Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Dragon Age did get at least one thing right though

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
Patron
Bethestard
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
21,144
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
1385964288984.png

People still bit though. :smug:
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Complaining about resting in BG2, meanwhile you have autohealing outside of combat in DA:O, never even need to bother about something like resting while companions cannot die. Dat incline, dat depth!
Furthermore, there were a few dungoens, too few though, like Mindflayer and Kuo Toa tungeon where resting was forbidding. Irenicus dungeon allowed one rest only.
Sure you soloed ToB with a level 7-8 character without cheating/glitching. Cool story bro. I bet you did it naked as well and never rested.I am also sure your sub 60 HP never had a problem with PW:Kill, Stun, or Blind.
When did you ever need to concoct salves? DA:O is so piss easy that you just have to stock up on lyrium potions and health potions, done.
Dungeon design was so derp that Thieves utility was useless because to derpy auto healing and piss poor trap damage you were never in danger through traps.
Trash was even more laughable in Dragon Derp: Origins than in BG 2, which had at least a couple which were really challenging, like Beholders and Liches.

You just described BG2, you just click an enemy to kill it. I soloed the game like that (Core rules)..

Sure you did bro, on a fucking swashbuckler who had no counter to mantle spells, stoneskins, invulnerability to magic weapons, Imp. Invis, etc. I am sure those liches, high level mages, dragons, etc were deeply impressed.

The only part of Dragon Turd: Oigins were the Origins stories, or in other words first hour. Oh and melee combat was better, unless you include ToB, when it is kinda even, but it came pretty late if you made a full playthough.

After that the game had so much awful padding like Deep Roads with even worse trash, no party member deaths, crappy item system/upgrades, terrible story with one of the most forgettable villains ever, laughably tiny areas, annoying camera, etc.
Don't even get me started on the idiotic affection system, which (potentially) undermined any reaction of companions affection in relation to your decisions in the storyline, if you cared enough, by just spamming gifts on them.
And those staff auto attack animations. /facepalm
 
Last edited:

set

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2013
Messages
940
I dunno, I can't think of too many fights in the entire Infinity Engine series that weren't basically tank and spank. Of course, DAO fights are basically just zerg rushes.

You can't tank Ithilids. You need to rotate your party quite a bit. Tanking isn't really what won most fights anyway, it's mages and the good use of control or blocking combined with them.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Yeah, since these medkits are SO rare and hard to come by. Oh wait.
Yeah, I do not believe you. You want to convince me? Find someone who has never played a BG game before. Let him try to play through it without reloading and never leveling up. Load it up on YT. GL.
Poultices and potions are plentiful enough that you never have to worry about them. Are you trying to argue that Dragon Derp was "difficult" even in the slightest?
So you use metagame knowledge while claiming you were "a noob". Right. Mirror Image and Stoneskin on a swashbuckler lvl 7 without UMD? Cool story bro. And dont try to tell me that you used that short sword and rested every fucking time after you used it. I'll laugh my ass off.
Kangaxx is one of about half a dozen or so liches, the others play fair. Technically Kangaxx plays fair, since in the core rule books demiliches CAN cast Trap the Soul every round. Kangaxx is also not supposed to be taken at low levels. He was supposed to be beaten by a (very) high level party with plenty of resources.

I was not talking about Mantle alone, I said "spells" for a reason. Absolute Immunity can only be beaten by +5 weapons. GL finding that +5 weapon. Even +4 is only available through one weapon which is pretty expensive right at the start. Since you made a Swashbuckler and left him presumably at 8 your THAC0 with that weapon should be in the high tens if not outright over 20. GL hitting anything with a non terrible AC.
Non magical weapons deal piss poor damage and in case of a lich you deal diddly suqat. Then there is still the issue of Mirror Image, Imp. Invis, Blur, etc. Nice try though.
Camera is "fine" if you have low standards, sure. Suit yourself. Nothing to "learn" here since I even managed NWN 2 camera, which was a bit worse even.
I was not only talking about inventory system but about itemization.
Never even brought up romances since I do not give a damn. BG 2 they are annoying, in Origins outright retarded.

Not much food for thought? About a dozen points made "not enough? But then again, it's not like you gave anything of substance to begin with, so we are kinda even.

You can't tank Ithilids. You need to rotate your party quite a bit. Tanking isn't really what won most fights anyway, it's mages and the good use of control or blocking combined with them.

