167 réponses à ce sujet

[Elhanan]

DAI works more comfortably than Skyrim or the ME series; about the same as SWTOR and it has Pause functionality.

[Wolven_Soul]

That's just it though. If you have access to all of your abilities, then there is no real need to plan ahead. Could the implementation have been better? Sure. But the basic intention of the limitation was to force choice and planning. Are you running into a lot of a certain type of enemy? Change your abilities around to better deal with them. Do you see a specific type of enemy in the distance? Adjust for that enemy. Uncertain of what is ahead? Go with a general load out. You specialize in one type of element as a mage? Bring an opposite element staff. You engage someone you aren't prepared to fight? Run, respec and reengage. Make use of combos. You know there is an ability limit. Pick what you know you want and invest more in passives and upgrades. There are two ways to look at strategy here. One is to increase the toolkit to allow for more builds, potential ability synergy, combos and the like. The other is to limit the toolkit in order to force the player to specialize and choose what they need for the situation at hand. Bioware chose the second option. Now, what they should have done is to allow for more opportunities to use your scouts, stealth, certain abilities, to determine enemy resistances and the like before you engaged them. I believe there were a couple instances of this, I can't remember and it has been a long time since I played, but more would have helped build on their design.

 

You can plan ahead by making sure to have access to the abilities that you know are going to be the most useful in any given situations.  Also, to have to constantly go into the skills menu to switch you skills around would get tremendously tedious.  All those situations you describe horrify me not because it sounds difficult, but because it sounds monumentally boring.  Fight, stop, reset mys skills.  Fight, stop, reset my skills, over and over and over.  Even using scouts and stealth to determine enemy resistances and weakness sounds awful because I still have to constantly reset my danged skills.  It enhances the doldrum of an already dull game.

 

Of course, even if we did have access to all of our abilities, they are so reduced from previous games in both quality and quantity that it doesn't make much of difference.  But again, it limits the strategy.  

 

Another thing, is that the combat in this game is so easy, even in higher difficulties, that it usually doesn't even matter what skills you take into the fights.  Again, strategy not needed.  

[Elhanan]

You can plan ahead by making sure to have access to the abilities that you know are going to be the most useful in any given situations.  Also, to have to constantly go into the skills menu to switch you skills around would get tremendously tedious.  All those situations you describe horrify me not because it sounds difficult, but because it sounds monumentally boring.  Fight, stop, reset mys skills.  Fight, stop, reset my skills, over and over and over.  Even using scouts and stealth to determine enemy resistances and weakness sounds awful because I still have to constantly reset my danged skills.  It enhances the doldrum of an already dull game.
 
Of course, even if we did have access to all of our abilities, they are so reduced from previous games in both quality and quantity that it doesn't make much of difference.  But again, it limits the strategy.  
 
Another thing, is that the combat in this game is so easy, even in higher difficulties, that it usually doesn't even matter what skills you take into the fights.  Again, strategy not needed.

Agreed, in that I prefer more Quickslots; not a fan of the old D&D memory system either. But one can usually go with the same eight slots for a vast number of encounters, unless they see another tactical possibility. Then they can withdraw, reset the abilities, and move forward. Cannot recall that imagined example at all during gameplay.

And Abilities not only have effects, many have upgrades, as well as Attribute support. Crafting is improved from past games, Besides Stealing, cannot recall what Skills might be missing or reduced from the prior games.

As far as ease of play, that will be Player dependent. However, the Patches have fixed exploits which makes some unhappy, but obviously makes the game more difficult and in line to the design in mind. So if one was spamming Spirit Blade, that tactic will not be as effective now. Etc.

Would prefer 12 slots or one per each Active ability; the one for Focus only is also a nice idea.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Didn't Mike Laidlaw say that the 8 ability limit was put in place intentionally because they wanted the player to have to pick and choose was abilities were best for the job at hand? It was done in an effort to add a bit of strategy to the game, I believe was the reasoning.

 

 

That was pure PR speak. You can't believe that.  The limit was a combo of MP and they ran out of time/resources to do anything else.

