1724 réponses à ce sujet

[Adhin]

Yeah getting enough tactic slots to deal with things in the console, since I couldn't just turn on that 25+ thingy was...such a pain. I'm happy its less restrained in DA2 it looks like. In the demo at least by lvl 3 you had like 8 to use. Which is way over what DAO had at base. But I wish they would just start you off with the max, or at least have you there by lvl 10.

And yeah Naitaka, I love setting up AI to let its do its thing. I plan to do that for NM in DA2 as well, though I'll be micro-managing AoE spell placement of course. Though if Merrill has Primal tree I may not have to as she'll be using the lightnings. And As long as I can just tell her to base off my char being surrounded as the factor for throwing out a Tempest...mmm yes...

[Naitaka]

Adhin wrote...
*snip

Yah, part of the fun of doing the full-auto team on PC is the fact that you need to build your character very differently for it to actually be able to get through nightmare with zero micro management. Offensive mages are not nearly as useful as healer when you can't micro manage them. It's just fun trying figure out different builds for all kinds of situation.

Modifié par Naitaka, 28 février 2011 - 09:49 .

[Sabresandiego]

Naitaka wrote...

Adhin wrote...
*snip

Yah, part of the fun of doing the full-auto team on PC is the fact that you need to build your character very differently for it to actually be able to get through nightmare with zero micro management. Offensive mages are not nearly as useful as healer when you can't micro manage them. It's just fun trying figure out different builds for all kinds of situation.

Thats exactly how I like playing. Im not the kind of person who likes to pause at all.

[just_me]

Actually in the demo was a new trigger to setup a simple AND... the "use current condition for next tactic"-trigger, haven't seen this one before... it still requires (at least) 2 slots to setup an AND but I think it's more intuitive than the old version, since you can directly say "if X AND Y do Z" instead of "if NOT X goto N else if Y do Z".
Obviously if you want to include a set of actions in a "complex" condition you still have to use the "jump to tactic"-trigger (e.g. not using your strong abilities on critter level enemies)

Could someone figure out how Force works one abilities that don't inflict damage like Mind Blast and Stonewall? The given formula wouldn't work if damage is 0 and using 1 as a stub value produces way too small force values... and the 10% damage condition doesn't make sense either

I'd also like to know the boundary values to get a "major force effect" instead of a "minor" one ... how much physical force do you have to produce to knock an enemy down instead of knocking him back. And if this is also rank (and/or creature) specific for example you have to produce 20 force to knock a normal rank enemy down and boss enemies do not only have more fortitude but you have to produce 40 force to knock him down. That's a question only Peter could answer... I assume.

btw awesome thread

[Naitaka]

just_me wrote...

Actually in the demo was a new trigger to setup a simple AND... the "use current condition for next tactic"-trigger, haven't seen this one before... it still requires (at least) 2 slots to setup an AND but I think it's more intuitive than the old version, since you can directly say "if X AND Y do Z" instead of "if NOT X goto N else if Y do Z".
Obviously if you want to include a set of actions in a "complex" condition you still have to use the "jump to tactic"-trigger (e.g. not using your strong abilities on critter level enemies)

...

Yah, I was wondering about that one when I saw it. It'll be really useful when we need to set up tactic for aoe skills that didn't work with tactic in one line because it couldn't be used on self, such as two-handed sweep and whirlwind.

Modifié par Naitaka, 28 février 2011 - 09:58 .

[Adhin]

Actually yeah I didn't notice that I should pour over it a bit more carefully. But if you say say set up 1 to have a condition that's considered in 2, that means you can use 2 slots to setup a far more complex single string. There where a lot of times I wish I could of used 2 conditions instead of being limited to 1. I wonder if that means you can keep chaining them, like Use 1, 2, and 3 to all give conditions to 4?

...that'd be some crazy level of control O.o

@Just_me: About Force,  if you read past a few pages I listed out how that works, asking Peter and he basically confirmed this formula.

((DMG * ForceMultiplier) - Fortitude) > maxHP*0.1

ForceMultiplier is a player thing I believe, not sure if monsters use it but basically if they, or you, take more then 10% of your max HP in damage (damage 1:1 ratio to force, so 10% of your max hp in force) you get knocked back. Fortitude directly negates a 1:1 ratio of force.

So for example if you have 200 hp, and they do lets say, 25 damage to you and you have 10 Fortitude k? 10% of your maxhp is 20, so they have to do 20 or more. They're doing 25 dmg, so thats 25 force, but you have 10 fortitude lowering that to 15.

((25*1) - 10) = 15 > 20 = 200*0.1 :: That would return a false so no knocked back. Also the severity I believe of how far you get knocked back (or if you get knocked down as well) depends on how much more 'force' is imparted on you past the 10% health check.

