21 réponses à ce sujet

[PapaCharlie9]

Observation: I'm doing a no-crafted gear run on Nightmare and it is refreshingly challenging (see discussion here). Random battles and set pieces now feel correctly leveled. You can't just button mash your way through, you have to be both tactical and prepared strategically.
 
Question: Does this mean crafting is OP? Meaning, is it too easy to craft gear that unbalances and trivializes combat?

 

Or is crafting fine, but the materials economy that is supposed to act as a check/balance is essentially broken?

 

My sense is that it is probably both. Too many powerful schematics are available at too low a level. Tier 3 or higher mats are too easy to collect, and aren't even necessary with decent schematics. For example, you can buy the rather good Tier 2 Spiked Longbow schematic around level 5 and fill it with mostly Tier 2 mats for a bow that's better than anything you can loot or buy at the same level, with the possible exception of the Bane of Red Crossing.

 

What I'd do to fix it without making crafting boring and useless (kind of like most Tonics)

 

- Don't respawn mineral nodes. Make it more like vanilla Skyrim, if you mine a node, it's dead for the rest of the game.

 

- Make higher tier critters rarer and harder to kill. Great Bears are just about right, make all the Tier 2 critters and higher as rare and hard to kill.

 

- I hate to say it, but don't give away high tier cloth mats in DLC loot. It would be okay to have a low count of a single mat type as the only item in a drop, to foil loot-1 exploits.

 

- Alternatively, split mats into those that can only be used for defense vs. those only for offense. Then only make the offense ones scarce.

 

- Redistribute schematics so that those available at low level (including via exploits, like loot-1/save scum), 10 and under, are great for defense, but crap for offense. A level 8 noob should not be able to kill Knight-Captain  Denam with half a dozen hits, but that said, Denam should not be able to wipe out the party with the same number of hits. So better armor, worse weapons.

 

- At higher levels, defensive schematics should be hard to get and offensive more numerous. You should be able to deal awesome damage against higher level enemies, but you still have to use more tactics than just button mash, since a few hits would put you down.

 

- Make high level mats and the best schematics really hard to get. You should have to complete a major quest sequence, on a par with fighting your way to claim Suledin Keep in EdL, or the sequence of side quests related to Victims of War in Emerald Graves, to get the best schematic or the best FT mats. Also, patch the clip exploits that make taking Suledin Keep without a fight impossible.

 

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cydh]

Crafting isn't necessarily OP for all playstyles - I personally wouldn't be able to solo DLCs on nightmare without crafting. But I recently started a solo nightmare Mage playthrough, and after crafting a tier 2 staff and light armor at level 4 (sold a ton of stuff for the schematics at the Black Emporium), I completely "broke" the game. Enemies now melee my mage for 1-2 damage instead of 100-200ish. Granted, soloing the Hinterlands is by itself a very dull experience on a mage that can ignore line of sight, so I'm just replacing an exploit with another, but yes, to answer your question, I think crafting is OP.

 

One thing you could do is, limit your gear's damage and armor to that of the highest item you've found of that type. That way you allow yourself some lee-way with regards to gear customization and keep crafting "fresh".

 

I mean, if you want to craft a Fire Staff with 60 damage, you have to first find a unique fire staff with 60 damage or more. Same goes with heavy armor, light armor, medium armor, all weapon types etc.

 

The same rule would apply to runes and fade-touched masterworks - find a weapon with a rune or an item with a masterwork effect before you can craft that same rune or masterwork into a different item.

 

I'm pretty sure you'd keep the game "fresh" - it would probably be a lot easier than the pure "no crafting" rule, but it would keep the crafting metagame in check for a whole lot longer, while rewarding loot hunting rather than chest or node farming.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Dragon Age Inquisition suffers from the same problem that vanilla Elder Scrolls Skyrim did and that is this: Crafting is easily exploitable, broken and overpowered.

 

I will use Elder Scrolls games as an example.

