Because that worked out so well for ME2.
Yes it did actually , most of the items and loot in ME1 were pointless variations. And even if you didn't like that change, you think it should never be tried again because it supposedly failed once ? Again reduced complexity isn't "dumbing down", there is no way to tell what impact 8 abilities will have on this game from our point of view. If this topic really appear you, I suggest reading a few books on game design, it's not as easy as it might appear.
Urgh, those ability icons are ugly. I don't like the UI style they introduced with DA II. It's just not fitting with the game mood. And now those diamond shaped things are back with nonsaying depictions of what the ability does.
So think before you call someone else an idiot, please.
i'm still mulling over it... have you guys seen Lichdom: Battlemage? well, it gives you access to hundreds of spells and allows their customization but imho it's basically... a crappy fps with almost no tactics whatsoever. what i'm getting at is: whether the 8 ability limit is dumb or cool - it all depends mostly on skill trees and level design.
Making slot choices makes sense in an ARPG like Diablo, but in a full blown RPG it just seems limiting and annoying.
I'm betting it was either console limitations or multiplayer that forced this choice, regardless of the statements to the contrary. Very disappointed.
You would have to be extremely naive to believe Bioware's reasons for the limit, it is fairly obvious a design choice influenced by either the console version or multiplayer.
It's a single player RPG so if people want to use all the abilities they want they are cheating nobody, just as a player can choose to use only 8 (or 6, or 4, or whatever) abilities during combat if they wish to play the game that way, removing that choice for players to play as they wish, especially after previously being able to do so makes no sense to me, unless Bioware are actively looking to ****** off a section of their fanbase.
It's like the old argument from Origins when people used to moan about spamming health potions, except nobody actually forced anybody to play the game that way, you can quite easily play the game without taking a single potion or any type of in combat healing if that's what you desired.
You would have to be extremely naive to believe Bioware's reasons for the limit, it is fairly obvious a design choice influenced by either the console version or multiplayer.
How can the reason for something be obvious when you posit two entirely different reasons as possible reasons?
Still loving that PC gamers are trying to feel singled out.
Still loving that PC gamers are trying to feel singled out.
oh shush, go play a multiplayer RTS on console 
Wow the whining sure is strong in this thread.
Hey no sweat guys, if you pre-order the PC version they will each come with a complementary binky for ya'll to suck on.
Using the same logic people are not cheating anyone if they want to take all their companions with them on each mission, rather than be forced to choose 3 of them, so why aren't they ***** off about it and rallying against this particular, just as arbitrary limitation?It's a single player RPG so if people want to use all the abilities they want they are cheating nobody, just as a player can choose to use only 8 (or 6, or 4, or whatever) abilities during combat if they wish to play the game that way, removing that choice for players to play as they wish, especially after previously being able to do so makes no sense to me, unless Bioware are actively looking to ****** off a section of their fanbase.
I have to say it makes me giggle when people talk about console limitations.... as if PC gaming was a relatively new thing or that somehow games developers don't have a mind of their own.
Yes PC gamers are so hard done by you get exclusives like Star citizen, Elite, Civilization 2,3,4 and 5, the X series, flight sims, the Europa Universalis series, Age of empires, Gal Civ (some of them). Explain to me how hard done by you are again?
It's talk like that which made me switch to console because I don't want to be associated with such horrible elitism.
Because I've already lost that fight.Using the same logic people are not cheating anyone if they want to take all their companions with them on each mission, rather than be forced to choose 3 of them, so why aren't they ***** off about it and rallying against this particular, just as arbitrary limitation?
(answer: because this limitation was there from the start so it doesn't occur to them they "have right" to anything more)
I honestly don't see why this is such a huge problem. I've gone through DA:O and DA2 on Nightmare difficulty without using more than 8 ability slots per character. At worst this means you won't have every single ability/consumable conveniently at the bottom of the screen, but that should in no way affect your ability to complete the game well.
All this means is that if you're playing on one of the harder difficulties, you have to be smarter in which abilities you slot into each party member. People are complaining that less ability slots make it less tactical. It does, but then it doesn't. It does give you less customizability, but it also forces you to plan things out better.
Yes it did actually , most of the items and loot in ME1 were pointless variations. And even if you didn't like that change, you think it should never be tried again because it supposedly failed once ? Again reduced complexity isn't "dumbing down", there is no way to tell what impact 8 abilities will have on this game from our point of view. If this topic really appear you, I suggest reading a few books on game design, it's not as easy as it might appear.
