I like this thread, hope someone at Bioware reads it and gets some ideas for DLC or DA3. Here is my own personal wish list, roughly sorted by priority.
1. A more open world for the next game is a must have. I don’t care if the world consists only of one city or of several places, but travelling from one city quarter to another using a map is kinda lame. The environments should not consist of tunnel like levels, if I see a place in the distance I should be able to go there by a path I chose. When enemies are around, they should not appear out of thin air but should be seen from quite some distance.
2. A living world, meaning there should be day and night cycles, weather and if the game runs long enough seasons; animals running around, birds and so on. This is also about in logic, in Kirkwall nobody can live, because there is no space to live, no possibilities for shopping, working or spare time activities. Therefore the city fails and is not accepted by players. Just one example: A city this huge needs a lot of grain, but there are no farms outside producing grain and there is no trade delivering grain. So what is everybody eating? Certainly not fish or game cause there aren’t any fisher boats or hunters either.
3. An intelligent world, meaning the world reacts to my actions and I am able to react to the world. What I mean has once again a lot to do with logic like NPCs should not stand around and do nothing when I fight hordes of bandits, they should run away, call the guards… Doing magic in front of Templers should be punished or at least provoke a reaction like “one day you won’t be protected by friends” and certainly not dialogues like “mages are not like you and me, mages are no normal people”… In turn I should be able to react to things like warning female friends about a murder on the loose, do some investigation regarding white flowers…
4. Better usage of the physx engine. This is part of the living world issue, but from a different angle. During the game you do some pretty destructive things like casting fireballs inside a building, but nothing ever gets scorched or destroyed. The game should at least take some notice to this and perhaps even punish utterly silly things like casting lightning in a river. You could also exploit this in a positive way, think of casting telekinetic burst on some rubble on the floor, should give a nice missile barrage.
5. More party interaction, basically I want to talk to my party members when I want and not once every year at their home. Bring back well written characters like Leliana or Morrigan, their dialogue options were awesome! And while I’m at it, bring back the old way romances were done, not everyone jumping at you at once. It would also be nice if I could discuss the current situation in the game with my party members, especially if something new happens, something like “Varric, what do you think about this scary elf?”.
6. A more grown up feeling of the game. Some things are handled badly like the love scenes. If you include such things in a game do it in a grown up way! This is also true for a lot of the combat animations, a dark fantasy setting certainly don’t need anime style combat, like Meredith jumping in the air, backflips in full plate armor, warriors rushing at lightspeed over the battlefield, enemies exploding from a backstab and so on.
7. A better start into the game, Hawke can have his own origin story back in Lothering and it would be nice to get to know the family, before it is killed. That would also have been a very nice tie in to DAO, participating in the battle of Lothering and before that to interact with some NPCs or even the Warden.
8. Quests that don’t involve killing things and doing FedEx. The murder hunt could have been a marvelous quest in DA2 if the focus would have been on story and investigating not on running around killing demons. A major dislike for me was finding things and using my magical Hawke powers knowing who has lost which item and where to find this person in a city as large as Kirkwall. If you feel the need to give away XPs for such quests do it at least via the chanters board and give the quest some back-story.
9. A better use of the framed narrative including cut scenes. I like the way the story was told, but it would have been much better with some cut scenes showing what’s happening elsewhere in the world. Cassandra would have been perfect to bring a new perspective to Varrics tale by providing insight how Hawkes actions were seen e.g. in Orlais. A single scene showing how the Devine discusses things with Leliana would have made the game so much more epic.
10. The story needs some real choices from simple things like choosing between two quests to siding with certain parties that open up totally different ways of experiencing the game. Choices should also be morally ambiguous with no “good” solution at all. The best example I can give you for this is the quest “Of Monsters and Men” in the first witcher game. Sorry for bringing up the comparison… Of course your choices should influence the game later on and should be made aware of what your actions caused.
