787 réponses à ce sujet

[GunMoth]

I'm excited! I love all of the news I'm hearing so far. Thanks DA team for keeping us updated and being very responsive / interactive with the fan base. The DA PAX panel gave me the warm fuzzies.


I have to ask, though I don't expect much of an answer in return, but can we expect racial choices in the game? :x I would be 100% sold even if you included that feature. They can have the same voice actors / actresses. I understand if you guys cant because of technical restraints - but a role playing game in a fantasy world with no racial choice is like an X without a Y. (Too lazy to include something witty).

[tishyw]

I really like this approach, and hope it turns out to be feasible.
I do have one small request however, can we cut back on the needlessly pointy armor?  I know it's trendy at the moment, but it seems to be reaching rediculous levels now.
Less pointy will mean less art work clipping if that's an added incentive

[RonixisJK]

I like having distinct companion armor, and I think it's much better than the issue I ran into in DA:O when I started as a red-haired female rogue and used Leliana in my party. The customization options here seem like a good 'best of both worlds' compromise.

I do hope you keep the 'hide helmet' option, and maybe give that to the companions also.

[ShadowAussie]

so your making the idea that armor with be change rather then weapons. I dont see the point of that. having change armor is something but you still have to beable to change weapons for companions all the way through ever since origins. the armor upgrades in dragon age 2 made no sense. only anders, carver or bethany, avaline and merril had change their uniform. fernis, sebastian, varric, isabella. you should have different armor styles for that person all the way though the game but weapon changing should stay the way that it is. having the same weapons like verric is kind of boring.

if I do remember playing origins and dragon age 2. 'hide helmet' option was already put into the game so theirs no problems there.

Modifié par ShadowAussie, 16 avril 2012 - 03:48 .

[craigdolphin]

Since David asked for feedback I may as well chime in too.

I'm pretty indifferent to the whole 'unique-look' aspect that was implemented in DA2. I am rather less indifferent to the gutting of player agency that resulted from that particular decision in DA2. I really /strongly/ disliked it. I mention this only so that my viewpoint has some context.

In a nutshell, my response is the first 'hell, YES!' that's risen spontaneously from my long-dormant inner-DA-fan.

That is, I like where you're headed with this aspect of your future plans. Yes it's a compromise, and I still think the DAO system was a bit better, but I'm willing to see how this works and feels. It's even possible this might actually work out better.

I still have some other serious concerns that have yet to be fully addressed (art style and conversation system are the two biggies besides DRM/Origin shenanigans). But this is a good beginning.

[Sylvius the Mad]

seraphymon wrote...

Actually its not the set bonus that discourage that, at least for me. Its for a full matching  armor, that mostly discourages mix and match. Mix and match just for min/max i would think encourages predictability

Only if there's an obvious ideal build for each class.

Look at all the different ways you could build and use a Rogue effectively in DAO.  Which armour is best for a DAO rogue?  Whether he's an archer, or a Strength build, or a Dex build, or a Cunning build, or a tank build (and is that an armour tank, or a dex tank?) would dramatically change which pieces of armour would be used.

Moreover, not every character acquires relevant armour pieces in the same order.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Adanu wrote...

That being said... people who want dex warrior builds and the like... while I can understand the desire for choices, fact is that can be very hard to program around gameplay wise.

DAO did it.  So clearly it's possible, and it's possible within DA's lore.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 16 avril 2012 - 05:30 .

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

FieryDove wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

In another thread, I promised that I would do up such a post to provide more detail on Mike's PAX presentation (with regards to the follower armor customization). So hopefully this shines some light on it. Comments are welcome.

"Other followers had little visual identity at all outside of their faces, and ended up looking like every other character who wore that armor. Again, that’s not terrible in and of itself (characters are defined by more than just their appearance, after all)—but we’d like to do better."

I will say this again people are not defined by what they wear. Some may say but in the games they are!
Well ok, why then does every new person I meet knows who Warden/Hawke/Shepard is? He/she has new armor, with a full helm and yet they know who he is? Yep space hamster did it, I knew it!

Personality makes a companion, not the weapons/armor...or lack of. Iconic looks is a strange buzzword for a Bio RPG. I still feel the companions are an extention of the PC in most respects except personality. We tell them where to move, when to fight, how to lvl up and yes find shiny new magical armor and weapons and upgrade them. Or used too. Sigh

I don't know how the suggested method will pan out but it sounds more expensive than DAO was. If so I say scrap the idea and let an armor set look this way on a male/female...like in DAO. I really do enjoy finding useful things like armor and weapons and...well using them, not just to sell.

