143 réponses à ce sujet

[congokurtz]

Very nice review. I certainly agree with the vast majority of what you had to say. You listed all of my biggest gripes with the game, fugly helms (especially mages), lack of diversity in enemies, difficulty levels, and mage rapeage.



Well done.

[termokanden]

If you want to see how OP a mage is vs your DW warrior/ rogue whatever, take your Mage with fireball and cast it on your DW warrior or rogue. The rogue will most likely be outright killed and the warrior serverely injured by the encounter. The definition of overpowered is being able to inflict massive damage while disabling or preventing an equal playing field. Mages are the epitome in this.

I think that's exactly how a DAO mage should be. According to the game, mages are powerful and dangerous because of it. The combination of powerful AoE and friendly fire is exactly this. In a way it's overpowered, and in a way it's not because it prevents your party from joining the fight. This perfectly fits the game.

I think it's not actually that unbalanced, because when I do NOT use such tactics and just have a warrior as my main character, I get through the fights as easily anyway because my warrior is that much more party friendly.

A melee's single target DPS isn't going to measure up to AoE dps. However, using the melee character can still be as fun and as powerful as using the mage anyway. Like I said, I personally found the party friendly melee strategy easier in some fights.

I know you can crowd control whole groups of weak mobs as a mage. I know you can AoE them to death before you reach them. But for those same mobs, I can have my warrior use Dual Weapon Sweep or Whirlwind, and it has exactly the same effect. I think for those fights, the issue is more that the game itself is too easy.

Modifié par termokanden, 05 janvier 2010 - 09:34 .

[tetracycloide]

termokanden wrote...

I will agree that Mana Clash is an overpowered spell, but otherwise I stand by statement that mages are not overpowered. You're thinking about it the wrong way: This is not WoW, where damage meters dictate who's best. It's about functioning as a party. Melee functions very well if built correctly. Sadly the NPC party members are not. The melee character I had was throughout most of the game easier to play than my mage, but I suppose that's because it's underpowered.

Mages don't function in the party.  They're the best single target damage dealer, best multi-target damage dealer, best healers, and, with the right equipment, make for better tanks than everything but a weapon and shield spec warrior, even shale.  All with the same build!

termokanden wrote...
The AoE spells are largely responsible for the mages doing more damage, but you are forgetting that with their friendly fire, they actually have quite a huge drawback. People are exploiting game mechanics and casting spells in rooms where the mobs haven't even seen you yet. Then they complain that mages are doing the most damage, while all the melee are on hold outside the room with the AoE. What do you expect?

Friendly fire is meaningless when I can outfit my tank to be spell immune.  Make no mistake, I'm not complaining that mages deal the most damage on the statistics screens i'm complaining that, compared to weapon talents, spells, not all of them but enough of them, are really really strong.  My mage, for example, has 60ish spellpower and +30% spirit damage.  Can a warrior EVER deal as much damage with a single ability as just the DoT component of my virulant walking bomb?  Sure, it's a DoT but as a mage I have the best crowd control skills in the game so who cares, i've got time.  A fully decked out warrior would be lucky to deal more than 250 damage in a single swing against even a low armor target (evidence, 'help my warrior cannot unlock heavy hitter' threads).  A mage can accomplish this without mana clash, spell might, spell wisp, or debuffs at 29 spellpower with the right gear (read: +30% spirit damage).

The hybrid part is the part where you are actually competent with a sword and in full armor as an AW. Hybrids don't have to have EVERYTHING from two worlds.

Equiping and 'actually competent' are two different things entirely.  An arcane warrior will never deal the same damage as a warrior or rogue even in the same gear and comparing auto attack alone.  Auto attacking from melee range instead of a few yards away while watching a different auto-attack animation is hardly a 'hybrid.'  A mage is still a mage they're just standing in a different spot.

[Ancalimohtar]

First of all, thanks for everybody's comments and thoughts.

I'd like to try to keep back and forth tangential arguments out of this thread as much as possible, but a few clarifications:

I don't presume to speak for anyone else in my complaints, so the OP is not meant as a "THIS IS WHAT WE ALL THINK ROAR" kind of post. It's just my personal review of the game, but if you agree with my points, this is a good place to voice it so devs can gauge it. I do however make reference to the complaints from 3 years ago from me and others and how I think BioWare has successfully paid attention to the vast majority of them.

@stillnotking: Yeah, taunt is problematic, but without it, mages get chased too much, and tanks become useless; I think giving them ways to manipulate and control enemies' movement or positioning would be ideal.

