What did you hate about Dragon Age: Origins?

[Decado]

And no bash mechanic? Take Sten. We're strutting through the thousand year old temple in the middle of the woods, and seven-foot-tall Sten can't kick down a rotten fucking door? It has to be lockpicked? And the chests, those are all locked tight with Master locks? A bash mechanic would've done wonders for the game. Make the attempt dependent upon strength, weapon type, and throw in a random chance of weapon damage and/or item destruction and, bingo, I care a little bit more. I dunno, give maces an actual reason for being in the game and make them the weapon least-likely to be damaged in a bash attempt. Do SOMETHING.

Apparently lock bashing was planned to be in the game but they simply didn't enable them, even the chest/door bashing animations are already in the game. This mod puts bashing in including animations, and works fine (you can randomly destroy items in containers): http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=301

While the chest loot is mostly pointless, it saves you having to bring some rogue along always and adds a tiny, tiny bit of variety.

Yeah. I guess they ran out of buttons on the 360 controller and had nowhere to map it to, so they said "Fuck it, let's streamline this bitch and afterwards go get some poutine CANADA FUCK YEAH!!!!"

 

[commie]

Didn't know there actually were some mods for this(only bothered with the game when it came out). Are there any to get rid of or tone down the trash mobs and/or make encounters more interesting?

I had a look at the toolkit to try and edit the fodder out, but I'm useless at this.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Are there any to get rid of or tone down the trash mobs and/or make encounters more interesting?

I've been looking around for those, but seems nobody thought that was a problem. Simply deleting more than 50% of the placed darkspawn would be great, but nobody's done it from what I can see.

 

[commie]

Are there any to get rid of or tone down the trash mobs and/or make encounters more interesting?

I've been looking around for those, but seems nobody thought that was a problem. Simply deleting more than 50% of the placed darkspawn would be great, but nobody's done it from what I can see.

I found an old file that at least gets rid of the level scaling in vanilla DA, so that's some positive at least. Have you or anyone found a more recent file that works for the other content?

Funny, but all this talk about how much DA sucks actually makes me want to give it another go.

Hmm...so no mob deleting mods? Shit, seems that I'll have to figure it out myself if I ever get the time.

 

[Sceptic]

why did I spend ages doing pointless fetch quests to get the nobles on my good side, upped my speech skill and went around generally trying to convince the nobles that I was the messiah if I in the end it was decided by a fucking duel?

Funnily enough NWN2 had done the exact same thing and was ripped for it. Though at least in DAO you get to listen to Simon Templeman's awesome delivery as you rage about the whole thing.

I found an old file that at least gets rid of the level scaling in vanilla DA

DO WANT.

How does it work though? IIRC most non-unique items are also level-scaled. Does the mod just fix everything at the median value of the scaling range?

 

[commie]

I found an old file that at least gets rid of the level scaling in vanilla DA

DO WANT.

How does it work though? IIRC most non-unique items are also level-scaled. Does the mod just fix everything at the median value of the scaling range?

From what I gather, it's just a basic mod to give static levels to the fodder. Here's the link to the basic and enhanced(for the extra exp in the DLC) along with a text file for what it does:

http://social.bioware.com/project/1004/#files

It's a bit rough and some critters still have the min and max leveling band, but it's better than nothing and a good starting point for manual editing(so much easier when someone already does most of the ground work).

The creatures seem to be equipped with the stuff at the level they are fixed at, so higher level enemies will have the higher level weaponry. Since this mod has generated a bit of butthurt among the level scaling lovers, it must be doing something right!

Now just need to kill off most of the mobs, though with this it should make combat less tedious since it lets you overpower the scum. Maybe I'll get the level cap increase mod to go with it so as to blast through the shit even easier.

 

[Twinkle]

Maybe I'll get the level cap increase mod to go with it so as to blast through the shit even easier.

What's the point of enduring the torment? There is an LP around here, y'know.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Maybe I'll get the level cap increase mod to go with it so as to blast through the shit even easier.

What's the point of enduring the torment? There is an LP around here, y'know.

Shameless advertising

 

[The Ninth Circle]

I'm not reading six pages, so I'm sure to repeat some sentiments:

Meaningless, bland, never-ending combat. It's mindless cannon-fodder encounters throughout the game for no other reason than to draw out the playtime. Why is there so little variation in enemies, or enemy types? Why is every single encounter seemingly just like the last with only need for repeated tactics? Why not implement enemy types or encounters that need varied skills + combinations to achieve victory? I used the same combo the entire game with a double mage backline + Alistair (whiny bitch) and my rogue. Insane criticals when the mage's incapacitated the mobs. This only to have something to do with my main character. Mages can wipe the floor with everyone themselves. The Deep Roads made me want to throw the game out the window.

