290 réponses à ce sujet

[WillieStyle]

That mages are supposed to be the strongest class should be obvious after reading the codex and why Bioware did change the balance I can only guess.

I know I'm going to regret this but, what in the codex suggests that mages are supposed to be the strongest class?

[Marvin TPA]

I still don't care about balance in the game, and don't understand why on earth it is important that x should be equal to y. The non bug fixes in this patch don't effect my play style at all, so no skin off my nose.



I do worry about the slippery slope that these changes could suggest the game is on. If people shouting gets results in patches, then it wont be long before something does change that does knacker the game for me. Will it be stamina pots, or chest bashing, or further down grading of encounter difficulty? People want all these things; I really don't. Which means that any contributions I end up making here are negative about changes people suggest, even though what I feel is actually positive about what is already in place.



I would be much happier with bug hunting from now on, but you can't always get what you want.

[Skellimancer]

Mages are also supposed to be very rare! Yet there is at least one in every group of monsters/enemies.

[Murmet]

WillieStyle wrote...

That mages are supposed to be the strongest class should be obvious after reading the codex and why Bioware did change the balance I can only guess.

I know I'm going to regret this but, what in the codex suggests that mages are supposed to be the strongest class?

Entries regarding the old Tevinter realm and report of the war against the Qunari where mages were used to counter cannons.

I assumed so far that it is realy hard to miss that mages are supposed to be the most powerfull class.
They get their own golden prison, are kept under tight survillance by the chantry and get slain the moment their watchdogs think they are beyond allowed magical arts. (You know, mind control and stuff)
They are the ones who tainted the Golden City of the Maker.

Also in-game it gets often mentioned how powerfull they are and that only a few are already a big boost for every army. So I got the impression that mages are supposed to be  'the big guns'. And if you take a couple of these I wont be surprised if you archieve something like overkill.

[Curlain]

To be fair though, following the history of the lore, Templars should also be much more deadly vs mages then there spec actually makes them. According to the lore, they've kept mages under control for centuries, and dealt with most apostate threats except for literally the most power (such as Flemeth, who generally hid herself anyhow). There never has been a sucessful mage take over, and when ever Rites of Annulements were carried out (in which given the numbers of mages I saw in the Circle Tower) there wouldn't be that much discripsency in number between mages and templars the templars always succeeded.

They are discribed as the counter to mages (yet ingame it's more other mages or archers), so lore wise, templar spec should have be much more effective vs mages (or even a seperate class) then it is. And Skellimancer is right, they should also be much rarer, yet there's usually one if not 2 mages with every group of enemies you face

Modifié par Curlain, 09 décembre 2009 - 02:18 .

[Murmet]

Skellimancer wrote...

Mages are also supposed to be very rare! Yet there is at least one in every group of monsters/enemies.

I'm not sure how rare they are supposed to be. The chantry is supposed to have a rather close watch on mages but beyond their influence (like the Dalish clans) users of magic might flourish.
Also I assume Tevinter is still heavy on mages too.

[Murmet]

Curlain wrote...

To be fair though, following the history of the lore, Templars should also be much more deadly vs mages then there spec actually makes them. According to the lore, they've kept mages under control for centuries, and dealt with most apostate threats except for literally the most power (such as Flemeth, who generally hid herself anyhow). There never has been a sucessful mage take over, and when ever Rites of Annulements were carried out (in which given the numbers of mages I saw in the Circle Tower) there wouldn't be that much discripsency in number between mages and templars the templars always succeeded.

They are discribed as the counter to mages (yet ingame it's more other mages or archers), so lore wise, templar spec should have be much more effective vs mages (or even a seperate class) then it is. And Skellimancer is right, they should also be much rarer, yet there's usually one if not 2 mages with every group of enemies you face

Think Templars need the right gesr to be realy effective against mages. The Templar armor has 20 or 30% spell resitance on it iirc. So it is not the spec alone they need to combat teh evil casters.

