77 réponses à ce sujet

[renfrees]

I liked DAII's approach to companions specializations, but as I get less and less excited with almost every recent disclosure, it's no wonder this one is no different.

[Br3admax]

I'll gladly give up unique specs to have a party of normal people for once. 

[JudgeOverdose]

I liked the DAII companion trees to a certain degree, but they ended up feeling a little... guided down certain paths. One case that I found personally frustrating was when I found there was no way any other warrior would ever be as good a tank as Aveline, given her unique abilities. So, when I accepted that she was the best tank, anything that required a tank made her a necessary companion. I prefer to have all three classes in my party, so having a warrior slot already filled made it difficult to bring Carver or Fenris as often as I might have liked. But I digress... I do not mind the elimination of character specific skill trees; they were interesting for what they were, but I preferred the specializations in DAO.

 

Not every change is necessarily an improvement.

[Dark Helmet]

I'll gladly give up unique specs to have a party of normal people for once. 

 

Normal people? As companions in a Bioware game?

 

I... I can't even imagine what that would be like.

[Terodil]

At the risk of stirring up a bee's nest... what's your problem with the companions in Bioware games? I always find them interesting, and like most of them...

[The Night Haunter]

I prefer it this way, that way I can do everything my companions can do. Why should they be able to do things I can't?

[Tevinter Soldier]

Glad it's gone back i disliked the Unique skill tree made it so certain builds became less the optimal when you went with certain companions (like merril's lack of healing!) meant that i rarely used her as in DA2 you need a healer which means you have to spec anders as a healer and carry him around or be one yourself, because of that stupid cool down on potion chugging.

[Drasanil]

Meh wasn't too fond of it, especially Anders being the only healer, thankfully mods fixed that.

[herkles]

Glad it's gone back i disliked the Unique skill tree made it so certain builds became less the optimal when you went with certain companions (like merril's lack of healing!) meant that i rarely used her as in DA2 you need a healer which means you have to spec anders as a healer and carry him around or be one yourself, because of that stupid cool down on potion chugging.

 

Same. I had bethany speced as a healer/damage/force mage by the end and my rogue hawke took her with her every chance she got, save the deep roads. I would have much prefered if throughout act 2 and act 3 I had bethany with me over anders. 

 

So I am glad its gone, that means if i prefer one mage over the other i can spec them to how I desire. 

[90s Luke]

If you actually compare the "unique" specializations of DA2's companions with the specializations available to Hawke, it becomes clear that many (though not all) of the companions' and the player character's spells and talents are similar.

[Mr.House]

The "unique" companion specs in DA2 where either just

 

-old specs from DAO/DA:A that are not available to Hawke and had a name change and some new content

-AN exsisting spec Hawke can use tweaked a bit

 

Really, it was nothing that mind blowing.

[TK514]

They aren't necessary and I won't miss them.  I never noticed them most of the time in any case, and just took the companions I liked.

[ZerioctheTank]

I was jealous of Avelines tree for months since she it was geared towards tanks. It was the games way of telling me this muscular red head can take a better hit than Hawkr ever could. DA:I's approach does irk me a bit since there will be some overlapping with at least one companion but we'll see how it plays out in the end.

[EmperorKarino]

It appears companion specializations are the ones the Inquisitor can learn and they have no unique talents of their own. In a way they have taken the DAO approach while I was hoping they would take the DA2 approach. For example Anders and Aveline had very nice and unique talents in their unique specialization and Hawke could never learn them and this gave those companions special value and overall made them interesting combat-wise. Even the less unique ones such as Fenris who had talents from Hawke's Berserker, Reaver and Templar spec respectively (his unique sustained doesn't count as the bonuses provided were not unique) was interesting as it was unique its own way as well.

Thoughts? I was hoping Solas to be his own version of rift mage or Dorian being a unique Tevinter class.

 

yeah i liked the DA2's character unique specializations, its very disappointing to hear that won't be returning.

[Kel Eligor]

Won't the Inquisitor have access to special Fade powers? Wouldn't that particularly unique power have it's own skill-tree? 

