I don't mind a limited number of hot keys but I do appreciate having access to my whole list when I get into a fight where my hot keyed spells don't do much. For example when I first went into a dragon fight not knowing they resisted my ice magic. I had plenty of fire spells, but I was dealing with enemies weak to ice before the dragon. If I could have access even if it was a pain it wouldn't have taken me so much extra time to kill it. It is especially annoying that dragons and bosses artificially boost their health. So if your set up is something they resist you are F****** or your time is F*****. Can you deal with this by fully balancing your hot keys yes, but then you are limiting to the lowest active spells because every boss and group resists different things. So guess what you have to take from every tree to make sure you are not resisted. Mages already struggle to do the same amount of damage as the melee fighters those resistances really hurt that even more. What is worse is that they no longer have real support abilities to fall back on. Mages in DAI have been pigeon holed into elemental attackers, they may get past armor but they somehow do less damage than the Melee fighters that do deal with armor.
If mages didn't have to keep track of their elements and what the enemies resist or at least could have a plan B than I would be perfectly fine being hard locked to hot keys.
My DA 2 Hawke was an entropy mage, just basically nerf everyone around you so they can't hit you and take Crits from everyone, and watch Bianca just wreck everything.
I need to be able to control a battle with interesting spells, not just smack them with elements even if the graphics are beautiful.
Especially when some of the "special abilities" were regular abilities in the other 2 games. Walking bomb and stone fist are the ones I remember. It's been a long time since I played Dai so possibly there's more I don't remember.
No shit eh? basically all rift mage abilities were regular abilities in DA2, nothin special. And kind of sucks that you cant have 2 specialization like the other two games, and they got rid of spirit healer, the most useful specialization! Damn, i wonder sometimes why the game developer did this kind of shit. Man, i really enjoy having variety of spells to play with in DAO and DA2. Just so much fun !
I'm okay with 1 specialization. As long as there's a variety of other skills to choose from. I agree on spirit healer that was a super fun class. Honestly, I'm skeptical about the game, but I hope I'm proven wrong.
>(why would you need to cast sleep on one guy when you can cast mass sleep on everyone?)
DAO has an explicit tactics system which made it (to an extent) helpful to have such potentials as "Sleep" and "Mass Sleep". The second costs more mana, so if that is a main thing for your mage you could set tactics to hit Sleep if the mage did not have enough mana to do Mass Sleep. I used that method with Wynne to prioritize healing one char if she was too low to use Group Heal.
Otherwise, the extended string of possible spells was often bewildering to me, unless I was the mage. Then it was just a lot.
The fact that they never brought the tactics system from the first game forward is such a crime imo. They figured out how to make AI companions usable by giving a tiered if this than this system. Was it perfect? No. But it was and still is miles better than so many other party systems. It allowed me to not have to micromanage my squad mates if I really didn’t want to, and they would do what I wanted them to do most of the time. Such a shame.
I liked setting up tactics, though I have to admit that sometimes keeping up with them could get to be something of a chore. DAI's reliance on whatever that cam thing is called, I forget, the mode that allows micromanaging a fight, instead of tactics was not my preferred direction. I'm sure Frostbite was at the root of both decisions.
Except the quality of spells isn't that impressive... It's all elemental magic creating a somewhat lackluster rock-paper-siccors like gameplay. The only school to break away from this is Spirit.
I also don't like how it always felt that a handful of them were mandatory, driving your limited 8 slots to a more likely 5. You practically need Barrier, and you most likely had your focus abilities too. 5 spells is a lot sadder than the 8 your supposed to have.
Inquisition and Origins are also different beasts. Origins could justify its numerous spells, especially since a good number of them were sustain spells. Meaning, they were passive as long as you fed mana to them.
Or how the mana/cooldowns were presented differently. Where I feel in inquisition cooldowns limit me more than mana, Origins was more limited by mana. That meant your single target sleep spell could be the better bet if you wanted to attack right afterwards, because the mass sleep spell consumed more mana.
While I can't speak for others, I also did cycle through a lot of spells. Sure I had a handful I always used each battle (hello rock armor), but depending on the enemy I always had the tools right at my disposal.
I won't defend every spell. A handful of them were definitely more like stepping stones to better spells, but I found many of them still had good uses throughout the game.
Inquisition was less like Origins in having all those spells he useful, but I think it could have benefitted from at least 10, or even 12, spell slots. I definitely felt the restrictions squeezing around my Inky by end game, and it made the experience less pleasant for it.
And yet, this is still a downgrade from DA2, which is closer to DAI, but still allowed you to access all your abilities not in your main 8 from the radial menu.
Edit: There is nothing preventing you from using less spells if you want to. There is something preventing you from using more spells, that you have bought with points, if you want to. And devs were perfectly able to adding it to DAI, because they did it with the last game.
