Barrier and Guard

I think this right here is the prevailing issue BioWare has to reconcile when it comes to combat in the franchise. Their games occupy a game-space where you not only have companions, but they regularly banter with each other. Forcing yourself into not being able to hear said banter, or get an idea of a companions personality and how they gel with others (simply due to combat restrictions), is a significant issue in a narrative-driven game. The easiest way to address this would be to have the companions available to you be extremely flexible in what skills they can take/use. However, you then run into identity problems where the supposed skill of expertise means absolutely nothing. It'd be like allowing Varric to be a two-handed warrior, even though Bianca is a bread-and-butter.

Wouldn't the easiest way to address it be to remove party banter?

I think that pressure has very little to do with optimal performance, and much more to do with player perception. Ask almost any DA2 or Origins player to create a party, and they would likely include Anders or Wynne (or a spirit healer PC). In fact, people often complain about being “forced” to take Anders because he can heal. They’ll also usually throw in a shield warrior.

But that’s based on an older, very restrictive concept of what party balance is: “tank, healer, and damage”.

What’s actually required is “control, support, and damage”.

Control can be a tank with taunt, but it can also be a mage with CC or debuffs, or maybe a rogue who specializes in traps and grenades. Basically any abilities that help reduce enemy effectiveness or hold them in place to be attacked. Support can be a mage who provides bonuses to the party, but it could also be a warrior with horn of valor or a rogue storing damage on mark of death. Anything that boosts the DPS of the damage dealers. Healing/guard/barrier sort of provides support, indirectly (living party members do more damage than dead ones), but it can easily be swapped out for more direct damage bonuses.

Combat design doesn’t limit people to specific companions. Players limit themselves. It’s possible to create balanced or unbalanced party comps out of the same group of people.

Hell no, it'll turn into FFXIV.... take damage + burst heal. Sod that travesty.

I like "mitigation healing" with barrier.

Some "Regen" healing over time could work though.

To be honest, if the game goes full on integrated multiplayer we will probably get everything....barrier, guard, healing, regen etc etc to have lots of variation for players.

Guess we just need to wait and see.

I really doubt that would be a problem. Previous Dragon Ages were balanced such that healing was ignorable. So much so that parties without healers tended to perform better... conventional player wisdom nonwithstanding.

If it comes back in a later installment, we’ll be able to play without it. Even though I don’t usually bring healers along (again, in my experience they make combat harder, not easier), I wouldn’t mind seeing spirit healers back just for the flavor.

I don't recall healing being treated any differently than any other magic use. To the best of my knowledge, the only kind of magic more heavily scrutinized is blood magic.



Earlier entries in the franchise had a thing (sustain) called Arcane Shield, which in DA2 could be upgraded to include the entire team. It provided a defense bonus, making the toon less likely to be hit (or turning what might have been a full direct hit into a glancing blow). They also had Rock Armor, which increased the casting mage's basic armor (DA2 had a Rock Armor potion that could be used by anyone).

As near as I can tell, those were replaced by barrier... apparently, to support attrition gameplay.



Well... some aspects of the flexibility afforded by DAO may have been somewhat problematic. Example: making Wynne a blood mage. Varric's thing with Bianca is unique and has story behind it. There were others who had special weapons presented as gifts (Sten's Asala, Nathaniel's Howe Bow, Sebastian's Starkhaven Bow, Aveline's Shield of the Knight Herself, Fenris' Blade of Mercy) which would be auto-equipped upon presentation, but could still be swapped out as desired.

I can appreciate their desire to express follower personality through equipment and skillsets, but I think there may be cases where that can be taken a little too far. I understand that Isabela is really into dueling, but shouldn't a pirate captain know how to use a bow? And despite delving into blood magic, shouldn't a dalish first have learned healing magic? I never really did understand why the primal tree (that includes rock armor, stonefist, lightning spells) was denied to Bethany. And I'm still sort of salty that they took archery and dual-wield away from warriors...

Would Leliana have somehow been better-defined if she was not able to switch between archery and dual-wielding? In canon, she uses both (Sister Nightingale uses daggers, but she appears as an archer in DAI). Would Alistair have been better-defined as a character if I could not put a crossbow in his secondary equipment slot? I'm not seeing it.

When we could control attribute investments (pre-DAI), we could just about build any class to fill any combat role. I'm having a lot of trouble understanding the value in taking that away from us - I mean, I guess some players don't want to trouble themselves with learning the mechanics, but there's always been auto-level options for them.  It's possible that the reason for that is because they developed all of the (non-programmable by the player) AI tactics for the followers.