And keep in mind thats for Force and Elemental Force. They all ultimately have the same kind of effect but the 5 elements have there own unique animation that represents that damage type. Like fire they pat out flames, ice they get momentarily snap-frozen and quickly break out of it. Lightning is a stun, think dev said Spirit Damage looks like its trying to rip there soul out or something.

Modifié par Adhin, 28 février 2011 - 10:06 .

[Rocambole4]

Qays wrote...

Dear BioWare,

Why does Fireball do such terrible damage? It's by far the weakest mage AE - even weaker than lowly Cone of Cold!

Note that I'm pretty pumped about the game in most other respects.

If you look at the elemental tree, Cone of Cold is no longer lowly - Fireball is Tier 1, CoC is Tier 2. Also, I believe the answer is "balance" - fireball has more range, CoC is harder to aim considering it's cone shaped, etc.

[Adhin]

Yeah Cone of Cold has a SHORT ass distance, almost no reach now, but it makes up for that in a much much wider arch. its basically a fat stubby fan now instead of a thin, long cone. So requires a little more careful positioning but it also makes it a bit easier to use near your friends with out accidentally hitting your tank on the other side. I like it honestly. And then yeah Fireball is an easy one, its basic cooldown/mana cost, good radius, long distance, anywhere you want it kinda thing. It didn't seem wildly underpowered in the demo, was very useful.

To Peter, anyway we could get a confirmation (if you remember) which tree Ander's and Merrill don't have access to from the base? We know literally EVERY companion but them 2. For instance...

Bethany: Primal
Carver: WnS
Isebala: Archery
Varric: Dual Wield
Aveline: 2Handed
Fenris: WnS
Prince-Dude-name-I-forget: Dual Wield

Which just leaves Merrill and Ander's I'm guessing Ander's doesn't have Primal since hes a bit of a pyro for a guy who heals so much. or least thats how he stuck me in Awakening. Dev once alluded to Merrill not making a good 'healer' but that may just of been a remark as to her not having anything like Spirit Healer specialization, cause base heal is nothing to rely heavily on as pure healing is concerned, all be it useful.

So is it Anders: Primal, and Merrill: Elemental, or does she not have creation?

[just_me]

@Adhin
The "formula" is not my problem it's more about a specific "application".
The DMG variable ist the real DMG you would inflict to the opponent, isn't it?
So in case of an ability it's (raw DMG)*(ability DMG-multiplier)*(1-(opponents dmg mitigation %))
Considering Mind Blast the DMG would be 0, so according to the formula nothing happens at all... which is not the case. So I was wondering which value is used to calculate the effect.
Thinking about it it's probably the "raw DMG" value, but I'm not sure.

If creatures use the force mechnism at all (which seems likely) I'd say they have force multipliers as well... the Ogres "ram"-ablility seems to knock everyone down in the demo, although it doesn't inflict that much damage (it did 16Dmg against my warrior with 160HP so after subtracting fortitude nothing should have happened)
Even his standard Attack should have a mulitplier, usually does around 18Dmg, but always knocked my char back, but not Aveline)

Modifié par just_me, 28 février 2011 - 12:18 .

[raziel3080]

Merrill lacks Creation.( replaced by Dalish Pariah)
Anders lacks Entropic.( replaced by Vengence(sp) spec)

[Adhin]

Ahh thanks Raziel, guess thats taken from console spawning companions in the PC demo?

Anyways Just_me, its damage 'delt' to so Armor% gets taken into account first. For instance 'exact' same scenario k (200 HP) only this time the monsters doing 100 dmg, and you have 80% armor. On impact you'd take 20 dmg, which translates into 20 force, then -10 fortitude, comes out to 10 force vs your 20 (10% of maxhp).

That's for all things that cause damage. There are exceptions where Fortitude (and 'force/elemental force' isn't used directly). As per your example, Ogre Charge doesn't use force/damage as its means to knock you over. It just knocks you over if your in the way. It was something we talked about a bit ago too in that the 1st Cold spell, can be upgraded to have a 100% chance to freeze enemies for 4 seconds. Now at base that spell 'can' freeze enemies (for 1-2 seconds) due to Elemental force and that uses said formula I posted. The upgrade is completely seperate and ignores Fortitude, its just a %chance an effect 'like' force is applied regardless. HIgher rank mobs lower that %chance so a boss is more like 50-60% chance instead of 100%.

Peter's said Monsters don't use any player abilities so not to use the skills on the first page as example of what kind of fort/hp you would need. That being they probably don't use force multipliers like players do. But instead either go off base dmg or auto-trigger like Ogre special moves.

[Adhin]

Also keep in mind monsters and players use that And_me, as its a base mechanic for players to use to have minor CC chance vs monsters via normal attacks (and almost always auto-via skills due to heavy force multipliers), and players also have Fortitude which exists to help resist force directed at them.