 

In the days of older role playing games such as Morrowind, loot and crafting materials are strategically and immersively placed around the game world. For example, you won't just find Daedric Armor laying around in chests or in the bodies of dead enemies in Morrowind. True to its name, Daedric Armor in Morrowind in a legendary item, meaning you can only really find one full set of it. What's more, you won't find armors and materials that are out of place in Morrowind. If you want to find Dwarven armors in Morrowind, you have to go to Dwemer ruins. There is also the fact that artifacts and legendary items as a whole are very rare and will only be rewarded after a long difficult quest.

 

In Skyrim this is all changed. You can powerlevel your smithing skill very easily, as well as your enchanting skills and break the game by crafting beyond godlike items. You can also find and buy items and materials such as Daedric Armor, Daedra Hearts, Ebony Ingots, etc once you reach a certain level, even though Ebony in Skyrim can only really be found in Blackreach and Daedric Armor is supposed to be legendary and Daedra Hearts can only be looted from dead dremora.

 

As a result of this, you can make any build you want and be able to play the toughest difficulty without any issues. This is a problem that plagues modern RPG games as a whole. Modern RPG developers seek to make their games gear dependent to circumvent the need to make game balancing, skills, difficulty, etc necessary.

 

That is the problem with DAI. The crafting system is a crutch, which is there solely to give players a boost despite their skill level, the game difficulty and the character build they have. The loot system is too random instead of being immersive which results in the system being gamed by players or players outright cheating the system to get the items they want.

 

However, I suspect the crafting system and the loot system is the way it is because of multiplayer and lazy game design. The RNG and the crafting are core to multiplayer. You need to craft armors to unlock characters. The RNG keeps the microtransaction coins flowing.

 

Now, this whole debacle is not a problem in Skyrim if you have mods that fix the problem.

 

My solution for this are as follows:-

1. Never craft weapons and armor, always loot them and use those.
2. Do not game or farm the RNG looting system for Fade Touched materials or Unique items. Whatever you have, use that.

So far, that makes the game interesting and rewarding enough. You characters will still become powerful, but it takes them far longer and even when they do become powerful, they are not game breakingly powerful. I am currently doing a playthrough where I have only received a single Fade Touched Obsidian. I have not used it because I am going to give it to Cole later for one of his daggers. The game is still challenging though not as challenging as restricting oneself to level one armor.

[Rankansen]

I've been playing RPG games for a very long time, and I can safely say that aside from one exemplary instance (Star Wars Galaxies) I have never found crafting systems to be a good thing in games. Far too often it is too easy to completely eclipse any gear you can find in the game as loot - especially when used alongside RNG loot mechanics, Combined these two factors sap a lot of the fun out of completing side quests, as they are trivialized to becoming xp sinks, instead of something you complete for a juicy reward.

 

What impetus would I have to complete The Mage's Treasure in DA:O if I could just craft something better than the Juggernaut armor set with a few click back at camp? If I had already hit the level cap (like many of us have now in DA:I) I might not even need the exp. I'd get from completing it.

 

The implementation of crafting systems is often justified by allowing players a degree of customization, and to look the way they want to when playing the game. But the tinting option that was added accomplishes that alone far better than crafting.

 

In my opinion, "vanity tabs" that can hold gear that overwrite the appearance of the gear you are wearing but not overwrite the stats is and always has been a much better (and far easier) method of allowing customization, without invalidating difficulty curves at the same time.

 

But I digress. In response to the OP: Yeah, I think the crafting system is a little bit broken in both of the ways you listed, but more because of the overabundance of top-tier mats than the schematics. Then again, in my experience it is in crafting's nature to be broken, for better or for worse.