11. I’d like the character system to be reworked and opened up. For me the key is not limiting the classes to certain weapons like sword and shield. Basically everybody should be able to use any equipment if the stats are met. But you should be only good at it with the proper training and the training in turn should be based on your specializations while choosing the first specialization at the start of the game (think of it as a prestige class). That way Aveline fights with sword and shield because she was trained as, let’s say, an Orlesian Chevalier and not because she can’t equip anything else. If you want to, give her a bow, but without training she will not do much damage with it. These things in turn could be linked to an origin story of the character like Hawke being trained as a force mage because his father was a force mage.
12. Regarding specializations the way you get them really needs to be reworked. How do you learn something new in DA2? You click on the skill tree spending a specialization point. Boy, that is really lame and has nothing to do with a RPG or even the lore. How can I learn to become a Reaver or a Spirit Healer? That is special condition based on drinking dragon blood or hosting a being from the fade in your body!
13. I’d also like to see a rework of the abilities, as stated above some are ridiculous and not very grown up, like a warrior throwing back enemies by sticking his sword into the earth or teleporting rogues. All abilities should be fitting to the class, meaning only a mage does magic. So warriors should gain abilities like attacking multiple targets at once, better defense, better offense, using secondary weapons and so on. Rogues should focus on dirty fighting, attacking from the shadows, using poison and grenades. Mages should concentrate on spells but have a melee tree available. Once again it depends on the players choice and the training of the character if you have to stick to the background or fight face to face.
14. I don’t like the dependencies between most of the abilities as there is no logic behind it. Basically they just take care of you not learning the better abilities too early in the game. I’d like to see this replaced a system where I can choose the abilities more freely but where I am restricted by base attribute points and mana / stamina.
15. I’d also like to use perks shaping the abilities in the direction best suited to my play style. Let’s say I choose a spell “magic missle” for my mage Hawke, than I could apply perks that either enhance single target damage (3 missiles on one target) or add an area of effect (3 missiles on 3 targets) or add other effects like stunning (more force) or setting up CCC (staggering the enemy). These perks should be mutually exclusive. Using this system the Cone of Cold could actually be a perk for Cold Blast creating an AoE spell while something like a Blizzard could be a totally independent spell.
16. One of the best things of the DA2 combat system are the cross class combos, I definitely like to see more of those. But I’d also like the spell combos to return. These should be available as a separate skill tree that is filled by learning the basic abilities like a fire spell and a grease spell. My guess is that many spells have the potential to create combos or completely new spells. Let’s say we combine a flame blast with a spirit bolt creating something really powerful like the balefire from the Wheel of Time. For balancing the balefire spell should require the base spells, set the base spells on cooldown and consume at least as much mana as both spells, perhaps even more. In turn I want the spell to incinerate a lieutenant and really hurt a boss.
17. That gets me to the point where I want mages treated differently regarding the damage they are able to do. Throughout the games we are constantly warned of the damage potential of mages comparing them to kittens able to nuke a city block. Unfortunately we don’t feel this in the game. I like the concept and I like to see it reflected in abilities that really hurt and kill outright. A mage entering the battlefield should mean instant carnage and not simple darkspawn smiling at a fireball continuing to fight as if nothing had happened. I’m ok with casting only a few spells in combat if they really hurt and explain why everybody fears mages. This way it would also make sense for the mages to learn melee fighting abilities cause the mana pool is only good for a few powerful spells and then it’s basic spells and defending your hide like everybody else. For a better balancing you could think of situations effectively shutting down mages, like casting lightning while standing in water will fry your party or casting a firestorm inside a building will get everybody killed.
18. Last but not least I’d like some talents based on class that can be used outside of combat. These could simple tricks for mages like lighting a dark cavern, eavesdropping, healing or opening locks. For rogues things like pick pocketing, creating poisons and grenades or for warriors repairing broken gears. Things like lore, alchemy or social skills like bartering or diplomacy would also be appreciated. Of course you could think of sinister things like compulsion for mages.
Pretty long list...
Modifié par Jones7602, 17 juin 2011 - 11:53 .
Retour en haut
Reduce the number of dragons! 
). I've never thought the PC should be able to tell the party how to dress. And yet, there's something to be said for upgrading them through loot as well.
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