Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
Question, I know they dumbed down changing armor for your party, but you can still do it right? When do you get new outfits?
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Dragon Age II |OT| The Revenge of Shit Mountain
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
ColonelColon
Member
Deadly Cyclone said:
If I'm remembering correctly, I don't think you can customize your party's armor at all.
Lostconfused
Member
Zeal said:
Fimbulvetr
Member
Y2Kev said:
Blinded by hotness.
Why do side-quests auto complete? I've completed several side-quests by simply finding a quest item and returning it to someone... No back-story or anything, simply "here you go" quest complete. Kinda sucks. When I'm looting I don't check these things. I feel like I'm missing something by not formally accepting the quest in the first place.
Fimbulvetr
Member
zoner said:
It's definitely hot or miss.
Like the special effects for example. Fire spells look fairly good. Lightning spells do not(not sure if it looks better than the Lightning spells in DAO, I've probably blocked them from my mind).
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Jesus Christ, the exact same thing happened with the first Dragon Age and the launch DLC for that game.Reluctant-Hero said:
EmCeeGramr
Member
OH BIOWARE YOU CARDS this is up there with the hilarious scathing commentary in ME2 where some NERD is all "i don't want visceral combat and intelligent moral choices (like the ones in Mass Effect 2) i want to use items and travel around an open world i'm so dumb and stupid"
Not to spam the thread with pictures, but I think the lightning in this game looks pretty good. It goes so fast it's hard to see most of the time though.Fimbulvetr said:
http://www.abload.de/img/lite7ta6.jpg
Reluctant-Hero
Member
Bravo, BioWare. Bravo. :lolEmCeeGramr said:
OH BIOWARE YOU CARDS this is up there with the hilarious scathing commentary in ME2 where some NERD is all "i don't want visceral and intelligent moral choices (like the ones in Mass Effect 2) i want to use items and travel around an open world i'm so dumb and stupid"
Lostconfused
Member
Yup the difficulty and balance of encounters is hilariously fucked up.jackdoe said:
Yeah, but in DA2, enemies actually have to physically come into contact with you to damage you. So there isn't invisible die rolling when running around that I noticed. So you could realistically take no damage this way versus melee enemies.RyanDG said:Hey, at least they got their MMO influences right then. I can't tell you how many raids on hard mode in Lotro ended with my healer telling me to just fucking kite the boss.
I'm not quite sure how to set up my party. I figured two tanks and two mages should be enough, BUT, the cooldown times for heal really screw up my planning.Lostconfused said:
The visuals wouldn't actually bother me at all if the entire damn game didn't take place in one fairly non-memorable location, with a few minor exceptions when you're off to small, self-contained outside areas (which also aren't terribly memorable so far). I haven't been to the Deep Roads yet, so I don't know what DA2's version of that will look like.
I think a lot of the game does look quite good (Shit Mountain didn't do them any favors), and in some parts superior to the original, but setting it all in one major location was a huge mistake. Not only does it get visually tiring, but fighting the same types of enemies in the same types of areas gets old from a gameplay standpoint, especially when the combat doesn't particularly have a significant tactical hook to it.
The speed of combat is compounded by the spawning enemies to make it much less viable to actually come up with some strategy - it's almost more effective to simply run around haphazardly. No real use in positioning your mage and rogue in specific places on the map if enemies that weren't part of the original encounter will just spawn and randomly drop on top of them (and I'm not talking about the assassins).
The gambit system is also off. Varric is set to ranged and he'll indeed stay ranged... that is until those aforementioned spawned enemies drop on his ass, at which point he'll just stand there and get his ass mauled unless I move him away. And of course, he'll often get mauled then too because he'll be trying to move while being staggered.
I think a lot of the game does look quite good (Shit Mountain didn't do them any favors), and in some parts superior to the original, but setting it all in one major location was a huge mistake. Not only does it get visually tiring, but fighting the same types of enemies in the same types of areas gets old from a gameplay standpoint, especially when the combat doesn't particularly have a significant tactical hook to it.
The speed of combat is compounded by the spawning enemies to make it much less viable to actually come up with some strategy - it's almost more effective to simply run around haphazardly. No real use in positioning your mage and rogue in specific places on the map if enemies that weren't part of the original encounter will just spawn and randomly drop on top of them (and I'm not talking about the assassins).
The gambit system is also off. Varric is set to ranged and he'll indeed stay ranged... that is until those aforementioned spawned enemies drop on his ass, at which point he'll just stand there and get his ass mauled unless I move him away. And of course, he'll often get mauled then too because he'll be trying to move while being staggered.
Basileus777
Member
jackdoe said:
The long cooldown makes magic healing not so great unless you are using spirit healer or Anders. Potion chugging is more reliable. Tanks are nearly as godly as they were in DOA either due to how hard to it to hold aggro on all these enemies spawning everywhere. Dual wielders still do absurd damage, though they are much more fragile than before.
I'm playing on hard, and no friendly fire makes AOE effect magic so crazy. Firestorm a huge mob, use cone of cold or mind blast to freeze/stun them when they charge my mage, and then run away. Archers are the worst though.
