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Dragon Age II |OT| The Revenge of Shit Mountain
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
Lostconfused
Member
None as long as EA is publishing those games.ElectricBlue187 said:
GillianSeed79
Member
I'm near the end. Just god damn really? Act 2 is the saving grace of this game. I get what they are/were trying to do. The problem is 90 percent of the game leads you down one natural path but Act 3 is like BUT WAIT! You can't just throw that shit in the last hour of the game. Just god damn.
The star rating is relative to what you're wearing/have in your inventory. If you have a companion with crap equipment in your party and switch back and forth between them and Hawke, who will likely have the best stuff, you will see the star rating change for one and the same item in your inventory.
edit: What I mean to say by this: It doesn't matter. Only compare stuff that has a five star rating to the things you have equipped, flog all the other stuff.
edit: What I mean to say by this: It doesn't matter. Only compare stuff that has a five star rating to the things you have equipped, flog all the other stuff.
Finally started playing and I'm digging it so far. I have a ways to go before the issues really stand out I suppose.
The achievements blow though. So many missables! I feel like I am checking a guide constantly to avoid minor screwups. DA:O and ME 1/2 were never this problematic.
The achievements blow though. So many missables! I feel like I am checking a guide constantly to avoid minor screwups. DA:O and ME 1/2 were never this problematic.
Just finished the game for the first time. Overall I enjoyed it, although I still feel the Origins fans got screwed.
But... that ending... what the hell?
But... that ending... what the hell?
My character sided with the Templar and slaughtered a bunch of mages. Saved the sister, so all of the sudden that means I sided with mages? Also, Leliana mentioned that the Warden "disappeared." So all the MCs are disappearing now?
Reading the past few pages of this thread is pretty depressing. I just finished Act I last night with around 23 hours(!) on the clock and I'm really enjoying this game. I'm not sure how I will feel in another 23 hours running errands through the same locations, but so far it hasn't intruded on my enjoyment.
Initially I was taken aback that this 'sequel' toned down the narrative to focus on an unnamed hero in some distant city the first game barely references, yet I have succumbed to adore the more internalized politics and personalized strife this narrative seems to offer. It's a shame this is marketed as a 'sequel' which seems to elicit much ire among fans. The number 2 does seem to inhabit a sense that this expands the stakes and grandiose of Origins, but taken merely as a slice of the mythology and examined beyond the 'world saving' formula, the game succeeds.
Combat, skill progression, etc... are all greatly improved over the first game(at least on 360). Technical performance is strong, and there is a greater sense that my choices in development are more unique than the very structured and rote progression on DAO. My warrior undoubtedly can be developed quite differently dependent on each skill path I choose. It's greatly expanded rather than 'dumbed down' in this area.
I do agree that the respawns are lame. Having more capable and smaller enemy groups would have been preferred to endless fodder to keep slicing through. Also posits that my supposed Hawke is far more than a mere bottom-feeding underling that rises to greatness when thousands of corpses are so easilly dispatched.
I may end up hating where the narrative ends up(as many seem to complain about), but I'm loving the party members and vignettes quite a bit. The tales of Kirkwall are not nearly as horrible as I was let on.
Initially I was taken aback that this 'sequel' toned down the narrative to focus on an unnamed hero in some distant city the first game barely references, yet I have succumbed to adore the more internalized politics and personalized strife this narrative seems to offer. It's a shame this is marketed as a 'sequel' which seems to elicit much ire among fans. The number 2 does seem to inhabit a sense that this expands the stakes and grandiose of Origins, but taken merely as a slice of the mythology and examined beyond the 'world saving' formula, the game succeeds.
Combat, skill progression, etc... are all greatly improved over the first game(at least on 360). Technical performance is strong, and there is a greater sense that my choices in development are more unique than the very structured and rote progression on DAO. My warrior undoubtedly can be developed quite differently dependent on each skill path I choose. It's greatly expanded rather than 'dumbed down' in this area.
I do agree that the respawns are lame. Having more capable and smaller enemy groups would have been preferred to endless fodder to keep slicing through. Also posits that my supposed Hawke is far more than a mere bottom-feeding underling that rises to greatness when thousands of corpses are so easilly dispatched.
