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[Mister_Bubbles]

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. People really like to exaggerate

Spoiler

lie

about their play times, as if a ridiculously long play time is going to garner attention, awe or praise.

Hah! Oh you.

To be honest I couldn't really tell you how I end up taking so long, it seems to happen with every game I play. I take my time, wandering around the city to people's houses rather than fast travelling off the map, that sort of thing. It's on hard difficulty and I'm finding battles can often can take a while, with a few reloads along the way (I'm looking at you, Qunari mages). So yeah, that's just how it goes.

Anyhow; just met Fenris. First impressions are that he seems a bit out of place, like a Final Fantasy character that's stumbled into the wrong code, but it's good to have someone on the other side of the 'mages: good/bad?' argument to throw a bit of friction into the party.

 

[Enduin]

The main quests are meh but I LOVE all the companion and sidequests so far. They're fantastic. Curious if haters skipped through the side stuff and only focused on the main plot quests.

It is a Bioware game after all, seems more often than not loving it or hating it is the only way you can go with them. I actually really like the quest design in this game, I guess a lot people dont care for it, but I like that its not completely easy to distinguish between main and secondary quests they all generally have a good deal of production and story to them, obviously there are a number of the sidequests that are simple go here and kill these guys or collect this but they really arent that bad.

I really bought into the games attempt to tell a low key story about Hawke's trials and tribulations living in Kirkwall. I know theres a lot that Bioware could have done to improve things, but at the end of the day I think its still a solid game and worthwhile successor to DAO, which I loved but it was painfully to cliche and generic in so many ways.

 

[Ikuu]

I can't imagine how anyone could spend 30 hours in act 1 alone, I did everything but read the codex entries and it was only 8-9 hours.

 

[Ickman3400]

It also took me about 31-32 hours to beat, and I did almost everything that I came across and didn't really spend more than 10 minutes reading the codex entries. DA1 took me longer, but as I've said before that game had a ton of filler and the main areas stretched on for an hour too long for each one, with the painfully slow and boring combat.

Witcher 1 took me 35 1/2 hours so I'm not going to complain about DA2's length.

 

[Sir Garbageman]

I can't imagine how anyone could spend 30 hours in act 1 alone, I did everything but read the codex entries and it was only 8-9 hours.

Playing on hard I did every sidequest I could find and ACT I took me about 17 - 18 hours according to STEAM. To be fair I replayed some battles multiple times due to getting my butt kicked.

 

[Basileus777]

This is the type of game where it's easy to spend extra time playing it, large differences in time spent are normal. It's not a corridor shooter with a fixed length. I beat it in something in around 30-32 hours doing almost everything, but I can see how someone could spend more time.

 

[Salaadin]

The main quests are meh but I LOVE all the companion and sidequests so far. They're fantastic. Curious if haters skipped through the side stuff and only focused on the main plot quests.

Some side quests were cool but the majority of them were lame. You fight the same enemies and explore the same handful of areas the entire time and thats what really bogged it down. Having things broken apart in chunks like they did was a horrible idea. Where most games have side quests come as you advance the story, this followed a formula of

Spoiler

Side quests > Main quests > Time skip > Side Quests. There were a few times I ended up with side quests between main quests but they were usually short and uninteresting.

I loved the Companion quests though. They were always the first thing I did and I was always ready to get to the next one as soon as it popped up. The characters in this game certainly dont hurt it any and are probably the best part.

Main Story was cool until the end. Act 1 left me feeling "thats it?" aside from the boss fights but Act 2 made up for that and started to feel like Dragon Age again. Act 3 starts off nicely but then kinda tanks in my opinion.

I think the game suffers most from

Spoiler

being set in Kirkwall the entire time. Nobody likes staring at the same city and its handful of outlying areas for 30+ hours. It wouldve been better if Kirkwall was one large streaming area but nope, they broke it up into 20 small chunks with load times for each. Id cringe everytime a mission sent me to multiple city areas before I got to the meat of the quest. 4-5 load times later....jeez. It felt like I was playing The Witcher.