 

I wish people would stop bashing the consoles for everything. It's just wrong. (Not your post just to the general populace who does it)

 

This topic keeps coming up. My thoughts on the subject:

 

PR speak is common in Bioware. A good strategy is maybe to consider how technical the claim is versus how 'feel good' it is. For instance the ME2 iconic look thing they said 'why should you be able to tell your companions what to wear.?' Silly condescending pure marketing nonsense.  It was far more likely that it was easier to design iconic looks than have to fit every droppable armour in the game to every single body type, especially in DA with Qunari and Dwarves.

 

Design decisions are made to solve a problem. Likely problems the developers have no interest in sharing with the public. This is perfectly reasonable. They have no obligation to explain they had to cut content A because it was above a budgeted memory limit or took up too much disk space, or simply didn't work well enough to include in the game.  So instead they make up some 'feel good' nonsense to tell the players in the hope we don't complain about the decision too much.

 

As for 8 hotkeys limit. No, it's not because of consoles, except where it is, and no, it's not due to multiplayer, except where it is. The decision to limit hotkeys at all was likely they wanted fast pace action combat mode. Maybe they thought this worked better in multiplayer, maybe they thought that type of play sells more units. Maybe both.

 

Why 8 specifically though? Pure controller. The controller has 4 buttons assigned to attacks in DAI. If they could have assigned 5, we would be complaining about having only 10 slots.

 

The game was designed for controller play. No getting around that. Mike Laidlaw even said during the development of DA2 that they were focusing on consoles because that's where most of their sales were for DAO.

 

DAI was also designed for multiplayer. They used an abandoned multiplayer game as their core, and it shows. SP is simply MP combat using a shift for more abilities and a pause.

 

So why is multiplayer limited to 4 while SP gets 8? Possibly that goes back to the action mode style they wanted. Stopping to choose abilities during the fast paced combat they were picturing, would slow down gameplay. In multiplayer maybe they wanted everyone to keep up and not stop to pick skills from a radial menu.

 

SP likely got 8 because assigning a trigger to 'shift' the ability circle was deemed acceptable in SP combat since noone is waiting on you, except the mobs. I don't like this explanation much because it begs the question why not have the shift ability in multiplayer then? One extra click of a trigger to access 4 more abilities doesn't seem to be that much effort for multiplayer combat. Not to mention, SWTOR, an MMO, has 40 or 60 hotkey positions.

 

Perhaps this brings us to combat balancing as I mentioned before. Perhaps designing any given encounter in either game mode worked 'better' or closer to their 'vision' than having all abilities available at once. And indeed maybe their 'vision' included the intent to make the game more 'tactical'.

 

Now, is this all the consoles fault, or multiplayers fault? No. Assigning blame is silly. Facts are facts regardless of how you feel about them.

 

In any case, hopefully they come to the conclusion that this limit is unpopular and unliked, and they try something better for the next games. As it stands, I'm not liking their 'vision' for the DA series and if they continue with this gameplay style I'll likely opt out of future releases.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

You can plan ahead by making sure to have access to the abilities that you know are going to be the most useful in any given situations.  Also, to have to constantly go into the skills menu to switch you skills around would get tremendously tedious.  All those situations you describe horrify me not because it sounds difficult, but because it sounds monumentally boring.  Fight, stop, reset mys skills.  Fight, stop, reset my skills, over and over and over.  Even using scouts and stealth to determine enemy resistances and weakness sounds awful because I still have to constantly reset my danged skills.  It enhances the doldrum of an already dull game.

 

Of course, even if we did have access to all of our abilities, they are so reduced from previous games in both quality and quantity that it doesn't make much of difference.  But again, it limits the strategy.  

 

Another thing, is that the combat in this game is so easy, even in higher difficulties, that it usually doesn't even matter what skills you take into the fights.  Again, strategy not needed.  

 

Agreed. I ended up not changing a single skill on anyone's hotbar, except when gaining access to focus abilities. Too tedious.

 

Then again, I played on Normal so I could get through combat as fast as possible because I found the whole thing tedious.

