Dragon Age 2 - Catch All

silentsod wrote:
Dysplastic wrote:
Latrine wrote:

At least Bioware still releases its games on PC while plenty of developers have totally jumped the boat. This is a classic example where the community screams for innovation but cry at the break from tradition over any little change. I'm amazed at the indignation that a sequel be a little different from its predecessor. I can see where a lot of the criticisms are coming from, but they're just getting loud and hyperbolic. After playing the demo I'm not convinced DA2 will be a great game, but it's by no means the abomination people are making it out to be. If you're very selective about the games you choose to play then I can see you looking elsewhere, but many of the people on this message board have Steam accounts a mile long and to think they'd scoff at what was presented is a little ridiculous to me.

I don't think it's fair to say that people who dislike the game scream for innovation but cry at a break for tradition. Frankly, I thought DAO's combat was an extremely innovative take on Baldur's Gate style isometric tactical combat. What the DA2 demo showed me wasn't innovative, it was regressive - there was absolutely nothing new of interest, and it seemed to remove a lot of what DAO great. I'm not crying at the break from tradition over "any little change", I'm sad at what I feel were design choices made to appeal to people who didn't like what I liked about the original. So maybe that's my fault for being an old PC gaming grognard, but I still maintain that there are plenty of good action RPGs, and the world doesn't need another one. Tactically-focused RPGs are far fewer, and ones with Bioware budgets and polish are basically non-existant.

I think its totally fair for people who were exited with the direction Bioware was going with DAO, which is to say, a different RPG style than Mass Effect that appealed to a different audience, to see it take a massive jump towards that action, over-the shoulder focused RPG. It's a letdown.

Indeed, I like ME and ME2 (ME2 more for the better shooting mechanics and removal of the MAKO, curse the planet scanning though) for what they are which is shooter-RPG hybrids.

DA:O was a more thoughtful, tactical, team-based game which emphasized controlling space and positioning on harder difficulties and fights. DA2 has characters zipping into the line of fire right before a fireball lands because they have anime movement. It's disappointing to the people who liked that DA:O was the "spiritual successor" to the IE based games.

I LOVED watching my roommates play Dragon Age: Origins 2,3,4,5 times over and seeing all of the different ways the story could unfold (and the numerous, numerous moments of copulation, haha) but I got bored playing it after an hour (360). Tried a few times to get back in and play it but I couldn't even make it to becoming a grey warden. I realized that this was just not my kind of game and reluctantly fell back into the audience.

I think what I'm trying to say is, I think Bioware bugged my apartment for design ideas. So I'm happy. But I actually agree that the PC version should have just remained the same as Origins.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Edit: Well, at least this whole thing should benefit The Witcher 2 sales. :P

Don't be silly. The same 500,000 dudes that were going to buy DA2 on PC were going to buy TW2 on PC as well, regardless.

If anything, I bet the DA2 piracy numbers go through the damn roof. And then DA3 will be 360 exclusive.

Blind_Evil wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Edit: Well, at least this whole thing should benefit The Witcher 2 sales. :P

Don't be silly. The same 500,000 dudes that were going to buy DA2 on PC were going to buy TW2 on PC as well, regardless.

If anything, I bet the DA2 piracy numbers go through the damn roof. And then DA3 will be 360 exclusive.

I don't think it's gonna affect DA2 piracy, if anything people will wait to a sale, but I also think that it's being assumed to much from the demo about the battle system when we haven't seen it really in action more than a little demo.

I think once the full game comes out opinions will change for the better which is exactly what happens with dragon age origins.

Played up until where you meet Isabella.

-storyline is interesting. I like where it's going and am excited to see how it progresses.
-lack of top-down camera didn't bother me. Found the camera was pulled back enough to give me enough view of the enviroment.
-combat was too fast. Lots of animations flying around and blood spatter but little feedback with what's actually occuring. Kind of looked cool but also almost every animation was obscured by something else going on.
-Lots of menu glitches. Couldn't seem to find a regular menu where I can access everything. When I tried to cycle through characters it kicked me out and I had to re-enter the menu.
-Had a hell of a time creating tactics due to the wonkiness of the menu screen.
-Abilitie trees look a lot more interesting and varried.
-voice acting was average. Nobody hooked me in.
-I had fun in the short time I played it. Wondering if any of my impressions will change when I progress a little further.

Spoiler:

Really hoping the introduction with Isabella and the fact that your brother is in it was a lazy oversight.

