220 réponses à ce sujet

[Zjarcal]

errant_knight wrote...
Oh, I'm not saying you can't, just that were more ways to do so, so that on repeated playthroughs, you can come up with new builds longer. This was particularly true of mages. I've played Origins MANY times, and am still able to build Wynne and Morrigan completely differently in each playthrough.

Ok, let's do some math... (yes, I know, I'm too stubborn about this... )

In Origins we had 4 talents in the arcane tree, 16 in the Primal, 16 in Creation, 16 in Spirit, and 16 in Entropy. Plus four talents per specializaiton,  that would be another 16.

That's... 84 talents to choose from for all mages.

In DA2 we have 10 talents per tree, and there's Elemental, Primal, Spirit, Arcane, Entropy, Creation, and the three specializations. So that's 9 trees to choose from for mages for a total of... 90 talents. 

Ok, to be fair, that number is smaller for the companion mages, 32 talents less to be precise (Their specializations only have 8 talents and they miss out on three trees. This applies to all classes), which would equal to 58 talents for Anders or Merrill (not counting Bethany since she leaves early).

Also, I'm aware many talents in DA2 are upgrades, but they still count as a separate talent, so if you want it, you have to sacrifice a point. Also, it's not like Origins didn't have plenty of talents that were upgrades (though almost none for mages to be fair).

Moving over to rogues...

In Origins we had 16 talents in the rogue tree, 12 in DW, 12 in Archery, and 16 from the specializations. That's a total of 56 talents.

In DA2 we have again, 10 per tree, with DW, Archery, Stealth, Scoundrel, Specialist, Sabotage, and the three specializations. Again... that's 90 talents for the PC rogue and 58 for companion rogues.

Warriors...

In Origins they had 8 talents in the warrior tree, 12 in DW, 12 in Archery, 12 in S&S, and 12 in TH. And 16 from specializations. That's 72 talents for all warriors.

In DA2, we have TH, S&S, Vanguard, Battlemaster, Defender, Warmonger, and the three specializations (again, 10 talents per tree). That's 90 talents for PC warriors and 58 for companion warriors.

********

I don't know... I think there's plenty of room for variety in there too. Or to be more precise, there's more variety for all rogues, more variety for PC warriors and a bit less for companion warriors, and more variety for PC mages but signifcantly less for companions mages

Modifié par Zjarcal, 06 avril 2011 - 05:45 .

[Lumikki]

It's not same as counting just number of talents. It's also how they work. Some DA2 talent are fun and nice. How ever, variety isn't just numbers, but how spells work as what player is using.

Example damage spells. Most of damage spells in DAO, they did just damage with some other addional effects, like stamina draining from enemies. In DA2 most of damage spells also have included small control effect. This also means damage spells are more usefull as induvidual spells. When in some situation in DAO you needed seperated control spells. Also the control effects where longer in DAO than in DA2. What cause that it's not so much about control in DA2 anymore, but just nuke them down.

Other difference is cool downs. While in DAO you could just rely on spell casting, in DA2 you rely a lot more in staff casting. It's like DA2 mage is comming more battle mage than just pure spell caster. Also because long cool downs some spells like healing becomes less used. It's not just that they are used less because cool downs, but also because there is less need of healing.

This all creates situation where mages are mostly just casting damage spells. There is a lot less support or control spell needed in DA2,  than DAO had. It's different ball game.

Modifié par Lumikki, 06 avril 2011 - 06:40 .

[Taura-Tierno]

I enjoyed the specs overall. What I think lacked was an archer spec for rogues. As it is now, Sebastian and Varric both feel like really superior archers, so it just doesn't feel very rewarding to attempt to play an archer Hawke. The reason is, I think, that most other companion trees felt mostly like mixes of the specs for the given class. I.e. Half of Anders's tree was the spirit healer stuff, and Isabela's felt like a duelist mixed with a few unique things. But Varric's was completely original, for instance, with really neat attacks for Bianca. 

Modifié par Taura-Tierno, 06 avril 2011 - 07:04 .

[Shatterkiss]

I'm hoping for a mod that will add the old specializations back in. I loved arcane warrior, and I almost always had a bard in the group.

[ShaggyWolf]

All I know is that Berzerkers and Reavers are beasts this time around. And I love the fact that there's actually multiple viable builds for the same playstyle in most cases. In Origins, if you were a 2h warrior, you were generally built the same as all the other 2h warriors. There wasn't really room for variation, because the talents were so linear. It may seem like there's less choice, because there's only 3 specializations as opposed to the 8 we got used to in Awakening, but there's more choice within what we have in DA2, and that's more important to me.

