Dragon Age - official Codex verdict

[Kaanyrvhok]

Real-time squad-based systems are simply a degenerate form of turn-based squad systems. Real-time doesn't bring anything to that concept except haste and imprecise control. Now that sounds like a bad concept, why would anyone want to do it that way? Even if there are some games that succeed despite the flawed concept.

Its not the concept its the execution. Its typically easier to implement movement based strategy such as gorilla tactics where a party can get in slap some ass and get out iin realtime. Its typically easier to implement individual tactics like one person tripping another or scratching time while someone adjust their potion IV in TB. You cant knock RT combat as a concept because a developer can pull off those TB staples in RT easier than pulling off flanking, gorilla tactics in TB. Really you could do both in both but if I was developing a mulit party RPG I would go for realtime/pause over TB. I would rather add tripping to a RT game than the ability to lead someone into an ambush in a TB game.

 

[Darth Roxor]

What the hell is the difference between spamming pots and/or resting after each battle and autoregen after each battle?

Nothing really - both are shitty mechanism. Potions should not be like candy and resting should not be available all the time. But don't defend stupidity in DA with stupidity from NWN.

This, this, this and this again.

Hey guise, stupid design choice A is a-ok, because obviously the only alternative to it is stupid design choice B!

 

[Stabwound]

I'm not reading any of the DA threads because I hate spoilers, but I happen to be enjoying the game quite a bit. It's the closest thing we've had to a Baldur's Gate game (not that it's as good) and it's a lot of fun. Of course it has flaws, but so does every game.

One of the bigger issues I've faced is that you can unlock the higher end mage spells quite quickly and a lot of them seem very unbalanced/abusable. For example, you get an Inferno spell with a _massive_ (and I do mean massive) AOE effect. The thing is, you can use a rogue to scout out the dungeon/area stealthed, find out where the groups of enemies are, and then have your mage nuke the everloving fuck out of them (apparently most spells ranges are limited only to the camera distance which can be manipulated by fucking around with third person view), then follow up with a fireball as they try to make their way toward you. I imagine this would be 2x as bad if you used two mages or even used other high end spells- I've only tried ones from the fire line so far. I'm sure chain lightning etc also puts muthafuckas in dirt naps. I'm playing on Hard mode and the combat has been, mostly quite easy. It would be hilarious playing on Easy mode, as in that mode your party members are no longer affected by your spells, so you could just AOE nuke the fucks without even caring where anyone else was standing.

I can't even imagine how easy "Easy" mode must be.

Having said that,

 

[Korgan]

Speaking about AoE, I would prefer a rogue's bombs to scatter at least a bit, so one couldn't nuke several attackers while always remaining unharmed.

 

[Gay-Lussac]

I'm not reading any of the DA threads because I hate spoilers, but I happen to be enjoying the game quite a bit. It's the closest thing we've had to a Baldur's Gate game (not that it's as good) and it's a lot of fun. Of course it has flaws, but so does every game.

One of the bigger issues I've faced is that you can unlock the higher end mage spells quite quickly and a lot of them seem very unbalanced/abusable. For example, you get an Inferno spell with a _massive_ (and I do mean massive) AOE effect. The thing is, you can use a rogue to scout out the dungeon/area stealthed, find out where the groups of enemies are, and then have your mage nuke the everloving fuck out of them (apparently most spells ranges are limited only to the camera distance which can be manipulated by fucking around with third person view), then follow up with a fireball as they try to make their way toward you. I imagine this would be 2x as bad if you used two mages or even used other high end spells- I've only tried ones from the fire line so far. I'm sure chain lightning etc also puts muthafuckas in dirt naps. I'm playing on Hard mode and the combat has been, mostly quite easy. It would be hilarious playing on Easy mode, as in that mode your party members are no longer affected by your spells, so you could just AOE nuke the fucks without even caring where anyone else was standing.

I can't even imagine how easy "Easy" mode must be.

Having said that,

So you're saying the combat is easy because you're using an exploit?

 

[Stabwound]

No, not really.

Anyone who played Baldur's Gate 1/2 used a stealth rogue to scout out areas and it's only natural to use this tactic in DA as well. You can see where all the enemies are sitting, and then nuke them from afar as some of the spell ranges are farther than the enemy aggro point. Besides, it's possible to do this even without a rogue because the AI is just dumb. You can cast a 'damage over time' area of effect spell on enemy mages and they just stand in it like retards until they die.

