820 réponses à ce sujet

[TeamLexana]

I'm really disappointed about the 8 ability limitation. It also sounds like a lot of busy work to constantly switch them out on your character AND the companions if you think you'll want to switch to them. This and the health and health pot limitations make me think a lot of 200 hour playtime will be sitting in loading screens and/or tweaking power slots.

[Jimbo_Gee79]

I happen to think making people use a little bit of brain power is never a bad thing. If I want more hack and slash I play Diablo or gauntlet or something which allows me to button mash without putting too much thought into it.

 

The good thing about this setup is it wont force me to choose things I'm never going to use. I remember playing Origins and ending up having more skill points than I actually needed. I ended up putting points into herbalism because there was nowhere else to put them! That to me is a stupid design flaw.

[Lethys1]

It depends on the number of skills in-game.  If there's more than 8 then this feels very artificial as a boundary.  So my incredibly powerful mage can't cast all his/her spells because of an aspect of the meta-game?  Seriously?  And if there are only 8 important skills per character spec, thus not being an artificial limitation but rather a design choice, then wow is this a massive dumbing down in design.  And again, why is my mage capable of only 8 spells?  Either possibility reeks of console-first design philosophy, as opposed to one that accommodates all platforms according to their respective strengths and weaknesses.  Adding some kind of Kinect functionality would be an example of that.  Another example would be taking advantage of the keyboard and mouse.

 

And trying to spin it as though it were a matter of tactics.  That's just nonsensical.  I'm supposed to anticipate the threats I'm going to encounter when I don't even know specifically what they'll be?  It's ridiculous.  There are no tactics in trying to guess what kind of enemies I will encounter beforehand, thus "preparing" is nothing more taking a blind stab and hoping my choices work out.  If you can switch skills out on the fly before "entering" battle then this is just a hindrance and poor UI.  Though I doubt the level of tactical preparation or forethought for this game would merit that kind of thought-process to begin with, thus it becomes a simple matter of taking the few spells that may interact with one another, a few stuns, and the highest dps you've got.  It's just not a real boon as a player.  I'm not going yay, only 8.

 

And what a non-answer he gives to "why 8."  Saying that there's 32 total doesn't answer the question even slightly, it just reaffirms that the questioner is correct in that there are 8 talents.  It's funny to see that answer just after playing Divinity Original Sin, which offers about as much combat flexibility as any game I've played in years.

[HiSaZuL]

Mage with 8 spells. Even skyrim didn't fail so hard.

 

Then again... this is made by people who sold their asses into legal slavery.... and the only thing you can expect from ea is to bloat the price of a game to the sky and ****** people off before game is even released. Oh and butcher anything that once was great into a pile of crap.

 

Lost any respect for bioware when they sold... and since then only thing they released was utter trash. Randomly stumbled onto a link to DA3... and first thing I saw was the 8 slots. ea is at least predictable.

 

@Lethys1

Exactly my thoughs. There is no tactics. Reloading after you get trashed and putting different skills isn't tactics its reloading after you failed. This is why skyrim is a good game as long as you don't assosiate it wih Elder Scrolls series or RPGs in general. Looks pretty... as long as you forget that the entire world consists of brick ****** houses and snow... with trees. So creative and captivating that it makes me want to punch myself in the face and call it Brickhouse Adventure in Minecraft... now with 100% more dragons and screaming.

 

Then again from rather faded and bland fragments of memories I have of a disaster called DA2... there were barely 8-10 spells anyway with sustained and everything. Entire tree was full of passives that were laugable and upgrades that were about as exciting and meaningful as makeup on a goat. So I guess if we follow the trend and this new itteration of RPG genre insult you probably should expect about 3 single target damage spells, a shield, a buff, MAAAAAYBE an aoe and a heal with an hour long cooldown(because its "tactical" in the opinion of some monkey in a suit). So if thats the case then 8 slots is probably overkill... not sure which is more sad... a Mage that can only use 8 spells or a Mage that only knows 8 spells.

[DarthLaxian]

Mage with 8 spells. Even skyrim didn't fail so hard.

