116 réponses à ce sujet

[Face of Evil]

wsandista wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Any thoughts?

Restrict the access to top tier spells? Better synergies with lower level spells?

Have the top tier spells have a ridiculously high mana cost.

That runs the risk of becoming Awesome, But Impractical.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 25 octobre 2012 - 04:36 .

[TheJediSaint]

I suppose one way to limit the use of top tier spells is for them to consume a non-recharging resource. Say, for example, in order to cast "tactical nuclear strike" you would have to burn consumable item. Let's call it a "Lyrium focus". Focuses could cost a considerable amount of money, and only a few of them would be available for purchase at any time. That way the player would be forced to think about the best time to cast their nuke spell. Because every time they fired them off they would be burning money when they did.

Modifié par TheJediSaint, 25 octobre 2012 - 04:36 .

[wsandista]

Face of Evil wrote...

wsandista wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Any thoughts?

Restrict the access to top tier spells? Better synergies with lower level spells?

Have the top tier spells have a ridiculously high mana cost.

That runs the risk of becoming Awesome, But Impractical.

You could use it every battle. A OMGWTFBBQ spell should take quite a bit of power to utilize.

[NovaBlastMarketing]

totally disagree with op

[Vandicus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Any thoughts?

Restrict the access to top tier spells? Better synergies with lower level spells?

Well the idea seems to be a trade-off for more powerful spells. It needs to be a real trade-off that actually affects combat without creating drag where the player rests or visits taverns in between.

Channeling is a measure that somewhat addresses it, but channeled spells have the problem of a dynamic battlefield, typically restricting them to duration aoes in the DA series(channeling for five seconds to cast finger of death at a miniboss only to have that miniboss stealth right before the cast time ends would stink and can be a crippling weakness in its use). 

An alternative I think would be frontloading the damage, but basically stunning the mage for a channel equivalent time after the mage casts the spell. So in the miniboss getting nuked by finger of death example, the mage would hit him with finger of death, and then be overcome with exhaustion, leaving him either stunned, or leaving him unable to cast spells of any power above autoattack for a time. 

More synergy with "low level" spells would be nice. Ideally mage gameplay should not revolve around mana management for the mage's best one or two spells that he alternates off-CD, but the mage should be able to maintain a good level of damage by using a variety of combinations from their spells while occassionally utilizing their high burst spells that have the significant tactical drawback of rendering them temporarily useless. 

In regards to combinations of spells, longer cooldowns and more combos can make the current system more interactive. Start off with spell A for example, so while spell A is on cooldown the player can choose from spells B through E, and the player decides a slow is in order, so they cast spell C, spell C combos with spells in a different way then spell A so the options change a bit, maybe the player next decides to bring out spell E to do some damage over time and set up for a damage focused combo with spell D. Presumably the cooldowns would be happening fast enough that the player always has an interesting set of options to choose from, but not so fast that spamming damage spell A, or spamming damage spell combo A&B becomes the optimal and dominant play style.

[Dhiro]

wsandista wrote...

Face of Evil wrote...

wsandista wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Any thoughts?

Restrict the access to top tier spells? Better synergies with lower level spells?

Have the top tier spells have a ridiculously high mana cost.

That runs the risk of becoming Awesome, But Impractical.

You could use it every battle. A OMGWTFBBQ spell should take quite a bit of power to utilize.

Depends. I mean, you can shrug off mana costs with lyrium potions. But if somehow make it that you can't they'll have to make the OMGWTFBBQ spell be awesome enough to justify sacrificing the ability to buff, debuff, heal, crowd control...unless it's Storm of the Century then yes please.

[Face of Evil]

wsandista wrote...

You could use it every battle. A OMGWTFBBQ spell should take quite a bit of power to utilize.

Imagine a mage casting OMGWTFBBQ at the start of a battle with a mob of darkspawn. What if he spends all his mana and is still left with half the darkspawn still standing? That's a weapon that actually hampers the mage in battle. Sure, he can regain a bit of it with potions, but the gains are never equivalent to the losses. It's mana that could be better utilized casting less costly but brutally effective spells.

Like I said: Awesome, but Impractical.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 25 octobre 2012 - 04:47 .

[Dhiro]

Vandicus wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Any thoughts?

Restrict the access to top tier spells? Better synergies with lower level spells?

