I loved those origins too, the dwarf ones were great but those two gave you the most story connection.
You learn some interesting things about blood magic lore wise in inquisition but there is no blood magic spec. You can't really be the leader of a chantry organization while doing the worst sin in the book. Rift mage, knight enchanter (arcane warrior), necromancer are the 3 specs. The necromancer spec is terrible and not that fun, but knight enchanter is literally ancient elvish magic so its the best for being full elfy. I haven't actually played it though, I did rift mage for my 1 mage playthrough. I thought it was neat and thematic and the animations and mechanics are great.
Dragon age 2 has a blood mage companion and a blood mage spec for hawke. Killing templars as a bloodmage in 2 is neat.
It's unlikely there will be a blood magic spec in Dreadwolf. The devs have said that they don't like the bloodmage option because realistically using it would draw enormous attention and its too much work to do that honestly. We might get a blood mage companion again, but I'd say that's unlikely. It's heavily implied by this point that there is no elf blood magic tradition. It's mostly a tevinter thing or an apostate thing. Dreadwolf is going to be a very rah rah fight the power game, based on leaks, and so any tevinter we get will be against the magisters and therefore unlikely to use blood magic.
We could get an apostate blood mage but I mean think about how many characters would just leave the party if someone was doing blood magic. Like, shale, morrigan, sten are probably the only ones who would stick with a blood mage in origins. In dragon age 2 only merill, varric, isabella. The whole inquisition would fall apart if you were a blood mage but the only companions who would tolerate it would be cole, solas, varric, dorian. The devs don't like that kind of immersion breaking where you are cutting open your hand to cast a spell right next to a former templar and two devout andrastians.
fuck, writing this makes me want to do a knight enchanter playthrough
Thanks for the info, I didn’t know about the devs saying that. It makes a lot of sense though.
Dread wolf sounds like it’s going to be lit, I’ve always felt like rebellions against magic users are under explored in fantasy. Like, if some people can harness the power of creation it would make sense for class divisions t o split along those lines.
Yeah honestly its probably a reaction to dragon age 2. Its a game about the templar mage conflict and if you play a mage you spend the whole time running around in wizard robes and a magic staff talking to templars telling you to report any suspicious people. You can also do blood magic with a party consisting of an active templar, an andrastian choir boy, and the captain of the guard. It's very B movie funny.
Tevinter is going to be a big part of it and their concept art for it looks incredible! I'm really excited for those stories. I love killing slavers.
My expectations are so high for it. Like, EA has given them such a long leash and the DLC that came out for inquisition was so good. It seems like they've been given what they need to make something really great. According to some leaks they are making big changes to the combat system though. Apparently its (recent) god of war style combat with mass effect style party control. It'd be the first time the studio has done anything like it in a very long time, and I'm concerned it will be a drain on the project.
That’s certainly…creative. With the current crog renaissance I kinda hope they don’t go further in on making it an action game, but getting something brand new is nice as well.
And as you said, killing slavers rules. Maybe if they also have GoW tier brutality the action elements can synergize with that.
It would also be cool to see how they incorporate roguery into such a combat system.
And yeah, you’re right it makes sense to remove it. It would be cool though if you had to convince your companions not to ditch you./actually turn against you. It would probably generate gamer rage if Leliana dumps them though.
Yeah its a renaissance but the funny thing is that when the devs of the CRPG games get successful they instantly switch it up to reach a bigger audience. The pillars and tyranny devs are doing it with avowed, bioware has been actionifying dragon age. The ones who have been sticking to the CRPG formula have also slowly been shifting to turn based focus. Real time with pause combat is sorta this middle ground that I think will give way to games focusing on crunchy tactics gameplay, owlcat and inixile, and the ones that push closer to action, bioware. Its like how traditional RTS games split into mobas and 4x/grand strategy.
I actually think that inquisition did a great job with the combat. Trespasser added an additional, swapable, skill upgrade for every skill in the game and it makes it so much better. You can pump the difficulty up really high with the trials system and I quite enjoy it.
