334 réponses à ce sujet

[Darth Obvious]

The tactics system seems to work well, IMO, but all in all it just seems unnecessary. The game takes something like 72 hours to complete, and I don't have time to mess with tactics or crafting or any of the extraneous stuff that tends to slow down gameplay. If anything, DA is a bit too long and has a bit too much tedium.

[Wardka]

My main problem is that if you set a mage to drink lyrium potions when they're low on mana, 10 minutes later you won't have any lyrium potions left. :/

[Kail Ashton]

All and all it's pretty solid, but if you want to tweak things



A: the behaviar selections aren't really unique from each other, it doesn't seem like there's much point to have'n so many, i just end up puting melee to "aggresive" and mages/archers to "ranged" more unique behaviars would be interesting



B: Perhaps a more streamlined orginazation of the tactics, i often find i'll try one particular option only to notice it does something else undesired or it'll not activate when i want it to



C: i'd also like to see streamlined the job role tactics, tanks in partciluar as i often have trouble geting Alistair & especialy Shayle to properly tank how i'd like



D: Some kind of cancel system for instances where say someone is in midst of casting but is also near death, i find they party member will simply not take the desired self preservation obtion over fineshing what they're currently doing, often times i have to manualy stop them and heal them



E: On occasion a pary member (mage usualy) ends up running off to an entirely diff group of enemies (and dies lol) perhaps some kind of tactics expansion for group placements? (this might relate to behaviars though, in which case see point A)

[Pallis]

I do a lot of micromanaging, but the thing that have bothered me the most about tactics are Liliana switching from Ranged to Melee with no enemies in melee range.

[Stammelson]

The tactical control of the players was not something that I particurally liked at first - I just wanted to get started and bust some heads. However, now that I'm on my 12th playthrough (seven on my xbox, five on my PS3, and two on my PC), I've come to develop an appreciation for it.
How easy or difficult do you feel the tactical interface is to use?
Well - that's why I didn't like it at first. It is not easy to configure properly - but that's the user's problem, not the interface. The interface is pretty simple. Just figuring out what would make sense to use when I first played the game was difficult.

What would you improve in the tactical interface? I think you definatly need more default actions defined for the various behaviors (scrappers, etc.) Perhaps even a website with suggested combos that newer users can try out. What made this work for me was when I figured out that I could customize the tactics to make Lilliana always react as an archer. Once I figured out how to do that, it all made sense, and I began customizing everyone according to what I thought they should do.

Do your party members react as you would expect them to under different tactical settings?
For the most part they do.Self-preservation is still a tricky thiong to program. Zevram still dies at the drop of a hat. (BTW - WHY doesn't an assassin know how to pick locks?)
How responsive are your followers to different tactical conditions? To me this was and is the most difficult thing to program. One example would be at Caiden Cross in the Paragon of Her Own Kind quest. As one point, my band takes on a small group of genlocks, who run away and lead the group into a larger band, which then causes a nearby band to come see what all the commotion is. The fight quickly esclated from four darkspawn to fifteen. My left trigger button is partially stuck after that battle! But my solution was to set up a custom set of tactics that were more defensive. When the runners take off, I manually had the party hold position, changed to the custome tactics that were less aggresive, and finish off the darkspawn in fron of me. THEN I can go after the larger group.

Have you seen them behave unusually in any circumstances?
I haven't seen what I'd call buggy behavior. But I've generally attributed they not behavig as I'd like to not having the right tactics selected, and getting to caught up with one character - and thus not paying attention to the others - espeically if someone's about to trigger a death animation.
What kind of different ways would you want to control your party? Let's see -
1.) I'd definately like to be able to have some kind of overriding self-preservation mode. You often don't have enough slots (especially in the beginning) to tell a character to drink the potion, stupid!
2.) Perhaps some kind of group policy to tell them party to let a certain character strike the death blow on a boss - that way, you can concentrate on the fight, instead of having to manually shift from character to character to make sure that Sten takes out the ogre.
3.) Some kind of alert. Let's say that Lilliana and the Warden are shooting ice arrows, and I want to switch to another arrow when they're out. It would sure be nice to have the combat freeze when they've run out so I can change their payload to say, arrows of filth. Definately would want this something I could deactive, though.
Thanks for asking for our opinions. This is a great game, and I love it!

[Lialani]

[*]What would you improve in the tactical interface?[*]Have you seen them behave unusually in any circumstances?
[*]What kind of different ways would you want to control your party?