I don't see how it's an exploit at all- just taking advantage of the absurd size of some of the AOE spells and the near-mongoloid enemy AI.

Even without using a rogue, the spells are still overpowered. The enemies will all run at you in a big clump, and for some unknown reason they made the Fireball spell an instant cast spell, which is basically an AOE nuke that both sets all of the enemies on fire and knocks them down for a few seconds (should I mention that you can get this spell at, I believe, level 2 or 3?). Doing that once is enough to knock them all down to about half health, and if you have two mages you just do that twice and they're dead, or near death. To double your fun, you cast the Inferno spell which sets the area ablaze, wait for the idiots to inevitably run through it to get to you, and Fireball nuke them so they get knocked down in it.

Basically, the big nuke spells are overpowered and the AI is really, really bad.

 

[Gay-Lussac]

No, not really.

Anyone who played Baldur's Gate 1/2 used a stealth rogue to scout out areas and it's only natural to use this tactic in DA as well.

Maybe anyone with assburgers. Even so scouting the rooms isn't a problem. The problem is nuking people through walls while they're standing still. If this isn't an exploit I don't know what is, it's worse than kiting

 

[Berekän]

Anyone who played Baldur's Gate 1/2 used a stealth rogue to scout out areas and it's only natural to use this tactic in DA as well. You can see where all the enemies are sitting, and then nuke them from afar as some of the spell ranges are farther than the enemy aggro point. Besides, it's possible to do this even without a rogue because the AI is just dumb. You can cast a 'damage over time' area of effect spell on enemy mages and they just stand in it like retards until they die.

I didn't, and I still won the battles.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I doubt you could scout boss rooms in DA, anyway. I wager as soon as your stealthed rogue entered the room it would trigger the cutscene and pull the whole party in.

 

[Volourn]

"I doubt you could scout boss rooms in DA, anyway. I wager as soon as your stealthed rogue entered the room it would trigger the cutscene and pull the whole party in."

Yeah, which has both good and bad points so FUCK YOU DRAGON AGE FUCK YOU TO DEATH!

 

[Zomg]

Mongoloid would be pretty good for AI

 

[AlaCarcuss]

What the hell is the difference between spamming pots and/or resting after each battle and autoregen after each battle?

Nothing really - both are shitty mechanism. Potions should not be like candy and resting should not be available all the time. But don't defend stupidity in DA with stupidity from NWN.

This, this, this and this again.

Hey guise, stupid design choice A is a-ok, because obviously the only alternative to it is stupid design choice B!

Yeah, that didn't exactly come out the way I intended - but anyway. How should it work after say, a tough battle and the whole party's at 10% health? Make a healer mandatory for every party and have them stand around spamming heal? Use all your health pots? Force a retreat from the area to heal up and return? - that'd be fucking tedious.

Health regen doesn't happen in battle (unless you've got gear with it as an attribute and even then it's very minor). So the possibility of you paty getting wiped it very real on hard mode and above.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Yeah, that didn't exactly come out the way I intended - but anyway. How should it work after say, a tough battle and the whole party's at 10% health? .

Gee, I dunno.

 

[Volourn]

"So the possibility of you paty getting wiped it very real on hard mode and above."

OMGZ! The fuckin' horror of it all! You can actually LOSE!

FUCK YOU BIO! FUCK YOU TO HELL! MAKING ME LOSE AND HAVE TO RELOAD! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU!

 

[1eyedking]

The thing with auto-regen in a RPG is that it spoils the world's credibility, and discourages the player from exporting real-life solutions into the game. It isn't logical.

Most RPGs are fantastical, but there are some rules even with magic, which is usually a form of energy that is drawn from a parallel plane by mages, priests, and the like. It's supposed to be a strenuous and skill-demanding task, and this is why only a handful of individuals are capable of using it. It's also is why people would turn to clerics or druids for healing, and wizards for trinkets and enchantments.

Finding a place to rest so that mages and priests can concentrate, study and pray for their spell powers to return is very logically pleasing within game terms. It handles the subject with finesse and respect. After resting they are once again ready to exert their will and strength unto casting healing spells and the like.