[zeypher]

I really wish focus abilities did not take a slot, that i find is a criminal waste of a slot.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

And I play on the PC exclusively, and have had no such issues. All it took was some re-mapping of Control Keys and Options, and practice on the new controls rather than expecting to use older ones.

Believe the eight slots were due to balancing gameplay for DA-MP.

 

We've had this conversation before and I'm a little disappointed that none of my points 'took'. Nonetheless, I'll try again.

 

You had specific issues with the game that you fixed by changing keybinds and options. That's great. I do hope you'll recognize eventually, that not everyone had the same issues as you, and not everyone's issues could be 'fixed' by changing keybindings.

 

For instance many people found the UI to be clunky, especially the inventory and crafting screens. Even console players complained about this in fact. Another complaint was that the KB&M UI was a straight up console port, despite being told before release that KB&M users would have a UI tailored to their control mechanisms. This isn't a 'remap options and get used to a new style' thing. The game doesn't work as advertised.

 

It's great that you approach the game with a  positive attitude and don't let little annoyances bother you. Seriously. But not every one is willing to do that. nor should everyone be expected to. If one buys a product that they are not satisfied with, it's perfectly reasonable to approach the vendor to complain.

 

 

As for the SWTOR comparisons, certainly the game plays similar in some ways, like using WASD. As a mostly MMO playing gamer, the DAI movement controls are fine in that sense for me. Beyond that though, SWTOR and DAI have little in common. More hotkey slots, a massive number of abilities available at all times, non controllable companions that have a decent AI, and know when to stay at range..

 

I posted my thoughts on the hotkey issue above.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

I really wish focus abilities did not take a slot, that i find is a criminal waste of a slot.

 

And when you first get it, it replaces your first hotkey position. very annoying.

[Elhanan]

And when you first get it, it replaces your first hotkey position. very annoying.

Not if you use it, then it is walk to cut-scene.

[Elhanan]

Almost every issue I had was solved before gameplay simply by re-mapping the keys. This was mentioned on 11.23.14 in my review on Amazon based on reading of others that could have solved their issues had they done the same. Perhaps some of those that experience problems are feeling that it doesn't work like it used to in prior games, but I prefer to play the game I purchased and actually have on the screen.

UI and KB&M work well for me; much better than that of Skyrim or the ME series. Wish there was a Lock so I would not continue to delete filled slots, but gameplay continues on without it. But the KB&M controls are pretty much like I used in SWTOR, and both received awards for them. And I do not really miss having 5 quickbars to utilize; spent more time looking at the GUI than the encounter itself.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Not if you use it, then it is walk to cut-scene.

 

I'm not sure what you mean here?

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Almost every issue I had was solved before gameplay simply by re-mapping the keys. This was mentioned on 11.23.14 in my review on Amazon based on reading of others that could have solved their issues had they done the same. Perhaps some of those that experience problems are feeling that it doesn't work like it used to in prior games, but I prefer to play the game I purchased and actually have on the screen.

UI and KB&M work well for me; much better than that of Skyrim or the ME series. Wish there was a Lock so I would not continue to delete filled slots, but gameplay continues on without it. But the KB&M controls are pretty much like I used in SWTOR, and both received awards for them. And I do not really miss having 5 quickbars to utilize; spent more time looking at the GUI than the encounter itself.

 

It's not like the SWTOR encouters were very interesting. Oh look, a cluster of three mobs. Nuke em! Oh look, another cluster of the exact same mobs! Nuke em again!

[Elhanan]

I'm not sure what you mean here?

Had this event again last night; simply encountered the enemy, hit the hotkey as directed, then walked my way along until I was in the next cut-scene. Did not notice the substitution until I was in the Undercroft.

[Elhanan]

It's not like the SWTOR encouters were very interesting. Oh look, a cluster of three mobs. Nuke em! Oh look, another cluster of the exact same mobs! Nuke em again!

Perhaps it may have been like this for some Players and/ or classes (eg; saw this in Beta with Jedi Inq), but when playing solo, one may actually avoid mobs if desired by skirting them in some manner. I enjoyed the exploration, as well as trying to find paths of safety.

