Dragon Age did get at least one thing right though...

[mickeym]

what are you even talking about half of the time?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

what are you even talking about half of the time?

Who knows?

[bonarbill]

I didn't find BG2's combat interesting nor challenging in an interesting way, especially during the higher levels where the strategy was, "dispell the enemy mage's defensive shields and then kill each enemy one by one."  It guess that's not a problem, but it gets old when iyou have to use that lame strategy in most of the later battles.

Edited May 18, 2013 by bonarbill

[Iucounu]

If I had to think of a combatsystem (not action combatsystem) that I consider fun from my current viewpoint I couldn't name a single one. It just seems to be all the same after a while...

But if I had to, I would definately name BG II. Despite the whole dispelling, protectionbuffing puzzles, or perhaps because of that. You can say what you want, but I can't remember a single game that offered so much complexity as BG II did (DA is no comparison at all). Yes the magic was powerful, but hell, thats's the very thing that made the game so interesting combatwise. Ask the freaks who are playing modded versions BG II to this day.

And it's not like all the other classes sucked: Fighters rightly equipped were always a good addition, Druids kicked ass, at least at mid-level, Clerics had there uses (even very powerful with the right combos), thieves kicked ass, bounty hunters were perhaps the second most powerful class. 

Seriously, BG II offered 10 times more tactical diversity than DA. 

Edited May 18, 2013 by Iucounu

[mickeym]

Fighters were a neccessity for people such as myself. Not going to lie, a group consisting entirely of magic users was by far the most effective way to get things done, but I think you'll find that you can progress through the game a lot faster with a couple of simple fighters such as Minsc, Korgan and Keldorn. They were always a great trio and could crush just about everything long before your magical party of six could reach their potential. And then they'd have to rest and rebuff every five minutes. So ****ing tedious. I'd rather keep it simple and clear out the whole world map than go with a magical group that would take an equal or greater amount of time to complete the athkatla quests.

Edited May 18, 2013 by mickeym

[Iucounu]

Fighters were a neccessity for people such as myself. Not going to lie, a group consisting entirely of magic users was by far the most effective way to get things done, but I think you'll find that you can progress through the game a lot faster with a couple of simple fighters such as Minsc, Korgan and Keldorn. They were always a great trio and could crush just about everything long before your magical party of six could reach their potential. 

Which is the reason why 6 magic users were not the most effective way to get things done (not at all). And even in TOB were magic reached it's peak, fightertypes were essential as they were better and more consistent damage-dealers, even if you cut out the magic resistance every little critter had at that time.  

[mickeym]

Maybe I didn't explain clearly enough, but I'm including characters like Anomen and haer as magic users. Sure, they can both be pretty amazing at melee, but not before at least a minute of preparation and the best magical equipment you can equip them with. Before you know it, you've spent the better half of day (in real life time) just going through the motions of powering them up and that's far more time than necessary.

[Ffordesoon]

The main Redcliffe quest was a very good one, but the siege bit was tedious crap. It's the ultimate example of the "neener neener" encounter design Prime mentioned.

[Lephys]

I will also say that, for what it's worth, the difficulty adjustments in the DA games (specifically 2) were preposterous. I played a Mage, and most of the time, on Hard, 70% of the enemies were immune, IMMUNE, to 90% of magic. I don't even think those numbers are exaggerated, either. You're fighting 17 Qunari warriors, and the only thing that hurts them is lightning. You can get about 3 lightning spells, each of which has about a 30-second cooldown, and each of which only does about 300 damage (in conjunction) to the group of foes around you, when that group of foes has about 1000 HP. Also, you're out of mana... 8P

 

But, back to the particular topic at hand, I don't think it's about having your AI take care of literally everything. It's about having your party's AI be adjustable and viable to prevent everyone from dying simply because you're not performing 73 commands per second, and/or pausing every second.

 

It's not about slaughtering all things with maximum efficiency, with little-to-no effort. It's about AI/behavior keeping to a mean, so that your party effectiveness isn't going from 100% while you're constantly micromanaging them down to 0% while you're not.

 

Settings like "Defensive" in a game with tactical combat get a little silly. Defensive how? If something comes near enough to you, do you move? If something's firing at you from a distance, do you attempt to break line of sight? If things are firing missiles at you from a distance AND some melee guys are charging you, which is a priority for defensive reaction? That's what it's all about. In a given situation, when you could've micromanaged your character to avoid a horrible threat, then counter-attack AND be set up for another effective attack while supporting another character, the AI behavior settings should at least be sufficient to have that character avoid dying stupidly to that horrible threat, and possibly at least do one of the other three things (counterattack, support another character, strategically relocate/engage a particular target, etc.).

