46 réponses à ce sujet

[Eckister]

so Ive noticed you dont get attribute points per level-up. while this has its own charm in terms of added difficulty and the need to personalize your gear, I dont think it makes sence...

 

not allowing your character to grow in terms of attributes kinda makes me think of the comparison of a person going to a gym for a year without getting more fit or toned... if your character had certain attributes in a relatively comfortable life and then enters into a life of constant struggle, SOMETHING has to happen with their body... 

 

one of the possible solutions would be to get a "experience tab" to each attribute. Ill explain - lets say you use a heavy 2-hander and just swing it into empty space: your strength exp tab would gain 1 exp point. if you would hit an enemy - 10 exp points and a few into dex or con (you need stamina and skill to keep swingin, after all... :-)). to get 1 point of strength, you would need, for example, 1000 points. with daggers or bows this would change to dex/cun/con (in order of which gets the most exp to which gets the least). with staves and spells you would gain strength, constitution and dexterity (just kidding, but I guess you get the idea by now;-)). this method works in other, mainly MMO, games, I dont see why it couldnt get introduced here. ;-)

 

of course that depends on what the community thinks - do you think the attributes are not necessary at all? if so then why?

[Ocelot113]

"... lets say you use a heavy 2-hander and just swing it into empty space: your strength exp tab would gain 1 exp point. "

Don't underestimate people and their need to make use of any function in the game, exploit or not, AND people slapping tape across the button so they gain xp while at work. I know this mostly a single player game, but that is definitely not the game BioWare was intending to make. Free xp is always a bad idea because it leads to exploits which generally leads to disappointments as people will think it is the best way to level yet completely boring.

P.S. - I think DA:O was a god among sheep in terms of RPG aspects, soooo... I like slapping attribute points as apposed to taking whatever the RNG gods give you in gear or static upgrades to attributes. I think a good balance is what you need. A little RNG in the gear and manual attribute points, BOTH allow for you to differentiate play-through's. Static upgrades do nothing to alter one games experience from another. But if that's not a goal of the designer... then that's that. That just reduces the amount of play time you get out of a game, which as a consumer is a bad thing (IMO).

[Hexoduen]

of course that depends on what the community thinks - do you think the attributes are not necessary at all? if so then why?

 

We need it back, at least give us the option to choose manual or automatic allocation. 3000+ replies to this topic in the Scuttlebut (spoilers) subforum.

 

http://forum.bioware...ts-on-level-up/

 

 

We also have

 

http://forum.bioware...ter-how-i-want/

[Eckister]

Don't underestimate people and their need to make use of any function in the game, exploit or not, AND people slapping tape across the button so they gain xp while at work. I know this mostly a single player game, but that is definitely not the game BioWare was intending to make. Free xp is always a bad idea because it leads to exploits which generally leads to disappointments as people will think it is the best way to level yet completely boring.

P.S. - I think DA:O was a god among sheep in terms of RPG aspects, soooo... I like slapping attribute points as apposed to taking whatever the RNG gods give you in gear or static upgrades to attributes. I think a good balance is what you need. A little RNG in the gear and manual attribute points, BOTH allow for you to differentiate play-through's. Static upgrades do nothing to alter one games experience from another. But if that's not a goal of the designer... then that's that. That just reduces the amount of play time you get out of a game, which as a consumer is a bad thing (IMO).

you know - I did think of this eventuality, because I used to train just like that in Ultima Online (stuck up a macro button and went out to walk the dog... :-D) and I dont insist on the 1 exp point for being afk. ;-)
 

as for that "P. S." I had to read it several times and I still dont fully understand... you claim static upgrades do not differenciate experiences, but that does not explain the decision to make attributes ENTIRELY static... my guess was, that people find the "slap all points in one attribute" approach archaic, in some instances I even noticed someone claimed it was a "waste of time" (which is a funny claim, since a character with basic stats has basic battle performance, while one with high stats has a high performance...), so I thought of a possibility for improvement. this method IS even more archaic than the static points allocation (I encountered it in Ultima Online, which is a 1995 game), but I guess if people want change, why not give it to them, right? :-D

[Z.Z]

DA has never done that before...well, DAI is already pretty Skyrim-like. Sandbox stat growth doesn't fit the rest of mechanics very well. If we have sandbox stats, then we should have sandbox skills to match it.

This is why I say DA series has never intended to be very realistic, combat-wise. Heck, mages even lose the ability to heal altogether in DAI. I doubt they care about this kind of thing that much. Plus, the mechanics we have now minimize the usefulness of player-allocated stats since there is no cross-class build diversity to support it. Warriors use either two handlers or sword and board and that's it. Deciding the stats yourself makes no difference when you can't customize the combat style.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

It would be useless anyway. 
Do you guys even know how weak attributes have become? I used lyrium potion... +30 magic, it increased my damage by 15 points.
Thats 0.5 points of damage per attribute point in magic. 

Sorry to say but attributes in DA: I are so weak that they dont matter much at all

[Stavro]

Sorry to say but attributes in DA: I are so weak that they dont matter much at all

 

Yes, except for Cunning imo. In addition to critical strikes can significantly increase the overall DPS, there are some skills related to critical hits.

