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2012-03-27, 11:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
Agreed. The Dialogue wheel is a pretty good improvement over regular conversation; I know what kind of effect my character is going to say based off of the icon and the general placement on the wheel. Left-side is investigative stuff, right-side moves the conversation, etc.
The Dialogue wheel does undermine some choice, in that some players may feel invested to continue pursuing a type of dialogue (paragon players always picking the bright blue option in Mass Effect, or snarky players always picking the joke option in Dragon Age). That's less on the dialogue wheel and more the mechanics of the game encouraging players to pick one option.
I liked the paraphrasing that Bioware does, especially with a fully-voiced protagonist. Full-line text undermines the surprise of the unexpected and jokes; it's like watching a movie with subtitles on. The timing is completely thrown off, because you read the joke before it's delivered. A fully-voiced protagonist also increases the emotional attachment to the character. I feel more invested in my Hawke and my Shepard more than I ever did with my Warden.
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2012-03-27, 11:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Land of Stone and Stars
Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
The "persona" aspect of it was nice as well, especially when it came to non-wheeled banters. The Legacy banters with Hawke and Varric in particular were priceless and something you NEVER would have seen in DAI. The closest we came to it was "Could I find you a ladder, so you can get OFF MY BACK?", which got really old after the tenth time.
But, seriously, Hawke + Varric + Legacy = Comedy Gold.
Hawke: "One of these days I'm going to go somewhere without blood mages and abominations and demons... maybe a beach. Yeah."
Varric: "Hawke, the day you go to the beach is the day it'll get raided by zombie pirates."
Hawke: "Yeah..."
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2012-03-27, 12:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Lost in the Hinterlands
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
I think when they talk about using Skyrim as a source of inspiration, they refer to expanding the world and giving the player more opportunities to explore. One of DA2's failings was constraining the player to one city and a few adjacent locations; Kirkwall got to be stifling after a while. The recycling of maps didn't help.
Last edited by Giggling Ghast; 2012-03-27 at 12:15 PM.
A father taken by time, a brother dead by my own hand.
With this work behold my grief, in Stone and shifting sand.
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2012-03-27, 01:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
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"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
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2012-03-27, 01:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Land of Stone and Stars
Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
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2012-03-27, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
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2012-03-27, 01:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Land of Stone and Stars
Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
All paths lead to the same place then. Presenting choice to the players is unnecessary and cruel, leading them to believe they can make a difference. If they want to make a linear game, make a linear game, if they're going to make a branching game, make a branching game. Do NOT make a branching game with a linear ending, though. That is not cool.
Limit it, maybe, but make those decisions matter in some way. I spend too much time feeling voiceless, don't tease me with a voice you won't listen to anyway.
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2012-03-27, 01:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
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2012-03-27, 02:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Land of Stone and Stars
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2012-03-27, 02:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- Washington, D.C.
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
Right, because Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: The Old Republic are the signs of a poor, struggling, soon to be dead company. ;)
I can understand not liking the direction they've taken, but at least give Bioware their due. They've made a ton of money by making highly enjoyable games that have sold extremely well.
I've bought every Bioware game starting from Baldur's Gate and I will continue to do so.Last edited by Joran; 2012-03-27 at 02:17 PM.
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2012-03-27, 02:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
They've angered their fanbase with two of the three and the third has a good plot with seemingly lackluster response. Two of these have endings contrary to the spirit of the gameplay. One of them doesn't have an ending at all, but is in a genre that neither expects nor desires one.
They are losing a lot of the capital they've built up back in the days where they made coherent games. If they don't stop the loss, I wouldn't give two silver for their chances in the long run. For instance, the lion's share of ME3's sales were pre-orders, and sales have tanked since. Now imagine their product was no longer reliably awesome and they didn't have those pre-orders to bank on?Last edited by Calemyr; 2012-03-27 at 02:23 PM.
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2012-03-27, 02:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
There was a lot of fan rage of Mass Effect 2, which did nothing to impact Mass Effect 3. Dragon Age 2 discontent didn't seem to cross over and hit Mass Effect 3 sales, nor did it seem to affect Star Wars: The Old Republic sales. Bioware listened to some feedback from the fans and got a combat system in place for ME3 that I enjoyed more than I did in ME2 and leaps and bounds ahead of ME1. Likewise for DA1 to DA2. I don't doubt that Bioware will look at its short-comings and fix them.
