Dragon Age 2

[Tale]

yes, it is. because instead of customizing my 3 characters, that I want to follow me through the whole game, I'd have to switch them every time a different approach was needed. maybe that was BioWare's goal all along but I'm not sure if I'd want to play a party-based game in such a manner

 

Except it's only armor. The flexibility in weapon/rings/amulets is still there. Am I fighting X type of enemy? Change out the staff for a different damage type. Is it a longer fight, use more regen equipment. Are my characters not hitting enough, use +attack equipment.

 

Armor itself was never flexible enough to constitute a different approach to an encounter compared to character talents and stats.

Edited March 11, 2011 by Tale

[sorophx]

The flexibility in weapon is still there.

ugh, no? didn't someone already say every character had his own weapon type and could never switch from, say, dual daggers to a bow?

[Tale]

The flexibility in weapon is still there.

ugh, no? didn't someone already say every character had his own weapon type and could never switch from, say, dual daggers to a bow?

I didn't say weapon type. Weapons have various stats and some with special abilities. Edited March 11, 2011 by Tale

[Tigranes]

The point remains that every character is limited to a specific weapon type, including your own (since if your Hawke is a warrior, he can't into bows, cuz warriors SMASH THINGS). DAO was mainly a powergame looathon dungeon crawl for me and a lot of that goes away if half their gear, including their most important gear, is limited.

 

(btw, just reminds me... we shouldn't bash DA2 for "press A to win", it's going back to the great tradition of WRPGs... Ultima 7 )

[sorophx]

well, what I mean is; let's say, I need 3 ranged and one tank for a dragon fight. and this whole chapter I had characters, some of which can't use ranged weapons. do I turn back and go all the way to my camp to switch out members? or do I just resort to a tactic that involves shooting at a dragon with my mage for 40 minutes?

[Tigranes]

As expected, Bio/EA rescind the guy's game ban and argue it was all a mistake

 

So, does that mean their earlier policy quote, which says EA account bans do kick you out of the game altogether, is wrong? I doubt it. Good news for the guy though.

[Monte Carlo]

Tigs, the less-than-stellar reception this game is getting, for a Bioware title, means that this was a PR disaster and was all over the gaming-specific internet today.

 

Bioware have gone from kuddly kanadians to jack-booted corporate robocops in the space of eighteen months

[Tale]

well, what I mean is; let's say, I need 3 ranged and one tank for a dragon fight. and this whole chapter I had characters, some of which can't use ranged weapons. do I turn back and go all the way to my camp to switch out members? or do I just resort to a tactic that involves shooting at a dragon with my mage for 40 minutes?

Any encounter that requires you to have only a specific setup is a badly designed one. It's a jaw droppingly awful one. Like trying to describe an encounter in Mass Effect that requires three adepts.

 

In either type of system it's simply a bad encounter. In one system, if everyone can use bows, then how is it balanced for the quantity of people who actually use a bow well? Is it balanced so that all three ranged users must be competent ranged users (wtf nerf plox)? Or is it balanced so that none of them are competent (lolololol, easymodo)? Flemeth fight in DAO was remarkably easy with three ranged characters, but you'd want to bring your competent ones (Mages+Lel). Not switch Sten over to a crossbow. In the other system, you're forcing people to run back and forth from home base just to adjust party makeup.

 

Solution: don't have encounters like that.

Edited March 11, 2011 by Tale

[sorophx]

I didn't mean that setup would be required. but I think it would be awful to have to grind through different encounters with the same tactics, because the game lets you. I'd have to actually play the game, but I'm trying to imagine what would it have been if I had had the same 4 sets of abilities in the Deep Roads in DAO... and it's a nightmare

[MrBrown]

The weapon type restrictions don't really limit how you develop your character and companions that much, because the majority of abilities are in trees not restricted to a specific weapon type. The only major restriction really, is that Warriors don't have any ranged option.

[Oblarg]

And...BioWare actually didn't include auto-attack on the console versions.

 

Seriously, this is ****ing disgraceful.

[Jaesun]

I've been playing the game for a bit and I think it's been pretty disappointing for the most part quite honestly. However, I can also say that it is a game that does get a bit better the longer it goes on.

 

The real killer for me is definitely the encounter design which is a damn shame because the combat system is pretty fun if a bit too fast. The "spawn-waves" gets old *really* fast and you'll soon learn to anticipate just how and where the spawns are set-up. "Yeah, only a few enemies left in this wave which means it's time to move back to that passage I just passed through because the game will definitely spawn a few enemies there that will likely go after your mage." It gets old extremely quick which is a shame because encounters are frequent in the combat areas.

