91 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

That way, they'll all just fight according to their tactics.

I would love this, and it would solve the problem of one character (the currently selected one) standing still after his enemy dies.

[JasonPogo]

So we just watch the battle take place?  I guess this would be cool when I have to use the bathroom and don't want to pause the game.

[Samahl]

So we just watch the battle take place?

 

This makes me think of Final Fantasy XII.

 

...Please, god, no.

[spacediscosaurus]

I do wish that the characters would just follow through with their tactics when I'm not actively ordering them to do something. It annoyed me when my selected character would just do nothing unless you manually clicked on an enemy to attack. At least go auto-attack the next closest enemy.

[SerTabris]

It seems like this would fit as another level (or two) of the DA2 auto-attack setting.

[Sylvius the Mad]

So we just watch the battle take place?  I guess this would be cool when I have to use the bathroom and don't want to pause the game.

I shouldn't have to give basic commands like "don't stand there like an idiot".  Especially since BioWare has offered this feature before.  In BG, all of the characters would behave according to their AI settings until you gave them a different command.  But in DA, for some reason, you're forced always to have one character as a mindless puppet who can't make decisions by himself.

 

And I like watching my characters win fights based on how I built them, rather than me having to intervene constantly.  Does anyone remember the combat in the original Dungeon Siege game?  That worked great, and I'm asking for something similar.

[Gtdef]

It's not a bad idea to allow all 4 to fight according to tactics but when I tried to do this for 3 party members in DA2, it was very clunky. Especially if the terrain was odd. The target switch was slow as well. They only react well to status effects.

 

For example I had Anders do

 

target clustered with 3 -> glyph of paralysis, 

enemy target of anders -> walking bomb

enemy target of anders -> arcane bolt/fist/wintergrasp

 

and had varric to do

enemy paralyzed -> fatiguing fog

enemy target of anders -> attack

 

The idea is to paralyze a few enemies, disorient them and use walking bomb for extra damage, then focus fire on the guy with walking bomb.

 

When it worked it was perfect, but most of the time anders would be late to cast glyph and enemies would reach melee range, other times he wouldn't cast walking bomb at all, or varric would stay too far behind and won't do anything, or the retarget wouldn't work and he would hit other things. I never understood what caused most of the problems. 

 

I tried some variations but I ditched it in the end and decided to spec on barrier and just did the focus fire with Hawke which is a good alternative but it has to go late game cause barrier is low priority.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Such a feature was actually in DAO during development, but it had been added for testing purposes and the developers didn't expect anyone wpuld actually want it in the game proper, so they took it out.

[fchopin]

I shouldn't have to give basic commands like "don't stand there like an idiot".  Especially since BioWare has offered this feature before.  In BG, all of the characters would behave according to their AI settings until you gave them a different command.  But in DA, for some reason, you're forced always to have one character as a mindless puppet who can't make decisions by himself.
 
And I like watching my characters win fights based on how I built them, rather than me having to intervene constantly.  Does anyone remember the combat in the original Dungeon Siege game?  That worked great, and I'm asking for something similar.

In FFXII you had all the commands needed to create companion combat like you wanted so they could fight by themselves and you could just watch them if you liked.

If anything unexpected happened you could take over and fix the problem.

[Gebert]

I'd probably not use it very often, but I'm all for it.

[ArvinDulku]

Will never use, cause I never RP the party, only the PC so I retain full control of him/her at all times.

 

But I guess I can see why it might be interesting for some people.

[Ophir147]

This is silly. For people that aren't interested in the combat (I mean, the combat side instead of stats and math and whatnot), I could see this being useful, but if the combat is easy enough to have tactics completely control all of the action, then there is something wrong with the game (unless they have something like Narrative mode in DA:I as well which wouldn't surprise me at this point). 

 

And I disagree that the character you are playing is a mindless puppet. The game was balanced around controlling the main character (be it the Warden, Hawke or the Inquisitor) because they are, by virtue of being the MC, stronger than their companions and more capable of turning the tide of combat. So if you happen to be controlling the main character and you aren't giving interacting with the game, it makes sense that your representation in-game would do the same, and when you control the companions, this is ostensibly happening because your MC has ostensibly given them orders that override their previously defined combat tactics. If they are standing still and doing nothing, it is not because they are stupid but rather because you have given them an order to cease doing anything, and they are complying even if they think it is an unwise decision.

 

For the record, I am a huge fan of the tactics system, but if it ever becomes sophisticated enough to enable you to beat the game with zero personal input, then perhaps we need to re-examine what we want out of the game.

[fchopin]

It is the opposite of what you say.
You beat the game by becoming an expert on setting up the team so they can fight whatever happens.
You can also set up different combat techniques and change them like you could change weapons in DAO.

You are in full control all the time. The person who has no control dies very easily.

[Boss Fog]

It would be a fun challenge, to see how far your party could get without any direct input.

