135 réponses à ce sujet

[Abraham_uk]

DarthSideus2 wrote...

Bioware already balanced the Mage class when they eliminated the Arcane Warrior Specialization.

People think when I said give the mage a melee option, that I was asking for a return of the Arcane Warrior.
To be perfectly honest, though I really loved the Arcane Warrior, the melee staff was fine.


When I was asking for mages to have decent amount of hit points I was thinking along the lines of the amount of hitpoints mages already have in Dragon Age 2. If anything if you want mages to be tankier you do so but restrict mages magic damage and mana pool in the process.

Their staff being used as a melee weapon was fine.


I am not asking for a battlemage. Dragon Age 2 gave mages decent amount of hit points and a half decent melee option that is still trumped by warriors and rogues. 

[Abraham_uk]

It's okay to reference wizards in other games as long as you compare it to Dragon Age 1 and/or 2.

Dragon Age doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Skyrim being used as an example of how some people feel magic shouldn't be balanced actually fits this thread quite well. Any BSN member a talking about how destructive magic was nerfed in Skyrim is sending the message that they don't want the same thing to happen in Dragon Age Inquisition.

Also I believe some members of the Bioware development team discussed Skyrim as an inspiration. So this can be relevant.

[Ieolus]

Abraham_uk wrote...

It's okay to reference wizards in other games as long as you compare it to Dragon Age 1 and/or 2.

Dragon Age doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Skyrim being used as an example of how some people feel magic shouldn't be balanced actually fits this thread quite well. Any BSN member a talking about how destructive magic was nerfed in Skyrim is sending the message that they don't want the same thing to happen in Dragon Age Inquisition.

Also I believe some members of the Bioware development team discussed Skyrim as an inspiration. So this can be relevant.

I think, and maybe I'm just assuming, that they are using Skyrim as an inspiration when talking about a more open world.  I doubt they are talking about the specifics of Oblivion vs Skyrim destruction magic.

[Abraham_uk]

Ieolus is probably right. The developers were probably only refeering to Skyrim's open world. However it is possible that they were inspired by other aspects of Skyrim (not just the parts they have publically talked about).


Anyway. Truth is, I'm not sure how to balance mages. It's a tough one.
Magic is at the very least conceptually about having powerful abilities that most people don't have.


But we have one camp that says that magic should only be able to cast support spells and have no hit points.

Then there is the other camp that says that mages should be experts at everything, especially nuking the whole planet.

Does a middle ground exist between these warring factions of wannabe wizards?
Yes I'm aware that I'm exaggerating.

Modifié par Abraham_uk, 22 septembre 2013 - 07:52 .

[DarthLaxian]

Ieolus wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

I don't care about cross-class balance in a singleplayer game.

I'm not competeing against anyone, so I'd like classes to be "balanced" according to lore. That would mean REALLY powerfull mages.

Would that mean an all-mage party would make a game too easy? I don't care.
Throw some templars at it (which would be the ultimate anti-mage class anyway).

But I really don't consider it a problem. If someone wants to make a game more difficult or easy for himself, let him. All this "everyone is equal" schtick bothers me. Right now, everyone is pretty much a mage, just wrapped in a different looking package.

I agree.  Templars ARE the balance to mages in Thedas.

not only them - other casters are pretty dangerous, too (if the blow you of your feet etc. so that you can't heal and can't attack because well no casting while on the floor or dazed etc.)

greetings LAX
ps: i don't care much for balance either - it is something for multi-player games IMHO (or strategie ones, were an "i win"-unit just breaks the game)....so, yeah give me an all mage party (at least if i can still open locks...otherwise i have to drag some mook in leathers around with me (rogue) ^^)

[Topsider]

It's worth noting that mages can be effective in some situations and poor in others, depending how they're built. I'm a controller/debilitator type and this is very nasty against single opponents - like the Arishok. He hardly moved the entire duel - either frozen, paralyzed, hexed, or screaming in horror. It was not pretty.

Since I focus on debilitation, area of effect spells are lacking and Hawke wasn't as good against large groups (still good enough... ahem...) and someone who prefers AoE will find the Arishok much tougher. I guess that is self-balancing in a way.

