7 réponses à ce sujet

[uly]

No, not really.  Just that... am I the only one who thinks that there are too many dual wielders in DAO?

In real life and most fantasy fictions, dual wielders are relatively rare.  And for good reason, too: dual wielding is inherently unintuitive and inefficient, and a dual weapons fighting techniques invariably require more training to master.  Of course, there are schools that specialise in dual weapon fighting, but even then the actual dual weapon fighting part are often reserved for advanced practitioners.

That said, I personally love dual wielding.  I just think that it's too depreciated in DAO.  In D&D and some other rules, dual wielding is appropriately reserved for certain martial classes and require more investment than other fighting styles.  But in DAO, about one third of all warriors and every other rogue is a dual-wielder, it's just very awkward.

I think there definitely should have been a single weapon fighting style, so that melee rogues have at least an alternative to dual wielding.  Dual wielding talents should also provide less benefits on lower tiers, only give out significant bonuses at maybe tier 3 or 4.  An amateur dual wielder should be at a disadvantage relative to other styles.

[Gabo]

For most people, "reality" regarding sword combat is based on what they see in movies. Since most of the stuff in movie is only loosely based on real life and has a lot of fanciful choreography added to make it look cool, the "reality" presented in Dragon Age should also be easy to accept for most people.



While the part of what we wanted to get across with the weapon styles was that it looked humanly feasable, we also wanted it to look cool and we also wanted people to see it a lot since it does indeed look quite cool.

[Gabo]

uly wrote...

In real life and most fantasy fictions, dual wielders are relatively rare.  And for good reason, too: dual wielding is inherently unintuitive and inefficient, and a dual weapons fighting techniques invariably require more training to master. 

That said, I personally love dual wielding.  I just think that it's too depreciated in DAO.  In D&D and some other rules, dual wielding is appropriately reserved for certain martial classes and require more investment than other fighting styles.  But in DAO, about one third of all warriors and every other rogue is a dual-wielder, it's just very awkward.

I think there definitely should have been a single weapon fighting style, so that melee rogues have at least an alternative to dual wielding.  Dual wielding talents should also provide less benefits on lower tiers, only give out significant bonuses at maybe tier 3 or 4.  An amateur dual wielder should be at a disadvantage relative to other styles.

To answer your question specifically, DA has its own reality and in here, there are (currently) 3 melee fighting styles for humanoids: sword and shield, two handed weapon and dual weapon. Since each one is relatively balanced, it makes sense that about one third of the enemies use each style when engaging in melee combat.

This was a design desicion. We could have made most creatures use a single weapon or weapon and shield so that the dual weapons and two handed weapons felt special, but we felt it was better to have a good balance of all the styles. In addition, making the level development of any style be weaker at first and more powerful later on tends to alienate most people from trying out that style. At the end of the day, to have a good game you have to go with what works and what feels best to most people, and believe me, we tried quite a few designs for each style.

The resulting sytles may go against some of the perceived reality of other fantasy fiction settings but it works well for DA (at least according to the designers, the focus group testing and, I'm glad to say, most of the people currently playing it) and its certainly not the only thing to differ from other fantasy settings.

[Gabo]

uly wrote...

Dauphin2 wrote...

Gabochido wrote...

For most people, "reality" regarding sword combat is based on what they see in movies. Since most of the stuff in movie is only loosely based on real life and has a lot of fanciful choreography added to make it look cool, the "reality" presented in Dragon Age should also be easy to accept for most people.

While the part of what we wanted to get across with the weapon styles was that it looked humanly feasable, we also wanted it to look cool and we also wanted people to see it a lot since it does indeed look quite cool.

I like that philosophy. Why make something incredibly cool looking if nobody ever sees it. 

Well, I don't.  I think the really cool stuff should come sparingly.  I don't subscribe to the Final Fantasy school of eye candy saturation.

You'll be glad to know that the realy over-the-top finishing animations are played very sparingly.

However, our testing and analysis has shown that most people love seeing cool things over and over again so we tried to make things that are shown all the time simple but still cool.

[Gabo]

Skemte wrote...
Can't help but think that the two hander is sorely lacking.. Not only is it one of the most blandest of skills to watch.. But the slow speed as well the miss rate seems to be extremey behind from dual wielding.