@countersubject: I think a lot of people feel the same way re: storyline providing replayability. I just don't find it all that appealing to play through another 60 hours just to see what happens when I pour the blood into the urn. Ultimately, your decisions don't change much, as the developers don't have the resources to give you a completely different plot and main quest line for every single decision you make. For me, what really changes gameplay is having a completely different party with access to different abilities, and thus discovering new tactics and strategies to take down the same enemies. I think there are a lot of people like me as well in the playerbase, especially since this game was billed as a return to classic top-down tactical combat--if plot is the main thing that you care about, you'd be just as happy with KOTOR, no?

@termokanden: The role of healers in WOW raids, and their decision-making and the complicated tactics that go into being good at their job, are completely disparate and unrelated to the role of healing spells (and the mages that cast them) in DA/BG/etc. Suffice it to say, mages having access to Heal in DA is a huge deal, whereas, say, enh shammies having access to LHW is meaningless in WOW.

Your entire response to my suggestion for balancing mages is from an MMO player's point of view, rather than that of a pen-and-paper D&D player. This isn't a bad thing, but it is pretty funny to hear someone say "The spell system in DAO is incredible because it breaks exactly those [MMO] traditions and allows so many variations of spell choices." The reality is, DA mages have the MOST restrictive spell selection of any mage in any game in this genre so far. I even mentioned this in the part about talent trees being screwy in my OP above. Look, you can't compare DA to WOW. You should compare DA to the BGs, the IWDs, the NWNs, even the KOTORs--all single player, pausable, party-based epic CRPGs who have their roots in tabletop RPG campaigns. Every comparison you make between WOW mages and DA mages is meaningless because they aren't meant to be the same thing or do the same job. These two games are not in the same genre. The boredom of playing a hyper-specialized WOW PVE build is not relevant at all as an argument for more versatility for DA mages.

And realize I'm not even arguing for making mages less versatile. My proposed balance (not even something I'm particuarly attached to by the way) gives mages the same number of spells--just disallows the cherry picking of all the best trees. In fact, if you'll read further down, I even suggested DOUBLING the number of spells mages get in a different proposed fix in order to return them to their BG2-levels of versatility.

Anyway, I would definitely enjoy a further discussion on the topic of healing and spellcasters in DA and WOW, as it's a very interesting subject, but it would have to be in a different thread. I'd actually really like to explain (and apologies for the arrogance here) from a former bleeding-edge raider's point of view what MMO concepts can actually be carried over to a game like DA and which definitely shouldn't.

@the subject of immunities, I'll admit they are a prickly solution with potential pitfalls all over the place. But I never felt cuffed by all the immunities and resistances in BG2. Again, part of that is due to the greater versatility of mages in BG2, but part of it is due to the greater party size, and part of it is due to the source of enemies' resistances and immunities. A huge amount (especially if you played Tactics) were self-buffs that you could dispel via breach, lower resistance, pierce magic, ruby ray, khelben's whip, spellstrike, etc. The really complex and intricate mage fights (that required a specific order of dispel spells because of how the game engine worked and exactly what was covered by what defensive spell) are something that I really miss. You just can't do that in a game like this, where mages have a total of less than 25 spells by endgame and half of them are direct damage.

Modifié par Ancalimohtar, 05 janvier 2010 - 09:54 .

[termokanden]

tetracycloide wrote...
Mages don't function in the party.  They're the best single target damage dealer, best multi-target damage dealer, best healers, and, with the right equipment, make for better tanks than everything but a weapon and shield spec warrior, even shale.  All with the same build!

Granted AW is a little bit cheesy. I don't use it myself for that very reason.

Friendly fire is meaningless when I can outfit my tank to be spell immune.  Make no mistake, I'm not complaining that mages deal the most damage on the statistics screens i'm complaining that, compared to weapon talents, spells, not all of them but enough of them, are really really strong.  My mage, for example, has 60ish spellpower and +30% spirit damage.  Can a warrior EVER deal as much damage with a single ability as just the DoT component of my virulant walking bomb?  Sure, it's a DoT but as a mage I have the best crowd control skills in the game so who cares, i've got time.  A fully decked out warrior would be lucky to deal more than 250 damage in a single swing against even a low armor target (evidence, 'help my warrior cannot unlock heavy hitter' threads).  A mage can accomplish this without mana clash, spell might, spell wisp, or debuffs at 29 spellpower with the right gear (read: +30% spirit damage).

First of all, DW characters don't deal damage through few big hits but many smaller ones. I haven't researched what kind of DPS each class can consistently achieve, but that's exactly my point: you don't have to. I found my DW warrior to be extremely powerful and very different to play from my mage. My biggest complaint was not about the power difference, because honestly I found it somewhat easier some of the time as a warrior. Rather my problem with it is that it's boring to play a melee character.

This is why I still think you should not nerf mages and rather make melee more interesting. If they do change anything at all.