[MaxQuartiroli]

DA has never done that before...well, DAI is already pretty Skyrim-like. Sandbox stat growth doesn't fit the rest of mechanics very well. If we have sandbox stats, then we should have sandbox skills to match it.

This is why I say DA series has never intended to be very realistic, combat-wise. Heck, mages even lose the ability to heal altogether in DAI. I doubt they care about this kind of thing that much. Plus, the mechanics we have now minimize the usefulness of player-allocated stats since there is no cross-class build diversity to support it. Warriors use either two handlers or sword and board and that's it. Deciding the stats yourself makes no difference when you can't customize the combat style.

 

Agreed, With the exception of few points (i.e. some cunning in order to achieve the persuasion options) I always ended up by giving all of them to the same two attributes: STR/CON for my warriors, DEX/CUN for my rogues, MAG/WIL for my mages. It was really pointless to increase Willpower if you weren't playing a mage or dexterity if you were building a 2hands weapon warrior. Attributes micro-management makes sense only when you can customize among many stiles and skills or when you can cross abilities between classes. Considering how DA games have always worked I don't really mind if this option is gone: the game is basically doing what I was going to do anyway.  

[Pasquale1234]

Do attributes even matter much anymore?

IIRC (and it's been awhile), in the past you could build, for example, a high-dex tank to avoid being hit or a high-const damage-sponge tank with a lot of HP. In DAI, you have to physically move your character out of the way to avoid being hit. That sort of system relies much more on player skill than character stats.

For all we know, the code that calculates combat results may be primarily level-based, with adjustments for equipment. For example, a level 10 character that lands twin fangs would do x raw damage where a level 20 character would do y raw damage, then x or y is adjusted for equipment in use.

Attributes displayed to the user may be more for show than anything else.

[Setz]

Like others have said attributes don't matter so much. I'm assuming it's to make.the game more strategy based and less pile on one stat and dominate. But you do decide between your two primary stats with the powers you choose.

[Darkfyre]

I wish we got attribute points when we leveled up and I was disappointed when I realized that we don't

[Eckister]

you DO realise, that skills take the damage you have and multiply that, right?

lets say a skill multiplied your damage by 150%. the "damage" it multiplies is what comes out when you take your weapons base damage and add a stat multiplier (as was well visible in DA:O, where you saw each hands damage "enriched" by all multipliers).

 

you claim attributes are pointless? seriously? 0_o 

 

let me say it this way - I recently crafted 2 daggers with a base damage of 65 or somesuch, yet strike with 70-120 (non-crit, depending on the enemies AC, of coarse), because the daggers were crafted to give a dex and flanking damage bonus. I only received some 25 points into dexterity and 10 into cunning, so PLEASE dont shove your "raising stats is pointless" down my throat... -.-

 

my point is, that while you can dodge a lot of damage simply by moving or using the right skills at the right time, there still are enemies where you wish to have more (bears, surprise attacks by stray mabari, rogues you want to put down before they stealth and stall you, etc.) and make your char stronger, thus making the game more smooth, requiring fewer re-loads over situations like "if that guy went down sooner, I would have won and didnt need to run over half of thedas again"...

[MaxQuartiroli]

you claim attributes are pointless? seriously? 0_o 

 

 

 

 

I don't think that many of us want to say that but just that giving you the opportunity to assign the points in other attributes which are different from your needs is pointless because in the end you will finish to put allmost your attribute points in that 2 skills which are valuable for your character.

 

I take your example and I get that you are talking about a dual wield rogue. I have still to try it but I suppose that the attributes that you have to increase for that build are DEX and CUN, and I don't think that you would vaste any of your points by increasing STR or WIL,. maybe some CON just to have some more HP? But that's it. So, now, instead of increasing them every time you level up you must increase those two same skills both by cratfting in the appropriate way and by choosing the appropriate passive skills.. is the result different in any way? In the end you will still boost DEX and CUN.

 

Then, if with this method you get less attribute points than before is just another matter and I don't really know: I should compare my character with another one of the same class and level from Origins and DA2, but I bet that if I compare them they won't be many different... that's just my guess of course!

[AlanC9]

Yeah, that's pretty much the way I see it. Adding points as you level is one way to handle progression, but it's not the only way or even a particularly good way. It also leads to fairly ridiculous results if you take the stats as anything other than a gameplay abstraction.

[Eckister]

removing the headache by cutting off the head doesnt benefit much...

 

the system may be flawed (as Ive said in the very beginning), but that doesnt mean that removing it entirely is the best solution... wise people once said "never change a winning team" and RPGs ARE about customizing and creating a character you want the way you want it. assignable (or at least trainable) attributes are one of the supports for this principle. 

 

and you are partly wrong - I did have a STR 37 rogue. why? because I can. ;-) the point isnt wether youll put all points into one stat or not. the point is, that the attributes you train differenciate your character from its base form (the way he/she was at the beggining) and the way it will be at the end. and the progress between these two stages is what its all about. if you take away the growth its kinda like what Ive said already - like going to the gym without seeing much improvement.