 

[Songbird]

Could anyone tell me if Heroic Aura stacks from multiple mages in the party? I'm guessing no, but two with this going could be pretty cheesy.

 

[Kyoufu]

33 hours on act 1 means you are playing the game with your feet.

 

[water_wendi]

meanwhile

UK charts: Dragon Age II grabs number one from Pokemon

So easy to use no wonder its #1.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Just did the qunari leader and his packs during the blackpowder promise quest, and what the FUCK was that?

Did they playtest this game at all?

Lets see:
-default tactics AI behavior makes them run off to attack the leader ALL the time(who is a big fat tank and takes forever to kill and is the last guy you want to be near with his constant stuns).

-waves come in fast,many of the high hp qunari can and will chain stun you on every hit

-that frigging qunari bashar mage or whatever he is... what the hell is that?
He spawns at a random time during the fight.
Within 2-5 seconds after spawning he does a room wide aoe (tried to run to corners or w/e , nothing helps) that outright kills your casters (unless you happen to have anders and manage to time an aoe heal RIGHT as it lands).
He phase shifts as soon as you attack him.
At 50 percent health he teleports up on the banister.
He can be stunned but it doesn't seem to land half of the time
He has quite a lot of hp.
He will do that aoe regularly.

So you are supposed to stun or otherwise disable him as soon as he spawns... meaning that depending on your set up or talents you just have to pray that your mage isn't getting knocked down by the leader or any random enemy.
You have to redo your entire tactics set up for this fight (and change it back after, why didn't they include more than one custom template?...............)
You have to micromanage the hell out of your party , and literally pause every 0.5 seconds till he spawns so he doesn't wipe you out right after spawning.

Took me like 5 tries to figure out how his aoe works (not avoidable unless he's stunned etc), another few to figure out why the hell my anders kept running off like a dork after I specifically tell him to attack a certain enemy, then another 5-10 to finish the fight without deaths (fighting the rng of when he spawns, if my cc guy wasn't stunned, managing to keep the leader at bay so he doesn't just outright kill my mages , couldn't let hawke let him tank it because he 's my dps/stun for the mage...)

Long rant short, this fight is just tedious trial and error to overcome a stupid spike in difficulty.
My set up was merril (arcane) , isabela and anders and a 2h melee hawke...
Which is probably even one of the easier set ups to do it with , as the mage will rape your team regardless of it it's being tanked, you get the aoe heals and the crowd control from anders and the burst damage/stuns/mobility from isabela and sheer damage from merill to kill everything off before you get overrun...

 

[Ikuu]

Unless I'm missing something you don't have a tank in that group. For that fight I just made everyone attack targets at the same time and then just killed him.

Aveline, Varric/Isabella, Anders has to be my group of choice. Aveline never dies, Anders can heal and support the best and Varric/Isabella do crazy DPS.

I'm on playing on Normal so the game is rediculously easy, I didn't even bother to set my tactics and the only thing I bother to manage is healing and having everyone attack the same target.

 

[Darkkn]

Has anyone been able to beat

Spoiler

Qunari leader at the end of act 2 in duel? that shit is felt impossible with stabby rogue even on normal difficulty.

Any pro tips?

 

[Ikuu]

Spoiler

That was a stupid fight, especially as he can chain stun you. I just summoned the dog, and used Backstab and Twin Fangs when they were up and just ran around the room using potions he can also attack you as you go for a Backstab so near the end wait until he does the dash and then attack.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Has anyone been able to beat

Spoiler

Qunari leader at the end of act 2 in duel? that shit is felt impossible with stabby rogue even on normal difficulty.

Any pro tips?

Ring a rosie around the pillars. he can be stunned by my sword and board warrior, so while he's fumbling around unleash your most powerful attacks.

 

[Kyoufu]

Have you guys bought anything from the Black Emporium DLC place? There is a dagger that has a chance of healing me, tempted to buy it.

 

[Coxswain]

I can't imagine how anyone could spend 30 hours in act 1 alone, I did everything but read the codex entries and it was only 8-9 hours.

