172 réponses à ce sujet

[Rawgrim]

Fang dangers appear to do piercing damage, like an ice pick.

 

An ice pick would be even more effective on something not covered in a layer of ice.

 

Or are you saying that "ice pick" effect actually shatters the spell by breaking all the ice ?

[Allan Schumacher]

Just a slight nitpicking: Shouldn't a target frozen in ice take less damage from a dagger than if not frozen? The target is protected by layers of ice, after all.

 

Because Twin Fangs has a combo ability against targets that are incapacitated and Winter's Grasp is one of the abilities that applies a condition that satisfies this.

[tntfists]

In SWOTOR you have heroics and some high lvl areas tucked into your normal area that you can explore at your own risk, would you say it's kind of set up like Allan? 

If it is, I can say that in that BW game you only have X amount of healing (unless you go bananas and have a jillion credits) and you have to scout ahead to make sure you are where you should be or if you mess up, you just run for it Benny Hill style and hope everyone survives. Which is kind of fun because you get good at running to places that are clear of foes so you can sneak back and res without starting the whole Benny over again. 

 

Anyway, adds tension and ends up being fun.  

 

Here's a still of what the jist of it is with the song in case y'all don't know it: 

[Rawgrim]

Because Twin Fangs has a combo ability against targets that are incapacitated and Winter's Grasp is one of the abilities that applies a condition that satisfies this.

 

Fair enough. That bit makes sense too. Just thought it was abit odd that it was really effective against someone inside a block of ice. I am sure you agree.

[Allan Schumacher]

Fair enough. That bit makes sense too. Just thought it was abit odd that it was really effective against someone inside a block of ice. I am sure you agree.

 

It would depend on what the freezing mechanic is doing because stuff can get brittle after being flash frozen.

 

But in reality it's a person frozen in a block of ice that somehow is able to survive that anyways.  So... magic.

[Rawgrim]

It would depend on what the freezing mechanic is doing because stuff can get brittle after being flash frozen.

 

But in reality it's a person frozen in a block of ice that somehow is able to survive that anyways.  So... magic.

 

 

Fair enough. It actually does get brittle, given that it breaks when the spell wears off.

 

Indeed. Its important to keep a cool head if you want to survive magic.

[leaguer of one]

No I haven't. I haven't played Balder's gate either.

Here's a quick expiration. Modern rpg are about sponge health. You soak up damage and you absorb health back with support and so an so. Old rpgs dealt with health differently. It was all about pre planning and prevention. Do this is not difficult. In bulders gate it was about making sure you got the least damage as you possibly can with barriers, spell effects, summons, and cc magic. Healing in any form is based on emergencies This is just there to make you plan ahead instead of blindly charging in and depending on tank and spank.

[wcholcombe]

I like the limited health. It reminds me of when Final Fantasy I first came out and hitting the marsh cave with your like 4 total healing spells you could cast and nothing but some antidote potions between you and 3 levels of random encounters in which every enemy poisoned.

It gave thought and difficulty to the game, and to this day is still one of my favorite accomplishments in a FF game.

DAI is different, but it ups the suspense and the thought involved in playing the game. 2 pots left and everyone is at around 50% health, do I push on for that camp just over the next hill, or do I run back home.

Healing made both DAO and DA2 way to easy. Even on nightmare there wasn't a lot of suspense. Whoa barely survived that fight, but now I all healed so no prob.

Their other option would have been some dynamic of limiting number of times you cast a spell without returning to camp, which would not have worked ad well.

Also on the potions/grenades you can make, as one of them said, if you choose to have them, you are giving up the offensive options of fire grenades or jars of bees. So its a tactical trade off.

[finc.loki]

I think the main point people are missing here is, that these new gameplay mechanics don't make the game harder at all. The problem is that it makes the game outright impractical. Because let's see it like this:

 

I have limited health potions and non regenerative health. That means that if I make some mistake in an battle I will be left with little to no health potions and an critically injured party, and then, the only thing I can do is fast travel back to an camp to restock and heal. However, if health potions were an loot item and health regenerated after battle, rather then completely wasting my time going back to an camp to recover, I could be right now continuing my quest without interruption. This is what this new mechanic is: an waste of time. Now I will have to waste one or two hours of gameplay just backtracking because the silly gameplay is holding me back.

THANK YOU!!!!

