188 réponses à ce sujet

[Peter Thomas]

Ensgnblack wrote...

Mr. Thomas,
All due respect, Tanking in DAO was broken. Warrior runs in, taunts, and can at that point cease being controlled...for the remainder of the fight. Taunt was so overpowered a single initial application made me good for the entire encounter.

Non-passive taunt/detaunt type abilities have been changed from numerical effects to complete ones. So if you use a taunt type effect on someone, it would automatically set his hate towards you to maximum. In some instances it might also clear his threat table towards other people as well. DAO threat abilities weren't always noticeable in their effect. In DA2, activated ones usually have an all-or-nothing effect, while passive ones add gradual, cumulative bonuses noticed over time.

Other things have also been done to prevent battles from being so passive. You shouldn't be able to run in, taunt, then put down the controller and go have a sandwich while it sorts itself out. Er... lowest difficulties excepted in certain circumstances.

In my own Nightmare playthrough, I had to constantly switch between party members, including the tank.

[Peter Thomas]

distinguetraces wrote...

Peter Thomas wrote...
In my Nightmare playthrough, I had ... a dual weapon/archer Hawke

So splitting your attention between talent lines in this way is viable this time? Or did you just want to test both weapon styles out?

The rogue hybrid actually sounds like a more fun build for my LadyHawke than the pure archer I had planned.

Archery and Dual Weapons are good for slightly different things, and also can vary at the rate in which they do damage. They're good for different situations. Archery is bigger hits, Dual Weapons is higher sustained DPS, but more risk.

I've mentioned before that DPS is important. If you're trying to get a lot of burst damage in, having the extra dual weapon abilities is invaluable.

[AgenTBC]

Sounds good, Peter.



Speaking for myself, I'd love to design a combat system that does discard the entire MMORPG "aggro" mechanic in favor a pure positional system where you protect the squishies by physically preventing the enemy from approaching them. Far more strategic; choice of battleground would be hugely more important than now and ambushes would be deadly (as should be).



But major game developers aren't exactly beating down my door offering me jobs or asking for help. I'm not sure why.

[Ziggeh]

Peter Thomas wrote...

Other things have also been done to prevent battles from being so passive. You shouldn't be able to run in, taunt, then put down the controller and go have a sandwich while it sorts itself out. Er... lowest difficulties excepted in certain circumstances.

To prove you can't please everyone: I actually want to be able to set up scripts in such a way that allows the fights to conducted with little to no interaction, especially if you're making combat more complex. It makes the intial tactics the challenge.

Modifié par Ziggeh, 05 février 2011 - 08:59 .

[Peter Thomas]

AgenTBC wrote...

Sounds good, Peter.

Speaking for myself, I'd love to design a combat system that does discard the entire MMORPG "aggro" mechanic in favor a pure positional system where you protect the squishies by physically preventing the enemy from approaching them. Far more strategic; choice of battleground would be hugely more important than now and ambushes would be deadly (as should be).

But major game developers aren't exactly beating down my door offering me jobs or asking for help. I'm not sure why.

You can do that, and I did quite frequently in my game. Sitting my tank in a doorway, physically blocking enemies from getting to my back line. It doesn't always work though. Sometimes enemy ranged attacks would kill them, sometimes my tank would get knocked back by attacks, spilling them through the doorway, sometimes the tank would just get overpowered. I'd say that, on Nightmare, even with a tank, positioning, choke points, tactical retreats and that sort of thing are pretty essential.

Some mention was made of a Warrior blocking enemies by hitting them. This is in the game. Force of attacks affects enemies as well. If a Warrior attack or ability does enough damage or force, the enemy will be interrupted and play a damage reaction or knockback type animation. Warriors do their interruptions through force of attacks, rather than abilities designed purely to interrupt. A Rogue may do something tricky which stuns a guy, but a Warrior smashes him in the face to get a similar effect.