The playtime balloons up with the difficulty level. Act 1 took me 26-27 hours (which is about accurate; I didn't leave the game to idle for very long, and I only died a handful of times so there isn't much 'hidden' time not recorded), and Act 2 about 20. I'm (guessing) halfway or so through Act 3, and I'm expecting about 60-65 hours on the final game save.

That's about ten hours more than my final DAO save, although to be perfectly fair they're not completely comparable, since about a third of the way through DAO I was too bored to bother doing sidequests that weren't story-important or didn't lead to any special boss fights, and I've done everything that's become available in DA2.

Has anyone been able to beat

Spoiler

Qunari leader at the end of act 2 in duel? that shit is felt impossible with stabby rogue even on normal difficulty.

Any pro tips?

That fight is the single biggest piece of bullshit in the game; don't feel bad about turning it down to Casual, and even then it's still just a matter of getting some hits in, then running around waiting for your potion cooldown to cycle, stamina to regenerate, etc so you can do it again. Those are also, by the way, the best/only tactics for Nightmare, except on Nightmare he has somewhere around 35000-50000 HP and a bunch of potions that double or triple that amount.
He doesn't even really do much more damage on Nightmare compared to Casual. That fight is seriously stupid, which is a shame because it's supposed to be a pretty defining moment of the game and the story would justify it being really cool.

 

[Salaadin]

Has anyone been able to beat

Spoiler

Qunari leader at the end of act 2 in duel? that shit is felt impossible with stabby rogue even on normal difficulty.

Any pro tips?

Spoiler

Do you have the Black Emporium with the mabari hound summon? I know a few people that kite the leader around while their dog does damage. Throw in the occasional attack when hes open and pray.

I fought him and his minions in a group with my whole party. He was still tough and I ended the fight with only me and Anders standing but I made it. He feels broken at parts with the instant knockback every time, every attack.

 

[Confidence Man]

So I'm at the part after the expedition (act 2 I guess?) and I've already lost my desire to continue. My hate for this game and for Bioware has peaked at this point, and I thought it had plateaued at Mass Effect 2. I am literally dumbfounded. My thoughts are an incoherent jumble. I'm seeing red jelly. Let's just start:

- Where is quickswap for weapons? What conceivable reason would they have to remove it? Playing rogue having to go into the inventory and manually swap bow to daggers in the middle of battle, that's the exact opposite of streamlined.

- Companions that can't change equipment, absolutely no reason for it other laziness or to profit off DLC outfits. Particularly annoying as I constantly find armors that I can't use, and no one else can use either.

- What's with the hundred varieties of unusable junk? Just give me fucking coins instead.

- No true overhead camera. I think they said it was to allow them more flexibility in designing environments (lol), and to have more detailed ceilings (lol). Could they be more full of shit? Trying to target AOE stuff with this bullshit camera is a joke, especially since it tends to stick on targets.

- Oh the reused dungeons, they're unique in that they were a totally unexpected letdown. I mean, we knew about a lot of the shitty changes, but nobody expected that. Maybe take some people off of that day 1 DLC to whip up another cave or something next time. That, or it was just to save space on the Xbox disc. Which is worse?

- Specializations don't have to be unlocked anymore. It was awesome in Origins to have to actually go out and find them, like Arcane Warrior is learned from the soul trapped in the phylactery. Now you just hit a level and poof here you go.

- The waves and waves of enemies. I can see how in some situations it would be appropriate, but it happens literally every fight. Makes strategizing and placement largely pointless.

- No skills. Persuasion is nonexistent; the most I've been able to do once or twice is to simply defer to a companion, but this has absolutely nothing to do with my character.

- Which brings me to a larger point, a little tough to put my finger on, just an overall sense of it being too simple and repetitive. Every quest is the same no matter what you're doing, it always end up in a fight with waves of enemies at one point or another and dialogue responses don't seem to make any difference to outcomes other than increasing friendship or rivalry with companions.