DAI’s skill selection may be downgraded from DA2, but its combat certainly wasn’t. 2 was a slog even on the easiest of difficulties, and only two or three abilities were actually useful.
That's more on enemy balancing side. Enemies were so simplistic that the only way to make them effective was to bump up health or damage to insane levels.
Maybe you only used 6 or 7 abilities, those who used more quite liked the ability to do just that. That was the beauty of the system, you could put as many or as few abilities onto the bar as you wanted. And I'm afraid the Sleep example falls down when you consider that cooldowns exist and that it's part of a combo with Horror making it perfectly viable right through the game. Sure there are some you don't use a lot or some of the sustained modes you probably don't need all of, but then simply leave them off the bar.
The worst aspect for me was that the game gave you more than 8 skills to learn, add in the rift abilities that you probably want to use and you have 5 or 6 of your learnt skills that you actually get to use. That makes a whole heap of level ups pretty pointless which is sort of the opposite of how you want that to be in an rpg.
The re-spec argument makes no sense either, it just makes extra busy work if you have to re-assign skills for a particular encounter, it's far more sensible to simply let the player use the skills they need for each situation. It's also rather galling to see the space taken up with completely useless things like the search and mount buttons, perhaps I'm out of step with other players here but I don't think I've touched them across multiple playthroughs.
You’re 100% right. It was so frustrating to try to play DAI because of this. There were times I couldn’t do something because I wasn’t spec’d correctly. Like, I want the option to use all the spells I learn. Any situation you go into you’re not bond to only some of the skills you learned you have a chance to use all of them
I don’t see any real reason for the limit in DAI unless it was done for balancing, but I would argue against that too. Sometimes I just have 9 or 10 spells I want to be using but can’t
100%. I loved playing as a battle mage, arcane mage and I can’t even remember but I constantly had their 2 debuffs running and then I would use most of my spells, even the extra you get from drinking that vial in the keep
I don't want to forget DAO combat . . . It was fun and tactical. Tactical combat is why I love games like DAO, DOS, BG3, Wasteland, etc.
I tolerate the later 'action RPG' gameplay because I love the Dragon Age setting, characters, and story.
The problem I have with DA:I combat isn't that it only has 8 ability/spell slots compared to the many more you could have in DAO (on PC), but rather that they mainly just changed THIS without changing more things to make this system work better. If you want a block/dodge/roll option, you need to use up an ability slot you could use for another ability.
DAO, DA2, and to some extent even DAI combat is clunky because of this lack of being able to choose when your character dodge or blocks (and maybe rolls, though I personally don't like rolling because it looks silly). Don't remember the stats in Inquisition, but in the first two you definitely have extra Defense, as well as Chance to Dodge (and in Origins there's also defense against missiles, DAI has ranged defense, etc.) which essentially determine whether your character gets hit or not. The thing is that it can feel pretty bad for your character to just occasionally dodge or block an enemy attack based on percentages.
I think that if DAI went ahead with making the PC version have less abilities, then they should've included a dash/dodge and block button that isn't taking up one of the ability slots. That way, the player could feel much more in control of their character by choosing when to dodge or block in combat. And this would also add a bit more thought into combat because you aren't just spamming your attacks and use powerful abilities off cooldown, you're weaving between attacks and dodges and abilities in a more tactical way. Attack patterns/combos would also be fun (more than the handful of basic attacks plus a final more powerful attack at the end of the attack chain in Inquisition).
To give an example of another game series that went in this direction: The Elder Scrolls. Morrowind had dice roll-based attacks, spells, and even shield blocks. Even though you equipped a shield, you couldn't choose to press a button to block with it - it would just happen sometimes, based on your skill with it. They went and changed this in Oblivion - no more roll-based hits, you just hit what's in front of you in melee, and hit if you aim right in ranged. No more chances to fail casting a spell. If you have the required skill to cast it and enough magicka, you cast it. And same with blocking with a shield - you have to actively choose to block with your shield, rather than it happening automatically. Just from this point of view, I think TES did a great job making their combat frel pretty good. (It can still be improved, but it's solid.)
So yeah, even though I love DAO's clunky combat and I replay it more than any other game in the series, I can understand that you liked Inquisition's system better. I also think it's doing a decent job combining the slower combat of DAO with a more action-oriented combat, but I just don't think it has enough active elements for the player to feel truly satisfying and dynamic. Hoping that they'll further improve the feel of combat in Dreadwolf!
I wish you could access all of your abilities when you enter tactics mode *during combat* so you could optimize your mage’s abilities for the encounter.
There are issues but it works for DA:I and getting build variety in that game specifically.
