Dragon Age: Origins combat is better than Baldur's Gate 2

[DalekFlay]

Companions are cool (to me, that's the most important thing in these games) and the plot can be interesting sometimes, far more than in Inquisition, where it's really hard for me to care about the whole "woooooo the world is ending stuff is happening".

I honestly enjoyed DA2 more than Inquisition. Inquisition is so empty, it's a storybook with very few good quests and lots of bullshit errands. DA2 is shit in a ton of ways but it's a relatively standard RPG at its core, and therefore more tolerable. Also I like the art style, fuck realism cucks.

 

[JDR13]

What were the worst things about DA II ?

The wave-style encounter design.

DA 1 was already terrible with its copypasted mobs, but DA 2 took it to a whole new level. Holy shit. Whoever designed those encounters clearly was one of those people at Bioware who don't like the gameplay, because it shows utter lack of understanding towards what makes gameplay fun. They just slapped mobs into the maps that would attack in waves, so all the trash encounters took especially long to go through. What an uninteresting waste of time.

Did you play the actual game (and not just the demo)? Because the trash in DA2 is a lot faster to clean up than in DA.

The combat is faster in DA2, but you get more waves of enemies so that evens things out. I agree the encounter design is worse in DA2.

Neither game had any encounter design aside from a handful of bosses.

Every encounter is designed in some way. The question is how much thought went into it.

 

[yes plz]

For every one encounter in Origins that's well designed (e.g. having archers up on elevated positions, a handful of mages in the back of the room, and a group of warriors in the center) there's at least ten encounters that are just two warriors and a rogue standing around in a narrow hallway or a small room. I think sea used to orgasmically sperg about Origins' encounter design but would usually fall back on the same handful of examples.

 

[JDR13]

Inquisition is so empty, it's a storybook with very few good quests and lots of bullshit errands.

ME:A is the exact same way. That's why I no longer anticipate anything from Bioware being good. At least as far as single-player RPGs are concerned.

 

[JarlFrank]

For every one encounter in Origins that's well designed (e.g. having archers up on elevated positions, a handful of mages in the back of the room, and a group of warriors in the center) there's at least ten encounters that are just two warriors and a rogue standing around in a narrow hallway or a small room. I think sea used to orgasmically sperg about Origins' encounter design but would usually fall back on the same handful of examples.

DA:O would be a great game if it had only 25% of the content.

 

[Lacrymas]

Eh, I'd say only the Fade section, most of the Deep Roads, and everything to do with the elves (both city and dalish) were superfluous. Maaaybe Lothering as well. That's not 75% of the content. What else do you propose be removed?

 

[Cryomancer]

Dragon Age Origins as a RPG is a amazing visual novel...

 

[DalekFlay]

DA:O would be a great game if it had only 25% of the content.

Don't play Kingmaker, it's three times as long and just as repetitive.

 

[Cryomancer]

Don't play Kingmaker, it's three times as long and just as repetitive.

I strongly disagree. Each encounter is more unique on kingmaker. On chapter 2 you can fight animals, trolls, will'o wisps, undeads and each one has unique template and unique strategies to deal with it. On DA:O, you fight the same enemy, using the same on cooldown rotation over and over...

My gameplay

 

[Semiurge]

As for Alistair, what you are describing honestly sounds like a Disney character to me, casting off the shackles of society/upbringing/expectations to be true to himself. This is not a bad thing necessarily, just ...Disney.

A bit of it is from the King Arthur legend.

Arcane Warrior was pretty shit though. It had zero offensive moves and was nothing but a spellcaster running around in a giant suit of armor. The NPC Arcane Warriors typically have some Warrior talents to go along with them, but not the player characters.

It was literally taking minimal damage whilst slowly swinging your sword at enemies with no more than two different moves. It was so boring that I used the mode only with the most challenging fights, like the 1-on-1s in Orzammar. Allegedly most of the spells can be cast with the special sword but I recall having some some trouble with that and the character auto-switching to the staff in most cases.

