143 réponses à ce sujet

[soteria]

Give the freakin AI some intelligence. The mobs should target Mages and Rogues right off the bat. No player will let some rogue in leather armor back stab his whole party!! Lightly armored and easily hit targets should get killed right off! Paper tigers need to be killed and the AI should adapt.







If anything needs a massive nerf it is taunt. Mages should be forced to waste a lot of power in defense! Mages would not be half as overpowered if every archer in the game immediately targeted them. Kind of like what the player does!

Mm. That would be pretty frustrating for players, I think. If mages and rogues were always targeted first, I think I would probably end up just taking a lot of warriors. Mages have a limited number of options for defense... even with Rock Armor, they die pretty fast when attacked. Pretty much my defensive strategy for dealing with archers is to kill them before they kill me or have a warrior taunt them, so what you're suggesting would just mean fewer options.



Also, something as arbitrary as a script to attack mages on sight would probably lead to a lot of mages running around in circles while the warriors whittled them down. In PvP games, players do target mages and rogues first, but they also have a heck of a lot more defensive options.

[tetracycloide]

In PvP games human players will capitalize on the fact that inexperienced teams often get tunnel vision with mages. Changing the AI to target rogues and mages first won't fix anything, the player will still outsmart the AI very easily either way.

[beancounter501]

I have no doubt that the player will outsmart the AI. But having an ability that allows the player to pick who the monsters attack is just overpowered and dumb.



Once the tank taunts you do not have to worry one bit about your softer party members being attacked. Which is bad. Go ahead and leave your mage unguarded in Baldurs Gate and he would quickly get killed off.



Rogues should be forced to rely on stealth and high dex for defense and the mage line needs to be expanded so they can get some effective defense. Right now the mage only needs to focus on nuking power.

[soteria]

But what you're suggesting only removes the necessity to taunt. Instead of having to taunt and position your tank tactically to control who the monsters attack, all you have to do is bring a mage. It wouldn't fix anything.

[beancounter501]

Prehaps having monsters target mages first always would not be the best setup either. But the AI should definetly attack whoever is doing the most damage to them or who has the lowest armor/health/damage power. Not whoever just taunted them.

[RangerSG]

tetracycloide wrote...
*snip*...

I'd also like to point out that the OP isn't claiming mages are overpowered because of their raw power, the complaint is that there's no defense against it. Enemies should have abilities that have to be dealt with before a mage should be capable of one shotting them. If every mage in the game had anti-magic up before every fight mana clash would still be a massively powerful spell but it would also be balanced against the fact that not everything can be hit with it in the first second of a fight.

Thank you for mentioning this, because I had forgotten to talk about this in my thread. Because this is an issue I absolutely disagree with. Mana Clash is an overpowered spell because of the spirit damage it does. Of course, it renders many other spells useless because of it. But that does not, in any way, in my mind mean that monsters should have a big list of immunities like D&D. In fact, I like it that in DA:O, most monsters that have immunities have rational reasons for possessing them and you can anticipate it without a monster manual on hand to check the properties.

Nothing was more annoying in NWN than the 'solution' of handing everyone perma-haste, perma-true sight and massive immunities that rendered rogues helpless and mages ineffectual because that was the means they hoped to 'balance' magic. This aside from the fact that the scaling of fighter DPS vis-a-vis mage damage (which was capped), made certain that fighters could do more damage than mages in the end (and helped perpetuate the invincibility of the cleric, who could buff and have a higher AB, AC and dmg than any fighter).

So no, please keep immunities to a MINIMUM. Resistances are fine, thank you. Mana Clash should be tweaked down, I agree. But that does not mean a wholesale rewrite of the monster manual to ensure that all the bosses have immunities.

[Jack-Nader]

NW did not handle immunites correctly. Baldur's gate did. This game is supposed to be a back to roots Baldur's gate successor. It most certainly has the potential to become this but currently it isn't up to par.



Baldur's gate had scripts where mages actually cast defensive spells at the start of combat. We are not talking immunities but spells that protect from weapons/hostile spells. In DA there is no excuse as to why a hostile mage does not have spell shield permanently up. Mana clash does NOT need to be nerfed as there is nothing wrong with the spell. Mana clash does not work on mages with spell shield/ anti magic shield. What needs to happen is that your party should have to disable spell protections before they can cast mana clash. This is what you had to do in baldur's gate. It was fun and you felt like you actually achieved something.



