Dragon Age 3: Inquisition announced

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StinkyPinky

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2002
6,954
1,266
126
Assuming taking options away is "never" a good thing is short sighted. There is absolutely such a thing as bloat.

I wouldn't consider DAO bloated (well, maybe a little - passives like Survival and Herbalism were pretty much worthless and a lot of the class branches were artificially extended with "filler" passives) but at the same time - Tempest/Earthquake/Blizzard/Inferno are pretty much the same spell - AoE nuke. Shock/Cone of Cold/Flameblast are the same spell - cone AoE. Stonefist/Winter's Grasp/Lightning/Fireball are the same spell - single target damage.

THey're not even remotely the same spell. They're different spells from a different elemental school. They also had different effects (freezing, burning etc) and graphically looked completely different. How you think they're the same spell boggles the mind.

I have to say some of the things I've been hearing in the last week are starting to concern me, but we shall see. I don't think it's fair to condemn a game before we've even given it a shot. However let's just say I now have some concerns.
 

Mem

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
21,476
13
81
I could also throw in mobs immune to certain spells ie enemy fire based mobs normally immune to fire so you have to use ice or non fire spells,so now we have limited options in both slots and magic skills are they going to dumb mobs down as well?


I think you see my point.
 

Dumac

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,391
1
0
Running around in a pretty robe letting off spells has never been appealing to me. Maybe internal testing showed less mage preferences?

Your misplaced ideas of what constitutes a man's way to play a video games is not what this is about. It's simple - they are dumbing things down so players don't have to think as much when playing. It affects all classes and all players, permeating through the game's core mechanics.

Whether that change is good or bad is up for debate. You seem to prefer a more shallow game experience, which is fine. To each their own.
 

xantub

Senior member
Feb 12, 2014
717
1
46
Assuming taking options away is "never" a good thing is short sighted. There is absolutely such a thing as bloat.

I wouldn't consider DAO bloated (well, maybe a little - passives like Survival and Herbalism were pretty much worthless and a lot of the class branches were artificially extended with "filler" passives) but at the same time - Tempest/Earthquake/Blizzard/Inferno are pretty much the same spell - AoE nuke. Shock/Cone of Cold/Flameblast are the same spell - cone AoE. Stonefist/Winter's Grasp/Lightning/Fireball are the same spell - single target damage. Mana Drain/Mana Clash/Mana Cleanse - same effect. The elemental spells are the worst offenders but there are others too: 3/4 hexes do basically the same thing (increase damage taken) and spells designed like Paralysis/Mass Paralysis or Weakness/Miasma or Rejuvenation/Mass Rejuvenation are found throughout the game where the same spell is essentially available twice - which actually plays out OK (AoE vs single target is a legitimate decision assuming the mana cost differential is meaningful - I don't recall) in the game but also serves to really artificially inflate the number of "options" it looks like you have.

It depends on what you chose, but lots of copies were available which is the point, even if not necessarily available to the same character. However even if there's 70 odd spells in the game, how many would a character realistically get or use? I honestly don't remember lol, but at the end of the day even if there are fewer overall spells (though I would not be surprised to see more available at one time for a character in spite of that), I don't think that actually makes a big difference to the final product - people using, what, maybe 5-10 spells?
Riiight...
Why have swords, axes, hammers and daggers, they're just a melee weapon. Why have rogues if they use the same pointy things? So basically the game should be a choice between using a sword, using a bow, or using a caster that can only do AoE, oh but wait, why have bows if they're basically the same thing as casting single target damage. So let's eliminate bows too!

If you just want to play medieval Call of Duty there are probably mods for that, but for those of us who actually like RPGs, the more options, the more ways we can personalize our characters, the better (and by 'personalize' I'm not talking about a choice of hair color).
 

BSim500

Golden Member
Jun 5, 2013
1,480
216
106
I have to say some of the things I've been hearing in the last week are starting to concern me, but we shall see. I don't think it's fair to condemn a game before we've even given it a shot. However let's just say I now have some concerns.
Agreed. I hope it'll be a good game, but from what I've read I'm not exactly holding my breath for a full Aurora / Eclipse toolset on the PC version either (another thing that made DAO & NWN enduring epics).
 

Blanky

Platinum Member
Oct 18, 2014
2,457
12
46
After the God-awful joke that DA 2 was I urge against pre-ordering this one. See how the reviews are, watch some game play. Although I like RPGs I'm not personally looking forward to this one at all. If the reviews are great I'll be pleasantly surprised and buy it, but I have no hope for it, just based on the last game.
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,147
1,329
126
The game looks gorgeous. I loved DA:O whereas DA2 was truly bad. I want to pick this up, but wonder if it will be one of those games where you end up feeling burnt and that you should of just waited a few months and gotten it cheap.