 

When it's turn-based, it's not so bad, 'cause it's just a matter of taking longer to control your whole party, but nothing happens until you do so. When it's real-time, customizable behaviors can make all the difference in the world. All the while, there's STILL plenty of room for manual micromanagement of your party to maximize their effectiveness.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Damn Lephys, with all your posts I figured your avatar would have evolved into Sloking by now...

 

I also agree on the random immunity. How the hell does random thug 1154 have an immunity to fire?

[Iucounu]

Maybe I didn't explain clearly enough, but I'm including characters like Anomen and haer as magic users. Sure, they can both be pretty amazing at melee, but not before at least a minute of preparation and the best magical equipment you can equip them with. Before you know it, you've spent the better half of day (in real life time) just going through the motions of powering them up and that's far more time than necessary.

Ah, kay. However, I would value both Korgan and Keldorn above Amoen or Haer'Dalis. Korgan => very high natural hitpoints and saving throws that can't be dispelled, berserk rage protects against all kind of things, + buffing is no use when you're ambushed

Keldorn => insta Dispell Magic and True Sight. Playing with Keldorn was just cheap. 

But I get your meaning. I don't find mage buffing so bad however, but priest buffing was often tedious due to short duration.. and, ehrm, I'm getting off topic here. 

[Lephys]

Damn Lephys, with all your posts I figured your avatar would have evolved into Sloking by now...

 

I also agree on the random immunity. How the hell does random thug 1154 have an immunity to fire?

Haha. What can I say? It takes a while. 8P

 

It wasn't so much my disbelief that a random dude was immune to fire for no reason (even though that IS ridiculous), but more that the game said "Oh, you want more difficulty? Half your abilities just went from some % effectiveness to ZERO % EFFECTIVENESS! MUAHAHAHA!"

 

Not to mention that you never seemed to have enough mana (or stuff was on cooldowns) to actually BE a Mage, which is one of my biggest pet peeves in almost any RPG.

 

"It's understood that, even at Level 1, you've been studying magic for like... 10 years straight now, and magic is pretty much 'your thing,' since you're a Wizard and all. So, guess what? You have enough magical power to cast TWO SPELLS per day! 8D! Isn't that great?! And I know you suck at physical combat, since you focus on magic 24/7, but you're going to have to rely on that until you can manage to regain enough mana/spell-ammo to cast some more spells."

 

Imagine if, as a Warrior, the game was like "I know you don't really have any spells, but you can only swing your weapon like 3 times a day, to start with. All the rest of the time, you'll just hafta rely on Magic until your weapon-swinging fatigue goes away."

 

I'm not the master of all video games or anything, but my Mage in Dragon Age (1 AND 2) felt like a complete pansy in those games. For every 5 spells I could cast, the rest of my party had accomplished about 3 times what my array of spells had done. All the rest of the time was spent running around, playing keep away with your hitpoints, and trying to recharge enough to cast something else or drink a potion again.

 

It happens in a lot of games, but I think it was far worse in Dragon Age, because of many other factors in those games.

[Rostere]

I saw nothing wrong with BG2's combat. Maybe you simply don't like micromanagement?

[bonarbill]

I saw nothing wrong with BG2's combat. Maybe you simply don't like micromanagement?

Micromanagement is good, I do it all the time in games like Jagged Alliance 2, TOEE, and XCOM: EU

 

However, micromanagement doesn't necessarily makes BG2's mediocre combat any good.

[Rostere]

 

I saw nothing wrong with BG2's combat. Maybe you simply don't like micromanagement?

Micromanagement is good, I do it all the time in games like Jagged Alliance 2, TOEE, and XCOM: EU

 

However, micromanagement doesn't necessarily makes BG2's mediocre combat any good.

 

 

So you seem to think there's a fundamental difference between micromanagement in turn-based and RTwP games? Or are you saying that BG2's combat was just awful, regardless of the micromanagement aspect?

[Voss]

Love it or hate it, there is no denying that Dragon Age was much less unweildy than BG (

 

Yeah, no.  Deny, deny, deny.  That interface was unwieldy, clunky, awful and mind-gnawingly frustrating.  

 

 

 

Also, I have no idea what happened or how I even saw such an old thread- it was just at the top of the page..  Apologies for the necromancy.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Voss

[DruidX]

I didnt like dragon age that much

pillars of eternity is gonna be a lot better!