Signed
Explorer and packrat

 

Been saying this since prior to DAII's release, over and over and over. I have no idea where this whole "Iconic Look" thing got started from, more than likely from someone in marketing or on the design team who wanted an easier go when it came to models and armors but it's so silly to think a companion's personality is drastically affected by what they're wearing.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

I can tell you that I'd like to offer more variety in the "experience" of playing a warrior, but it may not go far enough for you if you really want the Dex warrior build, as I tend to think that if you want a dex-based melee character in lighter armor in the DA class system, you should be playing a rogue.

And yes, I understand that rogues are fundamentally different than warriors in a lot of people's minds, and that what you probably want is a kind of light-warrior/heavy rogue hybrid that sacrifices some of the rogue's stealth for heavier hits and some of the warrior's protection for mobility. Again, as noted above, I want to "broaden" the experience of playing the classes some, but they will still have hard lines between them.

Why is that, Mike?  Can you shed any light on why DA's class system makes a distinction between Warriors and Rogues at all?

The Mage/Non-mage distinction makes some sense - there's a lore-based reason for that - but I don't see why Warrior and Rogue exist as separate classes at all.

What I would like to see in DA3 is an end to the enforcement of combat roles by class that DA2 gave us.  Only Warriors make effective tanks in DA2, and tanks are mandatory for all but the most advanced players.  But DAO didn't force tanks on players (as mages had some excellent crown control abilities - particularly multiple mages working in combination), and even when they used tanks they didn't always need to be Warriors.  Rogues made excellent DAO tanks, both with high-strength high-armour builds, and with high-dexterity builds.  DAO gave us a lot more flexibility within each class.  The easiest way to get you guys to do that, I think, it is abandon the Warrrior/Rogue distinction entirely, but if you do keep both I'd like them to overlap in their tactical usefulness a lot more.

[Mark of the Dragon]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Okay, let me put this out here:

• Suppose armor was purely stat dependant, not class. You need X strength to wear this mail, or what have you.
• We make sure that works with the player, but if you go "out of class" on a follower, it looks "okay" but not as one-to-one as if you stuck with the intended class.
  
• So: You take a bunch of strength with your mage, and you move plate onto your mage. His armor looks pretty "heavy" but doesn't look necessarily like plate. It still has all the stats that platemail has, though.
  
• If you moved that armor onto a warrior, it would look closer to how it looks on your player. (Since you'd be back in the expected space for that character's class)

Better? Worse? I ask because something like this might very well be possible.

I would be ok with this but quite honestly I like the way you are headed with this. It seems like a great compromise for the situation. For me I just hope to see some real creativity on the part of the designers while developing the looks for all the class armor, especially mages. It is really cliche now and days to see a mage stuck in robes and ugly robe suits like in DA2. I felt that the Champion armor was a good example of a look that worked for the mage and was really different. I want to equip armor and be like wow that is badass and not equipped something and be like oh this looks just like that thing before.

[Xerxes52]

That actually sounds awesome imo.

I'd even enjoy that for the protag in DA3.

The one thing I would suggest would be to keep the base stat (armor) on the default outfit (that scales to level) with the extra pieces adding bonuses (i.e. +15% magic resist, +1 to all attrib, etc).

Modifié par Xerxes52, 16 avril 2012 - 08:31 .

[TEWR]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

I can tell you that I'd like to offer more variety in the "experience" of playing a warrior, but it may not go far enough for you if you really want the Dex warrior build, as I tend to think that if you want a dex-based melee character in lighter armor in the DA class system, you should be playing a rogue.

And yes, I understand that rogues are fundamentally different than warriors in a lot of people's minds, and that what you probably want is a kind of light-warrior/heavy rogue hybrid that sacrifices some of the rogue's stealth for heavier hits and some of the warrior's protection for mobility. Again, as noted above, I want to "broaden" the experience of playing the classes some, but they will still have hard lines between them.

Why is that, Mike?  Can you shed any light on why DA's class system makes a distinction between Warriors and Rogues at all?

The Mage/Non-mage distinction makes some sense - there's a lore-based reason for that - but I don't see why Warrior and Rogue exist as separate classes at all.

