247 réponses à ce sujet

[Elhanan]

Bias and prejudice are not facts.

[correctamundo]

Bias and prejudice are not facts.

 

Unless it is MY bias and prejudice ;-).

[Eelectrica]

DAI was a test run for dumbed down action combat that is neither tactical like its predecessors, nor punishingly difficult like Dark Souls. I expect they will go full retard in the next one, and that DA4 will have no Tac Cam, no tactics system, and minimal player control over companions other than gear load out. It will be DAI with even more awesome button.

Scary thing is you may well be right. I'm sure a lot of us remember a post from an EA CEO saying they don't want games to be too difficult to learn, and I know people do find the current implementation of the tac cam difficult to use, as such that they've given up on it.

 

My fear is that instead of making further improvements, they will toss it out the window. It took some getting used to but I can fairly comfortably use it. I mean it does so LOL worthy things at times, but can usually work around it or just deal with it.

[Vegeta 77]

I enjoy DA2 combat the best DAI is more slow with archer being the only class i enjoy.

[Darkly Tranquil]

Scary thing is you may well be right. I'm sure a lot of us remember a post from an EA CEO saying they don't want games to be too difficult to learn, and I know people do find the current implementation of the tac cam difficult to use, as such that they've given up on it.
 
My fear is that instead of making further improvements, they will toss it out the window. It took some getting used to but I can fairly comfortably use it. I mean it does so LOL worthy things at times, but can usually work around it or just deal with it.

Honestly, it probably hardly matters. It's not like the game is particularly challenging anyway (in its current incarnation). I suspect the vast majority of players are probably mainly interested in the story and play it on normal difficulty or lower, so things like complexity and difficulty are not really priorities for most of Bioware's target audience. That making it super easy appeals to the very casual non-gamer audience is just a handy bonus. It only sucks if you are someone who likes more complex and challenging gameplay, and it seems those players are now the minority.

[Elhanan]

Or there of us that play on NM, and like challenging gameplay, and the increased tactical possibilities offered in the new engine.

[Kali073]

I don't exactly hate the new combat system but for me it really takes a lot of fun out of the game. I've never really used the tactics lists much (beyond setting the character archtype) so it doesn't really bother me that it's been... changed (though I wish my party would hold when I tell them to). What bothers me most is:

 

1) The limit to 8 abilities at once. I like playing as a mage and I always felt that one of the most rewarding things was learning new spells an being able to use them whenever it struck my fancy without much effort. The DAI system where I have to go and manually change every spell (and I can't do it during combat) is incredibly tedious for me. It might have been ok in a shorter game but after several hours I simply lose interest in going in and out of the menu so often and just stick with the same spells I always use because they do work. So once I've filled those slots, it makes me lose all interest in levelling up because there is no longer any reward for it.

 

2) Not being able to manually choose whichever stats I want. I get that they want to try  new way of doing it, to change stats with passives and gear, bit it's a way I find incredibly boring to manage. I'm not against having passive abilities boost stats but I want to choose stats myself. I don't want to have to take Spell x to reach the passive behind it.

 

3) Lack of spell variety for mages. Mages are my favourite class and I like the variety we had before but now they feel so limited. Healing magic, entropy, etc. I want them back. It feels very limiting when Almost all the trees are elemental, though the specialisations do help this somewhat. My favourite type of mage was always spirit healer and I really miss the spec.

 

4) Focus. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't used to the previous system but it adds a longer "cooldown" so to speak than I'd like. Those are the most fun abilities/spells to use but it's so limited when you can use them. I know that it's so you won't just spam those powerful abilities but it makes it less fun for me.

 

5) Respawn rate of enemies. There is no sense of accomplishment for clearing an area of enemies anymore because about 3 seconds after I've killed them, they're back. The respawn rate should have been slower. Especially since it was difficult to run past some enemies because they were ranged and would always steal some health if I tried to get past without fighting when I was sick of the grind.

 

So I don't actively hate it, but I certainly dislike it. I can play it to get to the story and beautiful scenery but it's not a comabt system that makes me feel like "Oh, I haven't played DAI for a while, it would be fun to start it up for a while without even doing some story content" the way some other games do.

