Dragon Age III: Inquisition

[Vexx]

Or they're old enough to remember before a particular stupid comedy when elves were closer to their rather scary or awesome Fae mythological roots thanks to fantasy writers (e.g. Professor Tolkien) and D&D games.

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Or they're old enough to remember before a particular stupid comedy when elves were closer to their rather scary or awesome Fae mythological roots thanks to fantasy writers (e.g. Professor Tolkien) and D&D games.

Tolkien before Christmas' elves? What sort of sad childhood does these people have?

[Kyero Fox]

Stuff isn't pretty

[Kyral]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

Tolkien before Christmas' elves? What sort of sad childhood does these people have?

I as a child took Tolkien's elves befor Christmas' elves anytime...
On the other hand Germans don't really grow up with Santa Claus and his elves. We have a Greek bishop bringing some small presents in early december and then an angelic and androgynous version of Jesus as a little kid bringing gifts on Christmas Eve.

To stay on topic. I personaly did like those more non-human elves in DA2. Okay they made it a little to extreme, but I liked the "somewhat away from human" approach.

[bigdeal000]

And I personally loved the Skyrim elf look. They aren't human, why make them look so much like humans? My first character in Origins was an elf, and I was like: why are these guys mistreated, they just have longer ears...With a hulking helmet on, even that wasn't noticeable anymore.

[killer3000ad]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...quisition.aspx

New Gameinformer article on refining combat in DA:Inquisition.

[Chaos2Frozen]

For a solo play that all looks fine, but the real challenge is how they would integrate party combat.

[Eragon]

They NEVER show the rogue class in things like this My only concern is the speed of combat. As long as its faster than DA:O I'm sold.

[Flying Dagger]

I am very interested in the changes they want to make to the combat system.

DA1 and 2 have some pretty terrible systems. A lot of attacks are merely attacks. Resource generation is also reliant on potions: that is not how I envision a game should be like.

Enemies working as a group would be amazing if they can add in formations and a much much smarter AI. Imagine this:
You walk into a corridor. You get surrounded both sides by a wall of soldiers forming a blockade with tower shields. Archers and mages are deployed behind those soldiers, what will you do?
You can for example have your warrior leap behind the shieldwall with a shield of his own to break formation. You can try to deploy a force-based magic spell which also breaks formation. You can try to set up a wall of fire to deter the slow advancement of the armored troops...

Shielded and armored enemies should feel as if they have heavy defenses, not just your regular dude with more health than the rest.

Another beef I have with DA1/2 is the war between a warrior and melee rogue: they play so similarly! Full archery support is nice in DA2 but still feel lacking. Trapping skills can probably be granted to the rogue toolkit.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Also, Spell combination didn't really amount to much... And environmental effects were the same as other games.

And maybe its just me but I feel that four members might not be enough....

[Eragon]

I hope they keep Cross-class-combos. It makes the fight more organic.

[Flying Dagger]

Crossclass combos (replaced spell combo in DA1) were terrible. Mainly because the bonus is so great to a point where you feel the spells themselves barely tackle if you do not employ them, and given how friendly fire worked in higher difficulties, you are pretty much pigeon holed into specific line of spells (ie: lightning). Oh, here is another big thing: abilities and spells not scaling with stats and equipment.

I actually feel 4 members is just the right amount (maybe even a bit much?). The past series had me running 1 melee and 3 range (do you really want to use a melee rogue in DA2 when you keep killing him with friendly fire?). The characters are not unique enough to keep things interesting (a mage as a main character plays very similarly to a mage in your party).

Environment effects require good map design. I would love to see a lot more of that... maybe traps that can backfire onto enemies, railings that will break with force where you can push enemies down, oil pipes that you can break in different sections (but only 1) which can be lit and deal significant amounts of damage... etc.

Another disappointment I have is the silliness of blood magic in the series. Where is my summonble blood dragon that charges in the enemy's face? Or a spell where you can drain blood out of an organic enemy from range? (seeing a stream of blood coming out from enemy would be cool)

[Eragon]

As long as you know how to set up the tactics of your companions you can use pretty much any combination in DA II on Nightmare. As far as I can see, you only need two runes to mitigate any kind of friendly fire dmg from your mages. Spirit(for walking bomb) and Fire(for firestorm).

And the bonuses got nerfed in the later patches. I can see your point but, if the enemies are going to be smarter then CCC's are needed to balance that.

[Flying Dagger]

I only played at launch, so things might have changed in later patches - stuff like, enemy commander rogues that will not unstealth when taking damage and 1 shot about anyone.

One of the fun things about playing a mage would be the ability to set up spell combinations. I would like to see the return of that in addition to CCC. DA1 already had some of that when your melee guys can shatter frozen targets, and the warrior can possibly help set up stuns for your rogue.

