It may work - but it does not change the fact, that this system is retarded (you can't plan fights in advance - you wont know if there is a big dragon/demon/other boss-character around the corner
This is a supposition on your part that doesn't pan out based on gameplay videos. You have plenty of time to know a dragon fight is ahead based on E3. And even if you don't, you can run away and respec guys! It'll take like 2 minutes.
It's not just about console accessibility, it's about efficient design.
I had a long history with a game that used a very similar system, the original guild wars.
By the end my main character had learned, i think, around 500 skills. The bar was limited to 8 skills. This did not hurt the game.
It was said in the other thread but this sort of design decision works in a case like because you have such a large pool of abilities and its a PvP game where clearly a LAS is better for balancing. DAI will only have a small pool of active abilities to choose from so there's essentially a double restriction, plus its a SP or co-op game so there is really no need for a LAS.
I think if they planned all their ability trees with the 8 abilities at a time in mind (which I hope they did, or else they just fail at game design), then it should all work out fine. I'm expecting a fair amount of ability unlocks will actually be passives or upgrades.
Allan Shumacher in the other thread implied that we wouldn't need to swap abilities in and out as often as people are worrying about which says to me that the number of active abilities you will get won't be appreciably more than 8, but that in itself is another issue especially playing a mage because it implies there's far less choice than even in DA2. I would have had close to 20 abilities on my bar in DA2. It reduces variety and reduces replayability.
Plus if there are only 4-5 active abilities per tree how does this reconcile with the statement they made long ago about only needing 1 specialisation because the specs would be in more depth than DA2.They clearly won't be.
It was said in the other thread but this sort of design decision works in a case like because you have such a large pool of abilities and its a PvP game where clearly a LAS is better for balancing. DAI will only have a small pool of active abilities to choose from so there's essentially a double restriction, plus its a SP or co-op game so there is really no need for a LAS.
GW1 used the exact same system for PvE (I primarily played it in PvE) and believe it or not, it worked. More often than not you actually messed with the bar and figured out group build compositions when doing PvE the same way you did when you were designing group comps for PvP.
It actually worked extremely well, and I can say without a doubt that I had more fun theorycrafting and designing builds for various areas, dungeons, etc. in that game than any other game I've played since.
Edit: I also thought it prudent to mention that a lot of said builds were built around soloing with a team of NPC companions, e.g. playing the game as a solo RPG with NPC party members who I specced to work well together.
GW1 used the exact same system for PvE (I primarily played it in PvE) and believe it or not, it worked. More often than not you actually messed with the bar and figured out group build compositions when doing PvE the same way you did when you were designing group comps for PvP.
I've played it and I have thousands of hours in GW2, thats not really my point which is that you have a large pool of abilities in those games to choose from whereas we won't have that in DAI, its a fundamental difference. As I said its a double restriction.
I've played it and I have thousands of hours in GW2, thats not really my point which is that you have a large pool of abilities in those games to choose from whereas we won't have that in DAI, its a fundamental difference. As I said its a double restriction.
Meaning you will have to think about what you want each character to do, and deal with the consequences.
I've played it and I have thousands of hours in GW2, thats not really my point which is that you have a large pool of abilities in those games to choose from whereas we won't have that in DAI, its a fundamental difference. As I said its a double restriction.
That's the point I'm trying to make though, that it's not about the number of skills, but their utility and variety. it could be 500, or just 50, as after three campagins and an expansion, GW1 ran in to its own bloat problem, adding new mechanics just so they could add new skills for people to learn when they picked up a campaign/expansion.
If you've got a good variety interesting and impactful passives (and it seems DAI is big on the idea of passives) a single active skill can functionally provide as many meaningful build choices if "Smash with crush and bleed passives" has a fundamentally different gameplay effect than "smash with cheese and enchantment passives"
The difference is that you're streamlining the leveling without sacrificing the build diversity or bloating the system with niche or useless skills.
Shame they overdid the de-emphasis of combat roles in GW2. I feel that having the ability to design really role depeandant specialists or a party full of good generalists was part of what was so much fun about the first game, wheras the second game forces everyone in to 'generalist with flavor'
But I digress, this isn't the guild wars forum, just trying to put forth an argument for why sometimes less really is more.
Why are the abilities so restricted anyway?I get tired of using the same spell/talent over and over again so I'd like to know why the abilities are limited to 8 only.
