wrote...

Hi Peter,
This might be more of an animation question...........
But, besides the spells that make use of a mage's staff, will mages eventually be able to learn new melee attacks with their staves, just like warriors can learn new Sword + Shield or 2h attacks, and Rogues new DW and Archery attacks?
Or, will mages only have the basic staff melee attacks?
thanks again

Yeah, this is an animation question about specific abilities.

[Peter Thomas]

Gr4ntus wrote...

I don't know if it was asked before but the question that interests me is

Will there be any changes to crafting?

I know DA2 is not an MMO but It would still satisfying to be able to do something myself (in terms of armor/weapons) instead of asking Wade to do it for me.

I can't comment on the crafting system right now.

[Peter Thomas]

KalDurenik wrote...

1)Do characters still warp to the conversation zone? It remove alot of tactic... Like "hmm there are people over there and they dont look very nice... Lets put my mage up on the hill. Walks close to the NPC *party is warped over there*"

This is kind of a cinematics question. Staged conversations (where each person has a position on the stage) isn't being changed for DA2. Which conversations force people onto stages is a specific implementation question.

2)Are there any plans to add more "choice" for when your character level? Like feats for example.

Feats are essentially passive abilities. Each character has a wide variety of abilities they can choose from at any given level.

3)Will the NPC AI be improved? Not only your companions (they get stuck on stuff alot) but the enemy AI also? Also will you make another even higher level of "hard" where you improve the AI even more? Nightmare is not "hard" its simply dumb because the AI stop caring about their friends while they sit and nuke with aoe and CC.

AI is still undergoing modifications, but I don't know if there will be any changes based on difficulty level.

4)I guess this might be game play related but will there be a "New game +"? (Like restart with the same character / new quests / new areas and so on)

I don't know the answer to this.

5)You have said that DA2 is played over 5-10 years (cant remember the nr). How will the years change? A loading screen? A movie? If its a movie will it change depending on what choices you make?

This is a specific plot/story related question with regards to the time skips.

6)Will there be more quests where what you do have a impact. Like save this town from the bandits or help the bandits... Save the merchant and trade will improve in the region giving more items but more bandits (more traders traveling). In other words will we see important choices that are not only for the main quest?

This is a story/plot related question.

[Peter Thomas]

Arijharn wrote...

Can you use the environment in your attacks? Such as, pushing an enemy off a cliff face, or slamming them into a tree?

Probably not in the way you're thinking. The same as in DAO, areas will be walkable or not. Knocking a creature around takes place within the walkable area. Hitting the edges of that area doesn't have any special reaction (mostly).