247 réponses à ce sujet

[Lebanese Dude]

While some of the reasons why people would dislike DAI's combat system compared to DAO or DA2 do have some merit, I think those that resort to the usage of "hate" are clearly being hyperbolic to drive their few dislikes home. While they have different presentations, the combat systems in the three games aren't that different to warrant a complete 180.

 

The AI has always been relatively mediocre in Dragon Age. I don't see why anyone would pinpoint DAI as an exception...for example.

 

Like...Nefla here.

 

 

To be clear, I never liked DA combat. The kind of combat I like is the kind that relies on my own skill, aim, reflexes, and use of terrain. IMO though the combat of DA has gotten worse with each installment.

 

If anything, Dragon Age has improved on all four accounts.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition is the first game that makes direct use of terrain in combat. Several passives have certain terrain requirements to trigger, such as the Archery passives that let you gain damage from distance or height. Environmental interaction did not exist in previous games, except maybe for DAO's barricades or triggered grease, which still exist in DAI in some form. If you're referring to LOS strategies, you can do that in any game.

 

The tactics system, while a joy for many people for one reason or another, always ended up automating combat to the point of rendering the player input pointless. This reduced the effect of player skill and reflexes during a fight. 

 

Honestly, I don't get why tactics are even needed for this game. I can think of a few reasons, but not enough to justify the backlash. The removal of minor buffs and most sustains effectively removed 90% of the reason why people used them to begin with. The AI already does everything in it needs to do in terms of buffs.

 

Building complex tactics systemscould be rewarding, but then that renders any other complaints about combat irrelevant because you just automated the combat. 

 

In fact, the large number of abilities in DAO worked against the tactics system. If the ability wasn't in tactics, then your AI wouldn't use it. Given that the base number of tactic slots was small, you had to invest in Combat Tactics and download a (necessary) tactics mod in order to get this meticulous automated tactics system. It's simply not convenient or easy to use. You'd often have to spend most slots on sustains and filler spells that you don't want to bother with.

 

Well..the reduced number of filler or refresh spells and direct healing removed that need. Other people used it to disable certain spells...that can still be done. Some used it to control when an AI drinks a potion. That's still there. What's left? I suppose crowd control and a couple of "if" statements here and there for better manageability. 

 

As a side note I advocate the return of tactics, but that doesn't mean they were necessary in DAI. It's just nice to have options.

 

The removal of sustains and incorporating some of them as active abilities also increased the need for player skill. In DAO you activate a defense sustain and suddenly become a massive tank. In DAI you still gotta block. It can be automated if you don't control the tank but you still gotta position them when in trouble or if you're in direct control. Isn't that an increase in skill and reflex requirements?

 

Also, by relying on proactive protection rather than reactive healing, the player is now responsible for protecting their party by using bubbles, in a timely fashion. Too early and you waste it. Too late and your party is in danger. You have to gauge the threat and react accordingly. The same applies for guard generation and active mitigation, as well rogue evasion and dodging. That's another skill-cap increase.

 

What about aim? DAI is literally the first game where you can miss your targeted spells and abilities, because there is no longer a target lock. Input timing has never been so important.

 

...

 

Like I said, people have their reasons for disliking some aspects of the combat system in DAI. But to outright hate it when it's an improvement on most fronts from aesthetics and animations to skill progression just because of a few changes which make sense in the grand scheme of things is short-sighted.

[Darkly Tranquil]

Because some of us want to play an RPG that operates like a traditional RPG simulation (combat based on stats, dice rolls, etc.) in the vein of Baldur's Gate or Pillars of Eternity, rather than an action videogame with combat based on player reflexes in the style of things like God of War, Bayonetta, or Dynasty Warriors.

DAO was a reinterpretation of the core principles of the Infinity engine games with more modern presentation (closer view of combat, better animations, more robust AI systems). It made it more modern and more user friendly, but it kept the core of traditional CRPG experience of combat based on levelling, stats, builds, and equipment allocation without reference to the player's reflexes. DAI has largely discarded this legacy in favour of action combat in which the player's ability to maneauver, dodge, and parry are paramount, and your builds, stats (do these even matter in DAI?) and equipment loadouts are secondary to your ability to read combat animations and react. For simplicity's sake, one could define these two approaches as CRPG - old school stat and dice based combat that harkens back to the pen and paper RPGs, and ARPG - combat based primarily on player reflexes that draws its inspiration from action adventure and fighting video games.

Now there's nothing inherently wrong with the ARPG style, Dark Souls and the Witcher series thrive on that style of gameplay, but its a very jarring change for those of who love the old school style of gameplay and were drawn to DA in the first place by its unashamedly old fashioned approach. If DA had been action oriented combat from the get-go, there would have been less of an issue (although I would have been less inclinted to play it), but the change in style in this game was for me very offputting.  Personally, I absolutely hated DAI's combat. So much so that it took me five months to finally drag myself through the game once, and at the end I was just glad it was over so that I wouldn't have to deal with it again, and is why I won't be buying any of the DLC; I have no desire to battle the game systems again.

