128 réponses à ce sujet

[AresKeith]

I found the thread Patrick Weekes made in regards to the healing 

 

http://forum.bioware.../#entry17480360

[TheOgre]

I still run into the problem where if I have no potions and I'm neck deep in the templar quest at low health pools, barriers won't keep me alive. I had this happen to me when waves of red templars overwhelmed me. To make it worse, the envy demon would just eat the barriers and kill with his annoying warp ability.

I don't agree with the way they set it up. Bigger barriers and guard with damage resistance tonics would be nicer for me if they swear off healing altogether. Be consistent, no drinking a kool-aid to instant repair your organs.

[AresKeith]

I still run into the problem where if I have no potions and I'm neck deep in the templar quest at low health pools, barriers won't keep me alive. I had this happen to me when waves of red templars overwhelmed me. To make it worse, the envy demon would just eat the barriers and kill with his annoying warp ability.

I don't agree with the way they set it up. Bigger barriers and guard with damage resistance tonics would be nicer for me if they swear off healing altogether. Be consistent, no drinking a kool-aid to instant repair your organs.

 

To be fair, DAO and DA2's health potions did the same thing

[TheOgre]

Yeah.. But they had healing magic as well. When healing in the universe insists on it being a slow gradual process and they suddenly enforce that rule in dai, it should work for everything

[AresKeith]

Yeah.. But they had healing magic as well. When healing in the universe insists on it being a slow gradual process and they suddenly enforce that rule in dai, it should work for everything

 

I'm pretty sure the healing potion is the exception because of that on a gameplay standpoint 

[TheOgre]

That's why I said I prefer gradual healing with deeper barriers and guards. Barrier, while slowly regenerating that health. It's still very possible to be true to the 'lore' about spirit healing being slow and careful while keeping the current system and improving upon it.

[Duelist]

Yeah, I like preventative, absorption based combat. I think rogues should get better defensive mechanics myself however next game, or evasion goes further than just a talent point if quick hack and slash is the focus from now on.

While I'm not opposed to this, any defensive mechanics for rogues should be movement based IMO.

In MP, Isabela has her own neat little defensive mechanics where she builds up Evasive which allows her to avoid damage entirely.
It is OP as hell though, especially since she's a major damage dealer as well.

[AresKeith]

While I'm not opposed to this, any defensive mechanics for rogues should be movement based IMO.

In MP, Isabela has her own neat little defensive mechanics where she builds up Evasive which allows her to avoid damage entirely.
It is OP as hell though, especially since she's a major damage dealer as well.

 

sounds like Bioware is trying out new things

[TheOgre]

sounds like Bioware is trying out new things

 

I like that TBH

[Duelist]

sounds like Bioware is trying out new things

Given how differently the new characters play from anything in SP, it's possible that MP is being used to try new things.

As for healing magic, I'm ambivalent about it.
Between potions, barrier and Heal On Kill rings I've never found myself needing it.

[nightscrawl]

Here is a giant dev post on the issue... enjoy reading.

A lot of people are picturing trying to play DAO/2 with no heals. Of course that wouldn't work, those games weren't balanced for that. But how well were they balanced with heals, really? I'm not a numbers guy, but I like a good fight. And here's what made it make sense for me.

There's a very simple reason why this is a good decision, and it's also why the balance in DAO/2 was all over the map. It's in the question "How many health points does a player have?" Because we need to know this before we can design an encounter and know how balanced it is.

So, how many HP? Well, we'd hope it starts with "somewhere between the minimum for a mage and the max for a warrior, varied based on party makeup." Okay, good place to start. That's a real number. We can build encounters that do somewhere within that range of total damage + effects.

Now add in healing. How many HP does the player have? "Somewhere between the minimum for a mage and the max for a warrior, plus somewhere between the minimum and maximum number of healing spells/potions and between the min/max of their mana/potions."