Taking a heavily armored enemy with a tower shield again as an example. Instead of killing him by power amplification via CCC, a more "solution based" method can be used.
You can for example:
- Stun/trip it from behind with a rogue, which will allow your warrior class to decapitate him
- Use disarming tactics twice on the enemy, once by warrior and once by rogue class (cooldown limitations), which will first disarm the shields and weapons, the the second application will remove the victim's helmet which drops his defenses.
- Use an acid based attack from your mage to melt away his defenses, or kill it slowly with a disease based attack
All these still involve the party working together, without just trying to optimize damage (which easily run into the problem of just bruteforcing your way through hordes of enemies).


A better threat system would also be a nice addition. The past two games involve spamming taunt for the most part. DA:2 imo had it worse when shield passives disable the default area attacks. Games in general can really discriminate against shields in general, a proper shield user uses it effectively as a weapon, and a tool to open up opportunistic attacks.

[Who]

Another GI video, this time focusing more on the battle tactics:

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...quisition.aspx

What I got from it:
-the gameplay looks to be slightly more towards DA:O in terms of game speed, while it still has DA:2's 'action'
-interesting aspects like, thinking twice before using metal, such as your Harpoon ability on an enemy who's an electric user.

[Flying Dagger]

har har
Enemy with a tower shield. Kind of what I stated in my earlier post. Although it is indeed a very classic staple to tactical rpgs.

One thing I noticed about the devs:
They all play on controllers.

Why is this a problem?
Controllers are, imo, very bad for games. When you want stuff like, accuracy, having a lot of buttons and options, mouse and keyboard remain supreme.

They seem to have a better idea of what to do now, but it is way too early to be excited. Balance and class design is not exactly one of their forte. What I think Bioware can do is to just ask the whole company to play through every single rpg game in the past 10 years and make this giant list of interesting abilities, then integrate them into their game.

Spells and abilities do not necessary have to directly work with each other (oil+fire/frost+physcial shatter, etc). You can develop spells that grant area control (icewall type), then combine it with a meteor type spell (which is known to do great damage but has a long delay).

Adding the idea of covers would be nice for dragon age. Stuff like grenade/bomb types can be added. Having archers just stand out in the open can also be really stupid.

Imagine a gang of muggers rushing out from an alley way, only to be immediately pushed back by a force push spell and have only exist sealed by an icewall spell then your thief throws in a few poison gas bombs

[killer3000ad]

Bioware Gamescom 2013 diary.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/GplE8IuJB6Y

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Kyero Fox]

I called it long ago, gonna call it again.

Dragon Age: online.

[FlareKnight]

They keep saying good stuff and it's still sounding good. Hadn't heard much story wise aside from the mages and templars stuff carrying over from DA2, so the whole vale tearing thing should add some nice focus to the story. Of course when thinking back the talk leading up to DA2 didn't sound terrible either so will have to see the results to be sure.

At the very least enough time is being spent here to get it right. Fall 2014 is still well off in the future, but gives me some hope for not being rushed out.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Dragon Age: Inquisition has almost no level scaling, dragon combat detailed

Unlike Dragon Age II, very little of the content in Inquisition is scaled to the player’s level. That means that some parts of the world will have enemies that are too difficult to defeat until you reach a certain level. This approach conveys a satisfying sense of progress; few things in an RPG are more rewarding than finally defeating a foe that was previously beyond your abilities. That’s the driving idea behind how dragons are implemented in Inquisition. “I don’t ever want a player to casually kill a dragon,” Laidlaw says. “I see a dragon as something you aspire to. You see it flying overhead and make future plans. ‘I’ve seen that there’s a dragon. I know what kind of environment I’m going to be up against. I know what I’m going to fight on my way in. So I’m going to need to prepare accordingly.’”

However, even though dragons present a great challenge, they have different incarnations that allow players to get a taste of draconic content without hitting level cap. Defeating a regular dragon, while difficult, is an attainable goal for a reasonably powerful character. However, high dragons have the best loot and rarest crafting materials, and those might have to wait until much later in your journey. In any case, fights against dragons are being treated as optional battles that you prepare for deliberately and undertake carefully.

Because confrontations with dragons are placed encounters (not random, as opposed to games like Skyrim), BioWare is able to design them for specific environments and situations. “We need to consider them as something we should be tuning,” Laidlaw says. “Their environment should have some nice lead-in. You should feel that anticipation. You should clench up a little. And when they appear, they should be aware of the space in which you’re fighting them and be able to use that.” For example, if you fight a dragon in a rocky clearing, you may be able to take cover from its breath weapon behind boulders. However, the dragon can flush you out by concentrating its fire to melt the stone.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...ostPageIndex=1