[Elhanan]

While I also prefer more Quickslots and increased freedom to build the character, I find that there are plenty of spells available, including Healing and Entropy. They are included in other named Schools: Knight Enchanter, Spirit, and Necromancy.

I would not mind slower respawn rates for components as well as opponents, but am guessing many Players would not enjoy waiting for either if seeking them.

[Xerxes52]

The combat system isn't bad I think (being able to use more than 8 abilities would be great though), and I definitely find the Archer Rogue is my favorite class to play, mainly because I can move and shoot at the same time. As for melee classes, I'm terrible at timing blocks with the Warrior or DW Rogue, and I seem to have a hard time knowing exactly when I'm in range with my melee attacks. Mages are fun to use as well, I like most of the abilities on their spell trees (I still would have liked a single-target Heal spell though).

 

My main problem is just that the party keeps locking up in combat, and there's seemingly no relief in sight. I'm hoping this doesn't get left in the game once patch support is dropped, like the infamous Ashley Marksman bug in ME3.

[Arshei]

DA2 has a combat system more exciting, Inquisition is good but... Needs more explosive damage.

[Ravenfeeder]

Whilst I prefered DA:O there some good things about the DA:I combat. The animations are better and the destructibility of terrain, albeit limited, creates better atmosphere. DA2 was awful though, although my perceptions there are probably biased by the poor storyline and dislikable companions. Still it was over-fast with silliness like teleporting reinforcements and somersaulting templars.

[CronoDragoon]

They are never going back to tactical considering the multiplayer. The newer classes in DA: I's multiplayer are actually quite fun to play as and have nice action gameplay diversity. If I'm being selfish, I'd recommend they drop the half-hearted attempt to appeal to the turn-based iso crowd and focus on making DA4 as close to Dragon's Dogma as they can. ME3 proved they have the chops to make an excellent Action RPG system with good feedback and build diversity.

[Kage]

I love the pace of the DAI's combat. How much it takes to kill mobs, how much it takes to kill bosses, that every enemy can be a threat if not dealt with, etc.

However, the combat has a lot of flaws for me, basically all consisting in that this is the less "party-combat" Dragon Age out there. No tactics, limited abilities, skills not being used eficiently by the AI, etc. It seemed the combat was just like ME, 1 character doing all, and 3 bots just being there and resurrecting each other all the time.

 

Plus, the combat system at launch was so broken. They fixed the abilities AFTER my 2 playthroughs, so that ended in a very poor combat experience for me.

[Elhanan]

Tactics remain, but are lesser than DA2. Still work, but are not as versatile.

Fewer Active Abilities in a Tier, but are plentiful enough overall. And Passive Abilities do not have to be loaded on the Quickbar.

Cannot speak much to combos, as I prefer to not utilize Floating Text, but get them often enough to notice the slowdown effect when presented.

Recommend altering Tactics and Behavior to better enable Companions to be of help. Also re-mapping Control keys avoid some annoyance with default layout.

[Sylvius the Mad]

They are never going back to tactical considering the multiplayer. The newer classes in DA: I's multiplayer are actually quite fun to play as and have nice action gameplay diversity. If I'm being selfish, I'd recommend they drop the half-hearted attempt to appeal to the turn-based iso crowd and focus on making DA4 as close to Dragon's Dogma as they can. ME3 proved they have the chops to make an excellent Action RPG system with good feedback and build diversity.

But ME3 also permitted slower more tactical gameplay, so they can do both.

[United Servo Academy Choir]

Not button mash, but use of the same sequence repeatedly for most encounters.

And utilizing Bestiary is indeed a strength, which some forgo; hence the comparison to those that choose to skip it and utilize repeated moves.

Some seem to assume that I am down on TW3 for everything, and I have repeatedly denied it. Am against the lack of Pause and choice of excessive content.

 

Because it is hardly a combat system at all. When you can cast barrier and button mash past every enemy (if you really want to), it just isn't a well developed system.

 

Characterizing the combat in DAI as "barrier/faceroll" is absurd, frankly. Obviously you'll be able to make it through the game without fully utilizing all your options, even if it's not optimal. That's the case with every game I can think of. It was the case in DAO to an embarassing extent.