Meanwhile I've paid for The Witcher 3 months ago and have no worries If I see a GMG 25% off deal I'll probably pick this up before release. I am really sick of buying games and them being total letdowns and not even bothering to finish them.
 

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
Agreed. I hope it'll be a good game, but from what I've read I'm not exactly holding my breath for a full Aurora / Eclipse toolset on the PC version either (another thing that made DAO & NWN enduring epics).

The Aurora engine was used in NWN1 and had a great toolset released for it, as did Obsidian's revamp of it, the Electron engine, for NWN2.

It was DA2 that never got a toolset.

And yes, I've said several times that everyone should wait for reviews and feedback before spending money on DA3. Many things that made DA2 such a steaming turd are coming into DA3 as well.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
Different elemental damages are an important system. It allows your mage to spec in a certain element, which will get them advantages in some encounters and disadvantages in others. Not to mention, the elemental damages usually cause other side affects, such a burning, freezing, shock, etc, which is suited to different playstyles. These choices allow you to further define a character (i.e. of course Morrigan would be an ice queen) and also balance your party's abilities.

I would not call them important distinctions, at least not in DAO. It has been years but I can't recall it making much of a tangible difference - I believe it does technically (under the hood) have an effect but suffice to say it was not something I felt the need to take into consideration. Though I think I only ever played on hard, maybe it's more meaningful above that.

Further, while the side effects aren't worthless at the end of the day those spells aren't cast for the side effects - that's why they are "side" effects - what's more relevant (and what I'm comparing) is the core purpose/function of said spells.


What, no they aren't. Mana drain absorbs mana from a single target without costing you any yourself. Mana cleanse costs the caster mana and simply nullifies the mana of enemies in an area without gaining you any. Mana clash on the other hand costs mroe mana but damages enemies along with nullifying their mana.

Not only are those all different effects, but they each have different mana costs and cast times associated with them. That isn't bloat. Those are options.

Technically a stun, confuse, knockdown, hold, daze, etc are 'different' but they all accomplish pretty much the same thing, disabling your opponent. On a micro level (which, as I said, works in some games where that level of granularity is really meaningful like NWN. In DAO it's all already "dumbed down" as you like to say to nothing but mental and physical resistance) - of course they aren't exactly the same spell. But on a macro level, they all reach basically the same net result. Removing your opponents mana.


Hexes are:
Lower resistances of single target
Lower resistances of enemies in an area
Lower hit chance of single target
Raise critical hit chance on a single target

Again, I said 3/4. And again, micro differences, same macro effect. It's not disingenuous, it's just looking at the ultimate result of that action. One suits casters, one suits melee, sure. But the net effect? X takes more damage. Suppose those spells were combined into one that said "Target is weakened and takes 10% more damage". I don't think that really hurts or helps the game at all either way EXCEPT there is definitely such a thing as too many buttons. MMOs and games with MMO-like combat (yes, DAO plays like an MMO) suffer from this a lot in particular where you have row after row of abilities and items and shortcuts.

Realistically I can handle something like 40 hotkeys (counting a shift mod generally). But frankly I don't really want to - it gets tiresome and a lot of those are de facto devoted to things like targeting, menu shortcuts, mounts, macros, etc. In that sense, hotkeys are a limited resource to me - so when I choose what has to go where on them, I look at the overall purpose of that key and what is bound to it.

I guess you can excuse that somewhat due to the ability to pause and queue actions, but that really takes me out of the game and I think managing it on the fly is a much more engaging, immersive experience.


It provides a 'legitimate decision" but still "artificially inflates the number of options"? No, that not how it works. It is a legitimate decision, and is therefore a legitimate option.

This was more specifically referring to the graph alleging DA had 70 some spells. To me, making that distinction between "Mass X" and "X" is like saying NWN had 4-5x as many spells as it did because you can technically count the metamagicked version of each spell as unique. To me, that's disingenuous.


Riiight...
Why have swords, axes, hammers and daggers, they're just a melee weapon. Why have rogues if they use the same pointy things? So basically the game should be a choice between using a sword, using a bow, or using a caster that can only do AoE, oh but wait, why have bows if they're basically the same thing as casting single target damage. So let's eliminate bows too!

If you want to misrepresent what I said and take it to the point of hyperbole, sure, knock yourself out. Variety is great. Variety for the sake of variety can be aesthetically pleasing but also doesn't really serve to enhance how the game plays. Look back at NWN again, something like 45 different base weapons. But you can count on one hand how many were in regular use on almost any server - kama, rapier, scimitar, longbow. Take the other 40 out and the game still looks and plays pretty much entirely the same. And it's still a great game either way.