 

Then again... this is made by people who sold their asses into legal slavery.... and the only thing you can expect from ea is to bloat the price of a game to the sky and ****** people off before game is even released. Oh and butcher anything that once was great into a pile of crap.

 

Lost any respect for bioware when they sold... and since then only thing they released was utter trash. Randomly stumbled onto a link to DA3... and first thing I saw was the 8 slots. ea is at least predictable.

 

@Lethys1

Exactly my thoughs. There is no tactics. Reloading after you get trashed and putting different skills isn't tactics its reloading after you failed. This is why skyrim is a good game as long as you don't assosiate it wih Elder Scrolls series or RPGs in general. Looks pretty... as long as you forget that the entire world consists of brick ****** houses and snow... with trees. So creative and captivating that it makes me want to punch myself in the face and call it Brickhouse Adventure in Minecraft... now with 100% more dragons and screaming.

 

Then again from rather faded and bland fragments of memories I have of a disaster called DA2... there were barely 8-10 spells anyway with sustained and everything. Entire tree was full of passives that were laugable and upgrades that were about as exciting and meaningful as makeup on a goat. So I guess if we follow the trend and this new itteration of RPG genre insult you probably should expect about 3 single target damage spells, a shield, a buff, MAAAAAYBE an aoe and a heal with an hour long cooldown(because its "tactical" in the opinion of some monkey in a suit). So if thats the case then 8 slots is probably overkill... not sure which is more sad... a Mage that can only use 8 spells or a Mage that only knows 8 spells.

 

 

Exactly (note: Yes, EA did ruin a lot of things...anyone remember Westwood and Command and Conquer...what a sad day it was when they were bought by EA...not that EA doesn't have the occasional good game (but with a company that big, you get lucky every once in a while I think)...that's what's bothering me about EA: they are so big and could easily finance a revolution in gaming (and make a lot of profit doing it, too), but they stick to old stuff, trash existing stuff and don't innovate/design something really new...no, indie-game-companies without much money have to do the innovating...it's so bad it isn't even funny anymore!)

 

You hit the issue head on (and yes: Skyrim was bad...Oblivion was better (and less white/icy...come on frozen wastelands aren't interesting...even WoW's Wrath of the Lichking knew that and they had 2 areas that weren't frozen over...)

 

greetings LAX

[Rylor Tormtor]

Mike Laidlaw @Mike_Laidlaw 

Ability count clarity: DAI is about roles, planning ahead and making tactical decisions. Potions, ability choice, gear, party composition

 

Is this the new awesome button quote? 

 

Seriously, it is like they are giving up. There is no in-universe reason that I forget all but 8 of my skills in an encounter. One could also extrapolate that if we are only allowed 8 skills, and combat is meant to reactive, then we will be spamming more the same skills to get through it, actually reducing tactical options and leading to repetitive, button mashing (if I was being un-generous, I would make a comment about consoles and controllers and buttons). 

[Sylvius the Mad]

The thing I'm most amazed about his never ending discussion is that there are people who play Bioware games for the combat.

The best RPG combat around. At least, it used to be.

[PhroXenGold]

The best RPG combat around. At least, it used to be.

 

I can't ever remember Bioware games having great combat. Maybe BG2, but that tended to be too heavy on tedious mechanics like pre-buffing and abusing the hell out of mages. Certainly none of their more recent games have been outstanding in that aspect. Not that they've been bad, even the much criticsed DA2 combat was still kinda fun IMO, but they've certainly never been particularly deep or complex. Though, I wouldn't really want them to be. I'd rather relatively simple combat in my RPGs, so I can get on with plot, though a certian level of challenge is good to keep me interested.

 

Actually, the more I write, the more I think I do actually agree with you. Bioware do have the best RPG combat, because they get the balance between not getting in the way of the important aspects of RPGs without being so simpilstic it bores me...

[Innsmouth Dweller]

come to think of it, this limitation resembles a bit BG's spellbook mechanics. but in BG you could memorise more then 8 spells at some point irrc. and there were level drains, items allowing you to remember one or two more spells, other cool stuff...

