494 réponses à ce sujet

[Iosev]

I think one major difficulty in discussing this topic is that many of the positive aspects of Dragon Age 2 can only be experienced on the Nightmare difficulty.

For example, I think cross-class combinations are one of the best additions to the combat in Dragon Age 2. The problem, however, is that you really do not ever have to use them on Hard or lower difficulties, simply because:

A) Most enemies (on Hard and lower) do not pose a tremendous threat (in terms of damage).

and

Most enemies (on Hard and lower) can be quickly taken down without much effort.

This changes on Nightmare. Not only do most enemies (including the normal mobs) take longer to kill, certain enemies (e.g., assassins and magi) can one-shot you and your companions (depending on the class). Assassins and magi need to be taken down as quickly as possible, and this is where cross-class combinations come into play.  On a side note, it amazes me how a lot of people complain about kiting assassins, when you can use CCC's to take them down.

In addition, Nightmare is the only mode that has friendly-fire active, so while you can spam warrior AoE abilities with reckless abandon on Hard and lower difficulties, doing that on Nightmare will immediately wipe your entire party. Party position, in turn, becomes important when using AoE abilities on Nightmare, whereas on Hard and lower, you almost never have to worry about it.

So when it's discussed here, someone who has only played on Hard or lower will very likely not see eye to eye with someone who has played on Nightmare, which seems to be the case with at least a few of the discussions in this thread.

Personally, I think Bioware should stick with only three difficulties: Casual, Normal, and Nightmare. Casual should have no friendly fire, and have enemies with health and damage levels similar to how Normal is now. Normal should some form of limited friendly fire (perhaps via percentage), and enemy health and damage levels between Hard and Nightmare. And Nightmare, well, I welcome it to be as challenging as possible.

But back on topic, I very much prefer the combat of DA 2 over DA:O.  I think the classes and abilities are much more balanced than DA:O, and I enjoy the responsiveness of attack and ability activation, especially in regards to the melee-oriented classes.  

Modifié par arcelonious, 10 mai 2011 - 07:27 .

[hioe04]

IN1 wrote...

Sounds pretty subjective to me. Being subjective makes sense, but maybe you shouldn't state it as cold hard facts ;-)

Well, it's all easily verifiable, yes?

I basically agree with your asessment of the individual components, but you are leaving out other important factors, for instance how the components manage to fit together, and how party members can support each other.

DA2 is much more synergetic and party-oriented. Hint: CCCs. 

I also believe controls are important for the feeling and flow of combat.

DA2 controls are different from DAO controls?

My cold hard 'fact' is that DA2 combat is an unplayable buggy mess, and that DAO feels very smooth in comparison.

Care to elaborate? Factual proof will be most welcome.

ccc? really? seemed like an after thought at getting different party members to interplay. i found myself using all my party members mroe in dao than in da2. i.e. casting storm of the century or planning for a glyph of paralysis and then comobing with another char. in da2 you can seriously auto attack everything to death. everything dies and moves at a pace that it's a headache to even try to use the other three party members.

i agree with the other poster. DAO encouraged way more battle planning and more party 'combos' than does this game.

the only bit i do like about da2's combat, are the animations.

[4love]

Melca36 wrote...

This is an improvment??







Please explain how enemies materializing is an improvment?
Please explain how a body explosion after a single backstab is an improvment?

They got rid of so many of the more fun combat aspects of Origins. We can no longer trap.

Hopefully they will come up with a compromise for the next game that does NOT pander to one fan base.

LOL !! EPIC,that one reason i wont buy this game

Modifié par 4love, 10 mai 2011 - 08:03 .

[Jerrybnsn]

Origins isn't a combat game. I don't play rpgs for it's combat. DA2 is a bad combat game. A more fair comparision would be DAII vs Assasin''s Creed combat.  Nothing to compare here. <lockdown>

Modifié par Jerrybnsn, 10 mai 2011 - 09:53 .