Is it possible to buy the Archer NPC as DLC?

Lothar wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Edit: Well, at least this whole thing should benefit The Witcher 2 sales. :P

Don't be silly. The same 500,000 dudes that were going to buy DA2 on PC were going to buy TW2 on PC as well, regardless.

If anything, I bet the DA2 piracy numbers go through the damn roof. And then DA3 will be 360 exclusive.

I don't think it's gonna affect DA2 piracy, if anything people will wait to a sale, but I also think that it's being assumed to much from the demo about the battle system when we haven't seen it really in action more than a little demo.

I think once the full game comes out opinions will change for the better which is exactly what happens with dragon age origins.

I was kidding (for the most part) about the piracy thing.

And I cannot agree with the bolded more. I remember that Certis had to start a new DA:O thread when the game actually released to distance the actual game conversation from the negativity over the marketing/pre-perceptions.

Latrine wrote:

At least Bioware still releases its games on PC while plenty of developers have totally jumped the boat. This is a classic example where the community screams for innovation but cry at the break from tradition over any little change. I'm amazed at the indignation that a sequel be a little different from its predecessor. I can see where a lot of the criticisms are coming from, but they're just getting loud and hyperbolic. After playing the demo I'm not convinced DA2 will be a great game, but it's by no means the abomination people are making it out to be. If you're very selective about the games you choose to play then I can see you looking elsewhere, but many of the people on this message board have Steam accounts a mile long and to think they'd scoff at what was presented is a little ridiculous to me.

And I think that being so casually dismissive of other people's opinions is unfair and hyperbolic.

People can cry for innovation, then complain when a game innovates in a way they don' like because they can want different things from different games. It's not hypocritical to have different, sometimes conflicting, desires.

Are you sure that the people with mile-long Steam accounts are the same ones complaining about the DA2 changes? And even if they are, almost everyone who has expressed disappointment has said they will still buy the game, eventually. That's how most people get those mile-long Steam lists.

Lothar wrote:

I think once the full game comes out opinions will change for the better which is exactly what happens with dragon age origins.

You may very well be right, but with the original people were complaining about music choice and excess gore in trailers, that's different to being unhappy with changes in the fundamental mechanics.

And thanks to the pre-order shenanigans customers who change their minds later after being initially circumspect lose out on game content. Whether that's of any value or not is debatable, but it's real.

I think people are really overstating the difference in combat between this and DAO. The main differences are the quick flashy animations and the reduced delay between when you press a button and the action is executed. For tactical players all this really means is you'll have to press spacebar a little more quickly to pause after every move. I think the difficulty at Normal has been adjusted to be easier because a common complaint about DAO is that Normal was quite difficult at launch. I fully expect DA2 on Hard will play a lot like DAO did on Normal. Personally I agree that the animations in DAO felt weightier and some of these new ones are hard to follow and silly looking, especially for the Rogue and Mage. But the animations in DAO were also very dull and many different abilities looked the same. I don't think DA2 strikes the right balance, but I do think it's more visually pleasing regardless.

Also I didn't mean to imply that I thought DA2 was innovative, I don't think it particularly is. But if Bioware is harshly criticized for deviating to the small extent that it has in DA2, that gives them or other developers negative reinforcement against attempting bolder experimentation.

The combat definitely *feels* hugely different. I mean as a rogue in Dragon Age: Origins, you position yourself behind a guy and click on him and your guy automatically backstabs til the dude's dead. Now playing a rogue it feels like you're Nightcrawler from X-Men. *Poof* behind a guy, stab and he's dead (and I like the backstab thing here). Click on another guy and you insta-leap towards him and slice. Hit evasion and you flip away. Attack again and you insta-leap back. Backstab timer's up so *poof* backstab. There's a lotta poofing going on in DA2 that wasn't there in DA:O. I kinda like it, but boy it's different.

cheeba wrote:

There's a lotta poofing going on in DA2 that wasn't there in DA:O. I kinda like it, but boy it's different.

There was a good amount of poofing in the new rogue skill lines in Awakening, seems to me the ninja shiz in here took its inspiration from that. "Flicker" was an AOE teleport/backstab, for example.

Better judgment said no.

Blind_Evil wrote:

AOE spells are still pretty much the same, seems there are plenty of buffs and the like.

Well that's not true with the lack of friendly fire. Which makes it easy to just spam AOE spells right down on the mosh pit where you tanks and DPS guys are. Which takes out a lot of the tactical movements you'd have to do in a fight.

