Better combat system: Dragon Age: Origins vs. Pillars of Eternity

[Silly Germans]

The combat in DA:O is a lot more intuitive and transparent but still offers enough to do so it remains engaging.
This puts it above PoE's combat in my opinion.

I never got any intuitive feeling how things are going to work out and having to check every status and whatnot
for all characters all the time was a pain in the ass. It didn't make combat difficult but simply a pain in the ass,
which should be one of the least desired properties for a combat system.

Take the spells for example,
the results of one and the same spell could also vary too much given the miss/grace/hit/crit system making the outcome
a shot in the dark every time you used something. I like my fireball doing x to y damage without all those fucking percentages.

I finished PoE twice, once shortly after release and then some time after all dlc's were out despite the combat.
The gameplay is rather a turnoff when i think about giving it another try.
In DA:O i wouldn't put the combat on a list for reasons against replaying it. I consider combat rather as neutral or slightly positive aspect of the game.
DA:O weakest points lie elsewhere.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Painful as it is to say, Dragon Age: Origins. While combat is kind of mediocre MMO cooldown oriented, you at least have impactful spells that can be satisfying to use.

Phillhurs ouef Eturnythy is a soup of dissatisfying minor percentage modifiers on gimmicky abilities and spells. Everything about the system is so contrived and narrow that I just can't enjoy it.

 

[Reinhardt]

 

[Poseidon00]

Origins is mediocre but passable. There is nothing redeemable about the combat in Eternity.

 

[Trashos]

So what if DAO has cooldowns. Underrail employs cooldowns, and it is fucking awesome.

Anyway, DAO for me. Relatively simple system, but it was often kinda satisfying to use. I did not find much satisfaction in using PoE's system, even though I generally prefer more complex systems. There was no impact in PoE, and there was also no challenge.

 

[Lemming42]

Dragon Age is a disasterpiece thanks mostly to unbearable writing. The combat was fine - it feels like a decent attempt to "modernise" RTWP. I fucking hate RTWP, so I welcome anything that makes it better.

I haven't enjoyed RTWP in any new RPGs - Pillars, Kingmaker, all that.

 

[Carrion]

Both games should be thrown in a fire, but I'd like to say PoE. It's watered-down RTwP with a modernized ruleset, but mechanically it's lukewarm rather than abhorrent. Its problem is that, apart from a handful of fights, the combat is so piss-easy and dull that you could just replace it with an auto-resolve button. Dunno how much that's been improved with the bazillion patches and expansions that have since come out, but I can't muster enough enthusiasm to check it out. DA:O, despite also suffering from repetitiveness and trash mob overload, has better encounter design, but its mechanics are just too despicable with the cooldowns, HP bloat and tank-mage-healer MMO shit that makes the whole thing a chore to get through.

Eh, who cares. Fuck 'em.

So what if DAO has cooldowns. Underrail employs cooldowns, and it is fucking awesome.

Underrail is good despite the cooldowns, not because of them.

 

[KK1001]

DA:O is a bastard child of MMO combat and RTWP but it still manages to be better than the clusterfuck of PoE's real-time with pause and Sawyer's Balance in All Things system.

 

[DalekFlay]

Not a super fan of Origins' cooldown system, but other than that it's clearly superior IMO. Some really nice encounter design in that game, despite all the mob areas, and the "tactical camera" worked as intended just fine. On higher difficulties AoE shit on your on party was devastating, the specializations were neat, some of the fights felt epict. All in all a very solid effort, if not an amazing one. PoE I honestly just remember feeling boring, though I "only" played on hard and people say it gets better at higher difficulties.

 

[hivemind]

Origins. Especially +RAVAge

redpill me on this mod

please

i really like origins but i cant convince myself to play it again vanilla version

thanks

 

[Roguey]

DA:O in the Codex 2009 GOTY poll: #1.
Pillars in the Codex 2015 GOTY poll: #19.

In the new top 70, DA:O was 43 and PoE was 45 so the difference between them is seemingly marginal.

 

[hivemind]

origins has soul while pooe doesnt

poe2 however is better than origins, hard as it is for me to say

 

[hivemind]

btw roguey have you played that ravage origins mod

is it good?

 

[ScrotumBroth]

DA:O and it's not even close.

 

[Roguey]

btw roguey have you played that ravage origins mod

is it good?

I have not. I found it difficult enough without the use of mods.

 

[hivemind]

lmao wth

just sue mana clash my nibba

 

[Roguey]

lmao wth

just sue mana clash my nibba

I used that spell on my first playthrough and avoided it entirely on the second for a self-imposed challenge.

 

[hivemind]

based
i liked the most playing with arcane warrior and just buffing mysellf up and auto attacking stuff
it was comfy

 

[Citizen]

Lolling at people who think these games have bad combat because RTwP. RTwP can be great, didn't you guys get the memo play 7.62?

Problem is - both POE and DAO (just like BG and its other clones) tried to forcefully shoehorn a system based on rounds and designed for turns into real time. RTwP system based on TIME UNITS ala 7.62 is a completely different thing.

Also they both have pretty shitty encounter design which makes the combat appear even worse

 

[The Avatar]

Maneuvering rogues and backstabbing in Origins is so satisfying. Not quite as impactful as Infinity Engine games, but you get to do it more than once.

POE does have more in the variety of races/classes/spells/abilities. Origins has less of this, but what it does have feels polished. Quality over quantity.

 

[Roguey]

both POE and DAO (just like BG and its other clones) tried to forcefully shoehorn a system based on rounds and designed for turns into real time.

Neither of them are round-based. There are a lot of people on the dex who have made the argument that they're lousy because they aren't round-based.

 

[frajaq]

no but real talk why dont more RPGs use Time Units system, its even easier to BALANCE spells/classes with it for those that really care about it (like me)

 

[Grampy_Bone]

In PoE you could use the same strategy for every fight, the challenge was micromanaging your cooldowns, which is hella lame. Later they added auto-attack modes but that just made the game play itself. Magic in particular feels weak and weapons are very samey with overly balanced DPS.

In Origins you could create your own AI routines to make everyone execute your specific strategy, but you always needed to tweak it for different opponents and areas. Magic was both extremely powerful but also tricky to use well due to most offensive spells triggering friendly fire and having long cast times. The game did not go easy on you, enemy encounters were pretty varied and weapons/class combos could make a huge difference in how you approached fights. It may be the best combat system Bioware ever made.

 

[Nano]

lmao wth

just sue mana clash my nibba

I used that spell on my first playthrough and avoided it entirely on the second for a self-imposed challenge.

You're no fun. Something I loved doing was casting Walking Bomb on the mage enemies before casting Mana Clash on them, so that they and the archers near them would all get annihilated. Fuckers never stood a chance.

 

[Lilura]

Fuckers never stood a chance.

This is how RPGs are to be played.