What I would like to see in DA3 is an end to the enforcement of combat roles by class that DA2 gave us.  Only Warriors make effective tanks in DA2, and tanks are mandatory for all but the most advanced players.  But DAO didn't force tanks on players (as mages had some excellent crown control abilities - particularly multiple mages working in combination), and even when they used tanks they didn't always need to be Warriors.  Rogues made excellent DAO tanks, both with high-strength high-armour builds, and with high-dexterity builds.  DAO gave us a lot more flexibility within each class.  The easiest way to get you guys to do that, I think, it is abandon the Warrrior/Rogue distinction entirely, but if you do keep both I'd like them to overlap in their tactical usefulness a lot more.

In keeping in line with Sylvius' thoughts -- or so I hope I will end up doing -- I'd like to propose an idea, as I agree with him.






So let's say I'm playing a Warrior. Obviously, I have access to both the Two-Handed and S&S talent trees, along with the other Warrior specific talents.

But let's say that I want to play as a Dual-Wielding Warrior. Now, if Bioware doesn't want to give me access to those talents associated with that style, I should at least be able to equip my Warrior with two daggers or two longswords. Let's assume that we would have to sacrifice the option to have a longsword + dagger style.

I then have the ability to equip what I want -- within limitations -- and can use the basic attack animations associated with them.

Now, I'm going to state that I think the DW basic attack animations need some work. I've always stated that. But I'm not going to say how I think they should be done -- because I can't think of how they should be done -- but only that they need some work. I want to ignore that and assume that in DA3, they were reworked into two different styles of animations that looked great -- one for longsword style and another for dagger style.

So I can use the basic attack animations, equip what I want, and customize my character statwise how I want to.

But in order to make this work completely, the armor needs to not be class-restricted. At least not to excessive measures like DAII did. I'm fine with a few here and there, but the majority should be stat-restricted. Definitely use Bioware's idea for their armor system. Just remove the class-restriction idea.
 
Another key thing is to have abilities that can be used for any style of fighting. If I'm playing an Archer Warrior, I should have a few abiities that can be used in conjunction with that style.

I'm not saying that there should be an Archery tree -- though I actually do think the Warriors should have access to that -- but there should at least be some abilities that don't become useless if I switch to another style.



Okay, so let's say I'm playing a Rogue. My Rogue has access to the DW and Archery skills. It's the same as above. He should be able to equip a Greatsword or a S&S and be able to equip armor relevant to such a playstyle. He should have access to the basic animations.




Mages are a bit trickier.

They should be restricted to their Mage staves at first, but if the Arcane Warrior Spec returns -- and Maker, do I hope it does -- and a Mage picks it, they should be able to pick one of the non-Mage related specs. If I want to play an Archer Mage, I get access to the Archery tree. If I want to play a 2H Mage, I get access to the 2H tree. But I also get access to the Arcane Warrior Tree. But through picking that spec, they can equip anything. They just get the skills associated to one specific style of playing, but they have access to all the basic animations for the weapons. But I think this becomes really tricky for Mage companions.

I'm trying to think if there are any flaws in this idea I'm proposing. More then likely, yes there are. But I can't immediately think of anything, so I'm going to say that I believe this is an ideal compromise between the two games.

At the very least, it's a step towards a compromise.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 16 avril 2012 - 08:42 .

[paul165]

I like this idea and think it could prove very effective. The idea of having a theme for a character makes sense to me and being able to change as the gear gets better appeals to my inner magpie.

The comment you made earlier that armour has stat requirements rather than class /lvl requirements also makes sense to me so plate requires high str/con whatever whilst leather is lighter and robes require nothing seems logical. So if you want a dex build warrior you take a rogue and put enough str in the character to wield heavy armour/ weapons. Want your healer to stop dying so much increase str to allow heavier armour.

Sounds like there could be a lot of flexibility there....

Thank you very much for the blog post and the conversation about where you are going (maybe) very interesting.

[waseemhx]

I agree being able to go slightly cross-class with at least your weapons sounds fun.
Spellsword
Archer-mage
rogue-mage

[Sejborg]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Okay, let me put this out here:

• Suppose armor was purely stat dependant, not class. You need X strength to wear this mail, or what have you.
• We make sure that works with the player, but if you go "out of class" on a follower, it looks "okay" but not as one-to-one as if you stuck with the intended class.
• So: You take a bunch of strength with your mage, and you move plate onto your mage. His armor looks pretty "heavy" but doesn't look necessarily like plate. It still has all the stats that platemail has, though.
• If you moved that armor onto a warrior, it would look closer to how it looks on your player. (Since you'd be back in the expected space for that character's class)

Better? Worse? I ask because something like this might very well be possible.

