Dragon Age: Inquisition Pre-Release Thread

[Volourn]

Developers catering to dummies. I. AM. DISSAPOINT. Nah, not really. It'se xpected. Even WL2 patches are nerving that game's ahrdcoreness because of crying and whining of losers.

 

[set]

I was hoping this game might turn out decent, not as good as DA:O but al'right. The removal of the healer role and personalized levelling is undeniable decline.
It would be cool if there was a big uproar with retarded petitions and whining that made Bioware rethink it's shit decisions. But I guess that only happens when Bioware devs do horrible shit like make elves not look like humans, or make companions have sexual preferences.

Oddly enough, there's a big number of people who only used Wynne as a mage precisely for her healing spells, dismissing Morrigan because they couldn't find a real use for her, as if her buffing/debuffing potential wasn't there.
And then there's the fact that Morrigan's romance is only available for cishet scum

So it goes, it's the archetypical BioWarian design policy: Remove things to fix them.

 

[Athelas]

So apparently people are getting very butthurt about the lack of healing spells (probably why they issued the statement about the potion bench). They're actually voicing complaints like 'they ruined the Holy Trinity of DPS, Tank and Healer' non-ironically.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=910883

Can't wait for the similar butthurt when the masses discover PoE's healing spells don't actually heal health. :D

 

[Roguey]

Another example of people reacting negatively to the idea of something rather than in practice.

Weekes already confirmed there actually is some form of magical healing and they're still mad.

 

[Avellion]

First Rule of BioWare: Remove one feature (regardless of quality), replace it with something worse.

I honestly dont mind the removal of healing, but what BioWare looks to replace it with looks downright terrible. Even Worse than what AnalNet did with Guild Wars 2.

 

[Roguey]

I don't see how this is worse at all.

The illusion of resource management is a drag, but I imagine the boss fights will be tuned for full health/full potions. Regardless, assuming competence, it'll improve the combat pacing of any given combat area.

 

[set]

I don't see how this is worse at all.

The illusion of resource management is a drag, but I imagine the boss fights will be tuned for full health/full potions. Regardless, assuming competence, it'll improve the combat pacing of any given combat area.

That's just it, removing healing allows BioWare to "tune" all the fights around your health potion count. It's reducing the complexity of the game to make designing encounters easier for it. But it doesn't really improve the game at all, because now instead of healers everyone just presses that dedicated healing potion button. You've taken a tactical element (healing) and made it even less tactical. This is action game stuff, Roguey. Why even have in-combat recovery at all, if this is the attitude? Design encounters around no healing, that'd be equivalent at this point.

Don't get me wrong at all here, DA2 and DA:O handled the element of healing very poorly. I agree healing by itself is not going to improve a game, but again, BioWare's solution is to take the mechanic out instead of refactoring it.

It also makes no fucking sense, considering healing magic existed in the first two games - how are they going to explain why no one knows healing magic anymore? Again, BioWare can't get its priorities straight - is this supposed to be a story-take-seriously-game? It doesn't feel like it.

All they had to do was make casting a healing spell put a lot of strain on your healer (long cast time and wind down instead of instant) and introduce novel RPG concepts like enemies with Silence, Stun, Knockdown, Anti-Healing debuffs, mana-eating debuffs, and more variable ways for healers to support besides spamming a heal.

For instance, Morrigan starts out completely useless- shape shifting is about as weak as it sounds. If you give her healing spells, that's all she'll be doing unless it's a trash fight ( - most of the buff spells in DAO were unimpactful and trivial to cast.

There are plenty of RPGs which have had interesting healing mechanics - hell, even strategy games do it better. WC3 springs to mind, with a plethora of different ways to heal and counter heals.

This is clearly BioWare's "don't wanna deal with it" lazy design pattern. It's really an anti-pattern for game design; this Appleistic "less is more" is an anti-game philosophy. Games by their very nature are complex, they should be as complex as possible to offer a rich playing environment. If Chess had only 100 moves to make nobody would play it.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

I don't see how this is worse at all.

The illusion of resource management is a drag, but I imagine the boss fights will be tuned for full health/full potions. Regardless, assuming competence, it'll improve the combat pacing of any given combat area.

That's just it, removing healing allows BioWare to "tune" all the fights around your health potion count. It's reducing the complexity of the game to make designing encounters easier for it. But it doesn't really improve the game at all, because now instead of healers everyone just presses that dedicated healing potion button. You've taken a tactical element (healing) and made it even less tactical. This is action game stuff, Roguey. Why even have in-combat recovery at all, if this is the attitude? Design encounters around no healing, that'd be equivalent at this point.

