79 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

 From time to time there's a thread where people lament how RPGs aren't as tactically challenging as they used to be, and DA is really too easy. Well, maybe DA is easy.... but is it easy compared to other RPGs?

I'm replaying BG2, so I decided to keep notes on how many battles I fought and how easy they were. I was kind of shocked. It  looks like BG2 is easier than DA at my preferred difficulty levels (Hard for  DA, standard AD&D for BG2).

In the Windspear Hills section of BG2 I fought 38 battles (2 spawned while resting). Of these, 29 were trash fights, where there was no possibility of even having one character go down. Eight were difficult enough so I had to pay attention to what I was doing rather than just hacking away. Only one presented any sort of challenge, though I don't think there was any chance at all of an unacceptable result (meaning either a dead PC or a disintegrated NPC). FWIW, I didn't do the two optional fights, one of which would have been moderately challenging.

I haven't been keeping detailed stats of my DA play yet, but I know I pay attention to a greater percentage of  fights than that.

Or was BG2 just another easy game too?

[Swordfishtrombone]

I think you should judge the difficulty of a game based on your FIRST playthough, not your n:th.



Of course BG2 is easy, if you've played through it a dozen times - and so is DA:O.



On the first playthough of BG2, I found it more challenging than DA:O on the first playthrough, but not by that much. I think both these games got the difficulty pretty much right.



It may be true that BG2 has more of fairly easy fights punctuated by challenging fights, and DA:O keeps the challenge a little more constant. Each has it's benefits and drawbacks, I think.

[TheMadCat]

Difficulty is relative to the individual, someone such as myself who typically plays and enjoys games that are in the 9th circle of micromanagement hell is going to find something like Dragon Age much easier to grasp then say someone who plays Call of Duty type games. I blew through nightmare in my sleep while others seem to be legitimately struggling on normal/easy.



But yes, I do think overall Dragon Age is easy as far as RPG's go, so are all the other BioWare games. I've never really found any of their games to be all that difficult compared to others, Icewind Dale was well above BG2 in terms of difficulty, Fallout 1 and 2 had some rough patches, the Wizadry series was just brutal, and there were a couple back on the SNES that were hard as hell. And of course I'm sure there were hundreds before my gaming time back in the early-mid 90's which was the heyday of RPG's. So I'd say BioWare games in general are easy as far as classical RPG's go, this modern stuff though is all a cake walk.

[hexaligned]

DAO is the only game in recent memory, I beat on the highest difficulty, the first time I played it, with 0 reloads. The first time I played BG2 it was on whatever the default difficulty was, some fights in that game took me 4 or 5 reloads to finally beat. Granted I was like 12 when BG2 was released.

Even modern RPG's are harder than DAO generally. I just recently played through FF13 (waste of 60 bucks.. for other reason though) and I died numerous times in that. you are right RPG's generally aren't the hardest genre out there, but somethings wrong in my eyes if I can beat a game on the hardest difficulty as easily as I beat DAO. Personally I blame the AI, and the general blandness of enemy design, as far as their tactics and abilities go.

Modifié par relhart, 24 mai 2010 - 12:33 .

[praetorians2]

at least in the baildaurs gate games the level caps that were in place allowed you to fill out your character specialations whereas dragon age is capped at 25 and i still have unfilled skill slots

[k9medusa]

On my 1st play though, I have find DAO was moderated -- not super easy or super hard. IMO, I like my boss battles super hard while I like to farming should super easy and any mini-bosses should be moderate. I have tried to build NWN 1 encounters, and I never could get them way I like them -- either to hard or to easy, so it is hard to find the right balance in any game and every one is playing for different levels and different reasons. Some play it for the story while others like to make power builds, not so much for the story. How does one balance that out -- RPG builds vs Power Builds type players?

[hexaligned]

It's not a matter of power builds vs rpg builds, no.  I'm not unreasonable (usually), if it was, I wouldn't have complaints about the combat mechanics.  The first character I made was an attempt to make a "cleric" , DnD style. I had no idea how to make the best builds at that point. She was a mage and I gave her craploads of str and willpower, that's hardly a power build. 

I'm also not a masachist I wouldn't play through a video game (4 times now) I thought had lackluster combat,  if I didn't enjoy the RP aspects of it and the story line.

Modifié par relhart, 24 mai 2010 - 01:21 .