Play the pillars games after this! The first one has a rough first 10 hours and combat I don't really like but the story is great. The second one has a worse story and companions but my favorite crpg combat ever, gorgeous art and stellar worldbuilding. The combat has such beautiful math, like, its so pretty. The story is about colonialism, environmentalism, different economics systems clashing, and faith. And you can just sorta land your ship on slaver island and kill all of the slavers and now theres no more (chattel) slavery :)
Yeah I'm pretty unsure about those leaks because how do you make mages and warriors and rogues all fun while moving towards action? Like if they add a parry system how would mages interact with it? In elden ring playing a mage is either roflstomping everything or running and hiding and spending 10 minutes killing 3 people. All it has going for it is the wizard power fantasy and the resource management.
Lmao love taking away the waifu. It'd be great if they saved it to the character file instead of the save file so that save scumming couldn't bring her back. Roll a new character boyo.
People talk about how its such a shame that there aren't more different endings to games because of time and budget constraints, especially for sequels, but things like companions that only follow you on certain playthroughs would be just as cool. Like, imagine if you had to choose between Jowan, Wynne, and Cullen depending on your choices in the circle tower. Or if the second of the new Dwarven king joins your party after. That sorta stuff would be great. The owlcat pathfinder games actually do this pretty well but I've never been as passionate about them. A spinoff game about apostates that deals more directly with blood magic as a central theme would be cool.
I see what you mean. perhaps I’m reaching a bit on this, but I’ve never considered RTwP to be a fundamentally necessary aspect of the genre (more a set of conventions that existed during a golden age that are treated as genre). Like, Larian and Owlcat give me huge amounts of hope for rpg games made for ttrpg enjoyers which is kind of how I’ve viewed the spirit of “crpg” as a genre.
pillars
Loved those games
The combat has such beautiful math
This goes above my head, buts sounds like it’s super interesting.
Yeah I’m pretty unsure about those leaks because how do you make mages and warriors and rogues all fun while moving towards action?
That’s partly why I find it exciting. I love it when a studio charges head on against a design challenge. Even if it fails, it’s interesting to examine the why and how afterwards. If it works, they’ve progressed the medium.
saved it to the character file instead of the save file
Diabolical
companions that only follow you on certain playthroughs would be just as cool
Agreed. In BG3 it’s highly likely there is going to be a companion lock of some sort after act 1. We only have ancient dev diaries and some vague hints towards from data mining, but that might actually happen based off what we know so far.
A spinoff game about apostates that deals more directly with blood magic as a central theme would be cool.
I don’t think there’s been an attempt aside from Tyranny to tell a serious story about having a villain protagonist.
This could be an awesome to tell a story of a tragic villain. Like, the character starts as a hunted newly awakened mage who just wanted to be free or something. Have the wise old person character be a blood mage who saves them from the templars and go from there.
I really wished that I liked larian and owlcat's games more, they just feel kinda hokey to me. Maybe the reason I prefer Pillars and Dragon age is that they are more like novels in terms of storytelling than like ttrpgs. It makes sense that they are the ones that are moving towards action given that they feel more like stories than like adventures.
math
Basically attack rolls are all contested and miss/graze/hit/crit is based on the difference between the two rolls. Additionally each attribute point contributes to things relevant to every character because each contributes to at least 1 of 4 defense stats. The way everything fits together on every roll is incredibly satisfying. There is no part of the combat system that can be disregarded, no mechanics that certain characters ignore, its just very neat.
combat
I mean theoretically a fantasy action combat system with mass effect style companion control sounds fucking excellent so I hope they stick the landing
BG3
I haven't tried it yet since I didn't like divinity too much. The artstyle and vibe were off for me. Maybe when its out of early access I will. Do you like it?
blood magic
I would love it if they were put into a situation where the only way to escape was to use blood magic and so they swallow their pride and do it. But then in the future there was an opportunity to avoid using blood magic, de-escalation, lyrium, leverage/negotiation, but they don't see it. Watching them grapple with either the regret or the burden of the violent world they have created for themselves would be extremely good storytelling. Then they meet a butch lesbian ex templar who promises to protect them if they promise not to use blood magic and they have gay sex
Maybe the reason I prefer Pillars and Dragon age is that they are more like novels in terms of storytelling than like ttrpgs
You might really like owl cats “rogue trader”. I pirated the alpha and there are parts of the game that genuinely felt on par with a novel. Better than most actual 40k novels.