[*]Please condense casting a spell on oneself and casting on an ally. It seems senseless to have a healer take up double the Tactics slots for single uses of a spell (Heal myself if under 50% HP, Heal an ally if under 50% HP).
[*]Area effects cenetered around the caster, such as the two-handed weapon sweep, ssometimes lock up when you use the clustered enemies condition.
[*]Some kind of positioning ability would be well worth it for Rogues. It would make the game flow more smoothly than having to pause then select & move them constantly.

[Four.Younglings]

"-Archer not switching to melee when being engaged in melee...even thou set to
-Archer switching to melee even thou theres no close threat"


I too have had these issues.  I'm still very early in the game, however, and am still learning the tactics sytem.

I really like the depth it gives to this game, I had even forgotten about it at one point as I was growing my character, then realized it was the reason I lost several battles.

[Kileyan]

Dittos on archer troubles. Could just be that I am inept at the tactics screen.

Seems no matter what I do, my archer for no reason I can see, often puts away her bow and runs in to melee.

Maybe to do with dirty tricks trigger her to use it, even though I want her shooting a bow.

Is there a way to make dirty tricks and other rogue skills available to her IF she is forced into melee, but not used as a priority and force her to run into melee?

Hope that made sense:)

Also if I were to continue this franchise and put more work into the tactics screen, I'd remove it as a skill based system you spent points on and tune the game accordingly if you have to.

It is a great system, but not something I think most gamers appreciate being a point buy ability. IMHO

Modifié par Kileyan, 12 janvier 2010 - 01:16 .

[OnesOwnGrief]

• How easy or difficult do you feel the tactical interface is to use?

On PS3 the tactics system was pretty good. In my opinion I was more annoyed that you weren't able to set a tactic to revive fallen allies. Another problem I was running into was that if you set a tactic to use an item, more specifically to coat a weapon, it would be just a 1 time use and clear the item from the tactics slot. I would have liked the ability actually use weapon coating to full effect through tactics. It made me have to use a Rogue exclusively almost since being able to tank through tactics pretty much felt complete. I wish there was a longer list of statis effects within the tactics menu as well. This caused some fustration when trying to do spell combos since Hex was not on the list.

• What would you improve in the tactical interface?

The interface itself is pretty much fine as well, just need more options. Also it would be great if you were able to set more than 1 custom tactic and dynamicly change tactics sets during battle.

• Do your party members react as you would expect

them to under different tactical settings?
Yes, the did for the most part, things that couldn't be set I pretty much did myself.

• How responsive are your followers to different tactical conditions?

Well, I never let myself enter to many different situations so everyone pretty much followed what they had to do and it did a fairly decent job in keeping abilities/health up.

• Have you seen them behave unusually in any circumstances?

I remember once instance when Wynne was low on Mana she for some reason wouldn't use a potion to restore it. >.> I'm not sure what happened but it only happened once when fighting during Sacred Ashes quest.

• What kind of different ways would you want to control your party?

I think everything is ok for now. The controls aren't exactly what you see everyday but to be honest. My person gripe is just the control scheme for consoles (I find Sacred 2: Fallen Angel to have a better interface). Outside of the Tactics, control of my group from my experience on PC was otherwise great as is.

Modifié par OnesOwnGrief, 12 janvier 2010 - 01:08 .

[General Balls]

The biggest thing I think the tactics need are another column or two of parameters. Currently we have the situation that triggers the action, and the action taken, but I really think there needs to be at least a third column indicating situations where that action should not be taken. For example, I want Morrigan to throw a fireball when a cluster of 4 or more enemies occurs, but I don't want her to throw it if one of my teammates will get caught in the blast. The current tactics aren't equipped in a way as to give the Mages any conscience when it comes to team-mates, so adding a column to stress when *not* to use an ability is absolutely essential if we want to effectively let Morrigan play with her own fire without us having to use the leash.

So maybe this third column could be called "Unless" or something similar, so it's set out as:

BIG GROUP *so* THROW FIREBALL *unless* TEAM-MATES ARE THERE TOO

Mages are the primary group who benefit, but it'll also help streamline other classes. Sunder Armour is great, but you don't want your Warrior to waste it on a heavily armoured Ogre who was going to die on the next strike anyway. Setting 'Mighty Blow' to be used on 'Immobilised' targets is a great way to get Sten to shatter frozen people, but it's completely useless if he gets it into his noggin to try shattering someone who's been Force Fielded. Pinning Shot is an awesome way to prevent Melee characters from harassing your Mages, but if the Mage has already frozen them, it's another waste. All in all, a column devoted to when *not* to use a move would add a whole new realm of flexibility and choice to the tactics system.

But honestly, I'm in love with you, Bioware, for providing the system in the first place. Being able to program what your mates do is beyond awesome. Tell the guy who thought of it to come to Outback Australia, and I'll buy him a drink.

