Well, I have just started and am very disappointed with the combat. After loving Origins and just finishing Divinity: Original Sin, the combat in this is just terrible. Everything is so fast I feel I can do nothing but button mash, and the tactical camera is useless as it doesn't zoom out far enough to show the battlefield. I cannot imagine controlling multiple characters and planning an attack as everything is just too fast.
Meh, hopefully I will get used to it, like I said, just started.
See, this is what I don't get.
On the one hand, people say the game is less complex, with less abilities/spells to use, less customisation, basically less things to do in combat.
On the other hand, the same people also bemoan that you can't use the Tactics screen to basically have your party completely manage itself. Which one is it?
I replayed Origins recently, on Nightmare. It was easier than DA:I on Hard with FF on, thanks to all the potion hoarding and easy to use healing spells. Outside of a select few fights with mass CC or heavy damage, Origins is a cakewalk, even moreso if you use crafting or min-max.
Inquisition on Nightmare requires planning (for me at least), and timing when it comes to using combos or barriers. Given that the more squishy party members die in seconds, positioning them well is also pretty important. I agree that Inquisition has less options (I found most of them superfluous but that's neither here nor there). I don't agree that it requires less tactics, and the far more interesting itemization makes up for a good part of the lost customization to me.
Hell, in terms of customization, we lost crossbows (well, semi lost, hello Varric), duel-wield on warriors, and weapons other than staves on Mages as well as some abilities (which might have been needed, Mages in Origins had lots of redundant spells, and all classes gained lots of interesting passives). The latter is really annoying, if sorta made up by Knight-Enchanter. Apart from that, we still have armor customization (more than before), we have a much better crafting system, and one look at the Combat & Strategy forum shows the game still has lots of possible builds.
It is both.
Before tactics was removed I could use it for the spells that were in the game, which would include the ones that are not in the present system. Its not about less things to do in combat, its about the choice to do what I want in combat, the way I want, when I want. Tactics allows me to bring that same level of micro management to the other characters as well.
If I want to play it top-down one person at a time, then I can pause it and do so. However if I do not want to play it top-down and I just want to let the moment take me then my companions can use the tactics I have created and I get to feel more like a field general who has taught his people well rather than a baby sitter. That choice has been taken from me and replaced with a very clunky system that forces me to take shortcuts. That is their new way of imposing strategy, forcing you to take shortcuts and or removing options.
There are not more options of builds in this game than there were in Origins, you can't even pretend that is true. There are more options in Origins for Mages than there are for every class in DAI put together.
More armor customization is incorrect as well. If you talk about armor customization from the view point of the older games then we must include what they took away and forced into Abilities and armor, that being attributes and any other armor in the game. So aesthetically you lose..well everything, your armor in DAI comes from about three basic variations and that's it. In DAO you could wear anything you wanted if you had the stats for it, you just had to suffer whatever penalty was associated with that as well, ie fatigue. Stats came statically with armor plus you could put runes on armor by awakenings..which by this time was just too much power bloat but I digress, it still gave you a few options.
So locked down aesthetics vs slightly more variation of stats but with the complete lack of personal stat distribution in the first place....If it's an edge to DAI, its hairline thin. Now aesthetics like locking into a color to use leather or metal armor as a mage might not bother you, but trust me the lack of choice compounded with everything else that has been stripped down begins to wear on people.
As for the crafting system, there wasn't one in Origins. You found everything, but discovery is kind of nice as well, Where as in DAI all the unique weapons absolutely suck at end game. So I would call this a draw to be honest, especially since the best schematics have to be farmed from one dungeon with a meta-gaming effect like an MMO unless you are ridiculously fortunate.
As for DAI being difficult, I played it on Nightmare with FF. Only once in full, with a DW rogue, started with a KE didnt get past Haven because I got bored. Of the game, not the spec. YMMV as they say, but I found this game easier. There are three passives that increase the rate at which you are able to use spells. Pretty easy to spec all three and have an almost perma-barrier up the entire time. Now I could play a different way and challenge myself, but frankly the game isn't interesting enough for me to bother. If I wanted a hard game, I'd go back to Eve Online or original Dark or Demon's Souls at NG+. This game is not meant to be difficult, if it is then they really really failed at that as well.
So the destination or product of your character customization efforts in DAI and DAO is often times similar, but the journey and choice which in RPG's is everything, is completely different. You may like the new journey, but many of us don't.
People are still conflating challenge with complexity. The fact that you could beat the game on Nightmare without using the advanced tactical gameplay doesn't mean those options weren't there. It just means the game was too easy and you didn't need them. I used them plenty and had fun with it.