It would seem kinda weird if I put a heavy plate armor on my mage, and then it don't really look like a heavy plate armor, because he is a mage. 

I would like to have more freedom regarding my companions skills and abilities. Say I get a mage companion, and I kind of like that companions personality and want to bring him along on quests. But I am myself a mage, and I really have a bigger need for a warrior in my squad. In that case I would like to be able to level up this mage companion, with alot of strength and constitution, so he could act like a warrior. I don't want skills to be restricted to class. Skills should be restricted to attributes. Like 18 in strength for shield bash and what have you - regardless of what class you are. 

Then I could mix this companions skills, and give him some magic skills - perhaps some auras and things like that - and some warrior skills. That way he could fit in my squad as both a secondary mage and a secondary warrior. 

I don't really like class restriction. I think it should be attribute restriction instead. 

[Reznore57]

It sounds nice.Thought I'm not that excited about it 'cause it's a minor feature in my book.
I liked the unique armor for companion in DA2 , the only thing that bothers me is the fact they wore the same thing for like 10 years!
As long as we don't go back to DA:O where some characterslooked like clown , I'm fine.
I still remember Morrigan with a mage dress and worst mage hat,poor girl.
It kinda looks like we got the best from both games.

[Either.Ardrey]

If the new idea for companion armor customization can be done, I think it would be a great idea. I've tried thinking of various ways to eliminate the problem many had with DA2's companion armors, and I like this a bit better than what I came up with. Hopefully it's feasible.

[LobselVith8]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

FieryDove wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

In another thread, I promised that I would do up such a post to provide more detail on Mike's PAX presentation (with regards to the follower armor customization). So hopefully this shines some light on it. Comments are welcome.

"Other followers had little visual identity at all outside of their faces, and ended up looking like every other character who wore that armor. Again, that’s not terrible in and of itself (characters are defined by more than just their appearance, after all)—but we’d like to do better."

I will say this again people are not defined by what they wear. Some may say but in the games they are!
Well ok, why then does every new person I meet knows who Warden/Hawke/Shepard is? He/she has new armor, with a full helm and yet they know who he is? Yep space hamster did it, I knew it!

Personality makes a companion, not the weapons/armor...or lack of. Iconic looks is a strange buzzword for a Bio RPG. I still feel the companions are an extention of the PC in most respects except personality. We tell them where to move, when to fight, how to lvl up and yes find shiny new magical armor and weapons and upgrade them. Or used too. Sigh

I don't know how the suggested method will pan out but it sounds more expensive than DAO was. If so I say scrap the idea and let an armor set look this way on a male/female...like in DAO. I really do enjoy finding useful things like armor and weapons and...well using them, not just to sell.

Signed
Explorer and packrat

Been saying this since prior to DAII's release, over and over and over. I have no idea where this whole "Iconic Look" thing got started from, more than likely from someone in marketing or on the design team who wanted an easier go when it came to models and armors but it's so silly to think a companion's personality is drastically affected by what they're wearing.

I don't understand what is so reprehensible about giving players the power to change the attire of the companions (as in Origins), rather than giving them little control over it (or no control, as in Dragon Age II).

[hussey 92]

Skyrim let us put heavy armour on whoever we wanted

[Atakuma]

hussey 92 wrote...

Skyrim let us put heavy armour on whoever we wanted

Then go play skyrim.

[Maria Caliban]

In Skyrim, you could put heavy armor on your PC. You could trade heavy armor to a companion but they would only wear it if they wanted to.

[Dave of Canada]

LobselVith8 wrote...

I don't understand what is so reprehensible about giving players the power to change the attire of the companions (as in Origins), rather than giving them little control over it (or no control, as in Dragon Age II).

It's not that it's reprehensible, it's just that their values disagree with yours. 

[zambingo]

Chris Priestly wrote...

Dragon Age Lead Writer and author of the Dragon Age novels and comic David Gaider has written a new BioWare Blog entry on Follower Customization in Dragon Age.

Check out David's blog here

I love the idea. If Bioware can pull it off that'd be just awesome. Whether or nor this makes it into Gold, I'm happy to see they are considering options like this.

Modifié par zambingo, 16 avril 2012 - 06:20 .