You can tank illithids with high AC so they only hit you 5% of the time, or Protection From Magical Weapons if you can cast it. Chaotic Commands is another solid, basic buff against them.

So your Swashbuckler had Mirror Image, Stoneskin AND Chaotic Commands (basic buff my ass) available at level 8? My isn't that a powerful bugger.
 
Last edited:

BBMorti

Arcane
Joined
Apr 21, 2013
Messages
607
If you play BG2 with SCS or any other difficulty enhancing mods PW:K will stop any low level character since it can't be buffed against. It will say poof every single time a higher level caster detects your hp and gets a spell off. Feel free to post a little video of you auto attacking your way to victory versus SCS ascension Sendai or just record Gromnir with that level 8 swashbuckler, shouldn't take many minutes to do.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
If you play BG2 with SCS or any other difficulty enhancing mods PW:K will stop any low level character since it can't be buffed against. It will say poof every single time a higher level caster detects your hp and gets a spell off. Feel free to post a little video of you auto attacking your way to victory versus SCS ascension Sendai or just record Gromnir with that level 8 swashbuckler, shouldn't take many minutes to do.

I think he/she was talking about unmodded BG 2. My main problem here was the claim that not only did he use swashbuckler, but remained level 8 AND he was a "newbie". I have no doubt that with sufficient metagaming, savescumming, luck and abusing every little glitch and oversight that it is possible to beat the original SoA on a level 8 swashbuckler, but that's hardly "newbie" material. That requires decent knowledge of the game and a good chunk of metagaming.
I will not believe his/her claim unless he/she uploads a video of such a run, also proofing that the person had never played BG games before and just "facerolled" through it.

But even then, Unseeing eye always had PW:Kill in my playthroughs. Only way for him/her on a swashbuckler to beat that is Antimagic Scroll, of which are like 1-2 in the entire game, GL beating all the other magic threats like Twisted Rune and Kangaxx.
 
Last edited:

BBMorti

Arcane
Joined
Apr 21, 2013
Messages
607
It's been a while since I played un-modded BG2, but I would imagine all ToB mages having PW:Kill in vanilla. A level 8 swashbuckler would have around 48 Hit point at maximum, if any of the mages uses the spell, it's save scumming time. I think I re-loaded maximum 5 times in the two playthroughs I had in DA:O, both on nightmare, the latter was a solo warrior no-reload, which makes me feel that BG2 requiring save scumming, for a newbie, at any point, makes it a far harder game.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
It's been a while since I played un-modded BG2, but I would imagine all ToB mages having PW:Kill in vanilla. A level 8 swashbuckler would have around 48 Hit point at maximum, if any of the mages uses the spell, it's save scumming time. I think I re-loaded maximum 5 times in the two playthroughs I had in DA:O, both on nightmare, the latter was a solo warrior no-reload, which makes me feel that BG2 requiring save scumming, for a newbie, at any point, makes it a far harder game.

BG 2, even original was harder than Origins, especially for someone who had no knowledge of the game. High level mages even then had Chain Contingencies, Contingencies, Spell Triggers, Sequencers and Minor Sequencer in addition to fast defenses up like Shield, Mirror Image and Stoneskin and became unassailable fortresses unless you knew how to counter those, which again needs quite some knowledge about the game, which a newbie usually doesn't possess.

God beware if he played with ToB and ran into HLA mages with Imp. Alacrity and Timestop, or that Lich which casts Wish and gets double length Timestop, Spellthrust on entire party and then casts merrily dozens of spells.
 

RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
Patron
Joined
Feb 23, 2006
Messages
28,396
Location
Not Here
Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
I was just mentioning a few things I liked about Origins, like the inventory space being limited, and that you need backpacks to extend it.

You mean the game actually had a consequence for those item slots other than looting shit, go back to town, sell off the junk, go back to the place again, loot, resell, resume adventure?
 

Xor

Arcane
Joined
Jan 21, 2008
Messages
9,345
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
I can play through DAO controlling only one character except on a handful of exceptionally difficult fights, whereas I have to micromanage any fight in BG2 that isn't trivial.

Someone plays EZ mode and has never played RAVAge..
I played on nightmare. It was a cake walk.