 

This is exactly what I mean. I am sorry Alan if I sounded "snarky" earlier. But this person explains it better. It is not about making the game easy. I know I can fight my way through the game, I am not a bad player, but it is the nuisance factor I worry about. Just like what was described above.

 

When playing DAO or DA2 I many times had fights where 2 of my party members died and I pulled through, that was exhilarating, fun and challenging. But when I did manage to win the fight I could heal up my party to full health via spells, potions or even regeneration (don't know if that actually existed or not, long time since I played).

 

I like to progress through the game, feel challenged IN combat, but then be able to push through and feel I can go into each fight without being crippled.

Mitigating damage is just masking your already damaged party. It last for 5 seconds then your party is "exposed" again with perhaps 2 potions and 4 is needed. I can't even heal them outside of combat.

 

It is just impractical and big risk of feeling annoying.

 

This is constructive criticism, but perhaps that is not OK here, we all should just accept what we see at face value and Bioware cannot make mistakes (DA2, ME3 anyone)...

 

Everything I've seen so far looks awesome, even the combat, I am talking about a specific game mechanic I think could pose a problem. Sure you wanted something new and different. Cool, that doesn't mean it will always work or even be a good idea. Sometimes people/developers get so stuck on an idea they do it without realizing consequences.

 

I might stand corrected once the game is released. I do have to question why Bioware can't just go through and explain it properly.

 

Also, I do not buy this excuse that "Laidlaw was talking". So, it was an insignificant fight, he made ONE mistake in the first one and paid for it with 70% health and a potion. Which is fine if you know that after the battle you can get back to full health. As I said, I am not looking to coast through the game and it's battles. That said,

do Bioware and the forumites expect that the casual crowd or most gamers will be pro's at this game?

 

Then in the second fight he was talking during a PAUSED game. He laid out a careful plan where Cassandra should be, where the ranged guys should be. How he would sneak and backstab the enemies behind the Templar (shielded one). He placed Caltrops. Use Cassandra to "challenge" (taunt), the Templar. BOOM immediately he got health damage because he was positioned wrong when unpaused. Also a tiny mistake. He did use abilities etc, Paused several times more. Yet his party ended up with 2-3 less potions.

 

Are we suppose to be MASTERS at the game in "normal" game mode?

 

I am not snarky this time and I think I bring forth valid, how should I put it concerns. I do not want an easy game. I want challenge in combat but it is NOT a smart game mechanic to rely on going back to a camp to replenish potions. It just isn't no matter what game it is.

 

Why is it wrong to just make it so that you have a timer on potion use IN combat. Then the ability to use them as you please OUTSIDE of combat, meaning not limited. It would still be a challenge, it would just remove the nuisance. In fact it could even be harder.

Imagine only being able to use (on timer) one potion every 1 min for each party member. That requires timing and strategy when to use them or not in a fight. I feel this is an artificial added difficulty, a needless one and rather cheap to be honest.

 

The challenge should be IN combat, not outside combat running around with a crippled team. How it that any fun? I just don't get it.

 

Once again I feel the need to reiterate I am looking forward to the game and I love everything else I've seen. Does that mean I need to be a sycophant and not voice valid concerns? 

[wcholcombe]

Because they want part of the difficulty to be the cumulative battles, the journey is a struggle not just a series of disconnected fights.

[finc.loki]

 

When party health is low, stop engaging everything you see until you have located new camp and restocked.


Also, if you haven't discovered a new camp in two hours of gameplay I'd suggest stop walking around in circles. 

You're joking, right.

 

You just described exactly what he said WOULD be impractical. I.E, the running back to camp to restock if health is low. That is the STUPID part.

You want to PROGRESS through a game, not run back to restock.

Also not "engaging everything you see". Well that is also really fun, "play this game and avoid playing it". Yes that is some excellent logic at work.

 

Your last sentence, would suggest a fault in game design. You can NEVER lay the blame on the player. Not as a developer (which they haven't, you did).

[finc.loki]

Also, if I got this right,  a health pot get you from 1% to 100% health. So instead of using the pots at 50% when you are out of battle, you could attack another enemy and then heal with the pot.

Sure and run the risk of a hard hitting enemy and now your party member is dead. It is just so wrong on infinite levels to have a crippled party entering combat. 

[Rawgrim]

The more you engage the more your mage can use Focus to heal your party, it seems. You kill stuff, or rather the party kills stuff, and this gives your mage the ability to heal via focus. So fighting is probably something we need to do alot.

