Game News Dragon Age II Shorter And More Cinematic

[FatCat]

maybe the codex should remake their own version of DA in RPGMaker.

Why bother DA lore is shit

 

[DraQ]

 

[Luzur]

maybe the codex should remake their own version of DA in RPGMaker.

Why bother DA lore is shit

because then we can make our own lore and our own rape/romance scenes.

 

[Commissar Draco]

I was after NVN1 was "improved" over BG2. Now I'll have more time to play in TW2 and AoD. I'm too old to play shity games.

P.S. Coud mods upload some more IG avatars for DoW? Cadian karskin although cool don't suit imperial Commissar.

 

[Bigot_]

maybe the codex should remake their own version of DA in RPGMaker.

Walk ten steps, fight two rogues, two warriors, and a mage
Walk ten more steps, fight two reskinned renamed rogues, two reskinned renamed warriors, and a mage
Repeat until hot elf on elf cutscene

100 repetitions unlocks dwarf cutscene

1000 unlocks darkspawn cutscene and an achievement

 

[sgc_meltdown]

His explanation sounds reasonable - whether they managed to do that effectively is another matter.

That's the big problem that a lot of people happily ignore while saying the immersiveness of isometric view is shit. Abstraction of viewpoint allows for abstraction of events. When you try and up the ante by going into details like facial features and body language, any lapse in realism is more jarring than noticing that your little sprite doesn't smile when he says he's happy. It's increasing the amount of man-hours needed to bring a scene up to snuff while ignoring the fact that the men doing it can't even match the writing in older titles. And then you go ahead and say we have this much stuff when it's whore's makeup on a shit foundation.

 

[DraQ]

That's the big problem that a lot of people happily ignore while saying the immersiveness of isometric view is shit. Abstraction of viewpoint allows for abstraction of events. When you try and up the ante by going into details like facial features and body language, any lapse in realism is more jarring than noticing that your little sprite doesn't smile when he says he's happy.

It's not just the abstraction of viewpoint but abstraction of presentation in general - you can have detailed, first person 3D view all the time, yet still wiggle out of having to animate convincing facial expressions or gestures by using text for actual dialogues. Morrowind and STALKER are nice examples.
It also abolishes the volume and budget limitations of having to VO everything.

In any case, there is little point to animating and voicing dialogue beyond having it look and sound nice (which can be perfectly good reason IF it isn't detrimental to other aspects and IF it's done well enough) - in case of dialogue better presentation doesn't in any way or form correspond to better mechanical representation, because there is generally none. We can't represent what actually happens in dialogues in terms of some universal mechanics to any interesting degree. Having multi-variable disposition, lists of topics, some crude representation of character's knowledge can be very helpful, but will still be very crude. There might be some room for improvement by putting subtle cues into character's behaviour, voice tone and such but one has to learn how to walk first before trying to run and merely getting characters to behave in a way that isn't jarringly artificial during dialogue is hard enough. Dialogue is actually the part of a computer game that benefits the least from going multimedial.

 

[Befuddled Halfling]

maybe the codex should remake their own version of DA in RPGMaker.

Walk ten steps, fight two rogues, two warriors, and a mage
Walk ten more steps, fight two reskinned renamed rogues, two reskinned renamed warriors, and a mage
Repeat until hot elf on elf cutscene

100 repetitions unlocks dwarf cutscene

1000 unlocks darkspawn cutscene and an achievement

If you play on a console, yes. If you play on casual yes. If you play on PC on hard or above, the encouter design is generally excellent (some parts of deep roads and fade excepted). Unless all you want is the story, in which case combat does just get in the way.

What combat system from the last 5 years is better?

 

[DraQ]

Fucking newfags, why do they come?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

If you play on a console, yes. If you play on casual yes. If you play on PC on hard or above, the encouter design is generally excellent (some parts of deep roads and fade excepted).

Wrong. There is no excellent encounter design in Dragon Age. All encounters throughout the whole game belong in 2 categories (boss fights exempted) :

1) Your party is vastly outnumbered but the enemy group, e.g. you're up against 5 melee dudes, 5 archers and one or two mages
2) The enemy is super powerful with loads of hitpoints and resistances, e.g. a revenant

And everything always plays out the same. For 1) use sleep, walking nightmare, mass paralyze. For 2) use the hexes. For mages use manaclash. Let your rogues (which are like warriors except 10 times better) shred everyone to pieces. That's all there is to it.
As of patch 1.04 beating the game requires marginal intervention on part of the player even on nightmare.
And even what little you have to do is only because the "AI" isn't able to aim a spell in a way that makes sense.

