51 réponses à ce sujet

[PCThug]

Once I got a good grip of the new combat system, I forgot health regeneration was a thing. It wasn't until I fired up Origins last week that I remembered.

[Darkly Tranquil]

I definitely think Inquisition's combat was lacking and that it was too heavily influenced by multiplayer. For all that they limited healing in DAI, I never felt remotely challenged by the limited potion pool as it was more than offset by all the Guard, Barrier, On Hit abilities, healing grenades, and endless battle rez., etc. DAI's problem was that most of the time, the combat was just a grind that was never really in danger of killing you unless you somehow ran out of potions, which was only ever possible during main quests when you couldn't return to camp, and was mostly offset by the supply caches that were lying about all over the place. As a result, the combat was rarely exciting because it mostly devoid of risk. It was this problem that made the dragon fights so good; they are among the only encounters where your resources are really challenged by the damage output and mechanics, meaning that your choices to use potions, position characters, etc. really matters.

Personally, I feel like DA2 was actually the sweet spot as far as combat goes (putting aside the parachuting waves), because it had damage that is sufficiently high that you can potentially die in any fight, while also limiting the availability of healing and battle rezes, along with well designed companion AI and tight controls.

I'd like to see the combat reworked with the following features:

- Out of combat healing/high burst damage (characters heal to full health after each fight)

- Limited healing potions with a 30-60 second cooldown (no spamming potions)

- Guard as a Warrior-only mechanic for tanks (so that it cannot be abused with On Hit abilities on other classes)

- Return of healing spells with appropriate cooldowns

- Ditch Barrier (all it does is replace the healing problem with an equivalent problem)

- One battle rez per fight (probably only via a mage spell)

- More focus on crowd control, positioning, use of choke points, etc. (while these things existed in DAI, the awkward controls and lack of AI customization made them unreliable and difficult to use, fixing things like Hold, Move to Point, etc. would make a huge difference)

[ArianaGBSA]

Heal needs to come back. Roleplaying reasons. Same for blood magic.

[BansheeOwnage]

Combat in an RPG makes absolutely no sense. It's complete and utter nonsense - every part of the mechanic is a reduction and/or absurdity. So an appeal to what makes sense isn't really appropriate when talking about healing, or any combat mechanic. 

 

There are lots of criticisms of how healing spells were implemented and how they were approached - but the lore angle doesn't make sense. Healing absolutely broke the lore, suggesting that near-immortality was within reach of any mage whatsoever. In fact, acting like the healing we see in-game is the healing magic in the lore is bonkers, because in-game healing is tied to "HP", a nonsense system that has no connection to how injuries work (lore-wise). 

How is Barrier different? Suddenly even the lowliest mages can use energy shields/kinetic barriers to absorb literally any kind of damage? That's even more ridiculous than any mage being able to heal if you ask me, and it's worse just because it's effectively a retcon.

 

Plus your argument that I shouldn't try to appeal to reason is absurd. Combat can be internally consistent, fun, and balanced while remaining fantastical. That's no excuse to drop the ball.

[SardaukarElite]

Removing free regeneration was supposed to make players rethink how they approach a fight, which I approve of - however the problem is that Dragon Age has never really been a tactical series. Combat is a damage race, you go into it and try to kill your opponents before they kill you, healing adds a fairly dull layer to that. Removing all free healing means that your mistakes in one combat carry over to the next, but in the linear sequences combat is not a choice so your mistakes stack until you find a supply cash and in the open world combat is in a sense optional content so resupplying is an annoying reason to backtrack. There's no meaningful interaction with any game system.

 

A game I love which makes use of no free regeneration is MechCommander (1998). Early in the game you are taught to move your team of mechs across a bridge and destroy it using artillery, this cuts off the enemies following you so you don't have to fight a superior force. The lesson here is that in this game combat always comes with a cost - damage - which you have to weigh against the tactical gains of a victory. Crucially you have options for avoiding combat, your force can include scouts, there are ways to move your force around the map without engaging the enemy, preemptive strikes can be devastating. Additionally, damage affects the performance of your units which means that often you have to rethink your plan on the fly as a unit can no longer do what you were relying on. In the campaign repairing damage between missions requires points you gain by completing objectives which feeds into another gameplay mode of equipping and maintaining a force from what you have and in turn affects how you play each mission.