 

[commie]

Maybe I'll get the level cap increase mod to go with it so as to blast through the shit even easier.

What's the point of enduring the torment? There is an LP around here, y'know.

Good effort on the LP

Eh, I actually see a bit of redeeming quality in this game, mediocre it is, but much of the shit is due to the god awful encounters and scaling which increases the tedium. Without this fucking albatross, and with replacing 100 mobs with 10 differing encounters,where you use different tactics and play to the strengths and weaknesses of your team, it would be quite good. I can forgive the writing as it's really no worse than 90% of cheesy RPG lore and to single out DA for this is pretty lame.

Maybe one day I'll learn enough to test out my theory using the editor. Strangely, everything is still 'read only' from the main modules though. haven't figured out how to kill off the mobs, which are pretty much hand placed and not spawned, making it even more criminal that they exist in the first place: hand placed should ALWAYS trump random, spawned encounters!

 

[Relay]

Stupid mechanics

Take the lockpicking/chest part of the game. First of all, pretty much every chest was optional. There were no "must have!" items locked up in chests. Mostly they contained injury kits and jock-itch balm (did anyone use salves, btw? I beat the game on the hard difficulty level and didn't use a single fucking salve. Not one.)

So if there's nothing of real value in the chests, why bother spending the very valuable level-up points to give your rogue the ability to unlock them?

And no bash mechanic? Take Sten. We're strutting through the thousand year old temple in the middle of the woods, and seven-foot-tall Sten can't kick down a rotten fucking door? It has to be lockpicked? And the chests, those are all locked tight with Master locks? A bash mechanic would've done wonders for the game. Make the attempt dependent upon strength, weapon type, and throw in a random chance of weapon damage and/or item destruction and, bingo, I care a little bit more. I dunno, give maces an actual reason for being in the game and make them the weapon least-likely to be damaged in a bash attempt. Do SOMETHING.

Everything in DA has been dumbed down to make it cheaper to produce. You mention the locks, well they're the only purpose the rogue has in that game since you can't steal from merchants besides a single, useless pickpocketting attempt. You can't kill friendly NPCs, can't make much use of stealth because of the encounter design. Which is why I expect DA2 to have a much more combat oriented rogue.

As far as RPG mechanics go, even Oblivion is less dumbed down than Dragon Age. Oblivion still feels like a true cRPG, albeit a retarded one with shitty setting, writing and quests. DA just feels way too static.

 

[Sceptic]

Eh, I actually see a bit of redeeming quality in this game, mediocre it is

The redeeming qualities are there, the problem is that they themselves have huge flaws. Take the C&C. Looks great on paper... but then it's marred by there being no consequences even to very drastic measures (such as killing the Arl's son or wife) and there always being the perfect solution to every problem. Third options are fun when they're well presented, but when picking anything but the 3rd option is just jackassery it really weakens the impact of any choice.

I can forgive the writing as it's really no worse than 90% of cheesy RPG lore and to single out DA for this is pretty lame.

The writing itself is typical Bioware mediocre and certainly not the worst around (Oblivion's was much worse; I'd argue even KOTOR was worse). Lore, on the other hand, deserves a sound bashing for Bioware hyping their new and original setting over FIVE FUCKING YEARS and then delivering the most bland fantasy setting you can imagine.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Not the most bland. Most bland would require high elves and wood elves. The oppression of elves, depicted as jews in ghettoes and gypsies in the wilderness, at least was something little bit different from the generic high fantasy.

 

[commie]

Not the most bland. Most bland would require high elves and wood elves. The oppression of elves, depicted as jews in ghettoes and gypsies in the wilderness, at least was something little bit different from the generic high fantasy.

But this was already in the Witcher books and in the game so even here Bioware just ripped off something else instead of coming up with their own thing.

 

[Xor]

Using a subhuman race to depict racism is hardly the most original idea. I don't even read much fantasy and I've seen that one plenty of times.

Seems to me the elven culture in the game used to be cliche high elves, but they declined because evil humans destroyed their empire. Or some shit. I can't be bothered to look any of this up. Anyway the racism aspect could have been really interesting, but it only comes up during the origins and then pretty much never again.

