75 réponses à ce sujet

[Silensfurtim]

i doubt Bioware will make changes. too many issue to address regarding balancing.



if DAO is PC only, it might happen. but since this is multiplatform, its gonna be impossible.

[Xaltar81]

WALL OF TEXT OOOOH MY EYES.....



I found the simplicity of the game a welcome change from other more convoluted RPG rulesets. It allowed me to focus more on the RP and less on strategy and technicalities. There is still enough room for micro managing if the urge takes you but you don't have to if you don't want to.

[Andulias]

Mate, this is a FORUM, not the official Committee of the Community for Suggestions on How to Improve the Quality of BioWare's Games More Specifically Dragon Age: Origins ( or CCSHIQBGMSDAO). This is a forum, loosen up. Your post is long, that's fine, hell, am I to critisize for that. However, half of it is absolutely unnecessary. We know what strength and dex do and if we didn't, we'd read the manual or, well, mouse over the damn attribute. It's just that all of these useless explanations make your post way too long, don't forget that people don't have a big attention-spam in the net. As for your suggestions - no offence, but most, if not all, are, well... out of place.

First, the game doesn't blend the RPG with the RTS genre, DAO is the RPG-est RPG this side of NWN 2, having an isometric camera does not make one game an RTS, it's a 100% RPG.

Second, yes, most chars need 2-3 attributes and that's just fine. Changing that will result in terrible balancing issues. And there's the thing called char specialization, with the attributes being part of it. Your suggetions, however, practically eliminate that. And it's not true that all builds need just 2 attributes - the Arcane Warrior for example needs strength, dex, willpower, magic and constitution altogether.

Third, the skills - one big NO. So what, I am a mage and don't want to invest that much in cunning, so there is NO WAY to be a diplomatic type? The Coercion is a very important skill and, yes, it is not used in combat, missed the part where that is bad though. DAO's RPG system is heavily influenced by DnD and 80% of DnD's skills aren't used in combat. Intelligence for crafting - did you consider how much it will mess up the warrior and rogue classes and how much it will op the mage even further? The level reqs are needed in order not to get too powerful too soon. depending on attributes just overpowers a certain class.

Fifth, talents - yes, there are a lot of balance issues, though what you are suggesting will just bring up more. Many more. Rogues and Warriors are quite unique and don't resemble each other. Next, the reqs - did you consider what would happen if a mage invests all of his attribute points in magic and gets the most powerful spells before dinging lvl 10? o.O Next, that thing with the bash isn't that bad, but again, unnecessary. I don't really see a problem here that needs addressing and reworking completely 2 skill trees. Next, running archers is just a nightmare. Seriously. Yes, the archers are weak, but that's because only 2 skills are of any use in the whole f*ing tree and that needs work. You don't want to get attacked? Well, use a tank. Next - DO NOT touch the mana! We got infinite mana with all the potions as it is, the mage class is too OP even now! Next -the resistance system is there, it could do some re-working, but it works fine IMO.

At last - qunari are an underdeveloped race, it's understandable that they don't get bonuses and it's not like those bonuses matter at all. And are you certain that they don't recieve anything? How did you find out, is there a way? Anyways, choosing a race isn't that much about stats, its about role-playing.

And finally - the combat doesn't need work. The RPG system does and everything you mentioned is tied directly to it.

All in all, no hard feelings, mate, I know I maybe sound a bit rough and don't get me wrong I got nothing against you. However I really don't see why BioWare should completely re-work the WHOLE RPG system, it's just silly. There are some balancing issues, but that doesn't mean the whole system is for the trash can.

MachDelta wrote...

Lovely article.
Terrible suggestions.

BioWare is not going to rewrite half of the games mechanics because their first attempt wasn't perfect. Just won't happen.

All one can hope for is that they take some of those thoughts to heart when designing DA2.

Yep, took the words out of my mouth. Peace!:innocent:

Modifié par Andulias, 04 décembre 2009 - 11:12 .

[Jordi B]

I read the whole thing. I can't really comment much on the attributes, because I think it's hard to see what was changed exactly and even harder to envision what kind of impact it would have on the game. Mages obviously need more mana than warriors need stamina, but since there is only one other useful attribute for a mage, it's much easier for them to spend points in willpower, so I don't think the magic attribute needs to give mana. I think there is actually not a lot I would change about the attributes if I could. The only real problem I see is that mages don't have to spread out their attributes as much, which puts them at an advantage. Maybe this could be fixed by making the other attributes more useful to them, but perhaps it can also be "fixed" by making the other attributes relatively stronger (i.e. 60 magic would have about the same added utility as 40 strength). The first is preferable, because it allows for a more customized mage, but I think the latter is much easier to implement.