[bzombo]

the fights in bg were harder, but i'm talking about the bosses and other important fights that came up. there are many other fights that are just throw aways to gain experience. those are easy in any game. i wouldn't say bioware games are easier than most other rpgs. the baldur's gate game probably fell on the harder side more often than not while dragon age is more down the middle.

[AlanC9]

Swordfishtrombone wrote...

I think you should judge the difficulty of a game based on your FIRST playthough, not your n:th.

Of course BG2 is easy, if you've played through it a dozen times - and so is DA:O.

On the first playthough of BG2, I found it more challenging than DA:O on the first playthrough, but not by that much. I think both these games got the difficulty pretty much right.

I suppose that's true for me too, though my first play of BG2 was long enough ago that I don't precisely remember how difficult it was (I'm amazed at how much I do remember, but battle specifics aren't in there). The main thing that sticks in my mind is that you needed to learn specific tactics for a few different kinds of enemies (wizards, beholders, dragons). The only DA equivalent would be golems, since a lot of crowd control fails against them.

[AlanC9]

TheMadCat wrote...
... the Wizadry series was just brutal, and there were a couple back on the SNES that were hard as hell. And of course I'm sure there were hundreds before my gaming time back in the early-mid 90's which was the heyday of RPG's. So I'd say BioWare games in general are easy as far as classical RPG's go, this modern stuff though is all a cake walk.

Good point. I should have specified modern games. Though some of the older games weren't all that hard. The Ultimas were always easy, for instance -- though that series was never about the combat.

[AlanC9]

relhart wrote...

The first character I made was an attempt to make a "cleric" , DnD style. I had no idea how to make the best builds at that point. She was a mage and I gave her craploads of str and willpower, that's hardly a power build.  

How'd you manage to never reload with a build like that, anyway? For instance, how'd you beat the last fight in Anvil of the Void?

[Taniwha]

DAO is moderated. It is like a casual RPG. Not too much time to spend on character´s building but you can do it often so you feel like progressing. Battles are normally easy, but there are some hard battles when you play it for the 1st time. In BG battles were more risky. I won battles in DAO with a single character standing against an army of enemies. The result: a couple of injuries and just have to use a couple of injury kits or a spell and go foward as nothing happened. In BG that´s unacceptable since a character can be vanished or mutilated with no chance of ressurrection and they don´t just stand up after the fight which means that you will probably prefer to load and rethink the tactic or you will be in trouble wasting potions and spells that you can´t recover so easely.



Also, leeches, dragons and epic creatures were way more threatening than the DAO ones.



Of course in BG there are lots of stupid fights like whiping 5 kobolds in one blow but the overral is that the game force you to think. Not to mention that the possibilities of playing the game again were bigger since there were more classes, special quest for those classes and ways to be evil, neutral or good. But that´s another story.

[hexaligned]

Well it was awhile ago, if memory serves, I had the "cleric" , Leliana as an archer (and she was just worthless my first play through, I don't think I even took AOS or SS on her, and she was a pure dex bard) Shale tanking..and, dog maybe? Or maybe Morrigan. I switched out my 4th member a lot my first play through. I just had Shale tank the golems my "cleric" had spirit healer so at least I had that going for me. It was sketchy at first until I realized i needed to cap the lyrium veins, but I just used the same general strat as every other fight in the game, tank tanking, healer healing, dps doing their thing. Orz isn't a good example though, I did that last of the quest areas and after all the DLC, after level 12 or so I've never even come close to death in the game, enemies just don't scale well enough to really offer a threat mid to late game.

Edit : nvm, brain fart, the 4th member was Oghren, so two tanks essentially.

Modifié par relhart, 24 mai 2010 - 04:53 .

[Ariella]

Honestly, once you get used to the controls, the game gets easier. But this seems to be the case in all CRPGs that I've played. For example, it took me maybe a week or two to finish Quest for Glory 1 (the VGA version) when I first got it. Today, it takes me about an hour/hour and a half max, and that's with required combat. (I miss QfG... someone needs to do a mod using the DA engine but that's another post)



Anyway, I find the DA controls easy to use, and as I play mostly on the 360, I tend to use the tactical AI. It took me a bit to be able to adjust the AI for the party characters exactly how I wanted, and well figuring out what I wanted them to do took time, effort and experimentation....



Honestly, I think the combat system is decently balanced out, especially since I've never been a fan of combat and prefer story etc... I keep thinking of the end fight in Gateway to the Savage Frontier.... Evil and over complicated.