For a mana system like in DA, one would at least expect mages to either rest or consume mana potions before they would be ready to cast further spells (which, metagame thinking, this has been designed as such for balance purposes). Auto-regeneration obliterates these rules, takes away importance from potions and healing items, pays the heavy toll of removing interesting chained encounters, and removes that sense of planning and time passing. It's merely there to propel the action ever forward and allow encounter design laziness, which are both in the Codex book cataloged under "very bad" last time I heard.

Last time I heard RPGs weren't shooters, and rather, imaginary worlds with predefined, coherent sets of rules where players would role play a variety of characters and explore what sort of pressure and effect their actions would cause unto such a world. Gameplay mechanics are bound to these laws. Without them, without that sense of expectation, there is no sustenance to a world's credibility, and thus the suspension is broken. It's why characters die of falls, it's why characters get tired after a while, and why you would expect NPCs to lie, bluff, and kill their way to victory. It's supposed to be a playground of the real world, with all of its pitfalls.


I've never heard of a human being auto-regenerating his/her bullet wounds, or auto-resurrecting for that matter. Not yet, at least.

 

[Junior Boy]

What's your favorite RPG, 1eyedking? I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm just curious as to what game you think got all the stuff you dislike DA for right. Or at least, came the closest.

 

[1eyedking]

Fallout.

I may prefer playing Fallout 2, but it's the first one that laid the cornerstone and thus deserves all the merit, even if it's not as large and politically aware as its successor.

 

[Vibalist]

I'm too lazy to search for the topic he created where he advocated lowering expectations in order to enjoy all the shit.

It's there, though.

There's a big difference between trying to enjoy something that is utterly terrible and simply having a good time with a 7/10 game. Even if the 7/10 game (DA in this case) is not on the level of some of the best games ever, you can still ignore the downsides and enjoy the good things. This is what "enjoy it for what it is" means according to me.

The problem with some people here are that they either lump a game into bad or good category, without realising that some things are inbetween and can be enjoyed if you don't go into them with incredibly high expectations.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I'll just say that hit points aren't particularly "realistic" either, they are pretty damn abstract as well. For me, the step to auto-regenerating hit points every battle doesn't break immersion at all, especially if, like in DA, you can still get permanent injuries if you got knocked out (presumably not killed) during the fight.

 

[made]

Hey guise, stupid design choice A is a-ok, because obviously the only alternative to it is stupid design choice B!

And yet those are the only options at present.

I don't remember anyone complaining about Risen's mechanic. Is stuffing yourself with apples or drinking from a water barrel until you're at full hp really preferable to DA's auto regen?

 

[Vibalist]

Auto-regeneration obliterates these rules, takes away importance from potions and healing items, pays the heavy toll of removing interesting chained encounters, and removes that sense of planning and time passing. It's merely there to propel the action ever forward and allow encounter design laziness, which are both in the Codex book cataloged under "very bad" last time I heard.

It is true that auto-regeneration takes away forward planning to an extent, but this doesn't mean that each individual encounter can't be enjoyed nonetheless. If I understand you correctly, much of the enjoyment of dungeon crawling for you lies in planning the whole thing out and using whatever resources you have intelligently, so that the whole dungeon almost becomes one long encounter where not only tactics but also resource management determines whether you make it all the way through. To me however, this aspect isn't terribly important, as the fun lies in the battles themselves, not the micro management you do in between them. DA may not be game where you plan when and where to use specific items, but the dungeons are still enjoyable based on other factors.

As for the thing you say about auto-regen removing the importance of healing items, this is not entirely true. You can still be royally fucked in some fights if you are out of potions, based on the simple fact that some encounters require you to use them during the fights themselves. Case in point: I had to fight an ogre in the beginning of the game, and I had used up every potion before that. Had I had potions, the fight wouldn't have been nearly as hard.

 

[MetalCraze]

Its not the concept its the execution. Its typically easier to implement movement based strategy such as gorilla tactics where a party can get in slap some ass and get out iin realtime.

Have you ever played Jagged Alliance 2? Because I've yet to see a party real-time game where you can do that just as well and with surgeon precision like it is in turn-based games where one move takes less than a second of real game time. When it comes to real-time it's a mess - you need to constantly pause the game (which defeats the whole purprose of real-time) and even assign AI scripts to your party-members which also defeats a purpose of a party-based game.