Seriously, given the way the various cultures are presented in-game, you should get entirely different reactions from people based on your race and origin, but instead they pretty much all react the same way with maybe an extra sentence thrown in.

 

[janjetina]

What have you hated the most and why? And was it enough to completely turn you away from the game?

Bad encounter design. Developers throwing trash encounters at the player at every step without rhyme and reason. Why are there so many generic darkspawn, cultists, spiders, etc. blocking the PC's way? This is a story driven game, but story doesn't warrant the placement of those trash mobs. On the other hand, combat was not challenging and interesting enough (turn based system would be a necessary requirement for that) to provide its own motivation.
It wasn't enough to deter me from playing the game and completing it once. Tried a 2nd playthrough, couldn't finish it.

 

[Angthoron]

After thinking a bit, I have to once more mention that I hated the writing in this one. It's seriously bad. Yes, there is "fluff writing" to flesh out the setting, but it's still failing to reach even the BG1/NWN levels of writing. The style is bad. Lots of text, but it's unappealing.

I guess BioWare writing is like an 80-year-old with huge breasts. The stuff is huge, but it's still sagging.

 

[Excommunicator]

I think it deserves a special mention for cultures and setting. I can scarcely remember seeing a setting that is so uninspiring in how it represents its cultures, being the direct translations of cultures/countries of real-world Europe between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance that they are. I get that they needed to churn their shit out complete with a whole new universe - if you would ever try to call it "new" - within an unrealistic time frame, but copy real world regions right down to the linguistics and accents of those exact regions? There is no creativity to be found there.

I will at least admit that the unimaginitive setting does fit with the genericness of everything else in the game though.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Leliana. Shes like the sole companion in any video game I hate beyond any measure.

 

[Antihero]

Probably too tedious to bother with, fixing all the encounters in the game. Plus just randomly deleting stuff might break scripts to advance the plot.

Maybe one day I'll learn enough to test out my theory using the editor. Strangely, everything is still 'read only' from the main modules though.

You need to check resources out so they're not read only - or make sure art assets don't have the read-only file flag on them.

haven't figured out how to kill off the mobs, which are pretty much hand placed and not spawned, making it even more criminal that they exist in the first place: hand placed should ALWAYS trump random, spawned encounters!

Change the script associated with the area in the property inspector. The random encounter areas are reused, so you can't just handplace monsters unless you want a "random" encounter with already defeated monsters.

Could possibly even still have stuff added by others through a PRCSCR - which would be harder to get rid of since you have no real control over that.

 

[Miew]

Not going to repeat the same things everyone else said. But there's one more thing that bothered me: I hate how you can't drop items into the game world. I can see why they did that in multiplayer games like WoW, where it'd put a heavy load on the servers if everyone suddenly started throwing their stuff around, but why the heck can't I just drop some of the stuff from my inventory to pick it up later? Instead I have to destroy anything I can't carry right now. It just diminishes any feeling of freedom in the game world even further.

 

[Bromancer]

The game was actually pretty entertaining at first, but after finishing Redcliffe and then going through the Mage Tower, I realized that Bioware had run out of ideas. The Deep Roads could have been the most interesting part of the game if they fleshed out the exploration and did more with the atmosphere. The Broodmother part was probably the only highlight of it all, but like all the bosses it was ridiculously easy.

The companions could have been interesting, if only Gaider resisted the urge to pretend he was Joss Whedon.

Combat could have been more interesting if there were a greater variety of skills to use. Not to mention the sheer number of trash mobs, which seems to be the main gripe amongst the KKKodicks. I really can't believe it took them THAT long to make this game.

 

[mvBarracuda]

Tried it out for about 2 hours. I wanted to play a grumpy, evil dwarf. I tried hard to find dialogues in the tutorial when I could actually go for a grumpy response. Couldn't find one, gave up, uninstalled the game and never looked back.

Life's too short to play boring games.

 

[Drakron]

... but it's still failing to reach even the BG1/NWN levels of writing.

Because BG1/BG2/NwN books were LITERALLY ripped-off WORD BY WORD of the AD&D 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Box books.

 

[Angthoron]

... but it's still failing to reach even the BG1/NWN levels of writing.

Because BG1/BG2/NwN books were LITERALLY ripped-off WORD BY WORD of the AD&D 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Box books.

That would explain why they were actually enjoyable then.