Review Dungeon Siege 2 dubbed alright by GameSpot

[Spazmo]

Tags: Dungeon Siege 2; Gas Powered Games

<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/pc">Gamespot PC</a> have <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dungeonsiege2/review.html>reviewed</a> Gas Powered Games action RPG sequel Dungeon Siege II. Their rating is <b>7.9/10</b>, which, in mainstream gaming media terms, means the game is awful crap despite the verbal rating of "good".<blockquote>Once you have your party assembled, you're ready for combat. You only directly control one character at a time, but you can give your party orders with a quick press of a button. For example, you can tap the F key to put your party into mirror mode, which will make them mimic your main character. Or, you can put your party into rampage mode and they'll kill anything that moves. It's easy to switch characters on the fly as well. You can hit the F2 key to take control of your mage and fire off a quick healing spell, or you can press F3 to switch to your fighter and go pound on some enemies for awhile. You can also set magic spells to auto-cast, which can be handy. It's easy to set up the artificial intelligence-controlled characters to be self-sufficient enough that you don't have to do anything but tell them where to go. In fact, if you have healing spells set to auto-cast, your mages can easily heal your party faster than enemies can inflict damage, so the only thing you have to do to stay alive is keep your mages' mana up.</blockquote>It's sort of been wired into my brain by years of D&D that mages shouldn't get healing spells. If they do, then all the poor clerics of the world start to worry about job security. It's tough being a walking hospital.

 

[JaheiraRocks]

Just think of them (Nature Mages) as druids. Then it makes more sense. Kind of. Except that D&D Druids are cooler.

 

[LlamaGod]

Evil Clerics aint not hospitals

 

[DemonKing]

Check out the video review - the guy's delivery just reeks with enthusiasm:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dungeonsiege2/media.html

I didn't find the demo too bad, but the voice acting was pretty lame and the story and combat weren't exactly cutting edge.

 

[NeVeRLiFt]

Healing Mage's... Roffles for sure!!

 

[xemous]

I just got my copy today, awesome game.

 

[Digit]

I just got my copy today, awesome game.

Your copy of... the demo? Wha? Where did you get the game from?

Digit
====
Forum fly...

 

[Spazmo]

Evil Clerics aint not hospitals

No, evil clerics are dead weight.

In 2nd Ed.

 

[Borys]

In times when Diablo 3 is NOWHERE to be seen... this must suffice.
Simpleminded, old-school Blizzard fun. I liked DS1, well graphics and music (SOULE!) at least.

This looked more like DS1.5 so be it.

 

[LlamaGod]

Evil Clerics aint not hospitals

No, evil clerics are dead weight.

In 2nd Ed.

2nd edition can go float a boat.

 

[Atrokkus]

DND Mages without healing spells is a means of balance, actually, just not to jeopardize the class distinctive system.
But of course mages can use base healing spells.
Especially, necromancers and bone masters. Necromancy is a vast school and it deals with all the life circle, not only death. Healing spells ARE necromancy spells, just as some Finger of Death is.
Hence, if a mage is proficient enough in necromancy to use Finger of Death, then he surely can use, say, Heal Moderate Wounds.

HOwever, it is well-known that clerics are much better necromancers than wizards. But the difference is in pretty high-level spells and feats, not the basic healing or harm type spells.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I think this is one problem with Dungeon Siege's nature magic. Nature Magic can summon, attack, teleport, buff, ressurect, and heal. It's hard to claim it's not the best "class" in the game because it can literally do everything you could possibly want. The other classes can just attack and that's it, really.

There's nothing inspiring about any of the other classes. Melee can only hit things. Ranged can only shoot arrows or throw daggers/axes. Combat magic is just for shooting firey attacks. Everything else, INCLUDING attack spells, is in nature magic.

I'd say a lot of people are going to either play pure nature mages or use nature magic as a secondary because nature magic is WAY too useful.

 

[bryce777]

Nothing else was balanced about the game, so why balance the magic system?

