315 réponses à ce sujet

[blazin130791]

*thinks about stopping his current DA run to do a BG one*

[Bryy_Miller]

The Archdemon would be a pitiful end boss if not for Arl Howe and Loghain. The game is called ORIGINS, hence, of course the Big Bad is not going to be the real bad guy.

[blazin130791]

the worst of all the archdemons was the one in the first blight cus he was head of the old gods. i think? lol

[The Capital Gaultier]

blazin130791 wrote...

the worst of all the archdemons was the one in the first blight cus he was head of the old gods. i think? lol

Maybe.  It seems more like no one had a clue how to fight darkspawn nor a culture that would allow unity against the universal threat.  By the fifth Blight, there seems to be a universal hatred of darkspawn as well as a group of elite darkspawn specialists.

[peregrinefalcon46]

Dragon Age was a good RPG, and Im'a let you finish, but Baldur's Gate II was the best RPG of ALL TIME.



Honestly, from an objective point of view, I don't see how anyone could rate DAO above BG2 in any respect other than graphics and voice acting.

The storyline, the combat, the sidequests, the setting, the dialogue, the loot, the stats and levelling systems, the dungeon designs, the monster variety, the companions, pretty much everything that actually matters in an RPG in BG2 is miles above DAO and any other RPG you could think of. There really is no comparison.

I'm forced to draw the conclusion that those of you who are bashing BG2 either haven't played the game, or were too young to comprehend its greatness at the time.

<3 DAO, played it three times and I might play it once more. BG2, however, I have played at least 30 times and will definitely play it many times more. 

[Derengard]

It is a spiritual successor, but I like BG2 more, simply because it is more likable (without significant lack of depth), more varied and large. BG2 is also better balanced and more tactical while being easier to handle. Most of all, I probably prefer it because it is easily as long with only about half as much time spent fighting. At least it feels that way.

Modifié par Derengard, 23 décembre 2009 - 06:01 .

[StarMars]

Quote:

Not all the mages were tough. 

www.youtube.com/watch skip to 7:10. anyone know how to add the time into the link?

http://www.youtube.c...uA31z6o#t=7m10s  add "#t=xmys" where x=min, y=sec

Mages in BG2 are formidable, unless you fight them using cheesy tactics. 

Spells in BG 2 are hardly balanced. The fact that it had more than 200 spells makes them harder to balance. The same goes with NWN, but some gameworlds online have modified these in their servers making these spells more balanced.

I's say give DA more time. If you're talking about mods, the game has barely come out. And I'm pretty sure this new gameworld has much to offer. There is much to explore and tell unlike DnD games whose background and lore have been used and reused in other games. And remember the fact that Bioware has more competition today than during the BG series time, including the consoles.

Modifié par StarMars, 23 décembre 2009 - 11:54 .

[Skellimancer]

StarMars wrote...

Quote:

Not all the mages were tough. 

www.youtube.com/watch skip to 7:10. anyone know how to add the time into the link?

http://www.youtube.c...uA31z6o#t=7m10s  add "#t=xmys" where x=min, y=sec

Mages in BG2 are formidable, unless you fight them using cheesy tactics. 

Spells in BG 2 are hardly balanced. The fact that it had more than 200 spells makes them harder to balance. The same goes with NWN, but some gameworlds online have modified these in their servers making these spells more balanced.

I's say give DA more time. If you're talking about mods, the game has barely come out. And I'm pretty sure this new gameworld has much to offer. There is much to explore and tell unlike DnD games whose background and lore have been used and reused in other games. And remember the fact that Bioware has more competition today than during the BG series time, including the consoles.

Thanks

Thats not a cheesy tactic i am using stealth, might as well ask the wizard to fight me using just his staff!

Modifié par Skellimancer, 23 décembre 2009 - 02:15 .

[MerinTB]

cw8 wrote...

devSin wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
You know, melodramatic voice acting by David Warner alone knocks Irenicus off his throne a bit as "great villain." End of line.

You might be on to something there.


Oh, except that his performance was brilliant. End of circle.