[MonkeyChief117]

On my first playthrough, as soon as I realized you could just spam health poultices, it was easy (although it did feel a bit cheap). I did find the High Dragon pretty difficult but that was because I was a low level and wasn't very well prepared (I just thought 'Ooh what does that gong do?').

Modifié par MonkeyChief117, 24 mai 2010 - 04:58 .

[Gecon]

Compared to some old style RPGs, yes, definitely. Extremely easy, especially if you also get DLC items.

Games like Wizardry, I started them about two douzen times until I found the ideal party, and it was still extremely hard, especially for you had to fight all the time and it really got on my nerves. And I only tried Wizardry 8 - the older games where even harder than that.

But compared to Baldurs Gate, no, not really. Once you master the tricks of the game, it turns mostly quite easy, just like Baldurs Gate.

Theres some extremely hard battles left, just like in BG, which remain hard even if you have mastered the game, but thats all.

[hexaligned]

I miss Wizardry 8, such a great game.
My last post made me wonder something, maybe it's MMO expierience that ruins this games combat for me? I played MMO's for about two years, more specifically I raided. Concepts like "tank pong" aren't foreign to me. If you apply raiding strats to this game (which is easy to do with it's simple threat mechanic) it trivializes pretty much every fight. 

i can purposly break character builds (and I have) I can't conciously force myself play less tactically though, and in that respect  DAO is very simplistic compared with most any other RPG, that I've played at least.

Modifié par relhart, 24 mai 2010 - 05:42 .

[maxernst]

I actually found the game much more difficult on first playthrough than the Baldur's Gate games, probably because I already knew the game system. It's certainly not as difficult as Wizardry 8, which personally I found about as enjoyable as beating my head against a wall. I don't think there's a really strong trend in game difficulty over time. The Might & Magic games weren't especially hard. Arx Fatalis was much harder than the Ultima Underworld game that it was a homage to.

[AlanC9]

Taniwha wrote...
 In BG battles were more risky. I won battles in DAO with a single character standing against an army of enemies. The result: a couple of injuries and just have to use a couple of injury kits or a spell and go foward as nothing happened. In BG that´s unacceptable since a character can be vanished or mutilated with no chance of ressurrection and they don´t just stand up after the fight which means that you will probably prefer to load and rethink the tactic or you will be in trouble wasting potions and spells that you can´t recover so easely.

Maybe players perceived BG as more difficult because you have to rest to revive the party, but it isn't actually true. You're better off not reloading unless someone got chunked. The worst that can happen is that you spawn a random encounter or two. Either you beat the REs and you're better off than if you reloaded since you get the XP from the random fights too, or you can't beat the REs and you're in exactly the same place as if you had reloaded. The former is far more likely.

Of course in BG there are lots of stupid fights like whiping 5 kobolds in one blow but the overral is that the game force you to think..

This is what I'm disagreeing with. What thinking? The big difference is that you have to manually manage aggro in BG rather than letting enemies home in on your tank automatically. Mages don't require thought . True Seeing if the mage is invisible, Pierce Magic (etc.) to remove spell defenses, Breach to take out physical defenses. If BG2 had DA's Tactics system you could let the AI handle this without any player input whatsoever.

I'm hitting the controls more often when playing BG2, but I'm not thinking about anything.

[gingerbill]

On a first play through i thought DAO was about right for difficulty , i would prefer for the average fight to be a bit harder.

BG2 i thought was similiar , maybe a bit harder because it was hard to know what was going on sometimes with an older UI and graphics. And you could die more because off the way AD&D magic system all depended on saving throws , bad luck could kick your butt no matter how good you were but that was down to a poor system rather than actually being harder.

edit - agree with the poster above , disagree you had to think more in BG2 combat .

Modifié par gingerbill, 24 mai 2010 - 06:26 .

[AlanC9]

MonkeyChief117 wrote...

On my first playthrough, as soon as I realized you could just spam health poultices, it was easy (although it did feel a bit cheap). I did find the High Dragon pretty difficult but that was because I was a low level and wasn't very well prepared (I just thought 'Ooh what does that gong do?').

Yeah, the potion spam thing really can make DA a cakewalk. My take on it is that the problem comes from the relative costs -- potions are a much more efficient way to use your gold than buying the really good equipment. Top-of-the-line weapon vs. 25 potent health poultices? No contest. You'll find equipment that's good enough anyway.