THey're not even remotely the same spell. They're different spells from a different elemental school. They also had different effects (freezing, burning etc) and graphically looked completely different. How you think they're the same spell boggles the mind.

Except the element doesn't really matter, the damage calculations for them are very similar (tempest and blizzard are identical, inferno does deal a fair bit more), the side effects are just that - "side effects" and the graphics don't change what the spell actually does. They're all ground targetable, damage dealing friendly fire AoEs all with a range of 25m, 10m radius, 2s cast time, 30s spell duration, and 30s effect duration.

There's a reason each branch of the primal tree gets a relatively equal complement of spells - to keep them relatively equal in power. As a consequence, they're not very different.

Addendum, EQ actually doesn't deal damage. So it's not the same. Just worse, lol.
 

BSim500

Golden Member
Jun 5, 2013
1,480
216
106
Further, while the side effects aren't worthless at the end of the day those spells aren't cast for the side effects.

Sure they are. Half the advantage of "cold" spells over fire is slow / freeze. A mage with predominantly poison "damage over time" spells in a "hit and run" fashion feels more like a hybrid mage/rogue than one who just stands there spamming fireballs (ie, results a different style of gameplay), and they are not the same "because the DPS figures are the same". This stuff isn't "over-complex" to most people, it's such an utterly basic core of the RPG genre that it's even a staple of far simpler RPG-lite "hack & slash" games like Diablo & Torchlight.

Technically a stun, confuse, knockdown, hold, daze, etc are 'different' but they all accomplish pretty much the same thing, disabling your opponent.
I guess we should merge every non-buff spell that inflicts damage into an "auto kill spell" then...

Hint : People actually play mages for the greater depth & complexity. If all they wanted was to hit the same key to kill the same enemies with exactly the same weapon 500x times over, they'd pick a "Warrior" and not bother with magic at all.
 
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xantub

Senior member
Feb 12, 2014
717
1
46
I like to have many options for every character, though I do agree they should be different (I don't want 2 spells that do the same thing with different graphics), but it mostly depends on how the magic system works in the game. If it's mana based, I can do with one spell, but if it's timer based, I want different spells so I can rotate them.

Ideally there would be many different classes to choose, so what spells each character has depends on their class. A game with limited # of classes like Dragon Age means I will probably have several mages, so I would specialize them on different magic branches, so yes, I would like to have similar functionality spells on different branches so Gertrudis the ice mage can cast her ice bolts that slow the targets, while Xorbo the fire mage can cast his flame darts that do more damage over time on his enemies.
 

Dumac

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,391
1
0
I would not call them important distinctions

Again, you are being disingenuous with you oversimplification. If we follow your reasoning, then there is no difference between a mage and an archer because they both just do 'damage'. Hell, I don't even know if ranged vs melee damage is important enough of a distinction for you - it sure wouldn't seem like it.

Maybe in your perfect game there would be three people. One tank that literally just stands there and takes damage. One DPS that does damage. And one healer that heals. Anything else would be just variety for variety's sake by your reasoning.

Even more than 1 DPS person would be variety for variety's sake, since you already established single vs multi targets are "micro differences" and have the same "macro effect".

Gear should just be labeled "weapon" and "armor", since having multiple pieces of either or defining any differences or descriptions is just unnecessary bloat.

Stae shouldn't exist, because with such simplified classes the stats would just be "tank/dps/healer" anyway.

Each class would probably have at most 1-2 abilities. Tank would just have taunt, dps have damage, and healer heal.Can't really think of any other abilities at the moment. No tiers of spells or abilities either, since they all boil down to the same effect. You just gain levels to increase stats and find a new 'weapon' and 'armor' to replace your old 'weapon' and 'armor'.

And this isn't even hyperbole. This is just following your line of reasoning. You said all elemental spells are the same, so that just = damage. You said that hexes just make you do more damage, so then that against just = damage based on 'macro effects'. Side effects don't matter since they are so 'micro'.

This all sounds super immersive, as opposed to having to make choices for what your character uses, since thats just tedious and breaks immersion.

With lines of thought like this, it's no wonder we end up with games like DA2 and Skyrim shirking RPG background to become hack-n-slash action games.
 
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Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
Again, you are being disingenuous with you oversimplification. If we follow your reasoning, then there is no difference between a mage and an archer because they both just do 'damage'. Hell, I don't even know if ranged vs melee damage is important enough of a distinction for you - it sure wouldn't seem like it.

Maybe in your perfect game there would be three people. One tank that literally just stands there and takes damage. One DPS that does damage. And one healer that heals. Anything else would be just variety for variety's sake by your reasoning.

