159 réponses à ce sujet

[legbamel]

If you elininate healing potions and give players abilities to heal themselves you either make playing as a healer (something I happen to enjoy a great deal) obsolete or requiring me to gimp my companions by not progressing up the skill trees because those abilities block progression.

I'm all for more trees and/or branches but you're essentially asking that a whole class be made redundant because you don't enjoy it.

[Maria Caliban]

'Healer' isn't a class. It's a role.

[Beerfish]

I am not totally opposed to reducing healing potions but to remove them would mean you would essentially always need a 'healer' in your 4 person group. That restricts game play, especially if the only true healer in your party is a total nut job......not naming names here.

[Joy Divison]

mousestalker wrote...

so true

@OP - nrieh on page 4 is right on target with the issues your proposal raises.

Modifié par Joy Divison, 09 octobre 2012 - 07:04 .

[Terrorize69]

Beerfish wrote...

I am not totally opposed to reducing healing potions but to remove them would mean you would essentially always need a 'healer' in your 4 person group. That restricts game play, especially if the only true healer in your party is a total nut job......not naming names here.

Depends if other classes can fill roles, like a Paladin type role. Heals and Shields.

[FINE HERE]

This... This isn't serious, right? What, you want rpgs to have that FPS gimick where you just have to run around for a bit and their health just magically comes back? Potions and healing are part of tactics. Every rpg has them. Have you tried playing Final Fantasy with only white mages? It's incredibly challenging and fun. It's all part of the tactics.

Think healing potions are a cheap tactic? Then just sell all the potions you pick up and play how you want. You shouldn't wish something that others rely on out of the game just because you don't see a point to it. The cooldown on potions is a fine and makes it a little more difficult. That should be good enough.

[LinksOcarina]

In origins it was downright obtrusive how healing worked, because any major fight, including the game's climax, needed some sort of healing magic involved to get through it, especially on the nightmare difficulty. Dragon Age II I liked the fact that the cooldown for healing magic was longer, but they compensated by making the effects a bit stronger. I also liked that the only way to get full effects of healing you couldn't have any attack spells, which I thought was downright brilliant. 

That said, healing in 2 was almost unecessary. The only time's I really felt the need to heal characters were during the optional boss battles and against the Arishok, the rest of the time one or two healings was all I needed. And unlike Origins, where a spirit healer was almost mandatory to be in the party at all times, we now had it as an option for only major encounters.

I think the way to go is to make healing very hard to do, as you did in Dragon Age II, but at the same time making it effective to the point of offering a challenge. In other words, if healing as it is set up in Dragon Age II still let's me get by while not taking away any challenge to the game, its a good implementation of healing. It shouldn't be a major presence, but it shouldn't be useless either. It needs a bit more tweaking here and there to get it at that right balance.

As for health potions, keep them of course, but add a cooldown to that too, or do what you did in TOR, and have a limit of one health potion being used per fight. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 09 octobre 2012 - 07:14 .

[daaaav]

Nrieh wrote...

Yes... my whole point is that no one should be forced to play either using a healer or health potions... That is my point.

There are two ways to keep healthbar full, yes.
Either you have an option to refill it (potion, spell, skill - no matter)
Or you can try to prevent it from running empty.

Second way is what you suggest, I suppose. Pro-active healing, which is not really a healing - but doing stuff so that you do not lose health at all or lose little. Somehow you also suggest that such type of "healing" does not involve any spam. Well, as I played 2 MMOs with pro-active healers (WoW resto-druid, TOR scoundrel) - spam does not go away. You simply spam "something that protects" instead of "somethig that heals". No matter if it's dedicated healer's job or player has those skills on his own non-healing class.

You mentioned ME as a "healing- free" example, but that's FAR from true. ME1 had "first aid" spec and support classes (engineer, sentinel - those I remember) and used megi-gel same as potions. Both ME2 and ME3 have no "first aid" skills, but still they have medigel, which becomes not only health potion, but also something like a combat res for party.

Yes - both ME2&3 also have shield regen system, but...I doubt you really want to see cover-based combat mechanics in DA, and also - I doubt DA lore can stomach the idea of an armor, that heals you depending on its upgrade type and self-regenerating magic shields.That's....kinds spacemagical for Thedas, imo. Not to mention that ME3 MP has medi kits, which 100% act like any other healing-rejuvenation potion. So, no- MEs are NOT healing-free.

