Very pleasing aesthetically, but I don't particularly like list-based inventories and I think it looks like they're wasting a lot of space with the overly large icons. But that's nitpicking, and I can't say it doesn't look really good overall - because it does.

Realism in games really needs to be considered carefully, because my experience tells me that certain "kinds" of realism are completely out of place in most games.

Especially in a streamlined "mass-market" game like Dragon Age, which will undoubtedly focus on a pleasant no-hassle experience. You can be absolutely certain that such a game wouldn't work with realistic encumbrance or awkward fiddly interfaces. You really need a certain kind of game for that, with a less broad audience as its target.

It's much the same thing for MMOs, and there's a reason the most popular ones are those that generally don't require much investment on the part of the player - at least not in terms of learning curve. There are exceptions, but that's the general rule.

Realistic encumbrance is, to me, the same kind of realism as having to eat and drink - and if you're going that route, you might as well require players to visit the restroom or other ridiculous and unnecessary parts of everyday life.

It has to fit, and it very VERY rarely does.

The Sims.

You gotta love going to the bathroom every 3 seconds. Could they of made those sims bladders any smaller?

Really? I do remember being unable to sometimes hand potions to other party members when I tactically spread them to avoid aoe damage for example. I guess you had them always on top of each other..

And… didn't you ever had your party member stunned, held, confused, charmed, go berserk etc? Because, you know, when that happens you can't access his inventory and swap potions or other items. ;)


Hohoho.. we're talking about people who can withstand dozens of sword slashes to their body, killing monsters who are 100 times larger (dragons).. I guess they can drag along a few suits of full plate mail as well, then. I don't think copying reality here would be the best solution, but I do think there should be some limit - a weight limit.
I guess we should imagine they drag the items on something with wheels and not actually enter battles with those things on their heads.


Saying something is bad, of course, is a subjective statement. I don't think I have to explain when I say something is bad that it's actually an opinion. It's pretty obvious.

No, you forgot about being held, confused, stunned, charmed, destroyed etc. It's different.


They were not "absurdly poorly balanced". 1st/2nd levels being very weak, yes, but later levels are a different thing.


Alright, as I have not played Mass Effect, I don't intend to get into specifics about it, lets talk about the topic at hand; Dragon Age and its combat. Maybe you'll get some insight..

1) First, they're using armor as a source of damage reduction - in absolute numbers. Which is ok. But, you have to have a good understanding of how things work to make this system ok.

Now.. there are some suits of armor which give you very high damage reduction which coupled with some other items give you damage reduction of, for example, 30.

If you wear such a suit against enemies who use light weapons (cca 10 damage) such as short swords, maces, daggers.. they won't damage you at all. Armor penetration won't help either (I can explain how it works if you're interested).

I was watching a dragon age video where the party fought some werewolves.. and guess what. Werevolves were attacking a party member with heavy armor and were dealing exactly 1 damage (you also deal 1 damage when all your damage is absorbed by armor). The thing is characters have 250-300 hit points at later level and start with 100-150 hp.

Is that a balanced and interesting combat encounter with werewolves dealing 0,5% of your max hp in damage, due to armor?

In D&D this is not an issues because armor doesn't give damage reduction.

2) Another thing.. I see they haven't implemented attacks of opportunity for running away and moving outside of the combat radius. I won't start explaining why this is bad.
See this for reference: http://daforums.bioware.com/viewtopi…0082&forum=135
I'm talking about situations like the one described in the link.


3) I like some strategy in resource menagement and I had that with resting (to replenish hp and spells) because at least I could limit myself with the number of restings I'm allowed to have. With automatic healing after combat this part of strategical gameplay goes down the toilet and I really dislike that.


And, you know.. is there any need to have the pc start with 150 hp.. while a dagger does 5 damage? That's like.. 30 stabs before an opponent with a dagger brings you down. 60, considering every 2nd one will miss.. and oh.. damage reduction… at least 120 attempts at stabbing.
That's it for now.

True, that. I forgot about it.

Suit yourself. I do know that I have always hated fiddling with individual inventories in party cRPG's -- it feels more like twiddling an Excel spreadsheet than having an exciting adventure, and I will be delighted to be rid of it.

Personally, I would prefer a system with quick slots for each character, and a shared party inventory, possibly with a weight limit determined by the size and strength of the party, extended with items or e.g. a horse and cart. The idea being that you can only access items in your quick slots -- e.g., pockets, belt pouches etc. -- in combat.

Sorry, they *were* absurdly poorly balanced. I know, because I DM'ed the damn thing over its entire lifetime, and had to keep inventing house rules to stop it from going entirely nuts. Dual-classing, with the idiotic restrictions as you're building up your new class, combined with the ridiculous megaton power once you pass it? Multi-classing with the stupid hard level caps? MONKS???

Every supplement seemed to throw things out of balance worse, too; the character kits were the *worst.*

No, Tan -- AD&D 2nd Ed has to be the WORST balanced RPG system *ever.* I challenge you to find a PnP system that's worse. Seriously. I've played a quite a lot of them, and haven't seen anything that comes close.

(snippity)

If DA really does work like you describe, then, yeah, it is horribly balanced.

If, that is.

Thing is, from where I'm at, you're drawing a LOT of inferences from very little information. We don't know exactly what we're seeing in these videos -- for example, we don't know how crits work, whether magical attacks can bypass armor, whether the no-attacks-of-opportunity thing is a base mechanic, some feats at work (cf. Dodge-Mobility-Spring Attack, or high levels of Tumble, or any of a number of other feats and skills that you can use to avoid AoO's), or something that follows from having someone with a fast weapon fight someone with a slow weapon. We don't know if the videos are actual in-game footage, or if the encounters were set up specifically to demonstrate a point.

What I'm sayin' is that it LOOKS like you're very determined to dislike the game, and therefore you're interpreting everything you see about it in the worst possible light. (It's pretty common behavior when it comes to high-profile games.)

As to me, I'm more optimistic about DA's combat simply because BioWare has years and years of experience designing cRPG combat systems, and I find it unlikely that they would make the kind of elementary design mistakes that you so eloquently described, and I do not think the videos strongly suggest that such mistakes have been made. Of course, I'll be disappointed if it turns out that you were right all along. Won't be too long until we find out.

Sometimes I have the feeling as if some publishers don't know this …

The official GC trailer is out.

Summary: Somebody watched the LotR movies.

I've moved the majority of the off topic posts to a new thread in General CRPG. You'll easily find it. ;)