926 réponses à ce sujet

[Incantrix]

I think that healing spells have been nerfed simply because of the amount of available cc AND damage resistance buffs. I mean, just look at the arcane tree which is built for protection. Warriors if I recall can get up to a 60% magic resistance buff the elemental resistance buff from the mage.

[Seblun]

Will Blood Mages really have a spell where two hands come out of the fade/void and rip apart your enemy?

If it does, i will forget about my Vanguard Two Hander first playthrough in a hearbeat...

Modifié par Seblun, 28 février 2011 - 11:17 .

[Graunt]

Incantrix wrote...

I think that healing spells have been nerfed simply because of the amount of available cc AND damage resistance buffs. I mean, just look at the arcane tree which is built for protection. Warriors if I recall can get up to a 60% magic resistance buff the elemental resistance buff from the mage.

Healing has been nerfed so that a) you're forced to play with a tank this time since Bioware didn't know how to actually make them useful in the previous games.  Instead of actually making them "fun" this time, they simply make them take almost no damage and make the heal cooldown 4x what it was in the previous game so you're only healing one person at a time and you're forced to heavily invest in the Spirit Healer tree if you hate that playstyle.

[Wolf_in_the_Meadow]

Morroian wrote...

Wolf_in_the_Meadow wrote...

A Dev stated that by the endgame, he was "heavily invested" in 2 trees and had a smattering of other spells.

He stated expected endgame was level 20.

No he didn't they have said the expected progression is similar to DAO ie if you do everything you can reach level 25. And I'm pretty sure he said he was invested in 2 of the main talent trees and 2 of the specs ie. 4 trees.

You are correct, at least in regards to the trees. That'll show me not to work and post at the same time!

This does indicate the presance of a number of tomes, as testing in the demo shows normal talent progression upto level 30 before you seem to stop getting them... I had 6 Spec points at level 45 though :-|

[congealeddgtllvr]

Graunt wrote...

I also like that potions have a longer cooldown.  I think constantly drinking potions makes for incredibly boring combat.

Compared to not having any stamina/mana and just auto attacking?  Ok...

No see the stamina/mana bars are the ones below the health bars.  Start the demo up again you'll see them.

When I was fighting the second ogre it became pretty clear to me that I needed to play my attacks carefully.  If I was playing Origins autoattacking while standing back, tapping the heal button and popping potions would have been more than enough though.  The result was that I needed to think more.  

Modifié par congealeddgtllvr, 01 mars 2011 - 12:05 .

[Reaverwind]

congealeddgtllvr wrote...

Graunt wrote...

I also like that potions have a longer cooldown.  I think constantly drinking potions makes for incredibly boring combat.

Compared to not having any stamina/mana and just auto attacking?  Ok...

No see the stamina/mana bars are the ones below the health bars.  Start the demo up again you'll see them.

When I was fighting the second ogre it became pretty clear to me that I needed to play my attacks carefully.  If I was playing Origins autoattacking while standing back, tapping the heal button and popping potions would have been more than enough though.  The result was that I needed to think more.  

Think? Toss spells, dodge ogre and spam staff attack until spells off cooldown, rinse & repeat until dead. No thinking required.

[Kyriani Agrivar]

Graunt wrote...

The thing some folk here seem to completely dismiss is that while yes
you can't cast damage spells while the healing aura is active, there is
nothing preventing you from turning it off once your heals are on
cooldown (assuming you dont need to use any of the other spells in the
spirit healer tree) so you can nuke a bit and turn it back on when you
want to heal again.

That's assuming the mana that was "stored" to keep the aura up is instantly returned after it's deactivated.  Otherwise, you not only have to regen that mana back up, you need to be past what you lost if you need to activate the aura and heal again.  If you don't regen the mana lost from the first aura all the way back to full, and then when you activate the aura it eats yet another 20% of your max mana, that's such a waste.

A horribly inefficient "tactic" isn't something most people are going to bother with.

It may or may not be "horribly inefficient". You haven't seen how the mana regen is going to be handled... The demo doesn't really give you the opportunity to manage mana or sustained powers to any great degree. Consider this... you may not NEED to use your spirit healer abilities all the time. You might decide to enter the fight with healing aura off and open up with an alpha strike offense from everyone... after doing that you could activate healing aura and then fall back to conservative buffing/healing allowing your regen to replenish your mana.

Incidentally... correct me if I am wrong but if it works the same as it did in DA:O didnt sustained abilities drain no mana if you already had a deficit greater than the price of the sustained? I am fairly certain thats what many Arcane Warriors used to do... toss some aoe damage then kick on the toggles and auto attack once mana was spent (assuming they didnt go blood mage with it). If that functionality is still the same my suggestion of opening up with some hard hitting offense then activating healing aura to go into heal/buff mode works out quite well and doesnt hurt you too much in the efficiency department.

That said... efficiency is a luxury when its a case or life or death. If activating healing aura at a cost of 20% of your mana is what makes or breaks the success of a tough battle... you do it no ifs ands or buts about it.