 

I disliked the combat for how much it deviated from the Origins design in both its depth of control (limited tactics and awkward Tac Cam), lack of customisability of stats and specs, lack of variety in spells and abilities, the limited number of spell combinations (and the fact that many of them were broken during the early patches). Mages essentially had red damage (fire), blue damage (cold) and purple damage (electricity), and very little in the way of utility abilities or non damage effects (besides Barrier). Rogues were position dependent, but a combination of poor pathing, poor AI, and faulty mechanics made them incredibly hit-and-miss. Combine that with an AI that bordered on suicidal at the best of times, and control systems that flat out didn't work half the time (I'm looking at you "Hold" command) and you have the recipe for a combat system that is both boring and frustrating.

 

The fundamental problem at the heart of DAI's combat (aside from the fact that I dislike it) is that action combat can only work when a player is controlling the character, because an AI is just not smart enough to be able to react the way a human player can, and when you have a combat system based on reactions, an AI can't react is simply a recipe for failure and frustration. An example of AI characters potentially harming gameplay is avoided in The Last of Us, in which Ellie is invisible to the enemies most of the time. The reason for this, according to the devs, was that they were unable to make Ellie's AI smart enough to hide from the enemies reliably, and they felt that having Joel's cover blown by faulty AI would make for a frustrating gameplay experience. DAI suffers the exact problem TLoU avoided - AI dependent characters impacting on your gameplay experience, often in a negative way.

 

Given the limitations of AI in combat, when a single player is controlling a party, there needs to be a mechanism to allow the player to control one character at a time sequentially, or a sufficiently robust automation system that can give the player some measure of control over multiple characters simultaneously. The traditional way of handling parties has been either turn base combat, in which the player can give commands to the party without reference to real time, or via real time with pause, in which the player queues up actions before allowing them to then play out, with or without some form of AI assist (tactics system). If the devs were able to actually code an AI system for the rest of the party that was sufficiently reliable to surrender party control fully, the current system in DAI might work, but the base AI is as bad as its ever been, and we have even less control over the tactics than we had previously, which could at least offset some of the worst of the AI's stupidity. The result is a combat system that is lacking in variety, frustrating to control, unreliable in its operation and not remotely enjoyable to many of the people who wanted a DA game that played liked the previous DA games and the CRPGs that came before it. 

 

Overall, I found DAI's combat system be one of the most unfun and irritating I've ever dealt with. If it hadn't been a Dragon Age game, I would have simply given up within the first couple of hours and never bothered with it again.  Despite being a massive DA fan, I honestly find it hard to see myself buying the next game because it seems the style of game is just drifiting too far from the kind of game I want to play. To say that I was disappointed by DAI, both due to its combat and its story, would be the understatement of the decade.

[Lebanese Dude]

*snip*

 

Kinda bored of these same tired dramatizations so I'll just zero in on this:

 

Now there's nothing inherently wrong with the ARPG style, Dark Souls and the Witcher series thrive on that style of gameplay

 

I disliked the combat for how much it deviated from the Origins design in both its depth of control (limited tactics and awkward Tac Cam), lack of customisability of stats and specs, lack of variety in spells and abilities, the limited number of spell combinations (and the fact that many of them were broken during the early patches). Mages essentially had red damage (fire), blue damage (cold) and purple damage (electricity), and very little in the way of utility abilities or non damage effects (besides Barrier). Rogues were position dependent, but a combination of poor pathing, poor AI, and faulty mechanics made them incredibly hit-and-miss. Combine that with an AI that bordered on suicidal at the best of times, and control systems that flat out didn't work half the time (I'm looking at you "Hold" command) and you have the recipe for a combat system that is both boring and frustrating.

 

 

1. DAI is not an action-RPG. There is literally zero applicable difference between reacting to an incoming attack and reacting to damage taken. Just because you can block preemptively to stop damage, doesn't mean you didn't have to take control of your slow-ass healer and make sure you cast the right spells to heal yourself up in DAO.

 

Having the ability to actually move around the battlefield does not make a game an action-RPG. The hilarious shuffle-crawl characters in DAO do is replaced by evasions and fade steps. 

 

2. DAO with all its fluff and sustains made tactics necessary. Any usage of tactics on higher difficulties and especially with Friendly Fire is a lesson in being stupid. You had to download a couple of mods to expand the tactics system in order to make effective use of that, but this is not a fair comparison for the base games. The different gameplay style in DAI renders extensive tactics meaningless. Unless you're an automating junkie, you'd be lying up your ass if you said you used tactics for anything other than maintaining sustains, chugging timed potions, and enabling/disabling certain abilities. The occasional if statement is missed, but that doesn't render the entire system "bad".