Also go and figure some of those 8 specializations were useless, like Shapeshifters and rangers. Some of the others were redundant or should've been part of the base class, like Champions for warriors.

I'm also very happy that we didn't have to unlock specs this time.

[Nameless2345]

I like most of the existing specializations, but have some isues:

1)Blood magic on H. is disappointing. Other blood mages summon demons, animate dead bodies, use mind control to get information. H. gets AoE stun and life leech. Oh, and no one pays any attention to its usage.

2)Rogue needs fourth specialization, suited for an archer. Currently for a ranged rogue (pure DPS machine, basically) only assasin really works.

3)Warrior has 2 DPS specializations, Reaver and Berserker. Could use tank spec, similar to what Aveline has.

4)Mage has one crowd control, one support spec. And one strange (blood magic). Could use DPS spec. Or, for versatility sake and to reduce kiting, something defensive.

[flexxdk]

Wish the Bard spec was there... Too bad it didn't make it in the final game. The Manual to learn it is in the game, but it's useless.

Would've loved to see the Archmage (Mage) and the Juggernaut (Warrior) specs, too. Manuals for them exist, but useless.

[ms_sunlight]

Filament wrote...

DuelingBardElf wrote...

Filament wrote...

I'm not satisfied about the fact that summoning and shapeshifting were cut, which were both specs, though it didn't make a whole lot of sense that summoning was in the rogue's domain.

I think they shouldnt have given it the name summon and it wouldve been better. Call of the Wild maybe, with each level as Call SuchandSuch. Seems like a ranger could call animals

Yeah, that's how I rationalized it. Like what Link does with the ocarina and the horse in the Zelda games. (..that didn't sound right)

Of course, how exactly do you call a bear from the wilderness into the middle of the Deep Roads?

Exactly.

I've always felt that the ranger's summons should have been played one of two ways:

1 - The ranger has a pet X, species determined when taking the specialisation, which follows them around all the time, much like a druid's companion in D&D.  Taking extra points in ranger beefs up this pet - how often it can be called on to fight, how good it is at fighting, how much damage it can absorb, how many special abilities it has.  Like the dog in The Bards Tale (2000s version) perhaps - that wasn't the greatest game but I loved the dog!  Any of the wild animals portrayed as summonable or as tameable in DA:O would be appropriate, including brontos, spiders, dragonlings etc.

2 - The ranger summons an environmentally appropriate creature to fight for them.  In a cave that might be a spider, on a hillside a wolf or bear, in a city a feral dog or giant rat, in the Deep Roads a deep stalker or bronto.  Taking extra points in ranger allows you to summon more powerful examples of this creature more often, or even a mob of creatures - how about a pack of deep stalkers or feral dogs instead of just one?

I do however feel that this ability fits much better under rogue than mage.  If mages must summon, it should be what mages do summon - reanimated corpses, demons, shades - and it should have plot-appropriate consequences to limit its usefulness.

[Haplose]

The entire talent and specialization system is vastly superior this time around.
I love this new system in DA2.

Mostly all talents COUNT and mean something, rather then being a bunch of redundant, useless prerequisites to get something half-usefull (like particularly sword in shield tree, 2h tree, top line of dual wielding tree, Mana Clash line and some others in DA:O).

It was somewhat opposite for mages.... still very wrong. They could pick whatever they wanted from whichever tree. No sense of specialization, focus, purpose. Just cherrypicking whatever they like. And no upgrades, but each was a separate spell.
Mages really lacked focus in DA:O IMVHO.

Overall I found the DA:O's character development system to be terrible. Fortunately DA2 fixed that!
Each skill tree makes sense. getting to better skills, specializing needs a level of devotion.
Now specializations have the power to change the playstyle - quite drastically so.

A Berserker will play very differently from an active talent spammer (like Templar)... to the point it can be counter-productive to use active skills except Cleave. Templar is a controller and disabler tank. Reaver may purposefully keep his character low on health.
A shadow is aimed at a completly different playstyle from Duelist. Granted both benefit from an Assasin's heavy damage boost.
A Bloodmage can afford many more sustainables and have virtually endless supply of mana, while a Spirit Healer is more likely to focus on non-damage spells, because he can't cast them under Panacea. A Force Mage is another beast, as he controls the battlefield.

DA:O specializations felt shallow and meaningless compared with that.
And gone are the silly specialization BOOKS. Oh joy!

