58 réponses à ce sujet

[naledgeborn]

Hey I'm Hawke. I've been busting my ass at level 22 trying to get this uber cool armor set. Finally I got it. It looks ****ing cool!! And it's effectiveness is at 60%. Things couldn't be better.

2 levels later...

Hey I'm Hawke. I just busted my ass trying to get this uber cools armor set. I'm at level 24 and it sucks balls. I can't believe I spent all that time tryin to get this piece of junk. It's effectiveness is only at 21%. I might as well go into battle naked. At least I'd feel more comfortable.



Please fix this for Dragon Age 3 Bio Ware. Or I swear you'll make me spend my money on a disc I'll probably end up breaking in half. 

[Nerdage]

True that. Messes with primary attributes too. I get my rogue attack-capped, level up a bit more - putting points into cunning - suddenly I'm not attacked-capped; I'm a worse fighter for being a higher level even though my dexterity hasn't changed.

Been replaying BG recently, it's a so much nicer system; primary attributes have a set and defined value, an item that's powerful now will always be as powerful, the game just lets me progress instead of trying to negate my progress by nerfing things from underneath me.

Seems like the player would progress way too quickly in DA if things didn't diminish with level, but that's a problem that should be solved, not just worked around and left to fester.

[Arthur Cousland]

Just ignore the star rating next to your armor. It isn't degrading or anything.

I'm not even sure what the point is with the star ratings. If I'm happy with what my characters are wearing, then I'll have them keep it on, no matter what the rating on the armor is. The armor total and the stats on the item don't go down, so why change to something else just because of how many stars it has?

Yes, with your attack/evasion totals, you do have to keep pouring points into your class' attack stat.  That part is annoying in that you are pretty much forced to focus on two or three attributes.

Modifié par Arthur Cousland, 08 octobre 2011 - 04:20 .

[naledgeborn]

@ Arthur Cousland

I'm not looking at the "stars" thats for the newbish player who's never touched an RPG before. I'm talking about armor, defense, attack rating/percentage on the character attribute screen. That's where your equipment stats really are. So I got Hawke rocking the Mantle set and his armor rating is going to be constant 736. However every time there's a level up the effectiveness of that 736 diminishes considerably. So at level 22 I was packing maybe a 50-60% armor rating. At level 25 it's down to 20 something percent. That's a terrible scaling system. Hawke should just call it quits and charge into battle in his underwear. At least he'll probably get to romance Aveline that way.

Modifié par naledgeborn, 08 octobre 2011 - 04:25 .

[Arthur Cousland]

I see what you mean.

Yes, that is annoying, and it's not something that I pay too much attention to as there's not a whole lot that I can do about it. With the attack total, I just put points into that to keep it at 100%, but with the armor rating and etc., there isn't much that can be done. Despite what the stat screen says, my armor is just as effective as it was 2-3 levels before. However, I do dislike that the game is trying to tell me that my gear is crap, despite my party not having too much trouble in combat.

This just seems like a feature that was thrown in, but not implemented well.

[naledgeborn]

Yep it sucks. Shrugging off damage is the point of armor. If the best armor in the game is only shrugging off 1% of Boss damage then what's the point in having it? It's probably the stupidest thing in this game. I think they should just patch Hawke with some passive stat boosts to make up for the stupidity. I mean stats start to matter on "hard". Imagine the sucker who's soloing on Nightmare?

BioWare is assuming that a sizable chunk of the players are like Ms. Helper and want a "skip gameplay" button (no offense by the way). I never even played this on casual because it'd probably get boring quickly. It's all about pacing and balance here. Gameplay is unbalanced on all difficulties.

[mr_afk]

If you are finding it hard on any difficulty (including nightmare) you are probably missing something somewhere. Since the patch the game has been unbalanced towards been too easy.
While armour can be nice it's largely unnecessary if you are doing adequate threat management, crowd control and prioritising targets.


