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Is This the Single Worst Encounter in RPG History?

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
I'm replaying Dragon Age 2 because I hate myself and my family, and I just did the solo Arishok battle at the end of act two. This HAS to be the most poorly designed battle encounter in RPG history.

First off, his health bar is endless and he can take health potions, making the fight last for-fucking-ever. Secondly, his attacks can stun-lock you if you're not careful, and if he gets you against a wall forget it. Third, as a warrior or rogue you only regenerate stamina on kills, so you have to rely on stamina potions which have a long cooldown. This leads to not being able to use abilities that often, which leads to you sitting and watching your character hack away slowly against an endless health bar. Health potions are also on a cooldown, and the guy hits hard.

So... the battle results in a fucking endless parade of running away waiting for potions to refill, doing a special attack or two, then slowly watching your dude hack away with basic attacks that barely move the health bar, then running away again kiting the big dummy around over and over again. I fucking DARE you to come up with a worse encounter in RPG history. I'm not even gonna put restrictions on it, by year or budget or anything else. Come up with a better one, anywhere, and I'd love to read about it. 'Cause as of right now I think this is the winner by a wide margin.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
worse encounter
image.png
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
I'm replaying Dragon Age 2 because I hate myself and my family, and I just did the solo Arishok battle at the end of act two. This HAS to be the most poorly designed battle encounter in RPG history.

First off, his health bar is endless and he can take health potions, making the fight last for-fucking-ever. Secondly, his attacks can stun-lock you if you're not careful, and if he gets you against a wall forget it. Third, as a warrior or rogue you only regenerate stamina on kills, so you have to rely on stamina potions which have a long cooldown. This leads to not being able to use abilities that often, which leads to you sitting and watching your character hack away slowly against an endless health bar. Health potions are also on a cooldown, and the guy hits hard.

So... the battle results in a fucking endless parade of running away waiting for potions to refill, doing a special attack or two, then slowly watching your dude hack away with basic attacks that barely move the health bar, then running away again kiting the big dummy around over and over again. I fucking DARE you to come up with a worse encounter in RPG history. I'm not even gonna put restrictions on it, by year or budget or anything else. Come up with a better one, anywhere, and I'd love to read about it. 'Cause as of right now I think this is the winner by a wide margin.

Second I saw this thread I thought of this battle, for exactly the reasons you list.

It's absolutely woeful. Top spot by a long way. When I played it within 30 seconds I was like "I don't think anyone at Bioware has actually played this battle at any point in development"
 

Poseidon00

Arcane
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
2,039
I used to ignore reviews when buying a game. Dragon Age 2 taught me not to do that anymore.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Why do you do this to yourself, DalekFlay ? There are so many other games out there. Go play Prelude to Darkness or Teudogar. They're good and free.
Because Dragon Age 2's premise makes you want to play it, but the execution is awful. The idea of an RPG taking place mostly in a single area and the area changes/time progresses during the story is something barely ever done in RPGs.
 

Lord_Potato

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
9,836
Location
Free City of Warsaw
Why do you do this to yourself, DalekFlay ? There are so many other games out there. Go play Prelude to Darkness or Teudogar. They're good and free.
Because Dragon Age 2's premise makes you want to play it, but the execution is awful. The idea of an RPG taking place mostly in a single area and the area changes/time progresses during the story is something barely ever done in RPGs.

Ok, but he's not merely playing DA2, but replaying it. He should have already learned the important lessons from the experience.
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
7,523
I've never played a DA game so I looked it up on Youtube. This is blandest-looking thing I've ever laid eyes on. I don't reckon anyone could've sold this without leaning on the Bioware name (back when that still meant something).
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
I'm replaying Dragon Age 2 because I hate myself and my family, and I just did the solo Arishok battle at the end of act two. This HAS to be the most poorly designed battle encounter in RPG history.

First off, his health bar is endless and he can take health potions, making the fight last for-fucking-ever. Secondly, his attacks can stun-lock you if you're not careful, and if he gets you against a wall forget it. Third, as a warrior or rogue you only regenerate stamina on kills, so you have to rely on stamina potions which have a long cooldown. This leads to not being able to use abilities that often, which leads to you sitting and watching your character hack away slowly against an endless health bar. Health potions are also on a cooldown, and the guy hits hard.