[Haplose]

While the scope of DA:O was quite epic, the mechanics behind it definately felt like not enough though went in planning the game systems, character development and combat. I particularly mean the skill trees full of redundant Talents you picked only to gain access to some other Talents, but would never get otherwise, because the later Talents made them obsolete (I'm particularly looking at you, Sword and Shield tree, but other trees were pretty bad too).
Also no balance at all, many useless Talents (Shapeshifter tree, Dispel Magic, etc.) and many totally game-breaking Talents (Mana Clash, Storm of the Century, Arcane Warrior tree). You could easily get 100% Spell Immunity and 100% evasion with hight Dex. If that's not broken, what is?
Rogues had a nasty handicap in the Talent and Skill area, by being forced to pick many Talents and Skills just to open locks, disable traps or enter stealth. Also there was hardly any difference playing a dual-wielding Rogue and Warrior.
You could clearly see it was a new, immature system... and one not thought out well at that.

Combat didn't feel right either. No wonder given the disjointed and totally imbalanced mess this game system was. It became tedious quite fast. Only thing I actually enjoyed more then in DA2, was that the same rules generally applied to you and your enemies. And you used the same skills. Also you operated on a more similar range of statistics. That is quite important for me.

But otherwise the game mechanics, character development and combat is all a huge step up compared with DAO. I love the new talent trees, the new specializations, the flow of combat, it's reactiveness. The fact that every class has a distinct, diffenet playstyle... while beeing very nicely balanced indeed. Love how the new CCCs encourage group cooperation aspect. They are very usefull to me - since I play on Nightmare, I feel without them some encounters would be immensly more difficult. Sure, I do mind some things. Recycled areas being the no. 1 sin. But the gameplay aspect has been done very well in DA2 so that you for that, Bioware...... keep up the good work.... and don't rush a game so painfully obviously still lacking assets, particularly in regard to area variation

Modifié par Haplose, 10 mai 2011 - 10:42 .

[MichaelFinnegan]

You (and this thread, in general) have made me rethink my stance on DA2 combat. I don't know why I didn't see it sooner. It was bumped up from recent replies.

[quote]IN1 wrote...

Mike tortured me, in fact. And I forgot to mention that David Gaider assisted him.
[/quote]

I'm glad they did in retrospect, for this is a good thread. :happy:

[quote]
Now, seriously. I know DA2 is a bit controversial. I know a lot of fans prefer DAO. That's why I leave the plot, the dialogue, the characters out of comparison -- it's a matter of personal preference, after all. Combat mechanics, on the other hand, are what Meredith likes to call cold hard facts.
[/quote]

Oh, I think we can debate objectively about that all of them. But, well, that's not your intention here. So I'll let that be.

[quote]
So. Combat mechanics-wise, what we have is:
[/quote] 

I really need to look up what all comes under "combat mechanics," but, sometime later perhaps.

[quote]
DAO/DAA:

(1) Extremely easy, to the point of being downright boring. You can literally fall asleep during late game fights. Differences between difficulty levels are minimal. DAO NM is, essentially, Normal where the enemies get a couple of insignificant fixed bonuses. Extremely short cooldown on health/mana potions. Badly designed asymmetrical scaling system: Georg Zoeller advocated it with some vigor in its day, but many things that sound nice in theory just do not work that well practically.
[/quote]

I agree. I too felt DA:O's combat difficulty didn't scale all that well in nightmare mode, come to think of it. I have only one full playthrough I got out of it and that I played on "normal" difficulty to begin with. Later in the game, I thought that things were becoming a bit too easy (or boring, however you look at it) and, for the heck of it, switched to nightmare (around level 14 I think). Noticed not much change in how I was doing things. Perhaps the underlying numbers do reflect this, as you say.

And the end game fight left me quite dissatisfied.

[quote]
(2) Amateurishly designed, ridiculously unbalanced classes/abilities system. Examples: ridiculously overpowered specializations like Arcane Warrior and DAA Spirit Warrior; pathetically useless specializations like Shapeshifter; Mana Clash (enough said). In a nutshell: Mages, especially AW >>>>>>>> anyone else (DAO); Spirit Warrior Archers >>>>>>>>>> anyone else (DAA).
[/quote]

Yes, that's true. "Shapeshifter" was mainly a plot-element for Morrigan, I felt. A plot element that'll probably be revealed to us later on.