There is no part of the combat system that can be disregarded
I think I see what you mean now. The cohesive and “greater than the sun of its parts” aspect of this is really cool.
BG3
I cannot emphasize enough just how apparent the love for the tabletop is when playing this game. When it releases I fully expect it to be received as a masterpiece of translating between mediums. The writing is good too.
blood magic
Kinda reminds me of spec ops the line, but tbh the protection part sounds kinda…coercive? It would be cool though to have a Templar or ex Templar who runs cover because they are emotionally bonded in some way. The conflict between their indoctrination as a Templar and their own loved experiences is rich with potential.
Thats great actually, I had completely written it off I'll look into it more now. BG3 too
blood magic
I guess in my head that story turned out that the blood magic was hurting the apostate. And that the no more blood magic, I'll protect you instead, was a loving thing. Though I'm completely neutral on blood magic in the games as written, all thats bad is that some people need to learn it from demons, and consorting with demons ain't great. The real story is that blood is essentially just a substitute for lyrium and the chantry controls the lyrium trade. Presumably templar abilities also don't work on blood mages because templars gain their powers from the lyrium that the chantry gives them. That they are addicted to. The chantry's entire power, everywhere besides tevinter, is completely dependent on the control of lyrium. They are the only ones aloud to buy and move it and they get their muscle hooked on the stuff. Its brilliant and blood magic ruins fucking all of it.
So the real blood magic story is it's power to destroy the chantry. If we ever get another blood mage companion it probably means the chantry became evil. This might just be a fan theory thing though because while materially this makes total sense the game usually approaches blood magic with pure ideology :zizek-preference:
Honestly though what we learn about blood magic in inquisition, it weakens connection to the fade, might be what keeps blood magic on the periphery. I think the fade will continue to be important and one of the specializations in inquisition is literally rift mage.
Cutting open your hand mid combat to shoot a fireball will always be dope though.
thanks for the tips, human noble revenge saga was pretty goated in origins, but so was city elf.
What’s your opinion on blood mage in inquisition? In origins it really fit those “apostate anti-cleric” vibes
I loved those origins too, the dwarf ones were great but those two gave you the most story connection.
You learn some interesting things about blood magic lore wise in inquisition but there is no blood magic spec. You can't really be the leader of a chantry organization while doing the worst sin in the book. Rift mage, knight enchanter (arcane warrior), necromancer are the 3 specs. The necromancer spec is terrible and not that fun, but knight enchanter is literally ancient elvish magic so its the best for being full elfy. I haven't actually played it though, I did rift mage for my 1 mage playthrough. I thought it was neat and thematic and the animations and mechanics are great.
Dragon age 2 has a blood mage companion and a blood mage spec for hawke. Killing templars as a bloodmage in 2 is neat.
It's unlikely there will be a blood magic spec in Dreadwolf. The devs have said that they don't like the bloodmage option because realistically using it would draw enormous attention and its too much work to do that honestly. We might get a blood mage companion again, but I'd say that's unlikely. It's heavily implied by this point that there is no elf blood magic tradition. It's mostly a tevinter thing or an apostate thing. Dreadwolf is going to be a very rah rah fight the power game, based on leaks, and so any tevinter we get will be against the magisters and therefore unlikely to use blood magic.
We could get an apostate blood mage but I mean think about how many characters would just leave the party if someone was doing blood magic. Like, shale, morrigan, sten are probably the only ones who would stick with a blood mage in origins. In dragon age 2 only merill, varric, isabella. The whole inquisition would fall apart if you were a blood mage but the only companions who would tolerate it would be cole, solas, varric, dorian. The devs don't like that kind of immersion breaking where you are cutting open your hand to cast a spell right next to a former templar and two devout andrastians.
fuck, writing this makes me want to do a knight enchanter playthrough
:freeze-gamer:
Thanks for the info, I didn’t know about the devs saying that. It makes a lot of sense though.
