88 réponses à ce sujet

[Wulfram]

The most fundamental change in DA2 was adding the expectation that the player should have to manually dodge attacks.  I do get the impression that this is returning.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I have no idea how VATS works (whenever FO:NV gets on sale I probably will find out), but TES is heavily based on melee combat. You've got your archery and your spells/staffs, but the overwhelming majority of the enemies you encounter are going to try to eat your face.

Luckily, in Skyrim at least, there was little need to engage in melee combat, despite the enemy's preference.

I found that a combination of Archery, Stealth, and Conjuration allowed me to snipe from cover (doing sneak attack damage), and then have the now badly wounded enemy mopped up by a summoned Atronach.

And then later I installed a mod that let me have more followers at a time (I liked 3), further trivialising combat.

When was the last time that a first-person game, that was also melee based, was true turn combat?

I'm no authority, but outside of VATS (which again I have yet to encounter), I don't even know of any recent first person game, disregarding melee, that has turn combat at all. It's something you just don't see anymore.

That's why VATS was such a revelation. It worked extremely well, even in melee. There is no reason why it couldn't have been used in Skyrim.

I feel obligated to again point out that for us snipers, pause-to-aim in ME was useless.

As a fellow sniper, I sympathise, but I also disagree. While it was annoying that you couldn't pause-to-aim while scoped, you could quick-scope right after pausing, and at short range you didn't need to scope at all. Fighting Saren at the end of ME only takes 5-6 good sniper rifle hits, and there's no need to scope because the fight occurs in an enclosed space.

And it's not like ME's sniper mechanics took into account good stuff like bullet drop (which I very much enjoyed in Delta Force and Sniper Elite), so scoping is of limited usefulness anyway.

And I don't recall how ME2 did it, but in the first game Pistols had the same effective range as Rifle did, so I did a lot sniping with a Pistol.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The most fundamental change in DA2 was adding the expectation that the player should have to manually dodge attacks. I do get the impression that this is returning.

It wasn't that different from DAO, really. If you anticipated attacks in DAO, you could move out of their AoE before they triggered. Yes, once the animation started it was too late, but that's a small difference.

[Wulfram]

Really? So when I saw an Ogre in DA:O pick up a boulder and then I sent all my characters scattering, that wasn't manually dodging attacks?

The feature was in DA:O. I'd agree it got worse in DA ][, but it was in DA:O.

 

The odd AoE is quite different from basically every attack (except archers) in the game

[Sylvius the Mad]

Um, no. This ethos was part of Original Flavor D&D which is where all the "older" RPG's originally derived. I challenge you to pick up the ORIGINAL Pool of Radiance and play an "intelligence-based warrior". Or even the original Baldur's Gate. Or Neverwinter Nights, even. By way of comparison, the MMO I play actually HAS all of this stuff. Merely being able to swap primary stats does not fundamentally change how a given build *plays*. Nor are specializations and class archetypes "roleplaying" options. Many highly superior RPG's have NO classes whatsoever (Fallout, Arcanum, Wasteland).

While I agree with you on the merits of a classless system, I think you're selling NWN short. While a Fighter couldn't really focus on Intelligence, there were some benefits to not using as a dump stat. Like the Expertise feat, which was a melee ability, and it had a fairly steep Intelligence requirement, and it granted considerable tactical flexibility.

A game that's geared around managing a party of 4 is going to have a lot of MMO "feels" to it unless it's completely turn-based.

I don't see why, especially since I didn't see a lot of MMO-ness in DAO. You could play it that way if you wanted, but you could also not.

But if thay were the case, that would be an argument in favour of turn-based combat...

Wasteland 2, here I come.

[yullyuk]

This isn't really a criticism, it barely qualifies as a critique, but some things I was reading today made me realize some stuff, namely that Inquisition is in a really weird place as a game.  Or perhaps I should phrase it, as a "game".

 

People on the forums have actually been complaining that the combat has been redesigned to actually require, you know, THINKING.  Because they play these games "for the story"--the game *play* is an annoyance to them.  They don't want to "have to" craft.  They don't want to "have to" mess with their gear.

 

And then you have the other group, who complains that the combat doesn't require enough, you know, THINKING.  ONLY 8 ABILITIES?!?!?  They "get to" craft (finally).  They (finally) might "get" some decent gear tradeoffs.  But on the other hand anything that isn't "medieval combat sim" seems to ****** them off.  X, Y, or Z doesn't "make sense" or is an "arbitrary restriction" or a "dumbing down" of the game (which is hilarious in this context, seeing as how utterly degenerate the gameplay in both previous games was).

