Review Vault Dweller Does Dragon Age II

[Lightknight]

It is as if the industry is convinced that there are two equally legitimate ways to make mega-selling action RPGs: either by spending years and tons of money tweaking the mechanics until they form a cycle of continuous, addictive gameplay or by throwing something together in a year, making sure there are lots of monsters to kill and then calling it a night and going for cocktails.

I just cant wave away the comparison with "there are two equally possible ways for existence of life on Earth : either it evolved from single-celled organisms over millions of years and through millions of small changes and mutations - or a magic man done it."

 

[dextermorgan]

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.

It's a hit point game all the way through. Adding a chance to miss is expanding the possibilities for gameplay styles. Strength-based char that doesn't hit as often but does major damage when he does, agility based one that hits lighter but more often, etc.

So to answer your original question, no, stacking hit % is not the necessary result of introduction of to-hit % mechanic. It's not either/or choice but rather adding a layer of complexity to combat.

IMHO

And what's with people drawing comparisons between chess and RPG combat lately?

PS,

Nice review VD

 

[Andyman Messiah]

"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!

Hold it right there, princess! Why did you not include the exact details surrounding your stupid bullshit? You could have saved us all a moment of angry time if only you had taken the time to explain things properly.

That said, DA:O DOES have a bug where it's perfectly possible to specialize without earning it.

 

[dextermorgan]

I believe it's called lying by omission.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Is having a %miss chance better than the %glancing blow approach, and why?

This is actually a point Vince and I disagree on, though it was his article so I didn't fight it. Mathematically, you can make them equivalent.

If you have sword that does 10 points of damage a hit, having a 10% miss rate is statistically equivalent to doing 9 points of damage 100% of the time, in the long run.

Of course, damage ranges make the short term results more 'noisy', which adds in some of the excitement of gambling to play. But it is perfectly possible to implement randomness with a range of values that doesn't include 0. A range of 1-17 will give you around an average of 9 points per hit, roughly equivalent to having a sword which does 10 points of damage and misses 10% of the time.

You can calculate ranges for each skill level which result in statistical equivalence to any 'hit-chance' system.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Which is precisely what D&D's AC is supposed to represent, by the way (ie. boo hoo armour should reduce the damage you take!!!!!!!).

Also, if HP are supposed to be some sort of abstract measure of fatigue/skill/etc. rather than a gauge of how much blood, flesh and bone you have remaining (and they really should be) having even 'missed' blows do some damage makes perfect sense - it's easy to hit something human-sized even if you're a total spaz, unless they're moving about. Try it with a big rock some time.
Minor HP loss in these cases can be rationalised as energy loss due to all that ducking and weaving, which can be quite tiring.

 

[Volourn]

"I believe it's called lying by omission."

I diodn't lie. I told the truth. My mage was able to take the blood mage specialziation inN DA1 without doing anything for it other than use a specialization point. That's not a lie, that's the fukkin' truth.


"Hold it right there, princess! Why did you not include the exact details surrounding your stupid bullshit? You could have saved us all a moment of angry time if only you had taken the time to explain things properly. "

Not my fault you get butthurt over someone posting the fukkin' truth. Fukkin' Codex crying over the truth. Typical.

 

[Yeesh]

Is having a %miss chance better than the %glancing blow approach, and why?

This is actually a point Vince and I disagree on, though it was his article so I didn't fight it. Mathematically, you can make them equivalent.

If you have sword that does 10 points of damage a hit, having a 10% miss rate is statistically equivalent to doing 9 points of damage 100% of the time, in the long run.

Of course, damage ranges make the short term results more 'noisy', which adds in some of the excitement of gambling to play. But it is perfectly possible to implement randomness with a range of values that doesn't include 0. A range of 1-17 will give you around an average of 9 points per hit, roughly equivalent to having a sword which does 10 points of damage and misses 10% of the time.

You can calculate ranges for each skill level which result in statistical equivalence to any 'hit-chance' system.

Call me crazy, small minded, or a next gen consoletard whore (despite my not even having a TV, I mean how would anybody know that?), but this is exactly the reason why it doesn't make much sense to complain about a system where blows always land. Yes, you can make weapons that hit more often and do less damage versus ones that hit less often and do more damage, and then you can throw weapon speed into the mix too of course, but some enterprising player's going to take a look at the numbers and do a spreadsheet and just tell the rest of us which weapon is best. Because most of us like to crank up the difficulty and 'roleplay' a character who would rather kick ass than die. Not everybody, just most people.

So you either end up balancing the weapons so they're all equally good, or you end up (inadvertently? purposefully?) making some classes more effective at killing. Short of adding in extra facets which you can't always blame an action game for not having (durability? maintenance cost? defense bonus/penalty?), weapons are good for one thing: doing damage over time. The one that does the most damage over time is the one you want. Adding in hit% makes the formula more complex, but doesn't actually change anything. It just adds more math. I know that the word "simplifying" is much maligned here, but is anything really lost by simplifying this equation?

