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United States47024 Posts
On November 10 2009 10:35 Milton Friedman wrote:
I found it pretty curious that despite all the bad publicity blood magic gets in the game none of your party members react when you first use it - not even when I started leeching health from Alistair to fund my continued life and spell casting. I was expecting some cutscene like Locke's reaction to Celes using magic in FFVI.
That does seem kind of annoying, yet also expected from Bioware.
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The terrible AI bothers me. Seems like Bioware are exceptionally bad at coding AI.
It's the same old "my mage gets aggro and the monster keeps chasing her around while the other party members are chasing the monster and trying to swing at it", which of course looks ridiculous. And it's also highly annoying. It was much better back in BG2, they didn't have that stupid threat system back then. Sure, it makes sense for them to go after the soft mages who deal so much damage, but GOD it's so annoying and makes for a very unfun experience.
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I think the threat system is fine. If you blast off high damage spells continuously it's natural that the enemys will set their sights on you. It's the way it should be imho.
The thing that bothers me here is that blocking enemys with your tank ( in doors or by forming a semi circle around your damage dealing mage) doesn't really work like in BG. Usually the enemys somehow slide trough a gap or whatnot... .
+ Show Spoiler +
especially annoying in the werewolve ruins on higher difficulty setting when those damn shadow werewolves just keep jumping your mage and killing him by ground and pound while you can't do anything about it. Even healing won't help. (stunning or freezing works like 50% of the time but the ai chars are always out of stamina anyway)
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On November 10 2009 16:51 Abyzou wrote:
The terrible AI bothers me. Seems like Bioware are exceptionally bad at coding AI.
It's the same old "my mage gets aggro and the monster keeps chasing her around while the other party members are chasing the monster and trying to swing at it", which of course looks ridiculous. And it's also highly annoying. It was much better back in BG2, they didn't have that stupid threat system back then. Sure, it makes sense for them to go after the soft mages who deal so much damage, but GOD it's so annoying and makes for a very unfun experience.
ummm you have tactics slots.
just freeze the chaser with cone of cold ( most useful spell in the game btw) and have a warrior taunt threaten the shit out of him, or just shatter the enemy.
edit: and to the overwhelm problem ( werewolves) keep your mages BACK and just freeze if they approach
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Also shield bash and any other stun move will knock any of the overwhelming enemies off your mage. This is helpful because if you guy is out for that long and takes damage its pretty much over. I had one time where the wolves overwhelmed one after the other on my tank and it just drained everything. Sucks the no knockdowns doesnt work against it.
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Question about my mage:
I didn't realize that the only way to become a blood mage was from that stupid Demon Desire thing (killed it) and now I can't become one at all. What different specialization should I choose? Which does the most damage?
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I have shield bash and some freeze and para but it's just not enough, the monsters resist too much, or there are too many of them. ;_;
Playing on Easy for now, god I can't stand all the dying.
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On November 10 2009 17:10 Substandard wrote:
The thing that bothers me here is that blocking enemys with your tank ( in doors or by forming a semi circle around your damage dealing mage) doesn't really work like in BG. Usually the enemys somehow slide trough a gap or whatnot...
Yeah, warriors in Dragon Age block about as well as the Detroit Lions offensive line (that's really bad, trust me).
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cool game, im about 3 hours into it, something about pc rpg's that I've never liked is the combat systems. just doesn't feel smooth and everything is a 1-hit combo.
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I'm only an hour or two in and I'm a little disappointed so far. My party is like all warriors or rogues. The combat and graphics are a little lacking I think. I'm hoping that it gets better as the game goes on.
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Just 2 hours in isn't really far to judge. As I recall 2 hours and I didn't even finish Ostagar yet.
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I found in a few conversations (sorry don't remember them specifically) I had party members that were not present voice disapproval. Morrigan also doesn't react if you spec her to blood mage at level 14. I was going to say Wynne doesn't either but I haven't actually done it, so... If someone does, let us know.
ChezGod, the other 3 mage specs aren't as excellent for helping your damage. They grant you armor, heals, or forms wherein you can't cast. I don't know the ins and outs of the specs though, so I don't want to speculate too much. I'm not even sure if your armor translates into shapeshifted stats (I think it does). That'd be important to confirm.
Lastly I want to remind people that unlocking a spec unlocks it for your entire account. That is, the spec will be unlocked for other main characters and for other saves and NPCs of those characters. You can sort of exploit this to unlock specs that run counter to your roleplaying goals... as long as you save at the right time.
