155 réponses à ce sujet

[Shirosaki17]

TcheQ wrote...

It's not just you, I played nightmare mage in DAO and DA2. DAO game took me 59 hrs of total playtime to finish. Getting out of kirkwall in DA2 took 35hours alone. I take advantage of enemy attack patterns, and my entire team would die to a single assassin. I do find it a bit tedious to kill a dragon for 40 minutes - I simply will not play DA2 a second time, whereas DAO had enough intrigue and was easy enough on Nightmare to want to play through 3 times. I don't respec and I have denied myself all advantages of DLC. I also rarely heal and my party is constantly 20% of their health from injuries. I'm not a fan of loading from a previous save if i discover an enemy is unkillable. Rock Wraith completely --cked me going in blind. I conceded it was impossible (my team had no protection from it's attacks, and were all injured) and just continued.

I finished Batman on hardest setting and it only took me 20hrs (I almost quit that in some parts it was so difficult). Now I'm barely even through my second Kirkwall year and it's 44hrs in. That's what I paid for though. The solution to stopping Assassin's stealing healing potions is simple - don't carry any

No one here is asking them to make nightmare easier for replay value. If you want an easier game lower the difficulty. If you think it's too easy or not tactical enough (at those easier levels) you should give feedback on it. People here want more of a challenge without throwing 20 mobs at you, or mobs appearing out of thin air. Don't screw it up for everyone who wants a challenge just because you don't want to lower the difficulty.

If you're having trouble with assassins, all you have to do is have your warrior taunt them to keep aggro when they backstab. I actually think you may not even need to taunt, but not sure. I think they just backstab the closest person or when someone comes into melee range of them.

Modifié par Shirosaki17, 15 mars 2011 - 04:13 .

[TcheQ]

Shirosaki17 wrote...
No one here is asking them to make nightmare easier for replay value.

Where the hell did you come up with this brainstorm.  There is nothing in my post that suggests I hold such a view.

[P1NG]

Bottleneck, AoE = 90% of the game on nightmare. They took the cheap route for difficulty this time.

[Theagg]

Barring the odd few boasting about their prowess in handling Nightmare, it definitely is a broken difficulty level. Sure there are 'tactics' and then there is luck but always there should be a way through most difficult situations with thought.

Ways that don't require replaying the encounter a large number of times to effectively get through via brute force of memory.

But at the lower levels finding your mage character is redundant in some encounters because the new DA2 Nightmare level has all enemies be immune to specific elemental properties AND any form of magical ranged attack ( for some reason, even lowly rent a mob types have this amazing invulnerability ) seems like a total **** up in a system that hasn't been tested properly.

Hence every slaver guard for example in some encounters are immune to every single magical strike Hawke throws at them because, oh dear,I chose to have Hawke go down a specific elemental path earlier.

In this situation as far as the player character is concerned there are no 'tactics' that can be applied. He or she is useless, crowd control spells don't work on any of the mob, even more so if they haven't chosen Heal as a spell at that point so can be of no aid to their party members either, so can only stand and watch as simple mobs swarm the other party members. And then run over and deck the mage with multiple unrecoverable knockdowns in succession. ( a talent no player characters have )

Bizarrely, its the tougher character, the single assasin who pops around the battlefield who is the only enemy not immune to magic.

How did that happen because there never was a combat encounter in Origins where a mage was left so utterly useless and unable to do what they are supposedly good at, ie crowd control ?

[Al Bobo]

I stopped playing nightmare when I was lvl 6 or 7 and switched to hard, because I got bored of kiting mobs while waiting for cooldowns. Maybe I switch back to nightmare after my party have enough skills so that there's always some skill to use and less "idle" time. Though it feels a bit stupid, when you can just spam fire spells on top of your party and only mobs get hurt...

[Group Theory]

I agree with a lot of the complaints in this thread.

Almost all the problems come from the enemy spawn waves. One of the loading screens told me to set my companions up strategically while entering fights, and all I could think was "Oh Lord..."

