6397 réponses à ce sujet

[CheerfulTitan]

The most painful thing in a thread like this is that we simply dont know for sure. Which leads to alot of arguing. 

I dont understand why a developer cant just tell us outright how many total spells there is in the game here in this thread - counting actives + sustains + passives, and explain if there are things like spell combos increasing complexity and such.

It would take a dev 2 minutes to ease everyone here with no negative consequenses It seems that - not only with bioware - but all gaming companies, the philosophy of developers is "If I can avoid posting in the community forum, I will". Just an observation, not sure if theres actually a good reason behind it.

 

Spoiler

[Abraham_uk]

I tend to follow this principle.

 

Until the moment of release, nothing and I mean "nothing" is set in stone.

Even after the game is released, there may be patches.

 

The game comes out in November. 

It's still August. The game might be delayed further for all we know.

 

 

Also regarding skill trees and skill balance, synergy, uniqueness and purpose trumps quantity.

I'd rather the classes have a variety of viable abilities that can be combined for strategic dominance rather than thousands of skills and talents that are very similar, lack synergy and mostly useless.

 

200-300 spells, talents, sustained abilities and passive skills involves a lot of programming.

 

Your favourite spells and abilities from Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2 probably won't make the cut.

However if the result is a balanced and fun tactical game with challenge and a wealth of different tactics, then it's worth it.

[Abraham_uk]

Having skills removed is not necessarily "dumbing down".

This to me is a fallacy.

 

Having a balanced and highly tactical game is more important than having thousands of skills and abilities.

Why not have your cake and eat it? Well the more skills, talents, sustained abilities and passives you have, the harder it is to make the game balanced.

 

Balance and challenge are what make games interesting to me.

If removing skills and abilities that upset balance leads to better balance and more challenging encounters, then this is not "dumbing down".

[Kage]

To keep up the hope, since I would hang myself if we were to only have 29 spells, so far we have seen in the demos:

- Spirit tree: 12 skills

- Entropy tree: 11 skills

- Winter: 10

- Inferno: 11

- KE: 10

 

If that were equal for the other 2 specs, that would be 12+11+10+11+10x3 = 74 skills for mage.

 

The warrior we have seen:

- Reaver: 10

- S&S: 13

- 2H: 15

- Battlemaster: 13

- Vanguard: 11

So they would have 13+15+13+11+3x10 = 82 skills for warrior

 

If the rogue would have also 82, 82+82+74 = 238 skills. We would still be under 250 skills.

 

 

Now, the question is: Why did Mike Laidlaw said over 200 when to Kotaku they previously said over 250 combat abilities?

 

Is it because Mike didnt know by heart and didnt want to risk it?

Or is it because they changed the amount or the Kotaku is incorrect?

 

I really hope there are more active skills. Less than 30 options in total for each class seems really underwhelming.

 

Just get rid of the 112340292342232 passives, we do not want them.

[Adhin]

The Kotaku article I linked was a quote saying 250 abilities, passives and upgrades. It wasn't 250 active skills you can use, and anyone misreading it as such will be extremely disappointed. If you want to ignore passives as part of a spec then total 'abilities' (ignoring upgrades too) is much smaller. Though keep in mind when comparing to DAO - they did A LOT of redundant spells and abilities and the upgrade system was there way of combining it together. LIke Walking Bomb and Virulent Walking Bomb. Why have 2 separate nearly identical spells when you can have 1 with an upgrade? It just makes sense for this game.

 

I am personally expecting 5 abilities (I realize some are 6, or most maybe) per 'tab' rest being passives/upgrades for Core Tabs, 3 for specializations. If that holds true-ish that ends up being 29-30 active use skills for any given class. Or as has been stated, 23 for mages, 18 for warrior/rogue due to singular weapon choices (can't weapon swap). That actually gets doubled if you count passives (not upgrades). To where Warrior and Rogue have about 35-ish 'things' to spend points in not counting upgrades. Mages end up with about the same though a lot of there tabs seem to be having 9, not 10 which I find semi-odd.

 

Ultimately if they where to just remove all the mage passives, they would (most of them) get turned into sustained. And I'm sure from a mental stand point a lot of people here would be far more happy with that 'idea' they have another thing to bind they can call a spell. For me, I don't care, I'm happy having a bunch of passives on a mage, as long as there interesting anyway.