Equiping and 'actually competent' are two different things entirely.  An arcane warrior will never deal the same damage as a warrior or rogue even in the same gear and comparing auto attack alone.  Auto attacking from melee range instead of a few yards away while watching a different auto-attack animation is hardly a 'hybrid.'  A mage is still a mage they're just standing in a different spot.

Sorry, but I don't agree about this at all. A standard mage build without AW can't even wear armor or use the good melee weapons. As you yourself have stated, an AW can be the best tank and still cast spells. That's a hybrid.

@termokanden: The role of healers in WOW raids, and their decision-making and the complicated tactics that go into being good at their job, are completely disparate and unrelated to the role of healing spells (and the mages that cast them) in DA/BG/etc. Suffice it to say, mages having access to Heal in DA is a huge deal, whereas, say, enh shammies having access to LHW is meaningless in WOW.

What I'm saying is that a healer in WoW (or LOTRO, which is the other MMO I've played) has more tools for healing than just one healing spell on a cooldown. It's not very versatile, and even with Group Heal you're not going to be the healing powerhouse that a full-blown raid healer is in these other games. I'm actually glad that kind of thing doesn't exist in DAO.

Your entire response to my suggestion for balancing mages is from an MMO player's point of view, rather than that of a pen-and-paper D&D player. This isn't a bad thing, but it is pretty funny to hear someone say "The spell system in DAO is incredible because it breaks exactly those [MMO] traditions and allows so many variations of spell choices." The reality is, DA mages have the MOST restrictive spell selection of any mage in any game in this genre so far. I even mentioned this in the part about talent trees being screwy in my OP above. Look, you can't compare DA to WOW. You should compare DA to the BGs, the IWDs, the NWNs, even the KOTORs--all single player, pausable, party-based epic CRPGs who have their roots in tabletop RPG campaigns. Every comparison you make between WOW mages and DA mages is meaningless because they aren't meant to be the same thing or do the same job. These two games are not in the same genre. The boredom of playing a hyper-specialized WOW PVE build is not relevant at all as an argument for more versatility for DA mages.

It's not that far-fetched comparing to MMOs, because it's quite obvious that this is where DAO has a lot of its influences. Compared to those, DAO mages are extremely versatile.

Compared to the Infinity Engine games, DAO mages are still versatile I think. Only when you compare to pen and paper does DAO really "lose". I've played AD&D pen and paper for many years, and there are just many spells in there that never translated well to computer games. This poor translation from pen and paper is actually why I think mages were not all that versatile in the old games. Many of them simply were never worth using, and the good ones you simply had to have.

And realize I'm not even arguing for making mages less versatile. My proposed balance (not even something I'm particuarly attached to by the way) gives mages the same number of spells--just disallows the cherry picking of all the best trees. In fact, if you'll read further down, I even suggested DOUBLING the number of spells mages get in a different proposed fix in order to return them to their BG2-levels of versatility.

I guess you could do something like having bonuses for sticking to certain spell schools if there are at least more spells to choose from there. As it is, there are several spell chains where the last spell isn't even worth picking. That seems a little silly. But I still think in general, I like how you can get so many spells in DAO.

Modifié par termokanden, 05 janvier 2010 - 10:00 .

[tetracycloide]

Perhaps this is the point of my missunderstanding your point on immunities then. My experience with immunities of that nature is, almost exclusively, WoW encounters where fire mages just don't deal damage, and Diablo II where, in hell, only having one often even two element(s) of damage basically means the player is screwed. Buffing vs. debuffing fights are certainly something I would readily agree is lacking in DA:O that it, and most CRPGs, could benifit from.

@termokanden
DW rogues, dagger/dagger cunning optimized for damage, top out in the 100-150 DPS range against most targets.  DW warriors deal less because their armor penetration is always lower.  Two hand warriors, less still.  This is before factoring in abilities, however, where warriors make up the difference with fixed speed and cost abilities while swinging harder hitting, slower weapons.  The fact that the game is easy enough, even on nightmare, that no one really needs to evaluate the realtive strengths of each class is irrelevent.  I would agree though that instead of nerfing mages I'd prefer a more robust melee damage game coupled with massively more difficult encounters.  (Special note to any devs that may be reading: longer does not mean more difficult.  stop multiplying health bars and troop strengths and start adding complex counter strategies)

Modifié par tetracycloide, 05 janvier 2010 - 10:03 .

[Ancalimohtar]

tetracycloide wrote...

Perhaps this is the point of my missunderstanding your point on immunities then. My experience with immunities of that nature is, almost exclusively, WoW encounters where fire mages just don't deal damage, and Diablo II where, in hell, only having one often even two element(s) of damage basically means the player is screwed. Buffing vs. debuffing fights are certainly something I would readily agree is lacking in DA:O that it, and most CRPGs, could benifit from.

