295 réponses à ce sujet

[Laughing_Man]

I don't really consider the other games to be much better about this. DA:O has a lot of spells available, but I found a lot of it to feel like chaff and didn't do much to offset the action chess piece feeling of its combat. I do like DA2's the most though, because Force Mage is like violent Jedi Kung Fu, marred only by having to keep Carver alive to use it. 

 

Some was chaff, yes, but over all you had more options, useful options, to choose from in DA:O and even DA:2.

 

Force magic for example is a perfect match for KE, you can pull an archer towards you with something like the Revenant's pull ability,

and send a charging shield bearer flying away with a push or a stone fist.

 

The entire counter-magic tree was reduced to dispel. Why? No idea.

 

The UI for PC was awkward enough as it is, even without the need to stop and ground target fire burst (?) lightning cage or something else every 10 seconds.

 

The staff twirling was still idiotic, mages are not dancers, magic is about mind over matter.

Something like Storm Coast Legends cantrips would have been better.

(a minor single target elemental spell that you can cast without mana cost, that or something like arcane/spirit bolt with a reduced casting cost.)

 

 

All in all, in my eyes DA:I really improved only on the visual side of things, much like the recent Battlefront.

When it comes to other aspects, it was either a step down or more or less the same.

 

I wouldn't want to see a similar change for ME:A.

[KaiserShep]

I have a strong feeling that the full range of powers we use in ME:A will be everything that can be mapped to a controller so it will run exactly as multiplayer would. 

[Laughing_Man]

I have a strong feeling that the full range of powers we use in ME:A will be everything that can be mapped to a controller so it will run exactly as multiplayer would. 

 

Right, but immediately the devs will make it clear that it was merely a design decision and had nothing to do with consoles and their limitations...

 

Incidentally, cutting down abilities to what MP offered will probably be a deal breaker for me.

[Addictress]

Respectfully... Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Dragon Age II is my least favorite Bioware game so far. Thankfully, the very little I've played of Inquisition so far (got it a few days ago) appears to be an improvement.

I know everyone is entitled to their opinion, but do you ever feel frustrated that you're looking at a black and blue dress and people are saying it's white and gold?

Wtf

[Addictress]

The camera angles are important because they allow us to focus on the things our character thinks is important, rather than what the devs want us to notice.

Cinematic camera movement forces us to break character.

DAI exceeda DA2 (by miles) because combat makes up less of the game, because quests don't magically appear in our journal, because quest givers actually provide information, and because the combat mechanics are far less restrictive.

Also, we can dress our companions, the crafting system makes more sense, the game doesn't presume the PC's motive as much, and the paraphrases are vastly better written (something that was probably impossible in DA2 given the dominant personality system).

We can actually go do things in DAI without first being told to do them (only BioWare's third game to allow that).

How is the mage gameplay in DAI worse? All the combat is made better by the tactical camera. Yes, the animations are still dumb, but that's just aesthetics.

The camera angles in DA2 are better than DAI. DAI, first of all, the audio is lost in space when you're panned out. Quite simply, it's not cinematic and I don't give a shi** about any of the cookie cutter, rigidly standing NPCs prompting fetch quests - exacerbated by their laziness in not zooming into the conversation like they did in DA2.

Did you say DAI combat makes less of the game?? People usually complain there is too little combat in Bioware. I thought the combat in DA2 was much better than in DAI. DAI combat was not very difficult. In DA2 I used way more tactics and felt imperiled FREQUENTLY.

Crafting is nice but it's not why I play Bioware games. They were just copying the Skyrim trend by giving us crafting. I don't care about crafting.

The writers presuming motives for Hawks is why Hawks's character is WAY BETTER and infinitely more memorable than the Inquisitor. Honestly did they even try to write dialogue for the Inquisitor? It feels like they handed the Inquisitor's dialogue writing to a tenth-grade public school elective class on a lazy summer afternoon while the teacher was absent, to a bunch of non-AP students more interested in wearing short shorts and hot pink lipstick and doing their friends later than in constructively applying themselves.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The camera angles in DA2 are better than DAI. DAI, first of all, the audio is lost in space when you're panned out.

I don't listen to the voices. I read subtitles.

Quite simply, it's not cinematic and I don't give a shi** about any of the cookie cutter, rigidly standing NPCs prompting fetch quests - exacerbated by their laziness in not zooming into the conversation like they did in DA2.

That's not laziness. They had to design two different dialogue interfaces to allow DAI's design.

I never care about NPCs. Because their NPCs. I care about my character. But I didn't get to play my character in DA2. I only got to play Hawke, who was effectively an NPC (much like Shepard), and thus I couldn't care about him because I wasn't allowed to know him (much like Shepard)

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that denizens of the ME forum like that design.

Did you say DAI combat makes less of the game?? People usually complain there is too little combat in Bioware.

Who plays BioWare games for combat? I know I've often praise their combat design (especially in DAO and earlier), but that was never a common opinion.

I think BioWare's games could generally do with more exploration and puzzle-solving and less combat. The amount of dialogue is about right.