Okay, how much HP is that exactly? Since potions restore mana, and potions also restored HP, the actual number of potential HP was somewhere between the minimum for a mage and the total amount of gold you had available to spend on potions. And the later in the game it was, the more the top reached astronomical numbers. And so the greatest power the player had in previous games was not any one of their abilities, it was the ability to make the number of HP impossible to estimate.

And to counter effectively infinite HP, "balance" meant we needed to hit the player with far more potential damage than their characters could withstand, and do it all but instantly. In effect, replacing HP damage (unknown limits) with death/resurrection (known limits). Or we had to stop them from chaining potions, meaning more enemies that put them to sleep or confused them, or otherwise made the player not able to take action. Alpha strikes and crowd control, neither of which were tactics that were fun to face again and again, because they "balanced" by removing actions, by removing control.

Now in Inquisition, by reducing healing, by actually defining HP to a range that can have real numbers in it, we can better balance encounters. And no, players can't rely on chaining potions. So what do they get instead?

Abilities/gear/choices that actually have an effect on the battle that is greater than infinite health on your belt. And because your greatest ability isn't chugging potions, we need less effects that shut you down. You spend more time in control of your characters making more varied decisions to have a greater effect on the flow of the battle. You have regen from spells and potions and gear. You have effects you can craft that grant health on enemy deaths. You have damage mitigation through abilities and buffs and crafting. Limiting health and balancing enemies accordingly makes more tactical choices viable while keeping the challenge.

Does this make it more difficult? On Nightmare, Well, you asked for a challenge, and you'll have one that you can overcome in many more viable ways than previously possible.

But what about Easy? Well, last weekend, on Easy/Casual, starting the game with a mage and me not saying a word, my seven year old played for two hours that included many battles, including rifts and beating the crap out of a low level Pride demon. No party wipes. I covered his ears once.

I think you'll be fine.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

There is a lack of healing magic because Bioware is lazy. Period.

 

The idea that healing magic should just be scrapped away because it makes game balance difficult is a pathetic excuse.

 

Why ? Because there are many ways that are perfectly logical and realistic to make healing magic work and work well.

 

Here is a list of things Bioware could have done.

1. Introduce Toxicity for potion consumption. This will prevent stacking of healing potions because if you drink too much, you will die. This also has a real world basis which people can relate to since overdosing yourself on medication can and will kill you or seriously injure you.
2. Make basic and intermediate healing spells DOT spells. DOT is damage over time. By this I mean healing spells should restore health over time, not immediately. Additionally, make it so that you cannot stack the same healing spell on one character until the DOT has run out. That way, healing can be countered by high DPS (damage per second) or higher DOT attacks. This also has a real world basis in that you can only heal people from something gradually, not instantly.
3. Make high level or advanced healing spells into channeling spells. This means the said mage in question must put themselves at a risk to use them since channeling spells can be interrupted or disrupted. Think of this as the Teleport scrolls from DoTA 2. Like all the other suggestions here, this also has a real world basis since advanced medication require constant and intensive care.

So there you go. Three suggestions to make healing magic and healing potions work and work well in a game. What's more, the basis for these suggestions already exist in other games or are simply borrowed from real world medicine and healing. If a guy like me who spends his time helping out with tweaking and testing gamplay mods for Skyrim and Fallout can come up with better ways to implement healing magic than a group of supposed "one of the best developers of RPG games", you know that they sure done f**ked up.

 

I find it really comical and laughable that we have RPGs, MMOs, MMORPGs and MOBAs all utilizing healing magic, advanced healing magic, classes specifically devoted to healing and yet we have naive people blindly swallowing Bioware's kool-aid excuse of "It upsets game balance". 

[SardaukarElite]

If a guy like me who spends his time helping out with tweaking and testing gamplay mods for Skyrim and Fallout can come up with better ways to implement healing magic than a group of supposed "one of the best developers of RPG games", you know that they sure done f**ked up.

 

A guy like you doesn't have to make your systems work with the game we're actually discussing, you can just assume that they will work as well as they did in the game you ripped them off from while lecturing BioWare about laziness.