Try to solo BG2 and ToB without leveling up your character from the Prologue onwards.. that's how easy BG2 is, I didn't even hit the level up button and just stayed at starting experience until Melissan's end (Core rules).
d63.jpg


Utilizing environment/terrain? The random waylays in Origins have more than the whole of BG2 put together.
You mean the big, open field or the forest with a handful of traps? Yeah, that sure is a wide variety of terrain options.

Resources? BG2 doesn't daunt the player with the prospect of resting, meaning Vancian magic is often abused - on-rest ambushes are walk-overs and they threw in a hardcoded option to "Rest Until Healed". Great design, thar. Not even enforcing rest restrictions under a Vancian system and leaving it up to the player to self-impose it. A least Origins' spells have cooldowns and mana upkeep to limit spam and active buffs somewhat, BG2 is rein-less in that respect..
No it isn't. You're limited by spell slots instead of mana. And you rest instead of just getting your mana back and healing up at the end of every fight.

You just described BG2, you just click an enemy and watch the stick figure kill it. Can solo the game like that..
Try doing that with SCS installed.

What mods have you used in Dragon Age: Origins?
Too many for me to bother recalling. Not the combat difficulty mod you keep praising, though.
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
Patron
Bethestard
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
21,144
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
You come out of the prologue with about 5000 gold worth of shit. That'll buy you a Sleeve of Vecna at best.

and it doesn't take long to accumulate hundreds of thousands of gold

Yes it does. Unlike dragon age where you can repeat the trap making quest as often as you like. If you have the patience you can leave lothering at level 20 with hundreds of gold.
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
Patron
Bethestard
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
21,144
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
You come out of the prologue with about 5000 gold worth of shit. That'll buy you a Sleeve of Vecna at best.

Try 10,000 GP. And I never said you'd have enough to buy the Vecna robe from the Prologue haul alone. Try not to misrepresent what I say, makes you look like even more an idiot that I already suppose you to be.

You're a serial liar, who gives a shit what you think?
 

set

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2013
Messages
940
Any retard with an xbox beat Dragon Age Origins.

BG/2 aren't the hardest games around, but there are plenty of fights in those games which will wipe an inexperienced player. Beholders, Liches, Ithilids, Mind Flayers, Umber Hulks, Djinns - like, almost any notable enemy I can think of - each one will pose a unique threat to the player you will have no way of being prepared of on a first playthrough. Potions are plentiful, which is probably how many players only managed to scrape by on their first playthroughs.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Yeah, since these medkits are SO rare and hard to come by. Oh wait.

Harder to come by than a rest button...
It seems you lack a memory more than one post long, you said you didn't believe I can do it - you weren't talking about newbies, read what you wrote:
But now you're talking about yourself and other newbies? ok, then. :retarded:

Why are you worried about those three spells, in particular?

On Nightmare it can offer challenges, otherwise you need RAVAge to thug the encounters out a bit. Much of BG2's "difficulty" comes from trial and error and AD&D2's poorly balanced "save or die" repertoire, which isn't really designed for cRPGs (requires lots of reloads and save scumming, especially for tentative new players). A gimmick of SCS2 is to make it even worse by crudely making wizards air tight under various uber-buffs, forcing the player to peel them off in a rigid order - learned by trial and error, not by intelligent tactics - or die trying.

My claim has never been that I'm a newbie, no. With regard to the Swashbuckler, what are you talking about? I was speaking in general terms how traps can be avoided. My no-level-up solo was done with a fighter/mage, who had access to those spells (see below, and ask more Qs if you like - I realize your ability to ask insightful ones are limited, but pls try).

What amount of levels and resources can prepare a new player for TPK imprisonment spam? Bad design is bad, not "challenging".

What enemy uses Absolute Immunity? The Staff of Rynn +4 can be purchased straight after the Prologue, but veterans would prefer Flail of Ages (slow) with Celestial Fury (stun) - both +3 - on switch, and wait until later to deal with enemies that require higher enchantments to hit (of which there aren't many).

Not sure why you keep mentioning Swashbuckler, I mentioned the Halfling Swashbuckler as an entry level solo for someone like you. I soloed BG2 and ToB without leveling up with a fighter/mage.