 

3. Tactical camera in DAI is not easy to grasp as quickly as DAO's, but when you get used to it it's fine. Not that it shouldn't be fixed. Considering you don't have to use it to begin with, I fail to see the point of QQ. In DA2, pause-play was just fine without the tactical camera. If you hate it, don't use it.

 

4. You have an entire crafting system dedicated to the customization of stats. Also people should cut the crap regarding stat allocation on level-up. Any non-mashocist would always pick the same two stats. Ability effectiveness tied to the main stats make any deviation idiotic. You can still pick how you want to play your character in DAI by smart choice of passives. If you want to build a defensive tank, the passives come with constitution boosts and the occasional strength. If you want to build an offensive tank, the passives come with strength boosts with the occasional constitution...

 

Did you not 2-1 2-1 2-1 2-1 that **** in DAO, if you didn't just pump all 3 stats into the main stat?  This is the definition of entitled nitpicking for some outdated mechanic. 

 

5. Lack of spell combinations? The spells LITERALLY share debuffs that interact with one another across:

• the SAME class tree such as Rift Mage weakening debuff or Stealth bonuses for Subterfuge.
• DISTINCT class trees such as Inferno panic effects with Necromancer fear effects
• DIFFERENT classes such as Ruptures, Shatters, Discharges, Weakness, and other basic combos that trigger from certain abilities.

How ridiculous.

 

6. Are you seriously using colors as some sort of justification for homogenization? The only actual school that was lost in the game is Nature and even that is still used for Poisons in the Rogue class. 

 

There are four trees to choose from in DAI as opposed to the.... four in DAO and five in DAI. You have upgrades in DAI and no redundancy. Creation is gone for mages, but instead you get a spirit school which involves protection. The specializations are greatly expanded with game-altering abilities as opposed to DAO's 4 ability specializations.

 

If you really want to think about it, most of DAO's spells are spirit-based with only a few of them being elemental... You have your spirit-based Mage tier, your spirit-based Entropy tree, your spirit-based.... Spirit tree...and your Spirit-based Blood Mage. Is that not homogenous? lolz

 

Did you really miss having 10 ways to reduce an enemy's attack attribute by 5? Either with a single target spell, or with a...slightly stronger single target spell, or with an AOE spell, or with a slightly stronger AOE spell. All of this casting takes 6 seconds or so and in the meantime the enemy you were cursing is already dead after Morrigan cast seven different single target spells that did 10 damage each.

 

Meanwhile, DAI just lets you actually enjoy the game and stare at something else other than your keyboard and and lets you unleash powerful attacks with several secondary effects that you can exploit across classes, all while avoiding the DAO problem of making your mage look like an angry downstairs neighbor hitting the ceiling with a broomstick.

 

After all this is a party-based game which tries to achieve character interaction.

 

7. No utility? Right....refer to section #5... also I fail to see how proactive shielding is any different from reactive healing in terms of utility for mages. Considering mages and rogues can now tank with Knight-Enchanter and Tempest respectively, and warriors and rogues can now support effectively with most of their trees and specializations, all the while remaining effective and efficient contributors the party's success, I fail to see how utility has been decreased across the board. 

 

8. Refer to shuffle-crawl in DAO, the need of a mod to automate backstabbing positioning as opposed to the automatic one in DAO, and the non-existent vague faulty mechanics you speak of.

 

Bah... the QQ continues and shall always continue. The rhetoric is funny though.

[Al Foley]

beats me.  I enjoy the combat in Inquisition so much.  The thrill of being a rogue and diving out of the way of three hundred tons of angry pot roast...there is nothing like it.  

[Unlucky 13]

Actually Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights were real time with pause. The Elder Scroll games were real-time. There were several other crpgs that were not turn based during the 90's and early 2000's like Arx Fatalis, Dungeon Master.

 

OK, I never did RPGs on the computer back when I was still doing PC gaming at all.  All console since I started RPGs around 1988 or so.  The first (and so far only) Elder Scrolls game I played was Skyrim, on the PS3.

[Wulfram]

The main problem with the DAI combat is the interface.  Unfortunately the addition of the tactical camera resulted in two camera modes that are both annoying to use.  Though it has got better with patches, and I've got more comfortable with the tactical camera - it works better once you realise that it's not really good for overhead shots and instead just look for convenient low angles.

The lack of a tactics system just adds to that by forcing you to manually take care of a few things that otherwise you could have left to the AI.

 

Once you get past the UI, things get better.  I do think we could do with less invincible tanks and less tissue-paper like party members.  And I dislike the way the mage ability trees are set up.  And the crafting system is both stupidly overpowerd and tedious.  But over all the mechanics are some of Bioware's best.

[SharpWalkers]

Dragon Age's combat systems have never been really good, honestly. Exception might be Dragon Age Origins if you play it tactically on the PC - but I wouldn't know.