[raziel3080]

Adhin wrote...

Ahh thanks Raziel, guess thats taken from console spawning companions in the PC demo?

Anyways Just_me, its damage 'delt' to so Armor% gets taken into account first. For instance 'exact' same scenario k (200 HP) only this time the monsters doing 100 dmg, and you have 80% armor. On impact you'd take 20 dmg, which translates into 20 force, then -10 fortitude, comes out to 10 force vs your 20 (10% of maxhp).

That's for all things that cause damage. There are exceptions where Fortitude (and 'force/elemental force' isn't used directly). As per your example, Ogre Charge doesn't use force/damage as its means to knock you over. It just knocks you over if your in the way. It was something we talked about a bit ago too in that the 1st Cold spell, can be upgraded to have a 100% chance to freeze enemies for 4 seconds. Now at base that spell 'can' freeze enemies (for 1-2 seconds) due to Elemental force and that uses said formula I posted. The upgrade is completely seperate and ignores Fortitude, its just a %chance an effect 'like' force is applied regardless. HIgher rank mobs lower that %chance so a boss is more like 50-60% chance instead of 100%.

Peter's said Monsters don't use any player abilities so not to use the skills on the first page as example of what kind of fort/hp you would need. That being they probably don't use force multipliers like players do. But instead either go off base dmg or auto-trigger like Ogre special moves.

That is correct.

[Adhin]

That's definitely interesting, kinda sucks. Really makes me wonder what her Pariah talents involve, I know people suspect it'll involve bloodmagic. I did originally speculate she wouldn't have Creation and Anders wouldn't have Entropic soo... thats kinda nifty I was right but also semi-disapointed hehe.

And to And_me (again >.>) - mobs may every well use force multiplier I have no idea honestly. Also absolutely 'no' idea on that mind blast, that ones confused me cause it doesn't seem to work 100% of the time in the demo vs normal mobs. Makes me think its really a %chance instead of based off physical force. I have a feeling the mechanics behind it aren't listed out properly in the skill description, or well, in away that gets the point across properly.

[Rocambole4]

Peter, 2 quick questions about Massacre (the warrior skill under the Vanguard tree):

1 - is the threshold for lethal strikes always 20% HP against normal, 10% against lieutenant? If so, it's much better on higher dificulties, right?

2 - Is the effect able to affect friendly chars hit by the warrior when under 20% HP? If so, forget my first statement, it's almost prohibitive on Nightmare.

Also, what's the group members rank? Normal, Lieutenant or Boss?

Thanks.

Modifié par Rocambole4, 28 février 2011 - 07:35 .

[Ultimecia]

As far as I can tell the 2handed war is meant to:
- Quickly kill trash (Assail - WW)
- Burst bosses made Brittle (Cleave-Mighty Blow-Scythe)

Massacre will help a ton with the first point as you'll effectively cut mob HP by 20%. As far as I could tell from the tooltip it doesn't affect bosses at all. (It does help against 'elite' adds - the threshold is 10% for those)

[Ultimecia]

Double post, apologies but:

From what I could tell the Sunder talent doesn't require a 2handed weapon (it's just in that tree). Does that mean tanks can pick it up for one point?

[Adhin]

Was just looking over the tactics in the demo, one of the options after you select a condition on the left is 'skip tactics'. Kinda wondering what that does exactly. I mean that's the 'action' it'll do, and the option above it 'use this condition for the next tactic' would have the same effect if it comes out false, so you can generally get the same benefit from it. So I guess, would that skip the tactic slot below it, or all tactic slots below it thus auto-jumping back to the top?

Personally I think it auto-skipping all tactics below it and moving on would be more benefitial as you could set up an 'out of combat, turn all this off' section, or a section completely based off characters health and so forth where if there stamina or health is below a certain point (or above for that matter) it just ignores an entire lower section of tactics.

Plus it looks like they have way more things based off attacking types (like not just the single, but most, and all as separate category), number of enemies alive and all that. You could limit big AI use abilities based off how much is going on.

Very curious...

[Adhin]

...anything in the Two Handed tree is for 2 hand only not universal. Same for Weapon and Shield stuff. Some of the descriptions just don't go about stating it. I could be wrong I guess though but that seems a bit silly to put it there otherwise.

[Atmosfear3]

Ultimecia wrote...

Double post, apologies but:

From what I could tell the Sunder talent doesn't require a 2handed weapon (it's just in that tree). Does that mean tanks can pick it up for one point?

Even if you could sunder as a tank, you wouldn't have enough crit to make use of it. The uptime on it would be terrible.

