161 réponses à ce sujet

[Mr.Hmm]

Vancian magic is for casuals. Ability spamming is what the really hardcore people do.

 

I can only think of 1 game that has 100% hardcore people that spamm abillities that's called "World of Warcraft" ofc diablo is there too.

[Estelindis]

Argh, I'm so disappointed!  I was going to play a mage protagonist for the first time, and I intended to focus on healing.  

[Arvaarad]

Someone enjoys healing, from an RP or combat perspective? Cool, more power to them. I can understand that feeling, as I'm nostalgic for blood magic.

Someone arguing that reducing healing removes depth? That, I don't understand.

Healing is just a hitpoint adjust. Whenever I do an autoattack, I'm achieving the same thing - my party gains health relative to my foes' health. Removing some sources of healing neither adds or removes depth, because there are so many other sources of hitpoint adjust remaining. Not only are there damaging abilities, but there's even potion healing and focus-based healing.

[In Exile]

But they're not just swapping spells around and putting the Heal spell under Spirit or Primal in the level up trees. In addition to changing what Spirit magic can do (and thereby contradicting the spell trees in the previous games, or at least DAO) they apparently remove specialized healing spells completely, and therefore make it impossible for mages specialized in healing to exist. A codex entry referring to the existence of healers is not the same as one that claims to prove the Maker exists. The existence of these healers can easily be confirmed in the "real" world of Thedas. If they have played an important part in past battle this will have been recorded by historians. Sick or injured people can confirm they have been healed by magic. Scholars experienced with the arcane write texts on the possibilities and limits of healing power. Adding a new or previously forgotten spell creates less contradiction (*cough* teleportation *cough*) then suddenly wiping an important, commonly known spell from existence.

The point is that what "spirit" magic does, lore-wise, is the result of an imperfect line drawing exercise. That's the reason I brought up modern taxonomies in biology. Animals and plans are classified according to objective criteria and our classification system hasn't changed in principle but what the particular details of the classification have changed over time.

As Wulfram points out, what we see magic do in combat and what it can do lore wise is not the same thing.

DA2 narrowed the changed the name of talent tres without changing this DAO taxonomy. Having a tree labelled "elemental" did not mean primal ceased to exist.

The spirit tree in DAO included a lot of telekinetic abilities. DA2 moved it to the "arcane" tree which isn't even a school of magic. DAO also had an arcane tree. Force magic is like telekinesis type spells except for when it straight up warps gravity. Arcane warrior spells apparently made you stronger through magic. What's the difference between spirit blast in DA2 and arcane bolt? If you look at the tool tips arcane bolt dealt SPIRIT damage. Did DAO break it's own lore because it wasn't under the spirt tree?

These defied classification in DAO. They changed in DA2 and yet there was no suggest that DA2 broke the lore. DAI doesn't break the lore by moving stuff around.

[Wires_From_The_Wall]

Argh, I'm so disappointed!  I was going to play a mage protagonist for the first time, and I intended to focus on healing.  

 

This was a fun way to approach combat in  DA:O. It was a good laugh to be a healer and focus on keeping NPCs alive, while doing minimal damage yourself. It also increased value of building and programming the kits*  of your allies.

* I can't remember what they are called.

 

it boggles mind people are finding reasons to be happy about this. Woohoo, they are simplifying my game!!:3

[TheLittleBird]

This was a fun way to approach combat in  DA:O. It was a good laugh to be a healer and focus on keeping NPCs alive, while doing minimal damage yourself. It also increased value of building and programming the kits*  of your allies.

* I can't remember what they are called.

 

it boggles mind people are finding reasons to be happy about this. Woohoo, they are simplifying my game!!:3

 

They are not simplifying the game. They are simply changing it up. If anything, they are making it more complex with the added focus-system. 

But I'd hold off on real judgment until you actually get to play the game.

[Wires_From_The_Wall]

Someone arguing that reducing healing removes depth? That, I don't understand.

Healing is just a hitpoint adjust. 

 

Combat mechanics bring additional features, options and additional tactics to combat. This pretty easily equals depth. 

Removing entire combat mechanics would also remove additional features, options and tactics to choose from. This would decrease depth. 

 

Haha..your "Justs" seem to cover respectable amounts of ground!

I challenge you to find a single aspect about combat in any video game ever made where you couldn't build pretty much a similar sentence around 'just'  of such epic proportions.  

