If only Meredith wasn't so fucking batshit insane.
She wasn't insane until the very end (and then only if you go with the Templar ending). Prior to that, everything that she is worried about is eventually proven true.
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+1
BassguyGhost Ride the DragonRegistered Userregular
The Knight Enchanter seems to be a battle mage — that's pretty neat.
One of the rogue icons (still unannounced) seems to be hooded like the mage icons. Maybe more cross-class stuff there as well? I'd like to see more of that in DAI.
If only Meredith wasn't so fucking batshit insane.
She wasn't insane until the very end (and then only if you go with the Templar ending). Prior to that, everything that she is worried about is eventually proven true.
She's insane as soon as she gets her hands on the idol, as far as I'm concerned.
My point was that from the little we've seen it doesn't sound like the Dalish have as significant an issue with it considering they have such few restrictions on it and are greatly concerned about their slowly waning population—those narratives don't make sense in concert. It's not whether it looks like the Circles have more or less cases but how the Dalish react to the problem—if a case wipes out an entire Dalish clan, that's going to be a bigger deal for them than losing a bunch of mages (that no one gives a shit about) and Templars (who signed up for it) is to the Chantry (alongside giving the Chantry more PR ammo to justify the Circles).
Obviously we haven't seen enough to say, but that's how speculation works (lots of speculation for everyone!).
We have too small of a sample size to really judge abomination rates here, guys. The Fereldan circle had ONE Abomination that kinda rolled a lot of shit downhill, and he was motivated primarily by a lust for power, less a desire to escape the Templars. It's also worth noting that that ONE Abomination threatened/totaled an entire Circle, complete with Templar guards.
What? Uldred was a victim of his own ego (and a douche), but his incentive was freeing the Circle from the Chantry—that's what Loghain promised him. You find a series of notes from other mages on your way up expressing the same, removing the yoke, etc. And he wasn't alone, he had cultivated a cabal of blood mages to help him.
However, the most powerful abomination in the game is a fucking doozy. Spoilers here.
Anders accepted Justice and became an Abomination. Fact. Sure, it may have taken a while for Anders to become completely subsumed, and Justice was warped by the act, but he's a demon/mage hybrid. Abomination. He became an abomination from a stupid simple temptation to help a 'friend', and that led to the deaths of countless innocents in Kirkwall and he basically broke Thedas.
No abomination necessary—he assassinated someone with a bomb. Anyone believing similar could have done it. Sister Petrice didn't have a spirit riding shotgun when she tried to incite a war.
The Anders/Justice situation (and the Wynne situation, for that matter) don't seem very indicative of the general problem.
One of the rogue icons (still unannounced) seems to be a hooded like the mage icons. Maybe more cross-class stuff there as well? I'd like to see more of that in DAI.
They renamed the picture icons—previously the greyed out icons shared the name of their class. They're still listed on the wiki, though no details obviously: the other rogues are Tempest and Assassin, the mages Necromancer and Rift Mage, and the warriors Templar and Reaver.
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BassguyGhost Ride the DragonRegistered Userregular
One of the rogue icons (still unannounced) seems to be a hooded like the mage icons. Maybe more cross-class stuff there as well? I'd like to see more of that in DAI.
They renamed the picture icons—previously the greyed out icons shared the name of their class. They're still listed on the wiki, though no details obviously: the other rogues are Tempest and Assassin, the mages Necromancer and Rift Mage, and the warriors Templar and Reaver.
Yeah, I assumed the middle specialization for rogues would be an assassin because of the similarities to the emblem in the previous games. Tempest sounds intriguing, though.
Edit: Especially since "Tempest" is a spell in DA:O and DA2.
My point was that from the little we've seen it doesn't sound like the Dalish have as significant an issue with it considering they have such few restrictions on it and are greatly concerned about their slowly waning population—those narratives don't make sense in concert.
I disagree with this completely. We have seen exactly two Dalish tribes which had a total of 4 magic users.
Dragon Age Origins Spoilers:
The leader of the main tribe became an undying monster who's sole desire was to cause vengeance and suffering upon humans because some humans killed his daughter. He enslaved a nature spirit, turned it into a viscous monster that turned humans into werewolves, and even when those had all died of old age he left his curse in place and continued to cause humans to turn into werewolves to make them suffer.
Dragon Age 2 Spoilers:
The apprentice of this tribe was obsessed with an ancient elven artifact from their glory days and slowly decended into a desperate attempt to get its secrets by wanting to offer herself to a demon and become an abomination. Meanwhile, her teacher/leader went and made the deal with the demon first to become the abomination before her student could.