Dread wolf sounds like it’s going to be lit, I’ve always felt like rebellions against magic users are under explored in fantasy. Like, if some people can harness the power of creation it would make sense for class divisions t o split along those lines.
Yeah honestly its probably a reaction to dragon age 2. Its a game about the templar mage conflict and if you play a mage you spend the whole time running around in wizard robes and a magic staff talking to templars telling you to report any suspicious people. You can also do blood magic with a party consisting of an active templar, an andrastian choir boy, and the captain of the guard. It's very B movie funny.
Tevinter is going to be a big part of it and their concept art for it looks incredible! I'm really excited for those stories. I love killing slavers.
My expectations are so high for it. Like, EA has given them such a long leash and the DLC that came out for inquisition was so good. It seems like they've been given what they need to make something really great. According to some leaks they are making big changes to the combat system though. Apparently its (recent) god of war style combat with mass effect style party control. It'd be the first time the studio has done anything like it in a very long time, and I'm concerned it will be a drain on the project.
That’s certainly…creative. With the current crog renaissance I kinda hope they don’t go further in on making it an action game, but getting something brand new is nice as well.
And as you said, killing slavers rules. Maybe if they also have GoW tier brutality the action elements can synergize with that.
It would also be cool to see how they incorporate roguery into such a combat system.
And yeah, you’re right it makes sense to remove it. It would be cool though if you had to convince your companions not to ditch you./actually turn against you. It would probably generate gamer rage if Leliana dumps them though.
Yeah its a renaissance but the funny thing is that when the devs of the CRPG games get successful they instantly switch it up to reach a bigger audience. The pillars and tyranny devs are doing it with avowed, bioware has been actionifying dragon age. The ones who have been sticking to the CRPG formula have also slowly been shifting to turn based focus. Real time with pause combat is sorta this middle ground that I think will give way to games focusing on crunchy tactics gameplay, owlcat and inixile, and the ones that push closer to action, bioware. Its like how traditional RTS games split into mobas and 4x/grand strategy.
I actually think that inquisition did a great job with the combat. Trespasser added an additional, swapable, skill upgrade for every skill in the game and it makes it so much better. You can pump the difficulty up really high with the trials system and I quite enjoy it.
Play the pillars games after this! The first one has a rough first 10 hours and combat I don't really like but the story is great. The second one has a worse story and companions but my favorite crpg combat ever, gorgeous art and stellar worldbuilding. The combat has such beautiful math, like, its so pretty. The story is about colonialism, environmentalism, different economics systems clashing, and faith. And you can just sorta land your ship on slaver island and kill all of the slavers and now theres no more (chattel) slavery :)
Yeah I'm pretty unsure about those leaks because how do you make mages and warriors and rogues all fun while moving towards action? Like if they add a parry system how would mages interact with it? In elden ring playing a mage is either roflstomping everything or running and hiding and spending 10 minutes killing 3 people. All it has going for it is the wizard power fantasy and the resource management.
Lmao love taking away the waifu. It'd be great if they saved it to the character file instead of the save file so that save scumming couldn't bring her back. Roll a new character boyo.
People talk about how its such a shame that there aren't more different endings to games because of time and budget constraints, especially for sequels, but things like companions that only follow you on certain playthroughs would be just as cool. Like, imagine if you had to choose between Jowan, Wynne, and Cullen depending on your choices in the circle tower. Or if the second of the new Dwarven king joins your party after. That sorta stuff would be great. The owlcat pathfinder games actually do this pretty well but I've never been as passionate about them. A spinoff game about apostates that deals more directly with blood magic as a central theme would be cool.
I see what you mean. perhaps I’m reaching a bit on this, but I’ve never considered RTwP to be a fundamentally necessary aspect of the genre (more a set of conventions that existed during a golden age that are treated as genre). Like, Larian and Owlcat give me huge amounts of hope for rpg games made for ttrpg enjoyers which is kind of how I’ve viewed the spirit of “crpg” as a genre.