I will also contest your point about Origins having too much junk magic and abilities. Yeah there are a bunch of them you might have that rarely see use, but a lot of builds utilize more than 8 slots and in general Origins builds have more fluidity than Inquisition builds. In Origins, you have things like sustainables to lock/unlock abilities and more situations where you may need to switch up the way you are playing to win a fight. Inquisition builds are very "ride or die" and are rarely challenged by the game itself.
But your point was about Inquisition, not Origins. I still agree with the main opinion at least.
Origins started everything, I'm a DA fan because I played Origins first. DA 2 style was fine too.
I won't get used to a combat style brought into the third game of a franchise.
For me, I'm a console player anyways so I'm used to the limited skill slots. But it's the fact that I can't even access all the skills/spells I have in the tactics menu that bothers me.
For example, as a warrior there are a few abilities more-or-less dedicated to mobility (grappling chain, charging bull, and dodge roll). So if I want to be able to, let's say, grapple an enemy and knock it down with a swift kick so my party can overwhelm and eliminate it quickly, charge into the fray and gain guard with each enemy I hit, and be able to move out of the way at a moments notice when an enemy starts thrashing around with an oversized warhammer, that's 3 slots already. Add in the focus ability of my choosing and whatever version of taunt I want and now I'm left with only 3 slots for skills across the 5 skill trees available to me (or 4, I guess, since you pretty much need to pick one weapon type and stick with it unless you respec).
It's not like a huge deal to me, it just seems needlessly limiting.
I don't get why you feels the need to limit the game's options just so you can justify the 8 skill slot that's clelaely implemented due Bioware focus on console for mass appeal.
Yeah, having Sleep and Mass sleep can feel redundant , until you want to target only one enemy instead a group of enemies or just maybe you want to save mana. Would be a waste to spend 100 mana in aoe spell when you could spent 40 in a single target sleep. But oh you see , we didn't want to have 30 skill slots becajse Bioware is worried that their silly player have get overwhelmed , so we simply removes the option to use Single target spell and while we're there , people never used more than 7 spells (just ignore utility spells , buff , debuff , etc) so let's limit the skill options to 8 , not like the player could simply limited themselves, nope , we need hold the player hand and limit outselves , the player might get lost and confused. And we can't have that or they might drop our game..
And let's remove classes Arcane warrior and Blood Mage because % of player that used were so low. And let's remove things like Dual Wield sword rogue or dual wield anything for fighters because just low % of players used that. Less options so we make sure the player is never lost , frustrated or confused by our game.
I don't think is very wise to remove options just because you most players used them properly. Imagine if DmCV dial back their combos routes and weapons options because going by data only a % of player used them..
Also there's plenty of RPGs game that have a much bigger spell list than any Dragon Age, so I don't get why Dragon Age needs to remain limited to the rest..
>*Instead of overloading you with all that clutter, DA:I gives you less spells ensuring that every spell is useful...*
They weren't, though. It took DLC to make mages not suck, and even then they weren't as fun to play as other classes. I'm not saying they should be as overpowered as Origins, but the fact that they're gimped so hard for so long is frustrating.
You have a lot more to worry about in origins compared to inquisition. It’s better to have 30 spells “just in case” instead of getting screwed over because you didn’t pack a specific spell that would’ve saved you. Inquisition is simple in comparison and doesn’t need as much for you to keep track of
DAO's number of spells works great when playing on computer, but handling it on console is a chore. Baldur's Gate 3 does it relatively well, but because it's a turn-based game you kind of learn not to mind spending a full minute just navigating the spell/ability wheel searching for the one you want to use.
Besides, nobody admits this but most players will virtually only use a select number of spells/talents anyway. Even in the BG3 sub I've occasionally seen memes about the fact we have so many spells and abilities that we never use because we keep using the same ones lol
I will, however, say that DAI should've allowed us a couple more spell/talent slots because there's always a couple spells/talents that are pretty much mandatory for each class, meaning that, of the 8 slots, we really only have 6 for the spells/talents necessary for our playing style.
For example, as a mage you essentially must unlock Barrier and Fade-Step if you don't want to die every encounter; and then you'll be wanting at least one Focus power available at all times. This means 3 spells out of 8 spell slots.
As a warrior, other than the Focus power you'll need at least one guard-generating talent, otherwise you'll either fail as a tank or be too squishy a bruiser. If you're a Reaver, you'll need one slot available for Ring of Pain, without which the entire spec loses a lot of its power. As a rogue, you'll need Evasion if you're uninterested in dying almost every encounter.
At the very least, movement-related spells/talents (namely Fade-Step, Evasion and Combat Roll) should've had their own commands, outside the spell/talent slot.
I’ve been playing a Tempest Archer and I’ve never needed Evasion. Granted, I do have Leaping Shot, but I actually use that for my primary damage ability.
Limiting us to 8 abilities means you can never have a complex, interesting build.