Shapeshifter was also handled poorly. You only got 2 or 3 moves in each form and were mostly sitting on your ass not doing shit. They really needed to improve that spec to make it actually feel like a proper shapeshifter.

A completely useless downgrade on a mage. If only Morrigan had started with full shapeshifter capabilities it might have been useful early in the game, exchanging a wider range of spells for the ability to tank as a direbear. But then that would have made it pointless for any other mage to learn the skill.

 

[Poseidon00]

Big flaws in DA:O's combat, but it's the best in the series. Boy did it go downhill fast.

 

[Lacrymas]

Half the specializations were dumb because they were underpowered or relied on weird stats which are not worth pumping only for that spec (Templar). This is why I say almost everything is low effort, it's as if nobody playtested these specializations, not to mention the bugs.

 

[Absinthe]

Arcane Warrior was pretty shit though. It had zero offensive moves and was nothing but a spellcaster running around in a giant suit of armor. The NPC Arcane Warriors typically have some Warrior talents to go along with them, but not the player characters.

It was literally taking minimal damage whilst slowly swinging your sword at enemies with no more than two different moves. It was so boring that I used the mode only with the most challenging fights, like the 1-on-1s in Orzammar. Allegedly most of the spells can be cast with the special sword but I recall having some some trouble with that and the character auto-switching to the staff in most cases.

AW has zero attack moves. All you get to do is auto-attack shit. It's dumb as fuck and I have no idea why Bioware did it, especially considering that they were on the record saying they wouldn't make a tank mage spec (only to have AW turn out to be just that, and only that). All he really has is stupidly strong defenses and some passives to make them even stupider. And the tooltip lies on the Arcane Warrior sword. It doesn't affect weapons-equipped casting at all. Just one of those unfinished DAO things. If you have a decent mana pool you can honestly leave the modes on and just collect defensive bonuses. I remember doing that. The increased mana costs don't mean shit when you basically have infinite mana with all the ridiculous methods to restore mana anyway, so the only real question is if you have enough of a mana pool left to cast after sustains.

Of course, you don't really need Arcane Warrior to have absurd defenses. Just stand on a Glyph of Warding and cast Heroic Defense on yourself and you will have 50 + 0.2xSpellpower defense and another +30 missile deflection. And you can even add Arcane Shield on top for another 10+0.1xSpellpower defense if you want. And that's not even getting into the various debuffs you can give enemies (Disorient, Weakness, Miasma, Curse of Misdirection - Disorient is fucking shit though, but the rest of the spells in that line are stupidly strong as they form spell combos with each other) There's also Rock Armor which ensures that your mage can have more armor than any Warrior can (so does Shimmering Shield tbh). If you so much as get a smidge of strength, you can just equip actual armors in Ostagar (or even sooner if you get lucky with Mage origin drops - and Jowan can equip medium armor if it drops) and put a Rock Armor buff on top of that, making your Mage the best tank in the party even before you ever get Arcane Warrior.

Shapeshifter was also handled poorly. You only got 2 or 3 moves in each form and were mostly sitting on your ass not doing shit. They really needed to improve that spec to make it actually feel like a proper shapeshifter.

A completely useless downgrade on a mage. If only Morrigan had started with full shapeshifter capabilities it might have been useful early in the game, exchanging a wider range of spells for the ability to tank as a direbear. But then that would have made it pointless for any other mage to learn the skill.

