19 réponses à ce sujet

[Faustchen]

Overall I think the game is looking good - they clearly took in a lot of feedback and have been doing great stuff. Environments look great. Tac cam looks to be the best in any of the DA games. Lots of variety in aesthetics across the board (character creation, armor, Skyhold, etc etc).

 

However, then we come to ABILITIES - you know, the things that you use throughout the game, whenever you are in combat. The choices you make here define your play style, what you can DO in combat. Here, it looks like Bioware has massively REDUCED the number of options available.

 

Watching various videos it looks very much to me like we are looking at something like 4 basic ability trees per class. Maybe some of them get 5. Hopefully I'm just missing something but it seems pretty clear.

 

So for example DA2 Rogue gets:

 

Archery, dual weapon, sabotage, scoundrel, specialist, subterfuge, and then up to two additional specializations.

 

But DA:I Rogue only gets:

 

Double dagger, archery, sabotage, subterfuge and then one additional specialization

 

Personally I like that there is only one additional specialization allowed - having two specializations always seemed odd to me. But the general point is that we are going from 8 selectable ability groups to 5 selectable ability groups. This seems pretty odd to me given how on every other dimension Bioware was making an effort to INCREASE and not REDUCE choice.

 

Perhaps this is driven by the fact that you can only hotkey 8 abilities at any given time. There was (effectively) no limit in DA2.  At end of game my Hawk had 13 abilities hot keyed (not including potions/consumables etc). So here again a massive reduction in choice.

 

I'm not clear why Bioware chose to "streamline" ability mechanics so aggressively.  My best guess is that the 8 ability rule comes from aggressive consolization of the combat mechanics. When you are using a console controller running more than 8 abilities at once doesn't really make sense from an input perspective. So in this case PC just gets a port of that core constraint. And perhaps that's why we get the massive reduction in ability schools. If you can only bind 8 abilities - what are you going to do with all those extra schools?

 

In any case it's pretty disappointing. So much energy put into expanding options - while gutting core gameplay mechanic options. You know: the things that make a game a game.  

[Vox Draco]

I can of course only speak for myself but...I don't see the point of having many different abilities just for the sake of having many and giving the illusion of choice, when there is only so many actually useful abilities anyway...

 

DAO offered in fact quite less combinations possible and felt always very linear to me...while DA2 had lots of possibilites but .. well, I always ended up with the same stuff because the rest felt pretty useless to me...

 

Now everyone is different, I know. And I first have to play DAI for real before I will make a judgement whether the amount of abilities and stuff is too few to be fun, or sowell-balanced that I don't care...but saying its dissapointing just because the numbers are reduced? I will not judge this rash

[In Exile]

Overall I think the game is looking good - they clearly took in a lot of feedback and have been doing great stuff. Environments look great. Tac cam looks to be the best in any of the DA games. Lots of variety in aesthetics across the board (character creation, armor, Skyhold, etc etc).

 

However, then we come to ABILITIES - you know, the things that you use throughout the game, whenever you are in combat. The choices you make here define your play style, what you can DO in combat. Here, it looks like Bioware has massively REDUCED the number of options available.

 

Watching various videos it looks very much to me like we are looking at something like 4 basic ability trees per class. Maybe some of them get 5. Hopefully I'm just missing something but it seems pretty clear.

 

So for example DA2 Rogue gets:

 

Archery, dual weapon, sabotage, scoundrel, specialist, subterfuge, and then up to two additional specializations.

 

But DA:I Rogue only gets:

 

Double dagger, archery, sabotage, subterfuge and then one additional specialization

 

Personally I like that there is only one additional specialization allowed - having two specializations always seemed odd to me. But the general point is that we are going from 8 selectable ability groups to 5 selectable ability groups. This seems pretty odd to me given how on every other dimension Bioware was making an effort to INCREASE and not REDUCE choice.

 

Perhaps this is driven by the fact that you can only hotkey 8 abilities at any given time. There was (effectively) no limit in DA2.  At end of game my Hawk had 13 abilities hot keyed (not including potions/consumables etc). So here again a massive reduction in choice.

 

I'm not clear why Bioware chose to "streamline" ability mechanics so aggressively.  My best guess is that the 8 ability rule comes from aggressive consolization of the combat mechanics. When you are using a console controller running more than 8 abilities at once doesn't really make sense from an input perspective. So in this case PC just gets a port of that core constraint. And perhaps that's why we get the massive reduction in ability schools. If you can only bind 8 abilities - what are you going to do with all those extra schools?

 

In any case it's pretty disappointing. So much energy put into expanding options - while gutting core gameplay mechanic options. You know: the things that make a game a game.  

 

You're wrong about the console part. DA2 just use the ME1-3 style radial menu.The 8 ablities, if it's not just a bona fide design choice, probably has to do with MP. 

[Vapaa]

Overall I think the game is looking good - they clearly took in a lot of feedback and have been doing great stuff. Environments look great. Tac cam looks to be the best in any of the DA games. Lots of variety in aesthetics across the board (character creation, armor, Skyhold, etc etc).