 

[LlamaGod]

Especially, necromancers and bone masters. Necromancy is a vast school and it deals with all the life circle, not only death. Healing spells ARE necromancy spells, just as some Finger of Death is.

Thats just the Necromancy school, to be a tried and true Necromancer, you have to multiclass Cleric pretty high.

To be a Necromancer you have to made death your religion and be sorta a conductor for it.

I dunno where I put my book with the requirements at at the moment, though.

 

[Atrokkus]

Especially, necromancers and bone masters. Necromancy is a vast school and it deals with all the life circle, not only death. Healing spells ARE necromancy spells, just as some Finger of Death is.

Thats just the Necromancy school, to be a tried and true Necromancer, you have to multiclass Cleric pretty high.

To be a Necromancer you have to made death your religion and be sorta a conductor for it.

I dunno where I put my book with the requirements at at the moment, though.

Yeah, i know (i have some supplements right here ^_^ )
But the point is, that a necromancer can use healing spells, as well as harming ones. Of course, mage necros are somewhat limited (no greater heal, resurrection etc), but still able to cast spells like wail of the banshee or finger of death, which are pretty highlevel, thus they can also case healing spells of that sort. But, in favor of balance, they were limited to only harming and utility spells.

 

[Spazmo]

D&D wizards get no healing spells whatsoever.

*Nature mage stuff*

In most games, the power of a nature mage/spellcaster/character is balanced by the fact that nature oriented characters are immense treehugger candyasses. Unfortunately, DSII probably doesn't have many situations where NPCs make fun of your pansy hippie ways, so it's really totally unbalanced.

 

[Atrokkus]

D&D wizards get no healing spells whatsoever.

And i stated the reason. Purely for the sake of balance.

 

[Sarvis]

Hence, if a mage is proficient enough in necromancy to use Finger of Death, then he surely can use, say, Heal Moderate Wounds.

No.

That's not how it works. Mages can't use healing spells because they are not really spells. A Cleric <i>asks his God</i> to perform healing when he casts Heal Moderate Wounds. A mage is using his own power to cast the spell, or some external energy source that is basically non-sentient. This is an entirely different matter than asking someone to heal your friend, so t here is no reason to expect the mage to be able to cast any of the same spells as a cleric can.

Necromancer or not.

Could they have their own versions of healing spells? Maybe, but I believe the excuse is something along the lines of the human body being too complex.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I think this is one problem with Dungeon Siege's nature magic. Nature Magic can summon, attack, teleport, buff, ressurect, and heal. It's hard to claim it's not the best "class" in the game because it can literally do everything you could possibly want. The other classes can just attack and that's it, really.

There's nothing inspiring about any of the other classes. Melee can only hit things. Ranged can only shoot arrows or throw daggers/axes. Combat magic is just for shooting firey attacks. Everything else, INCLUDING attack spells, is in nature magic.

I'd say a lot of people are going to either play pure nature mages or use nature magic as a secondary because nature magic is WAY too useful.

Actually, that's not true at all. Nature Magic's great, but the damage output is poor compared to Combat Magic, Ranged and of course Melee. Ice is decent, but there's very few AOE spells and there's no particularly ultra-high damage spells, either. You can freeze stuff, though, so you're more of a utility than anything else.

With fire, you can disperse a lot of damage to a goodly amount of creatures in an area. You can also set them aflame to do damage over time. This is a passive skill that works with all fire spells. With lightning, you mostly do direct damage, but you can stun them as well as cause your lightning damage to arc with a passive, so there's a lot of damage there too. With Death, you can heal yourself as you damage them, and later on, you can even heal your party as you damage them!

On top of that, combat mages can also summon pets which they can improve the attack speed, and they can also curse enemies so that their attacks, the attacks of their allies and so forth do a lot more damage to the enemy, or they can blind the enemy, weaken him, and so on.