 

Personally, over the course of my games in DAI, I found it necessary (and satisfying to boot) to take full advantage of my fairly varied arsenal to keep things going smoothly. I for one feel the limitations of the quickbar, because I don't feel I have access to all I need to play the game. I play on hard/NM.

 

There aren't as many active abilities in TW3 by design, but even so, at least on the the second hardest difficulty (which is what I've been playing), all you need to use 95% of the time is Quen and the appropriate sharp backclub. Other abilities are fun, and will make things go more smoothly, but as in DAI, they're not remotely required. The bestiary (while immensely satisfying) is unnecessary to consult most of the time. Just dodge, bubble and stab. Don't know how Death March is yet, but I can't imagine it's that much different - probably just less forgiving.

 

Which isn't a knock on the combat (which I find to be really active and very, very fun). Honestly, I've spent more hours in TW3 than I spent in the first two games combined at this point, and I'm more and more convinced that comparing it to DAI is like comparing BG2 to Half Life - pointless and irrelevant, because they're not trying to do the same thing. They're both great, so we all sort of win.

[Super Drone]

Deathmarch is.... rough.  I'm playing it with New Game + and  still get school by particularly lucky packs of wild Dog if I let my brain switch off for a second.

 

I use Axii a LOT to  turn enemies against each other.  

[United Servo Academy Choir]

Deathmarch is.... rough.  I'm playing it with New Game + and  still get school by particularly lucky packs of wild Dog if I let my brain switch off for a second.

 

I use Axii a LOT to  turn enemies against each other.  

 

I'm honestly hoping for a bit of a difficulty boost with NG+ just staying on Blood and Broken bones, if I ever even get to NG+  that is (I just hit Kaer Morhen, at 100 hours even).

 

I recently redid my talents, went Bear school, and actually started intelligently using mutagens, and the difficulty drop has been noticeable. Probably I should just bump it up to Death March anyway to see how it treats me. I'm level 25, at the moment.

[Bhryaen]

Not that much of this hasn't already been said, but...

 

I'm not against DAI's combat, but I'm not a big fan either. I like it well enough and do usually look forward to a fight, but I'm merely enduring it at times rather than enjoying it. That's more like business than pleasure...

 

Improvements in DAI Combat over DAO/DA2:

:

1. The explosion displays.

In DA2 these were waaaay over-the-top. Simple spells or abilities would create huge showers of action or effects... but not even do much damage. DAO was just a lot more basic than DA2 or DAI, so it was easy to improve on. DAI has this down very well: big spells with big damage do big effects, lesser spells with less damage involve fewer effects. This is an aesthetic concern, but for me that matters. DA2 combat felt gratuitously flashy to me, trying to emulate Final Fantasy or something- very distracting, often hiding the combat field, and not even cool to look at. In DAI the combat artists seem to have truly gotten it just right: badass effects (and sounds) but not overdone. Even Firestorm still lets you sight-see on the beautiful game environment while it's blasting the area. Still, DAO's Walking Bomb was waaaay better than DA2 or DAI: SPLAT! in a huge bloody mess with body chunks flying... XD

 

2. More fluid, dynamic combat.

Especially in DAO there was a sort of "locked-in" moment that would happen whereby if a melee enemy simply began to take a swing at you, it didn't matter what you did from then on. You could run away 15m, slide on the other side of your tank- but if that moment had occurred, no matter how slowly the enemy would swing that sword or maul: there was nothing you could do to avoid a potential hit on you. It was a dissonance between the attack animation and actual combat event. Attack legitimacy was based only on getting close enough to the target and hitting "attack." This could be exploited too as during the Provings fight in the dwarf origins: running away to stall until your ability cooldown was up, avoiding the enemy until it got that explosive run at you and closed enough for a regular attack, causing it to stop in order to take a swing, allowing you to widen the gap again- except that the enemy did get a hit in on you despite you running away nowhere in range of the attack.

 

The DAO ranged "locked-in" moments would lead to a dissonance that was carried from BG and NWN. Again- if the enemy merely gets a chance to attack, that attack is valid and applies no matter what happens between the initiation of the spell casting or arrow-loading and what the enemy's target actually did. In BG you could run down a hall, turn a corner, run down another corridor, turn again... and the arrow could still hit you. The attack roll was made and if it was a high enough roll, you were hit once the projectile got to you- period. This still happened in DAO but the projectiles were too fast for longer evasive maneuvers. Still you could've ducked behind a wall only to have an arrow come through the wall to complete the successful attack roll.