So I've been thinking quite a bit about DA becoming a full action game, and the closest thing I'm familiar with (a party-based action RPG) is Dragon's Dogma (DD).

In DD, you design a main pawn - choose their class, equipment, build, skills, personality, augments, priorities, etc. That pawn is your constant companion (you can get rid of them if you really want to solo) and you can hire 2 additional pawns to complete your party of 4. Pawns are completely AI controlled, though you can heavily influence how they will behave with the aforementioned.

DA has traditionally allowed players to take control of any party member to manage them in live action or queue commands while paused. (DAI removed the tactics programming, but still allowed players to take control of any follower and issue commands.) I'm trying to figure out whether (and how) any sort of party tactical control would work with full action combat.

To use your suggestion of active blocking as an example - let's say that it is implemented and you use it by pressing a key/combination in anticipation of an enemy attack. It consumes a bit of stamina, but is otherwise unlike existing activated talents in that there is no cooldown, it's just like any other basic movement of your character. So it's not really a command you could queue - and I'm not sure why you'd want to, since timing is critical. Fighter class pawns in DD will automatically block incoming attacks (other classes have other dodge mechanisms). So... here's some sort of unique situations...
-- You take control of a follower just as an incoming blow is arriving, and disrupt the automatic block of that blow that would have otherwise fired.
-- You command a follower to move to another location. While en route, the follower is attacked - do they stop their commanded movement to automatically block, or... ?

I just... don't know how well it would work to offer full action combat AND any sort of tactical control of other party members. I sort of feel like they might be mutually exclusive.

While we're at it, I'll also point out that in DD (and other action games), archers (except magick archers) need to aim their shots, melee classes need to position themselves. That hasn't been true with DA's autotargeting.

Either? Both?

All 3 games thus far have allowed us to take control of followers and either play them in real time or queue commands while paused.

If you wanted to manage tactics in any of the DA games, you could pause, queue commands, unpause, lather, rinse repeat. (Way too tedious for my tastes, and made it feel like a turn-based game, but it was still there for those who wanted it.).  DAO & DA2 allowed you to program all of that via the tactics menu. (BTW - I found it easiest to use a custom set and update them as each new talent is acquired. The presets work fine, too, and automatically add new talents as they are acquired.)



Not what I intended to convey. DD pawns do that on their own, but I cannot command or control them.

My concern is related to the interplay between things the AI would automatically do (like blocking or dodging), and how those "reflexive" actions are impacted when the player issues intervening commands.



So now I'm wondering... about the relationship between that animation and the actual math behind it. I mean, Aveline was supposedly blocking while standing still, so... I wonder whether Cassandra's animation was actually a timed block of an incoming blow or just an animation they tossed in there to look cool... if that makes sense.

That would actually be something to keep in mind if i play Origins again though from what I remember, like you, I didn't quite find any of the presets to be exactly what I wanted.

Ah, gotcha.

Now that is an interesting point. My gut says she is actually 'doing it' because its an ability you can activate as well as a warrior but its possible...oh and if she does it successfully it 'rings out' and then gives her more guard. 1. Your post realllllyy reminds meof Sera. 2. I also HATE that mechanic for stealth since DA 2. I mean you have to use it but my complaints are really mostly along the same lines as my complaints for healing magic, not realistic, and also too easy. IMO that kind of 'ability' should be AT THE LEAST a specialization skill or something that costs a lot of...stamina...power...focus...etc.

And yes, I agree with you that would be the ideal but the question is can they pull it off? And with my experiences with Origins, I am pretty skeptical. Origins the game was designed around that combat. Yes, you could get around and grind through and 'not do it' but...well I play Origins/2 on Casual and I was even struggling on Casual but the one PT that I really took the time and in depth gave everyone what I wanted to...it was a much easier experience. Didn't feel like turning it up but it was a lot soother.

There is actually a lore reason behind this for Circle mages. It's because healing primarily comes from the creation school of magic, and as the codex says: "Creation requires considerable finesse, more than any other school, and is therefore rarely mastered."

Reading into the codex further, this need for finesse comes from the fact healing magic is not entirely reliant on magic provided from the fade (spirit school) or temporarily forming into a replicant of natural forces (primal and entropy school). Instead, it has to interact with and manipulate natural forces (in thier case, a wound) and transform it into something without screwing anything up. In other words, a mage has to have some understanding of non-fade forces so they can modify aspects of creation, which is likely where the school got its name.