Both those examples are with characters who have no real alternative. Fire mages's frostbolts suck, and a sorceress built around frozen orb doesn't even freaking have fire attacks. In BG2, though, if the party came upon a bunch of fire giants (which they do), mages still have tons of alternatives. Horrid wiltings, chain lightnings, ice storm, skull trap etc. Even if they don't, they have a lot of battlefield-control and support spells, and since you're unlikely to have more than 2 mages in a party of 6, it ain't all that bad.

Re: mage fights, here's a snip from Use R. Unfriendly's explanation on BG2's spell protections. It's pulled from a much longer exposition, and the complexity is only really relevant to Wes Weimer's Tactics mod (read: Nightmare Plus Plus Plus A Thousand); in the base game mages would only have 2 or 3 less deviously-chosen protections up:

Now we get to the cases and specifics of Wes Weimer's tactics mod.  And why I had such a good time lich hunting with smarter mages installed...the smarter liches use a almost ubeatable defense against spell protection removal... almost, that is...it is a masterpiece of stacked mutally supporting defenses that is very very tough to crack.  But i assure you it can be done with the right spell selection...smarter liches, cast improved invisibility, spell immunity abjuration, protection from energy, spell immunity divination and protection from magic weapons.  Whew!  thats a lot of spells, but you really have to understand why smarter liches cast so many spells...First, protection from magic weapons and protection from energy stops physical attacks and area effect spells cold.  (since the smarter lich script casts and stacks protection from energy, it is completely immune to elemental spells and spells like abi dahzim's horrid wilting) Then spell immunity abjuration will stop remove magic(dispell magic, including inquisitor dispell) cold. So now you must remove the spell immunity so remove magic (or dispell) can work, right?  Now the spells that remove spell immunity are spell strike, ruby ray of reversal, and khelbens warding whip...ALL spells that must be targetted on a single target.  So now you understand why the lich casts improved invisibility and spell immunity divination...You may not target improved invisible creatures with single target spells. The game engine will not allow you to target improved invisible creatures with spells, until you get rid of the improved invisibility...and spell immunity divination will make the lich immune to true sight... a seemingly closed loop.

However, i have found out that Chain Contingency spell will target improved invisible creatures with single target spells!!!! (this is covered above in the Spell Cheeses section).  So when killing smarter liches, (or smarmy liches) the procedure goes like this....

First, you must first isolate the target.  Using a spell triggered triple sunfire will do a good job of blasting into paste the smarmy liches friends, the skeleton warriors and mummies smarter liches comes with.  Then immediately after the sunfire fries its friends, move your mage or sorc close to the lich, and while paused, cast chain contingency, nearest enemy, a triple ruby ray of reversal.  Ruby ray is an alteration spell, so it is not stopped by spell immunity abjuration, like khelbens warding whip and other anti-spell immunity spells.  Why a triple?  I have noticed a while back, that wes put spell shield in the script for undead sola, so you triple it to blast past the spell shield. (spell shield will automatically absorb and negate ONE spell protection removal spell, so the first ruby ray will break the spell shield, and the next two will break 2 spell immunities...spell immunity abjuration and divination.  Now the lich has just lost spell immunity abjuration and divination, so a triple spell sequenced remove magic, or true sight will work.  Why true sight?  Once you true sight the lich, it loses its improved invisibility, so if for any reason it still has spell immunity abjuration up, you can now target it with ruby ray again.  Once you remove magic and it succeeds, bash it to death with a weapon, or cast abi dazim's horrid wilting on it, since the remove magic will bring down protection from magic weapons, stoneskin and protection from energy.

Modifié par Ancalimohtar, 05 janvier 2010 - 10:12 .

[termokanden]

Well, on some bosses in particular, my DW warrior worked better than my mage and did more damage, and I noticed that CC didn't last long enough to matter on bosses. This is one of the reasons why I think nerfing mages would be a complete disaster. They shouldn't be gods against trash and trash against bosses.

But I completely agree on the way to increase difficulty. I think the only boss in the game I remember to have an actual strategy is Branka, where you can prevent her from accessing the lyrium.

There should be more specialized mobs that require a little more than just brute force to kill. However, this should be reserved for the higher difficulties I think. While some of us are elitist bastards who think everything is too easy, other people are more casual and shouldn't have to suffer because of it

By the way, I did raid Molten Core in the old days as a mage, and let me tell you fire immunity sucks. Frostbolt, frostbolt, frostbolt, frostbolt, spam decursive, frostbolt, frostbolt, frostbolt, die on imps, laugh at people falling into lava, spam decursive, frostbolt, frostbolt, frostbolt, frostbolt... Oh, and did I mention showing up 30 minutes before the raid and creating 4 Crystal Water at a time to make sure you had enough for about 25 ungrateful bastards? 

Modifié par termokanden, 05 janvier 2010 - 10:18 .