 

In DAI the only straight-up dodge abilities seem to be on the rogue... but they work! Mages have Fade Step that can function similarly. And even warriors can simply move away a safe distance from an attack in order to avoid it. The attack legitimacy- the game mechanics' determination of whether an attack should be able to cause damage to a target- really seems to be based on where the target is when the melee swing is extended or the projectile reaches the destination location. Actually it's not perfect on projectiles- spider venom spit curving through the air sideways to travel through obstructions in order to hit you- but it's definitely improved. And to make this even more realistic the enemies often have some means to close and strike quickly and simultaneously, so there's no feeling remaining of "oh, come on, I was nowhere near that strike." Clearly it got me.

 

DAI still fails somewhat though on rogue dodges. The most frustrating attack to deal with is the bronto/druffalo/gurn/guard charge. This is especially irritating when you also have several giants pounding in the area and not enough Taunts or Challenges to keep everything on the tank. When the charge begins, I can stealth my rogue, then do an Evade leap 90 degrees to the side well out of the way, then run a bit further, but the bronto charge will actually sharply change direction toward my supposed-to-be-invisible rogue regardless. The best I can ever do is just minimize suffering the charging time (smacking-around time) by avoiding the inevitable forced tumbling as long as I can. I can't outlast it though no matter what I do, so Charge is an auto-hit. I'd have thought charging would have the limitation of staying in a more or less straight line, but apparently not. This limitation also applies to wolf pounces and other attacks where the enemy really shouldn't be detecting my stealthed character anymore, particularly jumping 8 meters away, but, well, the "locked-in" targeting effect still occurs in DAI in such instances.

 

Still, it's a big improvement- and a needed change when the enemy is a dragon spitting nastiness at you that you can out-run or duck behind a ruined wall to avoid- or wanting to grab you up but failing due to your evasive maneuvers.

 

3. Focus Power.

This is a really cool new game mechanic that I assume will be completely tied to DAI and its story (not exactly something every new DA protagonist will have). It reminds me of the special abilities that would come to you or other characters in Baldur's Gate as the story progressed. It was a bit more fun in BG1 than in DAI since you got a number of special abilities rather than just one and they'd only appear after a psychadelic dream sequence, but it's still great in DAI where your Anchor (not a great name for it, but...) starts to grant you extra power, and in DAI that extra power can be like a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card when combat gets overwhelming. Odd that perking Cullen is what increases its power, but... And it doesn't seem to have much to its Ability Tree... And, of course, it had to take up an ability quickslot... And I hardly use it... But still! I love it. I hope that in DA4 there's another such thingy like that makes the protagonist special beyond just our ability to get cutscenes, take epic screenshots, and outdo the AI.

 

DAI's Combat Limitations (you'll have read several of these above)

 

1. Tactics have been gutted.

No idea what went through the devs' minds to decide that in a tactical game where some fights are far more punishing unless you can manage/micromanage your characters' actions properly... tactics weren't so important and thus the AI that they'd build would be sufficient for the player to rely on. It's like the notion was that everyone would play Casual anyway, so AI failures won't matter so much. I mean, it's not as if people were asking the devs to come up with a great Tactics system and the devs failed. DAO/DA2 already had a great Tactics system- not broken, working well, very uniquely DA, loved by fans that used it. And they gutted- I mean, "simplified" it.

 

OK, I admit I never used tactics in DA2 (which seems to have an even better Tactics system than DAO)- just rushed through the game on Casual so that I wouldn't start DAI blind on the story. But in DAO I played almost nothing but Nightmare mode and used Tactics as part of regular gameplay. I could setup the AI to react very dynamically to the conditions present, auto-following just fine unless combat started, healing a particular character over others, blasting with an AoE spell or ability only when enough were grouped around to warrant it, etc. Lots and lots of options. I could list way more that I employed regularly (just deleted them to not burden this further), but the main thing is, they're gone in favor of the AI the devs thought sufficient.