 

-edit-

For clarity (hopefully anyway)

[Gamemako]

Maybe they dont say the number because they might put one spell out if it does not fit.

I dont think there will be only 29 spells. You use the kotatsu info to conclude that there are 4 skill trees, but you ignore the part where they said more than 250 abilities.

250/3 classes, around 85 skills per class.
Those are 85 icons you must fit in 4+3 skill trees. Are you sure about.your math again? 5 spells per basic.tree? I would bet for more than 10!
Or maybe, they decide to give the mage more trees, although smaller, to separate inferno, winter, etc.

This has been covered elsewhere before and in this thread at least once as well. That is 250 spells, talents, upgrades, and passives combined. Average 13.5 total points per tree * 4 talent trees per class + 10 per spec * 3 specs = 84 points per class * 3 classes = 252 total points -- with only 23 active spells/talents available to any one character.

//EDIT: Ninja'd by the guy who did the math the first time around.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

IMO, I will be playing as rogue for my canon this time around. They trees are simplified but the rogue is still a rogue and now we have throwing daggers....

[Gamemako]

Also, since the point gets lost, rogues and warriors have at least as many active talents available to any character as ever before.

Rogue:
DA:O -- 3 support, 2 attack, 1 sustained, plus 0/6/2 for DW or 0/6/4 for bows. There are no active attack talents in Rogue specs, and only 4 active support talents (Mark of Death, Distraction, Upset Balance, Pinpoint Strikes). Neglecting sustained, that's 3 support and 8 attack plus up to 3 more support via two specs -- no more than 14 total actives.
DA:A (total) -- 4 support, 4 attack, 2 sustained, plus 0/9/2 for daggers or 0/8/6 for bows. Add Pandemonium, Decoy, and Strength of Stone to the other 4 support actives for a total of 7. Up to 5 support from specs gives a total maximum of 9+13=22 actives.
DA2 -- 11 support, 4 bow, 3 dagger with 4 sustains. Specs are 2/1/0 assassin, 1/1/1 duelist, and 2/0/0 shadow. -- a maximum of 14+6=20 possible active talents on one character.
DA:I -- 23? active talents

Warrior:
DA:O -- 3/0/2, plus 0/6/2 DW or 0/6/4 bows or 0/4/3 W&S or 1/4/2 2H. 0/1/1 zerk, 2/0/2 reaver, 1/1/0 temp, 1/0/1 champ. Maximum of 3 class, 6 weapon, and 4 spec actives for 13 total actives.
DA:A -- 5/2/2, plus 0/9/2 DW, 0/8/6 bows, 1/4/5 W&S, 1/6/4 2H. New specs are 2/0/1 guard, 0/1/1 SW. Maximum is then 7 warrior, 9 DW, and 6 spec for a total of 22.
DA2 -- 7/0/6 plus 0/3/0 2H and 1/2/1 W&S. Then 2/0/1 zerk, 1/1/1 reaver, and 2/1/0 Templar. That's 7 support, 3 weapon, and up to 5 spec for a total of 15 active talents on any character.
DA:I -- 23? active talents

Sure, discounting sustained abilities isn't totally fair, but it does give you an idea of where DA:I's design is going. It's mainly mages who got thumped in DA:I, losing most types of spells and dropping spell count to an all-time low. Mages went from 64 (DA:A) to 33 (DA2) to 23 (DA:I) available active spells.

[Abraham_uk]

As I understand it, the point of speculation is "this might happen" as opposed to "this will happen".

Speculation can sometimes turn out correct and sometimes turn out wrong.

 

What I'm saying is, speculate away but please don't refer to speculatory information as absolute fact.

 

P.s. Yes this is a sin that I too have committed. Scorn me if you must...

[Kage]

This has been covered elsewhere before and in this thread at least once as well. That is 250 spells, talents, upgrades, and passives combined. Average 13.5 total points per tree * 4 talent trees per class + 10 per spec * 3 specs = 84 points per class * 3 classes = 252 total points -- with only 23 active spells/talents available to any one character.

