Dragon Age impressions

[1eyedking]

Level-scaling just kills this game, as much as it killed Oblivion. I worked my ass off to get to level 16 and everything I find has scaled accordingly. Level 15 bandits, level 14 darkspawn, level 16 hedge wizards.

Come. Fucking. On.

Designers who adopt this "feature" should be forever blacklisted from developing games again. And shame on every soul in the Codex for turning a blind eye on this or actually embracing it.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

And shame on every soul in the Codex for turning a blind eye on this or actually embracing it.

Another proof most of Codex are just poseurs.

 

[BrunoKoveras]

DA is a good rpg. certainly not the best of all time.

Its Lord of the rings based(rip off).

Doesnt have a good vilain, someone you love to hate, maybe logaine but it failed in the end so easy to kill and pathetic.

Dragons were mindless animals only scared me in the first encounter then i realised they were dumb (like all others) all kiled the same way, someone to take the fire atack never batlle in close combat only ranged and with some potions and heals, not very chalenging.

revenents, they would be a chalenge if not for the unlimited healing, focus one warrior on him not to kill just to take aggro, kill all his minios one by one them finish him, there isnt really many diferent strategies all bosses are killed the same.

the healing system is a deal breaker kills the chalenge with two types of healing pots and unlimited mana pots its just a matter of time.

with mages being so powerfull why using anything else they have unlimited spell use whith mana pots.

warriors i dont like them they are weak they heal less then mages with heal pots, my mage was heling with the lesser health pot 150+ and mana as well.


All encouters felt the same, is there a mage.. how many are they...

the stun effects good against me a shit when used by me, when you are using an archer to stun or 10 archers stuning you there is a difference, they have a nice strategie i have a shitty one.

The absence of attacks of opportunity makes the batlle field not coesive the warrior couldnt mantain position, enemies passed through my line of warriors like there was no one there. when sending my tank to intercept an enemy that targetted my mage,

he didnt attacked he waited for him, followed him with his eyes and let him pass through and didnt chase him. i had to take direct control even then he only landed a shot when he stoped to shop my mage.

the warrior is too slow and boring to play when they'r stamina ends so does the damage.

the disposition of the oarty diamond shaped not a very tatical aproache.

Even when i start the attack(in conversation) they have already theyr wepons in hand and im stading waiting for them to land the first blow.. sad.

I like somewhat the story the origins are good but is like the Irenicus dugeon bored me to no end (dungeon be gone) , it limits replayabilitie.

After beating the game i just play to feel the mechanics but there inst much to see there is no diference between you and some other party member so why bother.

you donnt feel like some force to be feared in the end game. some too bit band of thieves are the same chalenge at the levet 6 as they are at the level 22 (not realy becouse your mages have better guear unlimited mana pots) but the feel is the same.

After lever 12 leveling becomes almost irelevant my build was finished at that level and most of my best strategies didnt need more, my skills whit those spells dind improved much whith level gaining.

the end didnt felt epic at all. the weakest darkspawn appered there. they make it epic through cut scenes troughout the game, its not an in battle thing like other rpgs.

the mechanics of the game are too simplistic or they dont matter + attack in a tank inst realy necessary having that piece of equipment isnt realy worth it and why bother byuing, exept mayby mage equipment.

the AI is there any? didnt see it only on cutscenes. Payperview.

The marketing

they said it was the spiritual successor of BG2, if someone like bg and bg2 was not because it gave you more options for the main quest.
I liked bg and bg2 becouse of the world, it was vast, entire locations were optional

the greatest gear wasnt available through the main quest. you had to explore and it did pay off.

the world was alive not a blob expanding on the map, demons had charisma beholders were something to think about, dragons were intelligent and consistent. those damn firebreaths they still scare me.

and replayabilitie, i liked to start a char and plan the way i would do the quest and whith what order i would play, diferent spells, and with experience even the greatest fiasco would become a walk in the park but more then that it would be fun and an acomplishment.

In DA they tried to mimic BG2 They tried to go a step further, bg2 main quest didnt gave you the option to chose the order of the main quest, to me, its just cosmetic bg2 was good not just because the main quest but it gave you a world to explore and to know.
not through codex.

The battles in DA dont feel great, not epic and cutscenes dont cut it for me they are a nice adition but canot be the main story teller

Im sad, im from Portugal a game is like a tenth of my income i have to chose well the hype and the lie they told so many lies...

i bought Kings bounty i realy liked, fallout3 a good choise didnt expect to much and it had a good story and vats felt good, they dint promise a holy grail.

I liked all bioware games have them all brought with my money, i was cheated on this one and the legacy of great crpg many made by bioware laid in the mud, by a cutscene rpg soap novela trying to shock with useless and unecessary game decisions...

My steam is off Sorry for my english and hope you enjoyd the game i can lay the game to rest, start to think on devine devinity 2 and the new kings bounty, spend wisely...