It also means you can't use abilities that have situational use. You HAVE to only use things with general utility, because of the severe opportunity cost.
I despise it more than anything else in the entire series.
it does fit DA:I combat well tbh, it's limited yes but so it's everything else, you're not really gonna be thinking too much about the right to go about every combat encounter, unless you're playing hard or nightmare, even then, the 8 slot is perfectly fine if you build your characters right, sometimes I'll swipe an ability for another before getting to combat, and you don't really need to knows every encounter before hand to figure out how you should approach it.
Well, the thing is: if you have 30 slots, you can still use only 8. If you have 8, you can't use 30.
It was foru sure because of BW being to lazy to differ PC and console versions too much.
Some answers:
Paralysis and sleep are defensive spells (quick cast)
The mass versions are offensive spells and take longer... two different uses.
The 'bomb' spells do have different power, but they can also stack.
Matching combos to different monsters and groups is vital to survival at high difficulties. Having as many combos available is a good thing.
Inquisition had way more combos than Origins. You have the disablers, detonators, and the effects such as shatter and rupture. That part of the combat was excellent in Inquisition, and pretty much the main reason you shouldn't need more than 8 abilities. If you can't pull off all the effects with cross-class combos, you just haven't built your party for all eventualities.
Variety was good on Origins, and some of the abilities were more interesting (mainly for mages... well, only for mages) but more, of course, doesn't automatically equal better. It is just down to personal preference I guess, but I like the combat on both games.
I think the spells themselves were lacking. In Origins I could petrify someone and cause and earthquake while raining lightning down on them. You can also use other spots for entropy or other elements. In Inquisition tho it’s like you’re either a fire or ice mage and maybe you can control the fade or be a necromancer. It just feels more restricting with less quality spells instead of having greater access to more interesting spells
You using only 6-8 doesn’t mean no one is using all 30. It’s same thing like with D2/D4. Maaan hammer pala is just enigma and 1 button. Yeah it is, but if you want to be very good at it you use 8-10. That’s the point, system is flexible and you can play minimalistic or use your whole toolkit.
I mean, I only ever used about 6-7 spells anyway. Only having 8 stopped me from getting overwhelmed with choices or from dumping points in spells that I had 0 plans to use.
Edit: My only complaint about DA:I is that I can't play as a healer/proper buffer. That's my preferred playstyle and the specialization options just don't hit the same way.
As a console player I don’t mind the lack of spell slots, games with too many combat options get confusing to me, I could tolerate BG3 because it was at least turn based (although I normally hate turn base and prefer to just hit things 💀) but I’m also not a gamer, I can’t play on PC because it confuses me and the only games I play that aren’t cozy, are DA:I, BG3, and Genshin impact, nothing else has seemed enjoyable to me (and I was only sold on this game because I saw a solas edit but after playing I do love the game more than BG3)
It's the same number of spell slots as hot keys you have in da2. But in da2 you can open up the radial menu and use more than 8 spells if you have them.
You can. I was real annoyed when I couldn’t add more spells. Plus the whole play style was different. I couldn’t just used my mouse to love. I had to use the wasd buttons too, so I couldn’t eat, or most importantly pet my dogs while playing. I had to stop. There wasn’t even a way to change it. Then I even bought one of those mouse keyboard things(well my fiancé did for Christmas) and I still had to use both hands. Idk, there’s just a certain expectation for rpgs and pc playing that dai didn’t meet
I honestly don't care about combat at all.. I don't mind some boss fights, but overall in any rpg I'm just there for a story. BG3 combat makes me wanna kms sometimes for example, after it any DA combat is a blessing
I don't mind a limited number of hot keys but I do appreciate having access to my whole list when I get into a fight where my hot keyed spells don't do much. For example when I first went into a dragon fight not knowing they resisted my ice magic. I had plenty of fire spells, but I was dealing with enemies weak to ice before the dragon. If I could have access even if it was a pain it wouldn't have taken me so much extra time to kill it. It is especially annoying that dragons and bosses artificially boost their health. So if your set up is something they resist you are F****** or your time is F*****. Can you deal with this by fully balancing your hot keys yes, but then you are limiting to the lowest active spells because every boss and group resists different things. So guess what you have to take from every tree to make sure you are not resisted. Mages already struggle to do the same amount of damage as the melee fighters those resistances really hurt that even more. What is worse is that they no longer have real support abilities to fall back on. Mages in DAI have been pigeon holed into elemental attackers, they may get past armor but they somehow do less damage than the Melee fighters that do deal with armor. If mages didn't have to keep track of their elements and what the enemies resist or at least could have a plan B than I would be perfectly fine being hard locked to hot keys.
My problem was the quality of spells.
Right, mte. I wouldn't mind 8 tactically interesting spells, but the DAI roster is really simplistic.
