20 réponses à ce sujet

[Johun]

First, a disclaimer: I realize this feeeback may be too little too late, as a fundamental part of the combat system, which I assume has been locked down already. Wish I had thought to put this in the gameplay survey.

Onto the topic itself: I don't enjoy sustained abilities at all. Handicapping my character's resource bar for passive stat bonuses is perhaps the opposite of engaging and responsive combat.

The sheer amount of these abilities in both Dragon Age games is disheartening. Often my warriors' stamina would be reduced to a tiny yellow sliver. Particularly annoying in DA2 was the Spirit Healer stance that locked out any offensive spell and Shield Defense, which stopped closing attacks and transformed the auto-attack into an ugly monotone. And surely things threat generation and bonuses from being surrounded should be passive?

As an alternative I would rather see something like stances that exclude each other, so you could only have one active at a time. For instance a shield defence stance that actually raises the character's shield up, similar to the shield wielding enemy in the PAX demo. It could greatly increase damage reduction from the front, grant knockdown immunity while also severely limiting movement speed.

Please, no more stances with boring stat bonuses like accuracy, damage, defense or speed.

[Rainbow Wyvern]

Gosh I despised the Spirit Healer stance in DA2. It had a nearly-worthless health regeneration boost and locks the SH out of every offensive spell besides auto-attack. All so I can heal people with that crappy group heal with a long cooldown.

 

Anyway, I never really used stances all that much. My tanks usually had one or two going but they made stamina and mana bars small so I didn't like using them. Some also look really bad, like rock armor or lyrium ghost.

I do hope they got rid of them.

[Lucien Grey]

They add a little something extra to combat, you "handicap" a resource of your's for what ever gains the ability grants you. In Origins I found it made combat a bit more tactical and not just about how much I could spam 'Shield Bash' ect.

I definitely understand why some people didn't like it or even use it, but by removing something a lot of people found integral to gameplay you're actually gimping gameplay for others.

Sustained abilities mean you have to better manage your other abilities and utilise other characters strengths and weaknesses.

Just my two cents though.

[caradoc2000]

Sustained abilities are optional, so you can choose not to use them should you find that approach preferable.

[Lady Nuggins]

Sustained abilities really alter your playing style.  You can choose to buff your defensive ability at the expense of your speed, or become a powerhouse healer at the expense of offense.  Admittedly, I usually ignore half the sustained abilities that are offered, but I like how it forces you to make some decisions, and lets you change those decisions later by simply deselecting the talent.

[Wulfram]

I think sustained abilities aren't bad in principle, but the chosen negative is a problem because a stamina/willpower penalty effectively makes the character more boring.  Also the percentage based system helps make willpower worse, since it effectively devalues each point you put in - and willpower is a poor investment anyway.  Giving them an absolute stamina cost would allow the player to effectively pay for sustains in stat points and equipment choices - which to my mind would be a good thing.

 

I'd rather some different penalties, and perhaps some which don't cost anything except the expense of investing in them.

[Knight of Dane]

I think they are fine. The Spirit Healer didn't require activation for you to use Group Heal or Revive either.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I really liked how sustained abilities worked in DAO. Because they didn't consume stamina, if you activated them after combat began they didn't cost anything. You could evrn set up the tactics to activate them when a certain stamina threshold was reached.

But what I don't like are sustained abilities that prevent me from using some of my other abilities. That's why I never used Blood Mage or Spirit Healer in DA2.

[Ribosome]

In the likelihood that sustained abilities shall remain in DAI, I really hope they go with the set amount of mana/stamina needed to keep it activated like in Origins, rather than cut off a percentage of your total. Was one of those changes that really irked me.

[Eveangaline]

I kinda liked them but I hope they offer enough builds that don't use them that you can play how you want.

[Stelae]

I liked them because they made you think about the synergies between your team members, and I enjoyed the balancing act between active and passive, individual and team benefits. But I can see how they aren't for everyone.  Hopefully you'll be able to play without them, but I'd be sorry to see them go altogether.

 

I think Bioware got the balance right most of the time, except my spirit healers were so darned squishy - having to constantly boost their mana meant they were really frail.  But I suspect that has at least as much to do with my skill as with the mechanic itself.  And Aveline's superb tanking usually kept them safe. 

