Magic in DA4

Yes. This is why I dislike the Inquisition skill/spell system. The worst of the series.

Yeah, Inquisition's AoE behavior is a little odd. The robo-deployment analogy is a good one.

I think it's important to have both mechanically/tactically simple classes as well as those more challenging classes that require more "hands-on" time to get the most out of. A Weapon & Shield Champion vs a T-H Weapon Reaver for example. But despite their mechanical complexity (or lack thereof), I'd want each class to be able to fulfill their role in a way that is as fun as possible, and feel like your contribution is valuable.

For BioWare, the mage, warrior, rogue archetypes just boil down to armor types.

Warriors have heavy, rogues have light, and mages are unarmored. Within that framework, you can really make any class you want. You can make a mage who does nothing but channel magic into their fists and punches everything with elemental punches. You can make rogue who can be the primary tank through stacking stats like dodge and parry (duelist). Or you can make a warrior who is a gunner or archer standing in the back.

My point is, saying "rogues should always do the most single target dps" is an antiquated idea. I'm hoping the next game is more imaginative with the classes and magic.

Specializations: Ancient Elven would be great, and a Tevinter specialization is a must if we are going to Tevinter. I would also like more significant quests to learn the specializations.

Schools/Spells: Bring back healer/healing spells! I would like there to be a lot of spells in general available to cast, not only 3 abilities as in MEA.

Going to Tevinter with no mage in your party!

I like each class having its own combat strengths and weaknesses.


This!

Combat: I would like to be able to move the character while casting less powerful spells (and the auto attack).

A few noncombat spells would be fun as well.

Blood magic should be there for a mage seeing as we are in Tevinter where everyone, except perhaps mage liberati, will have been taught the theory of it behind closed doors. However, it should be presented as something that is tempting to use but at a cost. If you use your own blood you should definitely feel weaker for a time and if you do not finish the fight quickly there is a danger your could collapse unconscious. If you use your allies blood then there should be some sort of come back if you do it without their consent. May be initially just a warning that they do not appreciate it and then if you continue, they actually leave because they do not like being used that way regardless of their moral outlook. Even if they agree to it, if you over do the use then may be you permanently weaken them. If you start controlling people's minds, then that should raise objections in certain companions consistent with their professed world view. May be there is even the possibility that too much use will open you up to possession.   However, the more you use it, the greater the possibility for using some really high powered spells.  Something like that.

I agree that it would be better shown as something that is always available to you but you actively choose not to resort to it rather than as a specialism that you choose to the exclusion of something else. That way the temptation to use it is ever present and as to stakes are raised the risk becomes greater that you will succumb.

Core Classes:
I'm fine with the Warrior/Rogue/Mage dynamic they have right now and would rather see hybrids incorporated in Specializations.

Specializations: 
Blood Mages, as much as I dislike them, should definitely be in. I'd also like to see Spellbinders as a support based spec, along with the inclusion of Grimoires as another type of Mage weaponry. Fog Warrior and Rivaini Seer would be great specs to see as well, but I feel like they'd make better classes for companions, especially the latter. Finally, since Templars aren't a thing in Tevinter, I'd want the magic slaying spec to be the Magekiller, assuming (and hoping) that Marius isn't a companion.

Schools/Spells:
Ideally, I want all 5 basic schools of magic from DAO as they are established lore in the series. I don't even mind if there isn't a huge selection of spells in each like in DAO just as long as the spells for each school aren't OP and synergize well with all PC specs and companion specific classes. I'd also like a return of the Force Mage from DAII, Earth spells, and the inclusion of Water magic, as a previous poster has mentioned.

Combat:
I hated the combat in DAI. It tried to appeal to both the older fans of DAO and newer fans by being both strategic and action oriented and ended up failing at both, IMO. The tactical camera was terrible and shoddy, and the lack of Tactics as well as the awful AI for party members made it hard to form well thought out strategic plays in combat. Likewise, having to unlock basic skills like blocking, dodging, and parrying for characters in an action game was a huge mistake, and the responsiveness of such skills felt poor as there was a short delay between pressing the button and characters executing the action, making reactive/perfect guards and evasions have awkward timing. Close ranged weapons also felt awkward to use because you constantly had to move the character towards the direction you wanted to attack in order to move a considerable distance otherwise you'd barely move at all. Overall, it was a bad combat system and I really want Bioware to focus on either a tactical based gameplay or an action oriented one and perfect it instead of what they tried to do with DAI.

Personally, I prefer action based combat systems, but I feel as though a more strategic system would work better with DA's focus on party based combat. It'd also allow BW to make better enemy placements and have formations that really challenge players instead of just sending a huge swarm of enemies at them like in DAII or having random, ambling enemy compositions like in DAI.

Finally, regarding the whole healing debacle, I would personally prefer a return to DAO and DAII's style, with there being a healing spec (something more interesting or at least different than Spirit Healer) as well as long, shared cooldown on all healing items. For any companion mages that don't have healing spells in their personal spec, they can grab spells in the shared Creation school with upgrades and/or equipment bonuses that increase the effect and potency of the basic healing spells to make them relevant throughout the game.

Novas:
I barely used any Focus skills in DAI and I wouldn't care if they were in DA4 or not.