ALSO: Great review!

 

[Vault Dweller]

Is having a %miss chance better than the %glancing blow approach, and why?

In my opinion, it's definitely better.

First, when you always hit, you cause constant damage (per second) no matter how small. Even if you "miss" a lot, you still cause damage and winning a battle becomes about staying alive long enough. Sure, much like anything else this problem can be be circumvented by making staying alive long enough harder, but why create a problem in the first place?

Second, most systems have special attacks that cause significantly more damage. In DnD if you want to use Power Attack, you subtract a number from your to-hit chance and add it to damage. Simple, logical (in the design context), and effective. You lower your to-hit chance for some extra damage. In systems where you always hit, it becomes another problem. Who cares if you only do minor damage with glancing attacks if you can do 330 points of damage (mighty blow at lvl 17) that always hit? A full round of special attacks of my party was about 4x4-5x200-300=3,200-6,000 points. Wait 20 seconds and repeat.

Third, when you always hit, it creates bloated HP monsters (see above) designed to last long enough against DPS and special attacks, whereas in %miss games, the hit points can remain relatively low, allowing you to finish the fight quickly if you can hit your target, which in turn creates a difference between a great fighter and an ok one. Such difference is absent in Dragon Age 2.

Again, compare the battle with the mine dragon in act 3 to the battle with Firkraag in BG2. The proof is right there in the proverbial pudding.

Fourth, as you can see from DA2, when you always hit, you need 1 stat, not 2. From the design perspective, a 6 stat character system with 4-5 dump stats is pure fucking garbage.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's time for some quality entertainment:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... re-are-you

I nearly broke my controller because I "missed" a f**king huge Dragon in DA: O. I hate the "miss" calculations because the animation doesn't "miss," but the game does. And in real life, you NEVER miss your target with a sword, unless they parry/dodge/block the strike.

Any swordsman who completely misses their target when it is being attacked by 2 other people is a freaking retard.

Morrowind was a joke in that manner. I clearly kept hitting an oversized mudcrab in the face but the game told me "MISS" but the animation was there.

I was too busy having fun to fucking notice!

meh, missing was stupid anyway. It really only belongs in games where you have no control over aim, like turn based games where you pick an attack, pick a target and then numbers are crunched. It doesn't really belong in games that you have real time control over the attack. The only reason you should miss in games like DA and Fallout3 are user error.

Also people complaining about hitting/missing in games should really be forced to play a Combat Rogue in WoW and raid with it. Like really the boss I'm attacking is MASSIVE and I miss?

There are lots of games where this is true and who cares? As long as the combat is fun and engaging it shouldn't matter.

I always hated the miss mechanic in any game it was in. it's like the game is saying "What you think you can hit a huge Dragon at point blank range? LOL think again bitch"

It was the reason i stopped playing Morrowind after 3 hours

Quite glad this obsolete feature was removed TBH. I understand that the game is all hidden maths and just a fancier version of D&D dice rolling...but for the love of christ I don't want the game pushing it in my face going "You rolled a 6! Critical hit! Oh man, you rolled a 2, MISS"

I want to feel like i'm playing a game, not arguing with a calculator.

I think the real reason you haven't heard about this is that most people consider it a good change, and so therefore doesn't fit well into many rant threads.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Not my fault you get butthurt over someone posting the fukkin' truth. Fukkin' Codex crying over the truth. Typical.

Ach! Your words sting with the fury of a thousand angry bees!

edit:

escapist

JESUS CHRIST.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

It's time for some quality entertainment:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... re-are-you

I nearly broke my controller because I "missed" a f**king huge Dragon in DA: O. I hate the "miss" calculations because the animation doesn't "miss," but the game does. And in real life, you NEVER miss your target with a sword, unless they parry/dodge/block the strike.

Any swordsman who completely misses their target when it is being attacked by 2 other people is a freaking retard.

Morrowind was a joke in that manner. I clearly kept hitting an oversized mudcrab in the face but the game told me "MISS" but the animation was there.

I was too busy having fun to fucking notice!

meh, missing was stupid anyway. It really only belongs in games where you have no control over aim, like turn based games where you pick an attack, pick a target and then numbers are crunched. It doesn't really belong in games that you have real time control over the attack. The only reason you should miss in games like DA and Fallout3 are user error.

Also people complaining about hitting/missing in games should really be forced to play a Combat Rogue in WoW and raid with it. Like really the boss I'm attacking is MASSIVE and I miss?

There are lots of games where this is true and who cares? As long as the combat is fun and engaging it shouldn't matter.