[wolfhowwl]

Bring back friendly fire. Mages can no longer blast everything without concern, thought, or strategy!

[Bleachrude]

I actually have no problem with super-powerful mages.

But I do expect the game to tell me straight up, "look, mechanically, these classes are just BETTER" and not give the impression that a warrior is supposed to be as deadly as a mage by having them cost the same to level or by allowing me to pick them as a choice.

And templars need to be bufed if they are supposed to be anti-mages since even with the buffing in DA2, regular old magic was better than templar skills I found.

[Ieolus]

Topsider wrote...

It's worth noting that mages can be effective in some situations and poor in others, depending how they're built. I'm a controller/debilitator type and this is very nasty against single opponents - like the Arishok. He hardly moved the entire duel - either frozen, paralyzed, hexed, or screaming in horror. It was not pretty.

Since I focus on debilitation, area of effect spells are lacking and Hawke wasn't as good against large groups (still good enough... ahem...) and someone who prefers AoE will find the Arishok much tougher. I guess that is self-balancing in a way.

I think this is a good point and they should make sure that mages are balanced that way... no jack of all trades, master of all.

[Ieolus]

wolfhowwl wrote...

Bring back friendly fire. Mages can no longer blast everything without concern, thought, or strategy!

Definately!

[giveamanafish...]

wolfhowwl wrote...

Bring back friendly fire. Mages can no longer blast everything without concern, thought, or strategy!

Friendly fire, along with enemy immunities is an important part of the game at nightmare difficulty in DAII. People have soloed the game at nightmare as a mage, but this usually means having to do a lot of kiting, partly because the mobs move so quickly in DAII (of course this was before Bioware nerfed the game with the 1.03 update I think it was). So if I correct your statement to reflect the differences between difficulty levels in DAII, does this mean nightmare difficulty in DAII represents your ideal of a balance between classes? 

[Ieolus]

ismoketoomuch wrote...

wolfhowwl wrote...

Bring back friendly fire. Mages can no longer blast everything without concern, thought, or strategy!

Friendly fire, along with enemy immunities is an important part of the game at nightmare difficulty in DAII. People have soloed the game at nightmare as a mage, but this usually means having to do a lot of kiting, partly because the mobs move so quickly in DAII (of course this was before Bioware nerfed the game with the 1.03 update I think it was). So if I correct your statement to reflect the differences between difficulty levels in DAII, does this mean nightmare difficulty in DAII represents your ideal of a balance between classes? 

Why do you have to make such an assumption?  Friendly fire is possibly one PART of balancing mages, how does that extrapolate into DA2's nightmare difficulty being the ideal balance?

[AlanC9]

Topsider wrote...
I think Bethesda toned down Destruction because of how broken it was in Oblivion, even though they removed spell creation, ironically. Attempting to balance the schools they've created new imbalances, but you've also got to factor in players wanting to break the game. Not much any developer can do about that.

Count me in as one of those players. I always found TES combat fairly boring, so I went right for the exploits.

[giveamanafish...]

Ieolus wrote...

ismoketoomuch wrote...

wolfhowwl wrote...

Bring back friendly fire. Mages can no longer blast everything without concern, thought, or strategy!

Friendly fire, along with enemy immunities is an important part of the game at nightmare difficulty in DAII. People have soloed the game at nightmare as a mage, but this usually means having to do a lot of kiting, partly because the mobs move so quickly in DAII (of course this was before Bioware nerfed the game with the 1.03 update I think it was). So if I correct your statement to reflect the differences between difficulty levels in DAII, does this mean nightmare difficulty in DAII represents your ideal of a balance between classes? 

Why do you have to make such an assumption?  Friendly fire is possibly one PART of balancing mages, how does that extrapolate into DA2's nightmare difficulty being the ideal balance?

I was making no assumptions if you read the quote from worlfhowwl.

[AlanC9]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

But I really don't consider it a problem. If someone wants to make a game more difficult or easy for himself, let him. All this "everyone is equal" schtick bothers me. Right now, everyone is pretty much a mage, just wrapped in a different looking package.