Bioware is also going to be making a crapton of money through Star Wars: The Old Republic. If Bioware was a listed stock (and not EA), then I'd buy stock in it.
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2012-03-27, 03:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
There was some outcry about the Gears of War-ification" of Mass Effect 2, but it was a very well received game - most fan rankings I've seen rate it the highest of the three. More to the point however, you can't have it both ways - either there wasn't a lot of fan rage about ME2, or Bioware didn't pay attention, because ME3 has even more "Gears" feel and even fewer hubs to work from and kept the thermal clips system, the three major complaints I've heard from ME2.
And note I was talking about capital, here. They have a rep, and one game with a slightly bad (and yet still infinitely better than ME3) ending wasn't going to kill it. Two are going to hurt it, especially if they continue to dismiss fans for simply not "getting it". Another one will hurt it more, and a fourth will cost them even more, until they have none of the rep that made their products no-brainer pre-orders.
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2012-03-27, 03:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
True, one is bad, two is troubling, three would be a trend. No doubt, the Bioware brand has taken a tarnish in the eyes of some of its die hard fans.
Bioware did listen to fan feedback. The most hated feature, mineral mining, disappeared. Weapon mods were re-introduced, as well as more choice given in talent allocation. More romance options, for both genders were added.
There is a limit to fan feedback though, if it undermines the overall design. Bioware is wedded to the dialogue wheel and voiced protagonists, for instance, so Dragon Age will never go back to those. I wonder if the isometric view is the same way.
P.S. I was never certain for how many people hated ME2 actually, but I did see quite a few comments about how "Christina Norman ruined ME2". Nothing like the hubbub over ME3's ending or DA2 though, to be fair.Last edited by Joran; 2012-03-27 at 03:24 PM.
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2012-03-27, 04:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
While Bioware certainly has made a number of poor decisions/executions with recent games, it's well worth to remember that Bioware is also massively overhyped by it's fans.
I mean, when I followed the development of DA2 on the BSN (back when the atmosphere was still tolerable) I noticed -a lot- of people who were extremely critical of what they saw and still reasoned "It's a bioware game, so I'll probably like it". Despite every hint of the contrary, they still were convinced they'd love the game. They didn't.
With each passing game I'm more and more getting the impression that people demand absolute perfection from Bioware. That the company have to compete not so much with it's competitors but the rose-tinted view of it's own former products.
So I wonder if people getting burned by their games isn't actually good for the company right now. That it will actually lower people's expectations and actually let them work in peace and not have to worry about satisfying everyone...
That's not saying that people being upset about what they did does not have legitimate concerns though. In many cases they do.Last edited by Aux-Ash; 2012-03-27 at 04:14 PM.
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2012-03-27, 08:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
It's pretty much impossible not to anger bioware's fanbase, given that said fanbase is large enough to always have a group of reactionary nutters who will respond to any perceived fault with all the maturity and restraint of a spoiled toddler who's run out of sweets. You know, the kind of people who will try to launch legal action against the company because the last few minutes of a 30-odd hour game were bad. The kind of people who launch a campaign of harassment against a game writer because, in an interview conducted several years ago, she said she didn't particularly enjoy playing many of the games she'd written for. Sure, these individuals are far from the majority but they are easily the loudest.
More generally though the ME3 thing will most likely blow over given a year or two. The last time there was this kind of insanity over an ending was Evangelion, and we somehow managed to get over that. DA2's problem was more of a marketting marketing and being presented as a direct sequel - which it really shouldn't have been. There's really not a lot that's actually wrong with it, it just took a very different approach to DAO which a fair amount of people didn't like (which is entirely legitimate). Honestly, if it had been released as a stand-alone title I don't think it would have attracted as much vitriol as it did.
With each passing game I'm more and more getting the impression that people demand absolute perfection from Bioware. That the company have to compete not so much with it's competitors but the rose-tinted view of it's own former products.
