Dragon Age vs Baldurs Gate 2.

[Volourn]

MULTIPLE REASONS DA > BG2 (not in any order)


1. Dialogue skills

2. Multiple ways to solve quests/convince people to do what you want them to do

3. DA OGRE > BG2 OGRE

4. DA Fighters are not simply click and attack ala BG2 fighter (barring epic DA2 abilities for the lolz)

5. DA dragons will actually fly around in combat

6. Morrigan is more complex that Viconia/Jaheria/Imoen combined

7. Overwhelm/crush/grab ability is awesome for both enemies and dog (nothing comapres to it in BG2)

8. Codex

9. Multiple start points

10. Not always clear cut good vs evil choice

11. The obvious right chocie isn't as obviously right as you originally thought (dalish elves vs werewolves and the anvil quests as prime example)

12. All stats cna have some sort of influence on a character (unlike in BG2 where stats like intelligence and charisma are 100% worthless for fighters)

13. DA dwarves are awesome while BG2 dwarves are just there (but still more awesomer than most b/c well.. dwarves are awesome

14. Dwarven Noble Origin Rocks!

15. How the game even changed my mind about the 'needless' blood splattering - i used to think it is frivilous but it fits perfectly in the DA world where blood plays a huge factor (darkspawn taint, warden ritual, blood mage, etc., etc.)

16. No useless split up of black dwarves vs white dwraves or dark elves vs white elves. Inner race turmoil is because of culture not skin

The list goes fuckin' on, and fuckin' on, and fuckin' on.

 

[Melcar]

Bullshit

 

[Deleted member 7219]

"Bullshit"

You're a fuckin' idiot.

 

[Melcar]

Miarda

 

[DreadMessiah]

MoraN

 

[DemonKing]

I think BG2 resonated with a lot of people because it was really a pastiche of all the "cool" things people associated with D&D - it had iconic monsters and magic items in spades - thrown loosely together in one mega-adventure.

I find that the lack of unique magic items and the limited number of opponent types in DA inferior to BG2 (resulting in monsters appearing in areas where it makes no sense for them to be like a bunch of Drakelings near the top of the Circle's tower, for example), probably for the sake of "variety".

I haven't finsihed DA yet, but it seems to be slightly better in some aspects, such as non-spell caster combat options and NPC characterisations.

 

[aboyd]

IWD series are a definition of a boring game. They are combat oriented games with bad combat system, subpar encounter design and nothing else. BG 1 is not very far, main difference being that it has a story. C&C and world reactivity in all 3 games is zero.

You are no longer credible to me.

 

[DreadMessiah]

IWD series are a definition of a boring game. They are combat oriented games with bad combat system, subpar encounter design and nothing else. BG 1 is not very far, main difference being that it has a story. C&C and world reactivity in all 3 games is zero.

You are no longer credible to me.

Shhhhhh leave the delusional alone. Big meanie!

 

[merchant's skeleton]

3. DA OGRE > BG2 OGRE

Nah.

"ME WILL CRUSH YOU! CRUSH YOU TO GOO!"

BG2 wins.

 

[DreadMessiah]

3. DA OGRE > BG2 OGRE

Nah.

"ME WILL CRUSH YOU! CRUSH YOU TO GOO!"

BG2 wins.

Bullshit. Roofles. Also MoraN.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Much of what Volourn says here is, for once, true. One big plus in favour of BG2, though, is narrative structure. BG2 earnt so many bonus points for me by having enemies that you are constantly engaging with over the course of the game. Not just cutscene: 'look what they're doing now', but multiple battles with them getting stronger just like you. You fight Bodhi and Irenicus 6 times, not including scripted the scripted encounter at the end of chapter 1 (ok, one of those fights against Bodhi involves you turning in the Slayer pretty quickly, but that in itself was a cool encounter).

DA - like Mass Effect and KoTOR before it - goes back to the old formula of the 'big bad' being something that waits for you to fight it at the end of the game (ok, you have a very brief piece of dialogue and an earlier fight against Saren in ME, which is better in that regard than DA, but even that was a step back). No good book or movie has ZERO interaction between hero and villain until the end-fight. It even sucks in comic book movies where the hero doesn't get to fight the 'uber' version of the villain unti the final fight (Spiderman 3, Hulk 2, I'm looking at YOU). Games are no different. I really really wish Bioware and other companies had learnt that lesson from BG2.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Figthing the big bad multiple times through the game happens a lot in jrpgs. First time is usually him manhandling you.

