Having said that, there are some fairly large design decisions that were made that I have to question. By question, I mean actually ask why they were made. I really want the reasoning behind them and I hope you take this questioning not as a slamming of the game, but a desire to see the next version of the game not suffer from what I believe to be some huge steps backward from Dragon Age: Origins and the RPG genre as it is.
So, without further ado...
Why did BioWare go with the decision to trim down dungeons, repeat them often, and remove the exploration elements to them by making them long hallways rather than open areas?
Did you get your budget drastically reduced that forced you to go from creating the open and comparatively vast environments from DAO to the corridor-laden and mostly re-used dungeons in DA2? I miss the open areas with the chance to explore. In the first moments of DAO, I was exploring an open field filled with darkspawn, finding hidden trail clues and following them, and encountering random NPCs in the field rather than in the designated quest hubs.
One of the core elements of RPGs is the ability to explore and find, which you could by definition say is in DA2. But not in spirit. The spirit of exploration is ruined and feels like what is there is merely tacked onto the game. I find a random item and deliver it to an NPC. I find a chest with some junk trash and sell it. And, fundamental to this experience is the feeling that you're exploring new areas, yet when I go in to encounter this secret group of Templars who set me up to be killed, I feel like I'm just visiting the hovel that my mother is forced to live in.
Why did BioWare design the weapon system so that there were limitations to weapon use, including dual wielding?
For some reason, the idea that a Rogue could wield anything but a dagger or bow or that warriors can comprehend how to stick the pointy ends of daggers or arrows into opponents is nonexistent in DA2, let alone that warriors have any physical capability to wield two weapons at once even though their shield operates as a weapon as well. And I just don't understand why. Okay, scratch that, I understand it from the perspective of an attempt to provide some sort of balance and overall game design, but I don't understand why considering it's a massive step back from what we had in DAO. A massive step back in design.
I understand streamlining, I understand improving gameplay, but I just don't see it here. All I see is a massive simplification in order to aid in making balancing much easier on the end of BioWare. A balancing that I would see of major importance with a game that included multiplayer, but balancing for a single player game? Again, the only thing that comes to mind is simplifying because of a lack of budget.
There should have been a dual wield tree for warriors. Weapon uses should not have been limited by skill trees/classes and by stat requirements. Stats should not have been designed in a manner that strength was only useful for improving warrior damage/attack and dexterity only useful for improving the same for rogues. General concepts in RPGs alone would attribute strength with damage and attack and dexterity with precision and critical capability. Why change it and in the process reduce the options that players have with their characters?
Who made the decision to force starting story elements integral to the storyline upon us?
So, if I start as a rogue or a warrior, I've already been set up as someone who has supported an Apostate almost my whole life. Bethany is my first main party member, and somehow I'm supposed to find a way to suddenly betray everything she is by wanting to explore my decision to be anti-Apostate. And, yet, it gets worse! I can't say why, because of spoilers, but my "support" of Apostates just grows as you progress. So, one of the main storyline elements to the game (at least so far, I haven't finished yet) is whether or not I support the concept of the Templars, yet everything is designed so that I would be opposed to the concepts and support those of my party members.
I haven't started a mage character, but I assume that my only choice is to start as an Apostate mage as well. Yay?
The ultimate issue here is that I already know how the story will run because of this limitation. <insert reason why but contains spoilers **sighs**> So, in doing so, you've kind of ruined any surprise I have of this plot device.
Why is the story designed with so linear of a concept rather than giving the player the right to decide who they are and who they support from the get-go? In DAO, I could start out as a Circle Mage, an Apostate, a Noble-man, or a commoner of no bearing. In DA2, no matter what I do I am forced to accept the precepts that Apostates are fine. The only thing I could do was by luck leave my sister behind and have her go to where I thought she should have gone as soon as we got to Kirkwall.
In DAO I had moments where my support of one party/person over another truly changed the dynamic of the story. In DA2, I feel I'm forced down a storyline that I may not support from a character concept! What happened to the player-driven storyline?
Modifié par cgoodno, 11 mars 2011 - 04:54 .
Retour en haut
