Dragon Age 2

[Tigranes]

The only thing that made Shale worthwhile was that he was actually a cooler NPC than most of the vanilla ones.

 

The whole idea of "free DLCs" and "free but conditional DLCs" really annoy me though.

[entrerix]

shale was a bit different, the game came with shale no matter what (unless you bought a used copy and someone had used the code already). DA2 is requiring you to preorder the game MONTHS in advance to get all the npc characters (not to mention they haven't even identified who or what the "bonus" character is)

 

i was holding my tongue about this because I assumed they would provide a torrent of information about all this by the time january rolled around, so everyone would have plenty of time to make their preorder decision before the 1/11/11 preorder deadline.

 

now that such date is rapidly approaching I'm not seeing any new information.

 

i guess I could preorder at gamestop and cancel it if the game gets bad reviews, but the whole affair sucks imo

[Thorton_AP]

I enjoyed this:

 

dual-wield builds are more challenging usually. you can't tank at all and have to work on your damage output and hate control instead. this is how I like to play RPGs.

 

Followed by:

 

DW gave far more damage than all other weapon combo's in DA:O

 

Good times.

 

 

This is awesome stuff btw. New game with new skills, but obviously since if Dual weilding was removed from DAO, it'd make the game easier (or harder???) as a warrior, so therefore DA2's warriors are obviously the suck.

[entrerix]

i agree with thorton.

 

new game new skills. though to get rid of confusion maybe they should have renamed warriors "fighters", rogues "thieves", and wizards "wyzzaaardssss!!!"

[Thorton_AP]

Wizards are called facerollers

[sorophx]

I think this isn't about making warrior easier or harder, or whatever. my issue is it takes from the game's variety. it's taking the CRPG back 20 years. when warrior was strictly a tank class, thief - damage-dealer, priest - healer, mage - well, mage was teh suck.

 

I ask Bio, what about choices? what about customization? it's a game after all, not an interactive novel! but there's no answer.

 

I'd rather play Witcher/Two Worlds 2, where there's no party, no customization whatsoever. but at least you get to play this one char the way you like. still better than having to control four handicapped Geralts.

[Maria Caliban]

DA2 is requiring you to preorder the game MONTHS in advance to get all the npc characters

I don't believe this is the case.

 

I do believe BioWare/EA's marketing department is deliberately misleading people on this manner.

 

If you look at what the Signature Edition offers, it is: '$20 of bonus content for free.'

• Bonus character and quests
  
• Game soundtrack
  
• Exclusive in-game armory featuring digital weapons
  
• Additional downloadable items
  

 

Only one thing on that list is 'exclusive.'

 

We know that like all EA games, DA 2 will have to have day one DLC that is free with a new copy of the game. My assumption is that, like Shale and Zaeed, it will be the bonus character.

 

I think this isn't about making warrior easier or harder, or whatever. my issue is it takes from the game's variety. it's taking the CRPG back 20 years. when warrior was strictly a tank class, thief - damage-dealer, priest - healer, mage - well, mage was teh suck.

 

I can't believe anyone who played BG 2 would think that mages 'sucked.'

 

I'd rather play Witcher/Two Worlds 2, where there's no party, no customization whatsoever. but at least you get to play this one char the way you like. still better than having to control four handicapped Geralts.

 

You've answered your own question. In the Witcher and Two Worlds, you play a single character. There's no need for a class based system because it's fine for your character to be able to do everything. In DA 2, you play a party of 4. If you pick a warrior PC, then if you want the experience of playing a rogue or mage, you have to take along rogue or mage companions.

 

Moreover, they don't want warriors and rogues to play the same, which is what happens when they share weapon trees.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Maria Caliban

[alanschu]

Yup, no dual-wielding (DW gave far more damage than all other weapon combo's in DA:O), and the "leveling up weakens your armor" mechanic discussed in the previous topic because warriors had too much armor and that was giving troubles for BW apparently.

 

The way the armor works in DA2 is that a higher level hostile will be able to better penetrate an identical armor value than a lower level character.

 

So if you have 100 armor rating and it absorbs 20% damage against a level 1 creature, it may only absorb 15% damage against a level 2 creature. We have a GUI that reflects this change on the attributes and equipment screens. However, if you bump into a level 1 creature, even though the GUI now says "15% reduction" because you've reached level 2, the level 1 creature will still see 20% of its damage reduced.