[Jack-Nader]

Hehe... for the smarter lich mod I used to cast truesight to dispel the invisibility and then cast the magic immunity scroll on the lich which removes all of its protection. I would then promptly bash the lich to death with my +5 weapons.

BG was a game that punished you for your own ignorance. Ignorance is and has always been mans worst enemy. Games manufactured in this day and age no longer punish ignorance but rather reward it. This is actually a symptom of a broad cultural re-engineering of the human species. The reasons for which I will not get into here but will add that this trend is not likely to reverse.

Modifié par Jack-Nader, 05 janvier 2010 - 10:35 .

[soteria]

Termokanden, pick a stance. First you say mages aren't too powerful, and then you go on to say it doesn't matter that they're more powerful/versatile than anything else because this isn't an MP game. Which is it?



Mages are too good for reasons the OP outlined. They work better with each other than with anything else, so you benefit greatly from adding mages to your party but you only hamper your mages by adding warriors and rogues. Really, the only mage spells that have synergy with non-mages are the buffing/healing spells and a hex or two.



I get the feeling, though, that you really haven't eplored what mages can really do. I mean, suggesting that 1.02 is starting to nerf mages "into the ground" is pretty ignorant. Only one change was even significant, and that was intended to make Crushing Prison less annoying when cast on players (plus, how many long-duration single-target CCs do mages really need?).



As for saying that warriors can fill the AOE role of mages, you're just wrong. Blood wound, cone of cold, fireball... nothing warriors or rogues can get compares to those spells, just to name three, neither in terms of damage or utility. Or take Cone of Cold + Virulent Walking Bomb + Stonefist--melee just don't have anything that compares.

[termokanden]

Well games certainly are more forgiving now. I started playing Commodore 64 games at age 6. I didn't know any English and I had no manuals. I don't know why I even found it fun. Where am I going with this? Oh yeah, it was very unforgiving and you were actually a really good player if you even finished a lot of those games.



Nowadays, I get through games mostly without even having to reload. Back then, you couldn't reload.



Ahh, old bitter man rambling syndrome.

[termokanden]

soteria wrote...

Termokanden, pick a stance. First you say mages aren't too powerful, and then you go on to say it doesn't matter that they're more powerful/versatile than anything else because this isn't an MP game. Which is it?

AW is overpowered, Mana Clash is overpowered. Mages are not overpowered. It doesn't even make sense to claim they are when every class can mop the floor with the opposition.

I should probably be more specific here. I think AW is just cheesy and too cheap for the survivability it adds. It's more "I win" than just the usual super powerful mage abilities. Mana Clash can one-shot bosses. That is always just plain wrong.

However, in GENERAL, I don't think it's that easy. If you take those abilities from mages you call overpowered and nerf them, mages are kind of pointless. As it is, they are using AoE abilities for single-target damage because the single-target spells kind of suck outside of CC (which doesn't work well on bosses).

Therefore, I don't like where this thread is headed with the attitude of "everything mages do is overpowered and they must be rebalanced". That, and you really risk angering a lot of people who like the game as it is. I don't think MMO style rebalancing is a good idea here. Whether or not you agree about my idea about mages, I think that is the point you should take with you from my posts.

I get the feeling, though, that you really haven't eplored what mages can really do. I mean, suggesting that 1.02 is starting to nerf mages "into the ground" is pretty ignorant. Only one change was even significant, and that was intended to make Crushing Prison less annoying when cast on players (plus, how many long-duration single-target CCs do mages really need?).

I reread my previous post. I said they STARTED doing that. By now, they've implemented some pretty weak nerfs that don't change a whole lot. They seem like rebalancing WoW style to appease the "mages are overpowered" crowd, and it's not even working.

However, WoW style rebalancing implies they keep nerfing the same spells until different spells take their place. It's a never-ending cycle of rebalancing suckage that I hope I will never see here.

As for saying that warriors can fill the AOE role of mages, you're just wrong. Blood wound, cone of cold, fireball... nothing warriors or rogues can get compares to those spells, just to name three, neither in terms of damage or utility. Or take Cone of Cold + Virulent Walking Bomb + Stonefist--melee just don't have anything that compares.

And yet my DW warrior can run in and tank an entire room full of mobs without tanking talents, without points spent in con. I maintain that it's a general balancing issue and that you can't just keep blaming the mages.

Modifié par termokanden, 05 janvier 2010 - 11:00 .

[soteria]

Edit in response to your edit.

Ok, so mages aren't overpowered, they just have more overpowered abilities and specs than any other class. The game is pretty easy; so yeah, every class can clean house easily, but that doesn't mean anything relative to this discussion. If your stance is that mages (or their abilities) are not overpowered, then please don't pull the "this isn't an MMO, balance doesn't matter" card in the future. I would hate to waste my time discussing this with someone who doesn't care...