I may end up hating where the narrative ends up(as many seem to complain about), but I'm loving the party members and vignettes quite a bit. The tales of Kirkwall are not nearly as horrible as I was let on.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Brandon F said:
I don't see how you can hold these two opinions at the same time. The changes to "speed up" the combat system are entirely dependent on providing you with constant respawning trash mobs that explode in a hit or two. The mass respawning of enemies who do little to no damage and only have 2 hit points, combined with the removal of any meaning to player positioning--partly due to the mob respawning--but also due to the fact that everyone in the battlefield can more or less teleport anywhere they please, are the two main changes that make Dragon Age 2's combat feel so different compared to the combat in Dragon Age: Origins.
Confidence Man
Member
Brandon F said:
Not really.
Acquiescence
Member
Dave1988 said:
I'm a victim of that too. It's the only thing stopping me from getting the platinum and it's a damn nuisance.
Complistic
Member
Giolon said:
No, bookmark this page
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-wusf-3601
It tells you every retail game that can also be linked to your steam account.
natkingcoleslaw
Neo Member
Brandon F said:
My opinion exactly. Each class you choose has a completely different approach, as opposed to DAO where there was just mage and the rest. The combat was a 1000 times more fun than the first game as well. The difficulty is also quite comparable to DAO if you ramp it a level above normal. I, however, wasn't bothered by the enemy respawns that much, at least not as much as Mass Effect 1 style repetitive dungeons and also to an extent by the subpar graphics. The game could have done with a little more polish, but it was fun.
It wasn't unplayable or lame by any stretch. So, my advice to you would be to keep playing, you will really enjoy the game and don't get influenced so much by the many unfairly negative comments to be found on this thread.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
natkingcoleslaw said:
What do you mean by that?
Anyway, I completely disagree with you and think the game is pretty shit, but, like any game, you shouldn't let other peoples' opinions affect you. If you're having fun, then keep going!
On my second playthrough as a Mage in Act 3, female Mage siding with the Templars, and I love how much different it is with these decisions. Mages are really fun this time around compared to how they were in DA:O IMO. I didn't have the Sebastian content downloaded for my first playthrough, but in Act 3 is certainly seems like he should be required considering how his companion quests relate to the main story.
C'mon bioware you need to add a bunch of single player DLC already, I want to play as my warrior again! I know I didn't find all quests on my first playthrough, finished in 27hrs and I would like to get the chance to find them and get some new stuff.
C'mon bioware you need to add a bunch of single player DLC already, I want to play as my warrior again! I know I didn't find all quests on my first playthrough, finished in 27hrs and I would like to get the chance to find them and get some new stuff.
natkingcoleslaw
Neo Member
Zefah said:
That's what I meant by it.
Other than that, I think this game is being unfairly hated on and in gameplay terms it's a major improvement over DA:O. You are entitled to your disagreement.
I do concede that bioware probably released it too early since it could have used more polish, but that is more of EA's fault.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
natkingcoleslaw said:
I think it's worse than first one in pretty much every way other than some graphical stuff. The "gameplay" (I assume you mean combat specifically), in particular is far worse. It lost any sense of strategy in exchange for some really flashy over-the-top animations. I'm coming from the PC version, of course.
And my last post was asking what you meant by "DAO where there was just mage and the rest."
natkingcoleslaw
Neo Member
Zefah said:
I played the PC version too, for both DAO and DA2. If you think that way perhaps you should have bumped the difficulty up to hard. The normal here is very easy compared to normal in DAO. Also, I am sure you know there is a mod available which turns on friendly fire in all difficulties.
The combat in this game other than being faster, also differentiates gameplay between character classes better than the original. I found that I was able to develop specific party members exclusively for certain roles like tanking, damage dealing melee, ranged, support etc. The preset tactics makes using the tactics option so much more easier as I could just work around the presets given for each party member. The animation, which has been trivialized by a lot of people, does make the combat more fun, for myself and many of my friends who enjoyed this game better than the original.
