289 réponses à ce sujet

[Direwolf0294]

This thread has me worried for DA3's combat. D&D combat where you have no control over your character and all hits, blocks and dodges are determined by behind the scenes dice rolls bore the heck out of me. Combat was definitely the worst part of both DA games for me. I guess it's what people want though and it's too late and would receive too big of a negative reaction to change it to a fun, action style system. At the very least though can I make the request that you at least add some more interesting animations so that while combat might not be fun to participate in it can be fun to watch. DA:O's character animations where painfully slow and DA2's were way over the top and unrealistic. Something like in TOR where your weapons actually connect with your enemies weapons would be cool.

[MichaelStuart]

bEVEsthda wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

Am I the only one who found Dragon Age 2 too slow?

Lol 

Lots of actions were instantenous - just like in some Japanese fighting games (this is possible to see by examining individual frames) - the movement just an illusion, a trick on the mind. So what does words like "slow" and "fast" mean to you, in this context?

Slow means two things to me.
1. The enemies weren't smart, so I didn't really have to pay attention.
2.The high health of enemies dragged combat on longer.

I pretty much knew if I was going to win combat half way threw, by that point it was like watching paint dry.

[AkiKishi]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

But I really wanted to pitch the Megaman idea....

Think about it... defeating bosses givse your PC more powah and it won't be level scaling. You'll just fight other guys that just have their one power. And it's non-linear!


(On that note I'm out to hang with some friends. Night all)

I was only ever really interested in the Battle Network games. Not the platformers. Boss fights in Battle Network can be over in seconds. A big part of the game is getting those S rank power cards.

[deatharmonic]

I didn't like DAO combat but i got used to it, though i think the movements should have been slightly quicker, but not as much as DA2. I think class specific combat movement would be cool too, as long as its not as over the top as DA2, with rogues pretty much taking flight for example. It would be cool if there was a parry/dodge system although i didnt mind that was controlled by stats in DAO. What i think NEVER should have been removed from DAO combat was the execution animations, i thought those were brilliant and gave a grittiness to the combat which was missing from DA2.

[Provi-dance]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

You see, in these other games I never posed this question to myself.. "wth, what is this, are they playing by the rules??".. because it felt very natural. Creatures and enemies felt integral to the setting even if I haven't read any rulebooks. I can't accept bandits and wolves and skeletons that are miss-proof and have countless more hit points than my character as natural and integral to any setting that makes sense, if you get the drift.

That's fair and it was sort of what I was investigating by posing the questions in this thread. Basically figuring out for my own curiosity the specific about "what is the cause that leads to someone saying they want characters to obey the same rules?"

Thanks for the discussion!

Thanks to you for giving us subtle clues about what the team is planning for DA.

Regarding the same rules; a good litmus test would be to have a group of enemies fighting another group of enemies of similar level. Does it work? Is it interesting? In DA2, it would be a never-ending fight and it's questionable if it'd function mechanically at all.


You've mentioned that the DA team is working on the health regeneration issue, as well. In short, any default in-combat regeneration is bad (if you're going with the inside/outside combat distinction). Be it health, stamina or mana regeneration. It promotes a cheap tactic; circling around powerful enemy melee combatants to replenish your resources. And it's boring/repetitive, as well.

Now, I'd love if there was no default regeneration even outside combat, but instead you'd need to click a button to replenish your resources. It could be called "taking a breather", resting or whatever. No ambush encounter mechanics are needed.
Why is this system better? Because it allows the player to:

a) Further develop his character from a rp perspective and expand role playing (Would a character who's easily scared rest in a creepy dungeon? / Would a character who is very interested in a quest being completed as soon as possible rest after every single fight?)
Challenge himself by limiting the number of times he will rest throughout the game. (With default regeneration this isn't an option.)
c) Enjoy making strategical decisions from time to time. Especially if you can't just rest -everywhere-.

[deatharmonic]

Provi-dance wrote...

Thanks to you for giving us subtle clues about what the team is planning for DA.

Regarding the same rules; a good litmus test would be to have a group of enemies fighting another group of enemies of similar level. Does it work? Is it interesting? In DA2, it would be a never-ending fight and it's questionable if it'd function mechanically at all.


You've mentioned that the DA team is working on the health regeneration issue, as well. In short, any default in-combat regeneration is bad (if you're going with the inside/outside combat distinction). Be it health, stamina or mana regeneration. It promotes a cheap tactic; circling around powerful enemy melee combatants to replenish your resources. And it's boring/repetitive, as well.