In Drakensang: River of Time there's a quest when you first arrive in the Elven area where you have to get rid of a bunch of pirates that are camped at the outskirts. You could fight them, you could negotiate a deal between the pirates and elves, or you could, using subterfuge in the form of dialogue skills and pickpocketing, gradually turn them all against each other until they just abandon the camp.

I have yet to see anything comparable in DA2, and I don't expect to simply due to the fact the lack of skills and dumbed-down mechanics can't support this sort of gameplay.

And while we're at it, let's compare another point in Drakensang RoT. Depending on what class you choose, the beginning of the game is quite different. If you choose a fighter-type, the main story has you enlisting in the city guard and doing guard quests. If you're a thief-type, you have to find and join the thieve's guild. I haven't tried a magic user, but I assume there's another path for that class type. Not quite at the level of the origin stories from DA, but enough that it makes it feel like the story is just a little more your own. And thats from a budget $20 game. With DA2 even with 20% off I still feel ripped off.

 

[Interfectum]

You nailed it Confidence Man. I believe the only big thing you forgot to mention is the completely soulless, barren wasteland that is Kirkwald.

And I agree not being able to customize your party's attire is a complete cash grab for DLC. Pathetic.

 

[Hari Seldon]

I am just loving this game. The only thing that I do not like about it is the re-spawning enemies. The side quests are awesome, and the feeling of progression in the city between Act 1 and Act 2 is really cool.

I actually dig the lack of customization of the party armor. Less inventory management to deal with. I wish they had a few more outfits to choose from just for aesthetics, but I guess that is what modders are for.

 

[Ickman3400]

Has anyone been able to beat

Spoiler

Qunari leader at the end of act 2 in duel? that shit is felt impossible with stabby rogue even on normal difficulty.

Any pro tips?

You have to learn his attack patterns and move to his side/back as he swings. I did this as a 2H warrior, which as we've discussed in here, is the absolute worst in regular damage and it took me about 40 minutes (he healed himself once too, added a good 10 minutes to the fight). You may have to kite him a bit too as you try to heal or restore stamina.

 

[Kurtofan]

So I can't play for longer than one two hours without the screen having black screens,green purple flashes.

 

[LiK]

I am just loving this game. The only thing that I do not like about it is the re-spawning enemies. The side quests are awesome, and the feeling of progression in the city between Act 1 and Act 2 is really cool.

I actually dig the lack of customization of the party armor. Less inventory management to deal with. I wish they had a few more outfits to choose from just for aesthetics, but I guess that is what modders are for.

I wanted to remove armor from all my female characters like in DAO. It was hilarious. It was like my dude was being chased by a harem.

 

[Blue Ninja]

You have to learn his attack patterns and move to his side/back as he swings. I did this as a 2H warrior, which as we've discussed in here, is the absolute worst in regular damage and it took me about 40 minutes (he healed himself once too, added a good 10 minutes to the fight). You may have to kite him a bit too as you try to heal or restore stamina.

Bastard healed himself three times during my fight, also as a 2H warrior. I beat him in one go, but it took me almost an hour. Had the dog keep him busy every one in a while, and then just dodged his attack and swooped in for a few hits the moment his animation finished.

Took me way too freakin' long, though, goddamn.

 

[Synless]

Im sure it is been mentioned, but in surprised the PS3 outperformed the 360 version. That MLAA really went a long way!!!

 

[Krauser Kat]

i am protesting to my own misconceptions about this game and decided to but Drakensang instead. It was 15 on amazon yesterday.

and back to your shit mountain thread.

 

[Moofers]

What am I missing here? I can't figure out how I'm supposed to upgrade my party members' amor sets. It can't be automatic over level progression because my party is lvl 50. Halp?

 

[Basileus777]

What am I missing here? I can't figure out how I'm supposed to upgrade my party members' amor sets. It can't be automatic over level progression because my party is lvl 50. Halp?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=26456495&postcount=5013

 

[kinoki]

Has anyone been able to beat

Spoiler

Qunari leader at the end of act 2 in duel? that shit is felt impossible with stabby rogue even on normal difficulty.