Has anyone experimented with a Reaver using blood frenzy, aura of pain, devour, and life ward? I stupidly didn't realize what I just noted so I'm stuck with the consequences of unlocking the Reaver and I'm wondering where the spec shines. Seems like he'll hold aggro like nothing else, letting your mages/rogues go full blast, while sporting some damage himself.
@Abyzou: For aggro problems, try less damage, more crowd control. Have your tank hit all relevant foes while in threaten with a taunt or too mixed in. By the time he's done with that you should've finished unloading crowd control and can move on to damage. Save damaging impediments (stone fist, winter's grasp) for when a foe starts running at you (hopefully before he's closed). Also take advantage of mages' crazy range and position them far far away from your front line before engaging the enemy. That is unless you're ridiculously ballsy or an Arcane Warrior.
At lower levels mind blast + cone of cold can easily put half your enemies out of commission. You can do this by level 3.
Lack of blocking is really annoying I'll have to agree. It destroys a lot of positional relevance that could easily make battles even deeper. The way the system works also annoys me in big battles with many NPCs... when too many actors are moving around at once it results in a lot of needless jockeying for position.
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United States47024 Posts
On November 10 2009 17:11 Etherone wrote:
just freeze the chaser with cone of cold ( most useful spell in the game btw) and have a warrior taunt threaten the shit out of him, or just shatter the enemy.
edit: and to the overwhelm problem ( werewolves) keep your mages BACK and just freeze if they approach
On November 10 2009 22:46 EchOne wrote:
@Abyzou: For aggro problems, try less damage, more crowd control. Have your tank hit all relevant foes while in threaten with a taunt or too mixed in. By the time he's done with that you should've finished unloading crowd control and can move on to damage. Save damaging impediments (stone fist, winter's grasp) for when a foe starts running at you (hopefully before he's closed). Also take advantage of mages' crazy range and position them far far away from your front line before engaging the enemy. That is unless you're ridiculously ballsy or an Arcane Warrior.
At lower levels mind blast + cone of cold can easily put half your enemies out of commission. You can do this by level 3.
Lack of blocking is really annoying I'll have to agree. It destroys a lot of positional relevance that could easily make battles even deeper. The way the system works also annoys me in big battles with many NPCs... when too many actors are moving around at once it results in a lot of needless jockeying for position.
You're missing the point. The problem isn't that getting chased is bad for you. The problem is that it's an abusable mechanic that turns any fight with a single melee enemy into a trivial task, regardless of difficulty. While a Revenant fight in normal can involve some heavy potion quaffing, the kiting technique allows you to beat them on Nightmare without much difficulty--provided that you interrupt Pulls and Mass Pulls.
Obviously it ruins the fun to abuse said mechanic, but knowing that it's there leaves a bad taste.
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On November 10 2009 10:40 plated.rawr wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On November 10 2009 10:35 Milton Friedman wrote:
I found it pretty curious that despite all the bad publicity blood magic gets in the game none of your party members react when you first use it - not even when I started leeching health from Alistair to fund my continued life and spell casting. I was expecting some cutscene like Locke's reaction to CelesTerra using magic in FFVI. Corrected. Also. M A G I C MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM MAGIC?!
:O I swear that's not the case...I remember Locke getting freaked out after he rescues Celes and then seeing her use magic in their first fight out of the dungeon. Anyway, let's not divert the topic to FFVI 
The latter few times I killed a revenant was by kiting him around a pillar. I'm pretty sure the threat system is based on who in your party has the highest armor rating, which in my case is my mage. To me at least, skillessly consuming potions while involved in a melee fight with the revenant is about the same as the cheap AI abusing tactic.
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United States47024 Posts
On November 11 2009 04:28 Milton Friedman wrote:
The latter few times I killed a revenant was by kiting him around a pillar. I'm pretty sure the threat system is based on who in your party has the highest armor rating, which in my case is my mage. To me at least, skillessly consuming potions while involved in a melee fight with the revenant is about the same as the cheap AI abusing tactic.
That doesn't redeem either of them. They're both flawed mechanics, IMO.
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I see your point TheYango but I don't think kiting is horrible game design here because the fact that you need to account for Pulls puts the challenge at least a hair above trivial (which I admit isn't great.) The Revenant fights were basically the only ones where your party faces lone melee enemies. Also we may have missed your point, but we were responding to someone who did not exactly raise your point.
