820 réponses à ce sujet

[Nayawk]

I'm fine with 8 slot, and I say that as someone who played mages in EQ2 where the hot bars covered half the screen and every ability was used, every fight. 

 

I also love the clean and simply modern UI, my only concern, which others have mentioned, is the size of everything.  The hot bar is ok, but those companion icons and the health bars are huge. I am hoping that someone made a very small windowed version of the game and screen shot it, and those elements are to 1:1 scale.  If that is a scaled down full screen screenshot we will be able to see those icons from space.

[In Exile]

Does this mean that upgrades don't take up a slot?

 

I think the phrasing is just poor: he means that you have 32 abilities across the entire party as a cap on total # of abilities, but you're also  spending multiple skillpoints to upgrade an ability and some trees just have passive bonuses (meaning no new abilities). 

 

I think the overall design goal is so that even at max level we won't really have more than 2-3 surplus abilities per character. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

I have a spacebar and a TAB button too come to think of it.

When DAO came out (and before that, when I was playing ME), I had an infant daughter. I was often playing one handed, because my second arm was holding her on my lap. I was adamant that there needed to be a clickable pause button somewhere in the UI.

This is perhaps the only suggestion of mine that BioWare has ever adopted.

[In Exile]

When DAO came out (and before that, when I was playing ME), I had an infant daughter. I was often playing one handed, because my second arm was holding her on my lap. I was adamant that there needed to be a clickable pause button somewhere in the UI.

This is perhaps the only suggestion of mine that BioWare has ever adopted.

 

The clickable buttons were one of the best aspects of the old Infinity Engine UI and it's good to see them return. 

 

It also looks like we have proper tooltips - the PC screenshot shows that clicking on Blackwall will show us (for example) his total armor score (even if it is a sadly large, contextless number like 392 or whatever). 

[Amaror]

The earliest party-oriented MMO which used this system (choose a few abilities from much larger set) that I can recall was Guild Wars, which is close to 10 years old at this point. So yeah, this been around and is neither "zomg, dirty console peasants" nor really "worst design EVER" kind of decision.

Oh it has been done before you say?

That means that it cannot possibly be a bad design choice and has to be 100% positive news!

Man, i am really relieved you pointed this out!

[robertthebard]

I think the phrasing is just poor: he means that you have 32 abilities across the entire party as a cap on total # of abilities, but you're also  spending multiple skillpoints to upgrade an ability and some trees just have passive bonuses (meaning no new abilities). 
 
I think the overall design goal is so that even at max level we won't really have more than 2-3 surplus abilities per character.

What does "surplus ability" mean though. Where I have options to not take skills I think I won't use, ever, I don't take them. If I'm taking them during the leveling process, I'm thinking, at this point, that I plan to use them.

[In Exile]

What does "surplus ability" mean though. Where I have options to not take skills I think I won't use, ever, I don't take them. If I'm taking them during the leveling process, I'm thinking, at this point, that I plan to use them.

 

When I say surplus, I mean beyond the 8 we can allocate. Would it have been clearer if I said 10-11 abilities at level 28-30? 

[Sylvius the Mad]

The clickable buttons were one of the best aspects of the old Infinity Engine UI and it's good to see them return.

It also looks like we have proper tooltips - the PC screenshot shows that clicking on Blackwall will show us (for example) his total armor score (even if it is a sadly large, contextless number like 392 or whatever).

It's only contextless if they don't document the mechanics.

I expect them to document the mechanics.

[In Exile]

It's only contextless if they don't document the mechanics.

I expect them to document the mechanics.

 

I would be very pleasantly surprised if Bioware documents the mechanics. I do not expect it. 

[Wulfram]

When DAO came out (and before that, when I was playing ME), I had an infant daughter. I was often playing one handed, because my second arm was holding her on my lap. I was adamant that there needed to be a clickable pause button somewhere in the UI.

This is perhaps the only suggestion of mine that BioWare has ever adopted.

 

Couldn't you bind the middle button/any other buttons you might have to pause?

[kingjezza]

Sorry if it has been said but does the potion menu open up? I like to keep poisons etc. on the quick bar.

[robertthebard]

When I say surplus, I mean beyond the 8 we can allocate. Would it have been clearer if I said 10-11 abilities at level 28-30?

I think the disconnect is my own, and is related to the fact that taking abilities I plan to use shouldn't include having to decide which abilities I plan to use in a given circumstance every time a different type of circumstance arises, and then spending time revamping the tactics to reflect these new circumstances. I do this process at level up, and now it seems by an area by area calculation of what's going to be effective, and what isn't, thus repeating the whole "leveling" process every time I see an encounter that may require me to change tactics. Hell, that sounds confusing, and I know what I'm trying to say...

[BananaBoy]

I guess I don't really mind the 8 ability limit, since I rarely use more than 6-7 skills anyway. Are sustained skills back? If not, then that's even better ...

