Since the vast majority of the content in Dragon Age is almost completely non-linear items need to be balanced based on parity rather than progression. A carrot on a stick technique can't be used; we can't give you a sword that slowly starts feeling weak and then replace it so you feel like a god for a few levels as most games do. To beat the commonly used metaphor into dust: we need to make five carrots, all different lengths and tastes and let you decide between them.
Since there are, for instance, five suits of massive armor that are all of roughly equivalent difficulty to acquire it would be arbitrary to decide that one is better than all the others. As much as we love making arbitrary judgements that just doesn't work from a game design perspective. For items to have any meaning past the first of any kind you get items (or sets of items) have to have a distinctive essence and purpose.
To use the massive armor example again: there's now a set that's based around staying power, one around elemental mitigation, one around physical mitigation, etc. While some players might want a pure tank and find that armor first, others are more likely to experiment with the new armor they pick up to see how it changes their characters. At least, that's the idea we're founding this on.
If you're interested please drop by http://social.bioware.com/project/565/ and check it out!
Modifié par Wallets, 15 novembre 2009 - 11:25 .
Retour en haut
