Review Vault Dweller Does Dragon Age II

[Andyman Messiah]

"can simply opt to pick "Blood Magic" in the game without much of a consequence where in Origins, it was sort of a one-time offer. No instruction gleaned from a forbidden text, no "hidden teacher" willing to impart the secrets of blood magic to a willing apostate, no deal with a demon. As long as you have a specialization point to spend, welcome to the horribly reviled and supposedly difficult to enter Blood Mage Club."

Actually, in DA1, my mage was able to become a blood mage without doing anything. LMFAO

DA1 is very buggy. Normally you have to unlock the specializations but if you're lucky and your game bugs out (with patch 1.04 no less) you can pick your stuff without even enrolling in Oghren's berserker school or Alistair's templar school. After you've unlocked the specs in one playthrough however you can take that spec for all the other playthroughs. I just felt like wandering in here to educate you all. I'm helpful like that.

Excellent review, Walt!

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Good review. Reminded me of how I felt about DA:O.


Wait there are no misses in DA 2? So you always land. I could never play such a game.

 

[Elhoim]

Wait there are no misses in DA 2?

It's not awesome to miss.

 

[Arnesaknussemm]

MIKEBETH

A quick adaptation of the Scotish play as homage to DA2

Troubled Bioware Lead Designer

Yet here's a spot.

RPG Fan

Hark! he speaks. I will set down what comes
from him, to satisfy my remembrance the more
strongly.

Troubled Bioware Lead Designer

Out,damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my
lord, fie! a lead designer, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power
to account?—Yet who would have thought Dragons Age Origins had so much blood in
it?

And Inon Zur's music; where is it now?—
What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o'
that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with
this starting.

Here's the smell of the blood still. All the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this
little hand. O, O, O!

RPG Fan

What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely
charg'd.

Troubled Bioware Lead Designer

Wash your hands, put on your DA2 hoody;
look not so pale.—I tell you yet again, Brent Knowles is
buried; he cannot come out his grave.

To copy and paste, to copy and paste! There's fresh reviewers at the gate:
come, come, come, Gaider, give me your hand. What's
done cannot be undone.—to DA3, to DA3, to DA3!

 

[DwarvenFood]

So when is Age of Dragons coming out then VD.. Also, I'm lucky the demo crashed on my first try and I never bothered to try it a second time. Good review.

 

[J_C]

Re: MIKEBETH

A quick adaptation of the Scotish play as homage to DA2

Troubled Bioware Lead Designer

Yet here's a spot.

RPG Fan

Hark! he speaks. I will set down what comes
from him, to satisfy my remembrance the more
strongly.

Troubled Bioware Lead Designer

Out,damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my
lord, fie! a lead designer, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power
to account?—Yet who would have thought Dragons Age Origins had so much blood in
it?

And Inon Zur's music; where is it now?—
What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o'
that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with
this starting.

Here's the smell of the blood still. All the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this
little hand. O, O, O!

RPG Fan

What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely
charg'd.

Troubled Bioware Lead Designer

Wash your hands, put on your DA2 hoody;
look not so pale.—I tell you yet again, Brent Knowles is
buried; he cannot come out his grave.

To copy and paste, to copy and paste! There's fresh reviewers at the gate:
come, come, come, Gaider, give me your hand. What's
done cannot be undone.—to DA3, to DA3, to DA3!

A+ first post.

 

[praetor]

"can simply opt to pick "Blood Magic" in the game without much of a consequence where in Origins, it was sort of a one-time offer. No instruction gleaned from a forbidden text, no "hidden teacher" willing to impart the secrets of blood magic to a willing apostate, no deal with a demon. As long as you have a specialization point to spend, welcome to the horribly reviled and supposedly difficult to enter Blood Mage Club."

Actually, in DA1, my mage was able to become a blood mage without doing anything. LMFAO

bullshitz! stopt he liezs tart th etruthz!

in DA1 you can pick any specialization only in subsequent playthroughs (if you unlocked that specialization). in your first playthrough, you cannot "become a blood mage without doing anything": r00flez

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Wait there are no misses in DA 2?

It's not awesome to miss.

my ass

If nobody ever misses then the game is shit PERIOD

 

[Johannes]

Nobody misses in chess... What a piece of shit game that is

 

[J1M]

QA=quality assurance

Where was the quality in Daatoo?

Woo and Priestly are more like community people.

Heh, even in comparrison to Gaider they were deemed incompetent and so were shuffled away to made up busy work positions. What of "William Wallace", is he an actual employee?

Yes, he is a (senior?) designer for their star wars mmo.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Nobody misses in chess... What a piece of shit game that is

Abstract strategy board games and RPG combat systems with fucking hit points are two very, very different concepts.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Actually, in DA1, my mage was able to become a blood mage without doing anything. LMFAO

That's because you unlocked it in a previous playthrough, you dumb shithead.

 

[Alec McCabe]

Abstract strategy board games and RPG combat systems with fucking hit points are two very, very different concepts.