[AshenSugar]

Personally I really enjoyed sustained abilities in both DA games, mainly for the reasons covered by other posters above - They made me think about team synergy, and created a series interesting choices, like others though, I found the ones that locked out your other abilities largely useless.

 

The exception was Merrill's blood magic build. In my last playthrough I have every sustained spell under the sun running on her at once, which made her extremely powerful, as she was still able to cast her Primal spells indefinitely without any need to worry about mana management. The only downside came if she took an unlucky hit,  scrabbling around to heal her quickly by disabling all those sustained effects, and then getting her back in the fight afterward was a real ache, but it was a price I considered worth paying.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

A lot of us used those abilities very effectively, and would like to keep them.

 

The far more efficient and sensible solution would be for you to not spend skill points on abilities that you don't like using, wouldn't it? 

[rocsage]

Understand your meaning, but the issue really isn't that grave.

Just because something is a sustain and it's potentially very powerful doesn't mean you need to keep it on constantly.

Elemental Aegis: can be used in conjunction with rally to provide massive spell resistance to the entire party, but that's really only useful against high dragon.

While the resistance provided may be applicable to other magical damage dealers such as arcane horror, we both know attrition isn't the way to go against da2 mages--they're mean, they're thin, get killin'.

Bravery: while often somewhat applicable, the bonus pales in comparison to the steroid buff from cleave and assail.

Aveline's stacking damage resistance sustain: normally not necessary; her durable nature, in conjunction with obscure effects from a rogue ally, puts survival out of question.  Only time it potentially becomes relevant is during Mavernus first stage, when throngs of ghost archers spawn in loose formation.

Is it just me or is specialist tree garbage beyond your first point?

[Cainhurst Crow]

I think DA2 went a little overboard where there were more sustained abilities then activated abilities, but over all I think they can offer quite a bit to gameplay. It just depends on how good a bonus you get using your sustained ability vs just doing things without sustained abilities.

 

What I'd like to see is no really stupid visual effects for those abilities that go into cutscenes, such as turning transparent. It really takes you right out of things to see your warden walking around with his eyes and teeth just floating there, and nobody reacting to that.

[J-Reyno]

I just want an option to turn the visual effects off.  I hate sustained visual effects in pretty much every game, ever.

[Zatche]

I don't mind sustained abilities. Once I figured how to use them properly, DAO became way easier.

[sandalisthemaker]

I just want an option to turn the visual effects off.  I hate sustained visual effects in pretty much every game, ever.

 

Rock armor was especially awful in DAO. 

[AlanC9]

I really liked how sustained abilities worked in DAO. Because they didn't consume stamina, if you activated them after combat began they didn't cost anything. You could evrn set up the tactics to activate them when a certain stamina threshold was reached.

That struck me as really cheap. I'd call them "exploits" but IIRC you don't find that to be a useful concept.

[Sylvius the Mad]

That struck me as really cheap. I'd call them "exploits" but IIRC you don't find that to be a useful concept.

You have to consider the opportunity costs.  Having them up at the start of combat means you can't use as many activated abilities, but not having them up means you don't benefit from them as much, and you have to spend time activating them during combat.  If you design your tactics around either of those sets of drawbacks, then either approach can work well.

 

And no, I don't agree that exploits exist.

[Remmirath]

I rather like sustained abilities that increase combat potential -- things like Momentum and Powerful Swings, not the various threaten modes-- actually, although passive ones are even better. This is probably because I'm not overfond of activated abilities at all, so I would rather be able to avoid them as much as possible and only use the ones that, to me, make sense to be activated (things such as whirlwind attack or any other area sweep, shield knockdowns, that kind of thing). To my mind, Dragon Age II did not have enough ways to avoid the activated ones, or maybe it was just that the activated ones made less since to me in II than they did in Origins. I believe that one should assume that, in lieu of full-on combat simulation, the character is effective at striking on their own, and that activating things should be reserved for what you don't want to do all the time. Tactical choices, such as attacking more enemies at once or knocking down those in front of you.

All in all, having useful sustained and passive abilities as well as useful activated abilities accomodates more play styles and allows for a great variety of strategies and ways to build characters differently, so I can only see it as a good thing. I would be quite disappointed if the sustained abilities vanished or became even less useful than they were in DA II, though.

The visual effects, however... those I would like to see gone for anything except perhaps spells, and at that, only if it actually has to do with the spell. All those dancing lights and swishy trails are pretty annoying.