202 réponses à ce sujet

[Auraad]

They start to nerf magic? What about "magic is supposed to be powerful" ...

Anyway, a reason to shelf the game sooner ...

[SheffSteel]

I'm still a bit confused by this whole "X is not supposed to work on bosses" thing.

Is there a missing page in my manual?

[Tirigon]

Its nice to see a mod fixing the fixes ;-) I will try playing with the nerfs first, but if they are as bad as I here you can be sure I´ll use it.

Long live the people who have the patience and skill to mod!

[Reader81]

But I wonder it might hurt save game or game themself if I use this mod when new patch come? Personal, I think they should not nerf spell, it'a make not very enjoyment and turn me off play mage. On other hand, shapeshift I heard they are weak,



I hasn't tired those thing, but freeze was fine in 1.01 but now it's just way too short and some cooldown is too long for me. Not everyone play 3 mage due to roleplaying, no way I will foced to enjoy mage only healer or support all the time,there should be solo or very powerful mage for fun and enjoyment for those people like me without need mod, if people think overpower don't use it, or should I said warrior should be nerf? Since I play Warrior, I do not think and let's them auto attacking and drink health while mage you have to think and do lot of work and stay alive to be powerful and people want to nerf those mage? If they don't like power, don't use it, but if power is weak then impove it. Nerf way of playing mage is just may turn me off play game. Nerf is big no-no.

[cipher86]

SheffSteel wrote...

I'm still a bit confused by this whole "X is not supposed to work on bosses" thing.
Is there a missing page in my manual?

Yes.  Several pages actually.

[Marionetten]

Staylost wrote...

Well, CP wasn't that amazing of a spell in the first place.

It is a 4th tier spell that can be cast once a minute. And it can kill one white mob or severely damage one yellow mob. Sure, it does good damage against a higher level enemy, but at only once a minute it wasn't that great a dps spell to start with. Now the best spell in the chain isn't even the 4th one. If you keep rebalancing the game before fixing the bugs, try flipping FF and CP from 2nd and 4th. Then it will be balanced.

This. Crushing Prison was a fourth tier spell. It was a single target fourth tier spell. Nerfing it into the ground like this is just absolutely inane. It didn't hold for that long on Nightmare to begin with. Now it's not even worth picking up as there are so many better spells for damage and CC purposes. Spells that aren't even fourth tier. Is this balance?

Be nice if you had at the very least fixed the Force Field + Crushing Prison combo. According to the description it should be possible to throw Force Field on an ally and then follow up with Crushing Prison for the effect. As it stands it isn't.

Modifié par Marionetten, 10 décembre 2009 - 12:55 .

[Sumkawps]

WillieStyle wrote...

I find the CC discussion interesting.
One poster claimed that CC is just the analogy to tanking and gives you more options against bosses instead of the tank/heal/dps trinity.

I disagree.

.......

But this simply cannot be done with CC because against any enemy that does more than just dps a single target at one time, CC wins HANDS DOWN against any other strategy.

QFT

What's even more telling is the very flexibility of DA:O mage build options in locking down the foe.

If you so choose, in your talent points, you can take multiple CC options on a single Mage, and these are combined in talent trees with damage options in nearly all cases.

Blood Mages get 2 CC's in the tree

Earth gets 1 full CC and a knockdown

Cold gets both CoC and Blizzard, and a mini CC/interrrupt in Winter's Grasp

Glyphs get 2 full CC's (paralysis and paralysis explosion) and Repulsion can be used as a partial CC against melee if positioned correctly

Summoning has Grease

Telekinesis has both FF and Crushing Prison

Debilitation has Paralysis and Mass Paralysis

Sleep has 3 (count'em) CC's in Horror, Sleep and Waking Nightmare

Compare these to the melee/physical range damage options and the clear and simple reason that Mages overpower all other classes in combat utility in DA:O is obvious.  And that's not even to mention the fact that as a squishy magic-dependent class you can build a Mage who wears massive armour. Or the fact that none of the magic schools are mutually exclusive by design.

All good things, if the primary focus is on the player having the option to role-play their way through the game with maximum flexibility taking only talents that seem to match by lore or (suspended disbelief level) reasoning.

And that's not to say that other classes are completely redundant by comparison (Rogues have excellent DpS and out of combat utility and Warriors can be effective DpS as well as Tanks).

Given the power of CC, one can legitimately question the balance in a class that offers so many lockdown options with so few defensive drawbacks.

This is because it means the players who would otherwise wish to roll all melee are discouraged from using that flexibility of class choice if they look realistically at the Mage class as a comparator.

