Dragon Age 2 - Catch All

EvilDead wrote:

I just beat the game as an Assassin Rouge and completed every side quest I could find. I see the faults that people had with it but overall I enjoyed it much better then the first game (which I had to push my self to finish after leaving it for months). My main gripes were the spawning enemies and asset re-use but other then that I liked everything better. I loved the way how the story flowed along making it feel more natural. Combat for the most part kicked ass. Also its crazy to think how scenes could have varied (or not happened at all) had I handled earlier situations differently. I can't wait for the 3rd installment!

I'm only just starting Act 2, but yeah, everything you just said, +1. I had avoided this game, in fact, even wrote it off as a game I'd never play, because of all the negative blurbs I'd seen regarding it's "dumbing down", or "consolization", bad story, etc. Boy would I have missed out on a gem. I was (and am) a huge DA:O fan, but I swear I might end up liking DA2 more, including the story, and yes, the combat just kicks ass. Some friends on steam are asking me why I'm not playing Dead Island. It's not because I don't like Dead Island, it's because DA2 has it's hooks in me and won't let go.

It's the Normalization of Easy rearing its ugly head again. Played exclusively on Easy, you could go through the entire game haphazardly picking skills and attributes, not doing Tactics, and basically just spamming abilities whenever you want and you'd still win easily. Heck, the main reason I switched to Hard was because my Chain Reaction was doing all of 1 or 2 damage! F that S. If I'm going to do an awesome combo attack, I want it show all the damage I'm doing, you know?

EvilDead:

My last playthrough on Hard was with the Assassin Rogue and it's still unfinished, unfortunately. Assassins are awesome, but at some point, one-shotting Rage Demons stopped being awesome and just got kind of boring. I guess it just got too easy. And I don't want to do a playthrough exclusively on Insane. That's... ...Insane.

I'm jones'n for my replay of this. Just a little longer, and it will taste sweeter

LarryC wrote:

It's the Normalization of Easy rearing its ugly head again. Played exclusively on Easy, you could go through the entire game haphazardly picking skills and attributes, not doing Tactics, and basically just spamming abilities whenever you want and you'd still win easily. Heck, the main reason I switched to Hard was because my Chain Reaction was doing all of 1 or 2 damage! F that S. If I'm going to do an awesome combo attack, I want it show all the damage I'm doing, you know?

EvilDead:

My last playthrough on Hard was with the Assassin Rogue and it's still unfinished, unfortunately. Assassins are awesome, but at some point, one-shotting Rage Demons stopped being awesome and just got kind of boring. I guess it just got too easy. And I don't want to do a playthrough exclusively on Insane. That's... ...Insane.

Heh, I wasn't quite one shotting them but doing just about that in the third act. There is allot of fighting and positioning to be had while you are waiting for your abilities to recharge. I had a bit of fun experimenting with combos and softening up baddies for my mage's area of effect spells. For Boss fights I would use my team to distract the mob while I bee-lined for the Boss. It didn't get boring for me. My only qualm was not being able to use Varric or Isabella more due to my party getting too squishy.

I just rain of fire everything lately. Even that doesn't pull agro off of Aveline.

Stele wrote:

Wow. WTF. (rock wraith fight)
Not sure what they intended for this fight, but if this is how all the boss fights go I'm not going to be enjoying this. :?

Haha, just got to this fight. Hoppin' Jahaysus on a pogo stick, that was nuts. went thru 10 health pots and 5 elfroot potions, healed every time any heal spell came off cooldown, rezzed 2 people. wailed on this thing the entire time ... and he was still at 60% health. Yeah, I'll be scaling down to normal for this. Of all the praise I have for this game, these Japanese style boss fights are not cool, and not fun. I don't want an "I win" button but I also don't want to have to be perfectly geared for an encounter or die horribly 10 times.

The dragon encounter (when hunting for Sandal) was an excellent boss fight. Well balanced, and required good tactics to beat on Hard mode, but doable. The rock wraith is just over the top arcade stuff, IMO.

edit: even on Normal, it was a tough fight, but felt more like a boss fight should -- tough but manageable.

