[quote]In Exile wrote...
[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Not what I said. [/quote]
You said that fire resistant armour could explain why people burn alive. We know that's not true. There's no armour in DA:O that ever protects you like that from fire, unless we're talking about the one made from the bones of a dragon. And I'm convicted that one isn't the scale that every man-at-arms is wearing.
[quote]If you're personally enchanting your armor to be fire resistant, that's reasoning for fire not burning you alive. If you're buying reasonably pricy armor that's fire resistant, again... it's fine.[/quote]
So the darkspawn all have fire resistant armour? And every thief in Denerim? And all the mages, their robes are fire resistant? And the bears got fire resistant fur from the same merchant?
[quote]Considering health bars have been a staple of video games for about as long as... ever, sure! Christ, even Mario had a health bar variant. You eat a mushroom, then get hit, you're weakened. Get hit again, you die. [/quote]
And they're totally unrealistic. I'm glad we agree.
Now, why should the combat animations that relate to this entirely absurd and unrealistic form of dealing damage - which you previously acknowledged is entirely divorced from the in-game lore and reality via cutcenes - should somehow be "realistic"?
[quote]Look, if your issue is how there are certain unrealistic elements in DA and video games as a whole, that's fine. I'm not going to sit here and say I'm fine with enemies not showing some form of realism in regards to fire hitting them. [/quote]
But you are sitting here and saying just that when you say that the combat animations are somehow a special case.
[quote]Assuming A) people don't flee inside and

you can actually see where you're casting. [/quote]
You don't need to see where you're casting. DA:O shows us we can cast throw walls! And DA:O sets the realism standard for the entire series, we've already established that. A firestorm can be cast through walls! Burn them all in their rooms. Create a storm of the century there to boot! It damages
through walls. And again, we know that the DA:O gameplay is a 100% true and accurate representation of the entire world.
[quote]And, for the record, that's precisely how magic lorewise works in Thedas IIRC. That gameplay hasn't caught up to it is sad, but that doesn't mean it should be accepted. [/quote]
You mean, it rendered all fortifications irrelevant, meaning that DA:I is breaking the lore completely by showing fortifications?
[quote]In regards to DAO where the gameplay didn't break warfare's point so flagrantly, yes it was fine. [/quote]
You mean the game where no horses existed, and people charged footsolider lines
on foot? The entire cutscene at Ostagar was absurd without horses.
[quote]Really, a mage can just sit outside and know the exact location of people through walls of stone and wood and burn 'em alive? [/quote]
Yes. DA:O lets you do that in gameplay, so it's a 100% true representation of how the world works.
[quote]So then, if my recollection above is inaccurate, add a simple "Mage must have clear line-of-sight to be able to do X. [/quote]Nope. Just set the entire keep on fire! Have that burn at 600 Kelvin, and you've rendered all forms of seige irrelevant because everyone melts to scrap.[quote]Also something I disliked, but it is what it is. Having Golems be resistant to fire would be nice.[/quote]But they're not. DA:O sets the standard for reality, so we can burn stone. And since we can burn stone, mages just rendered fortifications irrelevant.
Except, if I need to spell it out further, this entire argument is silly. And it's stupid because the game completely divorces gameplay from story, and every RPG has done that since Final Fantasy I. Pretending like the combat animations are the arbiter of what reality is like for the characters is what I'm driving at as being absurd, and I seem to not be able to convey the ridiculousness of that idea.
[quote]I didn't realize we knew the exact temperature of a fireball! I also didn't realize the fireballs stick around and don't
dissolve into thin air upon impact. [/quote]
Given that they
set stone on fire, they clearly don't dissolve into anything. And we don't need fireballs. An Inferno is good enough! Since we can burn stone, again, that thing must be hotter than the core of a star.
[/quote]
A bugged combat system in previous games doesn`t excuse adding shields being able to just jab down castle gates.