[spacediscosaurus]

And I disagree that the character you are playing is a mindless puppet. The game was balanced around controlling the main character (be it the Warden, Hawke or the Inquisitor) because they are, by virtue of being the MC, stronger than their companions and more capable of turning the tide of combat. So if you happen to be controlling the main character and you aren't giving interacting with the game, it makes sense that your representation in-game would do the same, and when you control the companions, this is ostensibly happening because your MC has ostensibly given them orders that override their previously defined combat tactics. If they are standing still and doing nothing, it is not because they are stupid but rather because you have given them an order to cease doing anything, and they are complying even if they think it is an unwise decision.

 

Was it really though? Dragon Age has always been presented as a party-based game. I'd argue that it's actually more encouraged to not stick to only using your main character.

 

Ideally, your tactics should be set up to be able to handle most situations, and then you take control of a particular party member depending on the situation (lots of enemies targeting your mage? Better take control of your tank and make sure they taunt properly). I personally usually control a mage party member, regardless of the class of my Warden, since I feel like mages need a bit more micro-management. However, this doesn't mean that the currently controlled character should just stand still unless you give them an order. At the very least, I'd like them to auto-attack the next enemy so that no time is wasted.

[Shadowson]

this sounds silly, why would anyone buy a game just for the game to play itself after you set up a few tactics.

[spacediscosaurus]

this sounds silly, why would anyone buy a game just for the game to play itself after you set up a few tactics.

 

Except it's not playing itself; the game would still need your input for specific situations/more difficult battles. And as mentioned by Sylvius above, this is a thing that was possible in Baldur's Gate, and I don't believe anyone would say that game plays itself.

[Gtdef]

This is silly. For people that aren't interested in the combat (I mean, the combat side instead of stats and math and whatnot), I could see this being useful, but if the combat is easy enough to have tactics completely control all of the action, then there is something wrong with the game (unless they have something like Narrative mode in DA:I as well which wouldn't surprise me at this point). 

 

And I disagree that the character you are playing is a mindless puppet. The game was balanced around controlling the main character (be it the Warden, Hawke or the Inquisitor) because they are, by virtue of being the MC, stronger than their companions and more capable of turning the tide of combat. So if you happen to be controlling the main character and you aren't giving interacting with the game, it makes sense that your representation in-game would do the same, and when you control the companions, this is ostensibly happening because your MC has ostensibly given them orders that override their previously defined combat tactics. If they are standing still and doing nothing, it is not because they are stupid but rather because you have given them an order to cease doing anything, and they are complying even if they think it is an unwise decision.

 

For the record, I am a huge fan of the tactics system, but if it ever becomes sophisticated enough to enable you to beat the game with zero personal input, then perhaps we need to re-examine what we want out of the game.

 

You are wrong. In most combat scenarios you just walk to your target and autoattack him, while keeping your heavy hitters for ccc and elites, at least for melee classes. All these for the most part can be done through tactics in theory (which isn't the case as I explained earlier because it's clunky at times). Manual input is required only for positioning and kiting, and in some cases this can be done through tactics as well. For example when I use walking bomb, I have Isabela using back to back so she won't take friendly fire damage. Most combat scenarios have gimmicks like that which is pretty much the reason I think DA2 has brilliant design. I can safely say that it's sophisticated enough to almost beat the game by itself. Only falls short against boss fights and against saarebas. Also I'm playing exclusively on Nightmare.

 

The game isn't balanced around the main character in any shape or form, that's a misconception. You confuse this with access. DA2 companions have very limited access cause you can't give the good gear to them and some class/style combinations are inferior because of limited access to specs, like Isabela compared to dw rogue hawke. But Varric with equal gear outperforms archer hawke.

 

My point is that the balancing happens between classes and skills. There is nothing inherently superior about them when the main character uses them. It's a matter of how much you can optimize a character. DAO allows your companions to be optimized a lot while DA2 doesn't. There are very small differences between the performance of main character compared to companions with equal gear, and that's mostly cause of their starting skillset being crap like say Morrigan with shapeshifting, or Sten that lacks a specialization point.

 

To give you an example, take NWN2. If you want to optimize your fighter for future prestige classes and better out of combat performance, your first companion (Kelghar) will be strictly better than you at fighting till your build comes together. That's because he has equal access to feats and he can get the better fighting feats and more combat oriented starting attributes. By the time you are a Bard1/Fighter4/RDD10/FB5 or something like that with enchanted weapons you destroy everything in your way, but till you reach about lvl 10-12 your companion is just better with equal gear. By the endgame the main character will always be stronger cause he has access to all prestige classes while companions don't. If I could do the same build for Khelgar he would be equal or even stronger cause he wouldn't need much intelligence to get conversation/plot skills.

 

DA isn't that different. The main problem is that it is way more gear based than dnd ruleset and the the power level starts being observable earlier (especially if you have dlc) either because you want to gear your warden in DAO, or because you can't really gear companions in DA2 .

[Ophir147]

Was it really though? Dragon Age has always been presented as a party-based game. I'd argue that it's actually more encouraged to not stick to only using your main character.

 

The MC is in the party at all times, and so it is in the player's best interest to keep them as well geared as possible, as opposed to party members that you will switch in and out and possible ignore entirely (until they are forced on you in personal missions, perhaps).

