69 réponses à ce sujet

[MerinTB]

MR-9 wrote...

There are more effective ways to increase the difficulty and challenge of the game than intentionally gimping your characters.

The difficulty setting, for example.

For one, if you are addressing me, I didn't say I was trying to increase difficulty. *shrug* I almost always play games on normal difficulty period - with the rare exceptions of games I play multiple, multiple times that are basically what I think of as hack / slash or twitch (FPS) games - and on those I'll up the difficulty on each replay.  But for CRPGs I keep difficulty at normal.

Secondly, this is the MMO or 3.5 D&D mindset that makes me not want to play with others - the "I have to maximize my characters potential or else I lose!"  IMO, "gimping" a character on purpose would be taking a mage and putting all points into strength and giving said mage a bow in DAO - or creating a warrior, putting all points in magic, and letting him charge naked and barehanded.
Deciding to take an option offered for a character (shapeshifting for a mage) that works (I win battles with it just fine) even if there are "better" options (no, I've not taken AW and, while I had been excited to try it awhile back for another playthrough, after listen to so many whiney people scream from rooftops about how uber AW is I don't want to play it anymore just because I've been repeatedly told I'll be insane to NOT choose it and I like living up to people's expectations) is not gimping.

If a bread knife will cut a loaf of bread just fine, I see no need to get a butcher knife, or a katanna, or a chainsaw, to cut the bread just because those implements cut better.  The bread knife will do just fine.

[Ezio Faraglia]

Darth_Pete wrote...

elfwad wrote...

The Demonologist wrote...

I downloaded mods for it, they make it nice and strong. I reccomend Val's Shapeshifting or the Learned Shapeshifting Forms mods.

It's a nice class to mod, and eh on its own.

And where would one find these mods?  I've been searching for hours.

Edit: Someone already posted a direct link to one mod http://www.dragonage.../file.php?id=91

Shame we can't have mods for PS3
I'd have liked to play as a high dragon

[F-C]

well i think you are going to extremes about this myself.

i dont need the perfect min/max to enjoy the game at all. even though many posters will claim that stacking 3 mages is the only way to go because with all the crowd control and aoe damage everything becomes easy mode.

however i would never play that group because it would not be fun to me. i would rather play a group i enjoy, but is still functional.

shapeshifting goes beyond that to the point of having no use whatsoever.

maybe you consider it fun, but i really dont see it myself.

a couple things to note, dagger/dagger is actually better than sword/sword on a rogue.

as far as your cutting bread example, i see using shapeshifting as trying to cut bread with a spoon.
no i dont need a chainsaw, but i sure dont want a spoon either.

Modifié par F-C, 27 novembre 2009 - 05:07 .

[thisisme8]

The Tick would use a spoon. You wouldn't want to argue with the Tick.

[Brunopolis]

If mana potions weren't infinite and allowed you to cast spells forever there would actually be a use to shapeshifting. Personally, I'd make shapeshifting instantaneous and slap a 40 second shared cooldown on all lyrium potions. This way when you run out of mana there's actually an incentive to change into one of your forms.

[Freezingfire]

I have a blast changing shape and attacking things as the different forms!



Wait, are you telling me that with mana potions and spell combos you can do way more damage than shape shifting? Really?



Oh, right, this is a story-based role-playing game and I'm not a min-max munchkin. Almost forgot -

This reply is only allowed in melee vs mages threads. Sorry.

Modifié par Freezingfire, 27 novembre 2009 - 05:51 .

[DaeFaron]

Well, I have my rogue plaything with Morrigan as the mage in the 4 people, I'm custom leveling her to use other spells since she does not use the shapeshifting by default.



Also MerinTB, thanks for showing at least one other person doesn't care to overthink the game's encounters ahead of time, the min-max munchkins and cutting bread with a chainsaw comment made me chuckle.

[PavHG]

Shapeshifter is not bad at all.



I play as AW because I desired it from 1st level and was wondering what it will become. I play on hard and it is really easy on 17th level in combination AW+Miasma, but still I have moments when it gets hot (e.g. high dragons or Revenants in earlier time) and other professions comes handy - like rogue (I have red that it is useless somewhere but I disagree).

[0mar]

Shapeshifting should have involved magical forms, not regular animals. I'd probably have it set as Shade -> Arcane Horror -> Spider Queen -> Dragon, each with very varied skills/spells that are simply not available to any other class/specialization.

