Preview And there be dragons!

[Claw]

So dragons spit fireballs? Lame.

The part where the dragon chews on one of the fighters looked kinda cool.. the first time.
I'm "impressed" how lightly the victim took it. If I were a dragon, I'd keep chewing until I'd be sure it's dead, maybe roast it in my mouth.
Didn't Biowhore learn the terms "automatic bite damage" from D&D?

Amusingly enough, the dragon actually used its fire breath later in the fight. It didn't look like it actually hit anything, but maybe that's just an animation flaw.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Animation flaws? In a Bioware game?! Surely you jest.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

With any luck anthropomorphic animals in chainmail will be the new shit.

get your immersion already, man

http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/5367/bild111kr.jpg

 

[Pseudofool]

No pausing required?

While I admit, the gameplay video doesn't demonstrate any tactics, I think it's a safe bet that the characters are buffed up for the demo--so the need for tactics would be mitigated. I'll withhold judgment, but remain skeptical.

 

[Lockkaliber]

At least BG2s dragons had some very lethal breath weapons. The shadow dragon was pretty mean.

 

[Volourn]

"At least BG2s dragons had some very lethal breath weapons. The shadow dragon was pretty mean."

No.

 

[Lockkaliber]

"At least BG2s dragons had some very lethal breath weapons. The shadow dragon was pretty mean."

No.

The breath weapons of the dragons in BG2 could decimate your whole party in a couple of rounds , if you didn't buff before the battle, and even then, you had to have the right buffs in your spellbook and freshly memorized to be prepared for a dragon battle.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

I'm not entirely underwhelmed, but why didn't the thing fly? Isn't that kind of the point of being a dragon - flying and roasting everything below?

 

[Yeesh]

I'm not entirely underwhelmed, but why didn't the thing fly? Isn't that kind of the point of being a dragon - flying and roasting everything below?

If I were a dragon, I'd be in it for the ladies. The other dragons can fly around all they want, there's no action above six feet.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

This is the most generic looking combat crapola I've seen in god knows how long.
It looks fucking automated!
You have no control except to give special commands, everything else is done automatically.
When the fuck did this become a MMO?


Edit:
This shit passes for single player game? Fuck me sideways!

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

The part where the dragon chews on one of the fighters looked kinda cool.. the first time.I'm "impressed" how lightly the victim took it. If I were a dragon, I'd keep chewing until I'd be sure it's dead, maybe roast it in my mouth.

Yeah I know. It sits there and chews on one guy for half a minute while everyone else beats it half to death. And it doesn't even seem to seriously hurt the character it was done to. Those types of animations are fine in a game like Ninja Gaiden/Devil May Cry where you only have one character, but when you have more it's stupid to have have the enemies do stuff like that. It just exposes them to massive damage. It doesn't even look very good.

And it's a serious step down from BG2 dragons. They had spells aplenty, dangerous breath weapons, could dish out tons of damage, used wing buffets to disable/kick away your melee attackers, and would actually target your casters (sometimes...usually after a wing buffet when they were the closest target with the highest threat).

Also for those who say it was in god mode, watch how halfway through the fight one of the party members is "knocked out" and gets back up in the end. Scripted? Perhaps, but they also did retreat the mage and do a lot of healing. I don't think they would go through all that effort just to emulate a battle.

 

[Serious_Business]

Christ, I just realised something. They're doctors. They could be saving lives. Instead, they're doing this. Get the hell outta here. This is immoral. Damn.

Fight dragons in dragon age. YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

 

[Azrael the cat]

"At least BG2s dragons had some very lethal breath weapons. The shadow dragon was pretty mean."

No.

The breath weapons of the dragons in BG2 could decimate your whole party in a couple of rounds , if you didn't buff before the battle, and even then, you had to have the right buffs in your spellbook and freshly memorized to be prepared for a dragon battle.

I'd agree with Volly's no, IF it is aimed at your choice of dragon. The shadow dragon was easy - by that time the player party is are uber-leveled, which is why they had a 'you MUST fight, trade a rare item, or trade a truckload of gold' setup. Compared to the Irenicus fight soon after, it was pretty basic.

The red and silver dragons on the other hand...if you fought those without backtracking (i.e. red Firkraag in Chapter 2/3) , and didn't cheese it by pre-buffing the fuck out of your party (to ridiculous 'I'm going to choose the peaceful dialogue option and then cast every buff I have, while placing my thief in backstabbing position, spreading my party out so they can't get wiped by the breath attack and putting my mages where they can't be hit, all while the dragon sits there waiting for me' levels) were fucking hard.


That was a nice thing about both 2nd edition and BG2. Dragons were genuinely hard motherfuckers, to the point where it was questioned whether you could really put one in a DnD crpg without having to nerf it to the point of ridiculousness (yes, carefully placing each dragon encounter in caves where the dragons couldn't fly was a nerf, but that was kind of forgivable through engine limitations - certainly can't think of a comparable generation rpg that did dragons better). And BG2 gave them as optional encounters, with the tradeoffs for avoiding them becoming greater as the game went on (fight all 3 dragons, get awesome rewards, fight just the last one and get meh rewards, avoid all fights and have to trade a lot of gold).

 

[poocolator]

Somehow, fighting a dragon by standing at its feet and swinging at its legs until someone falls over, never really struck me as being chivalrous or courageous, or worthy of being titled "epic."

 

[rpgcodexusername]

The voice over sounds EXACTLY like the captain from star trek voyager.

Morrowind uses Picard so they have to use Janeway.

