Review Vault Dweller Does Dragon Age II

[Gragt]

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

Wait, what?

 

[Brotherman Bill]

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

Right, but this is typically alleviated by having enemies that try actively to kill you.

And in the case that you are able to stay alive for a 15 minutes and more by running in circles while quaffing potions, simply chipping away health, well - this would be a problem in a miss-system also, as you would simply run around in circles and wait for the cooldown of your special attack/critical hit/whatever. The situation and lameness is not solved by having a miss-based system.

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?

Someone who's trying to make his character as efficient as possible, and/or someone who's fighting a challenging enemy you need to use all available resources to fight.

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.

Assume an AD&D system.
Multiply the amount of critical damage (e. g. 3d8) with the chance of getting a critical hit (say, 1/10). Let's say BG2 had a glancing blow system and had this number (1.35)as the "glancing blow" damage value, and ditched criticals. How would that change the bossfight dynamics for someone who almost never hit the enemy?

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.

That doesn't make sense at all. It is perfectly possible to have a "glancing blow" system where one stat affects dmg and another affects chance to hit (in this case, the chance to do a full blow). You still want to minimize the amount of glancing blows so you still have an incentive to balance skill points among two stats.

 

[Melcar]

Hilarious.

 

[Micromegas]

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

At least this explains what Bioware meant when they said we'd fight like a Spartan.

Looking at the Escapist threads on DA2 is somewhat hilarious because there seem to be more people blindly praising and defending the game there than on Bioware's own forums.

 

[dextermorgan]

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

I diodn't lie. I told the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaysTVcounI

 

[Johannes]

There's really nothing inherently bad about a glancing hit system, or even a true Spartan system where you always do predetermined amount of damage.

Big difference compared to a %-to miss system is that it is less random. Which is both good and bad, randomness might bring more excitement but also makes for more save/loading, both after a streak of bad luck, or hoping for a good streak. And you can plan less and must adapt more with increased randomness.

The one with %-to hit might be more complex in this matter, but the Spartan method can of course have its complexity in other areas. Either way you need something more to make the combat interesting and skill-requiring, than just guys charging at each other and hacking away.
Maneuvering and using abilities (buffs, debuffs, whatever you have) to get into a position where you can hit your enemy more often, vs maneuvering and using abilities to get into position where you can damage your enemy at all - clearly they play differently but surely both can be executed well in an RPG.

Let's take that Fircraag fight for example - you've got a wizard with lower resistance and magic missile spells. But now his magic resistance reduces the damage dealt by its value instead of having the chance to negate it altogether. Why would this lead to any kind of HP bloat?

Chess comparison is of course just hyperbole.

 

[Commissar Draco]

There were fencing trainers in Balmora and until you started to accept quests all fights were highly optional results of your own stupidity. Those conoltards from escapists never had sword in their hands, unless your oponent is dead or deaddrunk you do miss a lot. You have to work on your strenght, dexterity and train your fencing techniques unless you want to hurt yourself. The prisoner (not)fresh from prisonship wielding a shitty piece of rusted junk like a pitchfork shud leave the fighting to the guards and join the legion/fighting guild to get some decent wargear and work on his swordplay.In fact this is what Caisus Cosades is advising you, but who read the dialogue todays. fuckin' brats with their instant gratification.

 

[hoverdog]

Well, most of them couldn't find Caius Cosades even if their life depended on it in the first place.

 

[Achilles]

Damn, I wanted to comment on VD's earlier post about glancing blows but herostratus beta me to it. I think you made quite a few mistakes on that one VD and you seemed like you were trying hard to find something to fault. There's nothing wrong with a "glancing blows" system if it's implemented correctly.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Big IF, aint it?

"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? "

I'm busy at the moment, but I'll reply to herostratus' post later.

 

[waywardOne]

i refuse to legitimize this so-called "miss mechanic."

 

[dextermorgan]

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

Wait, what?

I WANT TO BE A SPARTAN

*except for that whole man-boy love system

 

[Volourn]

Give it up, Dexter. I didn't lie. I don't need to lie to tell the truth.

My mage picked up the blood mage specialty without having to do any special quests or making choices in DA1.

That's not a lie. That's a truth.

Undisputed fact.

DEAL. WITH. IT. MUTHA. FUKA.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

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!!!!

Lol lordy. Now I feel better for posting the review over there. That laugh was worth it.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

And in Conclusion Dragon Age 2 is a mediocre and deeply flawed action RPG

Boring. His Holiness is old and lost his zeal.