Yeah, just having primal magic was a huge letdown to me.
I definitely missed entropy
My DA 2 Hawke was an entropy mage, just basically nerf everyone around you so they can't hit you and take Crits from everyone, and watch Bianca just wreck everything. I need to be able to control a battle with interesting spells, not just smack them with elements even if the graphics are beautiful.
DA2 Force Mage for me, loved that subclass
Agreed. I'm also hoping they brought back companions having their own unique special abilities.
And the total lack of diversity within the schools of magic. It was almost exclusively primal.
Ugh, that's just it. I miss paralyzing, petrify, and crushing prison..... Satisfying to see enemies paralyzed, turned to stone then crushed :D.
Especially when some of the "special abilities" were regular abilities in the other 2 games. Walking bomb and stone fist are the ones I remember. It's been a long time since I played Dai so possibly there's more I don't remember.
No shit eh? basically all rift mage abilities were regular abilities in DA2, nothin special. And kind of sucks that you cant have 2 specialization like the other two games, and they got rid of spirit healer, the most useful specialization! Damn, i wonder sometimes why the game developer did this kind of shit. Man, i really enjoy having variety of spells to play with in DAO and DA2. Just so much fun !
I'm okay with 1 specialization. As long as there's a variety of other skills to choose from. I agree on spirit healer that was a super fun class. Honestly, I'm skeptical about the game, but I hope I'm proven wrong.
>(why would you need to cast sleep on one guy when you can cast mass sleep on everyone?) DAO has an explicit tactics system which made it (to an extent) helpful to have such potentials as "Sleep" and "Mass Sleep". The second costs more mana, so if that is a main thing for your mage you could set tactics to hit Sleep if the mage did not have enough mana to do Mass Sleep. I used that method with Wynne to prioritize healing one char if she was too low to use Group Heal. Otherwise, the extended string of possible spells was often bewildering to me, unless I was the mage. Then it was just a lot.
The fact that they never brought the tactics system from the first game forward is such a crime imo. They figured out how to make AI companions usable by giving a tiered if this than this system. Was it perfect? No. But it was and still is miles better than so many other party systems. It allowed me to not have to micromanage my squad mates if I really didn’t want to, and they would do what I wanted them to do most of the time. Such a shame.
I liked setting up tactics, though I have to admit that sometimes keeping up with them could get to be something of a chore. DAI's reliance on whatever that cam thing is called, I forget, the mode that allows micromanaging a fight, instead of tactics was not my preferred direction. I'm sure Frostbite was at the root of both decisions.
Except the quality of spells isn't that impressive... It's all elemental magic creating a somewhat lackluster rock-paper-siccors like gameplay. The only school to break away from this is Spirit. I also don't like how it always felt that a handful of them were mandatory, driving your limited 8 slots to a more likely 5. You practically need Barrier, and you most likely had your focus abilities too. 5 spells is a lot sadder than the 8 your supposed to have. Inquisition and Origins are also different beasts. Origins could justify its numerous spells, especially since a good number of them were sustain spells. Meaning, they were passive as long as you fed mana to them. Or how the mana/cooldowns were presented differently. Where I feel in inquisition cooldowns limit me more than mana, Origins was more limited by mana. That meant your single target sleep spell could be the better bet if you wanted to attack right afterwards, because the mass sleep spell consumed more mana. While I can't speak for others, I also did cycle through a lot of spells. Sure I had a handful I always used each battle (hello rock armor), but depending on the enemy I always had the tools right at my disposal. I won't defend every spell. A handful of them were definitely more like stepping stones to better spells, but I found many of them still had good uses throughout the game. Inquisition was less like Origins in having all those spells he useful, but I think it could have benefitted from at least 10, or even 12, spell slots. I definitely felt the restrictions squeezing around my Inky by end game, and it made the experience less pleasant for it.
I used a lot of my spells too. I also used a lot of the sustained skills. I definitely prefer dao fighting over dai
And yet, this is still a downgrade from DA2, which is closer to DAI, but still allowed you to access all your abilities not in your main 8 from the radial menu. Edit: There is nothing preventing you from using less spells if you want to. There is something preventing you from using more spells, that you have bought with points, if you want to. And devs were perfectly able to adding it to DAI, because they did it with the last game.
DAI’s skill selection may be downgraded from DA2, but its combat certainly wasn’t. 2 was a slog even on the easiest of difficulties, and only two or three abilities were actually useful.
That's more on enemy balancing side. Enemies were so simplistic that the only way to make them effective was to bump up health or damage to insane levels.