[SheffSteel]

Wolfva2 wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...
Game balance is not about making everything identical. It is about giving the player meaningful choices
- different routes through the map, different classes to play,
different approaches to puzzle solving. If one of those choices is much
easier or harder than the others, the choice is not a good one, and the
designer didn't do a good job of balancing the game.

I gotta respectfully disagree with you Sheff.  Game balance has nothing to do with meaningful choices; those choices already exist.  Game balance means balancing classes.  What
I said isn't a straw man arguement atall.  But if you can find an
official dictionary definition of balance meaning what you said, I'll
be willing to alter my view.

Maybe we can agree looking at it from this perspective...
The class of each party member is an example of a choice.
My working definition of balance says that the game shouldn't be made too much harder or easier whichever option you choose. Another way of looking at ingame choices is that there are pros and cons to each option, and that neither should outweigh the other by too much. The design process, then, requires the designer to evaluate the consequences of each choice and make sure that the challenge level doesn't vary too wildly. A good game design ought to feature neither "I win" nor "I lose" buttons.

Another (extreme) example of choice might be, which side of the castle do you want to attack? Attacking the south side, where the gate is (analogous to playing DAO with one or two mages in the party), is fun, challenging and feasible. Attacking the east or west side, which are fortified walls with no weaknesses (like playing with no mages in the party), is much harder, but it's understandable that people might want to try it, and it's not impossible. Attacking the north side (playing with Arcane Warriors)... well, those who've been around to the back say the wall is three feet high and not fortified.
Responses to this situation have included:-
1. That's a problem with the game... shouldn't castles be adequately defended on all sides?
2. That isn't a problem - it's a single player game. It's not like you have to defend the castle.
3. Just don't attack the north wall if you think it's a problem. Simple.
4. It's fine, stop whining.
5. You're mistaken, there are fortifications there.
6. Improved the fortifications on the north wall of the castle (patch 1.02 release note).

Hope you can appreciate why I'm not a fan of 2,3, or 4.

Modifié par SheffSteel, 09 décembre 2009 - 04:48 .

[AshedMan]

My main party is made of two warriors, a rogue, and a mage. This patch hurts my party. My main CC was cone of cold. Now my party dynamics are fubar and I'm in the very last stages of the game.

Modifié par AshedMan, 09 décembre 2009 - 03:14 .

[Dark83]

Do remember that balance isn't just class balance, but in a party-based game, a party balance.

I think the Templar spec is weak because they're not really matching the lore. After all, without the Lyrium addiction, they're supposed to be much less effective, right?

[JaegerBane]

Curlain wrote...

To be fair though, following the history of the lore, Templars should also be much more deadly vs mages then there spec actually makes them. According to the lore, they've kept mages under control for centuries, and dealt with most apostate threats except for literally the most power (such as Flemeth, who generally hid herself anyhow). There never has been a sucessful mage take over, and when ever Rites of Annulements were carried out (in which given the numbers of mages I saw in the Circle Tower) there wouldn't be that much discripsency in number between mages and templars the templars always succeeded.

They are discribed as the counter to mages (yet ingame it's more other mages or archers), so lore wise, templar spec should have be much more effective vs mages (or even a seperate class) then it is. And Skellimancer is right, they should also be much rarer, yet there's usually one if not 2 mages with every group of enemies you face

I think you've fallen for most of the propaganda about Templars. If the Templars truely were as strong as the rumours suggest then why would Mages be feared in the first place?

[Curlain]

That could be true, however they have keep mages undercontrol and (apparently) dealt with most apostates for centuries, carry out Annulments successful (and I find it hard to believe the mages involved would just kneel down and let the Templars cut them to pieces), and no malifcar or other has ever managed to take power so far (apart from the Tenvinter Imperium, and that was via joining the Chantry, besides do they even have Templars there now :-)).

So it's true it could be propoganda, but it seems history bears out the effectivenes of Templars as a counter and control mage option, more the spec itself allows.

Mabye you're right Dark83, it's the lack of lyrium (I need to get Alistair addicted )

Modifié par Curlain, 09 décembre 2009 - 06:00 .