I thought the combat in DA2 was much better than in DAI. DAI combat was not very difficult. In DA2 I used way more tactics and felt imperiled FREQUENTLY.

If I wanted a challenge, I'd play a more combat-centric game.

Crafting is nice but it's not why I play Bioware games. They were just copying the Skyrim trend by giving us crafting. I don't care about crafting.

DAI is hardly BioWare's first game with crafting.

The writers presuming motives for Hawks is why Hawks's character is WAY BETTER and infinitely more memorable than the Inquisitor.

Only if you make no effort to give the Inquisitor a personality. Whereas DA2 seemed to be actively punishing me for trying to do that with Hawke (again, ME does the same thing with Shepard).

[AlanC9]

The entire counter-magic tree was reduced to dispel. Why? No idea.
.

Maybe because Mana Clash turned out to be really unfun? Not actually a reason, just a guess about the thought process.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Maybe because Mana Clash turned out to be really unfun? Not actually a reason, just a guess about the thought process.

Dispel is way more useful (and overpowered) than Mana Clash was.

Mana Clash could be resisted. But dispel prevents rifts spawns every time. Two mages with Dispel render every rift trivial.

I'm a big fan of both, of course, because I think mages should be overpowered.

[Seraphim24]

I genuinely enjoy combat in DAO.  In DAI isn't not particularly fun, but nor is it frustrating or particularly dull (DA2 was both of those).

 

I do wish DAI had kept the melee friendly fire from DA2, though.

 

All three games suffer from their asymmetrical combat mechanics.  All pale in comparison to NWN's combat on that front.

 

I'm sorry but NWN was chaos, it was this appearance of massive choice and division but with a heaping pile of insanely overpowered abilities like epic wizard spells or devastating criticals, and also the inventory power creep was equally crazy especially by Hordes of the Underdark. 

[AlanC9]

Dispel is way more useful (and overpowered) than Mana Clash was.
Mana Clash could be resisted. But dispel prevents rifts spawns every time. Two mages with Dispel render every rift trivial.
I'm a big fan of both, of course, because I think mages should be overpowered.

I haven't been able to neutralize all the demons in the second wave even with two mages. Though if it's one of those rifts with one or two big ones like pride demons and you take out the big guns, yeah, it's over.

[AlanC9]

I'm sorry but NWN was chaos, it was this appearance of massive choice and division but with a heaping pile of insanely overpowered abilities like epic wizard spells or devastating criticals, and also the inventory power creep was equally crazy especially by Hordes of the Underdark.

You say chaos like it's a bad thing.

For some folks that's the fun of it-- sorting through the sea of abilities to find out which ones are devastating and which are useful.

I like systems with a bit more balance too, but I can see the other side.

[Seraphim24]

You say chaos like it's a bad thing.

For some folks that's the fun of it-- sorting through the sea of abilities to find out which ones are devastating and which are useful.

I like systems with a bit more balance too, but I can see the other side.

 

It is a BAD thing lol but I kinda figured you might say something like that.

 

I've played super complex RPGs and sometimes it works ok... mostly it doesn't, 3.5 D&D got a little too messy for my tastes.

 

I think what's fun in an RPG, or can be fun, is like a turn based system, and abilities make sense, and you plan here and there, it can be fun not every game has to be an action game.

 

Going the other way and taking the statistical elements or abilities elements and taking it to a logical extreme makes the experience very wild and unmanageable.

 

Someone was showing me Path of Exile and that looks like a game where it has a mass of abilities that you check out but they don't get too crazy trying to make it out to be anything other than that.

 

I think the problem is you are limited in your actions, you ultimately have a bunch of overpowered abilities somewhere. In Path of Exile, you patiently sift and find them, it's clear where it's going..

 

And in DA2, there aren't really any superpowerful abilities, just a handful of moderately powerful ones, it's cleary based on the notion we're going to try and make meaningful diverging choices.

 

NWN is this chaotic (yes in a bad way) thing in the middle where any given specialization is bound to give you some unbreakably powerful thing like a Pale Master, Red Dragon Disciple, Archmage, or even Arcane Archer specialization.. and it's also quite messy often because you are multi-classing or something and you end up with like 5 overpowered abilities and 20 you don't need at all.

 

No matter what I played in NWN I was going to be an ultra-powerful person by the end, but I also had to engage in a mess of random buffs and preparation and repitition anyway. Like Premonition is just a godly spell there is no way you aren't going to get it and cast if if you are a mage.

 

Bioware RPG complexity just makes my head spin, there is no sense boiling RPGing down to chores and that's why DA2 is a good model from my perspective.

[Seraphim24]

Besides, the notion of RPGs as inherently complex was never really a thing to me, D&D used numbers yes but that wasn't the point was the joy of numbers of deep systems, it's just that's what they happened to use as a method of game balancing.

[In Exile]

You say chaos like it's a bad thing.

For some folks that's the fun of it-- sorting through the sea of abilities to find out which ones are devastating and which are useful.

I like systems with a bit more balance too, but I can see the other side.

 

See, that part I don't get. That's not fun to me - that's work. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

I haven't been able to neutralize all the demons in the second wave even with two mages. Though if it's one of those rifts with one or two big ones like pride demons and you take out the big guns, yeah, it's over.