//EDIT: Ninja'd by the guy who did the math the first time around.

 

Yeah, and that is what I meant. I know there are not 85 spells, I said around 85 skills. But if there are 84 mage skills, 29 spells?

Considering there are less upgrades this time around, that would mean there are more passives than spells. Isnt that a little odd?

 

I guess we will have to see what kind of passives they come up with. If they are "+10% fire damage" they will be boring. If they are "get mana from dead corpses", they might be fun because those were spells previously. Sustain spells into passives? Yes please.

[Kage]

Another thing I find strange, its that with that proportion, a mage would have at level 17, only 6 spells. Not even enough to fill the shortcuts! And if one of them is a focus spell, we would be using only 5. And at level 8-9 we would have 3 spells... I dont know, seems a little boring to play mage if that's the case.

[Morroian]

200-300 spells, talents, sustained abilities and passive skills involves a lot of programming.

 

Your favourite spells and abilities from Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2 probably won't make the cut.

However if the result is a balanced and fun tactical game with challenge and a wealth of different tactics, then it's worth it.

 

DA2 was already streamlined from DAO and IMHO it hit a good balance. It would be a pity to reduce it further. The 1 spec thing I don't mind but for mages at least I thought they got the balance pretty much right in DA2.

[wowsuper]

I recently came to think that maybe the core battle system of the DA series may have changed with Inquisition. Maybe the devs have already said something about this but I believe that attack and defense stats are gone. Since the characters are more "agile" and free to move, jump and do stunts maybe the system which regulates the capability to hit targets is now designed around enemy and allies hitboxes and player ability to actually hit enemies or to actually dodge and parry incoming attacks.

In this case all the talents and spells that influenced the chance of warriors and rogues to hit may have gone, thus leaving a rather big amount of talents and spells to be deleted or at least to be heavily redesigned.

 

I wouldn't like at all the action-oriented mechanics this speculations would imply, so I would be glad to be contradicted.

[Abraham_uk]

DA2 was already streamlined from DAO and IMHO it hit a good balance. It would be a pity to reduce it further. The 1 spec thing I don't mind but for mages at least I thought they got the balance pretty much right in DA2.

 

I doubt it would be more streamlined than DA2.

Given all the criticism about that game being streamlined.

[Adhin]

@wowsuper: I kind of doubt that, though they could of removed a base hit/miss chance and stuck with DR and rogues may get a passive that does like 20% chance to avoid in general. But even DAO had the ability to 'avoid' AoE or attacks if you could move out before the trigger frame for the damage hit. DA2 was just easier to break off engagement (and rogue had some stuff that would move you quickly). Ultimately, DAI just gives the movement stuff to everyone to some extent (mages fake-teleporting, warriors rolling).

 

Considering past games have had that I just don't think it means they're completely dropping all the other stuff cause of it. But they could be, I just doubt it since they're still skills you have to buy. It's not a base feature, there isn't a dedicated 'dodge button'.

[In Exile]

I would miss greatly all the other 71 spells.

Well, let me compute again.
Origins: 100 spells;
DA2: 40 spells;
Inquisition... 5*4 standard trees= 20 + 3*3 specialization trees= 29 spells.
So, 100-29=71 spells lost on the road from Origins.

Wait! 100, 40, 29...
I may have noticed a trend!
If we are lucky in a future DA4 we'll have even less than 10 spells at our disposal! How exciting!

Most DAO spells were a steaming pile of crap. Often they were outright trap abilities that tricked you into wasting a skill point. More commonly they were just a roadblock to getting a useful ability later on. The volume of spells in DAO is much like the volume of spells in D&D - a confusing deluge of information players have to navigate.

[Abraham_uk]

Most DAO spells were a steaming pile of crap. Often they were outright trap abilities that tricked you into wasting a skill point. More commonly they were just a roadblock to getting a useful ability later on. The volume of spells in DAO is much like the volume of spells in D&D - a confusing deluge of information players have to navigate.

 

In Mass Effect 3 (I know different game) you have 6 base powers, 1 bonus power and unity. So that's 8 in total.

In multiplayer you only get 3 per kit. When playing Mass Effect trilogy I never once felt like I had too few abilities. Heck sometimes I felt I had more abilities than I could handle. But each and every power felt useful. There weren't any "dud" powers. The powers also synergised quite nicely too.