The fact is we have a 25% "Abomination Rate", 50% "Desire to Become an Abomination Rate", and 75% "Mages Screwing With Powerful Spirits That Can/Did Get a Lot of People Killed Rate" among the Dalish mages we have met. Those are not good numbers to have when it comes to Dalish mages.
The fact is we have a 25% "Abomination Rate", 50% "Desire to Become an Abomination Rate", and 75% "Mages Screwing With Powerful Spirits That Can/Did Get a Lot of People Killed Rate" among the Dalish mages we have met. Those are not good numbers to have when it comes to Dalish mages.
Ah, so now we have enough numbers to say, then? Anyway, I already replied to this on the last page.
E: (Also, 100% of the Circles we've seen have gotten fucked. Those are not good numbers when it comes to Circles.)
Cooperative would be bad. That would lead to friendships between Templars and Mages and compromise the Templar's ability to put a mage who was either using blood magic or had become and abomination down. You really need the slight bit of rivalry and animosity
The term you're looking for is "unequal power balance".
Which was the problem with the Tevinter Imperium too. It turns out that enslaving people and depriving them of their freedom is wrong.
The fact is we have a 25% "Abomination Rate", 50% "Desire to Become an Abomination Rate", and 75% "Mages Screwing With Powerful Spirits That Can/Did Get a Lot of People Killed Rate" among the Dalish mages we have met. Those are not good numbers to have when it comes to Dalish mages.
Ah, so now we have enough numbers to say, then? Anyway, I already replied to this on the last page.
E: (Also, 100% of the Circles we've seen have gotten fucked. Those are not good numbers when it comes to Circles.)
Umm...no. What I am saying is that your premise of "What little we've seen it doesn't sound like the Dalish have as significant an issue with it considering they have such few restrictions on it and are greatly concerned about their slowly waning population—those narratives don't make sense in concert." is a bad premise from evidence that does not exist. From what little we've seen, they have a terrible issue with it, and are either too stupid, too arrogant, too naive, or too whatever to try to do something about it like the humans did.
If you want to do it that way, 100% of the Dalish tribes we've seen have been completely fucked over by the mages. The mages that they put in charge, in fact. Two Dalish tribes, two Chantry Circles, all completely fucked by their mages. The only conclusion we can make, and boy is it a tentative one, is that mages screw everything up for everyone no matter where they are.
In fact, the ONLY culture we've seen that has not had a mage go Abomination is the Qunari. I think that you and I can both agree that the Qunari's treatment of mages is horrible, and even they don't deserve that.
In fact, the ONLY culture we've seen that has not had a mage go Abomination is the Qunari.
Yes, they need to fill an area with opponents and questlines and these are easy go-tos, which is why I'm focusing on what we know of the respective societies at large instead of two examples, as I don't think our examples from either system are necessarily indicative (hence the jest!). If every Dalish clan uses a Keeper and an Apprentice in a system like this, that's a lot of freedom that doesn't make sense for a people whose defining concern is Tolkien-esque decline given the apparent potential for harm by abominations—better to send them to the tower, to the wild, to shackle them or to kill them, not to put a pair of them in charge of every clan, reliant on one stopping the other or the clans coming together to purge it afterward.
There's plenty we don't know and maybe there's more to the system than we've seen, or maybe their decline isn't as prevalent as it sounds, or maybe they have frequent problems and they're idiots. I'm not saying the Dalish have a working system but that they might because the above doesn't make much sense if it's dire.
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BassguyGhost Ride the DragonRegistered Userregular
Has somebody made a "Not all mages" joke yet? That seems like it should be a thing.
Actually, the Dalish setup could make sense, even if its all messed up. Remember, the Dalish's stated primary concern is the recovery and preservation of their Pre-Tivinter culture. We don't know anything about that. Its possible that pre-Tivinter, the Elves were always led by a mage and their apprentice, and thus when the Dalish came across that piece of scripture centuries past, they instituted the Keeper/Apprentice system. Now its been that way for 400 years, or whatever, so why change it now?
If mages weren't so prone to possession, I'd be more lenient towards them. Blood magic is obviously a horrible practice (FWI: lots of people did die when Daddy Hawke was forced use it, it's one of the reasons he left the Free Marches), but it's the abominations that scare me the most. Blood magic is a personal choice, possession can just happen at random.
One thing of note is that the rate of mage births are increasing as of DA2, despite mages being discouraged from breeding. Meaning more and more mages are being born from non-Mage couples.
What makes me curious is if being a Mage is a genetic thing or perhaps the weakening of the Veil is making mages more common, a combination of both, or perhaps something else?