Now, I'd love if there was no default regeneration even outside combat, but instead you'd need to click a button to replenish your resources. It could be called "taking a breather", resting or whatever. No ambush encounter mechanics are needed.
Why is this system better? Because it allows the player to:

a) Further develop his character from a rp perspective and expand role playing (Would a character who's easily scared rest in a creepy dungeon? / Would a character who is very interested in a quest being completed as soon as possible rest after every single fight?)
Challenge himself by limiting the number of times he will rest throughout the game. (With default regeneration this isn't an option.)
c) Enjoy making strategical decisions from time to time. Especially if you can't just rest -everywhere-.

Sounds like quite an interesting concept. Would you also have visible effects of not taking a breather after a damaging battle? for example, your characters walking/overall movement appears to be more labored, breathing noticably heavier etc.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

(unless we were to take the time to explicitly spell out what those rules are...)

You should always be doing that, anyway.  I'm hugely by annoyed by BioWare's recent trend away from documenting anything.

The combat mechanics should be fully documented.  You guys must have all the rules written down somewhere.  Make those list available to us.

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Compound this with the fact that the rules aren't explicitly laid out and transparent.

They should be.  Make them transparent.

A combat log would go a long way, but just writing down the rules and putting them on the web site somewhere would be a massive improvement.  Georg tried to do this on his own for DAO.  He shouldn't have had to.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 03 juin 2012 - 03:14 .

[Fallstar]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

(unless we were to take the time to explicitly spell out what those rules are...)

You should always be doing that, anyway.  I'm hugely by annoyed by BioWare's recent trend away from documenting anything.

The combat mechanics should be fully documented.  You guys must have all the rules written down somewhere.  Make those list available to us.

I agree. Even if they're too lengthy to publish in the actual manual, you could make them available as a downloadable pdf or something.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

wsandista wrote...

Anyway, I don't remember any of those human foes having that much extra health,and certainly not as much as the Aristok!

Oh it wasn't as much as the Arishok, certainly. But it was considerably more then the Warden's HP.

This is true, but it was far less bad than in DA2.  DA2's severe asymmetry is why friendly fire was so badly broken.  but friendly fire worked well in DAO.

Direwolf0294 wrote...

I guess it's what people want though and it's too late and would receive too big of a negative reaction to change it to a fun, action style system.

I abhor action combat.  There's is nothing acceptable about my character's skill in battle being determined by my ability to select targets or trigger abilities in real time.

Action combat is an absolute no go.  Action combat is why I found both Amalur and The Wticher unplayable.

And I have no idea how you imagine full-party control would work with action combat.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 03 juin 2012 - 03:21 .

[TEWR]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

This is true, but it was far less bad than in DA2. DA2's severe asymmetry is why friendly fire was so badly broken. but friendly fire worked well in DAO.

Agreed. Since you can deal maybe 300 points of damage to an enemy with say a Fireball in DAII, that means you can pretty much one-shot your entire party on Nightmare. The whole "move your party here to avoid the FF" on Nightmare seemed like a cheap attempt to make DAII seem "tactical".

Whereas in DAO, you might do 60-80 damage with a Fireball because the gameplay was more closely balanced. While I never found DAO to be tactical either, it was closer to actually being what I would consider tactical.

So there are two options, from how I see it: 1) Increase the amount of health the party can have (as an example: instead of 300-400 per character, maybe 3000-4000 to start with and refine it in future games) or 2) Go back to the DAO system of health for enemies.

Personally, I'd prefer keeping enemies with more health but refining both ends of the spectrum -- as I've said before. Animations, abilities, tactics, etc.

The former option would also open the door to having Health and Mana/Stamina not regenerating after every battle. I always loved that during my playthroughs of FFXII.

If I took 300 points of damage to my health in battle and the battle ended, I didn't get those points back unless I 1) interacted with a save crystal, 2) drank a potion, or 3) cast a healing spell, which would lower my MP and then leave me with less MP unless I did something to regenerate that MP.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Whatever they do, they need to fix friendly fire. If I can't one-shot lieutenant rank enemies with my sword, then I shouldn't be able to one-shot my party members either.

The members of the player's party should not do vastly more damage than any other creature in the universe can.

[vallore]

Personally, I really disliked the melee classes we had on DA2. Melee combat was too fast, repetitive, and had overly exuberant moves that could not be avoided, such as turbo rush into combat, grasshopper jumps, teleports, weightless two-handed weapons, and so on. Now, I understand that some people like such, but others don’t, so why not make such hyperactive combat style available through a toggle? Everyone could then enjoy combat, not just one group.

[AkiKishi]

vallore wrote...