Reduce complexity. I'm afraid that that's exactly what it means. Unless there's some version of English that I'm not aware of, reducing the complexity does indeed equate to dumbing down. So how does this add to tactical game play? You splash a couple of abilities from every tree you can take, varying them enough so that there is no time when your bar is totally ineffective, set up your tactics accordingly and play the game. Not much strategy involved, other than learning to build a "Jack of all trades" character. The alternative is to constantly be aware of immunities before encounters so that you can change skills and tactics settings as needed, if needed, per encounter. If I'm choosing between one or the other, I'm choosing the one that's not having me rebuild my party any time the circumstances would seem to warrant it, because this isn't an MMO, and timesinks aren't required.
Reducing complexity is not necessarily a bad thing, nor does it always mean mean "dumbing down". A lot of the time, complexity serves no purpose (or even worse, it is deliberately design to be complex purely for the sake of being complex), and by removing much of it, you can vastly improve things. Having, say, three genuinely differentiated options offers more depth than 100 apparent options that actually make no difference - the example of weapons in Mass Effect 1&2 is a perfect summary of this. In ME1 you had a metric butt-ton of options. Except, to all intents and purposes, they were meaningless. There were basically two weapons of each class (shotgun, assault rifle etc.) - either you minimised heat generation for sustained damage, or you maximised damage per shot to make a one hit wonder that overheated. That's it. Gameplay wise they were the only two guns in the game. They got better over time, as you picked up upgrades, but the gameplay did not change. In ME2, with DLC, there were 4-5 weapons in each class, all of which played differently. So with several orders of magnitude less options and complexity, ME2 achieved more variety and depth in terms of weapons. Not to mention that, in ME1, you never used 99% of the weapons you found anyway. Once you had the Spectre weapons, there was no need to replace them as they were straight up better thent he stuff you found. Sure, you could chose to use another weapon, but you'd be an idiot to do so. Choices where one option is obviously superior to the others might as well not be choices at all, as there's no need to put even the slightest bit of thought into them. The only purpose the rest of the weapons served was to be turned into omnigel. Wow. So much depth there. So much choice. So many meaningful decisions to make. Or not.
Look through some of my other posts in the last few days on the various threads on this subject and I've pointed out other examples of reductions in options and/or complexity leading to improvements in gameplay and the creation of genuine choice instead of either illusionary choice or no-brainer decisions .
Of course, that doesn't mean that removing complexity or reducing player options is always a good choice. But it can be. Will the reduction to 8 hotbar slots be good? I don't know. Maybe it'll be good, maybe it wont. But to judge a mechanic based on false premises before you've even tried it seems an odd blend of arrogance and stupidity.
Reducing complexity is not necessarily a bad thing, nor does it always mean mean "dumbing down". A lot of the time, complexity serves no purpose (or even worse, it is deliberately design to be complex purely for the sake of being complex), and by removing much of it, you can vastly improve things. Having, say, three genuinely differentiated options offers more depth than 100 apparent options that actually make no difference - the example of weapons in Mass Effect 1&2 is a perfect summary of this. In ME1 you had a metric butt-ton of options. Except, to all intents and purposes, they were meaningless. There were basically two weapons of each class (shotgun, assault rifle etc.) - either you minimised heat generation for sustained damage, or you maximised damage per shot to make a one hit wonder that overheated. That's it. Gameplay wise they were the only two guns in the game. They got better over time, as you picked up upgrades, but the gameplay did not change. In ME2, with DLC, there were 4-5 weapons in each class, all of which played differently. So with several orders of magnitude less options and complexity, ME2 achieved more variety and depth in terms of weapons. Not to mention that, in ME1, you never used 99% of the weapons you found anyway. Once you had the Spectre weapons, there was no need to replace them as they were straight up better thent he stuff you found. Sure, you could chose to use another weapon, but you'd be an idiot to do so. Choices where one option is obviously superior to the others might as well not be choices at all, as there's no need to put even the slightest bit of thought into them. The only purpose the rest of the weapons served was to be turned into omnigel. Wow. So much depth there. So much choice. So many meaningful decisions to make. Or not.
Look through some of my other posts in the last few days on the various threads on this subject and I've pointed out other examples of reductions in options and/or complexity leading to improvements in gameplay and the creation of genuine choice instead of either illusionary choice or no-brainer decisions .
Of course, that doesn't mean that removing complexity or reducing player options is always a good choice. But it can be. Will the reduction to 8 hotbar slots be good? I don't know. Maybe it'll be good, maybe it wont. But to judge a mechanic based on false premises before you've even tried it seems an odd blend of arrogance and stupidity.
...and if you read my posts in any of the threads centered around this change, you'll see that I've stated multiple times that if we wind up with only 8 active abilities, the majority of this rant would be moot. My concerns are with winding up with a wide range of potential versatility, only to be artificially pigeonholed into a generic build for expedience, or forced to metagame in an RPG for the sake of "always being in the right stance for the right defense". An adage my former martial arts instructor was fond of.