Exactly,

Also find me a villian that you actually grow with in the game. From thinking he's just a crazed power-hungry maniac to understanding his reasons behind all the genocide and even feeling sorry for him. And he's a badass mage with a badass character, the other 100000000 villains are sword-wielding, pretend badass villains.

Really?  I remember the majority opinion seeming to be, back in the day, that Irenicus was the whiniest McWhiney villain who we all really enjoyed just finally shutting the F up because he was uber-lame.

Honestly, nostalgia for BG2 over the last near-decade has turned him into a super-cool villain?  Really?

The "shiny vampires" kicked me out of their club so I'm gonna totally pwn some evil god's kids and show those prudes.

People, Irenicus is a teen-angst rebellion story.  You really think he was the best video game villain, let alone villain, to come from fiction in the last ten years?

Irenicus over Revan?  Saren?  Heck, I had more "felt sorry" feelings for Aribeth than I ever could for an elf stripped of his Spock ears running off on a hissy-fit.

I think I need to leave this thread alone, the more the BG2 worship that happens, the more I feel the need to play devil's advocate, the more I realize the imperfections of BG2.  My memories are being tarnished by the unvarnished adoration!

[Greyclouds40]

peregrinefalcon46 wrote...

Dragon Age was a good RPG, and Im'a let you finish, but Baldur's Gate II was the best RPG of ALL TIME.



Honestly, from an objective point of view, I don't see how anyone could rate DAO above BG2 in any respect other than graphics and voice acting.

The storyline, the combat, the sidequests, the setting, the dialogue, the loot, the stats and levelling systems, the dungeon designs, the monster variety, the companions, pretty much everything that actually matters in an RPG in BG2 is miles above DAO and any other RPG you could think of. There really is no comparison.

I'm forced to draw the conclusion that those of you who are bashing BG2 either haven't played the game, or were too young to comprehend its greatness at the time.

<3 DAO, played it three times and I might play it once more. BG2, however, I have played at least 30 times and will definitely play it many times more. 

See, I just can't see how you can rate combat in BGII over DA:O. I can respect the rest of your opinion, but the combat in BGII falls under HUGE problems at higher levels. It was a function of the old 2nd Ed. D&D rules. Also? It was boring as hell to play as a warrior!


Some things to consider in the BGII combat mechanics:
1. You can destroy every single enemy in the game with a solo sorceror and high level summons.
2. Instant death spells only work 5% of the time at higher levels, pigeon-holing you into a couple of spell categories.
3. Level drain is a crippling malady and also INCREDIBLY annoying to remove! Mages lose spell slots (and must reassign them). I didn't hate to fight vampires because of any lore reason, but rather because of the annoyance factor of level drain.
4. THAC0 becomes meaningless at higher levels. This is because armor rating is capped at -20 and SHOULD mean that a THAC0 of 1 only hits that armor class 5% of the time. With strength bonuses, enchantments and all other gear, that ends up being a 95% chance to hit. At the armor cap!
5. Rolling to hit is about all that warriors can do.
6. You can permanently lose party members on normal or easy settings. While some would applaud this type of hardcore play, the lack of a choice at lower levels of difficulty means that you hit the quick reload button more often! Sure, I thought that death meant something in BGII, but often it meant that I hit quick reload as opposed to continuing the battle! This trained me to quick save after every battle (a habit that I carried over to DA:O).
7. The "save" system for avoiding spell effects was arcane and wonky at best. Eventually, the only way to get a spell to "hit" a target was to "soften" them up with a save reducing spell. So, in the end game, spells that were completely negated by a "save" were worthless except on very large crowds (where maybe ONE target would be affected).


Granted, the DA:O system needs some tweaking (I think that warriors should get some base level of health regen in their talents to offset the permanent need for healers, and they need to implement lyrium addiction penalties to encourage mages to invest in willpower), but I think it's a very very positive step forward.

Give specializations an additional "row" of talents (4 more for each specialization) and I think it'll be far superior to any game system that wizards of the coast has designed yet!

[Curlain]

One of the impressive things with the BG2 plot though was you could say it's a archetype (or cliche, whichever you prefer) fantasy RPG plot of a power-hungry wizard going after ultimate power (in Irenicus's case, godhood) how Bioware wrote it was very well done imo, and thus became no typical at all.

