Sadly, none of this has any chance to actually make it into DA2: Dragon Effect, but I was wondering what people thought of these ideas anyway:
(Note: Enemies would, of course, have to be rebalanced. The idea isn?t to make combat easier, just fix some of its problems)
#1 Show more information about stats.
This one is simple: If I need to make a choice between +10% to fire damage and +10 spell power, I?d like to not be making it blind. Tell the player how much their spellpower is adding to their damage. If it?s different for every spell, put the % in the spell description. Have a box on the stat sheet telling the player what his total + to spellpower to each element is, after stacking.
A lot of us like the challenged of optimizing our characters. Give us the tools we need to do so.
#2 Give every ability two ranks.
The higher the level the characters reach, the weaker the customization and specialization become.
If you?re creating an elemental mage, then once you max out the elemental tree, you?re done. You can?t specialize in it any more. This leads to characters with a massive number of abilities, most of which they don?t use. Meanwhile, the individual abilities start to become kind of weak. Even single target spells don?t do much more damage than a mage?s basic attack late game.
The solution is simple: Give every ability two ranks. The first rank acts just like it does currently, giving use of the ability and allowing you to buy the next ability in the tree. The second rank simply makes the ability more powerful.
One side effect will be that the tactics system will be more useful since it is better geared toward a character who uses fewer abilities in the first place.
#3 Deeper mana pools.
#2 might help fix this on its own, but it is kind of annoying that the player spends as much time managing mana for his healers as he does actually healing and damaging things. A better single-target healing spell might also help.
(Note: Enemies would, of course, have to be rebalanced. The idea isn?t to make combat easier, just fix some of its problems)
#1 Show more information about stats.
This one is simple: If I need to make a choice between +10% to fire damage and +10 spell power, I?d like to not be making it blind. Tell the player how much their spellpower is adding to their damage. If it?s different for every spell, put the % in the spell description. Have a box on the stat sheet telling the player what his total + to spellpower to each element is, after stacking.
A lot of us like the challenged of optimizing our characters. Give us the tools we need to do so.
#2 Give every ability two ranks.
The higher the level the characters reach, the weaker the customization and specialization become.
If you?re creating an elemental mage, then once you max out the elemental tree, you?re done. You can?t specialize in it any more. This leads to characters with a massive number of abilities, most of which they don?t use. Meanwhile, the individual abilities start to become kind of weak. Even single target spells don?t do much more damage than a mage?s basic attack late game.
The solution is simple: Give every ability two ranks. The first rank acts just like it does currently, giving use of the ability and allowing you to buy the next ability in the tree. The second rank simply makes the ability more powerful.
One side effect will be that the tactics system will be more useful since it is better geared toward a character who uses fewer abilities in the first place.
#3 Deeper mana pools.
#2 might help fix this on its own, but it is kind of annoying that the player spends as much time managing mana for his healers as he does actually healing and damaging things. A better single-target healing spell might also help.