Anyway, The general idea behind it isn't that hawke becomes weaker as he/she levels, but rather the enemies are also becoming more powerful. This means that their attacks have greater armour penetration and that they are better at dodging attacks (defence).
This provides the need for hawke to continue to upgrade equipment and improve attack-ratings.

If you look at the actual base armour and base attack from which the percentages are calculated, they don't actually change as you level up.

This system isn't new and unique to DA2. The only difference is that they gave us some of the derived stats to look at. I mean, it's a fairly simple concept- a later game enemy will scale with hawke such that the game doesn't become too much of a walk-over. This more powerful enemy does more damage such that the same equipment will lose effectiveness.


I think the main problem is that they made unique items ridiculously powerful compared to generic items (such that generic items are next to useless). This means that there are huge jumps in your effectiveness whenever you get new higher levelled stuff which slowly reduces over time (unless they are improve with levelup).
So late game where there are no longer any unique items you just suffer having relatively low levelled equipment relative to the enemy levels.

Not exactly sure the best way to fix this issue. They could implement a system of upgradable armour (outside runes) allowing a more gradual increase in effectiveness. Or maybe just incorporate a system where generic gear isn't quite as useless.

[naledgeborn]

mr_afk wrote...

I think the main problem is that they made unique items ridiculously powerful compared to generic items (such that generic items are next to useless). This means that there are huge jumps in your effectiveness whenever you get new higher levelled stuff which slowly reduces over time (unless they are improve with levelup).
So late game where there are no longer any unique items you just suffer having relatively low levelled equipment relative to the enemy levels.

Not exactly sure the best way to fix this issue. They could implement a system of upgradable armour (outside runes) allowing a more gradual increase in effectiveness. Or maybe just incorporate a system where generic gear isn't quite as useless.

I agree with everything you said however what I quoted is my main concern. Unique loot becomes worthless post-level 25. So if I go in a crate at 27 and find a a generic "Superior Mage Robes" and it's armor rating is higher than say the Mantle Robe it pisses me off. 

While the Free Marches "levels-up" with Hawke his gear is only effective against mobs from 5 levels prior. It's just annoying.

Modifié par naledgeborn, 08 octobre 2011 - 06:13 .

[Arthur Cousland]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been armor with the auto level effect like the item pack weapons.

My lv 13 (atm) mage looks nice in his Robes of the Pretender, and I wouldn't mind wearing that a bit longer, if it had some kind of auto level effect on it.

Modifié par Arthur Cousland, 10 octobre 2011 - 02:47 .

[Xilizhra]

Maybe you want to look into some of the item mods? They've got level-scaling armor there.

[BubbleDncr]

I'm slightly on the noobish side of rpgs (DAO was the first I played), and while I recognize that the stars next to armor don't always reflect how good something actually is, I would like them to get rid of those stars for DA3. Mostly cos I'm slightly OCD and it annoys the crap out of me not to have 5 stars next to all my equipment.

I prefer how it was in Origins, where weapons and armor had a set Tier that it was at that never changed. You got a Tier 7 weapon, you always knew it was gonna be good. No fear in putting awesome runes on it (not that it mattered cos you could remove and reuse runes..I miss that too). I was always too scared to put Sandal's Special Rune on anything in DA2 because I knew my current equipment would suck in 2 levels.

[San Diego Thief]

I agree...level scaling sucks....the monsters and enemies you encounter should determine the difficulty..if you encounter an enemy that is too strong in the beginning, you should be able to sneak by it with a distraction, run away, or talk your way out of the encounter...

[Chun Hei]

I would like an option similar to DAO where I get a suit of armor I like the looks of and as I increase in level the stores begin selling superior versions of the armor. There were even times where I would sell a specialized steel armor set to a shop and buy the same armor later but now it is dragonbone.

Also: The star system does indeed suck. Seriously suck. I find a more accurate way to rate items is to take them to a merchant and see how much he is willing to pay for it. But that does not work with DLC items.