[lazuli]

Peter Thomas wrote...
Sitting my tank in a doorway, physically blocking enemies from getting to my back line. It doesn't always work though. Sometimes enemy ranged attacks would kill them, sometimes my tank would get knocked back by attacks, spilling them through the doorway, sometimes the tank would just get overpowered. I'd say that, on Nightmare, even with a tank, positioning, choke points, tactical retreats and that sort of thing are pretty essential.

I wonder if we can actually block doorways this time.  In DA:O, even if you positioned two characters blocking a doorway enemies could still trickle through.  I have heard that the dreaded shuffle is gone, so maybe body blocking is actually viable now.

I'm looking forward to linebacking for my mages.

[Nighteye2]

Ziggeh wrote...

Peter Thomas wrote...

Other things have also been done to prevent battles from being so passive. You shouldn't be able to run in, taunt, then put down the controller and go have a sandwich while it sorts itself out. Er... lowest difficulties excepted in certain circumstances.

To prove you can't please everyone: I actually want to be able to set up scripts in such a way that allows the fights to conducted with little to no interaction, especially if you're making combat more complex. It makes the intial tactics the challenge.

And the rest of the combat, beyong the initial tactics, boring.

[Ziggeh]

Nighteye2 wrote...
And the rest of the combat, beyong the initial tactics, boring.

Not at all, it needs to be analysed to see if and where it falls down, and it would be most satisfying if it did not.

Modifié par Ziggeh, 05 février 2011 - 10:55 .

[AgenTBC]

Conversely, if I don't party wipe on a semi regular basis your game is too easy.

[Ensgnblack]

Peter Thomas wrote...

Non-passive taunt/detaunt type abilities have been changed from numerical effects to complete ones. So if you use a taunt type effect on someone, it would automatically set his hate towards you to maximum. In some instances it might also clear his threat table towards other people as well. DAO threat abilities weren't always noticeable in their effect. In DA2, activated ones usually have an all-or-nothing effect, while passive ones add gradual, cumulative bonuses noticed over time.

Other things have also been done to prevent battles from being so passive. You shouldn't be able to run in, taunt, then put down the controller and go have a sandwich while it sorts itself out. Er... lowest difficulties excepted in certain circumstances.

In my own Nightmare playthrough, I had to constantly switch between party members, including the tank.

Peter,
  Thank you for the reponse and thank you for letting me know about this welcome change.  It sounds like taunt will work more like it does in MMOs. 

I am glad  to hear the tank  will once again become a part of my party,  rather than just the one who ran in  first and taunted.

Since you are following this thread, might I ask if taunt is an ability you find yourself using a lot or are you able to use attacks and other abilities during the fight to keep control with your tank?

[Peter Thomas]

Ensgnblack wrote...

Since you are following this thread, might I ask if taunt is an ability you find yourself using a lot or are you able to use attacks and other abilities during the fight to keep control with your tank?

Hm... I can't talk about specific abilities, but I used taunt effects when the battle started to slip away from my tank. It depends on the situation or individual battle, and also on what build you create. Mine was focused mainly on taking damage, not dealing it, and not using other effects/abilities/equipment which increase threat.

[Ensgnblack]

Ah yes, of course I shall have to wait for specifics on the 8th



Thank you for the response, I look forward to seeing the changes to tanking.

[magicwins]

"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is by far my favourite thread on the Citadel"

[soteria]

Just popping in to say this thread is pretty encouraging. Thanks for the input, Mr. Thomas.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ziggeh wrote...

Nighteye2 wrote...
And the rest of the combat, beyong the initial tactics, boring.

Not at all, it needs to be analysed to see if and where it falls down, and it would be most satisfying if it did not.

I'm with Ziggeh, here.  Simply watching your plans succeed is exciting, even if it doesn't require any input from you at all.

This is exactly why I liked the original Dungeon Siege game.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Poor implementation happens. If you are going to talk about reasonable behaviour, attacking the clearly invincible immobilized target is incoherent behaviour. Of course, I know you want to say that whatever the ruleset of the world is, following that is reasonable, but that leads you to the following contradiction:

Of course, that's not a contradiction, for the reasons you're about to show.

