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More on healing in Dragon Age: Inquisition

posted Oct 10, 2014, 9:30 PM by Princess Stabbity   [ updated Oct 10, 2014, 9:31 PM ]
Patrick Weekes has a great post on the forums explaining the change to in-game healing:


As we have shown and announced more of the gameplay features in Inquisition, some of our fans have voiced concerns about one feature in particular: the removal of healing spells from the game. Luke Kristjanson gave an excellent explanation of our designers' reasons for making this change, but because folks are still concerned, I asked if it would be helpful to give my perspective as someone who is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a hardcore tactical expert. Someone who is, many people would say, DIFFERENTLY COMPETENT in his play style. Someone who heard the initial plan to remove healing magic and went, "What, no, I need that for my healths and stuff, why are you doing this?"

Read the entire post



Random thoughts:
  • Reactions are quite mixed; some are looking forward to the change and some hate it
  • From the reasons they've stated as to why the change was made, it sounds like this change may be permanent - i.e., no more playing a healer going forward in the franchise
  • I've seen it suggested that they (Bioware) are trying to turn Dragon Age into Mass Effect with swords.
    • Along those lines, it would certainly make sense for them to do this to a degree*. They'll probably be coding the next Mass Effect in Frostbite and many of the underlying mechanics of the game would be easier for the developers if they were already coded or could be shared. After Mr. Weekes' explanation, I don't see much difference between healing potions and medi-gel, so perhaps they are trying to make development faster/easier by coding some things between the two games the same.
*To a degree as long as they don't feel the same between the 2 games. If I feel like I should be expecting Collectors around the corner when I come up to a table-full of medi.. healing potions before a boss battle in Inquisition, I'm going to be a bit peeved.