sorophx

oh wow, they brought a localized version btw, he says they did a very bad job with this, missed a lot of dialogue, in some menus the game doesn't recognize cyrillic characters and shows blank spaces instead of text. you can set the game to auto-heal you in the options, using the type of potions you specified. he's complaining they dumbed down the role-playing aspect of character progression, it looks like each attribute determines only one ability, for example STR affects your damage and that's it. in the skill-tree squares are hubs, sort of, main abilities, that determine the possible path for advancement, diamonds (or rhombuses, w/e) represent active abilities, circles - passive, hexagons - abilities, that require stamina/mana to be kept active. in the demo each class had access to 3 skills, the other were blocked prompting you'd need to reach lvl 20 to gain access to them. warriors get shields with accompanying abilities (shield bash, block and something called "squall"), two-handed weapons and a mode called "battlemaster" which is has stun and knockback. mages have elemental magic (fireball), spirit magic (spirit bolt) and arcane magic (crushing prison and mindblast). rogues get two-weapon fighting, debilitation and subterfuge. in game you have one button for attacking and the other 3 you can assign abilities to. there is a possibility to make your character auto-move to a location through the radial menu. at the beginning your whole party is lvl 10 (it's a combat tutorial of sorts). when you defeat the orcs and ogres, the game jumps to the dialogue between Warric (or w/e his name is) and Cassandra, there it explains that it was Warric's version, Cassandra makes him tell her the actual events . the game then lets you choose the name for your character, his/hers appearance, once you're done it sets your lvl to 1 and you get to replay the whole combat sequence. that bold chick is actually Hawke, if you had any doubts the dialogue menu is exactly like in ME2. your companions don't have slots for mitts, boots, helmets and so on. maybe they will have whole sets. anyway, the party capacity is 4 character + escorting characters (you get two of these in the demo, effectively making the party pretty big). in conclusion the reviewer talks about his impressions. the controls are horrible. the combat is fairly hard. it's a button masher, but playing as a rogue gives you hard times, because he's fairly weak, you need to use your abilities all the time. he got wiped and had to kite the Ogre with his only character - the mage. he praises the voiceovers. overall he liked the demo.

okay, I'm convinced, I started a new game on Hardcore/Very Hard, but now I'm gonna delete that char and replay on Very Hard instead, I'm gonna really gimp my char for combat, gonna leave Guns/Energy weapons at lvl 1 numbers for the whole game, make END very low, we'll see how it goes

says you, who thinks taht Jade Empire had a brilliant combat system

where the hell is this Deathclaw heaven? I couldn't find it following the instructions on the FOWiki

that's what made it so good. because in TW you don't have a party to control. Bioware is fiddling with stuff they can't handle

hm, I don't remember it being that different. maybe the enemy AI in X-Com is a lot worse, I don't recall. but the only big difference as far as I can remember is the possibility to conserve action points in JA2 thanks to the integrated role-playing system. oh, and being able to go prone

the console version was that bad? wow, I didn't realize there was such a big difference in combat...

I agree, very good. I enjoyed playing it. that's why I can't understand what was behind the decision of DA2 going action. Bio is obviously way behind other 3rd-person action games with their rendition.

I didn't say they're small in numbers. all I'm saying is they're obviously a little behind the NCR when it comes to combat efficiency. but that doesn't matter really since this whole conversation was about how the Legion doesn't play a big enough part in the game. I stand by my opinion, they weren't supposed to from the start.

I don't see your point since in BG you point and click and control up to 6 chars simultaneously, and that's it. in DA2 you have to control one character at a time, you have to move around manually, deliver each hit manually, and when you're at it, the rest of the team is controlled by AI. it's like Boo said, almost like in FFXII, only that game had layers upon layers of complexity in combat.

only FFXII actually had a very good combat system Volo, you're exaggerating. BG combat was completely different, because you weren't fighting, you were commanding units. comparing DA2 to BG is like comparing, I dunno, Castlevania to Starcraft2

how could you, C? isn't he the love of your life? a very cold hearted thing to do

looks awful not even remotely resembling The Witcher. like a bad attempt at a button masher, Darksiders comes to mind

the NV's Legion is composed from a couple of tribes, remember what Enclave did to Arroyo? and what happened then? the NCR pretty much wiped Navarro. Caesar's Legion didn't stand a chance against the NCR's war machine in a direct confrontation.

Veteran Rangers wear it, they spawn around a couple of NCR forts when you're of a high enough lvl. or you can wait for the mission to watch over the president at the Dam, these guys will be escorting him.

they're still just a bunch of slavers. organized, yes. in FO2 you'd wipe the floor with slavers and even if you joined Metzger and his gang, the only thing you'd get was a lousy tattoo. I think the Legion is supposed to play the same role in NV, the game is more about the Strip and it's independence from the NCR, since even the ver. 1 securitrons are able to keep the Legion at bay, I believe.

I would've never thought this was even debatable, but of course some people never seize to amaze me

who else is in that faction?

ha, took it right out of my mouth seriously though, X-Com (or UFO, w/e) has got to be the best TB-game and one of the best games of all time, JA2 is small time compared to this mammoth)

I finished Veronica's quest without replacing the originial Elder

what if you help the other guy, that Paladin, become Elder?

I think, somebody here mentioned that if you are on very good terms with the BOS and have high speech, it is possible to resolve the situation peacefully, don't take my word for a fact though

what?! no way... *googles*

exactly. there's a couple of quests at camp Golf, and Hoover Dam is the end-game area (but it does have a small optional quest a bit sooner)

that would be nice