Spoiler:

I did figure out how to avoid that massive 'charge-up then discharge' attack though, by hiding behind one of the rock columns

And there was a hell of a payoff too, in both loot and XP.

Should've done it on Casual. I did, after the first time.

LarryC wrote:

Should've done it on Casual. I did, after the first time.

Normal was fine. They got the boss fights out of whack with the rest of game's difficulty. What I mean is, it's as if the boss fights are scaled up 1 difficulty level, so if you're playing on Hard, boss fights are kind of on Nightmare. That's the way it feels, anyway. Anyway, I'm enjoying the rest of the game so much, I don't mind turning the boss fights down to Normal occasionally, at least after a few tries.

What makes the Ancient Rock Wraith fight hard is that any mistakes you make are severely punished, but if you know how the fight works it becomes much faster than the hour long slog I remember suffering through when I first tried it. Maximising your electrical resistance is vital but the keys to the fight are movement and dps. There's no way around it, in this fight you will be moving your party again and again keeping your squishies well away from its aoe attacks, hiding behind pillars in particular phases and getting clear lines of sight for your ranged damage dealers. The time for maximising your dps is when it's rebuilding itself in the centre of the room because that's when its most vulnerable, so try to ignore the summoned Profane as much as you can and use Haste if you have it as well as all your aoe spells like Firestorm etc and any incindiary grenades. The damage you do at these times will in large part determine the length of the fight, so don't hold back. Do it right and even on Nightmare it'll only take a few minutes.

Now see, by convention I thought the Rock Wraith was invulnerable during that portion of the fight and that you're supposed to focus on the summoned adds. No wonder it took so long, I was missing most of the weak point.

Always hit the shiny thing.

Latrine wrote:

Now see, by convention I thought the Rock Wraith was invulnerable during that portion of the fight and that you're supposed to focus on the summoned adds. No wonder it took so long, I was missing most of the weak point.

I did the exact same thing, first try. When I shifted the difficulty down to Normal, I kind of stumbled onto his "weak time", but still didn't focus the party on him during that time at first. Eventually I did and killed it, but I think next play through I could do much better on Hard. That said I still think it's kind of a ridiculous fight, and too arcadey.

Also I have yet to find a single item that protects against lightning damage. No patterns, no runes, no gear either dropped or for sale, nothing. I have found loads of stuff for anti-fire and cold, but nothing for lightning yet.

Dragon Age Wikia is your friend.

Jeff-66 wrote:

Also I have yet to find a single item that protects against lightning damage. No patterns, no runes, no gear either dropped or for sale, nothing. I have found loads of stuff for anti-fire and cold, but nothing for lightning yet.

spankyboy wrote:

Dragon Age Wikia is your friend. :)

It's funny. Right after I wrote the above about having not found any lightning protection, it wasn't 5 minutes later I found a vendor in the gallows selling a rune of lightning warding. But yes, the wikia is a nice resource for sure.

How much does the DLC interest anyone? Mark of the Assassin. Even though I haven't bit on DLC yet, I kind of like the approach they're taking with the self contained little stories.

Scratched wrote:

How much does the DLC interest anyone? Mark of the Assassin. Even though I haven't bit on DLC yet, I kind of like the approach they're taking with the self contained little stories.

I detect the voice and facial likeness of Felicia Day in the new character (you have to squint a little.)

Higgledy wrote:
Scratched wrote:

How much does the DLC interest anyone? Mark of the Assassin. Even though I haven't bit on DLC yet, I kind of like the approach they're taking with the self contained little stories.

I detect the voice and facial likeness of Felicia Day in the new character (you have to squint a little.)

It is Felicia Day.

a.k.a. The Geek Queen.

I do find it interesting that that one particular actress gets so much publicity and precious little for the rest of the cast.

Scratched wrote:

a.k.a. The Geek Queen.

I do find it interesting that that one particular actress gets so much publicity and precious little for the rest of the cast.

Mmm.. Eve Myles/Merrill:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/x17yF.jpg)

You know, I'd never actually twigged that she was voicing Merrill. I suppose that until the latest Torchwood she was all but unknown to American audiences, hence why her participation was not widely trailed over there.

