What did you hate about Dragon Age: Origins?

[racofer]

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

I honestly dislike the filler combat, for there's just way, way too much of it, and the party dialogs because they're incredibly stupid most of the time and take way too much game time being what they are - stupid.

At first all of this didn't impede my progress through the game, although I admit it took me a few tries (as stated by many threads I've made here) to finally muster the needed strength to play through the game. Strength that I find lacking for a second play through or let alone Awakening.

It's odd that I had no such issues with ME2, although ME1 suffered slightly from the same issues as in DA:O. In ME2 I believe Bioware did the right thing and stopped pretending their game to be a RPG and instead focused solely on shooting things, although many of its sections are quite annoying to replay.

 

[peanuts]

me is a shooter/dating sim

da is trying harder to be an rpg, hated it for the same reasons you put.

 

[DemonKing]

The filler combat and the fact that most of the items you could find lacked the classic "hand-crafted" feel of the IE games and instead came across as Diablo syle combinations of properties.

 

[treave]

Filler combat, dialogue, 90% of the party members, and camera limitations.

Oh, and party member gifts. Fuck that shit.

 

[Felix]

Ape hands.

 

[godsend1989]

Orzammar filler combat was the worst for me, i entered that region very late and since is level scaling the monsters were tough as fuck.

 

[Twinkle]

A disturbing lack of rape and group sex.

 

[Sceptic]

The filler combat is what put me off. Other things I disliked, but wouldn't have been so bad if not for the filler: bland setting, poor writing, lack of consequences for most choices, the level scaling.

Actually level scaling is probably the one big thing next to filler combat. It's almost exactly as bad as Oblivion's... including unique items being level-scaled too (possibly only in DLC though)

 

[Excidium]

Shitty character development.

 

[Black]

bioware

 

[Overweight Manatee]

The filler combat is what put me off. Other things I disliked, but wouldn't have been so bad if not for the filler: bland setting, poor writing, lack of consequences for most choices, the level scaling.

Actually level scaling is probably the one big thing next to filler combat. It's almost exactly as bad as Oblivion's... including unique items being level-scaled too (possibly only in DLC though)

Pretty much this. DA:O would have been fine as a 6 or 8 hour game like ME. As a 30+ hour game which was comprised 90% of the same level-scaled combat with 3-6 foes there is no way I could stomache it unless I took several weeks break over the period.

 

[desocupado]

Shit, I played the whole game, and even kinda liked the game. Somehow, because I can't see WHAT I liked about it.

The bad:

Shitty combat: Feels exaclty the same, since you don't need to save mana, or abilities. You can do the same shit over and over.

More shitty combat: 3 enemies the whole game. 3 FUCKING ENEMIES THE WHOLE GAME. The big darkspawn, the small darkspawn, the screamer thing. Sometimes an ogre or wizard would appear, but that was not common. "Oh but there were bandits too". Fuck your bandits, they were the same shit as darkspawn.

More more shitty combat: The idiotic level scalling, the cretin character advancement. You never felt like you were advancing, just increasing a ridiculously small amount of skill every lvlup. The skills also never seemed to be a big leap from the previous ones. Just one more thing to use and have a cooldown. Yay. FUCK Bioware.

More more more shitty combat: The loot. There was never a moment of "Hey, that's a cool sword, let's try it. Whoa! It sure is an improvement". All loot was slightly better shit than the previous shit.

Standard Bioware story: Chosen one, go to four locations, do some shit, save the world.

Alistair was a whiny bitch. I can't stress this enough. Fucking whiny bitch.

Cliched characters. Mysterious, honor bound warrior from another land, naive bard/rogue, drunk dwarf. Shit, I usually like the drunk dwarf guy, but the one in this game was especially shallow. Also, human despising construct. At least HK 47 was funny.

"Biowarian C&C": As in, non-existant. The murder of the child could have been a powerful moment, if I had not known that I could have saved him, because Bioware can't have a "wrong" choice in their games. I ended up killing him anyway. Fuck Bioware.

Some retarded fetch quests.

The dragon or whatever that last boss was called: Most retarded villlain ever.

The setting was kinda bland too. You don't need a good setting to make a decent story, mind you, but the game has neither.

The idiotic thing about having a child with Morrigan at the end of the game.

The absolutely retarded quest involving those elfs and werewolves. I was so pissed I wanted to slaughter everyone involved in the feud. "Oh, boohoo, some fucker stepped on my toe, and now I will hold forever a grudge". "Oh boohoo, I suffer, but still attack you on sight even if you might help me.".


Now, the good:

Well, I kinda liked Morrigan and Zefran (I did NOT have elf butsecks). If only because they were a diversion from the usual Biowarian companions.

The lady that was supposed to marry Alistair was kinda cool, in a bitchy manipulative kinda way. And her father looked a bit on the gray part of morality too. I recruited him in the end.

The thing about Morrigan's mother was kinda cool too.

But seriously, I want to know what made me finish that game. Because I despite the huge amount of SHIT the game had, I still finished, and sort of liked. I must be sick in the head. Or maybe I wasn't taking my medication at the time.

 

[desocupado]

Also, I have been meaning to ask. How does Mass Effect 2 compares to the first one? Is it an improvement? Because that was a mediocre game. If the second one don't offer improvement, I think I will pass on it.