[Hiemoth]

How is Barrier different? Suddenly even the lowliest mages can use energy shields/kinetic barriers to absorb literally any kind of damage? That's even more ridiculous than any mage being able to heal if you ask me, and it's worse just because it's effectively a retcon.

 

Plus your argument that I shouldn't try to appeal to reason is absurd. Combat can be internally consistent, fun, and balanced while remaining fantastical. That's no excuse to drop the ball.

 

Actually In Exile is correct in this matter, the lore of Dragon Age in the books, as far as I understood, actually states that healing magic is extremely rare and draines the caster. Show the DAI switch is actually more in line with the lore in this case.

 

However, I always hesitate to go with having lore dictate combat mechanics, and actually Gaider himself has stated that game mechanics always trump lore. In addition, such arguments will almost always be pick-and-choose. According to the lore, being stabbed is lethal. In the combat, the character is hit by a sword fifty times and shrugs it off. It is difficult ignore that, yet at the same time be adamant about everything else being internally consistent. This isn't to say that healing shouldn't be a part of the combat mechanics, just that it will always be difficult to base it on the lore.

[BansheeOwnage]

Actually In Exile is correct in this matter, the lore of Dragon Age in the books, as far as I understood, actually states that healing magic is extremely rare and draines the caster. Show the DAI switch is actually more in line with the lore in this case.

 

However, I always hesitate to go with having lore dictate combat mechanics, and actually Gaider himself has stated that game mechanics always trump lore. In addition, such arguments will almost always be pick-and-choose. According to the lore, being stabbed is lethal. In the combat, the character is hit by a sword fifty times and shrugs it off. It is difficult ignore that, yet at the same time be adamant about everything else being internally consistent. This isn't to say that healing shouldn't be a part of the combat mechanics, just that it will always be difficult to base it on the lore.

Well, it gets a bit fuzzy, but I'd say that if Wynne can be a spirit healer, it's in the lore. She can heal a lot, in combat, and not be dramatically drained. And I have no problem with spirit healers being rare. But I think one companion should be one and you should be able to choose it as a specialization.

 

Where do we stop once we start comparing the lore vs gameplay? There is segregation on purpose. Barrier causes similar problems. If it's canon in the lore than almost any mage uses it as a go-to spell, and it's really as useful as it appears, why did no one in other games or books use it? If it's only supposed to be a gameplay thing, then why remove healing? Either way...

[Vit246]

Lore-wise, if healing magic is supposed to be difficult during combat, then what is stopping our mage companions from focusing on healing outside of combat? They have all the time and peace in the world, don't they?

 

For the love of god, bring back healing.

[Hiemoth]

Removing free regeneration was supposed to make players rethink how they approach a fight, which I approve of - however the problem is that Dragon Age has never really been a tactical series. Combat is a damage race, you go into it and try to kill your opponents before they kill you, healing adds a fairly dull layer to that. Removing all free healing means that your mistakes in one combat carry over to the next, but in the linear sequences combat is not a choice so your mistakes stack until you find a supply cash and in the open world combat is in a sense optional content so resupplying is an annoying reason to backtrack. There's no meaningful interaction with any game system.

 

I actually slightly disagree, as I did feel DAO/DA2 were systems that allowed tactics and, for me, especially DA2 actually did encourage it to a degree by constantly forcing the player to observe and react to the battlefield.

 

However, to me, the central problem with DAI approach was that it was, in a way, almost contradictory. They made changes to the underlying system to encourage tactical play, yet they changed the actual combat system to almost inhibit tactical play, especially if you are playing a melee character with a controller. The new system is so built around reaction that you have to constantly focus on your character, while the AI is so awful that it cannot be trusted to do pretty much anything. The more I payed attention to it, the more bizarre the mixture of choices felt.

[Hiemoth]

Well, it gets a bit fuzzy, but I'd say that if Wynne can be a spirit healer, it's in the lore. She can heal a lot, in combat, and not be dramatically drained. And I have no problem with spirit healers being rare. But I think one companion should be one and you should be able to choose it as a specialization.