 

AlanC9 - pray tell, what is a "gameplay abstraction"? how can you "abstract" an act in which you navigate a non-existent person through an imaginate world? 0_o

[MaxQuartiroli]

and you are partly wrong - I did have a STR 37 rogue. why? because I can. ;-) t

 

Of course you can, but for what purpose?

I don't think that your rogue will ever bash his enemies with a 2h greataxe.. yes perhaps you will be able to wear heavier armor, but is it worth it to sacrifice your attack/damage abilities just for that? 

 

When I play NWN (both 1 e 2) I like to spend attribute points in INT even when I am using a warrior because I want more skill points, and I usually set high CHA to all my characters because I want to favor them when I use the conversation skills. Sometimes I gave STG to my mages just to be able to carry some more item.

But when it comes to Dragon Age (all the 3 games) I don't find of any use to boost another attribute which is not specific for my class. So, I agree that RPG must give you freedom , but when they give you freedom over something that is not of any use my opinion is that it's just a false freedom.  

[Xralius]

Actually str rogue was highly playable in Origins. So were Dex and cun rogues. Extremely disappointed that the lazy developers took that customization out of the game. It was basically gone in DA2, but now they did away with it completely. DA:O was the pinacle of stat customization in my opinion.

[Xralius]

Not to mention the freedom it gave you to use items. DA:I just sucks. DA2 also sucked, customization wise. It's just a shame that a fantastic game like DA:O gets no respect by the developers of its sequels. She on them.

[Xralius]

Shame on them*

[Lee T]

Since many RPG systems are slowly shying away from quantitative evaluation to qualitatve ones, why not replace numerical attributes by attribute based skill trees.

[Eckister]

and when you have an attribute-based skill tree, how much sence does it make that you cannot alter your attributes? exactly - none...

MaxQuartiroli - I have also played all NWN titles (both episodes and all of its datadisks) and I too used to give much into intelligence. not during the game, right on start (minimised everything I didnt need and maximised INT - to get as many base skills as possible). made for several mighty fine chars, my favorite was a monk/sorcerer. aaaaaaaaaaanyway - that rogue was an experiment to see, how much strength will do for me. the result was a rogue with a high dodge rate (80 dex without equipment bonuses), hitting a steady 75/hit in direct combat in a game where only a select few had more than 5k HPs. so yeah - it was pretty much worth it to experiment with attribute points. ;-) a liberty we are denied in DA:I...

[MaxQuartiroli]

@Lee T: It was basically what they did in DA:O were you couldn't unlock skills unless you had  "X" points in some specific attribute. The result was that you were practically forced to assign points in a very strict way. Let's suppose that you wanted to play a W/S warrior, it took 30+ in strenght to unlock Assault, 26+ dexterity to unlock Shield Mastery. Considering that you had to raise up cosntitution a lot if you wanted to be a tank and that you had to spent at least 16 cunning points for coercicion you could say that there wasn't much free space remainig for "alternative" builds... at least in the first half of the game.

 

In my opinion what gave really the you the opportunity to customize  was not the management of the attributes, but the various specializations.

 

Or were you thinking about a system similar to The Witcher 2?

 

@Eckister. but there you had a lot of avalaible classes, with many skills that were nearly available to everyone. And you could also choose to be bi-class or multiclass as much as you wanted. You could play a craftman playful ranger, as long as a talkactive and diplomatic barbarian.. it was all up to you.

In DA, alla DA games, you had not that liberty from the beginnig, basically since all the classes were restricted to 3 types.. Warriors, which much be strong and resistant, Rogues that must be sthealty and fast and mages which much have strong mental attributes.. here we have really few opportunities to create something hibryd.. perhaps a little in Origins but with DA2 that small chanche definitely disappeared. In my opinion this is not just a DA:I-related problem.

[Lee T]

Or where you thinking about a system similar to The Witcher 2?

I don't remember how The Witcher worked, I mean full blown skill tree based on attributes. You could fill the trees with in game effect, mechanics and dialogue options based on attributes. You can imagine a skill tree based on strength with bonus to melee damages, inventory bonuses, intimidation dialogue unlocking etc. A dexterity skill tree could include things like picklock, pickpockets, dodge abilities, etc..

This way you coul build a clever yet intimidating mage, or a stealthy one, a strong armed two blades rogue who breaks skulls rather than open locks, or an evasive and educated warrior, lots of possibilities to go outside the box there

[Setz]

I really don't understand the complaints. They've assigned stats that do damage for each class. So.whether you could choose seperate stats or not you'd still pick those. You'd pick Dex over str because dex increases damage with daggers. All they did was simplify it so.instead of str.giving .5 and Dex giving .5 dex gives 1. You would recieve no benefit being able to assaign your own stats. You.can still.choose between dex and cunning with your skill choices. You can still wear +10 attribute necklaces and +health belts to boost your characters health. There is options, and giving.people.more options would just end up with people.stacking. the best two stats anyways

If you want a system like nwn or skyrim you're in the wrong series. Da has never been open like that.