On a separate note, I have been messing about with the two hand weapon style. It is very painful.

Pommel strike needs a damage component. It makes no sense to thump a hostile in the face with the pommel of your great sword and do no damage. The goal is to kill the hostile, not blow them love kisses. I would suggest 25 - 50% damage added to the pommel strike.



There is no elemental damage on talents. Two hand class is entirely about talent spam. Having no elemental damage is a huge kick in the guts to the two hand weapon style.



Critical strike needs to go. I see no way it can be salvaged. It rapidly becomes obsolete as you level up in strength. The only place where it has potential is vs bosses except they are immune. I would suggest replacing critical strike with a passive AOE that does damage to the current target and anything standing to its' left or right.



Indomitable is a great talent but I am puzzled why the devs bothered to add the extra 0.8 damage?



Powerful blows should drop defense but not attack. The class already suffers from horrendous attack issues. This is like rubbing salt into an open wound.

[RangerSG]

Why should a stun attack have a damage component? The point is to stun the opponent so you can beat them senseless. Why does pommel strike need additional dmg on top of that?



And why in the world should TALENTS do elemental damage? If you want elemental damage, put a run or coating on your blade. That's simply absurd.



That sounds way too much like you want everything to be able to do the same thing and fighters to be able to solo the earth. Sorry, you lose me right there.

[Jack-Nader]

eh? why put rune slots on weapons if they don't work with talents? Have you ever played the two hand class? If you had you would know that the class is totally based on talents. You auto attack ONLY if you have no stamina because auto attack damage is horrible!



Two hand class is very much stamina starved until level 12 when you can pick up death blow. I am level 8 and exactly half my stamina is chewed up by powerful swings and precise striking. This leaves 65 mana to expend. Are you going to blow 24 stamina on a talent that does ZERO damage? or expend it on a second and third sundar arms which is a double attack?

[RangerSG]

Because stunned they cannot attack you back and you can maul them with 2-3 more attacks before they fight back. Let alone having your companions pile on the stunned opponent as well. And runes work on every damaging attack. Why do you need a TALENT that does what they do? Unless, of course, you're just determined to say fighters should be able to solo the game, no matter what the developers say about it being party-based.



And 2handed is no more stamina starved than dual-wielding or archery-based rogues. Of course, if you have a mage with rejuvenation (Wynne), that's a non-issue anyway.



And if you run around with sustained abilities up, yes ANY class will be short of stamina/mana. BTW, that was by design. You're supposed to have to choose a balance between sustains and activated abilities. Not have all of them all the time.

[soteria]

You know, when I read the description for mana clash I assumed it meant that you basically blew all or most of your mana to destroy their mana and do a lot of damage. I think it would be more balanced if it had a more significant cost.

[Jack-Nader]

2 - 3 free attacks after a pommel? Are you serious? Try 1 attack on nightmare



Let's assume that you engage a foe and the battle takes 10 seconds to complete using 2 sunders and auto attacking. If you were to use 1 sunder and 1 pommel strike you would need to auto attack twice to make up for the lost damage. You would be granted 1 free attack and 1 exposed attack that would not have occurred otherwise.



Now your argument with dual wield is hilarious. Dual wield could activate momentum and dual striking and simply auto attack for vastly more damage than any two hander as well as receive elemental bonus to the weapons.



Also this is now twice you have mentioned soloing this game. What does the ability of soloing the game have to do with my suggestions on ways to improve two hand weapon style?

[System Shock]

shree420 wrote...

Gah...please don't bring Oblivion into this. It has its good points, but Bioware makes story-driven games mercifully unlike the Oblivion "sandbox".

What I liked about Oblivion, was that the sandbox experience was good. Once you got out of the dungeon, you could go anywhere, and do anything in the world - ride a horse all the way to the next town? - doable. And there was always a quest to go to. Problem was, there was no urgency about it. And the combat system sucked, and there was none of the party fun and tactics.

And of course cursed enemy autoleveling.