Melee comes in three forms: dual wield (pure damage, high speed), overbear (stunning, massive damage, but slow), and sword & shield (tanking). There are later parts in the game that are how shall we say... difficult, for casters. Especially nature mages. Nature mages, heal, right? Smart monsters HATE that and target them first. They go down fast unless you know how to deal with it. For this reason, a sword & shield guy is very handy because he has a skill that draws all the monster's attention to himself, away from the rest of the party. Melee is extremely necessary in your party if you wish to survive, because mages don't have a lot of health or armor.

Sure, nature mages can heal themselves, but they'll just die faster if they try that when an intelligent enemy is nearby.

Oh yeah, some enemies get really pissed off if you pick up items while you're fighting with them.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Actually, that's not true at all. Nature Magic's great, but the damage output is poor compared to Combat Magic, Ranged and of course Melee. Ice is decent, but there's very few AOE spells and there's no particularly ultra-high damage spells, either. You can freeze stuff, though, so you're more of a utility than anything else.

Even the lesser ice bolt can become pretty potent if you're putting points in water magic. I was doing way more damage with my ice bolt halfway through the demo than I was with my rare sledgehammer on my melee character at the end of the first play through.

With Death, you can heal yourself as you damage them, and later on, you can even heal your party as you damage them!

Okay, I didn't know that combat magic had an outlet for healing. Still, healing from damage is rarely as effective as just straight up healing.

On top of that, combat mages can also summon pets which they can improve the attack speed,

Nature magic has buffs that increase the abilities of the whole party. Those are direct effect, too.

Melee comes in three forms: dual wield (pure damage, high speed), overbear (stunning, massive damage, but slow), and sword & shield (tanking).

But end the end, they're just running up and hitting things with different weapons. Sure, there are special attacks, but a lot of those take a while to recharge so they aren't used much. Playing a Barbarian in D2 is much more satisfying because there's a wide range of things you can readily do while fighting and you can do them all the time. Gladiator in Sacred is the same way.

There are later parts in the game that are how shall we say... difficult, for casters. Especially nature mages. Nature mages, heal, right? Smart monsters HATE that and target them first.

Just mirror attack those. Nothing too hard about that.

Another way would be to give your biggest, baddest tank a touch of nature magic so they move to him while he's autohealing.

They go down fast unless you know how to deal with it. For this reason, a sword & shield guy is very handy because he has a skill that draws all the monster's attention to himself, away from the rest of the party. Melee is extremely necessary in your party if you wish to survive, because mages don't have a lot of health or armor.

Well, the ranged fighter's "gravity stone" can be used for that without anyone taking damage.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Speaking of the Gravity Stone - yeah, there's lots of ways to deal with monsters. You're not relegated to having a tank all the time.

 

[Drakron]

D&D wizards get no healing spells whatsoever.

And i stated the reason. Purely for the sake of balance.

I would not say "balance" but making classes having a expecialized defined role.

There is nothing balanced in D&D, you can compare the combat effectiveness of a lv4 warrior and a lv4 wizard, the fighter wins at that level but starts to lose at higher level were the wizard can make him his pet.

The issue of mages being able to heal is not much of a issue, the problem becames mages vs clerics in terms of role, if a mage simply out performs a cleric in all fields then there is a problem.

Actually I remenber Wizards forums before 3.5 come out and people seen the changes to spell lists and noticed that clerics got a bunch of wizard spells added to their list just to make the class more attractive to be played and that alone says a lot over D&D direction and how "balanced" its going to be.

The problem I see is that mages vs cleric argument is not going to go away since the major diference of those classes is just one, clerics get spells from their faith and mages get their spells from knowledge.

 

[dagamer667]

Check out the video review - the guy's delivery just reeks with enthusiasm:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dungeonsiege2/media.html

I didn't find the demo too bad, but the voice acting was pretty lame and the story and combat weren't exactly cutting edge.

Gamespot used to be good but now they are just a bunch of jaded buttholes.

 

[Drakron]

Gamespot have issues but compare to other reviews sites they are far more balanced in their review scores.

And stick long enough and you get jadded as well, its hard to not be when we can see games done over 12 years ago having more features and better gameplay that today's 20 million productions.