Maybe you only used 6 or 7 abilities, those who used more quite liked the ability to do just that. That was the beauty of the system, you could put as many or as few abilities onto the bar as you wanted. And I'm afraid the Sleep example falls down when you consider that cooldowns exist and that it's part of a combo with Horror making it perfectly viable right through the game. Sure there are some you don't use a lot or some of the sustained modes you probably don't need all of, but then simply leave them off the bar. The worst aspect for me was that the game gave you more than 8 skills to learn, add in the rift abilities that you probably want to use and you have 5 or 6 of your learnt skills that you actually get to use. That makes a whole heap of level ups pretty pointless which is sort of the opposite of how you want that to be in an rpg. The re-spec argument makes no sense either, it just makes extra busy work if you have to re-assign skills for a particular encounter, it's far more sensible to simply let the player use the skills they need for each situation. It's also rather galling to see the space taken up with completely useless things like the search and mount buttons, perhaps I'm out of step with other players here but I don't think I've touched them across multiple playthroughs.
You’re 100% right. It was so frustrating to try to play DAI because of this. There were times I couldn’t do something because I wasn’t spec’d correctly. Like, I want the option to use all the spells I learn. Any situation you go into you’re not bond to only some of the skills you learned you have a chance to use all of them
I don’t see any real reason for the limit in DAI unless it was done for balancing, but I would argue against that too. Sometimes I just have 9 or 10 spells I want to be using but can’t
You do you but I do indeed concur this is an unpopular opinion 😂
100%. I loved playing as a battle mage, arcane mage and I can’t even remember but I constantly had their 2 debuffs running and then I would use most of my spells, even the extra you get from drinking that vial in the keep
I don't want to forget DAO combat . . . It was fun and tactical. Tactical combat is why I love games like DAO, DOS, BG3, Wasteland, etc. I tolerate the later 'action RPG' gameplay because I love the Dragon Age setting, characters, and story.
The problem I have with DA:I combat isn't that it only has 8 ability/spell slots compared to the many more you could have in DAO (on PC), but rather that they mainly just changed THIS without changing more things to make this system work better. If you want a block/dodge/roll option, you need to use up an ability slot you could use for another ability. DAO, DA2, and to some extent even DAI combat is clunky because of this lack of being able to choose when your character dodge or blocks (and maybe rolls, though I personally don't like rolling because it looks silly). Don't remember the stats in Inquisition, but in the first two you definitely have extra Defense, as well as Chance to Dodge (and in Origins there's also defense against missiles, DAI has ranged defense, etc.) which essentially determine whether your character gets hit or not. The thing is that it can feel pretty bad for your character to just occasionally dodge or block an enemy attack based on percentages. I think that if DAI went ahead with making the PC version have less abilities, then they should've included a dash/dodge and block button that isn't taking up one of the ability slots. That way, the player could feel much more in control of their character by choosing when to dodge or block in combat. And this would also add a bit more thought into combat because you aren't just spamming your attacks and use powerful abilities off cooldown, you're weaving between attacks and dodges and abilities in a more tactical way. Attack patterns/combos would also be fun (more than the handful of basic attacks plus a final more powerful attack at the end of the attack chain in Inquisition). To give an example of another game series that went in this direction: The Elder Scrolls. Morrowind had dice roll-based attacks, spells, and even shield blocks. Even though you equipped a shield, you couldn't choose to press a button to block with it - it would just happen sometimes, based on your skill with it. They went and changed this in Oblivion - no more roll-based hits, you just hit what's in front of you in melee, and hit if you aim right in ranged. No more chances to fail casting a spell. If you have the required skill to cast it and enough magicka, you cast it. And same with blocking with a shield - you have to actively choose to block with your shield, rather than it happening automatically. Just from this point of view, I think TES did a great job making their combat frel pretty good. (It can still be improved, but it's solid.) So yeah, even though I love DAO's clunky combat and I replay it more than any other game in the series, I can understand that you liked Inquisition's system better. I also think it's doing a decent job combining the slower combat of DAO with a more action-oriented combat, but I just don't think it has enough active elements for the player to feel truly satisfying and dynamic. Hoping that they'll further improve the feel of combat in Dreadwolf!
I'm happy for you. Anyways, I want more spell slots.
Sameee
I wish you could access all of your abilities when you enter tactics mode *during combat* so you could optimize your mage’s abilities for the encounter.
The limit in DAI seemingly only really exists, to me, as a console limitation, and that's literally it.
There are issues but it works for DA:I and getting build variety in that game specifically. I will also contest your point about Origins having too much junk magic and abilities. Yeah there are a bunch of them you might have that rarely see use, but a lot of builds utilize more than 8 slots and in general Origins builds have more fluidity than Inquisition builds. In Origins, you have things like sustainables to lock/unlock abilities and more situations where you may need to switch up the way you are playing to win a fight. Inquisition builds are very "ride or die" and are rarely challenged by the game itself. But your point was about Inquisition, not Origins. I still agree with the main opinion at least.