DA: Oblivion would have the Archdemon accompanied by Level 20 mice who would Overwhelm.

Oblivion was fun for the first six hours, but once you exhaust the exploration possibilities and your jaw comes back up off the floor following the frankly gorgeous graphics, there was nothing more. I left it at that point.


Clearly, DA:O has gotten most of the things right. An additional gripe I might raise is the lack of people and color in the cities and settlements, but I understand that I don't want throngs of people to push up gaming requirements. BG2 was very good at that, but then BG2 didn't have to do the whole thing in textured 3D, and could get by with drawn art and music. Part of the reason why there's still a market for 2.5D games like that, I suppose.

 Really? After six hours?  Please..

There is a story behind Oblivion, albeit not as extensive as DA:O, yet the story is tight. DA:O goes into so many tangents and intricacies which create a whole lot of holes and inconsistencies in the story.

And the combat sucked? Really? I don't know... In Oblivion,  foes don't run pass me or push me out of the way when I target them with my character  because the AI has already determined that foe is going to attack someone else behind me, and lo and behold, I can actually strike them at will - matter of fact, I can strike ANYONE at will. Not only that, I can actually use my shield to, get this, are you ready? SHIELD myself from attacks. I can do things like dodge incoming projectiles that don't curve mid-air because the AI has decided that projectile was going to hit me no matter what, going through walls and doors and things.  In Oblivion, you can use your environment to defend yourself. You can hide behind
trees, rocks, you can disengage combat and run - after all,  retreating is a combat tactic - and the one that I probably use the most, I can jump to higher ground.

I don't know why you'd call Oblivion a "sandbox" game.. "sandbox" sounds to me as some sort of constraint... and DA:O has much more constraints than Oblivion.  DA:O herds you through its very small world. You can go to one place or the other - but only when the game decides to open palcs for you - but once you get there, every place you go is basically a dungeon, being "indoors" or "outdoors". You can only interact with the people/things the story allows you to. The environment is totally static. Nothing around you moves.  In Oblivion, plates move, papers move, glasses move... and doors aren't transparent.  In DA:O ther's no weather or time of day only when the "linearity" of the game allows it.

And I don't understand what you mean when you say "no sense of urgency". What was so urgent in DA:O?

Or how about the loot system? In Oblivion, you kill an enemy, and you can  take their weapons and clothes... In DA:O, you get whatever the game decides to give you.  Nothing more satisfying that being in the final battle, going through the last level of the Drakkon tower, opening up a chest which requires the highest skill in game, just to get a garnet .. and speaking of Drakkon and story telling, I still don't get how Sandal got all the way to the top of Drakkon tower all by himself, unarmed and unharmed.. guess he was more powerfull than everyone in the game.

And how about armor? DA:O has like 300 named armors, yet they all look the exact same, because Bioware used a grand total of 5 meshes for armors. Same thing with weapons.  All the "variety" comes from textures. And those textures don't even match within the same armor set. I still cannot get over the fact that the shield of the Legion of the Dead armor set - by far the best looking armor - is purple, and not black, like the armor. Guess the designers got tired of skinning the same meshes over and over and over again. Some armor sets lack shields, some helmets...

.. and speaking of texturing, colors not matching, and story-telling... this is glaring in the human noble Origin: when you begin a game, you can create a character that  looks Hispanic, Asian, or  African-American. Yet, your parents are the whitest of the white.  Matter of fact, there isn't ONE non-white in the Cousland Origin that I noticed. Even the Elves are white.


..so, yes, the Bioware devs should play Oblivion.

Modifié par System Shock, 09 janvier 2010 - 09:15 .

[Bullets McDeath]

LOL, System Shock, "sandbox" is commonly used interchangably with "open world". It describes games like Oblivion or say, Grand Theft Auto, where you are free to go anywhere and do anything, pretty much from the start of the game.



I like Oblivion as well... I like it better with mods, but... it and DA are so different. DA has it's own combat problems without a doubt, but my biggest gripe is that Oblivion ultimately comes down to twitch reflexes. You can build the snazziest Fighter/Mage/Thief in all of Tamriel but you're still basically playing Doom without a gun. I don't mind my reflexes playing a major role in, say, Soul Calibur, but in an RPG I prefer to focus on other things.