The problem is you cannot prepare for a fight by placing your companions strategically, setting up traps, etc. There were options for doing things like that in Origins - there are not in Dragon Age 2. Most battles have additional enemy waves spawn from every possible area on the battlefield. These spawn places are set - so you can plan for them once you ultimately have to reload your quick save - but it doesn't allow you to tactically plan for battle. Within a couple of minutes, additional waves will spawn, and you no longer have any advantage to the strategic location you picked at the beginning of battle.

The only way I have found to "beat the system" is to completely run away from an area. That is, hit Ctrl+a (to select all my party members) and run two, three or four rooms back. I then place my tank inside of a door way, move my ranged party members back further, and pick off enemies as they come. This makes it so enemies don't appear on top of your mages/rouge, but this hardly seems to be what we were supposed to do for battles.

Something else that I think is not done entirely well is the interrupt system. I think it's okay that you can interrupt enemies and your allies can be interrupted more frequently, but I think the rate at which you can be interrupted is ridiculous. For most of the game, mages and rouges get interrupted every attack from any enemy. Worst of all, most of the interrupt animations are longer than attack animations - that is, you mage/rouge can be stunlocked by any minion on the battlefield. This could be an okay game mechanic; it could place a greater importance on your tank keeping aggro, but respawning enemies make this frustrating.

I think Nightmare is still fun, but almost all of the problems with the game mode come from "enemy waves respawn everywhere on the battlefield." It can be frustrating, and it ultimately means more quicksave/quickloads to find out EXACTLY how many waves there are going to and EXACTLY where the enemies spawn from. Once you learn all that information, the battles become much easier. The game is made with these spawning waves, so its what we have to live with, but I think they could have dealt with it better.

EDIT: Oh, it also seems like enemy attacks seem to have no cooldown. I've seen rouges go stealth, backstab and then immediatley stealth and back stab again - maybe two seconds inbetween the firstback stab and the second stealth. Backstabbing for enemies is an incredibley powerful move (one that one-hit kill a non-tank character), so it seemed silly that it had no cooldown.

Modifié par Group Theory, 16 mars 2011 - 04:19 .

[vhatever]

http://social.biowar...1/index/6566584

I actually made special rules to make nightmare harder -- not that I think nightmare is easy or anything, just that I can't stand using cheesy kiting tactics, nor pulling enemies a mile away from where you encounter them to split them up. just doesn't seem very roleplay-ish to me, "the champion". And ya the having to memorize the waves sucks. Oh well. I still look at it as a challenege. If you want an edge over assassings make sure your tank si a shield tank with the 50% damage reduction from behind abilitiy. also, put your tanks but up against a wall when you fight them, then they cannot land the back stab -- seriously.

Modifié par vhatever, 16 mars 2011 - 04:43 .

[Mx_CN3]

I loved Nightmare. Every curse, desk smash, mouth foam, and general burst of anger at the game made finally beating that FREAKING RIDICULOUS OMG fight much more sweeter. I went back and started the game again on Normal to try out different dialogue options and couldn't help but think of how lame I would have thought the game to be if I didn't have the obscenely hard fights to deal with.

Also, I view the abuse of game mechanics on Nightmare as being part of the game; some of the difficulty is in finding any cheap advantage you can to make you win.

[HadesWrath]

I agree. It does get very very annoying.

[TcheQ]

Group Theory wrote...

I agree with a lot of the complaints in this thread.

Almost all the problems come from the enemy spawn waves. One of the loading screens told me to set my companions up strategically while entering fights, and all I could think was "Oh Lord..."

The problem is you cannot prepare for a fight by placing your companions strategically, setting up traps, etc. There were options for doing things like that in Origins - there are not in Dragon Age 2. Most battles have additional enemy waves spawn from every possible area on the battlefield. These spawn places are set - so you can plan for them once you ultimately have to reload your quick save - but it doesn't allow you to tactically plan for battle. Within a couple of minutes, additional waves will spawn, and you no longer have any advantage to the strategic location you picked at the beginning of battle.

The only way I have found to "beat the system" is to completely run away from an area. That is, hit Ctrl+a (to select all my party members) and run two, three or four rooms back. I then place my tank inside of a door way, move my ranged party members back further, and pick off enemies as they come. This makes it so enemies don't appear on top of your mages/rouge, but this hardly seems to be what we were supposed to do for battles.