 

And then you have people like me.  I play the game "for" the story.  But I also really want it to be a *good game* with *engaging gameplay* that I will WANT to experience again.  I'm TIRED of Bioware games becoming a boring slog of seemingly-endless repetitive combat halfway through.  My experience with this series thus far has done a lot to convince me that I, more than anyone else, am EXACTLY this game's target audience.  Lucky for me, but what about groups 1 and 2 up there?  Are they going to become increasingly dissatisfied (and from what I've seen, angry and hostile)?  Can you have BOTH people who want an interactive movie AND hardcore gamers as core audience for the SAME game?  Is that going to work?

It worked okay with older games--but expectations were lower then, too.  Big-budget RPG's for a year might be . . . TWO games.  Heck DAGGERFALL won RPG of the year when it came out, and it was, in many ways, a steaming pile of poo.

 

Maybe the reason why big-budget games like Dragon Age are vanishing is *because*, qua game, they're a strange leftover of a type of game that, for a brief period of time managed to get an audience by uniting several groups of gamers with completely opposing interests.  I'm some kind of weirdo because I have both interests--but I don't want to be left here with the 3 other similar weirdos to face down a huge foaming mob screaming that we're "fanbois" because we're not upset that their favorite feature got canned.  Heck, actually liking DA2 was bad enough.

i think your problem here is more inherently to do with the balancing of the game, i am sure an earlier stage in development all the abilities would have been on one hotbar like they were in origins, but since that bioware stated they wanted you to sit and think about an encounter before you fight they made the slots limited to 8, so as to not overpower the play and make them THINK about there decisions.

 

and you may play a game for the story but that doesnt make the game, if thats the case you would be better off watching a movie or a book since that it is inherently the same expeirence although a more interactive medium at that

[Sylvius the Mad]

Though I'll point out that "quick-scope" sounds awfully action-based. I personally often involuntarily twitched when I pressed my scope button, so this wouldn't be viable for me. Time dilation, though, was a blessing.

I mapped it to a different key (rather than a mouse button) to avoid this.

Game designers seem often to make assumptions about how I will be using my input devices. I like to defy those assumptions.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I wasn't aware you could dodge basic attacks in DA ][.

I may not understand what you're saying. Are you suggesting that the close-up talents in DA ][ could be dodged, but could not be in DA:O?

Jumping into this question technically and headfirst, I could understand if, after the actual action begins (the game initiates the action, not just the queue), you could dodge in DA ][ and not dodge in DA:O. But was that the case? I was under the impression that the dodge for such an attack came before the attack actually technically began.


Can you give some examples? Examples you know aren't AoE attacks?

All melee attacks in DA2 were AoE attacks.

[Eralrik]

For the record I loved Daggerfall!

 

In Mass Effect 1 I rarely used a gun I played the Sentinel using Tech & Biotics and enjoyed it immensely as a class, while others claimed it was the worst class in the series.

In ME2 I played a Sniper.

 

DA:O I never played a Fighter to boring, always a Rogue with High stealth same in DA2.

 

Normal is about the highest I can play these days as my Parkinson's Syndrome has advanced making higher difficulty's unmanageable and I did love pushing the boundary's and the tension.

 

The first Witcher combat sucked, the second one I actually enjoyed and the story, can't wait for the 3rd one in Feb. 15th next year keep me busy the rest of winter.

 

Also for the Record I loved Dragon Age 2, just not some of the designs and some of the story elements.

 

I prefer Story, Companion Side Story's, Exploration, Crafting and then Combat in that order.

[AshenEndymion]

All melee attacks in DA2 were AoE attacks.

 

Only with regards to the boss fights(and mook 2h warriors).  The mook rogue or S&S warrior wasn't hitting more than one person at a time with their basic attack.  And as such, those attacks could only be "dodged" if you ran away just before they started their attack animation.  If you ran after they started, you still got hurt. But, because 2h warrior basic attacks were AOE, you could run from them.  So long as you were out of range of the swing, you'd be safe.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Only with regards to the boss fights(and mook 2h warriors). The mook rogue or S&S warrior wasn't hitting more than one person at a time with their basic attack. And as such, those attacks could only be "dodged" if you ran away just before they started their attack animation. If you ran after they started, you still got hurt. But, because 2h warrior basic attacks were AOE, you could run from them. So long as you were out of range of the swing, you'd be safe.