 

Where do we stop once we start comparing the lore vs gameplay? There is segregation on purpose. Barrier causes similar problems. If it's canon in the lore than almost any mage uses it as a go-to spell, and it's really as useful as it appears, why did no one in other games or books use it? If it's only supposed to be a gameplay thing, then why remove healing? Either way...

 

But Wynne being a spirit healer is similar to just having healing, it is just there as a part of game mechanics and not supported by the actual lore.

 

As for the second part, I agree completely. The barrier is something that has never been a part of the lore before, even though I can see it being added now, and it is a game mechanic, similarly to guard. That doesn't change anything concerning healing, it's just a choice between two lore-breaking things. Note, I am not actually opposed to healing in the game, just that we have to accept that it breaks the lore as badly as the barrier does and is ultimately a game mechanic choice. I mean, the game's solution to being stabbed is to drink a potion, so again, we are not really rooted in the lore to begin with.

[BansheeOwnage]

But Wynne being a spirit healer is similar to just having healing, it is just there as a part of game mechanics and not supported by the actual lore.

 

As for the second part, I agree completely. The barrier is something that has never been a part of the lore before, even though I can see it being added now, and it is a game mechanic, similarly to guard. That doesn't change anything concerning healing, it's just a choice between two lore-breaking things. Note, I am not actually opposed to healing in the game, just that we have to accept that it breaks the lore as badly as the barrier does and is ultimately a game mechanic choice. I mean, the game's solution to being stabbed is to drink a potion, so again, we are not really rooted in the lore to begin with.

I thought Wynne was a spirit healer in the lore though. Anders definitely was. And Bull talks about using alchemical potions and poultices, so they're in the lore too. I admit they're all exaggerated to crazy levels in combat though, as are most things.

[Voldecuri]

How is Barrier different? Suddenly even the lowliest mages can use energy shields/kinetic barriers to absorb literally any kind of damage? That's even more ridiculous than any mage being able to heal if you ask me, and it's worse just because it's effectively a retcon.

 

 

It's not at all a retcon. I can't remember exactly when it occurred (in the mage origin, I think), an apprentice mage is shown learning how to hold a barrier up against a fireball. Yeah, maybe it isn't the exact same as putting up a barrier for three other people, but it isn't a retcon.

[SardaukarElite]

I actually slightly disagree, as I did feel DAO/DA2 were systems that allowed tactics and, for me, especially DA2 actually did encourage it to a degree by constantly forcing the player to observe and react to the battlefield.

 

So saying that was a mistake on my part to do with what I consider tactical gameplay. What I meant was that the DA series has always focused its gameplay within the limited scope of an engaged combat you can't really escape from. You roll from fight to fight and all your options exist inside that fight. If you don't fight you're really just skipping content rather than embracing a different gameplay style and you rarely if ever get options to setup a fight to your advantage before engaging.

 

Removing free regeneration can't make us rethink our tactics because there's no space for it. In battle we were already all trying to preserve our health. Outside of battle our only options are to turn back or press on. Except we only get the option to turn back in the open world.

[spinachdiaper]

It's obvious that all the combat mechanics had little to do with campaign and were solely centered around multiplayer balancing so that people would keep grinding in DAIMP.

[BansheeOwnage]

It's not at all a retcon. I can't remember exactly when it occurred (in the mage origin, I think), an apprentice mage is shown learning how to hold a barrier up against a fireball. Yeah, maybe it isn't the exact same as putting up a barrier for three other people, but it isn't a retcon.

I didn't mean it was a retcon in the sense that barriers didn't exist before, more in the sense that it went from virtually no one using them to virtually everyone using them. Don't know if there is a better term for that.

[Dai Grepher]

The health item un/equip exploit renders the whole thing a failed experiment.

 

I didn't like the lack of regenerating health. All it did was make you waste time restoring your health through % heal on hit, potions, regen potions, or Healing Mist grenades (which are basically a healing spell in terms of technical aspects).

 

And if not giving bosses large amounts of health was what BioWare had planned, then they failed, because not only did most bosses have way too much health, most common enemies had too much. At least as far as I am aware. I play on Nightmare. Maybe that has something to do with it.