[quote]
(3) The implementation of abilities/item properties in DAO/DAA is a buggy mess. ~30-40% of abilities/item properties either do not function properly, or do not work at all. Examples: abilities/properties that should modify threat do not do this (exceptions: AoS, Walking Bomb, Scattershot, Mind Blast, Cadash Stompers); abilities/properties that should modify attack animation speed either do not do this or do this in a buggy/messy/glitchy way; aura-like abilities stack (Rock Mastery, Rally); Shale and Dog abilities bugged beyond belief (yes, you won't believe what Overwhelm actually does); elemental spells applying states use incorrect resistance checks (Cone of Cold always assumes the target has a physical resistance of -1, for example); +X% healing property on items does nothing; crossbows being unaffected by attributes, thus leaving the whole weapon class totally useless. The list, in fact, is much much much longer.
[/quote]

See, I get all this. I know it was buggy, mainly from the kind of mods that ended up on Nexus to fix them, but what I wonder about is, why oh why didn't Bioware fix any of them! Baffling! And you'd think people would rail more on them to get the bugs fixed. After all, they won't be doing us any favors by fixing bugs!

And what I felt missing is a good game documentation, from Bioware themselves. It would be a reasonable demand.

[quote]
Overall, I'd say DAO combat is an unplayable buggy mess without third-party modifications/fixes (four official patches do very little to fix the mechanics issues). Now, if you don't care about combat at all, I guess you can play DAO just fine. If you do, good luck installing a dozen conflicting third-party mods.
[/quote]

Strongly disagree on the underlined section. As you just said, nightmare mode isn't all that much of a big deal that such things would become game breakers. Maybe that's what Bioware found as an excuse not to fix those bugs.

Or maybe you meant early game? I played on "normal" till level 14.

[quote]
DA2:

(1) The difficulty settings have their issues: the difference between Normal, Hard and NM is reportedly enormous (no first-hand experience with Normal or Hard). However, NM is quite nightmarish, especially on your first playthrough. And that's a good thing for those of us that enjoy challenge. Cooldowns on hp/mana pots are adequate. Fully symmetrical scaling system that may sound idiotic, but, de facto, works much better than DAO/DAA's system. The most challenging NM fight in the game is probably Meredith+Gate Guardians, and that's actually an incredible achievement -- as any experienced RPG player knows, the final bosses are, as a rule, total pushovers due to scaling issues (in other words, party/protagonist getting stronger much faster than the enemies). 
[/quote]

I can attest to the difference in difficulty between "normal" and "hard". I have generally limited time on hand to play games, and so having started the game on "hard," I had to eventually tone down the difficulty to "normal." Especially for the ARW fight. Or perhaps I was a bit lazy on the team build up, and a bit picky on who I take along (Anders is a strong no-no for me). But, anyway, hard is really hard. Thanks by the way for that description on the difference between symmetric and asymmetric scaling. I didn't know that DA:O and DA2 differ in that respect.

[quote]
(2) A solidly designed classes/abilities system. Yes, it has it flaws (a bit rigid, I admit). And no, it's no D&D. But it is balanced: little to no useless specializations/talents/spells, this time.
[/quote]

Abilities designed to mimize the amount of wasted points, but not entirely "solid" in my personal opinion. I think there is still some amount of navigating to do in the "chains" and not all of it makes complete sense. For instance, why do I have to get "back-to-back" to arrive at the skill that gives stamina regen/basic hit capability for rogues? The other path to this same ability makes equally less sense. If you think some are useless, then why do you think they did it this way? Seems like an elaborately designed maze for some abstruse reason.

By the way, what do you think about their decision to segregate "attributes" from "abilities"? In DA:O I remember abilites being attribute locked also.