To put it short - if you even get rid of all reactive healing - you'll need to outbalance those with proactive skills, which will be constantly used. And while you'd be able to say "oh, I play with no healer in party and no potions" - the reality will be that you'll spam your buffs, shields, evasions and regens. And if those will have long CDs to prevent you from spaming - you'd have to run "8" around pillars and wait for your defensive CD to over.

Personaly I love playing healing classes (though, I usually do it in MP games, not in SP ). And yes - healer is not usually about healing, but also about some buffs-debuffs-CC-DoTs etc - whatever is needed. I'm all for nice, strategic and various class and party builds. But I don't see how eliminating healer as a class may help you get any of those.

You make good points except for the last part.

I never said that I want to eliminate healing classes.

I want two things:

-  To reduce a parties DEPENDANCE on bringing a healer. This was not possible in DAO but I will admit that it was improved upon in DA2.

- To ensure that non healer parties are viable without having to spam health potions. Again, this is not possible in DAO and again I admit that it has been improved upon in DA2.

I am not a power gamer. I am terrible at them. So if I want to compose a party of characters that I like, and none of them happen to be healers, I would like enjoyable ways to complete the game without resorting to spreadsheets or consumable spam (in my opinion, the least enjoyable combat mechanic).

You cannot tell me that fighting the Arishok in DA2 by running around pillars for Health pot CD's for half an hour was an enjoyable experience...

[daaaav]

PurebredCorn wrote...

kingjezza wrote...

Nobody is forcing anybody to use potions, or even a healer.

If you want to play the game like that then it is possible now, at least Origins is, I'm struggling to remember my three quarter play through of DA2.

This is an excellent point. If someone wants to up the challenge for themself and not use healing potions or healers then have at it. OP, why do you feel the need to try and remove the option to use said items/powers for those of us who prefer to use them? Having both healer and potions offers more options than not having either and I prefer more options.

Yes. I would like options. I would like the option to use a party of non healers. People are getting so fixated on the health potion thing... My point is not just to remove them... My point is that you can REPLACE them with more interesting mechanics.

[Arthur Cousland]

No one forces the player to use health potions or heal spells.  The long recasts on both in DA2 were as far as I'd like to see Bioware go with them.

Healing spells and health potions have always been a part of rpgs.  If you want an action game with a story, then play that and not a rpg where you have healer companions and recovery items.  If you make a game where you don't need healer companions or recovery items, then why bother bringing that companion along at all or have the items to make up for their absence?  Enemies do damage, and the spells/items are how the player makes up for it.  If you don't want to bring the healer mage along, then you have the health potions, and vice versa.  If you don't have either, then you have an action game and not a role playing game where everyone has their role.

I prefer rpgs where everyone has their role and works together as a unit.

Modifié par Arthur Cousland, 10 octobre 2012 - 03:05 .

[daaaav]

Trista Faux Hawke wrote...

No way! Daaaaaav (sorry I am totally off on how many a's to add) you must be one hardcore gamer! Damn you daaav. Damn yoooou. jk. 

Ha! The amount of folk who think I'm some kind of bloody power gamer who wants to make the game super hardcore astound me...

I'm not. I am poor at games at best! That is why i couldn't pass DAO without bringing Wynne everywhere, or DA2 without dragging Anders with me Every. Single. Time.
 
(I'm cool with any and all a's!)

Modifié par daaaav, 10 octobre 2012 - 03:07 .

[daaaav]

Arthur Cousland wrote...

No one forces the player to use health potions or heal spells.  The long recasts on both in DA2 were as far as I'd like to see Bioware go with them.

Healing spells and health potions have always been a part of rpgs.  If you want an action game with a story, then play that and not a rpg where you have "healer" companions and recovery items.

I prefer rpgs where everyone has their role and works together as a unit.

So do I mate... so do I...

What is your opinion on the following senario.

A typical RPG "team" is healer, tank, CC, DPS. The status quo is that if you have a healer, then you can fill the other roles with pretty much whatever you like and can omit one or two. I would prefer that a team comprised  of tank, CC and DPS classes are just as viable as heal/ tank/CC. or Heal/CC/DPS.

[Arthur Cousland]

daaaav wrote...

Arthur Cousland wrote...

No one forces the player to use health potions or heal spells.  The long recasts on both in DA2 were as far as I'd like to see Bioware go with them.

Healing spells and health potions have always been a part of rpgs.  If you want an action game with a story, then play that and not a rpg where you have "healer" companions and recovery items.

I prefer rpgs where everyone has their role and works together as a unit.

So do I mate... so do I...

What is your opinion on the following senario.