[Nohvarr]

You're joking, right.

 

You just described exactly what he said WOULD be impractical. I.E, the running back to camp to restock if health is low. That is the STUPID part.

You want to PROGRESS through a game, not run back to restock.

Also not "engaging everything you see". Well that is also really fun, "play this game and avoid playing it". Yes that is some excellent logic at work.

 

Your last sentence, would suggest a fault in game design. You can NEVER lay the blame on the player. Not as a developer (which they haven't, you did).

 

As we have shown and announced more of the gameplay features in Inquisition, some of our fans have voiced concerns about one feature in particular: the removal of healing spells from the game. Luke Kristjanson gave an excellent explanation of our designers' reasons for making this change, but because folks are still concerned, I asked if it would be helpful to give my perspective as someone who is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a hardcore tactical expert. Someone who is, many people would say, DIFFERENTLY COMPETENT in his play style. Someone who heard the initial plan to remove healing magic and went, "What, no, I need that for my healths and stuff, why are you doing this?"

My (Lack of) Qualifications

I played Dragon Age: Origins on Normal and considered dropping it to Easy on several occasions. I played Dragon Age II on Normal and could not beat the High Dragon in Act 3 because Isabela, Merrill, Aveline, and Double-Daggers Hawke is possibly not an optimized combat build. I also ended up saying, "Wow, dude, no," to single combat with the Arishok and had Aveline tank him while I ran around stabbing people in the kidneys. In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the only way I beat Darth Malak was to pop stealth and drop a bunch of traps between me and him and then get him to run through them.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, I tend to swashbuckle in real time without pausing except to use items. I only go into the Tactical Camera mode to closely manage fights after I've died at least twice, and even then, it's something that I turn on, make a few commands, and then turn off. I am by no means a tactical expert.

I've completed two playthroughs of Dragon Age: Inquisition on Normal, and I'm now working through a playthrough on Hard. Here were my concerns, and here is what I've found and how I've handled things.

Concern: I will be chugging health potions all the time!

Result: Nope. In what we call a "popcorn fight" (a small fight that is not meant to really threaten the party), I rarely have to use a potion at all. After a normal-level fight against wandering creatures (a single large enemy or a group of normal enemies around my level), I usually use one or two potions (total, not per person). During a particularly difficult plot-related fight (which will usually give me a chance to rest afterward), I might use one or two during the fight and then one or two after the fight, for a total of three or four.

Now, to be fair, I found initially that I WAS taking significant hits and drinking a lot of potions—in earlier areas, fortunately, where the game is forgiving about letting you heal up. Within a few hours, though, I had gotten to the relatively low level of potion use I described above. Here's how:

Barrier: If you have a mage in your party, and you SHOULD have a mage in your party, this single spell covers you a lot of the time. I've seen people say that it makes you immune to damage for a short time, which isn't really accurate. Instead, think of it as giving you an additional health bar that the enemy has to take out before they can actually damage your normal health. (For Mass Effect players, think of shields or biotic barriers; for d20 tabletop players, temporary hit points.) Barrier costs little mana and covers a reasonable area. Cast it at the start of the fight, and everyone on your front line has an additional health bar to soak damage.

Guard: Guard is similar to Barrier in its function: an additional health bar the enemy has to take down before they can damage your character's normal health. The key difference is that you gain guard from any of several different warrior abilities, not from a spell. You almost always only give guard to yourself, and you get less guard from each ability than you get from the Barrier spell, but there are several abilities that give you guard, and they stack.

Here's how most fights go for me:

• Cast Barrier on the party (or at least on the frontline combatants)
• My party tank (currently Cassandra) uses one of her abilities that generate guard for her
  • Yes, guard and barriers stack—enemies have to break Cassandra's barrier AND guard before they damage her health
• When Cassandra's barrier gets broken, have her use another ability, so that her guard goes up even further
• If enemies are still up and dangerous and everyone's barriers are dropping, I make a snap decision about whether I want to turtle up (have folks use defensive moves to withdraw) or power through (keep hitting, with the expectation that I'm using potions later)

The rhythm is definitely different from "use healing spells during the fight," but I personally like it. Rather than forcing a grind, it rewards planning, where "planning" can be as simple as "use the ability that gives everyone something like shields, and the other ability that gives your warrior something ELSE like shields that stacks with the first thing." And with tactics set for party members to use their abilities normally, "planning" on easy fights looks a lot like, "Have a mage with Barrier in the party, and he or she will slap that bad boy on you as soon as you see the enemy. Just let Cassandra do her thing. That lady is like DA:O Alistair. She just. Does not. Die."

