Dragon Age 2

[Monte Carlo]

LOL you are all trying to apply consistency and logic to an argument with Magickal Volo. R00fles!

[Enoch]

Besides, part of the balance between magic-users and non-magic users in rpg's has traditionally been the balance of at lower-levels the wizarding types don't have many spells and get their clocks cleaned if they get caught in melee. They don't get mega-death-dealery until the higher levels. So supposedly the balance is in the trouble of getting them to those levels..when compared with the sword-choppy-slashey-murder style of the warrior types who tend to get the benefits at earlier levels and start to lose out as you get higher..

Which is fine in a tactical party-based game-- managing the vulnerability of the mage and nurturing his/her development until they reach the pwnage stage becomes an interesting gameplay element. But in a game where the player identifies chiefly with one hero, it really sucks. (Note: it also sucks in a PnP setting where each player gets one character.) Wizardy types start off feeling useless, and end up plowing through enemies like a hot knife through butter. Non-wizardy types do fine early on, but spend the end parts of the game being upstaged by the casters.

 

 

(More on topic, demo downloading now.)

[Volourn]

Can't speak for DA2, but in DA1 the mage was eaisly killable in comaprison to warriors/rogues in physical combat. An ogre for example, could kill a mage in 2-4 hits no problem (barring any potential protective spells). That's how it is 'balanced'. A mage vs warrior one vs one would be quick in favor of the warrior unless the mage continually gets lucky with freezing type spells.

[pmp10]

Just the fighters don't have the quite so obviously mysterious/weird talents that mages do

That is a question of personal opinion.

I'm far less impressed by creating fire from nothing that say a localized earthquake or a explosive-strength shock wave.

[Labadal]

Played the demo on PS3 and while I didn't hate it, it is absolutely not a day one purchase for me. It didn't feel very tactical to me, but that might change for the final game. Played it like an action game, no use of potions or switching characters. Will wait for the inevitable Ultimate Edition.

[Maria Caliban]

"If I can slam a sword on the ground and knock people off their feet, it's obvious I'm no longer working within the constraints of what real world swordsmen can do. "

 

I never brought up 'real world' stuff since, afterall, magic doesn't exist in real world.

 

Okay. So if my warrior is breaking the laws of physics and my mage is breaking the laws of physics, why is my mage's lawbreaking inherently superior to that of the warrior?

 

If my mage can cast a fireball at a group of enemies, how about my warrior charges at them and knocks them all down for the same amount of damage?

If my mage can cast mind blast and daze a group, how about my warrior give a bloodthirsty cry and dazes them?

 

I see no reason why mages should be better just because they have magic. They might be better at some things because that's the strength for the class, but giving them the best damage, crowd controll, and buffs just because 'they're magic' seems to ignore all the obvious non-realistic stuff the game already lets the other classes do.

[Walsingham]

I hate mages, largely because of my character concept in Baldur's Gate. However, I can see why developers would prefer them.

 

This is quite simply because you can cram in boatloads of fancy graphics and animation without the tiresome business of interactions and joint animation which would go into one quarter of the display using swords and knuckles etc.

[Maria Caliban]

It also helps that it's tradition.

 

Can't speak for DA2, but in DA1 the mage was eaisly killable in comaprison to warriors/rogues in physical combat. An ogre for example, could kill a mage in 2-4 hits no problem (barring any potential protective spells). That's how it is 'balanced'. A mage vs warrior one vs one would be quick in favor of the warrior unless the mage continually gets lucky with freezing type spells.

 

You didn't download the demo yet? For shame, Volo!

[Gorth]

I hate mages, largely because of my character concept in Baldur's Gate. However, I can see why developers would prefer them.

 

This is quite simply because you can cram in boatloads of fancy graphics and animation without the tiresome business of interactions and joint animation which would go into one quarter of the display using swords and knuckles etc.

Nah, mages were invented to appeal to insecure teenagers with secret dreams of one day becoming more powerful than everybody else. Especially more powerful than the guys who gets all the girls. That will show them! (cf. 'Harry Potter fans' & 'Raistlin & Caramon')

[Enoch]

Demo crashed for me about 3 battles in. Hopefully it auto-saved at some point, as I didn't make any saves. Back to F:NV for tonight.

 

Kwik Impressions: Loading before/during cutscenes is annoying-- if this is actually in the final game, it's a pretty huge problem. ("Immersion" is a pretty meaningless term, but to the extent that it means something, this destroys it.) The transition from battle to the unintentionally hilarious "you will not have him" cutscene was quite jarring. (Also, remember when darkspawn blood was regarded as dangerous?) KotOR-Camera is annoying, but could be adequate if the game's level design caters to it (i.e., small battlefields). Dialogue so far is kinda funny-- everybody seems to be speaking as if they're having tea in Dashwood Manor instead of fleeing for their lives. The "aggressive" (or whatever the red gavel-insignia means) dialogue choices are the only ones that make any sense at all, given the circumstances.