As for skills: I agree that lockpicking should be one, and it should be rogue only. The same probably goes for trap making and stealing (rogue is practically a synonym of thief). Poison making seems like something both rogues and mages would do. I think stealth is almost completely combat related and should thus be a talent (contrary to what was said in the OP, I think skills are mainly out-of-combat things). For consistency, combat training should probably be a talent though. I think the number of useful skills is a little disappointing, so maybe something can be done about that, but I have no ideas right now.
I have no problem with coercion. It's not like there are many other skills that I would want to invest in. It makes sense to me that some people would be better at 'talking' than others, so I don't think dialog should only depend on attributes and other skills. Getting more dialog options based on attributes and skills would be interesting though.
The idea of giving the main character an influence boost depending on his influence on his party is interesting, although I don't really think the main character needs a lot of help getting more powerful relative to his companions. Qunari should get a racial bonus though. Also, I think if dwarves get magic resistance, they should get less attribute bonuses than the other races.

I'm not really as baffled as the OP by the fact that Combat Tactics is a skill. I think the idea is that being a strategic mastermind takes training/experience and I think it is very interesting. It makes sense to me that an unexperienced idiot would probably only be able to do some basic stuff (like auto-attack) unless told otherwise (by direct control). However, I think that in order for it to work nicely, there would need to be better basic AI present. It makes sense to me that I need to invest in being able to have good tactical judgment. But basic judgment should be present in everybody. I think the current Tactics system is severely lacking in power, so my suggestion would be to give everybody lots of slots for this system, but to keep the CT skill and have it grant you the possibility to do something really smart for each point (for instance, you could be allowed to pick a talent and write a complete situational description of when to use it).

Talents: I think mages are awesome in this game and they don't require any changes, except maybe for a couple of tweaks to some spells. Specifically, enemies should not continue attacking a force field, mana clash should be nerfed (no fun in one-shotting some of the otherwise most powerful enemies), and cone of cold needs a longer cooldown and probably more resists. Other than that, I don't think mages should be nerfed, I think warriors and rogues should be made better (although this likely has implications for game balance). One way to do this might be to limit the weapon schools. Instead of three lines, you would just have one that would make you better with that weapon. All the special talents should then be rearranged and made weapon independent (make a defense line, armor line, stun line, dps line, etc). I'm afraid not much can be done about ranged, except that I think it shouldn't take any time to 'aim' a talent. I would prefer that when you activate a talent, the next arrow you fire (continuing with the normal fire rate) will be using it.

I don't really think this game needs a lot of work, or that any of the above things will ever be included, but it's fun to think about possible improvements.

Faerell Gustani wrote...

I had been thinking about design principles as well.  Yes this is a "mages are OP" post, but I've been getting the impression tha they're OP because they're overly versatile and with the expenditure of mana/stam they're more effective than Warriors at tanking and Rogues at damaging things.  And they're natually good at CC.
This is because a mage has the abiltiy to cherry pick their spells with no thought to equipment.  Sure, if a fighter could cherry pick stunning blows, pommel strike, shield bash, and all of the CC abilties and then use them regardless of weapon load out then they'd be pretty awesome too right?  Totally!

So why not tie down the Mage's spells to weapon selection.  We've all heard the complaints that mage equipment is severely lacking in versatility.  So...what are some wizardly weapons and implements?  We already have Staffs.
Wands, Orbs, Spellbook.

Hey, that's 4 weapon loadouts.  So...how about this:
Staff must be equipped to cast Primal
Wand must be equipped to cast Entropy
Orb must be equipped to cast Spirit
Spellbook must be equipped to cast Creation

With quickswapping weapon sets, it allows you to switch between 2 sets of spell categories, so you still have a great deal of versatility.  However, like Warriors and Rogues, when you de-equip a prerequisite weapon, you disable passive abilities linked to that weapon and you have to wait for the cooldown.

Using pausing and manual weapon change, you can in theory still achieve the cherrypicking of spells but at the cost of disabling your Sustained abilities constantly.

Specializations may need to be changed slighly, specifically Arcane Warrior.  It should probably allow you to hold a spellcasting implement in your off hand if you have a melee weapon in your main hand.  This also drastically brings down the power of the vaunted AW/BM combo as you can only have a certain set of sustained abilities active now.