Well the idea seems to be a trade-off for more powerful spells. It needs to be a real trade-off that actually affects combat without creating drag where the player rests or visits taverns in between.

Channeling is a measure that somewhat addresses it, but channeled spells have the problem of a dynamic battlefield, typically restricting them to duration aoes in the DA series(channeling for five seconds to cast finger of death at a miniboss only to have that miniboss stealth right before the cast time ends would stink and can be a crippling weakness in its use). 

An alternative I think would be frontloading the damage, but basically stunning the mage for a channel equivalent time after the mage casts the spell. So in the miniboss getting nuked by finger of death example, the mage would hit him with finger of death, and then be overcome with exhaustion, leaving him either stunned, or leaving him unable to cast spells of any power above autoattack for a time. 

More synergy with "low level" spells would be nice. Ideally mage gameplay should not revolve around mana management for the mage's best one or two spells that he alternates off-CD, but the mage should be able to maintain a good level of damage by using a variety of combinations from their spells while occassionally utilizing their high burst spells that have the significant tactical drawback of rendering them temporarily useless. 

In regards to combinations of spells, longer cooldowns and more combos can make the current system more interactive. Start off with spell A for example, so while spell A is on cooldown the player can choose from spells B through E, and the player decides a slow is in order, so they cast spell C, spell C combos with spells in a different way then spell A so the options change a bit, maybe the player next decides to bring out spell E to do some damage over time and set up for a damage focused combo with spell D. Presumably the cooldowns would be happening fast enough that the player always has an interesting set of options to choose from, but not so fast that spamming damage spell A, or spamming damage spell combo A&B becomes the optimal and dominant play style.

Spell combos are nice idea. In ME you can make biotic explosions by using a primer and a detonation, but it has a downside in that you can just spam stasis + warp forever, since there is only one kind of BE. By giving us more combinations that can range from damage to, say, crowd control, this could make for a fun sort of combat.

[wsandista]

Face of Evil wrote...

wsandista wrote...

You could use it every battle. A OMGWTFBBQ spell should take quite a bit of power to utilize.

Imagine a mage casting OMGWTFBBQ at the start of a battle with a mob of darkspawn. What if he spends all his mana and is still left with half the darkspawn still standing? That's a weapon that actually hampers the mage in battle. It's mana that could be better utilized casting less costly but brutally effective spells.

Like I said: Awesome, but Impractical.

The spell should be powerful enough to take out the mob. We are talking about an OMGWTFBBQ spell, not just an OMG or WTF level spell.

Drink a mana potion is what the mage should do when they are out of mana. Also, please significantly reduce the cooldowns for potions. It shouldn't take that long to drink a liquid.

[Allan Schumacher]

How about the idea of shared cooldowns? Would require a system that is a bit different than DAO/DA2 in how the spells are structured in order to make it clear what abilities may share a cooldown.

Other things to mitigate could be incentive for not resting (if it were a rest mechanic like older D&D). I think many gamers consider XP to be the holy grail and prefer to acquire it as efficiently as they can, and if you gain bonus xp the more hostiles you defeat between resting, might be something that causes people to stop and take notice. Within the context of DA, it'd have to require mana/stamina not have much/any regen, but probably have the pool larger. In this sense, spamming the biggest spells would make the mage less useful long term, and provide an incentive for more situational and varied spell/ability usage. In this sense, it might also fairly balance between all the classes to boot?

(note, I'm not on the combat team so I'm really just spitballing ideas lol)

[TheJediSaint]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

How about the idea of shared cooldowns? Would require a system that is a bit different than DAO/DA2 in how the spells are structured in order to make it clear what abilities may share a cooldown.

Other things to mitigate could be incentive for not resting (if it were a rest mechanic like older D&D). I think many gamers consider XP to be the holy grail and prefer to acquire it as efficiently as they can, and if you gain bonus xp the more hostiles you defeat between resting, might be something that causes people to stop and take notice. Within the context of DA, it'd have to require mana/stamina not have much/any regen, but probably have the pool larger. In this sense, spamming the biggest spells would make the mage less useful long term, and provide an incentive for more situational and varied spell/ability usage. In this sense, it might also fairly balance between all the classes to boot?