 

[Ruprekt]

I hated the Bioware 1 place -> 4 places -> 1 place + a quest per character design schema.

And I was expecting the end sequence to have a bit more to it. I was equipping my characters for an epic hunt for the Archdemon... and in the end it basically comes to you and asks to be put down...

Still I enjoyed Origins overall. Awakening on the other hand I gave up on: it obviously wasn't going to develop the setting or gameplay any further.

 

[Sceptic]

the cretin character advancement. You never felt like you were advancing, just increasing a ridiculously small amount of skill every lvlup. The skills also never seemed to be a big leap from the previous ones. Just one more thing to use and have a cooldown.

I think it should be stressed this is only a problem because of the filler. Had combat been actually strategic, against a variety of different enemies with different abilities, you'd end up using a different combination of talents every time. As it is, you find the one winning combination (CoC/Crushing Prison) and spam this to victory. The abilities themselves are quite cool, especially there are a lot of non-damaging spells that do lots of interesting stuff, but you never use them because it's easier and faster to just freeze everything.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Filler combat, didn't really like the characters/dialog for the most part (Shale was good apart from LOLPIGEONS and LOLHK47). Thought the setting was ok. Thought the character system would be ok if the encounters were better designed. Appreciated attempt at C&C and shades of gray.

Wasn't enough to turn me off of it, but it took me a good year to finally finish Origins since I kept putting it down since it didn't interest me much. Then I pirated Awakening and ran through that (Worse than Origins). I also agree Mass Effect 2 was better for Bioware simply because they're terrible at making RPG systems fun when they're not running off of an established system (AD&D, D20). Unfortunately I think it's a bad move to make Dragon Age 2 an action game since part of the draw of Dragon Age is the (Partial) return to tactical RPG party battles. Instead of running away from that they should have just done it better.

In conclusion, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS8KJocA4aY

 

[attackfighter]

I hated how the combat consisted entirely of you spamming abilities as fast as possible. And how the enemies were scaled for 75% of the game. And how almost all of the items went from generic silver longsword --> generic gold longsword --> generic platinum longsword etc., there were only like 6 unique items or something and generally there was no thinking involved when equipping stuff.

Everyone talked too much. And they talk about stupid unimportant stuff, like "durr I grew up in a forest. one time I killed someone to steal a mirror derp but then my mother destroyed the mirror" - this was an actual conversation, the point of it was just to hint at what gift a certain party member would like (it was mirrors).

The characters looked gay and forgettable. I hate when they just generate random faces in their own character creation thing, they could atleast put thought and effort into how the main characters look instead of "hurrrrr lets make King Cailan have long blonde hair! that is what we think kings look like or something!!!"

and of course I hated the repetitive nature of the game. fighting was repetitive, all sidequests were just fighting a band of generic enemies or collecting 50 mana potions or w/e. it was just a horrible experience I hope david gayder burns in hell

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I just made the terrible mistake of watching my own youtube link. Christ. CHRIST.

 

[bhlaab]

-Overhead camera was somehow worse than NWN2's.
-Confusing map design that the bad camera didn't exactly help against.
-Akward mouse controls that split major actions between the left and right buttons for no reason.
-Cutscenes of dudes just talking at you for like 20 fucking minutes
-Devoting long cutscenes to a story that can be entirely summed up with: "We need to fight the monsters!"
-Character development predicated entirely on the acquisition of active skills that you will inevitably neglect in favor of one or two favorites.
-Combat is bad and there is nothing to do in the game besides combat and preparation for more combat.

 

[Serious_Business]

Setting (anyone who wasn't bothered by this is a major retard), writing, characters, quests, combat, story, graphics, music... yeah

I was about to say voice acting too, but the game did have Simon Templeman. So I guess Simon Templeman is the only good thing about Dragon age.

Also, it was fairly well optimized and ran well on old machines, so I'll give it that too.

 

[bhlaab]

Oh also at the end of the human origin story I played:

Dying Father: Avenge me, join the grey wardens!
Me: I don't want to.
Dying Father: You must!
Me: No.
Grey Warden Patriarch: We need you, you're the chosen one or something.
Me: No.
Dying Father: You muuuust!
Me: No.
Grey Warden Patriarch: Cut the horseshit, I'm forcing you to.

 

[bhlaab]

Also, I have been meaning to ask. How does Mass Effect 2 compares to the first one? Is it an improvement? Because that was a mediocre game. If the second one don't offer improvement, I think I will pass on it.

First Mass Effect is horseshit, both as an rpg and as a shooter.

Mass Effect 2 is Fairly Decent if you think of it as a Cover Shooter Plus instead of an RPG Minus.

 

[Jaesun]

Dragon Age for me was like being served an unfamiliar dish. The dish looked ok and smelled appetizing. Your first bite tasted just fine, so you then continued eating the dish.

After a while, the sudden taste of shit started to overwhelm all of your senses, to the point you became sick and nauseous and stopped eating it all together.

 

[Phage]

I personally disliked the combat as a whole. Since the game was heavily combat oriented, that significantly skewed my view against the game.

I thought the party characters weren't that bad. Really. (except the Dwarf with the generic nerd dwarf voice) Even Alistair was ok in my book.

The overall setting and plot was quite weak in my opinion. This coupled with lack of real consequences made me feel generally "meh" about the title.

 

[Turisas]

Distinct lack of rape.