The demi-lich is taken out with 10 ApR IMoD.
Phantasms like MI are dispelled quickly with high ApR.
Imp. Invis is never used by enemies (not 100% sure, but I never had any probs).
are you forreal about blur?
Only if you don't know how to use Strategy mode...
I was just mentioning a few things I liked about Origins, like the inventory space being limited, and that you need backpacks to extend it.
I hope in your next post you're gonna be a little more constructive, otherwise I'll have to put you back on ignore. :(

Can't rest in combat. Doesn't mean a damn when its basically a forgettable feature. Its like me saying I have to buy ammunition in BG2. About the same amount of "attention" needed.
I was not the one claiming that BG 2 can be soloed by a swashbuckler at min level as a newbie. At least that's how your post read.
There are plenty of spells I have to be worried about as a level 8 swashbuckler. Or a F/M. Or whatever.
Phantasms like Blur and Imp. Invis are not dispelled by ApR. Imp. Invis is used by a big chunk of wizards in fact which they also love. Imp Invis gives a -4 to your hit rolls, Blur -1. Not that big of a deal endgame, but for sure a significant blow to your hit rolls early to mid game when your THAC0 is between 10 and 15. Gets worse when you are blinded which reduces your hit rolls by 10.

Your bashing of SCS is laughable. You are not above using the cheapest tactics but cry when SCS2 levels the field by allowing the AI to do the same. Yeah you have to learn how to deal with it, since knowledge is the only type of skill a RTwP offers. In Dragon Derp I need to know nothing to counter magic, just spam your abilities since mages do not have these kinds of defenses. Furthermore, if you had paid attention what the author wrote about the intent of SCS2 was that he asumes that every player goes heavily prebuffed into fights, therefore having massive advantage and all he did was leveling the playing field. SCS2 grants the AI only the same opportunities which are available to the player.

Staff of Rynn costs over 25k easily. That's not something you can purchase right of the bat. Celestial Fury is guarded by a decent level party in a heavily trapped building and the traps are not avoidable. Flail of the Ages takes a bit to assemble in full. Both do nothing against Magic Immunity.
I had the Lich in the Underdark use Absolute Immunity for once. Other Liches use it as well. Since spell books are randomized it is hard to tell who will use it.

"For someone like me"? You know nothing about me, but please continue to talk out of your ass with moronic assumptions. BG 2 has been soloed by a Beastmaster, easily the worst class in the game, so you using F/M which is one of the strongest and then brag about it is about as laughable as it gets. Not like either games require massive amount of skill but for sure does BG2 need more knowledge.

Overall, solos mean nothing in BG2 since the lack of companions is easily made up by ridiculous level speed and excess amounts of cash, never got the hype about soloing BG2. Ironman insane run with a full 6 man party > solo run with using every glitch, save scumming and oversight by far.

"More" Constructive? How are my posts "less constructive" than yours? All you do is throwing out your opinion backed up by nothing, you insufferable douchebag, but by all means, put me on ignore, could not care much less about a Dragon Derp humper like you at this point.
 

Nikaido

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Sep 14, 2013
Messages
521
Location
9th Hell
The only thing nightmare mode does to DAO is make every single fight overly long and tedious. They're not really challenging, but now everything takes forever. You thought there was already too much trash to deal with already? you felt it was ridiculous that by the end of the game it still took almost as much time to kill random bandit groups in world map encounters than at the beginning (oh dat level scaling) ? Nightmare mode is named such not for the challenge, it is to be taken literally. It is a literal nightmare, eternal boredom that you won't be able to get out of.

Because of the extreme amount of level scaling (a lot of RPG have level scaling but still reasonable ranges depending on context/area.) that game has no concept of pacing. There's no rest from samey-overly long trash encounters. Good RPG design should always pace encounters so that there's real challenges but fit in between trash that fits its name. Playing game modes that make that crap take longer is called masochism.

Any retard with an xbox beat Dragon Age Origins.

BG/2 aren't the hardest games around, but there are plenty of fights in those games which will wipe an inexperienced player. Beholders, Liches, Ithilids, Mind Flayers, Umber Hulks, Djinns - like, almost any notable enemy I can think of - each one will pose a unique threat to the player you will have no way of being prepared of on a first playthrough. Potions are plentiful, which is probably how many players only managed to scrape by on their first playthroughs.

The uniqueness and pacing of encounters is what made BG2 great. The first time you get level drained and lose some abilities/spells temporarily, the first time you encounter illithids and they kill you through int drain etc, it's so obviously superior to a game like DAO where you're basically using the samey strategies over and over you'd have to be retarded to compare both games.