I'm sure origins had some of these things, but it just wasn't accessible enough as far as the tactics were concerned. I know, I spent every single encounter micromanaging my party members, selecting each of their special attacks and trying to get them in position, dragging out each battle to 10+ minutes. Not to mention absence of stamina draughts. Maybe they were there but it was never clear enough, to novice RPGers like myself. Chewing deep mushrooms like junkies. Not to mention mechanics for resurrecting allies, forcing you to make one party member indispensable.
I also didn't feel there was any difference between rogue or warrior, only that rogue was a useless class better avoided. less said about archers the better. And something should be said about the frustration one had to endure if you decided to do orzammar or brecilian forest quests before circle tower/that village quest. In other words poorly balanced difficulty in DAO was a downer for me.
As far as story is concerned, at first glance the world has been shrunk down greatly giving players a confined feeling. This may be true to a certain extent, but in my experience playing the game made me more excited about the game's various locations. Now I actually want to see games set in Par Vollen, Antiva, Tevinter Imperium, or even Orlaise. DAO, IMO, mentioned these places in a cursory manner but didn't really leave me with the feeling that, wow this is such an amazing world and I want to see more of it. It felt like a LOTR knockoff. The characters of DA2 made me feel that way, and having played through DA2's ending I'm sure or at least hopeful that is the direction bioware is taking this franchise in.
Many small decisions like this, which made the combat and the game itself not only more fun but also more accessible. You might like your ultra hardcore combat, but unless you routinely commission 2 million copies for yourself, you can't really blame any company for going the accessibility first route.
Having already played this game, I'm glad I didn't come here and instead just bought the game on a whim after looking at the combat which almost looked diabloish at that time. Though I completely disagree with your opinion of this game, I know you are entitled to it and that's what these forums are for. Also the OP is just amazing.
natkingcoleslaw said:
Are you honestly typing all of this with a straight face ? So DA2 is a better game ? Being stuck in one place is better ? I respect your opinion but it's really rather unpopular and I think you're alone in this.
And the difficulty in DAO scales with your level according to Bioware.
VisanidethDM
Banned
Yurt said:
He's not alone.
DA2 is flawed.
DA:O is finely crafted to be terrible.
For all the hate on DA2, I think I do kind of prefer the gameplay aspects of it over DA:O. DA:O was very much a trivial game (even on Nightmare) which makes me question some of the "DA2 is less tactical" arguments. DA2 has a greater focus on area of effect abilities which makes friendly fire a bigger concern. Positioning and movement is more vital as well. I also like the waves idea in theory (i.e., making fights a thing of attrition) but it's not really executed amazingly. Still, it's better than DA:O's "crowd control every fight" mentality.
Though, to be fair, certain builds of DA2 kind of just walk all over the game (basically any 2H Warrior build, mid-to-late game Assassin Rogue build) and both the Mages are basically mainstays of the group due to utility usefulness.
Though, to be fair, certain builds of DA2 kind of just walk all over the game (basically any 2H Warrior build, mid-to-late game Assassin Rogue build) and both the Mages are basically mainstays of the group due to utility usefulness.
VisanidethDM
Banned
Yurt said:
I disagree with that. To me, DA2 was the superior game by a sensible margin - and it's not really meant to be a compliment to 2.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
VisanidethDM said:
DA:O fine crafted to be terrible and DA2 is merely flawed? Wow, I'm glad we don't share the same tastes. I'd hate to appreciate garbage and mediocrity at the expense of being able to enjoy good games.
VisanidethDM
Banned
Yurt said:
I'm aware of that, and it wouldn't be the first time, but I have reason to trust my own intellect over the whole internet when people make claims like the fact that "DA2 is dumbed down" when, for example DA2 actually has character builds while DA:O had none, and so on.
DA2 is one of those games people love to hate, and it's fine.
Confidence Man
Member
VisanidethDM said:
DA:O had no character builds? That's simply laughable.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
LOLVisanidethDM said:
Zefah said:
You can have waves of enemies without having them pop into existance next to a wall in a tactically unpredictable position
Anyway, the main *shared* concerns with dragon age 2 are basically these:
1. Enemy respawning out of nowhere in the middle of your party
2. re-using of maps
3. Some minor interface quibbles
4. Inconsistancy in Anders' characterization given that he was a favorite in Awakening
Pretty much everything else is a "yeah well I LIKE THAT PART" thing that'll just lead to pointless bickering.