My problem with this is that it mixes up setting my difficulty level, which is an out-of-universe activity, with selecting my active party members, which is an in-universe activity. If Morrigan and Wynne are far more effective than any other companions, how do I RP a Warden risking his own life by not bringing them along all the time? But playing a warden who's too stupid to know that mages are really powerful? I can do that, but it's annoying.

Having said that, I'm currently replaing SoZ, and I find I don't have any problem bringing along some of the odder cohorts, like Chir Darkflame (an ECL-3 caster? Silly). But that's because my Wizard/ASoC PC is nuking everything to pieces anyway, so it's easy enough to just be arrogant . A couple maximized Firebrands will destroy anything. There are ways to control mages in D&D, but SoZ doesn't use them.

Modifié par AlanC9, 22 septembre 2013 - 09:22 .

[mickey111]

Abraham_uk wrote...

Ieolus is probably right. The developers were probably only refeering to Skyrim's open world. However it is possible that they were inspired by other aspects of Skyrim (not just the parts they have publically talked about).


Anyway. Truth is, I'm not sure how to balance mages. It's a tough one.
Magic is at the very least conceptually about having powerful abilities that most people don't have.


But we have one camp that says that magic should only be able to cast support spells and have no hit points.

Then there is the other camp that says that mages should be experts at everything, especially nuking the whole planet.

Does a middle ground exist between these warring factions of wannabe wizards?
Yes I'm aware that I'm exaggerating.

The middle ground is experience point distribution, which is a bit hard tfor us to talk about on any meaningful level because we're not employed by Bioware, but as a rule of thumb, there should be a main quest, some side quest and some sort of variaton between how how a level each player can get by the end game depending on whether or not that they played through all of the quests in a rather specific optimal way.

Let mages do all of the above, but provide insufficient xp to do it all in one play through. Make some sort of anti mage traps and ammunition rather than expecting the templars to sort all of the mage related problems out. I find the whole method of having each class be especially weak to just one other counter class to be fairly limiting when it comes to to opening up new gameplay possibilities, which is why I think it'd be better to give every other class a fair chance at succeeding against whoever they're fighting with with only a very small number of exceptions.

Modifié par mickey111, 22 septembre 2013 - 09:24 .

[Ieolus]

ismoketoomuch wrote...

Ieolus wrote...

ismoketoomuch wrote...

wolfhowwl wrote...

Bring back friendly fire. Mages can no longer blast everything without concern, thought, or strategy!

Friendly fire, along with enemy immunities is an important part of the game at nightmare difficulty in DAII. People have soloed the game at nightmare as a mage, but this usually means having to do a lot of kiting, partly because the mobs move so quickly in DAII (of course this was before Bioware nerfed the game with the 1.03 update I think it was). So if I correct your statement to reflect the differences between difficulty levels in DAII, does this mean nightmare difficulty in DAII represents your ideal of a balance between classes? 

Why do you have to make such an assumption?  Friendly fire is possibly one PART of balancing mages, how does that extrapolate into DA2's nightmare difficulty being the ideal balance?

I was making no assumptions if you read the quote from worlfhowwl.

He simply stated that bringing back friendly fire would help bring some balance since "mages can no longer blast everything without concern, thought, or strategy".

You then went to an assumption about DA2 nightmare difficulty.  Maybe he was referring to friendly fire in DA:Origins?

[giveamanafish...]

Ieolus wrote...

ismoketoomuch wrote...

Ieolus wrote...

ismoketoomuch wrote...

wolfhowwl wrote...

Bring back friendly fire. Mages can no longer blast everything without concern, thought, or strategy!

Friendly fire, along with enemy immunities is an important part of the game at nightmare difficulty in DAII. People have soloed the game at nightmare as a mage, but this usually means having to do a lot of kiting, partly because the mobs move so quickly in DAII (of course this was before Bioware nerfed the game with the 1.03 update I think it was). So if I correct your statement to reflect the differences between difficulty levels in DAII, does this mean nightmare difficulty in DAII represents your ideal of a balance between classes? 

Why do you have to make such an assumption?  Friendly fire is possibly one PART of balancing mages, how does that extrapolate into DA2's nightmare difficulty being the ideal balance?