 

 

In DA:O, if you're like me and are a console gamer and didn't have tactical view, you had that ridiculously unresponsive "moving into range" snafu of a system. But at the same time you had a large pool of abilities & spells to play around with on different playthrough (I miss being a ranger, Bioware!); and, on easy, you where really able to coast through the combat - as someone who plays on easy because I want to experience the story, not nescessarily challanging combat, that's important.

 

In Dragon Age 2 it changed into a  bordeline hack & slash wave combat game. Completely weightless, impactless combat - something DA:I retained, but at least in DA2 you still did some damage when you hit someone with your weapon or spell..

 

In Dragon Age Inquisition ... it just tedious and annoying, chaving away at huge amounts of health while your own party has, like, a tenth of that, at best. It's completely the wrong way to add some challange. For some reason the abilities tab is gone in the radial/wheel - I read somewhere that has to do with accomodating multiplayer, if true: F-you DAMP. As with DA2, I also dislike having the feeling I'm not hitting anything - just slicing/stabbing air. Only the two-handed feel, somewhat, that you are swinging a weapon and hitting someone with it. But at least with all that, it didn't also include wave combat - finally done chaving away all the health from one group, in comes the next... can you imagine that? *shudders*

 

 

If I had to chooce the best or most fun - or rather least annoying to play throughout a game -  definately DA:O. I think it might be a big part of why I'm right now more interested in starting my bazillionth DA:O playthrough, rather than finish my 2nd DA:I (which I started 8 months ago).

[wtfman99]

My only complaint is if you play mellee types, a lot of time is spent getting into the "hit box" of an enemy. I actually enjoyed playing a mage and an archer.

[Nibten]

I dislike it because it's neither a good action combat system nor a tactical one.

Where is the dodging/blocking? Where is the precise timing of your attacks? In DA:I you run at a NPC (or behind him if he has a shield) hold the attack button and spam your skills. Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Dark Messiah of M&M or The Witcher 3 have action based combat systems. But not DA:I.

 

Nefla said some things for the tactical aspect. But one thing I would like to add:

Where are the pre-battle preparations?

If I fight a strong enemy in Baldurs Gate or Pillars, I have to use buffs, special weapons for specific enemies, traps, I need to take care of the positioning of my teammates, and so on.

 

But if I fight a strong enemy in DA:I it's just like: "Leeeeeeeeeroy Jeeeeeeenkins!"

 

The Combat System is one of my biggest Issues in DA:I and the Reason I only completed it once, while there were still Sidequests and Dragons to kill.  

[Sylvius the Mad]

Kinda bored of these same tired dramatizations so I'll just zero in on this:


1. DAI is not an action-RPG. There is literally zero applicable difference between reacting to an incoming attack and reacting to damage taken. Just because you can block preemptively to stop damage, doesn't mean you didn't have to take control of your slow-ass healer and make sure you cast the right spells to heal yourself up in DAO.

The speed and frequency with which you have to do it is relevant, I think.

Also, the loss of automation options means that you're busy doing other things, rather than just watching for a heal.

Yes, I can parry quite effectively if all I'm doing is controlling the Rogue watching for Parry opportunities, but if I'm doing that then my Rogue isn't being effective and the rest of the party is likely even less effective.

In DAO, I could automate the ranged characters, control my primary damage dealing mage, and watch for healing opportunities all at once, and when they arose I would pause the game, take control of my healer (whose tactics ensured a heal was always available), and heal.

If I could run DAI's combat at half speed and queue actions, it would be better.

2. DAO with all its fluff and sustains made tactics necessary. Any usage of tactics on higher difficulties and especially with Friendly Fire is a lesson in being stupid. You had to download a couple of mods to expand the tactics system in order to make effective use of that, but this is not a fair comparison for the base games.

I disagree. A moddable game should get credit for that.

But DAO's tactics system wasn't nearly as good as DA2's.

The different gameplay style in DAI renders extensive tactics meaningless. Unless you're an automating junkie, you'd be lying up your ass if you said you used tactics for anything other than maintaining sustains, chugging timed potions, and enabling/disabling certain abilities. The occasional if statement is missed, but that doesn't render the entire system "bad".

That's a fair point. I don't really see how tactics would work in DAI, and given the terrible pathfinding they'd probably get us killed more often than not.

4. You have an entire crafting system dedicated to the customization of stats. Also people should cut the crap regarding stat allocation on level-up. Any non-mashocist would always pick the same two stats. Ability effectiveness tied to the main stats make any deviation idiotic. You can still pick how you want to play your character in DAI by smart choice of passives. If you want to build a defensive tank, the passives come with constitution boosts and the occasional strength. If you want to build an offensive tank, the passives come with strength boosts with the occasional constitution...

While what you say is largely true of DAO's Warriors and Mages, viablr Rogues could be built by using Strength, Dexterity, or Cunning as viable stats.

But, I think why people complain about the loss of allocatable stats is that they solidify a move away from tabletop-style mechanics, where you could build your character however you wanted if you could think of a good reason to do it.