I see the artificial difficulty of limiting my skills to an arbitrary number for the sake of "tactical"(read metagamey)gameplay to be a poor choice. How poor, I don't know, yet, but poor nonetheless.
And yet, by "artificially limiting" things, you often end up with deeper more complex gameplay. Being able to do "everything" means that there's rarely any choice, as you can always take the best option. By limiting what the player is capable of doing, even if those limitations are artificial, you can create complexity and depth.
Hell, there's plenty enough artificial limitations anyway (for example, cooldowns. They make no sense. If I have mana, why can't I use that mana to cast the same spell over and over again? Answer: by preventing that, the designers add complexity and variety to the game by stopping you always picking the best option. Utterly arbitrary with no sensible basis in lore, unquestionably limiting, yet a significant improvement to gameplay), why does this one in particular bother you?
And if combat effectiveness were the only possible motive for choosing among abilities, you would be exactly correct.I honestly don't see why this is such a huge problem. I've gone through DA:O and DA2 on Nightmare difficulty without using more than 8 ability slots per character. At worst this means you won't have every single ability/consumable conveniently at the bottom of the screen, but that should in no way affect your ability to complete the game well.
And yet, by "artificially limiting" things, you often end up with deeper more complex gameplay. Being able to do "everything" means that there's rarely any choice, as you can always take the best option. By limiting what the player is capable of doing, even if those limitations are artificial, you can create complexity and depth.
Hell, there's plenty enough artificial limitations anyway (for example, cooldowns. They make no sense. If I have mana, why can't I use that mana to cast the same spell over and over again? Answer: by preventing that, the designers add complexity and variety to the game by stopping you always picking the best option. Utterly arbitrary with no sensible basis in lore, unquestionably limiting, yet a significant improvement to gameplay), why does this one in particular bother you?
There is nothing deeper about "Peek over the hill, mouse over the mob, note it's immunities, note it's vulnerabilities, note it's level, move back to the party, push Pause, and reset hotbars and tactics to fit what you have just metagamed for the encounter".
Actually, that sounds significantly deeper than a game in which you need do none of that, like Origins.
If you don't like "depth" being used here, you can substitute it for "requires more thought."
Actually, that sounds significantly deeper than a game in which you need do none of that, like Origins.
If you don't like "depth" being used here, you can substitute it for "requires more thought."
Not just that though, I already tried to address this issue earlier in this thread, but that was more an exercise in math than anything else. You can reduce complexity while still adding depth to the gameplay. I don't know for sure if DAI will be like this, or if it will be due to or excuse the 8 ability limit, but there are some hints and indications from what we've seen that it's probably going in this direction of adding depth to the abilities there are, instead of relying on a breadth of abilities to create choices and strategies in combat. How far they're going with this is what really remains uncertain.
So far the number of active skills is roughly the same as DA2, but we now have far more passive abilities along with the 8 ability limit. If that's all they've done with combat then yeah it's probably going to be kind of a big let down. But if they also are adding more depth to the abilities, then the 8 we do have could end up being much more versatile and useful in combat than the 15-20 we may have had before.
If they take the CCC system from DA2, which we know is returning for sure, and build on top of the Brittle, Stagger and Disorient status effects by adding more abilities that create these states and can exploit them, as well as adding other states that can be exploited then we will have a combat system that on the face of it doesn't have a lot of options, but underneath actually provides a great deal of diversity and opportunity in combat by combining these various abilities to inflict useful statuses and massive damage.
If this is what they do, which I really hope they do, you won't simply be attacking an enemy with a fire spell cause it's strong and they're weak to it, but you'll also be attempting to give them the status effect of Burning or Fear or whatever which another companion can then exploit with one of their abilities for far greater damage and effect. If crafting feeds into this and creating weapons and armors that help boost your chances of inflicting these status effects, or prolonging them, is in place that will add another layer to combat and the strategies you employ by giving you greater reason to prepare and plan ahead and create your own equipment.
You will be planning ahead different strategies that your party can preform to devastate and make quick work of enemies. Some spells or abilities could weaken an enemy allowing another ability to inflict a status effect more easily which then allows for a third ability to exploit that status for serious damage. You won't just be spamming the same 8 abilities because they do the most damage, instead you'll have strategies in place based around how they effect the enemy and overall battlefield, using them in a more deliberate and calculated fashion.