What do you mean' so prone'? Do you have some figures or something? Or are you basing this off of DA2? Regardless, nobody likes abominations running around, but it turns out locking mages away their entire lives is a good way to make more of them. The Circle should be more of a cooperative venture than an punitive one.
By "so prone" I mean more so than literally anything else in the DA setting via either volunteered or random, forced possession.
Sure, you can reduce voluntary possession by improving Mage quality of life. How do we solve random possessions?
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
However, the most powerful abomination in the game is a fucking doozy. Spoilers here.
Anders accepted Justice and became an Abomination. Fact. Sure, it may have taken a while for Anders to become completely subsumed, and Justice was warped by the act, but he's a demon/mage hybrid. Abomination. He became an abomination from a stupid simple temptation to help a 'friend', and that led to the deaths of countless innocents in Kirkwall and he basically broke Thedas.
No abomination necessary—he assassinated someone with a bomb. Anyone believing similar could have done it. Sister Petrice didn't have a spirit riding shotgun when she tried to incite a war.
The Anders/Justice situation (and the Wynne situation, for that matter) don't seem very indicative of the general problem.
Okay I don't know if you and I watched the same cutscene there but that wasn't just 'a bomb.' There's some SERIOUS magical power going on there, which I doubt Anders could have, and definitely wouldn't have, pulled off without Justice. That move, which Anders/Justice deliberately pulled in order to start a Templar/Mage war and to set himself up as a martyr for Vengeance and Justice, is something that required more than simple political maneuvering or dicking about. There's no way that the Anders we saw in Awakening, without the help of Justice, would ever pull shit like that on any scale. He was all about protecting himself and nothing else. Hell, he broke away from the Grey Wardens to save his own cowardly hide. Straight up, the Templar/Mage war is a result of spirit possession.
Okay I don't know if you and I watched the same cutscene there but that wasn't just 'a bomb.' There's some SERIOUS magical power going on there, which I doubt Anders could have, and definitely wouldn't have, pulled off without Justice. That move, which Anders/Justice deliberately pulled in order to start a Templar/Mage war and to set himself up as a martyr for Vengeance and Justice, is something that required more than simple political maneuvering or dicking about. There's no way that the Anders we saw in Awakening, without the help of Justice, would ever pull shit like that on any scale. He was all about protecting himself and nothing else. Hell, he broke away from the Grey Wardens to save his own cowardly hide. Straight up, the Templar/Mage war is a result of spirit possession.
Yes, it was either magically enhanced or it used lyrium in addition to the standard gunpowder elements he requests your help in retrieving, but assassinating a political party requires neither magic nor an abomination. As much as Anders and Justice cyclically corrupted one another, you can't tell me you believe there's no other mage or mage-sympathetic radicals willing to do the same, regardless of what Anders in particular was like before (the transition of which is its own can of worms, writing-wise.)
Actually, the Dalish setup could make sense, even if its all messed up. Remember, the Dalish's stated primary concern is the recovery and preservation of their Pre-Tivinter culture. We don't know anything about that. Its possible that pre-Tivinter, the Elves were always led by a mage and their apprentice, and thus when the Dalish came across that piece of scripture centuries past, they instituted the Keeper/Apprentice system. Now its been that way for 400 years, or whatever, so why change it now?
That's possible. Hopefully we'll see more of it in Inquisition.
Artificer would be cool if they did it right. You gotta make their gadgets be their abilities. You don't craft traps and bombs and grenades as prep work. That's bullshit when a reaver's or mage's abilities are ready from the get go. Secondly, don't make me physically place a trap on the ground and again, prep an area before a fight. Make the trap work like a mage's fire wall or ice storm or whatever. You simply cast it, an aoe field pops up, and boom, it goes off like a spell.
I guess the prime thing I'm saying, is NO CREATING ITEMS, and NO PREPPING A FIGHT.
I don't care if its just reskinning a flamethrower and a cone of flame, or a stun grenade with a thunder clap, that's how you do Artificers and make them appealing.
Artificer would be cool if they did it right. You gotta make their gadgets be their abilities. You don't craft traps and bombs and grenades as prep work. That's bullshit when a reaver's or mage's abilities are ready from the get go. Secondly, don't make me physically place a trap on the ground and again, prep an area before a fight. Make the trap work like a mage's fire wall or ice storm or whatever. You simply cast it, an aoe field pops up, and boom, it goes off like a spell.
I guess the prime thing I'm saying, is NO CREATING ITEMS, and NO PREPPING A FIGHT.
I don't care if its just reskinning a flamethrower and a cone of flame, or a stun grenade with a thunder clap, that's how you do Artificers and make them appealing.