6. Are you seriously using colors as some sort of justification for homogenization? The only actual school that was lost in the game is Nature and even that is still used for Poisons in the Rogue class.

There are four trees to choose from in DAI as opposed to the.... four in DAO and five in DAI. You have upgrades in DAI and no redundancy. Creation is gone for mages, but instead you get a spirit school which involves protection. The specializations are greatly expanded with game-altering abilities as opposed to DAO's 4 ability specializations.

If you really want to think about it, most of DAO's spells are spirit-based with only a few of them being elemental... You have your spirit-based Mage tier, your spirit-based Entropy tree, your spirit-based.... Spirit tree...and your Spirit-based Blood Mage. Is that not homogenous? lolz

Did you really miss having 10 ways to reduce an enemy's attack attribute by 5? Either with a single target spell, or with a...slightly stronger single target spell, or with an AOE spell, or with a slightly stronger AOE spell. All of this casting takes 6 seconds or so and in the meantime the enemy you were cursing is already dead after Morrigan cast seven different single target spells that did 10 damage each.

I miss DAO's crowd-control abilities. Blood Wound and the whole Glyph line.

DAO also didn't force Mages to use staves (and there were actual gameplay benefits to going weaponless).

7. No utility? Right....refer to section #5... also I fail to see how proactive shielding is any different from reactive healing in terms of utility for mages. Considering mages and rogues can now tank with Knight-Enchanter and Tempest respectively, and warriors and rogues can now support effectively with most of their trees and specializations, all the while remaining effective and efficient contributors the party's success, I fail to see how utility has been decreased across the board.

That's a push. Mages and Rogues could both tank in DAO.

This does really highlight a weakness in DA2, however.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The tactics system, while a joy for many people for one reason or another, always ended up automating combat to the point of rendering the player input pointless. This reduced the effect of player skill and reflexes during a fight.

That's a good thing. I want that.

Honestly, I don't get why tactics are even needed for this game. I can think of a few reasons, but not enough to justify the backlash. The removal of minor buffs and most sustains effectively removed 90% of the reason why people used them to begin with. The AI already does everything in it needs to do in terms of buffs.

True.

So the fault here lies with the simplification of the mechanics, not the loss of Tactics.

Building complex tactics systemscould be rewarding, but then that renders any other complaints about combat irrelevant because you just automated the combat.

We don't necessarily want to automate it completely. For example:

In fact, the large number of abilities in DAO worked against the tactics system. If the ability wasn't in tactics, then your AI wouldn't use it. Given that the base number of tactic slots was small, you had to invest in Combat Tactics and download a (necessary) tactics mod in order to get this meticulous automated tactics system. It's simply not convenient or easy to use. You'd often have to spend most slots on sustains and filler spells that you don't want to bother with.

We can still take control of the character and use those abilities that aren't in Tactics. Often, I would intentionally leave abilities I wanted to use out of the Tactics list so they'd always be available when I needed them.

The removal of sustains and incorporating some of them as active abilities also increased the need for player skill. In DAO you activate a defense sustain and suddenly become a massive tank. In DAI you still gotta block. It can be automated if you don't control the tank but you still gotta position them when in trouble or if you're in direct control. Isn't that an increase in skill and reflex requirements?

Yes it is, and that's a bad thing.

We should have tools that allow us to largely eliminate skill and reflex requirements. The AI should be able the Parry better than I can.

[CronoDragoon]

Dragon Age is still trying to appeal to iso CRPG players while expanding their Action RPG crowd. This combined with limited functionality due to developing on a new engine and you have combat that can end up very rough around the edges:

 

1. As a traditional CRPG, some expected functionality is missing: click to move, party selection with mouse, etc. Additionally, some commands don't work as expected or at all. At release the Revive command didn't work in tac cam and it took months for that to be fixed. That's no small deal since Revive is an important command when you need to use it. It was also very difficult to command the Inquirer to close rifts in tac cam. The tactics system has been gutted and replaced with something that frankly gives you less control over your party than most action JRPGs, which are notorious for bad AI.

 

2. As an action RPG, the hit detection isn't great; trying to hit downed enemies on a slope with daggers is almost impossible, and the tracking for many moves is terrible and slower than an enemy's movement. Meaning you could spend half the fight chasing enemies or missing them with abilities because your move was too slow.

 

3. Enemy design still needs work. Enemy mages are a real disappointment in particular with their inability to be serious offensive threats. They cast glyphs and fire wall escapes and that's about it.

 

4. Spacing is pretty uninteresting. Most DA: I fights take place in open terrains, meaning many positional moves lose their importance when the enemy is spread out. Ice Wall is an example of a move that works great in something like Keep captures, because you can use it in a hallway to block off mages and archers while focusing down the melee. But out on the field, where most of DA: I takes place, they can simply run around it. Additionally, it's more of a pain for a warrior to provoke aggro considering enemies are often far more spread out than the range of their threat moves, meaning you'll often have situations where enemies simply run by the warrior in pursuit of a mage or ranged. For as much crap as DA2 got for enemy waves, it was far less of a problem to control the battlefield since you were often fighting in the city and caves and therefore groups were more clustered, making it easier to keep aggro and hit more enemies with crowd control moves.