Something else that I think is not done entirely well is the interrupt system. I think it's okay that you can interrupt enemies and your allies can be interrupted more frequently, but I think the rate at which you can be interrupted is ridiculous. For most of the game, mages and rouges get interrupted every attack from any enemy. Worst of all, most of the interrupt animations are longer than attack animations - that is, you mage/rouge can be stunlocked by any minion on the battlefield. This could be an okay game mechanic; it could place a greater importance on your tank keeping aggro, but respawning enemies make this frustrating.

I think Nightmare is still fun, but almost all of the problems with the game mode come from "enemy waves respawn everywhere on the battlefield." It can be frustrating, and it ultimately means more quicksave/quickloads to find out EXACTLY how many waves there are going to and EXACTLY where the enemies spawn from. Once you learn all that information, the battles become much easier. The game is made with these spawning waves, so its what we have to live with, but I think they could have dealt with it better.

EDIT: Oh, it also seems like enemy attacks seem to have no cooldown. I've seen rouges go stealth, backstab and then immediatley stealth and back stab again - maybe two seconds inbetween the firstback stab and the second stealth. Backstabbing for enemies is an incredibley powerful move (one that one-hit kill a non-tank character), so it seemed silly that it had no cooldown.

Yup that just about sums up the entire strategy for me (just without a tank).  Though i do find it cute that Bioware found a way to pre-empt what players will do, and so in some areas, spawn enemies in the hiding spot I would obviously pick.   I've recently been favouring the strategy of using a sacrfice to activate enermy spanw, then pick of the rest of the enemies.  This works okay until I hit a bodd mob who has 100% immunity to stun and cold effects.

[GuyWhoLovesCakes]

Nightmare is a joke i mean SnS fails horribly you can't tank at all and the fact that you're just using taunt and running around in circles letting the mages/archer hit the mobs just fails considerbaly.
The thing is nightmare is pretty easy you can go trough it with 3 mages and varric and it's doable you just need to keep kiting and ****.
You don't need tactics you're just doing the same stupid **** over and over again, It doesn't feel any sense of accomplishment when you finished a nightmare part in origins.

[Chukzee]

It's alright actually. Frustrating, but that is to be expected. When you suck at something, it tends to ****** you off big-time - especially if you're a competitive soul. Experienced that myself in many games.

The hardest part of playing this on Nightmare is getting over yourself and looking past the "this is unbearable" and whatnot, and actually having a closer look at what matters instead - your play-style. Revise your tactics, the things that worked for you on Normal go out the window. Spoon-feed every spell, action, attack-order or movement - don't just let go of the pause and hope things die. I nearly gave up myself just a few quests into Act I; rerolled for a different talent layout and made better progress. What helps, as I found, is having a lot of controller-types, with appropriate skills - get them as priority. Putting as many enemies out of battle, even briefly, is crucial.

I wouldn't say this is how difficult Normal mode should be, but that's the way such games are meant to be played - like in that Templat video a few pages back. Micromanaging is a minigame on it's own.

[Terranid]

I find nightmare boring [fighting the ancient rock wraith for example] and it seems to penalise me for playing a certain way and for choosing certain party members [Isabela, Sebastian & Fenris at begining for the Harimenn ruins against the rage demon for example]. Anyway I just turn down the difficulty when nightmare gets boring.

Apart from the harvester on Nightmare, origins never truly penalised me for playing a certain way on nightmare.

[Theagg]

Terranid wrote...

I find nightmare boring [fighting the ancient rock wraith for example] and it seems to penalise me for playing a certain way and for choosing certain party members [Isabela, Sebastian & Fenris at begining for the Harimenn ruins against the rage demon for example]. Anyway I just turn down the difficulty when nightmare gets boring.

Apart from the harvester on Nightmare, origins never truly penalised me for playing a certain way on nightmare.

Exactly this. Its clear that some party makeups ( and by this I mean the spells/talents chosen and points placed in attributes ) just won't work for some encounters.