Concern: At high levels, those abilities won't be enough.

Result: True! At higher levels, you start running into enemies who clobber your Barrier and smash through your guard. Fortunately, much like our sister studio PopCap giving you the Wall-nut around the same time as it starts hitting you with the zombies who have the traffic cones on their heads, Dragon Age: Inquisition gives you a number of additional tools to use as you become more experienced and more comfortable with the game.

So, at a certain point in the game, you will realize that you're getting knocked around in fights, and your healing IS coming up short. That's the game pushing you to develop some new strategies to improve your healing ability and decrease your damage taken. Fortunately, when that moment hits, you should already have some of the tools to develop those strategies in your inventory, assuming that you are kind of a pack rat like me and pick up every piece of elfroot you run across.

Here are some of the strategies I picked up while playing:

More Potions: If, like me, you are worried about running out of potions, you can use the Inquisition's influence to gain an upgrade to your potion supply. This is a choice on your part, and that choice may not be as easy as you think (prepare for me to say that a lot as we go down this list). The perks you gain from leveling up the Inquisition are good, and if you spend that point on more potions, that's one less point you have to spend on perks like rare weapon and armor schematics, getting bonus XP from every creature you kill, or gaining unique dialogue options you won't otherwise have access to. I passed up this perk on the first playthrough and took it on the second playthrough. If I played Normal again, I wouldn't bother taking it, because after two full playthroughs, I'm pretty good at Normal, but I definitely took it when I started playing on Hard.

Items: Using the crafting system, you can craft weapons and weapon upgrades that actually heal you for a small percentage of your health every time you kill an enemy. If you find the right rare masterwork crafting materials, you can even build armor that generates guard every time you hit an enemy. These are also choices on your part. The slot you use for a sword hilt that heals you for killing enemies is a slot you could have spent building up fire resistance or a chance to stagger enemies who hit you, and if you choose the masterwork crafting material that gives you guard, you're passing up the chance for your armor to do something else, and some of those something-elses are FANTASTIC. For me, though, gaining guard easily and automatically was an easy choice for my frontline folks.

Ability Improvements: If you rely heavily on Barrier, there are upgrades that improve its power, shorten its cooldown time, stun nearby enemies when your barrier drops, or even strengthen your barrier when you damage enemies. Warriors have similar options for reducing incoming damage and increasing their guard generation. Again, these are choices and options. Sinking that many points into improving your barriers means that you haven't as deeply developed your ability to throw lightning or fire as you might have otherwise. In my first playthrough, I relied more on items than Barrier, letting Solas focus more on crowd control. On my second playthrough, I had two mages in my main party. My mage Inquisitor focused on offense, while Dorian became our Barrier expert (and still packed a heck of a punch with his helpful Wall of Fire).

Resurgence: This is our healing spell for the game that doesn't have healing spells. Resurgence is a focus spell, which means you get it a bit later in the game, and it's not something you can expect to use in every fight. That said, it heals the party, revives fallen party members, and continues to heal them for several seconds. It's a great spell to turn the corner on a difficult fight, but like all these other options, it's a choice. Honestly, because I hit items and Barrier upgrades so heavily, I ended up not using Resurgence. Focus is a precious resource, and I liked using it for "And now I do a ton of damage" effects rather than for healing. That said, my play style does lean toward "overplan, overequip, and then swashbuckle", so your mileage may vary.

You will note that I said "choice" a lot up there. You have a wide variety of options for how to not die. As a guideline I am making up while sitting on my couch with less than ten seconds of thought, assume that if you are playing on Normal difficulty, you will be fine if you focus on two of these general options (Easy probably only needs one, Hard might need three, and Nightmare, man, I don't even know). Have you chosen a couple of talents that upgrade your guard and barriers and taken the perk to upgrade your potions? You're going to be fine. Don't want to spend that perk for more potions? Maybe consider crafting or buying a weapon that heals you when you kill stuff with it.

Do that, and you will still use potions here and there, but you don't need to worry about running out every five minutes.

Concern: I still only have a limited number of potions, though. What if I run out halfway through a big dungeon?