 

I'd say it's quality over quantity.

 

If those 29 spells that the mages get in Dragon Age Inquisition are more fun, balanced and useful than the majority of 100 spells in Dragon Age Origins then I'm okay with that.

 

About those 10 spells. Well if we get more upgrades for those 10 spells and even multiple evolution paths then well having only 10 spells doesn't seem that bad.

 

 

That said that is over the top knee jerk reaction. I doubt there will be as few as 29 spells anyway. As for 10, I really doubt there would be so few. If there is a trend, it's a trend towards better designed skill trees, removal of useless/redundant spells/abilities and better class design. So yes, you have to cut the chaff to reach the wheat.

[Thibax]

Since quality is not quantity.

We need creativity to keep useful spells in a great variation of elements.

We can have 50, 40, 30, 20 or 10 useful or useless spells.

Creativity is the key.

[Abraham_uk]

 

Since quality is not quantity.

We need creativity to keep useful spells in a great variation of elements.

We can have 50, 40, 30, 20 or 10 useful or useless spells.

Creativity is the key.

 

Agreed .

[Morroian]

In Mass Effect 3 (I know different game) you have 6 base powers, 1 bonus power and unity. So that's 8 in total.

In multiplayer you only get 3 per kit. When playing Mass Effect trilogy I never once felt like I had too few abilities. Heck sometimes I felt I had more abilities than I could handle. 

 

In ME2 and 3 I felt I had too few powers. Its not as much an issue with those games though because they're pretty much out and out action games, as opposed to the tactical party rpg that is the Dragon Age series which means more options are required.

[andar91]

Though there are certainly more passives than before, I think we may be able to skip some of them, unlike in DA:O where you were forced to take ability B to get to ability C.

 

I felt like I was losing something in DA2 (as a mage-exclusive player) since we lost so many spells, but at the same time I recognize the spells themselves were generally better (imo). It really only hurt in relation to Rogues and Warriors since they were getting SO MANY NEW ABILITIES and mages just seemed to lose them.

 

I don't really mind having less abilities overall as long as they are useful and interesting, and as long as I have a decent number of them. I'm honestly not thinking about the numbers too hard since it boggles the mind lol. There's definitely a mismatch between the idea of having individual elemental trees for mages and having only 4 trees (when we've seen icons for Creation and Entropy), but we'll just have to see.

 

My personal hypothesis at this point is that they went back to Origins' style and just decided to do the mage differently. Maybe the mage has 7 skill trees: Inferno, Winter, Lightning, Earth, Spirit, Entropy, Creation, other classes be damned. OR, those numbers didn't include the specializations? Or there are no lightning/earth trees. I don't know.

[Gamemako]

I wouldn't like at all the action-oriented mechanics this speculations would imply, so I would be glad to be contradicted.

I don't think I've heard anything about that either way. Not all RPGs have accuracy or evasion at all, for that matter. As for action-oriented mechanics, action games need a specific set of rules that I just haven't seen evidence for. Imagine if you tried to play Devil May Cry when none of the enemies staggered and their attacks automatically hit you. Not the most fun you'd have all year, that much is certain. You can make an action-RPG which follows action game rules, but you can't make an action game without them unless you want your game to suck.
 

Most DAO spells were a steaming pile of crap. Often they were outright trap abilities that tricked you into wasting a skill point. More commonly they were just a roadblock to getting a useful ability later on. The volume of spells in DAO is much like the volume of spells in D&D - a confusing deluge of information players have to navigate.

There were certainly some junkers, but most spell lines were pretty useful. The pretty awful ones were the Awakening arcane field line, lightning line excepting Storm of the Century use, Spell Wisp line, and Shapeshifter. Otherwise, the only real problem you could face was not selecting the stupidly-overpowered stuff that trivialized the game (e.g. Mana Clash).

[andar91]

Well, I'll say this for Entropy. At 9:22 in this video, we see the mage's skill trees.

 

 

The one farthest to the left is exactly the same icon as the Horror spell, so I'd say it's either the Entropy school or they reappropriated the icon for the Necromancer spec. No idea about the purple one.