Dragon Age: Inquisition - Removal of Heal @ GamaSutra

Christopher Gile at GamaSutra has penned an editorial about the removal of heal spells from this game. He likes this it seems:

You aren't just traveling though areas leaving nothing but dead bodies in your wake, you are setting up camps and areas of protection for the locals. Personally I like how this changes the game, but I get how others might not like it. It is more punishing of mistakes (that doesn't necessarily mean harder) as you no longer have a sustainable way to erase those mistakes, and beyond the fact that this makes the game feel differently there are is also valid concerns about if this system is balanced correctly/fairly, I mean just because a system COULD be good/better doesn't mean it IS good/better. I quite like it though. I feel like it creates a more interesting battles and makes exploration a bit more exciting. I like how it feels like your mistakes matter now and can't be undone.

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Do you agree with Christopher Gile?

Thanks to Dreamer at the Bioware DAI forums for finding this.

More information.

Completely disagree.

1. It's not new for Bioware, it's Unity system copied from Mass Effect games
2. Mass Effect games are not grinders
3. It works in Mass Effect games because there are no endless respawns so you can don't really depend on "pots"
4. It doesn't work well in DA3 as outside_of_main_story parts are endless respawns crap where you can't ever have enough "pots" during exploration
5. Exciting exploration? Is that person, Gale, normal? Seeing bears spawn every second on your butt is exciting? And he says "I quite like it though".

DA3's major problem is filler. And by that I'm not talking about fetch quests but about deliberate design decision to spam mobs constantly with no other reason but to stall player's progress.

Bioware decided to spit on their 5 previous games "no endless respawns" design (ME1-3 and DA1-2 are not based on grinding), but then they should have allowed players also to have endless healing option.

Just like that other year when Skyrim got GOTY* pretty much everywhere regardless of it's neverpatched buggyness, denying it on DX:HR or TW3 which earned it IMO more, I won't complain much seeing on some places GOTY going to DA3.
It's still RPG and thus we still win.

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* I guess voters think that G means grinder of the year, not game of the year.

Thanks for the info Joxer, there's no worse gameplay design in a story driven RPG than constant respawing.

Damn, it's been a long time since I've played a bioware game. I've skipped their last 3 games DA2, ME3 and DA3.

Well I have played everyone of Bioware games despite their failings, but I also agree with Joxer about re-spawns in RPG games. I know why it's used but I still hate it.

Hmmm, combat seem wonky in my perusal of some of the forums.

Can you archer/sniper your way through combat in DAI? That way I never have to worry about healing . . . .

Yes you can. In fact one of confirmed three classes capable of soloing through the whole game is a specific type of archer. The whole thing (I believe this guy uploaded the whole playthrough on nightmare) you can watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxne9ehqpOu44srTi07iDXg

Why does it work?
He can "hide" in the shadows and then poor AI enemies just stand there not knowing what to do as they don't have any mechanics to counter invisibility. Works on any trashmob and major bosses including Corypheus himself.
I'm not really sure how this pathetic AI can get GOTY award, but okay, I guess other games have worse AI. At least on consoles.

Interesting. That Archer build seemed to rely heavily on acrobatics.

Agreed, does not make sense at all when healing was part of both DA1&2. Douche bags thought they could redefine the crpg genre and ended up creating a pile of crap. The reason DA:O was so good was that it nicely wrapped up a whole lot of proven crpg conventions into a tidy package.

Respawn does not work unless it is carefully implemented in the game and does not contradict anything, i.e. if you can see enemies on the map they should not just pop in - whereas if there is a cave full of giant spiders some might wander out on a regular basis but once you clear the cave no more spiders should be found. If the whole game is built on random battles and you cannot see any enemies on the map i.e. the old gold box games then it is fair enough to have respawning enemies - but even pools of radiance had the concept that once you clear a city zone then mobs don't come back (although not all areas behaved like this).