[silver-crescent]

Well I would have liked to have one more spec per class, but at least all 9 were quite unique and pretty useful, unlike in Origin where there were a handful of completely useless ones (shapeshifter, templar, reaver...).

I hope when the EP comes out we get 1 or 2 new specs per class

[flexxdk]

Haplose wrote...
And gone are the silly specialization BOOKS. Oh joy!

They're not entirely gone... You don't need them, but they're still in the game. But you can only get them using the Command Console.

And they're restricted to Hawke.

Modifié par Whacka, 06 avril 2011 - 09:58 .

[wowpwnslol]

Stuffy38 wrote...

Missed the dual wielding Warrior spec. That was always a lot of fun in DAO. Mage specs were pretty decent though, but I admit I didn't really take a shine to either Shapeshifting or Ranger (rogue) specs in DAO so I don't really miss them in DA2.

I can understand Bioware going the way they did. After all in Origins dual wield warrior was the same as dual wield rogue with more HP/Armor and no stealth.

They wanted to keep specs unique and avoid overlapping. Obviously warrior has monopoly on tanking and rogues don't use 2Handers, so the logical choice was to give warrior 2H dps spec and sword n broad spec. That left dual wielding and archery for rogues, which are both DPS specs since rogue is a pure DPS class.

[Knal1991]

Somewhat directed @ Zjarcal

Though I do like this new way, It's quite restricted no matter how much spells you got... If you want a certain spell or talent, often you are forced to take one or several you might absolutely not want.... For example in Vanguard you have to get both Might and Control to proceed in that tree, despite you probably wanting only the might related ones. or in case of mages if you want the last primal buff so you can upgrade rock armor you need to invest in Electricity as well to get the spell, despite it not being in your advantage if you do not want electricity.. so it's only blocking you to spent points elsewhere... (Despite that numberous Devs claimed it was a more free system, it's actually not, In origins you only had to climb tree things to get the spell you want and then turn to a different tree)....

Then theres the point of in case of mages only I guess, the grouping of spells...  Arcane and Spirit don't seems attractive at all anymore because they have been mixed... offcourse I get that elemental and primal are ment for AoE... but there isn't much exiting going on, Telekinetic Prison is still awesome... but theres like two shield spells in that tree... 1 buff , one threat reducter (that every mage gets anyway) and 1 offensive spell... Then theres spirit tree which , had 2 offensive spells... but also has dispel magic, and a regain mana spell.. ..

So whats the problem? the other tree's are way more attractive to complete, Spirit and Arcane seem to be quite alll over the place... You know you when you get in Elemental what to expect... Damage (Fire) and Crowd Control (Ice), Primal is somwhat similiar in that regard, Entropy (Though not flashy) had amazing debuffs against you opponents, healer tree heals and controls... Their use is quite clear..

Won't stop me for using Spirit and Arcane in my next mage playthrough to see it's use whne completed...

Specs definatly have improved though, I do think however that gameplay has somewhat crippled blood magic.. with armor being tied to willpower...
I'd like to have four though, I for one am quite missing the Keeper Spec myself, even if it doesn't make any sense cause you are not  keeper... but a plant based spec could always be named differently... like the popular druid...
None of the Mage Specs actually have anything to with offensive stuff, Spirit healer heals, Force Mage is crowd Control, and Blood Mage allows you to cast from your health bar (the offensive spells aren't that great really nd can only be used effectivly against few mobs)...


@ Silver Crescent, Reaver was one of the best specs in the game (DAO) if you know how to use it...

[Madkipz]

I am not satisfied, It might be that its because i come from an MMO background and enjoy the Kotor esque sith \\ jedi \\ mercenary talents better where you get rows with one spell or ability followed with it having 2 linear upgrades. What if i wanted to use assault with twohander? that would totally be possible with the kotor style of organising your talent trees.

It makes me cringe everytime i see those 6 talents in elementalist that gives you 4 spells and some slight improvements in them.

Now this is all understandable from a console perspective. You want to limit the amount of spells so console users who have limited buttons can actually use everything but thats why the kotor system is alot better than all other talent trees that have come after. Rows of spells > small clusters of ****ty talents where half of them you never make use of anyhow.

Personally i believe in specialisation and deeper talent trees.
I believe that Each of these talent trees should have atleast twice the spells they currently have and railroad talent picking rather than whimsically have you pick 2-3 different trees.