Thoughts?

I think you're going in the completely wrong direction with this. I agree with your initial observation that it is the versatility that makes mages so awesome. For me, the most logical "solution" would be to make warriors and rogues more awesomer by making them more versatile and not to make mages less versatile.

[phordicus]

tactics need to be a given. the AI isn't the typical dretch usually seen in most games, but even then it's still too limited. for one, you should automatically get a tactic slot for every non-passive skill the character has, if for nothing else to make sure it gets used/switched-on. otherwise, you're being forced to micromanage something that the character should intuitively be doing (smart enough to learn the skill but too stupid to ever use it unless directly controlled???)

[Basher of Glory]

Andulias wrote...

- the Arcane Warrior for example needs strength, dex, willpower, magic and constitution altogether.

Would you kindly explain, why a AW needs strength?

Thanks in advance!

[Zenon]

There are some points in the OP, that I could agree on. I was a bit surprised to have a character attribute/stat called Magic. There may be some reasons for it like making DA:O a bit unique and different from D&D ruleset. Of course D&D system was evolved during a long process of many years. And if you ask me, RoleMaster was the best in terms of realistic approach. Alas, RM was very bulky and even for a Pen&Paper player favouring a complex game system close to overkill. In fact the Gamemaster was encouraged only to use those rules, that he and the players agree upon. With a computer it wouldn't have been a problem to calculate all skill effects, but for the player to learn the system would be as interesting as studying big calculation tables.

D&D also had quite some stuff included making it a bit bulky. In fact I liked the streamlined adaption of this system to StarWars in KotOR better than the original.

I'm sure many features of the game system are designed the way they are with many considerations having been made. E.G. I think the designers included Combat Training talents to make sure high impact fighting skills are not too early accessible and make the player choose a bit diversity instead of becoming a pure specialist. I have to add, that I am surprised to find pickpocket and traps as talents instead of (rogue) skills. Then again a rogue would probably need more skillpoints than other classes to make up for the bigger amount of choices. Having done this a rogue could choose not to skill traps and pickpocket and instead unlock more fighting skills faster than a warrior. That would lead to another balance problem...

To make the long story short -- thanks for reading -- I see there are points, which could and maybe will be changed in Bioware's system gradually for the sake of improvement of the game experience. Other than that I am happy with the way the game is and feel such adjustments to the system, while some being technically justified, would probably not have had a great impact on my great fun with this game.

(EDIT) Just noticed, that I mixed up Talents and Skills compared to DA:O terminology.

Modifié par Zenon, 04 décembre 2009 - 03:28 .

[Zenon]

Baher of Glory wrote...

Andulias wrote...

- the Arcane Warrior for example needs strength, dex, willpower, magic and constitution altogether.

Would you kindly explain, why a AW needs strength?

Thanks in advance!

Maybe he overlooked, that an AW channels his Magic into Strength for the sake of fighting and wearing heavy armor.

[Denlath Vestor]

I really appreciate the effort you put into your post, Samurai, and I'm sure you are sincere in your apprecation for the game, but THAT'S WAY TOO MUCH TO READ!

[CID-78]

well i disagree to most of those changes. I agree that "magic" is a unnecissary ability and could simply be "cunning" all over. but you should replace it with charisma a ability that is really important in real RPG games. and not just pure hack and slash.



the tactic skill is certainly a waste, and i hate it when the companions has wasted points in it. not that it does that much since the game is seriously lacking skills to choose from.



what you need to do is increase the need for CON and WIL. a lousy +5 points to mana/health/stamina isn't worth it if you get free points every level. or make it improve the regen. you will run out either way in the long combats.

[Andulias]

Well, I'll periphrase - MY AW needs strength. It's just the way I built it - balancing him out as much as possible and focusing on damage dealt with melee weapons, while maintaining a hefty amount of sustained abilities rendering me immortal. At some point I even decided to reroll my character and play without putting a single point in constitution, raising magic to 36, willpower to thirty-ish and everything else went to dex and strength. I was just unstoppable, it made the game extremely easy even on nightmare. I am not an AW expert though - I barely played with it out of curiosity for several hours and rerolled back to a stun-locking mage. AWs are waaay too over-powered.