Result: You won't, unless you ignore every possible warning and deliberately try to do this to yourself.

Difficulty Telegraphing: First, our major missions give pointers about what level you might want to be before starting, so if you're level 12 and see something that says, "Intended for Level 16-19," well, that's probably not the best major mission to dive into right now. Even dungeons that don't formally tell you the difficulty beforehand are going to hit you with fights early that give you a sense of how hard it's going to be. If the first fight nearly kills the party and burns through half your potions, you'll want to come back in a few levels. Enemies that are much higher-level than you are have little skulls next to their names. I learned that one the hard way.

Restocking Options: Most large dungeons and missions give you the chance to replenish your potions before particularly difficult fights. If you're going through a dungeon and you see a potion-restock table sitting beside an imposing door covered with ancient runes, this is our friendly level designers saying, "We love you, players. Have some more potions. Also, maybe consider saving your game here."

As I said, I almost never ran out of potions. When I did, it was because I had tried to push through a dungeon that I knew early on I wasn't ready for yet, and even then, I was able to limp bloodily through the last fights. I never EVER hit a dungeon that was too hard for me to complete that did not give me the option to retreat... and the way that dungeons were set up, I have not once gotten halfway or more through a dungeon and then had to retreat to restock my potions. Either I realized right away that I was in over my head, or I powered through and finished.

Finally, even if I DID end up in a fight I could not retreat from with no potions left, I would have the option to lower the difficulty.

Concern: I will have to go back to camps in the wilderness all the time.

Result: Yes and no. Yes, because I do return to camps a lot. No, because returning to camp did not end up bothering me. The camp system is a tool, not a punishment.

Camps are good for all kinds of reasons. You return to full health, and your healing potions instantly restock, yes, but the biggest benefit I've found to claiming camps is that they serve as fast-travel points for our large wilderness areas. I quickly learned that when I entered a new wilderness area, the first thing to do was look at where all the possible camp spots were on the map. Assuming that I was not trying to sneak through a level that was clearly meant for higher-level characters (which I MAY have done because I heard there was great loot to be had if you didn't get horribly mangled, and yes, I make terrible decisions sometimes), I ended up hitting wilderness areas the following way:

• Mark the nearest camp on my map
• Fight my way to that camp, closing Fade rifts or handling quests only if they were mostly on my way
• Reach the new camp, claim it, and instantly heal and restock all my potions
• Wander out from the new camp site to tackle quests I found in the area, returning as needed
• As soon as I get the slightest bit bored, go find a new camp site or fast-travel back to an old one with some stuff I missed near it

Our level designers did a wonderful job of spacing the camps out so that there's a lot of content around each of them, but not making it too hard to fight your way from one to another. In some areas, I used them more for fast-travel than I did for healing. "Oh, I'm supposed to find an ancient ruin over to the southwest? Okay, there it is on my map, and the nearest camp is... great, a short jog away. Off we go!"

Concern: Even with that, I'm worried I won't be able to play the game.

Result: Totally fair. Removing easy mid-fight healing in DA:I does change the dynamic of combat a bit, in much the same way that Mass Effect 3's "shields and barriers regenerate fully, health only fills up to the next line segment unless you use medi-gel" system changed the dynamic from Mass Effect 2's "I can get almost killed and will be back at full health a few seconds later." On Mass Effect, the combat folks wanted to encourage a little more planning and a little less "just wing it, you'll be fine in a second anyway" because making fights challenging when you can easily return to full health an unlimited number of times is brutally hard and results in a lot of un-fun "This enemy one-shots anyone it hits, haha, where is your healing now?!" I was initially worried about Shepard's health not fully regenerating in ME3, but the result was combat that was a lot fairer and a lot more fun.

The Dragon Age combat folks have the same goal of changing the dynamic of combat to reward planning and create fights that are challenging without being automatic death sentences for anyone who doesn't have just the right build. They didn't do this casually, and they didn't just strip out the healing spells and changing nothing else. They added guard, Barrier, and other items and abilities to encourage and reward pre-combat planning and mid-combat reaction.

I only vaguely understand how all these checks and balances work, because I mainly just write dirty jokes and song lyrics with occasional moments of pathos, but after two playthroughs and part of a third, I believe that they hit that goal admirably. When I come to a low-level area as a high-level character, I rarely if ever need to break out the healing potions. When I'm in an area meant for people around my level, I enjoy exploring the area, and I have never felt tied to the camps for my potions.