Modifié par Kyriani Agrivar, 01 mars 2011 - 01:04 .

[Kyriani Agrivar]

double post >.>

Modifié par Kyriani Agrivar, 01 mars 2011 - 01:04 .

[deathlord413]

Seblun wrote...

Will Blood Mages really have a spell where two hands come out of the fade/void and rip apart your enemy?

If it does, i will forget about my Vanguard Two Hander first playthrough in a hearbeat...

If I remeber correctly that is a finishing move for a mage. Similar to how the warriors sometimes lopped peoples heads off in DA:O.

[congealeddgtllvr]

Reaverwind wrote...

Think? Toss spells, dodge ogre and spam staff attack until spells off cooldown, rinse & repeat until dead. No thinking required.

No I don't kite.  I guess I put more thought into the combat than you.  

Modifié par congealeddgtllvr, 01 mars 2011 - 03:05 .

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

congealeddgtllvr wrote...

Reaverwind wrote...

Think? Toss spells, dodge ogre and spam staff attack until spells off cooldown, rinse & repeat until dead. No thinking required.

No I don't kite.  I guess I put more thought into the combat than you.  

So when you see the ogre about to rush you you just stand there and let him knock you over?

[congealeddgtllvr]

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

congealeddgtllvr wrote...

Reaverwind wrote...

Think? Toss spells, dodge ogre and spam staff attack until spells off cooldown, rinse & repeat until dead. No thinking required.

No I don't kite.  I guess I put more thought into the combat than you.  

So when you see the ogre about to rush you you just stand there and let him knock you over?

Well he never rushed my magehawke because aveline was fighting him, and I found the timing of her pommel strikes and taunts to be more important than they were in origins.  Anyway, I liked this particular aspect of the combat (slower heal cooldowns).

Modifié par congealeddgtllvr, 01 mars 2011 - 03:16 .

[Qays]

Lol I love the sheer peevishness that people are evincing towards combat in this game.

How exactly was the way the ogre fight in the demo played out different for you guys from the way the ogre fight at the top of the tower in DAO played out on normal difficulty?

[Graunt]

No see the stamina/mana bars are the ones below the health bars.  Start the demo up again you'll see them.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying.  I wasn't talking about mana bars, I was talking about not having any mana/stamina because you ran out (and are reduced to auto attacking) in response to the "not chugging pots makes for more exciting gameplay" statement.

That said... efficiency is a luxury when its a case or life or
death. If activating healing aura at a cost of 20% of your mana is what
makes or breaks the success of a tough battle... you do it no ifs ands
or buts about it.

One thing I don't like about this (the game in general) is how each of the sustainables eats up a percentage now instead of a flat amount of mana.  This makes putting anything into Willpower utterly worthless for a character that will be using more than one sustainable, because you'll simply be getting less per point compared to someone who simply dumps everything into Magic/Dex (if Dex affects spell crits).

Modifié par Graunt, 01 mars 2011 - 04:11 .

[lazuli]

Graunt wrote...

One thing I don't like about this (the game in general) is how each of the sustainables eats up a percentage now instead of a flat amount of mana.  This makes putting anything into Willpower utterly worthless for a character that will be using more than one sustainable, because you'll simply be getting less per point compared to someone who simply dumps everything into Magic/Dex (if Dex affects spell crits).

Eh.  It's one way of shifting combat away from the dull buff-stack of sustainables of DA:O.

[Jarradane]

So there's no battlemage class then?

[Graunt]

lazuli wrote...

Graunt wrote...

One thing I don't like about this (the game in general) is how each of the sustainables eats up a percentage now instead of a flat amount of mana.  This makes putting anything into Willpower utterly worthless for a character that will be using more than one sustainable, because you'll simply be getting less per point compared to someone who simply dumps everything into Magic/Dex (if Dex affects spell crits).

Eh.  It's one way of shifting combat away from the dull buff-stack of sustainables of DA:O.

Not really.  You can still stack buffs (not *as many* obviously), but it hurts someone who actually has a larger mana pool.

Player A has 250 mana (less damage) and activates two 20% passives. They end up with 150 mana.
Player B has 175 mana (higher damage/healing) and activates two 20% passives. They end up with 105 mana.

Yes, Player A ends up still having "more" mana (maybe enough for 1-2 more spells tops), yet their damage/healing is affected quite a bit.  All you need is enough mana to have two actives up and burn every cooldown as they become available.  If you aren't even using any passives, then either Player should be equal depending on what you're using them for.

So there's no battlemage class then?

Spirit Healer, Force Mage, Blood Mage.

Modifié par Graunt, 01 mars 2011 - 04:31 .

[congealeddgtllvr]

Graunt wrote...

No see the stamina/mana bars are the ones below the health bars.  Start the demo up again you'll see them.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying.  I wasn't talking about mana bars, I was talking about not having any mana/stamina because you ran out (and are reduced to auto attacking) in response to the "not chugging pots makes for more exciting gameplay" statement.