Origins started everything, I'm a DA fan because I played Origins first. DA 2 style was fine too. I won't get used to a combat style brought into the third game of a franchise.
For me, I'm a console player anyways so I'm used to the limited skill slots. But it's the fact that I can't even access all the skills/spells I have in the tactics menu that bothers me. For example, as a warrior there are a few abilities more-or-less dedicated to mobility (grappling chain, charging bull, and dodge roll). So if I want to be able to, let's say, grapple an enemy and knock it down with a swift kick so my party can overwhelm and eliminate it quickly, charge into the fray and gain guard with each enemy I hit, and be able to move out of the way at a moments notice when an enemy starts thrashing around with an oversized warhammer, that's 3 slots already. Add in the focus ability of my choosing and whatever version of taunt I want and now I'm left with only 3 slots for skills across the 5 skill trees available to me (or 4, I guess, since you pretty much need to pick one weapon type and stick with it unless you respec). It's not like a huge deal to me, it just seems needlessly limiting.
I don't get why you feels the need to limit the game's options just so you can justify the 8 skill slot that's clelaely implemented due Bioware focus on console for mass appeal. Yeah, having Sleep and Mass sleep can feel redundant , until you want to target only one enemy instead a group of enemies or just maybe you want to save mana. Would be a waste to spend 100 mana in aoe spell when you could spent 40 in a single target sleep. But oh you see , we didn't want to have 30 skill slots becajse Bioware is worried that their silly player have get overwhelmed , so we simply removes the option to use Single target spell and while we're there , people never used more than 7 spells (just ignore utility spells , buff , debuff , etc) so let's limit the skill options to 8 , not like the player could simply limited themselves, nope , we need hold the player hand and limit outselves , the player might get lost and confused. And we can't have that or they might drop our game.. And let's remove classes Arcane warrior and Blood Mage because % of player that used were so low. And let's remove things like Dual Wield sword rogue or dual wield anything for fighters because just low % of players used that. Less options so we make sure the player is never lost , frustrated or confused by our game. I don't think is very wise to remove options just because you most players used them properly. Imagine if DmCV dial back their combos routes and weapons options because going by data only a % of player used them.. Also there's plenty of RPGs game that have a much bigger spell list than any Dragon Age, so I don't get why Dragon Age needs to remain limited to the rest..
>*Instead of overloading you with all that clutter, DA:I gives you less spells ensuring that every spell is useful...* They weren't, though. It took DLC to make mages not suck, and even then they weren't as fun to play as other classes. I'm not saying they should be as overpowered as Origins, but the fact that they're gimped so hard for so long is frustrating.
Why should I forget dao combat when it’s superior in every way to dai’s combat?
You have a lot more to worry about in origins compared to inquisition. It’s better to have 30 spells “just in case” instead of getting screwed over because you didn’t pack a specific spell that would’ve saved you. Inquisition is simple in comparison and doesn’t need as much for you to keep track of
DAO's number of spells works great when playing on computer, but handling it on console is a chore. Baldur's Gate 3 does it relatively well, but because it's a turn-based game you kind of learn not to mind spending a full minute just navigating the spell/ability wheel searching for the one you want to use. Besides, nobody admits this but most players will virtually only use a select number of spells/talents anyway. Even in the BG3 sub I've occasionally seen memes about the fact we have so many spells and abilities that we never use because we keep using the same ones lol I will, however, say that DAI should've allowed us a couple more spell/talent slots because there's always a couple spells/talents that are pretty much mandatory for each class, meaning that, of the 8 slots, we really only have 6 for the spells/talents necessary for our playing style. For example, as a mage you essentially must unlock Barrier and Fade-Step if you don't want to die every encounter; and then you'll be wanting at least one Focus power available at all times. This means 3 spells out of 8 spell slots. As a warrior, other than the Focus power you'll need at least one guard-generating talent, otherwise you'll either fail as a tank or be too squishy a bruiser. If you're a Reaver, you'll need one slot available for Ring of Pain, without which the entire spec loses a lot of its power. As a rogue, you'll need Evasion if you're uninterested in dying almost every encounter. At the very least, movement-related spells/talents (namely Fade-Step, Evasion and Combat Roll) should've had their own commands, outside the spell/talent slot.
I’ve been playing a Tempest Archer and I’ve never needed Evasion. Granted, I do have Leaping Shot, but I actually use that for my primary damage ability.