[Tirigon]

@ fchopin: Warriors are at least as strong as mages when built right (I played as AW/BM and dualwielding warrior so far, so I could compare and I think the game is easier with my warrior), and I´ve seen many people claiming rogues to be even stronger than warriors, so telling you dont stand a chance without mages just shows that you are doing something wrong. And even if it was REALLY impossible, you could consider turning the difficulty down.

[JaegerBane]

Curlain wrote...

That could be true, however they have keep mages undercontrol and (apparently) dealt with most apostates for centuries, carry out Annulments successful (and I find it hard to believe the mages involved would just kneel down and let the Templars cut them to pieces), and no malifcar or other has ever managed to take power so far (apart from the Tenvinter Imperium, and that was via joining the Chantry, besides do they even have Templars there now :-)).

So it's true it could be propoganda, but it seems history bears out the effectivenes of Templars as a counter and control mage option, more the spec itself allows.

Mabye you're right Dark83, it's the lack of lyrium (I need to get Alistair addicted )

Oh sure, the Templars have handled Apostates for centuries. But let's stop and think about exactly what an apostate actually is. It's just a mage that isn't a part of the circle. It's not like every apostate is some world-dominating Pride abomination that level cities with his farts. It even points out in the codex that the Templars go down a patently ludicrous route of seeing no distinction between Malificar and Apostate. Given the unmitigated failure of the Templars in the Broken Circle quest to do... well, anything... I would submit that much of the Templar lore, as with most Chantry lore, is massively trumped up and exaggerated.

[Tirigon]

Its just like in the real world, the church and its followers talk sh!t all the time.

And the codexes tell more about templars failing to beat bloodmages or abominations than about defeating them.

[JaegerBane]

Tirigon wrote...

Its just like in the real world, the church and its followers talk sh!t all the time.
And the codexes tell more about templars failing to beat bloodmages or abominations than about defeating them.

Exactly. I don't trust anything the Chantry say about magic. If you read the codex, you find the core reason for their stance that Blood Magic is 'evil'... because some prophet said so. No empirical evidence. No logical reasoning about how it may corrupt. Just someone deciding it is.

Ultimately the Chantry cause far more problems than Mages do. The very idea of forcibly subjecting a mage to the Rite of Tranquility single-handedly demolishes any moral justification they may have had.

But I digress. Much of the lore about Templars is trumped up and overblown. Alistair makes it quite clear that all they are are soldiers trained in a few anti-magic techniques and leashed to Chantry via their lyrium addiction. Similar in many ways to how a drug dealer treats his clients.

[Faerell Gustani]

Murmet wrote...

Faerell Gustani wrote...

Murmet wrote...

Maybe I was a bit unclear... since I don't expect the changes to affect my type of game play I hardly see myself running to the forums complaing.
I just was a bit annoyed that ppl were complaining about an issue that they could easily resolve by themself without the need of any mod or balanche patch.

What resolution would that be?  To simply ignore any mechanics deemed "broken"?
Sorry, but I'm not an osteridge.  I don't do this (http://www.melih.com...11/ostridge.jpg) when I run into problems.  I seek out solutions to fix them or try to design those of my own.

Checking on the community, it seemed pretty evenly divided as to whether or not these changes are necessary.  While I read reasonable argument for the changes, most of the "no changes" arguments devolve to "it doesn't mattter"...in which case we do have that issue of "if it doesn't matter why are you against it?"
And I think my signature explains what I think of "But the lore says..." arguments.

So what I saw were arguments for the nerfing, arguments why it doesn't matter, but no arguments against.

Also, I have to nitpick at your choice of words.  Avoiding the broken mechnics does not "resolve" anything because it's not a "resolution".  It's a "work-around".

And just to be clear, if the situation were reversed and the posts were primarily about how weak mages are, I would be pushing for buffs to mages rather than telling people to just not play mages or to go make a mod.  My reaction to "problems" is to find a resolution, not a work-around.  A work-around is what I do when no resolution can be found.