[Wires_From_The_Wall]

They are not simplifying the game. They are simply changing it up. If anything, they are making it more complex with the added focus-system. 

But I'd hold off on real judgment until you actually get to play the game.

 

Well yeah, of course I (and everybody else here, I assume?) remain completely unable to see the big picture.  I can't pass any judgement. Or you any pardons I guess;p Removal of entire aspect of magery and combat  just sounds like a horribly disappointing and  stupified concept on paper. Maybe DA:I will prove otherwise and replace it with something else. Time will tel.

[Sidney]

The idea that removing healing spells "simplifies" the game is silly. Does removal of any spell simplify the game? what if they remove 1 and add 2 is that a net gain for "complexity" or more honestly isn't just that anything anymore that someone doesn't like is done to "simplify" things?

 

I'm not sure what this odd emotional attachment to healing spells is. They removed Grease and Spirit Wisp and Mana Clash from DAO to DA2 but I didn't see a lot of "but where is grease" type threads. Various spells were removed and added from O->2 and various spells are gonna be removed and added from 2 -> I. I can't see why this is all so troubling.

[TheLittleBird]

Well yeah, of course I (and everybody else here, I assume?) remain completely unable to see the big picture.  I can't pass any judgement. Or you any pardons I guess;p Removal of entire aspect of magery and combat  just sounds like a horribly disappointing and  stupified concept on paper. Maybe DA:I will prove otherwise and replace it with something else. Time will tel.

 

You're right, I can't fully defend a game I haven't yet played, though I can tell you why I think your... accusations? Well, why I think they're wrong.

 

They're not removing an entire aspect of magery. Healing is still in the game, albeit in a much smaller quantity than before. They are mixing things up, sure, but they're certainly not cutting down on 'magical' content, if you will. If they've removed anything, it's the blood mage specialization, but they've given perfectly viable reasons for that (i.e. the spec would require too much reactivity within the game on something that is a core element of the lore on magic, even much more so than anything else).  

[Arvaarad]

Combat mechanics bring additional features, options and additional tactics to combat. This pretty easily equals depth.
Removing entire combat mechanics would also remove additional features, options and tactics to choose from. This would decrease depth.

But my point is that Heal isn't a separate combat mechanic. It belongs to the same category as direct damage abilities like Spirit Bolt. It rarely interacts with other abilities, and it has almost no interaction with how enemies and allies are positioned on the field. It directly changes hp values. Basic direct damage hasn't been removed, so the "direct hp change" combat mechanic still exists.

It's also worth mentioning that healing isn't even gone. Potions and focus abilities still heal.

[Wires_From_The_Wall]

The idea that removing healing spells "simplifies" the game is silly. Does removal of any spell simplify the game? what if they remove 1 and add 2 is that a net gain for "complexity" or more honestly isn't just that anything anymore that someone doesn't like is done to "simplify" things?

 

I'm not sure what this odd emotional attachment to healing spells is. They removed Grease and Spirit Wisp and Mana Clash from DAO to DA2 but I didn't see a lot of "but where is grease" type threads. Various spells were removed and added from O->2 and various spells are gonna be removed and added from 2 -> I. I can't see why this is all so troubling.

 

My guess is that it has to do with your evident difficulty to appreciate healing and healers as a major mechanic in combat.  In DA:O, it is one of the three big cogs that make the machine roll. Healer of the party is a major role and an identity for you(or your companions) to pick.  It is a thing to do. Removal of healer as a role and an identity leaves a hole. Maybe they patch it with something equally deep and entertaining, maybe they won't.

[The Baconer]

My guess is that it has to do with your evident difficulty to appreciate healing and healers as a major mechanic in combat.  In DA:O, it is one of the three big cogs that make the machine roll. Healer of the party is a major role and an identity for you(or your companions) to pick.  

 

And now healing is being replaced with a different major mechanic, which is damage avoidance and mitigation. It's not hard to have more depth than DA:O's oh-so-mashable healing spell.

[Wires_From_The_Wall]

But my point is that Heal isn't a separate combat mechanic. It belongs to the same category as direct damage abilities like Spirit Bolt. It rarely interacts with other abilities, and it has almost no interaction with how enemies and allies are positioned on the field. It directly changes hp values. Basic direct damage hasn't been removed, so the "direct hp change" combat mechanic still exists.
 

 

Healing and associated abilities  is - or can be - as separate combat mechanic as damage dealing, tanking or ranged kiting. 