The only thing DAO has going for it is that it was one of the few tolerable games in an ocean of shit in the time it was released. It doesn't compare to any decent RPG.
 
Last edited:

Daemongar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
4,706
Location
Wisconsin
Codex Year of the Donut
The uniqueness and pacing of encounters is what made BG2 great. The first time you get level drained and lose some abilities/spells temporarily, the first time you encounter illithids and they kill you through int drain etc, it's so obviously superior to a game like DAO where you're basically using the samey strategies over and over you'd have to be retarded to compare both games.

The only thing DAO has going for it is that it was one of the few tolerable games in an ocean of shit in the time it was released. It doesn't compare to any decent RPG.

It's a tough sell to compare DAO to BG2, as problems with AD&D 2nd edition rules become problems with BG2 itself, and DAO came out quite a bit of time after BG2. The D&D system sucks, but arguably is better than any other system implemented in RPGs (a different thread entirely.) Not leveling up is an option in any D&D game because you can always hit with a 20, you can always miss with a 1. Same for saving throws. You level up because it improves your to-hit and saving-throws. Yep, you don't have to level up, but it will sure speed things up and reduce the reloads! At the same time, with enough reloads you can beat anything, and some fights may be easy to some and very difficult to others. Hell, I killed a dragon on the first hit with my vorpal sword the first time I faced it in BG2. I didn't bitch on the internet, as the next few times I played BG2, that was a tough fight and that never happened again. (Maybe a patch fixed that, I don't know - was the dragon by the crossword puzzle, I believe.)

Might as well bitch about BG2 path-finding, AI scripts, and how impractical spell memorization is while one is at it.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
The uniqueness and pacing of encounters is what made BG2 great. The first time you get level drained and lose some abilities/spells temporarily, the first time you encounter illithids and they kill you through int drain etc, it's so obviously superior to a game like DAO where you're basically using the samey strategies over and over you'd have to be retarded to compare both games.

The only thing DAO has going for it is that it was one of the few tolerable games in an ocean of shit in the time it was released. It doesn't compare to any decent RPG.

It's a tough sell to compare DAO to BG2, as problems with AD&D 2nd edition rules become problems with BG2 itself, and DAO came out quite a bit of time after BG2. The D&D system sucks, but arguably is better than any other system implemented in RPGs (a different thread entirely.) Not leveling up is an option in any D&D game because you can always hit with a 20, you can always miss with a 1. Same for saving throws. You level up because it improves your to-hit and saving-throws. Yep, you don't have to level up, but it will sure speed things up and reduce the reloads! At the same time, with enough reloads you can beat anything, and some fights may be easy to some and very difficult to others. Hell, I killed a dragon on the first hit with my vorpal sword the first time I faced it in BG2. I didn't bitch on the internet, as the next few times I played BG2, that was a tough fight and that never happened again. (Maybe a patch fixed that, I don't know - was the dragon by the crossword puzzle, I believe.)

Might as well bitch about BG2 path-finding, AI scripts, and how impractical spell memorization is while one is at it.

DA:O came out at a time when we had a drought of good RPGs. Compared to BG 2 it just objectively worse and pandering to consoletards at every turn. Both games are relatively easy but BG 2 is certainly more difficult, especially for beginners.

Just a few relatively quick brainstorming points in which DA:O is significantly worse than BG 2:

1.) Team mates cannot die. The wound system is laughable easy to handle and has no real consequences, other that you might lose a bit of gold. Resting doesn't really exist, instead it is used as a stage for party interaction, almost exclusively between the protagonist and whomever he talks to. Party cannot get tired of anything, technically you can run through the game without resting at all, just doing the main story stuff in the camping area.
Furthermore , characters heal automatically after combat, reducing the need for things like resting even further. While it is true that BG2 resting was too forgivable and not punishing enough if done in dangerous areas it still at least tried. DA:O just flat out throws everything overboard, dumbing it down as much as possible. Mods can fix the easy resting. Mods cannot reinstate an entire system in DA:O.
In BG 2 characters can also die and they can even die permanently without the possibility to revive them outside of a Power Word: Reload.

2.) To add insult to injury your decisions and how companions react is undermined by the affection systems and the ability to basically spam gifts to keep them happy, even if you did the worst shit imaginable from their PoV. Luckily this is avoidable, so only a minor point.