 

[Dark_Paladin_Anti_Hero]

The part where the dragon chews on one of the fighters looked kinda cool.. the first time.I'm "impressed" how lightly the victim took it. If I were a dragon, I'd keep chewing until I'd be sure it's dead, maybe roast it in my mouth.

Yeah I know. It sits there and chews on one guy for half a minute while everyone else beats it half to death. And it doesn't even seem to seriously hurt the character it was done to. Those types of animations are fine in a game like Ninja Gaiden/Devil May Cry where you only have one character, but when you have more it's stupid to have have the enemies do stuff like that. It just exposes them to massive damage. It doesn't even look very good.

That didn't make any sense to me either. While most of the dragon's other attacks have some oomph behind them, this just seemed horribly out of place. The dragon picks up a guy wearing full plate in his jaws, chews on him, then throws him back to the ground hard. The guy, still wearing full plate, just jumps right back up all nonchalantly, like it's no big fucking deal that a dragon just gnawed on his torso. Maybe the plate mail protected him, but then he should have been hurt when he hit the ground. What was that dragon thinking anyways - I'm just going to pick him up and swing him around a bit for shits and giggles? It's also disturbing how the characters run around on fire and perform just as effectively as if they weren't burning. Let's hope that the extra few months they have now will allow them to add on some polish - and logic.

 

[Gay-Lussac]

"At least BG2s dragons had some very lethal breath weapons. The shadow dragon was pretty mean."

No.

The breath weapons of the dragons in BG2 could decimate your whole party in a couple of rounds , if you didn't buff before the battle, and even then, you had to have the right buffs in your spellbook and freshly memorized to be prepared for a dragon battle.

I'd agree with Volly's no, IF it is aimed at your choice of dragon. The shadow dragon was easy - by that time the player party is are uber-leveled, which is why they had a 'you MUST fight, trade a rare item, or trade a truckload of gold' setup. Compared to the Irenicus fight soon after, it was pretty basic.

The red and silver dragons on the other hand...if you fought those without backtracking (i.e. red Firkraag in Chapter 2/3) , and didn't cheese it by pre-buffing the fuck out of your party (to ridiculous 'I'm going to choose the peaceful dialogue option and then cast every buff I have, while placing my thief in backstabbing position, spreading my party out so they can't get wiped by the breath attack and putting my mages where they can't be hit, all while the dragon sits there waiting for me' levels) were fucking hard.


That was a nice thing about both 2nd edition and BG2. Dragons were genuinely hard motherfuckers, to the point where it was questioned whether you could really put one in a DnD crpg without having to nerf it to the point of ridiculousness (yes, carefully placing each dragon encounter in caves where the dragons couldn't fly was a nerf, but that was kind of forgivable through engine limitations - certainly can't think of a comparable generation rpg that did dragons better). And BG2 gave them as optional encounters, with the tradeoffs for avoiding them becoming greater as the game went on (fight all 3 dragons, get awesome rewards, fight just the last one and get meh rewards, avoid all fights and have to trade a lot of gold).

I think you're confusing the dragon in the nine hells with the one in amaunator's temple.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Damn - I'm confusing the dragon you fight outside the elvish city with the shadow dragon. Point taken.

- still, am I right in thinking that Firkraag is the toughest dragon in the game (without the expansion)?

 

[Volourn]

Shadow dragon was challenging.... unless you cast a 3rd level clerical spell or wore one of a half dozen items. L0L

 

[Hobo Elf]

Looks pretty bad. Good thing I'm not interested in DA.

 

[denizsi]

Gothic 3 has better combat than this. Better "tactical" depth also.

Game also look like shit. Armors look more like mecha-stuff than armors. And what's with the boyband hair models?

Also, as pointed out by someone else, no more "hack at the giant feet to kill 20 feet high shitster" please. And it's supposed to be next-gen for fuck's sake.

 

[Darth Roxor]

BOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIING.

 

[Hory]

I'm surprised by the amount of negative reactions here. Doesn't look that much different from BG2 to me.

Also, as pointed out by someone else, no more "hack at the giant feet to kill 20 feet high shitster" please. And it's supposed to be next-gen for fuck's sake.

In all honestly, how else are you supposed to fight a dragon? And that's just what most people want to do. They don't want to drop boulders from a mountain pass on its head to kill it, they don't want to trap it with magic vines or some shit. They want to beat him by having better gear and higher characters. I appreciate that at least they did implement monster-specific behaviors, such as leg sweeping, fireball (?) throwing, mouth munching and death by collar-grabbing. Problem is that this is probably an exception justified by it being a special encounter. Other kinds of monsters will stick to walking and hitting you, and there will probably be lots of them. Sad.

 

[Claw]

In all honestly, how else are you supposed to fight a dragon?

With spears? Lances?
Heck, maybe even chains with grappling hooks.

Special combat animations like the one used right at the end of the fight, in a pinch. Show the heroes aim for vulnerable spots, not just hack at the dragon's legs the entire time.
I can't help thinking of bossfights in old sidescrollers. You often blast them to pieces in discrete steps. Why couldn't they use that for the dragon? Hamstring it first, then go for the throat.
There is alot of potential in fighting a dragon. They went for "stand there and whack it until it drops. You get a special "finishing move" animation as a bonus.

As a special treat, the characters regard the fight as over the moment the finishing move animations begins, which is awesome. One of their comrades is in an extremely precarious situation, and they're like "He'll handle it, no prob."

There's just everything wrong with this fight. The gameplay is decidedly unimpressive, the presentation sucks. It's just laaaaaame.

 

[Pussycat669]

In all honestly, how else are you supposed to fight a dragon?

Something like this?
Ok, maybe not.