Modifié par General Balls, 12 janvier 2010 - 01:33 .

[Wratheart]

Only played the game through 3 times so far on the PS3 platform, so am still figuring out the tactics slots. At this point I'm just using the custom slots on default for all Chars and have had no issues. First thing I do is assign the first slot for each char to take the lowest health poultice at 25% health. Whatever you put in the custom slots over rides the default settings.The behaviour slots ie., "Defensive", Aggressive etc. just seem too convoluted for me right now.
 I also agree with a lot of other players that there should be max slots right from the beginning and more of them. I see no point in having to earn your slots.The way it is now is very restrictive on the lower to mid levels, especially if you want to get fancy or even a little creative.
The only thing that happened to me that was kind of buggish was on my 3rd game, while fighting the Archdemon I suddenly couldn't operate the Ballistas or fight. I had to stop and go back to the last save. It only happened once and was an easy fix but it was strange.

Modifié par Wratheart, 13 janvier 2010 - 07:11 .

[ransompendragon]

 
How easy or difficult do you feel the tactical interface is to use?
The interface is easy, but I need to do more reading on using the logic.

What would you improve in the tactical interface?
More in the codex on how the logic works? Really I need to try harder to understand it...

Do your party members react as you would expect them to under different tactical settings?
As others have mentioned, melee/tanks do pretty well but rogues and mages are a little hard to control. It took a random thread for me to realize I could change from default to ranged, for example.


How responsive are your followers to different tactical conditions?
Hmm, don't know.

Have you seen them behave unusually in any circumstances?
Yes, switching weapon sets when I don't want them to is the biggest followed by mages blasting their best spells on some peon while there is a boss fight going on.

What kind of different ways would you want to control your party?
 First, this user needs to learn more about it, maybe I could try the missing manual pages...
others have asked for formations, yes! I want that.

Maybe everyone duck and cover when being shredded by enemy archers??? I would rather face a boss than a half dozen archers!

thanks for asking.
cheers, ransom

[Wratheart]

Oh yeah, a few more back packs in the merchant inventories would have been nice. I hate getting deep into the "Deep Roads" and having to turn back because my pack is full. Or maybe a recall stone or relic would be useful.
It would also be nice to be able to attack anyone you want to.........:innocent:
I guess that would be too difficult in a role playing game though, too bad. Maybe a few more races just for replayability and to spice things up. Those, so far, are my only suggestions for an otherwise excellent and thoroughly enjoyable game.
Thanks guys!

Modifié par Wratheart, 12 janvier 2010 - 03:35 .

[Solistus1]

Allowing more complex conditions would be very nice.  Simply adding support for AND/OR/XOR of multiple existing conditions and allowing multiple actions on a single tactic setting would improve the system greatly.  As it stands, the simplistic single condition - single action model greatly limits the potential uses of tactics and many seemingly simple actions take multiple tactics to set up.  The slot limit has been the target of much ire on these forums, but if tactics were limited more by creativity than by implementation, the slot limit would seem like an interesting strategic limit rather than poor design. 

Adding new conditions would be the next logical step.  With multiple conditions, some additional options would make sense, like a condition to allow use of AoE spells only when less than X friendlies are in range and/or specific friendlies are out of range. 

Ultimately, I think you need to stop shying away from complexity.  Make the default AI settings better if you are worried about players who don't want to take the time to set up nuanced tactics.  A more flexible, more sophisticated tactics system could make the DA engine truly shine.

[Miral100]

Enemies seem to be smarter than my own mage at understanding the implications of a forcefield. If I forcefield my mage to avoid getting hacked to pieces by an orange boss character, he/she/it readily refocuses on the next character with the highest threat level. Whereas my own mage, if left to the AI (as in when i try to maneouver my tanks), will continue wasting mana and expending spells on an enemy that he himself has trapped in a forcefield  - an outright exercise in futility. The mage is completely clueless about what he just did a few rounds prior, whereas enemies seem to have a faster learning curve. This is a terrible bug in the AI.

Modifié par Miral100, 12 janvier 2010 - 12:04 .

[Xetrill]

> How easy or difficult do you feel the tactical interface is to use?
Very easy, indeed

> What would you improve in the tactical interface?
IMO the UI is fine, but I wish for more features AND-ing and NOT-ing conditions.

> Do your party members react as you would expect them to under different tactical settings?
Yes, they all do.

> How responsive are your followers to different tactical conditions?
Responsiveness is flawless.

> Have you seen them behave unusually in any circumstances?
No, unless I set up their rules not as I actually intended ^^

> What kind of different ways would you want to control your party?
Overall, I do like to have more control - a lot more!