[Arvaarad]

My guess is that it has to do with your evident difficulty to appreciate healing and healers as a major mechanic in combat. In DA:O, it is one of the three big cogs that make the machine roll. Healer of the party is a major role and an identity for you(or your companions) to pick.

The three big cogs are damage, control, and support. Support can be filled by a healer, but it also includes things like dispels and buffs. Just like a tank can provide control, but control can also come from CC spells and creating hazardous areas with AoE.

It's never been about making sure I check the healer, tank, dps boxes. It's more about "do I have adequate levels of support, control, and damage across my party?"

A healer/tank/dps party was actually one of the weakest in both DA games. Tanks lacked the strong aggro management needed to fully cover the "control" role, and the healer stole a slot that could have gone to a control-y mage, without providing much support beyond heals. I've done playthroughs with no healers, and I can assure you that it's not only possible, it's much easier than playing with healers. From a purely combat perspective, "healer" has never been a uniquely important role.

[Neverwinter_Knight77]

I want my healing back. They already nerfed it in DA2.

[Sidney]

My guess is that it has to do with your evident difficulty to appreciate healing and healers as a major mechanic in combat.  In DA:O, it is one of the three big cogs that make the machine roll. Healer of the party is a major role and an identity for you(or your companions) to pick.  It is a thing to do. Removal of healer as a role and an identity leaves a hole. Maybe they patch it with something equally deep and entertaining, maybe they won't.

 

There was Heal and Group Heal and those roles could be handled by potions. In fact, I never used any "healer" at all in DAO because it wasn't needed and wasn't a major mechanic at all. The fact that you have elevated to that role is a problem. Healers were 100% not needed in either game.

 

As for a role and identity at most your healer was a supporter and presumably did more than heal like buff and debuff and they can still support and fill that old timey role of "Cleric" just can't cast that Heal spell. I doubt that cripples their identitity.

[Wires_From_The_Wall]

The three big cogs are damage, control, and support. Support can be filled by a healer, but it also includes things like dispels and buffs. Just like a tank can provide control, but control can also come from CC spells and creating hazardous areas with AoE.

It's never been about making sure I check the healer, tank, dps boxes. It's more about "do I have adequate levels of support, control, and damage across my party?"
 

 

 Suddenly promoting " control" and " support" as some experience defining meta- classes that  you have always asked yourself questions about feels quite a bit like something you just decided to  believe in for purposes of this argument. 

 

Healer, tank, damage dealer.  It has made a quite well loved holy trinity in MMORPGs for a very long time for a reason. People enjoy these roles well enough. They play in very distinct way from one another and when picking one, you feel you have a very well defined turf of a responsibility. You can  have a specific identity.  From developers POV, it has always made an arrangement that gives a very nice toolkit for working out combat balance, designing fun and varied  boss encounters etc. In DA:O, it felt quite exciting and novel to suddenly be exposed to these things in single player game.

 

Does existence of this trinity mean you should be chained to it? Not at all. Single player  game can - perhaps it must - have alternatives. As you noted, in no way were you forced to embrace this set up in DA:O. You had endless alternatives with none of them being overly essential. Yet, I thought it felt very good to have healer - DPS- tank set up behind everything. Like a fail safe to fall back to, home to return if your wonky 4 x DPS test betrayed you! You could always rely  on most all things being balanced in fashion where party with tank,DPS,healer got pretty fair deal in terms of difficulty.  As a huge amount of small and large  scale encounters in various MMOs have proven over and over again, it is a great base for designing boss fights for groups. It is an environment where it is easy to provide group  variety.   

 

 

I've done playthroughs with no healers, and I can assure you that it's not only possible, it's much easier than playing with healers. From a purely combat perspective, "healer" has never been a uniquely important role.

 

 

I agree completely. Voices in this thread rejoicing removal of healers because " you had to pick them!" seem to have forgotten that you actually didn't, at all.  It is completely possible to do playthroughs  of DA:O without a healer, or reaver, or anything else. Hell, it is possible to finish the game solo on pommel stun warrior. There are various varyingly cheesy min-max builds that provide much easier playthrough than tank-healer-dps combo. It puzzles me if you use this as some sort of an argument against healer. It isn't about min maxing most effective group you can imagine and viewing everything else as something that needs either fixing or removal. To vast majority, single player- aligned RPGs aren't about providing some DOTA-esque hyper competitive environment where your only real option is the cheesiest one.

