312 réponses à ce sujet

[Eudaemonium]

I'm still not entirely sure why they decided to go with the Fire-Ice-Lightning trifecta (+Spirit) when they conveniently had four schools of magic that would have nicely made 4 trees. I mean, they could have rejigged Creation (assuming the removal of healing) to include the 'wall' skills and the like, so it was more about creating obstacles and other effects.

[Blue Item]

...Sigh. I really wish someone would make Baldur's Gate 3 with really deep combat like in BG1 and BG2. Pillars of Eternity looked promising for a while, but that game turned out to be a massive turd that is even more dumbed down than DA:I.

 

Did we play the same BG2? Because while I'd definitely say that setting up characters was deep, the combat wasn't really all that complex.

 

For setting up,  half the classes needed some real work to be even moderately good (tell me, what was the point of a bard again? Blades and possibly Skalds at least had their uses, but when exactly would you really want a plan old bard?). Don't worry though, all you need to do is figure out 2nd edition D&D's somewhat arcane rules on dual- and multi-classing to absolutely break the game. Alternatively, just get mages up to a high enough level that they get access to Wish and Timestop + Improved Alacrity, which will only happen in ToB but pretty much absolutely trivalizes every encounter from then on. Be careful with your spellcaster's spell choice though, because while half the spells in BG2 are amazing and/or completely essential to beating the game, the other half vary from too specific, straight up weaker than another spell (even if that spell is of a lower level), or just completely useless.

 

But seriously, most combat in BG2 went in the following steps:

 

Step 1: Buff up the party. This is pretty much the most important step, as if you go into a difficult fight with the wrong preparation you're going to be in trouble. Generally though, as long as you have protections from the crowd control effects on your frontline (chaotic commands is godlike), you can probably just toss together whatever else you have and give a decent go at it. It helps that 2nd edition D&D has some absurd buffs, like protection from normal weapons, which could be combined with protection from magical weapons to give you potential invulnerability if the enemy didn't have anyway to remove the protections. You'll want to be recasting these throughout the fight if you can, although step 2 generally takes precendence.

 

Step 2: Start the fight. If there are any spellcasters, start stripping their defenses immediately, then do whatever you can to lower their saves (Greater Malison anyone?), then hit them as hard as you can with magic and any melee/ranged damage you have to spare. With luck, this will kill them, because leaving mages alive for too long generally ends quite badly, or at least draws out the fight unbearably long.

 

Step 3: Now that the actual threats are being dealt with, feel free to send your non-spellcasting classes (read: meatshields) at the enemies non-spellcasting classes (read: most likely trash mobs, unless they're Beholders, in which case prepare for eye-beams aproaching the rate of fire of a machinegun, at a point in the game where you don't have access to any of the high level magic that makes this easier to deal with). This requires the very complex action of clicking to auto attack and then checking back every once in a while to make sure they're winning the fight, possibly spare a mage to help them out if it's really needed.

 

While that might be a slight simplification, actual combat in BG2 was not all that tactical, but mostly relied on prep work beforehand -- either by casting the correct buffs or by knowing which of your spells pierced through which of the enemies' protections. And while there is nothing wrong placing your emphasis on knowledge and preparation, it is wrong to claim that your choices in each fight in BG2 mattered more than your setup outside of them. From what I've seen of the pre-release stuff, it seems that DAI is toning down complexity outside of combat to make the choices in each fight matter more -- there's no guarantee they'll suceed, of course, but the approach is fundamentally different from how BG2 handles combat, and probably shouldn't be immediately dismissed because it's not exactly the same.

 

Side note: Despite my rather acerbic tone above, I quite like BG2, and definitely consider it in the top 10% of RPGS. It just seems silly to me to put the actual combat of all things on a pedestal.

[sylvanaerie]

Well we have this.

 

 

1) You only have 8 slots.  You won't be able to use all 17 spells at once anyway.

2) Origins was full of 'crap spells' you have to acquire to get to the good, effective stuff on many trees.

3) A lot of origins stuff did the same thing (multiple weapon buffs across several lines, similar spells doing the same effect).

I know a lot of versatility is gone.  I'm gonna look at it as a challenge to make an interesting mage character.  With Origins and DA2 I did over a dozen plays each.  I doubt i will be able to do that with Inquisition.  It looks to be just too long--though i could be wrong.  I will probably be making 1 character per class per play and be done with three, but we will see.