I haven't used AW or Mana Clash.  They have a lot of abilities that are over the top.  Check out what Blood Wound does--something like a 10 second CC plus ~15 damage a tick, and it's completely party friendly with a huge radius.  Force field + taunt (yes, part of the problem is with taunt, but fireball can act as a taunt, too).  Mages have a lot of other great abilities, and most of them are balanced fine--on their own.  The problem is, as stated by others in this thread, mages can just cherry-pick the best spells, while warriors and rogues are pretty much stuck with a single weapon tree.

As for your last point, again, it's an easy game, and putting points in con isn't really necessary for a tank anyway. Saying, "but using potions and a spirit healer (I assume) my DW warrior can tank an entire room" doesn't really address the issue that mages are significantly more powerful and more versatile than the other classes. I'm not arguing that the game doesn't have general balance issues--I've argued that quite strenuously in other places. That doesn't mean mages aren't too powerful (excuse me, have an overabundance of overpowered abilities).

Modifié par soteria, 05 janvier 2010 - 11:14 .

[termokanden]

soteria wrote...

Ok, so mages aren't overpowered, they just have more overpowered abilities and specs than any other class. The game is pretty easy; so yeah, every class can clean house easily, but that doesn't mean anything relative to this discussion. If your stance is that mages (or their abilities) are not overpowered, then please don't pull the "this isn't an MMO, balance doesn't matter" card in the future. I would hate to waste my time discussing this with someone who doesn't care...

I mean you shouldn't compare DPS if it isn't an MMO. No character here is trying to justify occupying a raid spot. You can do what you want, and bringing in a badly built rogue will also let you complete the game without too much trouble.

No, mages are not balanced perfectly. But like I said earlier, heavy rebalancing runs the risk of ruining the fun for some. I think the part that makes mages so powerful is the AoE CC. As long as you have that, mages are going to be very powerful. Remove that, and mages are going to suck. I think rebalancing CAN be successful, but years of watching exactly such things go wrong makes me think it's probably better to just leave it alone. Then, because it is a single player game, you can just avoid the things you think are unfair.

I avoid AW because it's cheesy. I avoid Storm of the Century after trying it. It's powerful but ultimately boring.

Instead of nerfing all that, I think positive rebalancing in terms of making some of the physical DPS more fun is a much better use of developer time. Not that I even know if they are working on rebalancing or not.

No, you didn't say, "to the ground," you put it more strongly: "Instead of taking the McDonald's of MMOs way out and nerfing mage spells to oblivion (sadly they already started to do this in 1.02, for a single player game for crying out loud)..." I mean, if it means that much to you that I quoted you as "to the ground" instead of "to oblivion," I'm sorry for misquoting you.

Yeah, they STARTED doing it. I even corrected my post above to reflect the point. Believe it or not, I did not at all mean to imply mages have been nerfed any significant amount. I just don't see the point of the nerfs, particularly when they haven't even bothered to fix the dex scaling for all weapons yet.

As for your last point, again, it's an easy game, and putting points in con isn't really necessary for a tank anyway. Saying, "but using potions and a spirit healer (I assume) my DW warrior can tank an entire room" doesn't really address the issue that mages are significantly more powerful and more versatile than the other classes. I'm not arguing that the game doesn't have general balance issues--I've argued that quite strenuously in other places. That doesn't mean mages aren't too powerful (excuse me, have an overabundance of overpowered abilities).

My point is that all characters are extremely powerful if played correctly. I'm not taking this overpowered business very seriously if I can take any character, walk into a room and literally make everything explode in a few seconds. If the game was much harder, then I think the CC abilities of mages would start to be truly overpowered. As it is now, they are hardly even needed.

Just to remind you, people are actually soloing this game on Nightmare difficulty. And yes some are not even mages.

Check out what Blood Wound does--something like a 10 second CC plus ~15 damage a tick, and it's completely party friendly with a huge radius.  Force field + taunt (yes, part of the problem is with taunt, but fireball can act as a taunt, too).  Mages have a lot of other great abilities, and most of them are balanced fine--on their own.  The problem is, as stated by others in this thread, mages can just cherry-pick the best spells, while warriors and rogues are pretty much stuck with a single weapon tree.

Indeed, this is why I'm saying they should make melee more fun. I think too many of their abilities are too much of the same, and hardly even better than autoattacking.

But since you mention overpowered mage abilities, let's mention some non-mage abilities that are also quite insane. Stealthing in combat is perhaps the worst, but Scattershot certainly also comes to mind. Again, this is what I'm talking about with the physical DPS. Scattershot is insanely good, and perhaps Arrow of Slaying is too, but what other fun abilities do archers really have?

Modifié par termokanden, 05 janvier 2010 - 11:18 .

[soteria]

I edited my post to reflect your edits.