Because throughout the majority of the Shadows of Amn campaign your PC actually has no idea what Irenicus actually wants, or what his aims regarding you or Imoen are, unlike most fantasy adventures with a similar plot where it's said wizard has captured the Crystal/Stone/Essence of ultimate-uber-reality-dominating power, and you have to find a way to stop him. In BG2 you have no idea why Irenicus is after you, apart from it having something to do with you being a Bhaalspawn, but you know nothing of his wider plans, and throughout much of the game they remain a mystery. Even when you rescue Imoen and he takes your soul, all you know is he's restoring himself and seeking vengeance (and if you get the note you get some clue he used to be an elf), but still no idea why, and he for once was a villain who didn't tell you about what he was aiming to do. It's only in the Elven city that it all comes together, an you understand he wants to become a elven god, though once you do confront him it becomes clear that even this isn't his real objective anymore, but rather he is now motivated by a rather sad desire to bring vengeance on the elven city and the elven gods and that's the only real reason he now goes for power.

So yep, BG2 did use a archetype main plot in their game (though the same could be equally said to DA in regards to the archdemon and the Blight) but the way they executed it, and the spins they put on both how the plot played out, and on Irenicus actually made the story unique rather then being typical. Also in BG2 there is also the continuation of the influence of your Bhaalspawn nature playing out through dreams and such that began in BG1 and comes to a conclusion in the Throne of Bhaal which as a character plot was quite interesting, and could be said to be the main plot of the BG games as a whole.

As for comparing the two games, I like them both, I personally think BG2 offers a more equal challenge experience for each of the classes and has a much more diverse degree of companion characters to choose from, but DA has equally very well written characters to choose from and it's combat is dynamic, though I think you could play around with some very interesting party combinations in BG that you just can't in DA. BG combat had more variety, DA is more direct and dynamic, but require strategy to varying degrees.

As I am playing BG2 now as well as DA, for mean BG2 is better, but DA has only just started, and is very good as well, so when DA2 comes out hopefully it will equal or even exceed BG2. And in terms of character and story, Planescape:Torment beats them both :-)

Modifié par Curlain, 23 décembre 2009 - 03:22 .

[enderandrew]

BG:2 has more classes, tougher fights, more spells, more monsters, more areas to explore, more dialogue, and more replay value.



Bioware claims that DA:O offers 100 hours of gameplay. I'm a completist who likes to explore every option, get every item, do every subquest, really search every area, etc. I beat the game in 50 hours. Add a few hours to do the other origins, and we're talking 60 hours tops. I didn't rush in the least.



BG:2 however, you can spend closer to 100 hours in.

[jasonirma]

enderandrew wrote...

Bioware claims that DA:O offers 100 hours of gameplay. I'm a completist who likes to explore every option, get every item, do every subquest, really search every area, etc. I beat the game in 50 hours. Add a few hours to do the other origins, and we're talking 60 hours tops.

We must share differing versions of completist...I've covered 40% of potential areas, I'm only 24% through the campaign, and the timer on mine reads nearly 69 hours.  I'm not putzing along, either.  I'm just being--as I said--a completist.

I think BW's internal calculations are for the average that most would encounter is probably generous, but not unreasonable.

[Narelda]

I beat the game in 73 hours on my first run and did maybe 95% of quests. I didn't rush it, nor did I tarry anywhere. BGII I can't remember how long it was - I think it might have been somewhere around 70-90 hours on the first go. But a lot of that included pointless traveling from place to place doing things that really didn't add to the value of the game. Someone claimed BGII took 200 hours, but that's just bs. Maybe if you count the original BG, ToTSC, SoA and ToB. DA:O is just the first game.

[SphereofSilence]

Off topic I know, but this discussion struck me with a bolt of nostalgia. I'm thinking of playing BG1, BG2 and Planescape Torment. Will they run on Windows 7? If not, what are the latest versions that will run them?

[SleeplessInSigil]

Windows 7 x64 runs all the Infinity Engine games just fine over here, but I had to uninstall em to make room for DA (T_T)



just make sure you get all the fan-fixes for each game. There's a site with em all in one place.