Don't get me wrong at all here, DA2 and DA:O handled the element of healing very poorly. I agree healing by itself is not going to improve a game, but again, BioWare's solution is to take the mechanic out instead of refactoring it.

It also makes no fucking sense, considering healing magic existed in the first two games - how are they going to explain why no one knows healing magic anymore? Again, BioWare can't get its priorities straight - is this supposed to be a story-take-seriously-game? It doesn't feel like it.

All they had to do was make casting a healing spell put a lot of strain on your healer (long cast time and wind down instead of instant) and introduce novel RPG concepts like enemies with Silence, Stun, Knockdown, Anti-Healing debuffs, mana-eating debuffs, and more variable ways for healers to support besides spamming a heal.

For instance, Morrigan starts out completely useless- shape shifting is about as weak as it sounds. If you give her healing spells, that's all she'll be doing unless it's a trash fight ( - most of the buff spells in DAO were unimpactful and trivial to cast.

There are plenty of RPGs which have had interesting healing mechanics - hell, even strategy games do it better. WC3 springs to mind, with a plethora of different ways to heal and counter heals.

This is clearly BioWare's "don't wanna deal with it" lazy design pattern. It's really an anti-pattern for game design; this Appleistic "less is more" is an anti-game philosophy. Games by their very nature are complex, they should be as complex as possible to offer a rich playing environment. If Chess had only 100 moves to make nobody would play it.

according to lore/books magic healing is extremely difficult and physical straining for caster, there is actually almost no in-combat healing and spirit healers are the rarest mages in Thedas.

and lol at morrigan useless. when you get her she is one fucking level from having cone of cold which trivializes every fucking fight. and her disorient skill tree lets you fucking rape 90% of enemies

 

[Hjalmar]

Sure is nice of the Forces of Evil to set up complementary potion tables outside their lairs.

Sure was nice of Irenicus to leave all those potions lying around inside his. You never really needed to rest when escaping but of course you could.

 

[eremita]

I don't see how this is worse at all.

The illusion of resource management is a drag, but I imagine the boss fights will be tuned for full health/full potions. Regardless, assuming competence, it'll improve the combat pacing of any given combat area.

That's just it, removing healing allows BioWare to "tune" all the fights around your health potion count. It's reducing the complexity of the game to make designing encounters easier for it. But it doesn't really improve the game at all, because now instead of healers everyone just presses that dedicated healing potion button. You've taken a tactical element (healing) and made it even less tactical. This is action game stuff, Roguey. Why even have in-combat recovery at all, if this is the attitude? Design encounters around no healing, that'd be equivalent at this point.

Don't get me wrong at all here, DA2 and DA:O handled the element of healing very poorly. I agree healing by itself is not going to improve a game, but again, BioWare's solution is to take the mechanic out instead of refactoring it.

It also makes no fucking sense, considering healing magic existed in the first two games - how are they going to explain why no one knows healing magic anymore? Again, BioWare can't get its priorities straight - is this supposed to be a story-take-seriously-game? It doesn't feel like it.

All they had to do was make casting a healing spell put a lot of strain on your healer (long cast time and wind down instead of instant) and introduce novel RPG concepts like enemies with Silence, Stun, Knockdown, Anti-Healing debuffs, mana-eating debuffs, and more variable ways for healers to support besides spamming a heal.

For instance, Morrigan starts out completely useless- shape shifting is about as weak as it sounds. If you give her healing spells, that's all she'll be doing unless it's a trash fight ( - most of the buff spells in DAO were unimpactful and trivial to cast.

There are plenty of RPGs which have had interesting healing mechanics - hell, even strategy games do it better. WC3 springs to mind, with a plethora of different ways to heal and counter heals.

This is clearly BioWare's "don't wanna deal with it" lazy design pattern. It's really an anti-pattern for game design; this Appleistic "less is more" is an anti-game philosophy. Games by their very nature are complex, they should be as complex as possible to offer a rich playing environment. If Chess had only 100 moves to make nobody would play it.