 

Both Hawke and the Warden have access to ways to increase their stats outright through the Fade that are not available to other companions. Hawke can actually strike a deal with Torpor in order to have a shiny new skill point, the Warden gets a free skill point in several key points in the storyline (becoming a Grey Warden and becoming a Champion of Redcliffe). I'm sure there are other things I am forgetting. 

 

There are several skillbooks throughout each game, and yes you can apply them to any applicable party member, but most would suggest giving all that you can to the Main Character because they are always in the party, no exceptions, whereas companions may be unavailable or you may wish to switch them out every once in a while to bring someone off of the bench or just to hear new party banter. 

 

Hawke can access two out of three specializations which contain everything that the companions can do and more (albeit with different names, such as Fenris' specialization tree having skills mixing and matching skills from the Templar and Reaver tree and Isabela having a melee only version of the duelist tree with a spiffy new aoe talent).* The Warden has fewer perks comparatively, but has does have access to extra "taint powers" from Warden's Keep, and without mods (or awakening) your companions are completely locked into entire specializations and early talent choices. Zevran simply doesn't have the ability to be as good of an Archer as a Warden that had been investing in archery skills since the beginning of the game, Sten only gets one specialization (*sob*) and Morrigan is stuck with the nigh useless Shapeshifter specialization.

 

Warden and Hawke are more powerful, and I don't see any sign that that is going to change anytime soon.

 

*I would say that there is one exception and that would be Aveline, because she has so many different abilities that make her bar none the most durable companion in the game. However, this also makes her low maintenance as all she has to worry about is staying alive and taunting now and again. The same applies to Wynne as a healer, but healing in Dragon Age Origins is a very low maintenance.

 

 

 

Ideally, your tactics should be set up to be able to handle most situations, and then you take control of a particular party member depending on the situation (lots of enemies targeting your mage? Better take control of your tank and make sure they taunt properly). I personally usually control a mage party member, regardless of the class of my Warden, since I feel like mages need a bit more micro-management. However, this doesn't mean that the currently controlled character should just stand still unless you give them an order. At the very least, I'd like them to auto-attack the next enemy so that no time is wasted.

 

i'll concede that this is a matter of opinion and agree to disagree. If the encounters aren't designed to keep us on our toes and react to a changing battlefield then that is a design failure. They should be making the encounters, if not more difficult, more complex, instead of simplifying them to the point of having two AIs smack each other around for a while.

 

 

The game isn't balanced around the main character in any shape or form, that's a misconception. You confuse this with access. DA2 companions have very limited access cause you can't give the good gear to them and some class/style combinations are inferior because of limited access to specs, like Isabela compared to dw rogue hawke. But Varric with equal gear outperforms archer hawke.

 

 

You are wrong. Have you played a Shadow/Assassin Hawke? Also Varric is a very excellent example of the point I am making; he does great damage but is very uncomplicated to use, and with modest investment in tactics he can perform at peak efficiency with little trouble. However, Shadow/Assassin Archer Hawke performs significantly better when obscured, and has a 100% crit chance when flanking, and there is no way to naturally set up flanking with a bow using tactics. Hawke is designed to be controlled by the player, and Varric is designed to deal beastly damage with little intervention from the player.

 

EDIT: For reference, I play exclusively on nightmare as well

[Gtdef]

You are wrong. Have you played a Shadow/Assassin Hawke? Also Varric is a very excellent example of the point I am making; he does great damage but is very uncomplicated to use, and with modest investment in tactics he can perform at peak efficiency with little trouble. However, Shadow/Assassin Archer Hawke performs significantly better when obscured, and has a 100% crit chance when flanking, and there is no way to naturally set up flanking with a bow using tactics. Hawke is designed to be controlled by the player, and Varric is designed to deal beastly damage with little intervention from the player.

 

Varric has passive 100% crit chance by lvl 10 if he wants to and has a 30% crit damage passive increase while shadow has the extra 50% only when obscured (which requires varric spamming chameleon on you) and much less crit chance passive. Hawke becomes better after he gets assassin because of the double cun bonus to crit damage, this means he will reach Varric's level at late act 2.

 

Whatever dude, if you need to use the most useless passive in the game to make a point (the flanking bonus), then you need to rethink this whole thing. Going in flanking position means you don't autoattack, so Varric does more damage in the mean time. Also it needs 5 points into shadow to unlock. The only thing you need from shadow is pinpoint, decoy and disorienting. Everything else is useless.

 

Also you didn't even touch on what I said about access and gear. Give Varric access to assassin and he laughs at pc archer. Only reason Hawke wins is because the gear is so retarded that you can reach 100% crit chance and 400% crit damage passive. I've played a dw rogue shadow assassin with dlc gear and I was autoattacking for 1300 damage at lvl 20. Poor Meredith melted like butter, one assassinate did 33k+17k. Fun times.

[Realmzmaster]

this sounds silly, why would anyone buy a game just for the game to play itself after you set up a few tactics.

 

The game does not play itself. The idea behind the deselected for all and allowing the tactics to control all party members frees the gamer to concentrate on critical areas in the battle and take control where intervention may be necessary. 

 

It also allows the gamer to check to see if the tactics set are working without having to control a party member at the same time. 

It allows for a different playstyle which is always good.