 

A guy like you is also able to smugly assume that BioWare was only trying to address one issue with removing healing magic and laugh at them for failing to use other people's systems which didn't have the same goals.

 

A guy like you can say what you want without actually having to deliver on anything.

[blahblahblah]

A guy like you doesn't have to make your systems work with the game we're actually discussing, you can just assume that they will work as well as they did in the game you ripped them off from while lecturing BioWare about laziness.

 

A guy like you is also able to smugly assume that BioWare was only trying to address one issue with removing healing magic and laugh at them for failing to use other people's systems which didn't have the same goals.

 

A guy like you can say what you want without actually having to deliver on anything.

Tishen will always accuse Bioware of laziness every time. 

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Tishen will always accuse Bioware of laziness every time. 

 

As opposed to drinking kool-aid and believing everything the developers say. Really ? With a whole host of other RPG games, some of which are massive multiplayer gmaes, that have healing magic, that have classes dedicated to healing and Bioware comes up with "game balance" as justification ?

 

I don't buy that excuse, especially since Bioware have adapted other features such as the pinging and war table which were found on previous games. But they won't for healing ? 

 

Or is it because having my suggestions will make the game "too complicated" for EA/Bioware target audience ? 

[blahblahblah]

As opposed to drinking kool-aid and believing everything the developers say. Really ? With a whole host of other RPG games, some of which are massive multiplayer gmaes, that have healing magic, that have classes dedicated to healing and Bioware comes up with "game balance" as justification ?

 

I don't buy that excuse, especially since Bioware have adapted other features such as the pinging and war table which were found on previous games. But they won't for healing ? 

 

Or is it because having my suggestions will make the game "too complicated" for EA/Bioware target audience ? 

Calling Bioware lazy doesn't make them better. DAI has regeneration potions and don't tell that it's not healing.

[Shevy]

They removed healing mages due to balancing and integrated barrier and KE? Byower pls!

 

I solo'd the Highland Ravager on nightmare with a level 14 Viv.

 

I don't know which balancing goal Bioware tried to achieve, but barrier completely negates any challenge. Thus, only non-barrier mage builds are used - aside from "let's see what I can do with Viv" actions.

It looks like they couldn't combine their semi-open world design with a healing mechanic and scrapped it therefore. Barrier made it worse though.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

They removed healing mages due to balancing and integrated barrier and KE? Byower pls!

 

I solo'd the Highland Ravager on nightmare with a level 14 Viv.

 

I don't know which balancing goal Bioware tried to achieve, but barrier completely negates any challenge. Thus, only non-barrier mage builds are used - aside from "let's see what I can do with Viv" actions.

It looks like they couldn't combine their semi-open world design with a healing mechanic and scrapped it therefore. Barrier made it worse though.

 

Precisely. If you play the game, look at other RPG games, you will see that what they did with healing makes no sense whatsoever.Unless if you consider multiplayer. Then, all of a sudden,  the ridiculous decision to dumb down healing makes a lot more sense, albeit in a twisted way. 

 

In DAMP, you can only have limited potions and in order to get more, you need to complete matches and spend the currency you get in the in-game store or use actual money to get them in the in-game store. 

 

Which means Bioware decided to severely reduce healing spells in order to make people use more health potions. Health potions which can be obtained in multiplayer by paying real world money. This is also why we have healing grenades. You can purchase these in the store via micro-transactions.

 

In a sense, the dumbing down of healing, is on the surface, a game balance issue but what it actually is about is multiplayer, micro-transactions and money. 

 

Gotta love them $$$

 

Calling Bioware lazy doesn't make them better. DAI has regeneration potions and don't tell that it's not healing.

 

So yes,Bioware is not just lazy. They are also greedy as well. If they were otherwise, they would not have done what they did.

 

The fact that multiple developers all had to come out with some standard corporate style response just shows how this was ultimately a move to make people use micros-transactions and it bled into the singleplayer. 