 

Anyway, healing spells have roleplay value. This is especially true when it comes to healer mages. Even regenerating health has roleplay value. A warrior might train in a way that they heal faster, or have large health pools. But if they were going to take out regenerating health, they should have left in healing spells. I understand the roleplay value of setting up camps and resting, but this could have still been done in non-mage parties or even those with healer mages. They could have implemented a system where stamina/mana regen required resting now and then, otherwise it would not regenerate as quickly.

 

Even on Nightmare, I rarely walked around without full bars anyway. And if I ever got low, a new campsite was always on the horizon.

 

Healing was replaced with barrier casting. It's just giving you an extra health bar. One that decays, which is the opposite of regen. Another fact that makes it a failed experiment.

 

In the end, it's just a time waster. Bring back health regen in DA4.

[Gileadan]

In the end, all the change from healing to barrier accomplished was replacing a reactively spammed spell (healing) with a preemptively spammed spell (barrier). And preemptive spamming is overall more spamming since you don't have to wait for HP loss to react to, you have to barrier in advance to prevent it.

 

After a few hours of gameplay with DAI (on hard without tac cam), the current combat design made me set into a routine:

- bring a companion mage with points put into Barrier and have it set to preferred

- settle into a favorite rotation, all MMO gameplay like

- process hostiles

 

After that point, there was nothing tactical about it anymore, it was a repetition of two or three learned patterns. I could do it half drunk or half asleep...something that I can do with only very, very few games when I play them in a higher difficulty. Good combat, I think is designed in a way that it requires at least a modicum of attention and situational awareness, but for some reason, DAI's combat was, in my head, quickly reduced to "process hostiles on/off".  Not sure whether that's what the current design was going for.

 

The only moment where that pattern behavior was briefly interrupted for me was the appearance of the dwarven Bren machinegunners in The Descent. After two fights against them, though, my combat pattern now included "If pew-pew sound Then Aegis of the Rift".

 

How the removal of healing and health regeneration still didn't help making the combat feel less MMO like to me is something I have a hard time explaining, but there it is.

[Ieldra]

A game I love which makes use of no free regeneration is MechCommander (1998). Early in the game you are taught to move your team of mechs across a bridge and destroy it using artillery, this cuts off the enemies following you so you don't have to fight a superior force. The lesson here is that in this game combat always comes with a cost - damage - which you have to weigh against the tactical gains of a victory. Crucially you have options for avoiding combat, your force can include scouts, there are ways to move your force around the map without engaging the enemy, preemptive strikes can be devastating. Additionally, damage affects the performance of your units which means that often you have to rethink your plan on the fly as a unit can no longer do what you were relying on. In the campaign repairing damage between missions requires points you gain by completing objectives which feeds into another gameplay mode of equipping and maintaining a force from what you have and in turn affects how you play each mission.

I would love to see a system like that in an RPG. I've always disliked the absurd overabundance of combat in rpgs. Killing stuff for XP is equally absurd. You should gain XP for completing objectives, which may include killing here and there, but shouldn't be limited to that.  

 

As for DAI's healing system, it worked well enough for me. In my first game, I noticed the impact and I did play more carefully, but in the end, the impact wasn't all that great. Personally, I would like to have a system that was lore-compliant, and tune the other aspects of combat in accordance with that. I'm not sure what that would entail though, since the lore about this is disparate.

[Wulfram]

I think Barrier would be better if it was single target.  Its the AoE that really encourages "spam", since you can basically just slap it on everyone - single target would require at least some sort of tactical thought as to who needs protecting.

 

Though doing that would make melee DPS even more annoying, since they couldn't share the tanks barrier.

[DWareFan]

They need to bring back healing, mage healing and out of combat regen.  If you want to talk lore, any time Varric dies, and he seems to be the only one who dies when I play, then he would be dead and I wouldn't have to put up with him for the rest of the game (Sera for those who don't like her).  I didn't like it when they pulled healing and after playing the game three times, I still don't like it that they pulled healing.  I agree with the sentiment, for the love of the maker, bring back healing.

[In Exile]

How is Barrier different? Suddenly even the lowliest mages can use energy shields/kinetic barriers to absorb literally any kind of damage? That's even more ridiculous than any mage being able to heal if you ask me, and it's worse just because it's effectively a retcon.