[cw8]

MerinTB wrote...

Really?  I remember the majority opinion seeming to be, back in the day, that Irenicus was the whiniest McWhiney villain who we all really enjoyed just finally shutting the F up because he was uber-lame.

Honestly, nostalgia for BG2 over the last near-decade has turned him into a super-cool villain?  Really?

The "shiny vampires" kicked me out of their club so I'm gonna totally pwn some evil god's kids and show those prudes.

People, Irenicus is a teen-angst rebellion story.  You really think he was the best video game villain, let alone villain, to come from fiction in the last ten years?

Irenicus over Revan?  Saren?  Heck, I had more "felt sorry" feelings for Aribeth than I ever could for an elf stripped of his Spock ears running off on a hissy-fit.

I think I need to leave this thread alone, the more the BG2 worship that happens, the more I feel the need to play devil's advocate, the more I realize the imperfections of BG2.  My memories are being tarnished by the unvarnished adoration!

Saren? Seriously?
Saren had no role other than to be a jerk and a puppet and be manipulated.
I'll take Irenicus over Revan anyday. If you put Irenicus vs a villain like Kefka from FF6 then maybe I'll be forced to consider. But still Irenicus wins by a margin.
It's not nostalgia for me, I felt he was badass and a great villain the first time I played BG2.

[Sam -stone- serious]

cw8 wrote...

Saren? Seriously?
Saren had no role other than to be a jerk and a puppet and be manipulated.
I'll take Irenicus over Revan anyday. If you put Irenicus vs a villain like Kefka from FF6 then maybe I'll be forced to consider. But still Irenicus wins by a margin.
It's not nostalgia for me, I felt he was badass and a great villain the first time I played BG2.

Its especially apparent when you play the games even today. Its not nostalgia only. I have BG2 on my PC (and every PC in the family and whatnot) since then. I just dont dare unistall it and play it frequently enough to know that its not nostalgia talking when i say things. Johnny boy is deffinately a badass. Far from the most powerfull mage, far from the most dangerous enemy but it seems that he wants something out of you and you got a very personal bone to pick with him plus the fact that he -is- powerful, cunning, cynic and driven regardless. The fact that he is presented in such a manner only strenghens your hate against him. You can maybe understand his possition and his actions but you can never empathize with him, especially when its -you- he wants and employing several tricks to make his goal true.

Saren is very "normal" compared to Irenicus. He did not strike me as a true badass. Dangerous? Sure. Badass, not really. He seemed like a pawn that is to be used then sacrificed for, yet again, another greater power. All nice and good but ordinary non the less. In the end what seemed like a personal quest for elimination turned out that your greatest enemy is in fact someone elses biatch pawn.

[Edelwolf]

enderandrew wrote...

BG:2 has more classes

Sure, but most were invalid. Sorcerors and ranger/clerics rock. Pure thiefs, fighters, barbarians and clerics suck.

, tougher fights

BG2 relied soley on not knowing what lied ahead for challenge.

Chaotic commands before combat took care of the most common chaos/confusion annoyance.
Undead scrolls make any powerful undead sitting ducks. Summon skeletons against beholders.
At higher levels Improved invis + divination immunity made you pretty much untouchable. Mirror for AoE invulnarability aswell.
Finally timestop + ithillid shape kills everything.
If you know the 2E spells it's easy. If you play BG2 for the second time it's impossible to lose.

And yeah, winning was all about mage spells (and 1 cleric spell).

[Cabel Blacke]

I think this topic needs to be revisited in a year's time or more, so the "newness" factor of DA can wear off a bit. The two games need to be measured historically as well as what appeal they seem to have at this moment in time, following a severe drought of deep CRPGs.



For my own part (and after playing DA once and being a little ways into my second run), BG2 is still a much larger, fuller, and richer experience... a complete world in which you can get lost for a time. I replay BG2 about every 6 mos. or so, since release, as it still represents the pinnacle of the genre, due to the sheer breadth and scope of the game, something that even Bioware says would not be possible in this day and age. These frequent replays also help assure me that my love of BG2 is not due entirely to nostalgia, but is due to my simply being unable to find a comparable alternative.