In which case, going off sales, 89% of people who played Origins did it wrong.
Good thing we did, or the PC master race would never have gotten Awakening, let alone anything else.
I'd really love to see some figures backing that up.
inb4 vgchartz bullshit
For me, its not about difficulty so much as the combat just not being any fun. Its just a chaotic blur of explostions, with both your party and your enemies using evade and stealth skills to dodge aggro so often that you'd need to micromanage like a hawk (no reference to the hero intended). The fact that there's so much combat and that the 'No auto healing/no healing spells' thing really doesn't matter at all given fast travel and lots of camps, its easier to just shrug your shoulders and hold down attack.
Because it practically always works. And if it doesn't, its very likely to be a level issue. As an experiment I went a whole hour without controlling any fights myself. When a fight started, I'd make 1 attack to get my party started attacking, then place my controller on the table next to me and read a book. My party always won the fights, as my character just sat there at the back watching and not moving or acting. It really put into perspective how easy this game is.
Now a lot of people will argue that making the game more difficult means you have to play the game properly etc etc. But there's so much combat and the abilities are so dull and the quests are never against foes you have any real investment in killing (beyond the obvious 'I want them to die and not me') that its hard to justify making the combat take any more time than it currently does.
Turn up the difficulty and put friendly fire on if you want a challenge.
And yet again I will point out that these are not solutions to a poorly designed combat system.
Tactics in DAO weren't THAT great. Most of the time you just disabled/enabled abilities you didn't want the team using, set up when to use potions, and then micromanaged the teams movements to line up a good cone of cold blast so you could just shatter the enemy (bunch of other tricks like the mana-chanting the mages). Big deal.
Also, I play Inquisition mostly on normal, and you can't just let the AI play out to win unless the characters are overlevelled.
You say that like Overlevelling is hard to do, but it isn't. And once you are overlevelled, there really isn't much you can do about it. I didn't do any item crafting or upgrading at all - ever. I never bought extra weapons, never made a potion or tonic or anything, didn't runecraft anything. I just did the quests that I thought my character would do in the most natural seeming order - just like I always do.
So I did most of the Hinterlands, because I wanted to help the refugees. I rescued my guys in the mire, explored for the wardens on the storm coast. When I was finally done with all that, I decided to expand westward, taking the closest region to Skyhold and then the next closest etc etc. So I ended up going to Empirse Du Lyon first. That was literally the only time I ran into stiff opposition, but I don't back down easily so I stuck at it. And the levelling I got from completing Emprise meant I was overlevelled for the rest of the game.
But how was I supposed to know that? The zones don't have level recommendations. I had no way of knowing Emprise was the hardest optional zone or what level was too high etc. After that zone, as I say I could (and did) literally place my controller down and just watch my guys win.
It is both.
Before tactics was removed I could use it for the spells that were in the game, which would include the ones that are not in the present system. Its not about less things to do in combat, its about the choice to do what I want in combat, the way I want, when I want. Tactics allows me to bring that same level of micro management to the other characters as well.
If I want to play it top-down one person at a time, then I can pause it and do so. However if I do not want to play it top-down and I just want to let the moment take me then my companions can use the tactics I have created and I get to feel more like a field general who has taught his people well rather than a baby sitter. That choice has been taken from me and replaced with a very clunky system that forces me to take shortcuts. That is their new way of imposing strategy, forcing you to take shortcuts and or removing options.
There are not more options of builds in this game than there were in Origins, you can't even pretend that is true. There are more options in Origins for Mages than there are for every class in DAI put together.
More armor customization is incorrect as well. If you talk about armor customization from the view point of the older games then we must include what they took away and forced into Abilities and armor, that being attributes and any other armor in the game. So aesthetically you lose..well everything, your armor in DAI comes from about three basic variations and that's it. In DAO you could wear anything you wanted if you had the stats for it, you just had to suffer whatever penalty was associated with that as well, ie fatigue. Stats came statically with armor plus you could put runes on armor by awakenings..which by this time was just too much power bloat but I digress, it still gave you a few options.
So locked down aesthetics vs slightly more variation of stats but with the complete lack of personal stat distribution in the first place....If it's an edge to DAI, its hairline thin. Now aesthetics like locking into a color to use leather or metal armor as a mage might not bother you, but trust me the lack of choice compounded with everything else that has been stripped down begins to wear on people.