The area of effect of Dispel is significantly larger than the reticle on the ground. I found I could routinely hit two spawn points with one Dispel. Depending on the placement of the spawn points, I was dispelling 3 or 4 demons each time.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'm sorry but NWN was chaos, it was this appearance of massive choice and division but with a heaping pile of insanely overpowered abilities like epic wizard spells or devastating criticals, and also the inventory power creep was equally crazy especially by Hordes of the Underdark.

I'm largely ignoring the extra campaigns. I'm talking about the core game.

And there, the symmetrical mechanics were a big deal. The NWN OC is the last time BioWare did friendly fire well (friendly fire for enemies was removed in the expansions).

To your point, all that choice is valuable no matter where it leads. The goal shouldn't be to make ability selection meaningful from a challenge perspective. The goal should be to offer enough options that ability selection can be meaningful from a roleplaying perspective.

But you're also wrong about NWN always leading you to become powerful. It wasn't difficult at all to gimp your character, particularly at lower levels. For example, adding too many Rogue levels to get Evasion bonuses prevented your Wizard from growing strong (I did this because I was still trapped in a 2nd edition mindset where dual-classing didn't gimp you - it just cost you time).

And with all those prestige classes you mentioned, I still maintain that the most powerful character build possible is a level 40 single-classed Wizard.

[Sylvius the Mad]

See, that part I don't get. That's not fun to me - that's work.

For me, that's fun.

You should see the relational database I built to help me calculate profitable trade routes in EVE Online.

[Cyonan]

To your point, all that choice is valuable no matter where it leads. The goal shouldn't be to make ability selection meaningful from a challenge perspective. The goal should be to offer enough options that ability selection can be meaningful from a roleplaying perspective.

 

The goal should be to create an array of abilities that allow for good roleplaying selection as well as preventing a small handful of abilities from being hilariously overpowered.

 

A game without balance is worse off for not having it, RPG or otherwise.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The goal should be to create an array of abilities that allow for good roleplaying selection as well as preventing a small handful of abilities from being hilariously overpowered.

 

A game without balance is worse off for not having it, RPG or otherwise.

All else being equal, sure.

 

All else is rarely equal.

[ModernAcademic]

I always considered myself an optimist but you've overcome me!

 

Did you say optimistic? Because I'm not sure if Dagna heard y-

 

 

On second thought, never mind.

[KaiserShep]

Crafting is nice but it's not why I play Bioware games. They were just copying the Skyrim trend by giving us crafting. I don't care about crafting.

 

Crafting was introduced to the DA franchise in Awakening. Personally I love crafting stuff in Inquisition. I prefer having some control over the perks and effects of my party's weaponry and armor. 

[Gotholhorakh]

Agrede! DA2 was like the maganum opas of bioware (thats from mad max if you dont noe lol), nd it dint feel lyk reading shaekspeer all the tym lmao.

 

Also one thing thats gr8 about DA2 and ME is that u dont have to waste your tym choosing all sorts of useless stuff for ur "charickter", you get one ready rolled. If u guys wld stick with just press x and get on with playing that wld be awesome.

 

Also I loved that DA2 had a easier storie which was more nyuanced, because it just gets borin all the tym playing cliche storys where you are the choosen one and save the world without any real lyf charickters like in game of thrones. If you cld make it so that combat was easyer to understand though that wld be awesome, thanks - it got a bit hectic and confuasing.

[Hiemoth]

Crafting was introduced to the DA franchise in Awakening. Personally I love crafting stuff in Inquisition. I prefer having some control over the perks and effects of my party's weaponry and armor.

 

I don't know if Awakening crafting is similar as in that you could only basically craft legendary equipment once per item with very questline driven materials.

 

For me, the difficulty with crafting is that while I don't oppose it out of principle in anyway, it does making balancing things out very difficult. For example, I personally really dislike crafting as I prefer getting good gear as a reward and the first time out tried to play DAI mainly with found gear. The problem became really fast that the preset gear was usually really inferior to crafted gears and you couldn't even find good armor. So the game either forced you to craft, which I found quite unpleasant, or intentionally hamper my own performance. What made things worse that the crafted gear was pretty static in both appearance and benefits, making them really stale for me.

 

It's a personal preference, I will freely admit that, but I just very rarely see games handle both found gear and crafted gear without one of them being vastly superior to the other.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The benefit of crafting is that you can make the gear you want rather than getting stuck with whatever you happen to loot.

However, this requires a fairly diverse set of possible equipment in order to work. For example, if DAI had some meaningful difference between different 2 handed weapons (perhaps they required different skills to use well, or were good at different things), then you may well want to craft yourself one rather than hoping to find one in loot.

I don't object to having unique droped items which are better than anything you can craft, but I'd like them to be found on side-quests, and I don’t want there to be enough of them to outfit the whole party.

[Cyonan]

All else being equal, sure.

 

All else is rarely equal.

 

Regardless of all else being equal or not, having a small handful of abilities be overpowered as hell is just poor game design.

 

Even if gameplay isn't the main draw of your game, balance is still important.