I always hated the miss mechanic in any game it was in. it's like the game is saying "What you think you can hit a huge Dragon at point blank range? LOL think again bitch"

It was the reason i stopped playing Morrowind after 3 hours

Quite glad this obsolete feature was removed TBH. I understand that the game is all hidden maths and just a fancier version of D&D dice rolling...but for the love of christ I don't want the game pushing it in my face going "You rolled a 6! Critical hit! Oh man, you rolled a 2, MISS"

I want to feel like i'm playing a game, not arguing with a calculator.

I think the real reason you haven't heard about this is that most people consider it a good change, and so therefore doesn't fit well into many rant threads.

Jesus Fucking Christ .

 

[circ]

It's time for some quality entertainment:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... re-are-you

I nearly broke my controller because I "missed" a f**king huge Dragon in DA: O. I hate the "miss" calculations because the animation doesn't "miss," but the game does. And in real life, you NEVER miss your target with a sword, unless they parry/dodge/block the strike.

Any swordsman who completely misses their target when it is being attacked by 2 other people is a freaking retard.

Too many movies old boy. No one ever misses in the movies except the bad guys, and when the good guys are intentionally missing to confuse the bad guys.

 

[Mrowak]

Totally agree with your review VD. High quality, as always.

Again, compare the battle with the mine dragon in act 3 to the battle with Firkraag in BG2. The proof is right there in the proverbial pudding.

This is freaking bullshit. They took one of the worst design concepts straight from Final Fantasy and implemented it in a wRPG.

And these are the same people who did the Firekraag fight. That battle was the stark example of what should battles in rpgs look like. They ought to:

a) last short but proportionally to the number of participants in the encounter. The more characters the player can control, and computer has the longer it may last. The BG2 red dragon battle lasted 5 min tops but was more intense and interesting than anything DA2 had to offer. Some could argue that DA2 'addressed' this issue by 'warping-in' hordes of trashmobs, but fuck them.

b) be balanced in a way not dicriminating either side. It should be perfectly possible to lose a fight for either side. Firekraag is a single dragon but has a variety of skills, which can render you overcooked fries, he will use with extreme prejudice. The player on the other hand, if properly prepared, can take advantage of the sheer superiority in numbers, positioning and a variety of spells to nullify that enormous advantage. Therefore, both sides have more or less equal footing. In DA2 winning is merely a matter of time and potions you stocked.

c) non-repetetive. I fucking hate cooldowns in all games as basically what you do is spamming same abilities time and time again on both sides until one of them somehow dies. That's no freaking tactics! In BG2 or ToEE you could prepare a variety of spells as you pleased, and counted every one hoping you selected them correctly and that you won't deplete you magics before that dragon/demon bites your balls off. In Betrayal at Krondor you wouldn't spam Flamecast (Fireball) because it could missfire and hit one of yours. It was better to cast some magic barrier or paralyze a single foe than risk hitting another heroe. RoA games had mana based system, but the fact that astral points were such a bitch to recover meant you really avoided spamming shit. Besides situation on the battlefield changed to rapidly (in a turn based game) to make using the same spell useful. But in DA2? Once you figured out the algorithm all that you did was rinse and repeat everything.

I'm mad. Gonna play some ToEE in a moment.

 

[Shannow]

It's time for some quality entertainment:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... re-are-you

I nearly broke my controller because I "missed" a f**king huge Dragon in DA: O. I hate the "miss" calculations because the animation doesn't "miss," but the game does. And in real life, you NEVER miss your target with a sword, unless they parry/dodge/block the strike.

Any swordsman who completely misses their target when it is being attacked by 2 other people is a freaking retard.

Too many movies old boy. No one ever misses in the movies except the bad guys, and when the good guys are intentionally missing to confuse the bad guys.

Hmm? His point is quite valid. A competent swordsman shouldn't miss unless his opponent parrys/dodges/blocks. Are you telling me you could miss an enemy if he was paralyzed?
The thing is just that to-hit chances simulate opponents parrying/dodging/blocking and your character missing due to the heat of battle. Which a good (realistic) system would take into account.
So his point is quite ok, the retardation comes from him not realising that the to-hit system simulates exactly the parrying/dodging/blocking that occurs in the game. Can be stupidity on his side but can also be a lack in the explanation and presentation of game-mechanics. In DA:O it's more presentation than explanation, IIRC.

Volly, you are a moron. Just sayin', because you don't seem to be told enough.

 

[circ]

Hmm? His point is quite valid. A competent swordsman shouldn't miss unless his opponent parrys/dodges/blocks. Are you telling me you could miss an enemy if he was paralyzed?

