Sorry BW but I am not buying your reasoning. The point is, you took a choice away from the player. It's not a deal breaker from me getting the game as I'm more interested in the story but it's frustrating that a company that prides itself on "player choice" would take this away.
So you think they took it away just because they can?
... "the easiest fix". They LITERALLY set out to design the entire game to play and function with limited healing. There's nothing easy about something of that level.
Easiest fix as in how to deal with the OPness of healing. It's much easier to remove the most broken thing and work from scratch than it is to try to adjust other things in order to make the broken thing less broken.
Easiest fix as in how to deal with the OPness of healing. It's much easier to remove the most broken thing and work from scratch than it is to try to adjust other things in order to make the broken thing less broken.
So completely re balancing each combat encounter, creating new techniques to mitigate damage, reworking the armor/craft system to support the new damage mitigation system, and ensuring the level design supports the new method is easier than adjusting a few things to make healing less OP?
I disagree. They haven't Just removed the healing option, They completely charge the combat and encounter design as well, since the previous system and the current one are different.Easiest fix as in how to deal with the OPness of healing. It's much easier to remove the most broken thing and work from scratch than it is to try to adjust other things in order to make the broken thing less broken.
ME3 was the easiest ME game.....
For me that was ME 2. Remember the last fight in ME 3? Where you are fighting next to the missiles? That one was hard on highest difficulty.
The triumvirate of healer, tank, damage was conceived by D&D and the entire fantasy RPG hasn't moved away from it since. It worked then, but it has its problems, which Weekes outlined in a brilliant OP. Blizzard are having the exact same problem on a much larger scale, having to rely on ridiculous burst damage and raid gimmicks to keep fights challenging.
It'll take a while to get used to, but I really like what the combat team are doing here. I do share the concern of some that it may hinder exploration, but we'll see the proof in the metaphorical pudding.
So you think they took it away just because they can?
Why is irrelevant. A chunk of the potential player base want it and Bioware are not implementing it. If that chunk is a significant % of the customers, that is not good.
So you think they took it away just because they can?
I don't know. It's just frustrating that a choice was taken away because THEY felt I don't need it or should have it. Is every class just a different sort of dps style or what?
So completely re balancing each combat encounter, creating new techniques to mitigate damage, reworking the armor/craft system to support the new damage mitigation system, and ensuring the level design supports the new method is easier than adjusting a few things to make healing less OP?
I guess saying it was the easiest fix was a bit shortsighted, but if that was the case, they could've easily adjusted healing to make it less OP and made it a viable playstyle for those that want it instead of using resources on making such a controversial system.
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Barrier as a creation magic, I would rather not. I would rather "spirit" magic or maybe "rift"? If you can loot some potions here and there, that can solve some problems of this game make the hardest difficulties more accessible. The last point that may be possible is a better explaination on how the power works... and then the system of crafting including enchantment ( Who said Sondal?!!).
[...]
I was not talking about the gameplay-aspect, that is talent-tree classification, merely about some background-blurb that DA:I's Barrier-spell is supposed to be of the Creation-school. Quoth self:
I'm thinking it would help if this "Barrier"-spell were something explicitly classified as of the Creation-school. Add some snarky codex-entry that claims it's all the rage with Creation-magi due to it being "fired and forgot" in the middle of battle and it'd be sufficient justification on the lore front.
Would even make sense for that school in-sofar that it actually prevents wounds before they are dealt, saving the Creation-caster from performing mid-combat "surgery" as the developers apparently likened this to, a rather hard feat to do even out in the woods while not fighting. That BW can acknowledge that gameplay-changes of this nature do not make too much sense they showed as regards thermal clips in ME3, as I mentioned.
That aside, DA:I's Barrier seems to be different enough from DA2's spell of the same name anyhow, and BW merging certain elemental magicks and magic schools into one talent-tree wouldn't be an entirely new thing either, as we already saw this in DA2.
This way, Creation would still be present as an actual gameplay-ability not locked away from the early and mid-game and see more regular use. I may have personally preferred to still have dedicated medics available in the party in this game, but this would be somewhat serviceable.
