86 réponses à ce sujet

[Saintthanksgiving]

Arcane warrior has to be tweaked somehow.... wearing heavy armor and blasting away with fireballs is kinda ridiculous.... why not just give him a suit of power armor and a magic staff that shoots mini nukes? Has to be balanced out somehow.

[Sainthood85]

I think id rather have the ArcaneWarrior/BloodMage/Battlemage Godmode brought back.

[Dormiglione]

Instead of a mage specialization "shape shifting" i would rather like to have a "Shape Shifter" class. Like you can transform in a Bronto, Werewolve, a Dragon and skill them up. This would be great.

Modifié par Dormiglione, 23 juillet 2011 - 10:09 .

[FieryDove]

Saintthanksgiving wrote...

Arcane warrior has to be tweaked somehow.... wearing heavy armor and blasting away with fireballs is kinda ridiculous.... why not just give him a suit of power armor and a magic staff that shoots mini nukes? Has to be balanced out somehow.

Something would have to change now. in DAO the heavier the armor the more spells/talents cost to use. Fatigue or somesuch it had. Now...I have no idea.

Filament wrote...

Of course, gorillas. Hm... I suppose it could either replace wolf, or simply be added to the beasts. Of course, brontos could be considered too.

I was thinking, each branch of Shapeshifter would have two activated ability upgrades associated with it. Beasts could have Roar (stun) and Rage (like Berserk). Vermin could have Coccoon and Desiccate. Myths could have Wing Buffet (did I say Drake? I meant Adult Dragon, the bear-sized kind) and Aerial Drop (grab, fly, drop back down ).

Oh, pipe dreams...

Gorillas would be great! Plus you could make The Ethereal Writer Redux so happy.

I like the ability's idea. Need overwhelm back again. Was awesome.

Hmmm...maybe gorilla's could get the DAO ogre grab and pound ability? And throw banana peel! (Grease like ability) Yes?

[Icy Magebane]

Saintthanksgiving wrote...

Arcane warrior has to be tweaked somehow.... wearing heavy armor and blasting away with fireballs is kinda ridiculous.... why not just give him a suit of power armor and a magic staff that shoots mini nukes? Has to be balanced out somehow.

Actually, no, let's leave it like it was before.  If you don't like it, you can always sabotage your build and nerf yourself rather than demanding nerfs to everybody else's game.  How does that sound?  Not that I expect Arcane Warrior to return in it's full glory, but still... not everybody thinks playing as a wimp is fun.

But more on topic, shapeshifting should make a comeback.  It's a cool idea in theory, although I never really used it myself.  Magic was so versitile that transforming into a bear and being unable to cast any spells just never seemed like a good idea to me.

Modifié par Icy Magebane, 23 juillet 2011 - 11:26 .

[Peter Thomas]

Luke Barrett wrote...

I think with skills like this is becomes a very delicate balancing act between being useless and way too strong. Also, after feedback that suggested 6 was way too many specializations and it would be better if we had less specs with more depth; we therefore pulled the number back to 3 with room to grow a little if the need arose - with that in mind it becomes a case of whether Shapeshifter is warranted over some other essential specs. I think if we said we're adding one more of the old specs to the mage class and made a poll, Shapeshifter would not be on top

...but yes I agree that it would be cool

Ok... those weren't the actual reasons Shapeshifter was cut or really the reason for the number of specializations.


1) The shapes weren't very impressive, visually. They were pretty much like the stuff you fought throughout the game which ends up being kind of meh by the end. I'm a super powerful mage who can change forms and I choose... a spider? Not even a giant spider, just a moderately sized one. The shapes should have been much more impressive. Turn yourself into an inferno golem or a dragon or something, but that leads to other issues. (Inferno Golem was the one I was rooting for)

2) Shapes take up too much memory. To be able to swap the character out and load another in his place (without a stutter from disc access), you need to have the model, its animations and its textures all in memory all the time. Shapes that are very impressive, or have lots of other abilities and animtions take up more memory, which then can't be used for anything else. There is a constant fight for memory all the time on every game we make. If there is a class that takes up an extra couple MB of memory on the chance that maybe 20% of players take it, it's low hanging fruit.

3) Impressive shapes are too big. It would be awesome to turn into a dragon, but then you couldn't fit through any of the doors. Levels need to be constructed with the various sizes in mind right from the start, otherwise problems will occur. DA2 did not, so there would be a bunch of issues if we had creatures too big. You trigger a fight where you need to kill someone in another room. Everyone else is fine, but the dragon just can't seem to make it. It's realistic, but not that fun. And it would need to deactive itself when combat ends or add huge amounts of complexity to other areas. "Why don't Templars recognize my mage" becomes a lot worse when you're 20 feet tall and dripping lava.

4) Shape abilities weren't distinct enough. I'm a mage, so my specialty is generally long range damage and support. I take Shapeshifter and turn into... a bear. That gives me some Health, maybe some armor, and I can run up to people and hit them. Which is basically what a Warrior does. Except without all the Warrior abilities. Or Warrior equipment. And I can't use any of my own class abilities. Any shape that a new Shapeshifter class would be able to turn into should specialize or expand Mage gameplay, not turn it into a sucky version of another class. New, epic, shapes should be used, but they run into the problems above.