Does the demo show off any of the traps? I wasn't overwhelmed by DAO's combat, but I did greatly enjoy setting up traps/ambushes for enemies, and casting those huge area of effect spells from far away to force enemies to wade through a maze of death traps to get to the party. Can you still make traps and set them up for enemies to wander into?

Also, I'm a little confused; did DAO include the ability for 'Automatically pause at end of round/turn to issue orders'? (and does DA2 have such a thing? Given the (apparent) shift to more in yo' face action vibe I'm guessing not, but it never hurts to hope) I remember dearly loving that feature, but that may have just been from Temple of Elemental Evil/Baldur's Gate or some such.

Puce Moose wrote:

Does the demo show off any of the traps? I wasn't overwhelmed by DAO's combat, but I did greatly enjoy setting up traps/ambushes for enemies, and casting those huge area of effect spells from far away to force enemies to wade through a maze of death traps to get to the party. Can you still make traps and set them up for enemies to wander into?

Also, I'm a little confused; did DAO include the ability for 'Automatically pause at end of round/turn to issue orders'? (and does DA2 have such a thing? Given the (apparent) shift to more in yo' face action vibe I'm guessing not, but it never hurts to hope) I remember dearly loving that feature, but that may have just been from Temple of Elemental Evil/Baldur's Gate or some such.

ToEE was turn-based with a strong 3e adoption.

BG/BG2 could pause every ~6s I believe (each round of action took 6ish seconds). Though I played it using real-time + spacebar.

DA:O had pause at the start of combat, and the BG style RT + spacebar.

Latrine wrote:

I think people are really overstating the difference in combat between this and DAO.

You might be right. I need to play more of the game to make a better conclusion. I really do feel, though, that the tighter camera is a substantial change for the worse in terms of control during combat, all else remaining equal. I think it would be surprising how much more positive the overall reception would have been had they kept a DAO style camera and implemented all their other changes. I also don't buy the "limited development resources" excuse. This is Bioware we're talking about.

Latrine wrote:

The main differences are the quick flashy animations and the reduced delay between when you press a button and the action is executed.

This takes me back to my first year of college, the height of my ska kid period, when my friends and my friends alone appreciated the Mighty Might Bosstones on a much deeper level than anyone else.

Essentially, f*ck the haters, the Bosstones and demo rule. (Admittedly, I'm a little drunk, depressed, and "Don't Know How to Party" is a vastly superior album to "Let's Face It" which was the only one posers owned)

The lack of friendly fire meant that I basically sauntered through the demo plunking down AoE spells anywhere I liked. I tried to be good about it and manage placing as much as possible, but it's just not the same feeling when you know there's nothing keeping you from just quashing down everything with a Firestorm. Lack of spell combos makes me a sad panda, but the presence of class combos makes me hopeful. I want class powers to interact at least as much as Mage Spells did in the previous game.

For that matter, I want class powers to still interact amongst themselves. I want Fighters to have increased (or at least different) effects on their powers depending on when they activate them and how they're sequenced.

The camera was changed, but not super-odious. I can understand that they did this to increase graphical quality, which was atrocious in DAO, but to be perfectly honest, graphics isn't Bioware's strong suit, and it shows in the demo. The close-in graphics are still kind of bad.

I like how they're increasing the power of "basic attacks" so that it's useful, and I'm excited about applying class combos in the tactics game. I'm not super excited about the mage animations. I mean, what're they doing? Dance Dance Revolution? If they wanted nice, exotic, sensible animations, they could have just taken a page from The Last Airbender: use fighting styles or exercise routines from other countries for inspiration. They way they did it looks like a homage to Star Wars Kid.

Can you play with a controller on PC? I don't think you could with ME2 (could be totally wrong), but I found myself forced to hit space-bar all the time to both figure out what was going on and to queue an action.

I really liked the tactics control in the first one and it looks like the AI that sets those up in this one does a much better job. In DA:O I reached a point where I could no longer play without looking at that system. I hadn't used it and until I went in there and fussed around making sure people did what they needed so that everyone was healed and people were agroed or stunned so I could backstab, I couldn't do anything. It looks like the AI does a better job making the NPCs do the obvious tasks, but I'm sure as you go on, it'll help to configure it to your style.

That is one big improvement. Don't understand why you had to spend points for tactics slots in the first one. I think they should just all be unlocked.