The basic attack AoE thing was a documented feature. How could it not be true for enemies?

That just makes me angry.

[Wulfram]

All melee attacks in DA2 were AoE attacks.

 

Rogues aren't.  I don't think the enemy melee attacks are either.

 

Anyway, basically every basic melee attack in the game is dodgable, I'm confident.  Just did a bit of testing to ensure.  Easiest place to see it is probably to run around act 2 hightown at night, since the Invisible Sisters don't have archers - and they do have dagger wielders, who are the type that wouldn't be dodgeable if anyone wasn't.  But any fight will do.

 

Though it seems the stealth attacks may not be dodgeable.  Or maybe they're simply quick enough that running around erratically doesn't simply confuse them as is the case with all the basic attacks - obviously there's not much of a tell since they're from stealth.

[AshenEndymion]

The basic attack AoE thing was a documented feature. How could it not be true for enemies?

That just makes me angry.

 

It was only documented for 2h warriors.   And as I said, the same holds true for enemies.

[Sylvius the Mad]

It was only documented for 2h warriors. And as I said, the same holds true for enemies.

I had thought it was all warriors.

[AshenEndymion]

I had thought it was all warriors.

 

Aveline cannot hurt a party member unless she uses an ability.  So I highly doubt it's all warriors.  If it is then there's still the exception being made for Aveline...

[Wulfram]

I had thought it was all warriors.

 

Player one handed warriors are AoE, enemies aren't.  Enemies in DA2 bear no resemblance to the party members.

 

edit:  They patched out Friendly Fire for basic attacks, IIRC.

[AshenEndymion]

Player one handed warriors are AoE, enemies aren't.  Enemies in DA2 bear no resemblance to the party members.

 

edit:  They patched out Friendly Fire for basic attacks, IIRC.

 

They didn't on the console, or Fenris' sliding in move to strike an enemy from a distance when choosing "attack" isn't considered a "basic attack" because that's the move that murders my party every time...

 

Edit: That said, I have never seen Aveline damage more than one thing at a time(again, unless she uses an ability).  I'd have to see some evidence to believe the claim that she can(I've never played a S&S Hawke.  So I won't presume to say that S&S Hawke's basic attacks aren't AOE.... Just that Aveline's aren't)...

[Wulfram]

They didn't on the console, or Fenris' sliding in move to strike an enemy from a distance when choosing "attack" isn't considered a "basic attack" because that's the move that murders my party every time...

 

Edit: That said, I have never seen Aveline damage more than one thing at a time(again, unless she uses an ability).  I'd have to see some evidence to believe the claim that she can(I've never played a S&S Hawke.  So I won't presume to say that S&S Hawke's basic attacks aren't AOE.... Just that Aveline's aren't)...

Aveline doing AoE damage with basic attack

[PsychoBlonde]

But it did improve the combat. Vastly. I used VATS for nearly every attack in FO3 and NV. It was as vital to me as the pause-to-aim feature in ME.

I meant they weren't likely to keep it in view of improving the combat because it was a "Fallout 3-only" feature to them.

[PsychoBlonde]

While I agree with you on the merits of a classless system, I think you're selling NWN short. While a Fighter couldn't really focus on Intelligence, there were some benefits to not using as a dump stat. Like the Expertise feat, which was a melee ability, and it had a fairly steep Intelligence requirement, and it granted considerable tactical flexibility.
I don't see why, especially since I didn't see a lot of MMO-ness in DAO. You could play it that way if you wanted, but you could also not.

 

I meant that you can't use Intelligence on a Fighter in NwN as your primary combat stat--attack and damage are Strength unless you take Weapon Finesse, but melee damage is ALWAYS strength based.  In DDO there are specialized weapons and abilities that you can get on different classes and races that actually let you make Dex, Int, Wis, Con, or Cha your *primary* combat stat.  It makes for some REALLY fascinating trade-offs.  For instance, you can make a dwarven character who can use their Con for damage with either axes or hammers (even throwing axes/hammers IIRC), leading to the ability to stack your Con to the SKY and still do good damage, so a dwarf can have MONSTER HP that no other DPS character can touch without nerfing their damage.  It's REALLY cool.