1.02 goes some way to addressing some of the most obvious examples of that imbalance in CC, no? 

I'd love to have seen improvements to Rogue CC capacities to match, personally, particularly around a Ranger with pet as Tank/improved CC traps for Rangers to make the sub-class more varied.

I'd also have loved to see better talents for Tanks to control/manipulate enemy aggro than a simple I-win taunt/disengage mechanic, but that's just me.

[Tirigon]

Sumkawps wrote...

WillieStyle wrote...

I find the CC discussion interesting.
One poster claimed that CC is just the analogy to tanking and gives you more options against bosses instead of the tank/heal/dps trinity.

I disagree.

.......

But this simply cannot be done with CC because against any enemy that does more than just dps a single target at one time, CC wins HANDS DOWN against any other strategy.

QFT

What's even more telling is the very flexibility of DA:O mage build options in locking down the foe.

If you so choose, in your talent points, you can take multiple CC options on a single Mage, and these are combined in talent trees with damage options in nearly all cases.

Blood Mages get 2 CC's in the tree

Earth gets 1 full CC and a knockdown

Cold gets both CoC and Blizzard, and a mini CC/interrrupt in Winter's Grasp

Glyphs get 2 full CC's (paralysis and paralysis explosion) and Repulsion can be used as a partial CC against melee if positioned correctly

Summoning has Grease

Telekinesis has both FF and Crushing Prison

Debilitation has Paralysis and Mass Paralysis

Sleep has 3 (count'em) CC's in Horror, Sleep and Waking Nightmare

Compare these to the melee/physical range damage options and the clear and simple reason that Mages overpower all other classes in combat utility in DA:O is obvious.  And that's not even to mention the fact that as a squishy magic-dependent class you can build a Mage who wears massive armour. Or the fact that none of the magic schools are mutually exclusive by design.

All good things, if the primary focus is on the player having the option to role-play their way through the game with maximum flexibility taking only talents that seem to match by lore or (suspended disbelief level) reasoning.

And that's not to say that other classes are completely redundant by comparison (Rogues have excellent DpS and out of combat utility and Warriors can be effective DpS as well as Tanks).

Given the power of CC, one can legitimately question the balance in a class that offers so many lockdown options with so few defensive drawbacks.

This is because it means the players who would otherwise wish to roll all melee are discouraged from using that flexibility of class choice if they look realistically at the Mage class as a comparator.

1.02 goes some way to addressing some of the most obvious examples of that imbalance in CC, no? 

I'd love to have seen improvements to Rogue CC capacities to match, personally, particularly around a Ranger with pet as Tank/improved CC traps for Rangers to make the sub-class more varied.

I'd also have loved to see better talents for Tanks to control/manipulate enemy aggro than a simple I-win taunt/disengage mechanic, but that's just me.

I agree that more skills for warriors and rogues might be nice, but the rest of this is dumb. Mages have more CC, so what? Rogues have more DPS!!! Gonna fix that?! Tanks have more survivability. Does that need to be nerfed?!
And its a good thing magic schools aren limited so that one excludes another. If you feel too strong when using more than one CC tree, noone forces you to do so. Take shapeshifting as a specialisation for example. Nearly useless, so it will prevent you from being OP. Your fault if you go for the very best build. Your fault if you play a mage at all. Yeah, I know, a sucky argument, but not worse than all the whine about Cone of Cold.

[Sumkawps]

@ Tirigon - you might want to re-read the bit where I said....



"All good things, if the primary focus is on the player having the option to role-play their way through the game with maximum flexibility taking only talents that seem to match by lore or (suspended disbelief level) reasoning."



Any player can choose to play as they wish - we're not in MMO-land here. Personally, although I have FF, for example, I use it as if it were a hostile only spell. I guess that means we're on the same page as to what you can do currently?



All I'm suggesting is that Mages offer such a wealth of choice for flexibility of build that others seem lacklustre by comparison, and absolutely blow other classes out of the water when it comes to controlling an enemy - wouldn't you love to have the same levels of choice from your physical damage dealers?



That way a player could roll a full Mage team run-through, a full Rogue team run-through or a full Warrior team run-through and still get all the same variety of enemy control and DpS that I can currently only obtain with a Mage in the team.



It's not a whine about CoC - it's a recognition that Mages offer much that others currently cannot, and my supposed flexibility of gameplay (like choosing to run all melee or all Rogue or whatever) is reduced if, even on a cursory look at the stats/options, I'm not going to have the same fun/difficulty balance in the game if I drop Mages altogether.



