55 réponses à ce sujet

[Inprea]

With health and mana no longer regenerating on their own, unless I've missed something, I got me to thinking about the economy of healing. Health and mana not regenerating is hardly new as is a limited inventory. Indeed it's more like returning to earlier role playing games in my view. What I was wondering is how much health could a mage trained to heal get out of a mana potion as compared to what anyone could get out of a health potion and what will be their relative cost.

 

In most games I've played a caster type can get four to ten times the healing out of a single mana potion as someone else can get out of a health potion. This has influenced my view of them over the years. To me mana potions are about mileage they're what gets the group where they need to be in good enough condition to get the job done. Health potions on the other hand are all about emergencies. You don't always have time to wait for the healer to drink a mana potion and then cast a spell to keep someone alive. You need that healing now.

 

With the limited inventory I'm expecting to allocate more space for mana potions then health potions. What kind of ratio are you hoping for? Should a 50 silver health potion and mana potion afford you the same amount of healing or should one grant you more healing then the other provided you have the right party member? Personally I'm expecting that a mana potion and a mage with a basic healing spell will give you three to five times the healing for the same price. A character built for healing will probably get you even more for your buck.

[The Elder King]

I don't recall they ever said mana wouldn't regenerate, only health won't.

[Cyonan]

I don't see mana as having much regeneration either, otherwise it defeats the purpose of having non regenerating health since your mages will just be able to spam healing spells on cooldown while out of combat.

 

Assuming that they also limit mana while out of combat though, I would plan on having more mana potions than health for the reasons you've specified: Generally a mage gets more healing out of a mana potion than anybody is getting out of health potion.

 

The health potions will largely be around to help with in combat.

[The Elder King]

I don't see mana as having much regeneration either, otherwise it defeats the purpose of having non regenerating health since your mages will just be able to spam healing spells on cooldown while out of combat.
 
Assuming that they also limit mana while out of combat though, I would plan on having more mana potions than health for the reasons you've specified: Generally a mage gets more healing out of a mana potion than anybody is getting out of health potion.
 
The health potions will largely be around to help with in combat.

They stated that healing spells will be limited in some ways, so it makes sense that mana can regen.
I recall that they were asked about mana, and they said that health was the only one to not regen.

[hexaligned]

I don't recall they ever said mana wouldn't regenerate, only health won't.

This.  At least judging by the pax demo stamina and mana regen pretty fast by the looks of it.  Of course, it might have just been tweaked so they could show off different abilities easily.  I'm assuming there will not be healing spells at all, as it would make having non-regening health pointless if you could heal through it.

[The Elder King]

This.  At least judging by the pax demo stamina and mana regen pretty fast by the looks of it.  Of course, it might have just been tweaked so they could show off different abilities easily.  I'm assuming there will not be healing spells at all, as it would make having non-regening health pointless if you could heal through it.

They said there are healing spells, but they are limited in some ways, likely to prevent healing spamming.

[Cyonan]

They stated that healing spells will be limited in some ways, so it makes sense that mana can regen.
I recall that they were asked about mana, and they said that health was the only one to not regen.

 

I expect them to be limited, but I also expect that there wont be much stopping me from just waiting until the healing spell is available again to be able to cast it at essentially no cost because my mana will just instantly regenerate.

 

Unless they have some specific limitations for when out of combat. I suppose we need to know more about how it's going to work in general other than just the knowledge that it's going to be limited somehow.

[Inprea]

I don't recall they ever said mana wouldn't regenerate, only health won't.

If that's the case they might as well allow health regain. The most likely limiter I can think of is a cool down but that just means you need to wait until the heal comes off its cool down so a little patience. Even if they restrict the use of spells to combat that's been done before and is very easy to work around. All you do is kill every enemy except the single weakest one out of the bunch then keep them alive while you heal up the party. You may even be able to crowd control them while you do the healing.

 

Plus only being able to use spells in combat just strikes me as an annoying game mechanic that can be rather immersion breaking.

[Exaltation]

I would assume there will be Lyrium Veins or Health Potions dropping at some rate from monsters.

[Iakus]

I don't recall they ever said mana wouldn't regenerate, only health won't.

 

Specifically, health will only regen a certain amount, based on difficulty.

[BubbleDncr]

I think the limit on healing will be cooldowns and mana. They'll possibly make healing spells more expensive than offensive spells, and with something like a 30 second or higher cooldown.

 

They could also slow down mana regeneration out of combat - so, rather than getting to full mana within 20 seconds after a battle, it will take a few minutes.

 

There's probably a combination of those two things that would make wanting to heal a full party of people ta half health up to full heath could take doing nothing but casting heal spells and waiting for 5-10 minutes - at which point, you might as well have just returned to "camp" and rested.

 

So they could be hoping to rely on our own impatience.

[The Baconer]

If health potions/healing spells etc are all limited, does that mean playing as a healer is not viable?

 

Possibly. I'm guessing the limitation on healing spells might be ultra-long cooldowns like DAII, perhaps longer, and then there's the removal of the Spirit Healer class.

 

 

Of course, I'm willing to bet there's going to be a support build that revolves around diminishing/avoiding the damage given to party members, rather than healing it.