 

[GarfunkeL]

After lever 12 leveling becomes almost irelevant my build was finished at that level and most of my best strategies didnt need more, my skills whit those spells dind improved much whith level gaining.

 

[1eyedking]

Another thing, why are Intimidate and "Fuck you" lines so goddamn boring and lifeless?

If a highwayman assaults me and demands "Give me all your gold pieces or I'll gut you alive!", I want to be able to say something as cool as "The only coins you'll get from me are for the Styx's boatman" or maybe "You'll have two over your eyes before I finish my sentence."

Instead we get "You won't get anything from me! (Attack)" (because putting actions in parenthesis instantly earns you cool codex points), "Go away before I kill you", "I am a mage. Do you want to test me?", "I am a Grey Warden. Do you want to test me?".

How about "A trail of corpses follows my wake, and not even the red dawn can paint the blood I have spilled over the land. Move aside."

"My sword, Bloodbath, is barely sheathed, fools! Do you want to learn the meaning of its name?"

I want fucking cool one-liners like the ones in Fallout, not the filler shit this game hands you out.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Level-scaling just kills this game, as much as it killed Oblivion. I worked my ass off to get to level 16 and everything I find has scaled accordingly. Level 15 bandits, level 14 darkspawn, level 16 hedge wizards.

Come. Fucking. On.

Designers who adopt this "feature" should be forever blacklisted from developing games again. And shame on every soul in the Codex for turning a blind eye on this or actually embracing it.

Maybe so, but I see the reason for this now. You still get a strong sense of progression due to your abilities and equipment being so much better. I found a lot of the early fights to be really fucking tough on hard/nightmare but now with my regular party consisting of 2 x AW/SH mages (myself and Wynne), Shale and Lilly (respecced to DW assisin with poison), I'm pwning almost every fight - but only with the right tactics and careful micro-management.

I just had the awsome random encounter where you are swamped by a multitude of bandids, including a few yellows and an orange, spellcasters and bowmen. I immediately cast my neutralization glyph on the enemy mage, Wynne dumped crushing prison on the bandid leader - then I tried a new tactic to deal with the the swarm of mele mobs - Shale grabbed the aggro and did his totem thing, Wynne stood back and cast her aura that gives health and regen, I cast my glyph of warding on myself and Lilly and we just slaughtered everything with almost total impunity. A bit of a mop-up of the ranged mobs at the end was all that was required.

Enemies might as well have been 10 levels below us we raped'em so badly, so the level scaling means fuck all if you have the right party/abilities and gear.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

This really is great. I love the Codex... when you wade through all the neo-Nazism and racism, you can find gems like this thread. I salute you, Codex.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

i bought Kings bounty i realy liked, fallout3 a good choise didnt expect to much and it had a good story and vats felt good, they dint promise a holy grail.

I liked all bioware games have them all brought with my money, i was cheated on this one and the legacy of great crpg many made by bioware laid in the mud, by a cutscene rpg soap novela trying to shock with useless and unecessary game decisions...

Sorry mate but these two paragraphs invalidated your entire post.

Are you actually suggesting FO3, KB and all previous Bioware games are better than DA:O? I mean really? Jesus that's really fucked up.

 

[hiver]

Level scaling inflicts great inconsistencies on the story.
Which is especially noticeable in a game like this, which is story driven.

Its not the point of being able to defeat some bandits or a group of wolves after a few reloads. That's the part of combat tactics which this game does well.

Im not against finding a group of bandits of high level generally, but give me some story based excuse why are they so tough - in a game thats story based.

Otherwise its just shitty. Breaks the verisimilitude of the world badly.

 

[Volourn]

"Level-scaling just kills this game, as much as it killed Oblivion. I worked my ass off to get to level 16 and everything I find has scaled accordingly. Level 15 bandits, level 14 darkspawn, level 16 hedge wizards.

Come. Fucking. On.

Designers who adopt this "feature" should be forever blacklisted from developing games again. And shame on every soul in the Codex for turning a blind eye on this or actually embracing it."

Why do you still play it? Move the fuck on.


P.S. Just finished the game. eaisly better than BG2. No contest. End fight is the toughest final battle I've seen.

How the fuck can anyone think for a second that BG2 is better? That's dumb shit.

 

[Marsal]

End fight is the toughest final battle I've seen.

That's dumb shit.

You said it.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

]so...you just confirmed it isn't "dark and gritty and mature"

All I did was prove that you don't know what you're talking about which is really fucking easy btw.

You're not making any sense. So it's dark, but it's not, but then it is because what

but it's baronjohn anyway, carry on. It's not like you can do better.

oh, btw, some irony

"Apparently everyone seems to agree that a Blight is the perfect time to start killing each other. Marvelous, really."