Dysplastic wrote:

I also don't buy the "limited development resources" excuse. This is Bioware we're talking about.

Well, I seem to recall reading that they are throwing obscene amouts of money into The Old Republic, so it wouldn't suprise me if DA2's development was affected by not having the same sort of resources they had available to them for Origins.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Latrine wrote:

The main differences are the quick flashy animations and the reduced delay between when you press a button and the action is executed.

This takes me back to my first year of college, the height of my ska kid period, when my friends and my friends alone appreciated the Mighty Might Bosstones on a much deeper level than anyone else.

Essentially, f*ck the haters, the Bosstones and demo rule. (Admittedly, I'm a little drunk, depressed, and "Don't Know How to Party" is a vastly superior album to "Let's Face It" which was the only one posers owned)

*Considers cutting a Bosstones track into the Dead Island trailer.*

I know this sounds picky, and maybe it is, but when the characters run up a slope or stairs they cross the ground at a speed that doesn't match their running animation. I noticed it a lot. Perhaps when I was playing the game I'd get used to it and it wouldn't stand out as much.

RPG demos are tricky. I know that I'll often play them, condemn a game and then, months later, I'll retry it and be amazed by how much fun I'm having. I think I'll retry the demo and take the time to learn the spells (yeah I just spammed the spells randomly :P) and try to win the fights with all my party still alive.

I actually just went and tried out the PC version of the demo and I gotta say...I'm enjoying it just as much as the console version. Pausing to issue orders and move units and auto-battling seems as strategic as it can be..for me anyway. I'm still probably going to pickup the console version as my primary unit though seeing as I have to have all of the settings turned down low to run on my laptop. But! Still fun for me.

I'm easy to please though. And I didn't play origins on PC to compare.

The thing I find annoying is that it's certainly not a bad game, it's just not good in my eyes from what they're showing in the demo. What's even more annoying personally is that there's not a lot of other releases I want soon, so I may end up getting it anyway out of boredom than because I'm really excited for DA2, which is not a good mindset to be going into a game with.

That said, DE:HR is meant to be putting out some press today, maybe they'll have a release date.

Puce Moose wrote:

Does the demo show off any of the traps? I wasn't overwhelmed by DAO's combat, but I did greatly enjoy setting up traps/ambushes for enemies, and casting those huge area of effect spells from far away to force enemies to wade through a maze of death traps to get to the party. Can you still make traps and set them up for enemies to wander into?

Also, I'm a little confused; did DAO include the ability for 'Automatically pause at end of round/turn to issue orders'? (and does DA2 have such a thing? Given the (apparent) shift to more in yo' face action vibe I'm guessing not, but it never hurts to hope) I remember dearly loving that feature, but that may have just been from Temple of Elemental Evil/Baldur's Gate or some such.

No, it doesn't. there's no traps included, you can't even access the inventory in the demo. Besides, all the fights are basically ambushes. You walk somewhere, a cutscene plays, enemies are spawned in and rush you. There's absolutely no space to scout out or plan fights.

I don't know if I'm in denial but I've convinced myself the primary reason I dislike the demo so much is that all the fights play out like that. I can see why they did it for narrative reasons, at least in the first part -- keeping the pressure on during the flight from Lothering -- but that's not what I find fun about tactical combat.

I only saw an option to auto-pause at the start of combat. I think it was the same in Origins, but I'm not sure.

Vector wrote:
Spoiler:

Really hoping the introduction with Isabella and the fact that your brother is in it was a lazy oversight.

What do you mean? This is the tiniest of spoilers, but better safe than sorry:

Spoiler:

Whether your brother or your sister survives depends on which class you choose. Mage means he survives, warrior or rogue means she survives.

I don't think it's an oversight.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
Puce Moose wrote:

Does the demo show off any of the traps? I wasn't overwhelmed by DAO's combat, but I did greatly enjoy setting up traps/ambushes for enemies, and casting those huge area of effect spells from far away to force enemies to wade through a maze of death traps to get to the party. Can you still make traps and set them up for enemies to wander into?

No, it doesn't. there's no traps included, you can't even access the inventory in the demo. Besides, all the fights are basically ambushes. You walk somewhere, a cutscene plays, enemies are spawned in and rush you. There's absolutely no space to scout out or plan fights.