[quote]
(3) The abilities and the properties are correctly implemented in 95% of the cases. Most of the mechanics glitches (Rally not transferring modals; shield armor rating stacking; Lacerate upgrade treated as a separate ability) were fixed in the very first patch. The only really serious bug that persists is the infinitely stacking Healing Aura.
[/quote]

That's good to hear. As you just said, the nightmare mode being really "nightmarish" would probably have given them more incentive to get things right, ASAP. Funny how that works...

[quote]
Overall, I'd say DA2's gameplay design team work is most commendable. DA2 is a huge improvement over DAO/DAA in all things mechanics-related. And that's not a subjective evaluation. Again, I understand that if you don't care much about combat and find the new plot/dialogue/art direction repulsive, this fact alone won't make DA2 any more acceptable for you.[/quote]
[/quote]

See, that's where the problem for me starts. Being relatively new to the RPG genre and not having followed the games all the way from BG2 and maybe before, I don't know what "all" comes under this "mechanics" category. I play games and I see what I get in-game or in the accompanying booklet. So, I'll have to reserve my judgment on this one. But that's really my problem, in a way. *Shrug* What I should do is to start by getting that toolset and analyzing how it all works, what is all there, and so on. It might even improve my gameplay experience. More knowledge is always good, right?

I'm interested in looking through your builds and seeing how you're actually playing this game. To me, at the moment, it's not all that interesting on "normal." I foresee more time becoming available in the near future, and so should probably invest some time on this.

Although I'm new to RPGs, I'd consider myself hooked at the moment to actually go through this trouble.

By the way, thanks again for a good post.

[MDT1]

There are no hard Facts you can compare, its always taste.
Only improvement imho where the staff combat animations.
For my taste every other change in combat I'm aware of is a setback or no improvement.
You are free to enjoy it of course

Modifié par MDT1, 10 mai 2011 - 01:49 .

[MichaelFinnegan]

MDT1 wrote...

There are no hard Facts you can compare, its always taste.

Not necessarily. If something doesn't work as expected, that's a bug and counts as a "fact" to me. Which is why I insist on good documentation. It'll help in deciding unambiguously whether something is a bug or not. Other things related to game balance and all, well, let's just say they are debatable.

Only improvement imho where the staff combat animations.

The OP was more about how it works under the hood, how the talents/abilities are arranged, etc. Some are genuine improvements in DA2 and I'm happy to hear that at the moment (well as of 15 days ago at least) there is only one outstanding bug.

Regarding game balance: was AW really all that powerful, yes! But only if one specced it that way. Otherwise, well, probably not.

Details of combat aesthetics/design weren't given by the OP. So...

For my taste every other change in combat I'm aware of is a setback or no improvement.

And, since you brought it up: I personally dislike many of the animations. Like things related to the DW rogue animations. Especially that ridiculous 360 degree kicking animation; it even seems to dish out less damage than usual. Only way to stop that is to actually disengage and start all over again and hope it doesn't repeat. I dislike how speed seems to be so ridiculously overused. I mean if I wanted to actually teleport/jump across, I'd expect a spell for it, not with the basic attack. The pace of combat in Origins was exactly right for me; there were things like haste and swift salve to help in that department, anyway.

To me, what is more important, though, is to align what actually happens underneath with what we see outside. After all, we respond and react to what we see.

But, overall, did I like DA2 combat over DA:O? No, not really. Did I think DA:O was unbalanced? Yes, in light of what was mentioned about "scaling;" and how nightmare mode should actually play like one. Did I really think DA2 improved with nightmare mode? Well, it is certainly nightmarish, to be sure, but well enemies with 1000s of hit points, potion chugging and "apparating" out of nowhere probably wasn't the way to go about it (but I don't know what other advice to give). It's all turning out to be a mixed bag in the end...

Modifié par MichaelFinnegan, 10 mai 2011 - 03:29 .

[MDT1]

Ok I forgot that bugs are mostly facts (though it in very rare cases they are really a feature^^)

And to be more clear: If I think about every thing new in combat, like skills, skill trees, stats, spawning, monster hp, the only thing that comes to my mind that was improved are staff combat animations. ^^

But I'm quite aware that I'm in an extreme minority here.