 

With all that being said, the combat is by no means a disaster. They have a nice framework with Cross Class Combos to produce satisfying group combat, but they haven't developed it enough. Additionally, the action combat made great strides with DA: I whereas it was a disaster in the previous two games.

[Shechinah]

DAO also didn't force Mages to use staves (and there were actual gameplay benefits to going weaponless).

 

The animation was neat to boot. I would not mind seeing it return as an option for mages in the next installent especially since it could provide an alternative casting animation that is more calm than the more active casting animation used with the staff which I do very much like.

 

Speaking of things I'd like to see make a return; I am sad that the fireball spell replaced the fire tornado spell from Dragon Age: Origins since summoning a fire tornado was just so unbelievable awesome even if my habit of resorting to it solely for that reason likely resulted in some mass deforestation for Fereldan.
 

[Forsythia77]

I don't hate the combat at all.  I dislike that I'm limited to 8 skills when in previous games I could open up the wheel and use any and all skills that had been learned.  I also don't like that BW says they had to limit the use of skills because of the consoles when I used to use all of my skills in DAO and DA2 on a console. 

 

I was never much of a tactics user.  If anything I'm a bit of a micro-manager in that I'll periodically click on each party member and direct him or her to do something as the fight progresses.  But I was never one to go into each person's individual tactics and program them to do x, y and z. 

[Enigmatick]

Going to touch on some points besides the obvious tac cam and tactics issues. I don't like it for the following reasons:

 

-Can't select multiple party members at once

 

It makes movement a chore and it feels like it was done to facilitate the "You'll never have to select anyone other than the player character" philosophy they tried to push with DA2, just an irritating decision all around.

-No ability to pick stats on level up

I mean c'mon, seriously? Why?

 

-Abilities are limited to 8 on the hotbar, game has the least amount of abilities of any Dragon Age game.

 

It just creates dull, repetitive battles with a "bread and butter" system. It's basically a boiled down MMO cycle of abilities where most of the choice is made for you.

 

That and there's little to no roleplaying to be done with the abilities, ironically if I wanted to roleplay as a Keeper's first in DA:O I had a ton of spells to support it.

 

- The numbers are way too big

 

I don't even understand why, it just creates this singleplayer grindy MMO feeling. None of the enemies feel threatening or your equal, all the difficulty comes from their health being hilariously inflated compared to yours.

[wtfman99]

Going to touch on some points besides the obvious tac cam and tactics issues. I don't like it for the following reasons:

 

-Can't select multiple party members at once

 

It makes movement a chore and it feels like it was done to facilitate the "You'll never have to select anyone other than the player character" philosophy they tried to push with DA2, just an irritating decision all around.

-No ability to pick stats on level up

I mean c'mon, seriously? Why?

 

-Abilities are limited to 8 on the hotbar, game has the least amount of abilities of any Dragon Age game.

 

It just creates dull, repetitive battles with a "bread and butter" system. It's basically a boiled down MMO cycle of abilities where most of the choice is made for you.

 

That and there's little to no roleplaying to be done with the abilities, ironically if I wanted to roleplay as a Keeper's first in DA:O I had a ton of spells to support it.

 

- The numbers are way too big

 

I don't even understand why, it just creates this singleplayer grindy MMO feeling. None of the enemies feel threatening or your equal, all the difficulty comes from their health being hilariously inflated compared to yours.

 

I can't recall us ever being to control more then 1 character at a time ever.

[Enigmatick]

I can't recall us ever being to control more then 1 character at a time ever.

You were able to do it in the two past games.

[Nefla]

While some of the reasons why people would dislike DAI's combat system compared to DAO or DA2 do have some merit, I think those that resort to the usage of "hate" are clearly being hyperbolic to drive their few dislikes home. While they have different presentations, the combat systems in the three games aren't that different to warrant a complete 180.

 

The AI has always been relatively mediocre in Dragon Age. I don't see why anyone would pinpoint DAI as an exception...for example.

 

Like...Nefla here.

 

 

If anything, Dragon Age has improved on all four accounts.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition is the first game that makes direct use of terrain in combat. Several passives have certain terrain requirements to trigger, such as the Archery passives that let you gain damage from distance or height. Environmental interaction did not exist in previous games, except maybe for DAO's barricades or triggered grease, which still exist in DAI in some form. If you're referring to LOS strategies, you can do that in any game.

 

The tactics system, while a joy for many people for one reason or another, always ended up automating combat to the point of rendering the player input pointless. This reduced the effect of player skill and reflexes during a fight. 