Micromanaging or not, ( and I micro manage  an awful lot ) these encounters end up being ridicuously hard if not impossible if, up to that point, you have specced all your characters a certain way. In a way that is plainly unbalanced where tactics just don't work. Not so much Nightmare as Night Terror. Mere street thugs immune to all manner of magic, common or garden mercenary bosses who soak up damage like Bounty. People posting clips of how they took on a certain encounter on Nightmare doesn't really prove that Nightmare is fully workable. All it demonstrates is that they were lucky and they happened upon a set of specs that worked. ( For example, the Anders Tranquility encounter, with a healer. No healer on board and suddenly it doesn't work so well ) Rather than a good system that would allow for mutliple ways to get through difficult situations, instead of having the one perfect party makeup. And just how many attempts did it take them before they were able to produce the perfect video clip ?

Having to go back and respec characters to get through certain encounters on Nightmare ( as mentioned above ) is also an automatic fail in my opinion. Its also in a sense, a cheat.

That said, I have made it through every encounter so far on Nightmare bar one. ( that being the initial Ogre bash when I had to drop the difficulty level. ) and I have yet to complete the Anders quest. All my party as it currently is cannot survive that Templar encounter. Micromanaging fails, tactics fail, running around fails, backing up to the Chantry door fails. In essence its then often been a case of me having to go away before an encounter is fully completed, do some other quests, gain XP, level up and then return somewhat stronger with a broader set of abilities, strong enough to face down the boss at that point.

And having to do that makes it silly too. It breaks the sense of continuity, it breaks the illusion. An NPC telling me to meet them at the Chantry "in a few minutes" because time is of the essence, someone needs rescuing NOW. Only trouble being that when I turn up I end up being pasted on the walls.

"Days" later, after I bit of questing elsewhere I return somewhat stronger but still not strong enough. Yet only minutes have passed in the Chantry. Totally unimmersive. Apart from perhaps having to run back to base to top up on health pots, there never was a situation in Origins like this.

And in the end this is what is making DA 2  Nightmare tedious. Dooable, but tedious.

Modifié par Theagg, 24 mars 2011 - 01:26 .

[TheFurryGamer88]

Ixalmaris wrote...

Bondkakan wrote...

mythkandar wrote...

I've never seen so much bellyaching regarding Nightmare difficulty. I believe Bioware has got it right time! =)

This.
New game. New tactics.

I like this change. It forces you to adapt DURING the battle, and not only after you whiped out. I've never used the surroundings to my advantage so much as I do now. It's nice to have some new challange.

What surroundings? Finding a bottleneck on the very narrow map doesn't really afll under "use your surroundings".

dude...these guys all have personal preferances about the game,if they dont like it,fine. if they do,fine,but stop annoying them <_<

[Theagg]

Ixalmaris wrote...

Bondkakan wrote...

mythkandar wrote...

I've never seen so much bellyaching regarding Nightmare difficulty. I believe Bioware has got it right time! =)

This.
New game. New tactics.

I like this change. It forces you to adapt DURING the battle, and not only after you whiped out. I've never used the surroundings to my advantage so much as I do now. It's nice to have some new challange.

What surroundings? Finding a bottleneck on the very narrow map doesn't really afll under "use your surroundings".

True. The tactic that works for handling swarms now seems to be primarily one of simply running back, finding a bottleneck and waiting for them to run into it. ( given the size of the swarms it is often the only tactic that guarentees survival, well beyond any incidence of this in Origins  ) Any attempt to do otherwise tends to result in being overwhelmed really quickly. Micromanagement or not ( Especially as often he 'second' and 'third' waves often mysteriosuly seem to pop into existence automatically surrounding your party.) This "run, pull and repeat" tactic isn't "using your surroundings" insomuch as exploiting weak AI.

I can accept this for foes that 'in game' have little intellect ( ie some of the undead who would mindlessly pursue ) but intelligent humans, mercenaries etc would never do this.

Truly using your surroundings would allow you to 'take cover' ( behind barrels, crates etc ) or take up positions on the high ground to gain advantage ( these bandits drop down from rooves, I want to get up on the roof. ) etc. The ridiculous removal of the tactical camera view now makes it very diffcult to reccy the land ahead and lay down AoE, in situations where, seeing something through a door ( but before you walk through that door ) you should be able to lay down a nice preemptive strike, Virtually impossible now.