[beancounter501]

Jack-Nader wrote...

Two hand class is very much stamina starved until level 12 when you can pick up death blow. I am level 8 and exactly half my stamina is chewed up by powerful swings and precise striking. This leaves 65 mana to expend. Are you going to blow 24 stamina on a talent that does ZERO damage? or expend it on a second and third sundar arms which is a double attack?

You are playing a two hand warrior totally wrong.  My current character uses pommel strike, sunder arms and mighty blow constantly!  And he is level 8!  Why on earth would you walk around with all those sustains up?  Turn them off.  Turn them back on during combat after you burn up some stamina.  Also wear medium armor - especially chainmain it makes a huge difference.  My character currently starts each battle with pommel strike then sunder arms then mighty blow all in a row.  That will blow half your stamina - then start activating your sustains like indomitable.  Don't bother with the other two.  Sustains do not cost a single point of stamina, they only reduce your maximum stamina pool. 

Wearing massive armor and walking around with sustains is the worse way to play a 2hand warrior.  Try it you may be suprised. 

But I agree about pommel strike.  It knocks one guy down giving you enough time for exactly ONE attack.  It should do some damage.  But it is very effective for interrupting mages beause it fires very fast.  But the stock two hand auto attack speed is dreadful.

I agree about critical strike too - the auto kill when a monster is under 20% health is a waste.

[Jack-Nader]

I couldn't stomach oblivion, personally. The leveling system is horrible. It was one of the first things I modded. The custom spells broke the game. If it wasn't for the mod support I would have shelved the game a few days after purchasing it. DA's leveling system is very good. The only lame thing is the initial talents are chosen for you although this can be easily rectified with mods.



What is meant by "sandbox" is that its pretty much anything goes. You can walk up to any character and kill them or rob them blind. You are not forced into doing any quests you don't wish to do. Even the main quest you can completely ignore and just run about killing things.



One thing that oblivion has currently over dragon age is sexy armor Mods brought the armor to oblivion. Mods will bring it to dragon age too in time.

[Jack-Nader]

I'll give your suggestions a go bean, thanks

[System Shock]

outlaworacle wrote...

LOL, System Shock, "sandbox" is commonly used interchangably with "open world". It describes games like Oblivion or say, Grand Theft Auto, where you are free to go anywhere and do anything, pretty much from the start of the game.

I like Oblivion as well... I like it better with mods, but... it and DA are so different. DA has it's own combat problems without a doubt, but my biggest gripe is that Oblivion ultimately comes down to twitch reflexes. You can build the snazziest Fighter/Mage/Thief in all of Tamriel but you're still basically playing Doom without a gun. I don't mind my reflexes playing a major role in, say, Soul Calibur, but in an RPG I prefer to focus on other things.

re: sandbox
wow.. I did not know that. Guess you learn something every day 

I understand what you say about the reflex thing, although for my personal taste -obviously that changes from person to person - Oblivion game me the perfect marriage between RPG and carnage.

The point to what I posted wasn't  to proclaim Oblivion the better game,  but more to point out  the development of Oblivion and how it delivered a tighter game within its framework. I would be lying to you if I told you I didn't enjoy playing DA:O, but I do feel it let me down after playing not ony Oblivion, but other Bioware titles as well which use a similar format.

[soteria]

Critical blow is good for shattering a second enemy after cone of cold, when mighty blow is on cooldown.

[System Shock]

Jack-Nader wrote...

One thing that oblivion has currently over dragon age is sexy armor Mods brought the armor to oblivion. Mods will bring it to dragon age too in time.

I was referring to the vamilla stuff that came with the game.
DA:O has 3 armor meshes?: light and medium use the same mesh (I believe), one mesh for heavy, and one mesh for massive.  The only visual difference among them is the texture.
Oblivion has only light and heavy armors, but it uses at least 15 different meshes, and that doesn't include all the clothes that you can use in Oblivion which have different meshes .  Not only that, the Oblivion DLCs add armor and weapon meshes to the game, whereas DA:O adds only textures.
Same thing with the vanilla weapons and shields.