Another thing I noticed as a rogue, throwing a flask at an enemy was an ability rather than using an inventory item. Not sure how much you can read into that, but it could imply you don't craft them any more, so no collecting parts/recipes. I also don't remember seeing any crafting ability in the character sheet or any disabled option to open a crafting page.

And a similar thing with health/mana/stamina potions, it looks like they're all a standard size, or at least I didn't notice them being called lesser/minor/etc, and are always bound to the two buttons on the quick bar. I would guess they restore a percentage of health, but really there's not enough information to say.

There is a grayed out "Poisons/Traps" section of the radial menu. Miasmic Flask is the rogue ability you're talking about, and I think they just couldn't think of a better way to give rogues an AoE stun.

I believe you're right about potions. The standard health potion is 40%. I'm on the fence as to whether I like this or not.

I really enjoyed the demo. I played through Origins on the PC, and have yet to play through Awakening.. although after playing this I'm very motivated to get back into the universe. I played the demo on PS3, just because that's what was available in my house... I am planning on trying all 3 systems.

I may be in the minority, but I actually like the combat. I found it fairly immersive, and in that short demo I felt like the POV alone had me feeling more immersed than the pulled back, tactical view of the PC version of DA:O. I agree, it's on steroids.. but I giggled everytime I did the Rogue backstab move. Sure it's unrealistic.. but this is bloody fantasy roleplaying. As for the boobies.. who the hell cares. When I was a kid reading fantasy novels.. all the ladies had big boobs in my mind!

I applaud Bioware for not making Dragon Age 1.5, but seemingly reinventing the game. This has gone from a wait until a sale.. to a near day one purchase for me.. I just have to decide on which platform.

The boobiness wasn't extreme in the demo I played. Flemeth was about as booby as I thought she had been in DAO - just dressed and made up differently. Isabella was kind of over-the-top, though, especially for a fighter. Fighting women generally have much less body fat than normal, and that tends to eat into boob and ass size. She looked unrealistically endowed for someone who could move that fast.

I don't mind the health potion thing. I don't think the different sizes added much depth to Origins.

Apparently nearly all warrior attacks are area effect now, and therefore also cause friendly fire. Presumably this is why friendly fire is turned off for everything but nightmare. Seems like a strange decision to make. It adds an interesting tactical wrinkle, but it belongs in a game that cares about terrain and positioning and makes it easy to position your fighters, and based on what's in the demo at least, DA2 is not that game.

Now it's going to bug me even more that I can't get the top down perspective.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

I don't mind the health potion thing. I don't think the different sizes added much depth to Origins.

Apparently nearly all warrior attacks are area effect now, and therefore also cause friendly fire. Presumably this is why friendly fire is turned off for everything but nightmare. Seems like a strange decision to make. It adds an interesting tactical wrinkle, but it belongs in a game that cares about terrain and positioning and makes it easy to position your fighters, and based on what's in the demo at least, DA2 is not that game.

Now it's going to bug me even more that I can't get the top down perspective.

There's also that little thing called collision boxes. The basic tactical conceit in the Defender/Controller/Striker triconnection is that you form a wall with your guys and position your killers behind them. Fighters not offering any amount of movement interdiction basically means that this entire tactical game is gutted and gone, even if terrain and positioning were somehow retained.

What this means is that DA2 combat is only very superficially similar to DAO and Baldur's Gate combat. In terms of the fundamentals of game design, the two designs might as well be completely different games in completely different series.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Apparently nearly all warrior attacks are area effect now, and therefore also cause friendly fire. Presumably this is why friendly fire is turned off for everything but nightmare. Seems like a strange decision to make. It adds an interesting tactical wrinkle, but it belongs in a game that cares about terrain and positioning and makes it easy to position your fighters, and based on what's in the demo at least, DA2 is not that game.

Now it's going to bug me even more that I can't get the top down perspective.

I wonder if they're going to add an AoE indicator when using those abilities, similar to a mage's spell or rain of arrows. I certainly missed that friendly fire note, and for me it does seem like communicating effects to players is really important in a well crafted game.

I don't know what version of DA:O all you played where the terrain gave you huge tactical advantages. I played on the PC and the only thing that ever stopped projectiles consistently were doorways and my teammates. There were many barriers and blockades in the game that prevented movement but allowed projectiles to pass through them.

To add to that, this is just a demo meant to sell the game to a wider audience. I'm sure they cherry picked very action oriented parts of the game (Monster Waves ect.). Its not like Bioware didn't misrepresent DA:O prior to its launch.