VisanidethDM
Banned
Zefah said:
I'll get into more detail:
DA2 is a bad game. It shows some good intent, and some good ideas, but it brings almost nothing to a satisfying end. At its best, it's incomplete. At its worst, it's just unimaginative and goofy.
DA:O is turd. It's the McDonald of roleplaying games. It takes every clichè the fantasy genre has ever seen, strips it down of any charm or pathos, and crams it into a game that doesn't have even one inch of soul or brain.
It's RPGing for Dummies to the extreme consequences, crafting a character system that gives you 16 talents per build and nearly 30 talents per character, not allowing the smallest degree of customization. It also makes sure that if you're completely, absolutely stupid and completely screw up your character in some way (like, taking archery talents and equipping a 2h), the system scaling will be so bland and pointless that the difference between the worse character and the best one will be next to nonexistant. You're dealing 10 damage with an arrow at lvl 8, you're dealing 40 on the final boss exploiting its weakness. There's no system mastery, no scaling and no idea behind the system (something DA2 massively improves).
More importantly, the game makes sure it can cater to the lowest common denominator both by introducing a choice system that is based around the concept that you win no matter what, and also by producing a story and cast that make Twilight seem deep.
The entire damn plot of DA:O is told in 4 scenes. Everything else is subquests. It doesn't help that this plot is the most unimaginative load of bullshit to ever grace fantasy fiction. Once again, DA:O mimics the staples of the genre with such lazyness and such creative bankrupcy that it comes off as a parody. If DA:O was a movie, it would be the Wayans brothers take on Lord of the Rings.
It's not like it does nothing better than 2; there's a lot of peripheral aspects that are more polished or expanded. On the other hand, it reuses assets in a more aggressive and violent way than DA2 does, albeit possibly more subtle. But still it boggles the mind to see people act surprised by the amount of asset reuse seen in DA2, when DA:O used the exact same tileset for every single dungeon ingame (be it the Fade, Elven ruins, a Human fortress, the mage tower, or whatever) and has every single random encounter or sub quest take place in a couple of constantly reused brown fields of crap.
So in short, yes, DA2 is bad, in a "this needed more time, and ideas, and creativity, and good will" way. DA:O is, instead, horribly bad, in a "this is the finely chiseled parody of everything good about fantasy, a game that is aggressively attempting to be as bad as it can at everything it does".
So, yes, I guess I don't really like Origins. It's partly one of the reasons I didn't hate DA2 as much as everyone else. Compared to the first game, it's an epiphany.
Rahxephon91
Banned
I just love the reasoning here. "People just love to hate"! Yep it couldn't just be that the game has problems. Problems with level design, story pacing, choice effect, and so on. Nope people just love to hate.
Edit- at least you went into more detail.
Edit- at least you went into more detail.
VisanidethDM
Banned
Confidence Man said:
Explain. I got 16 talents per "focus", 4 talents per specialization, and I end the game around lvl 25.
I can simply take every twohander talent if I use twohanders, every SnS talent if I use SnS, and so on. It's not like I got hybrid talents or stuff like that.
Sure, I have specialization focused builds, but that only matters for Arcane warriors.
The most funny thing is, when you feel like "well, ok, all Archers are the same, but a warrior can be an archer, a tank, a dual wielder or a 2h user, now that's variety!" you find out the rogue shares 2 of those trees too.
This stuff is just incredibly bad. I may be biased, I'm an RPG buff and I probably used close to a hundred of PnP systems over time, but coming out with something so bad as DA:O's is an achievement in itself.
VisanidethDM
Banned
Rahxephon91 said:
No no, what I'm saying is that people has all the reasons to think DA2 is bad. It's FULL of flaws. I just think that it probably takes a lot more flak than comparable games (in terms of quality) do, for reasons that have nothing to do with the game itself (from pissing off PC gamers to EA to ludicrous DLC policies). That's what I mean with "love to hate": people wanted it to fail even before it was out, and when it came out and there was plenty of reasons to bash it... it was probably too good to be true.