3.) Magic system was severely cut down with a lot of pretty standard spells ripped off D&D directly (Cone of Cold, Grease, Fireball, etc). The combinations were a neat idea but ultimately most will just spam Storm of the Century and that's it. Couple of these combinations are gimmicky at best.
It's also fairly easy to max out most of your wanted 1-2 trees early to mid game already, whereas SoA and HLAs took till endgame to get the best stuff, at least in party, I'm not getting into solo play.
There are only a handful ways to counter magic but buffs and debuffs aren't as dramatic as in BG 2 and therefore it doesn't matter too much. Heck in BG 2 it is vital how you deal with the various protections or otherwise you will just strike an immune mage/dragon/demon/undead for dozens of turns. Not so in DA:O where almost any mage goes down through short concentrated fire from the entire party.

4.) Nonsensical inclusion of blood magic for a mage protagonist. It is pretty clear that blood magic is reviled among circle mages yet you can easily make a pact with a demon to become one and Wynn doesn't even lift an eyebrow. Neither does Alistar mind that you become a blood mage and there is absolutely 0 risk of you becoming possessed by a demon.

5.) Level design and encounter design is a joke. Dungeons tend to be fairely short, hardly any trash mob is even remotely challenging, there are close to no enemy parties and those few who do exist have only a few abilities. BG 2 sports quite a few enemy parties which often include higher level of priests and mages who can ruin your day in a dozen ways, also included already stealthed rogues who can one shot your squishy characters if you are not mindful of them. On top of that BG 2 has "standard" monsters like Mindflayers or Beholders which can obliterate any unprepared party in seconds. Which monster can do that in DA:O? None. Mages have access to spells which can obliterate your entire part in one round like Horrid Wilting, Delayed Blast Fireball, Triple Skull Trap from Sequencer, etc. The few exceptions which exist in DA:O are "hard" primarily due to insane HP bloat and nothing else, like Revenants for example.
Traps are meaningless since all they do is damaging you a little which your automated regeneration takes care off. While it is true that traps are avoidable in several ways in BG 2 you still have to put in an effort to make sure you are not severely damaged or outright killed, which plenty of traps are capable off.

6.) Storytelling is also better in BG2. Not only are all quest presented through actual character interaction and dialogue, it can come from quite surprising circumstances, like digging out that poor guy in the graveyard, or finding out that someone you met in BG1 was commiting heinous crimes in Athkatla. Plenty of quests pop up like that and it feels much more organic than the quest boards, more on those in the next point.

7.) Quest board. It's just screams lazy design by just giving you a brief text message with barely any interaction at all. Quests are almost exclusively fed ex or kill quests with little choice and even less flair. In BG2, trying to get a certain item like the book of Kaza for Korgan is an entire small adventure with dungeon crawling, a nice twist and a satisfying ending, fitting for this NPC.

8.) Main story feels better in BG2. while certainly not the epitome of originality its not the usual banal shit that you are the chosen one who has to save the world. You have to save yourself, your soul, you are also not a chosen one, you are a puppet, originally intended to help an evil god to revive again after his demise which he forsaw. You are given the opportunity to turn the tables and become one yourself, if you wish it, though you can chose not to. You save a small elven kingdom in the process in SoA, but that's more a neccessity to get to the guy you chase throuout the SoA part of the trilogy.
Even by the end of ToB, hardly anyone really know what you did. Some important and/or powerful characters know of course, but you won't find the masses of the country chanting your name.

9.) Antagonist in DA:O is just utterly laughable, uncreative and banal shit boring. Sarevok, Irenicus and Amellissan just flat out beat him in every way possible, it's just sad and pathetic that after over 10 years of developing games the best they can come up with for their "spiritual" successor is an empty shell with no personality, no reasons for his conquests, no real interaction, nothing. He is basically nothing more than a Lego brick with HP and a few attacks. Could have actually replaced the Archdemon with a Lego brick, that would have been at least hilarious.
The Darkspawn are just as laughable "Herp Derp we bad guyz we mustz killz all otherz" monsters. No personality, no motivation, no explanation, no real interaction outside of killing, nothing. Diablo has better dark hordes than the frigging Darkspawn.

10.) Choices are meaningless for the most part. The only meaningful choice comes at the end when someone has to die to kill the Archdemon.

