Dragon Age 2

[Volourn]

"This isn't an MMO, classes don't need to be balanced."

 

And, thank god for that. Balanced classes are a sure sign of poor development. Mages should NOT be the equal of fighters and rogues. They use friggin' magic. I'm sorry but anyone who thinsk someone who uses swords should be the equal of someone that CREATE fire out of NOTHING are just silly and not thinking logically.

[Enoch]

Balanced classes are a sure sign of poor development.

 

Ah, Volo. Never change.

 

[Spider]

I have played the demo now as well. Here are some thoughts:

 

The base of the combat was actually pretty fun. The animations are dramatic and the feel of it all is pretty cool (playing as a Rogue).

That being said, the camera was atrocious. For starters, since it's locked on your character, whenever you use something like backstab, it jumps around a bit and finding your character gets confusing. The same is true when you take control over another character.

Second, the zoom level made it really hard to get a grasp of what was going on in the battlefield.

 

The main problem with all this is that it felt like controlling your companions felt like a chore in this game. It was confusing at best and really annoying at worst. Now this doesn't have to be a bad thing, since I played through both Mass Effects without ever issuing orders (almost anyway), but here I imagine it could be. For instance, the difficulty level was much too easy, which means upping the difficulty. That turns on friendly fire, and all of a sudden I'm not sure I like my companions very much anymore. AOE spells look kinda scary at least. But if the game is not challenging I'm not interesting.

 

I didn't mind the new graphics style, it fit the new feel of the game better than the old style would.

 

All in all, the demo delivered a better game experience than I thought, but worse than I would have liked. An unlockable camera would have helped me a lot (even if the zoom levels stayed the same), even if only unlocked during combat. As it is, I'm awaiting opinions from players who have the full game, because this wasn't enough to convince me to get the game, at least not at full price.

[Enoch]

IIRC, friendly fire is only on when the difficulty is at the highest level. You can raise it above "normal" and still be fireball-immune.

[Spider]

I thought that was console only? On PC isn't friendly fire on at all difficulties above normal?

 

I did play DA:O on nightmare though, so that's what I'd like to do here as well.

[Majek]

I forgot, i hate they made the sister die if you choose to be a mage. :/ I like her more than the annoying brother. Feels like OBSs Handmaiden/Apprentice thing in KOTOR2. I hope there'll be a mod to change that.

[Tale]

I thought that was console only? On PC isn't friendly fire on at all difficulties above normal?

 

I did play DA:O on nightmare though, so that's what I'd like to do here as well.

DA2 only has FF on Nightmare, period.

[sorophx]

The "press a button and sth awesome happens" design philosophy can really be noticed

wait, what? unless I'm missing something, no, no it can't. nothing happens when I "press a button", just like in DAO the character engages the selected enemy and proceeds to do his routine "attack 3 times and make a special attack that doesn't do any extra damage on fourth, repeat"

[Tale]

That reminds me of another annoyance. Auto-attacks are full fledged attacks.

 

Half the time I press a button for a special attack it does not happen because an auto-attack is occuring. VERY annoying.

[MrBrown]

I forgot, i hate they made the sister die if you choose to be a mage. :/ I like her more than the annoying brother. Feels like OBSs Handmaiden/Apprentice thing in KOTOR2. I hope there'll be a mod to change that.

 

 

I doubt the other one is going to live long either.

 

In any case, seeing as people are already complaining about this on the BIO boards, I'm sure there'll be a mod.

[Tigranes]

Nude Bethany + Bethany Companion Mod + Bethany Romance + Bethany Alternative Appearances Pack

[Tale]

Hot

 

I mean, what a bunch of sickos!

[Nepenthe]

Nude Bethany + Bethany Companion Mod + Bethany Romance + Bethany Alternative Appearances Pack

The Bethany stares at me the whole time mod... oh wait, I'm getting my forums mixed up.

[Serrano]

Balanced classes are a sure sign of poor development.

 

Ah, Volo. Never change.

 

 

It's true that in a single player game, and perhaps even co-op the focus ought to be on making all the classes fun rather than equal though.

[Lady Evenstar]

Is it just me or is the mage as overpowered as it was in DA:O or even more?

 

It probably depends on which spells you chose.

 

I wanted my Hawke to be a healer. Doing weak dps with my staff while waiting out the *60* second cooldown on my Heal spell was neither interesting nor OP. I can't imagine why they even unlocked the spell for the demo. It might be OK as part of a larger arsenal, but made for extremely dull gameplay at low levels.