But yep, it can be played this way, it can be beaten but for most large scale, mob laden encounters, its a one shot tactic approach, simply because there is little other option for survival, standing ground and attempting to micromanage tactics and talents usually results in death raining down from all around because yes, in almost every encounter like that, you are automatically surrounded. ( and that's pretty much how every swarm encounter has been negotiated for me, run away, pull the dumb ass minions off the boss, repeat until the boss is alone, then hit at at that. Some might consider that an acheivment, a new style of tactics adopting to a new 'improved' Nightmare' level. Well good for them but I don't, irrespective of whether or not it raises adrenalin levels and might seem 'exhilerating'.

Modifié par Theagg, 24 mars 2011 - 12:31 .

[StartOrange]

Kuro_Fenikkusu wrote...

First off this isn't one of those whining threads about how things are different from origins.  I've come to grips with the fact that this is not Origins 2.  It's Dragon Age 2.  That being said while I've come to like most of the changes (although Origins is still better IMO) I played Nightmare difficulty in Origins and at first it thoroughly trounced me, as I expected, but after a time my tactics improved to the point where nightmare was easy.  Dragon Age 2 I'm starting on nightmare and I've been playing for about 18 hours total, and I'm noticing something a bit frustrating and disappointing.  It seems that instead of improving the AI, tactics and just the enemies themselves Bioware decided the best way to make it harder was to supplmenet lackluster foes with sheer numbers.  In Origins, I'd die and go "Oh! I should've done that! Or why didn't I think to do this?"  In Dragon Age 2 its just overwhelming waves of enemies and after many hours of this it gets frustrating.  I'm wondering if it's just me?  I'd prefer to fight a few good challenging enemies rather than a ton of crappy ones who defeat me simply because they outlast me.

I find my Dawn of War II skills to come in handy while playing this game, aka kiting like hell. Generally, it seems like switching your positioning constantly is key. I never found it frustrating as you describe, though maybe that is a matter of preference.

[Chukzee]

Closed-quarters encounters seem to give me the most trouble. Currently trying to figure out a way to last through the "Pretend-Guardsmen" base fight in Act I. Ran into a problem of certain elites just refusing to die at 1 % health. Took the elite guardsman (not the named one) down to near-death, and he just wouldn't die. Is this some sort of trigger that makes him immune until ...err all normal enemies are dead perhaps ? Haven't encountered this before I think, so if you know what it is - please do tell.

P.S.: regarding that initial ogre fight you mentioned above. If you can handle killing all the darkspawn before switching to him (which is the hard part),the rest should be a cakewalk, as long as you keep your melee behind him. He will miss with all of his basic attacks if you do so and all you have to do is watch for his AoE smash animation and run a few steps away to avoid it. You can also set him up to ram and eventually kill the darkspawn in his way

[Theagg]

Chukzee wrote...

Closed-quarters encounters seem to give me the most trouble. Currently trying to figure out a way to last through the "Pretend-Guardsmen" base fight in Act I. Ran into a problem of certain elites just refusing to die at 1 % health. Took the elite guardsman (not the named one) down to near-death, and he just wouldn't die. Is this some sort of trigger that makes him immune until ...err all normal enemies are dead perhaps ? Haven't encountered this before I think, so if you know what it is - please do tell.

P.S.: regarding that initial ogre fight you mentioned above. If you can handle killing all the darkspawn before switching to him (which is the hard part),the rest should be a cakewalk, as long as you keep your melee behind him. He will miss with all of his basic attacks if you do so and all you have to do is watch for his AoE smash animation and run a few steps away to avoid it. You can also set him up to ram and eventually kill the darkspawn in his way

Archers are the real bane in encounters like those. In many instances I have lost because I just cannot take down the archers fast enough. I also recall someone else pointing out the Ogre could be used as a weapon to your advantage.  Might try that at some point. But yes, close quarters where you cannot pull to any effective choke point or evade archers it can be incredibly painful.

I have seen several video clips of people doing the hard hitting encounters on Nightmare ( Tranquility and the one I am currently having trouble with, "Fools Rush In", Isobella's quest, in which I am repeatedly being pasted ) and all these clips seem to demonstrate to me is that the game is severely unbalanced at Nightmare level. If you haven't specced your party a particular way with a specific set of talents, attribute points etc by the time you have reached these its pretty much no go. Micromanaging just won't save you.