[AlanC9]

relhart wrote...

Well it was awhile ago, if memory serves, I had the "cleric" , Leliana as an archer (and she was just worthless my first play through, I don't think I even took AOS or SS on her, and she was a pure dex bard) Shale tanking..and, dog maybe? Or maybe Morrigan. I switched out my 4th member a lot my first play through. I just had Shale tank the golems my "cleric" had spirit healer so at least I had that going for me. It was sketchy at first until I realized i needed to cap the lyrium veins, but I just used the same general strat as every other fight in the game, tank tanking, healer healing, dps doing their thing. Orz isn't a good example though, I did that last of the quest areas and after all the DLC, after level 12 or so I've never even come close to death in the game, enemies just don't scale well enough to really offer a threat mid to late game.

Edit : nvm, brain fart, the 4th member was Oghren, so two tanks essentially.

Is a 2-H warrior like Oghren really a tank? 

I think that's why I found the fight difficult first time through. I didn't have a proper tank since I'd levelled Shale as an offensive fighter (big mistake), and my PC mage was mostly Primal, which isn't all that great if you don't have someone else pulling the aggro. But this is just not understanding the system, like not bringing a cleric along in a BG party.

Modifié par AlanC9, 24 mai 2010 - 06:38 .

[Sylixe]

AlanC9 wrote...

relhart wrote...

The first character I made was an attempt to make a "cleric" , DnD style. I had no idea how to make the best builds at that point. She was a mage and I gave her craploads of str and willpower, that's hardly a power build.  

How'd you manage to never reload with a build like that, anyway? For instance, how'd you beat the last fight in Anvil of the Void?

Clerics in DAO are basically the AW build.  Once you become an AW the game is stupidly easy beyond the ease it was before that.  If you are refering to the room before you get to the anvil that was pretty easy run in and out fight.  If you mean fighting all of the golems you just AoE taunt them to your tank and take them down one at a time.  It's a fairly basic concept and works wonders.

The only real variance you see in the game for builds is that isn't as effective to build your tank with a ton of HP's as it is to build one with huge amounts of dexterity.  All the difficulty slider for the basic game does is make the mob have more HP's essentially.  It doesn't make them behave any differently or fight with any more strategic prowess.

[soteria]

When I saw the thread title, my first thought was, "Troll thread with troll title to attract traffic." Hah!

My last post made me wonder something, maybe it's MMO expierience that ruins this games combat for me? I played MMO's for about two years, more specifically I raided. Concepts like "tank pong" aren't foreign to me. If you apply raiding strats to this game (which is easy to do with it's simple threat mechanic) it trivializes pretty much every fight.

I think that's probably the case. I first tried to play BG2 some 5-6 years ago in college, and died a lot. Never even finished the second chapter--NWN was newer and had a better interface. Then WoW came out, and after playing that a few years, I retried BG2 while waiting on DAO. It was a cakewalk, once I figured out I could just take my rogue around and kill everything with a single backstab. Irenicus killed me the first time, and then I said, "I wonder what would happen if I put some traps under where he spawns?" Answer: he dies instantly.



BG also featured a lot of items that made the game stupidly easy, like shields of beholder immunity and maces of undead smashing, and the backstab of illithid trivialization (ok, not an item, but it worked, dangit. if you have trouble with illithids, just give a rogue immunity to mind spells and have him backstab them.)



I'd also say that FFXIII is harder than DAO, despite how casual-friendly it is. For probably most of you who haven't played it, it's almost impossible to break a character build, dying just means restarting that fight, you instantly auto-heal and rez afterward, you can buy consumables from any save point, and available cash is only limited by your desire to earn it. Ironically, the casual-friendliness is exactly what made it possible for Square-Enix to make the game challenging. When developers know more or less exactly what resources you'll have at a given point, it's much easier to tune encounter difficulty.



This is what I see as both the strength and weakness of Bioware games. They offer great flexibility in character building and customization, but as a result are never really balanced the way I would like them to be.

Theres some extremely hard battles left, just like in BG, which remain hard even if you have mastered the game, but thats all.

Unless you're talking about playing with self-imposed restrictions, I disagree. And I think BG is the same way. Kangaxx is either borderline impossible or laughably easy, depending on whether you have a way to counter Imprison or whatever it's called. Pretty much every fight in DA can be completely trivialized with a sufficient quantity of (infinitely available) potions.