You are making conlcusions yet your premises are far from being a fact in this case. Sure, reducing complexity is a bad thing, yet this statement is so vague it's trivial. You're basically saying that proper design philosophy = moar features means moar awesome (don't even try accusations of straws on me in this one). That is fucking ridiculous considering proper systems are first and foremost closed units (thought out). Or should be. Chess is a game with strict rules. Those rules imply certain possibilities. Adding rules would indisputably CHANGED the possibilities. Only that is clear. The reason behind that lies in the notion of complexity - it's vague. (Complex) Deep system doesn't have to necessarily include extensive rules and extensive rules (complex again) donť imply vast amount of possibilities (complex again) because possibilities of gameplay are NOT generated by number of starting resources (in this case, number of classes, abilities and shit like that).

So, will combat in DA:I be "complex" (meaning deep)? That depends only on how thought out it is as an integrated system. Certainly not on absence of healing spells.

Or are you simply talking about the fact you can't use healing spells in this game? Ok, that's true. Then fuck off with your shallow understanding of complexity.

 

[Night Goat]

I don't see how this is worse at all.

The illusion of resource management is a drag, but I imagine the boss fights will be tuned for full health/full potions. Regardless, assuming competence, it'll improve the combat pacing of any given combat area.

To me, the biggest problem with this is verisimilitude. When you find a potion restock table outside every boss lair, it takes you out of the story and reminds you that you're playing a game, and a gamey one at that. In this case it doesn't really matter, because neither the devs nor the players know what verisimilitude is or why it's important. But if this was implemented in a game that wasn't already destined to be utter shit, I can see why people would be unhappy with it.

Sure is nice of the Forces of Evil to set up complementary potion tables outside their lairs.

Sure was nice of Irenicus to leave all those potions lying around inside his. You never really needed to rest when escaping but of course you could.

That isn't even close to being the same thing. It's reasonable to expect a high-level wizard to have potions in his base of operations, most of which are inside locked and trapped containers. It makes sense in-setting. Conveniently placed potion restock tables do not.

 

[Avellion]

I don't see how this is worse at all.

The illusion of resource management is a drag, but I imagine the boss fights will be tuned for full health/full potions. Regardless, assuming *competence*, it'll improve the combat pacing of any given combat area.

Here is the problem.

I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them. However, knowing BioWare's incompetence, I doubt they can pull it off. If anything, they will fail just as hard as other recent RPG devs who tried to remove healers from combat.

 

[Nikaido]

I don't see how this is worse at all.

The illusion of resource management is a drag, but I imagine the boss fights will be tuned for full health/full potions. Regardless, assuming *competence*, it'll improve the combat pacing of any given combat area.

Here is the problem.

I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them. However, knowing BioWare's incompetence, I doubt they can pull it off.

They essentially removed resource management from the equation. You don't have to think about carrying potions, or having enough mana/lyrium potions for your healers, since you will have convenient full stack restock occurring at convenient places and always available in your camp.
The idea of a "stack" that fully replenishes is batshit retarded.

 

[Avellion]

I don't see how this is worse at all.

The illusion of resource management is a drag, but I imagine the boss fights will be tuned for full health/full potions. Regardless, assuming *competence*, it'll improve the combat pacing of any given combat area.

Here is the problem.

I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them. However, knowing BioWare's incompetence, I doubt they can pull it off.

They essentially removed resource management from the equation. You don't have to think about carrying potions, or having enough mana/lyrium potions for your healers, since you will have convenient full stack restock occurring at convenient places and always available in your camp.

Yup, at least consumables were limited in DAO (I stayed the hell away from DA2 so I cannot comment on that), and even then, healers may have to make a choice between casting a healing spell, fireball or buff/debuff.

Their new system seems to reek of incompetence going by what I hear of it, which makes me believe there is no way they will pull this off.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't see how this is worse at all.

The illusion of resource management is a drag, but I imagine the boss fights will be tuned for full health/full potions. Regardless, assuming *competence*, it'll improve the combat pacing of any given combat area.

Here is the problem.

I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them. However, knowing BioWare's incompetence, I doubt they can pull it off. If anything, they will fail just as hard as other recent RPG devs who tried to remove healers from combat.

The issue isn't so much about healing as it is about in-combat healing. You didn't really go around healbotting people in combat in Baldur's Gate - it was something you did between fights, with resting in "camps" to restore your healing spells when you ran out.

As I understand, DA:I is partially removing health regen between battles, so it was obvious that they'd have to rethink this.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them.

Pure curiosity,name these RPGs without healers?

 

[Bubbles]

As I understand, DA:I is partially removing health regen between battles, so it was obvious that they'd have to rethink this.