 

[Murk]

I must be in a slowly dying minority then - I too find the IWD series to be far superior to the BG series in every way minus BG 1's free-roaming exploration.

 

[Volourn]

"I find that the lack of unique magic items"

wut? DA has tons of unique magical items. Tons.


"One big plus in favour of BG2, though, is narrative structure. BG2 earnt so many bonus points for me by having enemies that you are constantly engaging with over the course of the game. Not just cutscene: 'look what they're doing now', but multiple battles with them getting stronger just like you. You fight Bodhi and Irenicus 6 times, not including scripted the scripted encounter at the end of chapter 1 (ok, one of those fights against Bodhi involves you turning in the Slayer pretty quickly, but that in itself was a cool encounter)."

yeah, that was awesome. Then again, irenicus and Bodhi are probably the best 1-2 punch main villains ever. Espicially Bodhi since she's supposed to be just a 'subboss' comapred to Irenicus but she gets a lot of screen time.

DA's trickier since the main boss is barely animal intelligence uber dragon bent on destruction. I do think they could have had Loghain more active. Or, at the very least, his Female Contender who had potential for more depth but she only shows up basically in the last part of the game. But, yeah, definitely BG2 has the edge main villains wise but that's not so Loghain is horrible. I say that because throughout the game I wrote him off as nothing but scum; but the last little bit, I nearly got convince to forgive him for his crimes. btw, His daughter could have been used more to.


"Nah.

"ME WILL CRUSH YOU! CRUSH YOU TO GOO!"

BG2 wins."

L0LZ It takes more than a cute line to be awesome.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

> DA

 

[ricolikesrice]

i prefer the combat vastly over IE (and obviously NWN/Kotor games) , especially because it uses a lot from MMORPGs like WoW which imho have pretty decent combat for real-time games. (well they have to, since MMORPGs are all about the combat - but i guess its all cool & trendy around here to bash MMORPGs for everything, including the things they actually got right).

dont really like the DnD ruleset much anyway (even in turn-based games), but i d guess even DnD fans would admit that it definitly crap for a real-time(with pause) system.

DA is a lot more "dynamic", you simply have to "play more" whereas IE/NWN games are merely about giving your non-mages attack commands and then using a couple of spells from your casters (if even, in NWN2 i hardly used spells in battle at all but casters were mostly buffbots turning my melee into unhittable gods of super-destruction - 95% of the combat didnt need me interfering with it ... ) . i already liked drakensang for that reason but DA s even better. i use pause about 10times+ more than i have to in IE and about 100times more than in NWN2.

Of course it isnt flawless. Balance, as usual for cRPGs, is far from perfect. You have specializations like shapeshifter which are utter crap and you have specializations like arcane warrior who are almost god mode. You have spells like cone of cold and force field which are amazing and usefull in alost every fight (turning some of them into cakewalks even) .... and you have spells that are very very situational and worthless 90% of the game- same as DnD/other cRPGs though. i m not trying to be all fanboy defensive here - i definitly think those imbalances should be sortet out, preferably by bioware themselves - not modders .... but at least in DA you ll have the chance for the later. while IE and NWN games were also moddable.... because "its DnD!" few people had the balls to try balancing that shit.

so basically, as soon as you know which abilities are good and which arent - your "challenge" depends a lot on partysetup. obviously someone running with 2 mages of which one is amazing at healing and another is a god of CC via cone of cold and force field ..... you ll have a vastly easier time than someone running with just 1 or even zero mages. again, exact the same is true for IE games and basically every cRPG ever made.