But I also see combat as a necessary but minor part of my rpg experience compared to story and immersion. Expect its as tiresome and omnipresent as in DA2, then it becomes a mayor annoyance.

Modifié par MDT1, 10 mai 2011 - 04:27 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

arcelonious wrote...

For example, I think cross-class combinations are one of the best additions to the combat in Dragon Age 2. The problem, however, is that you really do not ever have to use them on Hard or lower difficulties, simply because:

A) Most enemies (on Hard and lower) do not pose a tremendous threat (in terms of damage).

and

Most enemies (on Hard and lower) can be quickly taken down without much effort.

I don't think we have to need CCC in order to use them.  But I also think that the speed of DA2's combat is such that no one learns CCCs unless they have to, because combat generally moves too quickly for us to keep track of status effects (especially since there's no easy way to determine what effects are affecting any given enemy).

I don't use CCC because combat moves too quickly.  Granted, I think DA2's combat is easier than DAO's combat (I play both games on Hard), but the spell combos in DAO weren't really necessary, either.  They were just fun, so I used them.

DA2 tells me that I have, at some point, used a CCC.  I didn't notice, and I certainly didn't do it on purpose.  I don't think I even notice when I cause status effects, because when I pause the game to examine the state of the battlefield (which I do roughly every second), I don't think I can tell whether an enemy has a status effect in place.

[Sylvius the Mad]

MDT1 wrote...

And to be more clear: If I think about every thing new in combat, like skills, skill trees, stats, spawning, monster hp, the only thing that comes to my mind that was improved are staff combat animations. ^^

But I'm quite aware that I'm in an extreme minority here.

I certainly disagree with you...

I hate the new staff animations.

[Wozearly]

Haplose wrote...

Rogues had a nasty handicap in the Talent and Skill area, by being forced to pick many Talents and Skills just to open locks, disable traps or enter stealth. Also there was hardly any difference playing a dual-wielding Rogue and Warrior.

Err...rogues also got skill points every 2 levels rather than every 3, so across a full all-quests playthrough of Origins that's an extra 4 skills, which basically gives you a full bar extra compared to warriors/mages.

Granted, you can't get full traps AND stealing, which are both very rogue-friendly, PLUS everything the others get, but that's balancing...and a viable reason to bring more than one rogue in the party, or specialise the rogue in that way and sacrifice somewhere else. Not too harsh a choice when it comes to skills.

Talent-wise you have a point to an extent - if you wanted both stealth and lockpicking, that means you don't get a full bar of 4 that a warrior or mage would have. But only warriors are able to max out their primary weapon tree, and warrior tree, and both of their specialisms. Mages have to pass on a fair chunk of potential abilities - rogues have to pass on one full bar of 4 (which is notably less than mages do).

Again, that leads to the viable combination of the two rogue party, where they compliment what the other lacks rather than wasting points on the same things.

As for DW rogue vs DW warrior, DW rogue was more about positioning and, if you were dual dagger rather than dual sword, gunning for hefty armour penetration and high dodge - so a particularly viable strategy was stealthing around the back to target heavily armoured, high-threat targets. DW warriors were more of the "In your face, wear heavy armour as expect a lot of hits back" type. Admittedly, at high levels and lower difficulties, you could play both in the 'warrior' mould effectively.


I generally agree with your other DA:O. Some talents were needlessly powerful, others were so situational and/or relatively minor and/or next to impossible to effectively add to companion tactics that they were wasted. Although generally speaking, a lot of awesome abilities were at the top end of comparatively mediocre trees. That was probably intentional.

...but I disagree with most of your DA2 points. The mechanics are more simplistic (which to me was a downside) and all of the abilities are directly, or potentially, scarily effective. The ability to upgrade abilities was a nice touch, but the uber-speed and relatively low levels of tactical dynamics required once you have a selection of epic abilities took the fun out for me.

Sure, by the time you hit L22 or so in DA:O having an extra ability or two was verging on unnecessary and/or overkill - particularly for mages. But by about L11 in DA2 I had everything I needed to faceroll my way through wave after wave after wave after wave after zzzz.....