However, DA is a very, VERY valiant attempt at producing an old-school CRPG using a new-school and console-friendly approach. For that, Bioware deserves all the accolades they have and will continue to receive for this game. I loved it on my first playthru and feel confident I will continue to love it on future playthrus.

[StarMars]

[quote]Edelwolf wrote...
[quote]enderandrew wrote...
BG:2 has more classes
[/quote]
Sure, but most were invalid. Sorcerors and ranger/clerics rock. Pure thiefs, fighters, barbarians and clerics suck.
[/quote]

Thieves are the most versatile and prolly most fun to play in BG2. They have 1 skill that kills all, bar none -Traps- and another that makes them very very strong - Use Any Item. Cast protection and offensive spells from scrolls and wear those full heavy plate armors. Wield that Carsomyr too! Pure clerics are good too, being spellcasters in heavy armor. Pure fighter-type may be the worst but they aren't so bad. Whirlwind becomes very powerful in the end, when your spells are much easier to resist. And remember that you have allies to cover your weaknesses.
[quote]
[quote]
, tougher fights
[/quote]
BG2 relied soley on not knowing what lied ahead for challenge.

Chaotic commands before combat took care of the most common chaos/confusion annoyance. 
Undead scrolls make any powerful undead sitting ducks. Summon skeletons against beholders.
At higher levels Improved invis + divination immunity made you pretty much untouchable. Mirror for AoE invulnarability aswell.
Finally timestop + ithillid shape kills everything.
If you know the 2E spells it's easy. If you play BG2 for the second time it's impossible to lose.

And yeah, winning was all about mage spells (and 1 cleric spell).[/quote] 
[/quote]
You're already talking about power gaming, knowing the game mechanics very well, the cheesy tactics, the counter to every enemy group. If that's the case then congrats, you've earned it. You know the game too well and you'll hardly lose, as the case should be in other games. The developers didn't balance the game for power gamers though and I doubt you absorbed everything on your first run, unless you read too much b4 doing your 2nd.

Spellcasters are the only real threat in BG2. I'd go as far as to say that you only need 1 spell to complete it  - dispel magic(or similar like Breach). But inquisitors have them so you can go with a party with no casters at all.

Modifié par StarMars, 23 décembre 2009 - 10:36 .

[SphereofSilence]

SleeplessInSigil wrote...

Windows 7 x64 runs all the Infinity Engine games just fine over here, but I had to uninstall em to make room for DA (T_T)

just make sure you get all the fan-fixes for each game. There's a site with em all in one place.

what site pray tell? 

[enderandrew]

There are a fix with fixes and mods.



http://www.gibberlings3.net/



That's a good central hub with tons of mods. If you want to see the best of all community mods and patches put together in one place, there is the Big World Project, where you play BG1 and BG2 together in the BG2 engine together with just about everything the community has to offer.



http://www.shsforums...showtopic=43052

[SphereofSilence]

enderandrew wrote...

There are a fix with fixes and mods.

http://www.gibberlings3.net/

That's a good central hub with tons of mods. If you want to see the best of all community mods and patches put together in one place, there is the Big World Project, where you play BG1 and BG2 together in the BG2 engine together with just about everything the community has to offer.

http://www.shsforums...showtopic=43052

Cheers loads matey!

[peregrinefalcon46]

Greyclouds40 wrote...

See, I just can't see how you can
rate combat in BGII over DA:O. I can respect the rest of your opinion,
but the combat in BGII falls under HUGE problems at higher levels. It
was a function of the old 2nd Ed. D&D rules. Also? It was boring as
hell to play as a warrior!