[nisallik]

Could just be a mechanic that promotes fully specializing in a tree or two instead of cherry picking abilities from multiple trees.  Though this still might not be a great idea for everyone, it still can promote future playthroughs with the same class while not even picking any of the same abilities on subsequent playthroughs. 

[HiSaZuL]

@DarthLaxian

Heh thats not even why Skyrim is a decent game but lousy TES/RPG. It's the fact that everything got dumbed down until there was nothing left. Same as whats going to happen here. There was no complexity left. Be it the lore, magic, world, factions, interactions... nothing. Nobody wants a fantasy world with the amount of lore that TES has and stare at blasted brick houses. Yes yes its Skyrim so its snowy mountains.... lore and all that. But doesn't exclude intresting locations, dungeons, and so on and so forth. Magic system was killed entirely and it was my main lure to the series since Arena. In DA:O magic wasn't especially complex but it was diverse enough to not bore you to tears. In DA2 even if I forget that the monumental adventure took place in 1 ****** city with 2 types in door "dungeons" I stared at the same animations until my eyes start bled. Having quests that involved finding "dirty pantaloons" and then getting an amazing quest marker... and a whooping 10 world line from npc on completion didn't exactly help. Just like Skyrim fixed some MASSIVE pitfalls from Oblivion they were nothing more then bandaids on an already broken and leaking boat. Sure there were no goblins with 10000 health... but you still had to spam the same spell for 10+ times more times to achive the same result as melee. And with some though put into it even the fattest enemies in game could be 1 shotted melee but not magic. That was carved out along with spellcrafting and alchemy. Enchanting was still there but as useless and it was in Oblivion. They can make larger maps for DA3... that won't make the game better. They can strip abilities and potions and call it "tactical" but it's not going to be tactical... you are just going to spam even fewer abilities. That's why in Oblivion best part of entire game was Shivering Isles x-pack... because it just screamed FANTASY. That's why DA:O was never boring... because there was a boat load of things to use and places to see.

 

Diversity and details give an RPG world life while story drives and enthralls you. DA2 lacked all of that. Limitations don't make games "tactical" someone at EA needs to open a ****** dictionary. Tactical games are games where you think about what to use and when to use it. Not... should I take slash attack... or "ME SMASH IN FACE WITH BIIIIIG STICK" attack. And after you find out one was utterly useless and you got wrecked(never going to happen here, since kids would rage and games wouldn't sell) you reload and switch the few measly boring skills around. Rince and repeat until you either throw the game into garbage and write it off as yet another victim of the ever amazing video game industry... or you suffer until the end and try really hard to forget that it ever happened.

 

"Tactical" games that are worth mentioning NEVER limited you in what you can use. Only the number of times you can use what ever it is that you are using and even then not always or at least with some "system" or another. Memorizing spells in NwN since it was derived from PnP ruleset and there is no mana... so yeah(a 22 druid/17 shifter/1 monk has more "abilities" then every single rpg releaed this year put together and then some... yet I could use all of them... and it was made over a decade ago). Action points in Fallout 1/2 and so on.

[EnduinRaylene]

I would really like BioWare to just give us some greater details on the mechanics of combat to show where this 8 ability limit fits into everything else because it's not the be all and end all of what makes up combat. There are so many aspects of the game that inform the way combat works and unfolds, but outside of this new 8 ability limit we don't know all that much definitively. I've tried to piece a lot of incomplete information, like what we've seen of the Ability Trees, level cap, crafting and various tweets and dev posts, together to try and paint a bigger picture of what the direction of combat is, and I think it's a pretty decent picture, but it's still a guess at the end of the day. I can understand why a lot of people are quite upset over this, even if I don't agree with how that dissatisfaction is often presented. So clarity and greater detail would be very useful for all involved.

 

If BioWare came out and detailed a large expansion on the CCC system from DA2 and showed us that our abilities now provide a much wider range of utility and diversity, I, at least, would find that to be an acceptable trade off. Being able to use 8 abilities in a wide variety of ways with one another is something I'd prefer over using 24 abilities mostly on their own, with maybe a few combos here and there. I'm OK with trading breadth for depth. That might not be everyone's cup of tea, but that's another story.