Maybe it becomes clear for me if you can state exactly what kind of party you use. The examples I saw so far were parties with 2-3 mages and when ppl complain then the game is getting to easy so yes, using less mages solve the the "problem" (the one I still don't see at all ) from my point of view and I just see no need to fix anything
that isn't broken just for the sake of it.

This game give you the freedom to choose. Why don't you make use of it and insist on the devs forcing something on you (or all of us for that matter)?
Mage spec X should only contain spells from school Y? Just let your chars train just these.
2-3 mages make the game to easy? Use less.
That way you play your way without forcing it on everybody else. I totaly fail to see why you insist on forcing it on everybody else.
If you try "fixing" the stuff you think is broken, it will just broke it for somebody else.

I'm totaly comfortable with using just 1 mage or none at all if you are in for the challenge but think there are also quite some folks out there who are into many big explosions/storms and why not if they like it that way.

But complaining that by using multiple chars of the strongest class (by design) the game becomes to easy is beyond me.

My party on both run throughs thus far have been:
sword/board tank
dual wield rogue
Archer/Dual wielder
Mage for artillery and heals.

I've never had more than 1 mage in the party and I still feel they're OP.  Ok, not really, I put Wynne and Morrigan together for part of the circle quest an yeah, it was really just too easy.  This was in my first runthrough on Hard mode.  Spirit healer made it impossible for me to die, while Morrigan only locked down 1 or 2 enemies with winter's grasp.

The notion of "just not using it" is inversely prohibitive.
I WANT to be able to play an all mage party.  I like mages.  I think they're interesting.  However it seems that Pre-patch, I was unable to play them and still have the game be challenging.  Thus a problem and a want for a patch.
Likewise, I also like the idea of a cold mage.  Loved it since Diablo 2.  I would like to be able to play one without having encounters become meaningless, and yeah, CoC and Blizzard really did make encounters meaningless when you can freeze opponents indefinitely.

[Tirigon]

Faerell, allow me one question: Did you ever PLAY a 3 mage party? Or do you only say it would be too strong?

Just wondering, because I found using multiple warriors making the game easier than multiple mages. Sure, there are exceptions and some fights were easier with mages. But just try fighting undeads with mages. Immune to Nature, incredibly resistant to ice, electricity sucks anyways. Immune to some staff attacks too. Have fun with your mage team, then reload and change your party so you have a chance.

BTW, I´ve read your signature. As long as you can fight the demon in the fade then (mages CAN resist demons if they are strong enough) I´d really like attracting demons, and playing an abomination wouild be cool too, as long as its a desire demon or stronger. For the lore! Right?

[Marionetten]

Curlain wrote...

That could be true, however they have keep mages undercontrol and (apparently) dealt with most apostates for centuries, carry out Annulments successful (and I find it hard to believe the mages involved would just kneel down and let the Templars cut them to pieces), and no malifcar or other has ever managed to take power so far (apart from the Tenvinter Imperium, and that was via joining the Chantry, besides do they even have Templars there now :-)).

So it's true it could be propoganda, but it seems history bears out the effectivenes of Templars as a counter and control mage option, more the spec itself allows.

Templars typically operate in squads and go after lone mages. Circle mages are also a whole lot weaker than apostates and maleficars due to their intentionally limited knowledge. There is nothing in the game that suggests that a single templar can go up against a mage and dominate the fight. Quite the opposite, actually.

That said, the templar specialization does need some tuning. As it stands the only reason to pick it is the fancy armor.

Tirigon wrote...

Faerell, allow me one question: Did you ever PLAY a 3 mage party? Or do you only say it would be too strong?

Just wondering, because I found using multiple warriors making the game easier than multiple mages. Sure, there are exceptions and some fights were easier with mages. But just try fighting undeads with mages. Immune to Nature, incredibly resistant to ice, electricity sucks anyways. Immune to some staff attacks too. Have fun with your mage team, then reload and change your party so you have a chance.