[Iosev]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I don't think we have to need CCC in order to use them.  But I also think that the speed of DA2's combat is such that no one learns CCCs unless they have to, because combat generally moves too quickly for us to keep track of status effects (especially since there's no easy way to determine what effects are affecting any given enemy).

I don't use CCC because combat moves too quickly.  Granted, I think DA2's combat is easier than DAO's combat (I play both games on Hard), but the spell combos in DAO weren't really necessary, either.  They were just fun, so I used them.

DA2 tells me that I have, at some point, used a CCC.  I didn't notice, and I certainly didn't do it on purpose.  I don't think I even notice when I cause status effects, because when I pause the game to examine the state of the battlefield (which I do roughly every second), I don't think I can tell whether an enemy has a status effect in place.

That's exactly my point though.  On Hard and lower difficulties, you don't ever have to rely on cross-class combinations, since enemies not only die rather quickly, but because most enemies don't pose enough danger (damage-wise).  That is one major factor in why combat seems faster on those difficulty levels.

It is only on Nightmare that CCC's become integral to gameplay.  People who don't understand CCC's, for example, will try to kite away assassins on Nightmare, without understanding that rogues can be burned down with CCC's and crowd control.  If you look on gameplay forum and read threads about Nightmare, you'll see people talk about abilities like Pummel (that makes Aveline's Shield Bash induce 100% stagger), and abilities like Chain Reaction (the improved Chain Lightning that does tremendous damage and force on staggered targets), and so on, because you do have to rely on CCC's on Nightmare, otherwise, you're going to have a difficult time killing enemies quickly enough.

Like I said, it's hard to appreciate the combat in DA 2 if you haven't played on Nightmare.  That isn't a slight to anyone who hasn't played it on that difficulty; I think it's more of Bioware making the Hard and the lower difficulties so easy that CCC's never have to be used on those difficulty levels.

In addition, Nightmare is the only mode that has Friendly Fire enabled in DA 2.  So on Hard and lower, you can honestly spam devastating abilities like Whirlwind without any concern, when you simply cannot do that on Nightmare.  Hell, even using a warrior's Mighty Blow next to a companion will often kill them.  In DA:O, there was reduced friendly on normal (PC) and hard, which added to the tactical nature of the combat.  In DA 2, that element of tactical gameplay is only available on Nightmare.

Modifié par arcelonious, 10 mai 2011 - 06:26 .

[veramis]

I did two nightmare playthroughs and thought CCC's detracted from the game by making enemies just randomly blow up enmasse.

[Iosev]

veramis wrote...

I did two nightmare playthroughs and thought CCC's detracted from the game by making enemies just randomly blow up enmasse.

I agree in that I dislike the gory explosions, but that issue has nothing to do with the CCC mechanics and their tactical use.

[Sylvius the Mad]

arcelonious wrote...

That's exactly my point though.  On Hard and lower difficulties, you don't ever have to rely on cross-class combinations, since enemies not only die rather quickly, but because most enemies don't pose enough danger (damage-wise).  That is one major factor in why combat seems faster on those difficulty levels.

You're missing my point.  The game has done such a poor job of informing the player how it works that even an experienced RPG player doesn't understand the rules of the game.

It's a single-player game.  At no point should anyone have to seek out online help to learn anything about it.

Like I said, it's hard to appreciate the combat in DA 2 if you haven't played on Nightmare.

And this is itself a problem, as difficulty for its own sake isn't something I ever want from an RPG.  I don't want the combat to be difficult; I want the combat to be interesting.  If DA2's combat can only be interesting by being difficult, then that's a problem.

That isn't a slight to anyone who hasn't played it on that difficulty; I think it's more of Bioware making the Hard and the lower difficulties so easy that CCC's never have to be used on those difficulty levels.

Again, the CCC should be interesting enough to be used without them being necessary.  The gameplay should be fun.  I had loads of fun learning new and interestnig ways to kill things in DAO.  That the same tactic worked against every enemy didn't matter, because many tactics worked in most encounters.

