Dragon Age II |OT| The Revenge of Shit Mountain

Big Baby Buddha said:
I had enough of Anders in Awakenings so I'll probably roll a mage and go with Carver, the floating Orbs, and Aveline.

Does anyone know how they're handling lockpicking in this one? If anyone can bust locks I'll probably ignore rogues altogether and just take another warrior or mage with me.



Fair enough, I'm sure you can see why some people feel a little shorted though. I'm curious to see how it all plays out too.
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Rogues only, but there's no specific skill associated with it. I believe your cunning score is the sole determinant (which actually isn't that far off from DA:O... in reality, all the lockpicking talent did is give an artificial boost to your cunning score in determining your lockpicking skill).
 
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:D
 
Patryn said:
Rogues only, but there's no specific skill associated with it. I believe your cunning score is the sole determinant (which actually isn't that far off from DA:O... in reality, all the lockpicking talent did is give an artificial boost to your cunning score in determining your lockpicking skill).
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But you didn't have to dump too many points into cunning if you did pick up those talents. Of course it kind of becomes moot since the best rogue builds focus on putting as many points into cunning as you can.
 
dalemurphy said:
You all sound like Ultima/Everquest fans who were bitching about WoW. Accessibility won out, and it will here, too.
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Very poor example. WoW was firmly in the same sub genre as it's predecessors. DA2 is an attempt to shift sub genres from a very rarely made one to a very common one. It's not merely a question of accessibility.
 
loganclaws said:
Well, I actually mean it in a literal way, he is the lowest common denominator for success in the developer's eyes, theoretically at least. Obviosly a developer like BioWare is aiming to attract the biggest audience.
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No, he wasn't. What he was was someone who wanted something other than Dragon Age.

The master race gig is funny until somebody actually tries to apply it to a debate. Accessibility means more people that may enjoy your game. More people that enjoy your game equals money. What developer doesn't want that? There's a line, yeah. But its one I think Bioware is straddling just fine.
 
I find the idea that Dragon Age is a action game to be pretty funny. OMG you press A now! Total action game! I also click my mouse to do combos in The Witcher. Is that an action game?
 
truly101 said:
I thought ME2 was more true to what ME wanted to be, thats just me, but the game felt a lot more natural than ME did.
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Really?

ME1 felt like they wanted a deep space exploration RPG with an "epic" plot and shootan in place of swords and staffs. It just failed to live up to its concept.

With ME2 they just abandoned that initial spark all together. It ended up a better game(I still don't see how it's GOTF, but it's definitely better than ME1) but it was no longer that cool concept that got some people(or maybe just me) hyped out of their balls.





ME1's problems didn't seem like a product of conflicting development goals, just bad game design.

I think DA1 is kinda similar, in that regard. The concept was "awesome oldschool RPG in the style of BG ZOMG". The execution was a bit all over the place with: badly balanced classes, little enemy variety(which lead to some very samey feeling battles), bland art direction, mounds of pointless loot, and almost all of pre-endgame Denerim.

Only this time the sequel seems to be similar, but now you trade "bland art direction" with "lulz" and "mages are overpowered" with "everyone is overpowered".
 
Coxswain said:
Considering how shallow and largely inconsequential the "skill" system in DAO was, no, it's not a particularly good example of depth.
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DAO had a great deal of depth on the PC. Let us take combat. Many encounters on the game on normal or harder difficulty would wipe your party if you did nothing but autoattack and spam your most powerful damage dealing spells and skills. To best encounters, you had to employ agression control abilities with your warriors, crowd control abilities with your mages, slow + aoe strategies as fight initiation, etc etc. Basically, it was WoW party based combat. Filler battles were often the most challenging, where darkspawn archers could drop your mages in a few seconds.

I won't comment about DA2 depth in combat because we are not playing as characters with their full abilities against enemies high on the difficulty curve, but to claim that DAO skill system is inconsequential is false. It certainly was not autoattack + damage abilities once they were off cooldown.
 