BTW, I´ve read your signature. As long as you can fight the demon in the fade then (mages CAN resist demons if they are strong enough) I´d really like attracting demons, and playing an abomination wouild be cool too, as long as its a desire demon or stronger. For the lore! Right?

In my experiences a pure mage party is way harder to manage on nightmare than a pure warrior party. The reason for this is taunt which effectively trivializes most encounters more than any spell. Mages die insanely fast if not arcane warriors and require the most micromanagement out of any class present in the game.

Modifié par Marionetten, 09 décembre 2009 - 07:58 .

[Faerell Gustani]

I've played with 2 mages and the rest of my party standing back taking out stragglers.

Needless to say chaining Mind Blast and CoC means they don't get to move ever.



Follow that up with any AoE damage like fireball, and any white mob dies virtually instantly. Yellows are rather weak on their own when 4 people are attacking it so it just dies with a rogue backstabbing it. But that wouldn't be fully possible if it weren't for the mages wiping all of the basic mobs in the opening 3 seconds of the battle.

Orange enemies...I don't know. But I suspect it would be very similar to how I usually fight orange enemies. Dragons, Revenants and the likes would just be 1 guy tanking and everyone else at range.



Not to mention sleep/nightmare which I used later on.



So, no, I never used a 3 mage party, but I used a 2 mage party for a very short duration before I felt it made the game really dumb. I can only imagine what a 3 mage party could do. In fact, now that it's been patched, I plan on playing a 3 mage party with Alistair or Zevran tanking.



As for Undead being immune to Nature and Ice. I solve that problem 2 ways: 1 pack different staffs. You have a weapon quick switch for a reason. Now I do spirit, now I do cold. Viola! I do that with my 1 mage run throughs cause I don't like Revenants being immune to my staff attacks. Also, fire spells are nice for beating the crap out of undead.



Now that you mention it, I think I'll have Sten or Oghren tank with a 2-hander and indominable. That way I can earthquake and attack safely from a distance.

[Wolfva2]

JaegerBane wrote...

Curlain wrote...

To be fair though, following the history of the lore, Templars should also be much more deadly vs mages then there spec actually makes them. According to the lore, they've kept mages under control for centuries, and dealt with most apostate threats except for literally the most power (such as Flemeth, who generally hid herself anyhow). There never has been a sucessful mage take over, and when ever Rites of Annulements were carried out (in which given the numbers of mages I saw in the Circle Tower) there wouldn't be that much discripsency in number between mages and templars the templars always succeeded.

They are discribed as the counter to mages (yet ingame it's more other mages or archers), so lore wise, templar spec should have be much more effective vs mages (or even a seperate class) then it is. And Skellimancer is right, they should also be much rarer, yet there's usually one if not 2 mages with every group of enemies you face

I think you've fallen for most of the propaganda about Templars. If the Templars truely were as strong as the rumours suggest then why would Mages be feared in the first place?

Not only that, but when the Templars go after a mage, they don't send just one templer.  They send several.  There are dialogues in the game where a Templer talks about comrades who died fighting a mage.  So 1 mage>1 templer.  Group of Templer>1>mage.

I'm going to repeat my bottom line.  Just play the game and have fun.  If you find mages to god awesomely overpowered that the game is child's play, then gimp your mage.  "But..but..I shouldn't HAVE to do that!!!!"  Well, you shouldn't 'have' to make him so awesome either.  But you did.  YOU chose which spells to give your mage, YOU chose how to allocate points, YOU chose how to play him in such a way that he's overpowered.  So why is it Bioware's fault?  Why should Bioware figure out a way to keep YOU from being such a good player, thus harming those lesser players who can't do as well as YOU can?  We see those posts daily, people complaining how hard the game is, asking for advice, etc.  So, just because YOU are a totally awesome god of gaming doesn't mean everyone else is to.  And I'm sorry, but no gaming company should cater to you.  Because they won't make very much money making YOU happy; they need to make THEM happy.  The masses who aren't as good as you.

Heck, want a challenge?  Make a rogue, use only Alistair, Zevran and Leliana, have all fight naked with plain daggers and only put points into magic.  Only problem is...we'll then see posts here about how gimped rogues are and the game is horribly out of balance.