 

So leveling up doesn't reduce the effectiveness of your armor. A level 4 creature will always have X% damage reduced against Y armor, regardless of the player level.

 

 

I think this isn't about making warrior easier or harder, or whatever. my issue is it takes from the game's variety. it's taking the CRPG back 20 years. when warrior was strictly a tank class, thief - damage-dealer, priest - healer, mage - well, mage was teh suck.

 

Warriors do not need to be strictly a tank class in DA2. Two-handed weapons can be quite powerful, especially if used in conjunction with other abilities (from both the warrior and the other party members in group).

 

 

As for "mage = teh suck," I almost universally find the opposite to be true. With the exception of low levels, mid to high level mages invariably ruled combat since they could possess the ability to instantly kill a target. Especially dating back to 20 years ago where the only improvements warriors would see is a reduction in THAC0 while mages got increasingly powerful abilities.

Edited January 4, 2011 by alanschu

[sorophx]

I was talking about older games, where there's not enough room to put paladins, barbarians, rangers, what have you. so they all had to be replaced by a single "warrior". as for mages, I remember playing both DarkSun games, and I don't remember mages being any good.

[MrBrown]

Just commenting on stuff mentioned in the last few pages.

 

 

I think WoW-style aggro-management is Teh Future for RPGs with real-time combat. It just brings a wealth of tactical options games like the IE or NWN games didn't have. Certainly, it's not very realistic, but RPGs tend to be so abstracted anyway, I'm surprised people have a problem with this at all.

 

Now, in turn-based combat, something like the positioning of combatants would work, but I doubt it'd work in games with real-time combat. Especially if the player is expected to control all the characters.

 

 

 

As for DA:O, it was a mess. Half the abilities were bugged or didn't work the way the game said they would, and the most effective builds were often very counterintuitive. Awakening fixed some things, but also created more weird stuff. I kinda hope Bioware has cut the amount of abilities, since they seem to be unable to QA the amount DA:O had. I'd really prefer to learn to play the game by playing the game, not by reading about the actual workings online.

Edited January 4, 2011 by MrBrown

[Gromnir]

am confused. maybe am reading the posts wrong, but has dw been removed from the warrior skillz/powhaz/whatever? that would be... odd. the rogue class were a mistake from the start and 'stead o' adding material to makes the class genuine unique the developers will now resort to taking away from the other classes? figures. sword and board warriors is powerful and simple to play. the 2-h warrior, if is not altered overmuch from the da:o variety, is a glass cannon that can be rewarding to play, but is not a particular effective tank. but what is the rationale for dw removal? *snort* no doubt the biowarians will claims that the essence o' warrior gameplay has been preserved with 2-h and sword and shield, just as removal of true strategic overhead did not kill essence o' strategic gameplay as long as free camera movement were retained.

 

oh, and mages did suck in the original d&d... and in the d&d that immediately followed. is the reason why powergamers invariably played elves (original) or fighter/mages 'stead o' vanilla mage. am doubting that more than a couple o' folks here played the original whitebox edition o' d&d, and the next incarnation weren't much improved. to get to 5th level, the point at which your mage could finally cast a fireball spell, required Many hours o' dedicated gameplay... hours spent during which you were always an encounter away from death. at level 1 you could cast one friggn' spell, after which you were relegated to using your sling in support for much o' the remainder o' a typical adventure. at what level were a mage genuine fun to play? between 6 and 8 were our opinion, and we rare met somebody who had played such a character with the necessary loyalty and dedication.

 

if folks is talking of original crpg incarnations o' the mage... well that is a different issue altogether. a weekend of gaming could gets a hardcore player well past the prolonged larval stage o' the d&d mage. that being said, da mages is NOT anything like old skool d&d mages... 'less bio has changed something else while we were not looking. am wondering how many other "improvements" will be made via removal o' da:o features.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited January 4, 2011 by Gromnir

[Thorton_AP]

if folks is talking of original crpg incarnations o' the mage... well that is a different issue altogether. a weekend of gaming could gets a hardcore player well past the prolonged larval stage o' the d&d mage.