As much as I would like to disagree because The Witcher, I'm going to have to say that in this case yeah, unless you balance the game's specifically differently for players playing an Artificer, I really don't think anyone's ever going to play one if they know that they're going to be spending all of their gold on gadget parts rather than their party's equipment.
DA2's Rogue class however had gadget-y mechanics that were simply part of their class, such as the Miasma Flask and their Smoke Bombs, so if they already did it there then it's not outside of the realm of reason that they'll just apply the same basic principle here on a larger scale.
I do miss the stealth scouting, and the traps wouldn't be so bad if you had to constantly recraft them. Like, if the gave you a set number that automatically refilled after each fight.
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BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
I think they would probably give a series of low-damage, basic and replenishable skills and then a finite (but slowly replenishable somehow either mid-combat or between encounters) handful of high-damage, highly rewarding traps and abilities.
I'm of the opinion that the traps/abilities that are quite strong should require some sort of resource (aside from time) but I think it should be some sort of innovative use of a resource that other classes use, just not as strongly. I dunno, I'm rambling here.
It's the same problem with mages. Either you pay more than you make for an average trash fight for a single heal, or you have anders in your party (or are a mage yourself, which is arguably even worse)
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ExtreaminatusGo forth and amplify,the Noise Marines are here!Registered Userregular
This basra talk of Circles and Templars again?
Saarebas should be leashed and constantly guarded, never let them leave the side of their keepers. They are too dangerous to be treated any other way.
If they changed Leliana's hair colour, I think BSN might cause a quantum singularity that'd consume the universe.
That being said... she looks... weird. I can't put my thumb on it. Her eyes seem pretty lower on her face and deeply set, cheekbones, upper jaw, and chin pushed out. She looks like something I'd produce in a character creator fucking around with the facial shape sliders that I'd be fine with in character creation, but perpetually hate in in-game lighting next to "real" characters.
(Sorry if I'm being sexist by analyzing Leliana's appearance and not the others, but I'm a total Leliana fanboy.)
If they changed Leliana's hair colour, I think BSN might cause a quantum singularity that'd consume the universe.
That being said... she looks... weird. I can't put my thumb on it. Her eyes seem pretty lower on her face and deeply set, cheekbones, upper jaw, and chin pushed out. She looks like something I'd produce in a character creator fucking around with the facial shape sliders that I'd be fine with in character creation, but perpetually hate in in-game lighting next to "real" characters.
(Sorry if I'm being sexist by analyzing Leliana's appearance and not the others, but I'm a total Leliana fanboy.)
It looks like they were going more for the CG version from the DAO trailers, than the in game model. See: morrigan's look
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BassguyGhost Ride the DragonRegistered Userregular
If they changed Leliana's hair colour, I think BSN might cause a quantum singularity that'd consume the universe.
That being said... she looks... weird. I can't put my thumb on it. Her eyes seem pretty lower on her face and deeply set, cheekbones, upper jaw, and chin pushed out. She looks like something I'd produce in a character creator fucking around with the facial shape sliders that I'd be fine with in character creation, but perpetually hate in in-game lighting next to "real" characters.
(Sorry if I'm being sexist by analyzing Leliana's appearance and not the others, but I'm a total Leliana fanboy.)
It looks like they were going more for the CG version from the DAO trailers, than the in game model. See: morrigan's look
Posts
She wasn't insane until the very end (and then only if you go with the Templar ending). Prior to that, everything that she is worried about is eventually proven true.
The Knight Enchanter seems to be a battle mage — that's pretty neat.
One of the rogue icons (still unannounced) seems to be hooded like the mage icons. Maybe more cross-class stuff there as well? I'd like to see more of that in DAI.
She's insane as soon as she gets her hands on the idol, as far as I'm concerned.
Obviously we haven't seen enough to say, but that's how speculation works (lots of speculation for everyone!).
What? Uldred was a victim of his own ego (and a douche), but his incentive was freeing the Circle from the Chantry—that's what Loghain promised him. You find a series of notes from other mages on your way up expressing the same, removing the yoke, etc. And he wasn't alone, he had cultivated a cabal of blood mages to help him.
The Anders/Justice situation (and the Wynne situation, for that matter) don't seem very indicative of the general problem.
They renamed the picture icons—previously the greyed out icons shared the name of their class. They're still listed on the wiki, though no details obviously: the other rogues are Tempest and Assassin, the mages Necromancer and Rift Mage, and the warriors Templar and Reaver.
Edit: Especially since "Tempest" is a spell in DA:O and DA2.
I disagree with this completely. We have seen exactly two Dalish tribes which had a total of 4 magic users.