I'm not comparing DPS, tbh. Mages outshine the other classes in both the utility department and in killing power (although I think a rogue can actually kill a single target faster, if that matters).

As for any class being able to walk into a room and make everything explode in a few seconds, sure. The difference is, a mage can do it by himself and the warrior and rogue need someone healing them (or potions).  Otherwise, they're not doing it (not in seconds, that is).  Yes, I'm aware people solo the game... I think every standard build has probably been done at this point.

Archers are pretty boring, yes.  For the record, I said their tree sucked from when I played with the character creator a month before release.  Sadly, rogues of every variety are typically better off auto-attacking.  Momentum > all, and the shots take too long once you get rapid aim on an item.  I don't really have a problem with "don't nerf mages, buff everyone else," but hopefully that would go along with a bump up in the difficulty on nightmare mode.

Modifié par soteria, 05 janvier 2010 - 11:30 .

[termokanden]

Don't get me wrong, I do see your point. Technically I can't really argue that mages are not more powerful. I just think the way they are now, you can't easily nerf them in a reasonable way.

Therefore I wouldn't welcome them being rebalanced a lot, and I think that's what this whole overpowered business implies. I'm a little bit sad after leaving WoW for good that this kind of thing always surfaces.

It depends on your attitude towards the game. I probably take the balance less seriously than you. To me it's forgivable in a single player game that it's not entirely fair, and I still think it fits the story perfectly that mages are quite powerful. I always have house rules when something in a single player game annoys me. I have plenty of those for DAO already.

Edit: I edit too much.

Modifié par termokanden, 05 janvier 2010 - 11:36 .

[soteria]

Sure, and despite my complaints, it's still a fun game. It's even challenging with some "house rules," as you call them. Try the spider queen or Jarvia without pausing.

[Jack-Nader]

The main issue I have with mages is the spell lines do not make sense.

In BG contingency/triggers allowed mages to instantly up their defense. A lich would cast spell shield meaning you had to strip the spell before you could damage it with magic. Dragon age really falls short here.

eg.

The Anti Magic spell line should actually look more like this
Tier 1 -> Spell shield which grants 100% magic resistence but drains mana as it is damaged.
Tier 2 -> Dispel which removes buffs but has no effect on a shielded target (except the obvious mana drain)
Tier 3 -> Spell strike which completely dispels the spell shield instantly
Tier 4 -> Mana clash which is an instant mage killing spell to unshielded mages.

Instead DA has implemented it into 2 trees with mana clash making 6 out of the 7 spells obsolete.

The arcane line is another example where the 4th tier talent offers a 5 spellpower bonus vs the 1st tier summoning spell, spellwisp which is roughly a 9 give or take spellpower bonus.  The defensive spell arcane sheild is rendered obsolete by all the offensive CC spells and also by glyph of repulsion.  Staff Focus gives 33% more damage to the staff but who the heck is going to use a staff over mage spells?  There needs to be a point to using the staff.  The staff mode sugestion which I mentioned earlier would do the trick here.  ie.  You could enter the repulse staff mode and attack a hostile knocking it back or flooring it if it fails a resistence check.  Pehaps another mode where your staff attack leaches mana or hexes the target allowing for a quick spell beat down.
..

Modifié par Jack-Nader, 06 janvier 2010 - 12:06 .

[termokanden]

That's very true. It's not only the mana lines that lack synergy in this way.



Take a look at the walking bomb line. Death Syphon REMOVES corpses, Animate Dead can only work when there are corpses present.

[tetracycloide]

termokanden wrote...

Well, on some bosses in particular, my DW warrior worked better than my mage and did more damage, and I noticed that CC didn't last long enough to matter on bosses. This is one of the reasons why I think nerfing mages would be a complete disaster. They shouldn't be gods against trash and trash against bosses.

But I completely agree on the way to increase difficulty. I think the only boss in the game I remember to have an actual strategy is Branka, where you can prevent her from accessing the lyrium.

There should be more specialized mobs that require a little more than just brute force to kill. However, this should be reserved for the higher difficulties I think. While some of us are elitist bastards who think everything is too easy, other people are more casual and shouldn't have to suffer because of it

A few points.

Which boss fights, specificly, are you thinking mages are useless?  I, for the life of me, cannot remember even one where my mage wasn't contributing at least as much damage as every other party memeber while, at the same time, contributing all the healing and most of the CC.  Not even gazarath or the tower ogre, encounters very early in his progression.

Second, the beauty of a specialized mob is that once you know how to beat it it's just a matter of execution.  If the ogre in the tower had some kind specialized tactic that was key to defeating it, say a specific amount of damage applied at a specific angle while it was preparing to ram, then after the first hard as hell fight they would get easier and easier.

Modifié par tetracycloide, 06 janvier 2010 - 01:00 .