 

In almost every CRPG I've played (most goldbox games, based on AD&D and beyond had mages that were ridiculously powerful once they got past the earlier levels. The martial classes needed copious amounts of magical gear to keep up, whereas mages could fling their death while naked. Though I suppose I should restructure mages with "spellcasters" in general.

 

It is a different issue, but Sorophx's point was about setting CRPGs back 20 years when mages were the suck, so I think it was always about CRPGs.

[Gromnir]

if folks is talking of original crpg incarnations o' the mage... well that is a different issue altogether. a weekend of gaming could gets a hardcore player well past the prolonged larval stage o' the d&d mage.

 

In almost every CRPG I've played (most goldbox games, based on AD&D and beyond had mages that were ridiculously powerful once they got past the earlier levels. The martial classes needed copious amounts of magical gear to keep up, whereas mages could fling their death while naked. Though I suppose I should restructure mages with "spellcasters" in general.

 

 

am not sure what is the point o' the naked comparison... 'less there were a game forced you to play naked for a substantial period o' time. is very few rpgs/crpgs that ignore equipment.

 

even so, the crux o' the debate remains in the portion quoted as you seem to recognize that mages became powerful "once they got past the earlier levels." dual-class characters in bg and bg2 were also disproportionately powerful, but they were necessarily gimped for a substantial portion o' the game. the gimp stage were no doubt why we never saw a dual-class character in pnp, but they were endemic in bg and bg2. is arguable that d&d mages in the crpgs you mentioned were "teh suck" if for no other reason than that they had a development period of many gaming hours.

 

d&d mages were the result o' very poor design. made no sense whatsoever to build a class that were lame at lower levels, and strong at extreme levels... prohibitive levels save for in a crpg wherein the player actually played a party o' characters and could advance through levels relative quick.

 

nevertheless, if soro wishes to suggest that d&d crpg mages never became powerful in early d&d crpgs, then we would take exception. in most crpgs, d&d mages eventual became quite powerful, after some considerable hours of "teh suck."

 

btw, it is amazing that the biowarians, who started from scratch with their rules, built a mage with many o' the same flaws as d&d mages: weak at initial levels, but prohibitive powerful at high levels. am suspecting that the biowarians were more concerned with meeting gamer expectations than they were with building a better mage... which is understandable if a bit disappointing.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Hassat Hunter]

The whole idea of "free DLCs" and "free but conditional DLCs" really annoy me though.

Wait? Free DLC is ridicilous? What about Heart of Winter? UT Bonus packs? BG2 vendor(s)? Morrowind bonusses?

It's PAYED DLC which is utterly ridicilous. Especially if you have to pay $7,- to get the same amount of content that was free before (see Oblivion-Morrowind).

The way the armor works in DA2 is that a higher level hostile will be able to better penetrate an identical armor value than a lower level character.

So, then what is the difference from the Armor penetration stat from DA:O? I was made to believe this was different (than again there have been so many explenations I kind of lost track). And if it works as you said (xx% neglected) do we get the inevitable situation of lvl 30 foes doing 80% neglectance, with 500% damage compared to their lower leveled foes, making mince-meat out of tanks since the only thing they were good for got neutrilised by this 'system'? Sure sounds like it to me, I surely hope this isn't the case.

I guess it can't be as bad as Awakening throwing lvl 10 darkspawn to my lvl 35 party though (worst... endgame... ever).

So leveling up doesn't reduce the effectiveness of your armor. A level 4 creature will always have X% damage reduced against Y armor, regardless of the player level.

While this certainly sounds good I hope they did fix the levelscaling issues of DA:O and Origins then.

[Enoch]

Just commenting on stuff mentioned in the last few pages.

 

I think WoW-style aggro-management is Teh Future for RPGs with real-time combat. It just brings a wealth of tactical options games like the IE or NWN games didn't have. Certainly, it's not very realistic, but RPGs tend to be so abstracted anyway, I'm surprised people have a problem with this at all.

 

Now, in turn-based combat, something like the positioning of combatants would work, but I doubt it'd work in games with real-time combat. Especially if the player is expected to control all the characters.

From a practical point of view, I expect that you're right. But I don't have to like it.