 

Recall Bioware mentioned that the combat systems for DAI were tested and tweaked in a multiplayer setting and then they were essentially ported into single player.

 

This is why :- 

 

1) Most of the spells are spells that work in a dungeon environment but do not work well in a large open world one. Walls, glyphs and area of effect spells with a small radius makes sense in a tight dungeon environment. 

 

2) We have the 8 ability lock in combat. This is not due to consoles but due to multiplayer. In multiplayer, we have 4 abilities and then 4 slots for other stuff. 4+4 = 8. Laidlaw's argument of 8x4=32, probably comes from 4x4=16 and that is enough for a dungeon crawler. 

 

3) Why the tactical camera and tactics were just half-arsed and not implemented well. You do not need tactical camera in a action dungeon crawler environment and most definitely do not need to both a lot with squad tactics in a multiplayer-based game.

 

4) Why healing was dumbed down and scrapped down into the abomination it is today without updating the Codex. Almost all the healing spells were removed and instead replaced with restricted grenades and potions because you will be "encouraged" or to buy these potions and grenades in an in-game store via micro-transactions. 

[PhroXenGold]

While I don't think DA:I implemented it that well, I for one am very glad they moved away from an infinite healing mechanic to an attrition based one, where your total resources are limited. It allows far greater flexibility in encounter design - the most basic expression of which is that you can now have encouters that arwe menaingful without having to have them be a threat to your survival, something that is nigh-impossible in "traditional" (and I use the word somewhat loosely, as the archetypical RPG system, D&D, does use an attrition based system with Vancian magic) systems where you have unlimted healing.

 

For a much better implemented version of a similar concept, take a look at what Obisidian did in PoE.

[Zatche]

They removed healing mages due to balancing and integrated barrier and KE? Byower pls!

I solo'd the Highland Ravager on nightmare with a level 14 Viv.

I don't know which balancing goal Bioware tried to achieve, but barrier completely negates any challenge. Thus, only non-barrier mage builds are used - aside from "let's see what I can do with Viv" actions.
It looks like they couldn't combine their semi-open world design with a healing mechanic and scrapped it therefore. Barrier made it worse though.

I think the mistake here wasn't implementing Barrier, but giving us abilities and weapons that generate Guard/Barrier while autoattacking.

[SardaukarElite]

Tishen will always accuse Bioware of laziness every time. 

 

It's kind of funny really.

[CathyMe]

Ugh. ;-; . I don't know about the others but for me the lack of a healer tree felt like a shot to the kneecap, gameplay-wise. Mostly because healer is the only class I am decent at playing.

[AresKeith]

Tishen will always accuse Bioware of laziness every time.

Pretty much

[OhNoWhyHow]

I actually like the new system.  It doesn't stop dedicated health spammers from just returning to camp every five minutes, but it does make boss fights more meaningful.  In DAO, the high dragon was just silly because I knew I could bring a hundred health poultices and apply 0 strategy and still beat it.

 

There are ways to make dragon killing easy in DAI as well, but in this case you at least have to think about your character build for five minutes.

 

The only major issue is that it made rogues too squishy because they have nothing like barrier or guard.  I've had to put fade touched obsidian on all my rogues to really make them viable at higher difficulties.  I'm glad I played Jaw of Hakkon with a knight enchanter first instead of my archer because that would have just been masochistic.  It made me not even want to try the DLC with him.  

[DSiKn355]

Personally I hated that there was no healing spells.

 

I was shocked when I chose to be a mage and I never had any healing abilities.

 

For me Healing is a must. I don't want to quick travel to a damn tent when I run out of potions only to have to run all the way back to where I was wasting more time in an already long game due to slow ass travel.

 

And the fact that they say it was due to "balancing" yet Vivi is so damn op its ridiculous and they have had 6/7 patches to balance Vivi yet haven't makes me that they are just talking BS plain and simple.

 

I gotta agree with Tishen and the microtransactions as being the hidden agenda behind it.