[reservoirfrog]

I read the whole thing and there are some good ideas here; at the end of the day the OP has bothered to expend the effort and thought coming up with some changes and solutions for what he perceives to be problems or imbalances. This is the essence of constructive criticism, in fact its very definition. Bravo to you sir for putting some effort into your post and a pox on anyone behaving like a simpleton

[Faerell Gustani]

Jordi B wrote...

Faerell Gustani wrote...

I had been thinking about design principles as well.  Yes this is a "mages are OP" post, but I've been getting the impression tha they're OP because they're overly versatile and with the expenditure of mana/stam they're more effective than Warriors at tanking and Rogues at damaging things.  And they're natually good at CC.
This is because a mage has the abiltiy to cherry pick their spells with no thought to equipment.  Sure, if a fighter could cherry pick stunning blows, pommel strike, shield bash, and all of the CC abilties and then use them regardless of weapon load out then they'd be pretty awesome too right?  Totally!

So why not tie down the Mage's spells to weapon selection.  We've all heard the complaints that mage equipment is severely lacking in versatility.  So...what are some wizardly weapons and implements?  We already have Staffs.
Wands, Orbs, Spellbook.

Hey, that's 4 weapon loadouts.  So...how about this:
Staff must be equipped to cast Primal
Wand must be equipped to cast Entropy
Orb must be equipped to cast Spirit
Spellbook must be equipped to cast Creation

With quickswapping weapon sets, it allows you to switch between 2 sets of spell categories, so you still have a great deal of versatility.  However, like Warriors and Rogues, when you de-equip a prerequisite weapon, you disable passive abilities linked to that weapon and you have to wait for the cooldown.

Using pausing and manual weapon change, you can in theory still achieve the cherrypicking of spells but at the cost of disabling your Sustained abilities constantly.

Specializations may need to be changed slighly, specifically Arcane Warrior.  It should probably allow you to hold a spellcasting implement in your off hand if you have a melee weapon in your main hand.  This also drastically brings down the power of the vaunted AW/BM combo as you can only have a certain set of sustained abilities active now.

Thoughts?

I think you're going in the completely wrong direction with this. I agree with your initial observation that it is the versatility that makes mages so awesome. For me, the most logical "solution" would be to make warriors and rogues more awesomer by making them more versatile and not to make mages less versatile.

Then the game really would be "too easy" if every class were as powerful and versatile as the mage and we would probably want to see numbers scaled back across the board.  I'm running a nighmare warrior right now and the game is about the same difficulty as my Hard mode run through.

However, I did have another thought to add versatiliy to Rogues and Warriors.
Introduce 3 new things.
1. A single weapon tree category.
This means 12 new abilities for both Rogues and Warriors that involves boosts for fighting with a weapon in 1 hand.  This tree should also have some disarm/grappling/takedown techniques.

2. Implement a new weapon type called "Hand and a Half" or "Bastard Swords".  Weapon that is the length between Greatswords and Longswords.  This weapon has versatility: the abiliy to be wielded one handed or two handed, but at the sacrifice of raw power.
*It should have an accuracy penatly when wielded one handed.
*it should have damage boost (but less than that of a Greatsword) when wielded in 2 hands.

This truly shines with the new single handed weapon tree.  Holding a single bastardsword, you can take your pick of 2-hander and single weapon techniques as you are able to use both simultaneously.

3. Dual weapon and Shield fighting synergy.
Fighting with 3 weapons is similar in many regards as fighting with a shield (I'm not talking about turtlers, but people who will bash you with there shield).  Allow shields to be considered an "off-hand weapon" and allow them to be used with Dual Weapon skills, but this is only possible if all Shield Sustained abilities are disabled (no turtling if you want to attack!)
Similarly, allow Dual weapon wielders to enter a "florentine" stance (replace one of the dual wielding mastery trees).  This sustained ability flips your off hand weapon into a reverse grip and treats it like a shield.  While in this mode you gain increased defense (not as good as a real shield) and can use Shield Talents.

How about that?

[Sylvius the Mad]

I disagree with the initial premise. I don't see a RTS aspect to DAO at all.

Keep in mind, I really hate RTS games, but I think DAO is very good. The primary difference here is that RTS require that the play make decisions exceptionally quickly. DAO has no such requirement.

[Brian Chung]

There's a toolset for the PC you can download and mod the game with.

You can change the whole combat system via script, including how stats affect damage and spells.



Have fun, let us know how it turns out!

[Grahilah]

I look forward to the "improvement" mod

[1varangian]

I wish "Magic" was a Mage only attribute.

