Dragon Age 2

[Majek]

No no no. DS saving scheme was perfect. If you **** up you have to do it again. If you have to quit midlevel, when you come back you start where you left with only those enemies you left. All that was part of the appeal, NO CHANGE FOR THE WEAK AND INCOMPETENT. grrrrrr

 

It's combat wouldn't work in DA2, it would work in Dungeon Siege or Risen or games like that. :D

Edited December 24, 2010 by Majek

[Orogun01]

The alien ventilators, which are not very serene, are located in Doucheland.

Have you any idea of how wrong that was?

[Pidesco]

So the Codex tells me friendly fire will be disabled in DA2 in all difficulty levels except the hardest. Mostly because they think the majority of DA players can't handle a toggle in the options menu.

[alanschu]

It's more that it'd take time to implement and test at this stage (rather than having it accounted for earlier), and to implement this from nothing means not spending time on other stuff (from both a QA and programming perspective).

 

It's not as simple as just adding in a toggle in the options menu, and with us already being in various stages of content lockdown the resistance on changing something like this becomes accented.

[Nepenthe]

So the Codex tells me friendly fire will be disabled in DA2 in all difficulty levels except the hardest. Mostly because they think the majority of DA players can't handle a toggle in the options menu.

I'm pretty sure alanschu already explained the thing here. But hey, we retread everything else, so why should DA2 friendly fire be different.

[entrerix]

but the initial decision to take out friendly fire was because it was decided that people were too stupid to figure out how it worked?

[Pidesco]

It's more that it'd take time to implement and test at this stage (rather than having it accounted for earlier), and to implement this from nothing means not spending time on other stuff (from both a QA and programming perspective).

 

It's not as simple as just adding in a toggle in the options menu, and with us already being in various stages of content lockdown the resistance on changing something like this becomes accented.

 

The point is that such an option should should have been a part of the development of DA2 before content lockdown was that far along. I'm assuming DA2 is a tactical RPG in the fashion of the Infinity engine games like DA was, of course. If the gameplay isn't in any way tactical then it doesn't really matter.

[Thorton_AP]

Just as a note, such an option has never (as far as I know) existed in any BioWare game. Including the IE games.

[Pidesco]

What? It was there in every single one of the Infinity engine games, and in DA too.

[Thorton_AP]

Ah sorry, I was referring to a toggle option (since it seemed that was what you were referring to).

 

Also, for DAO consoles, Normal did not have FF and it was only set to 50% on the PC.

[Gromnir]

the franchise is clear not heading in a direction Gromnir woulda' preferred, but one can see how all sorts stoopid accommodations and changes has been deemed necessary to "improve" da2. am imaging that w/o a genuine overhead tactical pov, friendly fire becomes much more difficult to avoid w/o some cumbersome micromanagement. 'course that brings up the question o' the removal o' tactical pov, which not make much sense unless it is a resource saving or performance improving change, no? these seeming counter-intuitive changes is not being contemplated independent, which is a good thing... sorta.

 

the problem is the overall direction o' the franchise. am personally afraid that da is following a similar path as did mass effect. heck, is not as if mass effect had particularly complex gameplay mechanics, so the simplification and streamlining that occurred in mass effect 2 were hardly a positive from our perspective. nevertheless, bioware seems to believe that making mass effect character development mechanics relative meaningless were an improvement. combat in mass effect 1 were mindlessly repetitive, but games such as diablo has proven that such brain-numbing grinds can be addictive to a large % o' potential gamers. is da gonna adopt mass effect combat simplicity while removing character complexity in the name o' streamlining?

 

yeah, bio will wants us to be able to make meaningful in-game choices, but am much concerned 'bout the streamlining o' tactical combat and character development choices.

 

...

 

whenever a developer tells us what were REAL important in da, we begins to shudder... makes us fear for what is to come in da2.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Thorton_AP]

Skinner boxes ftw?

 

 

(Reference)

[sorophx]

yeah, bio will wants us to be able to make meaningful in-game choices, but am much concerned 'bout the streamlining o' tactical combat and character development choices.

they took their inspiration from AP, clearly.