They really needed to add more abilities to the forms instead of giving you just 2 (later 3) abilities and maybe made larger costs for shapeshifting. They should probably have implemented some form of synergy between Arcane Warrior and Shapeshifter as well, since the anti-synergy between two mage specs that are supposed to turn you into a more durable melee damage dealer is also bad. The point of shapeshifting is gaining a versatility you didn't have before. It's not to have a few small flavor abilities and end up in a shape where you largely can't do shit. Shapeshifter is not completely worthless, mind. Morrigan can turn into a spider between cooldowns, toss out a Web and Poison Spit, and then exit. The other shapes are not really useful though. And Wynne is also an overpowered shapeshifter because your shapeshifted stats scale with spellpower so if you shapeshift with over 200 spellpower you will get some really ridiculous stats. It's also possible to do stupid things like 100% strength mage because if your original stat is higher than your shapeshifted stat would be, you keep your original stat, but specializing for staying in a shapeshifted form is still a shit idea.

Half the specializations were dumb because they were underpowered or relied on weird stats which are not worth pumping only for that spec (Templar). This is why I say almost everything is low effort, it's as if nobody playtested these specializations, not to mention the bugs.

It really is. Willpower warrior is still doable because Berserker also gives you Final Blow and you can rotate cooldowns a lot more (no stamina potions in DAO for some reason, even though Deep Mushrooms are clearly a stamina pot ingredient and can be spammed for stamina recovery) but the only reason to do that is because you aren't doing Cunning Bards or CCing mages and wanted your Templars to AoE stun the shit out of your enemies. You get two abilities that are just strong enough to make the build workable. But those atypical builds (pure willpower, pure cunning) also suffer from item scaling ruining their prerequisites and making it hard for them to find alternative gearing options that were available a few levels ago. They also forgot to give Sten racial stats or a specialization, so you can really feel the care and attention that went into playtesting DAO. I mean, who notices these sorts of things anyway? Also, auto-leveled stats for companions in DAO are completely awful. If you ever want to do a handicapped DAO run, let the game auto-level all your companions for you. I mean auto-leveling exists as a hand-holding convenience for newbies, and they managed to make auto-leveled builds so shit that it blatantly and severely handicaps the poor fools who actually use it.

 

[Roguey]

Half the specializations were dumb because they were underpowered or relied on weird stats which are not worth pumping only for that spec (Templar). This is why I say almost everything is low effort, it's as if nobody playtested these specializations, not to mention the bugs.

DA:O's system wasn't designed with power gaming in mind, that was intentional. Outright stated by Zoeller:

(DA2 and beyond ended up going for class balance and dps equality for good or ill )

 

[Lacrymas]

His statement only makes sense if there was utility to some of these specializations, but there's not. They are designed to be DPS, yet can't fulfill that role as good as other specializations, so this isn't about asymmetrical balancing. "We made some specs intentionally shit" is dumb, no matter how much balance rhetoric you spin.

 

[Nano]

tl;dr

Imagine being this obsessed with a game you hate.

 

[Absinthe]

Half the specializations were dumb because they were underpowered or relied on weird stats which are not worth pumping only for that spec (Templar). This is why I say almost everything is low effort, it's as if nobody playtested these specializations, not to mention the bugs.

DA:O's system wasn't designed with power gaming in mind, that was intentional. Outright stated by Zoeller

Zoeller's defense is retarded. There are a number of specs and builds that fail not from a balance perspective but from a design perspective. As in they do not do what they set out to do. Reaver has two abilities (Aura of Pain and Blood Frenzy) that are so shit as to be essentially useless. The Bard's Song of Valor is also extreme garbage and not worth the price of activation. Arcane Warrior fails at being remotely warrior-like and Shapeshifter fails at giving you a proper reason to shapeshift (which is why they just avoided including it in all future DA games). Creating redundant abilities serving identical functions is also overall shit design. Bugged combat abilities are also not a mark of Bioware ascending above powergamers but just general fail. Idiotic builds like the dex-specialized rogue that evades everything or the magic-specialized mage that shits on everything in just about every way imaginable are also not some kind of leet powergaming tech, but completely basic shit that Bioware was somehow utterly unprepared for. And it's generally a shit excuse to claim that "DAO is not meant for powergaming" to defend something like archers having no actual niche because mages are simply overwhelmingly superior and more fun as ranged damage dealers. And games journalists have been a joke for a long time for a reason: because they suck at games and operate more as PR people than honest critical reviewers.