So... the battle results in a fucking endless parade of running away waiting for potions to refill, doing a special attack or two, then slowly watching your dude hack away with basic attacks that barely move the health bar, then running away again kiting the big dummy around over and over again. I fucking DARE you to come up with a worse encounter in RPG history. I'm not even gonna put restrictions on it, by year or budget or anything else. Come up with a better one, anywhere, and I'd love to read about it. 'Cause as of right now I think this is the winner by a wide margin.

I knew the Codex attracted a weird crowd but you should get your wife to tie and whip you and burn your toes instead, you'd have a way better time...
 

Duralux for Durabux

Guest
Its funny how bad it is, especially when you have the trailer in mind.

Euh the trailer fucking sucks, it was a good indicator of the quality of the game. I can resume it simply :
Bad guy kills king , good guy arrives , good guy kills bad guy, end.
The trailer shows nothing more, it's full of epic scenes but it tells nothing interesting for the player like a Marvel's movie.
 

Duralux for Durabux

Guest
User3 wrote:
Dragon Age games have always been bad. The first one was extremely generic with lackluster combat and a boring story. The second was worse due to the removal of auto-attack. Somebody should put this franchise out of its misery.



Digitally downloaded.net wrote:
"BioWare achieved everything that it needed to with Dragon Age: Inquisition. It revitalised a series that had suffered real brand damage in Dragon Age II, and easily stands as the best RPG we've seen in years. There is absolutely no reason to miss out on this one."

Impulsegamer wrote:
"Dragon Age Inquisition is a must play RPG on the PS4 that successfully takes the best out of both previous games to create sword and sorcery perfection."


Which one you want to believe ? Which one deserves credit ? Games journalism needs to die.
 

jf8350143

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Messages
1,277
Just lower the difficulty and be done with it.

I never understand why so many party based games like to design encounters forcing you to use only 1 character.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
User3 wrote:
Dragon Age games have always been bad. The first one was extremely generic with lackluster combat and a boring story. The second was worse due to the removal of auto-attack. Somebody should put this franchise out of its misery.



Digitally downloaded.net wrote:
"BioWare achieved everything that it needed to with Dragon Age: Inquisition. It revitalised a series that had suffered real brand damage in Dragon Age II, and easily stands as the best RPG we've seen in years. There is absolutely no reason to miss out on this one."

Impulsegamer wrote:
"Dragon Age Inquisition is a must play RPG on the PS4 that successfully takes the best out of both previous games to create sword and sorcery perfection."


Which one you want to believe ? Which one deserves credit ? Games journalism needs to die.

Neither are right though.

DA:O had some great elements, more good elements than bad IMO, DA:2 & DA:I were overwhelmed with shit elements but still had some good elements on board too.

It's all like a crazy wizard who manipulates fire, wind, earth & water - elementle
 

alyvain

Learned
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
Messages
376
Just lower the difficulty and be done with it.

I never understand why so many party based games like to design encounters forcing you to use only 1 character.


Supposedly it makes certain encounters epic and narratively meaningful. The same way as cutscenes where your player character kills the dragon/the boss of mercenaries/etc. even if in the actual game the final blow was delivered by someone else in the party.

I prefer not to think of such design choices.
 

Duralux for Durabux

Guest
Neither are right though.

DA:O had some great elements, more good elements than bad IMO, DA:2 & DA:I were overwhelmed with shit elements but still had some good elements on board too.

It's all like a crazy wizard who manipulates fire, wind, earth & water - elementle
When it comes to Dragon Age , i agree with user3 but i don't say you are wrong.I just want to point out that with each new installment,the serie become worse and worse. At one moment, you need to stop the massacre.
And to answer DalekFlay's thread, DA:I is probably the worst RPG of the century. So it reveals everything you need to know.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Neither are right though.

DA:O had some great elements, more good elements than bad IMO, DA:2 & DA:I were overwhelmed with shit elements but still had some good elements on board too.

It's all like a crazy wizard who manipulates fire, wind, earth & water - elementle
When it comes to Dragon Age , i agree with user3 but i don't say you are wrong.I just want to point out that with each new installment,the serie become worse and worse. At one moment, you need to stop the massacre.
And to answer DalekFlay's thread, DA:I is probably the worst RPG of the century. So it reveals everything you need to know.
I found DA:I more tolerable than DA2
 

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