Well written (disagree? do your own version of this sentence), witty observation that comments on the situation and fits the golem's personality and overall indifference.

Why would that be considered well-written or witty? Seriously. I know Bioshit tried to make a character who's wise and cynical to the ways of the world (very original), but all they created was a subnormal douchebag. This is because Bioware writers are subnormal douchebags, presumably.

"And how do you know they are right? Their faith would make you swallow a great deal for small comfort."

I really like this line. A lot is packed into the second sentence. It's always a challenge to say more with less (I loved the Snatch's dialogue lines), and this line does it almost brilliantly.

This is just a bland anti-religious line. Why is this even here? It's a deadly violation of etiquette to question someone's religion, and you're not going to be successful in turning anyone away from what they believe. That's why it's not done in real life or well-written fiction.

In good fiction a character who questioned the leader's religion would be executed on the spot and fed to the dogs. Only in a shitty video game could have you a discussion like that ends with "Hmm. You may be right." after questioning your superior's beliefs.

You might be better off playing the game for longer than 30 minutes before making comments that reveal your own ignorance.

Just for your own info, the character who is "questioning" the PC's religion isn't a party member. He's an incredibly powerful, very old mage in the Wardens who, if anything, would outrank your character.

Fun fact! That's not the only way you're wrong. The character is just pointing out that what the NPC said goes against what the Chantry claims, not that your character necessarily believes that, or follows the religion the Chantry preaches.

God, DA's writing sucks because it isn't realistic in this completely made up scenario I invented in my own brain because I never actually saw this part of the game.

I'm not going to even bother discussing your inaccurate description of Shale (a golem, not that you knew that), since I'm 100% certain you didn't get anywhere near far enough in the game to recruit him.

reminds me of something

]The best of both worlds is to combine the two parts with subtlety: we're talking about the First Enchanter here. If there's one character who would be intelligent and have his head in the clouds it's him; it's the perfect chance to take full liberty in writing in a flamboyant style.

Talking about cliche, eh?

Then there's the fact that the line at the center of this discussion isn't said by the First Enchanter. As you pointed out, it was in fact said by a very old, embittered mage/scientist who was part of the Wardens a long, long time ago.

Do you guys even bother reading?


----------------

If a highwayman assaults me and demands "Give me all your gold pieces or I'll gut you alive!", I want to be able to say something as cool as "The only coins you'll get from me are for the Styx's boatman" or maybe "You'll have two over your eyes before I finish my sentence."

Who the fuck talks like that

I found two more links that describe your writing style

 

[DreadMessiah]

Archdemon is a tough fight? The one fight sooo many have stated as being utterly easy and a disapointment?

 

[1eyedking]

I found two more links that describe your writing style

What the hell? Care to point my "purple prose" and "meaningless meaningful words"?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Archdemon is a tough fight? Mad The one fight sooo many have stated as being utterly easy and a disapointment?

People also stated having two mages makes the game much easier. Maybe it depends on your party?

care to point out

sure, why not

"I would have written something along the lines of "Faith decrees that for what one sees, one should decree faith. In growing ever comfortably blind we know no difference in darkness, and light no longer casts shadows to trouble us."

There is wordplay, a metaphor, and even a bit of dramatic irony.

Jesus Christ.

 

[Grifthin]

Dwarf city is boring. Generic, bland, no sense of a big city, no sidequests, no interesting characters and, once again, arena fights without autosaves. Meh.

Are you Absolutely fucking retarded ? I just finsihed ozammar (after like 8 hours) - there's atleast 2 dozen quests there to do besides the main quest. There's also a whole lot of optional quests - trying to get the City key, releasing a dragon from it's stone prison, Ruck the completely fucking insane cannibal dwarf dude, Releasing a daemon to fight/free it, reforging a sword, recovering Armor.

Fucking retarded liar.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Actually 1eyed... if I had come across either of those things you said in a video game/novel/message board, my face would be firmly planted against keyboard. That's horrible horrible writing there.

And since we've established you can't say that without some backup, let me see what I can come up with...

"A trail of corpses follows my wake, and not even the red dawn can paint the blood I have spilled over the land. Move aside."

"My sword, Bloodbath, is barely sheathed, fools! Do you want to learn the meaning of its name?"

"The only coins you'll get from me are for the Styx's boatman"

"You'll have two over your eyes before I finish my sentence."

These statements aren't very "badass", and in fact, I think if they were ever said in a dialogue, you have as much of a chance of stumbling over your words as actually intimidating someone. It's overly verbose and likely to be misinterpreted.

I may reply (if I were feeling smart-assy) "I didn't know Styx had a boatman, I thought it was just a guitarist, drummer, and lead singer". And then where would you be? I mean, you may end up killing me, but your comrades would be laughing about you at the campfire that night.