Miri said:
No, he wasn't. What he was was someone who wanted something other than Dragon Age.
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Not according to him and that's my point. He doesn't see it the way you see it and is totally ok with the game shifting genres. And BioWare is ok with that.
 
kai3345 said:
because theyre either being turned into shooters or action games

and just because they are more popular/accessible than ever doesn't make them better than ever
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You can't put a ton of money into a game and then sell it to a small niche, no matter how much some people here would like that. Games are too expensive to make these days. You might not like it, but it's the reality of the market.
 
dionysus said:
to claim that DAO skill system is inconsequential is false.
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I think he's talking specifically about these skills:
Skills.JPG


Which honestly, were barely fleshed out. I'm not going to miss them if they're gone.
 
Door2Dawn said:
Not really
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You missed Nintendo era FF/Square vs Sony era FF/Square?

You missed the whole GOW vs NG vs DMC debate?

The PC snobs vs Consolite peasants is a frequent battle here on GAF it seems. Good for lulz.
 
dalemurphy said:
Western RPGs are more popular than ever because they are more accessible than ever. You all sound like Ultima/Everquest fans who were bitching about WoW. Accessibility won out, and it will here, too.
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I hear this all the time (typically in WRPG vs. JRPG debates) but that isn't quite true. Bioware and Bethesda games are more popular than ever and in the case of Bioware, they are primarily doing that by slowly creeping away from the RPG genre.

Bethesda games have less content than their predecessors but for the most part maintain most of their RPG credentials. I'm still somewhat surprised that these games have managed to stay mainstream.Nearly every other WRPG is just as niche as they've always been. Even The Witcher, for all it's praise, had a very slow burn to success.

Most gamers don't want a WRPG, they want an action game with RPG elements. Some developers have been quick to oblige with that and all but Bioware have failed to make that model mainstream. All the while, actual fans of RPGs are getting the shaft.
 
Fredescu said:
Very poor example. WoW was firmly in the same sub genre as it's predecessors. DA2 is an attempt to shift sub genres from a very rarely made one to a very common one. It's not merely a question of accessibility.
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No it's not. Not at all. It's still the same core battle system with some more action-oriented aspects. I actually wish that they had changed it more. It's in a weird middle ground right now based on what I saw in the demo.
 
Rahxephon91 said:
I find the idea that Dragon Age is a fighting game to be pretty funny. OMG you press A now! Total action game! I also click my mouse to do combos in The Witcher. Is that an action game?
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An action game you mean?

Yeah, I agree. I predict that the jump in quality between DA:O and DA2 will be similar to the ME to ME2 jump that we saw last year.
 
The_Technomancer said:
Hm, I'm going to watch this thread carefully. As much as many people will cry "omg dumbed down", there will be at least a few who, after playing past the tutorial, will be able to articulate if they feel the new combat removes depth.
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The demo felt like a haphazard combination of DAO's system and freeflow from Batman:AA. It didn't work. On PC at least.
 
dalemurphy said:
No it's not. Not at all. It's still the same core battle system with some more action-oriented aspects.
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The more action-oriented aspects are the "attempt" that I'm refering to. So I guess you agree?

The demo also shows that we're getting "waves" on the PC version rather than throwing a tonne of enemies at us at once. Apart from the mechanics, the encounters appear to be simplified.
 
Xilium said:
I hear this all the time (typically in WRPG vs. JRPG debates) but that isn't quite true. Bioware and Bethesda games are more popular than ever and in the case of Bioware, they are primarily doing that by slowly creeping away from the RPG genre.

Bethesda games have less content than their predecessors but for the most part maintain most of their RPG credentials. I'm still somewhat surprised that these games have managed to stay mainstream.Nearly every other WRPG is just as niche as they've always been. Even The Witcher, for all it's praise, had a very slow burn to success.

Most gamers don't want a WRPG, they want an action game with RPG elements. Some developers have been quick to oblige with that and all but Bioware have failed to make that model mainstream. All the while, actual fans of RPGs are getting the shaft.
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BioWare and Bethesda ARE the market right now and they each have two successful franchises.
 
Rahxephon91 said:
I find the idea that Dragon Age is a fighting game to be pretty funny. OMG you press A now! Total action game! I also click my mouse to do combos in The Witcher. Is that an action game?
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I thought he was trolling. Are there really QTEs in DA2?
 