Another thing that's supremely retard friendly is how enemies never use their resources. Have you ever seen an enemy actually using the 3 greater healing poultices he dutyfully drops when dying? Has an enemy mage ever used manaclash on you? Have you ever seen an enemy rogue using the poison he carries? I haven't.

At the same time the game spams resources at you like there is no tomorrow. I had several hundred healing poultices at the end of the game and I haven't crafted a single one. Resource management? This is so last-gen. It's so much more welcoming if everyone just regenerates/resurrects after a fight. The pathetic effects of wounds? Laughable. Contrary to Bioclaims Dragon Age combat is not very tactical.

What combat system from the last 5 years is better?

KotC, NWN2, Drakensang to name but three

 

[racofer]

Valid points, VoD, but you don't quite grasp what RPGs are all about.

RPGs are not combat sims. RPGs are about immersing yourself in the gameworld and interacting with it. You build up relationships with the NPCs and get emotionally attached to them. You forget about the world you live in and move into this fantasy setting where you do things you normally wouldn't in the real world (ie. kissing a girl).

If you want a game that focuses so much on the combat aspect of it, perhaps RPGs are not your thing. Try some RTS or FPS game. I'm certain they would satisfy your needs much better.

 

[Havoc]

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!

 

[Admiral jimbob]

If you play on a console, yes. If you play on casual yes. If you play on PC on hard or above, the encouter design is generally excellent (some parts of deep roads and fade excepted).

I can guarantee that 90% of people here who played it played on PC on Nightmare until they got bored of the shit filler design, this is going to require a bit more substance than "nope, seriously, the encounter design totally changes you guys just didn't play it right"

 

[DraQ]

Valid points, VoD, but you don't quite grasp what RPGs are all about.

RPGs are not combat sims. RPGs are about immersing yourself in the gameworld and interacting with it.

You know, I've been having this feeling lately that all the major "RPG" pumping companies have been constantly forgetting something.

 

[Befuddled Halfling]

If you play on a console, yes. If you play on casual yes. If you play on PC on hard or above, the encouter design is generally excellent (some parts of deep roads and fade excepted).

Wrong. There is no excellent encounter design in Dragon Age. All encounters throughout the whole game belong in 2 categories (boss fights exempted) :

1) Your party is vastly outnumbered but the enemy group, e.g. you're up against 5 melee dudes, 5 archers and one or two mages
2) The enemy is super powerful with loads of hitpoints and resistances, e.g. a revenant

And everything always plays out the same. For 1) use sleep, walking nightmare, mass paralyze. For 2) use the hexes. For mages use manaclash. Let your rogues (which are like warriors except 10 times better) shred everyone to pieces. That's all there is to it.
As of patch 1.04 beating the game requires marginal intervention on part of the player even on nightmare.
And even what little you have to do is only because the "AI" isn't able to aim a spell in a way that makes sense.

Another thing that's supremely retard friendly is how enemies never use their resources. Have you ever seen an enemy actually using the 3 greater healing poultices he dutyfully drops when dying? Has an enemy mage ever used manaclash on you? Have you ever seen an enemy rogue using the poison he carries? No.

At the same time the game spams resources at you like there is no tomorrow. I had several hundred healing poultices at the end of the game and I haven't crafted a single one. Resource management? This is so last-gen. It's so much more welcoming if everyone just regenerates/resurrects after a fight. The pathetic effects of wounds? Laughable. Contrary to Bioclaims Dragon Age combat is not very tactical.

What combat system from the last 5 years is better?

KotC, NWN2, Drakensang to name but three

What you're saying makes some a lot of sense. Although your 2 categories are a gross oversimplification. Could Origins be improved with more interesting skills and spells? Yes, no doubt. Are there 'template' solutions to many encounters? Yes. But my templates are different to yours. Does that mean we call it shit? I would call it - epic, if you built on the great potential.

The codex loved DKS, so I bought it and played it right after Origins. DKS fight = spam magic missile, jump/roll, spam magic missile, jump/roll. Rinse repeat. So double standards there.

KotC - never played it. NWN2 is the only one in the last 5 years that comes close to being in the same league as DA:O. Drakensang - I never gave the higher level combat a chance because the kiddie quests and art put me off after about 12 hours. But from what I saw, Origins was way better, imho.

What annoys me most about shitting on Origins, is it tells the devs that real RPGers can never be pleased. So ignore them. After all, they didn't just think Origins could be improved, they said it was "shit". And that's what they have done - Dragon Effect.

 

[Befuddled Halfling]

If you play on a console, yes. If you play on casual yes. If you play on PC on hard or above, the encouter design is generally excellent (some parts of deep roads and fade excepted).

