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Dragon Age II |OT| The Revenge of Shit Mountain
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
Anyone have any good Dual-Wielding Rogue builds?
So far I feel like it is a given to split my points between the Dual-Weapon tree and Assassin tree, but hear Shadow is also a good tree to get into.
Between my attributes, I hear 41 Dex is all that is needed, with 18-20 for Constitution and the rest into Cunning. Sound right?
So far I feel like it is a given to split my points between the Dual-Weapon tree and Assassin tree, but hear Shadow is also a good tree to get into.
Between my attributes, I hear 41 Dex is all that is needed, with 18-20 for Constitution and the rest into Cunning. Sound right?
lastplayed
Member
What a load of crap. I liked Leliana's robe, but they never gave me any decent replacements with stats. You expected me to keep her gimped out for the entire game just to keep the look right?
Oh, and my party never looked identical to each other... I'd actually have to try really hard to achieve that.
But now they've made sure all party members look identical, no matter who's taking the screenshot.
Lostconfused
Member
SenorDingDong
Member
Xamdou said:
Talk to him in the Hanged Man.
I wish they'd release a free pack that would give more variety to the dungeons/caves instead of the inevitable DLCs. It's not that hard to create a different dungeon. Hell I'd take a plain shitty different dungeon over this recycled crap.
At least it'll salvage them some points in the eyes of their fans. But I guess they don't care anymore.
<3 CD Projekt.
At least it'll salvage them some points in the eyes of their fans. But I guess they don't care anymore.
<3 CD Projekt.
SerArthurDayne
Member
Gvaz said:
Nothing else. Only some of the characters get changes. Mostly just the romaceable ones.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
njean777 said:
Nope, that's it. She showed up, foreshadowed your rise to power, explained why it is that she's still alive even if you fucking killed her dead (because it wouldn't be Bioware if they didn't railroad characters into the next installment in spite of your best efforts to the contrary) and was never seen or heard from again.
HadesGigas
Member
Protip: When you do the "Shield of the Knight Herself" quest, give Aveline back Ser Wesley's Shield or else she bitches that you "sold it". Even if it's neatly stored in your house for safe keeping (It's pretty shitty as a shield).
SerArthurDayne
Member
HadesGigas said:
I was curious about that. I sold it in my play through cause it was shit, but wondered what would happen if I hadn't.
ThoseDeafMutes said:
Setup for 3 obviously, although I expected at least something more from her character other than I'm invincible.
Same thing with Anders. Awakenings-
They implemented it just so that they had some bullshit reason why he would be in the game even if he shouldn't. Not a Grey Warden? He became one later. Never met Justice? He met him later. Died? Well, good thing he is possessed then, isn't it?
HadesGigas
Member
SerArthurDayne said:
The line changes from "and you sold it!" to "and it serves me well". I got a +15 rivalry when she claimed I sold it, but I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or if it was all my dialog choices after. Reloaded and gave her the stupid shield, picked a couple different choices (they all seem pretty much like "fuck you, it's a shield!" worded different anyway) and got +15 friendship instead.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
So. Fucking. True. I have some hilarious screenshots to upload but this game is ridiculously bad in some areas, and 'okay' in others. Nothing seems done remarkably well, and nothing seems improved from the first game. Half-baked, poorly-executed bad ideas and silly design choices abound. The very definition of a game designed by committee. I can't, in a world populated by shovel ware, call it a terrible game, but overall it's very poor. A C- effort at best.subversus said:
Confidence Man
Member
WanderingWind said:
Only it wasn't designed by committee, it was the core senior team that did all the design. I don't know if that's better or worse.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Confidence Man said:
Who took all their cues from other departments. Marketing said 'more extreme' so they added silly ninja animations, exploding bodies and machine gun crossbows.
...actually, maybe you're right. Let me amend that statement to "a game developed largely by the marketing department." Marketing (especially BioWare) should stay away from the creation process...
Trickster
Member
Finished it last night
Combat: Virtually always having enemies spawn in waves and out of nowhere got extremely tiresome very quickly, it felt like lazy design. The combat I didn't care about a lot either, it basically boiled down to "fire off a few AoE abilities and then single target the survivors down". It also didn't help the combat aspect of the game that there were so few types of enemies, fighting slavers, templars, mercenaries and thugs all felt exactly the same since they all consisted of archers, assassins, "sword+shield dude" and "leader dude".