As for the crafting system, there wasn't one in Origins. You found everything, but discovery is kind of nice as well, Where as in DAI all the unique weapons absolutely suck at end game. So I would call this a draw to be honest, especially since the best schematics have to be farmed from one dungeon with a meta-gaming effect like an MMO unless you are ridiculously fortunate.
As for DAI being difficult, I played it on Nightmare with FF. Only once in full, with a DW rogue, started with a KE didnt get past Haven because I got bored. Of the game, not the spec. YMMV as they say, but I found this game easier. There are three passives that increase the rate at which you are able to use spells. Pretty easy to spec all three and have an almost perma-barrier up the entire time. Now I could play a different way and challenge myself, but frankly the game isn't interesting enough for me to bother. If I wanted a hard game, I'd go back to Eve Online or original Dark or Demon's Souls at NG+. This game is not meant to be difficult, if it is then they really really failed at that as well.
So the destination or product of your character customization efforts in DAI and DAO is often times similar, but the journey and choice which in RPG's is everything, is completely different. You may like the new journey, but many of us don't.
I didn't say it had more options, but that we didn't go from a completely free-form heaven in Origins and went to 1 build per class hell in Inquisition is all. People are still figuring out how specs and abilities work together, especially for Mages, and there's decent enough variety that all 9 of my party members, plus my PC, all play differently (well Varric is just sub-par, but that's because Artificier sucks). That didn't happen with non-mage classes in Origins; because of the moveset that was limited to weapons, every single mundane character was completely bound to their equipped weapon in terms of abilities, and most of the time for them auto-attack was more efficient than using abilities anyway. I'd much rather play my DA:I Reaver and juggle my low health vs the absurd damage Dragon Rage does, thank you.
Some end-game purples beat crafted gear in many cases. Apparel can have more armor than any crafted gear, and some weapons (Longbow of the Griffon and Blade of Suledin come to mind) beat anything in their category thanks to their unique abilities. Itemization in DA:I is much better than in Origins if you ask me, and as someone who likes loot in RPGs that's a definite plus.
I'll confess that I don't care one whiff about stat distribution. What's the difference between 40 and 50 Strength, between 20 and 30 Cunning (or 100 in Awakening)? It was meaningless to me. The only time attributes are interesting is when they have a clearly defined scale, like Fallout's SPECIAL system that went from 1 to 10 and that's it. I machinally put 2 points into a main stats and 1 into constitution every level and never bothered with them, it never was an interesting mechanic to me, just filler before I could get new skills which were the actual meat of the level up system.
''Anything you wanted if you had the stats for it'' is an interesting way to put it. If you put attribute points where they were needed, your mages had robes (unless AW), your rogues had leather, your warriors had massive, and they all looked identical besides texture and color swaps. Sure, you could go ahead and put strength on your archer rogue if you wanted to make them wear heavy armor, but Inquisition also allows you to wear heavy armor if you gimp yourself with Silverite instead of Dragonbone if so you choose, so you can put a heavy armor with + Strength on Solas if that takes your fancy. I do agree the Inquisitor doesn't have enough armor variety, however. But the crafting corrects that somewhat.
You have your preferences, I have mine, that's fine. I'd just like people not to act as if Inquisition is objectively inferior or not a True RPGtm because reasons.
It depends how intrusive it is. Usually I don't care much about systems, but not being able to wear some armor because I don't have the right level is just stupid IMO. Plus it clogs up your already rather tight inventory.
I don't really care about the stat distribution being gone, but I thought the abilities for the mage were made really, really dull. I really didn't have much fun playing as a mage. It was efficient to always have access to barrier etc, but it was really boring because the fun spells are gone, and replaced with pretty standard shooty death spells.
I'd really love to see some figures backing that up.
inb4 vgchartz bullshit
The flaw in VG chartz is with digital sales. So fine, I'll concur that their PC numbers are useless, so let's just focus on the two consoles.
DA:O shifted a little over 4m copies on the PS3 and 360. For the PC to have shifted more units, DA:O would have, for illustration, had to have shifted more copies than The Witcher and The Witcher 2 combined. Should be easy enough for you to demonstrate.
That is of course without highlighting the healthy trade-in market on console games, which was even healthier 5 years ago.
The exact figures of course are not important. The point is that DA:O was not a PC Master Race game which has since been sullied by console players, it was a multi-platform game which only reached its level of success from appealing to a wide audience.
The flaw in VG chartz is with digital sales. So fine, I'll concur that their PC numbers are useless, so let's just focus on the two consoles.
DA:O shifted a little over 4m copies on the PS3 and 360. For the PC to have shifted more units, DA:O would have, for illustration, had to have shifted more copies than The Witcher and The Witcher 2 combined. Should be easy enough for you to demonstrate.