Counter-Concern: So you're saying it's super-easy, then?

Result: Hahahaha, no. Well, okay, it depends on what difficulty you're using. As Luke said, his seven-year-old son beat the prologue on Easy, so yes, if you're on Easy, I think you OUGHT to be all right. Most players will have a good time on Normal, hitting that sweet spot where they are pushed to improve their strategy without being frustrated by the punishment the game dishes out. I still feel happily challenged by Hard difficulty, though, and for Nightmare, you will want someone more like Sylvia "Man, I wish there were more dragons in the world, you see, I killed all of them already" Feketekuty.

I presented all of the things I've picked up above as though it is magical information transmitted into my brain and executed with no challenges at all. I have, even on Normal, seen the You Died screen more than a few times. Sometimes, it was because I thought I could sneak into an area that was out of my weight class. Sometimes, it was because I was trying to hurry and didn't do the upgrades that I normally rely upon to clobber enemies without having to manage my tactics carefully. And sometimes, it was the game trying to teach me that wow, I need to learn how to mitigate damage from ranged attackers and, until I did, any fight with archers was going to be brutally punishing. So I died, and then I learned, and then I took revenge (and then I took their banners and used them to decorate my throne room).

For those of you who were concerned about the changes to how health and healing work, I hope this was reassuring.

 

Thanks to Cameron Harris for making sure that my words made sense.
 

[EdwinLi]

Ya Warriors will need to keep up their tank role in this game by keeping up their Guard Bar through taunt, block/parry, and other Guard building skills. Guard will serve as Warriors 2nd HP Bar that they can recharge through certain skills and combine that with Shields will make them a mobile fortress,

[Altima Darkspells]

Keep in mind, also, that we now have limited slots for our abilities.

So taking barrier will result in at least a 1/8th drop in your offensive potential, maybe more depending on how much synergy there is.

My concern with this is that we'll see heavy investment in a tree--perhaps even all the way to the end--for only one skill.

Though keep in mind that DAI is moving toward DA2's exaggerated damage over DAO's more balanced system. As in, the party in DAI will have low HP but extremely high HP relative to enemies. And now remember that vampiric weapons are a thing (unless that's been removed from crafting). A handful of HP every time a character attacks is not something to sneeze at. I wonder if weapon effects will not apply to skills in combat as well.

Anyway, back on topic:

All the videos we've seen are of either really old builds, or where the party was built pretty squishy (two rogues, possibly underleveled, under-utilization of tanky Cassandra), so of course Barrier looks super important as mitigation.

But, honestly, most encounters we've seen, the party outnumbers the enemies greatly. It's only really on bosses that we see the party throwing out all the stops that we can possibly see the full design of the system.

[Rawgrim]

How many different barriers are there? One? Five? Thinking there might be different barriers for fire damage and physical damage and so on.

[finc.loki]

Alright - here I go "again":

-8 Health Potions

-Regeneration Potions (upwards to 6 per character as per video - the character screen shows Inquisitor having 6 regen. but Cole had something else in that slot) - that's potentially 24 Regen. potions.

- Focus GROUP Heal Spell

- Revive Spell

- Healing Grenades

- Revive Grenade

- +Health on Hit mod for items.

- Amulets that provide a one shot Health Restore (shown in videos)

- Manual Revive

- Barrier (making healing unnecessary)

- Guard (making healing unnecessary) 

- Guardian Spirit for mage (making healing unnecessary)

- Reaver gets a self-heal.

 

- And likely more we don't know about.

 

Honestly - it seems like pre-schoolers would be able to heal fine in this game.  People throwing out these grand hyperbolic statements are so boorish and alarmist.  

Well that sounds more promising. The problem is they haven't been telling us this in a straightforward manner. I get this from YOU a forumite. Why not just make a sticky on the forum explaining things that concern players if they see it arise.

 

I feel better seeing that there are many other options. All I knew before this was 8 limited potions and run back to camp all the time. A nuisance.

This would alleviate it.

[finc.loki]

So my quasi-experiment today.

 

My constraints:

• Only control the Inquisitor
• Do not use tactical camera
• Do not change from starting equipment
• Level up my characters if they leveled
• Also be a Dual Wield Rogue
• Be aggressive and look to instigate combat by jumping in with my rogue
• Do not intentionally use skill combos (Twin Fangs, for instance, does extra damage to a target frozen by Winter's Grasp)
• Try to leverage flanking by attacking targets from their rear.  This would let my attacks do more damage, and also allows for some bonus effects to happen with Twin Fangs.