Dragon Age Origins Spoilers:
Dragon Age 2 Spoilers:
The fact is we have a 25% "Abomination Rate", 50% "Desire to Become an Abomination Rate", and 75% "Mages Screwing With Powerful Spirits That Can/Did Get a Lot of People Killed Rate" among the Dalish mages we have met. Those are not good numbers to have when it comes to Dalish mages.
Already bracing myself to not care about Artificer.
Ah, so now we have enough numbers to say, then? Anyway, I already replied to this on the last page.
E: (Also, 100% of the Circles we've seen have gotten fucked. Those are not good numbers when it comes to Circles.)
The term you're looking for is "unequal power balance".
Which was the problem with the Tevinter Imperium too. It turns out that enslaving people and depriving them of their freedom is wrong.
Umm...no. What I am saying is that your premise of "What little we've seen it doesn't sound like the Dalish have as significant an issue with it considering they have such few restrictions on it and are greatly concerned about their slowly waning population—those narratives don't make sense in concert." is a bad premise from evidence that does not exist. From what little we've seen, they have a terrible issue with it, and are either too stupid, too arrogant, too naive, or too whatever to try to do something about it like the humans did.
If you want to do it that way, 100% of the Dalish tribes we've seen have been completely fucked over by the mages. The mages that they put in charge, in fact. Two Dalish tribes, two Chantry Circles, all completely fucked by their mages. The only conclusion we can make, and boy is it a tentative one, is that mages screw everything up for everyone no matter where they are.
In fact, the ONLY culture we've seen that has not had a mage go Abomination is the Qunari. I think that you and I can both agree that the Qunari's treatment of mages is horrible, and even they don't deserve that.
Yes, they need to fill an area with opponents and questlines and these are easy go-tos, which is why I'm focusing on what we know of the respective societies at large instead of two examples, as I don't think our examples from either system are necessarily indicative (hence the jest!). If every Dalish clan uses a Keeper and an Apprentice in a system like this, that's a lot of freedom that doesn't make sense for a people whose defining concern is Tolkien-esque decline given the apparent potential for harm by abominations—better to send them to the tower, to the wild, to shackle them or to kill them, not to put a pair of them in charge of every clan, reliant on one stopping the other or the clans coming together to purge it afterward.
There's plenty we don't know and maybe there's more to the system than we've seen, or maybe their decline isn't as prevalent as it sounds, or maybe they have frequent problems and they're idiots. I'm not saying the Dalish have a working system but that they might because the above doesn't make much sense if it's dire.
By "so prone" I mean more so than literally anything else in the DA setting via either volunteered or random, forced possession.
Sure, you can reduce voluntary possession by improving Mage quality of life. How do we solve random possessions?
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
That's possible. Hopefully we'll see more of it in Inquisition.
I guess the prime thing I'm saying, is NO CREATING ITEMS, and NO PREPPING A FIGHT.
I don't care if its just reskinning a flamethrower and a cone of flame, or a stun grenade with a thunder clap, that's how you do Artificers and make them appealing.
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As much as I would like to disagree because The Witcher, I'm going to have to say that in this case yeah, unless you balance the game's specifically differently for players playing an Artificer, I really don't think anyone's ever going to play one if they know that they're going to be spending all of their gold on gadget parts rather than their party's equipment.
DA2's Rogue class however had gadget-y mechanics that were simply part of their class, such as the Miasma Flask and their Smoke Bombs, so if they already did it there then it's not outside of the realm of reason that they'll just apply the same basic principle here on a larger scale.
I'm of the opinion that the traps/abilities that are quite strong should require some sort of resource (aside from time) but I think it should be some sort of innovative use of a resource that other classes use, just not as strongly. I dunno, I'm rambling here.
Saarebas should be leashed and constantly guarded, never let them leave the side of their keepers. They are too dangerous to be treated any other way.
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Make sure your Inquisitor is a Qunari(race), to really grate on both sides.
That sounds more like I want to hear.
I thiiiiiiiiiink it's just the lighting. I hope.
Compare this to this. The second one looks more reddish.
That being said... she looks... weird. I can't put my thumb on it. Her eyes seem pretty lower on her face and deeply set, cheekbones, upper jaw, and chin pushed out. She looks like something I'd produce in a character creator fucking around with the facial shape sliders that I'd be fine with in character creation, but perpetually hate in in-game lighting next to "real" characters.
(Sorry if I'm being sexist by analyzing Leliana's appearance and not the others, but I'm a total Leliana fanboy.)
http://www.vg247.com/2013/09/11/dragon-age-inquisition-isnt-open-world-is-multi-region-says-bioware/
It looks like they were going more for the CG version from the DAO trailers, than the in game model. See: morrigan's look