The Story: Didn't like it at all, in DA:O it was this big epic adventure. But in DA2 it felt like each Act had a small, isolated "main" story that was padded out with 80% filler of you doing boring sidequests and ended up feeling like mundane daily tasks simply because they kept having you run through the same places over and over and over.
Locals: Again, in DA:O you went on this epic adventure that took you to a lot of intersting places. In DA2 you run around in Kirkwall, Sundermount, The Wounded Coast and like 3 types of caves. And despite of you living there around a decade supposedly, none of the places really change, I think the biggest change I saw was that in one of kirkwalls locations, some City Guards got replaced with Templars. To make the tiny amount of places worse, they didn't feel very different from each other, they really felt like they were located close to each other geographically. Of course you could say that it makes sense since the game focused on Kirkwall and the land just outside of it. But it's just boring as fuck trudging through the same looking places again and again for 30+ hours.
Graphics: It might look better than DA:O on consoles, I really can't say since I played both on pc. But on pc it really doesn't look better. Everything is so fucking low poly. Honestly, running through places like Sundermount and The Wounded Coast made me think there was a tesselation option in the game I should be turning on. and in Kirkwall everything is of a very angular design, a very "convinient" design choice considering the increased focus that was put on the console versions for DA2...
Characters: They were a very polarizing bunch for me, some I really liked, some I hated.
Liked: Isabella, Aveline, Bethany and Varric. Party banter between them were great, probably the best part of the game for me.
Disliked: Fenris, Merril and Anders. Annoying bunch of people, and poor Anders especially, went from best character in DA:O to one of the worst in DA2.
Conclusion: It's paifully obvious that this game had a very short development cycle, there is so much in the game that just screams rush job. It's a damn shame.
Combat: Virtually always having enemies spawn in waves and out of nowhere got extremely tiresome very quickly, it felt like lazy design. The combat I didn't care about a lot either, it basically boiled down to "fire off a few AoE abilities and then single target the survivors down". It also didn't help the combat aspect of the game that there were so few types of enemies, fighting slavers, templars, mercenaries and thugs all felt exactly the same since they all consisted of archers, assassins, "sword+shield dude" and "leader dude".
The Story: Didn't like it at all, in DA:O it was this big epic adventure. But in DA2 it felt like each Act had a small, isolated "main" story that was padded out with 80% filler of you doing boring sidequests and ended up feeling like mundane daily tasks simply because they kept having you run through the same places over and over and over.
Locals: Again, in DA:O you went on this epic adventure that took you to a lot of intersting places. In DA2 you run around in Kirkwall, Sundermount, The Wounded Coast and like 3 types of caves. And despite of you living there around a decade supposedly, none of the places really change, I think the biggest change I saw was that in one of kirkwalls locations, some City Guards got replaced with Templars. To make the tiny amount of places worse, they didn't feel very different from each other, they really felt like they were located close to each other geographically. Of course you could say that it makes sense since the game focused on Kirkwall and the land just outside of it. But it's just boring as fuck trudging through the same looking places again and again for 30+ hours.
Graphics: It might look better than DA:O on consoles, I really can't say since I played both on pc. But on pc it really doesn't look better. Everything is so fucking low poly. Honestly, running through places like Sundermount and The Wounded Coast made me think there was a tesselation option in the game I should be turning on. and in Kirkwall everything is of a very angular design, a very "convinient" design choice considering the increased focus that was put on the console versions for DA2...
Characters: They were a very polarizing bunch for me, some I really liked, some I hated.
Liked: Isabella, Aveline, Bethany and Varric. Party banter between them were great, probably the best part of the game for me.
Disliked: Fenris, Merril and Anders. Annoying bunch of people, and poor Anders especially, went from best character in DA:O to one of the worst in DA2.
Conclusion: It's paifully obvious that this game had a very short development cycle, there is so much in the game that just screams rush job. It's a damn shame.
Kinspiracy
Banned
If I see another cave room with the Christmas lights on the ceiling, I'm gonna just toss the game...into a box and send it back to Amazon for 33 in credit. The kindest word I can use to describe DA2 is 'lazy'. If their goal was to attract dudebros to the series (I sincerely doubt this), they need to try harder. Dudebros are dumb, but they're not dumb enough to fall for this shit.