(DA2 and beyond ended up going for class balance and dps equality for good or ill )

DA2's balance was also awful. Level scaling became a thing of true absurdity, the stat system became an even bigger joke (you were now blatantly expected to funnel your points into specific stats and nothing else, with incremental improvements that were largely undone by level scaling), and there were still plenty of ways to break the game in half.

tl;dr

Imagine being this obsessed with a game you hate.

Imagine being this ass-pained at someone criticizing a game you like. It's like you're new to the Codex, son.

 

[Roguey]

His statement only makes sense if there was utility to some of these specializations, but there's not. They are designed to be DPS, yet can't fulfill that role as good as other specializations, so this isn't about asymmetrical balancing. "We made some specs intentionally shit" is dumb, no matter how much balance rhetoric you spin.

Templars are for people who don't like playing mages. They're a counter against spellcasters, though a weaker one compared to another spellcaster (because spellcasters must be the best)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

People who play characters that wear dresses shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinions on things

 

[Absinthe]

Templars are for people who don't like playing mages. They're a counter against spellcasters, though a weaker one compared to another spellcaster (because spellcasters must be the best)

They don't really counter spellcasters though. Most of the attack abilities don't apply Righteous Strike and Holy Smite is not only willpower-based, but a mental resistance check (a mage's strong suit). And it does garbage damage overall. At least you get dispels and high mental resistance. Countering Mages as a non-Mage is mostly about gearing a ton of spell resistance (better play a Dwarf for that Dwarf-only racial of 10% spell resistance), CCing them into the ground, or one-shotting them. Of course if you're playing as a Mage you can fully negate enemy casters by casting Glyph of Neutralization or Mana Clash. You can even do silly things like cast Spell Shield, Anti-Magic Ward, Mana Drain, or Mana Cleanse (which is bugged to give mana instead of draining it unless you have Dain's Fixes installed) if you want.

Rogues are easily better as anti-Mages because they can just drop Small Claw Traps at a Mage's feet (15 second stun and 100 damage right there) or one-shot them with high backstab damage builds. Pulling Mages over Small Claw Traps works too. Templars do trivialize the Zathrian fight by dispelling all the paralyzed werewolves though, but that's a one-off thing.

Any time you really want something to die you can always give everyone 1 rank of Poison-Making and perform synchronized grenade tossing. Since each grenade type has a separate cooldown you can do 640 damage to the target of your choice in only a few seconds.

 

[Semiurge]

AW has zero attack moves. All you get to do is auto-attack shit.

Oops, animations is what I meant

 

[Drowed]

Imagine being this obsessed with a game you hate.

You basically just described the motto of this site.

 

[Semiurge]

Any time you really want something to die you can always give everyone 1 rank of Poison-Making and perform synchronized grenade tossing.

This is such an artificial and stupid limitation. If you need to apply some oil on a weapon you need a skill for it? This is a party-based game so even if you're too dumb or inept for something you can have someone else do it for you, isn't that the whole point? :D

Sure, brewing poisons and such should require a skill but applying them is something even a retard can do, so the only reason for such a requirement is (so very obviously) artificial difficulty. Otherwise only one party member needs to spend points on a skill while everyone else can reap the benefits for free, and we can't have that. And why is it that everyone can drink healing potions even though making them requires herbalism?

 

[Nano]

At least you're self-aware.

 

[Cryomancer]

Rogues are easily better as anti-Mages because they can just drop Small Claw Traps at a Mage's fee

Another example of DA:O ludonarrative dissonance. Not only you can use blood maigc in front of templars but also rogues are the best anti magic thing... IMO Templars should have a armor especially designed to fight elemental attacks since most mages on DA seems to be using elemental attacks.