So the game won't simply be about exploiting inherent weaknesses in enemies but also creating your own and capitalizing on both. Say an enemy has a weakness to fire so you have your Rogue hit them with an attack that inflicts Disorient and then have your Mage strike them with a Fireball which they're already naturally weak too, but on top of that it can inflict even more damage while they're Disoriented. That built in layering effect adds to the game in ways that a multitude of mostly static abilities may not be able to.
Not just that though, I already tried to address this issue earlier in this thread, but that was more an exercise in math than anything else. You can reduce complexity while still adding depth to the gameplay. I don't know for sure if DAI will be like this, or if it will be due to or excuse the 8 ability limit, but there are some hints and indications from what we've seen that it's probably going in this direction of adding depth to the abilities there are, instead of relying on a breadth of abilities to create choices and strategies in combat. How far they're going with this is what really remains uncertain.
So far the number of active skills is roughly the same as DA2, but we now have far more passive abilities along with the 8 ability limit. If that's all they've done with combat then yeah it's probably going to be kind of a big let down. But if they also are adding more depth to the abilities, then the 8 we do have could end up being much more versatile and useful in combat than the 15-20 we may have had before.
If they take the CCC system from DA2, which we know is returning for sure, and build on top of the Brittle, Stagger and Disorient status effects by adding more abilities that create these states and can exploit them, as well as adding other states that can be exploited then we will have a combat system that on the face of it doesn't have a lot of options, but underneath actually provides a great deal of diversity and opportunity in combat by combining these various abilities to inflict useful statuses and massive damage.
If this is what they do, which I really hope they do, you won't simply be attacking an enemy with a fire spell cause it's strong and they're weak to it, but you'll also be attempting to give them the status effect of Burning or Fear or whatever which another companion can then exploit with one of their abilities for far greater damage and effect. If crafting feeds into this and creating weapons and armors that help boost your chances of inflicting these status effects, or prolonging them, is in place that will add another layer to combat and the strategies you employ by giving you greater reason to prepare and plan ahead and create your own equipment.
You will be planning ahead different strategies that your party can preform to devastate and make quick work of enemies. Some spells or abilities could weaken an enemy allowing another ability to inflict a status effect more easily which then allows for a third ability to exploit that status for serious damage. You won't just be spamming the same 8 abilities because they do the most damage, instead you'll have strategies in place based around how they effect the enemy and overall battlefield, using them in a more deliberate and calculated fashion.
So the game won't simply be about exploiting inherent weaknesses in enemies but also creating your own and capitalizing on both. Say an enemy has a weakness to fire so you have your Rogue hit them with an attack that inflicts Disorient and then have your Mage strike them with a Fireball which they're already naturally weak too, but on top of that it can inflict even more damage while they're Disoriented. That built in layering effect adds to the game in ways that a multitude of mostly static abilities may not be able to.
So far the number of active skills is roughly the same as DA2, but we now have far more passive abilities along with the 8 ability limit. If that's all they've done with combat then yeah it's probably going to be kind of a big let down. But if they also are adding more depth to the abilities, then the 8 we do have could end up being much more versatile and useful in combat than the 15-20 we may have had before.
A good example of this is the Lightning ability chain in Origins. Four spells for Lightning, but here's what they do:
1. Lightning Damage.
2. Conal Lightning Damage.
3. AOE Lightning damage (can spell combo into SotC)
4. Lighting damage that is AOE dependent on enemies nearby.
Here's the Lightning Bolt ability in Inquisition:
1. Lightning damage that also paralyzes with the length of paralysis dependent on number of nearby enemies and gives enemy Shocked status effect (my supposition: which is a status effect for CCCing)
By the Origins system, if an enemy was Resistant to Lightning 2 of those spells was useless, and the other 2 kinda are as well. But with this new system it also paralyzes which can be very useful against enemy lieutenants AND it sets up a CCC for great damage, possibly regardless of elemental affinity.
A good example of this is the Lightning ability chain in Origins. Four spells for Lightning, but here's what they do:
1. Lightning Damage.
2. Conal Lightning Damage.
3. AOE Lightning damage (can spell combo into SotC)
4. Lighting damage that is AOE dependent on enemies nearby.
Here's the Lightning Bolt ability in Inquisition:
1. Lightning damage that also paralyzes with the length of paralysis dependent on number of nearby enemies and gives enemy Shocked status effect (my supposition: which is a status effect for CCCing)
By the Origins system, if an enemy was Resistant to Lightning 2 of those spells was useless, and the other 2 kinda are as well. But with this new system it also paralyzes which can be very useful against enemy lieutenants AND it sets up a CCC for great damage, possibly regardless of elemental affinity.
Indeed. It seems like (if this system is done well, which I hope it is) it will trim a lot of the extraneous fat - spells like Spellbloom that do little but delay you getting hold of Stinging Swarm.
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