 

Another failed opportunity is Kirkwall itself. I loved the idea of a "city-adventure", and while the city looks pretty and has an interesting history to it, it ultimately feels extremely non-interactive and... not very interesting. Very little happens except that you'll get the occasional new quest NPC in the areas. It really needed more attention overall because you spend such a large amount of time in it.

 

The voiced main character is sorta ho-hum. I went with a female Hawke who mostly does the sarcastic thing, but most of the time the humor sorta falls flat. A lot of the wit in the game (and there is a fair amount of it) just sorta fails most of the time because it's just... not funny enough.

 

That said, some of the quests that aren't fed-ex quests (again, there are a fair amount of those) have interesting choices to them and I am interested to see how this will play out in the grand scheme of the game. I hope they will come through on the consequence thing because there is much potential there in terms of how the time-line moves forward. And I think that some of the quests *really* get the grey morality right. Some of them really did a good job of making me scratch my head a bit before choosing.

 

I never liked the direction they were taking with DA2 but the game so far has kinda failed even in the areas I really *were* looking forward to. So, pretty disappointed so far. But, like I said, I do feel the game is getting a bit better as I play more and more.

 

Thanks Starwars.

[WDeranged]

My inner darkling secretly hopes Bioware overreact to this fuss, Dragon Age 3 could be harder to control than a nuclear sub

[GreasyDogMeat]

For me, Dragon Age 1 was actually worse than NwN 1. It was playable, but a very uninteresting world that was trying to be D&D, but less interesting. That bugged me, because you visited the most generic uninteresting locations imaginable while you find Lore about exciting, bright and colorful locations and I'd ask myself: Why aren't we there instead of ****ing Fereldan?

 

So, for me, Dragon Age 2 is a huge improvement in that the location and story is much more exciting and colorful. It feels like they are actually trying to make the Dragon Age IP unique, and not such an obvious D&D clone replacing the good rules of D&D with MMO rules.

 

As a sequel, I don't think DA 2 is as good as ME 2. WDeranged Volo said exactly what I feel earlier in that I liked about 90% of the changes in ME 2, but for DA 2 I'm liking about 50%.

Edited March 12, 2011 by GreasyDogMeat

[WDeranged]

For me, Dragon Age 1 was actually worse than NwN 1. It was playable, but a very uninteresting world that was trying to be D&D, but less interesting. That bugged me, because you visited the most generic uninteresting locations imaginable while you find Lore about exciting, bright and colorful locations and I'd ask myself: Why aren't we there instead of ****ing Fereldan?

 

So, for me, Dragon Age 2 is a huge improvement in that the location and story is much more exciting and colorful. It feels like they are actually trying to make the Dragon Age IP interesting, and not such an obvious D&D clone but without the good rules of D&D.

 

As a sequel, I don't think DA 2 is as good as ME 2. WDeranged said exactly what I feel earlier in that I liked about 90% of the changes in ME 2, but for DA 2 I'm liking about 50%.

 

I felt like that during Origins, the world was generic, almost teeth pullingly dull, all the while you're picking up codex entries telling you about distant lands with far more hardcore **** going on, I was pretty glad to find out Kirkwall was a Tevinter city, character designs are a big step up too, now I can actually distinguish between attackers at a glance.

 

Volourn was the one who brought up the ME2 comparison btw, though I do agree with him, which is...odd

[aries101]

If you look at what Chris Priestly says

 

 

Here is my official response. You will likely see this picked up on news sites soon enough.

 

EA strictly enforces the code of conduct at Social.BioWare.com. If a player violates the rules by using profanity, they will be temporarily banned. Unfortunately, there was an error in the system that accidentally suspended a user's entire account. Immediately upon learning of the glitch, EA restored the user's macro account and apologized for the inconvenience.

(source: [url="http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to

[Humanoid]

Not read much about it outside here, but you're collectively giving the impression that the encounter design here channels World of Warcraft ....in 2005.

 

 

Now admittedly it's hardly a new thing to the franchise - the first ogre encounter in Origins some people thought cool, but for me all it did was provoke a change to easy difficulty which I didn't change back until I abandoned the game about 2/3rds in. Or is the 'correct' approach to abandon your three actual characters and faff about with the redshirt generic mage running in circles?

[WDeranged]

I thought the ogre in Origins was pretty cool, I just wondered how the hell they got it all the way up to the top of that tower.