That is of course without highlighting the healthy trade-in market on console games, which was even healthier 5 years ago.
The exact figures of course are not important. The point is that DA:O was not a PC Master Race game which has since been sullied by console players, it was a multi-platform game which only reached its level of success from appealing to a wide audience.
But it had a PC friendly UI, at least on PC, where it seems Inquisition does not. I think that's the issue.
Well on consoles Dragon Age Origins didn't have "move here" command at all. So on consoles, the origins was way more simple. Because commanding your companions didn't work so well.
That's true, and that's why I prefer DA2 because you had that control on console. However, you can get some on the fly placement control over individual party members in DAO by sending them to attack specific enemies and if you want redirecting them again once they're in position. Even so the lack of individual movement control was mostly only a problem in DAO where your party was ambushed in the fast travel sequences in unfamiliar and sometimes narrowly confined quarters. At nightmare level on a console, DAO wasn't really hard otherwise. I usually avoided Mana Clash because it was so overpowered. I did spam a lot of herbal remedies.
This thread is a joke. Too much E-peen complex, and too much talking without knowing what they are talking about.
There are no few enemies. This is the game with the most variety of enemies of all 3 DA's, I havent counted but I am pretty sure about it!
And the enemies all have different abilities, which means you need knowledge for a better success against them.
Just because you are facing enemies overleveled, of ultracrafted, or with a lower difficulty setting for your skill, does not mean the game's combat is not good. It just means you really do NOT want to be challenged, and then come here to complain about it.
If you face combats with a high enough difficulty setting, and you are not overleveled/overcrafted, you will have to think what you are doing, you cannot simply "press R to win".
You will need to know about what Terror demons do and GTFO when you have to or CC them, you will need to know about the enrage of Rage demons, you will need to learn to burst wraiths before they pop up they barrier, you will need to learn how to deal with a long rang Despair demon ray of frost, you will need to learn how to track and keep out of stealth those templar hunters, you will need to know you must CC or kill the templar knight before he imba buffs another mob, you will need to know you must have always someone at melée of a Revenant, you will need to know that bears have an AoE attack that kills rogues when they stand up, you will need to know that when a brute charges the attack it will do a chain AoE attacks, you will need to know what are the AoE attacks of a Pride demon, you will need to know about how mages can create elemental shields on other targets nullifying their weakness, etc etc etc
There are tons of enemies with different abilities. This is a huge improvement over DAO and DA2.
Tactical combat has been removed and replaced with button mashing action combat, because of "progress" or something.
This combat gives a new meaning for the Awesome Button™ concept. This time even with more grinding!
Bio said they bring something back from Origins but so far I have only seen DA2 respawning mash fest with added hack´n slash (no more auto attack, gawd dam Bio!). They just didn´t go the DA2 way but even more to the MMO world. How is that for a improvement???? As a pc player I detest this console mashing gameplay.
I must say that so far I'm really disappointed with combat in DA:I. After I watched trailers I thought that I can expect combat to be more meaningful and complex than in DA2, but it's actually much more simple. There are fewer skills, there are no healing spells, there are no tactics (unless you call turning on/off skills for AI tactics)... You can't even select multiple characters at once. It feels like some brawler and not RPG game. Game could be fun, if I would expect action game and not party based rpg. Now it feels like "press 'R' to continue", because of how little options I have and how easy combat is.
It's pity because other elements of the game are great.
There is a difficulty slider - use it.
The combat in this game was the best in the franchise. Reminded me a lot of SWTOR which is a plus, as I enjoy the combat in that game.
The flaw in VG chartz is with digital sales. So fine, I'll concur that their PC numbers are useless, so let's just focus on the two consoles.
No. The flaw with VGChartz is that their numbers are unreliable. Period. They are simple estimates based on data they pulled out of their ***.
The only reliable numbers are from NPD (although without PC and digital sales) and numbers from a publisher itself.
The combat in this game was the best in the franchise. Reminded me a lot of SWTOR which is a plus, as I enjoy the combat in that game.
Combat in SWTOR is actually better TBH.
oops
posted in the wrong thread. A mod can delete this post.
Combat in SWTOR is actually better TBH.
Agreed. Particularly the melee combat. DAI simply reminded me more of that game than its predecessors.
To be honest DA:O was the easiest because of arcane warrior.
Play an Arcane Warrior with the DLC armor and weps and you steamroll through everything no matter what difficulty, regardless of friendly fire or anything else.
Retour en haut