I get the feeling more and more that Bioware didn't see DA2 as a failure. Or somehow, only looked at "Okay, people hated reused environments and combat speed so let's fix that and only that".
It's almost exactly like DA2 in a lot of respects, now with an additional ability limit so you can feel like even more of a moron because you didn't swap out X for Y before the fight. Hell, the weapon system and restrictions haven't changed one iota. Now we have even more arbitrary limits, and nothing says "player choice" and "emphasis on tactics" like taking away options and forcing you into one concrete role that can never, ever change.
I get the feeling more and more that Bioware didn't see DA2 as a failure. Or somehow, only looked at "Okay, people hated reused environments and combat speed so let's fix that and only that".
It's almost exactly like DA2 in a lot of respects, now with an additional ability limit so you can feel like even more of a moron because you didn't swap out X for Y before the fight. Hell, the weapon system and restrictions haven't changed one iota. Now we have even more arbitrary limits, and nothing says "player choice" and "emphasis on tactics" like taking away options and forcing you into one concrete role that can never, ever change.
I get the feeling more and more that Bioware didn't see DA2 as a failure. Or somehow, only looked at "Okay, people hated reused environments and combat speed so let's fix that and only that".
It's almost exactly like DA2 in a lot of respects, now with an additional ability limit so you can feel like even more of a moron because you didn't swap out X for Y before the fight. Hell, the weapon system and restrictions haven't changed one iota. Now we have even more arbitrary limits, and nothing says "player choice" and "emphasis on tactics" like taking away options and forcing you into one concrete role that can never, ever change.
Financially DA2 did pretty well, I think.
Financially DA2 did pretty well, I think.
no it didn't, it sold significantly less than DA:O, by 2 million copies iirc
the only money thay'd have made on it is the rushed schedule they did to put it out
Financially DA2 did pretty well, I think.
Initial (week one) sales were really good, better than DAO. Week 2+ sales fell sharply as word-of-mouth hit, compared to DAO, which had very strong sales in the following weeks.
Initial (week one) sales were really good, better than DAO. Week 2+ sales fell sharply as word-of-mouth hit, compared to DAO, which had very strong sales in the following weeks.
Ok, thanks for the info.
Financially DA2 did pretty well, I think.
Actually DA2 had diminishing returns after the first couple of months,it sold less than DAO and the bad DLC sales resulted in the expansion pack being cancelled.
Allan Shumacher in the other thread implied that we wouldn't need to swap abilities in and out as often as people are worrying about which says to me that the number of active abilities you will get won't be appreciably more than 8, but that in itself is another issue especially playing a mage because it implies there's far less choice than even in DA2. I would have had close to 20 abilities on my bar in DA2. It reduces variety and reduces replayability.
Plus if there are only 4-5 active abilities per tree how does this reconcile with the statement they made long ago about only needing 1 specialisation because the specs would be in more depth than DA2.They clearly won't be.
How did you get to 20 abilities in DA2? Did you not upgrade? The only way to get a lot of abilities in DA2 is to play on a low difficultly to avoid CCCs. On nightmare not upgrading abilities is basically just giving up on the game.
How did you get to 20 abilities in DA2? Did you not upgrade? The only way to get a lot of abilities in DA2 is to play on a low difficultly to avoid CCCs. On nightmare not upgrading abilities is basically just giving up on the game.
You can get some extra points for abilities via books, I guess. But 20 seems very high.
You can get some extra points for abilities via books, I guess. But 20 seems very high.
There are maybe 3-4 extra points even with the DLC bonuses plus the scrolls you get. But even if we assume something as high as 6, and we assuming all DLCs so level 28 or so for Hawke, that should give you 17 abilities, including both sustained and active. DAI will not have sustained at all, so what we really care about are the active abilities. If we go very high for a mage (basically assume you just invested in rock armour and maybe 2 more) that puts you at around 14 total unique abilities, minus say 2-3 if you pick the passive bonus at the end of a tree, so more like 11-12 unique abilities max.
I can easily see 20 in DA:O, though. Especially once you start the expansion. But 20 for DA2 is way high.
I can easily see 20 in DA:O, though. Especially once you start the expansion. But 20 for DA2 is way high.
20 for a mage is the absolute minimum without even counting the extra abilities etc. You're looking at 30 easily for DA:A.
