20 réponses à ce sujet

[dragonflight288]

Seems like an interesting idea. In order to get it, it would probably require some kind of quest of the mage in question going into the Fade and making a deal of some sort with the Spirits of the Fade, instead of demons.

The problem with that is, that the generally considered benevolent spirits aren't considered benevolent because of their virtues, but because they don't interfere with our lives. According to the lore, they just have no interest in the mortal world.

[brushyourteeth]

Nizaris1 wrote...

dragonfight wrote
The problem with that is, that the generally considered benevolent spirits aren't considered benevolent because of their virtues, but because they don't interfere with our lives. According to the lore, they just have no interest in the mortal world.

Maybe because of Mage-Templar war, the veil torn apart badly, those spirits become interested to help mages...Spirit of Justice in Anders is said want to help all born mages from injustice right? Maybe the story or quest that make spirits want to help?

One of the characters in the Asunder novel, Rhys, is able to communicate with Fade spirits and call them into the physical world for aid. It's a very, very, very rare gift though. 

[PsychoBlonde]

Personally, I think this would be a disaster.

Summons are difficult in any sort of game--they add an enormous amount of complexity AND enormous opportunities for things to go horribly, horribly wrong. Heck, here's just a FEW examples:

1. Aggro errors--the summon will rush enemies that aren't supposed to be active yet, or, conversely, aggro on enemies it can't reach and get stuck. This can break encounters.
2. Errors during cinematics--it's very easy for summons to break cinematics in some bizarre way. Considering that 100% of all the dialog in Dragon Age IS cinematic cutscenes . . .
3. Interaction errors--summons can and do break quests or puzzles by stepping on pressure plates, triggering traps, etc. etc. etc.
4. Summons are Dumb--there are basically two ways that summons get coded. Either they're powerful enough that, in combat, the summoner can go bunk off for a nap, or they're so weak and useless they're pretty much cosmetic (except that they eat up class points you could be spending on something USEFUL.) It is not uncommon for the SAME summons to be BOTH of those at different points in the game. They're also either incredibly fiddly to control, or you have basically no control over them whatsoever.
5. Summons turn combats into an enormous writhing mass of indistinguishable bodies. It becomes impossible to tell what's going on, you just have to sit back and wait until everything has died. In some types of games this works fine. In Dragon Age? Not so much.

If they want to bring back more tactical combat, they don't need to ADD summoning. They need to ELIMINATE 90% of the enemies and make the remaining ones actually interesting.

[andar91]

Psychoblonde raises some good concerns. I LOVE the concept of summoning, but it might not work well. I do like the idea of a spirit of compassion being summoned by a Spirit Healer as it fits the lore; the spirit could randomly heal any allies; sort of like a positive Firestorm. Anything more complex than that is risky.

I don't think summoner, by itself, is a good enough specialization simply because they want to make them more significant story-wise (see the link you linked to in the OP). If anything, summoning a spirit or demon would be part of the Spirit Healer or Blood Mage specializations because they fit them and those have more story implications.

[brushyourteeth]

I'm not in particular super interested in the idea, but out of curiousity I have to ask - how would a summoned fade spirit be glitchier or more unpredictable than a normal party member, summoned mabari hound, or ranger pet?

[Chiramu]

The problem with a "Summoner" specialisation is that it sounds very much like it's just from Final Fantasy. Although it would be cool to play a character that looks like adult Rydia; it wouldn't be much like Dragon Age.

They could expand the Blood Mage specialisation to involve summoning demons into battle though. Spirit Healers are too uptight (Wynne as example) to do something like summon a spirit to help in battle, but Spirit Healers could possibly get an ability that lets them summon a spirit to help, like heal or buff or something.

I don't think there should be a class that is solely Summoner though. What other abilities would they fight with? What are their preferred weapons? What is their preferred dress? How would you unlock it?
I still think it would be better to tie into the previously made classes. The classes just can be expanded upon.

[brushyourteeth]

Nizaris1 wrote...

I put durations in the suggestion above, and so the summons are not permanent, after duration is up, they vanish. I think that will solve problem PsychoBlonde , andar91 and brushyourteeth bring up.

Another way is the option to un-summon, so when not need they can simply be un-summoned.

I didn't have any problems. 

It actually does fit in quite well with the lore, as those who've read Asunder will know. There are mages who have a special affinity with Fade spirits and can communicate with them at will and call them into the real world. Other than using that ability, they fight, heal, or dress just like any other mage. You wouldn't recognize one unless you saw them do it.

In Asunder, Rhys calls a spirit and asks it to distract some Templars for him. Since the devs are talking more and more lately about having your class specialization alter your gameplay and dialogue options, I think this actually shows a lot of promise as far as interesting new ways to resolve things in-game.

The only two things I could think of as being close to problematic are

1.) They're very rare. It wouldn't make sense to learn this specialization from a book or an individual - you'd have to be born with it. Not a big problem since DAII didn't really have unlocks either.

2.) The point of Rhy's ability is that he has a special connection with the positive inhabitants of the Fade. If he were the type of guy to abuse that power, they'd probably stop helping him (just my guess). So this becomes problematic for playing a character that's on the jerk-ish side.

Regardless, I hope we get to meet Rhys in DAIII and see some of these abilities at work. 

[PsychoBlonde]

Nizaris1 wrote...

I put durations in the suggestion above, and so the summons are not permanent, after duration is up, they vanish. I think that will solve problem PsychoBlonde , andar91 and brushyourteeth bring up.

Another way is the option to un-summon, so when not need they can simply be un-summoned.

Dungeons and Dragons Online has all of this, and summons/hirelings are still bug-ridden pains in the ass.  And that's a game where if a quest gets fubared, you just exit and try again, you don't have to hope and pray you have a save game that's far enough back to let you avoid the problem.  And that isn't corrupted.

[PsychoBlonde]

brushyourteeth wrote...

I'm not in particular super interested in the idea, but out of curiousity I have to ask - how would a summoned fade spirit be glitchier or more unpredictable than a normal party member, summoned mabari hound, or ranger pet?

I didn't use the ranger pets in Origins, but that mabari hound STILL managed to glitch me out a couple of times--even though he determinedly disappeared on pretty much any excuse whatsoever.

You can directly control your party members in the minutist detail.  Not so with summons.

[AcidRelic]

I like the idea and I understand about the glitches people would be worried about but I used the Mabari in almost every fight in DA2 and never had a glitch so I'm not worried about it.

[wsandista]

I've floated similar ideas before.

[Auintus]

Maybe instead of actually summoning a spirit into the physical realm, one could form a symbiotic relationship with one, like Anders or Wynne. Summoning a spirit of one kind or another gives you various buffs and stat boosts. While your idea sounds much more intriguing, mine might be easier to implement.

[Arthur Cousland]

If they don't come up with some kind of summoner spec, then it would at least be nice for blood mages to be able to summon demons into battle, as the lore says that they should.

If there are any summons in DA3, including something similar to the mabari in DA2, hopefully they will always attack the same target as the player and not run off on their own.

[SafetyShattered]

I think thats a pretty sweet idea actually. I also really like what Arthur Cousland said about having blood mages being able to summon demons. I mean every other mage in DA2 could.....so why not me.

[Byker]

That seems like a really cool idea, but it doesn't seem like a skill that would be practiced by many due to the Templars restricting summons from the fade, and it being associated with blood magic. It could be something someone else could teach you outside of the circle because of the Mage templar conflict but I done, im not making the game