what DA and almost every cRPG ever made could definitly use would be better encounter design. i wish more devs would understand that in order to make a bunch of bandits dangerous even for your highlvl party..... you dont have to use to cheap and unlogical route of giving them tons of HP and damage .... but could simply use the environment. instead of level-scalings bandits make bandit ambushes where the bandits themselves are weak but have all sorts of advantages over the party via traps, better positions (dragon age actually does that a lot of the time to give credit where its due though) or heck if you setting the party against a "weaker" enemy its always a good idea to make that fight not about merely beating the enemies (which you ll do anyways) but "goals" instead. beating them before they can kill the hostages is a simply example of doing that and gives the encounter a challenge without tuning some lousy bandits to have more hitpoints than your seasoned elite warrior in equipment made of awesome (retarded level scaling) / giving lousy bandits uber equipment made of awesome (facepalm fucking retarded level scaling )

and i seriously wish more cRPGs would do a better job at "ressource" management. granted, DA (and Drakensang) are heaven compared to the magic item / gold overkill of most cRPGs, especially DnD ones...... but i d love to see some cRPGs where you accept sidequests not only for xp/feeling the need to complete everything there is but because you desperatly need the money for armour repairs, healing etc. i.e. simply getting your team going. imagine a game where you d have to sell your magic sword of uberness for a ridicioulus low price to some shady merchant but its a necessary evil since otherwise you cant pay the temple for curing your healer of a STD he got from a midget romance.

that part of RPGs has pretty much died out, its all about combat & dialogue these days. inventory are basically only about storing your uberloot and the not-so-uberloot to sell so you can buy more uberloot. and travel is about clicking on a destination and maybe having a random encounter inbetween. or you get a shitty overland map full of fail like SoZ... and all non-combat skills you get are either about dialogue or crafting.... (....crafting stuff usefull in combat, duh)

....realms of arcanias, wasteland & co.... fucking shame that kind of RPG gameplay outside of combat&dialogue died out completely.

 

[Zed]

I just beat the hardest encounters in DA:O on nightmare all within like 20 mins on first tries without pausing. DA:O is BG for babies.

DA:O had boring items. Armors looked like ass. The most powerful item in DA:O is an easter egg. GG.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

But seriously, what fucking roleplaying do you have in BG? Your stats don't fucking matter.

In DA:O stats don't matter either, seeing as how there's level scaling. Or rather, forced leveling. If you don't distribute points, everything else levels up too with points distributed, thus, resulting in "forced leveling". Besides, stats have nothing to do with RPG's you fucking ignoramous.

I meant dialogue-wise, manboob. No stats affecting the dialogue = not a (classic)RPG.

 

[coldcrow]

Welcome to the new shit of pretty princesses, C&C at an intellectual level of a 16 year old, DPS, LotR and whaever fits the bill of being easily accessible.
The more I read about this the more I start to loathe the whole C&C crowd.

One more thing: To experience it all, the advocates say I have to play DA 2 or more times. But why should I play again through the horrendous combat when I actually used ALL the skills before thanks to a 4-of party and rather limited skills. Besides that, teh difference between a pommel strike and a shield bash is nil for example.

I didn't like BG2 overly much and DA:O is trailing down the same path by reinforcing the weaknesses and not adding anything worthwhile besides slightly better gfx.

 

[merchant's skeleton]

I haven't played DA, but from all the marketing and previews it seems so po-faced and SUPER-CEREAL. What's the humour like in the game? I've seen people mention Shale and some other examples, but the drab 3D environments and sub-LOTR aesthetic and gallons of blood sloshing about looks really silly to me. BG2 was charming and funny, with beautiful locations.

 

[Grifthin]

There's little bits of humor scattered through the whole game. One of my favourite being the "love letters" you find in some chests. The one descibes a bucher stuffing a sausage. But it's written very luridly with massive double meaning. Size is no issue, as I always take care not to burst the object of my concentration. lol.

Then there's the various bits of party banter, Sten and his cookies, the cake is a lie, Zevran and Wynne's magical bosom. And of course my favourite:

Dwarf Crier after a noble attacked the king:" Lord behlen attempts to attack king harrowmont. EPIC FAIL." I laughed at that. Another one is the dwarf crier running out of bad things to say about the one lord and goes:" Lord behlen is a...a...bad man!, yes very bad!"

Some real gems.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Yeah, 4chan memes. Real gems.

And cake is a lie? Seriously?

BG2 > DA.

 

[Grifthin]

Hey, I liked Portal.

 

[pipka]

Do you like to fap to C&C? I sure do

 

[Volourn]

"No stats affecting the dialogue = not a (classic)RPG."

Complete, and utter bullshit.


And, there's a lot of comedy in the game. Lots of banter bewteen party members have it.