Pie-In-The-Sky:
I don't really have any outlandish ideas, but here are some bulletpoints of what I'd want to see regarding DA4's combat system and classes:

* Iconic gear for all classes - Apart from a few organizations like the Grey Wardens, Templars etc., there aren't really any classes that have iconic gear that make you able to tell them apart from each other and I'd like to see one for each class

* Class quests - Getting specs in DAI was terrible, especially after we were promised interesting quests tied to them prior to its release. Even though some trainers were fun, I want proper quests that go into the lore of each spec.

* Stronger resistances - Make enemies actually be able to nullify or absorb elemental attacks. It was a bit silly that I was able to deal damage to creatures made with fire and ice with their respective elements, even if the damage was reduced. Also, introduce the Blunt, Piercing, and Slashing physical attributes to give Warriors and Rogues some variations on Talents they use instead of spamming their most OP moves with little repercussions.

* Weapons - Like I mentioned above, I'd really like to see Grimoires as weapons for mages. They could have wider, closer ranged attacks while Staves focus on a single target but can attack from a range. I also want to see Spears and Rapiers as weapons and the return of Crossbows. It'd also be great if every single weapon (or at least weapon type) had their own unique moveset like in the Dark Souls series, so a Sword and Mace/Hammer would have different attacks and animations from each other as would Greatswords, Greataxes, and Mauls.

* Weapon sets - Have characters be able to swap between various weapon sets and allow characters to be able to equip all weapons and armor if they have the required stats. I'd also like to see different learnable Talents based on class type, so a Warrior with a Sword would learn powerful, weighty Slash and Blunt based attacks, Rogues would learn faster, multi-hitting Piecing attacks, and a Mage (with the Arcane Warrior or similar spec) would learn elemental attacks like a lightning shrouded slash or ranged attacks by magically throwing their weapon.

* More focus on utility - DAI already had a nice template (Warriors could tank and had good positional based Talents, Rogues could inflict many physical status effects, Mages had mental effects and could cast barriers/should cast healing spells), but I'd like to see more battles that require their usage, especially boss battles, and their separation from damaging skills to give more weight into whether you want to spend resources DPSing or inflicting a status effect.

* Postgame secret dungeon - If there's one thing WRPGs need to steal from JRPGs, it's this (and better music, IMO). I want there to be a postgame dungeon in the base game (no DLC shenanigans) where players will need to build their party in the most optimal manner to defeat the myriad of encounters and superbosses in there.

What's your problem with spirit healer return?

Honestly I want all specializations to have some gauge or secondary resource to manage in order to differentiate their playstyles from each other.

And even though I prefer healers to barriers, I wouldn't mind the latter if they had a set duration rather than that awful decay they had in DAI. I'd also prefer for barriers to be in the general Spirit school so that all mages would have access to it rather than just one spec.

dual staff mage. excellent

when fighting the baddies, the mage can make the staff into two. The staff is long enough that it can be pulled apart to have 2 staves. Each can fire a different element. Both used at the sametime to create a more powwerful spell.

Have the staff be used as a spear. See a baddie, throw the staff impaling the baddie or impaling them against an object.

I like the combat in DAI. I used the tactical camera a lot. Like to see it return in the next game

Wonderful. Now I'm picturing this, and won't be happy without it.

I would prefer if they do away with classes completely.
A rogue is a warrior that especializes in finesse, and from a roleplaying prespective, an apostate would benefit from things like sealth and learning how to use swords or any other weapon. ( This would have been really nice in DA2 )

Also, both warriors and rogues have magic and magic-like abilities and what Solas reveals in Tresspasser made me think that before the Veil everyone had the ability to cast magic. The difference only lies in how apt they are at it.



I didn't dislike it per se... some things just didn't make any sense to me. Why do I have to waste a point in grappling chain so I can pick crippling blows? There is no real dependency between the two.

Only upgrades should follow a tree structure, unrelated abilities should be allowed to be picked whenever we see fit.


Well, I'm old school. If I have four characters at my disposal, I want to be able to control all of them. So a better tactical camera will be very welcomed. The one we got was very limiting, I couldn't really orchrestrate attacks so I barely ever got a combo.

I miss the secondary weapon slot, running after fleeing enemies is not a good idea... that said I really liked that in Inquisition some enemies try to lure you to where their comrades are... nice touch!

Following what I said earlier about doing away with classes, no weapon restrictions! and I would like staff/polearms added as melee weapons, not getting my hopes up on this one since they require particular animations but...

Agreed. I think this is a fair point and I'm also hoping we'll see ability trees restructured in the next game.

That and taking a hard look at abilities which are only useful in specific situations. When you have access to just a small number in your bar, I find I'll (typically) choose those with the broadest application over specific ones. Generally only at higher levels, when I have abilities to spare, I might start experimenting more with ones that have a more specific focus.

And in DAI, I find that I tend to gravitate towards fire and electricity trees before frost or diving deep into spirit (beyond barrier and augments for that). Good damage and CC with those two. Though admittedly I haven't played that much DAI after they added all the new ability upgrades (in Trespasser IIRC), so they may be more attractive now.

I'm dabbling on and off as a dagger rogue now in DAI, and while inconsistent, I found they do in general know to stay behind if I go into stealth before a fight. The caveat being you can't range as far as you could in DAO or remain in stealth as long.

But in DAO that was also my favorite tactic - carefully setting up the rogue(s) behind the mage(s) and then executing all your queued up actions ->