(note, I'm not on the combat team so I'm really just spitballing ideas lol)

Well, another idea would be a fatique mechanic.  Where casting powerful spells fills up a meter, which as it gets higher, increases the cooldown time of an ablity, or lowers the mana regen rate, or does both.  The meter would go up while in combat, and would only lower when the party was out of combat.   The idea is that if you spammed your most powerful ablites too much too early, you'd cripple yourself later on in the fight.  This would be paritcuarly imporant against bosses and other tough enemies that may not have the coutresy to die in the first volley.

Modifié par TheJediSaint, 25 octobre 2012 - 04:54 .

[Vandicus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

How about the idea of shared cooldowns? Would require a system that is a bit different than DAO/DA2 in how the spells are structured in order to make it clear what abilities may share a cooldown.

Other things to mitigate could be incentive for not resting (if it were a rest mechanic like older D&D). I think many gamers consider XP to be the holy grail and prefer to acquire it as efficiently as they can, and if you gain bonus xp the more hostiles you defeat between resting, might be something that causes people to stop and take notice. Within the context of DA, it'd have to require mana/stamina not have much/any regen, but probably have the pool larger. In this sense, spamming the biggest spells would make the mage less useful long term, and provide an incentive for more situational and varied spell/ability usage. In this sense, it might also fairly balance between all the classes to boot?

(note, I'm not on the combat team so I'm really just spitballing ideas lol)

So a global cooldown system much like in MMOs? 

Or something more along the lines of certain spells being grouped together, and casting from that pool starts a multiple round global cooldown?

Problem with XP that I can see coming up is that you guys scaled combat to level in DA:O, and I think you did that in DA2 though I'm not quite as familiar with the system there. It is an incentive, but I would think even if the incentive was something significant enough that players would try to maximize it, the opportunity to trivialize intricate or difficult boss fights arises. Sure players might spend 90-95% of the time min-maxing their XP(or other incentive), but would they put the extra effort in gaining that little bit more from a single fight when it would be so much easier to rest right before, and then drop the entire mana pool worth of spells on the boss fight?

[Maria Caliban]

Yeah.

Mages can do AOE spells but their spells don't do more raw damage to a single target than warrior or rogue abilities. Problem solved.

The is not 3.5 DnD were everyone worships the awe inspiring power of your staff.

[wsandista]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

How about the idea of shared cooldowns? Would require a system that is a bit different than DAO/DA2 in how the spells are structured in order to make it clear what abilities may share a cooldown.

Like ME2/ME3? If so, then I don't think that is something I would like.

Other things to mitigate could be incentive for not resting (if it were a rest mechanic like older D&D). I think many gamers consider XP to be the holy grail and prefer to acquire it as efficiently as they can, and if you gain bonus xp the more hostiles you defeat between resting, might be something that causes people to stop and take notice. Within the context of DA, it'd have to require mana/stamina not have much/any regen, but probably have the pool larger. In this sense, spamming the biggest spells would make the mage less useful long term, and provide an incentive for more situational and varied spell/ability usage. In this sense, it might also fairly balance between all the classes to boot?

I do think that the stamina/mana regen rate needs to be significantly reduced(and the natural health regen should be removed completely). That would be pretty cool, and a larger pool of stamina/mana(or relatively lower talent/spell costs) would be nice to compensate for it. Although High level spells should still have a place, like taking out a mob.

I don't think rewarding more XP for defeating more hostiles between rests is a good idea, because it could get abit complicated to track.

It would balance the classes, in the sense that each has different strangths and are suited to handle different situations.

[Vandicus]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Yeah.

Mages can do AOE spells but their spells don't do more raw damage to a single target than warrior or rogue abilities. Problem solved.

The is not 3.5 DnD were everyone worships the awe inspiring power of your staff.

Psshhh, everyone knows that scrolls and wands are way more efficient. Buying a staff is a total waste of gp.

[wsandista]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Mages can do AOE spells but their spells don't do more raw damage to a single target than warrior or rogue abilities. Problem solved.

I wouldn't mind if mages could do more raw damage than rogues or warriors and AOE, as long as they are pretty much useless when their mana runs out.

The is not 3.5 DnD were everyone worships the awe inspiring power of your staff.

Did anyone else take this as a dick joke?

[TheJediSaint]

Maria Caliban wrote...

The is not 3.5 DnD were everyone worships the awe inspiring power of your staff.

I see what you did there.


Another idea (I know, I'm throwing out a lot of them) that could be both nasty and lore appropriate is for there to be a mechanic that if you overexert your mage, then a  demon from the fade comes out to possess them.  Somthing of a none-standard game over for PC mages.   Not sure that would be workable with companions, however.