[Enoch]

For me, Dragon Age 1 was actually worse than NwN 1. It was playable, but a very uninteresting world that was trying to be D&D, but less interesting. That bugged me, because you visited the most generic uninteresting locations imaginable while you find Lore about exciting, bright and colorful locations and I'd ask myself: Why aren't we there instead of ****ing Fereldan?

 

So, for me, Dragon Age 2 is a huge improvement in that the location and story is much more exciting and colorful. It feels like they are actually trying to make the Dragon Age IP interesting, and not such an obvious D&D clone but without the good rules of D&D.

 

As a sequel, I don't think DA 2 is as good as ME 2. WDeranged said exactly what I feel earlier in that I liked about 90% of the changes in ME 2, but for DA 2 I'm liking about 50%.

 

I felt like that during Origins, the world was generic, almost teeth pullingly dull, all the while you're picking up codex entries telling you about distant lands with far more hardcore **** going on, I was pretty glad to find out Kirkwall was a Tevinter city, character designs are a big step up too, now I can actually distinguish between attackers at a glance.

I haven't played more than the demo of DA2, but I do mostly agree with this assessment of DA:O. The coolest stuff in the gameworld that Bio dreamed up was mostly well off-stage in DA:O. That's the tempting thing about DA2 to me-- the accounts of how the game explores some of the messier conflicts in the DA setting. DA:O hinted at them, but mostly hewed close to its core Darkspawn v. Everything Else conflict.

[WDeranged]

Yeah, the darkspawn are another thing I'm glad to see pushed into the background, I quite like their creation myth, the whole marching an army into heaven thing sounded cool but they were just a shapeless big bad to go and kill, though apparently they got more interesting in Awakening, I still need to play that.

[pmp10]

Or is the 'correct' approach to abandon your three actual characters and faff about with the redshirt generic mage running in circles?

That

[Azure79]

Maybe the ogre scaled the tower from the outside?

 

I do agree with a lot of what's being said here, mostly regarding the changes that were made from DAO. I would have preferred an improvement/evolution on the overall design of DAO. I vastly prefer the inventory and item system, how you could talk to your companions at your own pace, the non-combat skills that were part of encounters and mostly I prefer the non-voiced w/ exact dialogue choices PC.

 

On top of that I wanted more exciting locales, better strategic combat/combat set pieces and more coloful and varied graphic design.

 

However I do enjoy the combat more in DA2 though. I can agree with Starwars and others who don't like the wave system. It is aggravating at times to have enemies spawn right on top of your party, but I also enjoy the challenge in figuring out ways to get around that. I've found numerous ways to utilize my mages and rogues to get out of tricky situations and it's always great to win a fight that I thought was lost.

 

If they can take that system but give us better encounters (whenever I think of improved encounters I think of that one battle in IWD1 or 2 where your party needs to cross a bridge which is fortified on the opposite side by orc and yuan-ti, I've always liked that one) and add in more non-combat skills to use in dialog I'll be happy overall. Just on pure gameplay aspects.

[Tigranes]

Hrm. Ive checked out some Nightmare gameplay just for combat. The tutorial combat & Exiled Prince DLC combat mainly. Definitely seems to resemble DAO a lot more on nightmare if you use pause and abilities, which is nice, but pretty silly how your party instantly gets full HP after each battle, and the camera id efinitely terrible. Looks like it could be fun if encounter / enemy design was up to scratch, but not if you're having crap spawning on top of you and not if most enemies end up being darkspawn mobs?

 

Also, it does seem easier, in that a city battle with +10 mobs on DAO could slice through your party fast if you let it, here the guy fireballs his own party but is never in danger. But certainly, nightmare seems much more like DAO than press A for awesome. This game is doing a really good job of mixing good and bad.

[sorophx]

pretty silly how your party instantly gets full HP after each battle party fast if you let it

hah, yeah, I noticed that in the demo, I can see how it could be exploited

Edited March 12, 2011 by sorophx

[lord of flies]

Inon Zur confirms that DA2 was a rushjob

A + B != C

 

All he confirms is that they rushed out the music score.

lol, yes, there were lots of bugs in the music score. That sentence makes lots of sense. Not. IGN is bad.

Do you really base your opinion on what others think? If so, you better start kissing NWN's butt b/c the masses and reveiwers loved it.

I have no opinion on NWN. Everything I've read about DA2 makes it sound like utter **** - constant trash mob fights with trash mobs that appear from nowhere, characters who are "great if you pretend they're a literal retard" (Merrill), ****ty pop culture references ("I like big boats and I cannot lie"), and a really stupid ending plot twist.