I see.  I didn't come close to running out of mana in the demo, but again, I think the idea is to kill your enemies before you get there.  You do this by taking full advantage of whatever offensive skills you've spec'd.  I think things like cross class combos might possibly make that interesting, personally.  

[Graunt]

congealeddgtllvr wrote...

Graunt wrote...

No see the stamina/mana bars are the ones below the health bars.  Start the demo up again you'll see them.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying.  I wasn't talking about mana bars, I was talking about not having any mana/stamina because you ran out (and are reduced to auto attacking) in response to the "not chugging pots makes for more exciting gameplay" statement.

I see.  I didn't come close to running out of mana in the demo, but again, I think the idea is to kill your enemies before you get there.  You do this by taking full advantage of whatever offensive skills you've spec'd.  I think things like cross class combos might possibly make that interesting, personally.  

I just took it as potions in general, not simply health potions.  I never chugged them in the first game, and I never bothered with stamina potions in Awakening either, but the cooldown on the default healing spell is simply way too long.  I don't care if it's longer than the one from the previous games...it's just ridiculous now, and this is how they make the "Spirit Healer" spec "appealing".  

I don't hate having to time heals, but I also don't like it when a developer takes the laziest way out by not actually giving you more/difficult choices, but simply nerfs everything else so that there's only one choice.

I will have fun with DA2 at least once, but if the demo and skill trees have shown us anything so far it's that this game is made up of the absence of choice more than anything else.

Modifié par Graunt, 01 mars 2011 - 04:36 .

[lazuli]

Graunt wrote...
You can still stack buffs (not *as many* obviously), but it hurts someone who actually has a larger mana pool.

True.  It would be difficult to make the reserves both balanced and meaningful without relying on percentages, though.

In any case, I hope that we will have reasons to cycle between sustained abilities, adding an ebb and flow to battle as we adjust our tactics accordingly.  It's probably wishful thinking, though.  Still, it looks like significant progress has been made in the buff department since, say, NWN (sleep, cast bufff 1, cast buff 2, cast buff 3, etc...).

[Killjoy Cutter]

I'm rather preplexed by the notion of the game being designed to discourage certain playstyles that I never engaged in anyway and never imagined that others would.

Of course, the style of play that people claim is being encouraged instead is also one that has absolutely no appeal to me either.


But what really makes me sit back and wonder is this notion that you need the game design to guide you to a certain style of play.  Really?  You can't just do it on your own, you need the game to give you reasons?  Really?

Modifié par Killjoy Cutter, 01 mars 2011 - 04:43 .

[Jarradane]

Graunt wrote...

lazuli wrote...

Graunt wrote...

One thing I don't like about this (the game in general) is how each of the sustainables eats up a percentage now instead of a flat amount of mana.  This makes putting anything into Willpower utterly worthless for a character that will be using more than one sustainable, because you'll simply be getting less per point compared to someone who simply dumps everything into Magic/Dex (if Dex affects spell crits).

Eh.  It's one way of shifting combat away from the dull buff-stack of sustainables of DA:O.

So there's no battlemage class then?

Spirit Healer, Force Mage, Blood Mage.

Man that's disappointing.
Definitely going to limit the replayability for me.

[Graunt]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

I'm rather preplexed by the notion of the game being designed to discourage certain playstyles that I never engaged in anyway and never imagined that others would.

Of course, the style of play that people claim is being encouraged instead is also one that has absolutely no appeal to me either.


But what really makes me sit back and wonder is this notion that you need the game design to guide you to a certain style of play.  Really?  You can't just do it on your own, you need the game to give you reasons?  Really?

Yes, and this is what Bioware is doing.  They couldn't make "tanks" worthwhile in the first game, but want you to get stuck with the whole Tank/Healer/Damage paradigm, just because they are stuck with some generic MMORPG mindset, yet are removing so many other options that should be available by default.  You never needed a "tank" in traditional roleplaying for anything.  You also didn't need a healer, but it did help downtime.

Modifié par Graunt, 01 mars 2011 - 04:49 .

[Jarradane]

Graunt wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

I'm rather preplexed by the notion of the game being designed to discourage certain playstyles that I never engaged in anyway and never imagined that others would.

Of course, the style of play that people claim is being encouraged instead is also one that has absolutely no appeal to me either.


But what really makes me sit back and wonder is this notion that you need the game design to guide you to a certain style of play.  Really?  You can't just do it on your own, you need the game to give you reasons?  Really?

Yes, and this is what Bioware is doing.  They couldn't make "tanks" worthwhile in the first game, but want you to get stuck with the whole Tank/Healer/Damage paradigm, just because they are stuck with some generic MMORPG mindset, yet are removing so many other options that should be available by default.  You never needed a "tank" in traditional roleplaying for anything.  You also didn't need a healer, but it did help downtime.

Agreed.
I guess it's because it's the easiest semblence of strategy that can be forced, and you have to keep in mind that children play these games too.