So I wonder if people getting burned by their games isn't actually good for the company right now. That it will actually lower people's expectations and actually let them work in peace and not have to worry about satisfying everyone...
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2012-03-27, 10:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
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2012-03-27, 10:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2007
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
I'm inclined to agree. I don't know if I'm necessarily immune to this, but I didn't play Baldur's Gate like most BioWare fans seem to be obsessed with, so I don't compare Dragon Age: Origins or Dragon Age II to it, and I greatly enjoyed both games, Dragon Age II so much that it's one of the few games I've played through multiple times. And people have been stating over and over that Mass Effect 3 is a damn good game right up until the damp squib of an ending. I agree that BioWare's probably its own worst enemy in that regard. The Old Republic will always be compared unfavorably to Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age will continually be viewed as the red-headed stepchild of Baldur's Gate, etc. I think if some fans had their way, BioWare would just stop making new games and just rerelease Baldur's Gate every few years with updated graphics. You know, sort of like they're doing now?
Last edited by Archpaladin Zousha; 2012-03-27 at 10:43 PM.
"Reach down into your heart and you'll find many reasons to fight. Survival. Honor. Glory. But what about those who feel it's their duty to protect the innocent? There you'll find a warrior savage enough to match any dragon, and in the end, they'll retain what the others won't. Their humanity."
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2012-03-28, 07:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Beyond the Helms of Death
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
The largest amount of fan rage we got was on Dragon Age 2, mostly for "dumbing down" and actionising combat (along with the admittedly really terrible recycling of levels over and over). Which was actually caused by Bioware developers listening to fan feedback - they'd gotten complaints and read a number of forum posts by players who though the combat in DA1 was not sufficiently involving (one quote was along the lines of "once combat started, I went off to make coffee and came back when it was over") and took those as representative of the fanbase at large, made things more actiony and fast-paced in the sequel, then went on to get a lot of flak for just that. You can blame them for listening to the wrong feedback (I certainly do), but hardly for ignoring it.
You are a Rose, You are a blade
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2012-03-28, 11:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
They weren't entirely incorrect. I replayed Awakening not too long ago, and with the exception of the fight against the Mother and the Queen of the Blackmarsh, I mostly sleepwalked my way through the expansion.
But listening to complaints about DAO's story (and that of BW's other titles) also netted DA2's much-maligned plot, in which the hero isn't part of a secret organization, isn't out to defeat a villain and doesn't save the world. Naturally, people complain that the game feels pointless and that Hawke didn't accomplish anything.
Correction: she said she wasn't very good at combat and wished there was a skip button she could hit for fights. Horror of horrors. For that comment, plus the inclusion of "dem gayz in mah vidjya games" (for which she is seen solely responsible for), she had to endure death threats and bullying.Last edited by Giggling Ghast; 2012-03-28 at 11:32 AM.
A father taken by time, a brother dead by my own hand.
With this work behold my grief, in Stone and shifting sand.
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2012-03-28, 11:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
Which large parts of the community had been asking for years, ironically enough. Even prior to DAO.
If I recall correctly... the first and the third one was the two greatest concerns regarding story voiced about DAO during it's development. To the point of people threatening not to buy the game.
And no... I don't mean in general. I mean the very same people.
The bioware fans seem to be real good at asking for stuff they really don't want.
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2012-03-28, 12:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
Which is an entirely invalid criticism. The combat of DA2 was fundamentally no different from that of DA:O. It's still a "real time with pause" system, using automatically aimed attacks which hit or miss based on your stats, special attacks activated when you choose to use them (aimed manually if they are AoE) which have cooldowns after use, and allies you can either take direct control of or set tactics for to guide their actions. The main actual changes were the reworked talent system and simply speeding up actions in combat, along with re-balancing certain play styles (archers become high-damage, two-handed weapons become AoE, etc).
The central mechanics are still not action-game-esque at all - and this is coming from someone whose main interest in a recently released RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur, is precisely its similarity to good action games (specifically Devil May Cry).
ZevoxLast edited by Zevox; 2012-03-28 at 12:23 PM.
Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
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2012-03-28, 12:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2011
Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
...Dare I ask, what fans were complaining "DAO's environments were too diverse!"?