[Tevinter Soldier]

the biggest issue with mages in dragon age is spells not upgrading.

 

if i'm level 30 winters breath should do a ton more damage then it did when i was level 10.

if this is fixed and more spells are like mana clash from Origins where the higher level you are the more potent the spell i'll be happy.

 

but the idea of having 17 spells and 10 of them being useless end game because they are treated as any other weapon is annoying.

[Astrolabe]

Spells and abilities' damage is based on weapon damage which should scale over the course of the game. So, yes, the spell should be doing more damage end game if you have better gear. 

[Sardart]

Actually I'm not troubled by mages being less versatile. Basically I see this as a push from the devs to build a good, working, party.
Mages alone won't be able to top the higher difficulty, but pair 'em with Rogues' CC and ability to expose weak points, planning cross class combo, and you get yourself a really good experience.
 

[Tevinter Soldier]

Spells and abilities' damage is based on weapon damage which should scale over the course of the game. So, yes, the spell should be doing more damage end game if you have better gear. 

 

but that's the problem, a spell IS the weapon. the spell itself should upgrade. just like a lvl 40 Sword does more damage then a lvl 5 a lvl 40 mage should cast a standard spell much more powerful.

 

not a lvl 5 spell with modded runes.

 

imagine the uproar if their was only 17 swords in the game and each one was lvl locked and the only way to boost damage was with a rune. that doesn't happen for the most part you can always find the same shitty sword at a higher lvl.

[Wulfsten]

Healing in DA:I is just as plentiful as it was in Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, BioWare RPGs that are considered pretty successful.  In fact, DA:I combat healing is even better, because getting a BG spell caster adjacent to a wounded character, and having them cast without being hit (which automatically loses the spell), was really hard.

 

Of course, in Baldur’s Gate you could chug potions with reckless abandon. And clerics (who can easily specialise in solely healing, and often would) could easily have AC as high as -8, making them very difficult to hit and disrupt their spells. Also, combat was completely different in pretty much every way. I wouldn’t rush to compare the two games. 

 

I too am fearful of the new mage trees. 

There seems to be mostly damage spells with one or two CC spells in each tree so far. If the spells lack real complexity and combos, along with buffs and debuffs, I will be disappointed. Wont affect me buying DA:I though. At this point my hype train is at maximum velocity.

 

I feel we need to take a step back and reconsider how people actually play mages. In all my many mage playthroughs of DA:O and DA2, I always ended up choosing six or seven spells I liked, and just used those a whole lot. Sure, I could try being an entropy mage or a creation mage in a second playthrough, but the key point is that whatever mage you are, your tactics are pretty much identical in every fight.

 

In DA:O, I would activate fire weapons, cast crushing prison on the strongest enemy, then winter’s grasp, then run around looking for an efficient Cone of Cold gap. That’s what I did in literally every fight, punctuated by occasional heal spells and chain lightning once in a while.

 

In DA2, my force mage would cast Pull of the Abyss, Gravitic Ring, then Firestorm. Every. Damn. Time. Then I’d mop up with Winter’s Grasp and Spirit Bolt. Very fun, but repetitive.

 

If the focus in DA:I is to give mages a limited toolset which they can actually use creatively to control the battlefield, then I’m all for it. That would be a genuinely novel experience in a DA game, which have to date been mostly about smart tactics setups and ability loadouts. If they want to move the locus of decision-making to the actual battle, then I’m interested.  

[DanAxe]

 I dont like much the drastic change in number of spells available. But more than that, what bothers me the most is the 8-only abilities at one time.

Many times in Origins and DA2 (after several playthroughs i started using the console to get all available spells - spelladdict) i felt i had 10times more spells than i could use in a single combat. Having only 17 spells, if they are well upgraded to the point of making the fully upgraded spell a completely different one than just the basic spell, then i guess that is a good thing considering we can only have 8 at a time.

 

I just hope at some point a really talented person can create a mod for the game to extend the abilities bar to have as many spells as we want ready to use. Before that happens, it doesnt matter if we have 17 or 71 abilities, at the end of the day you can only use 8 but hey, that's been announced quite some time ago, i had time to make my peace with it... But still hoping for a change in the future.