 

Honestly, I don't get why tactics are even needed for this game. I can think of a few reasons, but not enough to justify the backlash. The removal of minor buffs and most sustains effectively removed 90% of the reason why people used them to begin with. The AI already does everything in it needs to do in terms of buffs.

 

Building complex tactics systemscould be rewarding, but then that renders any other complaints about combat irrelevant because you just automated the combat. 

 

In fact, the large number of abilities in DAO worked against the tactics system. If the ability wasn't in tactics, then your AI wouldn't use it. Given that the base number of tactic slots was small, you had to invest in Combat Tactics and download a (necessary) tactics mod in order to get this meticulous automated tactics system. It's simply not convenient or easy to use. You'd often have to spend most slots on sustains and filler spells that you don't want to bother with.

 

Well..the reduced number of filler or refresh spells and direct healing removed that need. Other people used it to disable certain spells...that can still be done. Some used it to control when an AI drinks a potion. That's still there. What's left? I suppose crowd control and a couple of "if" statements here and there for better manageability. 

 

As a side note I advocate the return of tactics, but that doesn't mean they were necessary in DAI. It's just nice to have options.

 

The removal of sustains and incorporating some of them as active abilities also increased the need for player skill. In DAO you activate a defense sustain and suddenly become a massive tank. In DAI you still gotta block. It can be automated if you don't control the tank but you still gotta position them when in trouble or if you're in direct control. Isn't that an increase in skill and reflex requirements?

 

Also, by relying on proactive protection rather than reactive healing, the player is now responsible for protecting their party by using bubbles, in a timely fashion. Too early and you waste it. Too late and your party is in danger. You have to gauge the threat and react accordingly. The same applies for guard generation and active mitigation, as well rogue evasion and dodging. That's another skill-cap increase.

 

What about aim? DAI is literally the first game where you can miss your targeted spells and abilities, because there is no longer a target lock. Input timing has never been so important.

 

...

 

Like I said, people have their reasons for disliking some aspects of the combat system in DAI. But to outright hate it when it's an improvement on most fronts from aesthetics and animations to skill progression just because of a few changes which make sense in the grand scheme of things is short-sighted.

-You didn't understand me at all when I said "I never liked DA combat. The kind of combat I like is the kind that relies on my own skill, aim, reflexes, and use of terrain. IMO though the combat of DA has gotten worse with each installment" I repeat, I don't like the comment in ANY DA game and none of them fulfill those stipulations for me. The kind of combat I do like would be something like Mass Effect 2-3 and similar games, something in 1st or close 3rd person view where if you hit something or not, where you hit it, etc...is 100% determined by player reflexes and skill. Dodging behind a wall is going to keep you from getting hit and so on. (DA:I does not have this. I can literally stand there pressing the attack button with my archer and mage and it will hit the enemy.) With that kind of combat system I never find combat a chore since I can always set new challenges for myself even if the enemy is weak and easy (lets see if I can knock this guy into a fan or kill 2 enemies with 1 bullet).

 

-Easy fights SHOULD be able to be "automated" I shouldn't have to manually select the same exact lineup of simple spells and abilities every time I have to fight a wolf, especially since DA:I combat isn't fun for me I don't want to spend more time on it than necessary. Harder fights you take manual control of your party already. Why is taking out features that are actually useful ever a good thing? No one made you use them in previous games, you could just have your whole party stand there like bricks waiting for you to manually give orders to and move each one. The companions in DA:I DO already have set behaviors, we just can't see or alter those behaviors and to me it's a huge setback.

 

-Micromanaging the use of barriers and guard is not difficult, and doesn't require thought. It's just a boring chore. They just took healing and replaced it with this, made it ESSENTIAL, but didn't give certain types of characters these abilities (rogues, non-tank warrior) so it's pointless to bring them.

 

-The 8 ability limit during combat.

 

-The incredibly stupid AI that we can't mitigate with tactics.

 

-The fact that one archer ability can only be used if on higher ground doesn't impress me. At all. You just back up slightly to where the terrain is 6 inches higher and can use it...ooh how tactical! If the combat was the reflex based kind I actually like, you could run up onto a cliff and take pot shots at whatever is below, throw bombs down on them, and use the cliff ledge as cover. Standing on a 6 inch high molehill would do absolutely NOTHING.

 

I don't have "a few dislikes" and I'm not exaggerating for the sake of an argument. I hate, hate HATE the combat in DA:I. It's not varied, it's not fun, even weak enemies are just damage sponges, I hate having to babysit the AI, I hate how MUCH of this crappy combat there is. DA:O at least had a variety of things you could do such as using oil and setting the ground on fire, summoning creatures to help you in combat, various ways to paralyze/slow/repulse the enemy, set traps, etc...I still didn't like it because I don't like that style but at least it had variety and there was way less combat with enemies dying quicker. DA2, at least the combat was over quickly. DA:I has incredibly boring and unsatisfying combat, with no tactics to automate the tedium, no good companion AI to pull its' weight, enemies that take forever to die, etc...I have news for you: not everyone likes the same things. Just because you're in love with DA:I's combat doesn't mean that anyone who hates it must be lying or in denial

[Shechinah]

You were able to do it in the two past games.