I can guarantee that 90% of people here who played it played on PC on Nightmare until they got bored of the shit filler design, this is going to require a bit more substance than "nope, seriously, the encounter design totally changes you guys just didn't play it right"

Yeah, after the first playthrough, when I knew which spells were good, what sort of enemies I was facing etc. Then I ratcheted up the difficulty. I am on my 4th playthrough, on nm, and am playing it JUST for the encounter design. A small mistake, and I get my ass handed to me, even with 200hrs of experience. There is not one millisecond of leniency at that level. It's better than Medieval II Total War. I can see how some people want plot, and combat is a distraction, but if you like the combat, can master it on nm, and still call it "shit" (not "meh", but "shit")? That is beyond my powers of comprehension.

According to the game telemetry that BioWare was gathering from players, 95% of them died on normal at least once when facing the arcane horror in the brecilian ruins. 98% died on normal at least once when fighting last set of cultists before the high dragon. They probably called DA:O shit too, so now we have DA2, where you are not supposed to die by design.

 

[ortucis]

According to the game telemetry that BioWare was gathering from players, 95% of them died on normal at least once when facing the arcane horror in the brecilian ruins. 98% died on normal at least once when fighting last set of cultists before the high dragon.

Obviously BioWare fixed this by streamlining the game even further. People dieing like this is a flaw, not a challenge.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

What you're saying makes some a lot of sense. Although your 2 categories are a gross oversimplification. Could Origins be improved with more interesting skills and spells? Yes, no doubt. Are there 'template' solutions to many encounters? Yes. But my templates are different to yours. Does that mean we call it shit? I would call it - epic, if you built on the great potential.

You said it has excellent encounter design. Examples? I can give you a number of extremely lame encounters, with even lamer obviously scripted enemy behavior, if required.

The codex loved DKS, so I bought it and played it right after Origins. DKS fight = spam magic missile, jump/roll, spam magic missile, jump/roll. Rinse repeat. So double standards there.

I didn't mention DKS. Besides, DKS is a single-player action RPG not a party based RPG with allegedly tactical combat. Where are the double-standards?

KotC - never played it.

If you had, maybe you'd know what good encounter design is.

What annoys me most about shitting on Origins, is it tells the devs that real RPGers can never be pleased. So ignore them. After all, they didn't just think Origins could be improved, they said it was "shit". And that's what they have done - Dragon Effect.

Firstly criticizing something is not shitting on it. I didn't shit on DAO, I merely pointed out some flaws. Considering that combat plays a fairly large role in DAO those flaws gain significance. Secondly, what makes you think that not *shitting* on DAO by mentioning things that might need improvement, is the way to convince BioWare to cease their dumbing down strategy? You don't understand. BioWare aims at a much bigger market. They want to sell at the very least 10 million copies. At the same time they're a bit worried that others sell 25 million. If your goals are like this, considering the RPG market isn't that big, what you have to do is creating RPGs that aren't RPGs. Which is the real reason behind their design decisions for DA2 I presume.

 

[Befuddled Halfling]

You said it has excellent encounter design. Examples? I can give you a number of extremely lame encounters, with even lamer obviously scripted enemy behavior, if required.

Excellent encounter design compared to most other things on the market, including RTS's. Examples? A bit pointless - in my view 90% of encounters had something new, interesting, challenging. That's why I keep replaying it, solely for the fun of the encounter design. And even knowing exactly what to expect, I still die because someone was in the wrong place or a spell got resisted. The plot wore of after playthrough #1. That's not saying combat is perfect.

I didn't mention DKS. Besides, DKS is a single-player action RPG not a party based RPG with allegedly tactical combat. Where are the double-standards?

I didn't say *you* mentioned DKS, I was saying double standards of most opinions on this site. DA1 with lots of care (about 1 hour went into design of each fight in a 60 hour game) overhead cam, pause, tons of spells (some rough edges, OK) = SHIT CRAP FILLER TRASH LULZ. Divinity 2 with duck, slash, duck slash = AWESOME, NO TWITCH BRO!

If you had, maybe you'd know what good encounter design is.

OK, but I'm not yet sure what to make of your judgment. I am willing to agree that DA:O combat had a bit to go, some repetition here and there, but heck, was it on the right track. If for you it was shit because you found a good way to beat it, then we have a slightly differing definition of "shit".

Firstly criticizing something is not shitting on it. I didn't shit on DAO, I merely pointed out some flaws. Considering that combat plays a fairly large role in DAO those flaws gain significance. Secondly, what makes you think that not *shitting* on DAO by mentioning things that might need improvement, is the way to convince BioWare to cease their dumbing down strategy? You don't understand. BioWare aims at a much bigger market. If your goals are like this, considering the RPG market isn't that big, what you have to do is creating RPGs that aren't RPGs. Which is the real reason behind their design decisions for DA2 I presume.