The clips I have seeen of these quests being solo'ed on Nightmare demonstrate even further how unbalanced the game is and how it seems to favour Rogues as a class above all others. When someone shows me they can solo Act I as a mage, with no cheats minor or otherwise, I will change my opinion !

[Theagg]

Funnily enough though, I gave the "Fools Rush In" encounter another go this morning. Still on Nighmare, only change being I respecced Hawke ( Makers Sigh ) puting another two points into magic. ( 2 off strength ). Varric had risen by one level since the last attempt, so specced him with 'Evade'.

And turned off Aveline's taunt ( Hayder had smacked her to a pulp with repeated knockdowns with that on )

Result. It went fairly easy, in fact Hayder died "off screen" before that combat was over. One minute he was looming over Varric, the next he was out. Which NPC delivered the coup de grace on him I don't know.

That just left a few stragglers ( Assasin, Reaver and a couple of minions who were already somewhat depleted to finish off quickly )

How that encounter went from being a momunental struggle with Hayder's epic life bar stubbornly refusing to deplete a day ago to something relatively easy which so little change I don't know

Modifié par Theagg, 26 mars 2011 - 03:05 .

[Valmighty]

http://www.dragonage...ile.php?id=2194
this one might be for us.
i like it very much, it make the nightmare more enjoyable. not frustrating, add FF, and no immortal enemies

[Celloplayer2010]

I remember the stupidest battle where you must memorize EVERYTHING after playing it countless times was the Forbidden Knowledge battle in the Abandoned Thaig. How was it on Nightmare?

[Chromie]

Both games are pathetic on Nightmare. It's like Bioware never even made Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights. Now those gave me a challenge even after several playthroughs.

Origins, by the time I finished the mage tower I felt the game was too easy and I was able to beat the Denerim bandits when they were hard (of all things bandits...) and DA2 my first run was on a Mage.

I'd like for the pause and play to be useful I use it to pause it when I wanna grab a drink or go to the bathroom.

[philippe willaume]

Kuro_Fenikkusu wrote...

First off this isn't one of those whining threads about how things are different from origins.  I've come to grips with the fact that this is not Origins 2.  It's Dragon Age 2.  That being said while I've come to like most of the changes (although Origins is still better IMO) I played Nightmare difficulty in Origins and at first it thoroughly trounced me, as I expected, but after a time my tactics improved to the point where nightmare was easy.  Dragon Age 2 I'm starting on nightmare and I've been playing for about 18 hours total, and I'm noticing something a bit frustrating and disappointing.  It seems that instead of improving the AI, tactics and just the enemies themselves Bioware decided the best way to make it harder was to supplmenet lackluster foes with sheer numbers.  In Origins, I'd die and go "Oh! I should've done that! Or why didn't I think to do this?"  In Dragon Age 2 its just overwhelming waves of enemies and after many hours of this it gets frustrating.  I'm wondering if it's just me?  I'd prefer to fight a few good challenging enemies rather than a ton of crappy ones who defeat me simply because they outlast me.

Hello
it is not so much the waves or the 10^9 hit points bosses. it is that there is only that... it is compounded by the fact that most of the character are one-dimensional so you do really have only one tactical option.
so it becomes tedious after a while


just in case a dev is reading,
waves and hit point galore are not bad in essence, it just need to be mixed with other type of encounters.

It is a bit like complex series of map, it is not so much that people do not like them or do not like exploring or want simpler maps
It is not worth the XP of the random spider/wolf compared to legging it through 3 screens to get where you want once you have explored the area
this type of  travel could be dealt with like the travel on the large map.

phil

[por favor]

The waves are the #1 reason why I don't bother with nightmare mode. If I don't enjoy the waves in casual mode, I'm pretty sure I won't enjoy the waves in nightmare mode.

DA:O was more manageable. Every time I died, I started thinking of all the ways I could have approached the battle better. I start thinking, "So maybe I should block off this entrance with a blizzard spell to slow down the enemies...and then on the other side, I'll have two warriors that will attack...and then I can do this, and then that..."

It was just so much easier to think strategically. So, yeah, I agree with you there. The waves are overwhelming.