The ability to combine (AND) conditions and invert (NOT) them would be helpful to me.
Also what anakin55 has started already with his Advanced Tactics mod (never playing without it), the ability to jump between the differant rulesets - on that note, it would help if the custom rulesets would be renameable.

Modifié par Xetrill, 12 janvier 2010 - 01:32 .

[Andat]

EDIT:  BTW I am playing on PC.

@OP:  Sweet -it's a good question, and I'd like to see a few improvements.  The tactics system is generally easy to use, though there are a few issues here:

Some characters will just sit and do nothing.  Archers seem to be a favourite for this, as Leliana doesn't always seem to drop into combat unless I give her a target.  I think one issue is that sometimes characters will only attack if they have a target selected.  For example, I have Leliana set to use Crippling Shot which gives her a target (can't remember if it's nearest enemy or whatever), and then she drops into her normal attacks for the cooldown period.  If that enemy dies, then she doesn't have a target until the next time Crippling Shot recharges, so she doesn't attack at all.  There should be an implicit attack action added to the bottom of the list.

Another issue (personal opinion here) is that the system needs more combat tactics slots.  I think starting you with one extra and giving you an extra two (rather than one as it is now) for every Tactics upgrade would fix this.  This would also mitigate the above issue since we would have room for a basic attack action as the last action on the list.

There's also issues around the Behaviours.  They seem to slot into two groups:  "go wherever the heck you want" or "do not move from that spot whatever happens".  Defensive should allow warriors to move a short distance away to deal with threats.  There have been a number of times when I have seen Wynne or someone under melee attack, while Alistair or someone will be three feet away but will just stand there oblivious.

Finally, there are some general AI issues:  warriors may not be the brightest stars in the sky but surely they understand that running into my Tempest that I just cast is not such a good idea?    Perhaps this should be linked into the behaviours, since there may be times when I want to send them into danger.

I think it's a little cumbersome to switch your party through different modes.  I'm on my second play through and this time I've just left everyone on default modes (Wynne is set to Healer, Alistair is set to Defender, my mage PC is set to Damager).  I think with a little expansion it could be much more powerful.  I'd like to be able to have modes which set everyone to hold ground while I cast an AoE spell, then another mode which causes my warriors to rush in, then another mode which causes everyone to fall back.  I think some games have used party configurations for this sort of thing, where I have a party mode which sets modes for multiple party members.  This would be switched by a control on the main screen, rather than having to open the Tactics view.

Finally, there's no way to deactivate all spells and effects with a single click.  I prefer to not have stuff like Rock Armour running all the time, but of course it's useful to have in the tactics system, so after every battle I have to go through everyone and see what modes are active and deactivate them.  There's also some which Wynne seems to cast every few minutes.  I have her set to cast Heroic Aura on the nearest warrior, but now she does this all the time, even when not in combat. 

Anyway, a few minor points there   It'll be interesting to see what you guys do with it


EDIT 2:

To answer the questions as they were in the OP:


How easy or difficult do you feel the tactical interface is to use?
Actually quite easy, but there's a few bits where it could be expanded and I'm not clear on what difference the Behaviours make.

What would you improve in the tactical interface?
See above....  Main things to improve in the UI itself are a way to easily switch the whole party through different modes.  Perhaps also a way to use more elaborate conditions - nearest enemy unless there's a magic user?  Nearest friendly warrior who doesn't already have Heroic Aura cast on him?

Do your party members react as you would expect them to under different tactical settings?
There's a number of scenarios where party members so something odd, crazy or just plain stupid.  They should avoid damaging AoE effects, for example (though there could be an algorithm in there which allows them to plunge into danger to defeat an enemy), and in combat *everyone* should be doing something (if they can), all the time.  Leliana should start shooting enemies if they are in range, for example.

How responsive are your followers to different tactical conditions?
See above

Have you seen them behave unusually in any circumstances?
See above

 What kind of different ways would you want to control your party?
I'd like to be able to control the party as a whole.  Take my example above of casting, say, Tempest on a group of enemies, then rushing in when Tempest dissipates, then if they get reinforcements have everyone disengage and fall back.  This is kind of difficult at the moment.

Hope that helps!

Modifié par Andat, 12 janvier 2010 - 02:11 .

[LadyGamer2]

Viglin wrote...

First, great to see such interaction.

As to your questions, ld say for the most part it works great, but lve seen a few things that ruin it;

-Archer not switching to melee when being engaged in melee...even thou set to
-Archer switching to melee even thou theres no close threat[lve had to make sure only a Bow was equipped to stop this...especially on Lelina]
-Non controlled npc standing around not fighting, especially seen on Alistair.
-Shots thru walls that mobs can make bt we cannot, especially spell-wise

I'd say this comment hit the nail on the head.  Excatly what I have experinced.