Personally, I really disliked the melee classes we had on DA2. Melee combat was too fast, repetitive, and had overly exuberant moves that could not be avoided, such as turbo rush into combat, grasshopper jumps, teleports, weightless two-handed weapons, and so on. Now, I understand that some people like such, but others don’t, so why not make such hyperactive combat style available through a toggle? Everyone could then enjoy combat, not just one group.

Speed covers for missing animations and enemies not using skills (as does killing them really quickly).

Modifié par BobSmith101, 03 juin 2012 - 10:38 .

[Tirigon]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Whatever they do, they need to fix friendly fire.

They should just remove it, as it doesnt make sense anyways.

Magic: It's magic, a mage can control his spells so they only harm those he wants to harm, not his friends.

Arrows / Swords: We ARE playing heroes, not scrubs swinging a club around like a madman. One would assume they are bright enough not to hit their friends.

[Dakota Strider]

Tirigon wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Whatever they do, they need to fix friendly fire.

They should just remove it, as it doesnt make sense anyways.

Magic: It's magic, a mage can control his spells so they only harm those he wants to harm, not his friends.

Arrows / Swords: We ARE playing heroes, not scrubs swinging a club around like a madman. One would assume they are bright enough not to hit their friends.

Friendly fire is a fact of real life battle.  And only occassionaly, is it intentional.  Having a combat system follow a set of rules, that apply to both the player's party, and their opponents is part of what a crpg is.  If this set of rules throws all realism out the window (and even magic follows rules), then you are no longer playing a crpg.  What you are doing is playing a fairy tale.  And not a very good one.

Modifié par Dakota Strider, 03 juin 2012 - 02:21 .

[vallore]

BobSmith101 wrote...

vallore wrote...


Personally, I really disliked the melee classes we had on DA2. Melee combat was too fast, repetitive, and had overly exuberant moves that could not be avoided, such as turbo rush into combat, grasshopper jumps, teleports, weightless two-handed weapons, and so on. Now, I understand that some people like such, but others don’t, so why not make such hyperactive combat style available through a toggle? Everyone could then enjoy combat, not just one group.

Speed covers for missing animations and enemies not using skills (as does killing them really quickly).

I actually experienced a bug during combat that – in my view – improved significantly gameplay:

My companions would get slower and the silly, unavoidable, animations, (the jumps, turbo rush, etc) became much rarer. Unfortunately, I didn’t found the means to duplicate the bug at will.

[Provi-dance]

deatharmonic wrote...


Sounds like quite an interesting concept. Would you also have visible effects of not taking a breather after a damaging battle? for example, your characters walking/overall movement appears to be more labored, breathing noticably heavier etc.

Why not. For instance, Drakensang has a special after-combat animation (quite good too) for characters that have fallen unconscious in battle. They're treated as having a critical wound which has to be healed (if you don't want to bear tremendous penalties). Bring wounds back!


I'd also like combat mechanics to be documented.
And ....  Combat log.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Tirigon wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Whatever they do, they need to fix friendly fire.

They should just remove it, as it doesnt make sense anyways.

Magic: It's magic, a mage can control his spells so they only harm those he wants to harm, not his friends.

Arrows / Swords: We ARE playing heroes, not scrubs swinging a club around like a madman. One would assume they are bright enough not to hit their friends.

They basically did remove it from DA2.  That's part of DA2's problem.

A giant explosion should hurt anyone within the blast radius.  And friendly fire means that I can trick the enemies into killing each other.  That's something I really enjoy doing, and it doesn't work at all in DA2 because of the severely asymmetrical mechanics.

[Tirigon]

Dakota Strider wrote...

Friendly fire is a fact of real life battle.  And only occassionaly, is it intentional.  Having a combat system follow a set of rules, that apply to both the player's party, and their opponents is part of what a crpg is.  If this set of rules throws all realism out the window (and even magic follows rules), then you are no longer playing a crpg.  What you are doing is playing a fairy tale.  And not a very good one.

Friendly Fire is a part of real life battles because in real life, you have bombs and grenades instead of magic.
It makes sense for a bomb explosion to not make a difference between friend or foe.
It does not for a magical one.

In addition, there can and should be differences between different people. For example, a Darkspawn mage would probably not bother to shape his spells to only hit his enemies. A Warden fighting side by side with his brothers-in-arms however would.


Also, The Witcher does not have friendly fire. Usually it is considered a better RPG than anything BioWare has ever made.

Modifié par Tirigon, 04 juin 2012 - 05:04 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Tirigon wrote...

Also, The Witcher does not have friendly fire. Usually it is considered a better RPG than anything BioWare has ever made.

I think The Witcher has an absolutely terrible combat system.  It's unplayably bad.