 

However, then we come to ABILITIES - you know, the things that you use throughout the game, whenever you are in combat. The choices you make here define your play style, what you can DO in combat. Here, it looks like Bioware has massively REDUCED the number of options available.

 

Watching various videos it looks very much to me like we are looking at something like 4 basic ability trees per class. Maybe some of them get 5. Hopefully I'm just missing something but it seems pretty clear.

 

So for example DA2 Rogue gets:

 

Archery, dual weapon, sabotage, scoundrel, specialist, subterfuge, and then up to two additional specializations.

 

But DA:I Rogue only gets:

 

Double dagger, archery, sabotage, subterfuge and then one additional specialization

 

 

This is a very superficial and disingenuous view:

 

In DA2 Archery had 4 abilities, Dual weapon 5, Sabotage 4, Scoundrel 7, Specialist 4 and Subterfuge 5, for a total of 29 base rogue abilities.

Meanwhile in DAI Archery has 8 abilities, Double daggers 9, Sabotage 9 and Subterfuge 8 that's 34, which, FYI, is MORE than 29.

 

Not to mention that the DAI abilities look way better in DAI.

[Faustchen]

You're wrong about the console part. DA2 just use the ME1-3 style radial menu.The 8 ablities, if it's not just a bona fide design choice, probably has to do with MP. 

I think you are right. The console might be a source of the contraint in terms of number of abilities, but by itself it doesn't make sense as the driver. Multi-Player is a much more plausible source. MP might even explain the reduction in total number of abilities - as it has different balancing constraints.

 

I had heard some concerns that the MP would "Diabloize" the game a bit. Looks like that concern might have some teeth.

[rupok93]

To people saying its not because of consoles, just remember that the radial menu is now being used for potions, there is more potion variety in game. So it may well be they couldn't do that on consoles and allow more than 8 abilities.

[Townopolis]

This is a very superficial and disingenuous view:

 

In DA2 Archery had 4 abilities, Dual weapon 5, Sabotage 4, Scoundrel 7, Specialist 4 and Subterfuge 5, for a total of 29 base rogue abilities.

Meanwhile in DAI Archery has 8 abilities, Double daggers 9, Sabotage 9 and Subterfuge 8 that's 34, which, FYI, is MORE than 29.

 

Not to mention that the DAI abilities look way better in DAI.

If you count passives. If we only look at the abilities you can actively use:

 

DA2: Archery has 4, Dual Weapon 4, Sabotage 4, Scoundrel 4, Specialist 4, & Subterfuge 3. Total: 23

DAI: Archery has 4, Dual Weapon 5, Sabotage 5, Subterfuge 4. Total: 18

 

And, more importantly, each character is limited to 8 active abilities regardless of how many they may or may not have available in their trees.

[rupok93]

If you count passives. If we only look at the abilities you can actively use:

 

DA2: Archery has 4, Dual Weapon 4, Sabotage 4, Scoundrel 4, Specialist 4, & Subterfuge 3. Total: 23

DAI: Archery has 4, Dual Weapon 5, Sabotage 5, Subterfuge 4. Total: 18

 

And, more importantly, each character is limited to 8 active abilities regardless of how many they may or may not have available in their trees.

 

So are the passive skills totally gone? Or have they turned into "always active" passives?

[Townopolis]

DAI skill trees have more passive skills than DA2 trees and only a very few toggle abilities.

 

Does that answer your question?

[Faustchen]

This is a very superficial and disingenuous view:

 

In DA2 Archery had 4 abilities, Dual weapon 5, Sabotage 4, Scoundrel 7, Specialist 4 and Subterfuge 5, for a total of 29 base rogue abilities.

Meanwhile in DAI Archery has 8 abilities, Double daggers 9, Sabotage 9 and Subterfuge 8 that's 34, which, FYI, is MORE than 29.

 

Not to mention that the DAI abilities look way better in DAI.

I'm not sure the word disingenuous means what you think it means.

But I'll take superficial.

 

However you are "disengenously" (joking, I don't think you are being disengenous) leaving out the specializations - in DA2 you could chose from 2 specializations, each of which had 5 base abilities, but it looks like many of the DAI spec trees hover around 8 so in that case we get something like 39 vs 42 so DAI still wins by 3!

 

However to really get an apples to apples comparison we would need to compare total active to total passive abilities, particularly since the OTHER thing I'm trying to understand is why they are limiting the PC to 8 active abilities (maybe they aren't? It sure looks that way). But given that DA2 had plenty of passives I'm thinking that's probably a wash. Sounds like you have a better data source than I do, I haven't found any wikki's that cleanly list the DAI abilities, I've had to construct what I know from videos.

 

The irony is the if DAI has MORE active abilities (or close to the same number as DA2) then restriction on binds is even more irritating. 