 

This was probably about 40 minutes of play time.

 

In the area where Mike/Mark had their first fight (Caltrops) I ran around and got into 8 fights.  Most fights had 3 hostiles (I think 1 had 4).  I used two potions during this time.  The potions were used on myself and knowing more about the game (i.e. things I have learned by simply playing the game) here's how I could have avoided them:

• The first potion I was too aggressive and ended up surrounded by magical wards which actually did quite a number on me.  These wards are casted by spellcasters and have markings on the ground.  I could have assessed the situation better and been more careful to not end up in them.
• The second potion was because I had engaged a tougher enemy while Cassandra was tripped up on a nearby guardsman (the shield guys).  The guardsman kept Cassandra busy and left me to solo a character.  I could have remedied this by changing my target to help burn the guardsman, or using radial target control to quickly tell my entire party to attack my current target.

 

My 9th fight was the one that Mike and Mark did with the tactical camera.  I used one potion here because those archers made me a pin cushion while we all beat up the first guardsman.  I could have better focus fired the archers and leveraged stealth to help me avoid taking damage from them.  If a guardsman is pulling your attention while archers shoot you in the back (I also shouldn't have exposed my back), then you're effectively being tanked

 

 

Fights 10-13 were related to a quest that isn't too far from the 2nd fight Mike and Mark did.  I used 4 potions here.  Cass and Varric both used one, and I used two for my Inquisitor.  The biggest thing I could have done here is focus fire.  I made a huge mistake in fight 12 by effectively swapping targets by mistake, and having aggro on two characters.  I should have looked to kite/disengage more at that point, and have the team focus fire and Cass taunt.  But I did get through it, completed a quest and gained Inquisition power and found a very powerful sword (though I didn't equip it).

 

Fight 14 was against a group of animals.  Used my last potion here (Varric took a heavy hit).  At this point I was, right beside a new camp location which unlocks a new fast travel point for me and replenishes my potions in the process.  So I actually never "returned to camp" since I just found a new camp.

 

 

Now, it is important to note that I'm not new to the game.  So even if I try to play ultra aggressive or even "as a new player" I'm still going to likely have implicit actions that I don't even realize I'm doing.  I'm not really a good judge of my own "mad gamer skills" but it's also possible I am someone that tends to do well with this type of combat anyways.  At the same time, I have also improved my ability to play the game which (at least for me) is a rewarding aspect of the combat.

I like to thank you for taking the time to explain it. Sounds pretty good. Don't know if I am as good as you though.

 

After reading that later on you have other means of healing that just the limited 8 potions that did alleviate my stress somewhat. Still will see if it will end up as a "run back to camp" in the beginning of the game.

[Falrach]

So rogues still draw lots of aggro if they rush in and use big abilities? I only really noticed this on my latest playthrough of DA ][, where I basically start every fight with Vendetta+Assassinate+Twin Fangs, but everyone piles on the rogue and ignores the warrior(s). Does this still happen? I don't really have an opinion on it, just curious.

 

in this last twitch stream there was a Ability improvment to see -100%threat if attacking from behind hope you enjoy that 

[finc.loki]

The more you engage the more your mage can use Focus to heal your party, it seems. You kill stuff, or rather the party kills stuff, and this gives your mage the ability to heal via focus. So fighting is probably something we need to do alot.

Is this heal spell based on focus an additional spell or does it need to take up one of the 8 abilities on the "hotkey bar"? It seems very situational since it need to build focus, a mechanic I am not well versed in.

[Rawgrim]

Is this heal spell based on focus an additional spell or does it need to take up one of the 8 abilities on the "hotkey bar"? It seems very situational since it need to build focus, a mechanic I am not well versed in.

 

Not sure if it takes up a slot. But basically your party fights and kills stuff. This builds the focus gauge, and your mage can use the heal focus ability. So you mage basically needs Cassandra to kills stuff, and when she does, your mage can heal. Strangest ability I have ever heard of. Zero logic involved.

[The Elder King]

The Focus spell takes one of the eight slots, but it seems It Can be used more then We thought, since if has three tiers that will likely be related to the aumont of focus you possess.