Things like reaver, templar and berserker and bloodmage all suffer from this kind of mediocrity. They have no real impact on the game or on hawke or anyone else for that matter. They should be more akin to professions that hawke picks up and learns troughout the game.

example: If Hawke wants to wield bloodmagic, he will have to consort with demons and do some quests before unlocking it, the demon would have to become relevant to the plot, the process of obtaining it should feel epic and it should affect parts of the story.

Because if it does not affect story or conversation or party member interaction then the choices are simply metagamed and what you should choose becomes as obvious as browsing the internet for the best builds.

Modifié par Madkipz, 06 avril 2011 - 10:42 .

[borelocin]

No, which is why I downloaded the "All Specs - All Abilities - for Everyone" mod. http://www.dragonage...ile.php?id=2407

[CerebraLArsenaL]

Taura-Tierno wrote...

I enjoyed the specs overall. What I think lacked was an archer spec for rogues. As it is now, Sebastian and Varric both feel like really superior archers, so it just doesn't feel very rewarding to attempt to play an archer Hawke. The reason is, I think, that most other companion trees felt mostly like mixes of the specs for the given class. I.e. Half of Anders's tree was the spirit healer stuff, and Isabela's felt like a duelist mixed with a few unique things. But Varric's was completely original, for instance, with really neat attacks for Bianca. 

Part of the reason I started this thread. I wanted a Righteous Chain/Wounding Arrow. I wanted a viable pet (yes, the mabari, but he served nothing but a meatsack distraction. Big A completely ignores it)

[CerebraLArsenaL]

borelocin wrote...

No, which is why I downloaded the "All Specs - All Abilities - for Everyone" mod. http://www.dragonage...ile.php?id=2407

Some dont play pc. I do, but not primarily. likely wont get Rise of Hawke on PC

[asminho]

the blood mage spec was bad, should have been more powerful also more cooler spells,

because you use your health so that needs improvement IMO

[Running_Blind]

I didn't really mind, I thought you got the most variation by choosing different paths through ALL of the trees. An offensive Warrior who favours the two-hander and vanguard trees, a defensive tank who goes for the defender and warmonger trees, or a leader who focuses on the battle master and shield trees.

So yeah, I think they served their purpose, they added a couple more options to the mix.

Because you're spending a rare commodity, the specialisation point there's the impression that you need to be buying something AMAZING, but it's really just another decision, if you tried getting abilities from every tree you'd end up with just the low level abilities and probably a rather lacklustre Hawke.

Having said that, more trees would have been great, is there such a thing as too many options?

[JediMB]

I much prefer how specializations (and talents in general) are handled in DA2 over DAO, but I also wouldn't mind if they'd release some sort of DLC pack that included one or two new specializations for each class.

Would be a lot more worthwhile than the alternate appearance packs for ME2.

[Dark83]

They should have had at least one more spec for each class.
With the ability to take 2 specs and a choice of 3, there's essentially only 3 builds. Disliking a single spec limits you to one build only. Adding just one would have doubled the combinations to 6, and if we disliked one we'd still have 3 builds to choose from.

[CerebraLArsenaL]

RB & Dark Thanks you sum it up nicely

[Zjarcal]

Knal1991 wrote...
So whats the problem? the other tree's are way more attractive to complete, Spirit and Arcane seem to be quite alll over the place... You know you when you get in Elemental what to expect... Damage (Fire) and Crowd Control (Ice), Primal is somwhat similiar in that regard, Entropy (Though not flashy) had amazing debuffs against you opponents, healer tree heals and controls... Their use is quite clear..

I certainly won't disagree with that. The Spirit tree in particular is one I've been ignoring a lot. But then again, I also ignored the creation and spirit spells a lot in Origins (the top line of the spirit school is one I think I never chose in any of my six playthroughs). Both my mage and Morrigan's spells were almost always from the Primal and Entropy schools (I never used Wynne).

Nevertheless, I do get your point (same about Vanguard and how you have to get both Might and Control to advance).

[Galad22]

I wanted to be ranger again.

I always had like two wolfes in my parties in origins.

[Kimberly Shaw]

The Specs themselves were generally okay. I always wanted more of them (4 specs instead of 3) and for companions they should have given two trees or bigger one much bigger than it was tree...that said it was the least of my problems with the game.

Would would have made it for me would be specialist specific side quests and plot lines; and general reaction from NPCs/The Story for extreme specialists like Blood Mage or Reavers. Right now the specialists are just different buttons of awesome, when instead they could be so much more than that and really tie into the storylines and quests. That's my problem. (and yes, I'm well aware that DA:O didn't handle this much better!)