Dragon Age 2

[alanschu]

Last I heard FF exists on at least Nightmare. I'll confirm on Monday.

[sorophx]

I am only playing on normal difficulty though (on a personal level I don't necessarily care for combat being "difficult" or "challenging" for the sake of it. I like combat to be fun so I rarely feel a need to crank up difficulty levels in games). As a result I don't have any experience with how friendly fire is or how difficult the game is on Nightmare.

can the difficulty be switched back to normal, say, mid-game, or it can't be changed once you choose it at the start of the game?

[Niten_Ryu]

Last I heard FF exists on at least Nightmare. I'll confirm on Monday.

 

Hopefully it does.

 

I think developers think too much about balance in general without never reaching it (outside some rare exceptions like Starcraft and such). Usually casual players are ok with easy difficulty, where they really can't die unless they go afk or something like that. More advanced players do know what's best difficulty (and settings) for 'em.

 

So far the only game I've seen with GOOD difficulty sliders was Silent Storm Sentinels. In that game you could adjust sliders in several different categories. For example I found out that best setting for me was that both enemies and my characters do x2 damage. Just basic difficulty increase (like seen in Infinity engine D&D games) would just allow enemies to do more damage. Reason for this is simple, this made combat more dangerous for both sides. Enemies would still have the advantage because of the there's simple more of 'em but at the same time it meant that I wouldn't spend full clips of bullets to kill one mob.

[Monte Carlo]

I am only playing on normal difficulty though (on a personal level I don't necessarily care for combat being "difficult" or "challenging" for the sake of it. I like combat to be fun so I rarely feel a need to crank up difficulty levels in games).

 

Fair enough, each to his own, but Gaider's comments suggest that those of us who prefer not to pay thirty-five quid for a screen-saver are out in the cold.

[sorophx]

that's, what, 70 euro? oh boy...

[Gorth]

that's, what, 70 euro? oh boy...

Yeah, oh boy, that's dirt cheap. I paid $110 for DA1 plain vanilla version (that's 82 EUR and 109 USD)

[sorophx]

highway robbery

[HoonDing]

NWN 1 & 2 didn't have FF on normal difficulty, and in case of these games this was truly a blessing considering the amount of horribly tedious dungeon crawling.

[Enoch]

I think Gaider's response is a bit dodgy, because it pre-supposes that all the character abilities and encounter design are set in stone.

 

Friendly Fire only has huge effects on difficulty if a lot of classes feature core abilities with AoE damage/incapacitation, and if the majority of your combat gameplay is going to consist of "being outnumbered by weaker enemies." It's not that hard to imagine a team-based tactical RPG where the decision whether to make party members immune to party-cast AoE abilities or not wouldn't have all that much effect on overall difficulty. (It would be a very different game from DA:O, but possibly different in a good way-- the repetitive crowds of generic mooks were not a high point of my experience in Ferelden.)

[alanschu]

I think developers think too much about balance in general without never reaching it (outside some rare exceptions like Starcraft and such). Usually casual players are ok with easy difficulty, where they really can't die unless they go afk or something like that. More advanced players do know what's best difficulty (and settings) for 'em.

 

To be fair, I find most games consider combat balance to be not so much "is it fair for both/all sides" but rather, is it set up in such a way that it is enjoyable for our players. I love a game like Jagged Alliance 2 and Silent Storm, but they are also very different beasts from pretty much every BioWare game from a tactical combat point of view. Even Baldur's Gate pales in comparison if you want to compare its combat system to Jagged Alliance 2 (Baldur's Gate strength lies elsewhere).

 

When we "balance" the game combat for a game like DAO, we do have high level goals very much like the one that you describe, where Casual is something that should be completable with the user simply doing auto attacks, with normal requiring the active use of player abilities and occasional use of party members (on the console version anyway), and so forth. I am not involved with the content playtesting decisions so I don't know what our balance metrics are like, but our goal with balancing is to make the combat fun for our game players. We aren't able to please everyone unfortunately. Not every game is going to be loved by everyone though.

 

So far the only game I've seen with GOOD difficulty sliders was Silent Storm Sentinels. In that game you could adjust sliders in several different categories. For example I found out that best setting for me was that both enemies and my characters do x2 damage. Just basic difficulty increase (like seen in Infinity engine D&D games) would just allow enemies to do more damage. Reason for this is simple, this made combat more dangerous for both sides. Enemies would still have the advantage because of the there's simple more of 'em but at the same time it meant that I wouldn't spend full clips of bullets to kill one mob.

