/endepeen
As a heads up, I did play as a dalish elf ASSASSIN/DUELIST with my main character.
First off, I'll list a general overview of things -
Story - I won't even rant on this at all, it is the reason I play RPGs and I applaud you for your story line. The main meat of the plot was a little predictable compared to your other games designed like it (KOTOR), but your character development in this game and free-style story line was a vast improvement and I enjoyed it very much. Hat's off to the writers, all of you. Comedy, character, love, hate, anger, joy - definitely was great, I even have a dedicated saves so that I can hear relive some of the highlights, It still cracks me up that you threw a HL: Portal joke in there.
Graphics - Again very well done, I would say you could have experimented with character attack animations a little more with a few of the classes (namely rogue backstab) but all in all, nothing I really felt was face-meltingly overused. The character models were awesome, the armor models were as well, though I would have liked to see a few more weapon models used, and I enjoyed the rune effects on the weapons (I came from an old-school DAoC background where the more it glowed the better it killed stuff).
Environments - Now compared to your KOTOR games, this wasn't a huge improvement in map-size, HOWEVER! I did not feel confined at all like I was missing out on exploring what could have been. The enjoinments are obviously artistically different but in KOTOR I always felt like it could have been bigger, like I wanted to keep going in an area. DA:O did a very good job of keeping the player engaged within the area they provided and I did not feel at all like I needed more. I left each major area happy with what I had seen and been through.
Game Mechanics - This is where I'll break out the paddle a bit. The reason this game took off the way it did are because of the above reasons. The reasons some of the players are going 'OMG' may be found below, maybe not. I will do my best to run through what I felt was a little off, and I will do my best to explain what I felt should have been rather than say "THIS IS STUPID, OMG" /applyemomakeup, /cutself.
Map - Grr...
Problem:
This is at the top, simply because if I had to pick out one thing that was most annoying, it would be watching blood go across the map for 30 seconds.
Suggestion:
I would have suggested making the speed about 2 times of what it is and trying to smooth it out a little so that the consistency of the blood traveling is smoother and isn't related to the map loading.
Skill Points
Problem:
What I didn't like about the skill point/level up system is how much some classes depended on abilities. I said before I was an assassin duelist, but because I wanted to finish other trees I never put a single point into the duelist tree at all and I never finished the assassin tree until level 20. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I would have skilled my character differently if I could respec him entirely, but the system doesn't give enough points to be forgiving. I actually restarted after finishing the intro and dalish area's because I realized how important just having taunt was on Alistar.
Suggestion:
My best suggestion for this would have been to make the specialization class skills independent from the skill tree entirely, and granted a point to spend within the tree(s) every 2 levels. Doing this, would have given me the points I would have liked to see on each character and would have been a better way to balance the system. You could still have an assassin duelist, but you would have 6 or so points JUST for specialization classes so you would only be able to be full-assassin, half-duelist, or half and half, or full duelist and half assassin. It would make more sense to have a main spec and a sub spec or half and half. The same reasoning applies to the rest of the skillset, you could be full healer and half a DD, rather than just having enough points to spend on one skill tree.
Gear - This was really a situation of having too much of some things and not enough of others. I am just going to give a list of every type of item and how I felt about the content in-game. As a side note, I picked EVERYTHING up, and I covered nearly all of the quests within the game. Again, I play RPGs a lot, and I am meticulous (OCD?) about getting everything in the game. I posted earlier and spent about 2 hours getting the topsider sword just because I was missing it...
Swords - great amount of content, which is a love and hate relationship being a rogue first play through. Al was a pimp.
Daggers - not enough, I think I found 2 good daggers that I really used. I enjoyed them when I got them 80% of the way through the game. Before I did obtain them, I used crowe daggers mainly since they added BS damage, but there really weren't enough of those either. I went from a single grey iron/steel crowe dagger at 50% completion to steel/dragon crowe's at 70% completion to rose/thaig at 80%. I was happy when I picked up thaig, and even happier when I bought the rose, but it was an unhappy road. As a side note, I really would have liked the option to make a star-metal dagger, or be able to choose what reward I was about to receive.