[Tigranes]

Friendly fire linked to difficulty is not a huge problem in itself, because Bioware combat is normally fairly pedestrian on anything lower than Hard and if you're wanting challenging tactical combat you're probably playing on something with FF anyway. It's Gaider's faux pas talkin about people being too stupid for FF... to be honest, it really seems as if the camera restriction & FF restriction go hand in hand.

[Nepenthe]

Friendly fire linked to difficulty is not a huge problem in itself, because Bioware combat is normally fairly pedestrian on anything lower than Hard and if you're wanting challenging tactical combat you're probably playing on something with FF anyway. It's Gaider's faux pas talkin about people being too stupid for FF... to be honest, it really seems as if the camera restriction & FF restriction go hand in hand.

Yeah, it's linked to the camera and more importantly, it's linked to the console versions and the more limited control you have over your party members - and probably also to the idea that they're ramming down our throats, that you don't HAVE to control other party members, unless you want... I never played with FF on, mostly because I didn't find combat enjoyable in the same way I found it in, say, BG1-2 (and did most of my playing on the subpar PS3 version, it was a bit more fun on the PC, though).

[sorophx]

the idea that they're ramming down our throats, that you don't HAVE to control other party members, unless you want...

that's what worries me the most I bet by the time DA3 is announced, this feature will get removed altogether (controlling your whole party, that is)

[Nepenthe]

the idea that they're ramming down our throats, that you don't HAVE to control other party members, unless you want...

that's what worries me the most I bet by the time DA3 is announced, this feature will get removed altogether (controlling your whole party, that is)

Nah, since everything is the worst case scenario, the world will have ended before that, anyway.

[sorophx]

haha, no! I think they'll manage to release DA3 before december 2012

[Crazy Tuvok]

Yeah, it's linked to the camera and more importantly, it's linked to the console versions and the more limited control you have over your party members - a.

 

Nonsense. I played DA on a console with friendly fire on and w/o the quasi-iso POV and FF worked fine and added quite a bit to the tactics of combat, limited as they may have generally been. I applaud the notion of having these things on toggles, but removing them altogether and adding insult to injury with the justification given - absurd.

[Nepenthe]

Yeah, it's linked to the camera and more importantly, it's linked to the console versions and the more limited control you have over your party members - a.

 

Nonsense. I played DA on a console with friendly fire on and w/o the quasi-iso POV and FF worked fine and added quite a bit to the tactics of combat, limited as they may have generally been. I applaud the notion of having these things on toggles, but removing them altogether and adding insult to injury with the justification given - absurd.

Well, I played DA on a console and found the scheme a general pain in the ass. YMMV, but your opinion is like an ****, sir.

[Thorton_AP]

Yeah, it's linked to the camera and more importantly, it's linked to the console versions and the more limited control you have over your party members - a.

 

Nonsense. I played DA on a console with friendly fire on and w/o the quasi-iso POV and FF worked fine and added quite a bit to the tactics of combat, limited as they may have generally been. I applaud the notion of having these things on toggles, but removing them altogether and adding insult to injury with the justification given - absurd.

 

Friendly fire isn't removed altogether. It's still available on Nightmare difficulty.

 

Unless your specific grievance is that friendly fire has been removed from the "Hard" difficulty, you still had to change from the default difficulty in order to enable Friendly Fire on the consoles.

[Azure79]

What the? I just learned that warriors can't dual wield weapons in DA2.

 

My favorite character was a warrior with a nice mix of dual wield and sword/shield talents. He was great at dealing out massive damage when surrounded and dealing with tougher enemies solo.

 

drats

[sorophx]

I guess Bio thinks that's too much to handle for the average gamer

[Azure79]

I don't mind too much actually. I just preferred the dual wield warrior in DA because the 2 hander looked ludicrously slow and sword and shield warrior by itself wasn't too interesting to play.

 

I always thought two handers should be hitting multiple enemies with every strike and strike faster but for less damage. I thought sword and shield fighters should have the option of using their shields offensively with every strike in tandem with their weapon. Kinda of like bash with shield to daze or knockdown enemy followed by a sword strike that is automatically a critical.

[Nepenthe]

I guess Bio thinks that's too much to handle for the average gamer

I think that they've just figured out that a certain group of people will whine no matter what they do, so they start targeting brain-dead kids instead.

 

See, it's all YOUR fault for being little whiners!