 

Oh, do you mean how you were able to select every character in the party at the same time to give them the same command like move to the same area or direct them to target the same enemy?
 

[CorniliuS]

You want to relay on your skill, aim, reflexes, and use of terrain? COD and Battlefield is waiting for you, what are you doing here? Because people like that they turned DA in to this rpg abomination-parody. I started gaming in the 90s quake, unreal, CS I've seen it all and now I want to relay on planning and strategy only, without reflexes, that’s why I picked DA. Imagine situation in reverse, comes new COD game and it's turned-base shooter with a view from the top, you think cod players will be happy? There is a reason why genres exists, rpg and reflexes don't mix, and if you try to mix those genres people tend to get upset. That's why all that hate with the combat system.

[Lady Ishtar]

You didn't understand me at all when I said "I never liked DA combat. The kind of combat I like is the kind that relies on my own skill, aim, reflexes, and use of terrain. IMO though the combat of DA has gotten worse with each installment"

That's funny because I absolutely hate it, it is precisely the opposite of what I like but... I also think combat got worse with each installment.
I guess we can agree Bioware completely failed?

 

I love combat were only character stats matter and I won't ever need to do **** because it is my character sheet that matter, ONLY my character sheet.

You love combat where YOU control the character and fail/success, exactly the opposite of what I like.

Seriously, Bioware should have Worst of the Worst Game Oscar.

[CronoDragoon]

That's funny because I absolutely hate it, it is precisely the opposite of what I like but... I also think combat got worse with each installment.
I guess we can agree Bioware completely failed?

 

I love combat were only character stats matter and I won't ever need to do **** because it is my character sheet that matter, ONLY my character sheet.

You love combat where YOU control the character and fail/success, exactly the opposite of what I like.

Seriously, Bioware should have Worst of the Worst Game Oscar.

 

Even if you gave it to them, they wouldn't have any shelf room left with all the GOTYs.

[Enigmatick]

Oh, do you mean how you were able to select every character in the party at the same time to give them the same command like move to the same area or direct them to target the same enemy?
 

Not just the whole party could be two or three at a time if you wanted. But yes it's a very missed feature that I feel is integral to RtwP gameplay.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

IMO the DA2' CS was far worst than DAI's. 

It is a perfect mix of action and strategy, commands you give in real time ar so immediate that it really feels like an action game, but you can also pause and give orders, or even use slow advancement and give commands depending on the outcomes of the action.

I could'n find a better way to hybridate action and old school strategy. They tried with DA2 and partially failed IMO, but I do like what they accomplished with DAI and I hope they will keep this CS for future games of the series. I think it is very entertaining (for a RPG) and I never get bored of the fighiting, and I'm on my third plathrough already!

 

I wonder what people that complains about CS really expected. It is a classic RPG with modern elements, I find it a good compromise... Ok some action/rpg are certainly more entertaining on this side, but you play with 1 single character, you don't have a team of 4 to give orders... and followers are the focus of the series, so... how would you manage 4 characters in full real time action?

I think BioWare made some mistakes with DAI, but the CS isn't one of them.

 

It apparently works great with controllers. That's awesome.

 

Mouse and Keyboard, not so much. It's clunky, commands do not happen immediately, I take way too long to  switch targets or stop attacking when I've told the game to stop as a melee character.

 

You can't give orders in 'action mode'. The order you gave is promptly ignored once you switch to another character. It doesn't handle controlling a party well at all. As stated above, the tactics are really very little help in getting your party to do what you want them to do. I haven't tried 'defend yourself', but another poster suggested using 'follow yourself'. This doesn't appear to help. In Descent Vivienne is still running right up to the mob because follow seems to be more like follow my target rather than a more sensible 'stay at range, you're a mage/archer, dummy' command like we had in the previous 2 games. the Defend yourself' behaviour may make more sense.

 

What I don't get is what good some of these tactics are for. If I set a character to follow itself, does it stop following me while exploring, or does it only apply to combat? What if I want to tell a character to defend itself, but also want them to follow when appropriate? Maybe I want it to hit weakened enemies first. How do I do that? What if defending itself only means it will target an enemy that is hitting the character at the time? Will this mean they will ignore the instruction and run right up to a dragon or giant when it isn't being directly targetted? The tactics system is just dumb. If the AI was able to assign sensible behaviour by default, the simplified tactics system would be fine, but it doesn't.

 

Tactical mode is clunky on PC. It was made with controllers in mind, and makes no sense on M&KB. Some people are ok with it and think it works fine. I'm not one of them.

[Riven326]

Because it's not fun; it's trying to be two different things for two different groups of people. This bipolar design has been a problem for BioWare in general since DA2.