Any pro tips?

I took a respec potion and respecced full Duelist. With parry on I managed to get his HP down by about a third before I had to run away and potion up. Repeat twice for victory (in theory, took a bit longer though).

 

[Y2Kev]

Confidence man :clap

 

[Pollux]

Spoiler

Leliana saying both the Warden and the Champion disappearing is 'no coincidence' got me intrigued. Very intrigued.

Spoiler

As I said before, Warden/Champion = Revan/Exile

 

[Durante]

- No true overhead camera. I think they said it was to allow them more flexibility in designing environments (lol), and to have more detailed ceilings (lol). Could they be more full of shit? Trying to target AOE stuff with this bullshit camera is a joke, especially since it tends to stick on targets.

I agree with most of your points, but I consider this one particularly important. A different camera perspective or a larger zoom limit or even a freely movable camera are such simple additions, and that they refused to implement them speaks of their complete disregard for PC players and people that like to do strategic placement.

- Specializations don't have to be unlocked anymore. It was awesome in Origins to have to actually go out and find them, like Arcane Warrior is learned from the soul trapped in the phylactery. Now you just hit a level and poof here you go.

This is also an important point that is not mentioned often, and actually something I brought up when describing the game to a friend. It's symptomatic of the fact that the simplification of the sequel actually does also reduce the immersiveness (and not just gameplay depth) of the game. (Similar to the removal of skills)

 

[Aaron]

And while we're at it, let's compare another point in Drakensang RoT. Depending on what class you choose, the beginning of the game is quite different. If you choose a fighter-type, the main story has you enlisting in the city guard and doing guard quests. If you're a thief-type, you have to find and join the thieve's guild. I haven't tried a magic user, but I assume there's another path for that class type.

For your info, magic user class does have its own unique origin. I like that these were fairly short, since the origins felt too drawn out to me in DA1.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Unless I'm missing something you don't have a tank in that group. For that fight I just made everyone attack targets at the same time and then just killed him.

Aveline, Varric/Isabella, Anders has to be my group of choice. Aveline never dies, Anders can heal and support the best and Varric/Isabella do crazy DPS.

I'm on playing on Normal so the game is rediculously easy, I didn't even bother to set my tactics and the only thing I bother to manage is healing and having everyone attack the same target.

The difficulty gap between normal and hard is quite large.
Basically if the mage manages to cast one aoe spell then 2-3 people in my party are dead on hard. Someone in your party getting stunned/knocked down at the wrong time or the mage randomly deciding to cast it immediately after his teleport pretty much seals the deal...
You die so fast in some fights that it's not even funny.
I've enjoyed the combat in most fights, as well as the difficulty , but this fight was just bullshit
Also there is no need for the boring standard tank/healer/buffer/dps set up.
Picking the right talents you can make use of class combos , aoe and cc to deal with stuff just as well, my set up wrecks pretty much everything (other than that one fight).

Built my merril and hawke to self heal, isabella takes no damage if you pay a bit of attention to her and will wreck the stronger elites during a stun because of the crit talents.
I want to use hawkes sister as my fourth but if I'm going to get that dumb friendship bar maxed to unlock the friendship talents for the other characters than I can't do that, so now I'm using aveline or anders depending on the type of quest...

Which is another thing that I hate about this game, you don't get to play the way you want if you want to unlock some very basic stuff.

I definately agree with the previous posters complaining about the camera, on the qunari leader fight I wasn'nt able to target the mage because my camera couldn't zoom out when he was up the stairs, so I had to run my chars all the way over before I could set any command. This was never an issue in origins.

I just wish they had worked on removing more of the annoyances of the original (arbitrary difficulty curve, imo horrible character standing system being a constant headache to name just two or the fact that you basically always have to have a rogue in your party if you want to see what's in any of the chests) , and that they had bothered to design more dungeons and environments.