DA:I doesn't have any health regen between battles, instead you have a "teleport to camp" button available at (almost) all times that teleports you back to... well, the last camp (which also doubles as a quick travel point). Then you backtrack to the place you teleported from and continue. The potion racks save you the backtracking and replace camps in those situations when you can't reasonably have one (the Fade, presumably).

 

[Zetor]

The entire concept of in-combat healing revolves around "fixing mistakes", and "reacting to scripted enemy abilities". Its existence doesn't necessarily make a game better or worse -- if there's no in-combat healing, the player needs other ways to compensate for mistakes such as consumables or escape abilities, and combat needs to be designed so that unavoidable group-wide damage isn't a thing. It changes the tactical side of the game as opposed to the existence of out-of-combat healing and regen, which changes the strategic side.

Anyway, some of my favorite RPGs had no in-combat healing (or only in the form of very limited 'miracles'): Wasteland, the Buck Rogers gold box games, Freedom Force (there was a hero who equalized HP, but I wouldn't call that healing). JA2 mostly fits here, too.

 

[Avellion]

I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them.

Pure curiosity,name these RPGs without healers?

Should have used the term, COMBAT healers.

Loved: Jagged Alliance, Every IE game, Darklands, Wasteland, Gold Box, Dark Souls (Yes there is healing spells but who uses said healing?)
Enjoyed: Freedom Force

 

[Nikaido]

I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them.

Pure curiosity,name these RPGs without healers?

Should have used the term, COMBAT healers.

Moving the goalpost.

Loved: Jagged Alliance, Every IE game, Darklands, Wasteland, Gold Box, Dark Souls (Yes there is healing spells but who uses said healing?)
Enjoyed: Freedom Force

Dork Souls had an implementation of res management/potion similar to what the DA:I want, and it's pretty decline. You never lacked potions, you were always refilling your stacks at bonfire gratis, and could upgrade bonfires up to 20 potions (just like DA:I intends on letting you upgrade your stack).

Of course no one used healing spells in DS1, it had a batshit retarded implementation of resources.

DS2 is slightly, just slightly better, for not giving you more than a few potions in your stacks at the beginning, and making other forms of healing much slower to use in combat. It made healing spells look more appealing too, to use while exploring so that you could keep your potions only for important boss fights. It's still ultimately decline because you will end up with a large stack at the end.

 

[Roguey]

Yup, at least consumables were limited in DAO

No, they weren't. It was also particularly bad about healing (only a 5 second cooldown for all healing, health potion tiers had their own individual cooldowns)

(I stayed the hell away from DA2 so I cannot comment on that),

Cooldowns increased to 30 seconds for potions (and no more tier exploiting) and 40 for the spell and it still wasn't enough.

and even then, healers may have to make a choice between casting a healing spell, fireball or buff/debuff.

This isn't much of a choice. Go to tactics screen, if a character has less than a % of their health, heal. In DA:O and 2, outhealing damage is the degenerate, low-bar way of winning fights.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them.

Pure curiosity,name these RPGs without healers?

Should have used the term, COMBAT healers.

Loved: Jagged Alliance, Every IE game, Darklands, Wasteland, Gold Box, Dark Souls (Yes there is healing spells but who uses said healing?)
Enjoyed: Freedom Force

So not a single one.

Yup, at least consumables were limited in DAO

No, they weren't. It was also particularly bad about healing (only a 5 second cooldown for all healing, health potion tiers had their own individual cooldowns)

Nope.Nothing you say is true.Even the basic pots were restricted ,because you will eventually run out of money(not to mention they are useless after 10 lvl) and all of them are on one global cooldown.

Also why are you discussing combat mechanics when it's obvious you play on Story Mode.

 

[Roguey]

Even the basic pots were restricted ,

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Difficulty_settings_(Origins)

Note the potion cap. Unless you're playing on nightmare, the randomized loot system will favor potions if you have fewer than a certain amount.

because you will eventually run out of money(not to mention they are useless after 10 lvl)

Unless you're exceptionally bad (in which case you'll be playing on easy where you'll have a 100% chance of getting potions if you have fewer than 20), you won't.

and all of them are on one global cooldown.

No they're not..? Sounds like you played with a mod.

Also why are you discussing combat mechanics when it's obvious you play on Story Mode.

I played on "hard," the baseline difficulty.

 

[SuicideBunny]

So not a single one.

the unreal world.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Sounds like you played with a mod.

Well...yes ofc it will be mods that will fix it.Damn it BW how can You be so bad.