[Morroian]

Right. So if there was more than 8, the spectrum of tactical options would not be broader?

 

Its more of a strategic choice than tactical.

[devSin]

Every time I see that faux 3D shelf, I groan a little.

Why? Just, why?

[Fredvdp]

IIRC, DA2 only had one kind of potion for each, it just scaled accordingly. This part of the UI tends to follow what we had in DA2, with Mana, HP and Stamina potion slots where appropriate.

Actually, no. Dragon Age 2 had standard health potions, elfroot potions (hp + injury), restoration potions (hp + mana/stamina) and some others as well (buffs).

[katling73]

They must have severely reduced the number of spells available to mages if they're saying that 8 slots will be fine. Just for the hell of it, I started a mage playthrough in DA:O yesterday just to compare. I'm still in Ostagar, haven't even reached the Tower of Ishal section yet and I already have 8 abilities on my quickbar (5 offensive spells, 2 defensive and the healing spell). That doesn't include slots for potions and herbalism. So if 8 slots are going to be fine in DAI (according to the devs) then most of the mages' share of those 200+ skills they've been banging on about must be upgrades and passives. Maybe we only get something like 8-10 active spells all up and then upgrades and passives make up the rest? I don't know. It's the only way it makes sense to me.

 

But looking at it, if they moved the minimap back up to the top right hand corner, they'd have room to stretch out the quickbar a bit more and give us at least 3 or 4 more slots.

[TKavatar]

 

But looking at it, if they moved the minimap back up to the top right hand corner, they'd have room to stretch out the quickbar a bit more and give us at least 3 or 4 more slots.

 

But they can't. I know this was a design decision but still the 8 ability limit is due to the limitations of controllers. If they had an extra button we would have 12 abilities, both PC and console.

[Jaulen]

Aesthetically, I think I mostly just don't like the green.

 

It certainly conveys the information, but I'm not sure it'll be as good as DA2 if you're just glancing at it with the corner of your eye.

 

 

some environments I could see the green getting 'lost'

 

8 slot seems...low....we'll see. 

I liked having the ability to expand the bar and have all my abilities and potions available to click on....even the 'rarely used' ones. Cause there was 'that one time' that rare ability came in handy.

[AlanC9]

Yes, but why? It's as if they think they know better than any given individual player what that player will enjoy.
We don't all like the same things. Giving us a game that only plays 1 or 2 ways will necessarily alienate a bunch of players.

I don't see how alienating somebody can be avoided. Balancing the game around having eight abilities means that it won't be balanced around using all of them. I don't like having to gimp myself very much. Although I'm not sure I would have actually noticed if DAI had lousy combat balance, since I kind of expect that from Bio.

[In Exile]

I think the disconnect is my own, and is related to the fact that taking abilities I plan to use shouldn't include having to decide which abilities I plan to use in a given circumstance every time a different type of circumstance arises, and then spending time revamping the tactics to reflect these new circumstances. I do this process at level up, and now it seems by an area by area calculation of what's going to be effective, and what isn't, thus repeating the whole "leveling" process every time I see an encounter that may require me to change tactics. Hell, that sounds confusing, and I know what I'm trying to say...

 

I think I follow, but your problem would only come up if you had a surplus of abilities. What I'm trying to say is that it's unlikely for this to happen. 

[In Exile]

Every time I see that faux 3D shelf, I groan a little.

Why? Just, why?

 

What faux 3D shelf?

[In Exile]

They must have severely reduced the number of spells available to mages if they're saying that 8 slots will be fine. Just for the hell of it, I started a mage playthrough in DA:O yesterday just to compare. I'm still in Ostagar, haven't even reached the Tower of Ishal section yet and I already have 8 abilities on my quickbar (5 offensive spells, 2 defensive and the healing spell). That doesn't include slots for potions and herbalism. So if 8 slots are going to be fine in DAI (according to the devs) then most of the mages' share of those 200+ skills they've been banging on about must be upgrades and passives. Maybe we only get something like 8-10 active spells all up and then upgrades and passives make up the rest? I don't know. It's the only way it makes sense to me.

 

But looking at it, if they moved the minimap back up to the top right hand corner, they'd have room to stretch out the quickbar a bit more and give us at least 3 or 4 more slots.

 

The # of spells/character was already radically reduced in DA2 with the upgrades. The only way to reach 9 abilities at level 9 was to avoid upgrading, which could only work on lower difficulties. On nightmare CCC was absolutely necessary, meaning every ability had to be upgraded to be used (almost). 

[Pateu]

8 Abilities?

 

Didn't we have like 26 in Dragon Age Origins?

 

If this isn't console dumbing down I swear to God I don't know what else is.

 

DA2 : 18

 

 

 

 

 

26 Origins

 

 

 

I am really upset Bioware.

 

I am really, really upset at this.