Why is irrelevant. A chunk of the potential player base want it and Bioware are not implementing it. If that chunk is a significant % of the customers, that is not good.
While I'm one of the people who love healing, and I expect to miss it, I don't think that your argument is quite right. If Bioware just produced the same thing all the time, we'd rightly criticize them for a lack of innovation. Plus, they'd miss out on the experimentation that could allow them to find plenty of things that players don't yet know that they'd like, but might end up loving more than anything before.
While I'm one of the people who love healing, and I expect to miss it, I don't think that your argument is quite right. If Bioware just produced the same thing all the time, we'd rightly criticize them for a lack of innovation. Plus, they'd miss out on the experimentation that could allow them to find plenty of things that players don't yet know that they'd like, but might end up loving more than anything before.
There are plenty of ways to innovate and experiment with your game without cutting popular elements out of it.
The reasoning behind the lack of healing has already been explained:
A lot of people are picturing trying to play DAO/2 with no heals. Of course that wouldn't work, those games weren't balanced for that. But how well were they balanced with heals, really? I'm not a numbers guy, but I like a good fight. And here's what made it make sense for me.
There's a very simple reason why this is a good decision, and it's also why the balance in DAO/2 was all over the map. It's in the question "How many health points does a player have?" Because we need to know this before we can design an encounter and know how balanced it is.
So, how many HP? Well, we'd hope it starts with "somewhere between the minimum for a mage and the max for a warrior, varied based on party makeup." Okay, good place to start. That's a real number. We can build encounters that do somewhere within that range of total damage + effects.
Now add in healing. How many HP does the player have? "Somewhere between the minimum for a mage and the max for a warrior, plus somewhere between the minimum and maximum number of healing spells/potions and between the min/max of their mana/potions."
Okay, how much HP is that exactly? Since potions restore mana, and potions also restored HP, the actual number of potential HP was somewhere between the minimum for a mage and the total amount of gold you had available to spend on potions. And the later in the game it was, the more the top reached astronomical numbers. And so the greatest power the player had in previous games was not any one of their abilities, it was the ability to make the number of HP impossible to estimate.
And to counter effectively infinite HP, "balance" meant we needed to hit the player with far more potential damage than their characters could withstand, and do it all but instantly. In effect, replacing HP damage (unknown limits) with death/resurrection (known limits). Or we had to stop them from chaining potions, meaning more enemies that put them to sleep or confused them, or otherwise made the player not able to take action. Alpha strikes and crowd control, neither of which were tactics that were fun to face again and again, because they "balanced" by removing actions, by removing control.
Now in Inquisition, by reducing healing, by actually defining HP to a range that can have real numbers in it, we can better balance encounters. And no, players can't rely on chaining potions. So what do they get instead?
Abilities/gear/choices that actually have an effect on the battle that is greater than infinite health on your belt. And because your greatest ability isn't chugging potions, we need less effects that shut you down. You spend more time in control of your characters making more varied decisions to have a greater effect on the flow of the battle. You have regen from spells and potions and gear. You have effects you can craft that grant health on enemy deaths. You have damage mitigation through abilities and buffs and crafting. Limiting health and balancing enemies accordingly makes more tactical choices viable while keeping the challenge.
Does this make it more difficult? On Nightmare, Well, you asked for a challenge, and you'll have one that you can overcome in many more viable ways than previously possible.
But what about Easy? Well, last weekend, on Easy/Casual, starting the game with a mage and me not saying a word, my seven year old played for two hours that included many battles, including rifts and beating the crap out of a low level Pride demon. No party wipes. I covered his ears once.
I think you'll be fine.
There are plenty of ways to innovate and experiment with your game without cutting popular elements out of it.
And maybe, for all we know, this'll turn out to be one of them. It might end up pressing all the same "buttons" for lovers of healing as healing does. Personally, while I feel some trepidation, I'll wait and see.
The problem is that you need a way to actually feel like your characters are getting progressively weaker every time they fall and are revived, so that you don't reach the end of a dungeon just as healthy and happy as when you entered.
Neverwinter Nights and it's sequels made it so that many classes could only use spells a limited number of times per day. Eventually you had to rest or you just couldn't cast spells at all.