Staffs - Good content, not excellent, but it was enough, even though I really overlooked them after turning Wynne arcane and never looking back...
2 Hand (all) - The content was decent, I didn't personally have a 2Her in my party, but if I was going to do that again, I would definitely go to Oz first, since that is where all the really worthwhile 2Hers come from. As I said, the content is decent, I just would have spread it out a little more.
Armor - I am just going to clump this all together into one on armor. Range in quality of content from worst to best: Light, heavy, medium, robes, massive. There just wasn't enough GOOD pieces of light, heavy, and medium armor. Being a rogue in my play through, I really wasn't impressed by the lack of light armor. Where massive sets would get huge bonuses to resists and defense, light armor bonuses relative to light armor classes really didn't change from my first set of armor (+1 dex on each piece). I definitely felt there should have been more sets useful to the first three grades of armor. Again - Al was a pimp, and in this case, so was Wynne.
Monies
This one really isn't a long story. I wanted more dolla! Being a collector and wanting every cool thing in the game, this conflicted with there being a 120g light chest piece, a 131g axe, and 142g dagger. First time going through I could only buy one of those things while staying on the good side. Obviously as listed above - I bought the dagger in Oz.
class balance issues - Saw this coming? Probably... I am now drinking so that I can type this
Rogue - just going to break it down simple here. melee and ranged.
Archery - I'll start off by saying I'm an avid archer, not only in games, but in RL. I did like your attack animations for shooting, but archery did need a boost, stat-wise, in DA:O. I did not like that archery got 0 specializations. I do not consider ranger a specialization in archery, just another thing to DD for you. I felt that attack speeds across all bows should have been quicker by a factor of at least 1.2, and special shots should have been faster than a normal shot, or at least equal, NOT slower. I would take 2 seconds to draw a shot that would increase my damage by 10% when I could have taken 15% off a bosses HP, or 30%+ to a normal mob by just shooting him... Same thing with other shots, the root takes too long to fire for it to be effective. By the time I shoot it they are pwning me in the eye!
Melee - Most people QQ'd about this a lot, I don't think it is as broken as people say and I was able to work with it in my play through. Personally, I think rogue damage should be higher than what it is currently since they sacrifice the ability to tank for the ability to crit while someone else tanks. I don't appreciate that my tank, per shot (obviously I attack faster), does the same amount of damage with no crit as I do with backstab - but like I said, I finished the game without much of a problem, I just had to suck it up and deal. I put in the pseudo hot-fix you guys put out and I was happy. It boosted my damage slightly, but not a whole lot. I do wish haste would not overwrite momentum, would be nice if they stacked.I think momentum is actually faster than haste if I am not mistaken, so it is a bit lame that it overwrites.
Mage
Shapeshifter - useless, cool theory, but useless, would be useful if you could swap quicker. I may try this with the insta-transform hotfix the dev threw out the other day if I can find it again, but with the cast time you sacrifice too much to gain too little. With insta-shift, a shapeshifter/arcane tank would actually be pretty viable.
Blood mage - Did not play. First play through was good sided and I did not know about the save reload bug to acquire the other specializations.
Spirit Healer - Good content overall
Arcane - Good content overall, I did feel this was a little overpowered once you had the right gear though, you could throw on rock armor, the mage spec armor spell, haste, and then with arcane form you could actually out-do some people in DPS, and then break the form and heal everyone, and arcane form up again. In later levels, I didn't even need to put arcane form up, with warcry and bard songs I had all the attack bonus I needed.
Warrior
zerker - good content overall, I like how you can go different ways with this like 2H or dual to actually create effective DPS on a character
champ - Good content overall, added to tanking skills largely. Taunt, then flick them all on the ground is defiantly ftw
templar - When I hear the word 'Templar' I always think 'TANK!' but in this game it was not the case. I did enjoy the content, it just wasn't what I expected. I did like how the content related to what the templar's were in DA:O. Good content overall''
Reaver - Did not play. First play through was good sided and I did not know about the save reload bug to acquire the other specializations.
Arrite, I am done. Activating shield wall now, let the flames begin!
Modifié par lightmaat, 09 novembre 2009 - 09:20 .
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