[Nighteye2]

Adhin wrote...
I think your missing my point there Nighteye2. Your birds-eye view, in the last fight would of only seen the initial room. It wouldn't of seen the doorway either, so you wouldn't of known about them till they got up to your group in the first place. Which means you would of had to move the camera over to the left to check it periodically. With the other view you can pan around and see the door, infact you can do the entire fight pretty much staring at the door get the full room and that.

It's more situation its just something you have to think about. Where as your Birds-eye-view your used to 'not' thinking about it. Which was my point. Same thing with the FPS refrense and a map showing locations. It's easy information that lets people 'not pay attention' as much. Once that cruch goes away they fumble around for awhile till they get used to actually paying attention to there surroundings. They become, ultimately, more aware.

Not sure if you watched that 1 hour look at the demo from the brit guy, whatever his name is, but he kept wanting to keep the camera in 1 place and kept ****ing that it never gave him a good angle. All because he was used to it always being fixed higher up staring at the floor. He never once actually just paused and did a quick battle scan to see the locations mobs would be most likely to come from and kept getting swarmed.

I recommend playing the demo a few times and getting used to using the camera to actively look around often as you fight. Your guys on auto-attack, use that time to spin the camera around a bit to keep track of stuff. Use your other party members to switch camera position for new angles. It requires more work on your part, but it ultimately yeilds more information then a Isometric ever possibly could due to its fixed 'staring at the ground' view. Though in tight quarters, Isometric is obviousely and easy ideal. DA2 seems to have some more distance and vertacality to it though.

That would only be the case if I used it to the exclusion of all else and never moved the camera. But I do move the camera to scan the location where the fight will be ahead of time, so that I do know about things like doors. And if there are doors on multiple sides, I am able to keep an eye on all of them, not just the one the camera is pointing at.

But there is a difference between moving the camera once or twice before and during a fight, and having to move it almost constantly. The first is fun and makes tactical sense, the latter feels like work needed to circumvent the camera limitations. Not fun.

As for the low view offering more information, I disagree. Even in a relatively open space, you can see 10m behind you, about 20m to the sides of you and 150m in front of you with that view (much less if there's a wall in front of you). In contrast, with isometric, you can see 50m to all sides. (numbers are estimates)

All the places you don't see in the low view but do see in the isometric view are also much more likely to contain enemies than the places you can see in the low view but not in the isometric view.

Given that, I wonder how Peter managed to keep track of his party on Nightmare?

[Ultimecia]

Atmosfear3 wrote...

Ultimecia wrote...

Double post, apologies but:

From what I could tell the Sunder talent doesn't require a 2handed weapon (it's just in that tree). Does that mean tanks can pick it up for one point?

Even if you could sunder as a tank, you wouldn't have enough crit to make use of it. The uptime on it would be terrible.

The point isn't to stagger, the point is to nab 10% crit for one point for aiding threat generation.
In the same way I might add Turn the Blade to my dps war if he turns out to be too squishy. So much experimenting to do!
In my latest playthrough of the demo (nr 500? I noticed the Use Condition for next Tactic option, that is awesome.

Additional question: If you abuse a CCC effect once, does it turn off or does it stay the full duration?
Example: Winter's Grasp turns something Brittle. Can I Mighty Blow AND Scythe, or just one of them?

Modifié par Ultimecia, 28 février 2011 - 05:16 .

[Adhin]

@Nighteye2: Your ignoring how i explained it again and blatantly speaking as if you keep the camera afixed in a single direction. My point is its easy to spin the camera around to check things out. Isometric view gives you a top-down view, you can't see enemies off far with out moving your camera 'away' from your party. Sure you can use that to go well away from your party and check things out they wouldn't be able to see and in that you can get ore information before a fight, or pause and do that during a fight.

I was just trying to get across its not hard to keep track of your party and that Isometric view is more of a crutch then something inherently better for gameplay. My 'map vs no map' still applies. Map doesn't make FPS better, its just a crutch people get used to and stop paying attention to the things they should be.

And how did he keep track of his party, seriously? Easily im sure, It's not hard. If you can't keep track of them with out having a top-down view I recommend you get some practice in on that demo. You do seem pretty heavily tied to your isometric is the best thing though so, im gonna stop trying to convince you otherwise. I do like Isometric after all, I just realize how limiting it is if its not detachable (like RTS games), but then when it is, its time consuming to get the information you need at which point in, in my opinion, boarders on cheating to get info your squad couldn't possible have about that one enemy in the toilet, down the hall to the left.

[Adhin]

@Ultimecia: Peters already answered that pages back. The second you use a CCC the effect is immediately removed. So there all 1 shot ordeals. If you look back at his responses too he did list out what each one does, and they all look worth it even with out CCC involved.

[Ultimecia]

Thanks Adhin, I remember seeing the effects being very good, but I missed the part where he said it removes them.

As for overview, I find myself constantly checkign the minimap, it's pretty good to keep track of where everyone is