How is DA2 combat fundamentally different from DA:O? That seems to be a popular question in these parts. From a personal perspective there's a clear difference and I'll describe why I don't like it.

I used the overhead perspective (isocam) almost exclusively during combat and 60-70% of the time in exploration mode. I would use a stealthed rogue to lead while the rest of my party would trail. The rogue would disarm/set traps and detect ambushes. Since I play on higher difficulty settings my preferred method is to minimize exposure to getting blindsided and/or taking damage that can be avoided. I like to be slow, methodical and keep situational awareness at all times.

Let us suppose that my rogue detects a line of traps at a choke point around a bend in the dungeon. Not only that, but there are a dozen derpspawn and an emissary waiting in ambush. Using the isocam I can have my stealthed rogue disarm the traps and set some of my own traps in their place, while I can keep an eye on the mooks to make sure they're unaware of what I'm doing. Then my rogue can launch a scattershot while the rest of my party moves into a forward position. My mage can accurately lay an AoE on the enemy while they're stunned because I can detach that isocam from the character and aim it precisely where it needs to go. Meanwhile I put everyone else on hold to keep them out of the danger zone until the effects of the AoE wear off, all the while my ranged fighters are getting in some free shots. Once it's safe I can send my tank into action and have my ranged party members lay down some devastating crossfire. I'm controlling the action from a roaming, top down, battlefield view and pausing when appropriate to issue commands. The result is that I thwarted an ambush, turned the tables on the enemy and minimized the damage to my party. I didn't have to keep a mage dedicated to spamming heals and revives. My crew don't have to quaff health pots every few seconds (although health pots have a cooldown now so...smh) to be effective.

Now obviously not all battles can be so easily manipulated and on open ground the combat can get chaotic at times. The fundamental difference is that by using the isocam, I can pause and target AoE attacks much more precisely that I can with the restricted view available in the DA2 demo that I played. Playing on nightmare difficulty it's going to be damn near impossible to keep from nuking your team accidentally in the heat of battle. I've read that the EAWare dev that completed the game on nightmare essentially had to rely on the lightning/electrical tree of AoE spells that's exempt from doing FF damage because of this. Let's not forget that now the melee fighters do AoE FF damage as well, so you better keep that in mind.

One other change is that they seem to have nixed spell combos and instead are relying on cross class combo action. That sounds like a nice challenge in regards to timing attacks from different characters, but how does that work unless you turn off 'tactics' and control all abilities manually. You can set up a combo only to discover that the corresponding team member ability is on cooldown and the opportunity gets wasted.

These are some essential changes to combat that preclude me from playing the game the way I did in DA:O and consequently the way I prefer. There are other things I personally dislike about the design of this game, but the dumbing down of the combat mechanics are my main gripe.

tl;dr - No isocam, no sale.
 
Cheech said:
I thought he was trolling. Are there really QTEs in DA2?
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No. But you do press a button to carry out regular attacks. Or you can set to the way it was in Origins apparently.

Gully State said:
For WRPG's? Really?
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Well in America yes.

mjc said:
Yeah, I agree. I predict that the jump in quality between DA:O and DA2 will be similar to the ME to ME2 jump that we saw last year.
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So it won't be an rpg?

It seems like it will for me as far as console versions are concerned.
 
Fredescu said:
The more action-oriented aspects are the "attempt" that I'm refering to. So I guess you agree?

The demo also shows that we're getting "waves" on the PC version rather than throwing a tonne of enemies at us at once. Apart from the mechanics, the encounters appear to be simplified.
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I disagree with both of your points. Replacing a single button press with optional button mashing that accomplishes the same thing is NOT changing the "sub-genre." If they had actually gone as far as I think they should have, I'd be more inclined to agree with you.

However, the Western RPG with action game mechanics is not exactly a heavily popularized type of game like you're making it out to be. No matter what they do, they're not making Devil May Cry here.
 