[Vaeliorin]

Tirigon wrote...
Also, The Witcher does not have friendly fire. Usually it is considered a better RPG than anything BioWare has ever made.

Of course, there are almost never any friendlies to hit in The Witcher, 1 or 2. Besides, both Witcher games have action combat, not RPG combat.

[unreadierLizard]

 Again, call me a heathen and throw me from the top of Mount Holy Grail if you want, but I enjoyed a mix of combat from DA:O and DA:2. DA:O was much too slow for me, while DA:2 was a tad too fast. If you could scale it down to a healthy medium it would be great. 

As for all these things aboutg friendly-fire and the like - I don't mind, but that should be in effect on higher difficulty. Some of us(mostly me) like playing the game on Easy-Normal - since I'm a terrible gamer anyway, I still have trouble with certain enemies( ancient rock wraith/Ishal ogre anyone?) and making the game dependant on dice rolls and the like just seems like it would make the game less enjoyable for me. 

[Dakota Strider]

Tirigon wrote...

Dakota Strider wrote...

Friendly fire is a fact of real life battle.  And only occassionaly, is it intentional.  Having a combat system follow a set of rules, that apply to both the player's party, and their opponents is part of what a crpg is.  If this set of rules throws all realism out the window (and even magic follows rules), then you are no longer playing a crpg.  What you are doing is playing a fairy tale.  And not a very good one.

Friendly Fire is a part of real life battles because in real life, you have bombs and grenades instead of magic.
It makes sense for a bomb explosion to not make a difference between friend or foe.
It does not for a magical one.

In addition, there can and should be differences between different people. For example, a Darkspawn mage would probably not bother to shape his spells to only hit his enemies. A Warden fighting side by side with his brothers-in-arms however would.


Also, The Witcher does not have friendly fire. Usually it is considered a better RPG than anything BioWare has ever made.

Your claim that magic can tell the difference between friendlies and enemies is flawed in many ways.   If you cast a fireball into a crowded city square, do you believe it would leave your friends and innocents alone, and just kill the thieves and others that had criminal intent?   If that was the case, it would make it real easy for the city guard to clean up crime, just throw a fireball into the marketplace a few times a day. 

Certain schools of magic, CAN effect different types of creatures differently in the same area of affect.   In the D&D system, necromatic and healing magics are considered opposites, and necromatic may heal undead while harming living in the same area, while the mass healing spells could do just the opposite.  And mind effecting spells may have no affect on any creatures in an area that are considered mindless. 

Elemental spells however, while potentially the most powerful, are also the hardest to control, and makes no difference in who it harms.  One of the limits of most crpgs, is that the environment is not also affected when an elemental spell is cast.  After a battle where such spells are used, we should at the minimum have charred and smoking debris where fire was used, frosted and frozen ground from ice, scorch marks from lightening, and everything drenched and dripping if water was used. 

Its fine for their to be an easy combat setting that does not allow friendly fire to affect your party.  It will allow those that do not have the temperment to play a style that requires a more skillful style of game, or who for whatever reason does not desire a more realistic form of combat.

[Tirigon]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Tirigon wrote...

Also, The Witcher does not have friendly fire. Usually it is considered a better RPG than anything BioWare has ever made.

I think The Witcher has an absolutely terrible combat system.  It's unplayably bad.

Agreed. But that is very sad because nevertheless it is the better RPG.

But at any rate, the combat is bad because of many things, but lack of friendly fire is not one of these.

[Tirigon]

Dakota Strider wrote...

Your claim that magic can tell the difference between friendlies and enemies is flawed in many ways.   If you cast a fireball into a crowded city square, do you believe it would leave your friends and innocents alone, and just kill the thieves and others that had criminal intent?   If that was the case, it would make it real easy for the city guard to clean up crime, just throw a fireball into the marketplace a few times a day. 

The city guards dont employ mages, though, and at any rate you need to pick your targets yourself.
But if they could tell innocents and criminals apart, yes, they could do that. That's the difference between magic and a phosphor grenade.

Its fine for their to be an easy combat setting that does not allow friendly fire to affect your party.  It will allow those that do not have the temperment to play a style that requires a more skillful style of game, or who for whatever reason does not desire a more realistic form of combat.

No, Friendly Fire should be toggleable on or off regardlessof difficulty. I enjoy difficulties to overcome (DAO is only DAO on Nightmare, tbh) but the difficulty should come from your enemies, not from 1-shotting your entire party, and besides I would like my mage to feel like an intelligent being who controls his powers and leads them, not like a f*cking retard throwing bombs in the battle even if it hits his friends.