Some things to consider in the BGII combat mechanics:
1. You can destroy every single enemy in the game with a solo sorceror and high level summons.
2. Instant death spells only work 5% of the time at higher levels, pigeon-holing you into a couple of spell categories.
3.
Level drain is a crippling malady and also INCREDIBLY annoying to
remove! Mages lose spell slots (and must reassign them). I didn't hate
to fight vampires because of any lore reason, but rather because of the
annoyance factor of level drain.
4. THAC0 becomes meaningless at
higher levels. This is because armor rating is capped at -20 and
SHOULD mean that a THAC0 of 1 only hits that armor class 5% of the
time. With strength bonuses, enchantments and all other gear, that ends
up being a 95% chance to hit. At the armor cap!
5. Rolling to hit is about all that warriors can do.
6.
You can permanently lose party members on normal or easy settings.
While some would applaud this type of hardcore play, the lack of a
choice at lower levels of difficulty means that you hit the quick
reload button more often! Sure, I thought that death meant something in
BGII, but often it meant that I hit quick reload as opposed to
continuing the battle! This trained me to quick save after every battle
(a habit that I carried over to DA:O).
7. The "save" system for
avoiding spell effects was arcane and wonky at best. Eventually, the
only way to get a spell to "hit" a target was to "soften" them up with
a save reducing spell. So, in the end game, spells that were completely
negated by a "save" were worthless except on very large crowds (where
maybe ONE target would be affected).


Granted, the DA:O
system needs some tweaking (I think that warriors should get some base
level of health regen in their talents to offset the permanent need for
healers, and they need to implement lyrium addiction penalties to
encourage mages to invest in willpower), but I think it's a very very
positive step forward.

Give specializations an additional
"row" of talents (4 more for each specialization) and I think it'll be
far superior to any game system that wizards of the coast has designed
yet!

To be fair, when judging the combat of BG2, I base it on the entire party composition
rather than just the PC's class, since in most playthroughs you are
using a full 6-person party (much more interesting than 4, IMO). A big
chunk of the strategies you can develop in BG revolve around your
mage's spell picks and gear. Also, unlike some people, I
enjoyed the HLAs and all the additional strategies that could be
formulated with things like a rogue's UseAnyItem HLA. The power and
freedom of magic in that game is still unparalleled in other games, and
although it might not be 'balanced' from a modern point of view, I feel
that class balance is overrated, especially in a single player party-based RPG.

Some responses to your points:

1. Although true, the real game-killer combos involved abusing projected images to spam planetars. This has always been considered a cheesy tactic, and to me it does not detract from my enjoyment of the game,
because I never used it.

2. Unless you used save-lowering and resist-lowering debuffs, which were pretty much a staple spellpick anyway.

3.If you use the right gear or the right buffs (negative plane protection), level drain was never a problem, and was easily fixed with low level cleric spells.

4. Not many NPCs in the game had such a good THAC0 as to completely negate armor, and the ones that do weren't designed to be "tanked" anyway.

5. Other than HLAs, you're right. Always preferred non-standard warrior kits or multi-classes personally.

6. I always quicksave after every battle too. Trial and error refinement
of tactics is what makes the game fun IMO. If I could just "wing it" every fight and not worry about saving, I would get bored quickly. Its getting to that point in DAO. Losing party members meant that individual character deaths were really something to avoid, rather than just "oh well /injurykit".

7. Agreed. The save system in 2.5d was arcane. Picking spells that had a very low save modifier was key, and most of the AoE HLAs were no-save. BG probably could have benefitted from a more modern / robust save
system.

A great many of the systems in BG2 started to get 'wonky' at very high levels, which is why the Throne of Bhaal expansion is pretty much universally regarded as inferior to Amn. Nevertheless the ability to reach such a high level was a part of the charm.

Like I've said, I love DAO, but it just can't compare to BG2 for me. How much of that opinion is nostalgia or fanboyism and how much is warranted, I can't honestly say. The one point that I feel is unarguable is that the level
of freedom and variety in BG2 can't be matched by any modern RPG. There was always another party composition, another tactic to try, and they were all fun. The replayability of BG2 is pretty self-evident to anyone
familiar with the game, and after 3 playthroughs of DAO, I just can't say the same.

Nitpicking aside:
[smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/heart.png[/smilie] Dragon Age
[smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/heart.png[/smilie] Baldur's Gate
[smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/heart.png[/smilie] Bioware

Modifié par peregrinefalcon46, 24 décembre 2009 - 05:44 .