[The Baconer]

 Suddenly promoting " control" and " support" as some experience defining meta- classes that  you have always asked yourself questions about feels quite a bit like something you just decided to  believe in for purposes of this argument.

 

These are roles that existed before the holy trinity was even a thing.

 

 

Healer, tank, damage dealer.  It has made a quite well loved holy trinity in MMORPGs for a very long time for a reason. People enjoy these roles well enough. They play in very distinct way from one another and when picking one, you feel you have a very well defined turf of a responsibility. You can  have a specific identity.  From developers POV, it has always made an arrangement that gives a very nice toolkit for working out combat balance, designing fun and varied  boss encounters etc. In DA:O, it felt quite exciting and novel to suddenly be exposed to these things in single player game.

 

Does existence of this trinity mean you should be chained to it? Not at all. Single player  game can - perhaps it must - have alternatives. As you noted, in no way were you forced to embrace this set up in DA:O. You had endless alternatives with none of them being overly essential. Yet, I thought it felt very good to have healer - DPS- tank set up behind everything. Like a fail safe to fall back to, home to return if your wonky 4 x DPS test betrayed you! You could always rely  on most all things being balanced in fashion where party with tank,DPS,healer got pretty fair deal in terms of difficulty.  As a huge amount of small and large  scale encounters in various MMOs have proven over and over again, it is a great base for designing boss fights for groups. It is an environment where it is easy to provide group  variety.   

 

Um, the decision to keep designing games around the holy trinity is the very thing that lead to the oversimplified, "boring MMO crap" you were just harping on two pages ago. It's like the entire basis of your argument changed when people explained why the lack of a dedicated healing role did not actually imply a simplification of gameplay.

 

 

 To vast majority, single player- aligned RPGs aren't about providing some DOTA-esque hyper competitive environment where your only real option is the cheesiest one.

 

If more single-player RPGs took notes from DotA and P&P RPGs about character and role flexibility we'd finally be able to leave the holy trinity in the trash where it belongs.

[Wires_From_The_Wall]

Healers were 100% not needed in either game.

 

 

This applies to every single class in DA:O. It isn't an argument against healers in any way.

 

You have option to embrace the traditional, balanced Healer-Tank-DPS approach. You have the option to stay away from it.

[Wires_From_The_Wall]

These are roles that existed before the holy trinity was even a thing.

 

 

 

Could you provide  examples of this actually? I think we sink so deep in swamp of dawn of video games that there wasn't much of anything-mechanics, as far as group dynamics are  considered. All I can think of is Ultima Online type of a nobody-needs-anyone approach to combat. Working as a group meant "let's all cast flame strike at once to that dude!"

 

 

 

Um, the decision to keep designing games around the holy trinity is the very thing that lead to the oversimplified, "boring MMO crap" you were just harping on two pages ago. It's like the entire basis of your argument changed when people explained why the lack of a dedicated healing role did not actually imply a simplification of gameplay.

 

 

MMos have their own perfectly  understandable need to have all classes in some kind of a balance between one another. Single player games forgetting they don't need to approach it from same angle is what lead to the boring MMO crap. 

 

Discussion about spell design and what counts as a good spell was few pages back.  In MMos,  mage must be a class among others. Every spell must be in more or less perfect balance to things archers or warriors or rogues do. Single player - aligned  RPGs have forgotten they don't need to have spells or class balance chained by the inevitabilities of MMos.

 

Discussion about  group dynamics in general, adjusting difficulty and designing encounters and boss fights around the holy trinity is now. It is different to discussion about spell design. 

[Arvaarad]

PnP gamers have had this figured out for a long time, and CRPG players are just now starting to grok it. If you look to D&D 3.5e and Pathfinder guides to a balanced group, they will universally advise against bringing a dedicated healer, except for roleplaying purposes. The reason is explained quite eloquently in The Forge of Combat, which is a great writeup on what a balanced party looks like in Pathfinder and in RPGs in general. I particularly love the part comparing damage, control, and support to a hammer, anvil, and arm.

Anyway, as the Forge explains, leaving behind a healer isn't cheesing, it's just a more efficient use of resources. The longer combat drags on, the more finite resources the rest of the party must use. In DAs case, those resources are things like mana, stamina, and now focus. Rather than helping to secure victory, a dedicated healer promotes these long, resource draining encounters.