[Allan Schumacher]

So a global cooldown system much like in MMOs?

Or something more along the lines of certain spells being grouped together, and casting from that pool starts a multiple round global cooldown?

Spells being grouped together, not a global cooldown. Although this can still be simulated without explicit cooldowns if wsandista's suggestion was implemented, and mana regen remained.

To use spell levels, have cooldowns grouped by spell level, with higher spell levels having different cooldowns.  Though an issue is it may start to become challenging to keep track of this information.

Problem with XP that I can see coming up is that you guys scaled combat to level in DA:O, and I think you did that in DA2 though I'm not quite as familiar with the system there. It is an incentive, but I would think even if the incentive was something significant enough that players would try to maximize it, the opportunity to trivialize intricate or difficult boss fights arises. Sure players might spend 90-95% of the time min-maxing their XP(or other incentive), but would they put the extra effort in gaining that little bit more from a single fight when it would be so much easier to rest right before, and then drop the entire mana pool worth of spells on the boss fight?

This system would probably revolve around boss fights being somewhat isolated (and perhaps challenging enough to require the player's full mana pool/selection of spells).

I don't think there's as much of an issue with each boss fight requiring the player to use the super awesome spells, but rather it become more boring that you still only use the super awesome spells in every encounter between the boss fights.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 25 octobre 2012 - 05:03 .

[Allan Schumacher]

TheJediSaint wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

The is not 3.5 DnD were everyone worships the awe inspiring power of your staff.

I see what you did there.


Another idea (I know, I'm throwing out a lot of them) that could be both nasty and lore appropriate is for there to be a mechanic that if you overexert your mage, then a  demon from the fade comes out to possess them.  Somthing of a none-standard game over for PC mages.   Not sure that would be workable with companions, however.

I think this would be really interesting, but at the same time difficult to successfully execute to make sure it's fun.

[HTTP 404]

I really hope people on these threads are hired to design everything about DA3. that would make such a better game.

Anyways, I am all for whatever works.  Mixed cool downs, universal cool downs, fast cool downs, slow cool downs as long as it equals fun and balanced.

Modifié par HTTP 404, 25 octobre 2012 - 05:09 .

[Vandicus]

So running with the idea of XP incentives(or rather anti-rest incentives of any sort), how would a player who isn't a mage or doesn't use a mage companion in their core party be able to interact with such a system?

Modifié par Vandicus, 25 octobre 2012 - 05:12 .

[Face of Evil]

wsandista wrote...

The spell should be powerful enough to take out the mob. We are talking about an OMGWTFBBQ spell, not just an OMG or WTF level spell.

And then you run into the problem of the spell being a Game Breaker. If the spell is so powerful that there's no point to casting anything but OMGWTFBBQ, then every combat becomes repetitive.

It's like if Ash from Pokemon could summon Cthulhu for every battle in the TV series. It sounds awesome, but eventually, it just becomes boring.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 25 octobre 2012 - 05:15 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Vandicus wrote...

So running with the idea of XP incentives(or rather anti-rest incentives of any sort), how would a player who isn't a mage or doesn't use a mage companion in their core party be able to interact with such a system?

They also have their own resource (stamina) and if we're building the system around that resource being expended using abilities and being restored while resting, it seems like it'd apply for them just the same as it would for a mage.

[hoorayforicecream]

Face of Evil wrote...

wsandista wrote...

The spell should be powerful enough to take out the mob. We are talking about an OMGWTFBBQ spell, not just an OMG or WTF level spell.

And then you run into the problem of being a Game Breaker. If the spell is so powerful that there's no point to casting anything but OMGWTFBBQ, then every combat becomes repetitive.

It's like if Ash from Pokemon could summon Cthulhu for every battle in the TV series. It sounds awesome, but eventually, it just becomes boring.

You could have just said Storm of the Century as well. 

[wsandista]

Face of Evil wrote...

And then you run into the problem of being a Game Breaker. If the spell is so powerful that there's no point to casting anything but OMGWTFBBQ, then every combat becomes repetitive.

It's like if Ash from Pokemon could summon Cthulhu for every battle. It sounds awesome at first, but where's the challenge?

I don't think that a powerful creature would fall to spells like that, just normal foes and lieutenants.

I would totally summon Cthulhu for every battle in Pokemon if I could.......