[BubbleDncr]

If health potions/healing spells etc are all limited, does that mean playing as a healer is not viable?

 

I think this is why there doesn't seem to be a "spirit healer" spec anymore. My guess is all mages will be able to take one heal spell, with possibly having a group heal and a rez further down the tree.

 

So if you want a healer, you'll probably just have that mage focus on more defensive and crowd control spells (icewall, sleep, paralyze) on top of whatever heals are offered.

[Inprea]

I think the limit on healing will be cooldowns and mana. They'll possibly make healing spells more expensive than offensive spells, and with something like a 30 second or higher cooldown.

 

They could also slow down mana regeneration out of combat - so, rather than getting to full mana within 20 seconds after a battle, it will take a few minutes.

 

There's probably a combination of those two things that would make wanting to heal a full party of people ta half health up to full heath could take doing nothing but casting heal spells and waiting for 5-10 minutes - at which point, you might as well have just returned to "camp" and rested.

 

So they could be hoping to rely on our own impatience.

 

Slowing down mana regain out of combat wouldn't really work. All you need to do is hold back on killing the last enemy, perhaps paralyze them somehow, and then heal up the party. The healing spells also need to have a short enough cool down that they're useful in battle otherwise there is no point in even having healing. That and if you're going to slow down mana regain out of combat it had best be explosive regain in combat otherwise you're going to be waiting for it to regain.

[Deflagratio]

The economy of healing is actually something I've thought about a lot. My question is; with regenerating mana, how do you justify non-regenerating health in a game with healing spells? At that point it seems like just adding an unnecessary step. (See: Obllivion's T1 heal spell spam after every battle)

 

I'm looking forward to Bioware's answer. Will Healing Spells function off restrictive Cooldown? Will they have a global cast limit like Spellcasting in Dark Souls? Maybe they require Spell Components like old D&D Rulesets, combining elements of Alchemy and Magic?

 

We'll probably know at E3.

[In Exile]

I don't see mana as having much regeneration either, otherwise it defeats the purpose of having non regenerating health since your mages will just be able to spam healing spells on cooldown while out of combat.

 

Assuming that they also limit mana while out of combat though, I would plan on having more mana potions than health for the reasons you've specified: Generally a mage gets more healing out of a mana potion than anybody is getting out of health potion.

 

The health potions will largely be around to help with in combat.

 

Mana not regenerating would make mage combat suck. It would be a return to the garbage that was Vancian magic. An external limit on healing magic specifically would allow us to retain fun gameplay without overloading on healing or returning to a crappy system.

[Nightdragon8]

eh... sound like they are trying to do a survial element to the game, which, I'm not 100% on... some games work fine with it, others not so much, and can honestly ruin games if not done right.

[modernfan]

As a casual player, the survival element of limited health regen sounds sort of stressful. I work long hours at a mind numbingly stressful job. Playing Dragon Age & immersing myself in that world is relaxing & therapeutic for me.  I enjoy combat when it's not too hard, but I view it mainly as the price I willingly pay to reveal the amazing story.  Giving me something else to worry about when I'm already not what you would call a high skill player doesn't sound fun.  I'm really hoping that casual mode will have full or close to full health regen.  By all means, make DAI challenging for the people who enjoy more difficulty.  Just don't go so far in that direction that it frustrates casual players or gives them the sense that they're somehow failing.

[Reznore57]

Possible we won't be able to use healing spell out of combat , and long cooldown on those spell.

Healers  might have different spells , more stuff to mitigate/absorb damages + party boost such as haste spell.

I know when I used to play WOW , the healing priest had two main specialization : one with pure healing and another more focused on preventing damages , with the second it was way harder to keep everyone health bar full.But it did the same job as a pure healer.

[Inprea]

Possible we won't be able to use healing spell out of combat , and long cooldown on those spell.

Healers  might have different spells , more stuff to mitigate/absorb damages + party boost such as haste spell.

I know when I used to play WOW , the healing priest had two main specialization : one with pure healing and another more focused on preventing damages , with the second it was way harder to keep everyone health bar full.But it did the same job as a pure healer.

Yeah but discipline priest were rarely if ever very high on the healing meter so people thought they didn't pull their own weight too often. Of course I rolled a paladin so I didn't have much care for priest. I preferred to be healing with a druid.

 

A life tree that focused on buffs would be nice. I don't believe you should call it a healing tree in that case though.

[Xerxes52]

I'm thinking that healing spells and potions will probably have long cooldowns, thirty seconds at the least, possibly higher with group healing and revives. Disabling mana regeneration would be way too onerous for magic users.

[Klystron]

I have a list of gaming bummers, and this is number 2 on the list -- needing to run back and camp all the time, rather than just rest for a minute or two.  Number one is inventory management problems in a game where we have to gather mats to make potions.  Sooner or later these drive me to use cheat codes and such...

 

Hopefully they've thought this out better...

[n7stormrunner]

I have a list of gaming bummers, and this is number 2 on the list -- needing to run back and camp all the time, rather than just rest for a minute or two.  Number one is inventory management problems in a game where we have to gather mats to make potions.  Sooner or later these drive me to use cheat codes and such...

 

Hopefully they've thought this out better...

 

 

umm.. define "thought this out better"