 

To be fair, my perspective is apparently a bit odd in the present marketplace-- I like a Pause-able Real-Time system that expects that every player will use the pause function liberally. (I'm even odd in the niche marketplace, in that I think such a system is clearly superior to most turn-based systems for small-group combat.) As I detailed above, threat management just strikes me as inherently ridiculous, and wholly inferior to even a rudimentary system based on tactical positioning. But developers all seem to be operating under the assumption that gamers don't want to use pause functions these days, so it seems that this "aggro"-based nonsense is the best that we're going to get.

 

 

Also, Grom is correct that, in a pen and paper D&D game, playing as the mage in the party generally sucks for a very long time. (I'm not quite the ol' timer he is, but this was still true in 2E AD&D.) Unless your DM is rather generous with the non-monster-based XP awards, it can take many months of weekly sessions where your character's contribution is nothing more than a couple sleep spells and some sling/dart attacks that miss 75% of the time. CRPGs gloss over this (with good reason) by either letting you control the whole party or by accelerating level advancement rapidly at the start of the game.

Edited January 5, 2011 by Enoch

[alanschu]

And if it works as you said (xx% neglected) do we get the inevitable situation of lvl 30 foes doing 80% neglectance, with 500% damage compared to their lower leveled foes, making mince-meat out of tanks since the only thing they were good for got neutrilised by this 'system'? Sure sounds like it to me, I surely hope this isn't the case.

 

 

I believe there was a post by Peter Thomas that indicated that the decision to do armor this way was to prevent a need for enemies to do a ridiculously high amount of damage.

 

In DAO, the only way to consistently damage a late game character fully decked out in armor was to increase the damage by a lot by late game monsters. What this meant was that creatures that do NOT have a ton of armor (rogues and mages) were exceptionally vulnerable to taking huge hits and getting one shotted.

 

In DA2, higher level foes have less % of their damage absorbed, but it doesn't impact rogues and mages quite as extensively. If something does 100 Damage, the warrior could go from taking 30 damage to 40, while the rogues and mages could go from taking 65 to 70. (Hypothetical numbers). Rogues and Mages are still more vulnerable, and with some updated gear all classes will return to their previous mitigation levels.

 

Note that the same effect applies to other values like attack (chance to hit) and defense (chance to receive only a glancing hit/miss). Though these values are more based on attributes instead of gear.

[Hassat Hunter]

You could also just give warriors less ridiculous high armor values (48+12 I had for my warrior at the end I believe), and improve armor penetration (the patch even did this). Both lowering this risk of warrior's overpowered armor, and not at all additionally damaging wizards and rogues (20 damage and 40 AP against 30 armor did 20 damage, not 30).

 

I know; too much sense, eh?

 

We'll see if this change actually fixes the issue, since from what I can see DLC and overpowered items (Return to Ostagar, Stone Prisoner and Soldier's Peak were just giving away OP items) were the only reason it was in DA:O in the first place, so I wouldn't be surprised if it sneaked back in...

[Gromnir]

ps

 

can somebody clarify our possible misconception re: dual-wield warriors. will warriors in da2 be able to acquire dw powhaz as they did in da:o?

 

...

 

the irony o' such a silly "improvement" would render karzak apoplectic.

 

 

"To be fair, my perspective is apparently a bit odd in the present marketplace-- I like a Pause-able Real-Time system that expects that every player will use the pause function liberally."

 

when the bio developers first started in with their "spiritual successor" stuff regarding bg2 and da:o, a key attribute were 'sposed to be strategic combat... combat that would allow and encourage pause. am not certain what happened at bio or in the market to change the game's direction. da:o were seemingly commercial successful, so the shift away from traditional strategic elements is unfortunate.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited January 5, 2011 by Gromnir

[Tigranes]

The whole idea of "free DLCs" and "free but conditional DLCs" really annoy me though.

Wait? Free DLC is ridicilous? What about Heart of Winter? UT Bonus packs? BG2 vendor(s)? Morrowind bonusses?

It's PAYED DLC which is utterly ridicilous. Especially if you have to pay $7,- to get the same amount of content that was free before (see Oblivion-Morrowind).

 

The free DLCs - in terms of how they are designed, how they are distributed, and what kind of terminology is used, are part of the DLC structure that the industry is pushing as The Future. After all, if you want to sell people paid DLCs, doesn't it make sense to give people a free one so they get interested?

 

Heart of Winter was an expansion pack, by the way. Of course there's been 'special bonuses' to games for a long while now, and arguably the Collector's Edition is a similar mechanism for sales. It's more about how it's all coming together.