If a game in which you always hit becomes a hit point game, wouldn't a game in which there is a chance that you miss be all about stacking hit %?

 

[Volourn]

"bullshitz! stopt he liezs tart th etruthz!

in DA1 you can pick any specialization only in subsequent playthroughs (if you unlocked that specialization). in your first playthrough, you cannot "become a blood mage without doing anything": r00flez"

How does any of the crap you wrote contradict anything i did? You fuckkin' moran!


"That's because you unlocked it in a previous playthrough, you dumb shithead."

And?

 

[Radisshu]

Abstract strategy board games and RPG combat systems with fucking hit points are two very, very different concepts.

If a game in which you always hit becomes a hit point game, wouldn't a game in which there is a chance that you miss be all about stacking hit %?

No, since, y'know, there's still a good chance you might hit.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Abstract strategy board games and RPG combat systems with fucking hit points are two very, very different concepts.

If a game in which you always hit becomes a hit point game, wouldn't a game in which there is a chance that you miss be all about stacking hit %?

In a game of the same genre? Absolutely. In a strategy game emulating large-scale warfare? Absolutely not.

RPG combat's focus is on your unit(s) surviving battles. Instantly losing your character due to a mistake is often a game ending event. That's why HPs - your force field, basically - are necessary. The more HPs you have the longer you can last and the more enemies you can take on.

Chess is about tactical positioning and creating the best possible conditions for a "decisive battle". Losing units is acceptable and expected. You are evenly matched and neither side has an advantage. You create advantages yourself and you often do it by sacrificing units. The trick isn't in absorbing blows with HP, but in not letting your opponent take your units (with impunity).

The "design goals" are vastly different.

 

[Drakron]

True but the whole thing about "never missing" is more that they can't be arsed to create "miss" animations for attacks and since the attack animations always ends at a "hit" you have the dumbfucks BAWWWING about why their characters are not going any damage.

I understand the complain in Morrowind due to how attacking worked but in games like this one the only rreal excuse they can come up is the animators simply did not wanted to make the animations, anything else is a insult.

 

[SCO]

Seems like the bioware defense force arrived in that forum thread.

 

[Pegultagol]

more often than not, the only animation of a successful 'hit' attacak in DA2 is a health bar dwindling.

 

[Alec McCabe]

If a game in which you always hit becomes a hit point game, wouldn't a game in which there is a chance that you miss be all about stacking hit %?

In a game of the same genre? Absolutely.

Is having a %miss chance better than the %glancing blow approach, and why? I'm not sure the review touches on this. That it makes boss battles very long as a result of needing a lot of hp is mentioned, but the alternative - needing to stack hit% or be ineffective - also has its' problems.

 

[Drakron]

BioWare bosses are just inflated HP and a bunch of immunities even when you have "chance to miss".

Nothing changes, in fact several DA2 bosses have the cheap shoot of "reinforcements" that just makes the whole thing more annoying to have battlefield control, especially with the pants on retarded camera.

There is no problem with "chance to miss" besides adapting bosses to work on it, having 30000 HP is just the cheap easy way out of encounter design and DA2 is full of that, the combat is so fast encounters have at least a 2nd wave of attackers since it would over under 2-3 minutes otherwise.

DA:O had filler combat but DA2 takes the cake.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

If a game in which you always hit becomes a hit point game, wouldn't a game in which there is a chance that you miss be all about stacking hit %?

In a game of the same genre? Absolutely.

Is having a %miss chance better than the %glancing blow approach, and why? I'm not sure the review touches on this. That it makes boss battles very long as a result of needing a lot of hp is mentioned, but the alternative - needing to stack hit% or be ineffective - also has its' problems.

The problems occur when a character is overpowered or it lacks animations. Solution- good game design, balance, dodge animations.

There is a reason why people consider DA 2 to be riddled with short cuts and generally lazy.

Also you have to ask yourself something. In an action game what is more fun trying to hit an elusive target or just banging away?

 

[Johannes]

Also you have to ask yourself something. In an action game what is more fun trying to hit an elusive target or just banging away?

If either is just done by clicking on the opponent and hoping for the best, I don't really see much difference in fun.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Having a "glancing blow" that deals 1% of the damage is only marginally different from missing. I don't find this to be a concern at all; and I don't think it is a flaw (assuming it is a flaw) that condemns a game to the popamole by itself (that would be level/item scaling).

 

[attackfighter]

A system that uses glancing blows would have to operate with large numbers. For example, say you're at level one and have 5 health; an enemy would at most only have to hit you 5 times to kill you, even if he was landing a glancing blow with every hit. To avoid something like that, you'd have to inflate your health to 50. Larger numbers are harder to work with, case in point the system in Final Fantasy where you're doing 9000 damage every attack, no one gives a shit about number crunching in that game.

That's the only universal detriment to glancing blows that I can come up with, and yeah I suppose it's pretty weak. Everything else would be dependant on the rule system it's placed into, for example if it were implemented into Baldurs Gate it would ruin the stone skin and mirror image spells, but if implemented into Fallout it wouldn't really matter.