Last edited by Craft (Cheese); 2012-03-28 at 12:38 PM.
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2012-03-28, 12:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
The catch of that is that he was still put in the position of saving the day, was still forced to engage in a bloody conflict with long-lasting repercussions, the only difference was that nothing he did accomplished anything. He was doomed from the start on every goal he undertook - the game allows for no chance for success at any turn. No amount of charm, diplomacy, or tail kicking was sufficient to inspire peace, no amount of BatHawke prowling the streets made them any safer, no amount of discussion could convince your friends to reconsider their self-destructive paths, no amount of tireless investigation can save lives, no amount of anything can accomplish anything. The game is pointless not because Hawke has no ties or motives (though I've heard complaints about that), it's pointless because the game decides the outcome long before Hawke has anything to say about it.
The closest you come to positive results is your sibling, who can either be happy, unhappy, or dead in the aftermath of your decisions, but you lose them in any event. That's one happy outcome. Oh, and there's the fact that the trip to the Deep Roads pays off, though you and Varric lose a sibling in the aftermath.
I would not have minded that game in the slightest if Hawke had been able to actually influence things, or maybe even be able to say "Screw it, I'm going to the beach." The combat was fun, the humor was great, the characters were pretty interesting when they weren't being railroaded, and the town had promise.
Like ME3, however, the real reason the game stung so bad was because we were sold a bill of goods before the game came out. "Shape the destiny of the most important person in Thedas.", "Your decisions will forge his destiny", and all that. And, sure, other game companies often promise far more than they deliver, but Bioware had proven time and again that these promises were ones they COULD deliver on. The fact that they made promises we knew they were capable of and yet still failed is why I'm so angry, and I doubt I'm the only one with that rationalization.
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2012-03-28, 12:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
Bioware fans aren't a monolithic group. Playing DA:O on the XBox 360 is a fundamentally different experience than on the PC. Bioware fans also range from people who've played everything back in the day when Black Isle was still around, to people whose first experience with Bioware is Mass Effect 1. Everybody wants different things, even small stuff like a nameless, voiceless protagonist.
No one speaks for Bioware fans as a whole, because there's a division inside the community.
Correction: she said she wasn't very good at combat and wished there was a skip button she could hit for fights. Horror of horrors. For that comment, plus the inclusion of "dem gayz in mah vidjya games" (for which she is seen solely responsible for), she had to endure death threats and bullying.
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2012-03-28, 12:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
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2012-03-28, 12:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2011
Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
DA2's differences from DAO's combat are mostly in feel, not in mechanic. I mean, just look at the animation for Cone of Cold in both games. Even 60 hours into DA2 I looked forward to watching that animation every time I casted that spell. The differences in graphics and presentation make combat feel more action-y and exciting by having lots of visceral action happening on the screen.
Furthermore DA2 mostly relies on dozens of weak enemies, while DAO preferred fewer numbers of stronger enemies. This makes combat FEEL faster because you're plowing through mooks at a hundred miles an hour instead of having to stop whenever a group of darkspawn appear, even though combat sequences in DA2 are actually longer on average than they were in DAO.
And as for the "dumbing down" thing, what they're talking about is the fact that friendly fire was removed from settings easier than Nightmare difficulty. DAO had friendly fire on Normal difficulty and higher. It's true that it makes combat simpler to manage, though I'm not sure the complexity friendly fire gave DAO is the right kind of complexity. Friendly Fire didn't actually make the game have more depth, it just forced you to wrestle with the friendly AI to get anything done.
(Besides, why are the guys who complain about "dumbed down" games playing on a setting lower than Nightmare?)
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2012-03-28, 12:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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2012-03-28, 12:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.
As a person who played Rogue in both DA:O and DA2, rogue in DA2 felt much more impactful. In DA:O, I barely pushed any buttons, just placing her behind the enemy and auto-attacking. There was like one skill I would use (I think Sweeping Strike) and that was it.
In DA2, I used at least 4-5 skills, and could use them in more fun ways. Dodging an Ogre charge, by using backstab at just the right time was thrilling.
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2012-03-28, 01:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.