[Korva]

It is one of the problems that make Inquisition's gameplay frustrating for me and combat more of a thing to be endured than enjoyed, yes. Especially in the light of playing the party tank as per my usual perference. They made tanking boring and passive in this game, and the limited slots only make that worse. Before long, I stopped looking forward to the next skill point and just plonked it wherever, because my bar was full anyway and passives are not exactly exciting or noticeable either.

 

The UI in general is a huge step backwards. Too much clutter, too clunky, too little information.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Perhaps it may have been like this for some Players and/ or classes (eg; saw this in Beta with Jedi Inq), but when playing solo, one may actually avoid mobs if desired by skirting them in some manner. I enjoyed the exploration, as well as trying to find paths of safety.

 

Well, that was kind of the pont. The SWTOR layouts are pretty static. You can choose to attack the same mobs in the same positions using the same tactics that work every time, or you could bypass them as you did. They don't move around like in DAI (to some extent at least)

[Elhanan]

Well, that was kind of the pont. The SWTOR layouts are pretty static. You can choose to attack the same mobs in the same positions using the same tactics that work every time, or you could bypass them as you did. They don't move around like in DAI (to some extent at least)

But I was also avoiding other Players, which do get around a bit.

[Ulithium_Dragon]

The shitty PC port doesn't get any "special treatment" for being able to utilize a more robust system. Literally every complaint you could level at DA:I boils down to the devs deciding to gut the game to focus on making it palatable for the pisspoor consoles. You get 8 hotkeys because that's all a gamepad can handle before it runs out of cleaver gimmicky ways to add more hotkeys.

 

*Sigh* Do you remember when Bioware used to care about PC gamers? DA:O had a custom designed UI specifically tailor made for the PC version. DA:I's PC port controls were SO @&#* that I have to switch to a gamepad, and even the gamepad controls are retarded. For one, WHY THE $&%* can;t gamepad controls be remapped!? Also, whoever decided that "jump" and "activate" should be on the same key needs to drawn and quartered several times, until only bloody giblets remain...

 

EDIT: I don't post here very often, but dear god - what forum on earth has a profanity filter!? The game is rated M ffs!

[Wolven_Soul]

The shitty PC port doesn't get any "special treatment" for being able to utilize a more robust system. Literally every complaint you could level at DA:I boils down to the devs deciding to gut the game to focus on making it palatable for the pisspoor consoles. You get 8 hotkeys because that's all a gamepad can handle before it runs out of cleaver gimmicky ways to add more hotkeys.

 

*Sigh* Do you remember when Bioware used to care about PC gamers? DA:O had a custom designed UI specifically tailor made for the PC version. DA:I's PC port controls were SO @&#* that I have to switch to a gamepad, and even the gamepad controls are retarded. For one, WHY THE $&%* can;t gamepad controls be remapped!? Also, whoever decided that "jump" and "activate" should be on the same key needs to drawn and quartered several times, until only bloody giblets remain...

 

EDIT: I don't post here very often, but dear god - what forum on earth has a profanity filter!? The game is rated M ffs!

 

*sighs*  Another PC gamer blaming all of the bad design decisions on consoles.  Bad decisions are bad decisions.  Quit expecting the world to be catered to you just because you play on a technologically superior platform.

[Sylvius the Mad]

*sighs*  Another PC gamer blaming all of the bad design decisions on consoles.  Bad decisions are bad decisions.  Quit expecting the world to be catered to you just because you play on a technologically superior platform.

I don't understand why anyone thinks a controller is an adequate control device.  Even console gamers should be demanding KBM support.

[Ulithium_Dragon]

*sighs*  Another PC gamer blaming all of the bad design decisions on consoles.  Bad decisions are bad decisions.  Quit expecting the world to be catered to you just because you play on a technologically superior platform.

 

Dude, the UI simply SCREAMS "console". A gamepad is the ONLY reason why a radial menu makes any sense (I HATE those things), and please give me another excuse as to why 8 buttons then? Even DA2 had full hotkey support for whatever the fk you wanted, and as I said, DA:O had a CUSTOM UI for the PC version, that actually made sense for KBM controls...