Rahxephon91 said:
I find the idea that Dragon Age is a fighting game to be pretty funny. OMG you press A now! Total action game! I also click my mouse to do combos in The Witcher. Is that an action game?
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Yes. The Witcher is an Action RPG, or maybe you could call it an Action Adventure RPG. It isn't really a traditional RPG, so much, but what is.
 
dalemurphy said:
BioWare and Bethesda ARE the market right now and they each have two successful franchises.
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lol, that would be like saying JRPGs are really popular because Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest sell millions. FFXIII outsold every western RPG released in the past few years yet you would be hard pressed to find people that say the JRPG genre is popular amongst the mainstream.

A genre's success isn't defined solely by the games with the most money pumped into them.
 
dalemurphy said:
I disagree with both of your points. Replacing a single button press with optional button mashing that accomplishes the same thing is NOT changing the "sub-genre." If they had actually gone as far as I think they should have, I'd be more inclined to agree with you.
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But it isn't the only thing they did. Its just one of several changes that makes it more of an action game than DA:O ever was.
 
dalemurphy said:
However, the Western RPG with action game mechanics is not exactly a heavily popularized type of game like you're making it out to be. No matter what they do, they're not making Devil May Cry here.
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Exactly. Not only do they change the game into an action game, but they change it into a shitty one to boot
 
Lostconfused said:
But it isn't the only thing they did. Its just one of several changes that makes it more of an action game than DA:O ever was.
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The combat really isn't that different. Giving console players the option of mashing out the combos as opposed to putting it on auto-attack does not make it an action game and that + the elimination of the iso camera are the two biggest differences.

The hyperbole in here is hilarious.
 
Fimbulvetr said:
Really?

ME1 felt like they wanted a deep space exploration RPG with an "epic" plot and shootan in place of swords and staffs. It just failed to live up to its concept.

With ME2 they just abandoned that initial spark all together. It ended up a better game(I still don't see how it's GOTF, but it's definitely better than ME1) but it was no longer that cool concept that got some people(or maybe just me) hyped out of their balls.





ME1's problems didn't seem like a product of conflicting development goals, just bad game design.
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I don't think it was an issue of conflicting development goals as it was breaking from their past development experiences and trying to encorporate a bit more of a modern mechanic. Many people assumed that ME would just be Bioware's KoTOP without the license. You can dig up some old 1up yours impressions and game threads and that seemed to be the train of thought. But ME doesn't quite play like KoTOR does, but its still held back a bit from that type of design. The problem is the way the combat scenarios are designed, they don't look like they quite have KoTOR in mind, but they didn't make it quite the step that ME2 was. I think ME was always supposed to be a SPACE ADVENTURE *lotsa reverb* with RPG aspects. I don't it was supposed as involved in the RPG mechanics quite like BG or even KOToR. ME2 feels more like that game to me, stripping out the things that bogged it down.
 
My friend put it best, when discussing the polarity DA2 has been inciting:

"Still, going to give it a chance. It's Bioware. They've earned that much."

After, literally, beating Dragon Age: Origins and testing out the demo for DA2, I was absolutely pleased to see my characters had texture definition, and weren't the result of a six year-old playing with their mashed potatoes. I didn't care for the combat; I'd rather their be auto-attacking. Which, apparently, we can turn on. So, hot d-amn!

I'd like to think that DA2's story and characters will be more fine crafted than DA:O's. And, after all, story is the only reason why I play RPGs.
 
dalemurphy said:
Replacing a single button press with optional button mashing that accomplishes the same thing is NOT changing the "sub-genre." If they had actually gone as far as I think they should have, I'd be more inclined to agree with you.
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If the button mashing is designed to be done in real time, then it certainly is an attempt at changing the sub genre. I'm not disagreeing that it's straddling the two right now, but it is making many concessions in the action RPG direction. Many people who enjoyed the first game conceded that it could have used a little more depth here and there. The direction that the series is headed is clearly away from the tactical RPG that the first one was and towards a Fable style action RPG (not DMC, put away the strawman).
 
kai3345 said:
Exactly. Not only do they change the game into an action game, but they change it into a shitty one to boot
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Give it a rest. It's not an action game. It can still be played the same way as the first game.
 
EmCeeGramr said:
"There is always a catch. Life is a catch! I suggest you catch it while you can."

chris avellone is shaking in his boots
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Something can change the nature of a man. Life is change! I suggest that you man your nature while you can.
 
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