As it happens, I rolled Tank PC, Rogue, Healer/CC, Mage/CC as my first team to try to get a sense of the game and enjoyed it very much - I'd love to think I could do the same with weird and wonderful team combos, wouldn't you?

[JaegerBane]

Sumkawps wrote...

All I'm suggesting is that Mages offer such a wealth of choice for flexibility of build that others seem lacklustre by comparison, and absolutely blow other classes out of the water when it comes to controlling an enemy - wouldn't you love to have the same levels of choice from your physical damage dealers?

That way a player could roll a full Mage team run-through, a full Rogue team run-through or a full Warrior team run-through and still get all the same variety of enemy control and DpS that I can currently only obtain with a Mage in the team.

It's not a whine about CoC - it's a recognition that Mages offer much that others currently cannot, and my supposed flexibility of gameplay (like choosing to run all melee or all Rogue or whatever) is reduced if, even on a cursory look at the stats/options, I'm not going to have the same fun/difficulty balance in the game if I drop Mages altogether.
 

It's this kind of logic that I find completely nonsensical.

Tell me, if you would, how a system could be implemented where a guy with a knife and a lockpick or a guy with a big sword is going to offer the same kind of flexibility as a guy who can freeze people solid, set them on fire or dissolve them into goo? I mean, what exactly are you suggesting?

This is an honest question, not a flame. Simply demanding that rogues and warriors 'offer more' is completely pointless. I do have to admit it's refreshing seeing someone asking for a positive change rather than the standard issue 'mah sOrdsMeN shud bee da BeST3st evA!!!!, nurF da mAges', but ultimately, you sound like you're asking for something self-contradictory.

I mean, take some of the Rogue/Warrior talents that go beyond the basic. Are you suggesting we need more nonsensical abilities like Scattershot?

Modifié par JaegerBane, 11 décembre 2009 - 05:27 .

[Blue_dodo]

Creature 1 wrote...

TheMadCat wrote...

Hyunsai wrote...

You really think Mages in DA are only crowd control spells ? This classe got the most variety of stuff to get rid of one opponent, too bad the creativity was gimped by a few broken spells everybody was using as a "I win" button, with the result now people think without them Mages are totally screwed...

I don't think anyone seriously believes mages are now screwed, easily the most powerful class in the game due to the variety you mentioned. I also don't think the spells were "nerfed" in the name of balance but rather because people got annoyed when a enemy caster placed it on them. The changes to Crushing Prison, Blizzard, and Force Field just don't really make much sense from a balance point and goes in a completely opposite direction of what their design seemed to originally be. FF is still seriously broken, Crushing Prison went from a CC/DOT spell to essentially a pure damage spell. Cone of cold isn't a bad change though personally I would have done something slightly different, and Blizzard seemes like it had a massive change to it though I'm not sure on it's pratical use as I've never used it.

That's the one issue I had with the spell changes, they just didn't really seem to be done in the name of fixes and balances rather to have it so the player was sitting there 20-30 seconds on lockdown. Doing so I think it killed the original intentions of all spells.

Has anyone ever had Blizzard or CoC cast on their party?  I've had Crushing Prison many times, they drop it on my mage and I say, "Now we're screwed."  I kind of don't have Alistair's dispelling ability.    This change just made it so my mage is still screwed, just more rapidly--if she pulled enough aggro to get a Crushing Prison cast at her, she probably has other damage incoming and no way to heal unless Wynn's in the background.  I've also had Fireball, Chain Lightning (please don't nerf this--I think it's actually a little underpowered), and Winter's Grasp cast at me.  Otherwise besides some glyphs not much variety in the enemy mages' spell books. 

Blizzard previously has been one of my favorite room-cleaning spells.  Hopefully it still has some utility. 

I have had CoC dropped on my party and good god is it annoying, especially if the enemy cast chain lightening...

[Sumkawps]

JaegerBane wrote...

Tell me, if you would, how a system could be implemented where a guy with a knife and a lockpick or a guy with a big sword is going to offer the same kind of flexibility as a guy who can freeze people solid, set them on fire or dissolve them into goo? I mean, what exactly are you suggesting?

Okey-dokey, even if off-topic, for which sorry - some (probably deeply unbalanced, but off the cuff) concepts follow.  We're only talking here about the added CC abilities of Mages over other classes, because that's the "more" I'm talking about.  I don't think, with AW based specs on offer, that one can argue that the class as a whole needs them more or less than any other.