[BansheeOwnage]

I'm torn, because while I want loot I find to be useful, I don't want to be stuck wearing something I hate the look of because it's the best. So crafting gives me a few options for looks that I can still make useful. To me, whether crafting is overpowered or not doesn't really matter simply because the game is so inconsistent with difficulty. If you want to do even a semi-completionist playthrough, you'll be entering zones where enemies are way too weak, while the occasional zone will have enemies more suited to you. So it doesn't really make a difference to me if crafting is better than loot because generally I'm overpowered anyway, and because loot is random; I'll almost always find purples that are obsolete.

[capn233]

The way it is implemented in this game it is unbalanced.  Of course, there are other problems with leveling and scaling in this game, but even crafting is still relatively more powerful than any alternative.

 

There are two main problems with the way it works.  The first has to do with availability of the schematics and the fact that crafted gear has no level restriction.  One or the other by itself is fine, but put together it allows gear that could be significantly inappropriate for the players level.  In general something like in the first Mass Effect may have made more sense where everything is binned by your levels, and tier 3 schematics would not drop in chests until your character is leveled high enough as opposed to simply having different tiers of chests.

 

The second problem is the ability to get top tier armor or damage ratings plus a ton of buffs to stats.  It doesn't make much sense to be able to make armor that has simultaneously the best damage mitigation and the best enchantments / buffs.  You should also not be able to gain more attributes from a couple pieces of gear than you have gained from the ability trees.  Whether or not the schematics and number of mat slots should be changed, or the stats from the materials themselves should be altered is not necessarily important since you could better balance the system either way.  Uber mats should not exist, or be limited to something like the one "Essence of Perfection" deal where you only have one potential way to increase the stats for a single item, but it takes up the masterwork slot.

[devSin]

Crafting is basically cheating in Inquisition.

[CorniliuS]

Crafting is not op, problem with game mechanics. System overly simplified for the sake of those who constantly whines, for them it is not interesting and they want to go further on the story. Stats and armor must always be linked tight together. Remember DAO? Pros and cons, sure I could put heavy armor on mage and get massive stamina penalty or stick to his robe and make best of my mage abilities. Everything was connected to characters stats arrangement, strength, dexterity, magic, willpower meant more than just your damage output, hit or miss, block and evade, everything was connected. But now you can just dress rogue in mage robe no problem, everything goes, crafting not at fault here, the whole system is broken, apparently it was to complicated.

[Shevy]

Origins isn't a good example for balancing, really. The game mechanics were lackluster back then and they still are.

A simple and fast method to unpower crafting in DA:I would be a level restriction for crafted gear - itemlevel -3.

[CorniliuS]

The game mechanics were lackluster back then and they still are.

for example?

[Shevy]

for example?

Arcane Warrior one-man army.

High dodge rogues which were better tanks than tanks. I solo'd the harvester in GoA on nightmare with my rogue without being hit once.

 

And DA:I still allows for the same things in combat.

 

The economy was broken in every of the three games. Buying elfroot in the Dalish camp for 3 coppers each and reinforce the troops in the camp gave you infinite EP.

[Scofield]

No its not broke, i prefer to think of it as a different play style.

 

Much like the romance options, crafting is the same, its a option, participate or dont, simples

[CorniliuS]

Arcane Warrior one-man army.

Yeah except arcane warrior in his "tank mode" could not cast any spells, only slowly swing his weapon and constantly drink mana potions, without agro arcane warrior was more of joke than actually a tank, yes he could take a punch but miniscule dealing damage in return. Again pros and cons, in DAI arcane warrior deals massive damage, deflects projectiles, constantly generates barrier and his every swing connects with target, not to mention spamming spells like crazy, see the difference?

 

High dodge rogues which were better tanks than tanks. I solo'd the harvester in GoA on nightmare with my rogue without being hit once.

High dodge rogues was no better when high dodge warrior, it was long and difficult road and at the end killing machine yes, both classes, warriors and rogues with 100% dodge and spell resist. Attention at the end of game I have no objections against that, you supposed to be unkillable, this is how rpg works.

Buying elfroot in the Dalish camp for 3 coppers each and reinforce the troops in the camp gave you infinite EP.