 

Now there are far more heavy-handed "behaviors" options which do not work conditionally. They'll work just they way you want except the other half of the time. But shutting them off entirely is to invite Tedium Demons to reign supreme in your gameplay, like living as someone with a severe back injury where every little action is a pain. So I leave them as is. This means that regularly the party attacks when I don't want them to, doesn't attack when I do want them to, moves where I don't want them to and refuses to stay where I've intentionally placed them for tactical purposes, selects party members for buffs that I would rather they hadn't... In order to truly make managed tactical combat work in DAI you have to micromanage every single regular attack and positional shift because you have to disable so much in order to keep it from misapplying Behaviors instructions. It's too cumbersome that way... so you endure the AI limitations.

 

I see now the trick to DAI combat is just to get superior equipment as fast as possible in order to provide a buffer against the poor AI. It certainly works, mind you. I can now play Nightmare in DAI with few difficulties. I can at least control how a fight starts and my own character's actions (can't abide letting the game AI possess my character...) There have been several fights I couldn't have won if I hadn't paused to correct the behavior of the tank or others or to focus everyone's fire on one enemy, etc. So it does seem to be functional. Characters like dual-wield rogues (I built both Sera and Cole that way) and otherwise-squishy mages are surviving with little or no health loss most of the time... But it's just not same DA experience, is it? I prefer combat outcomes based more on my in-combat choices rather than on weathering AI bungling.

 

And this isn't to say, "If only they'd make the AI better." No matter how amazingly the AI is improved, the AI is going to bungle. There's no AI that's going to respond to a game environment as well as the player can. (Except in chess, I suppose...) This is normally why the player ultimately succeeds and wins the game and why their character is a Special One. We can exploit AI deficiency. Cassandra's AI would never have beat game AI, since, well, same-same... It's also what makes a deep Tactics AI such a treat- allowing the player to direct AI responses like a general predicting all possible outcomes in advance and preparing for them. And, hey, if you give the players a deep Tactics setup, they can't blame you if their tactical preparations fail... whereas they can blame the devs if the player has no control over who Solas gives Barrier to or where an AoE blast gets executed.

 

And that's what DAO/DA2 got so right. Actual combat time (if replayed without the pauses) was often pretty short because of all the little positionings and instant-by-instant changes you could make to turn the tide. Without those micromanagings you'd lose the fight. Realtime combat, particularly on Nightmare, was generally not possible. I can see that this might be what happened: the devs wanted to make realtime combat in DA more of an option (it can be fun after all) but wanted to keep the advantages of tactical combat a part of the game mechanics; but the two are almost mutually exclusive because the more realtime combat conditions apply, the more overpowered tactical combat can become. So they gutted Tactics. Ugh. Is there no better way?

 

2. Party functions usually don't work.

The biggest offender has been "Hold Position." Why doesn't this work most of the time? What is the scattiness factor? In DAO I could just tap the key to which I'd bound "Stay" and voila instantly everyone stays. What happened that it's now more of a suggestion that the AI can ignore if it doesn't feel like it? And it doesn't show "Hold Position" on the characters unless you pause the screen, so you don't even know whether it worked until you start executing actions. Not to mention that for some reason when I keybind "Stay" to "V," over time the game reassigns the "V" key to Search- even though Search is still assigned to a different key as well. Whatupwitdat? Hm, just tested it again, seems to be working ok. Not sure why my prior experience with it seemed so much less reliable. Maybe the keybinding issue? Not going to let it slide though, not after the repeated ignoring of the command that I've had to deal with.

 

"Cancel actions" has usually worked but not always, so with the party finally staying put, now they won't stop staying put, even when I'm engaged in combat and need them to please assist NOW. This almost seems like a bug to me, part of the game over a year after release. Basic functions are supposed to work. Like "Disengage-" works pretty much always (and I use it pretty much never).

 

3. Restriction to 8 quickslots.

Actually this does mostly work- at least for non-mages. I'm Lvl22 now and only just recently filled my last unfilled quickslot. The reason for this, however, is the reduction in available "activated" abilities. (By the way why do the ability/spell descriptions no longer state whether they're "passive," "activated," or "sustained?" I so appreciated having that in DA2, made life profoundly nicer for me as a new player to orient myself. Now we just have to guess from the description.) There's not as much to choose from anymore... so my archer is pretty much a Long Shot/ Explosive Shot/ Full Draw spammer- with stealth and Evade for defense and positioning. I'm admit I'm content with the repetitive combat style that such limitation involves, but not impressed.