A typical RPG "team" is healer, tank, CC, DPS. The status quo is that if you have a healer, then you can fill the other roles with pretty much whatever you like and can omit one or two. I would prefer that a team comprised  of tank, CC and DPS classes are just as viable as heal/ tank/CC. or Heal/CC/DPS.

Perhaps part of the problem is that there is no force mage companion aside from Bethany, who you have limited access to.  They are awesome at crowd control.  You still have glyphs, petrify, horror and etc.  If there is a bit of reliance on a healer companion, it's because that's all that they do, while you can pretty much replace any damage dealer with another.

It's always been this way with mmorpgs, where the healers are always in high demand because everyone wants to play the offensive classes.  If the healer specialists weren't so important, then no one would want them, and thus there would be no reason to play the class.  If healing isn't needed, then where is the challenge in the game coming from?

Other rpgs might not need as much healing, but generally those are games like Mass Effect, where you have damage shields that absorb damage.  As Dragon Age isn't sci-fi, that would seem a bit out of place. 

If you really want to minimize damage taken, and not need healing in the game, then load up on defensive runes and try to kill everything asap.  I'm sure there are some guides on the builds forum that can help with making it through the game without a healer.  For example, fire resist runes greatly help with enemies like the High Dragon, while spirit resist runes greatly help against blood mages and arcane horrors.  Currently, I'm playing as a templar Hawke, who can use silence to keep enemies from using abilties, which goes a long way towards keeping enemies from doing damage.  Too bad Carver and Bethany aren't available together past Lothering...

Modifié par Arthur Cousland, 10 octobre 2012 - 03:36 .

[daaaav]

Arthur Cousland wrote...

It's always been this way with mmorpgs, where the healers are always in high demand because everyone wants to play the offensive classes.  If the healer specialists weren't so important, then no one would want them, and thus there would be no reason to play the class.  If healing isn't needed, then where is the challenge in the game coming from?

As I said before, I'm not sure that a combination of suggesting "that's the way it's always been" and that if healers weren't necessary no one would play them , is reason enough to keep the status quo...

The challenge would come from the same sources. I don't understand how replacing healing with mitigation or CC abilities changes the fundamental dyamic of the combat.

[deuce985]

DA2 already did this and did it well.

You still needed healing but dependency wasn't as high. Why? Because you can't spam it. Pots had CDs and so did the spells. In fact, many encounters had to be planned properly when I was playing on nightmare with only one healer in my party. Once you used that healing spell and pot, you had to wait a LONG time to heal again.

It certainly beat the system in DAO. It's nothing but pot spam and it was a MAJOR balance issue to me. DA2 did a much better job at handling it.

I'm definitely against this. They have plenty of ways to balance healing without removing it from the game. It's already established in both games and it plays into lore. I see no reason how they can remove this from the game logic wise.

Modifié par deuce985, 10 octobre 2012 - 04:27 .

[PsychoBlonde]

Guess I'll have to say it again:

Healing hasn't been vital in either game thus far.  I have, literally, done playthroughs where I sold 100% of my health potions and NEVER had a "healer" in the party.  Oh, and I suck at and am lazy about the combat.  There are people who have (literally) solo'd both games on a rogue without ever using potions.  

If you don't want health potions, sell them all.  Problem solved.  And, you're not being a colossal dick to all the folks who do use them.  If Bioware takes this kind of suggestion, they'll just rebalance the game and you'll be in here ****ing that an idiot could play it in his sleep.  At least with the health potions in you have the option to play without them if you choose--you won't have the option to change if they simply rebalance it so nobody ever needs them.

[daaaav]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

Guess I'll have to say it again:

Healing hasn't been vital in either game thus far.  I have, literally, done playthroughs where I sold 100% of my health potions and NEVER had a "healer" in the party.  Oh, and I suck at and am lazy about the combat.  There are people who have (literally) solo'd both games on a rogue without ever using potions.  

If you don't want health potions, sell them all.  Problem solved.  And, you're not being a colossal dick to all the folks who do use them.  If Bioware takes this kind of suggestion, they'll just rebalance the game and you'll be in here ****ing that an idiot could play it in his sleep.  At least with the health potions in you have the option to play without them if you choose--you won't have the option to change if they simply rebalance it so nobody ever needs them.

Well someone had to let their temper get the better of them... The way you're carrying on I wouldn't be surprised if you were part of a health potion lobbying group or something...

Yes, I admit it. I'm not the gaming god that you are, and cannot solo both games using only my tongue with both arms tied behind my back.

Health potions are a safety net, nothing more. I have never said in any way whatsoever that I want to take away the safety net. I would like to replace the health potion safety net with something DIRECTLY incorporated into the combat mechanics of the game.