OK, you may not be shitting on it, but everyone else here is. I actually agreed with your improvement points. As to BioWare. We CAN make a difference. Look, they backed out of 'always online' DRM because even their fanbois would have seen that as a step too far. Already ME3 interviews are all about increasing the RPG elements- it won't be another DA1--->DA2 fiasco, and that's almost their own words (sorry lost the link). Laidlaw lurks here, and uses the comments as an excuse to ditch the harcore. But if they are one of the two main devs making stuff remotely in our league, and we then unanimously say "codex hive says shit" then it validates EA and discredits Dan and Brent and the others fighting the good fight. It's not about a 100% victory or a 100% defeat. It's can we steer DA3 to be Origins +10% rather than Origins -40% which is where EA see it.

 

[Jaesun]

You said it has excellent encounter design. Examples? I can give you a number of extremely lame encounters, with even lamer obviously scripted enemy behavior, if required.

Excellent encounter design compared to most other things on the market, including RTS's. Examples? A bit pointless - in my view 90% of encounters had something new, interesting, challenging.

Please provide an example of this said "interesting, challenging" encounter design.

 

[Xor]

OK, you may not be shitting on it, but everyone else here is.

Gross generalizations don't usually make valid points. If you bothered reading past threads, you'd see that many of the design elements of DAO have already been discussed and analyzed with improvements suggested. Many of us are just sick of this fucking topic and have taken to posting one-liners.

Excellent encounter design compared to most other things on the market, including RTS's. Examples? A bit pointless - in my view 90% of encounters had something new, interesting, challenging. That's why I keep replaying it, solely for the fun of the encounter design. And even knowing exactly what to expect, I still die because someone was in the wrong place or a spell got resisted. The plot wore of after playthrough #1. That's not saying combat is perfect.

In my opinion, for what that's worth, when most encounters can be beaten with the exact same strategy and combination of abilities, the encounter design isn't very good. That was my experience with DAO. Even on the hardest difficulty, it basically came down to the exact same strategy for every single fight with very few exceptions. That was due to a number of factors, really. The encounters themselves were typically badly designed, but the character and skill system had a lot of flaws with horribly overpowered and underpowered abilities, and the AI was pretty weak. All of this combined made combat boring.

That's not even getting into the weaknesses with the story, setting, plot, and characters.

 

[Volourn]

"Another thing that's supremely retard friendly is how enemies never use their resources. Have you ever seen an enemy actually using the 3 greater healing poultices he dutyfully drops when dying? Has an enemy mage ever used manaclash on you? Have you ever seen an enemy rogue using the poison he carries? I haven't. "

This would be a great criticism and one I agree with except.. this is pretty much true for all RPGs except in the rare scripted encounter. How many times do you see FO enemies use stimpaks? How many times did you see any previous D&D game have enemies use actual items? In the very rare scripted encounter not typical.

I would lvoe to see a game - espciailly a D&D game - where the player had to be wary that the enmy would be keen on using potions,s crolls,a nd the like ona regualr basis.

I know my module tried to do that. R00fles!

Anyways, the other debate:

isometric > first person always and forever fuck yeah!!!

 

[Jaesun]

How many times do you see FO enemies use stimpaks? How many times did you see any previous D&D game have enemies use actual items?

They use them on themselves quite a bit actually. STOP THE LIES!

 

[DraQ]

"Another thing that's supremely retard friendly is how enemies never use their resources. Have you ever seen an enemy actually using the 3 greater healing poultices he dutyfully drops when dying? Has an enemy mage ever used manaclash on you? Have you ever seen an enemy rogue using the poison he carries? I haven't. "

This would be a great criticism and one I agree with except.. this is pretty much true for all RPGs except in the rare scripted encounter.

Well, AI using inventory items is pretty much the norm in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Derp Scrolls: Oblivious.
Yes, fucking oblivious of all games.

My, my, biowhore is seriously aiming for rock-bottom.

 

[Dantus12]

It wasn't that bad in DAO.

The game 1.0 was far more difficult than the game after the patches.

I'm not talking about complexity but about difficulty.
There where a few situations where the enemy AI knew what it was doing.
The possessed Templars for example.

However after the ungodly amount of whining on the boards the game was reduced to nothing with the patches.

People went solo on nightmare in search for some kind of challenge.
Awakenings is the probably most prominent example, the game is full with bugs and problems that newer got patched, Origins too.

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