The reason why I think it balances the classes better is because as noted in my original post, I'm agreeing with the position that CC >>>> Tanking for combined enemy control + damage mitigation (which is your measure of survival in a hitpoint based system) where the enemy does anything more than simply hit your tank in melee.

For me, and all this is just personal opinion stuff anyway, so hey, whatever - the game would likely be more fun if I could look forward to a playthrough with no feeling that I should always have one Mage for CC, for those oh **** moments.
 
To be absolutely clear, I'm not even talking about full CC necessarily, just better ways of controlling an enemy or enemy pack in line with the class itself.

And if the base response is "It's lore: Mages are supposed to be more powerful than other classes", I'd like to know how a bunch of wimpy Templars got them locked up in a Tower in the first place - my Morrigan would eat 4 or 5 Templars for breakfast (she has a healthy appetite after a night in the tent) and come back for more at lunchtime:

Ranger spec - How's about having certain CC-based traps (freezing, leghold) get a slightly extended duration with each additional talent point in the tree (say a second or 1.5 seconds). It's a nice minor bonus while getting to the final talent that makes the pets worthwhile. Makes kiting easier too. You could have a "Tight Strings" talent, that gives additional range and +dam to damaging AoE traps/a better chance at the resist check (better sprung traps equals better damage/better chance to trap at all)

Rogue Melee spec - how's about more effective slows to allow for some form of melee kiting.  An oil slick/caltrop escape mechanic (i.e. not a long cast trap) would be good - An AOE slow (I mean it's not unrealistic that a Rogue throws down a smoke bomb or empties a bag of spikes or breaks a oil vial, probably as a prelude to re-stealth attempt). A single-target decent CC stun (i.e. breaks on damage, like sleep, 10 sec duration, like Paralysis, say 12 sec cooldown). 

Warrior Tank - Hold the line: The Warrior smashes his shield against nearby foes, driving them all back 2 feet, but minimal damage, interrupting current actions, 8 sec cooldown. Charge mechanic would be wonderful, for overall better battlefield control - if it got bonuses from Shield Expertise by adding minor additional missile deflection during the charge it would be even better

Warrior DpS -  getting deep into tl;dr territory - time to stop  (for which read lapse in creative thought)

How's that for ideas? I'm sure you'd agre that any of these would give the class better battlefield control akin to Mage CC?
 

[SheffSteel]

My view of a traditional role-playing game is that

- Warriors stop most of the enemy getting through the front line, while doing a fair amount of damage

- Rogues pick off anyone who sneaks through the front line plus any important targets such as enemy mages

- Mages slow down, hinder, and/or damage the enemy. Some types also protect and/or heal the party as necessary.



This tends to be balanced because (i) mages kill and are killed more easily (ii) rogues are less useful than other characters in combat but more useful out of combat.



By comparison DAO looks more like this:-

- Warriors stop less of the enemy getting through the front line - assuming they have impressive enough armour and they don't run out of stamina - and do less damage.

- Rogues attack anyone they want to, once they've got the appropriate talents, but before then are much less effective.

- Mages prevent most of the enemy attacking anyone and do significant damage to almost everyone. If they want to, they can also protect and heal the party.



Has anyone successfully blocked a doorway in DAO to prevent enemies from attacking their mage? If so, what STR and armour and how many people did it take?

[Spaceweed10]

Very good patch, Bioware.  You've just about nailed the major balance issues of concern.

[Spaceweed10]

SheffSteel wrote...

My view of a traditional role-playing game is that
- Warriors stop most of the enemy getting through the front line, while doing a fair amount of damage
- Rogues pick off anyone who sneaks through the front line plus any important targets such as enemy mages
- Mages slow down, hinder, and/or damage the enemy. Some types also protect and/or heal the party as necessary.

This tends to be balanced because (i) mages kill and are killed more easily (ii) rogues are less useful than other characters in combat but more useful out of combat.

By comparison DAO looks more like this:-
- Warriors stop less of the enemy getting through the front line - assuming they have impressive enough armour and they don't run out of stamina - and do less damage.
- Rogues attack anyone they want to, once they've got the appropriate talents, but before then are much less effective.
- Mages prevent most of the enemy attacking anyone and do significant damage to almost everyone. If they want to, they can also protect and heal the party.

Has anyone successfully blocked a doorway in DAO to prevent enemies from attacking their mage? If so, what STR and armour and how many people did it take?

What is your point?  That DA:O doesn't conform to 'your' view of a an RPG, or that you can't trivialise all content by standing in a doorway?