Dragon Age Origins had the injury system and DA2 had your health capped lower if you were revived.
Inquisitions lack of healing is just another of these. I don't see why people are so fussed about it. The entire game is designed and balanced around it, as the other games I listed were balanced around those mechanics.
The problem is that you need a way to actually feel like your characters are getting progressively weaker every time they fall and are revived, so that you don't reach the end of a dungeon just as healthy and happy as when you entered.
Neverwinter Nights and it's sequels made it so that many classes could only use spells a limited number of times per day. Eventually you had to rest or you just couldn't cast spells at all.
Dragon Age Origins had the injury system and DA2 had your health capped lower if you were revived.
Inquisitions lack of healing is just another of these. I don't see why people are so fussed about it. The entire game is designed and balanced around it, as the other games I listed were balanced around those mechanics.
Indeed. Let's not forget this.
And maybe, for all we know, this'll turn out to be one of them. It might end up pressing all the same "buttons" for lovers of healing as healing does. Personally, while I feel some trepidation, I'll wait and see.
I'm surprised to see such love for health regeneration now. It used to be hated, a "streamlining" concession to "cater to" "casuals" and "the shooter crowd" and "console kiddies". I'm sure DA4 will have health regeneration and we'll go full circle, with games pushing the nth iteration and gamers liking only what the n-1th iteration did.
Tbh I don't really care about the change cause my method of being OP like I wanted was to use broken builds on easy, I never needed healing. What bothers me about this is that we can't can't get all the Inquisition Perks, missing upgrades annoy me
Not sure what you mean. Does the stats on the character affect how the Inquisition can get "upgraded"?
Not sure if this was answered yet but from what I understand your Inqusition "Levels" with your "Power", almost like another character and you choose perks and most of the time you're choosing between multiple perks.
I never used healers anyways in DA:O or DA2 - I'm looking forward to this, I'm on the yay no healer team :PThanks for taking the time to write this, I'm really looking forward to the game.
I've played mitigation specced healers before, it's not a unique or innovative concept to me (My discipline priest in WoW and my Inquisitor in SW are both built around this tenet). But both have the 'oh sh*t back up button' of tossing in a heal at the same time to help with damage control. Doing mitigation without heals (and don't hold up a force ability you get later in game which is limited as once per combat as your 'oh ****' button after half the group is down as anything even close to 'healing') is like performing a high wire act without the net. Still possible to do, mind you, but far less forgiving and one slip and the 'oh ****' becomes 'party wiped'.
Sounds like what my battle tactic will be about "running around screaming like a little girl, while taking potshots at their knees and trying not to get clobbered".
At least my Hawke got to shoot the Arishok in the groin with "Assassinate". Hopefully I'll get some good screenies of battles in this game.
So not fun. I hope something like this is not in DA:I.
So not fun. I hope something like this is not in DA:I.
It's funny 'cause it's true... 
dragon age is not dragon age without health spells. like a healer in dragon age origins and dragon age 2 did they all die or just quit using health spells? I used to buy alot of potions in dragon age 2 just before a big battle because I would not have survived without the potions for example before the arishok battle I spent alot of money on potion that are 200 -300 and by the time the end of the mission I i was down to like 10 or 20 and trying to conserve as much as I can the same for me with the high dragon in dragon age 2 and the templar and mage war as well. this was on easy. I would be very disappointed in the next dragon age game if we don't have healing spells and we don't have a unlimited healing potions that we can carry. I think we should have made the healing potions more expensive to discourage us from carry alot of healing potions plus does potions cost in game money. if the potions cost in game money then what if the we don't have that kind of money before when we see a potion table sitting before the big fight. I think it is very unorthodox to take out healing spells in the game which is part of the dragon age universe. I was planing on being a healing mage as well in this game. please bioware before you take something out like this please ask me about it first meaning dragon age fans. I still love you bioware and love your games and will still buy from you but please include healing spells in the next dragon age game. I mean this post in the most respectively way I can bioware.
It's funny 'cause it's true...
Absolutely. Complete with dog biting him on the butt!
There are plenty of ways to innovate and experiment with your game without cutting popular elements out of it.
Name three.
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