[beancounter501]

soteria wrote...

Critical blow is good for shattering a second enemy after cone of cold, when mighty blow is on cooldown.

True, but.....

Mighty Blow gives a +10 to hit, is an automatic critical, has a 20 second cool down and is Tier 1 Talent.  Critical Strike gives an auto critical, no to hit bonus, has a 60 second cool down and is a Tier 4 Talent.  There is something wrong when a Tier 1 Talent is better then a Tier 4 Talent!

Same goes with Destroyer - a minor armor penalty for a couple of seconds on a critical hit and it is a Tier 4 Talent - junk.  Shattering blows is completely bugged and does not do anything.  Mighty blows and powerful swings charges a huge penalty to attack and defense for a very minor damage boost.  The two hand trees have all kinds of problems,

The only good talents are Sunder Armor, Mighty Blow, Stunning Blows, Indomitable and Two Hand Sweep.  Sweep is awesome!

[Ancalimohtar]

I don't want to get completely off topic here while we wait for Gabochido's or other devs' replies, but for completeness' sake, I'll give my opinion on Oblivion: It sucked donkey testicles, pardon my French.

1. I don't really value sandbox adventuring; as someone else said, it gives you no sense of urgency while completing the main quest. I know I'm probably in the minority on this point, but I always found it tedious to have to do side quests in post-BG2 BioWare/Obsidian games. If the world's going to end, why the hell am I helping someone find her son? Who cares? The World Is Going To End, Hello? BG2 did it perfectly--in Chapter 2, you needed 15k gold to advance the main storyline, so sidequesting was mainquesting; afterwards, when you went around to do side stuff, nothing felt particularly incongruous; you were always killing stuff to get loot, to help your character or party. Recently, in the KOTORs especially, it seems you're always doing sidequests whose purpose is to showcase the unique culture or flavor of that planet or some crime organization around those parts or whatever.

2. How can you say the graphics in Oblivion were better than DA, using armor meshes as an example, when what was really important--all the faces--looked like a chimpanzee got ahold of 3ds max and hit the "smooth polygons" button over and over?

3. Oblivion is not a pause-and-play, party-based, tactical, top-down/isometric view RPG in the tradition of Baldur's Gate. It's not in the same genre. Preferring the FPS nature of Oblivion is just that--a genre preference. Don't criticize DA for being exactly what it's suppoed to be. That'd be the same as criticizing a short story for not being in verse. Sorry, the intended audience doesn't want it, and if you want iambic pentameter, go read a poem or Shakespeare. End of story.

4. And finally, and most importantly, as an absolute defense to anything positive anyone could possibly say about Oblivion's game mechanics, every use of a skill (literally, like casting that game's version of "knock" to unlock a door, or jumping--I poo you not) affected what attributes went up during your next level up. If you, say, blocked a lot of melee swings, or ran around a lot, or jumped a lot, your character would gain points in strength or vitality or whatever, rather than magic. You couldn't even CHOOSE how your character distributed his ability scores. If DA were more like Oblivion, it'd decide that, upon hitting level 15, Sten gains one 1 point in strength and 2 in magic because he drank a bunch of potions that level.

Do you really want DA to be like Oblivion?

Modifié par Ancalimohtar, 10 janvier 2010 - 03:41 .

[soteria]

Ancalimohtar, what you described is exactly how you do choose what stat bonuses you get at level up. It's determined by what secondary skills you advance, as I recall. All you have to do is make sure you gain secondary skills that relate to the stats you want to advance. Building a character is counter-intuitive, but you do have control.



System Shock, it's 5 different armor models. Robes, Light, Medium, Heavy, Massive. Medium is not the same as light--it's what Alistair is wearing when you first meet him. Heavy is what most guards wear in the game. Definitely a weak spot in DA's art, whether it's three or five, though. At least the Legion of the Dead armor looks cool, right?

[Ancalimohtar]

@soteria: To clarify, you're saying that what abilities you happen to have used since you last leveled up (and again, this includes RUNNING and JUMPING, which people just naturally do running around questing) have an effect on what attributes you gain. In other words, you can't simply pick the stats your character gains. If you accidentally ran too much, or had to block too many swings, you could have screwed up your character permanently.