[Aapheus]

Let's face it. Shapeshifting for mages has always been pretty much useless. This is nothing new to Dragon Age specifically or Bioware in general. Unless you either (a) maintain spellcasting ability in shifted form or ( can shift into something radically more powerful than your base form, you will always be sacrificing more than you gain. The only reason shapeshift works for druids is because they are otherwise completely useless themselves.



That said, I do think it's a cool ability added to the game. I mostly use it, like others said, when I've run out of mana and don't have any lyrium pots left (guess I'll have to make my way to the tower and buy some of that unlimited lyrium dust). I also think it's fun when fighting spiders to shift both my main char and Morrigan into spiders and have a good ol' fashioned spider fight.



I guess I'm with MerinTB on this. If you're a powergamer (can't have fun unless all your characters are their absolutely most powerful they can be), then no, I don't expect you'll have any fun with this ability. But if you're someone like me, who believes that what makes people in general special is not their talents but their flaws, so that you can enjoy playing characters with flaws, then I think you can enjoy it.

[Sylixe]

I would like to point out to the people that are saying shapeshifting is powerful and useful that the ranager summoned animals are more powerful than the shapeshift forms. That straight off IMO is just wrong and should be the base where to start to fix them. A larger variety of forms would also be more helpful. Moding the game to make the forms super powered is okay but really they should have been better to begin with. The dog is a better option as a choice than a shapeshifter to be honest.



Whoever said Cloud of Flies is so great and you never get hit. I dare you to do that later on in the game when casters are more numerous and they lay a fat AoE down. You won't be so happy being in cloud form then. Not to mention any form since healing will not be an option as they nuke you to pieces.

[thisisme8]

Freezingfire wrote...

I have a blast changing shape and attacking things as the different forms!



Wait, are you telling me that with mana potions and spell combos you can do way more damage than shape shifting? Really?



Oh, right, this is a story-based role-playing game and I'm not a min-max munchkin. Almost forgot -

This reply is only allowed in melee vs mages threads. Sorry.

Why?

[PavHG]

I just look at it, that shapeshifting is option for mage to deal with magic or elements resistant enemy.

You can walk straight to your enemies and use some nasty AE spell + force field on your self and watch them slowly die, or you can change your self to terrible beast and try it with claws and jaws...

[Mavkiel]

PavHG wrote...
or you can change your self to terrible beast and try it with claws and jaws...

and get torn to pieces as you realize you cannot heal, cannot use potions and your shapeshifting form has not scaled with your spellpower?

Really, you would be so much better off keeping an extra staff on you to deal a different elemental damage that its not even funny. This might change if the cast time were faster, or if using potions were possible. I recall one fight it was, just me vs one dwarf. I tried casting different forms about 4 times. Each time he managed to interrupt(via stun usually) my casting before it finished. This was with the highest tier of combat casting. End result is that I died. I immediatly retried the same encounter, and simply killed him with normal staff attacks and downing health potions as needed.

[StupidWiz]

I don't understand, the description says the shapeshifter form's stat will increase with caster's spellpower, why do we need str and dex ? does the skill description "lies"? or is it a bug?

I myself never use Shapeshifter in my playthroughs, but because most of you say it sucks, it's become much more interesting to try 

[Dreogan]

If they unlocked a certain form (which I can't mention here. Spoilers.) I'd be all crazy for it. Except I don't know it would fit into most rooms.

[StupidWiz]

Dreogan wrote...

If they unlocked a certain form (which I can't mention here. Spoilers.) I'd be all crazy for it. Except I don't know it would fit into most rooms.

like some class in NWN 2 right, shapeshifting there was just epic

too bad in DA, you cannot cast spells while shapeshifting, not to mention can't use potions either while your dog can, isn't that a lil bit unfair?

[Elanareon]

They should make sustained abilities to work while shapeshifted.

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

thisisme8 wrote...

The Tick would use a spoon. You wouldn't want to argue with the Tick.

This comment clearly wins any arguement presented in this thread or any other thread. I will remember to shout "Spoon!" next time my characters rush into battle.

Shapeshifting does feel a bit of a letdown for me by the way. A specialization shouldn't be a last resort tactic, at least it kind of comes across as anti-climatic to me to wait till level 7 or 14 only to spend points on fallback abilities which don't get used unless a battle goes badly.