Missing is pretty common when your hitroll and level are shit and the opponents AC is massive. You're a newbie, your footwork is crap, you slipped, you hold your blade like shit, you hit a specific spot that caused your blade to just glance. Whatever.

I've scored perfect 10's with perfectly calibrated, by myself, sniper rifles in the army. And then by chance, missed a shot completely for some reason. There are a lot of factors in combat, specially melee, if anything, this guy should say missing is dumbing down. But he's a numbskull.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Azrael joins the battle but he clearly isn't a Spartan and doesn't know how to fight like one:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... 1.10547731

McNinja (a Spartan): "And in real life, you NEVER miss your target with a sword, unless they parry/dodge/block the strike."

Azrael (not a Spartan) : "Even at a minor club level, you miss more often than you hit (and that's across all styles: sabre, foil, epee - even cane fighting), and the % of times you hit goes down as the standard of tournament increases."

McNinja (a Spartan): "I'm not talking fencing. I'm talking in real sword combat in war. Like Romans v. Goths war, or actually any war involving melee weapons.. In war two sides charged at each other, and it usually devolved into one on one encounters, where you had no room for error and missing your opponent usually meant your death. If a Spartan was fighting someone in close combat and he just flat out swung in the wrong direction, he might kill himself out of shame. There's a huge difference between missing because you're too far away or you swing in the wrong direction and missing because your opponent dodged or blocked. One makes you look like a retard, the other is a legitimate excuse. When you're in someones face trying to stab them to death, and they're in your face trying to do the same, misses don't happen. blocks and dodges do.

How often do you think the Spartans missed their enemies in battle? Never."

NEVER! BECAUSE... THIS! IS! SPARTAAAA!!!!

 

[Lesifoere]

 

[Soulforged]

Hmm? His point is quite valid. A competent swordsman shouldn't miss unless his opponent parrys/dodges/blocks. Are you telling me you could miss an enemy if he was paralyzed?
The thing is just that to-hit chances simulate opponents parrying/dodging/blocking and your character missing due to the heat of battle. Which a good (realistic) system would take into account.

There's always luck in everything, all those pesky things that we cannot control and which makes us fail even if we're the best at something. The one in D20 is supposed to represent that, a critical failure.

However the point is moot, because that didn't even happen on Dragon Age. Even if the enemy was paralyzed normal attack rolls were happening on the background. Bioware never really nailed the attack and defense system properly for my tastes. Baldur's Gate used the D20 edition 2, which was a mess. Neverwinter Nights was still attached to the conventions that the armor should augment the probabilities of shrugging off damage completly. In Knights of the Old Republic you could miss a static container several times in a row. And then Mass Effect ditched the system completly (typical Bioware).

Dragon Age redeemed the attack and defense system, with proper armor ratings, but states which should have obviously deminished the enemies fighting capabilities didn't. Even on Neverwinter and Baldur's Gate you still were rendered defensless when you're were paralyzed or stunned (which didn't affect item enduced "defense" by the way). Dragon Age 2 still has misses, I've seen them, but it seems that the game informs a miss whenever the damage is 0, and not because there are any proper attack versus defense rolls.

 

[Volourn]

Just finished DA2. 5/10 Final rating. Series over.

 

[Jaesun]

Did I just wake up in some alternate universe?

 

[Micmu]

DIdn't volly say Da2 is like any other biowarez game?

He just gave his NWN 5/10

 

[Volourn]

NWN OC is 7.5

DA2 is 5.

deal with it fuckka.

It may be like other BIO games, but it's worse.

 

[circ]

NWN OC is 7.5

DA2 is 5.

deal with it fuckka.

It may be like other BIO games, but it's worse.

BioWare games have to be finished 7 times to make an accurate assessment I'm told.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Yes, you can make weapons that hit more often and do less damage versus ones that hit less often and do more damage, and then you can throw weapon speed into the mix too of course, but some enterprising player's going to take a look at the numbers and do a spreadsheet and just tell the rest of us which weapon is best.

No, the fact that somebody is able to calculate which weapon is better comes from a poorly designed, simple system. If there's one parameter that influence weapon effectiveness, you can clearly tell which weapon is better. If there are two, you can calculate that. But when many more are to be taken in consideration, it becomes impossible to give a definite answer.

Take JA2 for example. It is widely considered that sniper rifles are the best weapons. But they are not your optimal choice every time. There are better options when you're fighting in the buildings, try silent approach, or when there's too many opponents so you can't take your time to aim, instead having to incapacitate as many enemies as you can in short time. Furthermore, there's no agreement on which sniper rifle is the best. Should you choose semi-auto or bolt-action? Would you rather use one that has great parameters overall but is quite heavy for your weak merc or something lighter? Which attachments will you use? If one of your weapons is clearly better but you have little ammo for it, should you use it now or save the ammo for later?