 

I think most people would be elated to just have a quick and dirty twitch stream of one of the demos we've seen already where BioWare can directly answer some concerns people have expressed in this and other threads, and then maybe take some chat questions for further clarification. 30 minutes to an hour is all we really need.

[nisallik]

*SNIP*

 

 

We still don't have any clear idea on the abilities.  With the merging of some of the trees, there should be awesome abilities in each of them.  Also, as a DND player, you shouldn't have a hard time thinking through a build and using it tactically.  

[Jimbo_Gee79]

*wow thats a lot of text*

 

 

 

 If it bothers you that much, why do you keep fuelling the industry? If Skyrim and Dragon Age 2 and all those games were so awful, why do you buy the next game in the series? Whats the point?  Surely these so called evil companies are only here to line their pockets no?

 

But like I said if you honestly feel that strongly about it and it bothers you to the point where you cannot accept this situation then surely its best to vote with your feet. I  posted my feelings about the Elder Scrolls MMO that recently came out but you know what I didnt do? I didnt buy it. Thats right they recieved precisely 0 currency from me. I wont be buying Bioware's new IP either for that matter.

 

Ranting about it is one thing and thats all well and good but sadly this forum post will be relegated into the pages below and forever forgotten. The days of writing strongly worded letters are dead. They dont work anymore. The only thing that will wake up developers to the fact that they have made a bad decision is the fact that nobody will buy their next product because people have lost faith in them.

 

Vote with your wallet. Dont buy the game if it bugs you that badly. Ah, but you will wont you because deep down you know that its Bioware and that the game and the playing experience will win out over anything else. (nothing to be ashamed of).

[robertthebard]

Could just be a mechanic that promotes fully specializing in a tree or two instead of cherry picking abilities from multiple trees.  Though this still might not be a great idea for everyone, it still can promote future playthroughs with the same class while not even picking any of the same abilities on subsequent playthroughs.

Specialist mages will be a thing of the past. Even in the vid that made me eat some crow, it was a generalist mage that got through it w/out having to swap abilities in and out for different circumstances.

[LexXxich]

Could just be a mechanic that promotes fully specializing in a tree or two instead of cherry picking abilities from multiple trees.  Though this still might not be a great idea for everyone, it still can promote future playthroughs with the same class while not even picking any of the same abilities on subsequent playthroughs.

I wouldn't call this heavy-handed approach of hard restrictions "encouraging" or "promoting". Having a final passive in Primal, Elemental and Spirit spell trees promoted and encouraged specializing into those trees. 8 ability limit makes "cherry-picking" an expansive arsenal extremely unviable, to the point of being practically unplayable, since the whole point of getting all those abilities (instead of upgrading the few) was being able to use more abilities in combat.

Unless you meant "cherry-picking" an extremely small number of most generally useful abilities that can get you and your party through every combat encounter. This 8 ability restriction indeed, I think, promotes and encourages.

[EnduinRaylene]

A big thing for DAI is the fact that Passive Abilities now play a much bigger role than in previous games, especially for Mages. In DA2 there were 40 active spells, including 7 sustained abilities, and only 7 passives. Now in DAI from what we know there likely going to be between 29 and 33 active abilities and then 28+/- passive abilities, not clear on where sustained fall in this setup. That's a dramatic increase in passives and a significant reduction in spells, though that casualty may all be sustained spells, leaving overall active spells the same as DA2.

 

Even the way the trees are structured Active/Passive/Active/Passive/Active in a 2x2x2x2x1/2 ladder design, with the only links from the left and right sides of the tree being on passives forces you to pick more passives. So if you just wanted to get all the Active Spells in a tree with the fewest amount of Passives, you'd only be able to skip 1 Passive, you'd still need to pick up the other 3 Passives to get access to all the spells.

[Burricho]

Well thats a completely different debate in therms of customizability vs direction.  I could be a solution but basicly an exentable bar means having them all there at once.