 

I imagine that when I make a mage this will go to outright frustration given how varied the spells are to choose from- even within a single elemental school. At present on Dorian or Solas I just plug in one spell from each element to make sure multiple elemental bases are covered and add Dispel, Fade Step, and Barrier. It's makes for far less diversity in combat than the mage has in their spellbook. If this is intended to emulate the "memorized spells" game mechanic of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights- so forever you can only memorize a maximum of 8 spells at once- so be it. But that's not how it's presented. It looks more like it's just: "Sorry, the GUI wasn't big enough. Make do." Or, "Yeah, if we allow more to the player they get overpowered. Make do." But in a more diverse combat scenario it's very useful to have a more diverse range of abilities to cope.

[CronoDragoon]

Nice post, Bhryaen. I would add that for all the good #2 Improvement did for DA: I, it also kind of screwed rogue a bit. Since hit detection changed from behind-the-scenes rounds to on-screen hit detection, dual daggers really have trouble hitting opponents. Their hit boxes are too small both horizontally and laterally, meaning that opponents on the ground are almost impossible to without Deathblow (which has really good hitboxes for some reason) and rogue abilities aren't fast enough horizontally to track moving enemies (especially an issue with Twin Fangs). If they can do a better job having abilities track enemy hit boxes better, it'll go a long way towards making the combat feel smooth.

[Bhryaen]

Nice post, Bhryaen. I would add that for all the good #2 Improvement did for DA: I, it also kind of screwed rogue a bit. Since hit detection changed from behind-the-scenes rounds to on-screen hit detection, dual daggers really have trouble hitting opponents. Their hit boxes are too small both horizontally and laterally, meaning that opponents on the ground are almost impossible to without Deathblow (which has really good hitboxes for some reason) and rogue abilities aren't fast enough horizontally to track moving enemies (especially an issue with Twin Fangs). If they can do a better job having abilities track enemy hit boxes better, it'll go a long way towards making the combat feel smooth.

Great... I've been playing what I'm pretty sure is the easiest class to play in DAI- rogue archer. My favorite class is rogue dual-wield- been saving that for last- had in mind a very special character... But that class is wonky? Cole looks pretty nifty when I let him loose, but I suppose I don't know how effective he really is.

 

Now that you mention it, I've seen an issue with targeting enemies that are knocked down even while I'm using a bow. I'll start a fight with Full Draw+, and it'll put human targets to sleep- so they fall to the ground. Then when I try to follow up with a Long Shot (as usual), I either can't target them or the shot gets auto-directed to some other target or just fires ineffectually. Then he gets up and I have to stop attacking the wrong target and switch to that guy again... *sigh* So Sleeping Powder probably won't be the best trick in a dual-wield assassin rogue's bag of tricks. I'll have to keep that in mind when I get to it...

[Duelist]

On the contrary, I would recommend Knockout Bomb/Powder for a dual wield Assassin if only for the fact it sets up combos for you.

Hidden Blades does extra spirit damage and Shadow Strike on a sleeping target is usually enough to kill most enemies and knock a few seconds off of cooldowns.
Sleep doesn't work on all enemies though, namely enemy rogues.

[CronoDragoon]

Great... I've been playing what I'm pretty sure is the easiest class to play in DAI- rogue archer. My favorite class is rogue dual-wield- been saving that for last- had in mind a very special character... But that class is wonky? Cole looks pretty nifty when I let him loose, but I suppose I don't know how effective he really is.

It's definitely a little wonky, but I also absolutely loved playing it. You just have to know some of the quirks. Like Twin Fangs is difficult to use on moving enemies for reasons I stated above, but Flank Attack and Deathblow track enemies very well (and hugely, Deathblow can hit enemies on the ground better than something like Twin Fangs).

Also, I found dual blade daggers much easier to use on moving enemies whereas normal daggers planted me in place more - a problem with moving targets. This works out since the best daggers in the game are dual-blade anyway.

If you're looking forward to rogue, then my goal would be to hype you as opposed to deflate you. I love it. But I can also imagine how much better it would be with some of these issues solved.