 

A game like Silent Storm, in my opinion, exists purely for the combat. I will say that if you're hoping for anything resembling a tactical experience like Silent Storm, you will be disappointed with DA2 and pretty much every BioWare game that has existed, before or after. Note that I am also of the mind that much of Baldur's Gate's tactical combat isn't a great example of tactical combat either. A lot of what I like about BioWare games is also the story, character interactions, and so forth. They seem to do a good job of having a good synergy that makes me think the game is a lot of fun, even if not each individual aspect is exceptional.

 

 

can the difficulty be switched back to normal, say, mid-game, or it can't be changed once you choose it at the start of the game?

 

The game difficulty can be changed at any time.

 

 

It's not that hard to imagine a team-based tactical RPG where the decision whether to make party members immune to party-cast AoE abilities or not wouldn't have all that much effect on overall difficulty.

 

I agree which is why I don't think friendly fire is essential to a good tactical game. Based on the first few hours of gameplay, however, there are plenty of opportunities to take advantage of AOEs in DA2 and flipping FF on/off will make several encounters play out differently.

[Niten_Ryu]

A game like Silent Storm, in my opinion, exists purely for the combat. I will say that if you're hoping for anything resembling a tactical experience like Silent Storm, you will be disappointed with DA2 and pretty much every BioWare game that has existed, before or after.

 

You misunderstood. My example with the Silent Storm Sentinels wasn't about tactical depth of that game (it certainly have that) but the fact that Nivel took a leap of faith and put some trust into more experienced players. Actually Baldur's Gate series (or any AD&D infinity engine game) could have used the similar difficulty sliders rather then offering (only) fixed set of difficulty levels.

 

ie like this.

Friendly fire

0%----50%----100%

Monster hitpoints

50%----100%----200%

Monster damage

50%----100%----200%

Player damage

50%----100%----200%

Allow saves

Never(aka ironman, saves once you exit the game)-only resting-outside combat-always

Hitpoints per level

Random-50% or higher-75% or higher-Max

 

Baldur's Gate would still work the same way as it does now but players would have more options how the want to play the game.

[entrerix]

i would LOVE it if more games had these options

[Nihilus5078]

i would LOVE it if more games had these options

 

+1

[Maria Caliban]

So they're removing a feature because someone, somewhere might be stupid enough to accidentally flip the switch and not know how to flip it back, thus ruining his easy setting..?

 

That must be a joke.

 

They haven't removed any feature. FF is tied to difficulty. Just like DA:O.

 

Also there seems to be some consternation over the newly revealed White Drizz't character -

Once slave to a Tevinter magister, Fenris was altered: lyrium was burned into his flesh, its magic both stripping his memory as well as changing him forever. He became a living weapon, and eventually used his power to escape his chains. Now he finds himself in a strange land with no friends—and a former master that refuses to let him be.

Because there is apparently a fantasy writer named Joe Ambercrombie who featured in his work a character who was turned into a living weapon by magic tattoos he had. His name was, you guessed it, Fenris.

 

Fenris the Feared. The eight-foot tall half-devil killing machine who was dug out of a mountain and resurrected by a witch. Superhumanly strong, invulnerable to pain, and has strange twitches.

 

He's more Black Whirlwind than elf boy.

Edited December 19, 2010 by Maria Caliban

[Maria Caliban]

I don't even want to know what the Lady Crimsons of Bioboards think of him...

 

They adore him.

 

[Hassat Hunter]

FF is tied to difficulty. Just like DA:O.

I must have missed that.

 

Then again it was generally 0% even at Nightmare for me...

[WorstUsernameEver]

DA:O had FF for most difficulties though, not only for Nightmare. So there was a change.

[MacMichael]

DA:O had FF for most difficulties though, not only for Nightmare. So there was a change.

 

I think it depended on platform. It had FF for most difficulties on PC, but I think it only had FF for one of them on the consoles.

[WorstUsernameEver]

DA:O had FF for most difficulties though, not only for Nightmare. So there was a change.

 

I think it depended on platform. It had FF for most difficulties on PC, but I think it only had FF for one of them on the consoles.

 

Damn console peasants.

[Monte Carlo]

I don't even want to know what the Lady Crimsons of Bioboards think of him...

 

They adore him.

 

 

 

:: Projectile Vomits ::

 

That's it, I'm out of here. It is Twilight. It's disappeared down a vortex of emo wierdness.

[Maria Caliban]

It's Twilight because

[Slowtrain]

emo wierdness.

 

 

It's made BW (and many unrelated others) a lot of money though.

 

Emo wierdness is a big draw.

[MrBrown]

Hasn't Bioware been catering to this crowd since BG2? What's there to be surprised now?

[Slowtrain]

BW stopped making games for tabletop grognards and D&D geeks a long time ago. Which is probably why they are still in business

[Nihilus5078]

I don't even want to know what the Lady Crimsons of Bioboards think of him...

 

They adore him.

 

 

That actually was sort of funny.