 

[Deadly]

Spoiler

As I said before, Warden/Champion = Revan/Exile

Spoiler

Well the Champion isn't really like any of them... He just got the fuck out when trouble started. On the mage side he's basically on the run and on the templar side he just decided to move out after he ruled Kirkwall. The Warden can be associated with Revan/Exile because if he went through the portal with Morrigan, they were "preparing for a bigger threat to come" but he has made an appearance by Act 3 of DA2 anyways that's...what 7 years later or something?

 

[Rubezh]

What am I missing here? I can't figure out how I'm supposed to upgrade my party members' amor sets. It can't be automatic over level progression because my party is lvl 50. Halp?

Level 50? How'd that happen? I finished the game twice at 23.

 

[Moofers]

Level 50? How'd that happen? I finished the game twice at 23.

XP exploit. Turn in a quest that doesn't trigger a cutscene and then mash the x/a button to turn it in until you max out your levels. Might need to have your weapon out when you turn it in the first time, and for maker's sake, don't move at all when once you turn in.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Merrill is really starting to grow on me, her comment 'the maker is a story your people invented to explain the world, we have our own stories and we do not need yours' was pretty unexpected from her.

Her character is good and 'pure' (rather use that than naive) and oh so innocent yet she's apparently plenty insightful and down to earth when need be.
Good writing.

 

[bubnbob]

Do the shield glitch:

- Use a character with weap/shield (Aveline)

- Equip/unequip shield over and over

- Watch your armor points rise to the ten thousands

- Lol as physical attacks plink off you like spitballs

Tank characters now have meaning.

 

[Rubezh]

XP exploit. Turn in a quest that doesn't trigger a cutscene and then mash the x/a button to turn it in until you max out your levels. Might need to have your weapon out when you turn it in the first time, and for maker's sake, don't move at all when once you turn in.

Sounds like it could be quite fun with all the extra points and abilities. I'll have to look into that for the PC.

 

[mxgt]

Sounds like it could be quite fun with all the extra points and abilities. I'll have to look into that for the PC.

Doesn't work on PC as there's no sheath weapon button or anything to mash really.

I believe there are console commands lurking about, though.

 

[X-Frame]

What's the point of the XP glitch when enemies level up with you? Just to have acess to pretty much all powers?

 

[FlyinJ]

It took me 22 hours to finish Chapter 1, and I still had about 4 sidequests I didn't do.

 

[Deadly]

Sounds like it could be quite fun with all the extra points and abilities. I'll have to look into that for the PC.

You don't need glitches to get xp, just use the console :lol .

 

[Songbird]

So the download is complete and yes, Very High mode is utterly forked on a GTX 480. I'll miss the SSAO but I can live.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Damnit I should have went with Merrill. I'm using Anders as my mage since he has healing. Merrill doesn't have any that I can see.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

This game is still terrible on Nvidia cards? How the hell did they screw that up? I'm running a Radeon 5870 and the game runs great for the most part (not quite as well as the original, though), but is anyone with an Nvidia card *not* experiencing problems? It's crazy that they could have let such a universal issue slip through testing.

Does the latest beta patch help at all? It got rid of that annoying asking for discs in nonexistent drives issue at least.

 

[Moonstone]

The difficulty gap between normal and hard is quite large.
Basically if the mage manages to cast one aoe spell then 2-3 people in my party are dead on hard. Someone in your party getting stunned/knocked down at the wrong time or the mage randomly deciding to cast it immediately after his teleport pretty much seals the deal...

Difficulty in RPGs - that will never work out for all. It totally depends on your group set up.
I had no problems on hard so far, the dragon in the deep roads was annoying and 2 or 3 times I died because of an enemy mage I didn't spot fast enough. rule of thumb: Geek the mage first.

Most fights on hard are way to easy for my current group - I mostyl don't use AI Tactics, potions or crowd control spells. Just Haste and 2 rogues.

 

[Darklord]

So the download is complete and yes, Very High mode is utterly forked on a GTX 480. I'll miss the SSAO but I can live.

My GTX 260 is stuck on 4xAA, no AF, medium settings. Anything higher fucks it over royally. I can play Crysis on much higher settings than DA2. :|