 

btw, I don't really remember how aggro worked in DAO, but what was so different about it, other than the prioritisation system discussed, from previous single player RPGs? How is WOW-style aggro different from, say, IE-style?

 

(I thought the Shout system implemented by various IE mods is the way to go, honestly. First refine the current largely LOS-based aggro/alert system to include sound, especially in first person RPGs; second, implement a basic threat assessment / enemy personality system that determines whether the alerted enemy calls for help, charges or flees. Of course, a proper Shout system would have huge implications on level/encounter design for CRPGs as they stand.... you couldn't just populate one room after another willy nilly.)

[Oblarg]

I don't buy this DLC trend. If you have enough extra content that you deem it worth selling, sell it as an expansion pack.

[sorophx]

In DAO, the only way to consistently damage a late game character fully decked out in armor was to increase the damage by a lot by late game monsters. What this meant was that creatures that do NOT have a ton of armor (rogues and mages) were exceptionally vulnerable to taking huge hits and getting one shotted.

I don't see this as an issue it only makes sense that a 10-foot tall ogre should one-shot my mage with a constitution of whooping 20 points. makes for a more meaningful combat experience, a little initial planning, strategy, protect the mages, use every rogue's skill available to keep him alive.

 

but that would mean designing better encounters on BioWare's part, instead of sending waves of enemies 3-4 times bigger than the party. so, yeah, I can see why they decided to change whatever it is they're changing.

 

I'm beginning to think Gromnir is right, Bio's goal is to cut corners as much as possible and just milk their player-base.

Edited January 5, 2011 by sorophx

[Orchomene]

If mages and rogues are taking too much damages in end game is because of a design issue or playing issue :

- if you play a rogue, you shouldn't be a frontliner and should carefully hide and attack only if there is an opportunity to do it without retaliation.

- if you play a mage, you should have defense/hide buffs to avoid being targeted. It's done well in D&D with contengencies, protect from magic weapons, immunity, spell absoption, stone skin, ...

In DAO, mages were to offensive oriented with few exceptions (and one big exception being a speciality) and rogues were lacking stealth in combat and unable to flee proporly from battle.

Increasing penetration or decreasing armor based on level has the same effect of lowering the interest of armor, in my opinion. The potential balance issue I can see is that the rogue will become the true fighter (dex based to avoid being touched, dual wield weapons, high damage bonuses).

 

About free DLC, the goal is clearly to avoid second hand market. Next logical step would be like some professional softwares : you buy a nominative licence that allows you to download the product and can't sell this licence at all without exceptional agreement of the company that sells this licence.

[Hassat Hunter]

Heart of Winter was an expansion pack, by the way. Of course there's been 'special bonuses' to games for a long while now, and arguably the Collector's Edition is a similar mechanism for sales. It's more about how it's all coming together.

I was talking about Trials of the Luremaster. My bad...

[alanschu]

You could also just give warriors less ridiculous high armor values (48+12 I had for my warrior at the end I believe), and improve armor penetration (the patch even did this). Both lowering this risk of warrior's overpowered armor, and not at all additionally damaging wizards and rogues (20 damage and 40 AP against 30 armor did 20 damage, not 30).

 

I know; too much sense, eh?

 

It is pretty much what has been done. Higher level enemies have increased armor penetration. It just isn't managed with an "armor penetration" stat specifically.

 

The problem with your solution is it makes armor values for rogues and mages irrelevant because we need to crank the armor penetration up so high to combat warriors that armor for other classes are just clothes that possibly hold stat buffs on them. In our case, armor for rogues and mages will still provide some form of damage mitigation, and that a piece of armor with a higher armor value will also result in some increase in mitigation, whereas in your solution that is possibly not the case.

Edited January 5, 2011 by alanschu

[Hassat Hunter]

Well, there could be damage migation too (recently played Awakening getting my UCE), actually DA:O already had this (defense and armor).

 

Warriors would be pure armor (con; Armor penetration). Rogues/Wizards can't rely on that so they would have to go defense (lower values, but no offense against). They have barely any armor, but then again, that's the point of fighters, no?

 

Of course fighters got both in DA:O which is why the damage had to be so hightened.

 

Oh well, we'll see if the DA2 method works as should.