 

The game lost a lot in the UI sections. Character builds are now really dumbed down, with removing the ability to set a character's attribute points as you chose. I'm not the kind of person who wants to be playing DA on nightmare difficulty, pausing ever 3 seconds to issue commands, and saying that, I REALLY miss being able to write custom AI's for the companions. They are REALLY retarded now - they spam potions like mad, charge in and die, etc.

[Elhanan]

Set Potion use to 20% or less, and Follow to themselves; seemingly offers more defensive protection. Also recommend setting Mana/ Stamina use at 20%, too.

[Maeshone]

Dude, the UI simply SCREAMS "console". A gamepad is the ONLY reason why a radial menu makes any sense (I HATE those things), and please give me another excuse as to why 8 buttons then? Even DA2 had full hotkey support for whatever the fk you wanted, and as I said, DA:O had a CUSTOM UI for the PC version, that actually made sense for KBM controls...

 

The game lost a lot in the UI sections. Character builds are now really dumbed down, with removing the ability to set a character's attribute points as you chose. I'm not the kind of person who wants to be playing DA on nightmare difficulty, pausing ever 3 seconds to issue commands, and saying that, I REALLY miss being able to write custom AI's for the companions. They are REALLY retarded now - they spam potions like mad, charge in and die, etc.

The UI and the number of hotkeys are entirely separate issues. The fact that both DAO and DA2 were on console, with the ability to use any and all of your abilities at any time is enough of a point to refute your claim of consoles being the cause of a diminished number of ability slots.

 

Same thing with character builds. Removing the ability to set attribute points at will is also a design choice that has nothing to do with consoles, and neither is the lack of tactics. Both were very present and fully functional in the 360/PS3 versions of DAO and DA2.

 

Your only point that has any sort of validity is the UI, Menus seem to be designed to be moved around in with a gamepad, and even with one they're sometimes still a pain to navigate.

[Wolven_Soul]

I don't understand why anyone thinks a controller is an adequate control device.  Even console gamers should be demanding KBM support.

 

Maybe because some of us simply find controllers more comfortable than keyboard and mouse.  Maybe PC gamers should stop trying to convert the world into their way of thinking and simply accept that people are different.  We like what we like, and you like what you like.  It really is as simple as that, and we don't like being made to feel inferior simply because we like different things than you.  The whole idea of this war between consoles and consoles, or consoles and PC, is absolutely ridiculous.  We should be over joyed that we have so many options as gamers.

[Wolven_Soul]

Dude, the UI simply SCREAMS "console". A gamepad is the ONLY reason why a radial menu makes any sense (I HATE those things), and please give me another excuse as to why 8 buttons then? Even DA2 had full hotkey support for whatever the fk you wanted, and as I said, DA:O had a CUSTOM UI for the PC version, that actually made sense for KBM controls...

 

The game lost a lot in the UI sections. Character builds are now really dumbed down, with removing the ability to set a character's attribute points as you chose. I'm not the kind of person who wants to be playing DA on nightmare difficulty, pausing ever 3 seconds to issue commands, and saying that, I REALLY miss being able to write custom AI's for the companions. They are REALLY retarded now - they spam potions like mad, charge in and die, etc.

 

None of these issues can be lain at the feet of consoles.  Character builds are just as dumbed down on consoles as they are on PCs.  The idea of the eight button limit being because of consoles is absolutely absurd because DA:O AND DA:2 BOTH HAD ACCESS TO ALL ABILITIES ALL THE FREAKING TIME!!!!!!

 

How many times does that need to be said?  Also blaming the lack of ability to allocate attribute points on consoles is just as ridiculous because we could allocate them in the console versions of the previous games.  

 

Bad decisions are bad decisions.  They could have put time, money, and effort into developing better controls and UIs for the PC version.  They have even had plenty of time to patch such things into the game on PC.  They simply haven't.  And that's not because of consoles, it's laziness and/or not wanting to spend time and resources into making those developments.  

 

For crying out loud not even Totalbiscuit blames consoles for bad PC ports and he is one of the staunchest members of the whole PC master race silliness.  He puts the blame where it belongs, on the developers.