Lostconfused
Member
I guess you just have to feel it out. Honestly I have no idea how to set up a party either. For now it seems the best thing to do is focus fire the elite/boss mob so and then take down the fodder, because in some encounters when another wave spawns it might have an elite/boss mob as well so you can have 2 of them running around punching the teeth in of your entire party. If there aren't any traditional waves then you can just focus AoE in one area to kill of all the fodder and then just wear down the elite mob and if worst comes to worst you can just kite it around until it dies.jackdoe said:
Yeah the hit stun, stagger and no animation cancelling is pretty bullshit.Zeliard said:
Basileus777
Member
Ranged characters are awesome...but they really need to be manually controlled. Anyone that needs to move around a lot isn't handled well by the AI.
Fimbulvetr
Member
Dance In My Blood said:
No, that's definitely pretty bad.
And I hate to use this as an image since I don't really like the game but: http://i.imgur.com/WKgGQ.png
Just....just ignore the ground textures. ._.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
As much as I regretted playing DAO on the PS3..I think I'll replay that to fill my DA void instead of checking out 2. Something felt off about DAO..but 2 just seems bonkers from technical and gameplay perspectives.
chris-013 said:Keep aggro with a 2 handed warrior it's easier.
Probably is. Aveline and her sword & shield haven't been too effective so far. Is she the only character who first arrives spec'd as a tank? Might have to get ol' Carver to go tank-mode instead. No way should a two-handed guy be a better tank than someone who carries a shield, but hey, this is Dragon Age 2.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
I will say this, there are a ton of side quests. I am 11 hours in and have not gone to the
yet. (Not even sure that is spoiler worthy)
deep roads
There has to be because 50 soveriegn is not an easy sum to come up with. Basically all the early side quests are practically main quests just to advance the plot.Deadly Cyclone said:
Zeliard said:Probably is. Aveline and her sword & shield haven't been too effective so far. Is she the only character who first arrives spec'd as a tank? Might have to get ol' Carver to go tank-mode instead. No way should a two-handed guy be a better tank than someone who carries a shield, but hey, this is Dragon Age 2.
She is indeed the only tank. Sucks for party grouping as it makes her pretty much a needed character but she does offer fun banter with the other ladies
Fenris is a great tank. Super magic reistantZeliard said:Probably is. Aveline and her sword & shield haven't been too effective so far. Is she the only character who first arrives spec'd as a tank? Might have to get ol' Carver to go tank-mode instead. No way should a two-handed guy be a better tank than someone who carries a shield, but hey, this is Dragon Age 2.
AzureNightmare
Banned
What have they done to you Anders!?!?
Alright; what the hell did they do to my beloved Dragon Age? I played every combat sequence in Origins with the camera overhead; not possible now. The UI felt natural and smooth. The characters felt real and held weight in my mind. The fiction was rich and worthy of my hours spent in the codex. Now, what a mess we have here.
Free camera actually made me feel like I could assess the whole situation and make strategic decisions in turn. Now I have to work within the constraints of each characters max perspective. The tag line was to think like a general eh? If I want combat to look and feel like this, I will go play Dynasty Warriors thank you very much. (And let's be clear, I do not like Dynasty Warriors)
The graphics and UI are so distant from its precursor, it feels like a completely foreign game. Dragon Age: Origins looked like a CRPG. It had style and elegance. This looks like a medium budget console hack and slash.
If I am going to stare at my character for (hopefully) 50+ hours, maybe some extra work on simple things like hair would be in order.
I bought DA:O several weeks ago and put ~60+ hours into it and the DLC. I literally finished it three days ago, so I am not sitting here reminiscing about some game of old. That game had 'something' in its soul. This game, in the first few hours or so, seems to have lost his.
Give me back my free camera. Give me back my true overhead perspective. Give me a quality HUD. For as great a game as DA:O was, it baffles me how one could fall so hard. I am dropping this game right now. I'll find a way to return it. I had put off Awakenings due to this release, but am quite happy to have something close to being worthy of the title to jump into now.
I'll be back in a year to pick up the ultimate edition on the cheap when all this mess will hopefully be somewhat worked out through expansions/patches/dlc.
/rant
Running max settings 1920x1080 with 4xAA on:
2x GTX 460 SLI (EVGA)
6 Gigs RAM
i7-930
x58UD3R
Free camera actually made me feel like I could assess the whole situation and make strategic decisions in turn. Now I have to work within the constraints of each characters max perspective. The tag line was to think like a general eh? If I want combat to look and feel like this, I will go play Dynasty Warriors thank you very much. (And let's be clear, I do not like Dynasty Warriors)
The graphics and UI are so distant from its precursor, it feels like a completely foreign game. Dragon Age: Origins looked like a CRPG. It had style and elegance. This looks like a medium budget console hack and slash.
If I am going to stare at my character for (hopefully) 50+ hours, maybe some extra work on simple things like hair would be in order.
I bought DA:O several weeks ago and put ~60+ hours into it and the DLC. I literally finished it three days ago, so I am not sitting here reminiscing about some game of old. That game had 'something' in its soul. This game, in the first few hours or so, seems to have lost his.
Give me back my free camera. Give me back my true overhead perspective. Give me a quality HUD. For as great a game as DA:O was, it baffles me how one could fall so hard. I am dropping this game right now. I'll find a way to return it. I had put off Awakenings due to this release, but am quite happy to have something close to being worthy of the title to jump into now.
I'll be back in a year to pick up the ultimate edition on the cheap when all this mess will hopefully be somewhat worked out through expansions/patches/dlc.
/rant
Running max settings 1920x1080 with 4xAA on:
2x GTX 460 SLI (EVGA)
6 Gigs RAM
i7-930
x58UD3R