[Gromnir]

am traveling, so we gotta make quick...

 

1) initial impression were that me2 looked better. we got no particular reason, just feelings. disappointed.

 

2) the cut-scene full vo dialogues, complete with dialogue wheel , were not a high point. is too little story being developed in the combat heavy demo we played to give a fair assessment o' story and dialogue writing, but the stuff we saw were almost campy... and am not thinking that were intended.

 

3) for a combat focused demo, we were enjoying the pc combat... good sign. we played all three classes, but not all approaches--played as a dw rogue, but not as an archer. gut reaction were that rogues is very effective combatants. sword and board makes for great tanks, but 2h were kinda underwhelming as we didn't see some marked damage increase to balance out the increased vulnerability. and mages... well, once the difficulty is turned up allowing for friendly fire, we suspect that mages is gonna be far less effective, particular 'cause o' the craptacular camera.

 

4) the camera sucks. absence o' tactical view makes this game feels more like a kotor wannabe than a da:o sequel. heck, we played xbox and pc version o' the demo and as we were not familiar with xbox controls (which seemed kinda awkward) all we did with the rogue were a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,x,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,b,a,a,a,a,a,a,a... had no idea what we were targeting half the time, but it didn't seems to matter. were better on the pc, but camera still made us feels like we were playing kotor rather than da.

 

5) played on a marginal pc, and performance were only noticeable bad during dialogues. go figure.

 

oh, and while balance is clear not as important in a sp game as is multi, it sure as hell ain't something to be dismissed. make all classes fun, not balanced. fine. but who wants to be playing the obvious gimped class? same goes for spells and weapons. includes dozens o' spells and abilities, but makes some clear more efficacious than others? results become obvious, and the ability to choose powers and abilities becomes a bit o' a joke. the developer goal should be to make equal fun, but not necessarily equal powered. 'course it should also be obvious that obvious overpowered or underpowered features or classes is making game less fun rather than more enjoyable. duh.

 

more thoughts later, but we gotta catch a flight.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Monte Carlo]

This callsign is playing BG2 and Alpha Protocol. He will not regret missing this game. Out.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Monte Carlo

[Maria Caliban]

Graphic comparisons.

 

 

 

Taken from here

[Jaesun]

You do know that DirectX 11 was not implemented in the Demo (even though you can select it). There was a post about that from the devs on the bio forums.

[Tale]

Is that from the demo? The link seems to claim so, but that location is not in.

 

Edit: Unless that's Hightown Night set for more light somehow.

Edit2: Ah, that is the full version.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Tale

[Maria Caliban]

"This isn't an MMO, classes don't need to be balanced."

 

And, thank god for that. Balanced classes are a sure sign of poor development. Mages should NOT be the equal of fighters and rogues. They use friggin' magic. I'm sorry but anyone who thinsk someone who uses swords should be the equal of someone that CREATE fire out of NOTHING are just silly and not thinking logically.

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 forgot, i hate they made the sister die if you choose to be a mage. :/ I like her more than the annoying brother. Feels like OBSs Handmaiden/Apprentice thing in KOTOR2. I hope there'll be a mod to change that.

If there is, it might take a while as the schism between the mage/non-mage sibling is apparently part of the story.

 

Half the time I press a button for a special attack it does not happen because an auto-attack is occuring. VERY annoying.

Indeed.

 

It's true that in a single player game, and perhaps even co-op the focus ought to be on making all the classes fun rather than equal though.

It's not fun to be obviously inferior in combat in a game that's probably 80% combat.

 

You do know that DirectX 11 was not implemented in the Demo (even though you can select it). There was a post about that from the devs on the bio forums.

Yes, I know that. But those images aren't taken from the demo that was just released.

[Volourn]

"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.

[WDeranged]

I don't see much in the Dx11 shot that Dx9 couldn't do, apart from tessellated floor and they could use parallax occlusion mapping for a similar effect, strange.

Edited February 23, 2011 by WDeranged

[Tale]

"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.

Missing the point, though. It's no stretch to come up with equal feats for swords that are every bit as fantastic and powerful as fire from nothing.

[Raithe]

Just the fighters don't have the quite so obviously mysterious/weird talents that mages do.. hell, even Rogues get that short-range teleport provided by Backstab... and the whole infinite supply of Miasmic Jars to throw around.

It's all about coming up with pseudo-rationale for amazing effects from skills.

 

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..