[Maria Caliban]

While I liked the demo, I felt the two-handed warrior was the weakest of the classes. I started a thread on the various flaws I thought it had and how it didn't seem to 'fit' well into any party role. A number of other posters, many of whom like playing two-handed fighters in general, agreed with my assessment. Then Stan Woo replied and I thought I'd post it here in case anyone else had the same feeling after playing the demo.

 

Stanley Woo wrote...

 

Maria, I can sympathize with you. It wasn't too too long ago that the QA content team was doing playthroughs and combat balance testing. I was playing as a 2-handed warrior and felt much the same way you do, that 2-handed warriors are hardy enough and don't do enough damage and don't feel powerful enough. Several discussions were held with combat-specialized QA and bugs were filed. After more discussion, some changes were made to make the 2-handed warrior a more viable and fun class earlier in the game.

 

Now, while 2-handed warrior takes a little getting used to, as it's not the traditional superbad 2-handed warrior that you'd find in other games, it is far more useful early in the game, and warrior players have many options for speccing. Our QA lead min-maxed a two-handed warrior into doing ridiculously massive damage to the point of one-shotting boss creatures.

 

This may or may not make this class more fun for you, but it was a problem that I am confident we've addressed many of the concerns you've brought up and made the class more fun than what the demo shows. It is still a bit of a slow-starter class, though, as it doesn't have the shininess of mages or the speed of rogues.

 

YMMV.

[Tale]

It's hard to tell what's design and what's bugged in the demo.

 

I mentioned it in your thread on Bioware Social, but I was having survivability issues with Carver. Until I put a single point in cunning for him. His defense jumps from 5% to 50%. Absurd.

[LostStraw]

I took a mage the second time through the demo and picked up healing and one of the buff spells. It went rather horribly when I got to the ogre. The healing spell sucks (60 second cooldown...) and my cool mage sister with the only good damage potential in the group went and offed herself, leaving me along with two lame warriors who might as well have been swinging sticks. I used up all 6 of the health potions I collected earlier and barely survived with only two characters hanging on for dear life... on my third attempt

 

When I had gone with a bow rogue previously the battle was a breeze, same with an elemental mage on my third run through. I also had a lot of issues with the interface. It would constantly flicker and would often not respond to button clicks properly

[sorophx]

my elemental mage got his ass kicked the companions are just too stupid to take the ogre down on their own and fireball wasn't helping

 

Demo crashed for me about 3 battles in. Hopefully it auto-saved at some point, as I didn't make any saves. Back to F:NV for tonight.

afaik it doesn't autosave and there's no way of saving/loading manually.

[Maria Caliban]

I had Aveline solo the orge as Bethany and my PC (if rogue or warrior) ignored it and killed the darkspawn. With shield wall active, Aveline doesn't need you to cast heal on her.

 

I removed Bethany's auto-cast of fireball so she wouldn't use it too soon. The darkspawn will rush toward Aveline. When they're clustered around her, cast fireball, use a high damage melee attack from your PC, and then have Aveline use Taunt. They'll ignore Bethany and the PC then. Continue to auto-attack until fireball is off its cool down and hit them again. That killed the first wave for me without the PC or Beth being damaged.

 

In the demo, I opted to give Beth heal, fireball, and the passive increase to fire damage as it increases her auto-attack as well. I didn't put any points into her willpower but stuck it all in magic to give her more oomph. I never ran out of mana but if I did, there are always potions.

 

 

The rogue flask that causes dizziness is great to pick up. For THW, the passive Giant's Blow a more impressive damage booster than the text suggests.

[Azure79]

I liked it overall.

 

I ran into a few game crashing bugs, but putting everything on low settings seemed to solve it. I also have the slowdown in cutscenes problem. I hope these kinds of bugs have been ironed out in the shipped version.

 

I thought the combat was fun enough. I ended up using a lot of cross class combos like ice spells + mighty blow/scythe, mind blast/glyph of repulsion + shield bash/scatter. Overall I enjoyed the faster pace.

 

I didn't think the camera was that bad. I could pull back then adjust the height of the camera and it gave me an acceptable view of the battlefield.

 

The running animations ARE jolly. I laughed when I first saw Lady Hawke running.

 

I will be turning off the tactics when I play. After seeing Bethany launch a fireball into a crowd of nothing continuously, I will be using pause liberally while I give specific orders and place my spells exactly where I want them when I want them. I never felt the need for the tactics in DAO, and I don't see the need for them here, despite the faster combat pace.