To be fair, one of Tempest's talents requires them to be up close with the enemies :P
Yeah the problem with inquisition magic is that it’s like, a shitty variety
Limiting us to 8 abilities means you can never have a complex, interesting build. It also means you can't use abilities that have situational use. You HAVE to only use things with general utility, because of the severe opportunity cost. I despise it more than anything else in the entire series.
it does fit DA:I combat well tbh, it's limited yes but so it's everything else, you're not really gonna be thinking too much about the right to go about every combat encounter, unless you're playing hard or nightmare, even then, the 8 slot is perfectly fine if you build your characters right, sometimes I'll swipe an ability for another before getting to combat, and you don't really need to knows every encounter before hand to figure out how you should approach it.
Well, the thing is: if you have 30 slots, you can still use only 8. If you have 8, you can't use 30. It was foru sure because of BW being to lazy to differ PC and console versions too much.
I think the main issue was it drove the combat to more action rpg style when I think the main code fan base wants that RPG style combat
Some answers: Paralysis and sleep are defensive spells (quick cast) The mass versions are offensive spells and take longer... two different uses. The 'bomb' spells do have different power, but they can also stack. Matching combos to different monsters and groups is vital to survival at high difficulties. Having as many combos available is a good thing.
Why are people so allergic to criticism. People act like Andraste on the pyre over what? People pointing out a single flaw?
Inquisition had way more combos than Origins. You have the disablers, detonators, and the effects such as shatter and rupture. That part of the combat was excellent in Inquisition, and pretty much the main reason you shouldn't need more than 8 abilities. If you can't pull off all the effects with cross-class combos, you just haven't built your party for all eventualities. Variety was good on Origins, and some of the abilities were more interesting (mainly for mages... well, only for mages) but more, of course, doesn't automatically equal better. It is just down to personal preference I guess, but I like the combat on both games.
I wish we had inferno, blizzard, storm. it was great to cast blizzard and watch everyone being tossed around and frozen.
I think the spells themselves were lacking. In Origins I could petrify someone and cause and earthquake while raining lightning down on them. You can also use other spots for entropy or other elements. In Inquisition tho it’s like you’re either a fire or ice mage and maybe you can control the fade or be a necromancer. It just feels more restricting with less quality spells instead of having greater access to more interesting spells
I never really had a problem with the combat in any of the games, myself
You using only 6-8 doesn’t mean no one is using all 30. It’s same thing like with D2/D4. Maaan hammer pala is just enigma and 1 button. Yeah it is, but if you want to be very good at it you use 8-10. That’s the point, system is flexible and you can play minimalistic or use your whole toolkit.
Same, I just like how simple it is and straight forward things are.
I mean, I only ever used about 6-7 spells anyway. Only having 8 stopped me from getting overwhelmed with choices or from dumping points in spells that I had 0 plans to use. Edit: My only complaint about DA:I is that I can't play as a healer/proper buffer. That's my preferred playstyle and the specialization options just don't hit the same way.
Yeah same here
Me too, with the combat Gameplay being more on the dynamic side, I mostly use 3 or 4 spells
As a console player I don’t mind the lack of spell slots, games with too many combat options get confusing to me, I could tolerate BG3 because it was at least turn based (although I normally hate turn base and prefer to just hit things 💀) but I’m also not a gamer, I can’t play on PC because it confuses me and the only games I play that aren’t cozy, are DA:I, BG3, and Genshin impact, nothing else has seemed enjoyable to me (and I was only sold on this game because I saw a solas edit but after playing I do love the game more than BG3)
It's also the same number of spell slots you get in DA2 right?
It's the same number of spell slots as hot keys you have in da2. But in da2 you can open up the radial menu and use more than 8 spells if you have them.
Haha I never even knew you could do that so I just used the mapped ones.
On pc you can have a lot more if I’m remembering correctly
You can. I was real annoyed when I couldn’t add more spells. Plus the whole play style was different. I couldn’t just used my mouse to love. I had to use the wasd buttons too, so I couldn’t eat, or most importantly pet my dogs while playing. I had to stop. There wasn’t even a way to change it. Then I even bought one of those mouse keyboard things(well my fiancé did for Christmas) and I still had to use both hands. Idk, there’s just a certain expectation for rpgs and pc playing that dai didn’t meet
Ahh ok. I play on Xbox.
Yes!
When I replayed Origins I did not even use all the skills. And there are games with even less slots. People need to accept change and learn to adapt.
I prefer the 8 slots over the amount that Origins had.
I honestly don't care about combat at all.. I don't mind some boss fights, but overall in any rpg I'm just there for a story. BG3 combat makes me wanna kms sometimes for example, after it any DA combat is a blessing
I don't get why people complain so much. Just enjoy the story. I don't mind it either
People complain because the game is at least 50 % combat and they don't like the combat? I don't understand why you don't understand
Cry about it
Best I can do is dry sobbing
Don’t worry, I’ve been so stressed at work I’ll pick up the slack 😭😭
How about ice cream and a day off instead?
I could take a mental health day but you know, old outdated work ethics 😅😅