[SerCambria358]

I don't really get this mentality. Of course you can use it... just add that character into your party.  Dragon age is a party based system so you got to consider your skill pool to include all members and not just your created character.  

 

Personally I loved the specialized companions in DA2, it just added a bit more flavor to them. It would've worked better if the more general skill trees allowed for people work tanking and healing into their companions but I don't think that automatically makes the idea a bad one.

How do you not get it? Having a character with an ability and having YOUR character with an ability are two different things. Thats like saying we could play as a qunari just because Sten was in the party

[Gothfather]

I understand why some people prefer unique abilities for companions but there are other players, like myself, who did not like the approach DA2 took to companion specialization and preferred the Origins model.

 

I found the DA2 model to be a huge disappointment, I never found any of their unique abilities all that cool and on the whole I found it more annoying that I lost the flexibility I had in DA:O with almost no return.

 

In my opinion what should make a companion unique is their personality not artificial restrictions that DA2 added to force their companions to be "unique. They did this with specializations and they did this with their armour/clothing. Both of these changes didn't improve player companion interactions, they did nothing to improve the relationship a player would have with the companion and they didn't improve the story telling of the game with regards to that companion. So in effect they added restrictions with very little benefit.

 

In DA:O companions had their own specializations but you were able to gain access to them by interacting with the companion. This Creates a dynamic that re-enforces a bond between the companion and the player. It encourages the player to explore relationships with their companions. In some cases encourages them to choose a different story path all together. Zevran can be killed for ambushing you, I know many people who really hated him for attacking you so they always killed him. But when they wanted to unlock the assassin specialization they were encouraged to explore a different path they normally wouldn't take.

 

Their was a depth to DA:O that DA2 lost, part of that depth lost was their approach to companions. I for one like the fact that they are going more to the roots of Origins.

[GreyVsGray]

How do you not get it? Having a character with an ability and having YOUR character with an ability are two different things. Thats like saying we could play as a qunari just because Sten was in the party

Well.... We could play as THE Qunari

[AresKeith]

Doesnt really bother me, while i guess its cool to be unique, its also annoying when characters have unique skills that i wish i could use.

 

That's actually a good thing 

[Helios969]

Meh. I take whoever is most interesting. I didn't use half those unique trees anyway.

[SerCambria358]

That's actually a good thing 

Thats completely subjective 

[Helios969]

^Either way.

[IVI4RCU5]

I'm kind of surprised this hasn't been brought up, which is making me second-guess myself on it - but I've heard elsewhere that while each companion will have a specialization that is available to the Inquisitor, their focus skill will be unique and the Inquisitor's will be different if they choose that spec.  So if that's indeed the case, they've actually gone for something of a middle ground between DAO and DA2, which I think will be nice. 

[MissOuJ]

Yeah, I prefer the DAII "almost but not completely unique companion specializations" route. I just loved the fact that your companions had unique abilities which were related to their characters and personal stories, like Fenris' Lyrium Ghost, Anders' Justice, and Merrill's blood magic, and so on.

 

At least we can't change / control their specialisations, which at least is a plus. It was really jarring to be able to turn Wynne into a blood mage, for example.

 

 

I'm kind of surprised this hasn't been brought up, which is making me second-guess myself on it - but I've heard elsewhere that while each companion will have a specialization that is available to the Inquisitor, their focus skill will be unique and the Inquisitor's will be different if they choose that spec.  So if that's indeed the case, they've actually gone for something of a middle ground between DAO and DA2, which I think will be nice. 

 

 Ohh, that sounds cool! I hope you're right.

[Ap0crypha]

I prefer the companion specs. I mean, say I want to play a Templar S&S Warrior in Inquisition. Well, Cassandra already does that. If I'm doing it, then I'm taking her duty from her and thus have no reason to bring her along.

 

Alternately, she does it better than I do, and makes me obsolete.

 

I'd love to bring characters based on just their personality, but in this case it would essentially cost me a party slot. I can't bring a DPS-er or a mezzer because that slot is taken up by Cassandra, who contributes nothing useful to the party. With the specs, the companions had their own little tweaks or skills or stuff that made them just a little different from Hawke, so even if both Merrill and my Hawke were DPS-ers, we did it in different ways.