Modifié par Chun Hei, 10 octobre 2011 - 09:09 .

[naledgeborn]

Xilizhra wrote...

Maybe you want to look into some of the item mods? They've got level-scaling armor there.

I'm on 360. Thing is I know how to mod for it but Horizon and First Blight can really break a save file (too unreliable) whether it's little things like changing NPC approval or big things like inadverdently giving my PC + 30 Constitution. It really is an "at your own risk" process. Luckily I was able to mod my Parthalan Staff to "improve w/lvl up" without any side effects. But I'm not going through all that hassel again just to end up corrupting my save file or giving Hawke + 80 to all attributes.

The fact that I need to do this kind of stuff is proof enough that the scaling system in DA2 sucks.

Modifié par naledgeborn, 10 octobre 2011 - 10:45 .

[naledgeborn]

San Diego Thief wrote...

I agree...level scaling sucks....the monsters and enemies you encounter should determine the difficulty..if you encounter an enemy that is too strong in the beginning, you should be able to sneak by it with a distraction, run away, or talk your way out of the encounter...

Yes. Last time I played something like that (that I can remember off the top of my head) was Morrowind. You could go do the main quest at level 3 and keep dying. You could become a vampire and have an easier time at grinding at the expense of dying during the day time. You could boost you mercantile/speechcraft so that you can buy training to level up. Or you can go build a reputation for yourself doing sidequests whilst grinding. Or you could just look for skill books and talk to NPCs. 

The good old days. I feel like an old person.

[SkittlesKat96]

The Dragon Age games have always had these irritating combat/equipment problems...it seems that for all the ones they fixed from DAO they were replaced with others in DA 2

They should look at a game like BG for inspiration on this I think

[Reno_Tarshil]

If you play on PC there is a wonderful mod that supplies you with Runes of Evolving, which solve the whole Level issue.

[Reno_Tarshil]

the item packs take care of he random loot problem, most of the stuff I loot goes into the nearest vendor.

[mredders91]

would have made much more sence if they kept the hard lv to 25 instead of 50 then scaling wouldnt be a promble

[LexXxich]

There's also a point that player character doesn't feel stronger with each level-up. You end up actually dreading it, as you become less effective against monsters until you kill them and take the loot appropriate to your new level. Awesome artifacts you spent a fortune on in Act 1 become useless trinkets in Act 2.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I told Laidlaw those stars, as implemented, would only confuse people. He said he "couldn't understand" my position.

The problem the OP is describing, though, is that the stats listed on the character sheet are a measure of how effective the equipment will be against same-level opponents. Every time Hawke gains a level, the scale moves, so armour that is exactly the same is now shown as less effective because it's not being measured the same way.

This also appears to be confusing a lot of people.  Again, this problem could have been avoided through the publication of detailed combat mechanics.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 11 octobre 2011 - 04:57 .

[ScotGaymer]

I find myself agreeing with Sylvius.

They changed it cos they reckoned that the bombardment of information in DAO confused players which was true to a degree.
A lot of the information was presented in wall-o-text style and many folks dont like reading like that.

Unfortunately in typical Bioware style instead of improving it by communicating the needed information in a concise manner they took it completely out and replaced it with something that makes even less sense than the wall-o-text presentation.

It sucks.

[blaidfiste]

Lol, I just checked this, lvl 28 2h warrior in champ gear has the lowest armor rating of all available companions! In DAO, I could sell some outleveled uniques and buy them back upgraded. Hopefully this feature can make a comeback.

[Gileadan]

It's a game mechanic usually found in MMOs like World of Warcraft to keep the players grinding for gear and to make sure that even the highest quality items automatically turn into crap as soon as the next expansion raises the level-cap and the characters level up to the new maximum. At first glance, the higher ratings on new items you find create the illusion that you improved your character but all you really accomplish is maintaining the status quo (give or take a few percent).

That's just one of several combat mechanics that seem to have been borrowed from a popular MMO - the other obvious one being cross-class combos.