[Tirigon]

@ Sumkawps: Well, I admit I´d like to have more versability on rogues and warriors. Your ideas sound nice, too. But then, I want more DPS and HP / Armor on mages too^^. If you give mages double attackspeed, more HP and at least 3 times their damage per hit, you can give the others as many cc as you want and I won´t mind.

However, JaegerBane is right when saying that things like scattershot are complete nonsense in terms of logic, and that a mage is, by nature, more versatile than a guy with a sharpened piece of metal in his hands. As DAO is no PvP-game, I personally consider this more important.

And to answer your last question: Yes, I´d like to have some "weird and wonderful team combos". But I think I can easily do that. Maybe not on Nightmare, ok, but then: "Nightmare is for those to whom hard seems too easy." If this isnt the case, why should you want to play on nightmare at all?

After all, the difficulty setting is there to present a challenge when you are too strong for normal, not to force you to play on the highest. It doesnt even give bonusses or unlock an achievement.

[semiwise]

So, FF and CP are now effing useless.



Thanks BW.

[Taleroth]

Spaceweed10 wrote...

What is your point?  That DA:O doesn't conform to 'your' view of a an RPG, or that you can't trivialise all content by standing in a doorway?

Sheff's posts have been pretty reasonable if he's not trolling.  All he's doing is pointing out what he considers to be tradition.  Though maybe with a bias towards roles and how they are fulfilled.

No need to harshly assume he wants to trivialize.

Modifié par Taleroth, 11 décembre 2009 - 09:10 .

[SheffSteel]

Most of that post was my observation on how the balance of power has shifted towards mages in DAO. Sorry if that wasn't sufficiently clear.

Part of the problem is that mages have gained so much, in ways that make their traditional weaknesses less significant, and part that warriors have lost a good deal of what made them interesting and useful characters, such as the ability to stand in a doorway and prevent enemies running through it. To me that doesn't sound like "trivialising content" so much as using a simple defensive tactic - and I'm not sure if it's even possible in this game.

[Taleroth]

When I think traditional roles in RPG, I tend to look through the evolution of D&D. And until recently, Mages have always been top dogs. So, I can't say that there's been a shift in that regard.



Not that I encourage anyone to emulate 3e and previous edition levels of Mage ridiculousness.

[Talisander]

Making force field a shorter duration actually makes it MORE useful as a defensive spell. As well as less annoying. Also, the duration hasn't been changed so much that you can't still use it to take a yellow out of the fight for a while.

Cone of Cold obviously had to have the freeze duration reduced, or the cooldown increased. My girlfriend, who has never played a WRPG aside from Fable II, was watching me play one day and commented on how unfair the spell seems to the monsters.

The changes to blizzard won't keep it from being used in exactly the same way, with basically the same effectiveness.

The only one I wonder about is Crushing Prison. The spell already didn't paralyze high level things as often as the basic paralyze spell in entropy, and it absolutely IS resistible last time I checked. (Was that changed in the patch?) In addition to being resistible, often the spell will work, but only deal damage and not hold the enemy. So now, it also CCs for less than half the time, and does less damage... still a good spell for the combo abilities it has, but doesn't that seem like a pretty big change to do all at once? I had one mage with Cone of Cold and one with Crushing Prison during my first playthrough, and I'm pretty sure the infallible Cone of Cold was vastly more overpowered than the one-shot and sometimes fail Crushing Prison.

Modifié par Talisander, 11 décembre 2009 - 10:37 .

[Imryll]

semiwise wrote...

So, FF and CP are now effing useless.

I think some reduction in the duration of FF was probably needed, but the changes in the patch weren't tweaks. CP is the one that concerns me most. As a 4th tier talent, that takes a hefty bite out of my mana bar, it should be powerful.  To me the changes just seem ham-fisted. Surely this game was in development long enough that we should be seeing 10/15% changes post-release, not 30%.

[Creature 1]

Cone of Cold seems to work pretty well. So far I am not displeased with the change to this spell.

[scottiefl]

I like my mage just like he is, pre-patch 1.02. I do not want him to be weaker. I play on Hard and get killed enough already. Mages have the worst defense in the game, they need the best offense.



It's my game, I paid for it. It's not massively online, so why did Bioware mess with my private fun?



Now I can't download any more patches or downloadable content, for fear that this might wreck my character.



Very disappointed.

[F-C]

i dont really mind the changes so much, but it is disappointing to see bioware bend over for the vocal minority of forum whiners and force changes on everyone else just to shut them up.



rather disappointed that they did that, because the vast majority of the forum whiners really seem like drooling idiots, but whatever i guess.