[Kaosgirl]

fchopin wrote...

The game is unbalanced for some of the fight missions and the only way to get past them is to cheat basically, use mage with some of the silly powers just to get passed the silly mission.

It should be possible to play the game using any class without abusing some of the spells.

Many people have said it can be done.  It's maybe harder without a mage, but not impossible.

[Kaosgirl]

Faerell Gustani wrote...

The notion of "just not using it" is inversely prohibitive.
I WANT to be able to play an all mage party.  I like mages.  I think they're interesting.  However it seems that Pre-patch, I was unable to play them and still have the game be challenging.

Sucks to be you, then.
To me, this still parses as "I want a party composed of enough raw power that any compensating disadvantages they have are rendered irrelevant, but I still want a challenge."

I want to play a party of warriors who aren't dependant on magic and/or elite gear and have the game not be impossible.  I've yet to see any kind of game where that's possible, though:  warriors with basic gear just die in the endgame, if not sooner.

Really, the only way to make an all-mage party viable - that is, neither too godlike nor too fragile, such that the entire game is a 'fair challenge' for them  - is to make them so bland that they practically become just archers with magic FX instead of bows.

Otherewise, you inevitably hit the binary syndrome.  Every encounter is either too easy or too hard; you either wipe the enemy almost immediately, or find you can't do a damn thing to them before you're all dead.

Faerell Gustani wrote...
Likewise, I also like the idea of a cold mage.  Loved it since Diablo 2.  I would like to be able to play one without having encounters become meaningless, and yeah, CoC and Blizzard really did make encounters meaningless when you can freeze opponents indefinitely.

That must be mid to late game or something, when the min/maxing for overcoming resistances has started paying off.  I'm still in early game, and finding too much resistances to get that 'indefinate stun-lock.'

[Tirigon]

The problem about mages is: If you do like you say, Farell, they are probably really strong. But if just one strong guy resists - and on high levels + high difficulties many do - they can kill your mages easily. Marionetten mentioned it already: Mages die fastest and require most micromanagement.

Besides, I´ve said already somewhere that I think it was a good thing to mke the disables weaker. But I´d like to have spell damage higher. I´d prefer CoC to be a great aoe-damage with a little disable instead of an imba disable with a little damage, as it is now.

And I´m just sick of hearing you couldnt play without mages. You can. That´s a fact. At least you can play without disable if you have a healer and without heal if you have disable. That´s what I do most of the time. Haven´t tried entirely without mages yet, because I couldnt with a mage as mainchar, but it´s most probably possible, too, considering that my mage was an AW and therefore I casted very few, sometimes even no spells.

[Kaosgirl]

SheffSteel wrote...

Wolfva2 wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...
Game balance is not about making everything identical. It is about giving the player meaningful choices
- different routes through the map, different classes to play,
different approaches to puzzle solving. If one of those choices is much
easier or harder than the others, the choice is not a good one, and the
designer didn't do a good job of balancing the game.

I gotta respectfully disagree with you Sheff.  Game balance has nothing to do with meaningful choices; those choices already exist.  Game balance means balancing classes.  What
I said isn't a straw man arguement atall.  But if you can find an
official dictionary definition of balance meaning what you said, I'll
be willing to alter my view.

Maybe we can agree looking at it from this perspective...
The class of each party member is an example of a choice.
My working definition of balance says that the game shouldn't be made too much harder or easier whichever option you choose.

My working definition of strategy gaming says otherwise: that your choices should affect whether the encounter is easier or harder.  Otherwise, there's no point to making those choices at all, you could just turn on auto-level and randomly assign party members and see no difference in the game.

Now, this conflicts slightly with the concept of Roleplaying Purism - where you should be free to play whatever role(s) strike your fancy and still have a good game.  But to get that in a game, the game would have to be RP-heavy and strategy-lite. (Or PnP, where you've got a live DM capable of adapting the game to the party makeup on the fly.)