If DA2 is mediocre, what's a truly terrible arpg like?

Well, it'd be a bit like Gothic 4 I'd imagine.

 

[RK47]

NWN OC is 7.5

DA2 is 5.

deal with it fuckka.

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

 

[kris]

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.

The most hilarious thing I read in months. its such pure class entertainment from start to finish that it must been some kind of demi-god that wrote it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

@ herostratus:

Started replying point by point, but it's gotten too long, so here is a short summary to keep things focused.

First, you missed my point. The player is usually much better at coordinating his characters and healing than the AI, so the player can easily keep his character(s) alive. In %miss systems staying alive doesn't mean much by itself, but in %glancing the enemy's health goes down with every second and staying alive for 2 min means a shitload of points of damage.

Yes, in poorly designed games (like Morrowind, for example, where you could gulp one potion after another), you can keep yourself alive long enough to overcome the odds, but I hope we can agree that this problem is much worse in "always hit" games.

Overall, the %glancing system can work, and I stated so in my earlier post, but it would require a lot of rules and restrictions just to fix the in-built problems it comes with. Why do the extra work when a better and easier to implement system, a system that doesn't cause HP monsters, which in turn causes more design problems, already exist?

My point was that the %miss system is better. DA2 vs DA, Oblivion vs MW (with all the flaws) certainly seem to support this point of view. If you disagree, please present some argument showing that %glancing is, in fact, a better system.

 

[Mangoose]

@ herostratus:

Started replying point by point, but it's gotten too long, so here is a short summary to keep things focused.

First, you missed my point. The player is usually much better at coordinating his characters and healing than the AI, so the player can easily keep his character(s) alive. In %miss systems staying alive doesn't mean much by itself, but in %glancing the enemy's health goes down with every second and staying alive for 2 min means a shitload of points of damage.

I don't think you can easily just put a dividing line between %miss and %glancing systems. It's not binary. The effect of a %glancing system depends really on the relative damage a glancing blow does. What if a glancing blow did 0.01% damage? Then is it really different from a %miss system? Couldn't a miss system be considered a %glancing system with glancing blows that do 0 damage?

What I'm trying to say is, if you had to criticize DA2's %glancing system, it's not the choice of system that should be criticized, but the amount of (relative) damage that each glancing blow does.

Edit: However, a point herostratus has missed is that special attacks don't glance. That's the main problem isn't it?

 

[Achilles]

In %miss systems staying alive doesn't mean much by itself, but in %glancing the enemy's health goes down with every second and staying alive for 2 min means a shitload of points of damage.

I don't see the difference, to be honest. It is just as important to stay alive long enough in both systems, but it is still more important to deliver blows. In one case leaving your opponent alive increases the chances that more of his hits will connect, in the other you have that danger plus the slow attrition of your health by glancing blows. One could argue that glancing blows actually add another factor worth taking account of to the combat

My point was that the %miss system is better. DA2 vs DA, Oblivion vs MW (with all the flaws) certainly seem to support this point of view. If you disagree, please present some argument showing that %glancing is, in fact, a better system.

I will attempt to, but first a clarification: Oblivion doesn't use a %glancing system as far as I know. When you hit, you always do the full amount of damage that your proficiency in a certain type of weapon alllows. You hit or you miss based solely on your aim, not on any stat.

Right, with that out of the way, I think that the %glancing system of DA2 is certainly not worse and, in some cases, it is in fact better than the %to hit system of DAO and earlier Bio games.

- There's not a whole lot of difference between those two systems. You still have to make sure that you have the proper stats to connect with your opponent frequently. You still have to make sure your defence is good enough to avoid sustaining a serious hit and you still have to focus on staying alive long enough to kill your opponent. All that a %glancing system adds is basically a "time limit" within which the battle must be concluded. It's kinda like in the movies where the protagonist has to kill his adversary before the bomb goes off. It makes things a bit more XTREME but it's not really a fundamental change.

- A %glancing system could be seen as more realistic and better for role playing, because it takes into account the effects that sustained combat has on a fighter. In a hypothetical situation where two fighters are in a duel and they miss each other constantly, the battle would carry on forever since noone's status would change in the course of the battle. If the same were to happen with a %glancing system, the battle would eventually be concluded in favor of the stronger fighter. Even if you're not recieving any serious hits, surely the very process on being in battle should mean that you suffer some sort of detrimental effect to your fighting ability over time?