11.) Extremely generic medieval fantasy art design with the exception of the Fade, which is mostly foggy and annoying but hardly innovative for the most part. Also many supposedly important areas are laughably small. Compare Athkatla with Denerim and you can see what I mean. Denerim is just pathetic for supposedly capital of Fereldren.


There only a few points in DA:Os favor:

1.) Origin stories were a nice idea, but awfully short and ultimately of no consequence to the rest of the story. Mostly wasted potential, doesn't even get a mention in case of a save import into DA 2.

2.) Melee combat is better until HLAs come into play, then it is pretty close, albeit I'd still give a small edge to DA:O

3.) Party banter doesn't interrupt actual gameplay.

To put it into perspective, if DA:O had come out late 90s/early 2000s it would have been viewed as a decent but overall forgettable game. At best.
 
Last edited:

Dreaad

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2013
Messages
5,604
Location
Deep in your subconscious mind spreading lies.
I can play through DAO controlling only one character except on a handful of exceptionally difficult fights, whereas I have to micromanage any fight in BG2 that isn't trivial. This doesn't really bother me - fights in BG2 tend to be more difficult, requiring thinking about tactics, resources, and utilizing the environment rather than just rushing in and killing everything. This is probably because BG2 has a much wider array of spells and abilities to call on than DAO did. And I'd rather have to micromanage a lot of the time than just have 95% of fights pretty much play themselves out.

I am, of course, comparing both games heavily modded, because without mods BG2 is boring and DAO is shit.
I don't know why people keep lying about this. DA: O was not an amazing game by any means, nor better than BG2 but it sure as hell was faaaar more challenging if you played on anything above normal. Even on hard every single fight involving a yellow named enemy (i.e. weakest type of boss/leader) required constant moving around, timing your abilities to chain stun, prioritizing one target, sacrificial placement of your warriors to protect your mages for a few seconds longer and so on. Don't get me wrong there was some broken spells that made the game much easier if you abused them... but BG2 had exactly the same thing, my favorite was creeping doom shutting down any and all mages including Irenicus and Melisan. Point is trying to claim DA: O was easier than BG2 is a complete fabrication.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
DA:O was easier than BG2. Anyone that says otherwise cannot into the concept of difficulty.
 

Dreaad

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2013
Messages
5,604
Location
Deep in your subconscious mind spreading lies.
Without mods BG2 was very easy bro. *Shrugs* to me at least it always seemed that way, there were a few tricky enemies like illithids that required one or two precombat buffs before sending in your two warriors to slaughter everything, but that's about it. Every enemy party could be insta gibbed with confusion and hold person. If all else failed you just cast improved haste on a warrior or paladin with +3 or higher weapon and he killed everything.

There was some tough stuff in ToB, but epic feats and items kinda trivialized most of it. So yeah personally I had a much harder time with a DA: O dragon on nightmare difficulty than with any dragon in BG2. Don't mistake this for me saying DA: O had better combat, it didn't. But it was harder, because HP, armor and damage bloat is more challenging to handle than picking the right hard counter.
 

set

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2013
Messages
940
BG/2 is not "very easy". If we're talking about the same person playing both and having no foreknowledge -- it's so easy for you to make a shitty protag character and to stumble into fights you aren't prepared for. It's especially challenging because BG2 has minimal level scaling. If you play BG2 with its expansion and try to take on watcher's keep early enough - you'll get your ass pounded. Of course, it's not so bad if you A) abuse consumables and B) grind the fuck out of everything. Even THEN, the worst you'll fight in Dragon Age Origins is Miss Tits - or whatever the fuck her name was. No other boss was memorable or challenging. The hardest "normal" enemies in the game are the stun-lock-pouncing werewolves.
 

Siveon

Bot
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
4,509
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I don't know why people keep lying about this. DA: O was not an amazing game by any means, nor better than BG2 but it sure as hell was faaaar more challenging if you played on anything above normal. Even on hard every single fight involving a yellow named enemy (i.e. weakest type of boss/leader) required constant moving around, timing your abilities to chain stun, prioritizing one target, sacrificial placement of your warriors to protect your mages for a few seconds longer and so on.

I beat Dragon Age on hard (switching to nightmare a couple of times if I recall) and I don't remember having to do any of that. Well, except prioritizing, but that isn't difficult to do at all. Most of the time I just spammed my best moves and that usually worked. Otherwise, I popped a few potions or had Wynne heal me up. I remember the Archdemon being a pushover too.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom