15 réponses à ce sujet

[mickey111]

In the last 2 games we had 3 classes that are so general that they can basically do everything by themselves. Could have all four of your characters in the group as fighter, rogue. or mage and they'd pretty much play the same way., and I. Rogues were just doing it from a distance or from behind. The fighter and rogue possess many abilities which had similar effect as these mage spells, so the only things that really made the mage different was that they did more damage to more people at the same time, but because of friendly fire (only applicable on harder difficulties) they had to be a little more careful so that none of their friends were in the indicated area of effect. So to answer my own question, yes, they are just fighters by a different name.

Why have different classes at all if their all designed primarily with
DPS (DPS = damage per second) in mind? And on the flip side of DPS you
have tanking, which is just kind of similar except the idea is that you
build a tank type of character to be the first person to walk into a
room full of bad guys and let the high health and damage resistance just
absorb most of the damage so that the tanks softer buddies don't have
to.


This is a real problem throughout the whole RPG genre, RPGs for as long as I can remember just get boring really quickly I just think it makes for a fairly uninteresting and unfun gameplay experience because once you've figured out the winning combination of tanking plus DPS you've already won 95% of the game and then it's just grinding for loot and the next boss fight.

Allow me to list a few examples of games which I feel got class distinction right

Trine 1 (I'm not going to talk about Trine 2, I haven't played it)

Let me start by saying that although Trine was more of puzzle and platformer game than a hack and slash, I believe that it had just enough focus on combat that it could be used as a source of inspiration for any RPG developer. Also keep in mind that Trine is just one example. One. I could think of other excellent examples of games which provide wildly different playstyles with different classes such as Baldurs Gate 1 or Starcraft. I'm not saying make Dragon Age like Trine.

Fighter: This class is to Trine what Joe Pesci was to the movie Goodfellas, only a lot nicer and not likely to take his frustrations out on you by killing your ass. He was a guy who got things done, didn't mess around. You want something dead? Hit it. Still not dead? Hit it again. Plain, simple, brute force type which is basically just like the fighter class in all games ever.

Thief: Ranged specialist who is also quite good at traversing the levels. The thing that makes this class unique though, is the grappling hook which gives her the ability to traverse maps quickly and efficiently. Could do this by swinging across gaps that were way too far for the fighter or mage to cross, swing up to roof tops for the high ground advantage, to pull objects out of the way or on top of enemies.

Wizard: This guy had a DPS of absolutely zero. Instead of damage enemies directly what he could do was conjure up objects out of thin air like blocks, and planks and he could move things with the power of his mind so this class was really good at using the general environment as a tool and a weapon. Whenever a group of characters in a combat oriented RPG is up against too many enemies to take on all at the same time, that would be where the mage would come in handy. All he'd have to do is erect a barrier which could close down a portion of the enemy forces who are then trapped behind a wall that they'd either have to go around or destroy. As for his other ability of telekinesis, who still remember the gravity gun from Half-Life 2? It was this thing which would grab onto small objects such as boxes, tools, bombs which could then be thrown at enemies at an extremely high velocity .

I could go on for several more pages, but I don't think that will be necessary, and I think that the gameplay in a session of Trine is a lot more clever and way more fun than the simple tanking + DPS which is found in most RPGs that I know of.

I know that this is TL;DR for some of you so just because I'm speaking to the internet, the short version is this: I'm not saying make Dragon Age like Trine. It doesn't even have to be radically different from DAO or DAII. Just has to make rogues play like rogues, wizards play like wizards. Just let the fighter do the fighting and the other two classes do something else in combat situations and I'll be happy enough with that.

Edited because I don't know how to brevity or english.

Modifié par mickey111, 12 décembre 2012 - 12:43 .

[Maria Caliban]

The player character in the vast majority of RPGs is a mass murderer on a frightening scale.

If you want PCs that are more than different types of fighter, you need a cRPG that doesn't focus on combat. BioWare has never made an RPG like this and in all likelihood has no interest in doing so. Party-based combat is what they do.

[mickey111]

No we don't we need classes the focus on support abilities as opposed to three classes which specialize in combat. There is a thing called support abilities. I don't know why you'd think that support specalists don't belong in a Bioware game. Team Fortress 2 only has like 4 or 5 classes that excel in direct combat, and they aren't even the most common classes, so yeah... the more popular ones are the engineer who builds stuff, the spy who goes invisible, the pyro who burns stuff and deflects projectile/bounces other players around. Are Bioware games are more party based and combat heavy than TF2? I don't think so.

[Plaintiff]

There are plenty of abilities in DA2 besides offensive ones.

[SpunkyMonkey]

The second your fighter dies you can't win a battle though?

I get your overall point - have Wizards and Rogues do more things which effect the actually tactics of the battle as opposed to just damage. i agree that would be cool, but not essential, nor should they not be capable of dealing any damage either as that would kill solo runs for anything other than a fighter.

[mickey111]

Yeah, the class design is very general at the moment and I believe that separating the class roles so that they're more niche would be a good change. I probably could have made my point with less words, sorry about that.

[mickey111]

Plaintiff wrote...

There are plenty of abilities in DA2 besides offensive ones.

My point wasn't that there were no offensive abilities, it was that each of the three classes are too alike and should be more specialized. From a tactical point of view you can take pretty much any combination of the three classes and cruise through the game just fine and switching out a rogue for a mage or a fighter for a rogue doesn't affect the gameplay anywhere near as much as it could.

[SpunkyMonkey]

mickey111 wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

There are plenty of abilities in DA2 besides offensive ones.

My point wasn't that there were no offensive abilities, it was that each of the three classes are too alike and should be more specialized. From a tactical point of view you can take pretty much any combination of the three classes and cruise through the game just fine and switching out a rogue for a mage or a fighter for a rogue doesn't affect the gameplay anywhere near as much as it could.

I think you're general idea is good. Personally I would like to see it affect battles in a different way though - eg. If you play as a rogue you have the ability to detect enemies ahead, and can sneak into the next area and adjust the environment + lay traps prior to engaging the enemy. I know this is sort of done in origins, but expanding on that via environmental adjustments would be cool (even small things such as tying enemy laces together, or pinching their swords). This would give the rogue more of a rogue-ish feel.

Mages are all about crowd control so I kinda think that they have that covered anyway.

Modifié par SpunkyMonkey, 12 décembre 2012 - 01:01 .

[Gazardiel]

One's definitions of classes and class differences seem to stem from one of two places: 1) MMO-style gameplay that designates healers, tanks and DPS, or 2) old-school tabletop RPGs like D&D.  In D&D, there were no dedicated healers because damage throughput was not nearly as high; clerics were considered to be restricted fighters even as they would deliver the occasional healing spell (but those were limited to several a day - not encounter).  In those systems, dedicated "fighters" were specialized in warfare-type abilities, but every other class also dealt damage in their own ways while also bringing in some useful support abilities.

In computerized MMO games, there was a shift to more specialization where not every PC would deal damage, probably to make it easier for less experienced gamers to pick a role and stick to a set script (rather than to have to develop their own synergy organically with other players). 

What i like about DA is that while you can certainly go with the Tank-Healer-DPS setup, you can also go with a more old school approach where each individual does their share of damage, but coordinates abilities with the rest of the party.  The CCC mechanic definitely supports this style of gameplay and gives alternatives to the MMO-style setup many are used to today. 

To your point that the classes are alike I would say that there is a lot of flexibility given within each class because there is access to different skill trees, all of which offer different abilities but can overlap if you pick in a certain way.  So you certainly could spec a rogue and a fighter to be similar, but you would benefit much more to emphasize  strong points of the classes instead. 

[Wulfram]

I think it's a good thing that you can use a variety of party make ups.

[Plaintiff]

mickey111 wrote...
From a tactical point of view you can take pretty much any combination of the three classes and cruise through the game just fine and switching out a rogue for a mage or a fighter for a rogue doesn't affect the gameplay anywhere near as much as it could.

Hahaha. Tell that to everyone who whines about always having to drag along a character they hate because "Healing/Tanking/DPS/Lockpicking is necessary!"

[sea-]

The quest towards DPS-driven gameplay is annoying to say the least.  I know that the goal is to have every class feel powerful and epic, especially the Most Awesome™ player character, but that is not really a good idea in a party-based RPG where classes should feel distinctive and reinforce each other in a multitude of ways.  In Dragon Age 2, basically every class other than pure tank was a damager, with the only real distinction being single-target vs. group.  That's not enough to keep combat interesting and meant that ultimately combat descended into cycling hotkeys over... and over... and over.

Combat encounter design needs to encourage varied tactics and strategies, including long-term attrition, countering enemy abilities, bringing down defenses, using the right weapons on the right armor types, etc.  The pure damage numbers should be secondary to the types of damage, status effects applied, and additional utility value. The first Dragon Age made mages way too overpowered (and AoE spells won basically every fight way too easily) but it was at least closer to the idea of classes being specialized parts of a coherent unit.

Modifié par sea-, 12 décembre 2012 - 04:01 .

[Beerfish]

Looks like we need Volus in DA3.

[mickey111]

Plaintiff wrote...

mickey111 wrote...
From a tactical point of view you can take pretty much any combination of the three classes and cruise through the game just fine and switching out a rogue for a mage or a fighter for a rogue doesn't affect the gameplay anywhere near as much as it could.

Hahaha. Tell that to everyone who whines about always having to drag along a character they hate because "Healing/Tanking/DPS/Lockpicking is necessary!"

They're bad at games. Tell the whiners to learn to play and to read the ****ing manual? DAO is easy at best, and only slightly challenging at worst. The way I look at is that all characters can learn herbalism so you never have an excuse to be short of potions, and at least half of the characters can access crowd control powers  at Lothering like taunt and sleep for example. So pretty much everyone has healing in unlimited quantities thanks to herbalism. There is absolutlely no argument for why lock picking is neccessary.