BioWare Ponders "Dragon Age - Tactics"

[Redryhno]

. . . Wouldn't Mage's range completely destroy the balance of the game? I mean unless you're playing as a Dwarven commander with some mage mercenary's but other wise?

. . . . You know what I think that that would actually work rather well. You are a "Commander" of a battalion of the Legion of the Dead. You are sent out by King Aeducan to carve out some passages of the Deep roads to further contact with Kal-Shorak. However after a titan induced earthquake the passage behind you collapses. It is now a race for survival as you carve your way through the darkspawn horde to safety.

You know, that actually sounds like a neat idea honestly. The Dwarves are criminally under-used in the Dragon Age universe for having a largely foreign culture as far as Dwarves in fantasy go. Add in some rogue-lite/like elements and I think that'd be a pretty interesting game.

But honestly, since it's Bioware, I don't trust them to get much other than writing down, and even that's more a "oh look, they're making references and think they're being subtle, how cute, c'mere little Jerry, that's how NOT to write for your state test" situation anymore.

 

[mysecondlife]

I never played a Dragon Age game to give my opinion on this. But I'd be down for Mass Effect game in spirit of Fire Emblem and XCOM.

 

[Redryhno]

I never played a Dragon Age game to give my opinion on this. But I'd be down for Mass Effect game in spirit of Fire Emblem and XCOM.

Honestly I'm not sure it'd work with ME. I mean, if you want Mass Effect Xcom, just play modded Xcom. Also since Andromeda's annoucnement and ME3, I just don't really have any incentive for Mass Effect anything anymore. So fucking sick of Hale's voice.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Yeah, I could get behind that. The Dragon Age world is large enough that some FE/Xcom like games could work well in it.

. . . Wouldn't Mage's range completely destroy the balance of the game? I mean unless you're playing as a Dwarven commander with some mage mercenary's but other wise?

. . . . You know what I think that that would actually work rather well. You are a "Commander" of a battalion of the Legion of the Dead. You are sent out by King Aeducan to carve out some passages of the Deep roads to further contact with Kal-Shorak. However after a titan induced earthquake the passage behind you collapses. It is now a race for survival as you carve your way through the darkspawn horde to safety.

Well, they could always split up the mage classes so you don't have one guy spamming massive AoE damage, debuffs, buffs, healing, tanking infinity damage and stunning everyone every turn.

They'd probably split up the other classes as well (i.e. Rogues would be Dual Wield or Archer), so having Mages be either Spirit Healers, Elementalists, Force Mages, etc. would be... well, it'd be a start towards balancing mages.

 

[sXeth]

I'm not personally overwhelmed with the Dragon Age lore to dive into it headfirst anyways, but this seems like its a bit out of their strong zone. Strategy games tend to be very gameplay-first, story-somewhere behind a curtain poking its toe out to see if the waters wet.

Bioware conversely has always been fairly hefty on story (and individual characters, moreso then interchangeable units) first, and more "satisfactory" level gameplay ranging downward a fair amount of the time. Though being turn-based might stimulate them a bit, since they're sort of bogged in that tabletop style, which translates better to TB then RT.

 

[otakon17]

I personally think there aren't enough Tactics games at the moment, and Dragon Age actually would lend its self quite well to this type of game.

As long as its done as a full game then I'm all for it and will look forward to seeing more.

This, hell I've said it for years that Mass Effect would fit PHENOMENALLY well in a turn based strategy RPG like XCOM with it's wealth of character classes, races and powers. I honestly would love to play a tactics game based on both ME and DA.

 

[otakon17]

Yeah, I could get behind that. The Dragon Age world is large enough that some FE/Xcom like games could work well in it.

. . . Wouldn't Mage's range completely destroy the balance of the game? I mean unless you're playing as a Dwarven commander with some mage mercenary's but other wise?

. . . . You know what I think that that would actually work rather well. You are a "Commander" of a battalion of the Legion of the Dead. You are sent out by King Aeducan to carve out some passages of the Deep roads to further contact with Kal-Shorak. However after a titan induced earthquake the passage behind you collapses. It is now a race for survival as you carve your way through the darkspawn horde to safety.

Well, they could always split up the mage classes so you don't have one guy spamming massive AoE damage, debuffs, buffs, healing, tanking infinity damage and stunning everyone every turn.

They'd probably split up the other classes as well (i.e. Rogues would be Dual Wield or Archer), so having Mages be either Spirit Healers, Elementalists, Force Mages, etc. would be... well, it'd be a start towards balancing mages.

They already did that come Inquisition really, with the skill trees, it would be easy to make a Generalist Mage with a smattering of all types of spells but without access to the most powerful spells down the line with limited leveling and skill points. To the quoted quote, where would the mages come from? Unless maybe you come across some Grey Wardens while you're trying to get back to city.

 

[Karadalis]

Watch as bioware includes a skinship function in their game and everyone applauds it for it...

But hell.. why not? I allways wanted to see a big name western developers take on SRPGs.. one of the last genres that japan had an allmost exclusive monopol on.

However Xcom i would not refer to as a strategic RPG. Its a turn based strategy game with light RPG like class progression system. There is no RPG to be had in that game.

 

[Buckets]

It will be kinda fun, loved Vandalhearts and that sort of game. The theme should fit in pretty well.

 

[Quellist]

Please just don't make any more Dragon Age games. Everything since one has been unworthy of Bioware

 

[xaszatm]

. . . Wouldn't Mage's range completely destroy the balance of the game? I mean unless you're playing as a Dwarven commander with some mage mercenary's but other wise?

Actually in Tactics games it's the melee that tend to snap the balance in half. The deadliest combination in FF Tactics was either giving a knight the dual wield ability or giving a ninja heavy armor. All those fancy spells don't mean much when you can just blitzkrieg the guy and turn him into goo before he's finished casting.

...I thought the Arithmetic was the most broken class in that game. What with the ability to cast spells instantly that affected who got hit based on math.

 

[Starke]

Yeah, and you could call it Dragon Age: Journeys... and.... oh, wait...

 

[The_Great_Galendo]

. . . Wouldn't Mage's range completely destroy the balance of the game? I mean unless you're playing as a Dwarven commander with some mage mercenary's but other wise?

Actually in Tactics games it's the melee that tend to snap the balance in half. The deadliest combination in FF Tactics was either giving a knight the dual wield ability or giving a ninja heavy armor. All those fancy spells don't mean much when you can just blitzkrieg the guy and turn him into goo before he's finished casting.

...I thought the Arithmetic was the most broken class in that game. What with the ability to cast spells instantly that affected who got hit based on math.

Yeah, it's been quite a while since I've played it, but I'm pretty certain the most busted "combo" in FFT was to show up with a party of Calculators (Arithmetics? Like I said, it's been a while) and wipe the entire enemy party before any of them got a second turn. Or a first, in some cases.

Seriously, if you looked through all the "height/character level/I forget but there were other options" choices and the number combinations, you could almost always find one that would end up casting Flare or something on like three-quarters of the enemy party. It was pretty absurd, honestly.