Warriors and Rogues are better off putting their points elsewhere without exception so they shouldn't even have such a stat to accidentally click on. For Mages Magic is a good stat sink to make sure they are physically weaker and mentally stronger.

I also think that as a mage investing in STR, DEX and CON should give you enough combat ability to fend off some minions without having to cast spells. Mages are either totally worthless as fighters or god mode enabled Arcane Warriors in massive armor. There could be a middle ground and use for other stats besides Magic. The most efficient way to build any kind of Mage is to dump everything into Magic which is a bit dull.

A diminishing returns system would also be nice to promote a more balanced spread of attributes instead of min-maxing. It could easily be done with having stats over 30 cost 2 points and stats over 40 cost 3 points. Ability requirements for equipment should be lowered though.

Modifié par 1varangian, 04 décembre 2009 - 09:09 .

[Bibdy]

I thought 'critical' redesign meant a change to the critical hit system...apparently you want to play a different game.

[Endurium]

Keep in mind this is a new IP (intellectual property) for Bioware, so it's bound to have a balance issue here and there, and will go through minor adjustments and changes over time. Same thing happened to D&D when it was brand new.

The system in DA:O makes sense to me, and I think Bioware did a great job with their new IP. I think it can only get better as time wears on, much like fine wine.

As mentioned, there's always the toolset if you are really bothered by something. As soon as I figure out how to edit the official campaign I've got a few things I'd like to tweak in the script department. I'm also waiting on the toolset patch that updates the core resources.

Modifié par Endurium, 04 décembre 2009 - 09:17 .

[Lord Mephisto]

Brian Chung wrote...

There's a toolset for the PC you can download and mod the game with.
You can change the whole combat system via script, including how stats affect damage and spells.

Have fun, let us know how it turns out!

This is the sort of thing that makes the pedantic insane control freak inside me go "WEEEEEE YAY" ! (Unlimited uses per day.) 

[Haexpane]

cool story brah, I look forward to playing that game you wish to develop

[Dalyaria]

OP, I agree with most of the things you said. Some points:

- It is ridiculous to have skills like "combat tactics" or "combat training".  The tactics should be as good as the player makes them, with as many empty tactic slots as the player wants to customize. Why have a skill measuring your skills in combat, just to be able to increase your combat skills? It's just illogical and serves no purpose, except to detract people from learning other skills. Combat is a very major part of the game, so I would think mostly everyone is taking "combat training" to the max.

- I generally agree about doing away with various skills and concentrating more on the statistics. Think PS:T.

- To say that the elves are the best at using bows is silly, considering that they are the only ones without a racial dexterity bonus. They are actually the worst.

- Cross-over between different combat skills for different weapons is a wonderful idea. It would make the various character builds far more diverse.

- Having deft hands as a skill instead of a talent is a very good idea. Stealth, also, should be a skill available for anyone. Think NWN.

- I completely disagree with the whole idea of the influence system. I will not begin the discussion again, it's available in here: http://social.biowar.../9/index/344312

[Solica]

No.



The text contains a lot of statement like "should", "seems silly", "I think". What's the point? That fighting with three weapons would be sooo kewl? And should have kewl (read overpowered) bonuses? I'm sorry, that's not exactly what the OP says, but I still think the question of purpose is valid.

The place I come from is that there isn't any advantage to any of these rulesets.BG, BG2, IWD, IWD2 and DA:O all do things differently. Since none of them is the least "realistic" enough to have a positive immersion effect, none of it matters. As long as the game is designed to be playable with the rule set, they're all equal.

For instance, DA:O combat & magic system has absolutely no advantage at all over BG, from the player's viewpoint. On the contrary, it's easy enough to feel that BG's lack of regenerating manna and health, makes it much more interesting. OTOH, regeneration feels more convenient and secure for many newer players, and I'm pretty sure the game areas are a lot easier to balance for the developers. More consistent challenge but less interesting. There will always be sides to every way that weighs up,..as long as the game is well designed to play with the used system.

[immateriaux]

An opening post that contains the lines "The purpose of this article" ../../../images/forum/emoticons/andy.png or, for that matter, "this cannot be denied"  when referring to a matter of opinion, really isn't doing itself any favours. Some more concise individual points might be worthy of posting but I think the OP has lost the run of themselves there completely.

[Atmosfear3]

I agree with many of the OPs points namely in the removing many of the more redundant talents and skills. Being that this is a new IP, I'm confident that Bioware will improve the sequel ten fold as they surely will be doing for Mass Effect 2.