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
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.
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.
Sure is nice of the Forces of Evil to set up complementary potion tables outside their lairs.
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).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.
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.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 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.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.
Here is the problem.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.
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.Here is the problem.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.
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.
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.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.Here is the problem.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.
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.
Here is the problem.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.
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.
I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them.
As I understand, DA:I is partially removing health regen between battles, so it was obvious that they'd have to rethink this.
Should have used the term, COMBAT healers.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.I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them.
Pure curiosity,name these RPGs without 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
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)Yup, at least consumables were limited in DAO
Cooldowns increased to 30 seconds for potions (and no more tier exploiting) and 40 for the spell and it still wasn't enough.(I stayed the hell away from DA2 so I cannot comment on that),
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.and even then, healers may have to make a choice between casting a healing spell, fireball or buff/debuff.
Should have used the term, COMBAT healers.I have played several RPGs without any healers whatsoever and I loved them.
Pure curiosity,name these RPGs without 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
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)Yup, at least consumables were limited in DAO
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Difficulty_settings_(Origins)Even the basic pots were restricted ,
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.because you will eventually run out of money(not to mention they are useless after 10 lvl)
No they're not..? Sounds like you played with a mod.and all of them are on one global cooldown.
I played on "hard," the baseline difficulty.Also why are you discussing combat mechanics when it's obvious you play on Story Mode.
the unreal world.So not a single one.
Sounds like you played with a mod.