[Eledran]

Counting all spells in Origins and Awakening together sort of misrepresents things to be honest.

 

Not just because certain spells were not useful (opinions can differ), but also because a HUGE amount of spells were under the "sustained" category. A single caster could only maintain 2-3 of those spells due to the fatigue mechanics.

 

I'm not saying those spells weren't worth having, but Origins was pretty hugely bloated by them. Personally I found them badly implemented too, as I often had certain mage characters only focusing as buff machines with little actual mana to cast anything remaining (chugging potions after 2 spells instead).

 

I haven't looked into all the spells for DAI yet. The elemental schools are definitely important to keep as they represented the most active part of mages in Origins too. So I'm actually happy they get love.

I would like to see more than one tree for buffing and more than one tree for debuffing as well.

 

Having 8 slots only would bother me in an online game, but for the single player game I can stand it as long as I can switch out regularly. The aforementioned sustained spells in Origins meant that you could only realistically cast a few spells anyway once you had your buffs on.

A few more slots would have been a better balancing point in my opinin, but then again I'm not a dev.

 

Pure healing  can gtfo for my part. I actually love playing support classes, but through longtime experiences in many RPG's and MMO's I've come to intensely dislike a huge focus on pure healing. It leads to overabundance of CC and burst (just visit SW:TOR and WoW PvP if you don't believe me) and healers being promoted to quintessential status in groups. This pretty much sums up the latter point: http://thenoobcomic....dex.php?pos=193

 

Getting buffing and support under another form is something I support completely, I only wish rogues had a similar way to guard / barrier to add to that. Though they do get a lot of dodges so there's that.

[sylvanaerie]

For what it's worth I will be playing a mage come release.

Me too, I finally get the play that Dalish mage I wanted to in Vanilla Origins \o/.

[HellaciousHutch]

Necromancer is all I need, because Necromancers are the best magic class in any and all works of fiction with magic classes in them.

[Alejandrawrr]

As someone who plays >80% of my playthroughs as an offensive mage, I'm not too bothered with the new changes. They look more... streamlined (in a good way), particularly compared to Origins and Awakening. I don't know about you, but I always hated that "okay, so I'm going to devote my next three level ups to picking up those absolutely useless, SHITE abilities no one in the history of gaming has ever used, so I can get the one decent one at the end of the tree". It had so much ****** filler, I feel like if you eliminate the active and sustained spells that generally most would agree weren't good or were simply outclassed by other spells, at least 1/3 of them would be gone (and that's being generous, it's probably closer to half).

I remember winter's grasp would be a staple on my mage, until I got cone of cold which had a small aoe rather than single target, so I'd replace it with that... Until Awakening, when I got the battlemage's ice ability (Hand of Winter, or something?) which could freeze more targets, so I'd replace that with that. Looking at Winter's Grasp's description and it's upgrades now, it's essentially frost spell 1 and frost spell 3 all in one, without having to be level 25 in a DLC expansion to unlock it. In other words, it's useful from the start till endgame (unless endgame has a bunch of frost-resistant enemies, but I digress). If more spells work like that, it works for me.

I also agree with someone above, even with all the spells, I'd end up using from the same pool of 10-15 or so, anyway, so if they can make 17 useful spells with upgrades, then it won't be too different from past games, in practice.

[DMaster2]

Yeah i too hate that you can no longer be a spirit healer or a blood mage, neither you can specialize in an entropy tree. I just hope that sleep+horror are somewhere in either the fade mage or the necromancer.

 

You have one. A rather epic one that revives all party members and heals everyone to full.

 

Oh dear, he said SINGLE heal spell. And i agree with him. This is the first rpg i see that don't allow people to cast a single target heal spell...

[Nohvarr]

Oh dear, he said SINGLE heal spell. And i agree with him. This is the first rpg i see that don't allow people to cast a single target heal spell...

So....this isn't healing?

 

 

[sylvanaerie]

So....this isn't healing?

 

 

 

I see you're trying, but no.  That is not healing.  That's damage mitigation.  The closest you can come is revival and I think your companions come back with some health restoration.  I am unsure how much it does, but they have to be incapacitated to use it.