 

Yes you could do that or not, it doesn't change the fact that DAO had complex and interesting mechanics and DAI does not and getting rid or restricting crafting won't help.

[Paragon78]

Observation: I'm doing a no-crafted gear run on Nightmare and it is refreshingly challenging (see discussion here). Random battles and set pieces now feel correctly leveled. You can't just button mash your way through, you have to be both tactical and prepared strategically.
 
Question: Does this mean crafting is OP? Meaning, is it too easy to craft gear that unbalances and trivializes combat?

 

Or is crafting fine, but the materials economy that is supposed to act as a check/balance is essentially broken?

 

My sense is that it is probably both. Too many powerful schematics are available at too low a level. Tier 3 or higher mats are too easy to collect, and aren't even necessary with decent schematics. For example, you can buy the rather good Tier 2 Spiked Longbow schematic around level 5 and fill it with mostly Tier 2 mats for a bow that's better than anything you can loot or buy at the same level, with the possible exception of the Bane of Red Crossing.

 

What I'd do to fix it without making crafting boring and useless (kind of like most Tonics)

 

- Don't respawn mineral nodes. Make it more like vanilla Skyrim, if you mine a node, it's dead for the rest of the game.

 

- Make higher tier critters rarer and harder to kill. Great Bears are just about right, make all the Tier 2 critters and higher as rare and hard to kill.

 

- I hate to say it, but don't give away high tier cloth mats in DLC loot. It would be okay to have a low count of a single mat type as the only item in a drop, to foil loot-1 exploits.

 

- Alternatively, split mats into those that can only be used for defense vs. those only for offense. Then only make the offense ones scarce.

 

- Redistribute schematics so that those available at low level (including via exploits, like loot-1/save scum), 10 and under, are great for defense, but crap for offense. A level 8 noob should not be able to kill Knight-Captain  Denam with half a dozen hits, but that said, Denam should not be able to wipe out the party with the same number of hits. So better armor, worse weapons.

 

- At higher levels, defensive schematics should be hard to get and offensive more numerous. You should be able to deal awesome damage against higher level enemies, but you still have to use more tactics than just button mash, since a few hits would put you down.

 

- Make high level mats and the best schematics really hard to get. You should have to complete a major quest sequence, on a par with fighting your way to claim Suledin Keep in EdL, or the sequence of side quests related to Victims of War in Emerald Graves, to get the best schematic or the best FT mats. Also, patch the clip exploits that make taking Suledin Keep without a fight impossible.

 

What do you think?

I usually hit skyhold by level 8, then head to hissing wastes to grab all those nice tier 3 weapon schematics, then proceed to face roll the game. Once you get good schematics you find yourself rarely using the items that drop in the game, even most DLC drops are garbage compared to what you can craft.

[actionhero112]

Should have gated the schematics behind higher gold amounts or made them specific drops from high level quests. 

 

But yeah schematics break the game. But this game isn't balanced well anyways. 

[Paragon78]

Should have gated the schematics behind higher gold amounts or made them specific drops from high level quests. 

 

But yeah schematics break the game. But this game isn't balanced well anyways. 

Yea its easy , nightmare is easy for people who understand the game. But its still fun as hell Love th is game, gotten so many hours with like 5 full playthroughs.

 

And honestly nightmare for regular person who does not understand how to farm the tier 3 schematics early, the game can get little challenging I am sure.

[WJC3688]

Crafting is going to be OP in most any RPG if you know how to exploit the system to its fullest. Any "open world" RPG anyways, like this and Skyrim, where you can just go straight to wherever the good loot is before doing any of the lower level stuff that you "should" be doing first in a traditional gameplay progression. The solution to that is easy, just don't farm broken stuff early on. Going to hissing wastes to grab T3 schemes right after Skyhold, makes things too easy for you? Then just don't go there, simply.