Your justification for this ought to be simple: there is no reason at all to suppose that someone wouldn't want to get hit in an RPG, since there exist only measurable and visible penalities (like injuries) for 0 HP.

True.  And as such, there's no reason why a player couldn't reasonable adopt a playstyle that ignored the marginal costs of being hit

The actual difference between 1 HP and 999 HP is nonexistent.

That's not strictly true.  There's a measurable difference in risk.

Except that, again, by your own standard there is no reason to suppose that getting hit has any measurable effect at all in-game beyond the at 0 HP effects.

You really don't understand how possible truth works.

Just as there's no reason to suppose hat getting hit has any measurable effect, there's no reason to suppose the opposite, either.  There is literally no justification for attacking my position on this.  The truth of the in-game effect of getting hit is demonstrably undefined.

[NErWOnek]

distinguetraces wrote...

I'm pretty much stuck with playing DA2 on Nightmare mode because that's the only way to get friendly fire. No choice, so there it is. And we've read that you're going to need the right party to get through Nightmare.

But, for me one value in playing RPGs is exploring the different strategies of different party setups, and I want my GentHawke's and LadyHawke's parties to be as contrasting as possible.

Ideally, to give a really different feel to the two playthroughs and explore different tactics for the same situations, I had planned to have my mage run a party of three mages plus a tank (GentHawke, "Anders", Merrill and Fenris) and my rogue use a party of three rogues plus a tank (LadyHawke, Isabella, Varric, and Aveline) -- switching out characters when a particular skill is absolutely needed.

But, I'm afraid this is just going to be a recipe for non-stop restarts. Does having to optimize your party to survive nightmare mean we're going to be jammed into a "Tank, Healer, 2 DPS" template or suffer eternal frustration?

Judging from first Dragon Age 

"There will be a mod for that"

[TJPags]

NErWOnek wrote...

distinguetraces wrote...

I'm pretty much stuck with playing DA2 on Nightmare mode because that's the only way to get friendly fire. No choice, so there it is. And we've read that you're going to need the right party to get through Nightmare.

But, for me one value in playing RPGs is exploring the different strategies of different party setups, and I want my GentHawke's and LadyHawke's parties to be as contrasting as possible.

Ideally, to give a really different feel to the two playthroughs and explore different tactics for the same situations, I had planned to have my mage run a party of three mages plus a tank (GentHawke, "Anders", Merrill and Fenris) and my rogue use a party of three rogues plus a tank (LadyHawke, Isabella, Varric, and Aveline) -- switching out characters when a particular skill is absolutely needed.

But, I'm afraid this is just going to be a recipe for non-stop restarts. Does having to optimize your party to survive nightmare mean we're going to be jammed into a "Tank, Healer, 2 DPS" template or suffer eternal frustration?

Judging from first Dragon Age 

"There will be a mod for that"

Damn lucky PC people. 

[TeamLexana]

Sticksandstones987 wrote...

distinguetraces wrote... I had planned to have my mage run a party of three mages plus a tank (GentHawke, "Anders", Merrill and Fenris)

You want a 2H warrior to be your tank? They generally have pretty ***** amounts of health.

2H's were my favorite tanks due to indomitable to become immune to stun and knockdown. Easy to build, no juggling how much dex u need, just toss it all in strength. They get a bad rap cuz the auto leveling that u can't undo on Sten and Ogren is really horribly bad, Sten for some reason also only gets one spec so that's another strike against him. I really hope companions won't auto level at all till u join your team this time but if they do, please maker, let there be respec tomes!

Their blocking ability isn't as good as the W/S but for me it never matter cuz I always preferred crowd control over healing spells, my enemies aren't aloud enough free movement to hurt my team, hehe. CC pwns healing. Especially since there no reason at all that they can't chug a poultice on their own when needed anyways.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
True.  And as such, there's no reason why a player couldn't reasonable adopt a playstyle that ignored the marginal costs of being hit.

Your fallacy is in assuming what marginal cost there is to being hit.