Now I know that there will be people who will point out the existense of other game mechanics that compensate for that problem, like stamina and so on, but that's not the point. What we're comparing here is the %glancing vs %to hit, not the whole combat system but only those elements. In my opinion, most %tohit systems have a tendency to waste a lot of time and artificially lengthen the duration of combat with no real reason to do so. It's just tedious and it makes poorly designed combat encounters (of which there are many in most games) that much more irritating. Of course an expertly-designed %to hit system would probably alleviate most of these concerns, but the sae goes for a %glancing system.

 

[J_C]

In %miss systems staying alive doesn't mean much by itself, but in %glancing the enemy's health goes down with every second and staying alive for 2 min means a shitload of points of damage.

I don't see the difference, to be honest. It is just as important to stay alive long enough in both systems, but it is still more important to deliver blows.

The reason I think the glancing blows system is worse:
With this system, it doesn't matter how good your character is. If you have enough potions and a healer, you can defeat any foe with even a low level character. Since you do damage everytime, it just takes longer. With a %miss system, you cannot even damage the enemy, if your character sucks.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Exactly and I don't agree with

In my opinion, most %tohit systems have a tendency to waste a lot of time and artificially lengthen the duration of combat

either.

 

[Johannes]

First, you missed my point. The player is usually much better at coordinating his characters and healing than the AI, so the player can easily keep his character(s) alive. In %miss systems staying alive doesn't mean much by itself, but in %glancing the enemy's health goes down with every second and staying alive for 2 min means a shitload of points of damage.

If you've got the same expected value of damage, I don't see how it matters to that end whether you deal the damage from occasional lucky hits, or from more predictable constant hits. If running around and attacking, slowly depleting the enemy hp bar is all you do, it's shit no matter how complex or simple the to-hit and damage calculation are.

It's easier to plan healing though (and consequently stay alive), if the enemy does constant damage to you than with more unpredictable spikes.

Rven you in your review said, that at the start of DA2 the combat was not such a war of attrition at the start of the game. Glancing mechanics or not. So that would imply to me, that even DA2 mechanics don't necessarily lead to HP bloat - it's just a question of why they didn't retain roughly similar DPS:health (and healing power) ratios throughout the game.

HP bloat is a design choice of itself, and I don't see any reason why less random damagedealing calculations would inevitably lead to it.

 

[Tycn]

The reason I think the glancing blows system is worse:
With this system, it doesn't matter how good your character is. If you have enough potions and a healer, you can defeat any foe with even a low level character. Since you do damage everytime, it just takes longer. With a %miss system, you cannot even damage the enemy, if your character sucks.

That is only the case if you have a 0% chance to hit, otherwise you could win the same way in a %miss system.

All that a %glancing system adds is basically a "time limit" within which the battle must be concluded. It's kinda like in the movies where the protagonist has to kill his adversary before the bomb goes off. It makes things a bit more XTREME but it's not really a fundamental change.

There's always been a time limit, replacing misses with glances just makes it slightly less random.

In my opinion, most %tohit systems have a tendency to waste a lot of time and artificially lengthen the duration of combat with no real reason to do so. It's just tedious and it makes poorly designed combat encounters (of which there are many in most games) that much more irritating. Of course an expertly-designed %to hit system would probably alleviate most of these concerns, but the sae goes for a %glancing system.

In that case the systems aren't analogous, as the combat in one of them is decidedly deadlier. The miss-based equivalent of a character that can inflict decisive damage with glancing blows is one who can hit things a good portion of the time and thus would never face that problem.

Similarly, if occasional full powered hits aren't enough to overpower their healing or regeneration your constant low damage glances will probably be just as useless.

Besides, most RPGs already have variable damage to simulate how good your actual hit is and an armour system for damage reduction. Substituting glances in for misses kills those elements.

 

[Achilles]

With this system, it doesn't matter how good your character is. If you have enough potions and a healer, you can defeat any foe with even a low level character. Since you do damage everytime, it just takes longer. With a %miss system, you cannot even damage the enemy, if your character sucks.

So why is this a bad thing? What you're saying is that, with proper preparation, strategy and support, a weaker opponent can overcome a stronger one. Why shouldn't it be like that? Maybe I misinterpreted your comment and you meant to say something else but, the way I see it, it is precisely the ability to beat a superior opponent that makes combat fun.