 

Of course you can still craft really overpowered gear without even doing anything like that. I spent my 1000 gold on a 15 metal armor scheme right after finishing the prologue and used iron from Haven to make a 153 armor rating piece before even going to the hinterlands for the first time. This is higher than anything you can loot in the hinterlands including the masterwork vanguard armor from the grand forest villa. That's just silly. My personal solution is to restrict crafted gear by whatever item level it has--for example, that 153 armor piece had an item level of 12, so I wouldn't allow myself to equip it until level 12. This restores some sense of natural progression without having to worry about anything else.

 

That's the advantage of singler player, you're not competing to keep up with anyone else, you can choose to abuse or not abuse certain features of the game as you see fit.

[Bigdawg13]

I only craft gear on par with gear I have found.  For example, if the best stave I find has a base damage of 27, I'm not going to craft a stave with 35 on it.  ETC.   It fixes all problems on all levels. 

 

What is broken, IMHO, is the mastercraft drop rates.  I once farmed over 2000 snowfleur and never did get the +1% heal on hit.  Same with the guard on hit sliverite.  I farmed it so much I wanted to vomit when I heard the music from the game.

 

*EDIT*  fixed typo

[Forsythia77]

 

- Redistribute schematics so that those available at low level (including via exploits, like loot-1/save scum), 10 and under, are great for defense, but crap for offense. A level 8 noob should not be able to kill Knight-Captain  Denam with half a dozen hits, but that said, Denam should not be able to wipe out the party with the same number of hits. So better armor, worse weapons.

 

 

 

Wait.. you actually kill Knight Captain Denam?  I never do - not even on nightmare.  I just stand at the crank and crank as much as I can, shoot off some lightning when someone occasionally attacks me, and crank some more until I hit the cutscene.  

 

That said, I enjoy crafting and like crafting high level gear.  I don't think it makes the game too easy.  I think its too easy to level up beyond the areas you are working in. And I know people aren't fans of enemies leveling up.  I think there just needs to be more occasional random high level enemies generated in all of the areas just to keep you on your toes.  I mean a bear is a bear and it should stay at level 11 or whatever but the occasional epic beastie or  Templar horror at a high level should pop up in the hinterlands, just to let you know you are still alive…. 

[Dabrikishaw]

I actually like how strong crafting is in this game. I usually try to make insane stuff on purpose.

[jgwhiteus]

I think crafted gear being overpowered is kind of the point - the game has to induce you to invest time in a (completely optional) side mechanic with a significant reward, otherwise no one would put in the effort. If you had to wander around those huge maps and gather materials, hunt down specific animals to get drops, find schematics, etc. only to craft gear that is slightly more powerful than gear that can be found easily in a chest or a shop, then almost no one would bother and the mechanic would be useless and ignored.

 

Also, I think people on this forum are approaching the question as experienced players who've probably played the game more than once and researched the ins-and-outs of the crafting system online or in the game. The average player will be completely unaware of the details and possible exploits of the crafting system in their first playthrough and at most might create a few weapons or armor pieces, not paying too much attention to masterpiece materials or skill bonuses, etc. For example, while it's possible to farm higher level schematics from chests early on, a player on his/her first play-through won't know that unless they've specifically researched the subject beforehand and know which "special" chests to open and not loot fully, etc.

 

So I guess my view is the crafting system shouldn't be balanced against the play-throughs of experienced players who've fully researched the crafting system at the possible expense of first-time players, and also that investing time and effort to craft overpowered gear that is beyond what your character should be wearing is part of the "fun". Also, the game already has enough grinding elements, so making it even harder to get some materials / equipment would be a bit of a pain.

 

While I agree crafted gear can help break the difficulty balance of the game, for me the main problems with the game's difficulty are its level-scaling system and area level caps, so if there were adjustments I think I'd prefer tweaks to the difficulty of the early game vs. late game, and maybe (optional) higher difficulty levels or areas where even characters equipped with the strongest crafted gear would still face a challenge.