The alternative, of course, is what I did--went on GameFAQs, and followed this procedure: figured out exactly what I wanted my character to gain stat points in, cross referenced which minor skills and which major skills I had, and sat there in town, casting open lock and summon monster and a few other spells hundreds of times just so my character got the stats I wanted him to get. And then, once I reached the "sweet spot" of level 8 or 10 or whatever it was, where all my spells were maxed, never leveled up again, because I was at my peak, and would only get marginally stronger, whereas the monsters would continue to get much stronger (remember, monsters are scaled to your level).

Oblivion's game mechanics were borked. There is no defense for it unless you specifically like the way it worked, which is fine, more power to you.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent. I'm done talking about Oblivion.

Modifié par Ancalimohtar, 10 janvier 2010 - 04:13 .

[System Shock]

Ancalimohtar wrote...

I don't want to get completely off topic here while we wait for Gabochido's or other devs' replies, but for completeness' sake, I'll give my opinion on Oblivion: It sucked donkey testicles, pardon my French.

sure it did... great review... bravo!

1. I don't really value sandbox adventuring; as someone else said, it gives you no sense of urgency while completing the main quest. I know I'm probably in the minority on this point, but I always found it tedious to have to do side quests in post-BG2 BioWare/Obsidian games. If the world's going to end, why the hell am I helping someone find her son? Who cares?

yeah.. because there aren't any sidequests in DA:O that have nothing to do with the story... sure.. and obviously DA:O is all timed... you better have this sense of urgency because the darkspawn is going to destroy everything in a matter of days.. oh, wait, there are no days in DA:O.... wel, at least you need to hurry and get the mages in Recliffe to save... no.. that can wait to.. oh, yeah.. so urgent...

2. How can you say the graphics in Oblivion were better than DA, using armor meshes as an example, when what was really important--all the faces--looked like a chimpanzee got ahold of 3ds max and hit the "smooth polygons" button over and over?

Yeah, the faces.. it is all about the vanilla faces... yep, Oblivion doesn't have a Chargen where you can manipulate the face... oh wait, it does.. yeah, but DA:O has more options to configure a face.. oh wait, it doesn't..  yeah, faces is all it takes as far as graphics and  immersion.. little things like the environment, you know, like trees actually looking like trees and moving, nah, that don't help... and armors that all look different because they  use different meshes, nah, don't matter either, being able to grab a rock and toss it, grass moving as you walk pass that, well that **** is just too real....

3. Oblivion is not a pause-and-play,

yeah, because everyone knows during combat, everyone gets to stop and change their clothes.. "yeah, hold on, you just jumped out at me from the ceiling, yeah, hold on, let me slip into something more comfortable"

4. And finally, and most importantly, as an absolute defense to anything positive anyone could possibly say about Oblivion's game mechanics, every use of a skill (literally, like casting that game's version of "knock" to unlock a door, or jumping--I poo you not) affected what attributes went up during your next level up. If you, say, blocked a lot of melee swings, or ran around a lot, or jumped a lot, your character would gain points in strength or vitality or whatever, rather than magic. You couldn't even CHOOSE how your character distributed his ability scores. If DA were more like Oblivion, it'd decide that, upon hitting level 15, Sten gains one 1 point in strength and 2 in magic because he drank a bunch of potions that level.

wow, so what you are saying is that, if you do something over and over again, like jumping or blocking, you should NOT get better at it? Man, what a concept. "Practice doesn't make perfect"... you learn something every day..

Do you really want DA to be like Oblivion?

Now that you explained it to me that way, no I don't
I don't want a large variety in armors, clothing, or weapons. I want to see the same crap for over 50 hours.
I don't want an environment where things act like real things. I want all static! Phew physics!
I dont' want days or nights or weather.  I love the CSI:Miami effect!
I don't want a system that rewards me for gaining experience on things that I do often. Oh no.
I don't want a tight story. I want the biggest story they can come up with, even if it totally inconsistent.

.. and so I don't bust your groove here, I am not going to tell you that you could actually CHOOSE how your character distributed his/her abilities.
I am also not going to tell you that Oblivion was released 3 years ago, and still looks better than DA:O.