[Faustchen]

If you count passives. If we only look at the abilities you can actively use:

 

DA2: Archery has 4, Dual Weapon 4, Sabotage 4, Scoundrel 4, Specialist 4, & Subterfuge 3. Total: 23

DAI: Archery has 4, Dual Weapon 5, Sabotage 5, Subterfuge 4. Total: 18

 

And, more importantly, each character is limited to 8 active abilities regardless of how many they may or may not have available in their trees.

Yes the 8 active ability is a core concern.

 

Where are you getting the information that allowed you to break down the DAI abilities into actives and passives? You guys must have found a better data source than me.

[rupok93]

DAI skill trees have more passive skills than DA2 trees and only a very few toggle abilities.

 

Does that answer your question?

That sucks.

[Townopolis]

Where are you getting the information that allowed you to break down the DAI abilities into actives and passives? You guys must have found a better data source than me.

 

There is also another video, somewhere, where a dev calls out a specific ability--one with a diamond shape--as a toggle; that is where I'm getting that circle-shaped abilities are strictly passives.

[Vapaa]

If you count passives. If we only look at the abilities you can actively use:

 

DA2: Archery has 4, Dual Weapon 4, Sabotage 4, Scoundrel 4, Specialist 4, & Subterfuge 3. Total: 23

DAI: Archery has 4, Dual Weapon 5, Sabotage 5, Subterfuge 4. Total: 18

 

And, more importantly, each character is limited to 8 active abilities regardless of how many they may or may not have available in their trees.

 

Why wouldn't you count passives ? Again, why this arbitrary selection just to prove your point ? Passives are usable abilities just like any others.

[rupok93]

Why wouldn't you count passives ? Again, why this arbitrary selection just to prove your point ? Passives are usable abilities just like any others.

Passives are stat bonuses disguised as abilities...

[Faustchen]

The very *definition* of a passive is that it is *not* useable. It is in fact *passive.* You can't bind it to a hot bar because it is a stat bonus, or a situational bonus.  They aren't irrelevant to combat, but they are irrelevant when it comes to the question of how many key binding one might want to have, because one only needs key bindings for abilities that one *activates.*

 

I think your point is still relevant generally. The fact that they reduced the number of talent trees but made the talent trees "deeper" is important. But it is also important to note that DAI is netting out with a slightly lower number of active abilities as well as a hard cap on key bindings (for PC). That means that in gameplay, at any given time, one will have FEWER abilities that one can activate in any given combat, once the game passes past a certain point, relative to DA2.

[Townopolis]

From a strategic, character-customization perspective, counting passives is valid. However, the concern is coming from a tactical, mid-combat perspective. While we may have more options for what to do when we level up, we have fewer options when it comes to manipulating the flow of combat in the moment, on which point Vox Draco's is the only valid counterargument offered so far.

[Vapaa]

Passives are stat bonuses disguised as abilities...

 

And ? That's just semantics, what matters is what you, as a player, have at your disposal.

 

And choosing passives is as much a tactical decision as choosing an active; the synergy between powers is important, and passives can help you get the better of your actives.

 

 

However you are "disengenously" (joking, I don't think you are being disengenous) leaving out the specializations - in DA2 you could chose from 2 specializations, each of which had 5 base abilities, but it looks like many of the DAI spec trees hover around 8 so in that case we get something like 39 vs 42 so DAI still wins by 3!

 

Well as you said, DAI also "wins" on that front.

 

It's a design decision that I like, instead of more but shallow trees, you have less but deeper ones.

 

 

From a strategic, character-customization perspective, counting passives is valid. However, the concern is coming from a tactical, mid-combat perspective. While we may have more options for what to do when we level up, we have fewer options when it comes to manipulating the flow of combat in the moment, on which point Vox Draco's is the only valid counterargument offered so far.

 

Or have you ?

 

I also was less than thrilled with the 8 abilities restrictions, but the hotbar wasn't the only limitation: mana and stamina keeps you from unleashing your hotbar at once, so the mana/stamiana regeneration rate here plays a key role, if it's been increased, you might cast more in a given time (speculation).

And the many passives also tie into the 8 ability limit: you'll want to pick passives and upgrades to not waste points on many unusable abilities.

 

And then there's the abilities themselves, I find them way more interesting this time around, things like Winter stillness which increase you mana regeneration when you stand still or Opportunity knocks which grants you stamina regeneration for companion's crits...

 

I've said in an another thread: gameplay is a lake fed by many rivers; you have abilities, mana/stamina regeneration, encounter design, party composition, level-design, ennemies, gear, etc...I don't think it's a good idea, or even time-worthy to start dismissing some elements of the known but still not tried game mechanics just for a numbers competition, we have to wait and see how well or badly the mechanics come into play.

[rprm1987]

Passives are stat bonuses disguised as abilities...

The guardian spirit passive enacts a barrier if health is low -: not a stat bonus.

[Saiphas85]

Passives are stat bonuses disguised as abilities...

This is infact false.  All abilties have stat bonuses on each one while passives can either alter the mechanics of abilities or set up interesting synergistic effects from multiple abilties leading to different play styles.