 

Hey, don't feel bad, you at least got me to where I'm willing to try to fight the good fight, and considering I'm pretty stubborn in my views, that in and of itself says a lot.

[DMaster2]

So....this isn't healing?

 

 

Healing =/= barrier/revive/shield/armor/guard or similar mechanics. Btw you can easily have both barrier+health, if implemented well.

[Astrolabe]

I think people think of "healing" as healing in the traditional sense, which is reactive healing, i.e. take x damage, restore x health. 

 

But, players who have MMO experience probably have been exposed to a lot of classes who are "healers" but specialize completely/predominanty in the usage of shields. Damage prevention in terms of shields is basically healing except it's proactive instead of reactive.

 

Preventing x damage with a spell is basically the same as restoring x health because the receiver is going to be as healthy in the end. In fact, oftentimes, I find shields more useful because they can absorb burst damage. You can't heal a person who is dead (this is excluding revival) from burst, no matter how fast you react. 

[wtfman99]

I looked at the skills we currently have and if we really only have access to those 4 trees I am disappointed...

I see no glyphs, I see no buffs (only 'barrier') such as increasing a party member's damage or armor.

I do not see hexes in any capacity, I do not see sleeps, fears, stuns, glyph of repulsion, I don't see mana-absorption, I don't see debuffs... I don't even see "oil" for pete's sake.

I just see a lot of damage abilities and little else. I mean grats I can throw up a ice wall that is 6meters long... but that's not what I enjoyed in previous games at all.



Right now I am questioning if I should even buy DA:I... they turned mages into aoe-damage cannons and little else.

Super upset right now and almost in tears, I waited for this game for years .... Right now all I can do is hope I see necromancer skill tree and if it doesn't involve me bringing an undead to life I think I may be done...

There is only a faux-veil of skill diversity... this is so upsetting.

 

K, dont buy it.

 

Problem solved.

[AshesEleven]

Necromancer is all I need, because Necromancers are the best magic class in any and all works of fiction with magic classes in them.

 

If I can raise corpses, then Necromancer is the only spec tree anyone needs, ever.

 

So....this isn't healing?

 

 

 

Not really healing, but personally I find it a bit more interesting than just healing spells.  

[RedIntifada]

Well we have this.

 

 

I count:

5 ice

5 lightning

5 mage spirit

4 inferno

 

That is 19 just going off this link http://imgur.com/a/DzqMh (dimonds are all spells) pre-specialisation, not including upgrades (the smaller diamond next to the bigger one)

 

In terms of specialization the only one we know is knight enchanter and they have 4 so presumably 4-5 like the other talent trees so that gives you a grand total of 31.

 

Glyphs are available... they are called mines and there are some really cool passives now also (like storm bringer) which just randomly hits people with lightning during combat.

 

Also there were 23 activated spells in DA2 pre-specialisation and 33 afterwards http://dragonage.wik...Dragon_Age_II).

It is a bit hard to tell how many active spells there are in DA:O from a glance because it bundles the passive and active spells together.

 

I am hoping that Walking Bomb is in the necromancy specialisation... and given that it looks like it isn't there I think I will really miss the cone of cold... I enjoyed bringing my make to the front and freezing a whole bunch of guys only to have my rogue take them out one by one.

 

But then I am looking forward to static cage and decloacking blast... 1,000 percent damage through phasing inside someone and ripping out of them! I can be like like Kitty Pride!
 

[RedIntifada]

The other thing to note is that generally I focus my efforts on getting a whole bunch of passives over spells. There is no point given you have limited mana and time in combat. You are much better off focusing on getting to higher levels with a few good spells then wasting your energy collecting them all.

[umadcommander]

being a mage kinda died for me with the 8-active ability limit, it'll be hit the hardest by that so *shrug*

 

not that i mind being a rouge or warrior anyway, i usually am some sort of melee focused build

[Medhia_Nox]

Preferring healing over mitigation is actually really sick from an RPing standpoint.

 

Warrior:  Great, the mage can make sure I don't take massive wounds from swords anymore!
 

Mage:  Yeah, but if you don't take those wounds... I can't be a HEALER! 

 

It's deranged. 

 

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You're right - DA:I doesn't have healers - they have protectors.  

[Hellion Rex]

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You're right - DA:I doesn't have healers - they have protectors.  

Aptly put!