But most of those abilities were not even worth the mana to cast on them. DA2 mages were a lot more versatile in practice. DAO was easily reducible to an 8 spell rotation (of actives, since again, DAI will not have sustains).
It makes it possible to create more unique mages, though. For roleplaying reasons.
I get the feeling more and more that Bioware didn't see DA2 as a failure. Or somehow, only looked at "Okay, people hated reused environments and combat speed so let's fix that and only that".
It's almost exactly like DA2 in a lot of respects, now with an additional ability limit so you can feel like even more of a moron because you didn't swap out X for Y before the fight. Hell, the weapon system and restrictions haven't changed one iota. Now we have even more arbitrary limits, and nothing says "player choice" and "emphasis on tactics" like taking away options and forcing you into one concrete role that can never, ever change.
Yep...
RPG should be about freedom, flexibility and customization. Not role restrictions.
Bioware is now part of the Qun, hence the gimping of mages, ability restrictions and calling all this "more freedom for the player".
ITT: People confusing the terms "Breadth" and "Depth."
Meaningless breadth in variety has no depth. Depth in choice is tied to the value and weight of each choice. If you have a thousand suits of armor, but the lowest level armor is as strong as the highest level armor, you have breadth, but no depth in picking said armor.
Likewise, if you have 30 abilities that are all highly iterative on one another, instead of being more like an incomparable ability, you have breadth but no depth.
It makes it possible to create more unique mages, though. For roleplaying reasons.
Yeah, but having combat abilities for roleplaying reasons (e.g. by elemental type bloat example) is what leads to bloated skill trees. It would be much more efficient to take the old City of heroes appraoch and use a smaller number of mechanically different abilities with customization options. I mean, if an iceball=fireball=stonefirst=windblast in terms of game mechanics, why not have them all be the same spell and just let the user customize the visual effect, or better yet have the visual effect be tied to other roleplaying mechanics like companion learning, trading books, or some other device?
Unless you're saying it's ESSENTIAL for immersion for people to be able to have practically the same spell on their bar four times and use them in combat because they simply have different sparkles.
Of course, i rather liked DA2's approach to schools of magic. They picked out what was unique about the various schools, cut out the mostly samey/useless garbage. It made the different schools of magic actually feel like different schools of magic when you didn't have four of the same exact AOE.
Also, it has balance ramifications. If only one spell is a giant AOE, you can make that AOE a much better spell because you don't have to worry about the player stacking it with more of them (Which is why skill upgrades>more skills IMO)
ITT: People confusing the terms "Breadth" and "Depth."
Meaningless breadth in variety has no depth. Depth in choice is tied to the value and weight of each choice. If you have a thousand suits of armor, but the lowest level armor is as strong as the highest level armor, you have breadth, but no depth in picking said armor.
Likewise, if you have 30 abilities that are all highly iterative on one another, instead of being more like an incomparable ability, you have breadth but no depth.
The problem is, Bioware's already done something like this. Mass Effect 2.
Anyone that remembers ME1 will remember that you had a ton of different weapons and armor, but there were actually the same ten-ish choices in each category with a Mk1, Mk2, etc "upgrade", and a lot of them were palette swaps. The weapons, especially, were all relatively samey to boot.
To simplify it, they took out everything for ME2, and DLC'd the rest. Want a suit of armor for Garrus in ME1? No problem! Want a suit of armor for Garrus in ME2, who otherwise has to go through the entire game with broken armor? DLC. Weapons in general and armor especially? Reduced to almost insane levels. The term "throwing out the baby with the bath water" really applies.
With DAO to DA2, you went from being able to use almost any weapon or armor, to being able to use a relative handful. Mages especially were SOL - even if you couldn't necessarily use a sword well (thanks to no talents) or armor well (fatigue and all), you could still do it. Warriors had four weapon school choices, rogues had two. But in DA2, rogues went from being able to use anything one-handed (with Dual Weapon Mastery) to being stuck with daggers or bows. No crossbows, and nothing except daggers - unless you bought DLC. Warriors were cut down to two, eliminating dual wielding and ranged choices entirely. You could also no longer switch weapon sets at will, meaning you were basically married to that one weapon you were using at the moment.
Things like being able to switch from melee to ranged would have no real value in a tactical game, would it? Nah. I'd rather be pigeonholed into doing one thing the entire game and never being able to deviate.
Guild Wars 2 has LESS than 8, Its 4 plus 4 utilities.
8 is ALOT.
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