[auxleyleonard]

Can you add two more conditions please ?



-- Condition: Battle Start (Weapon draw)

-- Usage: Assign once per battle buff such as Poison Coating or w/e



-- Condition: Battle End (Weapon sheath)

-- Usage: Deactivate/activate desire modes

[huwie]

I hope that making rogues auto-flank (if implemented) would take account of the rogue's possible ability to inflict automatic backstabs -- I wouldn't want my rogues wasting time moving unnecessarily if the target is already helpless. Also the behaviour should be configurable, e.g. when I've surrounded a target with 2 or 3 rogues I would want to be able to disable auto-flanking without necessarily holding the entire party.

I strongly believe that a logging/debugging system would help people get around many of the problems being reported with characters not behaving as expected. Maybe there could be a special mode switched on from the console interface, with debug output perhaps being written to the conversation history? Or just have a tactics command to start/stop logging.

I'd like to see:

** Alistair: tactics started ** when the engine starts (when I release him from direct control)
** Alistair: held ** if he's held with H
** Alistair: triggered: nearest mage: attack ** when the corresponding tactic triggers
** Alistair: skipped: nearest mage: attack ** when the tactic is examined but ignored
** Alistair: tactics run completed ** when it finishes an iteration/round.
** Alistair: tactics stopped ** when it stops altogether (i.e. when I take manual control)

Modifié par huwie, 12 janvier 2010 - 06:20 .

[Dlokir]

LadyGamer2 wrote...

Viglin wrote...

First, great to see such interaction.

As to your questions, ld say for the most part it works great, but lve seen a few things that ruin it;

-Archer not switching to melee when being engaged in melee...even thou set to
-Archer switching to melee even thou theres no close threat[lve had to make sure only a Bow was equipped to stop this...especially on Lelina]
-Non controlled npc standing around not fighting, especially seen on Alistair.
-Shots thru walls that mobs can make bt we cannot, especially spell-wise

I'd say this comment hit the nail on the head.  Excatly what I have experinced.

Well in fact if I'm not wrong:

• Archer not switching to melee => It's because you selected the Archer behavior.
• Archer switching to melee => To fix that just use the Archer behavior.
• Non controlled npc standing around not fighting => To fix that either you choose an Agressive Behavior, either you set a final tactic like Enemy>Any => Attack to be sure that your character will attack if an enemy is around.
• Shots thru walls that mobs can make bt we cannot, especially spell-wise => Well nothing to do against that, not really a point related to tactics.

All the confusion was coming from the unclear interaction between tactics and behaviors. With management and better interaction of tactics with controlled character, that's certainly the first points to improve.

[UltimoCrofto]

Firstly I just want to say that I am, on the whole, glad that Dragon Age allows some control over your team-AI, so thanks for that.

Anyway, I think the main area where tactics can be generally improved is on situational control and more emphasis on exactly when and where to use certain abilities/items. Having things happen on determined health/stamina levels, and enemy types is okay, but more options need adding (for example, the tactics are fine if I want Oghren to use Final Blow on an enemy with 25% health, but I can't make it so he will only use the move exclusively on elite/boss enemies when they're on 25% health).

I think if the tactics were more similar to Gambits in Final Fantasy XII then you'd be onto a winner, since in that game I barely ever had to switch control between party members.

[Cadrien]

Playing the xbox 360 version, i havent been able to set my tactics for the dedicated healer to automaticaly try to resurrect a "dead"/"unconsius" player, since the options for just that type of status effect is unavalible.



Other than that the tactics system is a absolutely great way to "personalize" your DA:O experience for ones own taste.

[RedFox_Whiteruff]

The number one improvement you could make to the system is to add positioning to the tactics system. Even if it's a simple as assigning a formation order such as "relaxed, skirmish," or whatnot. Ideally you'd have a small grid where you could assign relative party positioning and the PCs would try their best to maintain their assigned positions, or a situation-based dropdown system similar to that of other behaviors (when isolated from the group -> change to x position accordingly; when the group is surrounded -> position accordingly; etc). A tactical system means little if there's no control over party cohesion. As mentioned by others, characters run willy-nilly all over the place with no "thought" given to where the rest of the group is positioned.

[ericsa]

What I really miss with the tactics is being able to link two seperate bars of tactics together. Like if I want my second mage to cast a Heal on my main tank when his health is low, but I only want to do this when my designated healer is low on mana. That's a two-condition tactic, something that should be added!