If shapeshifting is going to be used, it needs to be consciously included right from the start of design. People may assume that it was easy since it was present in DAO, but they don't really know any of the sacrifices that had to be made to make that happen. It is not a trivial thing to add for all our platforms.

Modifié par Peter Thomas, 24 juillet 2011 - 01:34 .

[Peter Thomas]

Torax wrote...

I figure development just went to a more simple focus design.

Warrior = Damage or Tank (Melee Exclusive)
Rogue = Damage (Melee & Ranged)
Mage = Damage or Healer (Ranged Exclusive)

Even though they did some cool melee animations here and there. I like how the ranger pulls out a dagger for his free hand if someone gets in close.

Warrior = Melee AoE
Rogue = Melee or Ranged Single Target
Mage = Ranged AoE

This gives each class a distinct form of engagement and method of dealing with enemies. Warriors need to close with as many as possible. Mages need to stay away and cluster targets as much as possible. Rogues have flexibility in that they can choose range of engagement. Though they do more damage, since it's all concentrated on a single target, they need to be more concerned about positioning and placement on the battlefield, as well as target priority.

[FieryDove]

Peter Thomas wrote...

If shapeshifting is going to be used, it needs to be consciously included right from the start of design. People may assume that it was easy since it was present in DAO, but they don't really know any of the sacrifices that had to be made to make that happen. It is not a trivial thing to add for all our platforms.

Now I feel like when I came home from the dentist...again. sigh

Peter Thomas wrote...

Warrior = Melee AoE
Rogue = Melee or Ranged Single Target
Mage = Ranged AoE

This gives each class a distinct form of engagement and method of dealing with enemies.

This seems much too...limiting/constricting.

Of course I was a fan of dw/archer warriors, off-tanking mages and rogues with sword/axe/mace/dagger so I might be *slightly* biased.

[Brockololly]

Filament wrote...

Peter Thomas wrote...
1) The shapes weren't very impressive, visually. They were pretty much like the stuff you fought throughout the game which ends up being kind of meh by the end. I'm a super powerful mage who can change forms and I choose... a spider? Not even a giant spider, just a moderately sized one. The shapes should have been much more impressive. Turn yourself into an inferno golem or a dragon or something, but that leads to other issues. (Inferno Golem was the one I was rooting for)

I disagree with that, bear-sized shapes are well and impressive enough. I could accept in DAO that a dog was competent enough in battle to justify a party slot, I can just as well accept that a shifted creature can be competent without being epically enormous, as long as it actually is competent. Adult dragon? Shale-like golem? Yes please... (though I don't think golems would really fit with shifting lore, Shale, Inferno or otherwise)

Yep- Shapeshifter in DAO had issues but that was in implementation not necessarily the shapes ( I thought). I don't see it as being an issue of scale really either- just providing distinct shapes to change into to fit a role, not necessarily needing be some instant win Power Rangers Zord moment of transformation.

Shapeshifter would have been cool too if it could have been utilized in more non combat ways too- like having Morrigan turn into a wolf/crow or something to maybe do stealthy stuff. Or turn into a bear to break down a door instead of having to find a key or something.

But yeah, shapeshifting into a golem wouldn't make much sense...

Filament wrote...

2) Shapes take up too much memory. To be able to swap the character out and load another in his place (without a stutter from disc access), you need to have the model, its animations and its textures all in memory all the time. Shapes that are very impressive, or have lots of other abilities and animtions take up more memory, which then can't be used for anything else. There is a constant fight for memory all the time on every game we make. If there is a class that takes up an extra couple MB of memory on the chance that maybe 20% of players take it, it's low hanging fruit.

Meh.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Designing Multiplatform Games for 6 Year Old Consoles limited to 512MB of memory!

Its a major reason this generation of consoles needs to die ASAP, since new hardware wouldn't bring just nicer graphics, but would (hopefully) allow more freedom for developers in terms of memory for other things.

Filament wrote...
If shapeshifter needs to be a specialization rather than its own class entirely, maybe mages should be able to cast while shapeshifted. And I think the problem with the "suckiness" was the implementation, not the concept.

Indeed, like so much else with DA as of late. Getting rid of choice and options is almost never a good thing in a game.

---

FieryDove wrote...

Peter Thomas wrote...

Warrior = Melee AoE
Rogue = Melee or Ranged Single Target
Mage = Ranged AoE

This gives each class a distinct form of engagement and method of dealing with enemies.

This seems much too...limiting/constricting.

Yup.

Much more than DAO, it also forces you (or at least I found) to take companions based more on specialization or role than on giving a damn about them and wanting to take them because you like them. Whereas in Origins, you had more flexibility in spec'ing your companions to fill different roles- like being able to bring a mage that could tank as an Arcane warrior if need be.

I don't see why you couldn't have certain specializations, like say shapeshifter, that could act as bridges between classes. Almost kind of making your own unique class, like a mage that focuses on melee.

Modifié par Brockololly, 24 juillet 2011 - 04:32 .

[Taura-Tierno]

I've never really felt that shapechanging is all that great in CRPG's (not in DA:O, or in games like Baldur's Gate 2). They're cool in theory, but I've always considered them much more fitting for ordinary pen&paper-rpgs, where they can provide a whole lot of fun role-playing opportunities out of combat.