A lot of people find that two hander feels the most powerful and rewarding style. The style is balanced out because its hits are quite damaging but the best things about it, in my personal opinion, are the special abilities...

(Strategy tip comming up)

specially the one that makes you inmune to knockbacks. That one is very useful against large creatures that constanly knock down any nearby party members.

(end of strategy tip)

It is impossible to have everyone like every design choice, but the idea in DA is to give everyone a choice they do like. If 2H combat is too slow for you, you can choose the other styles. This freedom of choice is another reason for why we decided to make dual wielding just as accesible as the other styles.

[Gabo]

uly wrote...

So yes, I understand you can't cater to every tastes, but may I suggest that DAO can still benefite greatly from one or two additional fighting styles?  If nothing else, it at least gives melee rogues a choice at all.  It seems bizarre to me that dual wielding should be the only melee choice for any character build.

A single weapon style not only makes realism sense, it could also make gameplay sense.  It could grant a defense bonus (due to better balance and smaller profile), or an agility bonus that translates into reduced aggro.  It could provide other forms of bonuses to make it a good secondary style; for example, arcane warriors may cast spells without sheathing the weapon, rogues get an in-combat steal and disarm trap, certain status ailments (like stun) last shorter, so on and so forth.

The game now switch between weapon sets near instantaneously.  But if they take longer -- and they should -- single weapon style could also benefit from a faster switching.

Anyway, I just think the 3 styles in DAO are a bit limiting.  A single weapon style seems utterly natural to have.  But I'd also like to see even more fighting style choices in future expansions that will surely come.  A style for pole arms would certainly enrich the world greatly; spears are afterall the most basic of all weapons.  A different style of sword+shield that focuses more on lighter shields would also be welcome.  It's yet another alternative for rogues who may want to tank a bit.  And let's face it, without such a style, who would ever use a small shield anyway?

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll make sure the feed back gets to the right minds working on future products

For now I can tell you a bit more about what whent behind the design and development choices we made. We wanted each style to have a large number of animations and special interactions with each other but were limited by technical constraints so we decided to focus on fewer styles and made sure each one was as detailed as possible. This is one of the reasons for why there are only three base styles. However, you should know that each class also gets a couple of specializations, so that adds a bit to the variety that a rogue has.

The main feature of a rouge, however, is that they have a lot of skills, but not so many fighting talents or talent options. This balances out and also differentiates the rogue from a warrior, since otherwise they would be far too similar. Given this, we decided to limit the fighting choices for the rogue. The game does let you equip those weapons if you wish, but it limits you from developing the talents as part of broadening the gap between a warrior and a rogue.

While more options can be nice (for the hardcore anyway, mainstream audience usually like to keep things simple) we decided that the game had enough variety for plenty of  fun strategic desicions and replay value. You can develop warriors in different fighting styles, rogues in different skill sets and mages in different spell schools, and believe me with the choices in the game as it is, there are many, many ways it can be played.

Don't despair if the particular choice you would like exist, though. The toolset that we gave out is very powerful so I'm sure someone will make a mod to fit your style (if we don't first). And if that doesn't happen, you could always take a shot at it yourself if you have the PC version, if you have a lot of free time

[Gabo]

Yes, this is a game we are talking about. As with novels and films, everyone can always think of things they would have prefered and things they are just not happy with. Hopefully you guys will enjoy the game even if some of the things it presents are not exactly how you expect them. I won't talk about realism since, each person's "reality" depends on their experience or what movies they have seen or what research they have done.



And, as I mentioned before, there is always the toolset to alow anybody to modify the game to their style (within the technical limitations, of course).

[Gabo]

Spawn305 wrote...
Um.... i dont want what human feasable. if i wnated that i would go buy two swords and run though the woods trying to kill deer wile dule welding. hell i would even dress my friends up are dark spawn just to slay them.

I wanted Drizzt with dule simatrs kicking the crap out of mobs blocking and attacking at the same time.

Well, you do get that in this game (except for Drizzt, he's from a different IP), but with animations that still look like they could be done by a non-superhuman warrior.