You cant knock RT combat as a concept because a developer can pull off those TB staples in RT easier than pulling off flanking, gorilla tactics in TB.

Show me such RT game.

Hey guise, stupid design choice A is a-ok, because obviously the only alternative to it is stupid design choice B!

And yet those are the only options at present.

I don't remember anyone complaining about Risen's mechanic. Is stuffing yourself with apples or drinking from a water barrel until you're at full hp really preferable to DA's auto regen?

Try better - scarce healing. Like it was - you know - in BG which DA apes according to certain Codexers.
I wonder if people saying "this sucks but there is nothing better!" have ever played games they seem to circle-jerk about.

 

[GarfunkeL]

It is true that auto-regeneration takes away forward planning to an extent, but this doesn't mean that each individual encounter can't be enjoyed nonetheless. If I understand you correctly, much of the enjoyment of dungeon crawling for you lies in planning the whole thing out and using whatever resources you have intelligently, so that the whole dungeon almost becomes one long encounter where not only tactics but also resource management determines whether you make it all the way through. To me however, this aspect isn't terribly important, as the fun lies in the battles themselves, not the micro management you do in between them. DA may not be game where you plan when and where to use specific items, but the dungeons are still enjoyable based on other factors.

I could say that we prefer different things but that would be too soft, so I'll say you are dumbed down console kiddie instead. But yes, you are absolutely correct in that its not only combat but also the resource management. Otherwise you could just play a showy FPS. I mean, if I want visceral combat and blood, I'll play Painkiller. I'd like something little more cerebral with my RPG-combat. This also relates to the RT vs TB argument because TB gives you that time to think and plan but it also allows AI to be programmed better than in RT.

 

[Vibalist]

It is true that auto-regeneration takes away forward planning to an extent, but this doesn't mean that each individual encounter can't be enjoyed nonetheless. If I understand you correctly, much of the enjoyment of dungeon crawling for you lies in planning the whole thing out and using whatever resources you have intelligently, so that the whole dungeon almost becomes one long encounter where not only tactics but also resource management determines whether you make it all the way through. To me however, this aspect isn't terribly important, as the fun lies in the battles themselves, not the micro management you do in between them. DA may not be game where you plan when and where to use specific items, but the dungeons are still enjoyable based on other factors.

I could say that we prefer different things but that would be too soft, so I'll say you are dumbed down console kiddie instead. But yes, you are absolutely correct in that its not only combat but also the resource management. Otherwise you could just play a showy FPS. I mean, if I want visceral combat and blood, I'll play Painkiller. I'd like something little more cerebral with my RPG-combat. This also relates to the RT vs TB argument because TB gives you that time to think and plan but it also allows AI to be programmed better than in RT.

Really? DA may not be the most sophisticated and hardcore dungeon crawler in the world, but it still has plenty of tactics in it if you crank up the difficulty. The tactics in DA just lie in the combat encounters themselves rather than the space between them. This doesn't necesarrily equate to "flashy fps gameplay without substance" in my book.

 

[1eyedking]

It is true that auto-regeneration takes away forward planning to an extent, but this doesn't mean that each individual encounter can't be enjoyed nonetheless. If I understand you correctly, much of the enjoyment of dungeon crawling for you lies in planning the whole thing out and using whatever resources you have intelligently, so that the whole dungeon almost becomes one long encounter where not only tactics but also resource management determines whether you make it all the way through. To me however, this aspect isn't terribly important, as the fun lies in the battles themselves, not the micro management you do in between them. DA may not be game where you plan when and where to use specific items, but the dungeons are still enjoyable based on other factors.

It's a matter of preference. Or maybe not...

As for the thing you say about auto-regen removing the importance of healing items, this is not entirely true. You can still be royally fucked in some fights if you are out of potions, based on the simple fact that some encounters require you to use them during the fights themselves. Case in point: I had to fight an ogre in the beginning of the game, and I had used up every potion before that. Had I had potions, the fight wouldn't have been nearly as hard.

I didn't say potions weren't needed during a fight. In this you are correct, for they mostly are since at times combat sadly degrades into the usual "stare at health bar and press potion hotkey when health is low" of typical, artificially long battles against insanely-high-HP monsters/bosses.

I was actually complaining about their out-of-combat use. They should be needed to use as well.