[termokanden]

I'm comparing my mage to my DW warrior, not to unoptimized characters like the NPC party members. As an example, I would beat Revenants significantly faster with my warrior than with my mage. Dragons as well. This is because some bosses have very high resistances, but my DW warrior could always punch through a little more consistently than my mage.



Gaxxkang is an excellent example of where my mage just sucked. I had two Vulnerability Hex and Affliction Hex on him and yet I did 72 damage with Mana Clash. That was the highest hit my mage could get in that fight. Granted I used 2 Magic, 1 Willpower for my first mage, but still.

[wwwwowwww]

(It was particularly frustrating my first time through Redcliffe when I

had two tanks perfectly positioned to block a doorway, and they would

literally move aside to allow the enemy mabari past. COME ON.)



You know I find this funny because one of the tips the game gives you is using choke points, but when you do, people just walk on by. Because of this "ethral" type ability it makes it hard to place a mage at the back of the party for safety concerns.



Now that's not saying mages need protecting because I do agree that they are pretty over powered, 3 Mages using cone of cold, the occasional fireball on the archers and 1 tank and you've pretty much covered the battlefield and turned an epic battle very mundane.



Over all I personally love the game, it's the only game since BG2 that has really pulled me in and made me want to play, not just fire up the game when I have nothing better to do. However, just because I love the game doesn't make me wish there was some more to it.



1) I for 1 am big on the visuals of the game, and oh my goodness this game is great with everything visual except for things having to do with your character, lol The weapons are mis-scaled, the armors are pretty drab, the robes not so good, the cowls ridiculous. I'd really love "in game" options to color my items.

I can and have put the camera up to the moon while at camp and just admired how much effor was put into the visual settings of the game, kudos for that.



2) I still feel like the story is a bit forced from the beginning, but that's just me. I mean I'd love to have the option of saying "the arl is sick, that's so sad, but I got better things to do so good luck with that" and leave it at that.



What if I don't want to help out the Dalish because I'm supre prejudiced against elves, for whatever reason, and I decide I can only show up with two treaties instead of all 3?



Starting as a Noble Human, hey a week after Howe slaughtered my family I really have no obligation to the Grey Wardens, the only one left that even knows I joined is Alistar, why can't I tell him "hey if you want me to go on and fullfill this, your going to have to come and help me take down Howe"



I mean after about the first quest I stopped caring about Logain as he seemed to me to be the typical tyranical leader of whom I didn't even need to raise my army.



I guess what I'm saying is there still could have been a lot more freedom while still achieving the end results.



Another thing that sort of irked me were the "Crow" quests. Why is it everyone I need to take out just happens to be sitting with 20 men around just waiting to attack anyone who opens the door? Man I feel sorry for anyone delivering food to them if they forgot they ordered room service

[tetracycloide]

Even if your mage did nothing but misdirection hex, death hex, cone of cold, and heal for that entire fight they still contributed about as much overall as the other three party members combined. Remember to give the mage credit for every heal, every point of damage a warrior didn't take as a result of misdirection hex and cone of cold, ~half of every critical resulting from death hex, and ~half of every backstab resulting from cone of cold.

72 damage does seem excessively small. Which form did you cast it on? How early in the fight? Did you use another mana nullifying spell first? I would imagine that even spending attribute points in a 2 magic to 1 willpower ratio that with both hexes up mana clash would do more than 72 damage to his caster form at full mana (I've heard reports of 300+ but haven't gotten to that fight myself). Did you use any fire spells?

Modifié par tetracycloide, 06 janvier 2010 - 03:21 .

[tetracycloide]

What if I don't want to help out the Dalish because I'm supre prejudiced against elves, for whatever reason, and I decide I can only show up with two treaties instead of all 3?

I know what you're driving at here and in the rest of your post but the pedantic ass inside of me keeps screaming 'then lie to their knife-eared faces and betray them to the werewolves!'

At some point you have to step back and ask yourself just how much freedom is reasonable.  Even in a completely sandbox game like fallout 3 or grand theft auto there's still a scripted story line.  Sure, you don't ever have to complete it, i didn't in oblivion, but there's only so much game before you run out of other things to do (less in this game than the other examples but, again, this isn't a sandbox game).

[termokanden]

About Gaxkang: Actually it's because I drained his mana first. The point of the story is that no other spell I cast did more damage, and they're not based on mana. And 2-1 magic/willpower is not THAT weak. A few levels later I did 1632 damage to the mage boss in the Alienage. Yep, that's without maxing magic.

But you're right, you shouldn't forget about stuff like Death Hex. Actually that's one of the mage spells I think is overpowered in a really good way. It synergizes well with powerful melee characters. My DW warrior sure loved that spell.

Modifié par termokanden, 06 janvier 2010 - 04:00 .