 

[made]

Dwarf city is boring. Generic, bland, no sense of a big city, no sidequests, no interesting characters and, once again, arena fights without autosaves. Meh.

Are you Absolutely fucking retarded ? I just finsihed ozammar (after like 8 hours) - there's atleast 2 dozen quests there to do besides the main quest. There's also a whole lot of optional quests - trying to get the City key, releasing a dragon from it's stone prison, Ruck the completely fucking insane cannibal dwarf dude, Releasing a daemon to fight/free it, reforging a sword, recovering Armor.

Fucking retarded liar.

Most of those consist of simply clicking on various highlighted stuff until you have enough codex entries to receive a quest, then go to a location and collect reward. Half of those you mentioned also happen in the tunnels, not Orzammar. The city itself is tiny and lacks atmosphere. Fucking Ironforge feels more like a dwarf town than this.

Damn, 67 pages. DA > TW

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Are you Absolutely fucking retarded ? I just finsihed ozammar (after like 8 hours) - there's atleast 2 dozen quests there to do besides the main quest. There's also a whole lot of optional quests - trying to get the City key, releasing a dragon from it's stone prison, Ruck the completely fucking insane cannibal dwarf dude, Releasing a daemon to fight/free it, reforging a sword, recovering Armor.

Fucking retarded liar.

so many "fucks" and "retardeds"

Grifthin became one of us. :singletear:

 

[1eyedking]

Actually 1eyed... if I had come across either of those things you said in a video game/novel/message board, my face would be firmly planted against keyboard. That's horrible horrible writing there.

Except they aren't entirely of my own making. Two of them are derivatives from similar wordplays in Sophocles' tragedies.

So I guess the joke's on you

These statements aren't very "badass", and in fact, I think if they were ever said in a dialogue, you have as much of a chance of stumbling over your words as actually intimidating someone. It's overly verbose and likely to be misinterpreted.

Fallout and Icewind Dale both had stuff that was even more verbose and still felt incredibly badass. There's some stuff you can throw at Renesco and Sherincal, respectively, that goes along the line of leaving a pile of bodies behind, IIRC.

I may reply (if I were feeling smart-assy) "I didn't know Styx had a boatman, I thought it was just a guitarist, drummer, and lead singer". And then where would you be? I mean, you may end up killing me, but your comrades would be laughing about you at the campfire that night.

That's a terrible comeback, is that the best you can do? Way to go, mixing classical mythology with a contemporary rock band. At any rate the PC would laugh at your character's ignorance and stupidity and carry on with the death wish.

sure, why not

"I would have written something along the lines of "Faith decrees that for what one sees, one should decree faith. In growing ever comfortably blind we know no difference in darkness, and light no longer casts shadows to trouble us"

Care to explain? Where are the "meaningless meaningful words"? What's so confusing about the play-on-words on the first sentence and the metaphors on the second?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Care to explain?

It tries too hard to sound "epic". It sounds like the guy talking is trying to impress me (like in a speech), instead of telling me what he thinks like one would in a conversation. It's also not very interesting to read. It also sounds disturbingly familiar to gaider's "in the absence of light, shadows thrive". Which, btw, sounds retarded, but it passes the (retarded, but that's beside the point) message he wants easily.

You don't need to cram wordplays and irony and humor in every single line, it ends up a convoluted mass of "nice quotes" instead of feeling like an actual text / conversation. Smart people don't try to mindfuck you during a conversation, in fact they're usually the ones that sound very simple.

Se Hakunin. At first glance, it seems like he's talking in riddles to annoy you, but you soon notice he's easy to understand and is very objective, despite the wording. His lines are also interesting to read, which is very important.

 

[Fudus]

What is the death system like? From other posts it seems that they just stand up after the fight is completed, as if they were just unconscious. Is this for all modes?

 

[1eyedking]

[...]

What I wrote isn't convoluted in any way, nor does it try too hard. Something like "crimson droplets of escaping life fluid" certainly does; or "movement flickered through it, like the swish of a bird across a clouded moon", which is quite pathetic since nouns, verbs (movement flickered?) and adjectives (clouded moon?) are severely misused, and the simile is just plain wrong.

If you're constantly writing like what an average guy would talk like then you would end up with movie script tripe or something taken straight from a Rowling or King book which isn't very stimulating to listen to or read. The fun part in movies comes when a given character says something with greater depth, and that usually involves intelligence of some kind, be it present in what the message conveys or the way it is delivered (or more interestingly both).

That said my analogy was quite simple and can be drawn on the instant; perhaps the first sentence may sound confusing, but it's a very simple circular antithesis.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

You get stat penalties as you die, curable with injury kits. It's not the main thing that ruins the combat, really, though I suppose it's there because the developer's didn't want to think about how to make a combat system where you can avoid dying with even remotely intuitive tactics.

 

[Volourn]

"releasing a dragon from it's stone prison"

wut?