But in DA2, by the time I've begun to enact some sort of tactical plan, the fight is over.

In addition, Nightmare is the only mode that has Friendly Fire enabled.  So on Hard and lower, you can honestly spam devastating abilities like Whirlwind without any concern, when you simply cannot do that on Nightmare.  Hell, even using a warrior's Mighty Blow next to a companion will often kill them.

Of course, this is moddable.  There's a good mod over on DragonAgeNexus which adds lower difficulties with FF active.

But more importantly, the way FF works in DA2 - even on Nightmare - is itself another problem.  As you point out, you can easily one-shot your companions with FF on Nightmare.  But your enemies are rarely one-shotting you, and you're rarely one-shotting your enemies.  That your errant strikes are so much more dangerous than the strikes you actually intend (or those your enemies use against you) badly damages the credibility of the setting.

When I first started DA2, I asked which difficult setting offers the most level playing field (in DAO, it's Hard).  The best way, I think, to determine whether the playing field is level is to compare the effects of FF between the player's party and their enemies.  If my enemies' FF is as damaging to them as mine is to me, then the game is fair.  Anything that deviates from that makes the game worse.

[Iosev]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You're missing my point.  The game has done such a poor job of informing the player how it works that even an experienced RPG player doesn't understand the rules of the game.

It's a single-player game.  At no point should anyone have to seek out online help to learn anything about it.

How exactly did Bioware do a poor job in explaining cross-class combinations?  Stagger, Brittle, and Disorient effects are explicity described in the talents and you see a big symbol (which is also shown in the description of abilities) over a target when it is affected by one of those effects.  I believe there is also a codex entry that talks about CCC's.

Modifié par arcelonious, 10 mai 2011 - 06:43 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

arcelonious wrote...

How exactly did Bioware do a poor job in explaining cross-class combinations?  Stagger, Brittle, and Disorient effects are explicity described in the talents and you see a big symbol (which is also shown in the description of abilities) over a target when it is affected by one of those effects.

I don't recall ever seeing large status symbols over the heads of enemies.

[Iosev]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I don't recall ever seeing large status symbols over the heads of enemies.

Well, they're there.  What more can I say?

[Addai]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

arcelonious wrote...

How exactly did Bioware do a poor job in explaining cross-class combinations?  Stagger, Brittle, and Disorient effects are explicity described in the talents and you see a big symbol (which is also shown in the description of abilities) over a target when it is affected by one of those effects.

I don't recall ever seeing large status symbols over the heads of enemies.

You might have turned them off in the Options?

[Tsuga C]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But more importantly, the way FF works in DA2 - even on Nightmare - is itself another problem.  As you point out, you can easily one-shot your companions with FF on Nightmare.  But your enemies are rarely one-shotting you, and you're rarely one-shotting your enemies.  That your errant strikes are so much more dangerous than the strikes you actually intend (or those your enemies use against you) badly damages the credibility of the setting.

When I first started DA2, I asked which difficult setting offers the most level playing field (in DAO, it's Hard).  The best way, I think, to determine whether the playing field is level is to compare the effects of FF between the player's party and their enemies.  If my enemies' FF is as damaging to them as mine is to me, then the game is fair.  Anything that deviates from that makes the game worse.

A simple QFT from myself to acknowledge the chocked-full-of-common-sense reply from Sylvius.  *thumbs up*

[happy_daiz]

Cross-class combos.

The icons are next to the status type. 

Modifié par happy_daiz, 10 mai 2011 - 07:03 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Addai67 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

arcelonious wrote...

How exactly did Bioware do a poor job in explaining cross-class combinations?  Stagger, Brittle, and Disorient effects are explicity described in the talents and you see a big symbol (which is also shown in the description of abilities) over a target when it is affected by one of those effects.

I don't recall ever seeing large status symbols over the heads of enemies.

You might have turned them off in the Options?

I disabled Plot Helpers.  If that turns off combat feedback, too, then that's terrible design.  Because there's no way I'm turning the Plot Helpers back on.