Wow, has anyone else experienced/heard of this ridiculous Maker's Sigh bug?
I just checked the Wiki:
"Additionally, Maker's Sigh triggers a glitch that reverts any positive, passive bonuses (provided by currently equipped gear or from skills) into a permanent negative modifier. For example, using Maker's Sigh after taking the Shadow specialization (for Rogues) and unlocking Pinpoint Strikes will give Hawke -25% critical damage permanently."
Is this a joke? I've used the Maker's Sigh about 10 times already.
I just checked the Wiki:
"Additionally, Maker's Sigh triggers a glitch that reverts any positive, passive bonuses (provided by currently equipped gear or from skills) into a permanent negative modifier. For example, using Maker's Sigh after taking the Shadow specialization (for Rogues) and unlocking Pinpoint Strikes will give Hawke -25% critical damage permanently."
Is this a joke? I've used the Maker's Sigh about 10 times already.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Superhot!
Kinspiracy
Banned
That's racist.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Kinspiracy said:
Against black and white people. Look how they cut out the white girl's face!
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
CrazyDude said:
I like ME2 for what it was, though I was disappointed in some of the design choices. DA2...well, I think I've said enough about it.
Kinspiracy
Banned
CrazyDude said:
I love ME2. One of the best games I've ever played. The more I play DA2, the more I dislike it. For me, the only way the devs of the game can save any face is to openly admit it turned out this poorly because they rushed the game out to cash-in on the success of Origins. I don't appreciate being the victim of their money grab. But fortunately I only paid 12 dollars for it in total after I dump it back on Amazon for 33 bucks and after I got Amazon to give me 15 dollars off (to match their new promotional price).
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
...and I bought it second hand!
There's now a mod out that allows you to more or less play on hard mode with friendly fire:
http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2194
What it actually does is change Nightmare (the only difficulty with friendly fire) to more closely resemble Hard in terms of enemy bonuses etc. I have been using it for a while and it seems to work well. It makes battles not quite the exercises in tedium they are on Nightmare (with the limitless health bars and kiting) while not degenerating in AoE spam on your own party.
It made the game quite a bit more enjoyable for me.
http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2194
What it actually does is change Nightmare (the only difficulty with friendly fire) to more closely resemble Hard in terms of enemy bonuses etc. I have been using it for a while and it seems to work well. It makes battles not quite the exercises in tedium they are on Nightmare (with the limitless health bars and kiting) while not degenerating in AoE spam on your own party.
It made the game quite a bit more enjoyable for me.
Kinspiracy
Banned
I must say that I appreciated the NPC giving me a heads-up that the quest I just accepted was going to take me into the Fade. I kicked her in the vagina and ran away screaming. I really hope that's an optional quest I never have to return to.
Kinspiracy
Banned
Zeliard said:Anyone been using Sebastian at all, he any decent as a companion? I'm still drudging through Act 2 and thinking of switching things up a bit because the game refuses to.
I switched to him last night and realized once again that new members have no rings, belts or neck pieces and their weapons suck. So I told him to fuck off.
Johnlenham
Member
Its nothing liek the crazy epic version in origins, its literally 3 rooms with 3 demons all piss weak and takes maybe 10mins tops.Kinspiracy said:
This game is so fucking lazy, im glad I only spent £7 renting it. The end of the deap roads bit with your sister was dire..
EternalGamer
Banned
Dragon Age II is definitely smaller, but I don't know where people get the idea that Dragon Age one was this huge epic sprawling game. The game was made up of little nodes of which there were maybe 15-20. The real difference is that each town was a relatively small place made up of one node or a small group of extra tiny circular areas.
In DA 1, "Low Town," Dark Town," and "High Town" would all have been entirely separate cities located far apart on the map. Ditto for the various locations on the Marches. Certainly there were a few areas that were spacially bigger than anything in DA2, like the Marshes, Temple Ruins, and the Elven Forrest. But there weren't dozens of these, rather there were a handful. But maybe this something that makes a psychological difference for people.
But for that matter, I'm not sure why every RPG has to be an epic journey across "Fire, Mountain, Forrest, and Cave" super-cliche land. Nobody complains that most of Halo or Red Dead takes place in very similar environments. Why can't we have an RPG that tells a more intimate and local story? Does every story have to be an epic quest across the entire world? Aren't we kind of tired of every story being that?