It's not a case of "healers happen to be suboptimal in DA". It's "healers are suboptimal, full stop". Mathematically, they can't be part of a balanced party unless it is physically impossible to complete encounters without them (e.g. 100% unavoidable damage that outstrips potion cooldowns). Since MMOs actually did this, CRPG players assume the holy trinity is gospel. But it was MMOs that introduced that notion, not the original, tabletop RPGs.

[The Baconer]

Could you provide  examples of this actually? I think we sink so deep in swamp of dawn of video games that there wasn't much of anything-mechanics, as far as group dynamics are  considered. All I can think of is Ultima Online type of a nobody-needs-anyone approach to combat. Working as a group meant "let's all cast flame strike at once to that dude!"

 

They originate from the original pen and papers to early CRPGs. To be a "support" caster is to essentially have a focus on spells of utility that specifically benefit the party (Ghost armor, enchantments, dispel, haste etc.). Healing spells comfortably fit under this umbrella, which is why I consider the prominence of healing as a dedicated role on its own to be an oversimplification. 

 

Controllers are also focused on utility, but with a more offensive implementation. Sleep, paralysis, curses, caster disruption, vanish etc. It's all about controlling the battlefield, from the enemy's ability to threaten your party, to the manipulation of positioning.

[Wires_From_The_Wall]

PnP gamers have had this figured out for a long time, and CRPG players are just now starting to grok it. If you look to D&D 3.5e and Pathfinder guides to a balanced group, they will universally advise against bringing a dedicated healer, except for roleplaying purposes. The reason is explained quite eloquently in The Forge of Combat, which is a great writeup on what a balanced party looks like in Pathfinder and in RPGs in general. I particularly love the part comparing damage, control, and support to a hammer, anvil, and arm.

 

 

Somehow it sounds dangerously  cold and hard to grind anything about combat mechanics and what makes combat fun into conclusion that  "Mathematically, they can't be part of a balanced party."  Imho combat, battles and action usually isn't  about formulas and numbers to players. it is about atmospheric impression of chaos, controlled or otherwise! (behind which there are all kinds of formulas and numbers, that developers of the game have worried about. ) It is as if you approached this entire question from an angle of a PnP DM designing an event. 

 

 

Are you sure it is a good idea to dismiss the significant differences in strengths,  weaknesses and in overall being  between a PnP and a modern video game? I have only ever  played few games of  PnP. I'm assuming I've done something wrong or played all the wrong PnP games, since "universal advice to bring dedicated healer, except for roleplaying purposes" sounds all kinds of wrong to me. Imho them "Roleplaying purposes" is the only freakin universal reason to bring anything to a PnP game, ever. ;p

 

In PnP, do correct me if I'm wrong here, part of the charm seems to be in keeping the engine running yourself. I have no doubt it is exciting and rewarding in it's own way. I'm also sure it ensures there is constant need to keep mechanics streamlined enough, or players just have too many rules and exceptions and  moving parts in hands to actually play the RPG.  In cRPGs, game&computer run  the engine on your behalf. Unless you wanna open the hood and start modding etc. Doesn't this allow allow healthy amount of increased complexity?  

 

 

Ultimately, action and combat in cRPGs has been simple as hell since forever. You listen to some  talking heads, go in dungeon, start killing people. Everything  that makes you forget that  action, combat and  most of exploration is mostly about killing a bad dude after another after another is a huge plus. When playing a healer in DA:O, at least I ended up feeling detachment to the killing. It was more about keeping those dumb knuckle heads alive. I thoroughly enjoyed this illusion being a healer provided.  I found it a great deal of fun to figure out good synergies between healing spells I use and kits the companions use. 

[In Exile]

They originate from the original pen and papers to early CRPGs. To be a "support" caster is to essentially have a focus on spells of utility that specifically benefit the party (Ghost armor, enchantments, dispel, haste etc.). Healing spells comfortably fit under this umbrella, which is why I consider the prominence of healing as a dedicated role on its own to be an oversimplification. 

 

Controllers are also focused on utility, but with a more offensive implementation. Sleep, paralysis, curses, caster disruption, vanish etc. It's all about controlling the battlefield, from the enemy's ability to threaten your party, to the manipulation of positioning.

 

If we're talking about D&D (since we're using D&D spell names) then healing wasn't actually a substantial portion of what a support class did, even at higher levels.