[PapaCharlie9]

What is broken, IMHO, is the mastercraft drop rates.  I once farmed over 2000 snowfleur and never did get the +1% hit on heal.  Same with the guard on hit sliverite.  I farmed it so much I wanted to vomit when I heard the music from the game.

 

I like that idea, hit on heal! I drink an AoE Regen potion, and all the mobs around me take damage! Or a Healing Mist grenade!

 

Wait.. you actually kill Knight Captain Denam?  I never do - not even on nightmare.  I just stand at the crank and crank as much as I can, shoot off some lightning when someone occasionally attacks me, and crank some more until I hit the cutscene.  

 

Awww, what's the fun in that?

 

I actually like how strong crafting is in this game. I usually try to make insane stuff on purpose.

 

I agree. I won't lie, I've enjoyed the meta-game of seeing just how badly I can break the game with crafting. The infinite quality weapon crafting loop in Skyrim was a thing of beauty.

 

I think crafted gear being overpowered is kind of the point - the game has to induce you to invest time in a (completely optional) side mechanic with a significant reward, otherwise no one would put in the effort. If you had to wander around those huge maps and gather materials, hunt down specific animals to get drops, find schematics, etc. only to craft gear that is slightly more powerful than gear that can be found easily in a chest or a shop, then almost no one would bother and the mechanic would be useless and ignored.

 

Also, I think people on this forum are approaching the question as experienced players who've probably played the game more than once and researched the ins-and-outs of the crafting system online or in the game. The average player will be completely unaware of the details and possible exploits of the crafting system in their first playthrough and at most might create a few weapons or armor pieces, not paying too much attention to masterpiece materials or skill bonuses, etc. For example, while it's possible to farm higher level schematics from chests early on, a player on his/her first play-through won't know that unless they've specifically researched the subject beforehand and know which "special" chests to open and not loot fully, etc.

 

So I guess my view is the crafting system shouldn't be balanced against the play-throughs of experienced players who've fully researched the crafting system at the possible expense of first-time players, and also that investing time and effort to craft overpowered gear that is beyond what your character should be wearing is part of the "fun". Also, the game already has enough grinding elements, so making it even harder to get some materials / equipment would be a bit of a pain.

 

While I agree crafted gear can help break the difficulty balance of the game, for me the main problems with the game's difficulty are its level-scaling system and area level caps, so if there were adjustments I think I'd prefer tweaks to the difficulty of the early game vs. late game, and maybe (optional) higher difficulty levels or areas where even characters equipped with the strongest crafted gear would still face a challenge.

That's a fair point, but I would argue that it's not experience that's the problem. For example, crafting for style vs. crafting for min/max supremacy. There are very experienced players, we're talking kilohours of gameplay, who have no interest in breaking the combat mechanics or finding the most powerful weapon schematic (because it's ugly!), but Maker they'd kill for a lighter shade of green leather! No sarcasm intended, the ones I know are awesome and are often responsible for some of the best looking mods.

 

On the flip side, I don't know how many complete noobs have come on this forum and asked, "HOW I MAKE BEST ARRRMOARR?" There is a class of player (a very large class, I'd warrant) whose interest in dominating every battle is inversely proportional to their lifetime gaming experience. And Casual mode doesn't cut it. They have to dominate on Nightmare.

 

But I agree with your fundamental premise -- the crafting system has to have an incentive, or nobody (other than the style crafters) would bother. I just think the goal of incentivizing crafting can still be met without giving up game balance. And a good game should have something for every class of gamer, including the highly experienced, socially networked, clued in crowd you identified.

 

For example, why not scale ambushes to gear crafting level? If you don't or rarely craft above your looted gear or experience level, nothing happens, but if you min/max the hell out your gear with crafting, very nasty ninja assassins ambush you in completely random and unexpected places, ideally when you are low on resources, far from camp, and in a no-fast travel zone.