[deuce985]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

Guess I'll have to say it again:

Healing hasn't been vital in either game thus far.  I have, literally, done playthroughs where I sold 100% of my health potions and NEVER had a "healer" in the party.  Oh, and I suck at and am lazy about the combat.  There are people who have (literally) solo'd both games on a rogue without ever using potions.  

If you don't want health potions, sell them all.  Problem solved.  And, you're not being a colossal dick to all the folks who do use them.  If Bioware takes this kind of suggestion, they'll just rebalance the game and you'll be in here ****ing that an idiot could play it in his sleep.  At least with the health potions in you have the option to play without them if you choose--you won't have the option to change if they simply rebalance it so nobody ever needs them.

The problem with this logic is you're not looking at people who play on higher difficulties. But you're also not looking at people who have different skill levels. Some people just aren't great at games. Doesn't matter what difficulty they're on.

Healing is vital on nightmare. DA2 is impossible without a healer/pots. Anybody who says otherwise is either lying or using some kind of exploit. You don't have to use healers in DAO because you can pot spam. DAO is a much easier game than DA2 on nightmare. You can go to sleep after the first third through the game once you can commit to pot spam. DA2 kept me on my toes completely in nightmare and not a moment could I just sit around and play lazy. Boss fights in DA2 are ridiculous endurance fights. Legacy DLC almost made me want to rip my hair out with the positioning on that fight and how long it took me to kill him...

If somebody comes in here and says they played DA2 on nightmare without healers/pots...I want proof.

Modifié par deuce985, 10 octobre 2012 - 05:43 .

[o0ohahahao0o]

Instead of trying to nerf health pots, why not just buff the other viable mechanics to its level? That way a player who uses healing pots them can still do so, while a tactically-minded player won't be forced into that playstyle. I think we should be asking for more viable options, not less.

Modifié par o0ohahahao0o, 10 octobre 2012 - 05:57 .

[Ahglock]

Not really for it. I just don't see it working without dropping too many tactical elements. Things like high spike damage from an enemy would have to go, ambushes gone, basically anything where the player is reacting to a sudden drop in health would have to go. And if healing was still there it would be vastly overpowered since in most fights you don;t need it so with it fights would be either face roll easy or you would be able to face enemies outside your weight class. I've seen games try this before, I've just never seen it work outside cover based games with insane regen. If they can get it to work so any class combination is valid for the normal joe and nothing is overpowered then awesome go ahead and do it, but I highly doubt it will happen.

[goofyomnivore]

I would like to replace the health potion safety net with something DIRECTLY incorporated into the combat mechanics of the game.

Put a limit on the amount you can carry at one time, and make them scarce throughout dungeons. Say they bring back the skill system from Origins and you upgrade Herbalism each rank you get an extra potion slot in your 'herb bag' or whatever. Say with no points you get three potion slots per character to do as you please. They can't be interchanged and potions equipped by x character can't be used by y character. Add a larger variety of potions (long damage or regeneration buffs come to my mind). Make it a tactical and interactive system that requires strategy.

Modifié par strive, 10 octobre 2012 - 06:06 .

[daaaav]

Ahglock wrote...

Not really for it. I just don't see it working without dropping too many tactical elements. Things like high spike damage from an enemy would have to go, ambushes gone, basically anything where the player is reacting to a sudden drop in health would have to go. And if healing was still there it would be vastly overpowered since in most fights you don;t need it so with it fights would be either face roll easy or you would be able to face enemies outside your weight class. I've seen games try this before, I've just never seen it work outside cover based games with insane regen. If they can get it to work so any class combination is valid for the normal joe and nothing is overpowered then awesome go ahead and do it, but I highly doubt it will happen.

Great post.

I don't know how to overcome all these problems. However, one of Dragon Age's strengths is the ability to pause combat in order to deal with spike damage situations. I personally don't feel satisfied when the only way to do this s to instantly replenish my health pool through either an instant healing spell or health pot.

[daaaav]

strive wrote...

I would like to replace the health potion safety net with something DIRECTLY incorporated into the combat mechanics of the game.

Put a limit on the amount you can carry at one time, and make them scarce throughout dungeons. Say they bring back the skill system from Origins and you upgrade Herbalism each rank you get an extra potion slot in your 'herb bag' or whatever. Say with no points you get three potion slots per character to do as you please. They can't be interchanged and potions equipped by x character can't be used by y character. Add a larger variety of potions (long damage or regeneration buffs come to my mind). Make it a tactical and interactive system that requires strategy.

Step in the right direction