[Fallstar]

Tsuga C wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But more importantly, the way FF works in DA2 - even on Nightmare - is itself another problem.  As you point out, you can easily one-shot your companions with FF on Nightmare.  But your enemies are rarely one-shotting you, and you're rarely one-shotting your enemies.  That your errant strikes are so much more dangerous than the strikes you actually intend (or those your enemies use against you) badly damages the credibility of the setting.

When I first started DA2, I asked which difficult setting offers the most level playing field (in DAO, it's Hard).  The best way, I think, to determine whether the playing field is level is to compare the effects of FF between the player's party and their enemies.  If my enemies' FF is as damaging to them as mine is to me, then the game is fair.  Anything that deviates from that makes the game worse.

A simple QFT from myself to acknowledge the chocked-full-of-common-sense reply from Sylvius.  *thumbs up*

+1
It seems absolutely stupid that friendly fire does more damage than the attack does to an enemy. And you can't say that its just because the enemies are tougher/have better armour; I've had Aveline, with high constitution and being built to survive anything, almost be KO'd from a cone of cold that took less than half of the HP off a basic skeleton.

[MichaelFinnegan]

I haven't got enough gameplay in to discuss this, but let me try anyway...

arcelonious wrote...

This changes on Nightmare. Not only do most enemies (including the normal mobs) take longer to kill, certain enemies (e.g., assassins and magi) can one-shot you and your companions (depending on the class). Assassins and magi need to be taken down as quickly as possible, and this is where cross-class combinations come into play.  On a side note, it amazes me how a lot of people complain about kiting assassins, when you can use CCC's to take them down.

I haven't tried disorient yet. So, I don't know about that. But there seem to be issues using either staggered or brittle. The main issue is that as soon as an opportunity presents itself the CCC move must be done, otherwise, if any other talent/spell is used, the status effect disappears. Needless to say, with the pace of combat as it is, it is difficult to keep track of when to make that move. And if noticed, how to prevent your companions from squandering that opportunity?

Also, I notice that stagger always succeeds with a shield bash on anyone, but brittle's behavior seems rather unpredictable. The description of either cold spell says 100% success vs. normal enemies, and I see sometimes that bosses end up brittle just by using "any" cold staff. Is there always some probability attached to it? If so where is that mentioned?

Beyond CCCs, the major issue I'm having with the rogue playthrough is the knockback. The ARW fight especially with those profanes that have a knockback effect. So I had to tone down the difficulty from "hard" to "normal" since I don't use Anders in my squad. Even those poisonous spiders and lesser mobs (a pain!) have that effect.

In addition, Nightmare is the only mode that has friendly-fire active, so while you can spam warrior AoE abilities with reckless abandon on Hard and lower difficulties, doing that on Nightmare will immediately wipe your entire party. Party position, in turn, becomes important when using AoE abilities on Nightmare, whereas on Hard and lower, you almost never have to worry about it.

Not only that. The issue is that certain spells like tempest last a long time. And present issues, hampering the squad's own movement rather than causing significant damange to enemies (with very large HPs).

So when it's discussed here, someone who has only played on Hard or lower will very likely not see eye to eye with someone who has played on Nightmare, which seems to be the case with at least a few of the discussions in this thread.

Well, I haven't played nightmare yet and you have. So what does that mean? 

Personally, I think Bioware should stick with only three difficulties: Casual, Normal, and Nightmare. Casual should have no friendly fire, and have enemies with health and damage levels similar to how Normal is now. Normal should some form of limited friendly fire (perhaps via percentage), and enemy health and damage levels between Hard and Nightmare. And Nightmare, well, I welcome it to be as challenging as possible.

Some people don't actually care all that much about combat, so, I think the difficulty settings as they exist are pretty much okay. I haven't intended to do a nightmare playthrough, yet, but I have to decide whether that's viable (time-wise) for me first.

But back on topic, I very much prefer the combat of DA 2 over DA:O.  I think the classes and abilities are much more balanced than DA:O, and I enjoy the responsiveness of attack and ability activation, especially in regards to the melee-oriented classes.

To each his own, I guess.