It might not sound cool but more freedom is not allways better for the game experience, think of the two weapons limt introduced in mordern games, they didn't do that just to annoy you.

Because that worked out so well for ME2.

[Peter_Stauffenberg]

By looking at a DA:I video I saw the names of the 4 commands to the right of the potion slots on the hotbar.

 

 

From left to right:

Attack My Target

Hold Position

Clear Commands

Disengage
 

[Burricho]

Quick being acting so superior, you're not that smart. Here's your video, no cuts, straight through, multiple enemy factions. Bear, Mages, Templars, drakes and a Dragon. There's been several straight through demos of the game in various areas from the past few months, including hands on videos by the press where they're running around and having no issues in fights or taking on different enemy types and factions.

 

yes, because it was a dev demo where they literally could not die.

[nisallik]

I wouldn't call this heavy-handed approach of hard restrictions "encouraging" or "promoting". Having a final passive in Primal, Elemental and Spirit spell trees promoted and encouraged specializing into those trees. 8 ability limit makes "cherry-picking" an expansive arsenal extremely unviable, to the point of being practically unplayable, since the whole point of getting all those abilities (instead of upgrading the few) was being able to use more abilities in combat.

Unless you meant "cherry-picking" an extremely small number of most generally useful abilities that can get you and your party through every combat encounter. This 8 ability restriction indeed, I think, promotes and encourages.

 

I meant the latter, which if the better talents are placed at the end it would prevent cherry-picking.

 

My mage in DA2 talent points were all over the place, as it didn't take more than 3 points at times to get the "best" from the tree most of the time.  It now looks like you have to spend a significant sum of talents in each of the DAI trees.  

[Reaverwind]

Could just be a mechanic that promotes fully specializing in a tree or two instead of cherry picking abilities from multiple trees.  Though this still might not be a great idea for everyone, it still can promote future playthroughs with the same class while not even picking any of the same abilities on subsequent playthroughs. 

 

Only if you're looking for extra challenge. I'm willing to bet my last dollar there's going to be a number of abilites that prove to be highly situational, so to avoid having your PC become deadweight, you're going to automatically gravitate toward those that give the most bang for the buck in most situations. 

[nisallik]

Well, lets hope that with the overall reduction of active abilities, that some were removed or combined to give a greater effect other than just being a rare situational ability you hardly ever use.

[deuce985]

I don't really understand the reasoning for the ability limitation. I mean, I saw the explanation but how can a player plan ahead if we don't know what's going to happen next? Granted, we haven't played the game so we don't know what kind of signals Bioware will put into place so you can plan ahead. I would much rather have access to all abilities/pots when I want and then use them for the situation. It seems far more limiting to just force 8 usable abilities at once. I can see myself going into situations where I don't have the right pots/abilities I want. They confirmed you can't change abilities/pots out unless you're in camps correct? If that's true then your design better put clear indicators around the player that he needs certain abilities/pots or that's just bad design.

 

I know I'm way behind in this conversation but it's kinda baffling. I'm reserving judgment until I actually play the game. Just seems like a rather odd gameplay decision. Perhaps it's nothing like I'm imagining in my head. I do like an emphasis on tactical gameplay but I don't like it when it strips control away from the player. Is it a compromise I'm willing to accept as I understand the gameplay mechanics? Only way to answer that is when I play it.

 

The major concern I have now is they stripped more active abilities in the skill trees and downsized them to progression abilities that you can level multiple times instead of having many different active abilities in your tree. In other words, a tree would only have 1-2 active abilities now but the rest of the tree is designed to progress them...

[Innsmouth Dweller]

situational abilities (whatever that means, imho it's something with huge cooldown and you use it maybe once in few fights regardless of the enemy class/immunity/hair colour - something like haste maybe) and their usefulness might create more game reloading - simply to change abilities, if not balanced properly.

i don't think there are many situational abilities - if they are, they most likely be class cross combos utilities. with 8 slot limit, having more than 1 situational ability is a waste/loading screen - more so if i decide to have a solo PT