As for the DLC, it'll probably cost about the same as lunch plus coffee, so I'll be picking it up.

Tanglebones wrote:
Scratched wrote:

a.k.a. The Geek Queen.

I do find it interesting that that one particular actress gets so much publicity and precious little for the rest of the cast.

Mmm.. Eve Myles/Merrill:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/x17yF.jpg)

Played DA2 a long while ago, at first release, and my love interest was Merrill. Lately, I've been watching Torchwood intensely, catching up, and now I'm all, "But the...what?...And...she...um...whoa."

And.... done!

WTF? That's it?

Had a lot of fun but that was pretty pointless. Oh well.

Feels a lot like ME2. Gameplay much improved, story much worse than original. I guess they have chances to get things right with part 3 of both.

The quality of the story is a well-worn bone of contention. For my part, I don't think it was any worse than the original. It's not that much better, but it certainly isn't worse. The original was so cliche I could have told you the broad strokes of it halfway through the first hour of the game. DA2's story has many good points, not the least of which is that it's an actual adult story dealing with realistic political events.

Holy Crap. I know I'm late to the party here but final boss of Legacy? Really freakin' hard. But I beat 'em in one go regardless!

I will buy the new DLC, not my favorite game by bioware but if it gives me the chance to keep playing my character I'm in.

Just finished. I really enjoyed it, up until the final chase through the "Best Served Cold" and "Last Straw" lines. The ending was...

Spoiler:

... IMO, overwrought and just went on way too long with the endless leadup battles that ended up playing out like waves in a tower defense game. I also didn't care for the way the story ended. I think in the DA series they try too hard to be 'grey area' with the moral choices. I was frustrated with my choice to side with the mages (being a mage myself), because a) you have Meredith invoking some law that puts all mages to death, seems unjust, and she's being played up as someone going crazy and lusting for power and control, so I side with the mages. Then the Orsino blood magic bit, WTF?

Finally it turns out Meredith is wielding "the idol", and is in fact crazed, so I felt a bit better about my decision then, but it just felt like a whole lot of nonsense that came before that revelation.

The other issue I had was Fenris betraying me. If he hated mages so much that when it came down to it he was going to side with the Templars anyway, then why "befriend" me (his friend slider was 90% to the good side). We had several cutscene conversations with him calling me a "true friend", though he would often comment about how sh*tty mages are and how much he hates them.

Overall a good game, and I enjoyed it, but don't think I'd ever replay it.

Yeah, as much as everyone hates being short changed by short games, I think DA2 is one that would have been better if it was leaner, either as medium DLC or if publishers could find a way that not every game needs to be a $60 'big experience'.

Scratched wrote:

Yeah, as much as everyone hates being short changed by short games, I think DA2 is one that would have been better if it was leaner, either as medium DLC or if publishers could find a way that not every game needs to be a $60 'big experience'.

I think you're right. DA2 feels like a $30 DA expansion, in a full game's clothing. They re-used tilesets and floor layouts to an almost obscene extent. There is a staggering amount of high-quality voice acting and cutscenes in it, however. I'm sure that wasn't cheap.

Scratched wrote:

Yeah, as much as everyone hates being short changed by short games, I think DA2 is one that would have been better if it was leaner, either as medium DLC or if publishers could find a way that not every game needs to be a $60 'big experience'.

DLC to what, exactly ? The mechanics and storyline are completely different to DA1, and I don't think that you could really make it much shorter without having people whine about it. I thought it was fine as it was, in fact more of an interesting and enjoyable experience than DA 1, even though I also loved that.

It is also definitely replayable...I'm just about to complete a 2nd runthrough as a rogue this time, and the playstyles used and companions differ significantly once you change classes. The dialogue also changes as you bring along different characters and listen to them interact with each other.

Cost me £30 and the cost of the DLC I picked up, and I've more than had that worth out of it.

If I ever did replay it, it would definitely be as a rogue. That's what I played in DA:O, and it was a lot of fun.