Even more than 1 DPS person would be variety for variety's sake, since you already established single vs multi targets are "micro differences" and have the same "macro effect".

Gear should just be labeled "weapon" and "armor", since having multiple pieces of either or defining any differences or descriptions is just unnecessary bloat.

Stae shouldn't exist, because with such simplified classes the stats would just be "tank/dps/healer" anyway.

Each class would probably have at most 1-2 abilities. Tank would just have taunt, dps have damage, and healer heal.Can't really think of any other abilities at the moment. No tiers of spells or abilities either, since they all boil down to the same effect. You just gain levels to increase stats and find a new 'weapon' and 'armor' to replace your old 'weapon' and 'armor'.

And this isn't even hyperbole. This is just following your line of reasoning. You said all elemental spells are the same, so that just = damage. You said that hexes just make you do more damage, so then that against just = damage based on 'macro effects'. Side effects don't matter since they are so 'micro'.

This all sounds super immersive, as opposed to having to make choices for what your character uses, since thats just tedious and breaks immersion.

With lines of thought like this, it's no wonder we end up with games like DA2 and Skyrim shirking RPG background to become hack-n-slash action games.

Fully agreed.
 

turn_pike

Senior member
Mar 4, 2012
316
0
71
Just as a thought exercise, do you think you would like DA : Inq if the spell system is more like 2nd or 3.5 edition DnD ?

Remember the flurry of spells you have to unleash in BG2 before you can even damage your enemy ? I personally think it has the potential to be an amazing mod.
 

sushicide

Member
Nov 7, 2001
118
0
76
So looking over some sources, there's probably going to be very little to no modding at all? That was my major gripe with DA2, when compared to Origin.
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
3,562
14
81
So looking over some sources, there's probably going to be very little to no modding at all? That was my major gripe with DA2, when compared to Origin.

The Classic Week mod for DA O was awesome. Had it had voice acting, though a parody, would have been very good.
 

xantub

Senior member
Feb 12, 2014
717
1
46
Just as a thought exercise, do you think you would like DA : Inq if the spell system is more like 2nd or 3.5 edition DnD ?

Remember the flurry of spells you have to unleash in BG2 before you can even damage your enemy ? I personally think it has the potential to be an amazing mod.
They were very similar to me: memorize spells, cast them. I don't think it'd work for a game with so much combat. In each map there's usually 4 or more battles with one being a 'boss' battle, good luck with your 1-spell-a-day 2nd ed. level 1 wizard
 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,201
214
106
Does anyone else find the party line up disappointing?

I wouldn't say disappointing, no (not for me anyway). They could be interesting. If there's one thing BioWare has pretty much always done right (with only a few exceptions) was creating well fleshed-out, memorable characters (not talking about main story arcs, just characters on individual basis, with their respective back-stories).

I highly doubt that Inquisition's party line up will be "bad". At worst I think that maybe one or two out of them could be annoying or unpleasant to stay around with (or to talk to), but that would probably be because the character(s) him/herself would have been well-written and you'd simply happen to not be on the same wavelength for 'x', 'y' and 'z' reasons (such as morality, or their personal past actions that you wouldn't like, etc). For example, Anders in ME2, I disliked him but not because "he's poorly-written", but on the contrary, even though I preferred Anders in DAO Awakening, he was still well-written in DA2 but in such a way as to make him an annoyance for my Hawke (I role-played my main DA2 play-though and my specific Hawke just couldn't stand him, but not because me, the player, couldn't).

I do think, however, that no BioWare game had a "perfect" party line up anyway. There's always one or two characters I happen to dislike usually because they're well-written but when I role-play my protagonist there's that 'x' or 'y' character that I (my protagonist) cannot stand. I couldn't really stand Mission Vao in KOTOR (well, I could but at some point she sort of got on my nerves), didn't really like Kaidan in ME1, couldn't stand either Ashley/Kaidan nor could I even understand why I sort of "tolerated" Jack in ME2... and definitely couldn't stand James in ME3. Additionally, couldn't get along with Morrigan at all in Origins (and she was very well-written, and absolutely loved her banter with Alistair, but generally-speaking she just made my blood boil most of the time, "c'mon break your own pathetic paradigm you cold-hearted &%&$@!", only managed to sort of "appreciate" Sten (or at least his usefulness) only toward the end of the game (only managed to do that on one of my three Wardens), and as I said previously pretty much disliked Anders in DA2 from start to finish.

I'm certain that I will also dislike one or two in Inquisition, but the actual line up seems interesting-enough to me and for now wouldn't call it disappointing (time will tell, of course, almost there guys).
 
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