Loved those games
This goes above my head, buts sounds like it’s super interesting.
That’s partly why I find it exciting. I love it when a studio charges head on against a design challenge. Even if it fails, it’s interesting to examine the why and how afterwards. If it works, they’ve progressed the medium.
Diabolical
Agreed. In BG3 it’s highly likely there is going to be a companion lock of some sort after act 1. We only have ancient dev diaries and some vague hints towards from data mining, but that might actually happen based off what we know so far.
I don’t think there’s been an attempt aside from Tyranny to tell a serious story about having a villain protagonist.
This could be an awesome to tell a story of a tragic villain. Like, the character starts as a hunted newly awakened mage who just wanted to be free or something. Have the wise old person character be a blood mage who saves them from the templars and go from there.
I really wished that I liked larian and owlcat's games more, they just feel kinda hokey to me. Maybe the reason I prefer Pillars and Dragon age is that they are more like novels in terms of storytelling than like ttrpgs. It makes sense that they are the ones that are moving towards action given that they feel more like stories than like adventures.
Basically attack rolls are all contested and miss/graze/hit/crit is based on the difference between the two rolls. Additionally each attribute point contributes to things relevant to every character because each contributes to at least 1 of 4 defense stats. The way everything fits together on every roll is incredibly satisfying. There is no part of the combat system that can be disregarded, no mechanics that certain characters ignore, its just very neat.
I mean theoretically a fantasy action combat system with mass effect style companion control sounds fucking excellent so I hope they stick the landing
I haven't tried it yet since I didn't like divinity too much. The artstyle and vibe were off for me. Maybe when its out of early access I will. Do you like it?
I would love it if they were put into a situation where the only way to escape was to use blood magic and so they swallow their pride and do it. But then in the future there was an opportunity to avoid using blood magic, de-escalation, lyrium, leverage/negotiation, but they don't see it. Watching them grapple with either the regret or the burden of the violent world they have created for themselves would be extremely good storytelling. Then they meet a butch lesbian ex templar who promises to protect them if they promise not to use blood magic and they have gay sex
You might really like owl cats “rogue trader”. I pirated the alpha and there are parts of the game that genuinely felt on par with a novel. Better than most actual 40k novels.
I think I see what you mean now. The cohesive and “greater than the sun of its parts” aspect of this is really cool.
I cannot emphasize enough just how apparent the love for the tabletop is when playing this game. When it releases I fully expect it to be received as a masterpiece of translating between mediums. The writing is good too.
Kinda reminds me of spec ops the line, but tbh the protection part sounds kinda…coercive? It would be cool though to have a Templar or ex Templar who runs cover because they are emotionally bonded in some way. The conflict between their indoctrination as a Templar and their own loved experiences is rich with potential.
Thats great actually, I had completely written it off I'll look into it more now. BG3 too
I guess in my head that story turned out that the blood magic was hurting the apostate. And that the no more blood magic, I'll protect you instead, was a loving thing. Though I'm completely neutral on blood magic in the games as written, all thats bad is that some people need to learn it from demons, and consorting with demons ain't great. The real story is that blood is essentially just a substitute for lyrium and the chantry controls the lyrium trade. Presumably templar abilities also don't work on blood mages because templars gain their powers from the lyrium that the chantry gives them. That they are addicted to. The chantry's entire power, everywhere besides tevinter, is completely dependent on the control of lyrium. They are the only ones aloud to buy and move it and they get their muscle hooked on the stuff. Its brilliant and blood magic ruins fucking all of it.
So the real blood magic story is it's power to destroy the chantry. If we ever get another blood mage companion it probably means the chantry became evil. This might just be a fan theory thing though because while materially this makes total sense the game usually approaches blood magic with pure ideology :zizek-preference:
Honestly though what we learn about blood magic in inquisition, it weakens connection to the fade, might be what keeps blood magic on the periphery. I think the fade will continue to be important and one of the specializations in inquisition is literally rift mage.
Cutting open your hand mid combat to shoot a fireball will always be dope though.