 

I didn't much like the voiced PC or the dialog wheel. The voice acting seemed stilted and Bethany's voice was over-dramatic. This is my biggest annoyance.

[Maria Caliban]

Interview with Mike Laidlaw

 

Apparently, they found that quite a few people quit the game after about an hour or two, which is one of the reasons for the revamped intro where you go immediately into the story/action.

 

Art Nouveau: Dragon Age II

According to Matt Goldman, art director for BioWare's Dragon Age II, being generic was an actual design principle for the Dragon Age: Origins art team. While Goldman didn't direct the art department that worked on Origins, he's familiar with the instructions the former team was given: "Actually, the design creative was 'it's generic,' which isn't the most inspirational direction that you could give a team."

 

And the DA:O art team succeeded admirably.

 

As I understand it, it's more complex than that though as I know there were three project leads. First guy wanted a sort of 'Conan' feel, which why Ferelden was described as backwater and barbaric. The early concept art is from that time. Then they went to 'generic/LotR' style, which is where most of the work was done with the gothic plate and very earthy color tone. Lastly, Mike came on and wanted to make it darker, edgier, which is why you got the massive blood splatters, the blood dragon logo, the MM This is the New Sh*t theme, and the finishing animations. Mike has been the lead for all of DA II.

Edited February 24, 2011 by Maria Caliban

[Volourn]

"Nah, mages were invented to appeal to insecure teenagers with secret dreams of one day becoming more powerful than everybody else. Especially more powerful than the guys who gets all the girls. That will show them! (cf. 'Harry Potter fans' & 'Raistlin & Caramon')"

 

The same can be said for kewl knight/warrior types who tend to get the girls that mages tend not to.

 

 

 

 

"You didn't download the demo yet?"

 

Who claimed I didn't?

[Oblarg]

Just played through the demo - pretty ****ing dull. The dialogue wasn't especially bad by BioWare standards, but nothing particularly great, either. The framing story is as cheese-packed and cliche as they come ("HE'S THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!"). Tactics amounted to little more than right clicking on a target and hitting abilities when they came up - stamina/mana management was *never* an issue. Graphics were OK, I guess. The camera blows, though, and makes targetting a pain.

[Monte Carlo]

As I understand it, it's more complex than that though as I know there were three project leads. First guy wanted a sort of 'Conan' feel, which why Ferelden was described as backwater and barbaric. The early concept art is from that time. Then they went to 'generic/LotR' style, which is where most of the work was done with the gothic plate and very earthy color tone. Lastly, Mike came on and wanted to make it darker, edgier, which is why you got the massive blood splatters, the blood dragon logo, the MM This is the New Sh*t theme, and the finishing animations. Mike has been the lead for all of DA II.

 

And as they say, "a camel is a racehorse designed by a committee."

[Nightshape]

Interview with Mike Laidlaw

 

Apparently, they found that quite a few people quit the game after about an hour or two, which is one of the reasons for the revamped intro where you go immediately into the story/action.

 

Art Nouveau: Dragon Age II

According to Matt Goldman, art director for BioWare's Dragon Age II, being generic was an actual design principle for the Dragon Age: Origins art team. While Goldman didn't direct the art department that worked on Origins, he's familiar with the instructions the former team was given: "Actually, the design creative was 'it's generic,' which isn't the most inspirational direction that you could give a team."

 

And the DA:O art team succeeded admirably.

 

As I understand it, it's more complex than that though as I know there were three project leads. First guy wanted a sort of 'Conan' feel, which why Ferelden was described as backwater and barbaric. The early concept art is from that time. Then they went to 'generic/LotR' style, which is where most of the work was done with the gothic plate and very earthy color tone. Lastly, Mike came on and wanted to make it darker, edgier, which is why you got the massive blood splatters, the blood dragon logo, the MM This is the New Sh*t theme, and the finishing animations. Mike has been the lead for all of DA II.

 

See, what did I say?

[Kaftan Barlast]

So will there be 12-hour long mandatory dungeon crawls in DA2? I really loved the midget mines, totally did. It was like the best part of the game, it was so awesome I quit and uninstalled the game.

[sorophx]

afaik there are 6 locations in total + a bunch of plot dungeons

[Ice9]

But what concerns me more is I didn't see a buff bar anywhere.

Not sure what you're talking about.

 

You know in the first dragon age when you cast a sustained spell there would be a little icon that shows what is going on? I didn't see any of those. So if you wanted to check the status of a different character you had to manually switch characters to do so.

[sorophx]

I only remember spell icons staying highlighted for auras in mage's quickbar.