That's not strictly true.  There's a measurable difference in risk.

Yes, with respect to how close a character is to 0 HP; but we can mitigate this through healing. In an RPG, combat is purely a numbers game.

You really don't understand how possible truth works.

I do; you just take things for granted when you shouldn't based on your position. Your weakness, Sylvius, is not in evaluating the logic of a particular claim. It is in evaluating framework dependent claims. You look at each proposition in isolation instead of as part of the system as a whole; worse, you evaluate each prosition in your particular system even if the proposition in fact presupposes another system entirely.

Just as there's no reason to suppose hat getting hit has any measurable effect, there's no reason to suppose the opposite, either.  There is literally no justification for attacking my position on this.  The truth of the in-game effect of getting hit is demonstrably undefined.

This is a good example. Initially, this is what you claimed:

I tend to eschew melee combat because I can't imagine why any character would want to get hit as part of his combat role.

Letting somebody hit you is dumb, because getting hit is unpleasant.  If you can avoid it, do so.

To paraphrase you slightly, you are effectively claiming it is irrational to be hit.

But this requires that you presuppose the a specific penalty to being hit. It's inherent in the propositional logic of the sentence.

As always, you focus on whether or not a statement in isolation could be true, instead recognizing that your claim requires it to be true for the argument to function as you make it.

Modifié par In Exile, 06 février 2011 - 07:50 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

This is a good example. Initially, this is what you claimed:

I tend to eschew melee combat because I can't imagine why any character would want to get hit as part of his combat role.

Letting somebody hit you is dumb, because getting hit is unpleasant.  If you can avoid it, do so.

To paraphrase you slightly, you are effectively claiming it is irrational to be hit.

But this requires that you presuppose the a specific penalty to being hit. It's inherent in the propositional logic of the sentence.

I was clearly too strong.  I roleplay as if getting hit is unpleasant because I find it easier to roleplay if the differences between the game world and the real world are clearly an quantitatively defined.

Since pain in the world isn't defined, assuming that it doesn't exist would require a wide range of other assumptions that would also differ from the real world, but for which I have no data.  I don't know how a world works with no pain in it.

Recall my discussion of the different weapon materials in DAO.  I insisted that the weapons in DAO, as rendered, were too heavy.  Someone responded that the materials being used (like red steel) weren't real, so I couldn't know their characteristics.

And while that's true, a super-strong super-light material that would permit those giant weapons to be wielded as they appeared to be in DAO should, I would think, have visible consequences in other parts of the world - like architecture.

As always, you focus on whether or not a statement in isolation could be true, instead recognizing that your claim requires it to be true for the argument to function as you make it.

I do try to do that.  Obviously I occasionally fail.  Thanks for pointing it out.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 06 février 2011 - 07:57 .

[In Exile]

Sylvius, I've replied (or rather, will reply) in PM not to derail the thread.

[Sylvius the Mad]

TeamLexana wrote...

They get a bad rap cuz the auto leveling that u can't undo on Sten and Ogren is really horribly bad,

Mods did fix this.

I really hope companions won't auto level at all till u join your team this time but if they do, please maker, let there be respec tomes!

We've been told that companions won't have all of their point assigned when you meet them, so you will have the chance to customise them slightly right away.

Though, since they're locked into a particular combat style, the value of that is obviously far less useful than it would have been in DAO.

[TeamLexana]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

TeamLexana wrote...

They get a bad rap cuz the auto leveling that u can't undo on Sten and Ogren is really horribly bad,

Mods did fix this.

I really hope companions won't auto level at all till u join your team this time but if they do, please maker, let there be respec tomes!

We've been told that companions won't have all of their point assigned when you meet them, so you will have the chance to customise them slightly right away.

Though, since they're locked into a particular combat style, the value of that is obviously far less useful than it would have been in DAO.

I don't really consider outside mods as part of the game. Esp since I don't play it on the pc anyways, lol. I'm glad they are there for peeps with pc's that can handle them but they aren't really a part of the game for everyone.