I certainly think that DA2 could use a bit more variety in its mission structure (more stuff like the stealth mission hunting down Thane's son or club date with Samara's daughter in Mass Effect 2). It does have some of this, like the Aveline dating side quest and the false narrative of dwarf turning himself into a super hero. I think the main problem, however, is just that it tries to make stretch out a Mass Effect length game (20 hours) into a 40-50 hour one.
This is definitely the weak point of the game and I think the nerd rage would be even greater if they just tried to pare it down to a 20 hour experience (though it would be fine by me). I think the better solution might have been to make the Deep Roads more fleshed out. Like a big giant Diablo dungeon and tie the Blood Mages plotlines with ane exploration of the Deep Roads so that it is a place you visit from different entry points every few hours, like one big sprawling underworld.
Overall, though, I think this is a vastly superior game to the first. It has way more polish in terms of presentation and the writing is a lot fresher and better. I can understand people complaining about the lack of variety to some extent, but people who actually say the writing is "terrible" or "bad" either are just so blinded by their own anger that they can't evaluate it evenly or they simply do not know what a good story and good dialog is.
In DA 1, "Low Town," Dark Town," and "High Town" would all have been entirely separate cities located far apart on the map. Ditto for the various locations on the Marches. Certainly there were a few areas that were spacially bigger than anything in DA2, like the Marshes, Temple Ruins, and the Elven Forrest. But there weren't dozens of these, rather there were a handful. But maybe this something that makes a psychological difference for people.
But for that matter, I'm not sure why every RPG has to be an epic journey across "Fire, Mountain, Forrest, and Cave" super-cliche land. Nobody complains that most of Halo or Red Dead takes place in very similar environments. Why can't we have an RPG that tells a more intimate and local story? Does every story have to be an epic quest across the entire world? Aren't we kind of tired of every story being that?
I certainly think that DA2 could use a bit more variety in its mission structure (more stuff like the stealth mission hunting down Thane's son or club date with Samara's daughter in Mass Effect 2). It does have some of this, like the Aveline dating side quest and the false narrative of dwarf turning himself into a super hero. I think the main problem, however, is just that it tries to make stretch out a Mass Effect length game (20 hours) into a 40-50 hour one.
This is definitely the weak point of the game and I think the nerd rage would be even greater if they just tried to pare it down to a 20 hour experience (though it would be fine by me). I think the better solution might have been to make the Deep Roads more fleshed out. Like a big giant Diablo dungeon and tie the Blood Mages plotlines with ane exploration of the Deep Roads so that it is a place you visit from different entry points every few hours, like one big sprawling underworld.
Overall, though, I think this is a vastly superior game to the first. It has way more polish in terms of presentation and the writing is a lot fresher and better. I can understand people complaining about the lack of variety to some extent, but people who actually say the writing is "terrible" or "bad" either are just so blinded by their own anger that they can't evaluate it evenly or they simply do not know what a good story and good dialog is.
Ickman3400
Banned
CrazyDude said:
Loved ME2, but I only think DA2 is ok. Granted I like it waaaay better than origins from a gameplay perspective, but the story is weaker. They're both pretty forgettable games overall though.
GrandHarrier
Member
Darklord said:I'm actually liking this game but hearing about this bad ending makes me worry. I HATE when games, especially long ones, have a bad ending.
So far I've seen one short cameo. And once dialog reference. Pretty much less than even ME2.
The ending isn't as bad as people make it out to be. It has resolution but also is something of a cliff hanger at the same time, in the same sense that Empire Strikes Back had an ending, but you knew that shit was going to get real in the next installment.
EternalGamer
Banned
Johnlenham said:
If you just want the same thing again, why don't you just play Origins. I already played that huge dungeon in the Fade. I didn't need another one.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Yes, yes. People with different opinions are all blind. We get it. Now shut up about it.EternalGamer said:
EternalGamer said:
I'm not sure how you can compare fast traveling through different environments in Ferelden to fast traveling through different environments in a single city of this sort. The latter carries with it no visual or thematic variety, no cohesiveness, not even the slightest attempt at evoking a sense of adventure.
It's a city where their biggest attempts at creating the illusion of variety and change involved a static day/night mechanic and different entrances into the zones.