I was making no assumptions if you read the quote from worlfhowwl.

He simply stated that bringing back friendly fire would help bring some balance since "mages can no longer blast everything without concern, thought, or strategy".

You then went to an assumption about DA2 nightmare difficulty.  Maybe he was referring to friendly fire in DA:Origins?

I asked a question not made an asumption. Come on, you must be able to understand the difference.

Modifié par ismoketoomuch, 22 septembre 2013 - 09:25 .

[Ieolus]

AlanC9 wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

But I really don't consider it a problem. If someone wants to make a game more difficult or easy for himself, let him. All this "everyone is equal" schtick bothers me. Right now, everyone is pretty much a mage, just wrapped in a different looking package.

My problem with this is that it mixes up setting my difficulty level, which is an out-of-universe activity, with selecting my active party members, which is an in-universe activity. If Morrigan and Wynne are far more effective than any other companions, how do I RP a Warden risking his own life by not bringing them along all the time? But playing a warden who's too stupid to know that mages are really powerful? I can do that, but it's annoying.

Powergaming is clearly out-of-universe.

Sure mages are really powerful, but they are also really dangerous.  Maybe that Warden doesn't want to be around so many potential abominations.  Maybe the Warden fancies the cute red-head rogue, I know mine did.

[AlanC9]

Ieolus wrote...

Powergaming is clearly out-of-universe.

Is it? If anything, my PCs should be even more committed to maximizing combat efficiency than I am. I'm playing for fun and can just reload if I goof. Them, not so much.

Sure mages are really powerful, but they are also really dangerous.  Maybe that Warden doesn't want to be around so many potential abominations.  Maybe the Warden fancies the cute red-head rogue, I know mine did.

Sure, with enough doublethink you can get your PC to believe anything. That doesn't fix the problem, it just moves it.

Modifié par AlanC9, 22 septembre 2013 - 09:35 .

[Laughing_Man]

I don't really see what's the problem, half the people who want to "balance" mages, are probably not going to play them anyway.
Isn't it better to simply make other classes attractive too?

Instead of trying to look where you can make mages weaker, look for where you can make other classes stronger.

[Treacherous J Slither]

Mage are supposed to be scary strong. They're locked up simply for their world breaking potential. The mundanes are terrified. It makes no sense lore wise for a warrior or a rogue to be on their level. This is a role playing game. You can play the role of the tough guy warrior, the sneaky backstabbing rogue, or the nukemonster mage.

I'm partial to rogues myself. A sneaky backstabbing shapeshifting bloodmage would be just perfect though. Just a few spells for subterfuge, mind control, telekinesis, healing, defense, and speed. Everything else is pure rogue. >:]

Modifié par JSlither, 22 septembre 2013 - 10:35 .

[aphelion4]

TheRedVipress wrote...

I don't really see what's the problem, half the people who want to "balance" mages, are probably not going to play them anyway.
Isn't it better to simply make other classes attractive too?

Instead of trying to look where you can make mages weaker, look for where you can make other classes stronger.

I was under the impression the majority of players played Warriors and Rogues because magic classes never seem all that popular.

[Abraham_uk]

Solution.
Detailed difficulty settings.An option to have custom difficulty.
Settings:

Party Settings:

Spell Damage/Effectiveness
Spell Cost
Talent Damage/Effectiveness
Talent Cost
Weapon Damage
Movement Speed 
Evasion Rate
Defence Ratings for Warriors
Defence Ratings for Rogues
Defence Ratings for Mages


Enemy Settings

Spell Damage/Effectiveness
Spell Cost
Talent Damage/Effectiveness
Talent Cost
Weapon Damage
Movement Speed 
Evasion Rate
Defence Ratings for Warriors
Defence Ratings for Rogues
Defence Ratings for Mages

Select AI Behavior: Select from 30 different sliders that will affect how enemies behave in combat.


What do you think of customisable difficulty?

[Ieolus]

As long as there were defaults too for people who don't want to bother.

Easy
Normal
Hard
Nightmare
Custom

Modifié par Ieolus, 23 septembre 2013 - 12:19 .