However, I still think it's unexplainable how the same people who call DA2 terrible can call DA:O even passable. Or just bad. As flawed as it is, DA2 is a shining beacon of quality compared to Origins.
ShockingAlberto
Member
It's kind of funny when the most used defense for Dragon Age 2 is "OTHER PEOPLE'S OPINIONS ARE INVALID."VisanidethDM said:
VisanidethDM
Banned
ShockingAlberto said:
I explained what I meant. I'm not saying people hate DA2 for no reason; I'm saying people are probably extremely glad to have plenty of reasons to hate it for reasons that don't necessarily are tied to the game itself.
Hating DA2 or considering it a bad game is definitely justified, and probably sane.
My beef is with people that can claim that DA2 is bad and DA:O is good, when the two games share the same flaws, and DA2 actually gets the fundamentals better, while trying (and failing, but still trying) to be its own thing, while DA:O was a mockery of everything that preceded it.
Really ? Because I'm extremely disappointed that I hated DA2. I would say reusing dungeons and being stuck in a bland dead city is tied to the game itself.
Even if DAO reused "textures". It didn't reuse a whole fucking castle or something. I was in a forest with talking wolves, cave with golems, gorey dungeon with an octopus with six tits, Tower of abominations, castle invaded by undead soldiers. Lots of variety even if they reused textures.
VisanidethDM said:
Dude, just save yourself the trouble. Your opinion is in the extreme minority, you're probably not going to see eye to eye with the others, and you're not (nor should you) change your mind. If you find it unexplainable how most say DA:O > DAII, then just cut your losses unless you like getting into multi-page internet debates that go absolutely nowhere.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I feel DA:O was complete, did not spawn enemies behind your party in every battle, and I liked the story. I felt the choices did matter, I felt how you interacted with your characters mattered, I felt the actual writing of the characters was overall better.VisanidethDM said:
You're free to disagree with all of that, but I wouldn't go around calling people hypocrites because you didn't like one game they did.
Complistic
Member
VisanidethDM said:
Oh god. Im sure you realize how stupid this sounds. Yet you keep saying it so maybe you don't.
VisanidethDM
Banned
MechaX said:
Sensible advice. I'm also more concerned of not starting a huge flamefest that wastes the mods' time over a game that isn't even a new release. There's also a couple of points where I'm confident of being objectively right (like system complexity), and I'm interested in seeing people confuting that, not for the sake of argument, but for the pleasure of discussion.
Just one thing:
It's not about texures. Next time you play DA:O, put an eye at doorways in different environments like say, Andraste's temple, the elven ruins, the dwarven ruins and so on. And I'm sure you were as puzzled as me in seeing that EVERY field in the game had ruins coming out of the ground, and so on. Tile/asset reuse is as aggressive in DA:O than it was in DA2 - just more subtle (probably cause they had more time to cover it).
And once again, I'm not saying people needed external reasons to hate DA2. I'm saying that there was a huge number of people angry at Bioware for reasons (preorder bonuses, consoles as lead platforms, voiced protagonist, graphics) that weren't tied to the actual game, and these people probably weren't disappointed in finding out the game offered plenty of actual reasons for criticism.
VisanidethDM
Banned
Complistic said:
I posted a more complete explanation of my opinion of the game. Attack that, if you want to discuss it, it will be more interesting than random onliners. They generally don't impress me.
VisanidethDM
Banned
ShockingAlberto said:
I'm honestly surprised of the bolded, and I would be very interested in hearing more about it, and yes, I disagree, but notice I'm not calling people hypocrites because they liked DA:O. I'm calling people hypocrites because (and I'm not necessarily referring to you) because I've read a few hundred posts reading "Good god reused assets / bad story / predictable plot / dumbed down system / stupid, mashy combat / etc" followed by "Btw DA:O rocked".
The two games are extremely similar, and putting one on an alter and the other in the mud is unexaplainable to me. We can leave it at that, with me being puzzled and you thinking I'm too dumb to see, or if you want we could discuss why we disagree, without necessarily breaking out a fight, and that would be a lot more interesting to me.