 

Plus your argument that I shouldn't try to appeal to reason is absurd. Combat can be internally consistent, fun, and balanced while remaining fantastical. That's no excuse to drop the ball.

As I said many times in that post, I'm not defending the new mechanics. I'm just objecting a lore argument about combat. Let me expand on it. I think the concept of barrier/guard is good. The way it's spammed is bad, but it makes for more dynamic combat and introduces multiple health bars. The idea that the game has to stagnate in perpetuity because no writer thought to invent a loophole to introduce a new gameplay mechanic is silly. Especially since the lore in a videogame - especially RPG - is just invented solely for the purpose of justifying the gameplay in the first place. It's the thin veneer applied to "we're doing this because the gameplay people think it'll be fun."

 

HP is complete gibberish. People don't get set on fire, electrocuted, stabed, thrown around with the force of a gale force wind, crushed, chombed on by a dragon, set on fire again, and have not even a scuff because their hypothetical HP counter is at 0, whereas a slight shove - followed by all that - sends them into perpetual unconsciousness. Damage is nonsense in an RPG. "Healing" - the recovery from that nonsense damage - doesn't make any sense either. 

 

Combat has to try to maintain some level of versimiltude. But RPG combat can't really do that part. 

[Navasha]

Well, if those dev statements are true, then I would applaud WHY they did it, while stating that they also failed miserably to achieve those things.   There is nothing really tactical about DA:I.   Love the game, but the combat is barely more than push the same 3-4 buttons in the same sequence until everything is dead.   The hardest part of the entire game is from level 4-9.   After 10... its literally a cakewalk even on nightmare.  

 

The biggest downfall of the no-healing system is that many of your encounters aren't strong enough to even challenge you.    Walking out of most fights completely unscathed isn't that hard to do.    Did anyone ever run from a fight in DA:I because you wanted to save your healing potions?   I know I didn't.    Now maybe if they had went a bit further and required you to gather an elfroot for every healing potion... THEN that might have happened.

[BansheeOwnage]

 

And if not giving bosses large amounts of health was what BioWare had planned, then they failed, because not only did most bosses have way too much health, most common enemies had too much. At least as far as I am aware. I play on Nightmare. Maybe that has something to do with it.

I've played on Nightmare and Casual, and I can assure you that enemies having way too much health is a problem for both. It's annoying on Nightmare because I'd rather the enemies actually be threatening rather than effectively being timers. They don't do enough damage to kill you, but they take forever to kill. It's really bad. And it's even more annoying on Casual, because that's the difficulty you want to play if you're primarily interested in advancing the story, and you don't want to spend forever killing common enemies that stand no chance of killing you. It's a tedious waste of time.

 

I would love to see a system like that in an RPG. I've always disliked the absurd overabundance of combat in rpgs. Killing stuff for XP is equally absurd. You should gain XP for completing objectives, which may include killing here and there, but shouldn't be limited to that. 

I agree, but that's how it works in DA:I. You get XP for quests and combat

[Hiemoth]

I would love to see a system like that in an RPG. I've always disliked the absurd overabundance of combat in rpgs. Killing stuff for XP is equally absurd. You should gain XP for completing objectives, which may include killing here and there, but shouldn't be limited to that. 

 

That's actually what ME team decided on moving from ME1 to ME2 and I was really glad they stuck with it with the continuation to ME3 despite the complaints how it somehow took away from the RPG of it.

 

As for DA and the killing XP, it's a weird thing. I almost feel it's a remnant of older games and RPGs, where there was this element of grinding and trying to set up that this battle was harder that by the combination of forces involved. I would be glad to see it go, but at the same time I will admit that it would feel odd to start with.

[leaguer of one]

Not everything is because of consoles or MP. I don't see why they couldn't have just made MP work differently, or work with healing for that matter. Just disable health regeneration in MP. You regen between each section anyway. You can still heal in MP in the same ways you can in SP, after all. So I'm going to need more if I'm going to start blaming MP for that.

This time it's because of mp. Every change in combat is just like most of the change in combat in ME3. Even the rive systems are the same.