Unrelated: does anyone know exactly what happened with regards to the crazy dwarf in the latter half of the Dead Trenches? Are there any codices that explain what exactly the boss and her ilk are? Leaving it up to my imagination is decidedly disappointing.
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My question is this - why complain about a something like kiting if:
a) you aren't going to abuse it because you're a real man
b) so what if random kids with no patience to fight battles like real men and want to kite shit do it (that's probably why it's there in the first place)
From the perspective of BioWare - they want to create a product that is beatable by some skilless newb who just kites stuff around (taking the easy way out) and the hardcore rpg fans who do everything "correctly". It's like calling F91 a bad player because he doesn't play the normal way you're "supposed to". Each is effective in its own right. The fact that this game seems to have elements of everything represents the fact that the producers are trying to design a game that pleases the greatest audience.
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United States47024 Posts
On November 11 2009 05:37 EchOne wrote:
I see your point TheYango but I don't think kiting is horrible game design here because the fact that you need to account for Pulls puts the challenge at least a hair above trivial (which I admit isn't great.) The Revenant fights were basically the only ones where your party faces lone melee enemies. Also we may have missed your point, but we were responding to someone who did not exactly raise your point.
I'm not saying kiting in and of itself is horrible game design, but a few more elements to expand on general combat movement would have been interesting (right now there's a lot to do with combat positioning, but little to do with movement). As of now, the fact that a 4-foot-tall dwarf in massive plate armor can outrun a werewolf twice his height and theoretically capable of running at superhuman speeds is both absurd and hilarious. I would have been interested to see things like armor/race affecting movement speed, more talents/spells related to it and attacking/shooting/casting while moving, and magical equipment that boosts it.
Maybe it's not practical in the final build of the game, but meh, it seems like it could have been an interesting direction to take the rule system.
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Kiting is pretty lame lol. That boss you encounter when you assault the tower in the beginning was extremely easy. Being on nightmare and the first boss you really encounter, it was an eye opener to see that enemies can get a 1 hit KO skill. If no one has seen it, the boss picks up your character and starts punching you into his fist. On nightmare that pretty much kills your character. So after I lost that character I just grabbed the character he was targeting and did circles with it. Whenever he switched targets I would run that character around lol. So it's very obvious that with any melee enemy stuff like this sort of breaks the game. You can pretty much beat every melee boss without taking any damage. I know though, I don't kite so it's not really an issue but it's still something poorly thought through.
I agree with Yango. They should have implemented some kind of weight system with armor. However this would just make casual traveling painful, so they could've done it for just when you enter combat. I would have liked to see more depth to the game. The game also needs secret paths. The game... needs a lot... it's good yeah but it's just not there yet. That's why we have modders tho . In time the game might end up getting a lot of mods.
I don't know if this is correct but I went and got Juggernaut armor for my Arcane/Blood Mage, an this awesome axe. My mage does more base damage than my warrior and rogue in melee. Not to mention that all the damage I take is reduced to 1. Only bosses and little mini-bosses hit for like 10+. I just doubt... my mage is supposed to be doing that kind of damage haha. I will stand and say this, Arcane/Blood Mage is OP lol. I don't care what anyone says, it's the most solid and strongest setup in the game.
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The Yango:
Not really. There's only too much they can do without making it too close to a full-blown action game or make people pause way more than they already do.
On November 11 2009 05:55 Xeris wrote:
From the perspective of BioWare - they want to create a product that is beatable by some skilless newb who just kites stuff around (taking the easy way out) and the hardcore rpg fans who do everything "correctly". It's like calling F91 a bad player because he doesn't play the normal way you're "supposed to". Each is effective in its own right. The fact that this game seems to have elements of everything represents the fact that the producers are trying to design a game that pleases the greatest audience.
If you look around the web, the discussion on difficulty is interesting, especially watching other forums with less hardcore gamers.
The complaints in other forums and by reviewers both amuses and saddens me. Too many reviewers are saying normal is too difficult. There are too many complaints on message boards around the web that normal is too difficult. Somehow, however, pride prevents these people from dropping their difficulty setting to easy. It's not like the game doesn't have something for them to be able to finish the game. And it's not like anybody but them would know they were playing a single player game on easy difficulty.
But no, since Mr. Uberleet console kiddie can beat dumbed down console RPGs, that means normal isn't balanced if he's having trouble with them. Because beating console RPGs makes Mr. Uberleet such a good gamer, right? Uh, no. Those idiots should just drop to easy and stop complaining.
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EPT
